1 August 2024 (Thursday) - Paddleboarding

 

 

I got up feeling rather miserable. I do that more and more these days. I made toast and had a look at the Internet in the hope that something revolutionary and earth-shattering had happened overnight. It hadn’t. Squabbles and petty bickering abounded. Today Facebook featured some political arguments about the Chancellor of the Exchequer stopping the cold weather allowance for some pensioners. I’m not entirely sure this is as bad as some would have us believe; they will just give some other benefit to make up the shortfall. The trouble with any attempt at discussion on the matter is hampered by so many people treating political parties in much the same way as they do their favourite football team or a religion; they choose an allegiance and stick with it through thick and thin.

I also had an email telling me that my new pressure washer which arrived last weekend should be arriving next Wednesday.

 

We loaded ourselves and the dogs into the car and drove down to Bodiam where “er indoors TM” left me. For Christmas she’d bought me a taster session at paddleboarding. Sadly the nice people at Epic Life have asked that people don’t bring dogs along, so “er indoors TM” took the dogs off for an hour or so and left me to it. To be honest the paddleboarding place wasn’t the easiest place to find, but once there I was soon in a wet suit and after a quick introduction on the river bank I was soon sailing the seven seas (or the river Rother to be more precise). The nice lady instructor apologized that they don’t allow dogs along; apparently they’ve had issues in the past with dogs jumping in the river and trying to get on the paddleboards with their owners. I could imagine Treacle doing just that.

The nice lady said that we would practice paddling, turning, standing up and kneeling down, sail down to the bridge and come back. Despite falling off three times by the time we got to the bridge the nice lady said we were about twenty minutes ahead of schedule, and did I fancy paddling on downstream to see Bodiam Castle across the fields. So we paddled a little further than most people do.

There’s no denying that I was knackered by the time we got back to base. But I would certainly do it again.

 

I walked up to the lane to find “er indoors TM” and the dogs waiting for me. From Bodiam it was only a short hop to Cripps Corner where Gordon had hidden a series of geocaches five years ago. He’d mentioned that he was planning to archive the series in a month or so; since we were in the area it made sense to go for a little walk round the woods. Being Forestry Commission woods we knew the place would be dog friendly...

Here’s a tip for all dog owners…

If something is described as being “dog friendly” you automatically assume that all will be heigh-ho pip and dandy, don’t you? But  “dog friendly” things rarely are. Being “dog friendly” generally means little more than that dogs aren’t expressly barred.

Despite a DNF (always a hazard when hunting Tupperware) we were having a rather good walk up until about half way round when “er indoors TM” commented that there were deer running through the woods. It was a shame that Morgan had to chase them. As he disappeared into the distance I had a theory that he wouldn’t keep up with them, but by the time he’d run out of steam he’s be on the other side of the circular path that cut the wood in two. So if we followed that path we might meet up with him. It was a good plan, thwarted only by the circular path leading into an impassable swamp. We back-tracked, and a couple of hundred yards past where we’d lost him we found him sprinting back along that circular path. With his tail between his legs and crying pathetically. I could hear his sobbing form twenty yards away,

Dogs really do cry.

 

We finished out geo-walk, and my phone pinged. The nice lady at Epic Life had sent me some photos of me on the paddleboard. I shamelessly blagged them and added them to the photos I’d taken whilst we’d been in the woods. You can see them all by clicking here.

We came home. The plan for the rest of the afternoon had been to mow the lawn and do some washing. But by the time we’d got home my watch told me I’d done over sixteen thousand steps (and I’d not taken it paddleboarding!) so as “er indoors TM” scrubbed mud from surprisingly muddy dogs I ran out the hose, filled up the pond, and took it easy.

 

I popped over the road and got what turned out to be the world’s worst bottle of wine which we used to wash down a rather good plate of chili.

As we scoffed and guzzled we watched more episodes of “The Traitors”; a surprisingly entertaining show despite its making absolutely no sense whatsoever.

I am reliably informed that a storm is on the way.

 

 

2 August 2024 (Friday) - A Birthday

 

 

It was rather hot last night, which gave me the dilemma I have on every hot night. Should I lay awake all night because it is hot, or should I turn on the fan and lay awake all night because of the noise the fan makes?

I turned the fan off about four o’clock and dozed until eight. I made toast, took “er indoors TM” up a birthday cuppa, then peered into the Internet. Loads of friends had been camping in torrential rain last night; one of quite a few things I don’t miss about camping.

I had an email from Credit Karma saying my score had changed, but I couldn’t log in to my account. After a bit of farting about I cleared my browsing history which wiped my lap-top’s memory of absolutely every password of which it had ever heard, but still left me unable to log into Credit Karma. Oh well… no great loss really.

 

We set off on today’s mission. As we drove up the motorway we counted fifteen cars in the “Operation Brock” part. Fifteen! How do these people do it? As you come down the motorway it is clearly signposted who has to go where.

We got to Maidstone and Mote Park, and parked up. The RingGo app gave us the option of either six hours parking or fourteen. What was that all about?

We had a little GPS games session. A geocache, a series of geocaching Adventure Labs, six Shaun the Sheep statues and more Munzees than sense. Despite being closely supervised Bailey still managed to roll in something feral.

“er indoors TM” took her into the toilets and washed her in a sink.

 

After a couple of hours we were back at the car. We drove down to the Bull at Linton where we had a rather good bit of dinner. It was a shame that there was a swarm of children charging about the beer garden, but they weren’t charging anywhere near us.

It was also a shame that we couldn’t run a tab. I offered to leave my card behind the bar, but their policy was that people sitting outside pay for everything as they go. It seemed like unnecessary farting about to me, but what do I know?

 

We came home and I mowed the lawn. “er indoors TM” then slipped off for a haircut and then went on to cake with “My Boy TM” and Cheryl. I slobbed in front o the telly until she came home when we watched the final of “The Traitors USA”. Sadly the end was rather predictable, but entertaining.

 

Hopefully “er indoors TM” had a good day… 

 

 

3 August 2024 (Saturday) - UK Geocaching Mega

 

 

As I peered into the Internet over brekkie I saw I had a friend request on Facebook. The photos of this one had a man’s head photoshopped onto a woman’s body, and the album of photos of that person had a range of photos of different people.

Quite a few people were up in arms about a trans-gender boxer winning medals at the Olympics… even though the one accused of being a man wasn’t, never was and never had been. The ability of social media to be completely wrong never fails to amaze.

 

I chivvied “er indoors TM” and the dogs out of bed and we got ourselves organized. We set off to Dog Club. As we drove Steve was doing the “Guess the Lyrics” competition on the radio; I for one didn’t have a clue.

Dog Club went rather well. We had a new dog along which told Morgan off. Quite frankly he needed telling off; I wish more dogs would tell him off.

 

With Dog Club done we said our goodbyes and drove off up the motorway. Steve was doing the Mystery Year competition on the radio. When did Tommy Cooper die? I can distinctly remember it being 1983. It was 1984.

We listened to Steve as far as we could as we drove up the motorway. As we drove I Munzed like a thing possessed until we got to Ardingly and the UK’s Mega-Geo-Event.

 

I must admit I’d been a tad sceptical about this, but we had a great time. We arrived and almost immediately met an old friend. Aleta moved to Norfolk a few years ago; it was great to catch up. We then had ice creams and chatted with more friends before having a spot of shopping. I bought some badges and a geo-coin that will go into a drawer and never see the light of day again, but you need souvenirs of a day like today.

We had a rather good dinner from the burger stall which we scoffed with friends. We met more friends and chatted with them. We played the thirty ad-labs that had been set up for the day, and in between we played the fifty Adventure Lab Caches that had been set up for the Mega event. As we played, the dogs were strictly supervised by their new friend. We’d met little Lana at Wednesday’s picnic event where her mother said she was dog mad. She’d got on famously with the dogs then, and she asked if she could take Bailey’s lead. All three were quite happy to be supervised.

As the afternoon went on we heard dogs barking and yapping; there is something quite satisfying when it is someone else’s dog.

 

All too soon we were told that the event was coming to an end. We spent a little while finding friends to say goodbye; we didn’t find everyone. And then we sat in the car park for an hour finishing off all the Adventure Lab Caches.

 

The sat-nav took us a different way home to they way we’d gone there. With “er indoors TM” wanting a drink and Treacle squeaking for a tiddle we pulled up in East Grinstead. As luck would have it, we were within fifty yards of a virtual geocache. So we did the secret geo-ritual before getting a tin of Fanta each and going home.

 

The plan had been to go shopping when we got home. But the plan had been to get home some time in the mid-afternoon. It was well into the evening by the time we pulled up, so we got some KFC and have got a plan to be at Asda for opening time tomorrow.

 

I took a few photos today.  And I got my highest daily geo-score today as well. Two hundred and eight-seven smiley faces… I’m worn out.

 

 

4 August 2024 (Sunday) - Hic!

 

 

Despite having been disconnected from the Internet overnight I woke to see my phone had loads of notifications. It really does seem to go on-line of its own accord during the night to see if it has missed anything. There was news from those who had been camping overnight at the Geo-Mega-Event; someone or other had arranged an early morning alarm call by having a bagpipe band kicking off at eight o’clock. I wouldn’t have been happy about that either. The frankly ridiculous drumming that took place yesterday (twice) was bad enough.

Such a shame that having had what many people told me had been a good week’s holiday it had to be marred by bagpipes so early in the morning after what was apparently quite the party last night.

 

Whilst “er indoors TM” had a tidy up I slipped off to Asda for some shopping. “er indoors TM” gave me a copy of some bar code or other that I had to tell the cashier to scan. I got my shopping and presented the bar code. The cashier woman spent five minutes telling me that thus bar code would do nothing, and to prove it she scanned the bar code.

She was seriously unimpressed when her till then told her to give me a discount.

 

I came home and got the event shelter and chairs out of the lock-up and set up for the afternoon. Friends and family came round, and I for one drank myself silly. It was rather good to catch up…

 

 

5 August 2024 (Monday) - Rather Busy

 

 

We had a rather good day yesterday. As did the dogs getting treats and scraps where they could. Bailey in particular took advantage of what food was going. Arguably too much; for a small dog she threw up a surprisingly large amount of vom on the bedspread at half past three this morning.

I stuck it in to wash and went back to bed where I dozed fitfully.

 

I got up at eight o’clock, hung out the bedspread and made toast which I scoffed whilst I had my usual rummage round the Internet. Friends had been canoeing in Cornwall, others had been white water rafting closer to home, some had been playing with their band at a local pub, some drinking in Greece… That’s why I like Facebook. I’m nosey.

There was also talk of next year’s Mega-Geo-Event. Apparently it is taking place somewhere near the Severn Estuary in the first week of August. Do I want to go? Quite frankly the camping puts me off. I know from experience how much arse ache setting up a proper campsite takes (as opposed to roughing it in a tent). But it might be fun. I’ll see if “er indoors TM” is up for it.

I had a little Munzee session from the sofa, struggled with Wordle, and got ready for the day.

 

I took the dogs up to the woods. Steve had mentioned that the A251 was closed, but the closure was further up than Kings Wood; we got to the woods and walked our usual circuit without any problems or episodes. The dogs were as good as gold; no running off or chasing deer.

