7 September 2015 (Monday) - Before Work

It was only when I got up this morning that I realised that I didn't spend all day yesterday whinging about tennis elbow. Much as I don't like constantly munching drugs I thought I might just have some more of that Ibuprofen, so after brekkie I scoffed two more.

I took "Furry Face ^TM" for our morning consitutional round the park. We set off at 8am so most of the usual suspects hadn't yet shown up, which was probably for the best. We did see the two old boys who always insist on calling my dog over to feed him, but I saw them before they saw us so we were able to take a diversion to avoid them. On the one hand they mean well; on the other hand Fudge's hanging round them for scraps adds ten minutes to our walk.

And talking of scraps I had to extract a doughnut from my dog's mouth as we walked. Someone had left one laying on the pavement.

We came home, and having some spare time before work I spent a little time getting stressed with phone calls.

I had been due to have had a follow-up appointment at the hospital ten days ago. It had been cancelled and I'd had a message that it had been rescheduled for some time today. I'd tried phoning them last week to no avail. This morning I was told that the secretary dealing with my case had been on holiday and that the specialist I'd been seeing had left and gone to East Grinstead.

There is talk of fitting me in to an extra clinic some time next week.

I then phoned the mobile phone people. "Everything Everywhere" sounds good as a company name, but anyone who's actually used the EE mobile phone network would agree that "Nothing Anywhere" would be a better description. I had no signal yesterday on our Biggin Hill walk but the Vodafone signal was fine.

After a lot of messing around on an automated switchboard (which kept telling me that they were committed to excellent customer service) I finally got through to Chris who clearly couldn't care less. She told me that my contract runs till 6 May 2016 and I can either suck it up till then or buy out the remainder of the contract The fact that the phone network doesn't work (apparently) doesn't invalidate the contract.

She suggested I spoke to the technical people who suggested I took the phone to the shop in the town centre. The fact that the issue is with their network and not the phone is neither here nor there...

I then phoned the vets to arrange a booster shot for "Furry Face ^TM". Apparently despite having contacted us, the shot isn't due for a couple of weeks. I'll arrange something closer to the time.

And then I got through to the optician who arranged an appointment for next Monday morning

And so to work. I did get just a little bit cross over the news on the radio today. Whilst it is hardly going to be the end of the world, it is vaguely possible that there may be some power cuts over the next few winters. The reason: building power stations is an expensive business. Apparently old power stations are closing whilst new ones either aren't yet ready or aren't even being built. Some of the pundits were blaming policy makers for allowing the National Grid to get into such a state. Personally I can't help but feel the problem is that the policy makers have decided not to have a policy and to leave it all to market forces instead.

I stopped off at the cheapo-bargains shop and bought thirty sandwich boxes. I've ordered the camoflague tape. Once it arrives I shall get busy....

6 September 2015 (Sunday) - Biggin Hill

After a really good night's sleep I woke up to have my piss seriously boiled by the Ashford Herald. Apparently my street is the most violent street in Ashoford. The half-wits at the Ashford Herald have worked this out from the amount of times the police are called to a street.

The police have been called to Beaver Road twenty three times so far this year. Is that a lot? I don't know. But look at the street which is in position fourteen. Only four call outs but it only has a tenth of the amount of houses that are in Beaver Road. That makes this street proportionately twice as bad as my street. Does it really take a genius to work out that the more houses there are in a street then the more of anything will happen.

Also our road is *the* way home from all of the nightclubs to the "delightful suburbs" where the council put the "more challenging elements". (Or as my daughter in law so succintly puts it "it's the main route for piss heads".)

I have formally logged a complaint with the Ashford Herald. I bet they don't do anything about it.

On the plus side "er indoors ^TM" discovered a Christmas cake at the back of the cupboard. It went out of date in May, but I shall still scoff it.

