|
1 August 2026
(Saturday) - A Drink in the Garden
As
I scoffed toast I peered into the Internet and saw
that so many people were off on their holidays. Loads of people were posting
photos from airports. Part of me was jealous, part not. I hate going on
holiday. I like *being* on holiday, but the “going” bit is just
hours of arse-ache. I
saw that despite the predictions, Reform UK had their arses handed to them on
a plate following the Manchester Mayoral elections and despite the
odds, the Labour candidate won. Is this good or
bad? I must admit my Labour MP has turned out to be an utter disappointment,
but I’d rather have someone in power who was a bit rubbish than a bit nasty.
Talking of which the row in Hastings continues. As
I smurfed the net so Treacle came down. She made a
half-hearted attempt to come to me but I could see
the look in her eye. I told her that it was all right and that the back door
was open, and she flew out like a bullet from a gun. I
Munzed, Wordled from “their”
to “slush” in four goes, then strained my brain. Steve was on the
radio doing the “Guess the Lyrics” competition. “She’s a PhD in I
told you so. You’ve a knighthood in I’m not listening”. No? - It
was The Beautiful South – Don’t Marry
Her.
Sometimes I’m amazed at what trivia is stuck in my head. We
went round to Repton and Dog Club. Over the last few weeks there’s been a
rather timid dog who brings out the worst in Morgan so we took his muzzle
along (just in case) but that dog wasn’t
along so all was well. Morgan did tiddle up someone… but that is another
issue. As
we drove home Steve was doing the Mystery Year competition on the radio. A
big Royal Wedding, Kate Bush sitting in your lap and a guy working down the
chip shop… 1981. We
had a cuppa then I tidied up the garden and it
wasn’t long before people arrived. A lot of people were away on holidays or
had prior bookings, but a few of us gathered in the garden and had a rather
good time. It
was good to catch up with friends… even if things did get progressively more and more vague as the afternoon (and evening)
wore on. |
|
2 August 2026
(Sunday) - A Birthday
I
slept well… not surprising really after the ale that got shifted yesterday. I
made toast and rolled my eyes. Ex-Home Secretary Suella Braverman was ranting on-line about that
which she did nothing about when she had the chance when she was in power.
I’m amazed that the masses vote for her… Several
people had clicked “like” on the photos of yesterday’s little session in
the garden. It was a shame that we clashed with so many other things, but
it’s August, the sun is out and everyone is busy… I
Munzed; inviting Munzers
to join the Guild for this month’s Munzee Gauntlet Games. A posh phrase for
scanning bar codes stuck to a lamp post, but it keeps us occupied. I Wordled from “after” to “penal” in five
goes. “er
indoors TM” went off out for the morning. I watched an
episode of “Stranger Things” then had a little tidy-up. Washing
up went in the dishwasher, bottles and cans into the recycling, and I then
had a little doze in the garden until the birthday girl returned. We
had thought about a fish dinner at the Pilot or a Sunday roast at the
Woolpack. Sadly being a glorious Sunday in August we
would be sharing the place with all of the normal
people. So we opted for a quiet afternoon in the
garden. “My Boy TM” and ”Auntie Chel TM” popped
round with a birthday card and pressie and we had a
lunch of bread and cheese and pickles. And shortly after father-in-law called
in. We
had a rather good (if lazy) afternoon. There
had been talk of a late afternoon walk, but it was still too hot to take the
dogs out. And a combination of loads of visitors yesterday and today and the
heat had worn them out anyway. Instead we had a rather good lamb shank and a
bottle of plonk which we devoured whilst watching a film. “Wicked” was rather
good even if (like so many films) it went on for about an hour too
much. |
|
|
|
3 August 2026
(Monday) - 800 Kilometres Done - 224 To Go
Once
I’d hung out the washing (and gathered dog turds) I made toast and had
a look at the Internet. Some woman had posted a
photo of her new garden pond and was asking advice of one of the Facebook
groups. Having spent a small fortune she was rather
disappointed to end up with a small hole in the ground surrounded by loads of
gravel. And as is always the way with the Internet there were far more people
dripping sarcasm than were offering advice. I
Munzed, Wordled from “loads”
to “reply” in five goes, and got ready for the off. We
drove up to the woods a tad earlier than usual. With another warm day
forecast we wanted to get round before it got too hot. We walked round the
woods and had a rather dull walk. No episodes with the normal people, no
rolling in muck… As we walked my phone beeped. In January my “Map My Walk”
app asked if I’d like to join the “You vs
The Year” challenge in which I had to walk a total of one thousand and
twenty-six kilometres (in mapped walks) over the year. Today I got
past the eight hundred kilometre mark. We
came home. I made a cuppa then popped to the vets to get the flea treatments.
I’d ordered it yesterday and had got some verbals from them that I shouldn’t
phone to order the stuff before eleven o’clock. I must admit I wasn’t
impressed when we found that dog the other day and they refused to scan him
for a chip and insisted I drove out to the emergency vet. I went there
expecting attitude, and was pleasantly surprised to
find smiles. Mind you I had to wait an age for them to come out with the flea
treatments. They always do that. You’d think that the idea of ordering the
stuff the day before was so that they would get it ready for you to collect,
wouldn’t you? The
dogs didn’t seem to want their flea treatments, but with that done I went and
had a pootle in the garden. On Saturday I saw that the smallest water feature
wasn’t working. That was a pain – the pump is underground. I cleared stones
and scraped away shingle and eventually got to the pump. I can’t imagine what
I was thinking when I put the thing in place (over twenty years ago) but I’d only allowed myself about six inches of slack cable.
I got to the pump, cleaned it as best I could, and it started working again
which was a result. I cleaned out as much of the mud as I could from the
underground reservoir, and put it mostly back
together. If it is still working tomorrow I’ll put
all the stones back. I
took down the event shelter and put away the extra chairs. I cleaned out the
pond filters and topped up the ponds. I
had a left-over bread roll for lunch, then realised I was knackered. I
spent the afternoon dozing, reading my Kindle and playing Meowdoku
before realising that I’d been outside for too long and had caught the sun. I
came in and wrote up some CPD. The American
Society of Hematology and the European Hematology Society both do little quizzes on their
Facebook pages over the weekend, and it is the work of two minutes to copy
and paste the html coding into the Blogger software. It looks incredibly impressive
to those who think that copying and pasting html coding is difficult. Personally I’d be far more impressed if the American
Society of Hematology and the European Hematology Society learned how to spell Haematology (the
letter a appears twice!). “er
indoors TM” boiled up pizza and
then went bowling. I watched a couple of episodes of “Stranger Things”
as the washing machine had a go at my undercrackers. Monday night is “wash
the smalls” night. There’s never a dull moment in my world… |
|
4 August 2026
(Tuesday) - Clearing Bird Poo
Again I woke feeling profoundly miserable.
This seems to be happening more and more these days.
I took a deep breath, made toast and cracked on and it soon passed. As
I scoffed toast I had a look at the Internet. A cousin was posting from her
holiday home in Dorset. It looked rather good, but she had a flock of sheep
pootling round the garden. I suppose that’s easier than getting the lawn
mower out? I
Munzed, Wordled from “mower”
to “motif” in five goes, topped up the dog water bottle and got ready
for the off. As
we drove to the woods the Justice Secretary was being interviewed. The
government is looking to release some prisoners earlier than planned. This is
absolutely terrible and the end of the world. The
fact that this is because the prisons are full and because the prisons
currently being built won’t be ready for a while. No one seems to care that
the government inherited this mess and the previous government
had known all about it and had done nothing about it. We
got to the woods and immediately had an “episode”. This is the time of
year that a lot of people take their dog for its annual walk, and we met one
such group today. They were standing at the sign which was telling the world
about the coming car parking charges. One of them loudly announced “that
man might know” and pointed at me. I smiled sweetly. Another of them
rather aggressively demanded to know how much they had to pay for car parking,
and how they might pay it. I pointed out that as a member of Forestry England
I got to park for free. That wasn’t received well. They demanded to know how
they might pay with the RingGo app, and weren’t at
all pleased to find out that I didn’t know. I’d made a serious mistake by
telling them that I’d joined Forestry England; they immediately thought I was
on the board of directors of the organisation. I pointed to the bit on the
sign which told them that members of Forestry England got free parking. I
told them that they now knew as much as I did, and I went off leaving them to
it. We
then walked four and a half miles in peace. We sort-of walked our usual walk
but in reverse and with a little twist at the end to try to stay in the
shade. Treacle did puff a bit, but I’m sure she wouldn’t have wanted to have
stayed at home. I
found myself thinking of poor Sid. He never really wanted much of a walk. I
used to walk him round the block, and a two-minute walk used to take him twenty
minutes. If we were going on a “proper” walk he used to run and hide. We
came home listening to more Adrian Mole MP3. I made a cuppa, Munzed for a bit, then went into the garden. Something (possibly
a pterodactyl) had crapped up the side of the house. Two minutes with a
mop shifted the dung. I
reorganised some of the stones around the water feature I’d sorted yesterday…
and ended up with a bucketful of ornamental green cobbles. I shall find
something to do with them. But not now. “er
indoors TM” boiled up a couple of bread rolls and we
scoffed the with cheese and pickles, and with lunch lunched I sat by the pond
and finished my Kindle book. We did “FEED THE FISH”, watered
the plants, and played Meowdoku. I’ve now been the
day’s top player five times… I can only assume not many people play the game.
I wrote up some CPD. “er
indoors TM” boiled up a very good
bit of scran which we scoffed whilst watching more “Bake Off: The
Professionals”, and again I found myself thinking I could have been a
baker… I’ve
got to go to work tomorrow. |
|
5 August 2026
(Wednesday) - It Ain't Diabetes
With
an alarm set I woke at quarter to three and just lay awake. I gave up trying
to sleep at five o’clock, got up and scoffed toast as I watched an episode of
“Stranger Things”. It was rather good. I
then had my usual look at the Internet. I
had a minor sulk as I peered into Facebook this morning. People were posting
holiday photos from Spain and Dorset and Austria and the Lake District. But a
*lot* of friends had been posting from Norfolk where they’d arrived
for the beginning of the five-day national geocaching mega-event. I would
have liked to have gone myself. Back in the day I used to organise no end of
long weekends away at kite festivals and camping events. I suppose I could
have sorted something but we’d left it too late to
book anywhere to stay in the area, and camping is simply too much like hard
work these days. Back in the day I used to organise mid-week and weekend mass
geocaching walks, but sadly since I’ve not had time to organise them, no one
else has taken up the mantle. I
Munzed, Wordled from “minor”
through “boils” to get it with “posit” on the third go for the
simple reason that pretty much every other possibility had the “i” in the wrong place. I
set off to find my car. As I walked I saw her who
lives down the road and likes walking. I've been seeing her on and off for
nearly forty years. Her son went to school with “My Boy TM” and
was one of my cubs (a particularly odd child who chose not to speak but to
communicate by pulling faces. He could speak, but
preferred to grimace). I often see her walking about Ashford. All over
Ashford at all times of day. This morning she was marching past our house at
half past six. I often wonder why she walks so much. Does she want to stay
out of her house? Should I be contacting someone about her? I
found my car. As I drove to work so the pundits on the radio were
interviewing some dog groomer. The woman being interviewed simpered and
wittered and basically wasted ten minutes of peak air-time.
I couldn't help but wonder what she'd been brought on to the radio for. They
had tried to get her to talk about flea and tick treatments (not that she
actually said very much at all), and once she'd gone it turned out that
the spot-on-the-neck treatments used to prevent parasite
infestations (like I dobbed onto the dogs' necks on Monday) are under
scrutiny. There's calls for them to be banned from general
sale after an inquiry raised concerns about their impact on their
environment. Apparently they are widely
available in all sorts of shops and supermarkets, and
the component chemicals are being found in rivers and streams. I was always
under the impression that the stuff was only available with a vet's
prescription and that dogs had to be kept dry after they'd had the treatments
dobbed onto them? I'm
going to carry on treating the dogs with the flea jollop and they will carry
on having their tick collars. There's no point in waiting until the ticks and
fleas have latched on and given them no end of diseases before you do
anything about it, is there? I
got petrol in Aylesford. Today it was only a penny a litre cheaper than in
Ashford. And with a few minutes spare I went for a little walk looking for
somewhere to hide a geocache. There's a souvenir for anyone who hides on in
August. And
then I cracked on with work. At tea break I started reading a new book
on my Kindle. It was terrible. Poorly edited, poorly proof-read. It read as
though it had been written by a foreign schoolchild and translated into
English by another schoolchild as a rather rushed bit of homework. I gave up
with it at lunch time and rated it at one star on Amazon and Goodreads with
the recommendation that it be withdrawn from sale and proof-read. Harsh?
