7 July 2015 (Tuesday) - New Shoes

I woke a little earlier than I had intended, so used the time to catch up with some telly. I watched last night's episode of "Dark Matter" over brekkie. It's rather entertaining but I can't help but feel I'd be better off watching the entire lot an episode a day. With a week betweeen each of the episodes I seem to forget who is who and what's been going on.

I set off to work rather earlier than usual; partly to miss the busiest traffic and partly to get to "Go Outdoors" before work. I made good time and I got to "Go Outdoors" before work only to find that they didn't actually open until after I start work. Woops.

With some time to spare I popped into Morrisons for a look-see. Yesterday I bought a five litre can of Hobgoblin for fourteen quid thinking it was a bargain. Five litres for fourteen quid works out to about £1.50 per pint which isn't especially a bargain. Particularly not when you bear in mind that I don't actually like Hobgoblin very much. The Badger brewery was actually doing eight bottles of better ale for eight quid... (You can tell I have a degree in mathematics!)

Once I've drunk this tin of Hobgoblin I shall buy some bottles. Or I might just chuck the tin away... I wonder if it's got any second-hand resale value?

As I drove about I was listening to the news on the car radio. There was talk about the tenth anniversary of the 7-7 bombings in London. And also talk about how the Islamic State crackpots are getting upset when they are called "Daesh"; apparently they are threatening to cut out the tongues of anyone who calls them that.

Why does the international community put up with such barbaric behaviour?

The results of the Greek referendum were also causing consternation.

Having spent weeks predicting disaster if the Greeks do decide not to repay their debts the Greeks have had a national referendum and have decided wholeheartedly not to repay their debts.

There were a whole load of so-called experts on the radio who were trying to make the enormous disaster not to appear quite so serious as it actually is. Apparently a debt is only a debt if you admit that it is one. From what I could work out there are moves afoot to pretend the Greeks don't actually owe anything like as much as they do.

Needless to say those owed the money aren't having any of it whilst others who also owe billions are hoping not to have to pay their debts either ...

I went in to work, and after a while came out again. As it was on the way home (almost) I went to the now-open "Go Outdoors". The walking shoes that "er indoors ^TM" had got me for my birthday leaked quite spectacularly at the weekend. I've have walking shoes from Cotton Traders and from Mountain Warehouse; both pairs leaked. I was hoping that "Go Outdoors" might have some walking shoes that might last a little longer. I'd had an email telling me they had a sale on so I thought I'd try my luck. I found some walking shoes which had been reduced from ninety quid to forty quid so I bought a pair. Let's see how they fare.

Once home I took "Furry Face ^TM" for a walk and nearly had a fight. I wasn't really watching where I was walking in Bowens Field, and some fat oik cycling along a footpath that he shouldn't have been cycling on nearly mowed me down. He'd seen me before I saw him and he'd skidded to avoid me. He started ranting at me (every other word was "F") and I was't taking any of his lip. The more I told him that whatever he said didn't change the fact he was wrong the more aggressive he became. After ten minutes I got a bit cross myself and told him "either smack me in the gob or f*ck off, f*ckface".

He f*cked off. Which in retrospect was probably for the best.

Usually on a Tuesday the clans gathered. But a combination of "Operation Stack" and an outbreak of "the two bob bits" in Folkestone put paid to that idea so we had a quiet evening in. A bit of scoff, a bottle of plonk, "Humans" and "Yonderland" on the telly. Can't be bad...

6 July 2015 (Monday) - This n That

I slept like a log last night. Over brekkie I checked out social media and emails and saw that not a lot was going on in cyberspace.

With brekkie scoffed I took "Furry Face ^TM" for a little walk round the park. We were out rather earlier than usual, and didn't meet many other dogs (which was probably for the best). I took a ball and ball-thrower with us today. We've tried playing with those before; it was never really a success in the past. Today's go wasn't really a success either. I threw the ball, my dog chased after it and ran past it leaving it for me to collect twice. On the third attempt he picked up the ball and wouldn't give it back.

