I *really* don't
like my CPAP machine; sleeping with a great big breathing hose
attached to my face makes me look and feel like I'm a very old man on
his death bed. But the thing is giving me over two more hours asleep
every night. I'm still waking early, but nowhere near as early as I
was.
I had brekkie and as
always offered the crusts to my little dog. He didn't want them, and
he did seem rather subdued. He jumped onto my lap and slept for a
while. As he slept his stomach was making the noisiest of gurgles and
he was farting as though it was going out of fashion. In fact I've
only every heard noisier farts once, and that was when "Daddies
Little Angel TM" was only a few weeks old
and was admitted to hospital for excessive trumping.
I wonder if he's eaten
something he shouldn't have.
I then did some
exercises. I've signed up to the "30
Day Ab Challenge for those who need some motivation like me";
the idea being to sort out my gut. It probably won't lose me any
weight; but it might tighten things up a bit. There's no denying that
I had to do a bit of Googling to find out the difference between a
sit-up and a crunch. But I gave it a go; even if it did confuse
"Furry Face TM" who spent much of
the time trying to lick my nose.
The Rear Admiral arrived,
and we drove round to collect Gordon; and then it was off to West
Sussex. There was a series of geocaches being archived iin the next
week or so, and so we thought we'd do the walk whilst we could. We
met Dave and Martin at the start of the walk, and off we went. We met
a landowner who wanted to know what we were doing walking across a
public footpath. She reluctantly admitted that we had the right to
use a public footpath, but was adamant that no one would dare put a
geocache on her land. We didn't tell her what we had just found...
We heard (but did not
actually see) another landowner who was shouting at us. She
didn't like the fact that we were walking along a public right of way
behind a hedge from where her horse was grazing because we might
upset her horse. We didn't tell her to get knotted; which I thought
was rather polite of us.
We met a flock of very
over-friendly cows; I got cow-licked. If any of my loyal readers have
never been licked by a cow, all I can say is that it is an experience
unlike any other.
We found someone's stash
of "herbal tobacco"; they will be disappointed that
they dropped it.
At pretty much every step
of the walk we were under the flight path of jet planes flying in to
Gatwick Airport. The planes were huge; and rather low too. And were
coming in at the rate of one every two miinutes.
After five miles we
reached the end of today's planned walk. A short(ish) walk;
but fun. We sat in the garden of the nearby pub and enjoyed a pint of
cider in the sunshine. Pausing only briefly for a quick geo-challenge
we then drove up to nearby (!) Surrey. There was a Church
Micro geo-cache in a fenced-off building site. Fortunately the
fencing off wasn't as badger-proof as it might have been.
And then....
I
often get told that geocaching is rather lame. I challenge anyone who
thinks it's lame to have a go at
this cache and then tell me "LAME!!!"
Some caches are easy to find; you get to know what to look for. Some
are cleverly hidden, and finding them gives you a sense of
acheivement.
This cache is the easiest
to find that I have ever encountered. The description tells you where
it is, and describes what to look for. I could see the cache from a
distance of twenty yards away. However the cache was (and is)
a rather large container firmly tied to the girders under a bridge.
Above the bridge (and the cache) is the London orbital
motorway; the M25. Below the bridge (and the cache) is a not
insubstantial river; one of the tributaries of the River Thames.
All we had to do was get
up onto the girder; shimmy out twenty yards or so, do the secret
geo-ritual, and shimmy back again. Ideally without falling into the
river. It took the best part of an hour, but eventually two thirds of
our party got there and back again. I won't say how I did it; but I
will say that I didn't fall in and my bum feels like I've been
sitting on an angry crab.
I did have a moment on
the way back from the cache to (relative) safety when I
realised that I am probably far too old to be doing daft things like
shimmying over rivers under the M25. But the feeling soon passed.
Funnily enough it was "Furry Face TM"
who was the most upset by this silliness. He wouldn't stop howling
whilst I was going across, and when "er indoors TM"
did her shimmy I had to pick him up as he wouldn't stop crying.
After the excitement,
coing home and scrubbing pond scum and fox poo out of my dog's fur
came as something of a let-down...
