23 November 2014 (Sunday) - Working

Not a bad night's sleep last night, but with an alarm set for 6am I was wide awake from 5am. I got up, had a shave, and watched "Dad's Army" (they don't like it up 'em) and then "Toddlers and Tiaras." All rather mindless viewing for silly o'clock on a Sunday morning.

I then had a little look on-line. Not much of note had happened overnight in cyberspace. I had a naive hope that there might be a new geocache going live on my way to work for which I might chase a First to Find. At 6.30am I had an email about a new geocache. To get to work I drive sixteen miles east; this new one was sixteen miles west. Then two other emails came in about new caches in Hastings and Dover. Oh well....

As I drove to work the Sunday morning radio was... difficult to describe. More religious and spiritual than on most days; I'd call it "all about Sunday Stuff". There was some crackpot proponent of some half-baked religion who was talking about one of many wars raging in the Middle East. I've mentioned before that here's always wars in the Middle East. This crackpot was wittering some frankly ludicrous theory that because wars in the Middle East are religious in nature then they are somehow acceptable. How does that work. Wars for territory or political reasons can usually be argued out reasonably. Religion is many things, but its very nature is beyond reason.

The next item had me baffled. The (heavily accented) speaker was wittering on about the proliferation of "footbags", and how so many people rely on them,. The suggestion that unscrupulous people take advantage of footbags was pooh-poohed as (apparently) most people feel shame when using a footbag. After ten minutes of being utterly confused I finally realised they were talking about "food banks".

You would think the BBC would employ radio presenters who could spead clear English, wouldn't you?

I got to work, did my bit, and spent much of the day looking out of the window at the torrential rain. I don't mind working at the weekends really; I really don't mind working at the weekends when the weather is bad.

The day soon passed, and I came home again. Even though it was 9pm next door was clanging on their piano. I've found that when I blow my sax they take the hint and shut up the piano. So I blasted away on the sax, and sure enough the piano quietened.

And then I fell asleep in front of the telly. Again...

22 November 2014 (Saturday) - Rain Stopped Play

I woke at 2am and went for a tiddle. If I had I then put the CPAP thingy back on I might well have slept better. But I couldn't be bothered to do so, and so didn't really sleep for the rest of the night. Perhaps I should have put the CPAP thingy back on?

I got up shortly before 7am, shared my toast with "Furry Face ^TM", and as "er indoors ^TM" set off to a meeting of the southern branch of the Natioanal Union of Candlemongers I took my dog round to the park for a walk. As we went he shouted at a paper boy and tried to pick a fight with a Great Dane.

Once home I had some time to spare, so I did the monthly accounts. I wouldn't say I'm bankrupt, but I do need to stop squandering. One extra month's money would be rather nice. I then drove round to collect Kim and Andy and we set off to Meopham. We'd planned a geo-mission for today, and Dave had driven up from Brighton to join us.

We met up in torrential rain, and decided that perhaps we might adjourn to the cafe. So we did. A coffee and a bacon sarnie went down well as we chatted. But after an hour the rain hadn't abated. And the cafe was on low ground. We couldn't see the hilltops where we'd intended to walk from where we were. The low cloud/misty fog would have had us soaked so we decided to postpone; after all we got soaked last week when we might have abandoned.

It was a shame we had to cancel the walk, but it was really good to meet up with Dave, and we can always walk another time. Mind you it was rather frustrating to find the weather was completely at odds with what the BBC had forecast, and was nothing like the dry conditions it was claiming was actually happening.

Andy suggested going for lunch, but I was pleasently replete from the bacon sarnie. And I've been eating out a little too much lately as my waistline testifies. So I came home, fussed my dog, and did more of my on-line course. I got ninety per cent in the test too. I was pleased about that; much better than the last one.

I started sax practice, and was immediately confronted with a howling dog. Fudge found himself banished to the garden for twenty minutes whilst I tootled. I did plan on popping down to Folkestone to see the littlun (and "Daddies Little Angel ^TM" as well) but a terrible night's sleep meant I fell asleep instead.

The idea of the recent surgery was to sort out this stupid sleep pattern...

21 November 2014 (Friday) - A Walk

I was up with the lark, and after a swift bite of brekkie I zoomed round to Asda to treat myself to a sandwich. I had intended to go last night, but in the end I ran out of time yesterday.

