6 January 2013 (Sunday) - The Wrotham Ramble

I probably went to bed too late last night, but I slept well despite the lurgy. It seemed a shame to be woken by the alarm when (for once) I was actually sleeping, but I can sleep later (or at least I will have the opportunity to do so later). I had a spot of brekkie which I enjoyed with Furry Face sitting on my chest. I checked to see what was going on in the world; or at least on the Internet. The previous six hours had been reasonably uneventful. Which was probably for the best.

Perhaps I should have stayed home today as I was still under the weather. But I didn't want to miss out on a day out. And I'd not seen "Team Wakey" for ages. We set off to Wrotham. There was debate as to how the place was pronounced. I was told that it was "Root-ham" (in a posh accent), but I was sticking to a working-class "Ruffum".

But regardless of how it sounded, eight of us (and three dogs) met up by the church there at 10am and followed a rather good walk. There was a dodgy five minutes when Fudge found his way through a fence onto the M20, and another dodgy five minutes shortly after that when he did exactly the same again. But he eventually got the idea of behaving himself.

We followed a well laid out series of geocaches; the Wrotham Ramble. There was a lot of up hill, and a lot of down hill too. Along the way we found half a dozen other caches too (and failed to find one other). Two of the caches had been hidden by my favourite caching team; Pooh, Tig and Lala. I've never met Pooh, Tig and Lala, but I can't help but feel they've chosen a wonderful name.

We found magnetic geocaches the size of my head that I couldn't see; we miscalculated mutli-cache co-ordinates by hundreds of yards. We found enormous sheep; the biggest you ever did see. We had great fun carrying wet dogs over stiles. We met one bunch of normal people several times who were walking a route of their own in an opposite direction to ours, and another bunch who mistook our geocaching for entymology. We even had to re-track a little bit to retrieve a forgotten walking stick.

This series would make a splendid walk in summer. However being January the elements were somewhat against us. The mud was rather thick in places, and it was chilly. Although the rain held off, the day was overcast and as the afternoon wore on so the mist rolled in. We were amazed at the speed the mist came. We saw tendrils of fog coming over a slope at the fourteenth cache; in the two minutes it took to do the secret geocache ritual (known only to us) the for was seriously thick.

We had started walking shortly after 10am; we got to the end (the bonus cache) shortly after 3pm. The route had been billed as six and a half miles; our technology told us we had covered eight and a half. But an excellent eight and a half miles. And it was another triumph of geocaching. Left to my own devices I would take Furry Face walking on the same old dozen walks. Today we had been guided along a well-laid out route that I'd never walked before; a route I would like to revisit. As always there are photos of the day on-line.

And so home. I dozed in the car a little on the way back. And once home the pup was bathed, muddy clothes were washed and after a little bit of tea "er indoors ^TM" set off bowling. Eventually Fudge settled down to sleep. I rather think he might have overdone it today; he seemed very fractious and despite not being cold he was rather shivery. Perhaps he's got my cold...

5 January 2013 (Saturday) - Panto

This morning's post brought an interesting letter about the refund I am due for all the council tax money I've been paying at too high a rate over the years. Sounds intriguing, doesn't it? Some bunch in Manchester (who presumably have never seen Beaver Road in their lives) would have me believe that (for a fee) they can get my council tax reduced; and get that reduction backdated. They claim I'm due a refund of over a thousand quid in overpaid council tax. All I have to do is give them cash to cover "expenses". I suppose enough people fall for these scams to make it worth their while trying it on.

The post also brought the new spare batteries for my mobile phone. Or so I thought. I have a Samsung Galaxy Ace 2. The batteries are for a Samsung Galaxy Ace (no"2"!), and they don't fit. You'd think that as well as standardising chargers for mobile phones they would standardise batteries too.

To the park where we met Cheryl and Lacey. They had heard good reports on Fudge's progress at being off the lead and wanted to see for themselves. So we took Fudge round the park where he excelled himself. Whilst we were at it I thought I'd see what Lacey thought of geocaching. To my delight she absolutely loved it, and we would seem to have another convert in our midst.

Time was pressing, so we went back to Beaver Lane where "My Boy ^TM" arrived with the makings of lunch, and after a rather good bit of bread and cheese (I *love* that stuff!) we made Disney princess snow globes. And then home. Via Godington Road where we heard that another new geocache had gone live. In the geocaching world there is great kudos in being first to find. We missed being first by twenty one minutes. We were sixth and seventh; we arrived to find quite the party was going on, and spent a little while chatting with fellow hunters of small plastic boxes.

