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1 March 2021 (Monday)
- Back To Work
With an alarm set, all hopes of a good
night’s sleep went out the window. I woke at ten past one feeling raring to
go, and then lay awake for much of the rest of the night stroking Fudge’s
bony back. I got up and seeing how today was the first
of the month I allowed myself the privilege of a new razor blade. I’m a tad
mean with the things and make them last a month each. They seem to do OK to
the end of each month, but there is no denying that the morning scrape feels
better at the start of the month than at the end. As Sid snored I watched an episode of “Superstore”
whilst my COVID-19 test cooked. It was negative, which was probably for the
best. As I then had my morning’s perusal of the
Internet I realised that the appeal I set up for the goat
sanctuary had raised two hundred and ten pounds. I was rather impressed.
When I first read the message from Facebook about setting up a birthday
fundraiser I was rather sceptical about the idea, but I’m glad I did, and
grateful to everyone who contributed. I sent out some birthday messages. Two were
advertised on Facebook; one wasn’t. The one whose birthday wasn’t advertised
on Facebook was an old schoolfriend of mine. Of all the people with whom I am
in touch (albeit intermittently) this chap is the person I’ve known
longest who isn’t family. I first met him on my first day at primary school
fifty-two years ago. We were in the Boys Brigade together for years, and
after years working in banking he jacked it all in to become a minister in
the Baptist Church. I can’t help but wonder if he hadn’t put his birthday on
Facebook so that his flock wouldn’t find out – what is the etiquette for a
vicar’s birthday? And so I set off to work… I’ve just had a
week off work. I worked on my nineteenth birthday in 1983 and it sucked, and
I’ve taken the week of my birthday as leave every year since. And for the
next thirty-four years (up until 2017) I felt physically sick at the
thought of going back to work. But today – I’m looking forward to catching up
with people. There isn’t one person that I would want to avoid. As I drove up the motorway I listened to the
radio. I've not heard the news for a week, and I'd not missed much. The
vaccines minister was being interviewed this morning, and he managed to avoid
actually saying anything in any answer he gave. There was then an interview with Sandi
Toksvig (who is always interesting). She is currently championing a
scheme in which children have the subtitles on when they are watching telly.
They subconsciously read the subtitles, during the course of a year they
effectively read the equivalent of the "Narnia" series of
books and the entirety of the "Lord of the Rings" books
without realising they have done so. This also (obviously) massively
increases their literacy, which is never a bad thing. I got to work where we had cake. But not just
any old cake. A colleague's friend is starting up a cake-making business and
is trying to get her name put about. I was rather impressed with the cake; so
much so that I didn't dare be the one to cut it. Cake is good… |
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2 March 2021 (Tuesday)
- A Day Off
I slept well with no alarm set. I had (another)
day off today. The plan had been to have the day off for a dental
appointment, but last week the surgery cancelled the appointment. I took the
day off anyway. The day started with a minor result in that
as I made toast so Sid came bumbling past me in the direction of the back
door. I opened the door for him – he went outside for his morning rake-out.
That was *such* a result. Let’s hope it is the way forward. I then peered into the Internet to see if
much had changed overnight. I was amazed to read some of the posts from
people whose children will be starting secondary school in September. Quite a
few people weren’t happy because their child is not capable of taking a bus
to school. Others felt the car drive to secondary school every day would be
excessive… I walked a three-mile journey to secondary school every day when I
was a lad. Admittedly I would get the bus home… but most kids walked or
took the bus back then. Very few were chauffer-driven
to school. I’m reminded of some of the parents of cub
scouts who used to bemoan how hyperactive their children were but would only
ever let the child out of the house for school or cubs. I used to roam for
miles when I was primary school age. I’m told that the streets aren’t safe
these days. Are there *really* perverts, child molesters and
rapists behind every bush? I saw a few back in the day in Hastings but
nowadays the streets are far safer for children as all the weirdoes can get
their kicks from the Internet. I also had an email from the ombudsman about
my ongoing issue with the power company to say they had received my email…
Well, actually I had an email to say I had a message. I then had to call up
their website, log in, find the messages section and then I saw the
message which said they had received my email. Too much unnecessary farting
about, maybe? And LinkedIn asked me if I might like to
congratulate someone I used to know on their new job. This person is now
senior chief whatever at the Department of Farting About, and is earning far
more than me. But I was once a manager too. I might not get as much money now
I’m no longer a manager, but I am far happier. I drove down to Hastings to check in on my
dad. It’s now two weeks since mum died. He seems to be managing well. I
arrived to find him painting the inside of the under-stairs cupboard. We had
a cuppa and put the world to rights, and I came home via Northiam.
Having seen Gardoo’s web site
I thought I’d have a look at their garden sleepers. I arrived at their
office… and that was it. An office. Bearing in mind their website offers “click
and collect” I was expecting they would have some stock to look at. The
chap behind the counter (rather rudely) told me theirs was an on-line
business. I asked about the “click and collect”; the bloke repeated
that they were an on-line business. I didn’t *actually* tell him to
stick his on-line business up his arse. I suspect they get their stock from the
branch of Jewson which is next door to them, and sell it on at a profit. I then went on to Wickes. They had pretty
much nothing at all in their timber section. I asked the nice man there if
they were getting a delivery soon. He laughed and said they’d just had one.
Apparently everyone is starting their garden projects early this year. er indoors TM” and I took the dogs
round to the co-op field for a little walk, then I drove round to collect “My
Boy TM”. We had planned to get the timber for our garden
projects on a mutual day off in a couple of weeks’ time. But bearing in mind
what the nice man in Wickes had said we thought we’d get our shopping done
before everyone else got it. We went to B&Q and got my decking planks
that I am going to use as lawn edging, and got decking for “My Boy TM”’s
plan. We needed more stuff too, but bearing in mind that we’d already got a
car full we loaded up the car, took our wood home, and then went back for the
rest of what “My Boy TM” needed. In the forty-five minutes
it had taken us to load the car, take stuff home and go back, the outdoor
timber section of B&Q had done a roaring trade. There was enough stuff
left for what we needed, but I doubt there would have been much left by the
time they closed. I came home and thought about making a start
on my garden project. The first thing I need to do is to paint the planks I
got today. I decided against starting that just yet and wrote up some CPD instead. er indoors TM” then boiled up a
particularly good chicken curry which we swilled down with some red wine.
Usually after that we’d have cheese which I would share with the dogs, but
bearing in mind that cheese is particularly bad for them, cheese is now on
the “banned” list. I tried to explain to the dogs, but they
weren’t happy with the arrangement… |
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3 March 2021
(Wednesday) - Early Shift... Bit Dull
I was woken by the crash of Pogo falling off
of the bed at three o’clock. That silly dog sleeps in the most precarious of
places. I didn’t get back to sleep after that. Over brekkie I watched another episode of “Superstore”
and then had a little look-see on-line. Sky had replied to the email I’d sent
them about their prices. A few months ago I moved my mobile and broadband to
them as it looked like I was getting a bargain. I won’t say they lied to me,
but I think I was misled, and their policy of not having telephone helplines
doesn’t help anyone. I set off to work through a very foggy morning.
My phone had told me of fog warnings from the Met Office, and my weather
forecasting app thought there might be thunderstorms in Maidstone. A
thunderstorm in fog? That would have been exciting! As I drove the pundits on the radio were
interviewing some woman or other who had bought a dog in lockdown. I have no
idea who this woman was, but the implication was that having recently
acquired a dog gave her the right to have a go at all other dog owners. This
woman banged on about the importance of not letting your dog chase sheep. I
would have thought that was patently obvious, but it would seem that dogs
worrying sheep is an issue in the Peak District where sheep roam wild. I
didn't know that happened up north. Mind you when on holiday in the New
Forest (twice over the last few years) we met “Psycho Dobbin”
and many of his equine associates roaming at will. And cows were loose on the
streets too. Where I live we have these things called
"fields". "Fields" are areas enclosed by
fences in which farmer-types put their animals. That way everyone can see at
a glance where it is safe for a dog to be off the lead. Perhaps this is an
innovation that might catch on in other parts of the country? I got to work where a colleague was talking
about her plans for her garden. What she has in mind isn't entirely different
to what “My Boy TM” is planning to do. But she is paying
someone to do what the first fruit of my loin will do for himself. And my
colleague has been quoted nearly four thousand pounds for a job which “My
Boy TM” will get done for a couple of hundred quid. As I worked so I got a text message from the
vet. I was glad they texted me - I'd written down the wrong time for Fudge's
appointment on Friday. As it always does, an early start made for an
early finish. I came home, and once the car’s alarm finally stopped going off
for absolutely no reason I walked the dogs round the block. er indoors TM” boiled up a rather
good bit of dinner (as she does), and with It scoffed I found myself
dozing off in front of the telly. I wish I didn’t do that… Today was a tad dull…. |
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4 March 2021
(Thursday) - Another Early Shift
The noise of the rain rattling against the
window woke me at half past one, and then a concerto of snoring kept me
awake. I couldn't do anything about the noise of the rain, but I could do
something about the noise of the snoring. I gave the snorers a little
shake... and then a larger one. Eventually snoring and rain both subsided and
I had a rather precious bit of peace until Sid started barking. Having been
watching him "like a pork" (to coin a phrase) I have
a theory with Sid. He knows when he needs a poop, but it is all rather
immediate. When I "have the need to download" I realise this
with quite a bit of notice. I have time to make my leisurely way to Trap One. Seeing we'd run out of granola I made some
toast. And seeing we'd run out of jam I had marmalade on it. I scoffed toast
whilst watching a couple of episodes of "Superstore" and
then set off to work at about the time when most people would be thinking
about getting out of their pits. As I drove to work through another foggy
morning the pundits on the radio were talking about yesterday's budget. As
always, what the Chancellor gives with one hand he takes with the other.
Short of actively attempting tax evasion there's not a lot I can do about his
decrees, so there it was. There was also talk about Prince Harry and
his (let's be honest) total mistake of a wife. I would imagine anyone
marrying in to the Royal Family would be in for a shock. I would have thought
that the Duchess of Sussex might have benefited from a little coaching
for her role. It is quite impressive how she has taken Prince Harry
from a national hero to a national embarrassment in such a short space
of time. During a lull in proceedings at work I found
an on-line
budget calculator which told me that after the budget changes take effect
I will be seventeen pounds better off each year. Oh well - it's better than
nothing I expect. Mind you I suspect that it doesn't account for cars with
dodgy alarms or small dogs with dodgy kidneys. As I worked I had a parcel arrive for me. A
colleague who works at Tunbridge Wells had contacted me last evening. Her
husband's boss's dog didn't like the dog food they'd got for him. Would my
dogs like it? Bearing in mind that Pogo would eat anything (and the tin it
comes in) I said "Yes please". As always an early start made for an early
finish. I came home to minor disaster. When I parked this morning I used a
little dodge to turn off the car alarm (that I had read on-line). That
little dodge only turned the alarm off once. It didn’t work when I parked
this evening. Fortunately the alarm stopped eventually. With er indoors TM” running
an errand for “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” I walked the dogs
round the block, then tried to get them to pose for a photo. Put four dogs in
line, put some food in front of them, take a photo. How difficult can it be?
After fifteen minutes I got probably the best piccie
I was going to get. I then had a go at supervising dog dinner.
This is usually a task that er indoors TM” does; I think I
did well having it all pass off without a squabble. I then tuned into the weekly geo-Zoom meeting
whilst the dishwasher did its thing. er indoors TM” came home
with KFC. We scoffed it whilst watching “Truth Seekers”,
and then Sir Tony Robinson in “Walking Through
History” in which Sir Tony walks here there and thither through Britain.
