18 August 2014 (Monday) - Walking... Lots...

Yesterday when I had lunch with "My Boy ^TM" he was having a whinge that he was being taken to bingo and he didn't want to got. It turned out that he is now president of the bingo fan club having won five hundred pounds at yesterday's little session.

As I scoffed my brekkie this morning I noticed someone looking rather suspicious in my front garden. There is a geocache out there; periodically I see people going for it and I pop out for a chat. Today I met some people who were over from Australia and were caching round Ashford. Australia - that's quite a distance for a "furthest find from home". My furthest find from home is Southampton.

Whilst chatting the Aussies told me that they couldn't find my cache that I'd hidden on a road sign by the dentist's. Sure enough it had gone missing again. That one winds me up. I walk past this cache at least three times a week...... and at least three times a week I turn the cache around. For a magnetic cache to work the magnet on the cache has to be in contact with the metal that is magnetic; not the aluminium bit which is not. Is that *really* such a difficult concept for people to grasp?

I popped up to Ashford to pay a couple of cheques into the bank for the astro club; I took a rather circuitous route there and back because I was playing Ingress as I went. Once home I popped the lead onto "Furry Face ^TM" and took him for a litle walk. We went down to Brittania Lane where (for the first time) I destroyed an enemy stronghold (oo-er!). From here we came home via Coulter Road, the Environment Cente and Viccy Park where we rolled in something foul.

For those of my loyal readers who don't know the area, that route is akin to going from London to Brighton via New York.

After nearly four hours walking we came home. My dog curled up on my lap and went to sleep. I downloaded the new Savlonic album; as a Kickstarter supporter of theirs I got a free download. I quite like thier stuff. A quick sandwich whilst watching "Family Guy" and then I had a go at the astro club's accounts. All the money which is supposed to be there is there.

I thought I might catch up with some stuff I'd recorded onto tthe SkyPlus box, but fell asleep in front of the telly. Woops. And then bearing in mind what a good dog "Furry Face ^TM" had been at the vet's last week I thought we might just go back to Pets at Home (the vets is in there) and get him a treat. The idea being he will associate the place with getting treats, not injections and fingers up his bum. So we walked to Pets at Home along a rather roundabout way, and in doing so captured much of South Ashford for Team Green. I'm getting rather into this new game.

"er indoors ^TM" set off bowling, and I then spent the evening ironing shirts. Rather dull... Mind you for all that "er indoors ^TM" claimed to be bowling I could see from the Ingress app that she was off attacking portals; specifically the ones I set up earlier...

17 August 2014 (Sunday) - Doing the Family Thing

Yesterday I scrambled up a tree in order to chase a geocache. I think I must have strained something when I did that as my side felt very bruised and painful this morning.

Over brekkie I watched an episode of "Saxondale" and I combed my dog. "Furry Face ^TM" likes being combed, and whenever I stopped combing he would whinge until I started again. I kept combing whilst watching Challenge TV. "Fun House" and "The Crystal Maze" were both entertaining, and passed the time until the washing machine stopped.

With washing on the line I went to play Ingress.... erm.... I took my dog for a walk. OK - so I played Ingress as we went. I established control over much of the area between home and the International station, and I've taken over the portal outside Chippy's house. Mind you an enemy portal outside the Stour Centre did take a pot shot at me as I walked past.

I had a lot of messages via the Ingress app overnight... "MooseofDestiny" had been attacking me (!) I can see this silly game taking up a lot of my time; it's just as well I walk round Ashford for at least an hour every day.

I came home, had a quick cuppa, and set off to the family meal a little earlier than I needeed to. The meal was in Kennington; only a mile from where a new geocache had gone live. I chased the new cache, got First to Find; did the happy dance and the secret geo-ritual, and then went on to the Kennington Carvery for Cheryl's birthday dinner. I'd never been there before. I shall certainly be going back. Four roast meats, eight vegetables, cauliflower cheese and parsnips. All you can eat; and if you can't get all you can eat on your plate you can go back. And all for a tenner.

Twenty of us sat down for a scoff; and what a scoff it was.