As we walked I couldn't help but notice the mess that was Viccie Park. Normally a really good place to be, over the weekend some hooligans had emptied every bin and scattered litter everywhere. Why do people do that?

We were back home shortly after 8am, and I pootled about doing some dull chores. My phone beeped; a new geocache not a million miles from work. Had things been diffferent today I would have chased an First to Find. But I had other things to do today so instead I watched "Upstairs Downstairs" on the ITV Encore channel until it was time to go to the dentist.

I say "dentist"; my appointment was actually with the dental hygienist. I didn't have to wait long, and soon the nice lady spent half an hour scraping round the inside of my gob. She then announced my cake-muncher was in excellent condition.

Judging by the amount of blood I then spat down the mouth-rinsing plug-hole I wasn't so sure. She assured me that copious amounts of blood was a good sign. I suppose she knows what she's talking about. Blood always seems more when it is mine.

And so to work. As I drove there was a documentary on the radio about how in the olden days test match cricketers would sail to Australia (presumably they fly these days?) It was rather dull, and didn't really grip my attention. And when they wheeled on the cricketers who made the voyages (now in their nineties) I turned off.

Even though I was running late I popped into Morrisons for some lunch. I also got a five litre can of "Hobgoblin". Five litres in one tin; would you believe it? That will take some necking.

I could have deployed a Munzee. I had one in my pocket, and a location in place. But I was already late for work so I hurried in and did my thing until home time. (I do that, you know)

I could have deployed the Munzee on the way home; I didn't. Instead I went home to my telly. Once Monday was an excellent telly night with both "Game of Thrones" and "Gotham". It's not what it once was. Mind you this evening I watched the first episode of the new series of "The Last Ship" and then the first Star Trek film. Not all bad...

And in closing today did you know that today is International Kissing Day? TIme for a firm moral stance perhaps?

5 July 2015 (Sunday) - Rain, Geo-Munzee Meet

I spent half an hour last night laying in bed silently cursing whosever it was that was noisily running their car engine outside my bedroom window at 3am. Eventually I got up to tell them to be quiet only to find the noise was coming from the fan I'd set running earler. Woops!

The heat of the night stopped me getting properly back to sleep. I got up shortly before 7am and spent a little while programming "Hannah" for the day's geo-mission whilst watching Patrick Troughton's Doctor Who rummaging about in the tombs of the cybermen.

We set off for the traditional Sunday walk despite the rain. Part of me wanted to cancel today's walk, but so often early rain doesn't continue. Four of us and two small dogs met up at Ridley in North Kent. We togged up in our waterproofs and marched off in search of tupperware in the wet.

We had a good walk. Some easy finds; some tricky ones. A rather serious tree climb too. It was a rather good walk and after an hour or so the rain stopped. It actually became rather warm. So much so that I was wishing I'd brought my back-pack along so I could stick my coat into it.

We'd thought the walk would take about three hours; it actually took a little longer. We said goodbye to Aleta and after lunch we drove on to Maidstone where the sat-nav utterly failed us. There was a geo-meet planned for the afternoon in Mote Park. I set the sat-nav to the published parking area and (for no apparent reason) the sat nav tried to navigate us along the paths that cross Mote Park. We eventually found a car park more through luck than judgement (even though it was half a mile from where we were supposed to be) and walked. We were only an hour late, but we finally found where we were supposed to be.

Today's geo-meet was unlike any other I've been to. It was a joint meet with the Munzee community. For those of my loyal readers who've never encountered them before Munzees are two-dimensional bar codes for which you go hunting. To the uninitiated there doesn't seen to be a lot of difference between hunting out a sandwich box or a bar code. butt having hunted both I can confidently say that hunting Munzees is on the dull side.

But the sun had come out; it was a glorious afternoon. And fortunately we met up with fellow hunters of tupperware and had a little geo-mission round Mote Park until it was time to make our way home; "er indoors ^TM" had to get back for bowling.

Being left "home alone" I devoured my sausage and chips and had an evening of domestic trivia. Washing up, sorting underwear, washing and drying wet muddy coats and trousers from today's walk.

