14 March 2013 (Thursday) - Mersham

I was woken this morning by my nose being licked. Furry Face had made his way upstairs. Cheeky pup!. After a quick bit of brekkie I got some bits and pieces together and ably (!) assisted by my dog I set off on a geocaching-related mission.

A few days ago someone had mentioned that they couldn't find one of my duck caches. I have set two of these - easy to find, not so easy to retrieve. they are tethered rubber ducks floating in rivers. Someone had said on the Facebook Kent Geocaching group that she couldn't find one of them. I'd explained that the thing should be immediately obvious. She'd said she couldn't see it. So we walked along the river and, sure enough the duck was where it was supposed to be. Floating in the middle of the river.

We then carried on across a ploughed field. And I let Furry Face off of his lead. As we walked we saw snowdrifts. I've blogged this week about how local the recent snow has been, and how I saw very little of it. As we walked today we found snowdrifts. Some a metre deep - and only an hour's walk from home. Fudge seemed to like the snow - he was jumping in and out of the drifts. He was fine being off the lead for quite some time, and suddenly he saw a pheasant. He doesn't like "F-birds" and he set off in pursuit. He saw this bird just as I was about to put him back on the lead as we were getting near some woods. It's always a bad idea letting him off the lead near woods. He shot into the woods, and that was it. By the time I'd got to the woods he had vanished. I could neither hear nor see him. I tried the whistle, I tried shouting for him. Nothing worked. All I could do was search.

After half an hour I thought I could hear a jangling sound. I could - it was coming from a bramble bush. I called Fudge's name and the jangling got louder. The idiot dog had got tangled in brambles and was completely stuck fast. By the time I'd untangled him and got him on the lead I'd completely lost my bearings. Using "follow the arrow" sat-nav I ploughed a straight line through the jungle to the nearest road. Carrying a very sheepish-looking small dog.

I found a rather scenic bridge over a small river. I might go back there with a rubber dingy and hide a cache under it at some point. Soon we were at Sevington, and we were able to start our walk properly. there were a couple of geocaches in Sevington, and half a dozen in Mersham a couple of miles away. I had this plan to put a couple of lines of caches from Sevington to Mersham and back again to make a little series of caches.

And I (and my dog) did just that. It was a bit cold today, and jsut a bit muddy. But it was a bright day and we had a good walk out. By the time we got home we'd been out for over four hours.

Furry Face went straight into the bath. He was filthy, with mud literally up to his ears. Once he was hosed off he settled down and was soon asleep. I checked emails and was fiddling about on-line when the first fruit of my loin came home. He was immediately on my case asking what I'd done to his dog because his dog was obviously knackered. I don't think he approves of my walking Fudge quite as much as I walk him.

After the dog had had a bit of a rest I took him for another walk. I had a plan to see the comet. I've made it known that I don't expect the current talk of a comet to come to anything. The pundits had predicted a bright comet. Now it seems the best we can hope for is something that you might (just possibly) be able to see for half an hour in the twilight. If you have binoculars, know exactly where to look, and if you are very lucky.

We weren't lucky - there was too much cloud cover. So we came home. As we approached home we could hear raised voices. A car and a bus were both refusing to give way, and traffic had built up behind both. Several drivers had got out of their cars and were shouting abuse at anyone they felt needed to be abused. There is never anything as amusing as someone else's petty squabble.

We settled down with a bottle of plonk, some port and cheese and watched "Forrest Gump". For all that he film is a classic, I'd never seen it before. It was really good. I wonder how mnay other things like this I've missed...

13 March 2013 (Wednesday) - A New Pope

"Daddies Little Angel ^TM" arrived shortly after brekkie, and we took both dogs for a walk. For the last two days the south east has been in the grip of blizzards and sonw storms. Today was bright sunshine. We had a good walk along the river to South Willesborough and back through Frog's Island. We came back past the Shetland ponies; the word was that these small horses had got loose in the night. They seemed secure in their field, but there was no denying that there was fresh horse dung on the wrong side of the fence.