Watching the show closely he’s got the right idea. He goes for a fifty-ish mile walk over a few days carrying only a day bag. He
clearly has his luggage sent on ahead to his hotel for him. If I could get
someone to do that for me, I could do some *serious* walking (once
my knee is better). |
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5 March 2021 (Friday)
- Rostered Day Off
I had hoped for something of a lie-in this
morning. I suppose I should be grateful that Sid started shouting an hour
later than he did yesterday. I cleared his turds (he’d only trodden in
one of them) then over brekkie watched an episode of “Superstore”
before having a little look-see at the Internet. My Facebook feed was filled
with posts for some band called “Marylebone Jelly” – apparently I
chose to follow them on social media some time ago. I wonder why. My car alarm has been going off randomly. As
“Stormageddon – Bringer of Destruction TM” would say it has
been something of a “pain in the glass” and today the garage was going
to have a look at it. But not the usual garage. My usual garage is very good,
but it has become a victim of its own success. Whenever I need anything doing
with the car they can never see me in less than two to three weeks. er
indoors TM” had been to Henwood garage recently had had been
happy with them, so I thought I’d give them a go if only because they could
do it today and I wouldn’t have to wait till the end of the month. We arrived, I left the car with them, and
walked the dogs home. We came home along the river and past the station… and
there was nothing to report on the walk. We walked home. Such an uneventful
walk is something of a result when out and about with three excitable dogs. Once home the dogs scoffed their brekkie and
I went into the garden and got a coat of ronseal onto
those planks that I bought on Tuesday before making a cuppa. I thought about
going back into the garden and carrying on with some groundwork, but I
thought better of the idea. It was rather cold. Fudge had insisted on being
outside with me and he had been shivering. Instead I wrote up some CPD and filled
out the form that I’m hoping the vet will complete and send to the insurance
company for me. and in a moment of boredom I read the newsletter that the
Geocaching Association of Great Britain had sent me. You can read it by
clicking here if you want to. It wasn’t a bad read I suppose. I played a little “Candy Crush” on the
lap-top, then took Fudge to the vet for a blood test. Whilst we were there we
had a go on the vet’s scales. Fudge has put on a third of a kilogram in
weight over the last week which I am seeing as something of a result. The vet
said he seemed better, and took some blood. I handed over another hundred
quid (well, ninety-eight) and left the insurance form with them in the
hope that it might do my bank balance some good. The garage phoned. They’d had the car for
seven hours and could find nothing wrong with it. They’d given it a good
going over, and then opened it and locked it many times and were unable to
get the alarm to go off. They were very apologetic, and didn’t charge me
anything. To be honest I’d rather they had. For all that they didn’t achieve anything
they’d clearly worked on the car. I brought the car home fully expecting the
alarm to kick off and sat listening for it for the rest of the day. Then the vet phoned. Fudge’s creatinine level
is up on what it was a week ago which isn’t what we had been hoping to hear.
But the vet said that the weight gain was a good sign. We are to keep an eye
on him (as if we don’t!), continue his medication and review the blood
test in three months’ time. As the vet spoke to us so Fudge snored on the
sofa without a care in the world. He has no understanding of how unwell he
is. er indoors TM” boiled up fish and
chips which we scoffed whilst watching Sandi Toksvig and Prue Leith on
holiday in some rather good holiday homes, and I then slept through two
episodes of “Truth Seekers”; a show which doesn’t grip me. I hope Sid keeps quiet tomorrow morning… |
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6 March 2021
(Saturday) - Before the Night Shift
I had a reasonable night’s sleep. It would
have been better had one of the dogs (Treacle?) not spent much
of the night stomping about the bed and had er indoors TM”’s
phone alarm not gone off randomly. Still – better her phone alarm than my car
alarm. Over brekkie I had a look-see at the
Internet. There was consternation in a Facebook group about the TV show “The
Tomorrow People” which is (was) a child’s TV show from nearly
fifty years ago. The chap who had set the group up has spent a lot of time
posting endless photos and screen shots and trivia, and with no warning at
all Facebook pulled the lot. I suspected that it was because of what the
Facebook bots perceived as a breach of copyright. Someone else (seriously)
claimed “Facebook is doing a massive purge of "Liberals" in
revenge for the Biden victory”. The chap who set the group up says
he’s had an argument with someone who has reported him to the Facebook Feds
for supposedly using a fake name, and that’s why Facebook deleted pretty much
everything. Oh well… Facebook is useful, but it isn’t perfect. There were also several memes spreading on
Facebook about how we should demand a pay rise for
the hard-working doctors and nurses and how the current one per cent pay
increase offer is unfair to nurses. As always the pharmacists, art
therapists, physiotherapists, transfusion practitioners, cleaners, cooks,
biomedical scientists, podiatrists, speech therapists, cardiographers,
gardeners, dieticians, porters, secretaries, med lab assistants, biochemists,
radiographers, O.D.A.s… got overlooked by the masses. Not everyone working in
a hospital is a doctor or a nurse… There are those who feel this is a petty
distinction… Bearing in mind the lessons of history I wouldn’t be surprised
to see the nurses get a substantial pay rise whilst all of the other groups
get sod-all, and the public be ecstatic because “the angels” got what
they deserve. It has happened before. Despite it being rather cold I had a little
pootle in the garden. I got the gnomes and things off of the gravelled areas
and moved a potted plant. But this wasn’t any old potted plant; plant and pot
together were probably heavier than me. They took some shifting. I shifted
four tubs of dog dung, shifted dead leaves from gravel and then had a look at
one of my water features. On 15 May 2007 (one use of writing a diary!)
I dug out about a cubic metre of soil so I could sink an old oil-drum sized
plastic tub which would act as a reservoir for a water feature. In the
meantime I’d forgotten just how huge that plastic tub was. It was only when
I’d pushed away all the shingle around it that remembered, and when I
remembered I realised my plan for today was a non-starter. I had thought to
revamp the water feature with a much smaller reservoir above ground (which
makes it easier to get to the pump). But getting out that underground
reservoir would be too much like hard work. I put it all back as it was. If
nothing else that water feature now looks better for having had a little
tidy-up. We came in to find the postman had been. We
had a letter asking us to complete the census. That wasted fifteen minutes.
There had been quite a lot of whinging on Facebook recently about how the
census is done on-line. There was a phone number which people could use to
request a paper version, but we are in the third decade of the twenty-first
century… I went to bed for the afternoon where I
couldn’t get warm. I got up a while later convinced that I hadn’t slept at
all, but er indoors TM” had taken the dogs to Great Chart
and I’d missed that so I must have had some kip. I’m off to the night shift now… |
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7 March 2021 (Sunday)
- Bit Tired
The night shift was one of the better ones,
but I was still glad to see the early shift arrive five minutes early. I told
him about the malfunction I’d had (!) and set off homewards. As I drove the pundits on the radio were
spewing drivel (as they so often do). There was an interview with an
army chaplain who utterly failed to reconcile the Christian ethic of peace
with the soldier’s job of going out and shooting people. This was followed by
a church service which was led by a “Yoof
Worker”. I was reminded of my time in the Hastings Methodist scene forty
years ago. Religious services focussing on the younger generation were
frankly dire in the early 1980s and they haven’t improved much in the
meantime. After five minutes I turned the radio off. I got home, and went to bed for the morning.
I woke at mid-day to find Fudge had slept with me. As I then scoffed toast so
er indoors TM” struggled to get him to eat something. He’d
not had any brekkie of his own and turned his nose up at much that was
offered to him. This was an issue in that about one
millisecond after Fudge decided he didn’t want his food, Pogo then decided
that whatever had been declined was fair game and he scoffed it. Pogo needs
to be locked in another room when other dogs are being fed, and he’s not keen
on that. er indoors TM” took the dogs out
and I cracked on in the garden. Many years ago when I put shingle up the
sides of the garden I got edging blocks to hold the shingle in place. Over
the years these blocks have sunk and fallen and now there are no two which
are pointing in the same direction. Rather than straightening them all up (yet
again) I had this plan to replace them with wooden edges. The wood might
not last quite as many years, but being much longer, getting a straight edge
is easier, and when any one plank rots it will be easier to replace. (I
suspect a future blog entry will lambast that foolish statement!). So… I
scraped back the shingle, hoiked out the edging
stones and put the first plank in place. In a novel break with tradition I
got the spirit level out and checked the thing was straight in all three
dimensions before clearing gravel for the second plank and screwing that in
place. So easy to type… To be honest it was a simple enough job to do, just
rather time consuming. Each plank took about forty minutes to get into place.
I got four done this afternoon. As I pootled in the garden the latest person
to take the title of “New Next Door” was revving his motorbike. I’ve
been told that his motorbike is an ongoing hobby; he is apparently trying to
get the thing going. It sounds like it is going to me, but I have to wonder
if it is supposed to smell quite so bad. “Not-so-nice-next-door” came out into
her garden for a bit. She studiously ignored me, and again when she went back
indoors I had a little chuckle at the sound of all the locks being fastened.
She must have half a dozen locks on her back door. Who does she think is
going to break in? er indoors TM” called me in for
coffee and cake; she’d made a rather good honey loaf cake. And with that
scoffed I tidied in the garden and got as ready as I could for tomorrow’s
garden work. Tomorrow I’m hoping to sort out a shingle bed (bit like a
flower bed but with stones) and that entails custom-cut lengths of wood. I would have liked to have got on with that
today, but having been up all night last night was taking its toll. And these
garden projects are physically hard work. Just moving the old edging stones
off of the lawn and out of the way seemingly took an age. We had a rather good bit of dinner, and with
the family Zoom quiz cancelled we Zoomed at friends instead. It wasn’t quite
the same as sitting together shouting at Star Trek videos, but catching up
was good. I’m going to bed in a minute – I’m feeling
the night shift I’ve just done, and (much as it sounds daft) I think I
caught the sun whilst in the garden earlier… |
8 March 2021 (Monday) - Very Tired
A
combination of a night shift, an afternoon working in the garden and a bottle
of plonk meant that I slept like a log this morning. As I
scoffed my toast I peered into the Internet. Last night’s broadcast of the
interview of Prince Harry and Megan Markle by Oprah Winfrey had gone ahead.
It was big news today, but will be lining the cat’s littler tray next week.
This is just the latest tribulation that the Royals have had. The death of
Princess Diana, Sarah Ferguson, Princess Margaret’s lifestyle, the Abdication
crisis… The Royals will weather the storm as they always do. It would
seem that in today’s scandal Ms Markle had an endless stream of gripes and
whinges that the media were trying to blow out of all proportion. It strikes
me that Ms Markle hasn’t a clue about how the Royal Family operate, but has
seen Hollywood celebrities on the telly, and so was copying what Hollywood
celebrities do. And consequently in a few years’ time she (and Harry)
will be forgotten, and the Royal Family will be carrying on as they have
always done. Perhaps had she been coached in being a Royal, things might have
been different, but I suspect she didn’t want to be a Royal; she wanted to be
a celebrity. I had
planned to take the dogs out immediately after brekkie, but it was too cold.
Fudge came in shivering after having had a tiddle, so I postponed the walk
until later and got on in the garden. I straightened out a curved edge,
scraped back the gravel, got more wooden edges in, put the gravel back and
generally tidied up. That only took three hours. It would have taken less had
I cut the right length of wood; I made a stuff-up of subtracting forty from
two hundred and ten. Using my degree in mathematics (I’ve actually got
one!) I made the answer one hundred and ninety. Woops. Oh well… It didn’t
take that long to saw off another twenty centimetres of plank. I then
popped round to B&Q to get eight more planks, some turf and other stuff.
Getting those new planks from B&Q’s stockpile to my back garden took the
best part of an hour. And as for laying the turf… fortunately I found my
garden scissors so I could cut the thing to the required shape, but it took
some doing. It was at
this point that I thought I’d take a break. It had warmed up quite a bit so I
took the dogs out to Great Chart. This morning I’d had five reports that two
of my geocaches along that path were missing. One was clearly and obviously
visible from ten yards away. The other was missing; in retrospect I should
really have taken a spare out with me. Oh well… I shall replace it on our
next walk out there. We came
home. As the dogs jumped out of the boot I noticed how clean it was. When
they’d jumped in there was quite a bit of soil that had fallen off of the
turf. As they jumped out there was none. Where did that all go? er indoors TM” boiled up
bacon sandwiches, then I got a coat of paint (ronseal)
onto the timber planks. I had intended to then start picking up the shingle
from my biggest water feature as a prelude to sorting out the chicken wire
later in the week. But it was getting cold, and I was fast losing the ability
to move. After six hours of effort I was all-in. Mind you
between yesterday and today I’ve got a lot done. I created a little
album of photos which you can see by clicking here. Over the
next week or so I hope to do the same to the other half of the garden. I
really ache now… I shall be going to work tomorrow for a rest. |
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9 March 2021
(Tuesday) - Early Shift
I could have done with a good night’s sleep
last night. It was a shame that Sid woke me at three o’clock. I have no idea
what he was barking about, but he was certainly making enough noise. And once
I finally got him settled, so er indoors TM” set about
snoring as though it was going out of fashion. I gave up trying to sleep shortly after five
o’clock and seeing the granola had run out I made some toast and scoffed it
whilst watching an episode of “Superstore” with the volume turned up
so I could hear it over the sound of Sid’s snoring. I used my lap-top to send out birthday
wishes. Four friends had birthdays today. All of them are far more sensible
and mature than me; the oldest of them is seventeen years younger than me.