Bearing in mind how much I whinged about my gammy elbow yesterday "er indoors ^TM" ordered me to take some Ibuprofen. Whenever I hear of Ibuprofen I'm always reminded of my old mucker Dave "Rabbit" Morley who died seven years ago. He considered himself an expert on the drug because his wife worked where they were made, but he couldn't pronounce the word Ibuprofen. He called it "Ibuferen".

I never saw him that often, but I miss Dave...

We got our gear together, rallied the troops, and set off to Biggin Hill. We'd originally planned to walk around the area last week on the Bank Holiday, but rain stopped play. A lot of people were off at geo-camp this weekend, but there were still quite a few of us raring to go for today. Ten of us and two small dogs met up just outside Biggin Hill and we walked about ten miles. We'd walked this route before; but the geocaches which had been there in the past have been replaced with new ones which gave us a reason to go back.

We quite liked today's walk; starting from a pub the walk was in two loops so we had the chance of a beer at half time as well as at the end. Beautiful scenery, excellent company; as we walked we saw horses, sheep, pigs, turkeys. There was an entertaining five minutes when "Furry Face ^TM" saw a squirrel and set off in hot pursuit. Little Charlotte clung to his lead and managed to restrain him, but it was a close-run thing.

Mind you if anyone is considering a walk round Biggin Hill I feel I should specifically mention the horses. When I first walked this geo-route I was kicked by a horse. Today one of us was nearly pushed over by a horse, one of us actually was. One of us was nearly bitten by a horse and one of us actually was. (Me)

Biggin Hill horses are evil animals.

We set out in search of about forty target geocaches. We found the lot. I must say that was quite an acheivement. Some of them were quite tricky hides, two involved arboreal antics, and in several cases the GPS co-ordinates (according to "Hannah") were out by several yards.

But iffy co-ords and teeth-happy horses notwithstanding, having started walking at 10.30am we were in the beer garden having a de-briefing pint of Jail Ale seven hours later.

I'd taken a few photos whilst we were out. Once home I put those on-line, did the secret geo-rituals on the laptop and over a rather good bit of curry watched last night's repeat of Dad's Army. After all these years they still don't like it up 'em.

As my dog snored I then checked emails. Earlier in the week I'd taken my dog for a walk round Bethersden with a view to hiding nearly forty geocaches in the area. The geo-feds had emailed me back to say all was well with my provisional route. The first stage of my plan is now complete. Stage two goes into action tomorrow. In the most part it involves visiting the cheapo-bargain shop on the way to work to see how many sandwich boxes they have at rock-bottom prices. I'm hoping they have several. At least thirty would be good.

I must remember to pop in to that shop...

5 September 2015 (Saturday) - Another Day

I slept like a log last night, finally surfacing from my pit shortly after 8am. For me that is something of a lie-in. Mind you my little dog was still fast asleep. He eventually hauled himself out of his basket when he got the idea that there was toast to be scrounged (he didn't get any).

We could have done so much today. We could have spent the weekend at geo-camp; but it is too cold to go camping this time of year.

We could have gone to visit the geocachers at geo-camp; but Bexhill was a long way to go just to watch other people camping.

We could have gone to the Ashford beer festival, but today was just that little bit too cold to be sitting on wet grass spending a fortune to give myself a headache. I'd already spent far too much on beer last night (and got the headache) anyway.

So finding myself at something of a loose end this morning I set the washing machine on an overflowing laundry basket. As it chewed on my undercrackers I went through my letter rack. I’d not been there for a while; it took a couple of hours to clear.

There was a letter from the optician. I need to make an appointment to get my eyes checked.

The bank had written to me to give me an annual summary of the charges made on my accounts. There hadn’t been any. So they’d spent time and money to tell me that.

In a similar vein I had a letter from the dentist saying that they were under new management but it wouldn’t actually affect me in any way at all. I wonder how many other letters they’ve sent out like that? And how much that cost them?

There were several vouchers from “Go Outdoors” all of which expired last Tuesday.