It would have been good to have walked further, but "Daddies Little Angel ^TM" was suffering. She's picked up a virus, and so we came home for a warming cuppa. I then spent a little time on the PC. A colleague has recently obtained some very old photographs of her home village in Nigeria and I'd offered to scan them into .jpegs for her. She seemed inordinately grateful when I volunteered a day or so ago. I was only too happy to help. It was easy enough, and was something I could do.

A quick sandwich for lunch and after bandying insults with the Rear Admiral (who had visited) I went to the dentist to get my chipped tooth fixed. As I walked so a hailstorm struck. It didn' last long, but it was vicious for the few minutes that it lasted.

My gob was fixed in less than five minutes and I then spent some time taking up the legs on a pair of trousers: a job I'd been putting off for months. I then did some ironing because no day off is complete without ironing.

And then I got an email. And my piss boiled just a little bit. Regular readers of this drivel might recall that over the last couple of months I'd ranted about how the organisers needed to confirm the event before people could commit to going. In the meantime many of the usual attendees made their own plans, and clearly hardly anyone was going to be along. So I decided to follow suit. With what seemed to be no apparent commitment from the organisers I set about making my own entertainment for that weekend. Today, months too late, an email came through "A decision was reached ... not to fund the June event at Teston.... after presentation of the costings and other factors were taken into consideration".

In retrospect the problem was that two particular people were claiming to be speaking on behalf of the organisers when in fact they were not. However the August event is still on the cards, and I've offered any and all help I can give to the thing.

With June Teston definitely not going ahead I am thinking that Folkestone air show might be a good day out.

Meanwhile we have a new Pope - the Argentinian Francis I. He's seventy-six years old. At the risk of appearing age-ist, is that a good age at which to take on such a demanding job? Still, time will tell. It always does.

I've been quite interested in the recent papal resignation and the appointment of the successor. In the past I've been rather noisy about my agnosticism. Now I'm not quite so sure. I'm (just possibly) beginning to see the logic in Pascal's wager...

12 March 2013 (Tuesday) - Stuff

Over breakfast I read all the horror stories on Facebook about the terrible journeys people had last night on their way home. Trips which should have taken an hour at most had taken over six hours. Folkestone and Dover had been effectively been cut off from the rest of the world, and relatives only thirty miles away in Sussex had spent the night in their cars.

I left for work early, expecting the worst. I found my journey was fine - no delays at all. I arrived at work to find that I was lucky to have been able to get there. Others had not had such an easy journey. Dover was still cut off and traffic heading south on the M20 had come to a standstill. Snow can be so local.

People arrived as the morning went on, and we all did our bit before braving the elements on the way home. It looked to me as though most of the elements had melted, and wouldn't need much braving. But I didn't like to say anything.

As I drove home I listened to the radio as always. And my piss boiled, as it is wont to do. The weather forecast as delivered by BBC Radio 4 bore no relation to either the weather forecast as delivered by the BBC's own weather website, or to reality.

Here's an interesting question: it is acceptable to photograph your food when dining out? Apparently some restaurants are banning people photographing their dinner. I've often taken snapshots of what I'm scoffing - for blogging purposes as much as any other reason. Why don't establishments want their produce photographed? Are they afraid of bad publicity? I don't think I'd like to eat somewhere where I couldn't photograph my scoff.

Also on the news was the results of the recent ballot that took place in the Falkland Islands. The locals were asked if they wished to remain a British territory. 99.8% of them said that they did. Hardly surprising really, bearing in mind the threat of Argentinian invasion. Was that really thirty years ago? I can remember having a "Falk Off Argentina" T shirt. I probably still have it somewhere. And having lost some weight it would probably fit me again.

Talking of voting, the cardinals are all casting their ballots for another Pope. Here's a radical suggestion - I wonder if they might change the office in the same way they did that of the office of Poet Laureate so that the office is held for a fixed term, rather than for life. After all being the leading figure of a world wide organisation must be hard work, and does it really make sense to give the position to someone who's (usually) well over retirement age when they take up office.

After all, in China where it's traditionally often a gerontocracy the bosses are all dyeing their hair in an attempt to appear young.

I don't mind the late shifts, but I don't like missing the Tuesday gathering...

11 March 2013 (Monday) - Snow

On re-reading yesterday's rant it would seem I didn't have a good day of it. I think I've just about had enough of this winter. We had one good sunny warm day last week, and then it was back to freezing conditions.