Maybe. But it had the potential to be a good story; if a tad unreadable. The
chap who wrote it has done himself no favours by rushing publication. I then
got another e-book from Amazon. It wasn't *quite* as bad, but was
still on the crap side... zombies in outer space? Seriously? I suppose I
shouldn't really have had high expectations for ninety-nine pence, should I? I
came home to find the nice Amazon man had delivered my glucose monitor. I’ve been feeling numbness and tingling in my left hand for some weeks
now. Occasionally in my left foot and right hand as well. I realise it has been very
hot recently but I do think I’m more
thirsty than I have been for some time; more so that would be
explained by the heatwaves. My father had late onset diabetes as did my
grandmother. I don’t want anyone to think I’d had a look at Google and
diagnosed myself… but I had a look at Google and diagnosed myself. But with a
random blood glucose of five point three mmol/L I think I’ll have another
look at Google. Or ring the doctor… “er
indoors TM” came home.
She’d taken the dogs out, and she seemed stressed. They had been totally
ill-behaved little sods for her. Odd – they normally see her as pack leader.
I’d have thought they wouldn’t have dared to put a foot wrong. I’m feeling rather tired. If only I could sleep when
I have an alarm set. |
|
6 August 2026
(Thursday) - Flat Battery, New Geocache
I
slept better last night but again woke feeling rather morose. I made toast and
had my little look at the Internet. There were quite a few photos of people
going on holiday and being on holiday. I was rather envious of the people
being on holiday, but not of those going. A subtle difference? It’s the
travelling that I don’t like. I’m quite regretting not having arranged to go
to the week-long geocaching event that’s on now in Norfolk, but it’s three
hours and a hundred and sixty miles away. I
had a snarky email. At the weekend I downloaded a glucose-measuring app on my
phone. It was rubbish. It asked loads of questions but didn’t measure
anything (well obviously it couldn’t on a phone)
so I said as much in my review. The people who made it had taken
umbrage. I
Munzed, Wordled from “miles”
via “brine”, “tripe” and “cripe”
to “gripe”. A rather appropriate word for me… I
got the leads onto the dogs. As I started the car it sounded a tad sluggish
but at the time I thought nothing of it. As I drove
I listened to the pundits on the radio who were talking about Professor Jason Arday who has
resigned from Cambridge University over allegations of plagiarism. I don’t
know what Professor Arday did or didn’t do, but one of the allegations
against him was that he claimed to have written and published a particular
book which he hadn’t. Some chum of his was wheeled on to defend him. I wish I
knew who this pal of his was; this chap felt there was nothing wrong with claiming
to have written a book when you hadn’t. This chap said he’d planned to write
books himself which he hadn’t, and implied that the intention to write a book
was synonymous with actually writing one. We
got to the woods and once we were away from the car park we had a good walk.
We hid another geocache in the woods (I wasn’t happy with the one I put
out yesterday). As we turned a corner we saw a deer not ten yards away.
We chased squirrels and rabbits. Sadly we knew when we were getting back to the
car. The noise level definitely went up as all the
families going on their annual dog walk were shouting at each other. Despite
only being inches apart they could have been heard miles away. We
got back to the car… and it eventually started. Once the thing eventually
leapt into life it have me a warning message that
the battery was on the low side. I
dropped the dogs at home and drove round to Halfords. The nice man got his
gadget out and showed me that my battery was deficient in both volts and
amps. But he said he wasn’t surprised – he said it looked like it was the
car’s original battery which would make it eleven years old. He
said he could sell me a new battery and fit it, but said that if I joined
their premium club it would actually
be fifteen quid cheaper. So I joined their
premium club, got the discount, and not only do I now get money off from
other things I buy in Halfords, I get a free MOT
too. That’s a bonus. I
came home and made us both a cuppa, then sorted the admin for the new geocache we hid
today.
It took over an hour to devise what I hope is a particularly fiendish puzzle.
I have this theory about geocaching puzzles… everyone whinges on saying how
that difficult puzzles are all part of the game, but hardly anyone can ever
solve the tricky ones. To illustrate this contention
I put one out last year. It’s been found
four times. “er
indoors TM” boiled up bread rolls
which we scoffed with the last of the weekend’s cheese, then I had a minor
pootle in the garden. The sleepers round the pond were rather crusted with
pigeon poop. I was amazed at how easy the stuff came off. I then alternately
read my Kindle, Meowdoku-ed and dozed by the pond. As I slobbed
about shamelessly being bone idle I found myself wondering. I’d shelled out
the thick end of a hundred and fifty quid to get my car’s battery done earlier.
Was I being mean? – that price struck me as expensive. I phoned my usual
garage who said they wanted three hundred and twenty quid to do the same job. I
shall be going back to Halfords for car issues from now on. I’ve put their
phone number into my phone and everything. I had a look at their website – I
can get ten per cent off of a new pressure washer…
such a shame that what with the hose pipe ban they are currently a no-no. And
then my phone beeped. The geocache I’d hidden this morning had gone live, and
I’d got the souvenir for hiding it. “er
indoors TM” sorted a rather good curry which we washed
down with a bottle of the cheap plonk whilst watching this week’s episode
of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds”. I won’t give any spoilers but I will say it was the best episode of Star
Trek for some time. |
|
7 August 2026
(Friday) - A Horse-Free Zone
I
rolled my eyes as I peered into the Internet this morning. I thought last night’s
episode of Star Trek was one of the best ones… judging by the posts on-line
it would seem that it wasn’t as popular as I thought it might have been. I
found myself thinking back twenty years when “Star Trek: Enterprise”
was cancelled because the (so-called) – fans slated the show. After
all, who’s going to carry on making a TV show which gets such bad reviews
from its target audience. I
sent out birthday wishes, Munzed, and took the dogs
out. As we drove to the woods the pundits on the radio were in Clacton
interviewing people who were going to vote for either Nigel Farage, Count Binface or thirty other nobodies. I can only imagine that
the interviews broadcast were done for dramatic
effect; I’d never heard such ill-informed stupidity. People openly admitted
they knew nothing of politics or policies but believed every word that every
politician said to them, and most of them said they would probably vote for the
last one they heard from, as that one would be the one they remembered. And
people say democracy is a good thing. We
got to the woods where we had an episode. I plan our walks so that we are
mostly off of the gravelled tracks. That’s the bits
where horses aren’t supposed to go. As we walked one of
the narrower tracks (well away from the horse areas) so two old bats on
horses came toward us. The one in front was shrieking “two metres, two
metres”. I got the dogs on their leads and dragged the dogs as far back
into the bracken as we could go. As the horses came past so the one in front
looked at us like we were the shit on her shoe. The one at the back thanked
us for getting out of the way. I politely pointed out that horses are
supposed to stick to the gravelled tracks. The one in front started ranting
that she’d paid for her pass (over twenty quid less per year than I pay
for parking), she can ride her horse where she likes, and had I cleared
up my dogs’ poo. I pointed out that her horse was taking a dump right then, and asked if she’d seen the “no horses” sign.
She stormed off shouting that there was no need for me to be so “unpleasant”. At
least her mate had the good grace to apologize. We
came home listening to Adrian Mole MP3s. Once home I made us a cuppa which we
had with the last of the Rice Crispie cakes. I sparked
up my lap-top and had a look. I was right. There’s
places in Kings Wood where horses can go, and places where
they can’t. I
Wordled from “horse” to “feign” in
three goes… there’s only so many (one) words that start with “fe” but don’t end in “e”. I
then downloaded the fifth Adrian Mole book in MP3 format,
and spent a little while fiddling about with my MP3 sticks. I shifted all
the audiobooks onto another stick so that when I tell it to randomly play
music it won’t randomly play various chapters from audiobooks. Hopefully. I
had a Bombay Bad Boy pot noodle for lunch then set about solving geo-puzzles.
As time wore on I became more and
more conscious of three sets of eyes looking at me. Eventually I stood
up and thee dogs jumped up. I looked at Treacle and
she looked back. I opened my mouth a few times without saying anything. Each time
she quivered in excitement. When I finally said “I’M GOING TO FEED THE
FISH” she squealed in excitement as they all ran to the pond. There’s
so much fuss over some dried rice. It
was as well that we went out; I’d forgotten that I’d hung washing out
earlier. I
then spent an hour fighting with Paintshop Pro
struggling to create today’s piccie showing the
paths in the woods where horses are allowed, and where we had our earlier
episode. It wanted to create the text in such a way that it that would impress
graphic designers, but would actually
be unreadable. “er
indoors TM” boiled up a rather good pasta bake which we
scoffed whilst watching an episode of “Bake Off: The Professionals”. One
of the contestants had dyed his hair. In the previous episode he had greying
hair. Suddenly he looked as though he had rubbed boot polish all over his
head. It was embarrassing to watch. Why
can’t people just grow old gracefully? |
|
8 August 2026
(Saturday) - Northiam
This
morning’s Facebook feed again showed the ignorance of the general
public. The pub just down the road from where I used to live has been
“saved from demolition”. Sadly
there were a load of people who thought that that because planning permission
to build houses on the site had been refused, the pub was going to re-open. Several
people were banging on about how few pubs there now are in the area, and how
“they” should open more. There’s as many pubs open in any area as can
make a living out of the pub business. Recently I mentioned the Peacock Inn in Goudhurst which closed (because
it wasn’t making money). Someone’s taken it on and re-opened it, but
yesterday the Eight Bells in the middle
of Hawkhurst (not five miles away from the Peacock) closed its doors
for the last time. I
Munzed (deploying a scrapstar),
and Wordled. I started with “vague” and got
one letter right, but in the wrong place. But that did help. My second try
was “civil”, then “ivory” finally ending up with “privy”
on the fourth attempt. As
I fiddled about Steve was on the radio doing the “Guess the Lyrics”
competition. “And the night goes by so very slow. Oh, I hope it won’t end
though”. I had no idea – it was “Alone” by Heart. I
had no idea either. We
drove round to Repton and Dog Club… We had a good time with the usual mayhem.
It was a shame that Roo had to kick off right at the very end, but that’s
what dogs do. And with Dog Club done we drove to Northiam. We’d
had a vague idea that we might have gone to the main day of the national geocaching mega-event week in Norfolk
today… purely because it was *the* national geocaching event. But the
last one we went to was something of a disappointment. I’ve been to seven
mega-events, Five of them involved a lot of travel
to be faintly disappointed, and the other two sort-of happened in the
background whilst we were at a weekend-long camping event. These mega-events
are really geared up for the people who are staying for the week. With
a three-hour trip to travel the one hundred and sixty miles to get there for a
day trip, I would have gone stir-crazy on the way, and we wouldn’t have got
there till the early afternoon. We decided against going. Maybe next year we
could hire a cottage in the area of wherever it is
going to be (somewhere in the West Midlands, apparently). Instead we went to Northiam
where there was a set of geocaches on (mostly) flat ground which would
get us most of the latest set of geocaching Treasures that were released last
week. We
had a very good walk. The footpaths were well marked and clear. As we went we saw some squirrels and a herd of deer charging
across the fields. There was a strange fellow with an umbrella, but he kept
his distance. Bailey went rogue for about ten seconds, and
came back having lost her name tag. We’ll get another from Amazon. We
took a lot of water for the dogs. It was only a short walk – a mile less than
what we walk round the woods several times each week, but I for one was glad to
get back to the car at the end. I took a few photos as
we wandered. Once
home I did the geo-admin, posted the photos of our walk, and counted the Dog
Club Money. Bearing in mind we ask for one pound fifty per dog I was rather
bemused to end up with nineteen pounds thirty pence. “er
indoors TM” popped out. Over the summer she checks up on
the cats of various friends who are on holiday. I stayed home with the dogs. “er indoors TM” returned and we spent the evening playing “Ticket To Ride” on the Infinity Table. I lost every game… |
|
9 August 2026
(Sunday) - FTF, Working, Hot
I
woke far earlier than I needed to and lay awake for too long. I eventually
got up, made toast and had a stroke of genius (I do that from time to time).
Last night a new puzzle geocache had gone live
not *that* far from work but I had no idea how to solve the puzzle. But
this morning I had an idea. Going on-line to blag a copy of the second Harry
Potter book gave me the numbers I wanted and the
geo-checker said my answer was correct. And it was on the way to work (sort-of). As
I drove off to find this cache there was some right old tripe on the radio.
