6 November 2013 (Wednesday) - Out of This World

I slept well, and after a bit of brekkie (ably assisted by my dog) we went for a quick walk. The weather forecast predicted a dry spell for a couple of hours so we thought we’d get walked before the rain. As we walked a little voice called out to us. Cheryl and Lacey were on their way to school. Fudge jumped up and got Lacey all muddy.

We carried on with our walk through the park where “Furry Face ^TM “ tried to pork every dog in Ashford. I wish he wouldn’t do that.

We stopped for five minutes at the ford so I could get some information for my latest little geo-project, then carried on with our walk round Singleton lake. By now the rain had started. Somewhat earlier that predicted. By the time we got home we were both soaked.

Once home I put the washing machine to spinning the laundry I’d set washing when we went out. Rather than spinning, the machine washed it all again. I wish it wouldn’t do that.

I then did some homework, then some geo-project work. Before I knew it, it was 1pm. As a special treat for us both I went up the kebab shop for kebab and chips, “Furry Face ^TM “ likes kebab. He’s getting very fussy about what he eats, so it’s a pleasure to see him wanting to eat something. Over dinner we watched a film. “Hope and Glory” was a nostalgic British film. It looked like being the sort of film I love. It turned out to be about an hour too long. To stay awake I sorted my undercrackers whilst it played. Dull, but necessary. Most of my socks have holes, and more than one pant is lacking elastic.

Am I the only person who just puts up with substandard crackers?

As the day went on so the phone wouldn’t stop ringing from people trying to sell me rubbish. Mis-sold endowments, solar panels, computers spamming windows internet (!); you name it, I was offered it on the phone today. Despite my best efforts and endless complaints I keep getting these phone calls trying to sell me stuff.

Evening came and I set off for the reason I wasn’t at work today. A trackable is due to blast off to the International Space Station today, and anyone attending a geo-meet today got an e-souvenir. To the uninitiated that sentence probably doesn’t mean much, but it is of great importance to those who hunt plastic boxes in the woodlands.

I had this idea that organising a space-themed geo-event wouldn’t take too much doing; and volunteered to set one up. The World’s Wonder pub in Warehorne have been very good to the astro club lately; and they have dark skies too, so I approached them. They were very happy to have me organise something with them. So I did.

I had been wondering how much of a turn-out I would get for an astronomy-themed geo-meet. And seeing the dreadful weather there’s no denying that my hopes weren’t high. But I was wrong. We had an attendance beyond my wildest expectations. People travelled miles; from Sussex, from the Medway towns and even from North London. I counted over forty people.

I was so lucky to have Jason volunteer to talk; it was an excellent talk on a fascinating subject. Steve was on hand to help and assist; and we gave out astro club flyers and Stargazing Live booklets. Everyone seemed happy with what we had done.  

And once home, thanks to the wonderful people at Tee-Bees dot com the trackable logging was but a work of a few minutes. Logging fifty four TBs one at a time would have taken an age.

It was a good meet. I was pleased with what I put on. But I am more pleased that I have wonderful people that I can call on to help me to do things like this…

5 November 2013 (Tuesday) - Gunpowder, Treason and Plop

When we first took on "Furry Face ^TM" it was on the understanding that he slept downstairs in his own bed. More often than not I wake to find he has sneaked up the stairs in the night and is asleep at the bottom of my pit. Last night I was woken twice by the thump of him falling off of the bed.

That little dog was a little bit late in stirring himself out of his (my) pit this morning; had he been about two minutes earlier he could have shared my toast. He was too late.

In the words of the old adage "you snooze, you lose".

This morning I went to work through some of the heaviest rain I think I have ever seen outside of one of our camping trips. As I drove I listened to the radio (as I do). There is consternation in Germany as apparently a hoard of stolen art treasures has come to light. During the Nazi regime apparently a lot of valuable works of art were stolen from the Jewish community and many were "lost".

