2 October 2024 (Wednesday) - Still Feeling Grim

I slept well last night. Not quite so much coughing, but as I scoffed toast I did feel that I was running a temperature.
The internet was much the same as ever. Squabbles and trivia abounded as they do. But I had an email. Geocaching HQ have given me a Community Celebration Event – the ability to run a special event next year. I had one once before when we ran a Wherigo event. I wonder what I can do with this one? I’ve a vague idea to hire a village hall and have an afternoon of pub games. The obvious location for this would be in a room in a pub somewhere, but that would get rather expensive. It’s at times like this that being a scout leader was useful in that I had access to a scout hut.
 
I munzed, I got Wordle in three goes. Bearing in mind the dogs hadn’t had a decent walk in four days I took them up to the woods. That was a mistake. We walked for two miles; at the end I was sweating, clammy and breathless.
As we walked we had a minor episode. As we came to a crossroads so we saw some chap hysterically screaming. We watched as a small labrador slinked toward him, but on seeing us ran to us. My three dogs ran up to the dog and all said hello. This didn’t go down well with Mr. Shouty who started bellowing even more. I whistled to call my three. They came to me, and after a moment his dog followed. I told the dog he had to go to Mr. Shouty. Dogs understand (they really do) and reluctantly the dog walked back. We carried on walking, but in less that a minute Mr. Shouty was bellowing again. All the dogs were playing together nicely and he didn’t like it. So I called my three with a whistling sound (which worked) and he called his with hysterical screaming (which didn’t). He then started ranting about how he was having problems because his dog was attracted to the sound of the whistling which I use to call my three. I suggested he tried a different sound to attract his dog as hysterical screaming clearly wasn’t working. Eventually he got his dog on a lead and marched off in the direction of the car park. It was the way we were going anyway. I couldn’t see why the dogs couldn’t walk together as that was the way that we were going but he clearly wasn’t having any of it. On any other day we would have walked off in a different direction but I was feeling all-in so we gave him a few minutes and then followed slowly.
 
As we drove home my piss boiled. The pundits on the radio were talking about the case of Lucy Letby; the nurse who has gone to prison having been found guilty of murdering several babies at the Countess of Chester hospital. Apparently new evidence has come to light, not the least of which was the fact that she wasn’t even on duty (or anywhere near the hospital) on the day when one of the babies died. There was some expert being interviewed who implied that the babies who died were so ill they should have been in a specialist paediatric hospital (and not where they were) and also implied that Ms. Letby was a scapegoat for the failings of a system which wasn’t up to the job.
There are calls for a re-trial… but will that get to the truth of the matter? It’s been my (admittedly limited) experience that legal types seem to enjoy debating and posturing and trying to make themselves look good rather than actually getting to the truth. On the one occasion I found myself in court I defended myself, and the prosecuting barrister openly told me I wasn’t making a good job of defending myself, and then made a very eloquent and posturing speech on my behalf totally contradicting what she’d just said herself.
What we as a society need is legal types paid to get to the truth. At the moment they are paid to either bang someone up and/or get someone off. A subtle difference.
British justice, eh?
Mind you, the BBC deserve being called out too. Bearing in mind they once ran a prime time show painting Ms Letby as the devil incarnate, it’s a tad ironic that they should now have a complete about-face and claim she’s an innocent victim.
 
We came home. I scrubbed the mud off of dogs’ bellies then collapsed on the sofa. I’d certainly overdone it with this morning’s walk. With the weather having seriously chirped up and loads of stuff I might be getting on with outside, I just sat and struggled with some fiendishly difficult geo-puzzles. Mind you I say “fiendishly difficult”; the puzzles aren’t *that* hard once you spot the theme of the puzzle. The trick is spotting the theme. The chap who set them is a friend of mine, and I’ve been first to find on four of his puzzles. So they are solvable if you can spot what they are all about. With a concerted effort I solved one that I’d been struggling with since July. Flushed with success I then spent two fruitless hours fighting with another. If only I knew who the people in the pictures were… Google image search told me some of them, but by no means all.
 
“er indoors TM boiled up a rather good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching the most recent season of “Bake off: The Professionals”. It was rather good.
I then spent a little while fighting with the puzzle featuring the piccie above. I think I’ve identified about half of them now. Many still elude me though…
 
In theory I should be feeling a bit better now. In practice it ain’t happening…

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