2 May 2025 (Friday) - Blue Switch Day

I woke in some pain at half past five this morning. My jaw was rather painful, and my hip was hurting too. But what could I do? I sucked it up and got on with my life. I made toast and peered into a dull Internet. The Wherigo I'd created yesterday went live late last night, but no one had gone near it overnight.
Bearing in mind that today was Blue Switch Day (the twenty-fifty anniversary of GPS being made available to the public) I planned  a little geo-mission to do before work, then set off a tad earlier than usual.
 
I drove round to the co-op which was rather hard work this morning. There were half a dozen builders in the place. One was buying his sandwich; the rest were just blundering about seemingly deliberately getting in everyone else's way. And there was a minor episode when I got to the till. I got my usual lunch for three pounds fifty, and a packet of extra strong mints for eighty-five pence. The woman at the till wanted five quid. I explained to her that three pounds fifty plus eighty-five pence was four pounds thirty-five pence. She said it wasn't. She said it was five pounds because the till said so.  She admitted that it didn't sound right, but who was she to dare to argue with the till?
Eventually her manager got involved. It turns out that you have to buy the meal deal on its own, and buy anything else as a separate transaction as the till isn't up to it. It would seem that it was well known and accepted in co-op circles that buying more than one item at a time was a recipe for disaster.
 
I set off to work. The pundits on the radio were interviewing the head honcho of the British Veterinary Association who had got the arse with a BBC investigation into their fees. Most vet surgeries are ultimately run by big businesses who set the prices, and she felt it unfair that the BBC should be holding the vets responsible for prices that were set by their managers. She implied that if you go to an independent vet you will get it cheaper, but wished the public good luck in finding one of those. It turns out that these days the vets would rather crack on with dealing with sick animals and leave the administration of running the show to someone else. I've had a go at running the show in the past myself; it's not easy and is best left to anyone daft enough to take it on.
 
There was also talk about yesterday's elections in which what were once minority parties would seem to have done rather well. Bearing in mind last year's landslide Labour victory at the General Election it strikes me that all the time the government of the day is struggling, the masses will vote for anyone who tells you they can do better. Actually doing better is easier said than done though. 
 
I stopped off at Lenham and walked up to the chalk cross. There's a virtual geocache there. I took a few photos, got the answers to the questions I needed to find, and got a souvenir for Blue Switch Day and a virtual easter egg too.
And so to work where there wasn't any cake, but there was chocolate pizza. At close on three hundred calories a slice I only had a small bit.
 
Being at work, today was rather dull. Effectively all the excitement was done when I got back to the car after my little walk up to the Lenham cross… at that was at seven o’clock this morning.

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