How do they get to do that? And with little else of note on social media I
got ready for work. I eventually got my car out of the tiny space
that the cars either side had left. I do wish the council would mark out parking
bays as the locals seem utterly unable to park sensibly. As I drove to work
the pundits on the radio were talking with the Shadow Minister for Health who
was banging on about how unprepared the government had been for the pandemic
and how (if elected) he would stage "war games" (like
the army does) in order to prepare for future disaster. However the chap
rather embarrassed himself when he was forced to admit that influenza, SARS
viruses, zika virus and COVID-19 are sufficiently different that all would
require very different handling. He seemed to miss the obvious point that the
pandemic was totally unexpected, and you can't expect the unexpected. I'm reminded of a chap I knew twenty years
ago who was seconded from a hospital's IT department for a spell in "Strategic
Planning". I can remember him telling me how the hospital had been
criticised for being utterly unprepared for something-or-other, and so
a task force had been set up to make contingency plans for all sorts of
utterly unlikely scenarios. He told me he worked in “a strange land of
make-believe where the might have beens play with
the ifs”. I can remember "Russian Invasion" being
mentioned, and the chap wouldn't deny that UFOs hadn't been considered.
Eventually the whole thing was abandoned as a waste of time and money because
demonstrably (as I just said) you can't expect the unexpected. There was also an interview with that idiot
Diane Abbott who was trying to express indignation at the ongoing row sparked
by Oprah Winfrey's interview with Prince Harry and Megan Markle. Mind you I
say "ongoing row" - there isn't a row. Prince Harry
and Megan Markle have had a whinge, and Buckingham Palace have risen above
the petty bickering. I did my bit at work; there was cake. And
with bit done and cake eaten I came home. With er indoors TM”
taking Pogo to visit “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” and “Stormageddon
– Bringer of Destruction TM”, I took Fudge and Treacle round
the co-op field. Much as I like all the dogs, there’s no denying we’ve got
too many. Walking two is so much easier than walking three. And with dogs
walked I had a little look in the garden. But my plans had to be abandoned in
favour of gathering turds. Having emptied the back garden of dog dung yesterday,
the place was awash with the stuff today. How can four small dogs generate so
much poop? Are all the local dogs dumping out there? With dung harvested I fed the hounds and
dozed in front of the telly until er indoors TM” came home.
She boiled up a particularly good bit of dinner which we scoffed, and then I
carried on dozing in front of the telly… |
|
10 March 2021
(Wednesday) - A Petition
Sid held off barking until half past five
this morning, for which I was grateful. I would have been more grateful had
he held off longer. Over toast I had a look at the Internet as I
do most mornings. It was still there, and I had received an email through it.
One of my loyal readers had asked me to sign a petition. A year ago it was
all the rage to stand on the doorstep banging the saucepans together and
clapping like things possessed supposedly in support of the NHS. It didn’t
really achieve much. So now there is a petition to give all NHS workers a
decent pay rise. You can sign it by
clicking here. If anyone is interested I wrote a little rant
about the pay of NHS workers which you can read by
clicking here. I sent out some birthday wishes; with not
much else going on on-line and rain forecast an hour later, I got dressed and
took the dogs out. We went up to the co-op field. As we walked
we chatted with a young family the toddler of which was surprised that the
dogs weren’t puppies but were fully grown. He was particularly amazed that the
oldest dog (Fudge) was also the smallest. We did a circuit of the
co-op field and as we walked out of the field we met OrangeHead on her way
in. As we chatted the smell of cannabis was rather pungent. There are “dodgy
cigarettes” being smoked in the nearby allotments pretty much every time
I walk past. Do they grow the wacky-baccy in those allotments? We came home. I cleared the garden of dog
dung (again) and thought about making a start in the garden in
readiness for tomorrow’s planned work, but the drizzle was getting a bit
much. I had a little measure-up outside, then came in, made a cuppa, and
wrote up a little CPD. As I wrote CPD so er indoors TM” scrubbed
out the seals on my car's doors (whatever they are). She had a theory
that dirt in there was causing the problem with my car's alarm. And with seals scrubbed I drove round to
B&M bargains. er indoors TM” had told me they had just
the shingle stones I needed for tomorrow's planned garden work. I got there
and realising that sixty kilograms of stones would pogger
a standard trolley I asked the nice lady if they had any flat-bed trollies
for customers to use (just like the empty one on which she was leaning).
She answered "probably". She didn't actually say "f...
off fatso" but she didn't actually need to do so; her tone conveyed
the sentiment admirably. Just as I was about to tell her to get knotted she
walked off leaving her trolley, so I grabbed it and made off with it. I got
three bags of shingle - they were doing a bargain of three bags of any one
type for twelve quid. Cheaper than B&Q but next time I shall pay the
extra. I popped back home to collect the sandwiches
I'd forgotten, then set off up the motorway. As I drove there was a very
entertaining play on the radio written by and starring Alexei Sayle. It was about a manager who would do anything at
all but make a decision. I've met a few like that over the years... I got to work, and as I walked away from my
car so the alarm went off. It did that when I got home yesterday as well. The
nice man at the new garage couldn't find anything wrong with it the other
week. I've got an appointment with my usual garage for them to have a look at
the thing... in three weeks' time. I went in to work where I had a rather busy
late shift which was complicated by antibodies from the Rh and Lewis blood
group systems. Blood group antibodies are like buses - you wait for ages and
a load come along at once. Once I’d got back home and parked the car so
the alarm went off again… |
|
11 March 2021
(Thursday) - A Day's Annual Leave
I slept well, and came downstairs to find Sid
had been released from the lino-ed area of the house. er indoors TM”
had got up to him in the night. Twice. I made brekkie using our new kettle and
toaster. Yesterday our kettle and toaster had been replaced with two pink
monstrosities. I prefer the old ones, but I’m keeping quiet. With toast made
I had a look at the Internet to what I’d missed overnight. As always I hadn’t
missed much. There was an email from the Neighbourhood Watch people. It would
seem there’s been a spate of wheelie bins being stolen recently; it wasn’t
just ours that had gone missing. Mind you it seemed odd that there was loads
of talk of wheelie bins and drainpipes going missing, but not a word about
the dead body which was found in Great Chart recently. I got the dogs on to their leads and we went
for a little walk. I thought about Kings Wood and Orlestone
but in the end we just did a quick loop out to the co-op field and back
again. Pogo barked at pretty much everything he could find to bark at, but
other than that the walk was relatively uneventful. With walk walked I drove my car a little
closer to home so I could unload the bags of shingle I’d bought yesterday.
And with bags unloaded I carried them out to the back garden (one at a
time) listening for the car’s alarm which chose not to go off this
morning. I then decided to ignore the weather forecast
and to crack on in the garden. Our old edging stones have shifted and moved
over the years, and I decided to replace the lot with small sleeper-like
planks of wood. Over the course of last Sunday and Monday I got the left-hand
side of the garden done, and today I made a start on the right-hand side.
Scraping shingle back, digging a little trench, putting planks into place,
screwing them together, putting shingle and soil back… So easy to type; so
much hard work to do. Whilst I was at it I gave the shingle around the
biggest water feature a serious seeing-to. The chicken wire under the gravel
was poking up in places and, not wanting the dogs to hurt themselves, I raked
up all the gravel, put down some think grilles to hold the chicken wire down,
and covered that all over too. I also had a stroke of genius which involved
relocating all the red chippings from around the monkey-puzzle tree to make
the garden look a tad more symmetrical. I would have liked to have got more
done today, but by mid-afternoon I was at the stage where it hurt to move. It only rained once whilst I worked, and that
was for less than a minute. As I worked so Fudge maintained his vigil at the
pond; he does love watching the fish.. It was warmer today; warm enough so
that he didn’t spend the day shivering. And Treacle “helped” by
tiddling on the new turf that I laid on Monday. As I do, I took a
few photos as I worked. The next phase is very straight-forward (he
laughed) and should only take about two to three hours. I need some more
red garden chippings for that though. Perhaps a trip to B&Q on the way to
work tomorrow? After that is sorted I need to clean out the pond filter and
get that going again for this year. And I also need to look at the area
behind the pond. I have no idea what I will do there, but I need to do
something. I also need to do something with the gravelled area by the shed.
There’s a water feature in a whisky barrel which is looking rather tired. I
have all sorts of ideas to make a large cascade, but the easiest (and
probably cheapest) option would be to simply replace the whisky barrel. You would never believe that I actually hate
gardening with a passion. er indoors TM” set off to visit “Daddy’s
Little Angel TM” and “Stormageddon – Bringer of Destruction
TM”. I settled in front of the telly and didn’t move. Mainly
because I couldn’t… |
|
12 March 2021
(Friday) - Another Late Shift
Sid was silent last night which was a result.
It was a shame that I had to physically fight with Pogo to get any bed space
though. After quite a tussle I picked him up (which takes some doing)
and put him on the floor. He trotted round to er indoors TM”
side of the bed where he jumped up and sat on her. Having got myself a space
of my own on which to sleep, I let them fight it out. Although Sid had been quiet overnight, he’d
been productive. I gathered his turds, flushed them, and made myself some
brekkie – once I’d cleaned out the kettle. The new kettle generates an
impressive amount of limescale. And the toaster… it seems to have two
settings: “gently warm the bread” and “incinerate”. I sat down with a cup of hot limescale and a
couple of slices of charcoal and peered into the Internet. Five Facebook
friends were having birthdays today; I sent a birthday video to most of them.
There wasn’t much else happening on the Internet this morning, so I took the
dogs out. We went up to the co-op field and back again.
As we walked Pogo was an absolute nightmare, snarling and growling at every
other dog we met. Eventually I thought I’d try something I’d read on-line. If
you have a dog which is being overly aggressive you flip him on his back and
hold him upside-down. This is a submissive position for a dog to be in and
the idea is the dog becomes submissive rather than aggressive. It probably
looked terrible to any passers-by, but it seemed to work. We came home where I gathered another bumper
crop of dog turds. Yesterday the gravel had got rather grubby as I’d moved it
about, but the overnight rain had washed it clean(er). I got the
ultra-violet bulb out of the pond filter, came in and made a cuppa. I wrote up a
little CPD, and just as the hailstorm outside reached its peak I suddenly
remembered I’d left the shed door open. Woops. With utter drivel playing on the radio I
turned it off and listened to music instead as I drove up the motorway. I got
to Aylesford Aquatic centre where the new woman behind the till boiled my
piss. I needed a new ultra-violet light bulb for the pond's filter. As I've
had problems getting the right bulb in the past I always take the old one in,
hand it over and say "can I have a new one of this please".
With a face like a slapped arse the woman asked if the bulb was fifteen or
twenty-five. I had no idea what the numbers meant; I told her so. She loudly
sighed, looked at the bulb, and announced to the world that she needed her
glasses. I too need glasses, and because of that I wear them. I thought
better about saying so, though. The woman found her glasses, grimaced through
them at the bulb and put a new one on the counter. In the past the nice man
in the shop has disposed of my old bulb; I thought better about asking her to
do so. I would go elsewhere in future, but there
aren't many pond shops conveniently located. I drove on to Sainsburys which was rather
busy, but I got a sandwich from them with no problems at all. I got to work. I'd parked the car twice this
morning already without alarm issues. I parked in the car park, walked about
fifty yards away from the car and waited for a while in case the alarm went
off. After a minute or so I was accosted by the security people who wanted to
know what I was doing. They'd received reports of a suspicious-looking bloke
loitering in the car park. Proving my bona-fide took a while, but it gave me
something to do whilst I established that the alarm wasn't going to go off.
