15 September 2013 (Sunday) - Fence Fixing

Despite a late night I was awake at 7am this morning. Last night when we got home my phone had had a fit. The battery had gone doolally and despite a new geocache having gone live a mile away, my phone wouldn't have it. Over brekie another cache went live in Folkestone so with nothing else on the aganda for a couple of hours I thought I'd give the phone a field trial. It worked OK - and I got an FTF. Can't be bad. Mind you it still refuses to find that cache near the cinema. I wonder what that is all about.

With an hour or so suitably wasted I popped round to collect "My Boy ^TM" who had offered to assist today. He had gone out. So I collected the barby from his garden, then went to Asda to collect barby food. Asda was very stressful for me. There wasn't a single person watching where they were going, and I lost count of the amount of people who bounced off of my shopping trolley. And I forgot to get milk or the makings of tomorrow's lunch.

Home, where I made a start. Regular readers of this drivel may recall that the garden fence was knacked. "Furry Face ^TM" had escaped several times though a hole. I made a start on making the fence good. I cleared stones out of the way and pulled membrane back just before Lisa and Earle arrived. Earle and I had the old fence panels out just as "My Boy ^TM" and Cheryl arrived. In the past "My Boy ^TM" and I have bodged the garden togther. It made a real difference having someone along who actually knew what they were doing. Under supervision we got post holes dug, and leaving Earle to do groundwork we went round to B&Q to buy the wrong cement. I then went back to B&Q with Earle to get the right stuff. They didn't have the right stuff, so we ended up bodging the old fence into place as a temporary fix until we can get the right ingredients in the week.

Lisa then got the barby going and we had sossies and ribs and lager until mid-afternoon when everyone set off on their various missions.

I put the lead on to "Furry Face ^TM" and took him for a walk. Only a small walk. We would have goine much further, but it started raining so I came home, er indoors ^TM" arrived home from flogging candles, and we sat in front on the telly and dozed through episodes of "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo". Sugar Bear was on his best behaviour; wearing a shirt and eating his dinner off of a plate. This program has to be made up; people can't really live like Mumma June and Sugar Bear, can they?

In the meantime following on from my lap-top's little incident of a few days ago I set the thing having a full system scan. It told me it might take a few hours...

14 September 2013 (Saturday) - A Party

The morning's sci-fi DVD fix was ludicrous. Blake's cronies would seem to have declared war on the fix dominatrix and so in their attempt tooverthrow the galactic ampire they are gatering allies. For no adequately explored reason they neded someone who specialissed in training monkeys. I rather lost the plot when the fix dominatrix caaptured the one with he gun andhypnotised her to kill th monkey trainer.

With er indoors ^TM" off to sell candles to the mases, I put the lead on to "Furry Face ^TM" and we went off for a wlk with Chris. Chris had thisidea to set a huge series of geocaches, but said (understandably) tat it was a huge undertaking. DId I want to assist with the venture? Yes - I did. We went out and between us we hid over twenty caches. I won't say where. Suffice it to say that there is still a third of teh ccircuit to be done, and what we did do took about four hours.

Whilst we were out I was so pleased to see that my little dog was well enough to roll in fox poo.

We came home via the day's cache, and then I hosed the fox dung off of the pup. an hour was wasted playing Candyy Crush Saga until er indoors ^TM" came home. We got on our glad rags and went round for "My Boy ^TM", and we all set off to my nephew's eighteenth birthday party.

We were told that fancy dress was optional. I thought we looked quite good as the cast of "Grease". About a third of the people the had made the effort to dress up in soe wy. Many of the younger ones had turned up in onesies for no reason that could detemine. My nephew looked wonderful as the Joker fro the latest Batman film. My brother looked remarkably at home in a sparkling dress. There was an interesting young lady in tight red knickers and very lttle else. There was a particulary interesting catwoman in a wipe-clean suit. And there was a coven of smurfs who were sitting in the corner radiating an aura of frank malevoloence.

