3 August 2019 (Saturday) - Garden Party

I think I ate too much yesterday – I had a very restless night. Mind you having to be up at six o’clock probably didn’t help. I made some toast and coffee, and had a look at the Internet. I had emails about a load of “Found It” logs on the geocaches I’d hidden. I was pleased to see that people were hunting the things out. I was very pleased to see that two which I thought might have been missing weren’t missing at all; I haven’t got to go replace them now.

I got dressed, and set off (via one or two geocaches) to Margate where I found "Daddy’s Little Angel ^TM". After we’d squabbled a bit we went to the cash and carry for supplies. The cash and carry at Broadstairs is an odd place; I think that a prerequisite to being taken on there is that you must have less than fifty per cent of your full quota of teeth.

We bought loads, and after a little effort we got it all into the car. Loading the car wasn’t unlike playing Tetris. And with the car unloaded at the other end I said goodbye and came home. It’s a shame that she can’t get more staff in the shop; I rarely see the most recent fruit of my loin these days.

Once home I spent a frustrating twenty minutes trying to find what I’d done with the event shelter. Once I’d found it, I set it up, and we prepared the garden for the afternoon. "My Boy ^TM" arrived, and started cooking, and it wasn’t long before family and friends arrived for our annual garden party. This year we seemed to have clashed with all sorts of other events; so many people weren’t able to get along. But we still had over thirty people in the garden. Scoffing food, drinking all sorts of stuff… Treacle and Pogo found the fat tray on the barbecue and got filthy. My mummy hammered the Pimms, mother-in-law went base over apex, we scoffed pork lions (!), and I even got to have the cigar I brought back from Turkey.

And (in a novel break with long-established tradition) I stayed awake for the entire time.

I took a few photos too.

I’ve programmed “Hannah” for tomorrow’s walk. I could do with a good night’s sleep. I hope next door’s dogs settle soon…

2 August 2019 (Friday) - A Birthday

Finding myself wide awake at three o’clock I got up and watched an episode of “Orange is the New Black” in which it is becoming very obvious that the leading lady’s wife is about to pork one of the lady prison guards.

I then went back to bed and slept through till after eight o’clock.

I got up and fed laundry into the washing machine. As I had my morning shave I found that the hot tap in the bathroom sink is rather stiff. I suspect that fixing that will be a saga for the next few weeks. I then scoffed some toast and home-made jam (very tasty!). Fudge sat with me until there were no crust scraps left to be had, then he wandered off doing his own thing. Treacle and Pogo are both rather attentive dogs; Fudge has always been rather more independent.

As I looked at the Internet, Facebook told me that today was "er indoors ^TM" birthday. That was good of it. It has always been a standing joke that men forget wife’s birthdays and anniversaries… do they really? I never have.

I did chuckle when I saw that "My Boy ^TM" had used Facebook to wish his mother a happy “bithday” (!)

I also saw that the geocache I considered hunting down yesterday still hadn’t been found. Is that because the puzzle is too tricky, the tree-climb is too hard, no one could be bothered to chase the FTF, or (most likely) someone *has* already found it but hasn’t logged on-line in a thinly-veiled ruse to waste other people’s time.

Whilst "er indoors ^TM" got ready I hung out the washing, and pootled about in the garden. Pushing gravel about, trimming back overgrowth, pulling out weeds.

We then took the dogs down to Orlestone woods for a little wander. They behaved (mostly).

With walk walked we came home, got changed, settled the dogs, and walked up the road to the Curious Brewery. I’ve walked and driven past the place several times. But when they were in Tenterden they used to brew their beer in whiskey barrels (and so it tasted horrible), and I’d heard they weren’t cheap, so we’d put off visiting. We went today, and met "My Boy ^TM" there.

They’ve changed the way that they brew; the beer wasn’t bad. The food was very good. It wasn’t cheap, but then that’s not a bad thing; it keeps the likes of me (and the rest of the lower orders) out of the place.

We staggered home, and I ran out the hose pipe to top up the pond, dug the weeds out of the front garden path, and did some water feature maintenance. I didn’t think I’d done that much, but I certainly ached at the end of it all. But not too much; ironing wasn’t going to iron itself.

It’s been a rather good day off. Perhaps one of the less eventful birthdays, but not a bad day, really…

1 August 2019 (Thursday) - Rather Dull

Finding myself wide awake far earlier than I needed to be I had a little look at the Internet. I’d had an email last night about a new puzzle geocache. I solved the puzzle easily enough (despite the glaring spelling/grammatical mistake) and saw it was up a tree in Dartford. This morning no one had been out for the First to Find. I *could* have gone chasing but it would have been quite a long way out of my way, and climbing a tree on my own… I decided against it.

Whilst I was at it I had a look at Facebook. Nothing much had changed overnight.

I had a bowl of granola, watched half of an episode of “Orange is the New Black”, and got myself ready for work.

It was a slow drive up the motorway; yet another lorry had broken down, and with only two lanes and no hard shoulder, that slowed everyone. As I crawled towards Maidstone the pundits on the radio were discussing the proposed pilot’s strike. It was mentioned that the average pilot earns ninety thousand quid a year. Then the figure of a hundred and eighty thousand quid a year was mentioned. With such variation (one figure being double the other) you have to wonder just how much faith you can have in what you hear on the radio.

There was then a *lot* of talk about the ongoing cricket matches between England and Australia. It all sounded very competitive; tickets to watch it started at ninety quid a day. And then some vicar was wheeled on to do the “Thought for the Day” slot in which he proposed the radical idea that sport (such as this cricket) should be fun.

I got to work; I had a busy day. Busy, but not as stressful as it might have been.

I came home and took the dogs round to the co-op field. Unlike yesterday the dogs were a delight. They can be *so* good; if only they try.

"er indoors ^TM" boiled up a rather good bit of dinner which we washed down with a bottle of “Isla Negra”; arguably one of the worst wines I have ever had…

Today was a tad dull…