We came home and I put loads into the washing machine then spent a few minutes putting away all the garden stuff. And with that done I started sawing sleepers into shape. However the saw wasn’t really up to it. It was a tad blunt to begin with, and by the time I’d carved the first sleeper I might as well have rubbed my backside against the wood to cut it.

 

“er indoors TM” dished out a plate of leftovers from yesterday which I scoffed for lunch, then I went shopping. First of all to the garden centre to get the liner for the new bog filter project. As we came home from paddleboarding last week we had a look at the liners in World of Water at Rolvenden. They wanted thirteen quid per square metre for the stuff, and I need at least six square metres. The garden centre across town did a lump of the stuff three metres by three and a half metres for forty quid. It pays to shop around.

I came home via B&Q to get a saw – they did a “buy one get one half price” deal so I came home with two saws, got the rest of the sleepers chopped in half, and carved half of the waterfall shape. Carving that took two hours; I’ll do the other half tomorrow.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up more leftovers then went bowling. I cracked on with the ironing whilst watching something on Netfllix. “Cunk on Earth” is absolutely brilliant; one of the best things I’ve ever seen on telly.

If you’ve not seen it, give it a go.

 

 

6 August 2024 (Tuesday) - More Sawing

 

 

As I sparked up my lap-top I saw there was a request for moderator action on one of the Facebook groups I moderate. Someone had the “Reform UK” as their Facebook profile picture and had prompted others in the “Upstairs Downstairs” group to take offence. Some people really will argue about anything.

I had a quick Munzee session, again struggled with Wordle, and got ready for the day.

 

I put a load of washing in to scrub then took the dogs up to the woods. As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how residents of tourist destinations across Europe seem to have got the arse with tourists. People who live in these places claim that property prices are going through the roof because every available house is being snapped up for the tourist trade.

As Oliver Hardy once remarked, “twas ever thus”; the locals in Hastings hated the tourists forty years ago… even though without the tourists the town would have been dead.

 

We got to the woods and had a good walk. Having had reports that four of my geocaches had gone missing I went to have a look. We took a rather circuitous wander round the woods only to find that three were where they were supposed to be.

We made our way back to the car where my watch told me we’d walked for four and a half miles. We came home, I made a cuppa, then cracked on with sawing those sleepers. After an hour or so I’d got the basic waterfall shape done… then I remembered the washing I’d put in to scrub. Woops. I hung that out as “er indoors TM” boiled up some sausage rolls for lunch. And with lunch scoffed I realized that there was still more sawing to be done.

Sawing is hard work.

 

I thought about getting a coat of wood preservative onto the sleepers, but decided against it. Instead, seeing what great reports I’d read of last week’s Mega-Geo-Event I looked at hiring a camper van to take to next year’s event. They ain’t cheap to hire, you know…

I *might* go in a tent. But only *might*.

 

Being a rather good evening “er indoors TM” and I took the dogs down to Folkestone where we had a little walk along the Leas, Munzing as we went.

We were rather late getting home so we had KFC for dinner. Happy days.

 

 

7 August 2024 (Wednesday) - Another Busy Day

 

 

I ached when I woke this morning; probably the result of having walked over eighteen thousand steps yesterday.

I got up, made toast and sparked up my lap-top. As I peered into the internet I was bombarded with adverts for camper van hire and dog friendly cottages. Clearly the Internet had been paying attention to what I’d been looking at yesterday. Mind you I suppose it was having a go at being helpful. I also had adverts for a dog show taking place thirty miles away, a Nepalese football tournament and the suggestion that I might like to follow the Royal Mail stamps and collectables page(!)

I saw a colleague had a birthday today. I’ve known her for years; like me she left the rather nasty atmosphere of the local hospital for somewhere much better. I thought she was in her early thirties; she was forty-seven today. Where does the time go?

 

And I had an email from the power company about my energy usage. I looked at their “energy hub” then sent an email back to them about my energy usage last month.

Did I really spend six times more money watching telly that using the washing machine and dishwasher?

It claims I used eighteen quid’s worth of electricity on hot water. My water is heated by gas.

In any case, how can they tell what device in my house is using power?

I suspect this whole thing is just some random guess, If it is correct I would seem to be paying about fifty pounds per month on the direct debit more than I should be. I’ve asked them to look into it.

 

I took the dogs up to the woods. We walked for four miles and once we were out of the car park we only saw two other people. One older lady with a spaniel who we often see, and who has only recently started replying when I say hello to her. And one young lad scooting about on an off-road moped which he really shouldn’t have in those woods. Mind you he stopped when he saw the dogs and waited for us to come past, so he’s not as bad as some.

 

We came home, had a cuppa, then once I’d hung out the washing I painted those sleepers. I say “painted”; “ronsealed” is a more accurate description of what I did. Having ronsealed I looked the stuff up on-line. Apparently it’s toxic to fish… Ho hum… All I can say is that I’ve been using it on the sleepers round the pond for as long as I’ve had a pond, and even dropped the stuff in the water before, and had no adverse effects that I know of.

Talking of the pond, I found our little disabled fish had died.

I had a little tidy-up in the front garden, bionically burned the weeds, then got out the hand-held pressure washer and had a go with that. I got a third of the front garden done before the battery packed up. It’s nowhere near as powerful as the mains powered pressure washer, but it is far less arse-ache to set up, use, and put away. I then pootled and fiddled and realized that the Ronseal on the sleepers was dry so I gave them another coating.

By the time I’d watered the plants and fed the fish I was knackered.

 

I had a shower, settled in front of the telly and woke in time for dinner. “er indoors TM” made a very good bit of scoff which we washed down with a rather good bottle of cheap Malbec whilst watching an episode of Celebrity Bake-Off. And then an episode of Stacey Dooley Sleeps Over in which Stacey was staying with a Mormon family in which there was a chap with two wives. Have you ever watched the show? It’s rather good. Stacey goes and stays with people whose lives aren’t what many people consider normal. And as the show goes on you slowly realise that these supposedly strange people aren’t that different to everyone else.

As I once said to a colleague (who was once feeling rather self-conscious about her hijab) everyone is pretty much the same. Everyone is an idiot, and everyone likes cake.

 

 

8 August 2024 (Thursday) - A Lazy Day

 

 

I ached quite a bit this morning; I must have overdone it yesterday. But if “overdoing it” is walking round the woods for an hour or so, painting a few bits of woot and zapping the front yard with a big water pistol, that doesn’t bode well for the future, does it?

I made toast and had my usual look at the Internet as I do. Facebook suggested I might like to join the British Spider Identification Group; I wonder whatever possessed it to think I might have any interest in that?

There wasn’t much else happening on Facebook today really. I had a little Munz, again failed to log in to Credit Karma, and got Wordle on the last attempt.

 

I took the dogs up to the woods. As we walked we met two other dogs, and played nicely with them. The “episodes” usually happen when one or another dog is on the lead.

After three and a half miles we got back to the car. The car parked next to ours had the door wide open, but no one anywhere near it. What was that all about?

 

We came home via the pet shop as we needed fish food. I got the dogs a treat each as we were there, and there were free dog biscuits on the counter. They were in the shape of letters of the alphabet. I took one and announced “B for Bailey”. I took another. “T for Treacle”. However when I took “S for Sod” the nice lady on the till got a fit of the giggles.

 

Once home I watched more “Cunk on Earth”, then wrote up some CPD.  I could have pressure washed the front garden, mowed the lawn, tidied the shed.. I had a lazy day and sat with the dogs watching the Olympic diving on the telly. It was rather dull.

 

“er indoors TM”  came home and we drove up to Sittingbourne for a rather good evening of sitting round talking, drinking, and scoffing pizza. Kebab pizza – who would have thought such wonders were possible?

 

 

9 August 2024 (Friday) - Back to Work

 

 

A couple of bottles of rather good ale and arguably too much port had taken their toll last night. I went straight to bed when I got home, and woke feeling full of energy and raring to go at half last two. I made the schoolboy error of nipping to the loo, and then spent the rest of the evening fighting dogs for bed space.

I didn’t sleep well; I never do with an alarm set. I gave up trying to sleep at five o’clock, got up and made brekkie.

 

I smiled as I sent out birthday wishes this morning. Today was the birthday of my second ever trainee who is now my bosses’ bosses’ boss. I see her as something of a success story. With pretty much nothing else happening on-line so early I had a little Munzing session from the sofa. I can get half a dozen Munzees from there, and I got triple points for each this morning which was something of a result.

 

I got dressed listening to the bin men shouting across the road to each other, and walked to my car stepping round the bins scattered across the pavement and stepping over the rubbish they'd dropped. I suppose being a bin man is a thankless task, but they do themselves no favours.

 

Being at Pembury today I set off to work west-wards through the -hursts and the-dens listening to the radio as I went. There was a lot of talk about the riots that have gripped the country in the last week. Do the rioters have a genuine cause for concern, or are they just a bunch of thugs? I know what I think. Personally I can't help but think that there's a lot to be said for shooting one or two of them. Not all of them, but just enough to make an example. Not that I’m in any way advocating civil unrest as you get banged up for doing that.

There was a lot of air-time being given to the recent decision that people who will get compensation for having been wrongly imprisoned won't have to pay for their board and lodging whilst imprisoned but this won't apply retrospectively to people who've already been awarded compensation and have already been billed.

I suppose that at least they can get compensation, which is more than any innocents who might have been mistaken for rioters and shot would get.

 

As I drove I found myself zig-zagging round cyclists. I met a few today who seemed to think they were in a car rather than on a bike by being in the very middle of the road.  I wish they wouldn't do that.

Having completely forgotten to make myself a sandwich I stopped off at Tesco in Pembury. Sometimes that place is hard work; it was rather dull today which was for the best.

 

Work was work. It could have been a whole lot worse. I was originally down to do the late shift today, but a colleague offered to cover that for me for which I was rather grateful.

And with work worked I came home, collected “er indoors TM” and her mate and drove them out to Chartham where they are having a good old-fashioned piss-up. There was talk about coming home on the train later, but I’d rather go collect her. I’ve come home on the train after a session before… usually via London.

 

As I waited for the phone call I watched “Piglets”. I thought it was a documentary about police cadets; it’s actually a comedy. Either way, when I was younger I always wanted to be a police cadet right up to the point where I became tall enough when I suddenly lost interest.

 

I wonder if and when I will get the phone call to collect her…

 

 

10 August 2024 (Saturday) - Dog Club, Late Shift

 

 

By the time I’d collected “er indoors TM” and driven her mates home it was nearly one o’clock by the time I got to bed last night. I lay in bed and listened to the noise of the shop over the road having a delivery. It didn’t last that long really. The shop over the road often gets deliveries at silly times, and whatever perishable stuff is delivered then sits outside the shop until they open at eight o’clock and bring it in.

That shop’s bottled beer selection is second to none, but I don’t get milk from them.

“er indoors TM” and the dogs came to bed just before four o’clock. To be fair it was a relatively quiet one for them, and the dogs soon settled taking up surprisingly little bed space.

 

Over brekkie I had my usual look at the Internet. Someone had taken offence on a posting on the Facebook “Upstairs Downstairs” group in which there was talk of a bible given by one character to another. Just mentioning a religious book was enough to give offence…

A friend had posted one of the standard anti-immigration rants on his Facebook page. I can understand why people get frustrated at the feeling that immigrants get so much, but completely closing the borders? When I was a manager in the NHS we advertised for staff. The same advert went out many times. Over the course of a year we didn't get a single applicant from anyone living in the UK. Not one. And there were articles on the radio about fruit rotting in the fields Local farmers had advertised for fruit pickers. No one from the UK applied. What can we do? Conscription?

