I slept through till half past seven this morning, but was
rather aching when I got up. I suppose this chair workout lark is slowly taking
effect? I got up, made toast and had my usual look at the Internet. There was
upset in Hastings Old Town. There are two major hills there – East and West –
with funicular lifts on each. The one on the west hill takes you from the heart
of the sea front to a residential area. The one on the east hill takes you from
a car park to a field. The west hill lift (the useful one) has been
broken for some time, but in compensation the owners are offering holders of
season tickets for that lift free use
of the other one. Not that it’s of any good to them.
And I saw red when I checked my emails. Someone couldn’t
find a geocache I’d hidden by Singleton Lake and had suggested I go check on
it… Someone who has found over thirty thousand of the things and only ever
hidden three (and none of those in the last ten years).
I Munzed, then took the dogs to the woods. We did a
slightly shorted version of our usual walk; cutting out the bit where the
rancid thing is. As we walked we saw slow worms, and then there was an
interesting episode. All three dogs flew to the edge of the path and stopped.
Twenty yards into the woods was a herd of deer. The dogs watched the deer; the
deer watched the dogs. Bailey made a half-hearted move toward the deer. The
deer looked at her, as did Morgan and Treacle, and after she’d gone forward
five yards she stopped and came back; looking rather sheepish.
As we walked I realized that it was rather quiet. Quiet as
in silent. I ran my birdsong app for two separate ten-minute sessions and
didn’t detect a single bird.
And I found a frankly epic turd. What can there be in Kings
Wood that does turds the size of tennis balls?
We came home. I made us a cuppa then cracked on in the
garden. I harvested dog dung, hung out the washing then ran round the lawn
edges with the strimmer. I had a go at the lawn with the lawn mower, then had a
go at the gravelled areas with the garden vacuum. I swept round the yard, then
emptied the last of the wreckage from when I cleared out the bog filter. And
whilst I was at it I loaded up the car in readiness for a tip run.
So easy to type, two and a half hours to do, and the garden
looked just the same at the end as when I started.
I came in for a little break and got Wordle on the fifth
attempt. “Modal” – what a seriously stupid word.
I then drove over to… I won’t say where, but a friend had
hidden a geocache somewhere relatively locally which would seem to have gone
missing. Could I replace it? Of course I could. And with that replaced I drove
on to the tip to unload. As I got rid of rubbish I also got rid of the old kite
buggy. I felt rather sad about getting shot of it but we’ve not used it in over
ten years, it takes up a lot of storage space, and the tyres had perished.
I came home and did my twenty minute chair fitness workout.
I’d already walked four miles round the woods, spent two and a half hours
gardening, loaded the car with rubbish, and unloaded it all again, and all of
that was peanuts compared to sitting on a dining chair waving my arms and legs
about. I made us another cuppa to calm my nerves.
I then drove down to collect “Daddies’ Little Angel TM”
and Pogo and we drove to Orlestone woods where we met “er indoors TM”
for our evening walk. Our three dogs walk better when Pogo is along; he seems
to take over as pack leader and they all follow him.
We had pie and chips for dinner. Arguably not that much of
a diet food, but what with all the stuff I’ve done today, my diet app said I
still ended the day having scoffed one thousand five hundred calories less than
I could have had.
I walked over twenty thousand steps today…
