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1 February 2022
(Tuesday) - Oh, My Back Hurts
Many years ago (forty-two) when
working as a general dogsbody in the Harbour Restaurant in Hastings' Old Town
I once tried to pick up far too many dirty plates (to carry to the
dishwasher) and tore something in my back. I compounded the injury on my
twenty-eighth birthday by digging my sister-in-law's garden too vigorously, and did further damage to it a few years after
that when emptying a heavy tea urn where I used to work. The strangest and
silliest things can now play on that poggered
back... like when Pogo and Treacle suddenly yanked on their leads yesterday.
I spent much of last night's night shift unable to move without serious pain.
Had I not just been off work for three weeks I would have phoned in sick, but
I really didn't like to do so. Yesterday I whinged that I didn't want to go
to work last night; the night shift wasn't bad really. I shouldn't grumble about
the night work. I had yesterday at home. A good morning fiddling about with
the dogs, and an afternoon sleeping with the dogs. And a night shift in
which I had clearly been trusted to get on with the job unsupervised; a level
of trust I never really achieved from the micro-managing regime where I used
to work. But it was still with something of a sense of
relief that I greeted the early shift when he came in. I hobbled out to my car and drove home. As I drove I listened to the morning news on the radio
for the first time in ages. It was much the same as ever. As I headed toward
the motorway there were reports that our old friend science had
underestimated the amount
of tree species there are on the planet, with nearly ten thousand more
species of tree wating to be discovered. I might whinge about my job from
time to time, but after the shift I go home. I don’t have to go into the
jungle for months at a time trying to tell one tree from another. The pundits on the radio then wheeled on the
deputy prime Minister Dominic Raab who rather
embarrassed himself. When questioned about the Prime Minister’s conduct in
Parliament yesterday he wasn’t as decisive as he might have been. Having been
caught red-handed staging piss-ups in Downing Street the Prime Minister has
said that “we got it wrong”. The allegation was made that the use of “we”
rather than “I” showed that Mr Johnson was looking to unload blame on
someone or other behind the scenes and took no responsibility himself; an
allegation that Mr Raab would neither deny nor
confirm. And then Mr Raab flatly refused to confirm
the Prime Minister’s allegation that the Leader of the Opposition (when he
was the director of public prosecutions) was behind a failure to
prosecute Jimmy Savile. When questioned, Mr Raab
said ““I can’t substantiate that ... I’m certainly not repeating it. I
don’t have the facts to justify that.” I can’t help but feel that the Prime Minister
will just ride this latest scandal out; he has a proven track record of being a
liar and for many people that is all part of his laddish charm. But I hope he
will get his come-uppance. Openly having parties with his cronies whilst some
of us sat in the hospice waiting room, so far he has
kept himself in power because he is clearly less crap than the alternative.
And (it has to be said) up till now the
Labour party have done their level best to help him in this regard. But up
till now the only alternative than which he is less crap
has been the opposition. With today’s
news talking of former Tory chair Baroness Warsi who attacked the “false
and baseless smears” from the Prime Minister saying they “cannot be
defended”, and former Chief Whip Julian Smith saying “The smear made
against Keir Starmer relating to Jimmy Saville
yesterday is wrong and cannot be defended. It should be withdrawn,” it would seem that just possibly he is now fighting a
battle on two fronts. I hope he falls flat on his face. I got home to find “er indoors TM”
had already gone to work. I went to bed until mid-day, and now have something
of a tactic to thwart the dogs. Yesterday afternoon was cold in bed so this
morning I took a hot water bottle. The dogs immediately made themselves
comfortable on top of it, so that is the plan. Put the hottie-bottie on the other side of the bed to decoy the dogs,
then get another one for me. Mind you the tactic only works when they want to
sleep. I need another plan to counteract Pogo when he decides it is time to
get up and he starts clouting me on the head. I got up to find the postie had been with the
latest copy of Viz magazine, and a pin badge I’d won on a competition on
Facebook. Some time ago (November 11th) there was a
competition on one of the work-based Facebook groups I follow in which a
question had been asked about the intricacies of the Kell blood group system.
The world was asked to give an answer, and one of the people giving the
correct answer would win a pin badge. Having absolutely no idea what the
correct answer was I looked through what everyone else had said and copied
the most popular one. Now the pin badge is here I have to say I’m sorry I
bothered with the competition. After a quick and thankfully uneventful trip
to the co-op field with the dogs I came home. The dogs somehow knew my back
was iffy as they were as good as gold. I then had some toast, and as the
washing machine did its best with my undercrackers I had a go at the ironing.
