There was heavy rain in the night. Heavy enough to wake me
up. I eventually nodded off again, and woke about half past seven as Bailey was
having a dream and was kicking me in the face. It’s as well that she is rather
small.
There was talk of relatively local pubs on my Facebook feed
this morning. The Black Horse in
Pluckley is to re-open after having been closed for nearly a year.
It was bought out in 2022 and the owners managed to keep it going for eight
months before going under.I wonder how the new owners will fare.
A few miles down the road from there is the Chequers in Smarden. Owned by
celebrity chef Paul Hollywood’s wife, she’s closing it down having pumped
eighty thousand quid of her own money into it to no avail.
It strikes me that however you look at it, buts are
expensive things. Just popping to the pub twice a week for a single pint costs
the thick end of forty quid a month.
Meanwhile a Folkestone barber has closed down his shop (because
the rent is far too much) and has opened up a business from his garden shed.
And then I had a notification of a new geocache… pretty
much in the car park at Longbeech Woods. Bearing in mind that the location
looked to be about ten yards from where I was planning to park the car for this
morning’s dog walk I got ready a tad quicker than I might have done. However
rallying the dogs takes some doing.
My piss boiled as I listened to the radio as we drove to
the woods. I’ve ranted about the so-called “infected blood scandal” many
times. But the government has decided to pay compensation to those infected.
Payments should be made by the end of the year.
End of the year? Seriously? The government knows who they
feel is entitled to the money, and to how much they are entitled. Why can’t
they be paid today? What delays could there be?
By the time I finished shouting at the radio and got to the
car park there were already four other hunters of Tupperware rummaging in the
hedgerow. It was as well that this cache hadn’t gone live yesterday – that
illegal campsite would have been right in our way.
I joined the fray, and after a while we had the elusive
cache in hand. It took a little longer than it should have, but joint First One
to Find It is always a good thing.
And then we went on to the walk that we’d planned all along.
After a hundred yards we were stopped by a distraught young
lady in her pyjamas. Had we seen her dog? It seemed her dog had escaped her
garden in Charing and she thought the dog might have gone to dog’s favourite
walking place. I took her address and promised that if we met her dog I’d bring
dog home. But we walked for another three miles and didn’t see anyone; dog or
human. Yesterday I’d posted about Longbeech Woods to the Dog Club’s Facebook
page. Some woman had said she might see me in the woods today. Mind you she
also said that there was no walk in those woods listed on her walking app…
We came home. I made a cuppa and cut a slice of cake for me
and “er indoors TM”, then drove up to town. I need to
get some American dollars for next month’s holiday. My bank told me to apply
on-line. When the woman at the counter saw how un-impressed I was they
suggested I might like to go to their Canterbury or Folkestone branch as they
would be better able to help me. I told her that the branch of Nat West over
the road was similarly able to help.
She didn’t like that very much.
I came home via the pet shop where I got eighty sachets of
dog food for Morgan and Bailey (Treacle has senior dog food now as she’s old).
It sounds a lot, but it will last almost but not quite three weeks.
The box was rather heavy; I felt my back twinge as I picked
it up.
Once home I trimmed back the overgrowth from
not-so-nice-next-door’s roses and other assorted climbing plants. My
hand-operated trimmer hacks it all back, but isn’t the easiest thing to
operate. I had a look on-line at battery operated hedge trimmers…
What a rip-off.
The ones advertised on telly are over a
hundred quid. But that’s just for the trimmer. The battery is an extra
eighty-five quid, and don’t forget the battery charger for thirty more quid. So
far from the hundred and twenty five quid they claim, you actually have to
spend double that to be able to trim the hedge.
I then voomed round the front garden with the bionic burner…
and realized that having twinged my back lifting dog food I shouldn’t really be
doing too much gardening. So I sat down and spent the afternoon solving
geo-puzzles in the Edenbridge area. As I puzzled so the postie called. “Daddies’
Little Angel TM” had sent me a rather good pressie of
humming-bird ornaments for the garden.
Now to find somewhere to put them.
“er indoors TM” boiled up dinner
which we scoffed whilst watching the latest season of “Below Decks” in
which those with far more money than sense pay ridiculous amounts of money to
hire a luxury yacht crewed by the most self-centred narcissists who alternately
hate each other and try to pork each other,
My back’s still a bit iffy…
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