Until my birthday. Slightly less than that actually.

Sarah has bought my present and tells me how wonderful it is but wont give me any clues as to the nature of it. On top of that an Amazon package arrived yesterday from my sister which I also dont know the contents of, and so will have to look at every day until my birthday in wonder and anticipation.

Should be a good one this year. Sarah has a host of activities planned for the day (also a surprise (grrr)). I do know that we are going to Patrick Moore’s planetarium in the evening and then staying at a travelodge overnight in Littlehampton. Even though it’s not far away it will be nice to be away from home.

On Saturday afternoon I excavated our mountain bikes from the wardrobe (yes, they were in there, and no they didn’t ought to fit in there) and did a bit of maintainance to make sure they were servicable. Then on Sunday I went for a very short ride to prove A) that the bike was still safe to ride, and B) how unfit I am. I definitely proved point B.
I’ve told my dad that I will join him on a sponsored ride late April. its only a 12ish mile ride, but the plan is to ride home again afterwards, s it’ll be about 25 miles.

Also doing some poster design work at the moment as a freebie for one of Sarah’s friends. I’m pretty happy with how it’s going and it’s providing some interest for me since the day job has got a bit slow recently. Feels like I’m not working towards anything, just working a day at a time then starting over. It’ll probably pass soon.

This is a true story.

Today on my way back from work, one of the worst possible things that can happen to a person actually happened to me.

I was merrily driving along the A27 listening to the radio when along came a song I hadn’t heard before & didn’t recognise the band.
I thought to myself ‘this is pretty good. I like this’.

Then the song finished and the DJ said “That was the new single ‘Shine’ from Take That”

Please kill me now.

This week at work I received a rather dull letter concerning a business matter which wont interest you, nor would I be at liberty to talk about even if I wanted to.

The letter didn’t interest me. The envelope, however, did.

“Forsooth” I hear you say “Tis’ but an ordinary envelope upon which you have expunged the intricacies of the address to assure security, very wise young sir Rob”.
In response I would advise that you people stop talking like Russell Brand, it’s very off putting, and pay more attention.

The envelope is, in fact, home made. It has been made of an old ordinance survey map which is something I find very intriguing.

This particular one isn’t a great example as its mostly the legend, but there’s enough info to tell it’s a map of part of Scotland.
For some reason I find it fascinating. I think we should all use maps and shopping lists and newspapers as envelopes. It would make this dying method writing to each other far more interesting.

Weekends away are always over way too quickly.

As you’ll have gathered from that statement, I’m back from my travels and here to bore you with the details of what went on.

Having decided that Bude was not a viable option for the weekend, Tim that is called Jess and I decided to have a lads weekend away somewhere random (but a bit nearer than Cornwall). The metaphorical wheel of fortune landed on Canterbury in Kent and so we packed our bags and set off.

To make life on the road a little bit easier and to quench my thirst for gadgetry, I borrowed a satnav unit from a friend at work. It also meant I didn’t have to rely on Jess’s navigational skills! I punched in the details of the Youth Hostel and within seconds this piece of advanced technology told me to head west. Using my skills of deduction I decided this probably wouldn’t be the best course of action given that Kent is East of Sussex, so I went east and told the satnav to try again. This time it got the direction right but decided to find the most complex of routes it could think of.
Half way through the journey the thought occured to me that I was blindly following the directions of the satnav and neither Jess or I had the foggiest where we actually were. If anything had happened and the GPS broke or something we may even have had to resort to asking someone!

We arrived at the hostel around 9:15 where we found all the car parking spaces were taken. We blocked off the entire driveway while we checked in and got our gear up to the room and then played the car shuffling game until the puzzle was complete. We spent some time familiarizing ourselves with the room and reading the 400 page acceptable conduct manual given to us by the girl on reception. We noticed the fire action poster on the back of the door. Note the last bit on the bottom right:

Ok, so I used a little artistic licence there, but it really was very like that.

We also found a second fire escape (modeled by the lovely Jess to the right) which seemed rather redundant and would only cater for those with challenges of a vertical nature.
We decided it probably led to Narnia or somewhere and so was better left alone.

