1 December 2025 (Monday) - The Advent Calendar Starts (Again)

 

 

I’m a very superstitious person (for all that superstitions are total bollox). Many years ago my mother told me that the first thing I should say on the first day of every month was “White Rabbits, White Rabbits, White Rabbits”. And so I have done for years. Consequently I was rather miffed that my first words this morning were “fuksake” as I knocked the bedside clock flying.

 

I opened the first window of my Lego Advent Calendar… and for the sixteenth year wished I’d opened it months ago, then went to the bathroom where I rather enjoyed having a shave. I signed up for the Movember thing a month ago after we came home from a geo-meet on the evening of the last day of October. After a few beers it seemed like a good idea. In the cold light of the next day it didn’t, but by the morning of the first day of November I’d already had fifty quid of donations so I rather felt I had to go ahead with it.

In the end the mutton chops didn’t look quite as bad as they might have been. I think that being grey they looked far better than they had the last time I did it in 2012. I’m told they made me look very distinguished but they’ve gone now, and I’m also told I now look fifteen years younger..

They might come back at some stage… who knows.

 

I made toast and had a look at the internet. There was a minor episode on one of the Facebook groups I moderate, The group is about an obscure series of books from many years ago. Just recently some chap has been posting AI generated pictures of the various characters. Personally I didn’t think that he’d got any of them remotely right, but he was contributing to the group which is more than most people do. Someone else took exception to all the AI pictures last night and had posted a rather nasty comment which (as a moderator) I deleted. The chap who’d posted the AI pictures apologized when he had nothing to apologize for, and the chap who’d made the nasty comment couldn’t understand how he could disagree without being disagreeable, left the group in a sulk and everyone else was happy… which was probably for the best.

And I had a suggestion for a possible Facebook friend. Facebook periodically prompts me to send friend requests to people I might know. Generally I don’t know the people in question but this morning it came up with a rather interesting choice. I have no idea who the chap it suggested is; I’ve never met him. But I and this fellow have four mutual Facebook friends. Two geocachers, someone I met through astronomy, and someone with whom I took scouts to Canada all those years ago. Sometimes it is quite amazing just who knows who.

 

It was drizzling this morning, but I took the dogs out anyway. With time being short this morning we went to Orlestone woods for which really should be the last time this winter. The trouble with Orlestone woods is that there are two really muddy parts which really can’t be avoided. So no matter what route you take, you get filthy.

But we had a good half-hour walk.

As we drove home the pundits on the radio were talking about the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. Some people take the subject seriously; some don’t. And some people delight in showing their ignorance. The presenter really did ask one of the experts being interviewed just how important it was to look into space when searching for extra-terrestrial intelligence. Where did he think aliens hang put? Tesco?

 

We came home; the dogs had paws and bellies washed. After a quick cuppa I took Pogo to collect “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” from her appointment and took them both home on a circuitous route via Canterbury. On the way home I stopped off for a little geocache near Hythe, but sadly the hint was “small tree” and I got to where my sat-nav said I should be only to find the wreckage of a small tree which had been cut down. Ho hum…

Instead we had a little geo-mission near home over lunchtime which was successful and earned us an origami rabbit.

 

I made us another cuppa, did some CPD, then realized that I had neither Munzed nor Wordled. I put that right then had a go at the bots on chess dot com… and failed miserably.

 

“My Boy TM” and ”Auntie Chel TM” came round with a white chocolate advent calendar for me, and once we’d had dinner, “er indoors TM” went bowling. I settled on the sofa and watched the last episode of “Brideshead Revisited”. Six days to watch the lot… I wonder what I shall watch next?

 

 

2 December 2025 (Tuesday) - Late Shift

 

 

I had something of a lie-in this morning, finally getting up at about half past eight. I opened the second window of my Lego Advent Calendar. A bulldozer. What was I supposed to do with that? The early ones in the Advent Calendar set the course of the story, so the pressure is always on at the start of the month.

I had a shave. Oh, how I’ve missed that. I made toast and had a look at the internet as I do most mornings. It was still there.

This morning’s squabble was over a conspiracy theory about how what is considered to be a “normal” blood pressure reading has got lower over time; presumably in order to sell more anti-hypertensive drugs. The fact of the matter is that over time more and more blood pressure readings have been taken on more and more reliable devices which have given more reliable normal ranges, But as is usually the way, the most stupid and uneducated a person, the more vehemently they were advocating utter bollox. As Neil Innes once said, how sweet to be an idiot.

 

Ideally we would have gone for a walk in the woods this morning. Usually when time is pressing we go to Orlestone, but as I found yesterday the place is a swamp. So with no time to go to Kings Wood we just walked round the local streets. I don’t really like any walk when Morgan is on the lead – he becomes an idiot. He always tries to pick fights with dogs with which he would play or ignore when off the lead.

It only took quarter of an hour to walk round the block.

 

We came home for the monthly flea treatments. I can’t pretend the dogs like their flea treatments, but they don’t run and hide like Treacle used to. And then I had a minor fight with Bailey. Last week the Doggy Dentist found her gums were rather sore. Yesterday the special dental ointment arrived, and applying the stuff was something of a game. Fortunately she is small enough that I can manage on my own. She wasn’t at all keen… until she tasted it. Maybe the next time might be easier?

 

I Munzed, and Wordled through maybe, tails, ratio and faith before getting cacti on the fifth attempt. I posted up today’s Advent adventure and wrote up some CPD.

As I pootled on-line so there was a knock on the door. The Royal Mail postie had our Amazon delivery. Quite a bit of stuff from Amazon comes via Royal Mail. I suspect that the Amazon deliveries go a long way to keeping Royal Mail in business.

I struggled with a puzzle on chess dot com, then got ready for work.

 

It was rather bright and sunny as I drove off to work.  With nothing of note on the radio I sang along to my MP3s. 

I considered a little geo-adventure, but thought better of it. Instead I went to the Sainsbury's petrol station at Aylesford where I topped up, and got a tad miffed. Last week when I went to Sainsbury's I got given a voucher for double nectar points when I next got petrol with them. So I got the voucher out... and it wasn't valid. Pretty much every time I shop at Sainsburys I get these vouchers which are either worth money off of stuff I never buy, or they don't actually work.

 

I then drove on to work... very conscious that the car behind was incredibly close. As I drove I realised that the chap driving the car was shouting. Every time I slowed or stopped (and there are a lot of reasons to slow and stop along Hermitage Lane) so the chap got more and more worked up, waving his fists and making obscene gestures.

He followed me as I drove into the hospital, and followed me to the staff car park where he couldn't get through the barrier. Which was probably for the best. I was in the mood for a good argument. And looking at the state of the chap I think I could probably have laid him out with a swift one up the bracket (which I would have claimed was self-defence).

 

I went in to work and did my bit; for all that we had a busy day today, it was a rather good one. But it is always good to see the relief arrive.

I drove home tuned to Radio 4 Extra on which Russell Tovey was playing the Admirable Crichton. It was probably as well that the DAB signal failed completely after ten minutes; it wasn’t very good…

 

 

3 December 2025 (Wednesday) - This n That

 

 

With no alarm set we didn’t get up until after eight o’clock this morning. I had a shave, made toast and had a look at the Internet. I saw that the Geocaching Association of Great Britain had elected a new committee. This might possibly be a good thing… depending on who got elected.

A few years ago I was nominated to their committee but I chose not to get involved. When I asked what (exactly and specifically) they did, I was told it depended on who they had on their committee. If they had people who liked to travel then they would stage events all over the place. If they had people who were IT-savvy then they would do IT things. At that time they appointed a fourteen year old child (who lived a couple of hours drive away) who made the announcement that he was “in charge of geocaching in the South” and seemingly did very little else that I could see.

 

With not a lot else happening and the rain seeming to be easing off I got the dogs onto their leads and we went up to the woods. I wore a coat as rain showers had been forecast; it stayed dry for our entire walk.

We did our “winter walk” avoiding the worst of the mud. Sadly avoiding the worst of the mud also means avoiding  where we are most likely to see deer. But there it is.

As we walked we found a toilet roll that had been unwound and left in the rain about a mile and a half from the car park. And we found a squirrel that had been dead for some time. Pretty much an average walk, really. But there’s no denying that with the silly beard gone, my face certainly felt the cold.

 

We came home where paws and bellies got a wash, and I made us both a cuppa. I then phoned the local hospital. It’s been some time since I had my annual endoscope up the nose and I wanted to be sure that I will get an annual check-up. They managed to drop me off of the system after my first nasal re-bore. I phoned the out-patients department and the automated system told me that I was in position twenty-one in the queue. I wrote up some CPD for half an hour while I waited to get through. Eventually a nice lady said that I had been due for a review last September and that she would put me through to the ENT department. And then she said she couldn’t as the phones just went through to an answering machine… which had always been my experience of the ENT department.

I’m assured someone will be in touch about an appointment.

I Munzed. Being the first day of the Munzee Clan War I put out some Christmas cards. And I Wordled through “about”, “trace” and “plate” to “haste”.

 

I thought about going into the garden to pootle. Over the summer I spent an inordinate amount of time pootling in the garden. But not today. In much the same way that the morning’s forecast rain showers didn’t happen, the forecast dry afternoon didn’t happen either.

Instead I had a look at something that the nice man from Infinity Table dot com had sent me about how I could get into the workings of the Sky hub to allow it to accept game requests from Chris. It all looked rather technical and with the potential to turn the Sky hub into a rather expensive brick. We can send out game requests, and that’s good enough to be getting on with for now.

 

I sorted out the undercrackers that I’d washed and tumble-dried on Monday (I always take an age to do that job), fixed the bathroom light cord, and tuned in to chess dot com. The nice people there gave me a free lesson in how to sacrifice bits to get a victory, challenged me to my daily three free puzzles, and comprehensively handed me my arse on a plate in a dozen games in which I was totally thrashed.

 

I posted up today’s installment of the advent story, and “er indoors TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we washed down with a bottle of plonk and then the dogs amazed me. Usually right after dinner they go sit on the sofa with “er indoors TM”. This evening they all sat around me looking hopeful. Usually when we have a bottle of plonk I crack open some cheese biscuits to share with them. They’d clearly seen the bottle of plonk and knew what that usually meant.

So I opened some cheesy biccies.

 

And then we had a go on the Infinity table… The thing accepts incoming friend requests, so why doesn’t it accept incoming game requests? 

 

 

4 December 2025 (Thursday) - Home Alone

 

 

I had a good night’s sleep, but again woke with a very painful right hip. Am I overdoing the walking? Let’s hope not.

I got up, did the usual morning things, and peered into the Internet as I scoffed toast as I do. I rolled my eyes as I looked at some of the work-related Facebook pages. People post up photos of blood films taken from people with various conditions, and I’m probably not far off in thinking that no matter what the condition, over ninety per cent of people looking at the pictures say “malaria” regardless. I can only hope these people aren’t in positions where their opinions are taken seriously.

And this morning’s petty argument was on a telly-related page on which people were arguing about why the fictional character Richard Bucket (pronounced Boo-quet) ever married the equally fictional Hyacinth (out of “Keeping up Appearances).

 

Despite the drizzle I took the dogs up to the woods for a walk. As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how President Putin of Russia is off visiting India today. Pretty much everyone seems worried that India is seemingly chumming up to the Russians, but after President Trump’s sticking tariffs on everyone and everything can anyone really be surprised about this.

We got to the woods where we barked at the normal people, chased a herd of deer, chewed on the squirrel carcass we found yesterday, rolled in fox poo and ate a dead mouse. All of which whilst it hossed down with rain. Some days our walk in the woods is more eventful than others.

 

We came home for a warm bath and a cuppa. I Munzed, and Wordled through “other”, “taint” and “tiddy” to get “tulip” on the fourth attempt.

And then the postman came. And my piss boiled.

If anyone ever comments that the country is hard up, or that there is a financial crisis, just laugh in their face. The country clearly is in an incredibly amazingly very good financial position. It must be; how and why else would the government be able to afford to waste money writing to me to tell me that I will react State Pension age in 2031, and that they will write to me to tell me how to claim some time in October 2030.

