As I scoffed brekkie there was a conversation on one of the
lest contentious Facebook groups I follow about the House of Lords. It was
being suggested that it should be abolished as those in it are not
democratically elected. It struck me that all the time that flat-earthers,
religious nutcases and evolution deniers (to list but a few of those who
shouldn’t) are allowed the vote, the House of Lords acts as a rather useful
check on that which is voted in by those who shouldn’t. But what do I know? In
any case I resisted saying anything. Those who shouldn’t be allowed to vote are
quick to take offence.
I put a geocache container together, got the dogs
organized, and took them up to the woods. As we drove the pundits on the radio
were talking about how the rate of inflation is only
three per cent (or thereabouts) and how the government was hoping that
this might get them a few votes. Personally I can’t see how. A year or so ago
this same government was claiming that runaway inflation was due to market
forces, and now they reckon they’ve got some control of that over which they’ve
said they haven’t.
As we drove I couldn’t help but notice how quiet the roads
were. But the woods were rather busy. We managed to keep away from most of the
other groups, but we must have seen a dozen or so other dog walkers.
We walked to the far end of the woods; yesterday I realized
there was a tree stump in exactly the right place in which I might put a
geocache. The rules are that the things have to be a tenth of a mile apart, and
there’s no denying that I have saturated those woods with caches, but yesterday
I found somewhere. I thought I’d put out a two-stage puzzle. The geo-feds were
happy with what I’d done and we agreed that if I put the thing out early this
morning they would set it live at eleven o’clock.
We hid the thing, came home, and as I had my cuppa so my
phone beeped. As arranged, the cache was live.
I cracked on with painting the fence. There is something
satisfying about starting with a tatty-looking panel and ending up with a
nicely painted one. The whole fence on not-so-nice-next-door’s side
needs replacing, but a lick of paint does make it look better.
After two hours my phone beeped. A fellow hunter of
Tupperware had solved the puzzle that you had to figure out to locale the cache
we’d hidden this morning. That was good to know – at least all the on-line
stuff was working.
After two fence panels and two trellises painted I packed
up, and set off on a little geocaching mission. If you find three geocaches
this week you get a souvenir in honour of the spring equinox, so I went hunting
for three geocaches. The first two had been hidden by someone relatively new to
the game, and sadly it showed. The co-ordinates of the first one were about
twenty yards out; I found it by searching the only obvious place to hide a cache
in the area. After all a tiny magnetic geocache named after a road is far more
likely to be stuck to the sign bearing the road’s name than it is to be in the
middle of the road. And the second one was in a rather unappealing hedge.
The third one was in Hythe and was almost on top of some
road works, but I found it.
From there I went on to
visit the most recent fruit of my loin. Together with “Stormageddon –
Bringer of Destruction TM” and “Darcie Waa Waa TM”
we went out for a bit of scoff. In a novel break with tradition we gave
McDinner a miss and went to Taco Bell instead. “Stormageddon – Bringer of
Destruction TM” was very keen to go there as apparently you
break the toilet afterwards, or so he assured me. I’d not been there before; I
had no idea what to expect. We all had volcano burritos, fries, bottomless soft
drinks and some dessert thingy with a caramel dip for about ten quid less than
what just me and “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” had in Maccy D
last week.
I
came home and put washing in to scrub. For some inexplicable reason quite a few
of my T-shirts have fence paint on them.
I feel worn out. This being semi-retired lark is hard work…
That geocache I hid earlier hasn’t been found yet…
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