There was a letter from the pet insurance people saying that Fudge’s insurance policy would carry on. It was as well that it did; otherwise it would have lapsed a month ago. Mind you it is a fiver a month more than it has been for the last year now that he weighs over ten kilograms. His diet’s not going as well as it might.

I finally got round to updating the household’s entry on the electoral register; we’d only had two reminders.

There was a reminder from the R.N.I.B. that I’d kindly increased my monthly donation to them. (Had I?)

There was a nice newsletter from the Aspinall Foundation that went straight into the bin; but not before I’d taken out the free admission ticket. They send me one of those every quarter; I use maybe one in ten of them.

Vitality Life sent me an annual policy review statement. “Vitality Life” is a somewhat ironic name as they won’t actually stump up until I croak.

The car insurance people told me that the car insurance will continue. I’m glad about that because it actually continued a few weeks ago whilst I wasn’t looking. For the next year the policy is actually a little cheaper; only £1.50 a month cheaper, but every little helps.

Both of out geocaching accounts were up for renewal…. Together they cost fifty quid, but realistically that’s not bad. Each account renewal was only twenty five quid and I spend far more than that every time I go down the pub. Bearing in mind how much I go hunting tupperware the annual fee works out at about fifty pence per week.

And I updated the astro club’s accounts. For some reason the bank has now decided only to send statements once every four months.

After a hot cross bun for lunch we took "Furry Face ^TM" for a walk. He usually has a walk first thing in the morning; he'd not had one today and was becoming somewhat fractious. We went down to the Romney Marsh and had a minor geo-wander. If nothing else thise geo-lark shows us somewhere different to go for a walk.

It was a good geo-walk; if somewhat overgrown in places. I think I would have enjoyed it more were my arm not quite so painful. This tennis elbow is getting to be a serious nuisance. It was also a shame that "Furry Face ^TM" had to disgrace himslef by rolling in fox poo.

Once home I showered the fox poo from my dog, and after a rather good bit of scoff "er indoors ^TM" set off to the Saturday film night. I set about the ironing whilst getting three hours worth of drivel watched from the SkyPlus box. We've now got forty six percent of the disk space free on that SkyPlus box. Can't be bad...

4 September 2015 (Friday) - Works Outing

After another busy night shift I set off to Folkestone. Littlun had a hospital appointment today and I was under orders to transport him (and hangers-on) to Ashford. I'm not quite sure what happened; I found myself in Dover. I must have missed. To save time I decided to take the short cut that I knew, and found myself on an industrial estate I've never seen before.

Fortunately sat-nav saved the day.

I eventually collected my crew and cargo and brought them all home. With a little time to spare we went for a walk round Bowens Field and the park. "Furry Face ^TM" started off in something of a shouty mood; I think that seeing everyone had rather over excited him. And then the over-excitement gave way to a more "frisky" mind-set in which he started humping every other dog he saw. I wish he wouldn't do that. He's been "done"; that was the only condition I set before we took him on.

As we walked we met our friend Ralph (a little black pug) who had a fight with Sid. Dogs do that. When dogs meet they either fight, sniff each others bums, or hump each other. It is what they do. If more dog owners could accept this, the world would be a better place.

We came home and found littlun's GodMother waiting for us. A quick cuppa than she took littlun (and hangers-on) to the hospital appointment whilst I went to bed for a while. I slept like a log until they all came home "quietly" five hours later. I got up, left them to it and took the train to Canterbury. I was a little early getting to Canterbury so I spent an hour geocaching.

There is one particular cache in Canterbury which had become something of a nemesis for me. You start off with a little walk througgh the park collecting clues which then lead you to a thicket of stinging nettles. I first visited this thicket of stinging nettles in February of last year and have been back at irregular intervals ever since. I failed to find the thing so many times...

Today was my lucky day; I found three caches (three!) where this one was supposed to be. I particularly wanted to find this one as on the thing was written one half of the co-ordinates of a nearby puzzle cache. (I'd got the other half of these co ordinates from a nearby simular cache about eighteen months ago). And so armed with bonus co ords I set off to a park in central Canterbury to find my geo-target.