From what I could determine from the news article a load of paintings have been found in a flat somewhere in Germany where the supposed owner of said flat only appears once a year or so. This chap is eighty-odd years old, has no apparent means of financial support, and is the son of one of many Nazis suspected of having stolen valuable art work during the Nazi era. The implication was that this fellow was making his living by periodically selling off paintings which he had acquired from his (now dead) father who presumably had stolen them either from the original owners or through his involvement with the Nazis.

Those gripped with righteous indignation felt that this art hoard should be returned to its rightful owners. I suppose that might at first sight seem to be the right thing to do.

However German law has a Statute of Limitations concerning incidents from the Nazi times. From what I could determine, basically once such a crime is thirty years old there is no longer any legal recompense. Personally I think that is a good thing in general.Whilst what happened in history was terrible, there comes a time when we need to move on.

However in this specific instance is it right that someone is making a living on stolen goods?

I can't help but wonder how at this remove in time would anyone ever find the rightful owners of this art? I can remember my Aunt Joan had a painting which was supposed to be worth a bob or two. It had a lady showing off a nork. But I can't remember much more about it than that; and that was from the mid 1970s. I certainly couldn't tell it from any other painting of a wanton woman. How could anyone alive today realistically remember what they or their family once owned in the 1930s and 1940s? I doubt much in the way of certifying documentation was stolen together with these art works.

My piss also boiled at the news that India is sending off a mission to Mars. Most of my loyal readers might think that as an astronomical sort of fellow I would be pleased about this. Well, I suppose I am. But I've been reading an old favourite book of mine. Jem - the Making of a Utopia. In this book inter-stellar exploration and colonisation isn't done by humanity at large, but by nation states. And all that humanity does is take internecine squabbling and atomic warfare to a higher level.

If we don't make space exploration a common shared venture for all nations of the world it will just become something else for us to argue about.

And so to work. I pootled about until it was time to come home. It was nice to be able to see the fireworks at the Kent county cricket ground later in the evening. As I drove home I scoffed a curlywurly I had bought at the Cheapo bargains shop last week. I really should stop stocking the car with curlywurlies from the Cheapo Bargains shop.

And so to Queen Street where the clans gathered and having listened to the radio we watched "Merlin". My personal opinion is that Merlin could easily have Harry Potter in a fight...

4 November 2013 (Monday) - Bit Dull

In a novel break with tradition I slept surprisingly well last night; waking just minutes before the alarm was due to go off. I abluted, and had all of my toast to myself; a certain dog was still fast asleep. Yesterday's walk must have tired both of us.

My morning's "Earth 2" was entertaining viewing. In this morning's episode the brain-wiped homicidal maniac was beginning to have flashbacks. This was widely regarded not to be a good thing in a homicidal maniac.

I set off to work in dark and rain. Really dark and very heavy rain. Last night a series of geocaches had gone live in the Canterbury area. No one had gone near overnight; I had the chance for a few FTFs. But it was dark and wet. I decided against going for them. It would have been a silly thing to do.

As I drove I listened to the radio. For all that the recent cases of child abuse have been very serious, I'm not at all sure that there has been a balanced reaction to the entire debacle. It would seem that it will soon be a criminal offence for anyone who suspects someone of being a child abuse not to blow the whistle.

How ridiculous is that? In the first instance how can anyone be accused of having suspicions about someone else that they didn't voice? And in the second instance is the mere random thought that any individual might be a bit iffy grounds to ruin their life.

Meanwhile it would seem that for all the jingoistic flag wavers might protest, the UK's remaining part of the European Union saves every household about three thousand pounds every year.

Or so the latest figures from the CBI would suggest. Interestingly the pundits seemed to feel that the same survey showed that jingoistic flag wavers would be un-swayed by such arguments. Are we as a nation still so insular and parochial?

Mind you back with the insular and parochial mind-set there is a school of thought that voting for Scottish independence may be a good thing in the upcoming Scottish referendum because losing the Scottish seats in the UK Parliament would pretty much guarantee a Conservative majority in perpetuity.