In retrospect ironing whilst my back spasmed probably wasn’t a good
idea. “er indoors TM” boiled up a very good
bit of dinner and suggested I tried some ibuprofen. I hope they sort my back
out. At the moment I am fine provided I don’t move… |
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2 February 2022
(Wednesday) - Before The Late Shift
As I scoffed toast my lap-top’s anti-virus
thingy told me that it had got its January repot ready. It claimed to have
blocked nearly four thousand risky connections in that month. Did it? I have to take its word as I have no way of knowing. I’ve
not knowingly gone anywhere near a “risky connection” so I must admit
to a degree of scepticism. I wasn’t aware of it blocking anything this
morning as I perused Facebook as I scoffed brekkie. Facebook was the same as
it ever was. I sent out a birthday wish, then got dressed and (despite the
back ache) took the dogs for a short walk. Apart from an unwarranted and utterly
unnecessary frenzied shouting at a dog daring to walk past our house (on the
other side of the road) the walk passed off rather well. We went up to
the co-op field, walked a circuit and came home again with only a minimum of
pulling. We didn’t play “ball” as my back was too painful. Again as we walked round I looked at all the trees
that had been planted in the co-op field, presumably as part of the Queen’s
Green Canopy initiative? As I said the other day, according to the
Woodland Trust trees should be planted about
two metes apart. I carry a tape measure, so I unwound it and pushed it
over the fence. These ones were about a quarter of that distance apart. Is
the expectation that most of them will die? Apparently planting trees like
this is the “Miyawaki
method”… will it work? We shall see. It was a shame that as we walked the low sun
was tight in my eyes and I walked head-first into a low branch. It hurt a
bit, but I don’t think the scar will last for long. Once home I ran (hobbled) round the
garden harvesting dog dung, then had a quick game of “Sweardle” before getting
changed ready for work and then taking Treacle to the vet. We got to the vets a few minutes earlier than
originally planned so as to have a couple of minutes
with the veterinary nurse, as Treacle has been worrying her bottom recently.
Having a dog doing what I can only describe as an "arse carousel"
on the carpet is something to be avoided wherever possible. We took our place
in the waiting room where Treacle immediately started whimpering and trying
to get away. We only had to wait a couple of minutes until the nice
nurse came out and took Treacle into the treatment area. Squeezing of the
anal glands isn't something that "doggy daddies" are
supposed to see. Mind you I say "took Treacle into the treatment area"
- she didn't go willingly. once I'd handed the lead to the nurse, she pulled
away with all of her might and eventually had to be
picked up and carried in. After two minutes her ordeal was over, and
both of us went in to see the vet. Treacle was equally unwilling to see the
vet though, and I almost had to pin her in place as the vet gave her the once
over, a syringe full of vaccines in the neck and a drop of something up the
nose. The vet seemed quite pleased with her, but said she was a tad
overweight. Being told everything was covered on the
payment plan we walked out. As we walked out I
remembered how much Fudge used to cost us at the vet; I would rarely come out
with a bill less than three hundred quid. It was that which caused my
melt-down - I don't think anyone saw me blubbing as I hurried Treacle out.
You'd think that after all this time I wouldn't still be in tears several
times each week about that silly dog, wouldn't you? With dogs settled I set off to work and the
late shift. With absolutely nothing worthwhile on the radio I sang along to
my MP3s as I stop-started my way through several sets of road works on the
way to Pembury. I would have made good time if not for those. I've often said
that I like working at Pembury, I *really* dislike going there. the
journey can be terrible. But I knew what it would be when I took the job and
(in all honesty) I would rather have a two-hour drive to Pembury (and
the same back again) every day rather than the five
minute drive to where I used to work. Work was work... I did my bit. I rather
confused the new boy with an offer of help. Having assisted him with one or
two technicalities I offered to do his tea break for him. I don't think he
quite understood... |
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3 January 2022
(Thursday) - Rostered Day Off
I was woken by both dogs licking me awake at
half past eight this morning. Clearly I had been in
bed quite long enough for their liking. I came downstairs to something of a
shock; “er indoors TM” had staged a major tidy-up in the
kitchen. How would I find anything with it all tidied up? I made toast and had a look at my Munzee app. The new Clan War started this morning so I took a crowbar to my Qrate
and magnetised both the Skyland at the Tree House effectively getting me the
daily goal of three thousand points before I’d even got off of my bum. I peered into Facebook
and it presented me with a video I made at Dover Beer Festival some years
ago. Back in the day the first weekend of February was always Dover Beer
Festival; one of the highlights of the year. Sadly
it isn’t happening this year as the Maison Dieu is having major
refurbishments and they can’t find another venue. Facebook also had a poster from the UK
weather forecast people saying not to start garden tidying too early, and to
wait until temperatures are constantly over ten degrees so as not to disturb
hibernating insects. I had planned to spend some time in the garden today (bad
back allowing); I changed my plans. Seeing how everyone else was playing “Wordle”
I had a go at “Sweardle” and “Lewdle” (and failed at both) and then got
ready to take the dogs out. Just as I was getting dressed the phone rang.
“Daddy’s Little Angel TM” was distraught. She’d had a phone
call from the hospital saying that something had been found at her scan
yesterday and she should go to the day unit at the hospital as a matter of
urgency. I settled the dogs, flew down to Folkestone to collect her then flew
back up the motorway and took her to the day unit. We sat down with everyone else, and soon some
busybody woman chased me and all the other friends and family out of the
place. Apparently there is a lot of confidential
information being bandied about in a hospital and that is not for friends and
family of patients to hear. However it is quite
acceptable for patients to hear confidential information about other patients
(apparently). Would it *really* hurt the medical staff to take
patients into a side room to talk to them? As everyone in the day unit’s business was
being announced to everyone else I went to the
hospital’s canteen and paid way over the odds for a cup of coffee, and spent
a few minutes deploying bastets (it’s a Munzee
thing). Eventually “Daddy’s Little Angel TM”
sent me a message. She was ready to go. After a lot of farting about it
seemed that yesterday’s scan-ologist had been concerned that the baby is
rather small. Well… so is the baby’s mother, grandmother
and great-grandmother. No surprises there. I had to chuckle as we eventually walked out;
the blood-taking department is still in the hospital’s main reception area,
and there is no confidentiality about who is having a blood test either. Go
up and have a look - if you don’t recognise the people sitting waiting to
have their blood taken, just stick about and their names will be bellowed out
for all to hear. I complained about the blood test area on November 10th
2021… I see nothing has been done about that. I’ve complained again…I bet
nothing will be done again. We came home since “Daddy’s Little Angel TM”
was keen to see the dogs. They were very excited to see her; so much so that
Pogo went “ham”.