There was a minor hiccup when I got to this park; the hippies were staging a hippy-festival. But I eluded them and found what i was looking for. Happy dance.

I was actually in Canterbury for a works booze-up, and so made my way to where we were supposed to be meeting. I was at the Dolphin half an hour before anyone else arrived. I got myself a pint and sat in the garden reading my Kindle app.

I would have sat indoors but the drunken yobs were a bit loud. Probably harmless; but rather loud.

Eventually everyone gathered; beer flowed, and we went off to Parrots for a rather good meal. Can't really remember much of what happened. I think we had a good time. I have a vague recollection of Shepherd Neame stout being drunk (or was that me)...

3 September 2015 (Thursday) - Between the Night Shifts

After a surprisingly busy night shift I listened to the radio as I drove home. Did you know that our old friend science has revised the estimate of the number of trees on the planet. The best guess is that here is three trillion trees on Earth. that's seven times as many as were in the last guess at the number.

There are those who feel the figure is a matter of indifference. It is impossible to check the accuracy of that number, but it occurs to me that someone has been paid good money to come up with it.

Perhaps that money might be better spent on the police. Apparently police in Lewisham have taken to using buses as they've not got enough cars, and police in the West Midlands take their time to get to emergencies as they've had to buy cheaper police cars with no sirens.

The criminal element must love hearing this in the news....

Once home I took "Furry Face ^TM" for a walk. Bearing in mind that this was the sort of time that OrangeHead and her posse were likely to be lording it round the park we went out to Frogs Island instead. Apart from Fudge feeling the need to bark at absolutely everyone he saw along the way, the walk passed off relatively uneventfully.

We stopped off at the vets as we walked. I've noticed his collar seems looser; I was wondering if the diet was working. Whilst he's not put on any weight he doesn't seem to have lost any.

I had all sorts of things planned to do after our walk; instead I went to bed and slept until mid-afternoon. Once awake I spent an hour doing geo-admin on the potential geo-walk I started preparing yesterday. That only took an hour; let's see if it gets the thumbs-up.

As I worked "My Boy ^TM" came home "quietly"; his sister had sent him here with a load of stuff to put into storage. I say "storage"; her idea of storage is my idea of a spare bedroom.

I'm now off to work a little earlier than planned; last week I released a Wherigo onto the denizens of Canterbury. Apparently it don't work on iPhones so I've offered to let a nice lady have a go on my tablet.

I hope she doesn't bite...

2 September 2015 (Wednesday) - Bethersden

Yesterday I thought I might take my dog on a little walk round the Bethersden area to see if I could start planning a geo-stroll. Events conspired against that plan, but today I woke at 6am, and couldn't get back to sleep. "Furry Face ^TM" seemed up for a walk, so we set off shortly after 7am.

We started badly; a minor altercation with a cyclist. As I was pulling out I didn't see him. When he'd finished shouting the "F" word several times I pointed out that if he will dress all in black and have no lights whatsoever, he really should use his bell or hooter more often when it's obvious that motorists can't see him. And if he's too mean to pay for a bell or hooter, then he might shout *before* it is too late .

As he struggled to find any kind of response I told him that he was in the wrong, and he needed to sort it out.

We drove off.

It didn't take long to get to Bethersden; I put on my gaiters and we set off. I had a vague idea of the route I wanted to take, and we pretty much followed that route. As we walked we met over-friendly cows and ponies, and saw sheep and rabbits. We did struggle with the paths in places though.It was pretty obvious that farmers in that part of the world really don't subscribe to the theory of marking out footpaths. For much of the way I was able to use the GPS on "Hannah" to keep me on track, but there was one point where the footpaths were utterly impassable. Fortunately the country lanes there weren't busy.

