Tuesday, August 31, 2021

It was 20 years ago today...

 that I went to Virginia Water, armed with a yellow Garmin Etrex hand held GPS and found my first geocache. 

I rarely geocache now despite intending to and the game is much changed from those early days. I used to enjoy a five mile hike to find a box with wonderful views. I have little interest in finding a minute plastic container hidden at a roadside or finding loads within a small area. For me it was always quality over quantity. And whilst there are still lots of good caches I am sure, wading through the chaff to find them is more effort than I can muster.

Who knows though. I might still be connected enough to celebrate my 30th anniversary.

Sunday, August 29, 2021

The Difference.

 I find myself in the UK. I had to have a pcr test before I left France and one on day 2 here.

With the test in France, which is free to all until next week, I had the result in 2 1/2 hours.

With the UK test, which cost me £75, I got the results 3 1/2 days later.

Not good enough UK. Not good enough by a long chalk.

Saturday, May 29, 2021

A New Era

 After the success of Leeds getting into the Premiership last year they are now they are now joined by my second favourite team, Brentford. 74 years since they were in the old First Division the arrival of their new stadium earlier this season is just in time.

I'm not a great football fan but I think I may have to go see Leeds when they go to play The Bees. I have no idea the last time they might have played against each other in the top division, if ever, but I want to see it this time.

Sunday, February 28, 2021

A pair of endings.

 The first one, what with it being the 28th of Feb, is the last post of the Blogathon 2021. Not sure how we made it through with such a lack of activity but we did.

The second is another step away from work and into retirement. I have cleared out and cleaned my van, which will be returned to the company we have leased it off, first thing tomorrow morning. It feels like a very significant step but once more, perhaps being made worse by the times we live in. It's not the giving up work that is getting at me but a sort of loss of freedom I suspect. Who knows.

A few years back I kept going with daily posts until mid May, perhaps even the end of May. I'll not be doing that this year. 

Saturday, February 27, 2021

Wallet

 The contents of my wallet are presently;

McDonalds Loyalty Card
Nat West Debit Card
Revolut Card
BNP Debit Card
Another BNP Debit Card
Carte Vitale Health Card
Axa Health Insurance Card
The French version of a EHIC Card
My French Driving License
30€ Cash
A Prayer Written by a Close Friend
A Euromillions ticket which didn't win but I haven't thrown away.

Friday, February 26, 2021

Art Club

 I may have mentioned previously that I have the manual dexterity of a retarded wombat but I had an overwhelming desire to join in with Grayson Perry's Art Club 2nd series. I didn't watch the first one so I'm not really sure why. I quite like Grayson because he seems really grounded. 

So I started watching and then realised that you needed to know what subjects were coming up. A quick search revealed the five following subjects from tonights episode. 

Which is when I discovered the next two subjects were already closed so no doing those ones if you can't send them in.

Having made a note of the last three subjects I thought I'd read about sending stuff in.

Which is when I discovered it is only for people in the UK and Eire.

Bums.

Thursday, February 25, 2021

New Toy

 I got a new phone today. We had to reduce the mobile contract I was on from extortionately expensive to something reasonable. Because we had an all singing and dancing package when we were working, which meant having calls to everyone in the world, it was costing a frog's leg short of €90 a month. Thankfully we have got it down to €19.99 a month. Unfortunately, because it is a change to an existing contract there was no phone with it and I was using a substitute phone as I'd broken the original and the present one was dying on it's feet, or mainly on it's screen upon which I drop it with regularity.

I was just sighing with resignation when TMM asked whether she was due an upgrade. Indeed she was, so she enquired whether I could have it instead. And they agreed! Huzzah.

I couldn't get what I would really like, the latest Samsung, S20? because although an upgrade we had to pay for a proportion of the cost and that was still astronomical, but for just a €1 coin I was able to get the latest A42 release. It has four llenses on the back which may or may not be good. I'll know when I take a photo, but what is better, is it ships with 128gb storage. I am faint with excitement. The phone it replaced had 16gb and I only had 600mb spare. I listen to downloaded audiobooks on it so I had to delete one to get the next one on. Now I can store a virtual library on there.

Until I start apping it up. Which reminds me, I need to get the geocaching one on there.