Apparently getting incredibly over-excited is known as “going ham”
these days. One lives and learns. We then took the dogs up to Kings Wood for a
little wander, and again Pogo “went ham“ when we got out the tennis
balls. We had a good walk, albeit a tad muddy. The place has certainly got
muddier since last week. With walk walked I took “Daddy’s Little
Angel TM” back to Folkestone, then came home and over a lunch
of toast watched “Once Upon
A Time In London” which could have been a good film had it not
dragged on for quite so long. “er indoors TM” came home and it
wasn’t long before someone from the kitchen shop came round to measure up the
kitchen with a view to stripping it all out and replacing it all. I wasn’t
overly interested… and actually fell asleep. I
expect I will pay more attention when the quote comes in. |
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4 February 2022
(Friday) - Before Another Late Shift
I slept well despite a surprisingly scary
nightmare in which I was somehow legally responsible for breaches of
copyright caused when Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy came back from the dead
and opened a rather successful off-licence selling stouts and porters in
Appledore. It was with something of a sense of relief that I woke in
desperate need of a tiddle. I made toast and sparked up the lap-top and
had quite the fight to get the thing to start peering into the Internet. More
and more the lap-top seems to be doing all sorts of
amazing “IT things” in the background whilst being utterly unable to
do anything actually useful. Eventually it got going. One of the local hunters of Tupperware had
died recently and it had been her funeral yesterday. What with the hospital
wasting our time yesterday I hadn’t been able to get along, but I was pleased
to see that she’d had a good send-off. There wasn’t much else happening on Facebook
this morning so I sparked up the Munzee app (which
was just as reluctant to start up), Munz-ed
that which I could from the sofa and took the dogs out. We took a different walk to our usual route
going out to Frog’s Island and home via Newtown Munzing
as we (I) went. Being near the start of Munzee
clan wars I had hoped to get a Qrate; I got two. As we walked we had
a little “episode” with some silly woman with a poodle. She made a
point of bringing her dog up to us even though we were trying to walk away
from her, and then she acted surprised when Treacle snapped at her dog. I
explained that when I’d said “don’t come any closer because my dog will
snap at your dog” I’d meant that she shouldn’t come any closer because my
dog would snap at her dog. This explanation came as something of a revelation
to her… How is it that I always find these idiots? As we walked the hospital phoned. Yesterday
I’d complained about the lack of confidentiality in that place. Today some
idiot wanted to know specific details of what confidences had been breached, and seemed utterly unable to understand the
difference between a general observation and a specific complaint. I
suggested that if you are weighing a patient then the scales shouldn’t be in
a corridor with a dozen people standing watching. I suggested that a pre-MRI
questionnaire be conducted in a secure room, not on the footpath leading out
of the car park with everyone listening to what was being said. I suggested
that people waiting for blood tests not do so where everyone can see their
business. Apparently a general complaint
was no good to them as there was no specific manager to deal with it. I
suggested the hospital’s chief executive, or failing
that the Minister for Health might like to get involved. They said they’d get
back to me. We’d left early to avoid the rain; the rain
started just as we came past the Outlet centre about ten minutes from home.
We didn’t get *that* wet. Taking care not to disturb “er indoors TM”
(who was working from home this morning) I wrote up a little CPD, then
got ready for work. The drive to work was odd. The weather alternated between
blustery showers and bright blue skies seemingly every ten minutes. I got to work where I did my bit on the late
shift. I was rather glad to see that I didn't have to take the moral high
ground today. Apparently today is National Work
Naked Day in which everyone supposedly does their bit whilst running
round in the nip. The official website was giving some old drivel about
getting away with working naked when doing it at home, but I know a total
collapse of public morality when I see one.. and was
glad that I didn't today. Mind you I wonder how many people did do
their bit today in the all-together today. Not many, I hope... |
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5 February 2022
(Saturday) - Eagle-Horse-Thingies
I slept for over nine hours last night, which
was a result. I finally emerged from my pit when my back was aching too much. I made toast and peered into the Internet.
There was a minor row kicking off on Facebook about the local hospital (the
one I’ve been whinging about the last few days). A few weeks ago much of
the car park was given up to build a huge “Nightingale”
hospital, and it was only once central government had spent three million
quid on building the thing did anyone realise that they haven’t got enough
staff for the existing wards, clinics and departments, let alone for a whole
new hospital. Apparently there are also issues with
building regulations and I.T. It was claimed that at a Trust board meeting
last Thursday the Trust's chairman said: "At the time of writing this
report we are still considering whether and how the building could be used".
I’m reminded of a colleague (Julian)
whose aunt once saw an amazing blood test machine on the telly (many years
ago), and wouldn’t be dissuaded from fundraising
a small fortune to buy one and present it to her local hospital (near
Birmingham). But already having a device that did the same job, and with
no money for consumables, reagents, training or
service contract for the new machine, it went into a cupboard and stayed
there. The nice people at Credit Karma had sent me
an email telling me of three things I could do to improve my credit score.