I went out hoping to be able to find hides for thirty five geocaches; I got thirty five hides along (just over) eight miles. I've now got to find an hour or so to communicate my plans to the geo-feds to see if the route is acceptable. Some areas are owned by Forestry Commission or are sites of special scientific interest, or are just no-go for geo-stuff even though they don't look any different to anywhere else.

Mind you my gaiters got a goot work-out today. I'm quite pleased with them.

I took some photos whilst we were out, and once home posted them on Facebook as I scoffed my lunch. And with lunh scoffed I took myself off to bed. I would have liked to have slept for longer, but I got a couple of hours asleep.

I'm now off to Folkestone. "Daddies Little Angel ^TM" says she will feed me before the night shift...

1 September 2015 (Tuesday) - Rolvenden

I got up this morning and saw my dog was still fast asleep. He didn't stir at all as I scoffed my toast. Mind you it was a different story when "er indoors ^TM" got up. He makes no secret as to who is his favourite.

Having got out of his pit he sensed that today wasn't a work day; it was to be a "Fudgey Adventure" and he immediately became very over-excited and wouldn't eat his breakfast. Silly pup.

The plan for today had been to go to Bethersden to start planning out a new geo-walk that I would be setting. But overnight a series of twenty seven geocaches had appeared in the Rolvenden area. I asked on-line to see if anyone fancied a walk. Gordon did, and we met up in Rolvenden and went for a little stroll. Clearly marked footpaths, straightforward geo-finds, we had a good walk. We saw steam trains and bee hives, "Furry Face ^TM" was allowed off the lead on several occassions and (in a novel break with tradition) he was as good as gold.

Those that had set the caches had given us instructions to fetch one cache home; they'd actually put out twenty-eight caches but one was too close to an exisiting puzzle cache. We found the pot we were to retrieve. It was less than an arm's length from the puzzle cache which was not in any way disguised and was out in the open in full view. How did they miss that?

As the series had only gone out last night we wondered if we might get a First to Find or two... we got one. As we approached hide #14 (which we knew was still waiting to be found for the first time) we saw a familiar young mother with her brood. I jokingly loudly announced "I know what you are looking for" to which the children both denied looking for anything. Mother told the children that all was well, that dog was Fudge, and the children then told us where they'd already searched. No one recognises me; everyone recognises my dog...

With a little effort we got a joint First to Find here. Happy dance. But Mum and littluns had already taken the only other FTF that was still waiting.

The first cache on the series was First to Finded at quarter to eleven last night by an intrepid team who then did the walk in the dark. Missing only two of the caches they logged the last one five hours later shortly before 4am. I know I like chasing the First to Find, but I must admit that with the recent rain the paths were slippery enough in broad daylight today. Personally I'm not a fan of night caching.

With only a few hundred yards to go to the end of the walk the heavens opened. I had planned to stop off in Bethersden to start planning my new walk, but with the heavy rain we said our goodbyes and went home. With one bonus cache on the route (hidden by a "gary tardis"!) we'd amassed twenty-eight geo-finds over a four-hour (and six miles) walk. I might pop out to Bethersden tomorrow morning for a walk. We shall see...

Once home "Furry Face ^TM" had a bath. For all that he'd been good, he had been spuddling in stagnant water and he was somewhat "fragrant". And with him bathed I had a shower myself before popping to the KFC for a spot of lunch.

With a snoring dog on my lap I scoffed my KFC whilst watching last night's episode of "Dark Matter". With only one more episode to go the series is now getting rather good. Will Wheaton (of Star Trek fame) has now appeared as the evil arch-baddie. He's quite good as an evil arch-baddie.

As I watched telly "Daddies Little Angel ^TM" phoned; she was about as over-excited as my dog had been when he realised today was a "Fudgey Adventure". Good news... she's been accepted onto the waiting list for a council house in Ashford. It sounds a trivial matter; it's not. Getting onto that list takes some doing.

Being Tues the clans gathered. In Folkestone tonight where we used ChromeCast technology to watch the live video feed from the International Space Station.

We saw UFOs as well...