7 May 2014 (Wednesday) - Cats in Boxes

Much as I'm not keen on the CPAP machine, it seems to be doing the trick; last night I got an unprecedented six hours sleep. I woke shortly before 6am, and set the dishwashed going (a job I forgot to do last night) then watched a bit of telly. "Life's Too Short" (featuring Warwick Davies) was rather entertaining, and "Pramface" shows promise. As I scoffed my toast "Furry Face ^TM" helped me with the crusts. I'm not sure I should be encouraging him to eat crusts, but he is such a fussy eater that it's good to see him eating anything.0

The morning's radio news was interesting. Yesterday I ranted about the poor standard of spoken English in the local KFC. Today the pundits highlighted the poor quality of spoken English in immigrant care workers employed in UK care homes. The elderly, infirm and vulnerable are struggling to be able to communicate in any way with those who are supposed to be looking after them. Because the only people applying to work in care homes are immigrant workers who have only a cursory grasp of the English language.

Also the local Kentish health authorities are looking to recruit 500 temporary staff to bolster their overworked staff. Many of these people will also be immigrant workers. Possibly with poor language skills too? Who knows?

As I've said before I can't help but feel that if the media weren't so actively hunting for honest mistakes and oversights in a very overworked and underpaid section of society then just perhaps there might be more people seeking employment in the care industries. Just perhaps there wouldn't be such a recruitment crisis; perhaps there might be candidates who *could* make themselves understood.

At lunchtime I had a saxophone practice; I've been neglecting that lately, so once again I set up my music stand at the far end of the works car park. My teacher says I am to play "On Top of Old Smokey" *really* loudly, so I was giving it full blast when a woman came running toward me screaming for me to stop. She glared at me, went to the car next to where I was playing and opened a box in the boot of that car. She fussed about inside this box and then told me how evil I was because the noise I'd been making had terrified her cat. Presumably her cat was in this box; I never actually saw a cat, but I did notice that all the windows of that car were open an inch or so.

I listened to her ranting for five minutes, then suggested we called the RSPCA and let them decide which of us was the villain.

She said nothing more, but drove off rather promptly.

Once home I took "Furry Face ^TM" round the park. Apart from a minor contretemps with a bulldog our walk was mostly uneventful.

With "er indoors ^TM" off candlemongering I watched the first episode of "Game of Thrones" on my newly upgraded SkyPlus box. So far it is all swords and tits and precious little story, but it is still early days...

6 May 2014 (Tuesday) - New Phone

I'd booked today as a day's holiday, feeling I might need a rest after a weekend away. It was odd sleeping back on the CPAP machine; I think I do get more sleep with that thing blowing air up my nose; but perhaps only an hour or so more sleep than I used to get.

I had intended taking "Furry Face ^TM" for something of a long walk today, but he was really badly behaved; refusing to acknowledge me when he was off the lead. He was back to his bad old self of being missing for too long; I lost him for over fifteen minutes so when he finally appeared (looking really frightened that he'd got himself lost) I put his lead back on him and brought him home.

I then went up to town. "er indoors ^TM" had a parcel that needed collecting, and as I was passing I went in to the phone shop to talk about my upcoming mobile upgrade. I came out with my new phone. I've only ever heard one person who actively dislikes the Samsung Galaxy phones, so I got a Galaxy S4.

Whilst I was at it I stopped off at the Sky shop and upgraded the TV package so I can now get all the "On Demand" stuff too.

And as a celebration of the New World Order of technology I treated myself to a black forest gateau milk shake and KFC for lunch. I've been going into that branch of KFC since before "My Boy ^TM" was born and in that (nearly) thirty years they have never employed anyone who speaks even half-way decent English. Today I conveyed my order by a series of pointing and shaking my head as the assistant recited the menu.

Once home I scoffed my KFC, then despite the nice man in the phone shop having copied all my data over, I spent an hour (or three) re-installing all the apps and reconfiguring the phone to how I want it to be. I've still got a lot to do.