I don't know the answer.

And I saw that our Munzee Clan had reached the first of our four monthly goals; I struggled with Wordle.

 

Being Saturday we set off to Dog Club. I wondered if we’d left a tad early; we got there to find four dogs (and their humans) waiting to get in. Dog Club went rather well. It was difficult to count as everyone was zooming about, but I’m reasonably confident that there were at least twenty-three dogs along today.

Dog Club is great; the new dogs turn up rather overawed by it all, and within minutes they’ve made new friends and are charging about with a bunch of buddies. Sadly we all made a point of getting away promptly this morning as someone had said they would come to the 9.40am session which is a time reserved for newbies and timid dogs… they didn’t show.

 

I spent a couple of minutes tallying up what I’d spent on my credit card. As I pulled the old receipts out of my wallet I found twenty quid I didn’t know I had. That was a result.

Leaving “er indoors TM” asleep I set off to work. Having totally failed to guess the lyrics in Steve's "Guess the Lyrics" competition on the way to Dog Club, and on the way home having narrowed the Mystery Year down to 2010 give or take six years either way, I listened to Steve on the radio until the signal gave out on the approach to Leeds Castle.

As I drove up the "Operation Brock" bit of the so-called motorway I counted eighteen cars in the lane which is clearly signposted as being for HGVs only. There's always one or two cars in there, but I think that eighteen is the most I've ever counted.

 

I popped in to the Sainsbury's branch of Aylesford to get petrol. The chap in front of me at as I queued at the pumps was rather special. He would have been annoying if I was in a rush, but I wasn't. You've never seen anyone fart about quite like this bloke did when fuelling his car.

First of all he couldn't even get out of the car.

Then once he'd eventually fallen out (and nearly landed flat on his face) he went back to the driver's door and had a really good argument with whoever was in the passenger seat.

Then he couldn't find the filler cap where the fuel went into his car.

Then he couldn't decide whether to use the petrol or diesel hose.

And having decided he then stood in a rather stupid place from which he could almost (but not quite) reach the filler cap and leaned over the boot of his car rather than taking two steps round the side.

Then having finally got fuel into his car he had what looked like a full-on fist fight with the card payment machine.

I wish I'd videoed it.

 

I went in to work where I had a typical Saturday late shift. I wouldn't say it was "shit-the-bed" busy with dire emergency following dire emergency (as can sometimes happen), but today was just non-stop. The work quite literally did not stop. I had an endless stream of cases which really had to be dealt with today; ideally as soon as possible, if not sooner. I had a little look at the "finished" tray before I came home; I think I must have dealt with blood from over a hundred patients in my seven and a half hour shift. I got a cuppa shortly after six o'clock this evening by simply walking out and leaving everything for five minutes. Had I not done so, I wouldn't have got even those five minutes.

All very different to the first Saturday I ever did back in 1984 when I was on duty from mid-day to nine o'clock on Sunday morning and only had five blood samples in all that time.

 

As I worked a new geocache went live on which I could have got First to Find if it hadn’t been dark as I drove home…

 

 

11 August 2024 (Sunday) - Too Hot

 

 

We had a vague plan to go to the geo-meet which was taking place at Challock at half past nine this morning.. but not getting out of bed until after nine o’clock put paid to that idea.

I made toast, dropped it on the floor, and scoffed it anyway whilst peering into a very dull internet. Apart from a photo of one of the bosses in the hot tub quite obviously in the nip there wasn’t anything else at all going on on-line. I pondered as to what a Munzee scatter event was, and in a novel break with tradition got Wordle on the second attempt.

 

With silly-hot temperatures forecast for the afternoon we thought we might get a little walk in this morning so we drove down to Ruckinge, parked up by the canal and walked across the fields hunting out four geocaches.

We had a good walk. On the way back we came through what looked to be a metal detectorist’s rally; about thirty cars were parked at the bottom of the field in which the Bilsington Monument stands, and loads of people were wandering the freshly-ploughed field brandishing their detectors.

We got chatting with one chap who had unearthed three strange metal lumps.

From the detectorists the path came along the canal. Treacle went in a few times. She loves the water.

 

We got back to the car and came home. I ran out the hose pipe and topped up the ponds; they’ve been rather suffering with evaporation in the heat recently. And I cleaned out the big pond’s filter too. When I had the filter boxes this was a job which took an absolute age to do. It was physically hard work and smelly too. With the new pressure washer the thing is done in five minutes. It takes far longer to set up the hoses and put them away than it does to actually clean the filter..

I bionically burned the dandelions in the garden, then dozed for much of the rest of the afternoon feeling rather ill. Too much sun earlier, perhaps?

 

“er indoors TM” sorted a light dinner which we scoffed whilst watching the celebrity Bake-Off. I say “celebrity”; I had no idea who any of them were.

It’s supposedly going to be even hotter tomorrow… Given the choice I’d rather be far too cold than far too hot, but I’m not given the choice.

 

 

12 August 2024 (Monday) - Still Too Hot

 

 

I slept surprisingly well bearing in mind how hot it was last night. It was far too hot as I gathered dog turds at eight o’clock this morning.

I made toast as I do, and peered into the Internet. There was quite a bit of consternation being expressed over how the Munzee game had been running slowly to the point of being unusable over the weekend. GPS games do that. In theory great fun; in practice the technology simply isn’t up to it. At least with geocaching there is a sort-of offline mode but the offline mode in Munzee was deliberately turned off some time ago in what was billed as an upgrade.

There was also consternation on the pond-related Facebook pages in which people were getting incredibly aggressive about whether or not you should change vast amounts of pond water on a regular basis. I try to keep out of those squabbles; there is no sense to them. The very people who fanny around testing the pond water and getting every chemical to a precisely controlled level regularly then chuck out much of their supposedly perfect water and replace it with heaven only knows what and then fart around with all sorts of chemicals trying to get the balance right again.

Quite a few people were posting photos of their weekend at the beach. Personally I’m not a fan of days at the beach. There is absolutely nothing to do but sit and get sunstroke, and unless you are prepared to pay extortionate prices from the stalls hundreds of yards away you are restricted to whatever refreshments you lugged along with you. But as always I’m in the minority. Thousands of people love the beach. So many that tickets for beach car parks in Sussex had sold out by half past eight this morning.

 

Usually I would take the dogs up to the woods after brekkie, but the temperature was already twenty-five degrees, and looking set for twenty-seven degrees when we would be finishing our walk. So we skipped our walk for today. I put a load of washing in to scrub, and cleaned the glass of the fish tank instead. The entire tank needs stripping out and scrubbing, but I’ll do that some other time when it isn’t so hot.

I then wrote up some CPD. After a while the washing machine beeped. It took five minutes to hang out the washing, and that was five minutes too many.

 

With it being far too hot to do anything at all I sat on the sofa and cracked on with something I’ve been meaning to do for some time. Many years ago I worked in a rather nasty place. Management was done by bullying, and at the time I wrote a few diary entries about episodes at the place. Following getting a formal written disciplinary warning for bringing the place into disrepute (after posting a selfie at six o’clock in the morning and saying I was tired) I self-censored a lot of what I’d written. But none of it identified any individuals, and all of it was true. And it was a long time ago now. And I’ve not worked there for many years. So today I spent a few hours un-censoring; I’d kept copies of my original blog entries.

Looking back I think I quite possibly had grounds for a case of constructive dismissal, but hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?

As I edited I read the old diary entries and reflected on how things in my life were about fifteen years ago. I went fishing and drank a lot more back then. The astro club was still fun and there was talk of building an observatory. Kite festivals and beer festivals featured highly in the itinerary, and my life was dog-free. Was it better back then? Work certainly wasn’t, but as for the rest… I think the best word I can use is “different”.

 

After five hours I finished getting the changes made to my backup site done. What with copying and pasting a lot of the pictures were lost after uploading and it look a little while to put right. I’ll sort up the main Blogger site another time.

I got out the watering can and had a go round the garden. The sun had gone down somewhat so the plants were in shade, but it was still twenty-nine degrees as I got the washing off of the line. By the time I’d fed the fish the sweat was dripping from me, and I’d only been outside for ten minutes.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up a good bit of dinner then went off bowling. I cracked on with the ironing and watched something I’d recorded over the weekend. I can distinctly remember “Confessions of a Window Cleaner” as being rather good fun.

It hasn’t stood the test of time; it was rather crap.

 

 

14 August 2024 (Wednesday) - Rather Tired

 

 

The night shift wasn’t particularly bad as night shifts go. It was just rather hard work being up all night. I’m too old to do night shifts. Back in the day when night work was paid as a rather lucrative overtime all the youngsters were gagging for night work, and generally you stopped night shifts on your thirtieth birthday.

Now that they are just part of the routine, people aren’t so keen to do them.

 

As I drove home I listened to the pundits on the radio spouting their nonsense. There was quite a bit of talk from Melbourne where the local council has banned e-scooter hire.  Apparently you used to be able to hire e-scooters there and scoot about the town, but the things are a hazard to public safety. Should you ride them on the roads or pavements? No one knows, and there’s been no end of accidents from careless use of the things.

And the Ukrainians have demonstrated the validity of the old adage “the best defence is a good offence” by taking the fight to the Russians. They’ve got a point. When I was little a classmate kept bothering me. This boy wouldn’t stop thumping and bashing me. Eventually I got fed up with running away and trying to hide and I gave him a rather impressive black eye. He never bothered me again, and years later he would still treat me with respect.

 

I came home, and feeling surprisingly chirpy, I took the dogs to the woods before it got too hot. I thought about going to Longbeech Wood again, but bearing in mind I’d been up all night I thought it better to stick to familiar ground.

We walked just over two miles round the west end of Kings Wood.

We had a rather good walk.

As we walked we met a dog on his own. He said hello to our wolf pack and kept going. A few seconds later we could hear a commotion from the direction in which we were going. There was quite the tribe with a dog similar to the one we’d just seen. All of the tribe were shrieking at each other. I heard one of then saying “That man is on his own and has four dogs. There’s how many of us and we’ve lost one of our two”. I took the line that they were walking in the general direction in which the other dog had gone.

 

Once home I had a quick shower then went to bed. I then had a minor fight with the dogs for bed space and slept for about an hour at which point Treacle declared “Red Alert” for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

By the time I’d got up the dogs had all gone back to sleep. So I carried on cleaning out the fish tank. Rather then stripping the thing down and scrubbing it out I just took the contents out and cleaned those and did several water changes. It looks a lot better, but…

I got the fish seven and a half years ago. At the time I said “I’m trying cold-water goldfish variants for a change. I’ve always fancied having some blackmoors”. (Blackmoors are black goldfish). However it turns out that blackmoors don’t stay black. Over the years mine have gone almost completely golden.

 

With tank cleaned I put on a film. “The Martian” is an odd film. The premise is that an astronaut gets stranded on Mars and through skill, expertise and science keeps himself alive until he gets rescued.

The trouble is that the film makers take great pains to ensure the film is scientifically spot-on in every way… except in those which might thwart the plot. But I stayed awake for the two and a half hours, which has to be a good thing.