I then set off to... I don't really know where I set off for. I think it was somewhere in the general vicinity of Otford. A few days ago I'd read a post on the Geocaching in Kent Facebook group that there was to be a geo-mission today. I'd spent much of a day solving geo-puzzles, and today was the day we were to collect them.

As I drove I was rather depressed to hear the news on the radio. UKIP has won yesterday's by-election in nearby Rochester. The opinion of most of the commentators is that UKIP are getting their popularity because most people aren't actually voting *for* UKIP; they are trying to register a protest against the exisiting political establishment. That may well be the case, but if people want to make a protest they should decide not to vote, or to spoil their ballot papers. Because by voting UKIP politicians into positions of authority isn't making a protest; it's doing something rather dubious (at best). Most people aren't interested in politics, and this is where UKIP score. Have you ever listened to anything a prominent UKIP politician says? No? - you should actually listen to them. They come out with a whole load of guff which sounds designed to appeal to the average man in the street. But most of what they say is hot air based on vastly over-estimated guesswork about how much money (if any) might be saved by leaving the EU and sending everyone home on the next banana boat. And then most of what they've said is then formally denied and re-worded by UKIP official press releases the next day. But they've got someone into parliament (again) because the man in the street likes being told that shit is sugar.

And people wonder why I don't beleive in democracy.

I turned off the news and put on an Ivor Biggun CD and sang rude songs whilst I calmed down.

I arrived at the meeting point, and by the time I'd got my wellies on, Phil and Dan had arrived. Martin soon joined us, and with geo-gadgets primed we set off. Up hill and down dale; and there was some serious ups and downs. On the way we saw phesants and squirrrels and a rather brave fox. There were some wonderful views to be seen as we went. Sandra joined us half way round, and we carried on past rather friendly horses and an abandoned car. Who drives a car into a field to abandon it? We even saw the house in which the gold from the Brinks-Matt bullion robbery was found.

We set out with sixty-three geo-targets; we found the lot. There was one that had gone walkabout, but it was rather obvious where it had been, and we'd gone out with permission to replace any that were missing. We walked just over nine miles in just over five hours. We'd parked up by a pub. after our walk we deserved a drink; it was rather frustrating to find the pub wasn't open on Friday lunchtime.

It's been some time since I last did a long walk; I've missed them. But, as I usually do, I took a few photos whilst we were out.

I'd thought we were going to finish a lot later than we did; I came home and took "Furry Face ^TM" for a walk. It won't be long before he's out with the me on the big walks again. I was tempted to have taken him this morning, but the vet did say he was to rest until the end of the month. And then (with a lot of help) I solved the last geo-puzzle for tomorrow's planned walk.

I got myself some tea, and then watched a film. "Community" is a horror film about a rather grim housing estate. I was tempted to turn it off (on several occassions) but I stuck it out to the end. Mind you it was nothing special.

"Daddies Little Angel ^TM" phoned; littlun was making strange noises and she wanted my sage wisdom. She put littlun on the phone and he gurgled at me. In all honesty it sounded like the sort of noises that babies make; they are noisy things. I said as much, and she seemed happy with my opinion.

I looked at doing more of my Coursera course, but by then it was 9pm. Next door had by then stopped clanging the piano and was by then strangling their violin. I shall Coursera tomorrow... And blow my sax too; I never got round to practicing it today.

20 November 2014 (Thursday) - Birthday Party

I slept a little better last night, but was still awake before the alarm went off. I came down to find my dog fast asleep. I then had a minor fight with the SkyPlus box; it wouldn't switch on. Eventually, after pulling the thing's plug twice, I got it going. What's the point of recording all-new episodes of South Park if you can't watch them?

Off to work. As always I listened to the radio. There wasn't quite so much annoying drivel today; instead the airtime was (frankly) wasted on an interview with the artist David Hockney. Mind you there were a few snippets of note. The Sir John Cass school in London has been visited by OFSTED. In one fell swoop it has gone from being "outstanding" to needing "special measures".

How can a school go downhill so far and so fast? I can't help but feel that either it was never "outstanding" in the first place, or that the current need for "special measures" is nothing but a silly political publicity stunt.

I was pleased to hear that the Government has brought in legislation to do away with the "beer tie"; at the moment landlords of pubs owned by large breweries are forced to buy their beer from said large brewery. Thyis is why I tend to avoid any pub owned by Shepherd Neame; the beer is OK, but it is the same beer in every pub. The abolition of the beer tie will hopefully bring variety to the hand pump.