I then went through the monthy accounts. Not too good, really. Stag weekends and camping weekends have taken their toll on already stretched finances. But I keep smiling. I have been told that I can't take it with me when the reaper comes knocking. My immediate reaction was that if I couldn't take it with me then I wouldn't go, but I am told that this is not an option.

And then I mowed the lawn. I say "mowed"; the grass was over eight inches long, so I just gave it a cursory haircut.

I then had a look-see at the geo-map. Every weekend we go for a walk; but we don't just wander aimlessly; preparation is key. I have an idea for a rather serious walk this weekend; seventeen miles over several hours. If any of my loyal readers would like to join in, feel free to drop me a line for the details.

Before I knew what was happening the day had gone, and it was time to adjourn to Arden Drive for the weekly gathering. Apparently whilst I wasn't looking Sir Token croaked. It's amazing what happens when you aren't paying attention...

5 May 2014 (Monday) - Roundabouts, Home...

Despite not being too cold at all last night, as I drove to the shower block (yes, drove!) I saw that the thermometer in the car was registering 1^oC. I was surprised by that; it certainly felt warmer.

Having used the facilities I made myself a cuppa and watched the world go by from our gazebo. It was really peaceful watching the mist burn away at 6.30am.

After a while the chap in the next tent emerged, smiled, took his tent down and was gone by 7am. I felt rather sorry for this chap; he'd arrived on Friday morning and asked if he could set up near my tent. I was fine with that, and as he set up he said he'd come down on the train from London and was on his own. Bearing in mind that many of the attractions of this weekend were a car drive distant, the chap was at a disadvantage already. Unfortunately having the rest of the Kent cachers arriving to be loudly told that there was an intruder in our midst (and having him pointed out) seemed to scare the chap away.

I only saw him maybe a couple of times during the entire weekend. I hope he had a good time wherever he'd been during the daytimes.

We had a rather good fry-up for brekkie, and then together with our new friend from Derbyshire we went off geocaching. After all, what else do you do at geo-camp. Only a small walk of a couple of miles today; on the way we met an old friend who walked with us till we finished our circuit.

The weather was glorious and we got back to camp to find that the tents were dry, as we'd hoped. The plan was to have all the camp packed away by 4pm in readiness for the closing event. We were packed away by 2.30pm, so we went geocaching. First of all to a cache based on Nigel Molesworth. I can't beleive that no one seems to have heard of Molesworth. We then got a river-based cache which was supposed to be done from a canoe, but with a bit of effort we did it from a bridge, and then we took our lives in our hands finding a cache on a frankly dangerous roundabout on a dual carriageway. It's odd that a cache on a roundabout on a local housing estate was removed by the geo-authorities for safety reasons, but one which sees cars speeding by at over fifty miles per hour is quite acceptable.

And so back to base where we said our goodbyes and we came home. Packing away didn't take too long, and once we'd retrieved "Furry Face ^TM" from "My Boy ^TM" we crashed out in front of the telly.

Roll on the next mega geo-camp...

On reflection... It's no secret that I didn't really want to go to this weekend's camp. It was too early in the year (read "going to be too cold to camp"), and very few of our number were up for it. But as it turned out our immediate party was nearly double what I expected it to be, and the vast majority of people at the event were warm and welcoming. More so than at the kite festivals which I have attended for over ten years. I feel unsure when inviting anyone to a kite festival, but I wouldn't hesitate to suggest that people might like to geo-camp.

In retrospect I would have liked to have camped a lilttle closer to the main action (we *were* several hundred yards further than we might have been but that was my fault(!) ), and it was a shame that with many of the planned activities being up to ten miles away, anyone without the use of a car would have missed out on a lot of fun.

But it was (for me) a great weekend. I hear there are plans to do another next year; I have already volunteered to help.

And (as always) there are some photos of the weekend here.

4 May 2014 (Sunday) - The Kent Mega

Although there was was no frost on the car this morning, last night was rather cold. Incredibly cold. And I was tired. In the past I've done geo-walks of twenty miles, of one hundred caches. But nothing was quite as wearing as yesterday's eleven icons in one day challenge.

After everyone had (eventually) emerged from their pits and brekkied we went for a little geo-stroll. Nineteen geocaches, all letterbox hybrids. All with simple puzzles to solve, and all with a rubber stamp insiide. We solved all the puzzles and got all the stamps.

