28 July 2019 (Sunday) - Farningham

As I perused the internet over brekkie I saw that I had received a friend request on Facebook from one Rory Stuart. His name was followed by some Chinese symbols that translated to “Chinese Fire Dragon”. I wonder who he is?

I had a little look at the Internet as I do. Not much had happened overnight which was a shame really. Once social media was a good way of seeing what family and friends were up to. Nowadays it is more and more silly memes about cats and rants about Donald Trump. I must admit it is the seemingly constant stream of rants about Donald Trump that boils my piss most. I have over five hundred people on my Facebook friends list of which only three live in the USA. And those three rarely mention the chap. Why do so many British people get *so* wound up about President Trump when we have enough idiots of our own we might rant about?

We got the dogs organised and went out for our traditional weekend walk. Today was the monthly meet-up of hunters of Tupperware, but we decided against going. What with the recent heatwave the dogs haven’t had a good walk for a little while. They would have got rather fractious sitting round waiting whilst we sat round talking.

We drove round to the co-op to get some cash from the machine. *Again* it didn’t give me a receipt.

We then drove up to Farningham where we met Karl, Tracey and Charlotte. Eight weeks ago we started walking a series of geocaches, but we were taking our time, and when we got about half way round we felt it was rather hot, so we stopped off at the pub.

We went back today to finish the series.

We had a rather good walk. The route was one we’ve walked at least twice before. There were a couple of rather noisy stretches along the main road and along a path near the motorway, but there were miles along which the dogs could be off the leads and running free. And we didn’t have any aggro with cattle or horses at all either. Mind you the route did end up with us walking along the river Darent, and the hounds do like a dip. In fact the river ran through the garden of the pub where we ended up. That gave Fudge a reason to keep shouting until he was allowed to go for a paddle.

Three pints later we made our way back to the cars, and took a rather slow way home stopping off to pick up one or two drive-by caches on the way. I say “drive by”; I hadn’t really looked into what was involved with the last one. It took a little effort to get to the footpath along which it could be found. And when we got to where we thought we might start rummaging we found a tunnel.

I’ve not been tunnel-ratting for years.

It was rather good fun; getting on hands and knees and scurrying along fifty yards of tunnel. And then back

again. The dogs thought it was a great game. And finding the cache in the tunnel was an added bonus.

I took a few photos of our adventures.

We came home; the dogs slept most of the way. "er indoors ^TM" boiled up a good bit of dinner, and as we scoffed it we watched some police thing on the telly. I have no idea what it is, but "er indoors ^TM" seems to like it.

I did have a vague plan to do the ironing this evening… it will still be there when I get home from work tomorrow…

27 July 2019 (Saturday) - Early Shift

I was sleeping like a log when Pogo kicked me square in the nuts at three o'clock. That woke me with a start. I would have returned the favour, but he's had his removed. I managed to get back to sleep, and got a few more hours shut-eye.

 I came downstairs to find Fudge guarding the front door again.

Over brekkie I watched another episode of "Another Life" in which the protagonists all kept the clothes on (for once). Much as I'm a fan of ladies running round in their undercrackers, in TV circles it is usually the last resort of a desperate scriptwriter and doesn't *really* make for quality viewing.

I left "er indoors ^TM" and the wolf-pack snoring and set off to work. Having had something of a heatwave over the last couple of days and having spent four hundred quid getting the car's air-con fixed, this morning was cold and wet. Far from needing the air-con, I had the hot air blowers on to de-mist the windscreen.

As I drove the pundits on the radio were interviewing some vets who operated in the west country and specialised in sheep. I listened for a few minutes, then turned over to my rather odd choice of music.

I got to work, and had a phone call from my brother. What with the heatwave and the storms that came with it, the flights to and from Spain have been disrupted. His Spanish holiday has been forcibly extended by (at least) four days. Apparently thousands of people are affected by this.

Personally I'd see that as something of a result, but he doesn't. I suspect that this, his first foreign holiday, will be his last.

As I left work I popped into the league of fiends (!) shop to get a flapjack bar. As I was paying, some silly old woman was whinging on about the rain “Typical British weather, no summer” she ranted. I quietly pointed out that just two days ago had been the hottest day on record. She had completely forgotten about that.

