4 October 2023 (Wednesday) - Thirty Seven Years Later

Some people have more money that sense. This morning as I looked at Facebook there was an amazing post on one of the Lego groups I follow. Someone had been to Edinburgh castle where the gift shop was selling single Lego bricks with the Edinburgh castle logo for one pound twenty-five pence. The chap who’d seen them was asking who would be so daft as to spend that on one Lego brick. Dozens of people said they would. And then someone who lives in Edinburgh posted a comment offering to go to the castle’s gift shop to get bricks and post them out… for a fiver each (the fiver covering the cost of brick and postage). Dozens of people were asking for one, and were handing over their money.
And then there was a rather bitter squabble over a rather trivial point in an episode of “Star Trek: Picard” started by and egged on by some chap who openly admitted he’d not seen the show but had read others’ opinions on the Internet.
 
We got the dogs onto their leads. Being over an hour later out of bed than usual when on a day off, we didn’t have time for Kings Wood so we took the dogs to Orlestone. Orlestone is much closer to home but has the disadvantage of roads much closer to the car park, of being muddier, and…”something else”. I wish I knew what that ”something else” actually is. Something down there sets Morgan off. When he’s in Orlestone his recall is terrible, he is constantly over-excited and always in a state of semi-frenzy. I’m not saying he’s an angel in Kings Wood but there is a noticeable difference. I’d love to know what the difference is.
But today the walk passed off rather well. Morgan did get a tad over-exuberant, but came back when called. In fact today’s problem pup was Treacle who at the end of the walk (when only a hundred yards from the car) jumped into what I can only describe as a small river. She was still dripping when we got home.
 
We (I) bathed Treacle, settled the dogs and leaving Alexa playing them “Soothing Jazz for Dogs” (she’s an obliging girl!) we set off. We’d been given a Wowcher/Groupon ticket for a look round Chiddingstone Castle. I won’t say it was crap (because “er indoors TM” assures me it isn’t) but I will make the observation that when the owner of the place died and left it to the National Trust, they turned it down.
The chap who used to own the place seemed to have been some sort of rich eccentric with more money than sense who spent good money on old tat. Each room had different themed old tat. One was Japanese tat, one was Egyptian tat. One room contained “objects” that were under a cover. You were invited to pull the cover back to see the objects (and cover them again afterwards). If ever you find yourself at the “objects exhibition” at Chiddingstone Castle, just keep on walking.
On re-reading this I think I might be being a tad harsh. It wasn’t *that* bad really, but after over an hour’s drive to get there I was rather expecting more.I don’t know exactly what I was expecting, but I was expecting more of it.
Mind you the tea room was rather good. As part of our ticket we got a cream tea. Very nice. As we scoffed scones and jam and cream we tried to listen in on the couple on the next table. They’d made some sort of mistake; they’d either come on the wrong day or gone to the wrong castle. Either way their voucher wasn’t valid and were having a heated, if rather quiet, argument with the staff about it. We couldn’t quite make out what the problem was, but there is nothing as entertaining as someone else’s misfortunes, is there?
 
We came home to find my new pruning device had arrived, so as “er indoors TM popped out for milk and dog biscuits so I started lopping the rose brambles that were overhanging half of our garden from two metres up in the overgrowth from not-so-nice-next-door’s garden.
 
Once she’d got the shopping I popped down the road to the Chinese takeaway to get a rather good bit of dinner which we washed down with a bottle of hock whilst watching more “Lego Masters: USA”. And with that scoffed we had far too much trifle as today was a special occasion… today is our thirty-seventh wedding anniversary.
Looking back at previous blog entries it would seem to be something of a novelty not to be working today. Today was rather good.

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