Please don't let the Scots go...

3 November 2013 (Sunday) - Crowborough

As I shared my morning toast with my Patagonian Tripe-Hound I watched a rather lame episode of "Earth 2". For a bunch of pioneers exploring a planet twenty two light years away they are certainly finding a lot of people who seem to have got there first.

With brekkie scoffed we eventually found er indoors ^TM" wellie boots, and set off to collect the rest of our entourage. Three of us and two small dogs went to Crowborough where we played "Cluedo". A series of geocaches had been laid in which various Cluedo cards and clues had been concealed, and as well as caching we got to play Cluedo as well. I was Professor Plums. My dog was Professor No Plums (following a trip to the vet). It was a genius idea... provided you actually found all of the caches and all of the clues.

We didn't.

One cache was clearly missing (well, we couldn't find it) so when we got to the end we had half of the required co-ordinates, but the other half were rather vague. So we looked at the map, looked at where we might expect a bonus cache to be hidden, read the hint and trusted to luck. And we found that bonus cache. Even though I was prepared to abandon it.

We had one or two other "little episodes" on the way. The storms of the last week had brought down a few trees to block our way. At one point a farmer had deliberately blocked a footpath with a six feet high fence. I've emailed the chap who organised the geocache series about this; you find yourself obviously following the right route as you come to the geocache, then you are faced with a fence. You can either backtrack several hundred yards or climb the fence. We climbed it.

The mud was rather thick too. I fell on my backside twice.

With the Cluedo series done we walked around Crowborough for a bit, and then moved on to Eridge where we did an Earthcache. Or everyone else played on the rocks whilst I did geography homework (depending on your perspactive). To be fair the Earthcache was my idea. Getting one in Sussex bungs up my geo rating. I'm now a silver-level Earthcache master (!)

As always there are photos of the day on-line.

And so home, and with er indoors ^TM" off out with her mates and "Furry Face ^TM fas asleep I was left home alone. Which wasn't a bad thing; I had beer to get out of the bucket and into the barrel. Never a dull moment...

2 November 2013 (Saturday) - Lunch, Fireworks

I think I rather over-exerted myself when going up the tree on Thursday. My right arm and stomach muscles *really* hurt. So much so that it was painful to even try to move in bed last night. I woke at silly o'clock as I so often do; then lay trying to sleep for over two hours, and was still watching DVDs before 6am.

"Earth 2" is quite watchable; the Wikipedia entry is quite revealing. The actor who played the little girl died some time ago. The actor who played the little girl's father was very active in trying to pay the medical costs ofr the girl who died. And the foxy one was apparently featured in a leaked nudey video with Miss Teen America (!)

I surfed the net for a while. Time dragged. I had an email - a new geocache had gone live only two miles away. Being rather bored I thought I might try for a First to Find. The cache description said "The cache is sneakily hidden so be sure to have a look around especially if something may look out of place or that you wouldn't expect to hold a cache", so I went along expecting not to find it. Mind you I called up the hint which basically told me where it was and what to look for. I saw the thing right away; and no one else had signed the log. First to Find. Secret geocaching ritual and happy dance too.

I came home, collected "Furry Face ^TM" and took him round the park. Some of our walks are dull; others more exciting. Today we (he) shagged three other dogs before we even got to the park, and in the time it took me to ask a steward what the one hundred or more runners were doing, Fudge disappeared.

It turned out that last Saturday a local running club started a Saturday morning run round the park. Now every Saturday anyone who wants to join in just turns up at 9am and runs a circuit of the park. There were loads of people running, from small children to pensioners. (Including one especially fit one in spandex)

Normally a fit one in spandex might have held my attention, but not today. My dog was missing. I couldn't find him anywhere. It turned out that in the twenty seconds it took me to find out what was going on, Fudge had joined in the race. After a rather worrying twenty minutes not knowing which way to go to find my dog he was brought back to me by Orangehead. She had captured him at the other end of the runners' race where he had left the race and attempted to shag the dog of her chunky little friend.