We then realised we hadn’t eaten dinner yet so went and asked the receptionist where the nearest Chinese was. We walked into the town, bought our chinese and then realised that we had nowhere to eat it. It was raining outside and we didn’t much fancy eating in the car. Page 976 of the conduct manual said we weren’t to take food or drink into the rooms at the hostel, so we took the obvious course of action and smuggled it up there anyway. I’m sure the receptionist wasn’t suspicious given that we’d just asked her where to buy it and moments later were now slyly going back to our room suppressing childish sniggers.

Saturday morning I awoke fresh and threw something heavy at Jess to wake him up. I went and enjoyed possibly the nicest shower I’ve ever experienced and then went back for attempt #2 at waking Jess. We made it downstairs to breakfast with 5 minutes to spare befoer they stopped serving it then went and looked up some geocaches to go in search of.

We found ourselves 2 miles East of Canterbury in a remote woodland searching for our first cache. After about 10 minutes I realised the co-ordinates we were using were for the car park and not the cache itself. A phonecall to Sarah later and we were back on track. It was raining, the ground was more liquid than solid and basically we had no chance. We returned to the car and somewhat downhearted headed for the next cache 4 miles South. By now the rain had stopped and this one seemed to be based on bridleways much more solid than the last one. We found our way through the clues and after about a 2.5 mile walk we found it:

Contrary to its appearance in the photo, the cache did not in fact levitate.
As advised on the geocaching website there was a shorter route back to the car. “Just continue on the track you are on to the road, then head east to the car park” it said. It did not mention the small catch that the walk to the road was down a very steep incline, and in the current weather conditions actually closer resembled a flume ride.
Having surfed the mudslide back to the car, Jess proclaimed that (having been a geocaching virgin to this point) geocaching was great fun after all. We’ll go again soon I’m sure.

We went back to the Hostel and exchanged our now brown clothes for fresh clean ones then went into Canterbury and found lunch at a wonderful pub called the City Inn or something. Had the biggest burger I’ve ever experienced along with the second nicest garlic bread (Elias greek restaurant in Southampton for #1) and then discussed the pros and cons of bygone Jazz musicians on heroine with a sweary old man who repeatedly invited us to f**k him (in the “my goodness” sense rather than the literal).

right to left: Jess, Sweary old man.

We escaped His clutches and walked around the shops for a bit. I bought socks then we found some nice roads to walk around which is where we found the giant face.

Back at the hostel I telephoned Sarah to assure her that I was still alive and well, and during the conversation Jess decided it would be a wonderful idea to switch of the lights and beat me repeatedly with his pillow. He soon tired of this and went to further investigate the door to Narnia. It turned out that it just led to a room next door that had no apparent purpose and led only back to the corridoor where our main door opened into. So this fire escaped actually lengthened our journey to safety. Great.

This morning Jess managed to get up with only 2 minutes to spare for breakfast which he seemed very proud of. We packed our gear into the car and checked out. Jess did some driving for a change and we went to a big shopping centre where we found loads of bargains in the Animal shop mainly (I should point out that it is the animal clothing brand rather than squirrels and bunnys as I know some of you inparticular would visualise at this point). I bought some jeans, a rucksack and a wallet, and in another shop got 2 shower radios for £3. Score! I also got a Sarah present.

Next stop was Dungeness where I think it was Stu who went and blogged about it. I’d been there a few times before and the place has always stuck with me as it’s so odd. It’s very barren yet houses are randomly dotted here and there, along with a massive power station. Here are some of my photos.

Along the road a little in Camber Sands there were some guys kite surfing, so we stopped and I snapped a few of those too.

Our final stop was Rye where we had a lovely lunch in a cafe and then a short walk around the town. The only type of walk you can have in Rye is a short one. Unless your into laps that is.

So now I’m home and looking forward to work tomorrow.

Not.

No sheep were harmed in the making of this entry – for Doggas peace of mind!
And yes I am aware of the inconsitency in the size of the conduct manual from the hostel.