A quick cuppa, and then we collected first fruit and his entourage and set off to Folkestone. McDinner slipped down very nicely, and then we wandered along the Leas to the Leas Cliff Hall for the pantomime. In years gone by we would always go to Folkestone to see the pantomime. I've not been for a few years, and I have to say I was disappointed. It was a good show, but in the past the theatre would be packed. Today only half the seats were put out that would usually be out, and a large proportion of them were empty. The sound system left much to be desired, and the blatant advertising throughout the show was rather off-putting.

I'm told that pantos of old were amateur productions, but nowadays they are professionally staged events. Whilst tonight's show was good, I preferred the old-style panto...

And then home where I found myself frankly amazed. Despite this cold getting worse and worse, I'd had a wonderful day, and it all went very sour. Earlier in the day there had been a post on the astro club's website about a website purporting to debunk crackpot conspiracy theories. A laudable goal, but this website made quite a lot of unreferenced claims, and prominently featured a link about "debunking BS" . Far from supporting a pragmatic scientific view it made the website seem to be as inflexible and closed-minded as those crackpot theories it sought to expose. Surely there is a difference between the phrases "Employing the Scientific Method" and "Detecting BS".

I'd made a comment to that effect earlier, and suddenly found myself embroiled in a rather confusing tirade of messages. The more I tried to explain my point, the more unfounded aggressive and personal abuse I received until I suddenly found the entire thread deleted from under me.

I'm still wondering what happened. Clearly I've somehow given offence but I don't see how. Why does life always have to be one big argument?

4 January 2013 (Friday) - Feeling Ill

Astronomy is a rubbish hobby. Last night there was a wonderful meteor shower; the Quadrantids. Or there would have been if there wasn't complete cloud cover. I've mentioned before that every time there is anything of astronomical interest going on there is always a sky full of clouds.

Over the last few days I've griped that I've not been feeling quite one hundred percent. I felt particularly grotty today. I considered phoning in sick, but out of a sense of duty I persevered. I really don't know why - I've never liked the idea of phoning in sick. I think I've done so twice in all the years I've been blogging.

I thought I might get some cough sweets on the way to work, so I went to the shop over the road. Over the years this place has had a variety of businesses operating from it; none of which seem to pass the test of time. And I doubt this one will last. Clearly ready for business, with the door unlocked and complete with a bored-looking chap behind the till, the place still had a "closed" sign up. But I went in and asked if they had any cough sweets. The chap behind the counter said no. Just as I was about to walk out I saw about a dozen different varieties of cough sweet. I commented on them. The chap looked at them as though he'd never seen them before. Mind you they didn't have my favourite brand - given the choice I'd always prefer to suck on a fisherman's friend.

As I drove to work there was an interesting article on the radio about endowment mortgages. It's now eighteen months since ours finally let us down completely. When it happened we were several thousand pounds out of pocket on the deal, and apparently about now is the time when the vast majority of everyone else's endowments mature. Or fail to mature to be more precise. Despite countless warnings and predictions about the things not being what they were promised, it seems that thousands of people have ignored all the warnings. They have apparently done nothing about making alternative arrangements to pay off their debts, and are all now out of pocket to the tune of an average of seven thousand pounds each.

Whilst I sympathise with their predicament, it's a bit late to start worrying about the problem now. We took out extra policies to cover the predicted shortfall years ago. Other people would seem to have ignored the problem and now that it's too late to claim about allegedly mis-sold products they are trying to claim compensation.

Having been stuffed by the things myself I have to admit that endowment mortgages were a gamble. We were told that we would make a killing on the basis of predicted interest rates. We were also told that interest rates were not predictable. We were sold our endowment in good faith by my father in law. So I know that it was sold in all honesty and with no malice. We took a gamble. We might have won. We might have had thousands of pounds profit. However we lost. So has everyone else. But this cannot possibly come as a surprise to anyone?

Being on a late shift today meant that I travelled to work at the busiest time. For some reason the roads were deserted, so I got to Canterbury far earlier than I expected. I spent a little while mooching round the bargain shop I'd spotted a week or so ago. It has some good deals; but nothing that I really wanted. Perhaps it didn't help that there were normal people bumbling about. They wound me up - there weren't many of them, but those that were there had the uncanny knack of getting in my way no matter where I tried to go.

I also went into Pets at Home to get some tins of scoff for Furry Face. I'm trying to persuade everyone else who feeds him to only give him a third of a tin of food at each meal rather than half a tin. He never eats all that is put down for him. Unlike most mutts, he's not greedy and we throw so much dog food away.