 

Sadly I did then fall asleep a few times watching assorted rubbish on UK Gold.

“er indoors TM” should be home soon; she’s running an errand for “Daddies’ Little Angel TM”. Hopefully she’ll bring some dinner home too… not that I’m very hungry… it’s this heat.

 

 

15 August 2024 (Thursday) - Longbeech Woods Again

 

 

I slept like a log last night and woke feeling surprisingly chirpy. I went into the garden and harvested dog turds; there weren’t that many. Either dogs were baking them,  or Bailey had already harvested them in her foul way.

I put peanut butter and marmalade on toast and had a look at the Internet as I do most mornings. Back in the day I used to read the newspaper. These days the internet is marginally more relevant to me and cheaper. The sites I frequent had less jubblies being flopped out than the paper used to have, but you can’t have everything. Today the internet was dull, which was probably for the best.

 

I Munzed, I wordled, and with “er indoors TM” off to the office today I put a load of washing into scrub and took the dogs out. We drove through Stanhope where I capped a Flat Lou and got three scatters (as one does) then we went out to Longbeech Woods again. We had a really good walk on Tuesday, and having looked at the map I’d planned us a longer walk for today. Sadly we fell at the first hurdle when we parked up and discovered that everything to the west of Monkery Lane (about half the wood) was private land. But we had a good walk on the bit we were allowed on. We walked for over three miles and only saw one other group walking. Sadly their boxer dogs wanted to say hello, Bailey was terrified and ran off screaming, and Pogo wasn’t going to stand for that. There was a lot of woofing; fortunately the people with the boxer dogs knew what dogs were like and it all passed off amicably.

I took a few photos whilst we were out this morning.

 

After three miles we were back at the car park. A couple of days ago I mentioned that it was a shame that so many car parks deliberately exclude camper vans. But today I saw a classic example of why they do. A Belgian family had set up camp in the car park. A full-on camp including a toilet tent and a liberal scattering of all sorts of their clutter. They’d glared at us when we arrived and weren’t happy that as we walked back to our car we walked through where they were having an open-air family aerobics session in everyone’s way at eleven o’clock.

We came home. I hung out the washing, and squealed up the illegal camp site to the Woodland Trust. People stopping overnight, enjoying the place and moving on is one thing. People taking over more than half of a rather small car park to use as their personal domain is another.

 

There was a lot I could have cracked on with today, but I was still rather tired from Tuesday’s night shift, and it was hot outside. Nowhere near as hot as it has been, but still hot.

I slobbed on the sofa with the dogs.

I did snigger as we watched episodes of “Four in a Bed”; in this afternoon’s shows everyone seemed to hate everyone else. There was one particularly vicious woman from Norfolk who was actively sneering at another contestant for having quite so much chest on display.

 

“er indoors TM” should be home soon. There’s talk of pizza…

 

 

16 August 2024 (Friday) - FTF, Backache

 

 

There was heavy rain in the night. Heavy enough to wake me up. I eventually nodded off again, and woke about half past seven as Bailey was having a dream and was kicking me in the face. It’s as well that she is rather small.

There was talk of relatively local pubs on my Facebook feed this morning. The Black Horse in Pluckley is to re-open after having been closed for nearly a year. It was bought out in 2022 and the owners managed to keep it going for eight months before going under.I wonder how the new owners will fare.

A few miles down the road from there is the Chequers in Smarden. Owned by celebrity chef Paul Hollywood’s wife, she’s closing it down having pumped eighty thousand quid of her own money into it to no avail.

It strikes me that however you look at it, buts are expensive things. Just popping to the pub twice a week for a single pint costs the thick end of forty quid a month.

Meanwhile a Folkestone barber has closed down his shop (because the rent is far too much) and has opened up a business from his garden shed.

And then I had a notification of a new geocache… pretty much in the car park at Longbeech Woods. Bearing in mind that the location looked to be about ten yards from where I was planning to park the car for this morning’s dog walk I got ready a tad quicker than I might have done. However rallying the dogs takes some doing.

 

My piss boiled as I listened to the radio as we drove to the woods. I’ve ranted about the so-called “infected blood scandal” many times. But the government has decided to pay compensation to those infected. Payments should be made by the end of the year.

End of the year? Seriously? The government knows who they feel is entitled to the money, and to how much they are entitled. Why can’t they be paid today? What delays could there be?

By the time I finished shouting at the radio and got to the car park there were already four other hunters of Tupperware rummaging in the hedgerow. It was as well that this cache hadn’t gone live yesterday – that illegal campsite would have been right in our way.

I joined the fray, and after a while we had the elusive cache in hand. It took a little longer than it should have, but joint First One to Find It is always a good thing.

And then we went on to the walk that we’d planned all along.

 

After a hundred yards we were stopped by a distraught young lady in her pyjamas. Had we seen her dog? It seemed her dog had escaped her garden in Charing and she thought the dog might have gone to dog’s favourite walking place. I took her address and promised that if we met her dog I’d bring dog home. But we walked for another three miles and didn’t see anyone; dog or human. Yesterday I’d posted about Longbeech Woods to the Dog Club’s Facebook page. Some woman had said she might see me in the woods today. Mind you she also said that there was no walk in those woods listed on her walking app…

 

We came home. I made a cuppa and cut a slice of cake for me and “er indoors TM”, then drove up to town. I need to get some American dollars for next month’s holiday. My bank told me to apply on-line. When the woman at the counter saw how un-impressed I was they suggested I might like to go to their Canterbury or Folkestone branch as they would be better able to help me. I told her that the branch of Nat West over the road was similarly able to help.

She didn’t like that very much.

I came home via the pet shop where I got eighty sachets of dog food for Morgan and Bailey (Treacle has senior dog food now as she’s old). It sounds a lot, but it will last almost but not quite three weeks.

The box was rather heavy; I felt my back twinge as I picked it up.

 

Once home I trimmed back the overgrowth from not-so-nice-next-door’s roses and other assorted climbing plants. My hand-operated trimmer hacks it all back, but isn’t the easiest thing to operate. I had a look on-line at battery operated hedge trimmers…

What a rip-off.

The ones advertised on telly are over a hundred quid. But that’s just for the trimmer. The battery is an extra eighty-five quid, and don’t forget the battery charger for thirty more quid. So far from the hundred and twenty five quid they claim, you actually have to spend double that to be able to trim the hedge.

 

I then voomed round the front garden with the bionic burner… and realized that having twinged my back lifting dog food I shouldn’t really be doing too much gardening. So I sat down and spent the afternoon solving geo-puzzles in the Edenbridge area. As I puzzled so the postie called. “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” had sent me a rather good pressie of humming-bird ornaments for the garden.

Now to find somewhere to put them.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up dinner which we scoffed whilst watching the latest season of “Below Decks” in which those with far more money than sense pay ridiculous amounts of money to hire a luxury yacht crewed by the most self-centred narcissists who alternately hate each other and try to pork each other,

 

My back’s still a bit iffy…

 

 

17 August 2024 (Saturday) - A Busy Day

 

 

There was a minor disaster when I sparked up my lap-top this morning. No connection to the Internet. How was I going to survive? It was the end of the world. The connection re-established itself within seconds, but those seconds were rather worrying. Similarly worrying was a notification that the leader of my old Boys Brigade company had liked a photo that I’d posted on Facebook – the chap died four years ago.

I saw my brother was off to watch the football. An hour’s drive from Hastings to get the coach at Brighton, and then three hundred miles to Liverpool. I can’t see the attraction, but I know I’m in the minority.

This morning’s argument was on the “Lost in Space” Facebook page where it was claimed that the robot in the show was too tall to fit through the spaceship’s door. There was an impressive squabble going on with a lot of name-calling on both sides. Sadly no one ever thought to resort to getting a photo of the robot by the door to prove the issue one way or another.

 

We drove round to Dog Club. Usually as we drive we listen to Steve and struggle with the competitions. However he wasn’t on this morning, and his stand-in wasn’t the same.

Dog Club was fun. It started of a tad on the dodgy side with several of the dogs being quarrelsome, but they all soon settled.

We had one new dog along. Only one. Again during the week we’d had a few people asking endless questions about coming to Dog Club, but none of them showed up. I’m seriously thinking of replying to all enquiries along the lines of “either turn up and you will be very welcome, or don’t turn up and don’t waste my time with endless enquiries about a meeting to which you have absolutely no intention of turning up”. Harsh? Perhaps. But I’d say that for every new member who turns up we have about a dozen streams of question after question from people who never show.

 

We came home and had a cuppa, then set off to Ripple for the monthly county geo-meet. As well as being the county geo-meet, today is (was) International Geocaching Day and in a novel break with tradition I wasn’t working. Today is my twelfth International Geocaching Day, and over the years I’ve been working on ten of them.

With a few minutes spare we stopped off at the church by the meet and found the geocache there, Inside that was the co-ordinates of another geocache. We walked across a footpath to get that one…

Oh dear.

As we walked the footpath so we walked past a campsite where all sorts of normal people were camping. I say “past”; “on the other side of the fence from” would be a far better description. Sadly one of the half-witted children on the campsite saw the dogs, screamed “DOG!!!” and sprinted at Morgan and Bailey. It was totally through luck that the idiot child didn’t trample Bailey underfoot in its uncontrolled excitement. It was as well that he took being told to f… off in the spirit in which it was intended.

 

From there we went on to the geo-meet. We started off with ice creams. I got one for me and for “er indoors TM”, and bearing in mind there was a big sign advertising dog friendly ice cream I asked for some for the dogs. The chap on the counter said they didn’t do dog friendly ice cream. I asked about the sign; he called over the manager who said that everyone asks about dog friendly ice cream but they don’t do it. I explained they had a sign advertising the stuff; she looked at me as though was stupid.

We then walked over to where the geo-meet was happening. Despite a rather shaky start we had a good meet. Talking Tuoperware with like-minded friends whilst pouring beer down my neck is always a good way to spend the afternoon.

 

We came home where I fell asleep for a bit. It wasn’t long before Chris, Steve and Sarah were with us, and after a quick bit of KFC we had a rather good games night on the Infinity Table. A game of “Sorry”, a game of “Game of Life” and rounding it off with “Ticket to Ride” made for a good evening.

Today’s been rather good… And I took some photos.

 

 

18 August 2024 (Sunday) - Eggs Florentine

 

 

I didn't have the best of nights - I never do with an alarm set. I gave up trying to sleep, got up and made toast. I turned on the telly and it told me there was no internet connection (again), but that didn't stop me watching an episode of "Piglets" which was sadly let down by the props department. A major part of the storyline is that there are two police superintendents competing for the job of chief superintendent. The rank insignia on the uniforms of both of these characters alternate between superintendent and chief superintendent from one scene to the next. A trivial point but you'd think that someone in the production team would have noticed something so vital to the plot? Wouldn't you? Well, I did.

 

Leaving “er indoors TM” and the dogs fast asleep I set off to work listening to the radio as I do. This morning there was some program about psychotherapy and religion in which it was claimed that the two were mutually contradictory, and several psychotherapists with varying degrees of religious conviction were wheeled on. They each disagreed with pretty much everything the others said and didn't seem to convince anyone of anything.