There was a lot of talk about some Russian bishop who was supposedly getting
backhanders from Vladimir Putin. There were two theories as to why this might
be. Either the bishop had some gossip on Vlad, or Vlad was sucking up to the
Almighty. And
there was an interview with one of the head honchos at the Mother's Union which is a sort
of religious version of the Women's Institute. The woman being interviewed
seemed to be rather jealous of the W.I. for no reason that I could fathom. I
gave up listening to the drivel on the radio. Sunday morning radio is usually
on the rubbish side (at best). I listened to Adrian Mole on MP3
instead. This morning he was squabbling with the love of his life. Some
things are universal... It
wasn't long before I was in some obscure back street near Sevenoaks. There
was no one about, I rummaged on a street sign and soon had the geocache I was
hunting. And no one else had got there before me. I was First to Find.
Result. Go me. As
I drove on to work there were a few spots of rain on the windscreen. A tiny shower.
Not much, but some rain. And then I noticed the roads were awash. That wasn't
rain. That was leaking pipes. You'd think that what with all this talk of
drought and water shortages the water companies would be on the case wouldn't
you? The trouble is that they are on the case. Their case being making money
for foreign investors. Sadly the days when a UK
water company had actually providing water as its
main raison d'etre are long gone. I
got to work. I thought better of the cooked brekkie as it gave me belly-ache
last time. Instead I popped into the works M&S
and got myself a croissant then got on with the morning. The
original plan for today had been a little wander round Eastling doing a few
geocaches to finish off the current set of geocaching Treasures. But on
Friday the boss had phoned. There had been a minor staffing disaster at work and she’d had to ask people to swap shifts about. And
having solved her immediate staffing issue she would need someone to step
into the breach this morning. Could I help? Oh,
go on then. I didn’t mind really. If I did I
wouldn’t have spent a life in hospital work, would I? And the weather
forecast was against doing much today. It had been rather warm yesterday and
the forecast was for thirty degrees from mid-day onwards. According
to my car’s thermometer it was thirty-three degrees when I finished and came
home. I
drove slowly through the “Operation Brock” stupidity, and once home we
had a cheese roll for lunch. You can’t go wrong with a cheese roll. We
spent the afternoon sitting in the garden (in the shade) until “er indoors TM” set
off on cat duty. I had a shower, put some washing in, and wrote up some CPD. “er
indoors TM” boiled up a very good
bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching more “Bake Off: The
Professionals”. And then we started watching “Ann Droid”.
Bearing in mind the writers and the cast, the first episode was a tad
disappointing. It
might perk up though. Here’s hoping. |
|
10 August 2026
(Monday) - A Walk, Ponds, Ironing, Folkestone
I woke in the small hours following a rather
vivid dream in which I was at an Open University Summer School doing some
subject about which I knew absolutely nothing at all. This is something of a recurrent
dream which I seem to have with annoying regularity. I wonder what that is
all about. I got up, put a load of washing in to scrub,
and watched an episode of “Stranger Things” (in which strange
things happened), then sparked up my lap-top.
The Internet was much the same as ever. Today’s whinge was about bonfires.
People were complaining about the smell. They’ve probably got a point.
There’s a family a few doors up who barbecue constantly. And by “constantly”
I mean every single day from April through to October. At least they give us
the morning to get the laundry dry. My cousin had posted a video of seagulls
tearing her black rubbish sacks apart. Our seagulls are noisy, buut they don’t do that (yet). I Munzed, Wordled from “scrub” to “snipe” via
“shale”, “spoke” and “stipe”, then hung the washing out. Once the dogs had scoffed brekkie we went for
our walk. We went earlier than usual as it was going to be a hot day. As we drove
the pundits on the radio were saying that we in the South
East were having our fifth heatwave of the year whilst parts of
Scotland had had a month’s worth of rain over the weekend. Am I alone in seeing the obvious answer here.
Having local water companies is such a silly idea. Surely it would make far
more sense to have a national water company with the ability to pipe water
from where there are floods (Scotland) to where there is a drought (my
house). After all that’s how I get the gas to heat my water, isn’t it? We got to the woods and walked our usual
route. No one rolled in anything, we didn’t squabble
with anyone. It was all rather dull which was probably for the best. We came home listening to more Adrian Mole
MP3s, and once home no one needed a bath. I unloaded the dishwasher and put
bedding and towels in to wash. Once I’d had a cuppa I went into the garden.
Monday has become pond filter cleaning day, and it has to
be said that having a pressure filter means it’s a far faster job these days,
and there’s a lot less smelling of fish poo at the end of it all. I hung out the bedding and towels and sat by
the pond for a while watching the pigeons drinking from the bog filter. They
do that quite a bit. “er indoors TM” sorted some lunch,
and with that scoffed I spent a couple of hours doing the ironing. As I ironed I watched a couple more episodes of “Stranger
Things”. As I ironed I was very conscious of
Treacle watching me “like a pork” (to coin a phrase). I put
the ironing board away and she flew up the garden. I stayed inside. After
five seconds she came running back and looked at me expectantly. I said the
magic words “I’M GOING TO FEED THE FISH!”, and she flew up
the garden squealing in excitement. We fed the fish. And the dogs. Last week
I mentioned the economies of buying fish food in bulk,,,
a lot of that saving goes straight down the dogs’ necks. “er indoors TM” finished work and we drove down to Folkestone Harbour. We had a
little wander about then went to the old Folkestone Harbour railway station
where there was a geo-meet happening. It’s always good to catch up with friends… I didn’t get the chips.
Four pounds for a portion of chips. Seriously !?!?! |
|
11 August 2026
(Tuesday) - Early Shift
I
woke as I so often do feeling full of energy and
raring to go… at quarter to one. I dozed on and off for the rest of the night
before giving up and getting up at five o’clock. I
made toast and watched another episode of “Stranger Things” then had
my usual root around the Internet. This
morning’s petty bickering was on one of the CPAP-related Facebook pages.
Someone asked whether using a CPAP machine made you eligible for a Personal Independence Payment. My
piss immediately boiled. A *lot* of people get these PIP payments and rely
on them. But just for using a CPAP machine? I can see a reason for getting a
benefit payment for having sleep apnea, but the CPAP machine alleviates the
effects of sleep apnea. The squabble had seriously polarized the CPAP-using
community. One half was saying to suck it up and get on with life. The other
had clearly seen what they thought was a potential gravy train and was trying
to jump on it with talk of campaigns to get sleep apnea and CPAP use added to
the list of things for which you get a hand-out. I then laughed out loud at a Nigerian vicar who seriously had the hump, He was bemoaning how the
Western world welcomes Nigerian doctors and engineers and skilled people, but
there’s no openings for Nigerian happy-clappy vicars. And I had an email telling me that one of my caches in Kings Wood was missing. Oh well… that’s
tomorrow’s walk planned for us. I
loaded the dishwasher and set off for work. As
I drove up what used to be a motorway so the pundits on the radio were
talking about local high streets. The head honcho of one of the nation’s
leading chain stores was whinging that little independent shops all look
shabby and should close up so that his chain stores
could take their place and (with their corporate money) would make
high streets look better. There
was then a lot of talk about the state of high streets. The chap being
interviewed wouldn’t say where he was talking about (as he was frightened
to) but he spoke of one high street which was
nothing but vape shops, barbers and nail bars. Newsagents, grocers and “proper
shops” kept going bankrupt, but vape shops, barbers and nail bars do a
roaring trade. Or they are a front for organised crime, or so it was claimed. I
got to work and did what I couldn’t avoid. I took a little detour on the way
home. A fellow member of Dog Club had something for me. Many years ago her husband had built a rather impressive garden pond,
but he passed on a while ago. And our friend had found just how much hard
work a garden pond can be. A small goldfish pond is enough work. My pond in
the garden keeps me occupied. But a large Koi pond takes a *lot* of
looking after. Her triple-filtration system had taken to blocking up
recently. I’ve seen the mess when a box filter blocks up, and ours was a
fraction of the size of hers. She’s mentioned the blockages a few times over
the last few weeks. And after the latest blockage her pump gave up the ghost
(those aren’t cheap). There comes a time when enough is enough. She
wondered if I’d like anything from the pond. I’ve probably got too many fish
in my pond, but I was very grateful for floating plant pots (complete with
pots), some fish food and various accessories. It
was good to meet up and chat… one thing she said made me think. Her house is
in the better part of town and she was talking about
getting a builder to professionally fill in the pond and remove the walls (it’s
not a job for an amateur). She said that most builders double the price
for any job up her road as there’s this preconception that if you live in the
better part of town then you are loaded. She’s probably right… I know of
people who live up that road who inherited the house who would never
otherwise be able to afford to live there. I
came home where we fed our fish and popped the new pond plants into the pond.
I shall sort them properly tomorrow. “er
indoors TM” went off on cat duty. I had a shower and a
little doze. It’s all very well only having an hour’s sleep, but it does
leave you tired. “er
indoors TM” boiled up some
sausages which we scoffed whilst watching the final of “Bake Off: The
Professionals”, and then a couple more episodes of “Ann Droid”
which is slowly growing on me… Treacle
is currently having a serious tantrum in the kitchen. She wants her supper,
and when she wants her supper she makes no secret of
it… |
|
12 August 2026
(Wednesday) - Solar Eclipse
I slept through till nearly five
o’clock this morning, and then lay dozing with
Bailey for a while before giving up and getting up. I made toast and had a
look at the Internet. On the one hand I should stay up to date with
current affairs, on the other hand it boils my piss. This morning people were
ranting about the early release of prisoners, the ongoing drought… People were ranting
about the current sad state of affairs and blaming
the government for everything. A lot of the furore was being stirred up by
the opposition politicians whose policies led to the current state of affairs and who did nothing about it when they were in a position to do so. I Munzed, and hearing the dogs getting up I turned off the lap-top
and got ready for the off. We drove up to the woods listening to the
pundits on the radio spouting their usual drivel. Once parked we set off in
the general direction of the geocache of mine that had been reported as
missing. It was. It had probably been trashed during the
recent coppicing so I popped out a new one. The
people who reported it as missing could have done the same in less time than
it took them to report it missing, but there it is. We carried on round the woods. For some
reason the squirrels were active today. Certainly
more so than usual. The dogs chased several. But for all that we saw
squirrels we didn’t see much else. No deer, and once out of the car park no
one else at all. We did hear someone a hundred yards from the car park
shrieking at her dog, but that was all. We came home listening to Adrian Mole’s
diaries on my MP3 stick. He’s now moved to London and is in love with Bianca.
I know how that is going to end… I realise Adrian Mole is a made-up fictional
character who doesn’t exist, but I do think that Sue Townsend (his creator)
was rather mean to him in all of the books. Once home I made us both a cuppa and sorted a
slice of that walnut cake we’d got at the weekend. My mother and aunt used to
make walnut cake all the time when I was small. I can remember never being
that fussed about the stuff then. It’s my favourite now. I Wordled. “Round”
gave me nothing, and neither did my second go (table). “Picky” was
a step in the right direction and I got it with “wimpy” on the fourth
attempt. I went out to the garden. Yesterday I
mentioned that we’d been given some pond plants in floating baskets. Late
last night I’d hoiked the biggest one out as “er indoors TM” had
spotted that it was top-heavy and had capsized. This morning that big one got
re-potted into the bog filter, and I secured its now empty floating pot to
the other floating pots. I then sat for a while alternately reading my Kindle
and watching the fish eating the new plants which were overhanging the
floating baskets. I came in as it was rather hot outside.
I wrote up some CPD. I spent a little
while running some puzzle geocaches through Chat GPT to see if it could solve
them. It solved maybe a third of the ones I tried. We did “FEED THE FISH”, I watched an
episode of “Stranger Things” and we then
loaded the dogs into the car for the evening’s adventure. Once we’d done the evening’s cat feeding we drove down to an obscure lane on the Romney
Marsh. This evening was (probably) the last solar eclipse that I would
be able to see (the next one will be in 2081). Looking on-line it
seemed that the masses were descending on Lydd and Wye downs to get a good
view. I suspected no one had considered Ham Mill Lane, and I was right. With
no one else around for miles (and we could see around for miles) we
had a good view of the western horizon. We cracked out the pinhole camera and
had a look. As we fiddled about so my phone was beeping.
The works WhatsApp group was going mad; we had quite the virtual eclipse
party swapping photos. It had to be said that the best photo was from a
colleague who was on holiday in La Coruña (in
Spain) where the eclipse was total. It was gone eight o’clock by the time we got home.