 

I got the ironing board out and set about the ironing. As I did my plan was to watch a DVD… We bought a new DVD player the other day which would be able to play the multi-region DVDs we’d bought off of eBay over the years… Sadly it couldn’t play any of our standard DVDs that we bought from shops.

Fortunately we still had the old DVD player, and it didn’t take that long to plumb it back in again.

Hopefully “er indoors TM” kept the receipt.

 

As I ironed I started watching “The Charmer”; a rather good TV series based on the books of Patrick Hamilton. And with ironing ironed I carried on watching the DVDs from under a pile of dogs. I watched the entire lot this afternoon.

 

“er indoors TM” came home from work and boiled up a rather good steak dinner which we scoffed whilst watching more “Game of Wool”.

 

I’ve got a stomach ache to go with the iffy hip… and here’s today’s Advent Adventure.

 

 

5 December 2025 (Friday) - A Day At Work

 

 

I slept well. As I scoffed toast I started something new on the telly. I say new… I tried watching Rik Mayall’s “The New Statesman”. I’ve always liked Rik Mayal in “The Young Ones”, “Bottom”, “Filthy Rich and Catflap” and the like, but sadly “The New Statesman” was utter tripe. I turned it off after ten minutes. I can definitely remember it being much better…

I had a quick look at the Internet instead. It was a tad dull this morning. I sent out birthday wishes, had a quick Munz, opened the Advent Calendar and got ready for work.

 

The weather forecast for overnight claimed the temperature would stay above freezing, so the thick ice on the car came as something of a shock this morning.

It didn’t take *that* long to shift.

 

As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how OFCOM (the people in charge of internet security) are trying to cut down on the abundance of free porn on the Internet. It’s all very well fining a company a million quid for dishing out free porn, but it’s something of an embarrassment when you have absolutely no idea where this company actually is and they don’t reply to emails.

The joy of the Internet is that anyone can be absolutely anywhere and it all still works. You’d think the nice people at OFCOM would know that, wouldn’t you?

And there was talk about how countries are boycotting the Eurovision Song Contest as Israel isn’t getting chucked out. The people who run it say that they won’t chuck Israel out as the contest is strictly non-political… clearly the people who run it have never watched the voting.

 

I stopped off at Sainsbury’s to get a sandwich and some dog treats. As I paid so I was telling (ranting at) the nice lady on the till about what a load of crap their Nectar vouchers are. She smiled sweetly and gave me a Nectar voucher for money off of any pet insurance policy I might take out with them. Like I haven’t had pet insurance policies for years.

 

Work was work. I had something of a “reactive lymphocytes and malaria” sort of a day really. I would say “like we all do from time to time” but I suspect some have them more than others.

I did my bit, and was pleased to find the road home was a lot less busy than often it is.

 

“er indoors TM” went off out with her mates. I boiled myself up a pizza and started watching “Danger UXB” on DVD. I’ve not watched that for years… the first two episodes were rather good…

And then I remembered that for all that I’d opened my Advent Calendar some fifteen hours previously, I’d not told the world about it…

 

 

6 December 2025 (Saturday) - Pre Christmas Party

 

 

We had a rather late night last night. We’ve taken to watching “Tipping Point”; a game show in which particularly thick contestants play on a huge “penny falls” machine.

It was gone one o’clock before I got into my pit last night, but I didn’t sleep that well.

 

I gave up trying to sleep, made toast and had a look at the Internet. People were complaining about the price of a ticket to see Sparks performing in London next year. At less than a hundred quid each I felt that was rather cheap, but what do I know. Someone was whinging that this was double the price of tickets for when they were in Bexhill a couple of years ago. I was reminded of the ELO tribute band we saw several years ago whose ticket prices varied massively according to where they were playing.

And someone else on another site was asking where he could get top quality Infinity tables at rock bottom prices as he was fed up with hearing about how cheap others had got one and handing over his money only to get scammed. Generally if something seems to be too cheap to be true, it is.

 

I had someone post a comment on this blog. Someone claiming to be called “Satta King” said that last Monday’s entry was “nice post”, and then tried to post half a dozen links to gambling sites. Nice try Satta…

I had an email from the nice people at MoVember. Having raised over three hundred quid for them, they’ve sent me a pair of socks. That’s kind of them.

 

I Munzed (making a balls-up of magnetizing the tree house) and Wordled from “cause” through “harsh”, “sassy” to get “waist” on the fourth attempt. As I strained my brain at Wordle so Steve was on the radio doing the “Guess The Lyrics” competition. “Better stop dreaming of the quiet life cause it’s the one we’ll never know”? No – it was from some time ago - The Jam – “A Town Called Malice”.

 

We drove round to Repton and Dog Club. It was ten degrees warmer this morning compared to what it had been yesterday. Perhaps an icy morning might have been better; it would have frozen the mud, but it didn’t rain today which was a result. I suspect the forecast rain put a lot of people off, which was a shame. But nine dogs had a whale of a time. There was a minor disaster when we realized that Bailey was missing. The little horror had sneaked under a gap in the fence, but soon came back when I brandished the treat bag.

We drove home to Steve doing the Mystery Year competition on the radio. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix came out in this year. I thought 2002 – I was a year too early.

 

Once home the dogs had a bath. They’d got filthy at Dog Club. We had a cuppa and a chocolate éclair. I posted up today’s installment of the Advent story, did some chess puzzles, then went for a little drive.

 

After a couple of diversions for geo reasons (and an origami bear) we were soon at the family Christmas party. A few drinks, a rather good spread, bingo and a raffle. The dogs were a hit and were taken here, there and thither by their distant relatives.

It all got rather vague…

 

 

7 December 2025 (Sunday) - Road Trip in the Rain

 

 

Yesterday afternoon was a blur, and yesterday evening was something of a blank. I felt rather fragile when I got up this morning.

I made toast and had a little look at the Internet to see if I’d missed much. There was quite a bit of chat on the family Whatsapp group following on from yesterday’s party.

The local newspaper was trying to stir it all up about an anti-immigration protest that happened yesterday. A couple of dozen protestors showed up to shout hatred, and about twice that number showed up to shout at those doing the shouting. If anything, the winner here was apathy.

I Munzed, and had a go at Wordle. “Doing” gave me nothing. “Truce” was a bit better, and through utter pot luck I got it on the third go with “flute”.

As we fiddled about so we had Radio Ashford playing on the Alexa. The Sunday chap isn’t a patch on the chap who does it on a Saturday…

 

We had planned some small walks across the Romney Marsh hunting out Origami Animals (it’s a geo-thing) for today, but the weather was against that. So instead we had a little road trip up to Ramsgate and back hunting out Origami Animals up there.

We started off hunting out a geocache that according to the map was on the side of a road… It was. But sadly it was on the other side of the dual carriageway we were on. Fortunately we found a lay-by and I managed to nip over the road during a lull in the traffic.

The second one was by an ancient Celtic cross monument and took quite a bit of finding.

The third one was missing. The hint explained exactly what we were looking for, and exactly where it was. The last person to find it has only ever found one geocache – I suspect they’ve taken it home to show their mum.

The fourth one was called “Canapes on the Beach” and with a name like that you’d expect it to be actually on the beach, wouldn’t you? Not on the promenade overlooking the beach?

It was raining when I was just about to pick up the fifth cache. As I reached for it so a loud voice demanded to know “What the hell are you doing!!!” There was some aggressive-looking woman walking past. I told her I was looking for something. She wanted to know if it was an important something. I told her it wasn’t. She said that if it was important she would have helped me. I remarked that it was as well that it wasn’t important. She then wanted to know what I was doing looking for something unimportant in the rain. I explained that I was minding my own business. It was at this point that “delightful individual” shoved off and left me alone.

The sixth involved parking up and going for another little walk.

And the seventh was just by a bridge overlooking the M2.

 

I thought we’d only be out for a couple of hours; we were out for over four hours. But the dogs got some little walks, and I took a few photos as we went here and there. We had targeted seven geocaches for today. We found six, and so got six origami animals – an elephant, a frog, a moose, a fox, a pig and a crab.

There’s still six more origami animal Treasures for us to get.

 

We came home for a rather late lunch. I sat on the sofa and had a little doze. “er indoors TM” boiled up some sausages for tea then went off to the cinema. I ironed some shirts whilst watching more episodes of “Danger UXB”. Although it is a rather old show it is quite believable in that (just like actually happened in real life) many of the characters in it die. In so many TV shows the characters seem immortal, and that simply wouldn’t work in a show like this.

 

The dogs have been really quiet this evening…

 

 

8 December 2025 (Monday) - Lazy Day

 

Again I woke far too early. Quarter past one. And then I just dozed on and off for the rest of the night. Eventually I gave up, got up and being  Monday I stood on the scales. Another pound has come off. Result.

I made some toast and had my usual rummage round the Internet. It was fairly quiet this morning; no squabbles or petty bickering.

I sent out birthday wishes to the friend having a birthday, then took the dogs up to the woods. As we drove there was some drivel on the radio about peasant rebellions from centuries ago. Apparently hundreds of monasteries were stormed by the swarming hoards who had the arse that they weren’t allowed the wine during holy communions.

People really will argue about anything… and this is clearly nothing new.

We parked in the lower car park at Kings Wood today and did a different walk to usual. We walked about four and a half miles, and as we went we saw one other person, and that was only a hundred yards from the car park. The walk from the lower car park involved far fewer hills and quite a bit less mud, but still enough mud to need a bath when we got home.

 

I came home where we had that bath, and once I sorted us both a cuppa I saw postie had been. I had a letter from the hospital. Having given me an appointment I couldn’t keep they sent me another. I shall have to see if I can swap shifts when I’m in at work next.

I Munzed; despite only being five days into the Clan War, our team has done all the team requirements for the month. We’ve just got the individual challenges to do now, which is a result.

I Wordled. Starting with “being” was a bad move. That just gave me the “g”, but in the wrong place. I could only think of one other word with “g” but with none of the letters I’d excluded… and got it with “gravy” on the second go.

I wrote up some CPD; that took some time. I then slobbed on the sofa reading my Kindle app with Bailey for a while until “er indoors TM” boiled up a rather good late breakfast for tea. She then went bowling and I settled on the sofa underneath a pile of dogs watching more “Danger UXB”.

 

Rather a lazy day today. I could have done so much more had it not started raining after our walk and it getting dark so early…

 

 

9 December 2025 (Tuesday) - Early Shift

 

 

I woke at half past midnight having had about an hour and a half's sleep, then dozed on and off until I finally gave up with the idea of laying in bed. I got up, made toast and watched an episode of "Danger UXB". As I watched I suddenly realised where I'd seen one of the characters before. Sapper Powell was in an episode of "Porridge" in which he compared himself to a frog in having a large s*xual appetite. 

As I watched telly so Treacle came downstairs with something of a sense of urgency. She charged to the back door where she squeaked at me. I opened the door, she took one look at the rain and went back to bed.

 

The rain had eased up a little by six o'clock when I set off to work. It was incredibly dark as I drove west-wards through the -hursts and the-dens, and an average of maybe one oncoming car in six dipped their headlights as they came past. I flashed every car that left their headlight on full beam. Some then dipped them… but not many.

As I drove I listened to the news as I do most days when I go to work. Apparently the company that makes Magnum ice creams has been launched on to the stock exchange where they haven't turned out to be quite the money-maker people were hoping. Interestingly all the talk was money and management and corporate, and not a word about how good or bad the actual product is.

There was talk about the situation in Ukraine. The Ukrainian premier isn't happy with the deal that Donald Trump has cooked up and so is hoping that the European leaders will have a better solution.  They may well have, but if the Ukrainians can't sell the scheme to the Americans, the USA may well just walk away and let the Europeans fund it all. Don’t forget that the American President has been given a peace prize not that the rest of the world isn't pointing and laughing at him about it very much.