The security chap said he would give me a phone call if it went off during
the afternoon. that was nice of him. Mind you (call me old -fashioned if
you will) isn't it a sad indictment of our society that nowadays every
hospital has a security team. Work was work. On my last late shift I was
plagued by antibodies of the Rh and Lewis blood group systems. This evening
it was the turn of the Duffy blood group system ably assisted by the vagaries
of the Cw antigen. Perhaps a tad
esoteric, but if anyone ever tries to tell you that blood group O Neg is a
universally compatible donor, don't believe a word of it. My car is now parked outside Dan-Dan’s house.
She says she’ll give me a ring if the alarm goes off. I hope it don’t. |
|
13 March 2021
(Saturday) - Lazy Day
Sid started barking
at half past six this morning. Most people wouldn’t have been impressed;
bearing in mind the last week’s wake-up calls, I saw that as something of a
result. Doubly so when I came downstairs to find the place was turd-free. I
chivvied him outside, made some brekkie (as best I could with the new
toaster) and watched a couple of episodes of “Superstore” before
seeing what the Internet was up to. Pretty much nothing at all had happened
on Facebook overnight. There was not a single squabble to be seen so I played
Candy Crush for a while. I popped up the road
to fetch the car, then er indoors TM” and I (and a boot
full of dogs) drove out to Wittersham. er
indoors TM” had an errand to run there. As she ran her errand
I waited with the dogs and tried not to start at the teenage girls walking
past, Were they *really* walking the streets in they pyjamas? The original plan had
been to then drive on and walk the dogs along the military canal for a bit,
but the wind was picking up. So instead we drove up to Appledore and had a
little walk round Park Wood. Six years ago (8 May 2015) I walked round
the woods with a load of friends and remembered it being a good place for a
short stroll, so we had a look. There’s no denying it was on the muddy side,
but the dogs liked the chance to have a run. I
took a few photos as we walked. We came home. er
indoors TM” set about scrubbing the dogs whilst I put the new
bulb into the fish pond filter, then cleaned out the filter. Oh, it was rank.
When I turned the filter off last Autumn I made the schoolboy error of not
cleaning the thing out then, but leaving it to fester. With filter scrubbed
I reactivated the filter. I’m not sure the bulb is working – I shall have a
look later. It is easier to see after dark. I did think about carrying on
with the garden edges, but realistically even the preparation would have
taken an hour or so and (quite frankly) I couldn’t be bothered. I found myself
falling asleep in front of the telly, and dozed until er indoors TM”
boiled up some scran. I then had a minor disaster in which I managed to
destroy a glass or two whilst getting a glass from the cupboard. Realistically
we probably have between three and four times the number of glasses that we
actually need. Having salvaged one
glass I poured out a pint of McEwan’s Champion (7.3% abv) and tuned in
to the family Zoom bash. A game of Blankety-Blank and three rounds of bingo.
Not a bad way to spend the evening… |
14 March
2021 (Sunday) - Working in the Garden
Sid didn’t
start shouting until half past seven this morning, and he “did his stuff”
outside. I saw that as a minor victory. Yesterday er indoors TM”
showed me the “defrost” button on the toaster – that was less
successful this morning. I sat down
with my defrosted warm bread and peered into the depths of the Internet. I
saw I had a friend request on Facebook from Susi Jackson who told me she is a
“bondage mistress” and had some rather racy photos on her Facebook
page. I reported her to the Facebook Feds. Four
friends had birthdays today; all got a birthday message. And that was pretty much
all that had happened on the Internet overnight, so I sat and played Candy
Crush Soda Saga for a while – Fudge was asleep next to me and I didn’t want
to disturb him. Eventually
I ran out of lives in the game, so I got dressed and went out into the garden
to finish off the edging project. I had what I thought was a rather
straightforward bit to do, but what I thought was straightforward wasn’t. The
existing shingled bed was fifteen centimetres adrift from one end to the
other. That took some serious sorting. And matters weren’t helped by my
having a stroke of genius. The battery on my electric screwdriver is past its
best, so I had this (frankly brilliant) idea to stick the screwdriver
attachment thingy into where the drill goes on my electric drill. Let’s just
say there wasn’t any blood, but that was more through luck than judgement. After three
hours I put the final plank in place. I knew that starting at both ends and
aiming for the middle meant that I was going to have an odd gap to fill, and
I did. Thirteen centimetres *was* an odd length but I managed to get
that into a corner which I will hide with something from Whelan’s. I seemed to
have several odd measurements this morning. I suspect my spirit level’s
having acquired a second bubble hasn’t helped. I got er
indoors TM” to do me some toast for dinner. Far be it from me
to cast aspersions on her lovely new toaster, but is toast supposed to be
floppy? As I scoffed floppy toast I got an email from the nice people at
Credit Karma. My credit rating has gone down four points this week. I wonder
why? Perhaps running up that vet bill didn’t help. Mind you that is all on
credit – I’ve not actually paid it yet. I then
drove round to see “My Boy TM”. He wanted my ladder out of
his way, and he had some garden ornaments he was going to chuck out. I had
those ! Needing
some shingle I went to B&Q only to find they didn’t have any, so I drove
on to the garden centre instead. I got a huge trolley, set off in the general
direction of the gravels and shingles, and got into a squabble with one of
the normal people. Just as I was minding my own business some twat stopped me
and told me that I should be wearing a uniform. I commented that it was a
long time since I’ve worn a unform. Ten years ago I had a scout leader
uniform, and forty years ago I had a uniform when I was in the Boys Brigade.
This idiot wasn’t impressed, didn’t like my attitude and wanted to know where
my manager was. I told him that I had no idea, but (to the best of my
knowledge) she has an apartment somewhere in Tunbridge Wells. Finally he
realised that I wasn’t a member of the garden centre staff, and then (rather
rudely) complained that I’d been wasting his time. I came home
and unloaded the car. That took some doing. The trouble with having a
low-maintenance garden is that all the low-maintenance stuff is heavy. I then got
the pressure-washer out to clean up four slabs that I hope to use tomorrow.
And in cleaning four slabs I turned the garden into a swamp. And then I
had a look at the pond filter. Yesterday I mentioned that I wasn’t sure if
the new bulb was working. It wasn’t. When it works there is a glow that you
can see when it is dark. There was no glow yesterday. So I took it all apart,
put it all back together again, and there was a glow. That was a result, but
there was also a leak. I took it all apart a second time. On the third time I
got both glow and no leak. At that
point I’d been working for seven hours and decided it was time to stop. I had
a cuppa and soe of the rather good cake that er indoors TM”
had boiled up before taking the dogs on a little trip round the co-op field.
Treacle walked. Pogo pulled like a train. And Fudge straggled so much it was
like dragging a brick. We came
home, had a particularly good bit of dinner and watched last week’s Celebrity
Bake Off. We would have then watched more telly, but the Internet wasn’t
having it at all. |
|
15 March 2021
(Monday) - Sky Q
I slept like a log last night, and once I’d
cleared Sid’s turds and made (floppy) toast I watched an episode of “Superstore”.
Overnight the Internet had come back to life. It had packed up yesterday
evening and having no Internet is a pain when pretty much everything on the
telly is streamed. I had used my mobile data to access Sky’s
trouble-finding website which assured me there was no issues with their
broadband even though it wasn’t working. This morning several people had
mentioned issues with Sky’s internet connection which leave me wondering if
they don’t know when their network has gone belly-up, or if they were lying
about it. I had an email this morning from the chap who
is doing mum’s funeral this week. I shall think of a few things to send to
him… and I shall find the contact details of the local Catholic bishop
and suggest he has his priests also do some research before conducting
funerals. The last two Catholic funerals I attended (father-in-law and
brother-in-law) were rather embarrassing in that the priest running the
show got so many family details wrong. The nice man from Sky phoned – he was
delivering the Sky-Q box. He outside but couldn’t park his van. Part of me
wanted to tell him to take the Sky-Q box back to the shop as over the weekend
we’d been bombarded with texts and emails saying that he would deliver the
thing and shout instructions though the window on how to set it all up. We’d
already cancelled them two months ago as I wasn’t prepared to do this.
Telling us that the chap was not allowed in the house with only two days’
notice wasn’t very impressive. But er indoors TM” said she
didn’t mind doing it. I got the dogs onto their leads and drove
them out to Great Chart thereby creating a parking space for the Sky man, and
left him and er indoors TM” to it. I took the dogs out to Great Chart where we
walked up to the river and back. The last time I was there I checked up on
two on my geocaches. One was fine; the other one was missing. This morning I
saw the supposedly missing one was hanging from a bush in plain sight (exactly
where I’d put the thing last year). Just as I got back to the car so er
indoors TM” sent a text. The Sky-Q was all done; the nice man
*had* come into the house and set it all up himself. I came home, unloaded the dogs, and drove
round to the paving shop by the tip where I got six bags of Scottish pebbles,
and then came home and carried on finishing off the lawn edging. After two
hours of (back-breaking) effort I’d got most of the edging project
done, but the sky was looking black. Bearing in mind the garden edging
project was something to keep me out of mischief for this week’s holiday, and
also bearing in mind I’ve done most of the hard work already, at that point I
gave up in the garden for today. Instead I set about ironing shirts and
trousers. er indoors TM” sorted a rather
good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching stuff downloaded onto the
Sky-Q box. We can run Netflix and Amazon all through that thing. Supposedly.
The Amazon don’t work but will come with the next software update… or so it
says on the Internet. |
|
16 March 2021
(Tuesday) - Rainy Day Off
Sid had a barking fit shortly before three
o’clock this morning. er indoors TM” had been down to him
once; I came down and sat with him for twenty minutes. He soon shut up and
went to sleep whilst I watched an episode of “Superstore”. With Sid snoring I went back to bed, and
slept through till eight o’clock. Cranking the toaster to full power I got
non-floppy toast. It wasn’t overly crisp, but it was (at least) not
floppy. As I scoffed it so I shared the crusts with Fudge. Not much was happening on the Internet this
morning. One or two friends had posted twee memes. These things annoy me. The
people who post about “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade” have
rarely been handed lemons by life. Two friends had birthdays today – I sent out
birthday messages. In between these, my Facebook feed was filled
with adverts for some brewery in the Midlands who were asking about thirty
quid (including postage) for five and a half pints of their beer.
Tesco does a decent variety of ales and you can get more than five and a half
pints for less than a tenner. I’m all for supporting small businesses, but
only within reason. Perhaps if this brewery spent less money on the amount of
adverts they put on Facebook they might be able to reduce their overheads. The rain rather put me off carrying on in the
garden. Instead I popped to Tesco to get a pair of black shoes for next
week’s funeral. I didn’t have a pair of “posh” black shoes; I’ve been
wearing trainers/walking shoes to work for a couple of years now. Tesco was much the same as ever. Despite all
the signs saying that people must shop on their own, pretty much everyone had
taken a buddy with them, and the “children from hell” were out in full
force. Had either of the fruits of my loin had screaming fits in the
supermarket when they were small, they would have been given something to
scream about. They knew it, and so rarely had screaming fits in supermarkets. I also got a bottle of red wine; I took a
while choosing. Have you ever read the tasting notes on bottles of red wine?