Too late to cook – we had KFC for tea… |
|
13 August 2026
(Thursday) - Far Too Hot
We
stayed up late last night to see the meteor shower. Sadly, like all meteor
showers, it was a bit crap. At its peak we were seeing maybe one or two a
minute. That might sound a lot, but each shooting star lasted for about a second so you had to be looking in exactly the right
direction to see it, and it wasn’t long before I got neckache. I
slept through till half past five. Bearing in mind we had a hot day forecast
I made an early start. Dog brekkie was done and we were at the woods by eight
o’clock. We
arrived at the car park at the same time as an odd woman with her two dogs.
She saw us and quite obviously stood and waited for us to get out of the car.
Morgan and Treacle started barking at her dogs; she didn’t care. She just
stood blocking the way to the main path out of the car park. I smiled at her
and told the dogs we were going a different way today, and the odd woman
looked vaguely disappointed. We
went the different way and walked round the woods keeping out of the sun and
in the shade as much as we could. Unlike yesterday we only saw one squirrel,
but we did see deer. We
got back to the car at about half past nine and I checked the Internet.
Yesterday a new geocache had gone live in Faversham. It hadn’t been found at
brekkie time, and it still hadn’t been found. Bearing in mind that we were
already half-way to Faversham my phone said that the cache was a twelve minute drive away, So we
took a twelve minute drive, and it wasn’t long
before I had the thing in my hand. And another First to Find as well. Result. By
then it was ten o’clock and things were warming up. We drove home where my
parcel was waiting for me. About six years ago I spent twenty quid on a pair
of trainers which lasted six months so I spent a
hundred quid on a pair of walking shoes that looked the same. These lasted
five and a half years. Last night (about ten o’clock) I ordered a new
pair from Amazon. They were waiting for me when we got home. Delivery had
taken about twelve hours. They arrived quicker than I could have gone to the shops, and were cheaper too. We
also arrived home to see the window cleaner had been. We don’t ask him to
come; he just turns up unannounced, hoses down the front of the house and
sends us a bill for a fiver. The front garden was awash. So much for drought
orders and hose pipe bans, eh? I
made myself a cuppa and put a load of washing in to
scrub. I Munzed, and Wordled
from “night” to “crash” in three goes. Bearing in mind how hot
it was getting I stayed inside with the curtains pulled and watched a film. I
tried to find our DVD of “Quadrophenia” a few weeks ago
but couldn’t. It was on Film Four the other day so I
recorded it, and then found the DVD the next day. As
I watched I ironed shirts, then put the undercrackers in to
scrub. I’d
hoped it might have cooled down by the time the film finished, but the Alexa
said it was thirty-six degrees. I treated myself to a tub of ice cream from
the shop over the road and watched a couple of episodes of “Stranger
Things”. By
the time I’d watched telly, scoffed the ice cream, loaded (and run)
the dishwasher and sorted the undercrackers three hours had passed and the
temperature had dropped… to thirty-five degrees. It was two hours past “FEED
THE FISH” time and Treacle was getting twitchy so despite the heat we fed
the fish. And then the dogs went back to sleep. I would have done too if it
wasn’t so hot. I
did a YouGov survey instead. “er
indoors TM” came home from a day in the office. She’d
been to the shops on the way home and had a bag of watercress for me. That
went into the pond’s new floating pots. And
then I turned on the telly. An old friend was on BBC1
this evening. I first met him in 1975. I have a vague recollection of him at
a Boys Brigade camp in Tunbridge Wells going by the sobriquet of “Fast
Goose”. In the years after that we walked to and from secondary school.
Over the years I rather lost touch with him, but through the wonders of
Facebook we got back in touch, and this evening he was playing a prison
governor on Eastenders. I’d
not seen EastEnders for years – I won’t be watching it again. Being Thursday we watched this
week’s episode of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds”. It wasn’t the best
but certainly wasn’t bad. |
|
14 August 2026
(Friday) - Still Far Too Hot
The
dogs didn’t settle in last night’s heat, and with them being restless I
didn’t sleep well either. I
made toast and had my usual look at the Internet. That odious Nigel Farage
won the by-election in Clacton last night.
Having declared that he would let the public judge the actions which put him
under investigation it would seem that the good
people of Clacton are quite happy with convicted foreign criminals giving
five million pounds in bungs to UK politicians. Democracy,
eh? Can’t beat it. Some
rich people of my acquaintance were flaunting their wealth. It must be nice
to be able to afford a mansion, a fleet of cars and still be able to fund
four children through a school that charges upward of sixty thousand quid a
year per brat. I
know I’m not poor, but I’m nowhere near as loaded as I might be. With
another hot day forecast we made an early start on our walk today. We walked
what I had thought would be a shorter walk round the woods, but it was only
about half a mile less than what we usually walk. As we went
I gathered litter. You can always tell when it is school holiday; the part of
the woods within a couple of hundred yards of the car parks becomes strewn
with rubbish. Frutella sweets would seem to be
particularly popular at the moment judging by the amount of wrappers I picked up. We
didn’t see any deer, but Treacle found a deer bone, and I found two new sink
holes. And
the camera to check people are paying their car parking fees is now in place. We
came home listening to Adrian Mole MP3s. I
had so many things I could have done today. The shed needed cleaning out. I
could probably have scared up enough rubbish for a tip run. But again it was too hot to do much so I slobbed
about instead. I Munzed. I Wordled
from “might” to “geode” in four goes. I updated my database of sink
holes in Kings Wood. I fed various geo-puzzles into ChatGPT; it didn’t do
very well with them. But I did solve a maximum difficulty puzzle. Trouble was
I found that the cache was three hundred metres down a drainage tunnel. A few
years ago I would have scrambled in to get that.
These days… maybe not. I
felt tired… I woke up a couple of hours later. I had a cuppa and watched an
episode of “Stranger Things”. At an hour and twenty minutes the
episodes are a tad too long. We
did “FEED THE FISH”, and then I sat by the pond and read my Kindle for
a bit. “er
indoors TM” went off on cat duty. I perused the geo-map
to plan a small mission for tomorrow after Dog Club. We
had burgers and watched the first two episodes of “Celebrity Hunted”.
Mind you when I say “celebrity” I’d only heard of one out of the
twelve so-called celebrities. And again I couldn’t
help but wonder if the contestants were either deliberately stupid, or were under orders to give the hunters some
clues. |
|
15 August 2026
(Saturday) - Bit Dull Really
This
morning’s petty bickering on the local Facebook pages was all about a pub near Deal. Some woman had gone there for dinner and either didn’t like her
dinner or thought she was up for a freebie. Whichever it was, she made a fuss
when it came to pay up and threatened bad reviews on Tripadvisor and
Facebook. Fortunately the pub’s owners called this
woman’s bluff, and (literally) hundreds of people have posted comments
of support. In this age of reviews and social media it is so easy for people
to try to pull a fast one. And people wonder why pubs are going out of
business. This morning also brought the news that the Red Lion in Biddenden was closing.
Not that I’ve been to that place for years… I
Munzed, and Wordled from
“about” to “loose”, getting it on the
last attempt. A new geocache went live. I
solved it (well, ChatGPT did) but the final location was about an
hour’s drive away. That will keep until we are next over at Staple and the
Black Pig. Assuming that pub doesn’t go the way of
so many others. As
I fiddled on the Internet so Steve was on the radio.
The “Guess The Lyrics” competition today was
“When the rain washes you clean, you’ll know”. I had absolutely no
idea at all. It was “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac. We
drove round to Repton and Dog Club. (About) sixteen dogs had a rather
good time charging about as dogs do. From
Dog Club we drove to Godinton. Once we’d done cat
duty we had a little walk round the pond. There’s a geocache there that I’ve
failed to find three times before. We tried a fourth time and finally found
the thing. Probably just as well – there’s a souvenir for finding a geocache
today what with it being International Geocaching Day. Today is my
fourteenth International Geocaching Day, and keeping
a diary I can see that I’ve actually been at work at
some point on eleven of them. There was actually a
geo-meet-up this morning, but by the time we would have finished at Dog Club
and driven there we would have missed it. There’s
another next weekend… We
then popped in to see “My Boy TM” and ”Auntie Chel TM” as
it was her birthday. Sadly as we drove there so she
drove past going off to the nail bar. But we left a card and stuff with the
first fruit of my loin, and he gave me a plant. His plants have been going
mad recently and I was very happy to take a surplus plant. We came home via the co-op where we got chocolate
croissants. I scoffed mine whilst writing up some CPD. I
read my Kindle, I played Meodoku, I had a little
doze. “er
indoors TM” set off to
visit her mum, I sparked up Netflix and watched more “Stranger Things”
but with each episode at the length of a film it was a tad hard going. After
one episode I had a vague idea to take the dogs to Orlestone, but we’d been
to Dog Club this morning and it was still rather warm outside. Much cooler
than the last few days, but still warm. So I stayed
in front of the telly watching “Stranger Things”. Today was dull. |
|
16 August 2026
(Sunday) - Before the Night Shift
I slept reasonably well,
but was awake a couple of hours earlier than I might have liked. I got up and went straight round the garden gathering
dung before Bailey could go out and gather it for herself. She worries me.
She is such a fussy eater when it comes to dog food, but
given half a chance she yums up all the turds in
the garden. I had a theory that if she didn’t fill up on dung, she might eat
her brekkie. I made toast and had a look at the Internet.
There have been several sightings of big cats. Some near Stonehenge, and some
near Bexhill. Apparently sightings have increased this
year; it was claimed that heatwaves have been the cause. There was also talk of black foxes which are more
common than I thought (bearing in mind I’d never heard of them). Despite pubs closing hand over fist, Shepherd
Neame were advertising for people to take over tenancies in their pubs. Who
would try to make a go of running a pub these days?? And those who (up till now) have
advocated covering garden ponds with metal meshes were bemoaning about how many
dragonflies are getting trapped by their metal meshes and then drowning. I had an email. There was a new geocache not
a mile and a half away. I’d already had two First to Finds this week. Usually I restrict myself to only having one First to Find
a month so as to share the love. However
it is painfully apparent that I’m in the minority in doing this, so I leapt
into action. I drove out to a whole new housing estate
that I never knew existed, and it wasn’t long before I had the cache in hand.
It was a rather good 3-D printed cache; it was a shame that it hadn’t so much
been hidden as just put in the grass by a tree. But I was first to find (only
thirty-seven minutes after publication) and that was a result. That’s two
consecutive months with a First to Find… I wonder how long this streak will
last? I once managed twenty-three months. As I drove home I
put the radio on. Being Sunday there was a church service, but rather than being
inspiring and uplifting it was just some choir howling. I turned over to
Adrian Mole on my MP3; he’s just met Jo-Jo. Once I’d been home for a while the dogs
eventually got up. I followed them into the garden and harvested what they
dropped (as they dropped it) to be sure that Bailey wasn’t having any
pre-brekkie snacks. I Munzed. I Wordled from “first” to “aspic” in five
goes. “Aspic” is basically a
trifle but with meat where the cake and custard would be. I’d heard of the
word before, but had no idea what it was. One lives
and learns. And then we tested my theory about Bailey,
brekkie and turd-eating. She eventually scoffed her brekkie, but (as usual)
it took a lot of encouragement and cajoling. So much for my turd theory. We loaded the dogs into the car and went over
to Bybrook Barn garden centre. Yesterday gave me a
plant, and earlier in the year Karl gave me a lilac tree. I wanted some
decent pots for them. I knew what I had in mind, and Bybrook
Barn wanted far too much for them. They had some nice pots in the bargain
section; I thought I’d get two if they were under a tenner. They were sixty
quid each. Sixty quid!!! I contented myself with a bargain tray of
violas (three quid) and we went round to Home Bargains. They had some
nice pots. I’d seen similar in Bybrook Barn for
thirty quid; Home Bargains wanted seven quid. I got two planters at less than
half the price of Bybrook Barn’s. It pays to shop around…
not that people do. I found myself thinking back to someone with whom I used
to work who loved spending money. He was absolutely adamant
that if you had two items which were absolutely identical
in every respect except the price, then the more expensive one was the better
one. There was no reasoning with him on this – it stood to reason (apparently).