They said I could get a cheaper car loan whilst telling me about more
expensive ones. They said I could improve my credit factors, but when I
clicked for more information there wasn’t any. And
they suggested I corrected the incorrect personal data on my credit history…
All that they showed me looked to be right. I’ve asked the bank to double the credit
limit on my credit card purely because the nice people at Credit Karma say it
will improve my credit score… the bank gave me the thumbs-up, so let’s see
what Credit Karma have to say about that. I saw that a friend had started creating a Munzee garden nearby; I spent an age trying to contribute
to it. Deploying from a sandbox is tricky. I failed on today’s “Sweardle”
but got “Lewdle” right on the second go,
then we took the dogs out. We went up the road and took a rather
circuitous route to the park. As we walked so Pogo was playing “catch”
rather than “fetch”. He likes “catch” and it distracts him from
anything else around him (mostly). We got to the park to find it
heaving; I’d forgotten that the “Harry Potter” event was on today.
Kids were invited to turn up, walk round looking for posters of “Harry
Potter” stuff and fill in their worksheets. I had an entertaining few
minutes with some little girl who was telling the world that what I
thought was a hippogriff was actually an “eagle-horse-thingie”. We came home, settled the dogs then pausing
only briefly to collect Cheryl drove up to Maidstone. A couple of days ago I
saw a super Lego bargain on Facebook marketplace and once I’d put in an offer
was amazed to see it was being sold be a chap with whom I used to work yen
years ago. He’d arranged to have it delivered to where I now work (or at
least show up periodically) but bearing in mind I wouldn’t be showing up
there for over a week I collected it today. From work it was only a short hop to the
kitchen shop where “er indoors TM” and Cheryl had arranged
a three-hour appointment with the nice man and the 3-D kitchen simulator. We
had a little look round the showroom and once we’d ruled out the obviously hideous I said I liked that which I was told to like. And
then we sat in front of a rather humungous PC screen whilst the nice man
simulated that which “er indoors TM” told him to. The chap
came up with a design that looked not too shabby. “er indoors TM”
will be tweaking it over the next few days and weeks, and in the meantime I’ve put down a deposit of a sizeable proportion
of my spare akkers. We came home and had a rather good kebab
whilst watching the final of “Junior Bake Off”. I’m quite looking
forward to the next series… and the new kitchen. |
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6 February 2022
(Sunday) - Rain Stopped Play
I was wide awake at silly o’clock this
morning, and seemingly unable to get back to sleep I got up and watched a
film on Netflix. I can vaguely remember being disappointed with ID2 in the past,
but I quite liked the film this morning. As the film went on so the forecast
rain started. I then sparked up my lap-top and saw that
four Facebook friends had birthdays today. I saw that one hadn’t done
anything at all on Facebook since she got a load of birthday wishes last
year, I didn’t really know who two of them were… but one got the birthday
video. I had a message (via Facebook Messenger)
from Jhenny Cruz who had said “Hi”. Perhaps
rather restrained when compared to what strange people usually say to me in
their Facebook messages, but bearing in mind how little clothing he, she or
it was wearing, he, she or it didn’t need to say anything else. I thought
better of replying. And the nice people at Credit Karma had sent
me an email overnight. Yesterday I mentioned that they had suggested that I
might ask the bank to increase the credit limit on my Gold Card. This morning
they told me that my own bank had done a credit check on me. As I have said
before, my bank has no idea about bank-customer confidentiality. I then failed on “Lewdle”,
but got “butt” on the third attempt on “Sweardle”,
and then wrote my two
thousandth professional blog post (which was incredibly dull).
With the wind blowing the bins up the street and the rain being torrential we
decided against taking the dogs out. The rain had really put the kibosh on
today. Our planned weekend walk was (again) cancelled because of the
weather forecast. We had considered braving the rain to visit brother-in-law
who was at the car park of a nearby café this morning for a classic car meet
(I was up for the brekkie!), but there is only so much rain that
anyone can brave. I went upstairs and started sorting out
the job lot of Lego I got yesterday. As I sorted the weather outside went
from monsoon to glorious sunshine back to monsoon seemingly every fifteen
minutes. With Lego sorted I then had a little look-see
at borrowing a squillion quid to pay for the new kitchen. Amazingly loans
from the bank I have been with for thirty-four years are far more expensive
than loans from pretty much everyone else. With the dogs sleeping we popped round to see
“My Boy TM”; Cheryl had boiled up a rather good bit of
dinner which we scoffed, then I promptly fell asleep in front of the winter
Olympics on the telly. I’d found out that the winter Olympics was on when
Untappd gave me a badge for it before lunch. It is amazing what you miss if
you don’t pay attention. I woke after a couple of hours and was rather
disappointed to hear that Rupert Something who had been Team GB’s great hope
in the bobsleigh-thingy-race had only managed twenty-third place. We came home rather earlier than I might have
liked, but this is one of the reasons that I never wanted dogs. I simply
don’t like leaving them for any length of time. We came home… and woke them
up. They were both fast asleep. Like I would like to be… having done pretty
much nothing all day I’m feeling worn out. And my back is a bit iffy too… |
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7 February 2022
(Monday) - On the Dull Side
I woke feeling a bit iffy, but what could I
do? Sulk or get on with it. I actually did a bit of both, and as I did I made some toast and peered into the Internet.