“”Goes well with boef au poubelle”,
or “the ideal accompaniment to poulet en diarrhée”. They *never* refer to anything that
real people actually have for their dinner. The weather forecast had predicted a two-hour
lull in the rain at mid-day, and it was right. So I took the dogs out to
Great Chart where we walked up to the railway line and back again. Or (to
be precise) Treacle, Pogo and I walked up to the railway line and back
again. Fudge bumbled along at his own pace and got maybe a third of the way
there, and we collected him on our way back. Fudge is a serious worry at the moment. With
his spondylosis, chronic renal failure and recent pancreatitis he isn’t a
well dog. But assessing how ill he is takes some doing. Was he going so
slowly because the walk was far too much for him, or was he going slowly
because he wanted to bimble about at his own pace
rummaging in the hedgerows? Take his brekkie this morning. I was worried sick
when he turned his nose up at two different bowls of food, but he then
scoffed the crusts off of my toast and yummed up a
bowl of “Cesar”. There was no lack of appetite; he was just being very
fussy. We all came home, and I had a little look at
the accounts. I’ve revamped my Excel spread sheet with which I count my
pennies. And being a particularly mean sort of person I like to account for
every penny. As I fiddled about so the postman delivered
the council tax bill for the next year. It has gone up by five per cent.
Interestingly I’m (supposedly) only getting a one per cent pay rise
this year since the Minister for Health says that is all
the country can afford. I might just tell Ashford Council that they can
piss off as one per cent is all that I can afford… er indoors TM” set off to spend a
couple of hours with “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” and “Stormageddon
– Bringer of Destruction TM”. Rather than getting in their way
I spent a couple of hours seeing to the ironing. It took some seeing to. er indoors TM” came home with
Chinese which we scoffed whilst watching Celebrity Bake-Off. It was rather
good, and I had actually heard of two of the so-called celebrities on
it. Hopefully it won’t be raining tomorrow…. |
|
17 March 2021
(Wednesday) - Another Rainy Day
I got up to Sid at about three o’clock, and
watched an episode of “Superstore” whilst I was up. Actually
doing something when I am awake in the night seemed to give me better sleep.
Strange! I got up shortly after seven o’clock, and
today the toaster cooked the bottom half of the toast, but not the top. What
was that all about? The internet was rather dull this morning;
mind you I was bombarded with adverts from a brewery in Wakefield who were
knocking out tins of stout at over a fiver a tin. I suppose these
micro-breweries must get custom from their adverts on Facebook. I find I can
get the beers from many of the micro-breweries from local shops on the way to
work, or from the off-licence in Tenterden, or from
the breweries own shops. But (quite frankly) all the time they are
charging three times the price of comparable beers in Tesco I’m not going to
be very inclined to spend money with them. I took the dogs for a little walk. We went
out to Great Chart again, and unlike yesterday Fudge kept up and we went a
lot further. As we walked we met a young mother with one child in a
papoose-carrier, one in a push chair, one toddling about, and a dog the size
of a horse pulling like a thing possessed. In order to avert chaos I blew the
whistle to get my three hounds out of her way. And (as is always the case
when it works) the whistle training was rather impressive to see. However
it rather upset the young mother. She was obviously near the end of her
tether when she asked me how I got my dogs so well trained. Her dog (so
she told me) was a nightmare. It turned out that no one had told her how
to train a dog. It is easy - play on their greed. Blow the whistle and make
them sit when you give them a treat and it doesn’t take long for them to come
to you and sit when they hear a whistle. They are expecting a treat, and as
long as they keep getting treats (most of the time), the whistle-thing
works. Or that is it works all the time they want a treat. However if
whatever mayhem they are causing is more enjoyable than a treat, then you are
stuffed. I didn’t tell her that last bit. We came home, and I spent half an hour moving
the old garden edging slabs through the house. Having laid new lawn edges I
was left with forty-eight redundant stone edges. Wayne and Lyn had said they
could use them, and I was glad that the things would be getting a new home.
Moving them through the house and then into their car was one of those jobs
that was far easier to write about than to do. It only took an hour or so. If any of my loyal readers would like some
topsoil I’ve got some of that going free to a good home as well… Pausing only briefly for a cuppa and a
chocolate muffin I then got some ronseal onto the
sawn edges of the planks I’d put down over the last week or so. That was only
the first item on a frankly mega itinerary of stuff I had planned to do in
the garden today. But just as I was finishing that job so the heavens opened.
So much for garden, eh? As I pootled on the Internet (over a cuppa)
I read that er indoors TM” was now eligible for her
COVID-19 jab. The NHS website offered her an appointment in Alton and gave a
postcode that was ninety-six miles from home. But clicking on the “map”
option of the website gave a location in a field four miles away in
Brabourne. Equally ridiculous was the conversation I
then had with the pet insurance people. I’d downloaded all the forms to claim
for Fudge’s recent illness and had left them with the vet on Friday 5 March.
The people at the vet’s were going to complete the
forms and post them on. The pet insurance people had no record of any claim…
and said they weren’t likely to have one either. Apparently they only accept
claims via their on-line portal or via email. I shouldn’t have used any
forms, and they were at a loss to explain what the forms were doing on their
website. I got an email address from them and asked the vet to email copies
of the claim forms to them. Let’s hope they stump up, eh? I then spent the rest of the day (about
eight hours) sitting on my bum watching the Sky-Q’s offerings. All rather
entertaining… Hopefully my phone will be working by the morning – it
would seem to have packed up. |
|
18 March 2021
(Thursday) - To Whelan's
Sid was quiet in the night, but Fudge woke me
whimpering at half past six. I helped him off the bed and he ran downstairs
having something of a “potty emergency”. I watched an episode of “Superstore”
then on seeing that my phone was still not working I spent a very frustrating
half an hour trying to contact Sky. Looking back I wonder if I made a mistake
going with Sky. They are fine all the time things work. But when there
are issues they are utterly uncontactable. Websites about contact numbers
just take you round and round in circles through the same unhelpful help
pages. They seem to have made a corporate decision that all their help will
be via help pages and that they don’t want you talking to them. Eventually er indoors TM”
hit on the idea of phoning the “we’re leaving you” number. It was a
shame that they were closed. They opened at half past eight. I eventually got
through to someone who was actually rather helpful. After a little messing
about the chap suggested he send out a new sim card and wondered if I would
like a new phone. They had a rather good offer and bearing in mind my current
phone is five years old and has (quite possibly) had it I thought that
maybe a new phone might be a plan. If all else fails I can phone the same
number I phoned this morning. In theory the new phone should arrive tomorrow.
I wonder if the new sim card will too? I drove round to collect “My Boy TM”.
We both wanted to get stuff from Whelan’s. Their garden ornaments are rather
good, rather cheap (compared to other places) and rather heavy. Today
was the only day we could both be able to help each other. We got to Whelan’s. The first fruit of my
loin got a rather impressive tea light holder, a totem pole and some paving
slabs. I got some ornaments, a badger family, a little something to cover up
the bit where I bodged the garden edging the other day, and a hedgehog. I had
this inkling that Karl and Tracey might like the hedgehog, and as we were
almost going past their house on the way home I thought we might drop it off.
My plan was to quietly park up and using ninja-like stealth I would pop the
hedgehog on their lawn and slip away like a shadow leaving them wondering
where the hedgehog came from. I think it fair to say that my ninja-like
stealth needs some work. I got caught red-handed. We came home where we unloaded all of my bits
into my garden, then took the surplus garden edging planks and “My Boy TM”’s
stuff round to his place. Perhaps we might have pushed the lock-down rules a
tad today, but those garden ornaments were on the heavy side. I would
certainly have struggled on my own. I came home via B&Q where I got some
stuff to affect a bodge to not-so-nice-next-door’s shed. Yesterday I’d
noticed that the fence panel laying on their shed had all but rotted away,
and when I gave it an experimental prod it collapsed exposing a rather
knackered door laying up the side of their shed. “My Boy TM”
gave that door a prod as we unloaded today, and that door collapsed too.
There was another rotten door laying sideways behind that which looks as
though it might stand up to a fart being passed in the general vicinity… but
only just. However that rather flimsy rotting door concealed a hole in the
side of the shed big enough for me to climb through. I cleared up most of the collapsed rotten
wood and bodged a fence panel into place. It will hold the last remnants of
sideways door in place for a little while. I can’t really fix it any better
without hammering some sort of sheet into place over the hole, but I don’t
dare hammer anything into their shed without her say-so.When
I next see not-so-nice-next-door I shall ask her if she wants me to
repair the shed. I wonder if she will answer me. With the hole in the shed bodged I painted up
the frog ornament who is going to hide my plank-measuring mishap, and then
took the dogs round to the co-op field for a little walk. I had planned to
then carry on in the garden, but (yet again) rain stopped play. Using the Netflix bit of our new Sky-Q box I
watched a film. “Juliet
Naked” was a British film, much of which was filmed in Thanet. I
recognised quite a few places that I’ve been to. I do like that in a film.
However familiarity with the location didn’t really help to prop up a rather
predicable plot which has been done to death many time before in other (and
frankly better) films. We’ve updated the software on the Sky-Q box.
According to the instructions this would allow us to watch Amazon Prime stuff
through the thing. It didn’t work… |
|
19 March 2021
(Friday) - New Phone
I slept like a log. I woke shortly after half
past six which (for me) was a rather good night’s sleep. I came
downstairs and stopped at the bottom step from where I conducted a little
survey of all of Sid’s turds before gathering them up. I chivvied Sid outside, had a shave then made
some toast. Even at full power and with the “defrost” button
activated, the toast only comes out lightly browned, and the top inch was
just warm bread. I had a minor altercation with er indoors TM”
on the matter. She is adamant that the new toaster stays because it looks
pretty. Its ability to toast bread is very much secondary to its ability to
look pretty. I watched an episode of “Superstore”,
then there was a knock on the door. As is always the way when there is a
knock on the door, all the dogs went absolutely bat-shit-mental. It was the
delivery man with my new phone. In all the excitement of getting the dogs
away from the door I inadvertently found a turd that I had missed earlier,
and with phone signed for I then spent a few minutes swabbing up trodden-in
pug poop. Using er indoors TM”’s
phone (after a little while) I got through to the nice lady at Sky who
talked me through setting up the new phone. Or tried to… The chap I spoke
with yesterday had an Indian accent and I had no problems understanding him.
The nice lady I spoke with today was a Geordie and I understood maybe one
word in five. But I was glad for her help. I don’t think I would have managed
without. Mind you it was rather worrying to have the phone announcing “Just
a few minutes” whilst nothing was seemingly happening. With the nice
lady’s help I got the thing working at a rather basic level, set it doing
some re-organisation, and took the dogs round the block and up to the co-op
field for a walk. We had a good walk; we met absolutely no one
at all, and consequently had no episodes at all. Just the way we like it. With walk walked I then sat on the sofa and
spent a couple of hours updating apps and entering passwords on the new
phone. I have a list on my lap-top which has all my passwords for “fart
simulator” and “dalek voice changer”, but unfortunately not the
passwords I need for Amazon or Google or Facebook or anything even remotely
useful. I eventually got the phone to the stage where
it wanted to update its software, so I left it to it and went into the
garden. It seemed ironic that he only day this week
that didn’t have rain was the one day I had something other than gardening to
be doing. Have I ever mentioned that I hate gardening?
Today was a good example of why. With not-so-nice-next-door’s fence
having collapsed there was no effective border to the shingle at the far side
of the pond. I have some huge concrete cores that were anchors for the fence
posts in years gone by that are far too heavy for me to move on my own. I
heaved three of them the entire length of the garden and used those to mark a
border. I then levelled up shingle and put out some of the garden ornaments,
and then had a look at one of our potted plants. We have three potted plants in the garden. (I’m
not counting er indoors TM”’s weeds). Together with pot
and soil, each of these probably weigh more than I do. Two of them make a
nice surround to the largest water feature; the other just drops its leaves
all over the shingle and makes a mess. So I heaved this one off of the
shingle, and spent a little while dragging it here, there and thither until I
found somewhere that it looked OK. I then had a stroke of genius. On 7 September
last year I went to Tesco in Pembury where (to quote my good self) “I
also got some grey flower pots which might well be ideal for a rockery
project I have in mind”. I have absolutely no idea what that rockery
project might have been; those flower pots have been kicking round the garden
(in my way) for six months. So I used those, the left over bags of
shingle from Monday’s trip to the stone merchant, and two of the small garden
ornaments I got from Whelan’s yesterday to make a couple of garden
rock-pot-thingies. I thought they looked OK. I then had a bit of a tidy-up and a
sweep-around and felt knackered. Several hours of hard work in the garden and
for all that the garden looks OK, I would have to point out the changes that
have taken place over the last week. I came in and carried on fiddling with the
new phone. Whilst I fiddled I put an advert on Facebook to see if anyone
wanted any of the soil I’ve accumulated. Over the years I’ve acquired quite a
lot of soil into buckets and pots. I’ve no use for it, and I’m told that the
local tip charges if you want to get rid of soil. Within minutes I had a reply from someone who
wanted soil. He arrived within the hour and took a dustbin full of the stuff,
and I’ve put a load more into the front garden in the hope he will come back
for more. How easy it is to type that… I then spent nearly two hours transferring
the mobile banking app to my new phone, and an age connecting my smartwatch. The new phone doesn’t seem to be charging... |
|
20 March 2021
(Saturday) - Driving Planks of Wood About
After the exertions of heaving stuff round
the garden yesterday, the excitement of the new phone and a bottle of red
wine it is hardly surprising that I slept like a log. I tried to make some toast, and as I scoffed
warm bread for brekkie I peered into the Internet. Not a lot was happening.