This was followed by an interview with some Kentish raspberry farmer. I say "Kentish"; the chap originally came to the UK from Bulgaria over twenty years ago. It was interesting listening to him speak. He said that as time has gone on it has become more and more difficult for immigrant workers to get working visas, but apparently despite the difficulty is is far easier to ship someone half-way across Europe to pick fruit than it is to get anyone born in the UK to pick the stuff. He claimed that every year he has to ship in two thousand staff.

As I drove up the M20 I counted nine cars driving down the "HGVs only" bit of Operation Brock.

 

I got to work. I did my bit. I'd rather not work at the weekends. Quite honestly I think I'd rather not work at all. It is becoming something of an inconvenience. To be honest working has been an inconvenience ever since I started my first paper round in 1978, but there it is. 

At lunchtime I popped to the works canteen. They had eggs Florentine. I'd not had that before - poached eggs in some sauce or other served with spinach. Bung in a decent helping of chips, chocolate pudding, custard and change out of a fiver you really can't go wrong.

As I scoffed I had a look at the Internet. The Facebook page about Lost in Space was hosting another argument today. Yesterday there had been squabbles about the height of the robot. Today someone was talking about having met one of the characters as he'd walked down Main Street yesterday.  This chap flatly refused to be drawn on where "Main Street" was, and wouldn't be told that the actor he claimed to have met actually died over twenty years ago.

And I saw there’s another new geocache in Longbeech Woods. There’s something to do on Tuesday.

 

As I drove home “er indoors TM” sent a message. There were a couple of issues with her series of geocaches at Badlesmere. Being a rather beautiful evening I suggested we might go for a little walk to sort the problems.

Badelesmere is a rather good place to walk about… but there are a *lot* of pheasants in the area. The dogs did get rather over-excited and had to be on the leads for much of the way. As we walked we were thinking of a crafty half at our old favourite the Red Lion at the end of the walk… such a shame that they close at six o clock on a Sunday evening.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we washed down with a bottle of half-way decent white wine. As we scoffed and drank we watched more episodes of “Below Deck” in which the crew started porking each other.

Beasts…

 

 

19 August 2024 (Monday) - At Work Again

 

 

Some nights the dogs arrange themselves sensibly on the beds. Other nights not so. Treacle was sleeping up near the top of the bed last night and Bailey was too frightened to get to her usual space between the pillows. Eventually I sorted them all out, and then lay there wide awake as they all snored contentedly.

 

I made toast and watched the last episode of “Piglets” which didn’t so much end as fizzled out, then had my usual look at the internet. It was still there. There was mild consternation in the Munzee world in that Flat Lou stopped scattering things yesterday. Having known this was coming I gathered up all the scatters I needed last week, but others didn’t. We’re OK, but others won’t hit their clan targets for the month.

If you go round scanning bar codes stuck to lamp posts, this is rather serious…

 

I set off to work listening to the news as I do. As I watched nine cars coming down the “HGV only” part of “Operation Brock” the pundits on the radio were interviewing the Children’s Commissioner who was ranting about how many times the police have conducted strip-searches on children with inadequate chaperoning. A lot of fuss was made about the indignities the children faced. But no mention was made about how many of these searches turned up illicit contraband. You’d think that if nothing had been found this would be a major strike against the police, and it would have been shouted to the rooftops wouldn’t you?

This was followed by an interview with the leading light of one of the nation’s coffee shops who was talking about his company’s policy on allergen information on their products. Recently a teenager died from a massive allergic reaction to a cup of hot chocolate she’d bought form Costa. But was that Costa’s fault? Admittedly they had no idea the girl had allergies… but the girl had.

I’m reminded of an old schoolfriend who was diabetic but kept eating Mars bars right up to the point where they killed him.

Perhaps I should stop listening to the news – it only winds me up.

 

I got to work… and at tea break saw a sign of our times. Colleagues were discussing the phrase “Not all those who wander are lost”. It was originally from Tolkien’s “The Fellowship of the Ring”. One chap (a third of my age) kicked off because he had never seen any of the Lord of the Rings films. He had no idea they were based on books.

Shortly after this my phone beeped with another dubious friend request from someone who apparently comes from Birmingham.

 

Work was work; today’s earworm was from fifty years ago. Everyone remembers Willy Fogg… no one remembers the cartoon version of Phineas from twenty years earlier. I had this theme tune in my head all day long… and it is still there now.

 

 

20 August 2024 (Tuesday) - Cheeky FTF

 

 

I slept well. I was rather miffed to see rain when I got up though. I made toast and scoffed it whilst perusing the Internet. There was talk on one of the local Facebook pages about Elwick Place. Apparently millions of pounds have been spent on building a cinema and shops and community areas just up the road, but now most of the businesses involved have shut up shop. As always those posting opinions on social media were showing their complete ignorance of what is done by local council, county council, central government and private businesses. So many people were ranting about what they should be doing; “they” being generic unspecified individuals, officials and public bodies.

But sadly many of these people’s ignorance actually illustrated a point. Many of the issues facing Elwick Place could only be solved by a coming together of local council, county council, central government and private business. A coming together which is never going to happen.

And in the meantime much of Elwick Place is closed and will remain so.

 

And then my lap-top beeped. A new geocache in Longbeech Woods. Well, we were going there for our dog walk anyway, so that would be a bonus.

In order to find where the thing was hidden I needed to solve an on-line jigsaw puzzle. And with that solved I got the leads on to the dogs. That took some doing. For all that they clearly love their walks, they can sometimes be incredibly reluctant to get their collars and leads on.

Eventually we got going. As I stopped and started as we drove through the slow-moving traffic there was a rather interesting interview on the radio with Bill Gates. The chap is only nine years older than me, and as I listened to him I got the distinct impression that he’d not done anything that countless others haven’t done, but he was just very lucky.

He was talking about his charitable foundation and how he’s spending a fortune on delivering vaccinations to poor children in Africa. I wish I could remember his exact words, but he made some comment in which he said that it came as a surprise that market forces only benefit a vanishingly small proportion of humanity.

 

We got to the woods. We parked up in an empty car park. We could have parked closer to the geocache but bearing in mind how long we’d taken to get there I’d all but given up on being first to find. We walked down the lane to the location of our prize, and I was amazed to see no one had parked in the single parking space I might have used. I let the dogs of the leads and we walked into the woods all the time expecting to see familiar faces walking back with a smug air. But we saw no one, we got to where we were supposed to be, and after a very short search I had the cache in hand. And we were first.

At this point I looked at my watch. It had only been three quarters of an hour between getting the notification and finding the thing. It seemed a lot longer.

We then carried on with our walk. We explored the tracks and footpaths. We met a nice lady with three dogs and played chase (and shared treats). We found a Letterbox Hybrid. Pogo rolled in fox poo.

 

We came home where Pogo had a bath. And with Pogo scrubbed I popped up the road to the corner shop to get pastries. I scoffed mine whilst doing the geo-admin, then wrote up some CPD. I do that. And I ordered up cash for next month’s holiday. Where we’re going they want American dollars… which is odd.

And I ordered a money belt in which to stash the money.

 

I went into the garden where I topped up the water in the little pond, pulled out the blanket weed… and poggered my back. So I spent the afternoon having a rest whilst watching episodes of “Four in a Bed” in which a rather grim little B&B in Blackpool beat some rather good places where you would go for a country break. Why did this grotty place win? For the simple reason that it is far easier to underpay someone charging two hundred quid a night than it is someone charging forty.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up lamb chops which we washed down with a decent bottle of plonk whilst watching more episodes of “Below Decks”. Those of the crew that weren’t busy porking each other had the hump with a colleague who would be best described as a rather obnoxious bone idle shirker. Personally I’m of the opinion that every place of work needs one rather obnoxious bone idle shirker. It gives everyone else someone to hate and stops them squabbling amongst themselves.

 

And I’ve had yet another dubious friend request on Facebook.

 

 

21 August 2024 (Wednesday) - Late Shift

 

 

Last night, as always, I went to bed first. I settled myself in the middle of the bed and went to kip. A couple of hours later I woke to find myself hanging off the edge with an alliance of “er indoors TM” and several dogs having captured pretty much all the available space.

I made toast and had my usual root around the Internet; this morning it was dull. I sent out birthday wishes, had a quick Munz and got Wordle on the fourth attempt.

 

Not having quite so much time on my hands this morning I thought I’d take a chance. I leaded up the dogs and in a novel break with tradition we set off south.

As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the consternation caused by the recent cancellation of a cycling/running double marathon event. The event has been cancelled following cyclists practicing for the event running down and killing an old woman. The woman’s son was being interviewed; he complained about how the cyclist practice in London’s parks and challenged listeners to go watch how single-minded they are. He claimed that the attention of most of them is on their cycling apps and they expect pedestrians to be the ones responsible for avoiding collisions. He also made the observation that speed limits on UK roads and routes only apply to motor vehicles. Apparently speed limits don’t apply to bikes.

 

I thought we might try Orlestone Woods for our walk today. Kings Wood and Longbeech Wood are a bit further away and are bigger. Our average walk round those woods is at least three and a bit miles and by the time we’ve driven there and driven home we’ve taken over two hours. I’ve always said that from home to Orlestone woods car park is a drive of nine minutes, and our two mile walk round there takes us thirty-five minutes. I used to go there all the time with my Fudge, but I’d been put off of the place after a couple of episodes with Morgan. However just recently I’ve been telling everyone how his recall has improved, so I thought I’d take a chance. I let them all off the leads before they got out of the car, and we walked and ran for two miles. We had a minor episode with some silly woman in the depths of the woods… but she had her dog on the lead and that *always* causes issues. Having spoken to so many people over so many years about dogs on leads in woods, the general consensus is that dogs can be off lead in woods a mile from the car park. And if a dog can’t be trusted off lead so far into the woods then don’t take it into what is seen by most as lead-free territory.

We waked for two miles, and were home just over an hour after we left. I was very pleased with how the walk went. All dogs came back when called… even when having a contretemps with passing normal people. Maybe it is still early days, and maybe the dogs still have time to piss on their chips, but with Orlestone being a viable place for a walk again, walks before late shifts and after early shifts has become a possibility again.

 

We came home to see another geocache had gone live in Longbeech Woods. Oh well – we wouldn’t have had time to go there today. I solved the puzzle and found the thing was very deep in the woods; we certainly wouldn’t have had time this morning.

But there’s tomorrow’s walk planned.

I did a little CPD and got it wrong. In theory the blood compatibility simulator is a brilliant idea. In practice it is a work in progress which sadly still has a lot more progress to be made.

 

Leaving “er indoors TM” working and the dogs snoring I set off to work. As I drove up the motorway I counted thirty-two cars in the "HGVs only" section of the motorway. Needing petrol I stopped off at the Aylesford branch of Sainsbury's. There weren't that many cars waiting compared to how is sometimes gets there, but the queue to pay was out of the door; there were a couple of idiots at the counter who'd clearly come for a chat rather than to pay for their petrol.

I eventually got away, and as I drove up Hermitage Lane I realised my car was making an odd noise. I opened and closed the windows and thumped the dashboard. The nose went away. That'll do me.

And then I spent five minutes emptying all the rubbish out of my car. There was a surprising amount of rubbish to empty. Hopefully that will improve the fuel economy.