It was still there. Facebook was rather dull today; like me, hardly anyone
had seemed to have done much over the weekend. Mind you one group of friends
had gone out geocaching round the series of caches I’d hidden in Brook some
time ago, and had seemed to have liked what I’d done
there. There was a minor argument kicking off
on-line about which local vet is cheapest for removing dog teeth; I remember
“Daddy’s Little Angel TM” having to get quotes from local
vets when Sid had dental work done. Needing a lot of teeth out, various vets
were quoting between five hundred quid and two thousand quid for the same
job. Having a poorly animal really makes you realise just how marvellous the
NHS is, doesn’t it? There was also a plea for help on one of the
pug-related Facebook groups I follow; someone had taken on a pug seemingly
unaware of how much vets cost, and was trying to
crowdfund a seriously prolonged stay in dog hospital. Bearing in mind that as
a day case Fudge would run up bills of hundreds of pounds, this woman had
some fundraising to do. I then commented to “er indoors TM”
that I was going to t-a-k-e the d-o-g-s for a w-a-l-k to the p-a-r-k and Pogo’s ears pricked up. It sounds daft, but that dog
really has learned to spell. We went for a w-a-l-k to the p-a-r-k and had
a rather good time. Pogo played “catch” with his ball and Treacle
carried hers, and although other dogs barked at us, we didn’t bark at any
other dogs. We did bark at a roll of carpet that some woman in Christchurch
Road was having delivered, but I suppose it deserved to be barked at. As I walked I did
think it something of a shame that we didn’t have this glorious weather
yesterday… Once home I made a cuppa and had a bit of
out-of-date Christmas cake, then set up a virtual dog pack. You can have
virtual dogs in Munzee which go fetch things for
you. So I’ve now got three virtual dogs. Bearing in
mind pretty much everything in Munzee begins with
the letter “Q” (Qrates, Qrowbars, Qrew…), I’ve got Qudge, Qreacle and Qogo. I’m not entirely sure what benefit this will be to
my scanning of bar codes stuck to lamp posts, but we will find out. I read the official Munzee
page about Rovers (as they are known) but I didn’t understand a word
of it so I asked about them on the Munzee Clan’s Facebook page, and was given a link to that
official Munzee page. Ho hum… Fortunately other
people chipped in too I unleashed Qreacle
and Qogo this morning but decided to keep Qudge with me for now. Qugo was
unleashed very near where a Munsee-ing friend
works. I’m hoping she will do something with him… though I have absolutely no
idea what. And with a few minutes to spare I had a look
at another GPS-based silly game and started sorting out my DNFs. Every time
someone logs a “Found It” on one of my
geocaches I smile because the thing is obviously still there, However every
time someone logs a “Did Not Find” I sigh a little. Did they not find
it because they are new to the game and don’t know what they are looking for,
was it because they simply didn’t see it, or was the thing actually
missing? I have a folder in my in-box into which “Did Not Find”
messages automatically go. There were quite a few emails in that folder
today… there were twelve geocaches of mine that had been reported to be problematical.
Eight of them had “Found It” logs after the “Did Not Find” so I
knew those were OK. But there were four which might be missing. One is in Hemstead
Forest. Getting to the cache from the car park involves traversing a sea of
mud. One is on the Greensand Way and (when I
last saw it) was cable tied head height in a tree. Two are in the arse
end of nowhere at opposite ends of a walk I’ve appropriately named “Out In
The Sticks”. I’ll have a look-see over the next few weeks.
If nothing else this will give me some dog walks. One of the main reasons I never wanted dogs
was that I have got far too attached to them, and I *seriously*
dislike leaving them unattended for any period of time.
But when we’d come back from our w-a-l-k earlier both had gone straight to
sleep, and both were still snoring an hour and a half later as I set off to
work. Pausing only briefly to cap some Points of
Interest (which were actually rather dull) I
made my way to the petrol station at Sainsburys. I got petrol,
and wasn't overly impressed with their choice of sandwiches. I picked
up the only one that didn't make me go "YUK!" and then had a
major argument with the woman on the till who wanted me to get a different
sandwich as all the others were cheaper. She wouldn't be told that I would
rather have "non-yuk" than "cheap". I then headed west through the -hursts and
the -dens (and through half a dozen sets of road works) to the late
shift. I seem to be doing quite a few of these at the
moment. I got to work... I did my bit. At tea
break I checked on my virtual dogs. Qreacle had
been picked up and taken for a walk. It speaks volumes about my dull life
that this was far and away the most exciting thing that happened today... |
8 February 2022 (Tuesday)
- Even More Dull.
I again
woke feeling like death warmed up. I can’t say I’m keen on that. But I got up
and got on with my usual morning. As yet another
negative COVID test incubated I sparked up my lap-top and had a look to see
what had happened overnight. It would seem there was a fire in a local park
last night. The general consensus of opinion from
the keyboard warriors of local social media was that it was the local
teenagers who (so it would seem) are getting rather cocky as the local
police are demonstrably not interested in doing the job of a police force.
There was again mention of setting up a vigilante team. Will it ever happen?