I'm sick of my nose constantly running because of the cold, and of not being able to feel my extremities.

I had something of a late night last night - not turning in until midnight. I slept soundly, waking feeling fully refreshed. I looked at the clock. It was 1.20 am. Eighty minutes sleep! And I saw every hour of the night from then on, finally getting up (feeling like death warmed over) at 7am.

As I drove to work I listened to the radio. There is consternation about how bacteria are developing resistance to antibiotics. There is shock news that diseases which were once easily treatable may well soon be life threatening.

How is this "news"? This was certainly common knowledge back in the early 1980s. I can remember seeing posters about it before I moved away from Hastings; and that was in 1984. How can such an old story be treated so sensationally?

There was also uproar about the proposed bedroom tax in which council tax will be based on the amount of bedrooms a house has. Apparently there are plans to extend this tax to sting houses which have a dining room separate from a kitchen or lounge.

The radio presenter brought on some very silly people to discuss the matter. Apparently such a tax would be bad as it would discourage people from having formal family meals together. Again how is this news? Family meals were a thing of the past some fifteen years ago.

I found this out back when I was a cub scout leader. Before any camp we would have to tell the parents to actually have a sit-down family meal to teach the little brats table manners. And over the years I had quite a few mothers approach me to ask exactly what did I mean by "table manners" as they themselves had no idea of the concept. In my thirteen years experience as a cub scout leader having taken hundreds of children camping, not one child in twenty could actually sit at a table to eat with a knife and fork. Interestingly it was always my experience that (with very few exceptions) the more well-to-do the family, the more feral the child's eating habits. I distinctly remember one extremely well spoken boy named Guy (with millionaire parents) who was utterly incapable of eating any item of food which had not first been thrown through the air.

I stopped off at Pets at Home on my way to work today. Several of the tins in the last batch of dog food I'd got from them were dented - one tin was actually broken open. I took this burst tin to the lady on the till and whinged. This lady called the manager who was really helpful, and she gave me twenty per cent off of my next bulk load of dog food. I was pleased about that! So I squandered my saving on a rope tug o'war toy. He seems to like playing pulling on things. If I can get him on one end and Sid on the other then the two dogs will keep each other amused for hours.

And as I still had a few minutes free I then popped to the cheapo shop next door. They do five curly-wurlies for a quid. Five! That was me sorted for a bargain.

And so to work. I did my bit. I didn't like not being out and about today, but I did like not being cold. Yesterday was really cold. Today was worse. And it snowed today. I've heard that the closest parts of France are expecting a foot of snow.

I've had enough of this cold weather now. Thank heavens for my curly-wurly on the way home or I would have been seriously sulking...

10 March 2013 (Sunday) - Cold and Wet

Being Mothers Day one would be forgiven for thinking we might have a leisurely start. No such luck. Off by 9am and so to Sittingbourne. The local geocachers had organised a day of do-gooding. Planting trees and building hedgerows and clearing thickets on an old land-fill site which is being reclaimed into a country park.

It could have been such a productive day...

Over sixty of us turned out for a 10am start. I began to suspect the worst when the warden was like a stuck record expressing his surprise at the turn out whilst the organising were like a stuck record with "I told you so". Attendees had said that they were coming over a month ago.

We shivered through a ridiculously long winded health and safety introduction in which (amongst other irrelevant drivel) we were told what action was to be taken in the event that we should fall into a pond or see a dog, and in retrospect it was at that point that I should have given up and gone home...

Sixty-odd of us went on to start the tree planting: a job which probably would have been better done by ten at most. Sixty-odd of us got in each other's way. With the job done in half an hour the warden then expressed surprise at how well we'd done, and then he went off on the next phase of the operation - knocking in uprights for a fence. Only three could really help with this job, and three were chosen.

Everyone else stood about whilst the warden set about clearing a thicket to get the raw materials to make a dead hedge. A shame that there was no announcement to this effect. I only found out that thicket clearing was going on by accident. Had an announcement been made then two thirds of the assembled throng might not have disappeared at this point.