His wife was a teacher at a local school and (so I was reliably informed)
regularly won the pupils’ “Worst Dressed Teacher” competition. We thought better of going into Dobbies –
Morgan and Treacle have a habit of “unloading” in there. We came home and I shifted plant pots and
planters about to work out where to put our new ones. I think I’ve figured
out what will go where. The new planters will need lining, but that will be a
job for another day. I had a dunk in the shower,
and took myself off to bed for the afternoon where I slept
surprisingly well for three hours. I woke to find “er indoors TM” had
been baking. We did “FEED THE FISH”, I voomed
round with the watering can, and then made us both a cuppa to go with our
cake slices. They were rather good. It will soon be dinner time, then I’m off to
the night shift. I might grumble but I don’t really mind the night work. What
I do mind is spending the entire day seemingly just waiting to go to work. I
do much the same (albeit on a smaller scale) when I’m on the late
shifts. I need to shift this mindset of just fretting
about “got to go to work later..” It’s not
as though I turn up at work that much these days, let alone do many late or
night shifts. |
|
17 August 2026
(Monday) - After the Night Shift
Last
Saturday when I went to bed my watch told me I’d walked three and a half
thousand steps. This morning when I walked out of the night shift my watch
told me I’d walked over five thousand steps since midnight. There’s no
denying that I’d hoped a Sunday night would have been a quiet shift. Back in
the day when I first started night work we’d rarely be called on more than
half a dozen times. Last night I had over fifty samples to deal with. As
I drove home the pundits on the radio were talking about the new Prime
Minister who (so it was claimed) had been taken in by a fraudster who
had been pretending to be a senior member of the American government.
Apparently only a couple of text messages were exchanged
before he wised up to what was going on, but the fact that this was in the
news was rather significant. A couple of weeks ago the new Prime Minister was
being portrayed as the saviour of the universe. Now he’s fair game for
digging the dirt. The
honeymoon period is clearly over. I
got bored with the news, and listened to my Adrian
Mole MP3 audiobook instead. In the past I’ve been very scathing about
audiobooks, but am I turning to the dark side? I
got home. For all that the temperature is down on what it has been over the
last week, it was forecast to be warm later so I
took the dogs out right away. It was only a short drive to Orlestone. Just
lately our walks have been “fox-poo-free”… well, to be precise, probably
only seemingly “fox-poo-free”. I suspect that there had been some
rolling going on, but what with everything having been so hot and bone dry
all the fox turds had been baked dry. However last night there had been rain.
Quite a bit of it. And that had rehydrated the fox turds, as evidenced by the
frankly massive skid mark that Bailey got up her back within five minutes of
getting to the woods. We
walked for two miles and saw two other groups. Morgan grumbled at them; I
wish he wouldn’t. We
came home. Once Bailey had had a bath (with soap!) I had a shave and a
shower and went to bed. Morgan and Bailey came with me. I rather suspected
that they’d come up for a fight, but both settled and we slept for four
hours. That’s not a bad sleep after a night shift. Eventually
the ongoing pain in my arm woke me. About a month ago I whinged about
my arm. There’s an almost constant sensation of numbness/tingling/pins and
needles in my left hand, and an intermittent sensation of pain in my upper
left arm and shoulder. So I went onto the doctor’s
website and filled in the on-line questionnaire in the hope that someone
might get back to me about it. Whilst
I was at it I had a look at the Internet as I do. A
Facebook friend was having a birthday today. The chap used to live just down
the road from me when I was at primary school. We lost contact years ago but
got in touch through Facebook. We actually met a few
years ago when he wanted details of my father’s funeral which was a kind
thought. I
Munzed (having Wordled
at three o’clock this morning), and we did “FEED THE FISH”. Again little Treacle squealed in excitement when I made
the announcement. I then voomed round the garden
with the watering can, and then my phone beeped. The doctor wants to see me…
well specifically wants to see my left arm. They sent me a link to book an
appointment. I had the choice of one date (in two weeks’ time). I’m
not sure why I had to mess about going through the website if I only had the
choice of one date, but I’m now booked in for a fortnight on Thursday. I wrote up some CPD. I thought about
cleaning pond filters (Monday is usually pond filter day) but by then
it was nearly five o’clock. The pond will keep for a day or so. “er
indoors TM” boiled up pie and
chips and went bowling. I settled in front of the telly and watched an
episode of “Stranger Things”. At an hour and a half
it was too long; the next episode plays for over two hours. Apparently the
writers felt that movie-length episodes allowed them to tell a
better story. Maybe it did, but I’m not sitting still for over two hours. I
shall watch that next episode in (at least) three separate sittings. |
|
18 August 2026
(Tuesday) - Late Shift
I slept for six hours until the pain in my
shoulder got too much. I got up and fiddled about until the pain eased off when
I went back to bed for another couple of hours. There was a minor episode over brekkie – the
margarine looked as though something had blown up in it. “er indoors TM” said
it wasn’t her (it was!), and as I scoffed toast
so she staged an impromptu dog ear cleaning session. The dogs weren’t happy
about having their lugs scrubbed, and sulked as I peered into the Internet.
It was much the same as ever. Petty bickering and open displays of ignorance abounded.
I really shouldn’t look at it every morning, but if nothing else it reminds
me of just how stupid some people are. For example, do people *seriously*
expect change out of a hundred quid when calling out an emergency plumber at
midnight? I Munzed, and Wordled from “minor” to “strip” in four
goes whilst “er indoors TM” tried to get
Bailey to eat her brekkie. She’s a fussy little dog, and things aren’t helped
by Treacle trying to bully her off of every bit of
food she’s given. And then we went to the woods. As we drove the pundits on the radio were a
bit twitching about the Russian embassy in London’s announcement that “UK
'will pay' for supplying drones to Ukraine”. I can’t see how anyone can
be surprised about that. If a country has no weapons to fight a war, giving
them weapons is pretty much the same as fighting the war for them. Isn’t it? Not having as much time as I’d like we went
to Orlestone today. We can go there, walk round and be home all in an hour. Kings
Wood takes about two and a half hours. We got to the woods to find only one
other car in the car park. Apart from chasing a couple of squirrels the walk
was rather uneventful. We saw no-one else, no one
rolled in nothing. All rather tranquil for once. We came home. I made us both a cuppa and had
a go on the blood transfusion simulator. I got the exercise wrong in that you
have to remember how the simulator works, and not
how blood transfusions work. A subtle difference… I then went onto the haemostasis on-lie
academy and did one of the little courses on there. I passed that one. I then phoned the local hospital. When I saw
the ENT chap in April he said he
would arrange some hearing tests to sort out this ongoing tinnitus. Four
months have passed… I phoned three different numbers and just went round in
circles. After half an hour I gave up and emailed a formal complaint. In the past
I’ve only ever got anywhere by making formal complaints. The ENT chap is really good… *if* you can get an appointment to see
him. And then it was time to go to work. I drove
up the motorway. The motorway. Not the dual carriageway it has been for
weeks. The "Operation Brock" stupidity has been
cancelled (and the motorway re-opened) earlier than planned. Bearing
in mind that this has been done a couple of weeks before the busy bank
holiday, you really have to ask why the thing was activated
in the first place, don't you? The trouble with "Operation Brock"
is that it is brought into play (and shut down) by the Kent Resilience Forum. The official
position of the Kent Resilience Forum is that "it is an
operationally independent multi-agency partnership functioning under the Civil
Contingencies Act 2004, where individual member organizations remain
accountable to their own governing bodies, chief officers, and respective
central government department". Which means that it wasn't really
thought out in the first place, and now it exists, it effectively answers to
no one. Nice work if you can get it. I got some petrol. Today it was six pence per
litre cheaper than Ashford. And then went into Sainsburys to get a sandwich. Oh,
my piss boiled. Why can't people see that there's dozens of other people in
the shop with them? So many of them were just blundering about; totally
oblivious of their surroundings and with no care or consideration for anyone
else. I got my sandwich and went to work. It wasn't
a bad late shift really. As I did my bit I got a text message. there
were reports of a gang of teenagers in Viccie Park,
armed with catapults. No one seemed to know what (if anything) they were
catapulting at, but the police had been informed. I really can't help but
think that a judicious slap and having the brat watch its catapult being
destroyed would go a long way to curing the problem. If indeed there is
one. It was dark as I came home... I suppose it
should be really. The longest day was two months ago. |
|
19 August 2026
(Wednesday) - Another Late Shift, Rain
“er
indoors TM” ‘s alarm woke me at
quarter past seven. It didn’t wake her, but such is life. I
got up, made toast and had my usual rummage round the Internet. My American
friends were posting tornado warnings. That’s one thing we don’t have to
worry about (yet). There
was a lot of political posting this morning following Reform UK’s
announcement that they want to do away with a lot of the disability benefits.
One of the Clacton Reform UK supporters had clearly scored an own goal whilst a
Cornish Reform UK councillor has resigned saying “I cannot in good conscience support the Making Welfare Work policy.
These changes will cost lives of people especially
those who have suicidal ideation.” The trouble with our political system is that any
given party will have one policy which attracts support. And it is human
nature that having announced that they like this
policy and consequently support a particular party, a worrying amount of people will automatically hate anyone who
supports a different party and will follow their chosen party through thick
and thin regardless of what their policies actually are. Having
been taken in by the pledges to send them all back on the next banana boat,
and to be a viable alternative to the old two-party system. many Reform UK
supporters with whom I’ve spoken have been totally unaware that many of their
politicians are from immigrant families and/or are ex-Conservative
politicians. That *certainly* wasn’t what they wanted. I’m
reminded of a woman with who I worked for many years who was very active in
the local Conservative party. She delivered leaflets for them at election time, she made the tea at party meetings… in conversation
she spouted pure Labour party propaganda. She didn’t believe in a single
Conservative policy. But she had no idea what Conservative policies were.
Forty years previously her father had said that she was a “True Blue” and
on the strength of that she became a life-long Conservative voter and
activist (even though she disagreed with everything the party stood for). I
took the dogs out for our walk. As we drove toward Orlestone the pundits on
the radio were talking about the use of drones in warfare. It
would seem that they are being controlled by AI and/or children and
consequently not very specific in their targeting. And as is always the case
it is the innocent bystanders that suffer. As Oliver Hardy once remarked, “twas ever thus”. We
got to the woods. We were half an hour earlier than yesterday and the car
park was much busier. There was one idiot sitting in his car with the window
open who was shouting a running commentary of all that was happening. “The
red car has driven off. Here’s the man with three dogs, there’s a squirrel…”. His
wife gave me an embarrassed smile as we walked past. As
we walked we met a young family making a shelter in
the woods. It was the sort of thing I used to do with the cubs back in the
day. Sadly at four years old the kids were a bit too
small and a bit disinterested, but Dad was getting stuck in. And
then we met a chap (about ten years older than me) with his dog, quite
openly puffing on a spliff. He was friendly enough (he would be; puffing
on that), but the stink of cannabis was overpowering. That stuff stinks. And
we walked the entire two miles in the rain. Light rain, but rain nonetheless. Not counting the sprinkling in the small
hours of Sunday night that was the first rain I’ve seen since we got soaked
when on holiday over two months ago. We
came home. I made us a cuppa. I tried to Munz, but the servers were down. I Wordled from “drove” to “grill”; getting it
on the sixth and final go. I wrote up more CPD. Dull, but it has to be done The
earlier drizzle had seriously picked up and it was hossing down as I set off to work. The motorway was
rather busy, and rather dangerous. Are the European lorries indestructible?
They certainly drive as though they are. Again I stopped off in Sainsburys to get
lunch and saw a sign of the times. Today Sainsburys was awash with mothers
taking their children shopping, many of which were clearly well into their
teens; much taller than their mothers. All of them either looking bored to
tears or arguing with their mothers I
found myself remembering some of the cubs' mothers who used to say that cubs
was a two-hour break for them. Apart from school and cubs, the children were
never let out of their mothers' sight. When I suggested letting them have
some freedom the mothers looked at me as though I was mad. When
I was a lad, once I got to about eight years old I
would spend the summer holidays out and about with my mates. Fishing,
swimming, roaming the woods... wherever we wanted to go and doing whatever we
wanted to do. And the fruits of my loin used to do their own thing too. I
would have gone stir-crazy if I had been constantly saddled with my mum when
I was younger... Work
was work. It was certainly easier than yesterday's late shift had been, but I
was still glad to see the night shift arrive. I
drove home listening to more Adrian Mole on the MP3. His mother was doing the
dirty deed with Pandora’s father. The beasts… |
|
20 August 2026
(Thursday) - A Busy Day Off
I
slept well. I got up to see there had been more rain overnight. That was
something of a result. I made toast and had a look at Facebook as I do. It
was still there and much the same as ever. Lies, disinformation and blather
persisted as it always does. When you think that I’ve got over seven hundred
people on my Facebook list I see posts from maybe twenty of them. Pretty much
everything I see is either “you might be interested in” (which I
never am) or adverts for small businesses hundreds of miles away. But
it keeps me occupied in the mornings. I
had an email. My car insurance was due. Thirty quid less than it was last
year. I saw that as a result and snapped it up. Last year it went up and I
wasted a morning shopping about only to find I couldn’t get it cheaper
anywhere else. I
took the dogs out. Over the last few days with time pressing
we’d been to Orlestone. We can put the leads on, go to Orlestone and be back
home drinking our cuppa in just over an hour. Kings Wood is a shade under three
hours if the traffic is good, but we had the time to spare today, so that’s
where we went. As
we walked we met two other groups of dog walkers.