That was embarrassing. For me. "Furry Face ^TM" didn't seem at all fazed by proceedings.

The Bat arrived with Clive and we set off down to Rolvenden for a spot of lunch. The Ewe and Lamb is somewhere we've not been for a while. It was very good a few years ago, and it still is. I started off with a ppint of Cheddar cider from the hand pump. I remembered that stuff from a holiday in Weymouth. Strong stuff that looks like orange squash. The soup was wonderful, and then a plate of liver and bacon went down very well. I scoffed far too much, and slept most of the way back to Ashford. We came home via Lidls and Home Plus in torrential rain. Feeling rather replete and having a little time we thought we might grab a few moments of shut-eye.

Rather than having a few minutes of dozing we both slept for over an hour only to be woken by the door bell. Hosey had arrived to drive us to the evening's fun. We had a frantic five minutes getting ready, and then we set off to Steve and Sarah's for fireworks, We had a great time, excellent fun with friends, and such a good spread too. There was a minor hiccup when a bucket was destroyed along with the garden fence by a renegade incendiary. But that which doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Aparet from that fence and that bucket. They were certainly weakened in the impact.

1 November 2013 (Friday) - Delivery

For no reason that I could possibly fathom I had a terrible night's sleep. I would have thought that copious amounts of ale would have knocked me out. But I kept waking following nighmares in which I felt (very vividly) that I was falling. I wonder what that was all about...

I had the shock of my life as I went to shave. Feeling rather under the weather meant that I had the teensiest bit of a thick head. So I'd not really taken a lot of notice about how my head felt. I looked in the mirror to see it was completely bald. How did I forget that? I shaved. I had thought about doing Mo-Vember again, but decided against it. Last year I raised a couple of hundred pounds, but I *really* don't like having a furry face. One of those in the household is quite enough. Mind you many people have asked me if I was doing Mo-Vember this year; and funnily enough the vast majority of people who expressed extreme disappontment that I wasn't were people who never actually sponsored me last time. But if any of my loyal readers are fans of the face fungus, "The Man with No Alias (patent pending)" is growing a tash that can be sponsored by clicking here.

"Furry Face ^TM" was particularly quiet over brekkie. I also noticed that his ears seemed rather hot. He made himself comfortable on the sofa next to me and didn't stir when er indoors ^TM" came down. I imediately started worrying about the silly little dog.

I took "Furry Face ^TM" out for a walk and he immediately perked up. There was a slight drizzle when we got to the park. I had a plan to take a walk out past Singleton Lake, but the rain got heavier as we got to the ford (Ashford has a ford, you know), so we came back. And the rain eased up. For want of something to do I took a few videos of "Furry Face ^TM" in the park. Before I could stop him he was rolling in filth. I thought I’d video that, bat rather than just rolling in it, he started to eat it. I drew the line there, and took him home for a bath.

With a bathed dog I spent an hour doing homework, then got cross. On Wednesday I’d had a text saying that a delivery company had tried to deliver a parcel and failed. When did I want redelivery? I had to text “1” for yesterday, or “2” for today. I selected today. I then looked on the website to find the parcel was still in their office. I phoned to get through to someone in Maidstone who was utterly disinterested. She refused point-blank to give me the phone number of the delivery depot but grudgingly gave me their address. With that I had their phone number in seconds and I phoned them up. Apparently they could not post the parcel through the letterbox because that would be “fraudulent”. Apparently. I asked if they knew what the word meant, but they would not answer. Obviously they didn't. they did say that they could deliver it some time next week, or I could collect it. From Maidstone. A fifty-mile round trip. As I set off I received a text from the delivery company’s useless automated system telling me it hadn’t been possible to process my request.