I also got some treats. I shall stick those in my pocket and dish them out when he least expects it. That might make him less inclined to wander off when he's off the lead.

The phone rang - an employment agency had a job offer for me. Super-sciency stuff; just the sort of thing I would like. However it would involve a relocation. To Denmark. Apparently the fact that i don't speak Danish wouldn't be a problem as everyone there speaks very good English (!)

I turned the job down. I don't think that I will regret that somehow...

3 January 2013 (Thursday) - Busy, Busy...

As "er indoors ^TM" set off to work I snuggled down for a serious lie-in. I managed five minutes before the phone rang. Tony wanted a lift to work. He was out of luck today.. So I got up and during my morning ablutions I heard the dulcet tones of "Daddies Little Angel ^TM" who had arrived and was haranguing Fudge.

We then took both dogs for a walk. On the way I intended to post some letters. Disaster - the pillar box had gone. How can a pillar box go missing? It was at this time that we met up with a fellow dog walker who told us that the thing had been taken away a while back as local vagrants were using it as a dustbin.

We then walked up to the park where I refused to look for a new geocache. My scrat-nav told me that it was yet another one which was breaking the rules by being rather close to a play park. This really boils my piss; I've had two cache hides refused by the establishment because they are within (distant) sight of play parks whereas other people are allowed to hide caches on the railings of play parks, in the hedges surrounding them, and even actually in the play equipment.

Instead we walked on to find a different geocache which had gone live recently. On the way we met Dave the Dachshund, and then Hurksy. Between us we found this cache. It was a crafty one which made us think. Whilst we were finding this one we met up with one of the chaps from astro club, and Fudge stole another dog's tennis ball which was embarrassing.

We then wandered on past the lake, and up into Singleton for another new geocache. And then we made our way home via the environment centre where we met some spaniels: Frodo and Eric. I was amazed at Fudge's attitude with the other dogs. A few months ago he would fight with every dog he met. Now he's far more playful. There are occasional spats, but he's far better than he ever was.

Once home I hosed the fox poo off of Fudge (I wish he wouldn't roll in that stuff!), and it was time for housework. Washing mud from shoes and wellies, washing what was in the laundry basket, hoovering. The time flew and soon the Rear Admiral visited over a lunch break.

After a swift bit of lunch I set about the ironing. It only took three hours. Whilst I was at it I watched a film I'd recorded onto the SkyPlus box over the Christmas break. "Silent Running" is a classic sci-fi film. I can remember it being really good when I watched it in my youth. Today I was disappointed. It's a film that hasn't stood the test of time. With far too many plot holes, far from being a classic it was sad. "Hippies in Space" would have been a better title.

And then we all went to Folkestone for the evening. Fudge went off with Sid for a walk round the beach whilst we visited the Hoseys and had a rather tasty bit of Chinese take out and several episodes of "Big Bang Theory". Must do that more often.

A really good day - it's only a shame I feel so grotty....

2 January 2013 (Wednesday) - On The Buses

Over the last couple of days I've whinged about feeling grotty. I think I've developed a chest infection. Can't say that I'm keen on it, but such is life. I slept well last night; which is probably due to this illness (!) Over a spot of brekkie I watched an (incredibly) old episode of "On The Buses". For those of my loyal readers who are unaccustomed to Butler and Blakey, "On The Buses" was rather dire sit-com from the 1970s. It used to be hilarious when I was a child. Sadly the years haven't been kind to it.

Interestingly the actor who played the morose ticket inspector is still going strong, but the one who played the chirpy bus conductor finally successfully gassed himself after several failed attempts. And the actress who played the fat ugly sister was once a professional stripper and went on to to be the fall guy for Roland Rat.

I suppose there is a moral in there somewhere...

Before I leave for work in the cold winter mornings I always look out of the windows to see if the cars are iced up. They weren't this morning. That is the cars outside the house weren't iced up. My car fifty yards down the road was covered in ice. What was that all about?

And so to work. A cold morning; and as I drove I listened to the radio. Trivia abounded on the news; Christmas was only a week ago, but it's now receded to a distant memory.

I was chatting with a colleague today; he was telling me that he retires in a couple of months time. He's quite looking forward to it. I had a quick think and worked out that if all remains as it currently is, then I have another eleven returns to work after the Christmas break until I can retire. It doesn't seem *that* long, does it?

Mind you, I have heard it said that God laughs when we make plans.

And with that in mind I projected my shift pattern forward in time until this coming September. And then booked holiday around the year's standard kiting and camping events. This may well be rather presumptuous as I'm not sure if any of them are going ahead this year, but it is as well to make plans as not.