One was chatty, one was not. We chased a few squirrels,
we didn’t roll in anything… or anything that stained anyway. We
came home and had that cuppa two hours and fifty minutes after we’d set off.
I Munzed, and Wordled.
Google said the best starting word to use in Wordle was “slate”. It
lied. It didn’t give me a single letter at all. So I
tried again with “bruin” (as I couldn’t think of any other word).
And then it was serious brain straining. “Rough” didn’t help me any more. “Furry” was a
step in the right direction, and I got it on the fifth go with “murky”.
As I’d Wordled so we had a torrential rain shower,
but it went as quickly as it came so I decided to crack on in the garden. Before
I started I put a load of washing in to scrub. I
then cleaned out the pond filter. I lined the two planters we got on Sunday, filled
them with compost and potted the lilac and the thing we got from “My Boy TM” (must
find out what that is). I weeded the pots. I planted the violas we bought
on Sunday. I pootled and tidied. I voomed round
with the bionic burner. The bionic burner is a rather good gadget. It’s not
as good as the adverts claim: it doesn’t “permanently eliminate weed roots from the ground” but it certainly gets rid of the weeds for longer than just pulling
them out by hand does. “er
indoors TM” returned from a shopping mission. Whilst out
she got me a pressie – a bag of wild rocket. Ostensibly a salad condiment;
I’ve chucked it into a floating pot in the pond. The water cress is doing
famously, so the rocket might. Or might not. Time will tell; it always does. I
had some sausage rolls (with mustard – oh yus!)
for lunch then set about ironing my shirts. They always iron better when still
wet from the washing machine. And
then I tried to spark up my old lap-top. I’d spent
an age trying to get the later Adrian Mole books on MP3. And failed. All I
could find was audibles and spotifys and things
which seem to depend on a decent internet connection, and my car doesn’t have
one. So I got the sixth book on CD and thought I
could copy them like I did the other week. My
old lap-top flatly refused to work. It spent two hours trying to do an
update. Eventually I lost patience with it, and despite the warnings I pulled
its plug. It then allowed me to log in… but that was as far as it would go.
Oh, I got cross with it. After
a lot of stress I pulled its plug and we took the
dogs to the marsh for a little outing then on our return I sparked up the old
lap-top again. This time it worked fine and happily turned my new CDs into
MP3s. “er
indoors TM” boiled up fajitas and we scoffed them whilst
watching this week’s episode of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds”. It
was a rather good episode. One of the best, I expect most of the fans will
hate it… |
|
21 August 2026
(Friday) - Feeling Worn Out
I
couldn’t sleep last night. Having laid awake for seemingly ages I gave up and
got up at four o’clock. I made toast and watched the last part of the episode
of “Stranger Things” that I started watching yesterday. This
was the last episode of the fourth season of the show and sadly we’ve got to
the stage that so many shows reach. It happened with the “Aliens” franchise
and “Game of Thrones” and “The Last Ship”. The writers have
effectively ran out of ideas and so five minutes of
plot was padded out with an hour’s gratuitous violence and seemingly endless
tedious fight scenes. There’s
one more season to go; it might perk up. I shall keep going with it; if only
to see where Kate Bush made her money. I
had a quick look at the Internet and was rather amazed. A Reform UK
councillor has had the heave-ho from Reform UK
HQ for the simple reason that he’s not actually a member of Reform UK. Not
only was councillor Robert Hanson elected under the Reform banner in May, he was the Reform spokesperson for Adult Health and Social
Care in Sheffield council. He’s now carrying on, but as an independent. I would have thought that actually
being a member of said party was a pre-requisite for standing as a
candidate for that political party. You can’t make this up, can you? And
then it was time to set off for work. Yesterday was supposedly a day off. We
walked over five miles round the woods I, got loads done in the garden, did
ironing, had a serious fight with my old lap-top, took the dogs out again,
watched Star Trek… by the time I went to bed last night I’d covered seventeen
thousand steps. And then I had maybe two hours sleep at most. I
went off to work hoping for a bit of a rest. As I left Ashford there was a
surprising amount of people walking dogs who were themselves only wearing
their pyjamas. As
I drove up the motorway the pundits on the radio were all a-twitter about
Prince Harry who is leaving America and coming back to live in the UK. There
was also talk about how he lost his court case against Associated Newspapers
(when he claimed they hacked his phone). Did they? During the court case
some of his allegations were just abandoned “without any apology or even
acknowledgment”. The
claims of Prince Harry and his co-defendants were thrown out of court in
their entirety several weeks ago, and together with six of his mates (including
Elton John) he's got to stump up about ten million quid in court costs.
And to add insult to injury the payments are due and
it would seem their insurance won't cover it. That speaks
volumes, doesn't it? If Prince Harry can't afford a court of law, what hope
for the rest of us? I
stopped off in Sainsburys to get a sandwich. that place is always good for
attitude. Some spotty oik who was employed to fill the shelves was making no
secret of what he thought about the paying customers which he clearly felt were
getting in his way. I just laughed; others would have had ample opportunity
to make a formal complaint. I wonder if anyone did? I
went in to the early shift, did what I had to, and
came home. “er
indoors TM” had suggested an
evening’s walk so we went to Orlestone. The walk passed off rather
uneventfully, but I did think that the smaller two (Bailey in particular)
were rather more wilful than usual. They know who panders to them whereas I
will just keep going. We
came home. I spent a little while struggling on the on-line shops. I got the
seventh Adrian Mole book on CD for about a fifth of the price I paid for the
sixth. But I just can’t find the eight (and final) book
on either MP3 or something that I could convert to MP3. But I did find a
website offering all the Harry Potter books on MP3 for less than twenty quid
the lot. Just like my seventh Adrian Mole CDs this is a rather good bargain *if*
it arrives. “er
indoors TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we
scoffed whilst watching more episodes of “Celebrity Hunted”. It’s
a rather good show, but realistically it’s just “Hunted” when
you’ve only ever heard of one of the twelve so-called celebrities. I’m
rather worn out… and it’s hossing down outside. |
|
22 August 2026
(Saturday) - Dog Club, Chartham, Ticket to Ride
I slept reasonably well… better than the
night before. I got up, made toast and had my usual rummage round the Internet.
I found myself laughing at a posting on one of the crackpot sites that
Facebook thinks might interest me. Some religious nutter was banging on about
the power of prayer. Someone else had pointed out that praying for something
means that the one doing the praying had found a problem with God’s plan for
the universe. And went on to say that if the prayers had been answered the
God had admitted his plan was flawed in the first place. I stirred the pot a
little by pointing out that the whole squabble was dependent on two unproven
assumptions. Firstly that there actually is a God,
and secondly that it listens to anything that we mere mortals might have to
say. I know I shouldn’t engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent
but the righteous wind me up sometimes. I Munzed, and Wordled from “slate” through “drain” to “prawn”.
As I did, Steve was on the radio doing the “Guess the Lyrics”
competition. “Those were the times we had. Sharing
the joy that we thought would last”. I had no idea at all. It was Forget Me Nots by Patrice
Rushen. No? Me neither. Sometime I feel that my
musical education is sadly lacking. We drove round to Repton and Dog Club.
Everyone seemed to have a good time. Treats were shared, chases chased, and
mayhem generally ensued. As we drove away so Steve was doing the
Mystery Year competition on the radio. When did Paul McCartney leave the
Beatles? ! thought it was 1969, but I was a year too
early. We drove out to Chartham. Earlier in the year we’d had a
rather good little walk around Chartham and we went back today. We parked up,
walked through the village, over the hill, and back to the car via country
lanes and fields. As we walked we found a geocache… well we would, wouldn’t we? With walk walked we took a circuitous route
home. There’s a Forestry England wood not that far from Chartham. Would it be
any good for hiding a series of geocaches? Well… Yes, it would. *If*
hidden by someone else. For all that those woods aren’t *that* far
away it isn’t an easy drive to get there. We got home where we had a cuppa and a cold
cross bun for lunch. I counted up the Dog Club
takings. In a novel break with tradition the money in the pot came to a multiple
of one pound fifty. It rarely does. With money counted I added enough to the
total to cover our three and transferred that amount to the bank. That’s over
a hundred quid in the last month, and a lot of people choose to pay directly
by text message from their phones. The people who own the field we use do OK
out of the Dog Club… I spent an hour or so fighting with
geo-puzzles, then after another hot (cold) cross bun I sat in the
garden with “er indoors TM”. She did her crafting; I read my Kindle. I then had a stroke of genius… What with there being a geo-meet
tomorrow afternoon I thought we might have a small walk before the meet. I
perused the map and after a little brain-straining I came up with a little
walk. In theory it should be on a par with today’s walk. In practice we will
find out tomorrow. “er indoors TM” sorted a couple of
plates of chicken and chips and we scoffed them whilst having a few rounds
of “Ticket To Ride” on the Infinity
Table. Can you believe I won – three games to two. |
|
23 August 2026
(Sunday) - Nonington, Geo-Meet
I
had a bad night. My arm and shoulder were particularly painful. And when I
went to the loo in the small hours I couldn’t find
Bailey. She’s so small she tucks into the smallest of places. I
finally nodded off and was sparko when “er indoors TM” alarm
went off at half past seven. I swore, and got up. I
put a load of washing in to scrub, made toast and
fiddled about with my lap-top. I backed up a couple
of weeks of photos (that I will never look at again). Back in the day
photos were a big thing. We had to fart around buying film, and with only
twenty-four shots on a reel of film we would be incredibly judicious about
that which we would photograph. And then we had to take the film to the
chemist and wait a few days to get the photos back. Nowadays
we have instant access to photos. Someone in America can see the picture of
my dogs seconds after I took it. Sometimes we don’t
realise just how amazing the technology is. And
sometimes the technology can be wanting. The blatant display of racial hatred
that I reported to the Facebook feds the other day apparently didn’t breach
their community standards. One lives and learns. I
had an email about a new virtual geocache – the one that “er indoors TM” set
up at Bonnington on Thursday evening. I was rather cagey on here about what
we’d been up to as some people have (in the past) tracked my movements
following this diary just to get to be first on anything geocachical
we might be creating. The
thing had gone live just after half past six this morning, and the first one
to find it had been out at Bonnington at just about the time I was getting
out of bed. But
for the most part this morning my Internet was crawling with adverts for
goldfish bowls… ones that looked really pretty with
a traditional Chinese diorama but on closer inspection were probably about a
quarter of the size you would have thought they were. I
Munzed, Wordled from “place”
to “olden” in three goes, and harvested an
epic crop of dog turds from the garden. I’ve said it before, but you wouldn’t
believe how much dung three small dogs can generate. I
hung out the washing, checked that I’d programmed “Hannah” properly (last
time I didn’t – woops!), Meowdolku-ed, and we
set off on today’s mission. We
drove down to Nonington where
we waked for three miles picking up half a dozen geocaches as we went.