Or so I thought. The pundits today weren't so sure. Apparently the beer tie (if nothing else) guaranteed the breweries an income. The feelings expressed this morning were that the abolition of the beer tie won't actually increase the types of ale available. With the advent of market forces only the cheap will survive. Greene King IPA all the way?

And to add insult to injury the Enterprise chain were quoted as saying that they get far more income from premises they run as corner shops than those that they run as pubs.

I got to work, did my bit, and got rather cold during my lunchtime sax practice. Being Thursday I had after-work sax lesson. I figured out why my rendition of "Hello Dolly" was a tad squafty; it's all in the F#. And from sax lesson I went round to Chiquitos where the family had gathered for a birthday meal.

Today was Lacey's eighth birthday, and she likes Chiquitos. They aren't bad. To be fair they are quite good really. But the bill for just me and "er indoors ^TM" was forty quid. And the bill comes with a tip already charged for; which I think is a bit of a cheek. When it's my birthday, Lacey will be celebrating with me in McDonalds for a quarter of the price...

19 November 2014 (Wednesday) - Dull

With an alarm set for the first time in two weeks I found myself wide awake at 4.30am. I'd forgotten how frustrating that can be. I lay awake until shortly after 5.30am, then got up. My little dog was still snoring on the sofa, and didn't stir at all. After a shave I stood on the scales; I thought I'd put on weight over this two weeks of sick leave; I had. I'm now over sixteen stones in weight. Diet time (!)

Over brekkie I watched an episode of "Family Guy", then watched a few minutes of an interview with Terry Gilliam. The blurb about the show looked interesting; the show itself was just pretentious.

Off to work; I've not listened to the news for a fortnight. The specific details of the news might have changed; the general pattern hasn't. People still fight in the Middle East because that's what they've done for so long they don't know any different. And the press attacked the National Health Service because that's what they've done for so long they don't know any different either.

I got to work, did my bit. I had my lunchtime saxophone practice; I seem to acheive far more with a saxophone at the far end of the car park than I ever do at home, I can only assume it's because I'm not constantly telling a certain dog to shut his howling.

Once home this evening I took that little dog round the block. It would have been good to have gone further, but by the time I get home it is completely dark. I'm not going to let "Furry Face ^TM" off the lead after dark; he gets distracted easily anough as it is when I can see where he is.

We then had a rather good bit of scoff for tea, a half-way decent bottle of plonk, and got about five per cent of the space on the Sky-Plus box cleared/ We now have nearly twenty per cent of the storage space on that thing cleared.

And in closing did you know that today was World Toilet Day?

18 November 2014 (Tuesday) - Stuff

I had another night when I slept for over seven hours; I would have slept longer had I not woken with my CPAP air hose in a tangle. I got up and had a little look on the Internet. Nothing really noteworthy; lots of arguments about pretty much every subject under the sun. Some were squabbles I'd (inadvertently) started, some were squabbles of friends, some were deliberate attempts to provoke fights. Disagreeing seems to be human nature. It's a shame people can't disagree without getting nasty about it.

Interestingly as I scoffed brekkie I saw that I had a few messages from people who joined that Facebook Wherigo site last week telling me that the chap who was squabbling at me (about litigation in geocaching) is a well known argumentative troublemaker. There really are people who troll the internet on any subject just to provoke fights. Why do they do this?

I noticed my dog was slow in getting up. Time was he was like a coiled spring, since his recent slipped disc he seems to take his time getting up. Perhpas its back-related, perhaps he's just getting on a bit.

Once he was up we went for a little walk round to a very wet Viccie Park where we did some geo-maintenance on one of "er indoors ^TM"'s geocaches (it wasn't there!) and went on to the vet's. We pop in there from time to time; the idea is to get "Furry Face ^TM" used to going in there. I have this theory that if we go in there regularly he won't be frightened of the place. When we just visit he is fine. Today we needed to see the nurse to get his anti-flea treatment. Because of this he needed to be weighed. He was terrified. How does he know when something is going to happen?

We weighed him; he's lost a tenth of a kilogram. Result (!) Mind you, he needs to loose more; he looks like a little barrel at the moment.

We came home, and I looked at my latest wheri-project. And decided I'm not going to bother with it just yet. I put a *lot* of effort into putting out three Wherigos last week and they've (so far) generated next to no interest. So I looked at this week's lectures on my Coursera course instead.