The (so-called) “Purely 70s” Facebook group was filled with
people saying “Good Morning” as it is every morning. That is an odd
group – there is very rarely any mention of fifty years ago (which is the
group’s subject) but there is a lot of “Good Morning” every day. There was a mild squabble (but only a mild
one) simmering on one of the Sparks Facebook fan pages. Some chap had
given a review of the album “Whomp That Sucker” and it came as
something of a revelation to him that this album is now forty years old. He seemed
surprised to find himself corrected by people who had bought the album (and
listened to it many times) long before he was born. I then played “Candy Crush” until I
got bored with it. I took the dogs for a little walk round the
co-op field where there was a little episode. My three hounds got into a
little squabble with another bigger dog. I blew the whistle and they all came
running back to me. As is the case when I blow the whistle, they get a treat
(that’s how the whistle works - as Pavlov worked out over a hundred years
ago). Seeing my three were getting a treat, the idiot woman with the
other dog marched her dog up to us in the hope he too would get a treat. We came home. After a little to-ing and
fro-ing I got through to Sky on the phone and got them to remove the Sky Kids
bit from my TV package. Apparently I got the Kids package when we first got
Sky TV twenty-odd years ago, and I’ve never thought to remove it in the
meantime. That will pay for half the extra cost of my new mobile. I tried to speak to the dog insurance people
about the claim for Fudge’s ongoing expenses, and also to the house contents
insurance people about the new phone, but both of them only work Monday to
Friday, and only nine till five on those days. Can you believe it? I then popped round to help “My Boy TM”;
he was completing the end of his garden project but needed some more planking
from B&Q. Having the longest car in the family it usually falls to me to
transport the long stuff about. And whilst I was at it, I helped with some of
the heavy lifting in his garden. He’s put up a little platform using decking
planks. That’s given me an idea for sorting out the frankly dreadful area by
the shed in our garden… |
|
21 March 2021
(Sunday) - Last Day of Holiday
Having been clouting er indoors TM”
every twenty minutes throughout the night I gave up trying to sleep shortly
after seven o’clock and made myself some brekkie. I scoffed it whist watching
an episode of “Superstore”, did a COVID-19 test (negative) and
carried on struggling with geo-puzzles. There’s no denying that I’m getting cross
with these particular geo-puzzles. There is a series of puzzle geocaches near where
we are planning to go on holiday (in Lincolnshire) in a few months’
time. Before we can actually find any of the film pots we have to solve a
puzzle to work out where each one is. Over the last few mornings and evenings
I‘ve had a go at all of them. I’ve solved four, one is a crossword that isn’t
working, one (I think) is a griddler, and
I’m on the point of giving up on the rest. I’m just wondering if we might be
better off finding somewhere else to go for a walk whilst we are on holiday.
There are two sorts of people who hide geocaches; those who want them found,
and those who do not. The person who hid this lot is definitely in the
latter group. After two fruitless hours I gave up. (er
indoors TM” spent all afternoon working on them to no avail). We drove round to the abode of “My Boy TM”.
er indoors TM” and Cheryl had surplus flowers to return to
the florist, and the first fruit of my loin was buying more heavy shopping.
Whilst the girls did flowers, I was driven to Wickes where we got a job lot
of compost. Compost is surprisingly heavy stuff. With compost composted I came home and loaded
a whole load of rubbish into my car in readiness for tomorrow’s tip run. With
the remains of rotted fences, flower pots that have rusted through, garden
recliners that haven’t reclined for years and all sorts of tat I now have a
dustbin lorry rather than a car. It only took an hour and a half to load up. It was a shame that er indoors TM”
came home and caught me when I was having a lazy five minutes at the pond
with the dogs. I rather enjoyed having five minutes at the pond with the
dogs. They are very funny when at the pond – they all shout at me until I
feed the Koi, and then they go frantic trying to get the food for themselves. We then took the dogs up to the co-op field
where Fudge utterly disgraced himself. Despite being incredibly ill, he found
the energy to chase after other dogs and play “dog piggy backs”. I wish he wouldn’t.
I then had a look at the credit card receipts
in my wallet. Being a rather mean sort of person I account for every penny
that I spend. Regular readers of this drivel will know that over the last
couple of weeks I’ve been working in the garden quite a bit. It came as a
shock when I worked out that in the last three weeks I’ve spent almost four
hundred quid on the garden. I really must chase up the vet insurance
people to see how much (if anything) I can get back on the (over)
nine hundred quid I’ve spent on Fudge’s pancreatitis. But what is money for,
if not to squander foolishly? If I didn’t spend money on garden and dog I’d
only buy more Lego. |
|
22 March 2021
(Monday) - Late Shift
I slept like a log last night, finally waking
after nine hours asleep. I made some brekkie, watched an episode of “Superstore”,
got dressed quietly, and then shouted “who wants to come for a walk?”.
Three dogs came thundering down the stairs, and we went for an early lap of
the co-op field. As we walked there we met several young families on the way
to school. One young mother was sensible and was jogging alongside her
cycling child. But I felt sorry for all the other cycling children. It is
difficult to cycle slowly. Very difficult to cycle at walking pace. And
incredibly difficult to cycle at the pace of a young mother who is busy
fiddling on her phone as she waddles oh-so-slowly up the street. So many
mothers were periodically glancing up from their phones to shriek at their
children who simply weren’t able to cycle slow enough. We got to the co-op field, had a little bimble, and came home again. I did have an idea that a walk before brekkie
would give the dogs (and particularly Fudge) a bit of an appetite.
Pogo and Treacle scoffed well; Fudge didn’t really. By then the insurance companies had opened
their phone lines. I tried chasing up the insurance claim for Fudge’s recent
episode. As always the given phone number took me through to entirely the
wrong company. I got transferred and put on hold for a few minutes. And
as is always the case with pretty much every company I phone, the recorded
message wouldn’t shut up about a web portal which was utterly useless to me.
I eventually got through to someone who said they had no record of any claim
from our vet. I phoned our vet who checked their records
and told me they had emailed it all on the seventeenth. I shall try again later in the week. I then phoned the house contents insurance
people to see if my new phone was covered on the insurance. I navigated their
“press 1 for this, press 2 for that” and as I waited for a human to
answer the phone the recorded message kept on about how I could do pretty
much anything I wanted to do via their website. I had a go; I couldn’t. In the end it turned out that my phone wasn’t
covered, and if I added it, the excess I would have to pay wouldn’t be worth
it. I then popped round to the tip for my booked
appointment. The place was something of a shambles, to say the least. With
cars queuing back far too far up the street, the place could probably have
taken triple the amount of trade at any one time. And to add insult to injury
I was told to park about as far as was possible to park from where most of my
rubbish needed to go. I came home, grabbed Fudge, and popped him to
the vet to go on their scales. His weight has held constant over the last
week, which surprised me. I then wasted ten minutes trying to get phone
insurance elsewhere, but failed. No one seems to have heard of my brand of
phone. I set off for work, and drove up the
motorway. I say "motorway"; with this Operation Brock being
a permanent fixture there isn't a motorway between Ashford and Maidstone any more; it is just a dual carriageway. And a rather
slow one at that. I took a little diversion to the petrol
station where I got lunch, and had a little laugh at one of the normal
people. Some idiot had driven past my car to use the petrol pump in front of
mine, but was edging their car to and fro since
they couldn't actually get their car anywhere near the pump. I drove round
them, and as I passed I watched her drive right back to where my car had
been, and then drive forward. Her impatience had achieved nothing. As I drove
past I could hear the row being shouted between her and her partner. And so to work where nothing much had changed
in the week since I was last there. In fact the most exciting part of the
shift was tuning my new phone into the works wi-fi. It is a really dull day when the highlight is
a trip to the tip and setting up wi-fi. But (at least) there was cake. |
|
23 March 2021 (Tuesday)
- Second Jab
Last night er indoors TM”
told me that setting five on the toaster gave her the perfectly cooked slice
of toast. This morning setting five on the toaster gave me a slightly warmed
(but utterly untoasted) piece of bread. I ran the warm bread through
the toaster again. And again. Eventually it developed a brownish hue, and
realising that was the best I was going to get I cut my losses and scoffed it
whilst watching an episode of “Superstore”. As I scoffed Sid sat with
me. Sometimes he wants attention, but mostly he just sleeps. I then sparked up my lap-top, but with
absolutely nothing having happened on Facebook, no one having a birthday, and
no emails at all I got dressed and set off on my pre-work mission. I drove round to “My Boy TM”'s
house where Cheryl was waiting for me. I picked up the flowers for tomorrow's
funeral and drove them down to Hastings. As I drove the pundits on the radio
were interviewing some General or other about proposed changes to the Army. I
have no idea about whether or not the chap was any good as a General, but he
would make a marvellous manager. Apparently the "nature of war"
has remained unchanged over the years but the "culture of conflict"
is fluid. What does any of that mean? There was also an interview with the Minister
of Health who also talked a load of rubbish; relying on catchphrases rather
than saying anything of note. And then they wheeled on some top scientist who
was rather excited because quarks aren't behaving as they should. My dogs
don't behave as they should, but I get pissed off rather than excited, and no
one puts me on prime time radio. I stopped off at my Dad's; I had some
paperwork he needed for insurance stuff. We had a cuppa, then I drove on to
the undertakers where I dropped off the flowers for tomorrow's funeral. The
undertakers had a sign in the window proudly boasting that they were in the
"Good Funeral Guide" There really is a "Good Funeral
Guide" - can you believe it? I then headed in the vague direction of work
and stopped off in Cranbrook. There is a geocache near the car park. You need
to solve a puzzle to know where to look for the thing. I'd solved the puzzle
months ago but hadn't had chance to go looking for it. After a few moments
hunting, it was soon in my hand. I haven't found any geocaches for a while -
I need to get back into that game. I then wandered up to the co-op for some
shopping. My piss boiled when I realised I had to put a pound into the
trolley before I could be trusted with it. It wasn't that I didn't have a
coin (I did); I just find it insulting that I can't be trusted with a
supermarket trolley. I went into the co-op, got lunch and stuff...
and completely forgot to get the jam which I had specifically gone there to
get. As I drove away I couldn't help but think of
the last time I parked my car in Cranbrook (Feb 10th) when
I needed the help of a passer-by to push my car off of the ice. I got to work and did that which I couldn't
avoid for an hour or so, then slipped off for my second COVID jab. I must
admit to being amazed at the efficiency with which the jabbers were
operating. With loads of people being seen today (I think the total ran
well into the hundreds) I was in and out in about seven minutes. I had been warned of possible side effects,
but they warned me of those last time and I didn't have any. I know of
several people who have been ill with the second jab. Will I be poorly
tomorrow? Time will tell - it always does. |
|
24 March 2021 (Wednesday)
- Mum's Funeral
I was wondering how I would react to yesterday’s
jab. My arm was rather sore, and it woke me every time I moved overnight, but
other than an iffy arm I seem to have got off unscathed. I ran some bread through the toaster (twice)
in a futile attempt to turn it into toast, then had a look at the Internet. Joshuasmuma Banditband (!)
had sent me a message on Facebook. He was trying to push a website about nudey ladies without any clothes on. I wasn’t having any
of that nonsense. Not much else was happening on the Internet, and it was at
this point that “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” came downstairs
in her Pug onesie. She’d stayed overnight so we could make a prompt start
this morning. We all got dressed, and set off for Hastings.