And so home. Fudge was in an odd mood. He was in the garden when I got home, and wouldn't come i. When I eventually chased him in he seemed really sheepish. His ears were right back, and he looked incredibly guilty. I wonder what he's done. Once tea was scoffed (Tesco take out curry - very nice!) he jumped on my lap and slept. He was absolutely zonked out all evening.

I wonder why that dog seems so guilty and is so tired....

1 January 2012 (Tuesday) - Here We Go Again...

Yesterday I mentioned that I didn't feel too good when I woke. I felt rather rough this morning too. Some of my loyal readers may be surprised to find that it was disease and not hangover. Despite the mankini, I didn't actually drink that much yesterday. I tend not to these days. Not so much a resolution as just the way I seem to be hanging. And talking of resolutions, perhaps I should make some for this year? Or perhaps not. I shall continue with the vague plan of general weight loss; if only to shift what I have put on over the last few days. But other than that? Life changes enough around me in my world without me having to try for change myself. Look at this last year. Despite not actually liking them, I've acquired a dog. Despite several months of telling Stevey how lame it is, I've taken up geocaching. I've shifted several stones in weight. I've taken up golf (sort of). I wonder what the future holds for this year?

In previous years I've been quite good in keeping my diary of planed events up to date. I've been told off for letting the "Dates for the Diary" slip recently, so this morning whilst "er indoors ^TM" slept off the wine and Furry Face barked at anything that passed the house I spent a little while updating the diary with possible future events for this new year. I've got dates for the camping and bonfire events. I've got astro club dates. I need dates to go underground again, dates for the drop redoubt's open day, and anything else that might be fun. If any of my loyal readers know of any events which should be on it, please let me know.

I had a message - did we fancy taking dogs for a walk? Fudge always likes a walk, so we set off to Sheldwich and did a circuit up to Selling church and back (via nine geocaches). The going was seriously muddy, but it was a dry bright day and we were all glad to get out into t countryside.

Once home we hosed the worst of the mud off of the pup, and as he slept we went down to see Lisa and Earle. They had cooked far too much roast beef, and so we helped them scoff a roast dinner. Very tasty. We then tried out the 3-D TV. I could make out some of the 3-D effects, butt (it would seem) not as much as everyone else could. I've been told that I can't see 3-D effects; magic eye pictures never work for me. We then watched "Spiderwick Chronicles" until it was home time. And then after a quick shower we watched TV drivel whilst Furry Face slept on top of me...

31 December 2012 (Monday) - New Year's Eve

I felt a bit grim when I woke this morning; a bit chesty. Let's hope it passes. I don't like being under the weather.

Over a spot of brekkie I did the astro club's account. Quite healthy really. Then I did my own accounts which could be a lot worse. Whilst I was at it I cleared out my letter rack; finding quite a bit of stuff I should have dealt with weeks ago. Oh well...

With very little else planned for the day we went up to the town. After all, the rain was rather excessive; too heavy to really do much else. Whilst parking I met someone I've not seen for years; someone with whom I attended a management course about fifteen years ago. We chatted for a few minutes, then set off bargain hunting. I got a nice box for excess lego, and several cheap bits for the evening. Whilst shopping we met quite a few friends who also seemed to be at a loose end.

We then popped to the bank to deposit over a hundred quid. Again I've slipped up; not thinking to embezzle it until it's safely in the account. And then on to Matalan where I got new trousers and T shirts in the half price sale. I needed new trousers. My favourite pair had become far too baggy and I'd ripped the arse out of then some weeks ago, but that hadn't stop me wearing them constantly. I was amazed by the attitude of the till staff in Matalan; as I was paying, the woman at the next till looked at the size of the queue and loudly and sarcastically remarked how it must be good to have time off during the week. I let it pass; perhaps I should have complained.

Home for lunch. I had planned on taking Furry Face for a walk in the afternoon, but the rain had got so bad that he wouldn't even go into the garden. So with little else to do I ironed shirts and then slept in front of the telly until the Bat arrived.

Once he was here we all piled into the Batmobile and set off to Folkestone for the traditional New Year's Eve gathering. Twenty of us met up and had a great time. Maria had put on a wonderful buffet, and I for one stuffed myself silly. We played the dice game for the silly things we'd bought from the pound shop earlier. Things got quite competitive for a broken tablet PC and some chocolate frogs. And a mankini was won. And modelled.

Grapes at midnight; I slept through a comedian on the telly, and home at 2.30am to find Furry Face had disgraced himself on the kitchen floor...