I doubt it. Whinging on Facebook is easier than getting off
of an arse. There was
also a lot of indignant consternation being expressed about the closure of Britain’s oldest pub. After
over a thousand years “Ye Olde Fighting Cocks” is closing its doors…
for all that the locals want to live in the vicinity of Britain’s oldest pub,
they don’t want to spend their hard-earned cash in there. Much like pubs
everywhere, really. There
wasn’t much else happening on Facebook. I sent out a couple of birthday
wishes and checked my emails. I had yet another friend request from someone
via LinkedIn. Yet another someone I don’t know who works for a recruitment
agency. LinkedIn is a bit rubbish, isn’t it? Does anyone do anything with it
other than accept or reject offers from recruitment consultants? I took the
dogs out for a little walk up to the park and back again. We had a very good
walk. Treacle carried her ball; Pogo played “catch” a few times, then
carried his ball. The dogs carrying balls is not unlike a baby having a
dummy; it has an amazing calming influence on them when we are out. As we walked we met OrangeHead’s
posse, then five minutes later we met a solitary OrangeHead. Has there been
another falling out in the Viccie Park dog walking
mafia? We came
home where I made a cuppa and had another slice of that out-of-date Christmas
cake, then bought two more Rovers from the Munzee
store. I got three yesterday, but there were always five dogs in the family
wolf-pack, so this morning I got Qid and Qolo because I felt oddly guilty for not having done so
yesterday. I posted
something rather normal to a work-based Facebook group, then got ready for
work. I drove
into town and parked at the railway station where I capped some rather dull
Points of Interest then set off to work. I stopped in Sissinghurst to
get some bottles of beer for our next walk, got seven bouncers out of a
Skyland (there should only ever be six!) and... ...Quite
frankly that was it for today. The morning had been rather dull, and the
afternoon was no better. |
|
9 February 2022
(Wednesday) - Dancing Knickers
With an alarm set I had a terrible night's
sleep. I eventually gave up trying to sleep, got up and made brekkie which I
scoffed whilst watching telly. Not having been up silly-early before work for
weeks I've not been watching any mind-numbing drivel on Netflix in the
mornings, so today I started watching "People Just Do Nothing"
again which was rather entertaining. Watching it again I saw quite a few
little bits I'd clearly forgotten about. Taking care not to wake the dogs (or “er
indoors TM”) I got dressed and set off to work... I started
the car and disaster struck. Last
month as I drove to Hastings the car suddenly told me that one of the
tyre pressures were low. Today it told me all of them were low. And then I
remembered it had told me that last night as I’d driven home, and I’d
forgotten all about it. I drove round to Brookfield Road and put some
air into all of the tyres, pressed the "I've
put some air in" button, and then drove to Pembury expecting the
warning to come on again at any point. Not having had a car with tyre
pressure sensors before I can't help but wonder just how long I drove around
in the past on under-pressured (flat?) tyres. As I drove I
listened to the pundits on the radio spouting their drivel. Having had two
weeks off sick, a week of holiday, a night shift and four late shifts I've
missed the morning drivel. There was talk about calls for the Elgin
marbles to
be returned to Greece as Boris Johnson’s final act in office. Jacob Rees-Mogg has
been appointed as Minister
For Brexit Opportunities following claims that all the outcomes of Brexit
have been negative, and that it is high time something positive came from it. And there was an
interview with billionaire John Armitage who having given millions of
pounds to the Conservative party now thinks it is high time Boris Johnson was
chucked out. He might have a point. Despite piddling about at the garage and
with road works I made good time to Pembury, and with a few minutes spare I
went into Tesco. I've whinged about the Pembury branch of Tesco before... It
is a special place. Today all the staff were wearing face coverings *below*
their noses. Did none of them understand the concept of breathing? I got to work where we had a rather busy
morning; something of a shame as that hadn't been my plan for the day. Though
we did have a chuckle as the day went on. A colleague had a message from her
grandfather who had just come back from his pensioner's square-dancing
session in which a "young 'un" (in her late sixties)
hadn't been wearing "dancing knickers" and during a
particularly vigorous twirl had shown the world a rather racy thong. Let that
be a lesson to us all - be sure to have the correct underwear for the correct
occasion. There is a place for racy thongs… and it ain’t
at the pensioner’s square-dancing. I then headed home again watching my car's
warning displays like a hawk worrying about tyre pressure alerts. Once home I
saw I had a pressie; “er indoors TM” had got me one of
those car tyre pump thingies that plug into the lighter socket. I suppose I really
should be having a go with it every week or so to keep the alar at bay. And then we had a minor disaster – the
supermarket didn’t have any tins of “Doctor Pepper”
so I had to rough it with a tin of raspberry flavoured diet Fanta with my
dinner… I can’t say I’m keen on the stuff. |
|
10 February 2022
(Thursday) - Remembering Old Friends
I woke feeling full of energy and raring to
go… at ten past two. I then lay awake listening to “er indoors TM”
snoring. After an hour she stopped when one of the dogs (Pogo?)
stomped across the bed, lay between us, and pulled all the covers off of me. I made toast, watched an episode of “People
Just Do Nothing” and had a quick look at the Internet. There was quite a
squabble on one of the Lego-related Facebook pages in which a disagreement
about the most trivial of matters had been blown out of all proportion by
keyboard warriors who were safe in the knowledge that they would never have
to face their protagonists. I then sent out a couple of birthday wishes, and thought about another friend whose
birthday was today. Forty years ago there was me and
one other lad at college in a group otherwise full of girls, Me and Dave (we
were both Daves!) became firm friends – pub
lunch every day… but when we left college we drifted apart. I’ve not heard
from my old mucker since 1984. If anyone knows of a (part Canadian)
Dave Ferrier who was a major fan of “The Damned”, lived in Brighton in
the 1980s and might have moved to Surrey in the 1990s, do let me know. I had a little Munzee
session from the comfort of the sofa and was rewarded with a Cactus Cubimal, set the dishwasher going, and set off to work. I headed off to work listening to drivel on
the radio as I went. There was a lot of talk about the piss-ups that had
happened in Downing Street over the lock-down period. Apparently fifty people are to receive questionnaires
through the post from the police about their involvement at the alleged
parties. (Mind you I say "alleged" - it was claimed that the
Prime Minister has admitted to having been at six of the twelve that are
being investigated). These questionnaires are apparently legally much the
same as being interviewed under caution, so telling a porkie
isn't an option (yeah, right!) People getting one of these questionnaires
have to reply within a week, and if it turns out
that COVID regulations have been breached “without a reasonable excuse”,
they will get fined. There is apparently one fine per event, and it was
claimed on the radio this morning that the Prime Minister is looking at a
fine of about
ten thousand pounds. I can't help but wonder about the “without
a reasonable excuse" bit... If there is a works booze up and your
boss invites you or suggests you go, to many people this has the same bearing
as a formal order. And given an opportunity to suck up to the Prime Minister...