It was good to meet up with many family mmbers that I haven't seen for years; being the designated driver it was entertaining to watch the antics of everyone else. There were those who patrolled the food, those whoo patrolled the jailbait Wario. It was quite funy watching seventeen year old blowing into the urinal (especially when they were not my problem). The music was far too loud; it always is. But they played soome good tunes that I knew.

All too soon it as time to come home. We staggered intto bed shortly after 2am. I wish I had taken some photos of the event.

13 September 2013 (Friday) - This n That

I had a phone call from work yesterday to ask if I could do the late shift today. Being an obliging kind of chap I was happy to do so, and so wasn't out of my pit quite as early as usual on a working day. Over brekkie i watched Blake's Seven with a small dog asleep on my lap. Today our heroes were having a fracas with Space Rats. Space Rats were clearly supposed to be an inter-galactic version of Hells Angels. They were supposed to be scary. However they came over as being akin to the fan club of Co-Co the Clown's hypothetical stunt double which wasn't scary at all.

Whilst watching lame early 1980s sci-fi I was very conscious of today's date. September 13. The late 1970s lame sci-fi show Space 1999 all started off from the events purported to take place on September 13 1999.

When I watched that program on Saturday mornings as a teenager that date seemed to be so far into the future as to be unreal. Now it's fourteen years into the past. Where have the years gone?

As I had time to spare I took a scenic route to work (through the fog) via Elmstead where I picked up a geocache. The description of the cache said to look out for the llamas; I was rather disappointed not to see any.

As always I listened to the news as I drove. It is now official - the space probe Voyager 1 has left the solar system and is in inter-stellar space. The pundits made great show of the announcement, and glossed over the fact that the actual exit took place over a year ago. They also had tame experts being interviewed who explained about galactic distances and the impracticality of travel to other stars with today's technology. And in a novel break with tradition the people presenting the show took what was being said seriously.

The pundits rather glossed over proposed changes to the Post Office. Apparently "thousands of our remote communities rely on the national mail network as a lifeline". Really? In this modern electronic age do people really use snail-mail quite so much. And if someone chooses to live in the back of beyond then they must be able to afford to do so. Why should people who live in sensible places subsidise them? It transpires that it actually costs seventy quid to post a letter to the more remote parts of Scotland, but currently all that is actually paid on such a letter is the price of a stamp. Presumably everyone else posting letters to sensible places is subsidising those who can already afford to live in the back of beyond. Why should I subsidise those who are already demonstrably far better off than I am?

Meanwhile can anyone honestly say that they are surprised to hear that more money is to be milked from the Harry Potter franchise. Whilst Harry himself won't feature in this latest round, there will be enough of a crossover to ensure that millions of fans will hand over more of their hard-earned cash.

I wish I could come up with a money-making idea like Harry Potter. Somehow I don't think "Les Aventures Du Le Singe Et L'Oiseau (qui est un batard)" will somehow catch the public's imagination.

Talking of which my French-learning associate had a day off today so I was not able to inspire and enthral him with the latest exploits of our simian friend and its avian nemesis. I'm sure it will all keep till Monday.

Without being able to impart my linguistic skills, the day was rather dull.

As I came home tonight the weather forecast made me sit up and take notice. The BBC radio people said that Sunday would be torrential rain and howling winds all over the country. When I got access to the Internet I saw that the same BBC said light winds and dry until 7pm on Sunday on it's weather page. I wish they would either make up their minds, or be honest and say they have no idea what the weatehr is going to do...

12 September 2013 (Thursday) - Dinosaurs, Vets...

I had a reasonable night’s sleep for once. I usually do when I have nothing planned for the morning. Over a spot of brekkie I saw that a new cache had gone live overnight some two miles away, so with little else to do I sped out in pursuit of an FTF. I failed. Again. I found what looked like the obvious spot, but no joy.

I came home, collected "Furry Face ^TM" and took him for a walk. As we went through the park I met up with a caching pal, and we chatted for a while. I was rather pleased that I had to put my dog on a lead; he’s getting back to his spirited self.