I came home to find "er indoors ^TM" had gone to Margate to visit "Daddy’s Little Angel ^TM", so I settled in front of the telly, and as the dogs slept I watched the last episode of "Another Life". That’s the entire series binge-watched in three days. It wasn’t too bad. I wonder what I can watch next?

"er indoors ^TM" came home and we popped to B&Q. She wanted a little garden table. It made for a nice birthday prezzie for her. Personally I think the thing will have rotted away and be in the tip by Christmas, but it should see out the summer. Hopefully.

We had a lazy evening in front of the telly. I’ve programmed “Hannah” for tomorrow. Maybe an early night? I shall guard my “tackle” tonight…

26 July 2019 (Friday) - Still Hot

It was a hot night last night, and matters weren’t helped by Fudge who decided to spend the night guarding the front door. He declared “Red Alert” at every shadow, and there were a *lot* of shadows.

The plan for today had been an early start and a drive out to hide geocaches for the new series I’ve been planning, but with the car still in the garage, that wasn’t to be.

Bearing in mind it was supposed to be getting hot later I took the dogs round the park fairly early. Pogo barked at the first few dogs that we saw (to the owners’ disgust) but once we were through Bowen’s Field the novelty of woofing at everyone wore off, and from then on we had a good walk. We chatted with other dog owners in Viccie Park, we had a spuddle in the river, and when we lost Fudge a passing toddler told us in which bush he was lurking. We even exchanged pleasantries with OrangeHead in the co-op field.

Once home I fed the pond fish whilst Pogo growled at the plastic heron. We’ve had a plastic heron by the pond for years to deter real herons from taking the fish. We’ve never had a problem with herons, so it must be working. However over the last week or so, Pogo has taken an intense dislike to it, and whilst Fudge and Treacle bother the fish, he snarls at the plastic heron.

I then gathered dog turds (of which there were many) then wondered what I could do with the day. With no car I was restricted to only being able to go as far as I could walk, and it was too hot to walk anywhere or to be gardening.

So I fed laundry into the washing machine and settled in front of the telly.

I watched a few more episodes of “Another Life”. For me good sci-fi works by having believable characters in relatively credible situations with the sci-fi element being at least plausible. However this is the minority view. The people who made “Another Life” clearly feel that the most important element of a sci-fi yarn is having women running round in their undercrackers. Now, given that your spaceship has been invaded by some strange alien monster I can imagine that time would be of the essence. But if the men have had time to get dressed, why haven’t the women?

After a few episodes of this I had a spot of lunch, then ironed some shirts. I then logged into my bank account and did the monthly accounts. Ironically I found I was rather flush and seriously considered driving up to Bluewater to treat myself to that Lego lunar module model that I have been hankering after… Then I realised that I couldn’t go to Bluewater because my car was still in the garage. And I couldn’t afford that Lego lunar module because my car was in the garage.

And then the garage phoned. My car was ready, and would I like them to send the nice man to give me a lift? In the past I’ve walked the dogs over to collect my car, but it was rather warm and walking three dogs into the garage is hard work. I accepted the offer of a lift. I was told the nice man would be along within the hour – he arrived five minutes later.

I got to the garage – apparently the resistor package had gone (?). Fixing it and re-gassing cost me the thick end of four hundred pounds…

This is the point at which I find myself bombarded with tales of people who know people who have friends who could have done it for fifty pence. Do you ever find that whenever you have something that needs fixing, no one has *ever* heard of a mechanic or of an electrician or of a plumber. But once you’ve shelled out good money, everyone knows someone who could have done it cheaper.

With car fixed I took it for cleaning. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does I go to the cleaners in Ellingham. They’ve changed their advertising slogans recently – for years they claimed to be the “best hand job in Ashford”. Mind you, they did a good job; the car is immaculate, and unlike other car cleaners they don’t charge extra for hoovering out dog hair.

I came home via the shop over the road where I got myself a Del Monet lemonade ice lolly. Have you ever had one of those? They are not too shabby at all.

I then watched two more episodes of “Another Life”. "er indoors ^TM" came home and boiled up a rather good portion of fish and chips.

I could have done *so* much today. Hiding caches, mowing the lawn, doing the ironing… Rather a waste of a day off…