surely there's a "reasonable excuse" to many? Who defines
"reasonable excuse" - apparently the Metropolitan
Police's "special enquiries team" does...
And there’s another rant in itself! Meanwhile the Labour party's finances are
looking iffy as the union "Unite" is threatening to
stop funding them in a row involving dustbin lorry drivers paid by the
Labour-controlled Coventry council. On the one had Labour gets its money from the
unions... on the other hand (as I ranted yesterday) the Conservatives
get their funding from billionaires with money to burn... whoever gets
elected is beholden to someone or other. Isn't it high time the country
sorted out its political system? I got to work where I found a Smuggler Cubimal waiting in the Tree House (Munzee
is another world!), then got on with work. I wasn't really supposed to be
at work today, but I had been asked to take part in a convoluted swap in
which I would work today rather than this coming Saturday... which suited me
fine. Work was work - not as hectic as yesterday.
As I worked I found myself thinking of another
friend from years ago. I'd not seen her for a couple of years, but Michelle
died a little while ago, and today was her funeral. I had planned to go along
(as I had been scheduled to be off today) but with only seventy-six
places at the crematorium and over a hundred family members supposedly
wanting to get along I thought it best I didn't show up. We've got a link to a video of the service;
there were a couple of empty seats… |
|
11 February 2022
(Friday) - Not Getting Cake
I slept like a log last
night; it’s amazing what a bottle of red wine and a couple of glasses of port
can do. I made toast and
scoffed it whilst watching an episode of “People Just Do Nothing”
before having a little rummage through the Internet. Today’s amazingly petty
trivial on-line argument in which people got really aggressively over-excited
was about how Daleks make space-ships. You wouldn’t
believe the hatred and venom that such a stupid question generated. And there
was quite a bit of talk on one of the NHS staff Facebook pages where again it
was made perfectly clear that if you are not a nurse then you can f… off.
Generic NHS staff Facebook pages are like that. A friend was
complaining on one of the Hastings-related Facebook pages about the utterly
inadequate street lighting down there. I suppose I’m glad it isn’t just
Ashford with the problem. Back in the day I was on the committee of the local
astronomy committee which was consulted on these L.E.D. street
lights. What was promised is certainly not what was delivered. The street lights in Ashford give tiny pools of light whilst
leaving most of the street in darkness. So much so that you can’t see a black
dog on the end of a lead. And no one at local or county council wants to take
responsibility for it, or claims to know who would
be the people to put it right. It’s a rant I’ve done to death… perhaps I
should start harassing the local councillors again. I wonder when they are up
for election? I set my lap-top updating itself (as it likes to do so every
Friday) and set off to find where I'd left my car last night. It didn't
take *that* long to scrape the ice from the car, and once I'd done so
I saw I had a very clean windscreen. All the grime and dirt from the road had
gone with the scraped ice. As I drove west-wards
the pundits on the radio were talking about the resignation of the
Metropolitan Police's Commissioner Cressida Dick who jacked
it all in overnight. Her resignation was rather odd. Only a few
months ago the Mayor of London extended her contract by two years, then
yesterday announced he had no confidence in her. There was an interview with
some leading light in the Police Federation who said that Ms Dick's departure
will in no way affect any ongoing police work. If that is true, then what did
she do all day long, and what is the point of looking for a replacement? There was then an
interview with Brandon Lewis who is the Secretary of State for Northern
Ireland who didn't really answer any question which was put to him. I
couldn't see why they'd bothered wheeling him on, to be honest. As I parked my car so
“er indoors TM” sent a message to say that my lap-top had finished preparing its update and had turned
itself off. That had only taken an hour and a half. I went in to work
where I completely failed to convince anyone that today was actually " Give
Dave A Cake Day". Mind you next time if I do some preparation
I might just manage to get some cake from the gullible. I think I might have
done better had everyone's attention not been on one of the trainees whose
rabbit apparently was being unruly and had a bad attitude. I am reliably
informed that belligerency is not
uncommon in rabbits. With my bit I came
home. Whilst I do like working in Pembury, and whilst I knew that travelling
there would be a part of the job when I took it, I can’t pretend I like the
journey… Or (to be more accurate) don’t like the journey when it
is dark. In daylight it is a rather pretty drive. I got home at the
same time as “er indoors TM” who had been out with “Daddy’s
Little Angel TM” and “Stormageddon – Bringer of Destruction
TM” . I had a quick shower, then as “er indoors TM”
ran the dogs round the block I checked I’d corrected my co-ordinates properly
(doesn’t everyone?) and then programmed “Hannah” in readiness
for tomorrow’s planned excursion. “er indoors TM” boiled up a good
bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching the first episode of the new
season of “Celebrity
Hunted”. Neither of us knew who any of the so-called celebrities
were, so we treated it as just any other season of “Hunted”. It was
rather good… I’ve said before I reckon I could do well on that show… |
|
12 February 2022
(Saturday) - Mersham to Aldington (and back)
I slept well despite a nightmare in which a
gang of thugs were having a picnic in the back of my car because it was
warmer than my front garden. I set another negative COVID test going, made
toast and had a look at the Internet. It was still there. This morning’s
Facebook argument was a strange one. Someone was on the “Upstairs
Downstairs” Facebook group asking for money for a friend who was
supposedly stuck in China. The friend had a brain tumour; the chemotherapy
had worked but the tumour was still there (?) and because of the
tumour the airline officials won’t allow this friend to fly home. So there is a fundraising campaign to fly her home.