Whilst we were out I found myself rummaging in ivy in pursuit of plastic. And amazingly I found what I had thought was going to be challenging in less than a minute.

We came home, and over a spot of lunch I watched a film I’d recorded. “Neds” looked like it was going to be good. It wasn’t. Set in Glasgow the film needed subtitles to understand most of the dialogue, and the film got worse as it went on; ending with the hero being bashed up by Jesus who had climbed off of the cross specially. I then did on-line dinosaur lectures for an hour or so before scoring full marks in this week’s test. Did you know that dinosaurs probably had feathers.

Cheryl and Lacey called round and we went to the costume hire shop. I look the business in my suit; I won’t go into too many details – suffice it to say that I will touch on the costume in a future entry. And then we took Fudge to the vets. We completed the paperwork for the bills we incurred last week, and pup had his annual injections. The vet was especially pleased to see Fudge. As he said, he only gets to see animals when they are ill or for injections. Having seen how ill he was last week the vet was really pleased to see the improvement in him over the last week.

Fudge had his injection and didn’t bat an eyelid.

I ran Cheryl and Lacey home. In retrospect I sould have collected the barby whilst I was there. I didn't. Instead I came home for domestic trivia. Ironing, hoovering, washing up. And then er indoors ^TM" came home and boiled up a rather dcent bit of scran. She does that. We scoffed it whilst watching "The King's Speech" - which was rather better than "Neds"...

11 September 2013 (Wednesday) - Stuff

I came home last night to find the contents of the bin strewn across the living room, and also to find a very sheepish looking dog. Perhaps rooting in the bin last week is what made him ill. He's not been in bins before. We shall have to watch that.

I had a better night's sleep; I woke at 5am, and then decided against Blakes's Seven this morning; preferring to doze instead. I got up shortly before 7am to find a certain dog had spent the night on the sofa again. I had brekkie; or most of brekkie. Now that "Furry Face ^TM" is eating again he gets the crusts from my toast. He probably shouldn't, but it's good to see him eating something.

On checking emails I saw a geocache had gone live overnight. Not only gone live but had already been found. There are those in the geo-community who wouldn't bother looking for such a cache; for them the FTF is everything. For myself, an FTF is nice, but having someone else find the cache first means that I can be reasonably sure that the cache is actually there, and that the listed co-ords are good. So I left for work a little earlier than I might normally have done, and went to work via a minor diversion into Westwell where (after quite a serious bit of searching) I found the cache. Day forty-two on my caching streak sorted (!)

I then made my way to work. Slowly. As I drove through Challock I was amazed at how empty the village green appeared. Was it only four days since the place was alive with the goose fair? There was barely the slightest trace of it this morning.

I stopped off in the Canterbury branch of Staples to have a look-see. They had some interesting Android tablets. If they had one with wi-fi/internet and GPS I might have a use for it. Not right now though; I'm too skint. But it never hurts to see what is available. I looked hopefully, but none of the assistants wanted to come and assist. Oh well, that will be their loss. If and when I get one I shall take my money elsewhere. And that will be money; not extended credit. I looked at their credit agreements. They were advertising a laptop for sale at just under four hundred quid - available on easy terms; but when you finished paying those easy terms you would find that you'd stumped up over six hundred quid.

I then went into the Cheapo-Bargains shop. They were advertising singing model garden birds for sale. Two pounds each a few weeks ago; today they were reduced in price to fifty pence each. But they didn't actually have any. I refrained from asking what else didn't they have at rock bottom prices, and came to work.

At work I had a shock. Mon camarade me dit comme il est un ami d'oiseau est il pense que le singe est un batard. Moi - j'adore le singe. Je le dit que l'oiseau est un tres grand batard avec le sucre au-dessus. Mon camarade etait confusee parce qu' il ne comprendre pas "tres grand batard avec le sucre au-dessus".