We had a lovely meal, said our goodbyes and went down to Folkestone where we found "Daddies Little Angel ^TM". I spent a few minutes winding up Charlie and then we went down to the Coastal Park where we met Jose.

Alice in the Coastal Park was intended to be a live-action Alice in Wonderland re-enactment. We went to last year's production and it was really good fun. As we arrived at the coastal park the heavy rain started. Literally hundreds of people were hurrying out of the park, and as we too hurried away so the rain became torrential and in ten seconds I went from being a bit damp to being soaked.

We retreated back to the maisonette where I dried out whilst asleep in front of episodes of Bear Grylls on the telly. A great shame - I'd been looking forward to this for months.

On the way home we stopped off to try to find a geocache. It went live on Friday. No one had yet found it. We didn't either.

We also stopped of at McDonalds. Still stuffed from the lunchtime carvery we didn't fancy anything for tea, but a McFlurry might just hit the spot. It did.

Once home "er indoors ^TM" set off bowling. I took "Furry Face ^TM" off to South Willesborough where, feeling flushed with success after woofing at a cat, he nearly got involved in an altercation with a goat. He was playing his games, and I was playing mine. I captured four more portals for the Enlightened faction. Mind you whilst I had been out and about today some cheeky devil had liberated the area between home and the International station which I had captured this morning.

Talking of which... yesterday I finished by saying that Lisa was off on a mission of her own to attack something blue which was six hundred metres away. I've not heard from her since. I wonder if she's OK...

16 August 2014 (Saturday) - More Games

I woke a lot earlier than I would have liked this morning. Even earlier than "Furry Face ^TM". I had my brekkie whilst watching "Family Guy". I then tried watching an episode of "I Dream of Jeannie" which was on the UK Gold channel but I soon turned it off. That show was bad enough fifty years ago and it hasn't stood the test of time.

Having tricked my dog into taking his antibiotic tablet (I hid it in a lump of cheese) I took him for a little walk up to the railway station and then on to Frogs Island via the McArthur Glen Outlet Centre. As we walked I had my scanner active; I charged some portals, captured one and set up a control field over Upper Denmark Road. Go - Go Team Green !!!

I'm qetting quite into this Ingress game. Must go attack the chip shop again.

When I got home I saw a new geocache had gone live. I had a plan that this afternoon I would find the three closest caches to home and would then have found all the caches within five miles of home. Here was a new one only one mile away. I hopped into the car thinking I would chase an FTF. I chased it.. and got it. Not bad for International Geocaching Day.

This one was an excellent cache. Some geocaches are manky wet scraps of paper in broken sandwich boxes under rocks. This one wasn't. It was.... well I won't spoil the surprise but let's just say that it is a work of genius. However I will say that (like all "clever" caches) I suspect this one will be high maintenance for the chap who hid it.

I came home, haad a cuppa, then voomed round to help my brother with some heavy lifting. Then after a Belgian but for lunch (259 calories) it was time for sax lesson. Every week is the same; I do my saxophone homework (set pieces to learn). I can do them very well at home. I show teacher what I can do, and it all goes to pot.

Apparently my rhythm is lacking; to allieviate this shortcoming I have downloaded a metronome app. Let's see if it helps.

We then put the lead onto "Furry Face ^TM" and went for a short walk around Brook. He always likes a walk, and so do I. We found the geocaches we were after whilst we were out, and "er indoors ^TM" mounted an attack on a portal in a pub; which I thought was harsh. She's jumped on the Ingress bandwagon too, but has joined the wrong side.

Once home I was slobbing about (as one does) when I had a flurry of messages from my Ingress app. Yesterday afternoon I went out and claimed much of Viccy Park for Team Green. Some git from Team Blue has gone out, blown away all that I did yesterday and captured the park for his side. I shall have to work out what I do about that. Mind you I have recruited acquired daughter to the cause; and the last I heard she was off on a mission of her own to attack something blue which was six hundred metres away.

I can't help but wonder how she got on...

15 August 2014 (Friday) - Here's Another Game to Play

I didn't sleep especially well last night and was watching the documentary about Royal Marines in training before 6am. As I watched the telly I saw the bin men coming up the road. According to the council's web site we can leave out a bag of textiles for collection. We left them a bag; they left it behind. Quite frankly I expected nothing else from them. If you try to ask them why they aren't doing the job they are paid to do they always have endless reasons for why they should do as little as possible.