Meanwhile there were question in Parliament about the Army's new tank. I would have thought that if the Army's new tank was a total disaster, then telling the world wouldn't have been a good idea, but what do I know?

 

I stopped off at Tesco to get a sandwich. What should have taken two minutes took an absolute age as I managed to pogger the self-service till. The thing got jammed. The nice lady wanted to know how much money I'd put into it. I had no idea. I don't count what I put into it; I just keep chucking small coins in until the machine says it's had enough. The nice lady said that was entirely the problem. People put too much money into the machine.  And she wasn't at all happy when I suggested that this might be God's way of saying open the proper tills.

 

I got to work and did my bit. As I did I whinged about how no one wanted to dip their headlights as I’d driven in earlier. One of the girls asked what I meant by that. After a few misunderstandings it turned out that she had no idea about dipping headlights… she just gets into the car and fiddles with the controls until some lights come on. I suspect there had been an element of that this morning.

 

I drove home in the oncoming glare of full beam headlights.

Once home I had a look at my Lego Advent Calendar, and then dozed on the sofa until “er indoors TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching the last episode of “Game of Wool”; a rather good show which is best described as “Bake Off does knitting”.

I hope I get some sleep tonight…

 

 

10 December 2025 (Wednesday) - Another Early Shift

 

 

Again I woke at half past midnight having had about an hour and a half's sleep, then dozed on and off until finally giving up and getting up. I made toast, and watched another episode of "Danger UXB" in which our hero was getting jiggy with the mad professor's daughter. As one does, given the opportunity.

And with telly watched I set off to work.

 

The journey through the -hursts and the -dens was better today that it had been yesterday. It wasn't raining, and far fewer drivers had their headlights on full beam. I always say that I like working at Pembury but I hate going there, and that really does sum it up. I like working there, but the journey leaves a lot to be desired.

Still... I knew what the journey would be when I took the job on, and it is far better than the nasty bullying environment I had elsewhere for many years.

 

As I drove I listened to the pundits on the radio spouting the news. There was a lot of talk about a sperm donor whose "product" led to the births of over two hundred babies over the last twenty years... it has been announced that the chap's genetic heritage gives him a much-increased risk of cancer, and he's unwittingly passed that on. Apparently ten of his offspring have already gone down with cancers, and some have already died. And (as is so often the way) those on the radio who know absolutely nothing about science tried to make some sort of scandal out of the matter.

And there was more talk of the situation in Ukraine. The Ukrainian president has said he won't give up any land in any peace deal. He might not have the option - apparently President Trump is getting a tad fed up with him. Whether it is fair or not, the Ukrainians are fighting a war that others are paying for. I don't want to be selfish or bury my head in the sand, but is a war half-way across the world something I should be funding? 

 

I stopped off at Tesco to get lunch. Often I get little packs of carrot sticks with hummus. They didn't have those today; instead I got apple slices with peanut butter dip... at four times the calories.  And when I came to scoff it, it wasn't all that good. I'm blaming it for the guts ache which lasted all afternoon.

 

The drive home this evening was better than yesterday’s. I left work at sunset; it was rather pretty. And what with no rain it got completely dark about half an hour later than it did yesterday.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up a rather good chili which we washed down with a bottle of malbec, and with that shifted so the dogs looked on hopefully. They usually get to share dry biscuits with me when there’s a bottle of plonk on the go. I opened a packet of cheese straws.

We all liked that…

 

 

11 December 2025 (Thursday) - M3617637

 

 

With no alarm set I slept through till four o’clock when I got up for a tiddle then went back to bed until just before eight o'clock. That was a result.

I opened the Lego Advent Calendar – a small cat. What was I supposed to say about that?

 

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was still there. Squabbles persisted; this morning there was some serious bickering on the religion and politics pages which the Facebook bots told me might be of interest to me. Sometimes it strikes me that if one person was to say “I disagree for the following reasons” and list their reasons, and the other person was to read them and think about them then the world might be a far less divided place. Sadly everyone treats their opinion like they treat their favourite football team; to be followed through thick and thin regardless.

I Munzed, opening a qrate (as I do every ten days or so) and Wordled. Today I started with “think” and didn’t get a single letter. So I tried “space” and got the c and e; but not in the right places. “Bless” gave me the last three letters in the right places. The only word I could then think of (with the available letters) was “dress” but that wasn’t right. And then I realised the answer was obvious. Guess.

 

I took the dogs out. As we drove to the woods “In Our Time” was on the radio. It’s a show which spends half an hour investigating pretty much everything and anything. Previous episodes have included Roman Emperors, quantum physics, medieval churches… todays was about a poet from two hundred years ago and was amazingly interesting for something that you’d think would be amazingly dull.

 

We got to the woods and had a slightly different walk to our usual one. As we went round there was a surprising amount of other people in the woods. We saw two on horseback. Riding along next to each other, everything they had to say was shouted, and so we had plenty of notice that they were coming. We found a glove which someone had dropped. I put it on a waymarker; hopefully the owner will find it.

We got back to the car; as always my watch felt we’d walked quarter of a mile further than my phone felt we’d done. I always snigger when people on the geocaching and hiking websites bang on about how accurate their GPS is and quibble about distances walked and accuracy of GPS… there’s no two devices which agree. I once stuck my GPS on the windowsill and left it whilst I went to work. It thought it had covered four miles during the day when it had never actually moved anywhere.

 

As we drove home Professor Brian Cox was on the radio. I generally don’t like listening to “The Infinite Monkey Cage” as the show seems to really over-simplify things. Today they were talking about clouds and it was really interesting. I suspect that they’d really over-simplified things but as I don’t know much about clouds I was none the wiser.

 

We came home for a wash. The dogs were surprisingly clean; they probably wash themselves on the drive home. I wish they would wait for bath time rather than licking the mud off.

I hung out the dog bedding I’d put in to wash earlier and put more in to scrub. I ordered up a Christmas pressie for grandson (which should be delivered tomorrow).

And realising that earlier I’d found out that I knew nothing about clouds I signed up with the Open University and started a free course on the subject. Supposedly taking ten hours, I completed it this afternoon and then had a look at what other courses they’ve got. There’s nearly nine hundred.

Having done my maths degree with the OU all those years ago it’s good to be back with them again. I still remember my old student number…

 

I hung out the second load of washed dog bedding, wrote up some CPD and then played chess, finally managing to beat the level 1000 bot. I finally had an idea what I might say about today’s instalment of the Advent Calendar,

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up dinner which we scoffed whilst watching a Christmas film. “Bad Tidings” was rather good, but in retrospect was something of a low-budget remake of “Home Alone”.

After that we watched the last episode of “Celebrity Race Across the World”. I won’t say who won, but I will say that I was pleased with the result.

 

And I’m now going to spark up the Infinity table and download as many games as I can… apparently the firm that makes them is going out of business tomorrow… oh well… as long as the table keeps working for now…

 

 

12 December 2025 (Friday) - Another Early Shift

 

 

I had an alarm set last night; I barely slept. I woke shortly after midnight and saw every quarter of an hour after that. Eventually I gave up (as I so often do), got up, made toast and scoffed it whilst watching telly. In today's instalment of "Danger UXB" our hero got given the heave-ho by the mad professor's daughter which was probably a triumph for morality but a bit of a smack in the kisser for our hero.

 

Having heard the bin men making a racket as I'd watched telly I was expecting problems getting out of the road, but the bin men were suddenly nowhere to be seen when I drove off. 

As I drove there was something on the radio about "farm-sitters"; people who come and look after farms whilst the farmers go off on holiday. I suppose it could have been quite interesting had the farm-sitter being interviewed not ermm... said ermmm...  between ermmm... everything ermmm...  he ermmm...  said.

I've mentioned before that those who bring people onto national radio really should vet the interviewees beforehand.

There was also an interview with the chap who runs the Magnum ice cream corporation. I mentioned the other day that they've not turned out to be quite as profitable as had been hoped. It turns out that some years ago the Magnum people bought out Ben and Jerries, and the people behind Ben and Jerries want it back. It turns out there's quite a lot of bitterness in the ice cream world.

 

I got three quarters of the way to work and suddenly found the A21 completely bunged up. Fortunately I know the roads reasonably well and managed a crafty diversion through Matfield, and went on to Tesco where I got some Christmas supplies in. Today they had people working the tills which was probably for the best bearing in mind Tuesday's debacle.

 

I started work seven minutes before sunrise.  Work was surprisingly hard work today. I was rather glad when home time came. Home time was seven minutes before sunset. Google Maps told me that whatever the hold-up had been this morning had cleared, and I believed it… right up to the point where I met the traffic jam five miles up the road from the hold-up.

I took another crafty diversion through Matfield.

 

Once home I plonked myself on the sofa and peered at the telly. Days at work can be dull…

Meanwhile “er indoors TM” has gone outside to take photos of the aurora. Not that there’s any there, and if there was the clouds are in the way…

 

 

13 December 2025 (Saturday) - Dog Club, Dungeness, Telly

 

 

Usually I have no issues getting to sleep. Staying asleep is generally the problem. But it was the opposite last night – I was still wide awake two hours after getting into my pit.

I got four hours kip last night which was better than some nights recently.

 

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. Last night “er indoors TM” went outside to see the aurora… not that there was much to be seen. A chap I used to know was posting photos of a rather spectacular display he’d seen from his new house in Scotland. Jacking it all in, turning your back on everyone and moving to Scotland seems to be happening more and more with people I know (or used to know).

There wasn’t a lot else happening on line. Steve was on the radio doing the “guess the lyrics” competition. “Do you hear what I’m saying? Got to say how I feel”. No? I had no idea either. It was “Dreams” by Gabrielle. 

 

Being Saturday we went round to Repton and Dog Club. Despite a cold day a dozen dogs turned out. We had a good time’ I must admit to a wry smile as Luna came out of a thicket covered in fox poo. It’s quite funny when it is someone else’s dog.

All too soon the bigger dogs started arriving for their session and so it was time to go. “er indoors TM” had craft club today so she went her way and I took the dogs with me on mine. As I drove Steve was doing the Mystery Year competition on the radio. When did the pound coin come out? I know this one. 1983.

I had this idea to go to Dungeness to get a geocache for the current origami animals set of Treasures. There’s not many geocaches which qualify for them. There’s one in Aldington which I have done which “er indoors TM” can go get at some stage. And there’s one near the power station in Dungeness which “er indoors TM” found when I was working one weekend twelve years ago. So I thought that the one in Dungeness might be something to do this morning. A dog walk and an origami animal too. And part of me wanted to see how the radio signal from Radio Ashford would hold out. Bearing in mind it goes west-wards almost as far as Folkestone and eastwards to Goudhurst, it doesn’t make five miles north to Challock. Heading south the signal started breaking up at Lydd.

We got to the old lighthouse at Dungeness where we started our little walk. The dogs stayed on the leads all the time we were within striking distance of the power station; I wasn’t having the littlest one getting on the other side of the fence. When we were safely away from it I let them off. We had a great time running and chasing about. I found my geocache (and got an origami rhinoceros) and then my heart sank as a rabbit ran by. The two little ones chased off in hot pursuit. I whistled; Morgan stopped dead and came straight back. Bailey (aka “Team Sod”) sauntered back in her own good time about quarter of an hour later.

 

We came home. The dogs seemed surprisingly clean so we skipped the bath and they were soon snoring. I made myself a cuppa, put a load of washing in to scrub, Munzed, and had a look at Wordle. “Snore” gave me s, r and e but all in the wrong places. “Fresh” did exactly the same. “Rests” told me where the s went. “Laser” told me where the e and r went. “Wiser” gave me the i. I got it with “miser” on the last go.

 

“er indoors TM” returned from craft club, and after a quick bit of cheese on toast all round she set off visiting family in Hastings. I stayed with the sleeping dogs and watched more “Danger UXB” in which our hero renewed his association with the mad professor’s daughter. The beast.

I did the dogs’ dinners then downloaded something on the SkyQ box. “This is England” is a rather grim film… and really reminded me of what things used to be like forty-odd years ago.