As I domestically trivialled I had the telly on. I started off watching something I'd recorded onto the SkyPlus box. Desppite an all-star cast "The Importance of Being Ernest" was rubbish. I turned it off after only half an hour. "The History of Mr Polly" was better; however it was marred by my prejudice against the star Lee Evans.

"Sense and Sensibility" is on in a bit. Let's hope that's better...

4 July 2015 (Saturday) - Being Grumpy

I slept well despite another hot night. Over brekkie I checked out social media and (as it so often does) my piss boiled. Having struggled to understand what several people were writing about (on such diverse topics as immigration and thunderstorms), on a couple of utterly unrelated websites (geo-photography and small dogs) I thhen found whinges about how people should be more tolerant of poor grammar and spelling in social media.

Whinges like that annoy me. Bad spelling is bad enough; it shows people can't spell and can't be bothered to press the F7 button. But when people's posts are simply incomprehensible I can't help but wonder why they posted anything on social media in the first place. Is it *really* that hard to re-read what you've written (to see if you've written nonsensical gibberish) before pressing the "send" button?

I seriously considered posting "Im think socal meedier culd improv effort from ussrs. U agre?" on my Facebook page to make a point, but in the end I couldn't be bothered. Probably in much the same way that those who aare boiling my piss can't be bothered to check what gibberish they are posting.

(And yes... I know all about dyslexia. People who suffer from that condition make the efforrt with the written word).

The early rain soon stopped and I spent a little time in the garden. It was rather frustrating. The strimmer's strimming cable kept breaking off inside the spindle of the machine meaning I had to disassemble it about once every twenty seconds. The gadget I got to join lengths of hose for the pressure washer leaked so much as to make the thing unusable. At every single footstep I tripped over "Furry Face ^TM" who was determined to get in the way as much as he could.

I then started to repair the broken tent poles of our tent. It was only after I'd fixed them that I realised I hadn't sawed the new sections to the correect length, and that I hadn't got a hacksaw with which to do any sawing.

I gave up at this point and had a shower.

We had advertised our old coffee table on the "Get Rid of your Old Rubbish" Facebook page. Someone in Singleton wanted it so I drove it over to them. They recevied it without a word of thanks, and (narrowly avoding being run off the road by a Royal Mail van) I came back home to get the blame for the Dyson not working (again).

We went down to Folkestone for the afternoon. Operation Stack seemed to have finished, and after a rather good steak and cheese baguette in Subway I got a hacksaw from Screwfix Direct. I'd never been to Screwfix Direct before. I shan't be going back again either. I think its fair to say they couldn't care less about my custom. What's one small hacksaw to them?

We spent much of the afternoon with "Daddies Little Angel ^TM" and her tribe. Charlie's obviously been playing Dungeons and Dragons at some point, and we played a live-action variation of the game this afternoon in which Sid the pug was the princess. I saved the day by casting a "bird seed of death" spell.

We came home, walked "Furry Face ^TM" round the park and then I put the hacksaw to use in sorting out the tent poles. It was at that point that I found the hacksaw I'd actually bought last time I'd broken a tent pole.

"er indoors ^TM" then set off to a birthday party. I went to McDonalds where I met Steve and Leanne. A McFlurry and a McMilk shake went down well, then we went down to The Star where "Access All Areas" were playing.

Perhaps I'm a tad biased but they weren't too shabby at all...

3 July 2015 (Friday) - McBrekkie

I would have slept a lot better last night had I remembered to turn off my alarm. I had no reason to be woken at 6.30am this morning. But I was.

I tried to doze off again, but to no avail.

I got up and checked out social media over brekkie. Not a lot had happened really, which was probably for the best.

I then took "Furry Face ^TM" for his morning's constitutional round the park. As we met we saw a dog with a yellow collar. I wondered it was a fashion statement or if this really was a "yellow dog" requiring some space. We soon found that the dog was indeed a vicious animal that tried to savage me and it took the owner's full force to get said ravening creature under any semblance of control. I think that *was* a proper yellow dog. If only more people were aware of the whole "yellow dog" scheme...