It was a shame that Bailey went rogue towards the end of our walk, but that’s
what she does. And (in all honesty) wouldn’t we all given half a
chance. As
we walked we found half a dozen geocaches. It was a
rather good walk. From
there we drove out to Sollys who operate a bar and an ice-cream parlour. We
passed on the ice-cream but had an elegant sufficiency of the beer in the
company of some very good friends. There’s no denying that the afternoon got more and more vague as it wore on; it was as well
that I took a few photos. We
came home. I slept most of the way. And most of the evening too… |
|
24 August 2026
(Monday) - Rostered Day Off I
slept like a log last night, which was something of a result. I got up, made
toast and had my usual rummage round the internet as I do. It was much the
same as ever with pettiness and trivia abounding as it does. One use of
social media is that it is a good reminder of how stupid people are. An
ex-soldier was posting to Facebook about the Fabian society are conspiring
against him. American evangelists were asking for money for them to then had
a word with the Almighty on your behalf. I see very little of what I actually want to see though, which is what friends are up
to, which is a shame. But I did see that the archaeological dig at Bodiam Castle (which was open to the public)
closed today. That was a shame - “er indoors TM” would
have liked to have seen that. We
drove up to the woods. Over the weekend someone has been out and taken down
all the tatty England flags around Kennington. They’ve replaced them with
Union Jacks (which is an acceptable term!) but sadly half of
them are one way up, and half the other. Still, two world cups and one world
war!!! Ing-Ur-Lund!!!!, eh? We
got to the woods and walked a longer walk today. As we went
we saw a few of the normal people, but none who had ventured more than half a
mile from the car park. We saw a horse where it wasn’t supposed to be, and
evidence (huge piles of it) of others too. The rules are quite clear
where horses are and aren’t allowed. I didn’t say
anything to the horse rider; life is too short. I
came home and made us both a cuppa. We had a choco-break
biccie with it too. Have you ever had a choco-break? Aldi do them – they
are basically a half-price kit-kat made with far better chocolate. I
organised a car service for next week, then had a look at the monthly
accounts. As always they could be a whole lot worse. I
Munzed, and Wordled from
“skint” to “runny” in three goes, then had a look at the little
pond. I didn’t clean its filter last week; I did today. I then had a look at
the big pond. Last week I put some rocket into a floating basket. It’s not
done much, but I remain hopeful. I
had a sandwich as I wrote up some CPD. Some of it was
about information governance and I found myself remembering someone I’d
rather not remember. Back in the day one of the nastier people with whom I used
to work regularly got her own way in pretty much every aspect of work. No
matter what suggestions or ideas were being suggested, she would always
demand that her way was the only way that would “obviate the obvious
governance issues”. As no one was brave enough to challenge her (as no
one was confident enough about what “governance” actually
meant) she regularly got her way all the time. She was an evil old
bat… sometimes I idly ponder on the possibility of driving round to where she
lives with a catapult and a bucket of dog turds… I
got the ironing board out and ironed. As I did I
watched the first episode of the fifth season of “Stranger Things”. We
did “FEED THE FISH”, and once Treacle had calmed down
I spent an hour struggling with geo-puzzles. “er
indoors TM” went bowling; I watched more “Stranger
Things”. For a day off I’ve been quite busy. I’ve
got to go to work tomorrow. |
|
25 August 2026
(Tuesday) - Rather Dull
I
woke in a cold sweat in which I’d been drafted back into the scouts to
instruct the “Delivering Beer” badge. Crucial to the award of the
badge was the ability to use a shotgun, ride a horse and perform various
feats with a top hat. Sometimes I wonder just what is going through my head. I
got up, made toast and watched more “Stranger Things”. It was a shame
that the continuity people didn’t do a better job. Some of our heroes were up
to mischief in the middle of the night. Others (supposedly simultaneously)
were in broad daylight. I
then had a little look at the Internet as I do. It was the same as it ever
was. A friend had posted dashcam footage of children playing “Chicken”
(deliberately running in front of cars) on the ring road. Rather than
sorting the issue, people were asking for the footage to be taken down. And
the local newspaper was trying to imply that picking blackberries is
illegal (it isn’t). I
Munzed and Wordled and
got ready to go to work. As
I drove west-wards the pundits on the radio were getting a tad twitchy about
Russia's veiled threat to the UK. If the UK is going
to supply Ukraine with weapons, then the UK shouldn't be surprised if "someone"
attacks the factories making those weapons. I would. I for one am surprised
that this hasn't happened already. And
there was talk about "affordable housing" to be built across
the country; the implication quite rightly being that much of the housing
being built is unaffordable. Which it is. Apparently
the Prime Minister wants local councils to go back to building council houses
like they used to in the fifties and sixties. When I was a lad much of where
I lived in Hastings was estates of council houses, pretty much all of which
were then bought (at rock-bottom bargain prices) by the sitting
tenants when Margaret Thatcher decided to sell them all off. Building
council houses, nationalizing the water companies... why has it taken so long
for anyone to realize that capitalising on naked greed was no way to run a
country in the long term? Pausing
only briefly to get a sandwich from Tesco I went in to work. As I worked my
phone pinged with a message from Amazon. Based on my recent purchases, the
bots at Amazon thought I might be interested in buying electrolyte drinks. My
recent purchases on Amazon have been audio CDs, e-books, fish food, walking shoes
and tins of deodorant. How did they get electrolyte drinks from that? I
did my bit. I came home listening to more Adrian Mole on my MP3 stick. I
got home to an empty house. “er indoors TM” had
taken the dogs round to the park. Back in the day I used to walk the dogs
there a lot, but the place heaves with normal people, and these days it is
more than my nerves can stand. It might be a little drive to the wood, but it
is much less traumatic. While
I waited for them to come home I found an internet archive
of audiobooks that are so old that they are out of copyright and so I could
get them as free MP3 downloads. I got “Brideshead Revisited” and “Day
of the Triffids”. I shall get some more after dinner… |
|
26 August 2026
(Wednesday) - Messages, Late Shift
I
had a decent night’s sleep really despite a nightmare in which my (late)
father was tying kites to the sails of windmills because he could. I
made toast and had a look at the Internet as I do. As again it was the same as
ever. There was a lot of talk on fishing-related pages about how cruel keep
nets can be. The idea of a keep net is that it is a huge cylindrical net in
which you retain everything you catch so that at the end of the day you can
see all your fish in one go. This is supposedly a rather nasty thing to do…
whereas sticking a hook through a fish’s mouth and pulling it out of the
water isn’t? It’s some time since I’ve been fishing… I’ve rather gone off the
idea of it. I
had another look at the internet archives and downloaded two Jeeves and
Wooster audiobooks. In the past I’ve always been rather scathing of
audiobooks, but they do fill the hour-long journey to and from work. I
Munzed, Wordled from “night”
to “capon” in five goes, then had a text message. I had a code to use
for NPERS PRD authentication. I wonder what that was all about. As I fiddled
on my phone Bailey refused to eat her brekkie. For a dog that regularly scoffs
turds, she can be rather picky about what she will and won’t eat. I
took the dogs out for a walk. As we drove the pundits on the radio were
talking about the yesterday’s death of Dolly Parton. The nation seems to have
taken her passing to heart. As
we drove we found the road was closed. We took a
diversion through Shadoxhurst. One of the lanes was
something of an eye-opener; the place must act as the local tip’s stunt
double. There was rubbish strewn along the roadside for at least half a mile.
Including several discarded kitchen appliances. Why
can’t people ding their tat properly? We
got to Orlestone where we walked a slightly different route to usual. Bailey
went off on her own little missions a couple of times, and Treacle straggled
a bit, but generally a good time would seem to have been had by all. Mind you
we had a minor incident half-way round. Something stank to high heaven. A
dead deer? I chivvied the dogs on before they found it and rolled in it. We
came home where I had another odd message. Was I available to be interviewed
on the radio this Sunday? Someone wanted to talk about geocaching. I’m not
free, so they asked me to prime a friend that they told me they were going to
ask. I
left for work a tad earlier than I might. A week or so a new geocache went
live in the Marden area which involved solving a puzzle. That gave you a
location to visit, but the instructions were rather cryptic about what you
did next. So I drove out to Marden
where I found out what you did next... I won't say what I did, but if
rummaging under rocks looking for film pots floats your boat, then if you
drive out to Marden you won't be disappointed (and there's a film pot
involved). I
drove on to Pembury where I stopped off at Tesco to get a sandwich. I went to
Tesco as I had a couple of money off vouchers totalling a bargain reduction
of five quid off of my shopping. It paid for dinner,
which was a result. I
went in to work and did my bit. It could have been a whole lot worse; many
shifts are. I
'd driven in to work listening to Adrian Mole on my MP3 player,
and went home doing the same. For all that I've got hundreds of songs
on my MP3 stick, over the years I've heard them all so many times. The antics
of Adrian Mole made a nice change. Even if (as I've said before) Sue
Townsend (the writer) was particularly nasty to him. Having finally
got a break, did she *really* have to saddle him
with a psycho who burned his house down? |
|
27 August 2026
(Thursday) - Never A Dull Moment
When
I came back to bed from the loo in the small hours I
found Treacle panting for air and burning up. I set the fan blowing air on
her, and she eventually settled. She often does that in the night. I then lay
awake listening to her breathing, and getting
panic-stricken whenever she went quiet. I
eventually dozed off and woke just after half past seven to torrential rain. I
forgot to put the dishwasher on last night. Woops. I set that going, made
toast and had a look at the Internet. It was the same as ever. A family
member was posting some tripe about why Ant Middleton should become the Mayor
of London. I took a deep breath. Everyone sees the “Jack The Lad” character on the telly… the telly he got
sacked from. He was a COVID denier, he’s got
convictions for assault, he’s got a history of being particularly nasty to
women, he emigrated to Australia, he currently lives in Dubai
and his tax history is dubious. There’s no denying that the current mayor is a crap
mayor, but this is entirely the problem with all wannabe politicians, isn’t
it? They are so loud in pointing out the failures of their opponents that no
one realizes their own inability. “Vote for us – we aren’t as crap as the
others” is hardly a tenable political position (especially when you
are), but most people don’t seem to look in to
what they are voting for. I
Munzed, Worded from “night”
to “uncut” in four goes, then got dressed. Even if it was raining I couldn’t spend the day in jim-jams (could I?) I
emptied the dishwasher, put a load of washing in, and with the rain showing
no sign of easing up I wrote up a little CPD. Dull, but one day I
might be grateful that I’ve made the effort (I’ve been saying that for
over fifteen years…). And
then the rain stopped. The Met Office weather forecast was for a dry day but had
issued a yellow warning of thunderstorms. The BBC predicted rain al day. We
took a chance, went to Kings Wood and walked our usual four (and a bit)
miles in glorious sunshine. As
we walked we met a geocacher. She greeted us by
saying she recognised the dogs from their pictures on the web
pages of our geocaches in Kings Wood. We had a good chat. She was Belgian, but spoke incredibly good English. We
came home. I hung out the washing and I had a phone
call from the ENT people at the local hospital. They seemed mildly miffed
that I’d put in a complaint. The reason they hadn’t replied to my phone calls
or emails was that I’d been ringing the wrong number and sending emails to
the wrong address. I suggested that they might update their website, I was
told that wasn’t in her remit. We sorted a hearing test (four months later
than I had been led to believe it would be). She said she’s put the
details into an email. I suggested that they use the NHS app. She said their
system wasn’t compatible with the NHS app. I
suppose I expect too much of them. But that’s what I get when dealing with
the fifty-second best hospital in the UK…
Working at the fourth best has probably given me an over-exaggerated idea of
what I should expect from a local hospital. I
made us a cuppa, and fiddled about on-line
downloading a few more audiobooks (this week’s obsession). I got “Brave
New World”, “Childhood’s End”, “Raffles”…
but on the minus side the version of “Fahrenheit 451” I got was in
German. Ho hum… I
ironed the wet shirts and bandannas. As I did I
watched another episode of “Stranger Things”. The show started well in
season one, but now I’m half-way through the last season I find that I’m
pretty much watching it because it would be a shame to stop now. Today’s
episode was an hour and a half in duration, was about forty-five minutes
longer than it needed to be, and the story had been done far better thirty
years ago in the Alexei Sayle classic “Things Exploding 2: Everything
Explodes”. As
I watched telly so Treacle watched my every move;
getting more and more twitchy and anxious. Once
telly was done I stood up and she flew to the back
door. Then came running back looking expectantly at me. I announced that I
was going to “FEED THE FISH” and she ran to the fish-pond
squealing all the way. She gets so over-excited over the prospect of a few
bits of dried rice. Whilst
I was outside I ran the hair trimmer over my head –
that saved sixteen quid. I voomed round the garden
gathering dung too. I
then had a look at some geo-puzzles until my brain hurt too much. “er
indoors TM” boiled up a rather good bit of dinner which
we scoffed whilst watching this week’s episode of “Star Trek: Strange
New Worlds”. It wasn’t as good as last week’s episode,
but was still very good. However… The
trouble with any sort of prequel series is that you know what is going to
happen a little way down the line (if you’ve watched the series to which
it is a prequel). There are certain characters in the show with which
putting them in danger doesn’t cause any suspense because we know that they
are going to survive. Or
we do if you are a sad Trekkie like me… And
in closing I’ll make the observation that the BBC
predicted heavy rain (and thunderstorms) all day… the rain finished at
half past nine this morning. |
|
28 August 2026
(Friday) - Early Shift
I
didn’t sleep well. Waking every twenty minutes or so I was laying wide awake
at four o’clock when “er indoors TM” announced
that it was eclipse time. We went into the garden and spent half an hour
watching the lunar eclipse until the moon set behind the houses. “er indoors TM” carried on watching from the attic room window. I made toast and
watched more “Stranger Things” which had seriously improved on
yesterday’s episode, and the amount of explosions
had rather tapered off. I had a little look at the Internet as I do. It was
still there. Again I found myself presented with a
load of ranting about fish care on one of the fishing pages I follow.