 

Work was the same as ever. I came home to find the dollars I ordered from the bank yesterday had arrived… in hundred dollar bills. Absolutely no use to me whatsoever. I shall go up the bank tomorrow and ask how they intend to resolve their balls up. If I don’t like what I hear I will change banks. I’ve had enough of the current one.

 

 

22 August 2024 (Thursday) - Money

 

 

Last night I was looking at quotes for car insurance. This morning my Facebook feed was full of adverts for insurance companies. There’s a sign of our times.

With nothing happening on-line I took the dogs for a walk. We went up to Longbeech Woods again. The road to the car park is the narrowest you ever did see, and in the car park was a humungous camper van and a smaller one too. There wasn’t a lot of space left. Apparently that car park is on some web site used by camper van people who are too mean to pay campsite fees which using a proper campsite incurs.

As I said a few days ago, for the most part these campers aren’t doing much harm and if I had one I’d want to save on campsite fees too. But having one van taking up half the car park is taking the piss, isn’t it?

 

Yesterday I mentioned that a new geocache had gone live in the woods. It gave us a target for today’s walk. We walked a mile and a half to where it was and I spent far too long hunting for something which wasn’t really that hard to find. And then the rain started. And all the dogs tried to roll in something foul. Fortunately they all missed, but Bailey then ate whatever it was. For all that she is smallest she is certainly the most disgusting.

There was then an entertaining few seconds as we passed the half-way point. Bailey launched a play-attack on Morgan, and they had a play fight. They do this from time to time and to anyone listening it sounds as though they are trying to murder each other. Pogo heard it and came running up shouting… and then was completely stumped. Which one should he tell off? Which one should he protect? He barked loudly at both and then found himself having to fend off a play-attack from Treacle.

We walked for three and a bit miles and in that time didn’t see anyone else at all. And the rain soon stopped.

 

We came home. I made a cuppa and phoned the insurance people. The last time I phoned them I was on hold for over an hour before I got to speak to someone. Today the phone was answered in about twenty seconds. That was an improvement. I told the nice lady that I’d been sent the details for the policy renewal details for my car’s insurance. I told her that her company was planning on putting the cost of the insurance up by over two hundred and fifty quid. I told her that was too much, and that I’d been on Go Compare and had quotes for two hundred quid less than they were proposing. She asked all sorts of questions and blathered on… after a while I stopped her. I told her she was blathering meaningless words. The bottom line was that I wanted a serious reduction in their price or I was going elsewhere. She said she needed three minutes to review my data (oo-er!)

After two minutes she offered me their top-of-the-range policy which included pretty much everything her company had to offer for less than a tenner more than I was currently paying. Not two hundred and fifty quid more. Ten quid more. I’ve mentioned car insurance renewals before; both on here and in conversation with friends and colleagues. I’ve met so many people who don’t look at the price of the insurance when it comes up for renewal but just pay it. A ten-minute phone call saved me two hundred and fifty quid this morning.

And here’s another saving… Leave yourself short of money for one year and put as much as you can aside. Then in the next year pay for your insurance policy in one go rather than paying it monthly. You effectively save two months’ money if you can get the cash together to pay in one go. Having left myself skint a few years ago I now pay car and house insurance in one yearly amount and save quite a bit.

I’m very mean…

 

I then drove into town. Yesterday our holiday money arrived. Where we’re going next month is a tad off-grid. The locals will want American dollars for anything we might want to buy and aren’t going to be overly keen on giving out much change. Consequently low denomination notes is what we want. The hundred dollar bills the bank sent yesterday are of no use to us.

I went to the bank. The chap there said that maybe their branch in Maidstone might be able to change them. I pointed out that I was in Ashford, not Maidstone. He suggested the bureau de change in the shopping centre. I went there, and after the silly old bat at the front of the queue stopped showing off to her mates I explained my story to the woman behind the counter. She immediately knew which bank I was with. She said that bank’s foreign currency people always send out high denomination notes and their local branch always send people to her. She said she’s not supposed to change notes from one denomination to another, but said she’d change up half of them.

I then went to Santander and NatWest; neither of whom dealt in foreign currency. One of them suggested two other places I might try. Other than saying that both involved a car trip I won’t say where. One place wasn’t interested at all. The other was brilliant. They too weren’t supposed to change notes from one denomination to another, but when I suggested I sold the dollars to them, then bought back low denomination notes they realized I wasn’t trying to pull a fast one, and they swapped the money for me.

 

By the time I’d been all over the place and finally got back home the day was half gone. We had a cuppa and scoffed the cakes I’d brought home for lunch, then I set about solving a geo-puzzle which looked as though we would be walking past it later (we did). You can see the puzzle here; in theory the solution is obvious. In practice it took some farting about. But after half an hour (or so) I had the thumbs-up from the checker.

 

“er indoors TM” eventually finished work. Despite a rather windy evening we took the dogs down to the Leas at Folkestone for a little walk. And with walk walked we came home. I fed the dogs, “er indoors TM” went to the kebab shop. We scoffed kebabs whilst watching the second episode of “Celebrity Race Across the World”.

I took a rather strong dislike to some chap being a prissy princess refusing to take a night bus.

 

 

23 August 2024 (Friday) - This n That

 

 

I woke in a sweat in the small hours last night following a nightmare in which I'd been press-ganged into NASA. Their top scientists had discovered that underneath their space suits all the female astronauts were actually nudey ladies without any clothes on. Bearing in mind my rejection of all the dubious women (and others) that regularly send me friend requests on Facebook, the head honcho at NASA had decided that I was the best person to take a moral stance should any of "that nonsense" kick off on the upcoming Artemis Moon missions.  Apparently he'd also had this idea that because I had experience of keeping snakes I'd be the ideal person to be in charge of space dinosaurs on the Moonbase.

 

I woke to find Morgan huddled up to me but on the outside of the bed. I'd gone to kip closer to the middle of the bed last night and the silly pup hadn't been able to get between me and “er indoors TM” and was in danger of falling off the edge. I moved him to safety and then hung off the edge of the bed myself for the rest of the night.

 

I made toast and started watching something new. "Brassic" seems relatively entertaining, but it played for rather longer than I'd thought it might and I didn't have time for my usual early morning mooch round the Internet.

 

I set off to find my car, slaloming round the recycling bins which had been randomly abandoned by the bin men. As I drove to work the pundits on the radio were interviewing some bloke who was something in the office of the energy watchdog. Apparently the government has announced that the price cap on household energy bills will be raised.

This means that the average family's power bill will go up by ten per cent this autumn. Leaving aside the fact that no one can afford this, it strikes me as odd that the government puts a limit on how much the companies can charge for gas and leccie. How can the companies possibly keep going if they have to pay so much to get the gas in the first place but the government will only allow them to put up the bills by half the amount they are having to fork out?

And there was a broadcast from the Green Gathering Festival where the organisers were getting rather shirty about all the other festivals. The woman being interviewed was ranting about the massive clean-up operations and the carbon footprints of all the other festivals. She was proud that her festivals didn't have a single diesel generator on site, and all the refreshment and drink stalls insisted you brought your own cups and pint pots along. Mind you she got even more shirty when it was suggested that the batteries her festival used were charged from rather mucky power stations. And she wasn't at all happy to be told that the people selling drinks at the stalls were actually secretly providing cups and pint pots as no one was bringing their own.

It struck me that she probably had rather high blood pressure for a supposedly hippy-type

 

I got to work and went to the League of Friends shop for a cheese scone. The League of Friends and the works canteen both sell exactly the same thing - a cheese scone and a pat of butter. But one charges thirty-five pence more than the other.

The League of Friends shop always sells out first. There really are those who wonder why.

 

Work was work. It usually is. At tea break I saw there were three new geocaches in Longbeech Woods. Had they gone live yesterday I could have had a cheeky First to Find. Oh well... they will give me something to do next week.

And during a dull moment I had a look at the Internet. Some crackpot has used data from India's Moon mission of a couple of years ago to find dinosaur skeletons there.

Or so he thinks.

 

I came home, and once she’d boiled up some scran “er indoors TM” set off out on the razz with her mates. Buried beneath a pile of dogs I watched more “Brassic” in which him who played Grumio in “Plebs” was having a conversation with his penis.

Quality telly.

 

 

24 August 2024 (Saturday) - Rain Stopped Play

 

 

This morning I rolled my eyes as I peered into the Internet. There was a story on social media about a little shop in Cheriton closing after having been in business for twenty-five years. Apparently they couldn’t compete with the on-line market. It strikes me that if you can’t beat them, join them. Several little specialist shops that used to operate locally have closed up and gone to internet sales only; why don’t these people do the same?

And another Facebook friend was posting about how all the school leavers should try running their own business. I sighed. Running your own business is all very well all the time it is a success.  At the risk of sounding negative over half fail within three years. Ending up owing thousands of pounds or going bankrupt isn’t something to be taken on lightly.

Many years ago (forty-five) I had a couple of offers for businesses in which I might like to invest my time and money. Both were going concerns in Hastings Old Town. Both have long since gone bust.

During the week I listened to a radio interview with Bill Gates who was talking about how when he set up Microsoft a lot of other people were doing much the same sort of thing. Nowadays everyone knows of Bill Gates; no one knows of his competitors from the early days. He said that none of them did anything any different to what he was doing, but he was lucky and they were not.

 

Being Saturday we went round to Repton for Dog Club. Despite the rain. As expected the turn-out wasn’t what it might have been. Last week in the sunshine we had over twenty dogs along. Today in the rain we had eight. And one went home in a serious sulk.

Some woman who was on their second week was along. Morgan and Pogo had been being boisterous so we took them off for a little walk. As we walked we saw Sue and Chris in the car park talking with the newbie who was going home. Apparently this woman claimed that “two black dogs” wouldn’t stop bothering her dog and she wasn’t coming back. Presumably the “two black dogs” were Morgan and Pogo. But as for bothering her dog…  I somehow got the distinct impression that this woman wanted to make a fuss. Ironically this woman’s smallest child had been rather preciously screaming in terror whenever her own dog came close, and flatly refusing the suggestions of her older sister to go and stand away from that dog. Clearly this child wanted a fuss rather than a solution. Was this woman in the same vein?

I suppose it takes a certain mindset to understand Dog Club. The whole idea is that dogs socialize. They do this by being left to get on with it, albeit under supervision. It’s not going to work if you keep making a fuss every time your dog finds itself within a mile of another.

 

We made the most of it, but the dogs were soaked by going home time. As we drove home Steve was doing the mystery year on the radio. Immediately I knew it was 1972… but after a few more clues I changed my mind. What gave it away for me was the TV series “Ripping Yarns” – 1976.

Once home. I popped to the corner shop. Almond croissant. Oh yus.

With the rain showing no sign of letting up I thought I might make the most of it being wet. If I were to pressure-wash the front yard the rain water would wash away the muck. In theory a brilliant idea; in practice the rain was too heavy and I was soaked within ten minutes.

 

I came in and with nothing much else I could do I did the monthly accounts. As always I am far better off than I once was, but as always I’d like to have far too much money.

I then looked at Ryobi power tools. The other day I whinged about how the things were misleading in that the price quoted didn’t include battery or charger. Did they hear me whinging? They’ve been advertising a new deal in which if you buy a battery and charger you get a free power tool. Sadly you can get pretty much any tool except the long-handled hedge trimmer I want.