We then saw two newcomers to the South Ashford dog-walking scene; a vicar with a "powder puff on a lead" and a rather foxy lady with what I can only describe as a Transylvanian Death-Hound. It played with my dog nicely enough but tried to murder every other dog it saw. The foxy lady said she liked my little pup as it was rare to find a dog with which her Transylvanian Death-Hound would play nicely. I smiled sweetly, and wondered if I should broach the topic of a yellow collar and lead.

Two days ago a new geocache had gone live in Canterbury. This one involved a little puzzle solving to find it; I did the puzzle solving last night (with the aid of Google Street View) and set off to work a little earlier than I needed in the hope of getting a First to Find. My puzzle-solving skills amazed me; I soon had the geocache in hand and I was indeed the first one to find it. In celebration I drove round to McDonalds for a spot of McBrekkie. Personally I quite like McBrekkie. There are those who might feel a second brekkie is being greedy. I woul say those people are just jealous they didn't get a First to Find on a Church Micro.

As I drove aruound Canterbury I listed to the radio. "Desert Island Discs" was on. Harry Rabinowitz was on the show. Apparently he is (was) big in the music and film industries, and when he was married, Sid James (of "Carry On" fame) was his best man. I can't say I'd ever heard of the chap, and there's no denying that I doubt he'd like my choice of music either.

I got some petrol, then went in to work. I did what I had to, and then came home again. As I drove I listened to the radio. "Any Questions" was being broadcast. Once it was an entertaining show; these days it's more about pompous windbags talking rubbish. Which is a shame for a national radio station...

2 July 2015 (Thursday) - Eccles

It was a very hot night last night. I was rather restless, and didn't sleep well. After an hour and a rather traumatic dream about using the toilet as a dishwasher (what was that all about?) I woke and then dozed fitfully for the rest of the night.

I gave up trying to sleep shortly after 6am and watched Billie Piper doing her thing in "Secret Diary of a Call Girl" then found an episode of "On The Buses" on the ITV+1 channel. It's a sad fact that despite paying nearly forty quid a month for SkyTV and despite having nearly a thousand channels of telly, forty year old repeats of "On The Buses" was the best (only) thing worth watching at 7am.

I then set off for my planned walk. A little while ago a new geo-series had been published just the other side of Maidstone. According to Google Maps the journey should take about forty minutes. Bearing in mind the French have effectively stuffed up the county's road network by blockading Calais I allowed myself over two hours and took a rather circuitous route which took me about twenty miles out of my way to get there.

As I drove it looked as though everyone else was following my idea of giving the motorway a wide berth.

The French really have a lot to answer for. I have no idea what their complaint is. I don't really care, but whatever it is they will not get my support by making my life seriously inconvenient. This is now five consecutive days on which my journey has been needlessly made longer. I'm sure a lot of other people are in the same boat. I do hope no one starts publishing photos of the protestors because if they did aggrieved members of the public might know with whom they might remonstrate in the future...

Despite the best (or worst) effort of the French I got to Eccles with a little time to spare and so I pootled about the village collecting information for a couple of nearby geo-field-puzzles.

Pootling took a little longer than I expected; it was rather difficult to be inconspicuous outside the local church when three "rather council" young mothers were seeing who could shriek the "F" word loudest and with most feeling. But I got all I needed to solve the puzzles and made my way to meet up with everyone. It wasn't long before we were all assembled and five of us (and two dogs) soon found ourselves at the designated start point. The first cache was a puzzle. A puzzle I couldn't solve; but the word was that you didn't need to solve the puzzle; the cache would be obvious on passing to the experienced tupperware-hunter. And (sure enough) my amazing badger-senses soon located the elusive plastic.

There's no denying I'd been in two minds about brining my dog along. It has been very hot recently; possibly too hot for dogs? In fact as we walked one well-meaning (I'm sure) yokel asked if the dogs were all right on the pavement. He clearly couldn't see they were both on the grass verges. But whilst it was warm today it wasn't as hot as it has been, and we actually had quite heavy (albeit very warm) rain for much of our walk.