Today was all about the early Earth, and I learned something new - the Faint Young Sun paradox. Basically according to current theories of stellar evolution the Sun was never hot enough for life to have been on Earth as long as the fossil record would have us beleive. But something kept the water from freezing. Somewhere one of science's theories is wrong. And not for the first time...

I shall gloss over how poorly I did in this week's test.

I then looked at some more Sussex-based geo-puzzles, then plotted the Sevenoaks based ones I solved on Friday. From the map two of them were clearly wrong. One was an error in my calculations, one was a mistake in the published formula (which had been commented on some time ago).

I then boiled up a rather good bit of tea, then it was over to Willesborough for the weekly meet-up. Insults were bandied, colons were threatened with irrigation, and we watched episode two of "The Flash" (Zoom! Zoom!). The show has potential - I like it so far...

17 November 2014 (Monday) - Bit Dull Really...

The night before last I didn’t use my CPAP machine; I did last night, and the difference in the quality of sleep was amazing. For all that I don’t like being plumbed in at night, I think I shall continue with it. Sleeping right through until an alarm goes off is truly amazing.

I got up, had brekkie and saw a new geocache had gone live near Pluckley. It had been active for over an hour; had I been going to work today I would have chased the First to Find. Instead I took  “Furry Face ^TM “ round the park for a walk. We went a little further than we have recently; he ran quite a lot of the way, trying to fight with buses, taxis and motorbikes as we went. As we walked I did a little “whistle practice”; I blow the whistle, pup comes running to me and gets a treat. The idea is that he associates the whistle with a treat, and so it’s a way of getting hold of him when I need to (as opposed to when I *want* to). We’ve not done this for a while, and to my amazement it worked well; he remembered how to do it.

Once home he devoured his brekkie (he gets that after the walks so that the whistle will work), and I did a few geo-puzzles. There is a series of puzzles in Sussex that I’ve been meaning to try to solve for ages. I made a start on that series today. Supposedly designed for children; I found then rather hard. There is one word-search that has me foxed, and another puzzle in which you have to match caterpillars to butterflies. I haven’t a clue on that one.

I sent “Furry Face ^TM “ into the garden and I had a little sax practice; it’s amazing how quickly you get out of the hang of playing the thing.

The morning soon passed, and over a sandwich I watched a film. “The Sin Eater” was actually a good film. I watched it all the way through without turning off; just lately I’ve switched off half way through a lot of films. The film was actually based on a real superstition. I learned something today.

I checked the Internet – that geocache in Pluckley was still unfound. So I drove out to find it. Funnily enough I drove out at about the same time as another cacher did; unfortunately for me she only lived a couple of minutes down the road from the cache; she got there first, did the happy dance and was away before I arrived.

As I drove I came past one of my own caches. A car was parked there; I got out and said hello to the people who were caching. I was instantly recognised (for some reason I usually am!) and it turned out that this cache was probably missing. Several of that series seem to have gone walkabout. As many of them are custom-made caches I shall walk out over the next week or so, retrieve the caches that are left and archive the series. They are all puzzle caches and no one likes puzzles. I also have a multi-series nearby that no one has been near for months. That can go as well.

I came home and had a mini-sax practice. I managed about ten seconds before my dog started singing along. I wish he wouldn’t. He got sent outside for ten minutes whilst I tootled.

And then I did a little geo-research. When I go out caching I use my phone because I can do everything immediately on the phone through the internet connection. For no reason that I can see pretty much everyone else uses a hand-held GPS unit that you have to pre-program at home before you go out, and then bring home and plug into your home PC and use more software (that costs) before you can actually do any secret geo-rituals. Those who use GPS units are continually finding caches they’ve done and not logged, or are hundreds of caches behind with their secret geo-ritualling, and spend an age fiddling about doing stuff that the phone does automatically.

I *really* can’t see why everyone wants to use a hand-held GPS unit; I’ve been asking for two years and only ever been told that “I don’t understand”. Well, I don’t understand. Why are these things so popular? Why won’t anyone tell me? There clearly must be some advantage that I’m missing. The *only* advantage of a GPS unit that I can see is that they are waterproof. On Saturday my phone leaked a little. A month or so ago it leaked a lot. I was seriously considering getting a hand-held unit purely because they would be waterproof. But anything other than a wi-fi capable unit would be a seriously backward step. I was considering spending nearly five hundred quid on something I really don’t want when I realised I could get a waterproof cover for my phone for a fiver. Or I could steal the one that  ‘er indoors ^TM  isn’t using.

I shall try that cover the next time it rains and see how I get on…