 

“er indoors TM” came home with kebabs and we scoffed them whilst watching more “Canal Boat Diaries”. Whilst I like watching the show, the more I see of it, the less inclined I am to go on a boating holiday…

 

 

14 December 2025 (Sunday) - Hunting More Origami Animals

 

 

Apart from a trip to the loo in the small hours I stayed asleep until half past eight when my aching joints told me it was time to start moving about. It’s amazing the difference not setting an alarm makes.

 

I got up and opened the Advent Calendar. Finally I had something I felt I might do something with. I had a scrape, made toast and had a look at the Internet. Back in the day people used to post photos of all sorts of pre-Christmas parties and events. So far hardly anyone has posted photos of hardly anything to social media. Either no one’s posting anything, or nothing is happening.

I saw that the Kent geo-meet happened yesterday… I say “Kent” it was in south London. Back in the day the December geo-meet was the highlight of the geocaching calendar. From what I could see hardly anyone from Kent went. We didn’t as the place wasn’t dog-friendly.

Which reminded me that I was hoping to stage the February geo-meet at the McCann’s brewery. They haven’t replied to me email. I’d better chivvy them up.

 

The dogs came down. I chivvied them into the garden. Something has been digging in my flower boxes. A couple of days ago nice-next-door commented she thinks she’s got a rat in her roof. It would be a brave rat with Bailey about. Apparently coffee deters them.

I Munzed; earning ten Zeds. Zeds are a crypto-currency used in Munzee. Ten Zeds is somewhere between six and seven pence.

 

We got ourselves organised and went for a little outing. Certain geocaches give you an Origami Animal e-Treasure when you log them, and we targeted a few of them today to give us a little adventure.

First of all we went to Aldington to get one that I’d found twelve years ago, but “er indoors TM” hadn’t. That evened up my finding the one at Dungeness yesterday.

We then drove to Lympne castle where after a little walk we had the second one in hand. That cache was called “Marsh Views” and there was a particularly good view across the marsh from there.

It was only half a mile from there to the Shepway Cross monument where we soon found the third one.

From there we had a little drive up to Lydden Hill where the racing happens. The fourth cache was soon found.

As we’d driven there we’d seen signs to a micropub. And it was lunch time. So we had a little lunch break. The Blue Silo micropub was a rather good find. As “er indoors TM” parked the car I popped my head round the door and asked two questions. Could I bring the dogs in? Could I pay by card? Having been told yes to both, I told the nice lady that all else was details. We had a drinkie and a sausage roll each, and arranged to stage the next (January) monthly geo-meet there.

And then on to our fourth geo-target. The instructions for that one told us where the car park was, and said we simply walk a mile up the disused train line to the geocache and walk back again. And that’s what we did. Sadly walking there was a lot easier than walking back was. As always it was the smallest of our group that was the pain in the glass, but Bailey eventually reappeared after having been missing for fifteen minutes.

We could have then driven down to New Romney for one last geo-find, but time was against us.

I took a few photos as we went about. We can get that last origami animal next weekend.

 

We came home. “er indoors TM” set off shopping. I did the admin for the geo-meet we’d spoken about with the nice lady in the Blue Silo micropub.

“er indoors TM” came home from shopping and I put the telly on. We watched “Carry On Spying”. When I was a lad the Carry On films were the pinnacle of comedy. “Carry On Spying” was something of a disappointment.

 

We had dinner. Enchiladas went down rather well. As we scoffed we watched a celebrity Bake-Off episode which was entertaining enough, but (for me) would have been better had it featured celebrities I’d heard of.

Today’s been rather good…

 

 

15 December 2025 (Monday) - A Disappointment

 

 

In a novel break with tradition my alarm woke me this morning. Mind you I'd seen every twenty minutes of the night before that.

I got up, opened my Advent Calendar, made toast and watched some telly. Back in the day the Young Ones was *the* TV show to watch. It started some time in 1982 and was broadcast on a Thursday evening. I remember it being on a Thursday as that was the night I was always late home because Thursday was college day. I always missed the show, and everyone else would tell me how good it had been. There was no video recorders or catch-up TV back then... Eventually I got to see the program in re-runs and like everyone else I was enthralled by it.

Sadly it hasn't really stood the test of time... 

 

I set off to work via the petrol station.  There was a surprising amount of people getting petro at seven o'clock this morning. And once I'd got petrol I set off up the motorway. For all that the motorway was busy this morning, it was a far better journey that going cross-country to Pembury had been last week. 

As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the availability of diet drugs on the NHS. There was an interview with a chap who wasn't entirely unlike me in that the chap had been overweight for years and had used a CPAP machine for years. However unlike me, this chap seemed to be rather too keen on the pies. He was laying the blame for his obesity purely on the NHS which wasn't giving him the diet injections. Surely  I'm not the only one to have realised that your cake hole is bigger than your arse hole, and the feeling of hunger is what weight loss feels like?

 

I got to work and in a fit of recklessness got myself a cheese scone from the League of Friends' little shop. Nowadays I have one as a treat from time to time; a year ago I had one every day. I made myself a cuppa to have with the scone, and I had a little look at the Internet. I had an email. Yesterday I organised a geo-meet to take place at the micropub I found yesterday. The geo-Feds have approved my plan, and so if any of my loyal readers are at a loose end in mid-January...

 

I got on with work. I did several wet ones as one does (it's a blood compatibility testing thing). What with te vagaries of my work pattern this was my first Monday at work for months. It was rather busy; I was glad when home time came round. 

 

I came home. “er indoors TM” boiled up pizza and then went bowling. I wrapped Christmas pressies whilst watching episodes of “This is England 86”. I had planned to do the ironing… I’ll do that tomorrow, eh…

 

 

16 December 2025 (Tuesday) - A Walk, Ironing, Telly

 

 

I might have had a decent night (for once) had the dogs settled. But they didn’t, and so I didn’t.

I made toast and peered into the Internet. Quite a few people were commenting about how they’ve now packed up work for Christmas. One friend had posted “One more sleep”, and another said that he wasn’t back at work for three more weeks. Is it too late to question my career choices? Not that I’m really feeling at all Christmassy this year.

And having done a course with the OU last week my Facebook feed was inundated with adverts for the Open University.

 

I got Bailey’s lead on her whilst “er indoors TM” rounded up Treacle and Morgan. For all that they love their walks when we get there, they aren’t keen to get up in the mornings.

As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how President Trump is suing the BBC for five billion dollars because of their story in which they claimed he’d said various things by judiciously editing tapes of what he’d actually said. One of the so-called experts who’d been wheeled on said that Mr Trump would settle for an up-front payment of ten million quid, but if the case went to court it would cost probably five or ten times that amount even if the BBC won. So it would be cheaper all round just to pay up. Justice, eh? But this is nothing new, is it? Over a hundred and thirty years ago Jerome K Jerome once said that if someone came up to him and demanded his watch he’d fight them for it, but if they threatened to take him to court to get his watch he’d hand it over on the spot and think he’d got off lightly.

There was then talk about whether the country can afford the BBC. Another so-called expert was wheeled on to say that the BBC can’t begin to compete with the commercial stations because they have so much income… and then started banging on about how the BBC was having Jane Austen Day today, and you don’t see Netflix doing that. Presumably because there’s no money in doing so?

 

We got to the woods where we walked a different walk to our usual one. I’d been told that two of the geocaches I’d hidden there had gone missing so we went to have a look. One had gone; one was still there.

We had a good walk; it was muddy though.

After either four and three quarter miles or five and one quarter miles (depending on whether you listen to my phone or my watch) we were back at the car. We came home where once I’d bathed the dogs I had a little wipe round and clean up in the bathroom and loo. It’s amazing how the dust accumulates when you aren’t paying attention.

 

I put some washing in to scrub, got Wordle (segue?) on the last attempt and had a phone call from the optician to say that I was due an eye test. They seemed surprised that I’d had one a couple of months ago.

I had a spot of lunch, then cracked on with the ironing whilst watching some episodes of “This is England”.

I wrote up some CPD, then watched more episodes of “This is England” in which many of our heroes did the dirty deed without removing their trousers; let alone undercrackers.

 

“er indoors TM” came home with Pogo (who’s up for a little holiday). She’d had her works Christmas do and had brought me home a posh mince pie. Four hundred calories…

We had a rather good dinner which we scoffed whilst watching the semi-final of “Game of Wool”. When I was a lad my mum, grans and all my aunts used to be constantly knitting things. How times change…

 

 

17 December 2025 (Wednesday) - Munzee, Deer Leg, Plants

 

 

Judging by the postings on Facebook this morning it would seem that Operation Brock has been brought back into operation. What a waste of time and money. Our local MP was whinging on-line about it saying “I understand that Operation Brock is a huge frustration for so many of my constituents. I will continue to work to find a long-term alternative”. Bearing in mind he’s found nothing in over a year I’m not hopeful.

Our local MP has turned out to be something of a disappointment. From what I can see the only difference between him and the one he replaced is the colour of the rosette he wears. Like his predecessor he’s all over social media trying to share the limelight of other people’s efforts.

Our county councillor was quiet on the matter. I wrote to him over the summer about Operation Brock. Bearing in mind it’s a county council thing, if he can’t sort it, no one can. To be fair to the chap he does seem to do quite a bit of work with the homeless though.

 

I sent out birthday wishes… One of my ex-trainees had a birthday today. I can remember him starting work with me all those years ago. The steps to his getting qualified, his getting married, his promotion to supervisor grade, his daughter being born. His getting divorced. When I had my little “episode” fourteen years ago he was one of a small number of people who wrote a letter in my defence… I’ve spoken to him maybe once in the last ten years; it is too easy to lose touch with people.

I had a message. It would seem that the people who make Infinity Tables have been taken over by another company and aren’t going out of business just yet. That’s a result.

And I read that Gil “Buck Rogers” Gerard died yesterday.

I Munzed – there was a bouncing Munzee garden right outside the house. I started Wordle with “right” and got the r and the g, but in the wrong places. ”Grabs” then gave me everything but the b, and on the third try I had success with “grass”

 

“er indoors TM” helped me get the dogs on to their leads and I took all four of them up to the woods. As we drove “More or Less” was on the radio. It’s a rather good show which investigates the hyperbole and outrageous claims that appear in the news. Today’s program investigated the claims about the ongoing unprecedented super-flu epidemic and showed that it was neither unprecedented nor super.

We got to the woods and Morgan and Bailey were immediately lippy with the first group that we met. They do that whenever Pogo is along as they know he’s got their backs. Most people realise what dogs are like and smile… though we met one idiot who didn’t.

We saw some woman walking along the path toward us. When she saw us she grabbed her dog and roughly dragged it into the brambles. As we walked past so Morgan looked at her dog. She immediately got her dog into a half-nelson strangle hold and shouted that her dog is sometimes funny with other dogs. I know I should have just smiled and kept going, but I remarked that I wasn’t surprised that her dog is bad with other dogs if he gets put in a strangle hold every time he sees one.

It was shortly after this that Treacle found a deer leg (complete with hoof) and carried it for over three miles all the way back to the car.

 

We came home where (amazingly) the dogs didn’t need baths. I’d checked them when they got into the car at the end of our walk and they seemed clean. They’d then licked off whatever mud there was on the drive home.

So rather than cleaning dogs I cleaned the fish tank. It gets grubby; algae grows on the plastic plants.

I solved a geo-puzzle. I could have been First to Find on that one but a twenty-five mile round trip? I wrote up some CPD, and then marked a trainee’s work. I’ve offered to help out my assessing the scripts of people going for the IBMS specialist portfolio in haematology. It’s something I can do…

 

And then I had another little think about the fish tank. Introducing real plants worked wonders with the pond… Would real plants help?