People who'd walked this route at the weekend had told us they took three hours to get round; that was about as long as it took us. It was a good route; one i would recommend. I took a few photos whilst we were out. But not many; it's difficult to work the camera and steer "Furry Face ^TM" away from fox poo at the same time.

At the end of the walk the ladies left us; the lads went to the pub (for a pint of pop!) where we spent half an hour looking at a seriously difficult geo-puzzle. We didn't solve it, but we've got a few more ideas about thye puzzle now.

Despite the traffic chaos I got back to Ashford in relatively good time. And then because of the traffic chaos it took me the best part of an hour to get from where "er indoors ^TM" works to home.

Once home I did the secret geo-on-line stuff. Much as I resent having to pay for the third-party software which makes Hannah functional, there's no denying that the stuff works well.

I then had a look on-line. There is a little consternation in the astro-fraternity. It is just possible that the astro club might be attracting a nutter. Apparently there is someone who actually beleives all the faked Moon landings conspiracy theory rubbish and goes out of his way to push his views even though even the most feeble-minded simpletons laugh at him.

I suppose that one of the drawbacks of a democratic society and the right to free speech is that these people are allowed to spout their twaddle. If he comes to astro club he'll get a chance. A chance to keep his mouth shut, that is.... I might have mentioned that for one don't beleive in a democratic society and the right to free speech.

I had the option to go round to see "My Boy ^TM" this evening; he was having a barbie. Instead I fell asleep. I woke just as "er indoors ^TM" came home. We had a rather good bit of scoff which we devoured whilst watching downloaded episodes of "Yonderland". I'd forgotten how good that show was... If only it was on at 6am...

1 July 2015 (Wednesday) - A Day Asleep

Bearing in mind "Operation Stack" was in force last night I set off to work a little earlier than I might have done and still took ages to get to work. Traffic in Ashford was at a standstill as the motorway was blocked by the traffic as a knock-on from the congestion in Calais.

Apparently the British Government have told the French the situation is "completely unacceptable".

The answer to this problem is obvious; when the Fire Brigade go on strike the Army step into the breach. If the French aren't prepared to operate their ports then the British Army should go and do it for them. After all isn't this what the European Union is all about?

All the terrible congestion made for terrible driving. I suppose people were getting frustrated at having been stuck in endless queues, but driving like a twit isn't a good idea when your company's name and logo is emblazoned all over your vehicle, as the employees of JMK electrics and Currie European might bear in mind.

I got to work with seconds to spare, and set about the night shift. I had to work one second longer than usual last night. I had intended to make a point of watching last night's leap second which had been scheduled for just before midnight - to keep the clocks right last night the digital clocks actually went as far as 23:59:60 (rather than stopping at 23:59:59) before going back to 00:00:00. But unfortunately I got busy and missed the excitement.

For all that the pundits had been predicting disaster I don't think anyone actually noticed.

With the night shift done I came home (a second later than usual) and found the roads still congested. What usually takes just over half an hour took over an hour. Once home I popped the lead onto my little dog and we went round the park before it got too hot.

He had a little spuddle in the river to cool off; and spent a little while trying to catch the minnows that were swimming past. Some of them weren't especially small. As my dog spuddled Orangehead came past with a posse. OrangeHead herself blanked me. The chunky little friend was vaguely rude to my dog as they passed. Chunky little friend does that. Her comments are rude enough to make her look good in OrangeHead's eyes, but could be construed as being cheeky and friendly to me. Clearly the woman is trying to be everyone's friend.

We only had a short walk - another hot day had been forecast so we came home. I put the washing on the line and had a shower. I then did something I've been meaning to do for a long time. I weeded out my Facebook friends list. I'm getting a little fed up with weird comments from people who've never met me. If any of my loyal readers didn't survive the cull... woops -sorry.

I had an early lunch whilst watching a fan-made Star Trek episode, and then the idea was to close my eyes and have a little doze for half an hour or so. I woke up shortly after 7pm...