I eventually got to their office and got my parcel. I told “young spotty” on the counter how useless his company was and just as I walked back to my car I thought I’d try my geo-app to see if there were any nearby geocaches. There was one not two hundred yards away. So I thought I’d find it. I did. Call me an old traditionalist, but there should be more to a cache than a soggy bit of paper in a plastic bag. Mind you the chap charged with looking after this geocache hasn’t logged on to the caching website for two years so I suspect it will only be a matter of time till this one gets archived.

As I drove home I saw that petrol was two pence per litre cheaper than in Canterbury. And that is quite cheap as petrol goes, so I filled the car. And then came home, terrorised the dog for a few minutes, and set about the household accounts. There’s no denying they could be a whole lot worse. I just wish they were a little bit better. There was a moment’s panic when I saw that no payment had been made for the house insurance. But on phoning it turns out that I only make ten annual payments for that; not twelve. That was an unexpected bonus.

I then did the last installment of my dino-course, and then slept for much of the rest of the afternoon. I *really* hate that. Why do I sleep when I have stuff to do and am wide awake most of the night?

31 October 2013 (Thursday) - Hallowe'en

I was absolutely all-in when I went to bed last night. I was wide awake and having my morning shave at 4am. My morning DVD fix of "Earth 2" was quite entertaining; featuring the bald one out of "Lost" as the latest baddie.

I then took "Furry Face ^TM" for his morning constitutional. It was raining, so we didn't go as far as perhaps we might have done. The rain was that annoyingly fine rain - fine enough to make you think it;'s not actually raining, but wet enough to make everything soaking wet.

Lisa came round and we set off to Maidstone. A while back Lisa had arranged to do some extreme caching. Having found myself on the verge of a milestone cache I thought I might tag along. Steve had been wonderful in offereing to get us up the tree; Joe and Ian were marvellous to offer their advice and assistance. We arrived in Madstone to find ropes already in place. Ropes - this was no amateur muck-about.

This geocache wasn't especially difficult to find. In fact I could see it from forty yards away. Trouble was those forty yards were "up". The cache was clearly visible towards the top of a tree. Fortunately for us Steve showed us how the ropes worked, and as young Jesse made his ascent (to his one hundredth cache) Lisa and I practiced (under expert supervision) on lower branches.

Pulling yourself up a tree takes some doing; in theory it is simple, in practice it is physically hard work. In retrospect those who had been up the tree before me had gone about eighteen inched too high up the rope and had not given themselves enough slack. Being last up I learned from their mistakes and once I was half a mile off the ground I found the tree-bit and cache signing relatively straight forward. I must admit that I felt I did choose a rather good cache for #2500 as I did the secret geo-ritual at the top of the tree.

I amazed myself on the descent. I shoulted down to ask for instructions. I was told to but all my weight on the rope and to get off the tree. Scary? Funnily enough it wasn't. I have been scared in trees before when I was only a few feet off the ground. But I was so high that I knew that if anything went wrong it wouldn't hurt; I'd be dead. And knowing that somehow gave me an inner calm. I just did as I was told and came down (mostly) under control. But certainly far faster than I went up.

We then went on to another cache up another tree. I went on to the tree, but not the cache. My baack was still playing up from doing the duck houses at the weekend, and my arm was still in cramps from the first tree ascent. But it was good to watch others going up. And with everyone up who was going up we adjourned to the local pub for a crafty half. Again, many grateful thanks to Steve, Joe and Ian for sharing their skills, abilities and kit. Despite the cold and the wet it was great fun.

I took a few photos as well...

Home, where I shaved my head and painted it silver before going round to Lacey's Hallowe'en party. Staging a Hallowe'en party for fifteen seven year old girls is a brave thing to do. Personally I quite enjoyed the performance. I was quite impressed with llittle Sasha; her mother had warned us that she was very quiet and rather shy. The child was the life and soul of the party, and on several occassions had to be restrained from showing off her "business" to all and sundry.

And then once all the fur had stopped flying we went round to the WIndmill in Hythe Road where the clans had gathered to support "Access All Areas"; a local band with whom several of us feel we have a connection Good tunes, good company. And I even scared someone in the lavatory too...

I took photos there as well...