It's easier to just take the rubbish to the tip myself.

We then set off to a meet-up of geocachers which had been specifically organised for the purpose of gathering geocachers for a geocache search... despite section II 2.6 of the rules which says "An Event Cache should not be set up for the purpose of gathering geocachers for a geocache search". Much as I like going hunting tupperware, the hobby would really benefit from having a fair-handed application of the rules.

Today's meet was specifically for people to meet up to go off to Germany for the giga- geo-meet over the coming weekend; and for anyone else who was interested to come along to wave them off. I'd booked today off work months ago specifically to go off to Germany with them. It looked like being a rather cheap weekend away until I realised that all that was being offered on the deal was the coach trip; accommodation was to be extra so I decided against going.

The meet-up was at the Eureka park just off of Junction 9 of the M20; chosen as an ideal place for people to meet up to get on to the coaches going to the event in Germany. A couple of dozen of us met up to wave goodbye to those going to the Giga-event. We stood around chatting for some time, and eventually the news came through that the coaches (which had set off originally from Milton Keynes) had been delayed. Gradually everyone went their seperate ways, "er indoors ^TM" set off to work, Lisa, "Furry Face ^TM" and I went over to McDonalds for McBreakfast leaving those who were going to Germany waiting for the coaches.

Having a dog with us we sat outside Maccy D's to hace our McScoff, and with McBrekkie scoffed there was still no sign of any coaches so we went off for a morning's geocaching round Lydd. We had a good walk and found a few caches; eventually giving up just before the forecast rain hit.

Once home I did some fiddling about with the monthly accounts (skint) and then had a look at what might just be the next craze. Ingress is.... well, I'm not entirely sure what it is. My cousin said to sign up to it because he gets freebies if I join. So I joined. It looks like a GPS based augmented reality game. All I knew for sure was that there was a portal held by my faction just up the road, and an unclaimed portal at work.

I had a run through the tutorial; it seemed fairly straightforward so I took "Furry Face ^TM" for a mission. We went along Torrington Road where we set up a control field (!) and then moved on to Bowens Field where we captured a portal (oo-er!). Within an hour we had four new portals taken for our side, and had established control of great swathes of Ashford from the International Station to Christchurch and also half of Viccy Park was under our flag. Flushed with success I mounted an attack on the enemy encampment at the chip shop and had my arse handed to me on a plate.

When I have figured out how to do it properly I have decided to deploy a portal outside the house of "The Man with No Alias" before he starts getting lippy. After all it worked in geocaching.

Once "er indoors ^TM" had come home we took a birthday pressie round to Cheryl and on the way back we stopped outside the college where I showed "er indoors ^TM" how to activate a neutral portal (!) Having activated it for the correct team I suggested she might like to attack it. She did. It attacked her back. Well, she is on the wrong team....

14 August 2014 (Thursday) - Hospitals, Vets

I slept through till 7am this morning. That's nearly eight hours sleep. Just like the normal people do. As I started to walk downstairs my knee gave a really painful twinge. I hope it stops doing that soon. I eventually hobbled downstairs to see my little dog seemed equally still this morning. I checked out the Internet over brekkie; not a lot seemed to be going on, which was probably for the best.

My mobile rang; it was the garage who had found a leak in the car's air-con. They seemed surprised; I thought it was rather obvious that the thing had a leak; that's why the last re-gassing had only lasted for a week. They then phoned back fifteen minutes later to tell me that they needed to get a special part from Renault which they wouldn't get until this afternoon.

I put the washing on the line, settled "Furry Face ^TM" and walked to the hospital. Today was my anaethetic review prior to the surgical rebore of my nose. I arrived at the out patient deparrtment with time to spare. After a little wait I then fiilled out a questionnaire asking all the questions I'd answered at the last two out patient appointments and I then sat with a nurse who told me what the specialists had told me at the last two out paatient appointments.

I then went round to the cardiology department for an E.C.G., which is standard practice for the over-fifties (!) .

