16 March 2018 (Friday) - DNF Friday

I slept like a log last night; night working does that for me. I woke shortly before "er indoors TM"’s alarm was due to go off.
As I scoffed my toast I had a look-see at the Internet. It was much the same as it had been last night, but overnight a new puzzle geocache had appeared not too far from Faversham. I puzzled it out and got the “thumbs-up” from the checker. I was rather pleased with myself about that, and I was feeling rather smug as I took the dogs out.

Fudge tried to pick a fight with a bus as we walked up the road. We got rather soggy in Bowen’s Field which was a shame. It was shortly after this that we met Lacey and both dogs jumped up at her and covered her in mud.
As Lacey set off to school we went on for a quick circuit of the park. Treacle saw a squirrel; the poor thing ran like a bullet from a gun. Treacle had a fair turn of speed as she chased it.

With dogs walked I settled them. Back in the days before Treacle I would take Fudge for a geo-walk. But having two dogs is too much like hard work. One pulls like a train; one has to be dragged along behind like a sack of spuds. They were both soon snoring in their beds and with a few minutes spare I thought I might chase the First to Find on that puzzle I’d solved earlier.
I was soon at a very likely-looking spot near Faversham but could find nothing. After fifteen minutes I checked my calculations. I *was* in the right spot. I hunted some more, but to no avail. In desperation I messaged the chap who had hidden it only to find there had been a mini balls-up. This cache wasn’t supposed to go live until tomorrow, and consequently hadn’t been hidden yet. All the paperwork and websites were done, ut the sandwich box I was hunting was still in Matt’s car several miles away.
Woops!

I drove on out (sniggering at myself) to Betsham. As I drove I recognized a number plate on a car. It was Dick’s car. I followed him to Betsham where we met Gordon and also the chap who had hidden all those boxes in Beckenham that we hunted for the other week. Together we had a rather good walk….

Let me qualify that.

I had a very good time walking with friends today, and I met a new friend too. I like meeting up with buddies; and we had a good catch-up today. But the walk itself was something of a disappointment. It was effectively a walk of two geo-series.
The larger walk was the one we did first; a circuit along roads and paths along roads. The cars flew along the part of the walk on lanes, and bit along the A2 was *very* noisy. We found human turds in a carrier bag in a rather nasty area where dozens of parked truckers had effectively trashed an area. (Someone *really* had crapped into a carrier bag and hung it from a fence)
Geocache-wise this part of the walk was rubbish. The chap who had hid them seems to have given up with the hobby. Many of the caches were missing with us being the latest of several people logging “did not find”.
A torrential rain shower half way round (soaking us all to the skin) really didn’t help. We were all set to go home, but reasoning that we needed to dry out a little we decided to carry on and do the smaller nearby walk. It was a straight line of four caches; fiendishly difficult ones of which we only found one.
Usually on a walk of twenty to thirty caches you expect to find the lot. Just one “Did Not Find” is cause for sulking. Today we logged DNFs on nine out of twenty-five. Probably my second- worst success rate ever
I took several photos as we walked. I still do that despite my camera having packed up.

We said our goodbyes, and I came home. Bearing in mind I was on a rest day today "er indoors TM" hadn’t come home at lunch time to walk the dogs. I took them round the park again. They like it, and (to be honest) so do I. We have a rather good park in Ashford.
With walk over I watched more “Star Trek: Discovery”. I’m hoping that by watching it all in rather quick succession I might get more “into” it. Having watched it all once, I was conscious that I was watching it because that was what trekkies do, rather than because I liked it.

"er indoors TM" came home and boiled up some fish and chips. It was rather good, but it put back on half the calories I’d walked off in over four hours’ walking earlier. That’s the trouble with these calories; they go in far easier than they come off…

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