Immediate family gathered with my Dad at his house. And a small drink to calm
my nerves became four whiskies. The undertakers soon arrived, and off we
went. The funeral passed in something of a blur. The undertakers were
incredibly professional. The celebrant (ex-TV celebrity
Jonathan Mendenhall) led a short but well-planned service which was
really well done. He’d taken the trouble to contact family members and gave
an address which was personal and all about my mum. I couldn’t help but think
of my brother in law’s funeral a few months ago when a bored priest just
stood and read out the standard funeral service from a long-outdated church
service book. We were allowed thirty people at the funeral;
there were thirty there. I chatted with aunts and family members for a bit,
then Mum’s immediate family (our tribe and my brother’s tribe) went
back to Dad’s where we had the sort of buffet that Mum would have put on;
really good food to scoff, and far too much of it. I slept all the way home… |
|
25 March 2021
(Thursday) - Back To The Garden
What with COVID jabs and the stresses of the
funeral yesterday I slept well. I would have slept better had er indoors TM”
not been fighting with one of the dogs for much of the night, and had another
dog (Treacle?) not tried to make herself comfortable on my head in the
small hours. I warmed up some bread.in what passes for a
toaster in our house, then peered into the internet as I scoffed it. Not much
had changed overnight. Nothing had. In fact all that had happened was that I
got an email from the Geocaching Association of Great Britain telling me
about their latest newsletter. Their newsletter had a link to click if I was
interested in becoming a “Friend of the GAGB”. I asked to become a “Friend
of the GAGB” about eighteen months ago and had heard nothing so I clicked
the link and was told: “To become a GAGB Friend, please contact
friends@gagb.org.uk OR simply join the Facebook group. It's that easy!”
So, as I have suspected for years, the (so-called) Geocaching
Association of Great Britain really is nothing but yet another Facebook
group. I took the dogs for a little walk up to the
co-op field. As we walked up the road we saw a chap with two dogs (that we
see from time to time) getting into his car. We smiled pleasantly as we
do, went to the co-op field, and as we were three-quarters of the way round
we saw that chap and his two dogs coming round the other way. As we walked
home we walked past his car at the end of the path to the co-op field. This
chap had driven his dogs a distance of (at most) two hundred yards. With walk walked I popped round to B&Q.
The fence between our garden and not-so-nice-next-door is poggered
(to say the least). There is one panel by our backdoor which is bowing
in and really needs attention. I thought I’d bodge it today. I got a trellis
and a couple of battens and spent five minutes trying to get them into my
car. After five minutes I gave up, carried the trellis home, then went back
for my car. Oh, how I laughed. And then it was relatively easy. I sawed the
battens to length, drilled pilot holes, went back to B&Q because the
drill bit snapped, screwed the fence back together as best I could, screwed
the trellis in place, painted the lot. That took less than a minute to
type, and just under three hours to do. With fence sorted I then painted up two
garden boxes I made a few years ago out of some off-cuts of wood. It was a
shame that the bottom had rotted out of them, but such is life. And then I
emptied out the two garden lock-ups, dragged them forward, painted the fence
behind them, put them back, and sorted the tat which is kept in those
lock-ups. I’ve (sort-of) sorted the lock-ups into one for stuff we use
(chairs, tables, etc) and one for stuff we don’t (kites, tents, etc)
It would seem we’ve lost one of the steering bars to the kite-buggy. I wonder
where that went? I then had a little sort out of the stuff
that I’ve stuffed down the side of the shed, and bodged a broken fence post (one
of not-so-nice-next-door’s) in place with a very heavy tub of soil. My long
term plan for that fence post was to bodge it in place with a huge potted
plant. Let’s see if a pot full of soil does the trick. At this point I thought it best to stop
whilst I could still move. I was rather pleased with progress. So far the
second phase of this year’s garden project is going to plan. I have a theory
that everyone’s garden has a “frankly dreadful bit” where you stash
the broken lawnmowers and dead potted plants and stuff you are going to take
to the tip. Many people get to hide theirs, but unfortunately our “frankly
dreadful bit” starts at the back door. I have a plan to push ours back
and restrict it to a very small section of dreadfulness down the side of the
shed where no one sees it, but it is taking some doing. I came in, made a cuppa and phoned the vet
insurance people, They *still* claim to have received nothing from the
vet. The vet assured me they emailed it all up a week ago, and they said they
would email it all again. As I fumed I had a look at my monthly
accounts. They could be a lot worse; I really shouldn’t grumble. I just need
to stop spending money on dog and garden. I ache – I might have overdone it today… |
26 March 2021
(Friday) - Rather Dull
Sid woke me
with a woofing fit just after five o’clock. I rushed downstairs to let hm
out, only to find he was still in his bed, fast asleep, and barking in his
dreams. That dream
passed, and as he snored I scoffed a bowl of granola whilst watching an
episode of “Superstore”. It was probably as well that I was up
super-early; the bin men were going up the road and they don’t do anything
quietly. The bin men have a new system where two of them go up the road (in
advance of the main posse) putting rubbish into piles and screaming
profanities across the road at each other as they go. Twenty minutes later
the dustbin lorry follows them with half a dozen of them making as much noise
as they can. The principle is something along the lines of “if they are up
and about at six o’clock then so should everyone else be”. I sparked
up my lap-top and Munzeee-ed like a thing
possessed; I’ve rather lost interest in Munzee
recently. There wasn’t much happening on-line this morning, no squabbles at
all, and with no birthdays today I had no birthday videos to send out. I made my
way up the road to my car; navigating a course round the bins which had been
randomly scattered buy the bin men. As I drove up the motorway the pundits on
the radio were trying to make something out of China’s recent imposition of sanctions on
the UK. China is doing something that the UK doesn’t like. Judging by the way
the Chinese economy and international influence is growing, it won’t be long
before the UK won’t dare to mess with the Chinese. There was
also an interview with Max Woosey; an
eleven-year-old boy who has spent every night of the last year sleeping in a
tent to raise money for his local hospice. His mother wouldn’t shut up
about how she doesn’t sleep at night because she worries about the lad in a
tent in the garden. The boy described how he has cred himself to sleep
because his tent leaks and he is regularly soaked to the skin. One of them
was telling porkies. Personally
it bothers me that hospices are dependent on this sort of thing to keep
going. I really do feel that if we stopped fundraising like this then the
government (of whatever political party) would be forced to fund
hospices properly. Pausing
only briefly to pop into Sainsburys (to get the jam I didn’t get on
Tuesday) I went into work, did my bit, and came home. er indoors TM” boiled up
a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed watching “Celebrity Bake Off”
and washed down with a rather iffy bottle of plonk. I shall
have a headache in the morning; I wonder if I will still ache from
yesterday’s gardening. Today
was dull… |
|
27 March 2021
(Saturday) - Early Shift
er indoors TM” inadvertently woke
me at two o’clock when she started fighting with the dogs. It would seem that
she also woke my phone as it then started beeping with messages for the rest
of the night. My old phone used to randomly connect to the Internet when it
wanted to, and it would seem that this new one does too. I dozed between beeps, finally giving up
trying to sleep at about half past five. As I watched an episode of “Superstore”
I scoffed a bowl of granola. er indoors TM” had bought a
bag of the stuff the other day; I don’t know where it came from but it was a
rip-off. One bag was good for about three servings of the stuff. With Sid snoring by my side I had a quick
look at the Internet. Our Munzee clan has reached
Level One – that took some doing. And on seeing nothing else at all had
happened overnight I sent out some birthday wishes, loaded the dishwasher and
set off to work desperately hoping I’d feel better when I got there. Last
night’s bottle of red wine had given me the headache from hell. It was a rather bright morning as I drove to
work, but very cold. As I drove the pundits on the radio were getting rather
over-excited about the launch of another Scottish Nationalist Party. This one
is taking its name from the Gaelic for "Scotland" to prove
it's bona fido (!) There was an interview with one of the leading
lights of this new party. I didn't understand a word the chap said;
everything that came out of his mouth was in a rather monotonous
unintelligible drone. I've said before that some people really
shouldn't be on peak-time radio regardless of how important they might be.
You'd think the radio presenters would do a sound check with these people,
and either tell them how to make themselves understood or tell them "no
chance" *before* going live, wouldn't you? I suddenly braked sharply to avoid being
pushed off of the road by a lorry of "R.J. Surfaces" which
was wandering across all three lanes of the motorway between junctions seven
and six. When I eventually came past it, I could clearly see that the driver
was quite blatantly fiddling about with his mobile phone. I wish people wouldn't do that. I got to work; the night shift were keen to
go home. I did my bit, and when the late shift rolled in I was equally keen
to shove off. I came home (via the works branch of
M&S) with iced buns. Once they were devoured I popped to B&Q
where I spent over forty quid on tomorrow’s planned garden project. I had
this idea that B&Q would be far quieter late in the afternoon today than
they will be tomorrow morning. And bearing in mind they don’t open until ten
o’clock tomorrow the day would be half-gone by the time I would have got the
stuff. er indoors TM” boiled up a very
good bit of dinner. We might have taken a chance with the seafood sauce that
(supposedly) expired two years ago, but it was tasty stuff. We joined in with the family Zoom bingo/quiz
night. After only two bingo numbers had been called we had to pause
proceedings. With no warning at all Sid was suddenly screaming in pain and/or
terror and all the other dogs were mobbing him. After a few minutes of
confusion it transpired that he’d got a claw caught in a blanket (he
*hates* his paws being touched) and his screaming had upset the other
dogs who wanted to see what was wrong. The excitement was over as quickly as it
started. Bingo resumed, and just as the dogs started snoring so there was
another pause to the bingo. The sound was muted so that one of the younger
members of the family could have a poo. Kirsty then ran the quiz. A general knowledge
round, a history round (guess the year) and twelve catchphrase
questions. Family zoom-quiz-bingo is going to continue
after lockdowns are but a memory. He on-line bit means that we can meet up
without worrying (too much) about the dogs being on their own. Others
can join in without worrying about little ones’ bed times. I do like the family zoom-quiz-bingo
sessions. Even (to be honest) if I do lose a *lot* more than I
win. |
|
28 March 2021 (Sunday)
- Cordyline
I was pleasantly surprised not to find a single
turd when I came downstairs this morning, but what with daylight saving I was
up an hour earlier than usual… or was I?. As I scoffed brekkie Sid marched over, turned
his back to me and sat down. That is his way of saying he wants to be picked
up and plonked next to me on the sofa. So as I devoured toast, Sid sat next
to me making odd guttural noises as he does. He’s a funny little thing. As I perused Facebook I was (yet again)
presented with posts about the latest antics of ex-James Bond actor George
Lazenby. For years Facebook has bombarded me with the antics of incredibly
unmoral nudey ladies without any clothes on, but
just lately the Facebook advertising bots seem to think that my life won’t be
complete without a daily fix of George Lazenby. I thought the chap died years
ago. I sent out birthday wishes to all three of my
smallest nephew’s Facebook accounts. (Smallest, but not youngest). He
is twenty-two today; where have the years gone? With nothing much else happening on Facebook
I checked emails. B&Q have started emailing me copies of receipts for
stuff I’ve bought from them. What’s that all about? I decided to get my arse in gear, and made a
start in the garden. I sawed the trellis and battens (that I got from
B&Q yesterday) to size, got a coat of paint (ronseal)
on them then popped round to the garden of the first fruit of my loin. He had
stuff he wanted out of his garden. He was getting rid of two sleepers (which
will form the basis of the next phase of my garden renovation), a
cordyline (which I needed for today’s work) and three buckets of
shingle (always useful). I brought them home and carried on. Today’s
project was to sort out the poggered fence between
our garden and not-so-nice-next-door. There is a broken fence post
which flaps about dragging two fence panels with it. One of the panels is OK;
the other has had it. For some reason the broken fence post only flops in our
direction; there is something holding it up on the other side. My plan was to
bodge the broken panel back together using the trellis as a truss, and to
wedge the whole lot in place with a flipping great flower pot. It was a good plan (I thought) I’d got the battens attached to the fence
panel and was about to attach the trellis when I heard the sound of not-so-nice-next-door
unlocking the myriad locks she has on her back door. Bearing in mind the
fence is hers I thought I’d better let her know what I was doing. She seemed
a bit dubious at first, but when she realised I was doing her a favour by
fixing her fence she was all smiles. I got the trellis in place, and was just
about to screw it down when I snapped the charging cable of the electric
screwdriver I bought only the other day. Oh, how I laughed (!) but
there was enough electricity in it for what I needed, and after a while I hit
on the (frankly genius) idea of charging it with the USB charger that
I use for my SmartWatch. That seemed to work. With trellis in place I painted around the
immediate area, then the hard work began. I moved the new humungous flower
pot into place, half-filled it with some of the spare soil I have kicking
around, hoiked in the cordyline, filled round with
more soil, bunged in some plant food, popped in some weed control membrane
and topped the thing off with some stones that I had left from last year’s
new water feature. I then rammed the filled pot up against the
flapping fence post. That ain’t going
anywhere(!) My nose twitched. There was a delicious smell
coming from the kitchen. Cake? Bread? No. er indoors TM”
was baking sweet potato and carrot dog biscuits. The dogs loved them. I had
one – it wasn’t that bad. er indoors TM” then took the dogs
for a walk. I carried on painting fence panels before mowing the lawn and
having a bit of a tidy-up. After seven hours I stopped; mostly because I
couldn’t move any more. I had a little rest sitting by the pond and watched
the Koi. Two of them appear to be quite heavily pregnant. Sid became rather agitated as the day went
on. Small pugs don’t understand daylight saving; to him, dinner was an hour
late. Once the dogs had been fed. er indoors TM” boiled up
a very good bit of dinner. What with all the garden work I’d forgotten to eat
anything since brekkie; the clocks going forward had rather confused my
stomach. As we scoffed we watched the first
episode of the new episode of “Taskmaster”; it was rather good. I’m thinking early night… I ache… |
|
29 March 2021
(Monday) - Sausages
My phone’s clock has several alarms. I’ve
given them all a name so I know which is for Fudge’s tablet, which is for when
it is time to get up… I had no idea that my new phone reads out the alarm
name when it goes off. What with the clocks having gone forward yesterday I
was still asleep when the alarm went off this morning. As well as a beautiful
tuneful melody playing, a sexy woman’s voice announced: “Get your arse out
of your pit”. I got my arse out of my pit, made toast (by
running it through the toaster twice) and scoffed it whilst watching an
episode of “Superstore”. As I watched I also did another COVID test.