I then walked home again. I stopped off in Newtown to get a sandwich. I won't be going back to that shop. The shop itself was passable; but there is something fundamentally wrong with a local shop being filled with middle-aged women drinking Stella and Special Brew from the can.

Once home I scoffed my lunch whilst watching more "Family Guy" until Lisa came round. We had a plan for the afternoon. First of all we went up a tree to find an arboreal geocache. That didn't do my bad knee any good. Then we jumped a fence and went off in search of an underground bunker we'd heard about. The hill we found took its toll on my knee as well. Our instructions for finding the entrance to the bunker had been rather vague, but soon enough we found a likely looking tunnel and scrambled inside. It was either the entrance to a wartime bunker or it was a sewer. It didn't smell too bad so we thought we'd taake a chance. After twenty yards the tunnel opened out into a couple of rooms and we spent a few minutes looking around. I took a few photos whilst we were inside, and then we made our way back to the car and home.

Once home (a la recherche du temps perdu (!)) I sparked up my old favourite pastime "NeverWinter Nights" and had a wander round Castle Never until the garage phoned to tell me my car was ready for collection. "Furry Face ^TM" and I walked over to Willesborough to be told my seal had been leaking, and if it does it again I should take the recalcitrant component back to them.

As my dog jumped into the car my eye was caught by the sores on his back. I knew he had bald patches; I'd been putting cream on to them recently, but I had no idea how bad they had become.

We went straight to the vet.

We try to walk into the vet's at "Pets at Home" once a week so he gets used to it. He is fine in the shop area and in the vet's waiting zone. But the moment the consulting room door opened he tried to escape. He was terrified.

But I'm much bigger than he is, and he had no choice. He was scooped up and unceremoniously dumped on the vet's table. After a little rummage the vet announced his anal glands needed "doing". Rubber gloves, fingers where they shouldn't be, a fishy smell. The problem was cured but his back remains sore. He's been given a steroid shot which may well leave him "out of sorts for a day or so" and he's been given a course of antibiotics. He's also been declared to be overweight and, like his Granddad, he has to go on a diet.

I bought him a large chew-bone for being a good dog at the vets, and he spent much of the evening chomping away at said chew-bone. We had been thinking of going for a walk this evening, but I'd already walked to the hospital and back and to the garage; all of which probably wasn't a good idea with my knee aching. And also bearing in mind the intermittent rain and a dog which had been medically declared to be "out of sorts" we decided to have a quiet night in. So we slobbed in front of "Little Shop of Horrors".

Well I liked it.......

13 August 2014 (Wednesday) - Haroldslea

I watched "Family Guy" over brekkie, and then spent a little while watching another on-line geo-squabble. Some chap whose command of the English language leaves a little to be desired was ranting about the cost of a premium membership of geocaching dot com. At fifty pence per week I think its good value, but he was whinging about the cost being too much. I got the distinct impression that he was looking for some sort of a subsidy on the money he spends making geocaches. (I might be mistaken here; his written English isn't good) Whilst I sympathise with his sentiments, the nice people at geocaching dot com are doing it as a business; and if we don't like it, that's our tough luck. It's called "capitalism".

And talking of geocaching I loaded "Furry Face ^TM" into the car, drove round to collect Lisa, and after a minor diversion to the electric fags shop we were soon on the motorway. With a day's holiday I'd looked on the map and found a little loop of thirteen geocaches along three miles of lanes near Crawley. Using judicious map reading and idiot enthusiasm we were able to expand this walk to about five miles to incorporate some high terrain caches; one up a tree, one underground in a tunnel. And even that holy grail of geo-finds; a D5/T5 (didn't actually find that one!)

Our underground excursion was interesting; the tunnel was not built with the more rotund frame in mind, and half way along that tunnel was the skeleton of what I think could only have been a triceratops.

Going up the tree was fun; from the ground I could see what I was sure was the cache. it was only on climbing that I found the actual cache was a lot lower than I was expecting; what I could see was a huge pine cone. It was when I was two thirds of the way up that tree (about twenty metres) that my knee became *really* painful. There are those who say I'm too old to be free-climing trees. They may have a point.