By now it was mid day, so we made our way back to the Hop Farm where the Mega - Event was in full flow. Over one thousand people were in attendance. There were cachers from all over the UK, from Europe, and people from Africa and America. Even My Boy ^TM" had come over for the day. There were all sorts of things going on, goodies to buy, and (literally) tens of thousands ot trackables to be found.

We then went back to the Lab Cache woods and finished off doing the first ten of these available to people in the UK, and having said godby to Dave we then sat about activating our new trackables. Not an easy task on a phone.

Pausing only briefly to laugh at someone stuck in the mud (so much for a 4x4) we drove into Padddock Wood for some shopping, then drove out to Maidstone for the Barn Dance event. It was here that we realised we'd acheived minor celebrity status; not only had I obtained a series of groupies (that was a result), but we weren't the only people to have tried for eleven icons in one day this weekend. However we were among a small minority of people who had been successful.

I'd seen this challenge coming and had specifically not done the Tunbridge Wells webcam before, and had solved puzzles in advance and had picked the easiest Earthcache and virtual. Others hadn't been quite so pro-active.

With hog roast scofffed we drove back to camp and sat round the camp fire for a while. Others stayed longer than I did. I was falling asleep and soon went to bed. I was tired out...

3 May 2014 (Saturday) - A Challenge

It's no secret that I was reluctant to go geo-camping this weekend. One of the main reasons was that I thought it would be rather cold in May. It was cold; we woke this morning to find a thick frost on the cars.

We had a rather early start today, we collected Lisa from Paddock Wood railway station at 7.30am, and then got on with the business of the day.

There are twelve different geocache types. Some are sandwich boxes, some don't actually exist, but require people to spot and report on something they find. Some are meetings of cachers. The rules forbid two particular meetting types to be held on the same day, so the most cache types anyone can find on any one day is eleven. Today four of us were going to do eleven cache types.

I'd planned the specific caches and the order in which we would do them.

We started in Camer park for a meeting cache - a "Cache In Trash Out" tidy up of a park in North Kent. We spent an hour and a half gathering rubbish, pausing only briefly to collect two other cache types. A traditional cache wihich was up a tree, and a puzzle cache which was in a thicket. It was at this thicket that we met one of the elite group of people who adjudicate on the validity of potential geocaches prior to their being accepted and made live. He said he'd been present when his mate had found this puzzle cache a couple of weeks ago, but couldn't help us with any hints as he'd not been paying attention at the time.

From here we drove to a nearby church where we easily found a multi-cache, and then on to another church where we struggled to find a letterbox hybrid cache. This one was rather difficult to track down, but had we failed I did have a backup plan. Fortunately for my nerves we didn't need the backup plan.

And then to Holly Hill where we did a virtual geocache; we did have some problems here. The find was easy enough, but the cache owner decided to delete the logs we made because they weren't in the correct format. Whilst the fellow was well wiithin his rights to do so, part of me did feel it was a needlessly pedantic thing to do; especially when we were on a mission. I eventually managed to get my phone to sort out an acceptable report; even if the phone was overheating by the time I'd done so.

By now it was mid day. With six cache types under our belt we had equalled our previous best score at this game. So we went on to Yalding for a pub lunch in the sunshine, and then half ann hour was spent playing GPS games to get our seventh cache type - a Wherigo. Wherigos are rather obscure and can be time consuming. I was pleased to have got success here; failure on this one would not have been disastrous, but would have involved a rather time-consuming Plan "B". Having got the thing we went back to the pub for a pint and to watch everyone else doing the GPS game. I even shouted a few helpful (!) comments at one of two cachers.

The day's eighth cache was the one which *had* to work. In Tunbridge Wells there is a webcam cache. We had to stand in the right place (with our hands in the air) and then use our phones to get a webcam image. It took a little fiddling to get the webcam picture, but it was fiddling we had to do. Had we fallen at this hurdle we would have had a problem; webcam caches are very rare. If we had drawn a blank here the next closest webcam cache is in North London.