And with the rain showing no signs of stopping I set about solving geo-puzzles which are where we’re going in holiday next month. There weren’t many, and quite a few of those that are there say you need a NATO ID card to be allowed anywhere near them.

 

We then turned the telly on and dozed through Catherine Tate in “The Nan Movie”, then I wrote up a little CPD. By late afternoon the weather had gone from continuous heavy rain through to bright sunshine which every fifteen minutes was interrupted by a torrential downpour lasting less than a minute.

Compare that to last Saturday afternoon when we sat in the sunshine drinking beer and scoffing ice cream.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up fish and chips which we scoffed whilst watching episodes of “Below Deck”. With everyone living and working on the same yacht I was rather reminded of somewhere I used to work in that hardly anyone working there had any friends who weren’t also work colleagues and so people lived seemingly constantly in each other’s pockets.

 

Hopefully this rain will stop soon.

 

 

25 August 2024 (Sunday) - Charing

 

 

I woke with backache this morning – usually a sign of a good night’s sleep. Leaving “er indoors TM” and the dogs snoring I got up, made toast and had a look at the Internet. This morning’s petty squabbles on Facebook had the same theme; people were posting on the “Bottom” and “Viz” pages claiming to be offended by what was clearly a joke. What are the easily offended doing on such pages?

Some people really do go looking to take offence.

I also saw some friends were having a family weekend camping in Dorset… and had got very wet in yesterday’s rain. We used to camp a lot and it was great fun, but when it rains there’s very little you can do but suck it up.

And a colleague had posted photos of her walk in the countryside. They looked beautiful, but I didn’t recognize where she was. I thought I knew most of the local scenery. Then I realized she was on holiday in Wales.

 

With the weather having seriously chirped up from yesterday we took the dogs out. We drove up to the sports ground car park in Charing and took a little walk guided by five geocaches. The first one was rather good; rather unusual for these days – just like how field puzzles used to be. And the next four were in surprisingly good shape bearing in mind they’d been put out by a scout group and caches put out for geocaching badges can have something of a reputation. Having said that, this is the second lot we’ve done recently which were put out for geocaching badges, and both lots were rather well done.

I took a few photos as we walked.

 

After a couple of hours we came home. I hung out the washing I’d put in to scrub earlier, scoffed a bit of lunch and we sat in the garden for the afternoon where I alternately read my book and had a doze.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up a Sunday roast which we scoffed whilst watching more episodes of “Below Deck” in which the bosun was talking his plonker for walkies. The deckhands he was porking weren’t at all happy about their not having exclusive access to his urges.

I’m sure it’s all staged, but it keeps me amused.

 

 

 

26 August 2026 (Monday) - Bank Holiday

 

 

I had a good night's sleep, but did wake far too early. I got up, made toast and watched an episode of "Brassic" in which the fat one got caught in a deep-sea diver suit nicking golf balls and in which him who played Grumio was kidnapped. Grumio was later rescued whilst in only his undercrackers. Whether or not he'd been kidnapped whilst only in his undercrackers was never clarified.

In today's episode our heroes were stealing Koi for financial gain. Good luck to them - it's been my experience that for all that Koi cost a small fortune when in the aquatic shop, once they've left the shop they've got no resale value whatsoever.

 

I got dressed and set off for work. Having worked every bank holiday weekend last year, this year I only had the one bank holiday shift – today. Despite what the weather forecast had predicted, overnight we'd had heavy rain.

I found myself thinking about the August Bank holidays of ten to fifteen years ago. August Bank Holiday always used to be Batcamp when a dozen or so of us would spend the weekend camping at a friend's farm. We didn't want rain when camping, but unlike many of our camping trips from back then we didn't mind having wet tents on the last day. Being on a friend's farm we could leave the tents for a couple of days until they dried out. But wet or dry, my August Bank Holiday was always hard physical labour putting camping gear away. And like most of our camping trips it was never helped by most of the campers having pressing reasons why they had to get away promptly on Monday morning. Everyone was always so apologetic about why they couldn't help with the putting away, but every year the putting away was done by the one whose farm it was, and those dependent on me and “er indoors TM” for a lift home.

Having said that, I'd do it all again... Such a shame the farm's been flogged off.

 

I drove to work along very quiet roads. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about an amnesty over the next month in which the public can take zombie knives into police stations and hand them in without fear of prosecution. Zombie knives are quite vicious things apparently. However the knife crime expert being interviewed made the observation that the zombie knives which are being banned aren't used in most actual stabbings and slashings. Zombie knives are apparently very good for scaring people. However most actual knife-related stabbings and slashings are done with bog-standard kitchen knives. It seems odd that the law won't let me have the ceremonial katana I was bought as a Christmas pressie (which is blunter than my bum) but it has no worries about “er indoors TM” brandishing a razor-sharp carving knife.

 

I got to work and found myself thinking of previous August Bank Holidays again. This time of 1980 and 1981 when I was in a different line of work. The halcyon days of the Harbour restaurant. Back then for nine months of the year we used to serve up a couple of hundred dinners a day. An exceptionally busy day would be four hundred dinners. August Bank Holiday would be over six hundred. I can remember staggering out of that place at nine o'clock in the evening one Bank Holliday Monday knowing I'd earned the pound an hour I used to get paid back then.

As I pondered I got on with what I couldn't avoid. I did a couple of wet ones today (it's a blood transfusion thing!). Lunch from the works canteen was some spicy chicken thingy followed by apple pie and custard. It was rather good.

I also spent a bit of time today thinking about an old mate.  I spent much of the day with a song stuck in my head. "Born to Be Alive" was from the one-hit-wonder Patrick Hernandez in 1979, and was a firm favourite song of a good friend of mine from that time. My old mucker would sing that song continually. I wonder if he still does; I'm still in touch with him (after a fashion) - after a career in banking he is now the Baptist minister of Minehead.

 

With work done I came home. We did the feeding the fish ceremony in which the dogs go berserk to get some fish food. Feeling myself nodding off by the pond I suggested we took the dogs out so that I could say I’d done something on the Bank Holiday. “er indoors TM” had a missing geocache to replace, and with that sorted we drove on up to Longbeech Woods for a little walk. As always the place was quiet. Not a single other car in the car park. We only had a short walk, but it was good to get out. As we walked we found a beetle on its back, so we put him back the right way and he scuttled off. And then we found another upside down one. And another. We lost count of the amount of beetles that had been overturned. What was that all about?

 

We came home where “er indoors TM” boiled up burgers and chips which we scoffed whilst watching more “Below Deck” in which the bosun got jiggy again.

When I went to get a yogurt my hip had a funny five minutes. A shooting pain shot through it and I nearly collapsed. Sitting on the sofa with a hot Pogo up against it seemed to sort it out. Mind you a few years ago the other hip gave me similar aggro. That was arthritis. I seem to have it in both hips now… 

 

 

27 August 2024 (Tuesday) - Early Shift

 

 

I woke feeling full of life and raring to go only to find it wasn’t quite two o’clock. I lay awake for a few hours, then got up and watched an episode of “Brassic” over brekkie. Our heroes were raiding a cannabis farm in an ice cream van.

 

Taking care not to disturb “er indoors TM” and the dogs I got ready for work. As I left the house I was a tad miffed to see an empty parking space outside the house big enough for two cars. When we came home from the woods last night I'd had to park three streets away. We really should move somewhere with off-street parking.

As I drove to work there was a lot of talk about the new Prime Minister making a speech today, and of the ex-Prime Minister bad-mouthing him. Also there was a lot of talk about the upcoming televised debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump who are supposedly having an on-screen squabble in a couple of weeks' time. Doesn't this sum up politics these days? It's not about what the politicians actually do. It's all about what they say and how they say it.

I was reminded of the Junior Debating Society from my days at secondary school when one of the teachers taught us the noble art of debate. He really did teach us how to say that shit was sugar in such a way that everyone believed it. But more importantly how to say it in such a way to make the person with who we were debating look stupid; even though they were completely right and we were totally wrong.

 

I got to work and made a cuppa before I started. As I swilled it down I had a look on Facebook. A friend had got engaged over the weekend. He'd already bought a house with his girlfriend having been living with her for quite some time... Isn't this a sign of our times. Engagement and wedding aren't a thing any more. I know so many people wo have bought houses with their partners and raised families, but have no intention of getting married or engaged.

 

Work was a tad dull today. As I mentioned yesterday for a seaside restaurant this is the busiest time of the year, Not so for a hospital where the workload noticeably goes down during school holidays. It always has. During a lull in a rather dull day I spent a little time peering at the goldfinches bathing in the puddles in the flat roof outside our window. There's a colony of goldfinches which lives in the tree outside our window, and when no-one's watching me, I watch them intently.

 

An early start made for an early finish. I did have a vague plan to take the dogs to the woods when I got home, but it was rather warm. The dogs leapt up to see me, we fed the fish, and they all went back to sleep. They weren’t up for a walk. Instead we fed the fish and I gathered dog turds.

 

“er indoors TM” went off to blood donors. There’s a little thing that boils my piss. Blood donors my piss. Blood donors donate blood or give blood. No one “dones” blood, but I get wound up by how so many people think that “doning” blood is a thing.

As it happened the donation session was cancelled.

We scoffed a rather good bit of dinner whilst watching more “Below Deck”. I found the yacht’s web site and did some sums… the average charter is for three days and is for six people. If four of my loyal readers fancy joining me and “er indoors TM” it would only cost us twenty thousand quid each…

 

 

28 August 2024 (Wednesday) - Walks, Gardening, Tip Run

 

 

With no alarm set last night I slept like a log. When I eventually woke I made toast and peered into the Internet fearing the worst. Last night there had been quite a bitter argument on one of the Facebook groups I moderate. Early yesterday evening there had been a rather petty disagreement in which someone made a comment about going hanging yourself in the servant’s bedroom. Anyone who’d watched the show would realized that was a reference to the Upstairs Downstairs episode “I Dies from Love”. However some woman who clearly didn’t realise this had been intent on blowing it all out of proportion. I moderated, I told everyone to play nicely.

This morning it had all seemed to have blown over.

Another chap had posted on one of the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy pages so he “could defend the maligned BBC 1980s television adaptation”. I’m not sure what he was defending it from; he slagged it off more than anyone else had ever done. Occasionally HHG gets some stick, but the problem facing the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is that it was originally a radio program. In much the same way that Harry Potter and James Bond are series of books, the film and TV adaptations are made for people who can’t sit still and listen to the radio or read a book.

And there were photos of the Electric Light Orchestra’s tour. They are currently performing their farewell tour. It’s rather sad that they are calling it a day, but their frontman is in his mid-seventies and one of the other leading lights died last May.

 

I drove the dogs up to Longbeech Woods where there was a German camper can in the car park. I let the dogs run into the woods and after a minute they dashed ahead and started barking. I hurried to find them woofing at a young couple cowering in the hedge. They were looking at the dogs in much the same way that I would look at a pack of hungry tigers. I firmly said “Straight Past!” to the dogs and they stopped woofing and carried on. That’s another work in progress of ours. It’s rather impressive when it works.

As we walked I picked up the last two geocaches in those woods that I hadn’t found. I saw a squirrel; the dogs didn’t. Bailey did try to eat a fox turd but dropped it when I shouted at her.