I drove round to Bybrook Barn where there was some bloke trying to buy plants for his aquarium. The assistant chap announced which aquatic plants were worth having, and which would be dead in a week as they were really house plants. After ten minutes waiting, the chap in the queue in front of me was done and the assistant immediately turned to the young lady who had just walked in. With legs all the way up to her bum I suppose I would turn to her rather than me… as I walked out I remarked to the manager-type (who had watched the entire performance) that I would take my money to Dobbies. He asked if he could help; I told him that he could have done ten minutes previously.

I went to Dobbies where a really helpful chap sold me three bunches of elodea densa. I asked him about water snails – all the ones they had were tropical ones.

 

I came home, put the plants into the tank and made us both a cuppa. I had a look on Amazon. Had I looked there earlier I could have got my tank plants for a third of the price. I could get some snails delivered tomorrow – if only I know which ones I should get.

I posted up today’s instalment of the Advent adventure, and tuned in to chess dot com which gave me a lesson on hidden attacks (which meant absolutely nothing to me at all), then I had a go at chess puzzles.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up a particularly good cauliflower cheese for dinner and we scoffed it whilst watching all sorts of stuff on the telly… and watching the fish tank too. The goldfish seem to be eating the new live plants…

 

 

18 December 2025 (Thursday) - Elhampark Woods

 

 

I woke up shivering in the small hours because an alliance of “er indoors TM” and the dogs had captured all of the duvet. As I was awake I headed to the loo and tripped over most of the bedding which was on the floor. Once I’d done my thing I reorganized the bed.

 

Over brekkie Morgan and Pogo had a minor quarrel. It sounded quite vicious, but stopped as quickly as it started. What was that all about?

As I scoffed toast I referee-ed a minor squabble on the Upstairs Downstairs. Someone wasn’t happy that someone else had posted something about what one of the characters had done in another show. It wasn’t offensive, or irrelevant, but some people really do want to argue about anything.

And there was talk about how the local Reform UK county council wants to appoint “political assistants” who will advise on party political matters and promote those policies to the public… for an annual salary of more than what I get. To be fair to Reform UK they’ve suggested that all the parties at the council get a bit of the pie, but bearing in mind that they got into power on the promise of cutting waste they seem to be quite good at generating waste.

 

Despite the drizzle I took the dogs out. As I drove “In Our Time” was on the radio and was talking about Charles Dickens. It was rather interesting; I found myself thinking back to my time at school when we read some of his books for English Literature “O” level when Mr Delaney seemed to do his level best to kill the books stone dead. I’m sure that wasn’t his intention…

We went to Elhampark Wood for our walk today. It wasn’t the best of places to walk in that, like Longbeech Woods (near Charing), most of the paths are straight lines going from the road, and so it is difficult to make a circular walk which allows the dogs to be off the leads the whole time. But we had a decent walk really. The dogs seemed to enjoy it, and no one ran off or got into mischief. Bailey rolled in fox muck, but that is a given, isn’t it?

Our main reason for trying somewhere new today was that a new geocache had gone live there three days ago. I mentioned that I’d solved the puzzle yesterday but had decided against chasing the FTF… This morning as I scoffed toast I’d seen that it was still not found but had three watchers. Had people had a go and not logged DNFs?

I spent ten minutes searching… and gave up.

We had our dog walk, and on the way back to the car as we were walking past I spent another ten minutes to no avail. As we walked away I saw the tree where I would have hidden a cache. And there it was… My phone made the co-ords fifty feet out, but to be honest my phone isn’t the most accurate.

I took co-ords and posted them to the chap who’d hidden the thing, but I was First One to Find It… and that’s always worth having. The trouble is I’ve now started another FTF streak. I wonder how long this one will last.

 

As we drove home “The Infinite Monkey Cage” was on the radio talking about the Dunbar Number; which is “a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships”. Or in English “the number of people you would not feel embarrassed about joining uninvited for a drink if you happened to bump into them in a bar”. It’s supposedly about a hundred and fifty, and apparently that is the average amount of Facebook friends that anyone has.

I’ve got over six hundred…

 

We got home just as the rain started with a vengeance. The drizzle that was drizzling as we left home had soon stopped. We’d had a dry walk, and had been lucky with the timing

The dogs had a bath. Muddy bellies and poo-ey backs all got sorted. The dogs were soon asleep and I made us both a cuppa.

I did a little more marking of trainee work, I Munzed and Wordled, fixed the hole in my pocket, read my Kindle for a bit and had a little sleep.

 

I put some laundry in, wrote a reference for a colleague with whom I used to work, and thought about water snails. The fish seem to have stopped eating the plants; maybe some snails will clear up the algae.

I’ve got to go to work tomorrow…

 

 

19 December 2025 (Friday) - A Day At Work

 

 

I had a relatively early night last night and got an hour’s sleep before “er indoors TM” and the dogs came up. There was a minor squabble with the dogs, then just as everyone was getting settled someone trod on Bailey.

I then saw every twenty minutes from then on. I gave up trying to sleep at half past four, got up, made toast and watched an episode of “This is England”. It was a Christmas one, and was thoroughly depressing.

 

I had a little look at the Internet. It was still there. Nothing much had happened overnight… or by six o’clock anyway. But I was slightly surprised. Usually every time I look up anything on the Internet I am then inundated with adverts for whatever it was. Infinity tables, Lego, DVD boxed sets… I was expecting endless adverts for fish tank plants and snails, but nothing.

I Munzed. I wordled from “short” through “hairy” to getting it with “myrrh” on the third go. But, to be honest, what other words have a y in them but not at the end?

I opened my Advent Calendar and got ready for work.

 

I got into my car and sat and waited for the bin lorry to get out of the way so that I could drive off... and the very second it moved a few yards up the road, some idiot drove his car to where the bin lorry had been. He then sat and glared at me as though it was my fault that the bin lorry was blocking the road. I smiled sweetly as I watched this chap's blood pressure go through the roof. He clearly wasn't happy about having to wait for the bin lorry to get out of the way.

 

I drove up the motorway through the Operation Brock stupidity. There's talking of moving Operation Brock to the bit of the motorway between Ashford and Folkestone.  That would suit me just fine... all the time I am going to work and not going to Folkestone.

 

As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how the EU is going to lend the Ukrainian government ninety billion Euros. I say "lend" - apparently no money will be repaid until the Ukrainian government gets reparations from the invading Russians... that ain't going to happen, is it? Apparently the Europeans weren't brave enough to give the Ukrainians the two hundred billion Euros of Russian assets that they've frozen. I can't say I blame them.  I must admit that if I were Mr. Putin I'd be seeing this European funding of the war against him as tantamount to a declaration of war in itself.  

 

I drove up to Sainsburys to get some lunch and some supplies. I was rather surprised to smell "funny fags" as I got out of the car. For all that it is supposedly still illegal, I'm smelling the stuff pretty much everywhere I go.

 

I got to work. I did my bit. Bearing in mind how wet it had been for much of yesterday I looked out of the window and sulked. In between working I did my e-learning. I learned about CPR...  apparently if you are trying to resuscitate "a person with breasts" you are allowed to touch "the breasts" whilst performing chest compressions.  One lives and learns. I must admit that if someone was about to croak, allegations about goosing up the jubbllies would be rather lower down the list of concerns than having them croaking. Also I thought everyone had breasts; just some people's (women's) were a tad jubblier than others (men's), but what do I know. 

 

With work worked I came home through Operation Brock again. Once home as a special treat we had KFC for tea. Their Gravy Box was rather good, and only (!) eight hundred calories.

 

I’ve spent much of today thinking about an old friend. I first met Phil at primary school when I was five years old. We went through school together, we were in the Boys Brigade together. In my Advent Calendar today I had Frosty the Snowman. Whenever it snowed he would sing his song about Frosty the Snowman:

 

“Frosty the Snowman

Lost his left ball in a fight

Then by a strange coincidence

The same happened to the right

 

Frosty the Snowman

A happy little soul

Give the f…er any lip 

He’ll kick you up the a… hole”

 

He would sing this, barely pausing for breath, for three miles through the snow on our way to school, and for three miles through the snow on the way home after.

He moved to Sweden about forty years ago. There’s a lot of snow there, and presumably lots of snowmen.

 

 

20 December 2025 (Saturday) - Dog Club, Camber Castle, Games Night

 

 

Yesterday I mentioned about the bad night I’d had previously, and so it was hardly surprising that I spent three hours fast asleep on the sofa yesterday evening. And so having had some sleep I lay awake for most of the night (again). 

I eventually gave up trying to sleep, got up, made toast and watched an episode of “The Young Ones” then had a little look at the Internet. It was still there, and was the same as ever. For the last few weeks my Facebook feed has been filled with geometric puzzles based on Pythagoras’s theorem, and idiotically simplistic questions being posted to work-related groups. Yesterday I made a pointed reply to one such question suggesting that acute leukaemia *wasn’t* best treated with ointment, and followed it with” FFS”. That comment had garnered quite a few “likes” overnight.

Steve was on the radio – he’d got a new jingle with goats singing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” – it was rather good. I Munzed, and Wordled my way from “ghost” to “white” via “thank” and “chute”. The “Guess the Lyrics” competition came on the radio – “It’s an occupation, we’re a dancing nation, we keep the pressure on every night”. No? – I had no idea either. It was “Respectable” by Mel and Kim.

 

Being Saturday we drove round to Repton where we had a rather chilly Dog Club. But despite it being the last weekend before Christmas we had a dozen dogs along, and a great time was had by all.

From Dog Club we drove off towards Winchelsea Beach. As we drove Steve was doing the Mystery Year competition on the radio. Jockey Harvey Smith giving the judges the V-sign and Spaghetti Junction opening. It wasn’t 1973 like I thought it was. It was 1971, and Benny Hill had the Christmas No 1.

 

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been collecting Origami Animals by finding particular geocaches, and having found thirteen out of fourteen we had only one left to find. There was a qualifying geocache at Camber Castle so parking up at Winchelsea Beach would give us a nice dog walk out to it.

We parked up at a layby on the coast road and had a rather good little (three or so miles) walk along quiet lanes and footpaths across the Rye Harbour nature reserve. It was a shame there was quite so much cow dung everywhere, but you can’t have everything.

We soon found the geocache we were looking for – it was near a memorial stone for a young lad who’d died during the war. And finding it have us an origami crane and an e-souvenir for finding a geocache over the winter solstice.

I took a few photos as we walked.

 

We came home via the farm shop where we got some sausage rolls for lunch and some stout for later, then came home. The dogs got scrubbed, as did our trousers. And half a dozen tennis balls. There’s quite a collection of filthy tennis balls at the Dog Club field. More and more of the dogs are turning their noses up at the grubby ones and are squabbling over the one clean one I bring along. So I harvested some grubby tennis balls, brought them home and chucked them in the washing machine with our trousers.

We scoffed the sausage rolls then I had a little think about today’s Advent story, hung out the washing and fell asleep.

 

I woke to the sound of someone at the door. Martin had called round. We had a cuppa and put the world to rights, then I got out the hoover and voomed round with it. You’d be amazed how much muck it generated. I blame the dogs.

 

Chris arrived with the big Infinity table, and Steve and Sarah soon followed. We had a rather good evening and I won some of the games. Result !!

 

 

21 December 2025 (Sunday) - Family Meal

 

 

It was something of a late night last night. I got four hours sleep then woke for a tiddle in the small hours… and that was it for sleep for the night. I then lay awake from four more hours before finally giving up and getting up.

 

I made toast and had my usual rummage round the Internet. There was some seriously nasty bickering about the Operation Brock debacle between supporters of the Labour and Reform UK parties, and this was attracting comments from people who clearly didn’t understand what was going on. All were delighting in showing their complete ignorance. The local Labour MP said that he was trying to come to a long-term answer to the entire Operation Brock thing. The local Reform UK county councillor claimed that the Labour chap was blaming the county council (he wasn’t), and so the squabble gathered momentum rather akin to children in a playground shouting “fight, fight, fight”.

I seriously despair for the future – we have a political system which elects leaders on the whim of a majority who simply don’t understand what they’ve voted in. I’m not saying that the county council are good or bad, just that they have been elected by a load of people who have absolutely no understanding of what the policies and issues are.