Whilst in Tunbridge Wells we went to Toad Rock for a geology lesson, and with the Earthcache completed we went back to base.

Cache type ten was something rather special. Geocache HQ are experimenting with new types of geocaches and forr the first time in the UK we had the chance to do a Lab Cache. In fact we had the chance to do ten. We did one today. Given a list of names of cachers attending the mega-event we had to spot the fake one.

Back to camp for tea, where we were joined by Dave who came up for the Mega. and with tea scoffed we went down to the pub for a crafty half and the eleventh cache type of the day. Cache eleven was a meet; and after the meet was a spot of night caching. I'm normally not a fan of night caching; but being guided by the C.O. and with several hundred people along for the ride, tonight's night hike was an experience I wouldn't have missed.

By now we were cached out, so it was back to base where we drank beer and port roound the camp fire until bed time. It was a rather cold evening, and by midnight Lisa had rather cold toesies; a fact which was broadcast far and wide...

2 May 2014 (Friday) - Off to Geo-Camp

I had a reasonable night's sleep, but woke to find the CPAP machine was blowing air out of my mouth. That was a rather strange experience. After a quick brekkie I loaded the last of the bits and bobs into the car and drove to Tesco for a sandwich for lunch. From there I set the sat-nav to Paddock Wood and drove straight into a traffic jam where I then waited (whilst my piss boiled) for an hour and a half.

And so the the Hop Farm at Paddock Wood for the Kent Mega - a weekend of geocaching activities. The Hop Farm is a huge place, and some of the local cachers had arrived last night and set up camp. Being given instructions of where to find them I thought I'd soon be in the right place. In retrospect we'd set up just a little too far away from everyone else on the site. But as the idea was for the Kent cachers to be together I just went with the flow.

I arrived at 10am to find everyone else was still in bed. It didn't take too long to have camp set up, and after a quick sandwich for lunch the rain started. Just drizzle on and off, but enough to be a pain.

As the afternoon wore on so more Kent cachers arrived to join our camp. And one or two others joined in as well. I found myself chatting with a couple of new friends, and the three of us made our way to the pub where there was to be a formal meet-up geo-event. On the way we met a lady from Germany who was over for the weekend, and we chatted with her for a little while.

"er indoors ^TM" and Gordon Tracy arrived, and we made our way back to camp for a spot of tea and a beer or two. And as the beer flowed we decided that we were "camping" - "tenting" being little more than cottaging with canvas. And then we played cards; forfeits involving eating a paper bag.

The evening became rather vague at that point...

1 May 2014 (Thursday) - Bit Dull

The theory behind my CPAP machine is that when I put it on it gently blows air up my nose. As the night goes on and my sinuses contract (decreasing my breathing), the device senses taht I'm taking in less air and increases its pressure.

When I woke at 5am this morning the thing was blasting a hurricane up my conk. Surely it would make more sense to surgically re-bore my nose thather than to fart around pumping air up a contanatly decreasing beak.

I watched the latest episode of the Tomorrow People. The plot is getting convoluted to the point of silliness now. Mind you there's still a few episodes left in the season to make sense of what's going on. There's still no news about a second season/ A second one would be good.

To work through the rain. A rather miserable morning. As I drove the talk on the radio was simularly dull. The politician and alledged terrorist Gerry Adams has been arrested in connection with a murder that took place forty two years ago. The UK legal system really needs to grasp the concept of the statute of limitations - for justice to have any meaning there must be a time limit in which retribution for a crime has to be made. How can anyone provide any reliable evidence in a case which happened forty two years ago? Those who haven't died can hardly claim to have any decent memory of what happened when I was eight years old. I certainly don't.

I didn't have long for sax practice today; unfortunately rain stopped play. Rather heavy rain; torrential in fact. However as consolation I had an email to say that the geocache I'd hidden on Tuesday morning had finally been accepted. If I'd hidden it near Ashford it would have been found within an hour of going live; being in Canterbury there's no one with any interest in the thing at all...

And so home. I would have put stuff into the car had it not been raining quite so hard... and if I'd not been feeling just a little under the weather.

(Today was rather dull)