After an hour and a quarter we got back to the car. My watch said we’d walked a shade over three miles. In that time other than the terrified Germans we’d only seen one other person, and they were in the distance and we avoided them anyway.

 

We came home and I made a cuppa. Yesterday “er indoors TM” had got us Belgian buns from Aldi. They were OK, but the best ones are from the co-op.

I hung out the washing, loaded up a load of rubbish into the car, then whilst I was waiting for my allocated tip time I went into the garden and trimmed back all the stuff hanging over the fence from not-so-nice-next-door. As always it took some trimming.

 

And so to the tip… Oh dear.

Once I’d unloaded I saw something new there. There were a couple of banners saying “re-use” and behind the banners were all sorts of things that looked used but still useful. Furniture, ornaments, and an electric keyboard. I asked one of the tip staff what that lot was all about. The chap replied with a grunt. I asked if they were for sale or free for people to take. The chap’s reply was “no” but his tone was “f… off fatso”. I explained how many tips offer a service where the higher quality unwanted stuff is sold. He snarled that they didn’t do that, turned his back and made a point of ignoring me.

I’ve put in a formal complaint; I doubt anything will happen though.

 

I came home, and pootled about in the garden until I realized I was hurting. So I stopped pootling, came inside and wrote up a little CPD. As I wrote so Terry phoned from the Three Network. Or so he claimed. He was no more Terry from the Three Network than I was Rashid from the Three Network. I wasted quite a bit of his time listening to his offer, then offered him my special deal. I told him that for no more than he was already paying me, he could piss off or get knotted. This confused him, so I repeated the offer. On my third repetition he realized I was wasting his time and he hung up.

Here’s a heads-up. If a Scottish phone number calls you trying to offer a deal from the Three Network, it’s a scam.

 

Once she’d finished work “er indoors TM” and I took the dogs down to the coast for our midweek evening walk. For a change we tried the beach at Sandgate; I had this naïve idea that the place might be quiet and good for the dogs. It was heaving and dogs were banned until the end of September.

But we had a good walk along the prom.

 

Being rather later home than we might have been we had KFC for dinner which we scoffed whilst watching more “Below Deck” in which stewards and deck hands were porking each other. It is commonly said that “worse things happen at sea”; they certainly seem to.

 

 

29 August 2024 (Thursday) - Walk, Telly, Laundry

 

 

I went to the loo at two o’clock, and in doing so evidently surrendered all rights to any bed space. After a pitched battle with the dogs I eventually secured a six inch wide strip along the edge of the bed to which I clung in terror of falling off for the rest of the night.

 

Over brekkie I peered into the Internet. There was a question on my old school’s Facebook page – who was your favourite teacher? Interestingly quite a few people were singing the praises of teachers who I felt were out-and-out bullies at the time. One of them who was being praised made the local newspapers when I was at school – for no adequately explained reason one day he randomly ran from his house and kicked a passing dog. I made the observation that many of the teachers were rather nasty, and that you can tell a lot about a person’s nature from the way they treat a fat child (which I was).

There was also a lot of arguments on an atheist group I follow (purely for the arguments) about gay Christians. As someone who was once incredibly religious (I was once a Steward in the Methodist church) I get a tad wound up over the matter. Personally I disagree, but the bible is crystal clear on its’s anti-gay stance. Anyone claiming to be a Christian therefore automatically has to be anti-gay. If they aren’t then they simply aren’t a Christian. You can’t pick and choose which bits of your religion you are going to go with and which bits you aren’t.

Can you?

 

With “er indoors TM” off to the office today I got the dogs onto their leads myself today. We had no issues at all. So often Morgan plays up at lead time; he obviously plays up for “er indoors TM”.

As we drove to the woods the pundits on the radio were interviewing some woman who was three months into a three year round-the-world cruise. Sadly for all that she was three months into the cruise, the ship still hadn’t left port. Heaven only knows how much a three year cruise would cost, and to be delayed for three months with still no sign of setting off…

 

Today we went to Kings Wood for a bit of a longer walk. We had a good walk. There was a minor episode when we saw a young couple with their dogs. On seeing us there was a frantic “oh my god – oh my god” from the bloke as he hurriedly put his dogs on their leads. I said not to bother. He insisted, and the moment his dogs’ leads were attached they went from being pleasant amiable creatures to slavering snarling beasts.

I whistled to my dogs; they immediately followed me.

I walked off feeling rather smug as I listened to the woman ranting at the bloke about how well behaved and well trained my dogs were, and why couldn’t he train his dogs not to be so horrible. I’m not claiming that my dogs are well behaved and well trained, but it is always rather good when they don’t utterly disgrace themselves.

 

And then as the day outside got too hot to really do anything I cracked on doing the ironing whilst watching more episodes of “Brassic”. Ironing, sorting undercrackers, watching telly, booking the car’s MOT and boiling up dinner. What a way to spend the afternoon.

 

“er indoors TM” came home and we cracked open a bottle of plonk with which we washed down dinner. Dinner wasn’t bad. It wasn’t good, but I never really like anything I’ve boiled up myself.

As we scoffed we watched the last episode of the current series of “Below Deck” in which the bosun porked the deckhand without removing his pants, and the second steward had the arse because the bodybuilding deckhand wouldn’t pork her. The crew below deck are an unmoral bunch.

And then we watched the most recent episode of “Race Across the World” in which one of the contestants revealed that his mother was celebrity Jade Goody. It didn’t make me warm to him though…

 

 

30 August 2024 (Friday) - Before the Late Shift

 

 

I slept reasonably well. Apparently “er indoors TM” didn’t. The pleasant fragrance of Pogo’s farting woke her at three o’clock and she spent quite a bit of the rest of the night letting him out to the garden.

 

Over brekkie I had my usual root around the Internet. Here’s a sign of our times; the future of Littlehampton’s annual bonfire parade is looking shaky. Thousands of people flock there every year for the fun, but not enough people are volunteering to help out.

And people wanting to go to nearby Camber Sands are facing four hour traffic jams to get there. Personally I can’t see the attraction of sitting on the beach, but what do I know? Someone else was posting that Camber Sands was a dog friendly beach. Seriously? With all those people about? The phrase “dog friendly” is one which needs a lot of qualification. When Camber Sands is billed as a “dog friendly” beach that means dogs are allowed on there. However “friendly” implies they are welcome and wanted. I’m pretty sure most of the holidaymakers swarming there don’t want dogs in their way. In the same vein there’s a pub in the Medway Towns which is billed as “dog friendly”. It has a petting zoo in the garden the smells of which send dogs crazy.

 

I got the dogs organized and we went out to the car. As I drove I was hoping “Desert Island Discs” would be on the radio; it often is shortly after nine o’clock on a Friday. But it wasn’t. There was coverage of the Paralympics instead. I turned the radio off. For me sport is something that is done. Watching someone else doing sport is rather dull for me, and listening to someone shrieking about the sport he is watching isn’t riveting.

 

We soon got to the woods. Following the success we had at Orlestone a little while ago I thought we’d try there again. The dogs came when called, and we didn’t see anyone else at all. There was one other car in the car park, but we saw no one as we went round. Morgan chased a squirrel the size of a fox, and Bailey rolled in something foul; a good walk was had by all. We will go back.

For all that Kings Wood is good for a long walk, it is a twenty minute drive away. And Longbeech is ten minutes further on. We can go from putting leads on at home to letting the dogs out of the boot at Orlestone in nine minutes.

As we walked I experimented with my phone in airplane mode. Where we are going on holiday in a few weeks’ time is classified as “rest of the word” by my mobile provider. Mobile data is charged at four quid per megabyte and I dread to think what receiving the spamming texts and phone calls will cost. But I want to use the phone as a camera. Airplane mode worked for that, and as an added bonus the GPS and geocache app seemed to work too.

 

With walk walked we came home. I washed the fox poo from Bailey then popped up to the corner shop where I got an almond croissant. I got one for “er indoors TM” as well; I’m kind like that. I sparked up the lap-top and as I so often do before the late shift I wrote up some CPD.

As I sorted out a simulated blood transfusion complicated by the vagaries of the Duffy blood group system there was a knock at the door. The postman had a parcel. Or to be precise, postwoman. I could see she was a postwoman from what she wasn’t wearing. To be honest she would have appeared more demure had she delivered the parcel stark naked.

 

And so to work… and as is so often the way on the late shifts, everything of note today had happened by mid day.

 

 

31 August 2024 (Saturday) - Quiet Day

 

 

I had a pitched battle with Treacle at 3am which ended with her being forcibly hoiked off the bed. And then Bailey started a coughing fit.

 

I gave up trying to sleep, got up and looked out of the kitchen window at the rain. The Met Office and the BBC both assured me it wasn’t raining. So it wasn’t. I have it on good authority that, like the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the BBC weather forecast is definitive. In cases of discrepancy, reality has it wrong.

I had a few emails. Someone had found some of my geocaches in Kings Wood… another name to add to the list of people who cheat at Wherigos. When you do the series of Wherigo geocaches that I’ve made you only get the location of the first one. You get the other locations sequentially as you do them one at a time. Unless you use a cheat program. You can tell when someone does that when they randomly log “found it” on one of the random Wherigos which happen to be in line with the other ones they are logging.

And these people openly complain that the trouble with finding the things the way they do (i.e.by cheating) means they don’t get the hint that people get when not cheating.

There’s a list of those who’ve found the most geocaches in the UK here. Not only have these people not hidden that many of their own, several of them are Wherigo cheats.

I suppose it is an utterly trivial point. They are only cheating themselves… But it boils my piss that I put so much effort into creating a fun little game for these people to play and all they want is to find a film pot.

 

I took a deep breath and we set off for Dog Club. Then we came back home to pick up the money pot I’d forgotten. Last week we had a poor turn-out, heavy rain, and a newbie with attitude. Today it was dry, over twenty dogs along and everyone had a good time. There were one or two spats, but there’s over twenty dogs there. What else could anyone expect? Fortunately everyone there knew what dogs were like. The spats were over as quick as they started. And serious serial offenders had enforced time-out on their leads. There were three such miscreants today. Morgan, Pogo and Bailey. Bailey has been rather odd just lately; with Pogo staying with us for a couple of weeks Bailey has been rather cocky. She knows that she can bother bigger dogs and if it all kicks off Pogo will come in on her side. And so she terrorized a larger (but oh-so-timid) dog called Milo.

We’ve two Milos at Dog Club. Also two Lilys, two Diesels two Baileys… I have no idea of the names of the people who come along, but I know all the dogs.

I took a few photos of the mayhem.

 

We came home via the co-op for buns. I then spent the morning farting about with the Dog Club’s Facebook group page. Updating the “about” info and information on how to pay took a little while. The information has always been there, but so many people keep asking the same questions. Hopefully it will all be a little more obvious now. Mind you out of every dozen that enquire maybe one turns up.

 

“er indoors TM” set off to see family. Bearing in mind nephew has a big dog I thought it best not to take our lot along. And also bearing in mind that Treacle screams when left for any length of time I stayed home with the dogs.

I got the lawnmower out and mowed the lawn. Then rolled out the pond hose and cleaned out the pond’s pressure filter. Then pruned some of the pond’s water cress.

By then I was worn out so I sat on the sofa under a pile of dogs and alternately watched episodes of “Brassic” and had a little sleep.

 

I’ve not really done that much today. But I’ve had a good day.