In this instance Operation Brock is activated and shut down by the Kent Resilience Forum. This is a rather large group consisting of pretty much anyone who wants to get involved. But the main protagonists are Kent County Council, Kent Police and Kent and Medway Fire and Rescue service… and who is it that appoints the head honchos of Kent Police and Kent and Medway Fire and Rescue service? Kent County Council.

No one seemed to know this, or care about this piddling detail.

 

I took the dogs round the block for a walk. Time was pressing and we didn’t have long enough for a long walk and the subsequent bath. Half a mile round the block was enough to remind me why I’d rather not take them any distance on the leads. Perhaps I should do more lead practice?

I Munzed and Wordled as I do, and wrote up a little CPD, and had a go at chess dot com.

 

“My Boy TM” and ”Auntie Chel TM” came round, and we all walked round to the Riverside Inn where my brother was waiting for us. We had a good dinner there… but it wasn’t cheap. We all skipped the dessert course and came home (through the rain) to have puddings at home. We scoffed far too much puddings, shifted a lot more beer, and played on the Infinity Table for a couple of hours until everyone had to go.

And then as it was out, we played a few games on it, and played a couple of games across the Internet with Chris. It was a shame that the thing kept stopping, but that’s the Internet for you…

 

And today is the solstice. The shortest day. The days start getting longer now. I see that as a good thing…

 

 

22 December 2025 (Monday) - Not At Work

 

 

I was asleep for nine hours last night. That was something of a result.

I made toast as I do… and somehow stuck both slices in the same slot of the toaster so I ended up with two bits of toast each with one burnt side and one uncooked bread side. I scoffed it anyway.

As I scoffed I peered into the Internet. More and more people are now off work for the holidays. Quite a few have compulsory holiday at this time of year as their firms shut down. Quite a few were rather resentful about it, and understandably so. With only about eight hours of daylight and that being cold (at best) it is a rather crap time of year to have a holiday.

I checked my emails. Someone had been round my geocaches in Kings Wood and had reported two of them to be missing, so that immediately planned our morning walk.

I had a quick Munz, and as “er indoors TM” did Dog Brekkie I got ready for out walk.

 

As we drove there was some utter drivel on the radio about poetry. Apparently you could get all sorts of insights into the writer’s mind from the poems… I was reminded of our old English teacher who spouted the same sort of tosh and made amazing leaps of (so-called) logic. I can remember him being adamant that it was far better to call a peacock a “blue umbrella” rather than a peacock, and I can remember him being incredibly angry when he’d waxed loquacious about the mother and baby bond forged from their blood mixing only to be told about what the placenta does.

 

We got to the woods and went for a little stroll. It started well or badly (depending on your personal perspective) as a young lady jogged by. With leggings two sizes to small and a bra that almost (but not quite) covered her jubblies, she might as well have run round in the nip.

Our route followed the southern edge of the woods today (as that’s where the supposedly missing geocaches were). Along that edge of the woods is a tall fence that has little spaces underneath that dogs could get through, and about half a mile the other side of that fence was continuous squawking of pheasants and continuous gunshots. There was clearly a hunting party going on, and the dogs were going mad trying to get to the pheasants. I was glad when our route turned away from the fence.

We saw a deer (just one). Being the start of the holidays we saw quite a few people taking their dogs out because it was holidays. Holiday dog walkers are a pain in the glass. They are utterly oblivious to the world around them until I get to within five yards of them. By then their dog is quite happy sniffing and playing with my pack, but they still go absolutely berserk and demand all dogs go on to the leads but are utterly unable to explain why. We had this twice today.

We’d had reports that two geocaches were missing; I couldn’t find them so I put new ones out.

It was only a shame that I didn’t realise that my “Map My Walk” app had stopped about ten yards after I’d started it…

 

We came home where seriously muddy bellies were hosed in the bath. This time of year the dogs get a bath after pretty much every walk. I know several people who say their dogs hardly ever get a bath. They must be ripe.

I made up both a cuppa, put the first load of washing in to scrub, opened the Advent Calendar, then looked at Wordle. Starting with “bloke” I then went through “round” and “conic” to get “conch” on the fourth attempt.

I had a go at chess dot com and didn’t do very well.

I wrote up some CPD, and made a start on next year’s birthday video before hanging out the first load of laundry and starting on the next..

 

I spent the afternoon slobbing on the sofa watching episodes of “Four In A Bed”. The first place visited was a rather average B&B. The second was a massively overpriced place which catered to people who like paying over the odds. The third place was a grim pub up north run by a chap who delighted in telling everyone else how bad they were, and took great offence whenever anyone found fault with his place (and there was a lot of fault to find), and the fourth place was a rather grubby cottage with bedrooms run as a bit of a hobby by a pair of retired teachers. As is always the case the first place to go on won as being first none of the contestants had had time to fall out.

 

I followed this with The Two Ronnies Christmas Special from yonks ago, the Carry On Christmas special and Top of the Pops 1978. All were sadly rather lame; none had stood the test of time.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up bacon and egg rolls which we scoffed whilst watching the final of “Game of Wool”. I could do knitting…

I’ve got to go to work tomorrow…

 

 

23 December 2025 (Tuesday) - Early Shift

 

 

I had an early(ish) night last night, but with an alarm set the insomnia returned with a vengeance. I woke feeling full of energy and raring to go at two minutes past midnight then lay awake for hours. I eventually gave up trying to sleep as I watched the clock pass four.

I got up, made toast (properly this morning) and watched an episode of “This is England 90”, then sparked up the lap-top and as I peered into Facebook this morning I despaired. I don’t remember Apollo 11 and the first Moon landing, but I do remember the disaster hitting Apollo 13. I remember the next four Moon landings, and Skylab going up. I remember the Apollo and Soyuz docking in orbit. I remember the Channel Tunnel being dug, the introduction of mobile phones…When I was younger there were some momentous things going on. The future looked so bright and was full of possibilities. But look how it turned out. The world is full of half-wits. So many people really do still think the world is flat. Add to that the half-witted vaccine deniers, crackpot religions… this isn’t the future I was expecting.

 

Two Facebook friends were having birthdays today so I sent birthday wishes. One was an old mate I’ve known for over fifty years, the other… I think I might have worked with him at some point. To be honest I have no idea who he is. I suppose I should find out if I actually know him. Periodically I have a look through my Facebook friends list. There’s several people on there who I have no idea who they are. There’s one chap on there who often comments on what I post as though he is my best mate… I must have known the chap at some point. But I’m hopeless with people like that. It wasn’t that long ago that I met some chap in the town centre who said he remembered me as I was the scout leader with the snakes… I clearly made an impression on him as it’s fifteen years since I was a scout leader and twenty years since I had a snake. I wonder who he was.

 

It was dark as I left home - over an hour before sunrise, but still the birds were singing like things possessed.

I drove off up the motorway; I was glad to see that the "Operation Brock" stupidity had been taken down, but having been in place it had cost the taxpayer (i.e. me) a quarter of a million quid. 

The motorway was quiet this morning at quarter past six; quieter than it often is. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how the American Navy is kitting itself out with a new type of battleship which will be called "Trump class".

I know he's not my president, but it bothers me that someone who has been elected to the most powerful position in the world doesn't seem to realise just how much the rest of the world is laughing at him.

 

I got some petrol - again my Nectar voucher thing got turned down. They always seem to get turned down. And from getting petrol I went into the Aylesford Sainsburys. Usually at half past six there may be two or three other customers. It was rammed this morning. The pre-Christmas panic had set it. But clearly this was why the motorway had been so quiet; everyone was in Sainsbury's.

 

I went in to work and did my bit. At lunchtime a colleague told me about the Komoot app. It took a while to download, but it might be good for finding some dog walks.

 

And with my bit done I came home. “er indoors TM” went off delivering Christmas pressies. I put laundry in to scrub and more “This is England 90” on the telly and cracked on with the ironing until “er indoors TM” came home with KFC.

 

I’ve got another early start tomorrow… hopefully not *quite* so early…

 

 

24 December 2025 (Wednesday) - Christmas Eve

 

 

I managed a bit more sleep last night but was still wide awake at three o’clock. I gave it an hour before giving up, getting up and watching a bit of telly over an early brekkie.

I watched an episode of “The Young Ones”, then with a bit of time on my hands I had a look at the monthly accounts. They could be a whole lot better… but they could also be a whole lot worse. Perhaps I worry too much about money? After all, what is it for if not to squander foolishly?

 

It was very dark as I left home this morning. Not so nice next door had parked her car ridiculously close to mine, which made me chuckle. Bearing in mind  the obvious difficulty she has when moving her car about you'd have thought she'd have left a decent amount of space, wouldn't you?

I didn't fancy the scrum at Sainsbury's this morning so I  popped in to the co-op where I got pretty much the same lunch as Sainsbury's do, but twenty pence cheaper. It pays to shop about. I had hoped to get a coronation chicken sandwich as earlier in the year the chap behind the counter had adamantly assured me that they only do those at Christmas, but either they had sold out or he was talking rubbish. Either way I roughed it with a cheese and ham sandwich. It wasn't the same.

As I paid, the co op staff were loudly discussing the price of pouches of tobacco. Apparently the cheapest place to get the stuff locally is from Deliveroo. I always thought they just delivered the stuff; I didn't think they sourced it. Perhaps the delivery driver is flogging hooky stuff as a sideline?

 

As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the radio were talking about how the King has recorded his fourth Christmas speech. Four... the late Queen died the day after my father died, so this will be my fourth Christmas as an orphan. For all that the drive to Hastings is something of a pain in the glass, I'd like to go see my mum and dad for Christmas again.

 

And so to work. A colleague had made some cookies and cakes for today, and one of the bosses had brought in some sweeties too. It was good to get fed. Back in the day there used to be loads of stuff brought in over the festive period, and this was the first I'd seen this year (not that I show up much these days). When I was manager I used to bring in a tub of sweeties every day in December. I've often said that in retrospect I think I did being a manager wrongly.

Mind you I probably overdid the sweeties; I had something of a bellyache for most of the day today. And it was a surprisingly busy day. 

 

I can distinctly remember the first ever Christmas Eve I worked… forty-four years ago in 1981. Things were very different back then. The old Royal East Sussex Hospital probably had about a hundred and fifty beds, and back in the day the hospital effectively closed for Christmas with pretty much every patient that could possibly be sent home going home for Christmas. Maybe a dozen remained over the holiday. No outpatients or GP patients had blood samples taken. And consequently our day’s work was done by eleven o’clock. We all set off to the pub at quarter to twelve (leaving the boss running the show) and we drank ourselves silly until the boss came down the pub at about two o’clock having been relieved by the night shift (who had come in shortly after two o’clock). The boss got more beers in, and after a few more drinks we all suddenly felt sorry for the poor night shift person on their own so we all went back to help them. I say “help them”; there was nothing to help them with, so having made our offer of help we all sat in the reception area drinking whiskey until none was left. We then all staggered to the bus station; a five minute walk which took us half an hour, and we then all made our various ways home on the bus. Happy days.

 

I can remember Christmas Eves in the mid-nineties. Back then we got the day off after a night shift… not that there was much to do at night back then. With a dedicated bedroom for us in the nurses home we’d be asleep by one o’clock and be called out if needed. We weren’t needed much back then, and call-outs lasted half an hour at most. Getting up more than twice was pretty much unheard of. Consequently we wouldn’t be needing to spend the day after a night shift fast asleep like we do these days.

I used to do the night of December 23rd so that I would be off on Christmas Eve. “er indoors TM”,  “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” and “My Boy TM” would already be at my mum’s house in Hastings. I’d get the mid-morning train on Christmas Eve and my brother would meet me as the train pulled into Hastings. We’d stage an epic booze-up, then go to Sainsbury’s for the last ten minutes that they were opened to snap up bargains. I say “bargains”; we’d just buy reduced tat. The store staff would announce random reductions and the masses would fight for stuff they would never otherwise buy.