Within an hour of sixty-odd willing volunteers turning up we were left with less than twenty. Twenty who were cold and dispirited. The rain slowly gave way to hail. And when the message came through to our thicket that everyone else had gone caching I very nearly went home there and then.

So much could have been achieved. Had the warden taken two minutes to organise the troops into teams and to assign jobs then we would have known what we were doing, and we could have done so much. Instead we had anarchy. I feel sorry for the organisers who had persuaded so many people to turn out on such a cold wet day only to have their time wasted.

Any future events like this will have to be organised better. I came along thinking that I could sort out such an event locally. I came away determined I would not want anything to do with such as this.

And to add insult to injury when we left at 1.30pm (we were the second to last car left in the car park) we were locked in and had to wait twenty minutes for the warden to be found to unlock the gate.

Home, and then round to visit the first fruit of my loin. Being Mothers Day he'd asked us round to dinner. Roast pork. Very tasty. Crackling - I chipped a tooth... But that can be fixed. After a cold wet afternoon it was good to be in the warm with family. Must do that more often...

9 March 2013 (Saturday) - Minnis Bay

A bit of a lie in this morning. Not really surprising after being up till 2pm on the port last night. We pootled for a bit, and then set off to Minnis Bay. It's a part of the north Kent coast I'd not visited before, and had been chosen as the venue of the Kent Cacher's monthly meet-up. I've not been to many of these meets, but I already feel at home at them. We soon found the place, and were welcomed by someone who'd found an astronomical trackable and wanted to pass it on to me. I was rather taken aback by the kind thought.

We ordered lunch, and chatted with loads of people. I got to thank the people who'd helped me get ordnance survey maps onto my phone, I fussed the dogs, I had a rather good bit of Stilton.

And then the word came that a dozen geocaches had gone live in honour of the day. I would have thought that the race would have been on, but no one seemed especially fussed about being first to find. I was, and three of us charged out. We managed four first to finds before we met a large group of cachers doing the walk in the opposite order to us. We swapped insults, and found we'd been caught up by a third group. We then carried on with the walk with those who'd caught us up.

As you go geocaching you see logs written by other cachers who've been to the caches before you. Loads of names. It was good to meet some of these people in the flash. "Far Away" and "Lardy Bloke" walked with us for half the route today. We had quite a laugh, and I did chuckle when we saw someone else had achieved a first to find and had left a gloating note for our benefit.

And so after four miles we were back at the pub. It would have been good to have stayed and chatted, but time was pressing, so we didn't hand about. Which was a shame.

Home, and with "er indoors ^TM" off to watch films I settled down with Furry Face and a bag of onion rings. More Babylon 5 DVDs. Can't be bad...

8 March 2013 (Friday) - Raining

Monday had been a glorious day and the weather forecast had been for more of the same. Tuesday and Wednesday were also bright, but I was indisposed on those days. Thursday was wet and drizzly and I was bored. And this morning I woke to a grey and overcast day with a forecast of heavy rain later. It's a shame we can't choose our weather. It's one subject I have put on a growing list of things I'd like to discuss when I get to meet my maker. (If I'm brave enough)

Despite the grim-looking skies I put Fudge's lead on him and we went for our morning constitutional. We got as far as Singleton Lake before I finally gave in, admitted we were soaked and came home. I towelled Furry Face off, changed out of wet clothes, and took my car for fixing. Yesterday I was advised that new tyres wouldn't go amiss. In the past Road Runners had come up trumps. Today.... I was not impressed. They didn't actually say "F... off Baldy", but there was no disguising that was the sentiment with which I was greeted. So I took my custom elsewhere - to AllSparksTyres. These people seemed to want my custom, and were friendly and welcoming.

We had something of a shock. When they removed the rear wheels we saw that one of the tyres had a Stanley knife blade embedded in it. I can only imagine that this blade got impaled today - surely that would have been seen at yesterday's MOT?

And then home again. With the rain getting heavier I then spent most of the rest of the day catching up with the ironing. As the rain appeared to slack off at 3pm me and Fudge went for another walk. We got soaked as the rain came back with a vengeance, and so we came home again. I resigned myself to finishing the laundry.

Today was a day's holiday -- I always spend holiday days doing laundry?