Il a dit il y a un fete dans l'arbre ou le singe et l'oseau est amis. Aussi il y a un giraffe dans l'arbre maintenant. Qu' est-ce qu'il fait? Est ce qu' il est ami d'oiseau? Est-il un batard aussi?

Et l'oiseau... J'ai pense que le singe est mange l'oiseau le semaine derniere. Est ce qu' un autre oiseau ?

It has been suggested that I am confusing my French-learning colleague deliberately..

11 Septtember

10 September 2013 (Tuesday) - Broken

I woke at 3.02am this morning, and lay in bed wide awake for some time. I eventually gave up trying to sleep and got up at 4.50am. My little dog was still fast asleep as I did the washing up. I checked my lap top. Nothing had changed since last night. When I booted up I got the option to put in my password. I did that - correctly (!) - and it told me that it couldn't proceed. I had been given one or two pointers which I thought I might try out when I had a minute. But they all looked rather technical. So I had this rather better idea to smile pathetically in the direction of people who know about computers...

Over brekkie I watched some telly. Blake's cronies have found a friend; there are now five of them. They've also found an old enemy. Today they were helping various people blow up assorted swamps for no reason that I could work out. I watched their antics with a small dog curled up on my lap; spending much of the time squeezing his tummy in an experimental sort of way. That belly was rock hard last week; it seems to have gone back to normal now. Mind you, Fudge himself seems to be somewhat soppier than ever he was. I expect he's still convalescent, or he knows that he can get away with it with me.

I set off to work ten minutes earlier than I might have done. Having found a geocache every day for the last forty days I thought I might just get one more day on to this streak as I knew of a cache in Little Burton Farm I might try for. I was within twenty yards of that cache when my phone pinged that a new cache had gone live only a few hundred yards away. I abandoned the cache I was after (it will keep till tomorrow) and ran off on the chance of a First to Find. Having failed miserably to FTF twice last week I was rather smug this morning to get an FTF. Today's cache was... I won't spoil the surprise. I'll just say that it was rather out of the ordinary and I was amazed that I found it in less than a minute. In fact I was rather amazed that I found it at all. But I did. I was FTF at 6.46am; sixteen minutes after it was published. FTFs go quickly in Ashford... usually. Interestingly another cache went live in Ashford today. Five minutes before the one I found; a mile and a half from it. That one didn't get found so quickly. That one took twelve hours to be found for the first time. It's on my to-do list for Thursday; providing nothing else crops up in the meantime.

And then on to work . As I drove the radio spouted its usual tirade of drivel. Amongst this morning's snippets was something of interest. A recent survey of opinions of people in the UK has shown that as a nation we are becoming more tolerant of other people being different in a variety of ways, be it attitudes towards homosexuals, children born out of marriage, racial relations. And the Royals are more popular than they have been for some time.

Interestingly it turns out that as a nation we are more tolerant, but as individuals we aren't. The pundits on the radio were saying that it is the upcoming generation that is more accepting; the older generation is still stuck in its ways. Apparently the survey showed that most people seem to keep their opinions unchanged on a range of subjects for years.

Again I would seem to be in the minority; anyone reading this blog will know I change my opinions on all manner of subjects with annoying regularity.

Once at work I discovered that il y a un elephant qui veux manger le singe qui habite dans l'arbre. (Le pauvre singe). Heureusement le singe est tres vite et l'arbre n'est pas tres dur et l'elephant ne peut pas grimper à l'arbre. "Hurrah!" dit le singe et tous son amis. Les amis du oiseau morte ne dit pas "Hurrah!". Ils veux assister l'elephant pour manger le singe. Mais nous n' aimons pas les amis du oiseau parce qu' ils sont tous batards comme etait l'oiseau.

Or so I am reliably informed.

As well as finding out the latest developments in the tree I did my bit at work, and came home via Morrisons because they have the cheapest petrol for miles around. Despite having spent a small fortune on car and dog repairs and despite the possibility of having to shell out for a new laptop, I found enough cash for a bar of choccy whilst getting petrol. Petrol comes off of a different budget...