My mum never seemed to want the bargains we took home for her…

Fast forward to today… Which was just like any other day at work…

 

And I’ve got to work tomorrow as well… 

 

 

25 December 2025 (Thursday) - Christmas Day

 

 

I slept through till five o’clock this morning which was something of a result compared to the last two days. I got up and made a cuppa; I skipped toast. Last night I’d scoffed some old frozen curry I’d found in the freezer and it wasn’t sitting well this morning. I watched an episode of “The Young Ones” then had a little look at the Internet.

There were disappointingly few photos of families in Christmas pyjamas. Someone was trying to spam the local geocaching Facebook page. They didn’t succeed. And there was an amazing argument taking place on a Facebook page about the 1970s. Someone had posted a photos of the group Slade with their cars. All of them had a Rolls Royce. Back then having a Rolls Royce was a sign of success. But there was loads of bitterness being vented by people who didn’t have a Rolls Royce. You’d think people would have had better things to be doing at half past six on a Christmas morning, wouldn’t you?

I Munzed and captured two radius boosters. I wonder how they work. And I nearly failed Wordle. Starting with “group” I finally got “prism” on the last attempt.

 

Trying to not wake anyone I got ready for work. I’ve only had one of the last twelve Christmases off work. I’ve worked on nine of the last twelve Christmas Days, one Boxing Day and pretty much all the non-weekend Christmas Eves.

 

I set off to work. Bearing in mind it was before seven o'clock on Christmas Day there was a lot of traffic on the roads. I can remember working the night of Christmas Eve in 1985 and my Dad picking me up from work Christmas morning. On the drive from Ashford to Hastings we saw perhaps a dozen cars back then.

As I drove I listened to the morning service from Leeds Cathedral. Billed as carols and lessons, it was dreadful howling and platitudes. I soon gave up with it and sang along to Ivor Biggun instead.

 

I got to work a little early and treated myself to the cooked breakfast. It was OK... nothing special, but then (sadly) it rarely is. The dinners in the works canteen are really good, but the brekkies leave a little to be desired.

I got on with work. Back in the day Christmas used to be a time for dire emergencies only; this morning wasn't unlike a routine weekend day. The work was constant. One thing made me sit up and take notice though. One of the tests we do is to measure the amount of vitamin B12 in a patient's blood When I first started in 1981 we would save these tests up and un a batch of maybe thirty tests once a week (or less often) as it as a specialized and unusual test. Over the holidays the very few we might have had would have been stockpiled and tested in the New Year. 

This morning I checked and authorised the results of forty such tests that had been done overnight last night on Christmas Eve. 

 

With work worked I came home down a motorway which was far busier that you might expect. Being at a bit of a loose end Chris came round and we had a rather good bit of dinner, then spent a while playing on various games consoles as the day got more and more vague…

 

 

26 December 2025 (Friday) - Boxing Day

 

 

I woke to find it was five o’clock. That was over four hours asleep which was something of a result. I got up, went to the loo and spent quite a while in there…

I went back to bed where after a few minutes I managed to shift enough dogs to get myself some bed space, and I went back to sleep until “er indoors TM” ‘s alarm went off at half past seven. And then again five minutes later. The universe conspires to not let me sleep.

 

I got up and spent a few more minutes farting before making toast and peering into the internet. Surprisingly few people had posted much about their Christmases, which was a shame. Being a nosey person I like to see what’s going on. But there was one minor disaster; our little dog-friend Smudge had been taken poorly and had been in the vet’s at half past one this morning.

 

We got the dogs onto their leads and drove up to Kings Wood for a little walk. I rarely (if ever) go there at the weekends, and effectively today was a weekend day. The place was heaving with people and dogs who only get out once a week and they can be hard work. There are those who take the phrase “a walk in the woods”  literally and blunder through the undergrowth. There are those who march along clinging to their dog’s collar seemingly terrified that the dog might enjoy itself. Where we rarely see more than three or for other people, today we saw dozens.

I saw a deer; “er indoors TM” scared it off as she shouted at Treacle for eating horse poo.

 

We came home where the dogs had a scrub; they’d all been rolling in poo (presumably fox). We had a cuppa and cracked open the shortbread. Very nice.

 

We settled the dogs and went out for the afternoon. I don’t like leaving them, but sometimes it has to be done. We had a rather good afternoon playing cards, scoffing far too much and having a few beers.

We’d left the dogs for three hours and came home to find they’d escaped the dog-proofing which was supposed to keep them contained in the kitchen and they were running riot in the living room. I have this theory that if they can’t look out the front window they won’t see things to bark at, but fundamental to that theory is keeping them away from the front window.

 

We had a little pressie-opening session. I’ve done alright. Sweeties, bottles of plonk, port and amaretto. Lego, DVDs, new pants and a rather sweet gnome tree ornament.

We had a very good plate of leftovers for dinner and spent the evening playing “Ticket to Ride” on the Infinity Table. I got my highest score ever, and then we played the UK version and it’s got another level of rules and cards and game-playing…

 

I’ve got such a belly ache…

 

 

27 December 2025 (Saturday) - A Birthday

 

 

I slept reasonably well if not for a particularly vivid dream in which I was trying to get along the south coast by train and finding my journey was constantly hampered by the lack of concessions and propellors. I blame the UK “Ticket to Ride” game we were playing last night.

I made toast and peered into the Internet. Again not much had happened overnight. There were a few people ranting about fox hunting. Whilst it is illegal to hunt foxes with packs of dogs, until recently it has been quite legal to charge round the countryside with packs of dogs supposedly following a pre-laid scent trail and to then act surprised when the dogs “accidentally” catch a fox and rip it to pieces. The law has changed. There are those who feel that it is their god-given right to charge round the countryside and if a fox gets cruelly slaughtered then that’s a shame. There are those who see this for the wanton cruelty that it is and are concerned that the police will continue to refuse to enforce the law. Either way the poor fox remains the loser.

 

I Munzed, then got ready for the morning. As we fiddled about, Steve’s new stand-in was on the radio. He wasn’t the same, but this chap was streets ahead of the previous stand-in.

We drove round to Repton and Dog Club. Admittedly it was cold and it was the Christmas weekend, but I was rather disappointed that there was only one other person (and two other dogs) along. But we had a good time chatting and playing fetch and chase and scoffing treats.

Just as we were leaving so Purdy arrived. I got the distinct impression that Purdy’s mum had made a point of arriving very late to prove a point to her small daughter who had apparently taken a ridiculously long time to get her arse in gear this morning. Some people do take ages in the morning. One thing I’ve learned at camping holidays and taking cubs and scouts away is that not many people can wake up and immediately get on with life like I seem to do. Some people really do seem to need up to an hour to wake up, and they walk round in a trance in the mornings, seeming to be trying to stay asleep even though they are clearly up.

 

We came home, and seeing it was a tad nippy outside we had something of a lazy day. I slobbed on the sofa reading my Kindle for a bit, then we watched a DVD. We’ve seen “The Lady In The Van” before, but I can’t say that I remembered much (if anything) of it. It was rather good.

As I watched I scoffed most of a tub of Cadbury’s Heroes and gave myself a belly ache.

 

We scoffed the last of the leftover Christmas dinner, and then set about the Infinity Table again. Yesterday we played “Ticket to Ride” on the UK maps, and this evening we tried the Europe maps. As well as ferries, this one has tunnels. As we played we set about the port and cheese. I didn’t have *too* much port (only about a third of a bottle) but the half a pound of cheese was arguably a tad keen. It did nothing for the belly ache, and bearing in mind last night’s vivid dreams that might have been a mistake.

 

Oh – and today is a birthday. Our little mis-matched twins are four today. Not that they were any the wiser…

 

 

28 December 2025 (Sunday) - Beckley Woods

 

 

I slept well… again apart from rather vivid dreams which gain might well be down to the “Ticket to Ride” game. Last night I found myself in a rather dubious Eastern European prison for daring to use public transport.

 

I made toast and had a little look at the Internet. There were again endless political rants. As time goes by it is becoming apparent that the biggest problem our government has is the Prime Minister himself. I’m not saying he’s bad. His problem is that he is neither a showman nor an entertainer. Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Donald Trump all entertain the masses. Sir Kier is just dull. If he were to smile a bit and throw in a few jokes, his popularity would soar.

I also saw that yesterday some old friends had gone to an afternoon of live Irish folk music. One of them has had a rough time lately; I was glad he’d had a good time. But personally I can’t imagine much worse than an afternoon of live Irish folk music. Each to their own, I suppose.

 

We got ourselves and the dogs organised and set off for a little adventure. A week ago a new series of geocaches had gone live near Beckley and all of them qualified for the latest series of geocaching Treasures, so we thought that might be today’s walk. It was a shame that the sat-nav took us along a rather stupid route through Rye when it would have been quicker to go through Tenterden, but that’s sat nav for you. We got there eventually.

 

We had a very good stroll through woods I think I used to walk some fifty years ago. Some kids used to play football in school games, some played hockey, some played rugby. I was in the group that went for country walks.

Despite it being mid-winter there wasn’t too much mud, and we saw buzzards and robins. We covered just under three miles in just over two hours and would have got round much quicker had the dogs not chased off on missions of their own… three times. When we are in Kings Wood the dogs are as good as gold. When we go somewhere new so they play up. Bailey especially.

Geocache-wise it was an excellent walk with decent sized caches with very good co-ordinates. There was one point where the instructions would have helped us if they’d said to backtrack, but they didn’t so I stomped a straight line through the woods. It was a shame that two of the caches were already damaged. The bag containing one had split,  and someone had been heavy-handed with a 3-d printed Yule Log and snapped it. So we sent a message to the friend who’d hidden it to tell them. Normally I’m only too happy to repair and replace as I go round, but these two needed rather specialized replacements.

We stopped off on the way home to pick up a cache on the way home… and that one was rather special too. Based on a local trig point it was a 3-d printed model in the shape of a trig point.

I took a few photos as we walked.

 

We came home. We decided against stopping off at either of the tap rooms we were passing. We had a cuppa and a cheese roll instead and saved thirty quid.

I spent an hour or so slobbing on the sofa reding my Kindle, then we had a light tea of pizza and chips which we scoffed whilst watching an episode of “Amandaland”; a spin-off of “Motherland” which I loved. How did I miss this spin-off.

And then we played more “Ticket to Ride” in which I got a shade too ambitious.

 

Oh – and today would have been my mum’s ninetieth birthday…

 

 

29 December 2025 (Monday) - Dog Walk, EarthCache

 

 

Is it so unreasonable to hope for a decent night’s kip? “er indoors TM” took the dogs for a tiddle in the small hours and they all made enough noise to wake the dead. Once I finally nodded off again so the bin men came up the road. They could probably have been noisier if they’d tried, but it would have taken some doing. I eventually got back to sleep only to be woken from a blood-curdling scream from Bailey as one of the other dogs trod on her.

 

I gave up trying to sleep at eight o’clock, got up and made toast. I had my usual look at the Internet.

Yesterday we walked round Beckley Woods. I’m sure I walked round there many years ago. Back in my schooldays one afternoon a week was devoted to sports. We were divided into five sets with the really sporty types being in Set One… I was in Set Five, and after a while it became apparent that there were two distinct types in Set Five. Those who liked sports but were rubbish at it, and those with no interest in sport whatsoever. Together with the rest of the apathetic I was demoted to Set Six and the Latin teacher would take us for walks in the countryside. The boss P.E. teacher clearly saw this as a punishment for not being sporty but I loved it. I can remember some of the routes we took. I can remember walking in Coghurst Woods and over the Firehills as that was where I would play as a child. But we would mostly walk round parts of Sussex countryside that at the time I didn’t know. It would be lovely to know the old routes; if only for somewhere different to take the dogs. Last night I asked on the Facebook page for the school’s old boys to see if anyone remembered the exact routes. Several people had vague ideas, but no one seemed to know exactly where we went.

My cousin was in Paris having a little holiday; I quite liked seeing her photos.