Everyone was getting really aggressive with everyone
else about how best to care for the fish through whose mouth they’d just
stuck a hook and then dragged out of the water. Rather amazingly only two people had posted anything
about the eclipse, and “er indoors TM” had
been one of them. I Wordled from “lunar”
to “tween” in five goes, Munzed, and got
ready for work. As I drove to junction nine of the motorway I was amazed
at how many people were out in their pyjamas
walking their dogs. It is certainly the way to walk your dog in South Ashford
at quarter past six in the morning. We don't get that at Dog Club. I
drove up the motorway listening to the pundits on the radio spouting their
usual drivel. There was an interview with someone or other talking about
the American
Federal Reserve (the US equivalent of the Bank of England). Apparently they want to put up interest rates but don't
dare because that wound irritate President Trump and
they simply can't face the arse-ache which that would generate. The chap
being interviewed implied that it was difficult to run the Federal Reserve
when they had a somewhat feeble-minded President with the attention span of a
gnat. Though it was difficult to follow the conversation; the chap being
interviewed had a very thick (almost incomprehensible) Scottish
accent. It took me a while to realise that when he said "waar-ruck" (which he said several
times) he actually meant "work". I
drove to the petrol station at Aylesford as the petrol there was four pence
per litre cheaper than at home, then popped into Sainsburys to get lunch. As
I shopped I followed a couple of assistants and
listened to their conversation. Well, not so much "conversation"
as "ranting". One had had a falling out with one of the
managers, but I couldn't quite work out what her grievance actually
was. There's only so much earwigging you can do before it becomes
obvious. I
went in to the early shift and did my bit. Today was
rather dull really, but in my line of work, dull is good. I
came home to find Treacle expectantly watching me… we did “FEED THE FISH”,
and “er indoors TM” went
off out with her craft club mates. I settled in front of the telly and
watched more “Stranger Things”. Mind you I saw “watched”; “slept
through” would be a more accurate summary. It
wasn’t just work. All of today was dull. |
|
29 August 2026
(Saturday) - Busy, Busy
I
saw some sad news on-line as I scoffed my toast this morning. Back in the day
I was a god-botherer. I eventually realised that
the whole church thing was based on wishful thinking and gave up with it. But
it bothers me that so any people still go along with
the drivel it spouts. And it is drivel. Look at this morning’s news. There’s been an accident at a big
happy-clappy Christian festival in West Sussex. A large sign collapsed
killing one person and injuring several others. This
immediately begs the question of why did this bunch’s god allow the accident
to happen? Did it not see the sign was unsafe or did it not care? And (bearing
in mind what this lot preach) why are they seeing death as being a bad
thing? One
of the people bemoaning the tragedy was someone who claimed to be a regular
attendee at the festival. He and his boyfriend would go every year. As I have
said so many times before, Christianity is fundamentally against the gay community.
It says so in the bible. I
decided not to comment… I
also saw consternation on the Sparks-related Facebook pages. They are touring
at the moment, and fans weren’t happy that they’d
travelled miles and paid a small fortune only to hear twelve songs. I can’t
help but think that with the band in their late seventies / early eighties,
what do the fans expect? I
Munzed and Wordled. “Tired”
gave me the “d”. With the letters I had left I could only think of one
other word that ended in “d” and I got it on the second go with “blood”.
Go me !! Steve
was on the radio. He said that the weather forecast for the day wasn’t good.
It hadn’t been good when I looked last night and for all that it had improved
overnight it was still on the grim side. He did the “Guess the Lyrics”
competition too. “All she saw was a silhouette of a gun”. Usually I
struggle with these, and today’s was no different.
It was “Moonlight Shadow” by Mike Oldfield. We
drove round to Dog Club where (despite the weather) we had a rather
good time. We had seventeen dogs along, and general mayhem ensued. When I
describe Dog Club it doesn’t sound very much. We just stand around in a field
for forty minutes whilst the dogs generally swarm about. But it is one of the
highlights of the week. Sadly the rain got worse as time wore on.
We were rather damp when it was home time. As we drove Steve was doing the Mystery
Year on the radio. I have no idea what the song was that he was playing but
it immediately gave me flashbacks from my time at Bromley College. I could
remember my old mates who went on to the post-graduate course in blood
banking (at the time I went on to the one in haematology) so that
immediately narrowed it down to my early years there. Some
time between 1983 – 85. And I had flashbacks of the refectory… after
the first month or so we spent most of our free time in the Five Bells up the
road. It had to be 1983. It
was. We
stopped off at the co-op for pastries which we scoffed once we got home. We
played Meowdoku (“er indoors TM” has downloaded it) then we drove
up to Oare for the geo-meet. A dozen of us met up at the Three Mariners where
we had a rather good session. We had (arguably) one pint too many
before we set about a very good dinner of assorted bar snacks, then then we
had a go at the G & T the last one of which was definitely
one too many (not that I would have done anything any different). I
slept most (pretty much all) of the way home. Steve
and Sarah arrived, closely followed by Chris. We had a rather good evening on
the Infinity Table. Game of Life, Trouble, Sorry, Ticket to Ride… At
the risk of gloating I won three of the four games.
Go me (again) !! It’s
been a rather good day today. |
|
30 August 2026
(Sunday) - Early Shift
With
an alarm set I was awake far too early. I made toast and put on a new episode
of “Stranger Things”. This one played for over two hours; I got bored
with it after twenty minutes so I turned it off at
what I felt was a sensible place to have ended an episode. I
sparked up the lap-top and had a little look at the Internet. Some conspiracy
theory half-wit was ranting on about why we don’t hear anything about the
hole in the ozone layer any more. The simple fact is
that science found the issue with the ozone layer some years ago, the world’s
governments banned the chemicals that
caused the damage, and now is ozone
layer is on the mend. Sadly the conspiracy theory
half-wits weren’t happy to hear this. And they weren’t at all happy to be
told that acid rain went much the same way. I
Munzed, Wordled from “twonk”
to “intel” in five goes, and got ready for
the early shift. I
set off for work. As I drove to junction nine of the motorway I was again
amazed at how many people were out in their pyjamas walking their dogs. On
Friday I mentioned that this would seem to be the way to walk your dog in
South Ashford at quarter past six in the morning. Perhaps it is some fashion
statement? I
drove up the motorway listening to the pundits on the radio. Being Sunday
there was some religious drivel being spouted. There was an interview with
someone who was supposedly a big cheese in the "Revivalist Movement".
Unlike previous "Revivalist Movements" this one is a
frankly laughable idea that no religion is completely correct, but as they'd
all been going for so long they couldn't all be
wrong. So the people pushing this one have cooked up
a theory that people might look at the mainstream religions, pick and choose
the bits they like from each and ignore the bits they don't like. And if they
wanted to make up their own little extras to add on, then that was fine with
the idiot being interviewed. Everyone was entitled to their own opinions, and
because each person's idea was "their religion" it was
somehow both valid and right. They
let these people vote, you know. This
was followed by an interview with a farmer who was working on National Trust
land as part of the "Countryside Stewardship" scheme. From what
I could work out this seemed to be a government initiative (from 1991)
to keep paying for farms which clearly were losing money hand over fist. I
switched to my Adrian Mole MP3 and carried on up the motorway listening to
his antics. I
got to work and went in to the early shift where I
did my bit. I always say I don't mind working at the weekend when the weather
is bad. The forecast for the day had been grim, but (as is so often the
way) reality was at odds with forecast. Or so it started that way, but
as the day wore on the glorious sunshine gave way to grey skies and I stopped
sulking (a bit). Mind you, having now
worked at some point on eight of the last ten weekends there's no denying I'm
going off of the idea. I
came home and once we’d done “FEED THE FISH” I geo-puzzled for a bit
until my head hurt. “er
indoors TM” boiled up a rather
good curry which we washed down with one of those cheap bottles of plonk. As
we did we watched the last episodes of “Celebrity
Hunted”. I’ve
got a theory about that show – it’s all staged. If you were really on the run you really wouldn’t appear heading the bill on stage
at live festivals, or live on national television, would you? It makes for
good viewing, but if you were really on the run, you’d hunker down somewhere
and keep quiet. But
now that the show is over we’ve got to find
something else to watch. |
|
31 August 2026
(Monday) - Bank Holiday
I
slept well; eventually getting out of my pit at half past eight. I put a load
of washing in to scrub, made toast and had a look at
the internet as I do. It hadn’t changed much. I
looked out the window and saw the glorious morning and found myself thinking.
Many years ago I used to be a general dogsbody at
the Harbour restaurant in Hastings. Over the summer we used to make an average of two hundred and fifty dinners a day. Four hundred
dinners was super-busy, and when we did four hundred we knew about it. August Bank Holiday was always good for over six
hundred. Relatively
more recently my August Bank Holiday Monday would regularly be spent taking
down tents and clearing away camping gear. Many August Bank Holidays used to
be spent camping at a friend’s farm. A great time was had by all, but the
August Bank Holiday ones were different to many of the kite festivals we used
to visit. At many of our long camping weekends everyone was free for the fun
parts, but so many people had burning reasons to go home promptly on the
Monday morning. People used to stay to clear up at the August camps. Camping
was fun but it was hard work. Eleven years ago
today we had thunderstorms. In a break in that day’s rain we went to a garden centre where we got my monkey puzzle tree.
It’s grown rather impressively. More
recently August Bank Holidays have been a tad dull… no matter where you go is
heaving with the normal people so we generally don’t
go anywhere. The
dogs came down and wanted to go out. I went with them and followed them round
with a bucket and trowel. When we first got her, Bailey had a habit of eating
the other dogs’ turds. We hoped she’d grow out of it, but four years have
passed and she is as coprophagic as she ever was (yuk!) so collecting
the dung before she does is always a good idea. I
Munzed,
Wordled from “clear” to “mound”
in five goes, and got ready for the day. Some new
geocaches had gone live down the road, but the local FTF-hound had been out
and had logged the First to Find on one of them within twenty minutes, and then had gone on to do all the others. I must
admit these days if I’d got there first I’d do the
same. Back in the day I would find one and leave the rest for others. But I’m
in the minority with this attitude… So
instead I hung out the washing, and “er indoors TM” sorted
out some pots to replace her missing geocaches. I then thought I’d prove a
point. I cleaned out the filters of both ponds and tided away in less than
twenty minutes. The filters I use are *so* much easier and quicker to
clean out. We
then drove down to the Hamstreet area. It took a
few minutes to get out of Ashford; the roads near the outlet centre were
heaving. For all the talk of credit crunches and costs of living, there’s
never any shortage of people (quite literally) queueing up at the
outlet centre to pay way over the odds for massively overpriced tat. We
relocated a geocache with which the geo-feds had found fault,
and had a look at two which had been reported as missing. We replaced
the missing one, and found the other one exactly
where it was supposed to be. We went on intending to replace a third one, but
the area was swarming with normal people so we gave
that a miss. We
then went on to Snargate church where we wandered
round the graveyard getting information for the geo-puzzle based there. We
found that puzzle’s geocache just outside the church
then went for a little walk. It was a shame that the bridge forming the
public footpath was not only impassable with brambles but also blocked with
an electric fence. I reported it to the council – let’s see what they do. The
plan was then a pint in the nearby Red Lion but it was
closed. Apparently they are closed every Monday.
You’d think they’d open for a Bank Holiday, wouldn’t you? Oh well… their
loss. We
came home. We’d been out for four hours and the queues at the outlet centre
were still just as bad. I
popped over the road to the shop and got a couple of bottles of rather good
ale (for less than the price of one rather average ale in a pub), and
we sat in the garden for a bit scoffing a late lunch of nachos and dip until
I nodded off. We
had a lazy rest-of-afternoon. “er indoors TM” boiled
up a very good pasta bake for dinner. It’s
been a rather good (if rather lazy) bank holiday. |