We had a really good walk; I even took some photos of our exploits. Mind you I must admit today's exertions tired me more than I was expecting. Two weekends with no major hikes have certainly left me out of practice. However, once home I knew that I wasn't finished yet.

I took my car round to the garage (to have the air-con sorted) and walked "Furry Face ^TM" home from there.

Once home I scoofed some chocolate coated peanuts. "er indoors ^TM" had bought them for me as a pressie. They were nice; they lasted me for about ten minutes. They conatined over a thousand calories. In fact about the same amont of calories that I'd burned off during today's walks.

And with my dog fast asleep and snoring I set off to the astro club committee meeting. Tonight was a meeting of the new observatory steering group. It probably didn't help that my knee was still playing up from when I strained it earlier, but tonight I had no enthusiasm for the new observatory project. All I wanted to do was put my knee up and sulk. Perhaps I should mention it at tomorrow's hospital appointment?

And in closing today ..... I've retrospectively censored this...... in years to come I might say why

12 August 2014 (Tuesday) - White Van Man

I was up relatively early and came downstairs to find "Furry Face ^TM" asleep. No "potty accidents" last night; for which I was grateful. I watched another episode of "Saxondale" over brekkie, checked the Internet and saw Robin Williams had died. Facebook was heaving with tributes to the chap. Personally I always found his humour over-rated. Yet again I am in the minority.

I walked into town to Enterprise-rent-a-car (what other firm could I use?) and after less than five minutes had the van keys in my hand. This is the second time I've used this firm and so far they have been really good. I had a dodgy few minutes trying to work out where to stick the keys, but soon enough the van was parked up outside home.

"er indoors ^TM" had just emerged from her pit, and a quick phone call woke "My Boy ^TM" who was soon with us. We loaded one or two odds and ends into the van and set off to Folkestone where "Daddies Little Angel ^TM" was relocating from the War Bunker (!) to somewhere more salubrious.

I've helped friends and family move before. I have memories of sofas wedged in hallways, of freezers still full of food, of people honestly expecting me to move wardrobes stuffed full of clothes, of endless flights of stairs. If more moves went like today's I'd be more inclined to get involved with more moves.

We arrived to find taht everything was packed and it really was as simple as moving all of the stuff out of the War Bunker and into the van. Unloading at the new place was rather tricky as the road was narrow and with nowhere to park we had no choice but to stop in the middle of the road and whenever a car came I had to do a "round the block" with the van. We unloaded in a fraction of the time it took to load up, and went back for the heavy stuff. It was heavy, but there was a lot less of it; and all the actual moving was done by mid day.

We had a quick spot of lunch, moved teh heavy stuff to where it was needed, put some beds together and left them to it.

The van hire agreement was that I put as much fuel into the van as I had used; I thought a tenner's worth of diesel would be fair so we stopped off at Sainsbury's filling station to get fuel. There was a minor hold up at the checkout. The woman at the front of teh queue was having a major cob. Someone else had paid for her petrol and had since driven off. The spotty girl behind the counter felt that if said woman paid for the petrol that the chap who had settled her bill had taken all would be well. However the bloke who'd paid for this woman's petrol wasn't daft. He'd put fifty quid's worth into his car and paid for thirty quid's worth. The woman holding the queue up was happy to pay for the petrol she'd taken but wasn't going to pay twenty quid over the odds. Spotty checkout girl wanted her till not to be twenty quid adrift.

These things are always amusing to watch... all the time it is someone else in the thick of it.

Once home I phoned the vet's. I'd had a message that "Furry Face ^TM" was due his annual once-over. The nice lady told me that he wasn't due until mid-September and they didn't like doing dogs early. I did toy with the idea of suggesting that if they didn't want me to book early then they shouldn't contact me early. But I bit my toungue and made an appointment for six weeks time.

I then took that dog for a walk, and came home to a rather good bit of tea washed down with a bottle of plonk. I went on-line and squabbled about how phones are better for geocaching than GPS units, then we went out for the Tuesday gathering. I actually stayed awake for this week's installment of the100. I'm not sure about this show; it doesn't actually have any likeable characters in it. There are either outright villains, or characters about which you just don't care. But I shall give it a little longer before dismissing it out of hand...