 

We got the dogs organised and went up to the woods. “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” had been visiting friends and so Pogo joined us for our morning walk. We went up to Kings Wood where he screamed at quite a few of the normal people. I wish he wouldn’t do that. But Pogo seemed to like the walk; Bailey certainly likes him being along – she gets particularly gobby with other dogs when in Pogo’s company as she knows he’s got her back.

Being between Christmas and the New Year loads of people were off work, and there were loads of people in the woods… I prefer it when it is quieter up there.

 

After four and a half miles we were back at the car. We came home, Munzed and had a go at Wordle. “Along” gave me nothing at all. “Wreck” gave me the “r”. And then I was stuck. Eventually I tried “brush” which turned out to be a step in the right direction. “Druid” got me a bit closer… it was “fruit”. Obvious when you know the answer.

I had a message from the vet telling me it was time for flea and worm treatments so I ordered some. I can collect those tomorrow. The vet’s are odd… if you just walk in and ask for the flea and worm stuff they hand it over there and them. If you phone and ask, they want a whole day’s heads-up to sort it.

 

I then spent the afternoon sitting on the sofa trying to create an Earthcache. A couple of weeks ago we went to Camber Castle. It was a rather interesting place. Putting a geocache there would just be arse-ache for having to go to do maintenance, but I had this plan that I might put an Earthcache based on the geology of the rocks out of which the castle is made…

It kept me quiet for the afternoon… I suspect the geo-feds will find something wrong. The geo-feds who look after the Earthcaches can be difficult, but here’s hoping.

 

I finished up my birthday video for next year. I ordered some snails which (hopefully) will clean up the fish tank. I had a go at chess dot com.

“er indoors TM” took “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” and Pogo home. I slobbed on the sofa watching episodes of “Red Dwarf” until “er indoors TM” came home with pizza which we scoffed whilst watching another episode of “Amandaland”.

 

And I’ll end today with a whinge that I have done to death many times before… At the moment there’s a lot of people on social media banging on about it being that time of year when one day blends into another and you have no idea what day it is… I know what day it is. It’s Day Three of my Christmas break (and I’m part-time) and I’m back at work tomorrow…

 

 

30 December 2025 (Tuesday) - Satay Sticks, Toilet Ghosts

 

 

I slept through till half past four which, bearing in mind I had an alarm set, wasn’t bad at all. I was wide awake, so I got up, made toast and watched an episode of “The Young Ones”. As I watched I sorted the undercrackers which I’d washed and dried last night. “er indoors TM” sorts dinner, I sort the undercrackers. It suits me just fine.

 

I had a look at the internet to see if I’d missed much. I hadn’t really. There was a bit of a squabble on one of the Facebook pages I follow which is about the Poldark books. Someone claiming to be the biggest fan of the series had never actually read any of the books, but had the TV show on DVD…

I sent birthday wishes to my brother – he was the first one to get next year’s birthday video. I wonder if the card we posted yesterday arrived.

I Munzed, and got ready for work. Some people don’t go back for another week… To be honest I’d rather have time off work when it suits me, not when it is cold and it is dark by mid-afternoon.

 

I set off to work through the rain. The weather forecast had been for a dry morning. Ho hum... I stopped off at the co-op to get lunch. Getting lunch at the co-op is something of an adventure in that if I go to Sainsburys they are far better stocked, and I get what I want and consequently I have the same thing every day (coronation chicken sandwich followed by carrot batons with humous dip). The co-op is never well-stocked at half past six, and so I have to have what they've got, and so I get something different each time. This morning it was a cheese and ham sandwich with chicken satay sticks.

 

I drove up the motorway listening to the morning's business news. The business news always amazes me; I really should formally study economics to understand how it all works. Every time I listen to the business news they talk about the share prices and market confidence and the personality of the head honchos of the various firms. They never (and I seriously mean *never*) talk about the actual quality of the products of the companies that are doing well or going under. What these companies sell would seem to be utterly unconnected to their commercial success.

Take Guinness for example. Type "Is the Guinness company doing well?" into Google and you will see that they are laughing all the way to the bank. However over the last few weeks I've tried about ten different stouts, and Guinness is by far the worst of the bunch.  Don't get me wrong - it's not a bad drop. But pints like the Badger brewery's Master Stoat, Hobgoblin's Dark Stout or ever Sainsburys own Taste the Difference Chocolate Orange stout are far better. I've done blind taste tests on Guinness fans recently (last week) who were very surprised to realise just how poor their preferred drink compares to its competitors. However the makers of those competing stouts are clearly doing something wrong as a far better product clearly doesn't make far better profits.

 

And there was a lot of talk about toilet ghosts which would seem to be a big thing in Japan. Apparently Japanese children regularly bang three times on the door of the third toilet stall from the wall in any public lavatory, and chant “Are you there Hanako-san?"... and desperately hope that no one replies. Because if she answers, Hanako-san will ask them to play and will kill them as part of the game. However if she doesn't answer then the children run the risk of being eaten by a three-headed lizard.

Personally I would keep quiet, but what do I know? Harry Potter never had that problem with Moaning Myrtle.

 

And it would seem that the UK hedgehog population is in serious decline.

 

I went in to the early shift and did my thing. We were far busier than we used to be back in the day between Christmas and the New Year, but still nowhere near as busy as usual. A lot of people really do hold off going to see the doctor when it doesn't suit them. I'm reminded of a GP's biography I once read in which a GP with many years of experience claimed that ninety per cent of the patients who came to him would get better anyway regardless of anything he might do.

 

At lunch break I scoffed what I'd bought earlier. It was rather good. And it was then that I had a message from the geo-feds. I thought there would be issues with setting up an EarthCache at Camber Castle... The first hurdle is that the place is a scheduled ancient monument and as such I will need formal permission from English Heritage. It's rather silly because anyone doing the EarthCache would be doing so as they walked along a public footpath. Loads of people do that every day already and don't need any formal permission, but rules is rules. I've sent the nice people at English Heritage an email. I got an automated reply... I didn't expect to get anything back from them properly until the New Year, but when I came home I had a reply saying that my query had been forwarded to the appropriate department, so that’s a step in the right direction. 

 

I’ve got a sore throat… hope I’m not sickening for something…

 

 

31 December 2025 (Wednesday) - New Year's Eve

 

 

Another rough night. I went to the loo shortly after four o’clock, and then took each dog in turn out. Treacle must have been half asleep when it was her turn; two turds dropped out when she came back in. Have I ever mentioned what delightful creatures dogs can be?

I wasn’t going to get back to sleep after that so I made toast and watched an episode of “The Young Ones” then had a look at the Internet. With less than a day to go, we finally reached our monthly Munzee Clan target. Next month’s Munzee Clan War will be a cause for a squabble. Each month up to ten of us club together to form a clan, and together we have various Munzing to do. The more we Munz, the more in-game rewards we get.

There are various levels for which we can aim in which as well as group challenges, we all have individual targets to reach. Every month everyone regularly achieves all their goals by day fourteen… except one particular player. Every month this one eventually finishes with only hours to spare and doesn’t communicate with anyone at all during the month. And everyone else gets twitchy and worried.

There’s moves to have her hoiked out of the Clan…

 

I set off to work and spent five minutes scraping the ice off of the car. It was a cold one this morning. Flushed with success at yesterday's lunch I went to the co-op again and got more satay sticks, and a chicken salad sandwich.

I then set off up the motorway to work. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how the Eurostar services were resuming. The channel tunnel trains had packed up yesterday with issues with their power. Needless to say everyone who was stranded was kicking off, but as the chap on the radio said, there really isn't any backup to public transport. It was pointed out that the amount of customers who would fill one Eurostar would fill eighteen coaches, and there simply isn't that amount of coaches sitting about just in case they might be needed.

Ironically my cousin had been in Paris over the weekend and had found herself stuck there, and had things to say on Facebook about it.

 

There was also talk about the new Archbishop of Canterbury who will be taking up her post soon. She's only a couple of years older than me, and has already been the country's chief nurse. 

Appointments like this bother me. What possible transferrable skills can a boss nurse have that might be useful to an archbishop? I suspect that (like so many others these days) she is a professional manager whose skill is in bossing around those who actually do the job. I could be doing her a disservice... perhaps I am. But from the country's boss nurse to the country's boss vicar? To do both would be something of a meteoric career.

Interestingly she is the first woman to be Archbishop of Canterbury... and theologians are bending over backwards to gloss over that the bit in the Bible (1 Corinthians 14:34-35) which actually says "Women should remain silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church".

Personally I'm all up for equal rights for all, but when you actually take the time to read it, the Bible isn't. 

Don't take my word for it - go read it for yourself. You’ll be surprised…

 

I got to work and bashed on the door. I'd forgotten to pick up my pass card this morning. Eventually I got let in. I did my bit, and at mid-morning “er indoors TM” sent a message to say that the snails (for the fish tank) that I'd ordered on Amazon had arrived.

Back in the day New Year's Eve would have been an incredibly quiet day... Not any more. Back in the day we would all have been going home at least a couple of hours early. I actually stayed late this evening.

 

I came home and had a look at my new pets. I’d paid for five little snails; I got six. Hopefully they will clean up the fish tank. Time will tell; it always does.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up a rather good bit of scran which we devoured whilst watching another episode of “Motherland” then had a little go on the Infinity Table before joining friends on a New Year’s Zoom meet. Back in the day we always used to spend New Year with Jose and Maria, but over the last few years since lockdown we’ve started having New Year Zoom meets. If nothing else it’s a lot less work for Maria.

 

And that's it for another year. I've lost three stone in weight. I've had a very good holiday in the New Forest. We’ve started a monthly games night which I rather (very much) enjoy. it's not been *all* bad. But a lot of it has been… shall I say “less than ideal”.

I describe this diary as “recording history as I see it” and consequently I can choose not to record the bits I don’t want to dwell on. And so I suspect many of my loyal readers will be surprised to find out that 2025 was something of a pisser.

It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to realise that I’ve not once mentioned my favourite little girl since April 9th when I was rather cryptic. She remains my favourite person. It’s time to say something on the matter…

 

To cut a very long and very painful story short, the state in its infinite wisdom has decreed that she should go for adoption. This was decided in April, and much of the year has been spent unsuccessfully fighting the system.

Obviously I (together with our family and some of the social workers) disagree entirely but I shall gloss over the specifics for fear of finding myself accused of libel. Talking totally hypothetically of course, having seen the British justice system in action I can imagine myself being found guilty in a libel case in which what I have said would have been the actual truth, and in which those who have lied to my face and to others (and have been caught out doing so) would continue to do so with impunity. Talking totally hypothetically of course…

If anyone disagrees with my cynicism, here’s a few examples of British justice. And if you’d like to stand me a pint or two I’ll regale you the stories of two dear friends of mine who both went to prison for a year when they shouldn’t have done. Or the tale of the fraudster who despite being as guilty as sin was let off with a “not guilty” verdict.

British justice, eh…

In the meantime I’ve been told that as a grandparent I have absolutely no right to see my smallest grandchild whatsoever. From here on in I will have “indirect contact” once a year. Which means I shall get a letter on her birthday, and realistically the next time I can hope to see her will be when she comes of age… in April 2040… *if* she wants to see her birth family.

It would seem that I’ve got a better than even chance (about sixty-six per cent) of living till then, but I’ve written her a letter just in case. I shall add to it as time goes by.

I would also make the observation that if you or anyone you know is finding parenting hard, under no circumstances whatsoever would I ever recommend asking for (so-called) professional help.

 

That’s all rather depressing, isn’t it? One of the things that *seriously* boils my piss is when the sententious tell me off for being intolerant because I don’t know what battles others might be fighting… Up till now I’ve avoided getting into a “my life is shittier than yours” argument, but were I to do so I suspect I would win hands-down against most people right now.

Well, that was my battle of the last year. Christmas has been particularly hard, but I shall put my smiley face back on… and move onward and upward.

I don’t do miserable very well. I’ve sulked enough.