Again negative, which was probably for the best. With a couple of moments to spare I popped
on-line. I sent out a couple of birthday wishes, and got ready for work. As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the
radio were saying that the huge container ship blocking the Suez canal has
nearly been moved
out of the way, and soon the canal will be open to shipping again. In the meantime a lot of ships are going the
long way round Africa because that will probably be quicker than waiting for
all the queues at the canal to disperse. However a lot of shipping
companies are worried about piracy which is rife around the African coast.
Piracy - in this day and age !! Personally I can't help but feel that the
container ships should be equipped with torpedoes, and when the pirates tell
the ship to be prepared to be boarded, then the container ships’ crews might
tell the pirates to prepare to be torpedoed. Or when the pirates are climbing
the ladders to board the container ships, those being boarded might shoot the
pirates. After all a pirate climbing a ladder is a rather easy target. The entire episode could be live-streamed to
the law enforcement agencies to make it all above board, and would it *really*
cost that much extra for these container ships to carry one armed police
officer? Pirates only go pirating because they get away with it. How many
pirates would we have to blow away before the rest got the message? It's a
bit like when I was at school; the headmaster had a cane. There were never
wholesale thrashings. Instead one boy had a sore arse for a day, and a
thousand boys behaved themselves for a year. I got to work. After I'd been there a while
my phone beeped. The geo-feds have allowed new geocaches to be published as
of today, and quite a few had been published this morning half an hour after
I’d got to work. Several were within a very short distance of home. If I'd
been at home I would probably have chased out to try to be the first to find
one of them. Comment was made on the local geocaching
Facebook page about hypothetical "Found it" logs from the
first people who might find these new caches. So often these reports start
off with the phrase "I just happened to be in the area…" I quite
like a cheeky FTF, but I rarely "just happened to be in the area"
whenever I got one. Usually I saw the thing being published as I scoffed
brekkie, and flew out of the house, desperately hoping no one else would beat
me to it. Why does hardly anyone else admit to this?
For quite a few people, being first is an obsession, and a true log would
read “I just happened to be pressing the "refresh" button on my
in box like a thing possessed when I saw this cache go live so I drove at
breakneck speeds down several miles of narrow lanes in absolute terror that
someone else might beat me to it”. In all honesty this has been true of me on
occasion. At the stroke of nine o'clock I phoned the
pet insurance people who said they still hadn't received the paperwork for
Fudge's illness. When I quibbled they put me on hold for an age, and was
eventually told that a manager had just checked the in-box and they had
received the vet's email last Thursday after all. I suppose that is one step
forward. I did my bit; I came home. As I drove home I
tried out my new charging cable in my car. I won’t be doing that again; the
thing got red hot. Are you not supposed to use fast charging cables in cars? I popped to B&Q to get a plank of wood
for tomorrow, then came home and walked the dogs round the co-op field. As we
walked we met two young ladies having a picnic. Before I realised what was
going on, Pogo and Treacle had gone over to say hello. The girls fussed the
dogs, and before I could stop them, they offered the dogs a sausage. The
sausage got yummed up immediately, then (being a
lump) Pogo barged the ladies out of the way so he could scoff the rest. I’m hoping that those girls have learned from
this, but I doubt it… |
|
30 March 2021 (Tuesday)
- Rostered Day Off
I was woken at half past three by an odd
wheezing coughing whimpering sort of sound. Fudge was clearly poorly and er
indoors TM” was already up with him. I moved him (and his
bed) onto the foot of our bed and lay with him. After a few minutes he
stopped making the strange noises and went to sleep. I lay awake in the dark
worrying until half past six when my phone told me to get my arse out of my
pit. It (quite literally) does that. Ain’t technology wonderful. I scoffed some brekkie, I watched a little “Superstore”
then taking care not to disturb anyone I got dressed and tried a little
experiment. I picked up the dogs’ leads. Instantly Fudge came charging down
the stairs having recognised the jingle sound they make. He wanted to go out
regardless of whatever had been wrong in the night. Pogo and Treacle soon followed him, and we
all went out. We drove over to the garage. Over three weeks ago I’d taken my
car to Henwood garage as my usual garage was too busy to see me. Henwood
garage could find no reason why the car’s alarm intermittently goes off
whenever the mood takes it. My usual people managed to fit me in today, so I
left the car with them, and we walked home. We had one or two “episodes” as we
walked home. One child (being dragged to school by his mum) ran up to
Pogo and screamed at him. Before I could say anything the child’s mother
apologised profusely and asked the child what (the f…) he was doing.
The child started crying , and in between tears, he admitted he had
absolutely no idea why he’d run up to a strange dog and screamed at him. And then we met a child who was supposedly
frightened of dogs. If I was frightened of dogs and saw three walking along
the path I would just step to one side and let them pass. Wouldn’t you do the
same? This child didn’t. He started jumping up and down, waving his hands in
the air (like a demented windmill), and then ran in circles screaming
like a banshee. As I told his irate father, the dogs joined
in and copied him because thought this was some sort of game. I could see
this father’s brain slowly working it out, before he agreed that if you are
frightened of dogs, then seeming to be asking them to play is a frankly
stupid thing to do. I was glad to get home. One home I gardened. I took that lump of wood
I bought yesterday, cut it to size and painted it. Whilst it dried I painted
two fence panels, then used the dried painted wood to bodge a broken fence
panel, and with it bodged I could screw it firmly into place. I then painted
that panel, and sawed the sleepers that I’d got from “My Boy TM”
on Sunday. Have you ever sawed a sleeper? It takes some doing. I got the
sawed sleepers painted too. As I worked so the garage phoned. They
couldn’t find anything wrong with the car at all, and thought they might just
try locking it and walking away to see if they could get the alarm to go off.
Seeing how they are the experts I didn’t know what else to do but agree. They
phoned again later the alarm didn’t go off for them once. I’d still got plenty more to do in the
garden, but having (again) reached the stage where it hurt to move I
decided to pack up. As well as aching I was rather warm too. There had been
frost on the grass as we’d walked home through Frog’s Island earlier; I
caught the sun today in the garden I phoned my dad to update him - he’s quite
intrigued by whatever is wrong with my car. And I wanted to see if he was OK
– today would have been his sixty-fourth wedding anniversary. er indoors TM” set off to
Folkestone to see “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” and “Stormageddon
– Bringer of Destruction TM”. I sat myself in front of the
telly, activated Netflix, and fell asleep for probably about three hours
longer than I wish I had. This gardening lark is hard work. |
|
31 March 2021
(Wednesday) - Bit Dull, Really
With so many dogs in the house, a full
night’s sleep rarely happens. But last night was better than most. Fudge and
Sid stayed downstairs and (apart from a minor spat at one o’clock)
Pogo and Treacle were far more settled than usual. I got up when my phone told me to, and made
toast which I shared with Fudge. He is becoming quite a worry with his fussy
eating. He can be incredibly hungry, but still turns his nose up at stuff he
doesn’t like, so finding something he will eat is something of a bonus. I sparked up my lap-top and peered into the
Internet. Pretty much nothing had happened on Facebook, but I had an email
from the ombudsman about the ongoing issues with the smart meter. The problem
is rather straightforward – the thing can’t be read remotely and since the
website was set up to reject the readings I’d given it as being unfeasible,
and also seeing how other companies can deliver the same amount of power
cheaper, is the meter actually working at all? It strikes me that the whole “ombudsman
thing” is doing very little but generating paperwork and making a
mountain out of a molehill. I saw some new geocaches had gone live
overnight which were sort of on my way to work, but what with the car still
being in the garage I would have to leave those for another time. Talking of the garage, er indoors TM”
drove me over there where my car was waiting for me. The nice men at the
garage hadn't found anything wrong with it yesterday and so hadn't charged
me. That was decent of them. Even though they'd not found a fault, they'd
spent time on it and I was prepared to pay them. I got into the car, and the dashboard display
immediately announced "Parking Brake Fault". I went back in
to the garage, and after twenty minutes they put it right. There is a known
issue with the parking brakes on my car's model. When you apply the brake you
pull the handle and it comes on. When you want to release the brake you just
drive away and it releases. If you use the manual release button, then the
"Parking Brake Fault" error comes up and has to be re-set by
the garage. The nice garage men know that...so why did they use the manual
release button? As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the
radio were saying that some impartial review has shown that racism is
actually and officially in decline in the UK. This can only be a good thing.
The chairman of the board that found this out was interviewed at excruciating
length on the matter. This was such a waste of a golden opportunity;
what could have been delivered in an upbeat couple of minutes was dragged out
over a seeming age. It was presented in such a dull way that I lost interest,
and before long all I could hear was "blah blah blah" on
what really is far too important an issue to be reduced to "blah blah
blah". There was also talk about the "Seaspiracy" documentary on Netflix. Are
commercial companies massively over-fishing the oceans? Possibly. But several
experts were wheeled on who showed that the "Seaspiracy"
documentary was factually wrong in several respects. Oh well... I suppose it
makes for good telly. I wasn't *that* late to work, but as I
arrived I realised I'd left my lunch at home, so I thought I might
treat myself to something special from the branch of Marks & Spencer at
work. A bottle of pop, a posh bag of crisps and a poncey sandwich only cost
six quid, and to add insult to injury they weren't that good. I shan't be
treating myself to that again. It is rather sad, but a disappointing
sandwich was the highlight of a rather dull day today. With work done I came
home, scoffed a rather good dinner, and gave myself a stomach ache… |