Presumably the fundraising is to bribe the airline officials?
However this request for money for getting a friend
with brain cancer home suddenly became a request for money to decorate her
house, and in a totally inexplicable turn of events became an argument about
the ethics of trading in stocks and shares. I checked my emails and sighed. Someone had
been out locally and found some of my Wherigo geocaches and had written in
the “Found It” logs “Found but forgot pen”. On the one
hand according to a strict interpretation of the rules I should delete their
log and insist they go back and sign it. On the other hand
the hobby is demonstrably dying on their arse and do I really want to be
discouraging people who are new to the silly game? Personally
I’m not that bothered if someone assures me they took a photo of what they
found, but on the New Year’s Day Wherigo session I had some people claiming
that others were logging finds they hadn’t made and strongly suggesting I
deleted logs there and then. Geocaching is supposed to be fun… I shall
hope that those who take the moral high ground didn’t see these logs. Pausing only briefly to find “er indoors TM”’s
trousers (!) and to bark at every bird seemingly within a five-mile
radius we got ourselves organised and drove out to Mersham
where we met Karl, Tracey and Charlotte and went for a little walk. The “Mersham/Aldington
Walk” series of geocaches were originally published a couple of years ago
but what with one thing and another we’d never got round to going to walk the
series. And then several of them had fallen into disrepair. But last week
some friends of ours walked the route and had done some maintenance for the
person who’d originally put the series out (why don’t more people do that
?!), so seeing the geocaches were as good as they were ever going to be,
we thought we might go for a walk round then today. We had a good walk despite a biting wind and
being helped by one of the normal people. To be fair the chap who’d set the
walk had said it wasn’t especially dog friendly, and we did have to throw the
dogs over a couple of the less well maintained
stiles. And it has to be said that in some places
the paths weren’t as well marked as they might have been, but nothing that a
bit of map-work and idiot enthusiasm couldn’t overcome. Geocache-wise it wasn’t a bad series. Some of
the caches are rather spaced out, but what can you do when there is a
humungous field with nowhere to stash a Tupperware box? I must admit that
some of the hides weren’t where I would have put them, but I am in no way
complaining. Several of the hints given don’t match what is there now, but
these things really do evolve when you aren’t looking. But the bottom line
was that someone had taken the trouble to plan out a day’s walk for us, and I
am very grateful. After six miles we got back to the cars. We’d
parked by the Farrier’s Arms, and so we thought we might have a craftly half.
With their own home-brewed beer on the hand pump together with two from the
Ringwood brewery we stayed for three pints. I
took a few photos as we walked (and drank). Once home there was a
minor disaster when I saw that my phone had saved them as .heic files rather than jpg. With absolutely no idea what
to do I just pressed the “upload” button and they seemed to work. “er indoors TM” boiled up a very
good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching the second “Austin
Powers” film… it was a shame I fell asleep half way
through… |
|
13 February 2022
(Sunday) - Wet Sunday
As I scoffed my toast
this morning I read something on the Internet which really
sums up the world we live in. There is a school in Lancashire which has
banned meat products from the meals it provides, and has demanded that
all the children’s packed lunches be vegetarian ones. Personally
if one of the fruits of my loin were at the school I would be telling the
head teacher to get knotted, but it would seem that I would be in the
minority. The article I read says (“it” being the school in question)
“… it has hasn't received any complaints about its meals, Facebook
is full of unhappy parents”. Isn’t this social media in a nutshell? Never
*ever* complain properly in a reasoned manner to someone who might be
able to address the issue. Instead just dash out a
poorly-written rant on Facebook. I then spent a little
while sending out invites to the geo-event I’m staging next Saturday. So far
it looks like there will only be a handful of people showing up, but in
previous events I’ve run half a dozen people come along for every one that
logs that they will turn up, So here’s hoping. As “er indoors TM”
got busy sorting the grouting in the bathroom I took the dogs for a walk to
the co-op field. As we walked we had a near “episode”
when a passing child got to two feet away from us then decided to scream and
shout and have a complete melt-down which (of course) set the dogs
barking and going frantic. Her father was with her and said that she didn’t
like dogs. Well… she doesn’t have to like them; why not just walk straight
past? Did she need to make such an attention-seeking fuss? I asked the father
this question… he asked the child. It had never occurred to her. We played “ball”
in the co-op field. Treacle carried hers, but Pogo
soon lost interest. He likes me to bounce the ball so he can catch it in
mid-air, but tennis balls don’t bounce very high from wet grass. Mind you I
suspect those in the allotments were bouncing high… no matter what time of
day (on any day) we go there, the track into the field reeks of
whatever it is that those in the allotments are smoking With walk walked we
came home and I went into the garden for a little
pootle. I harvested a bumper crop of dog turds, got the lawn-mower
out and gave the lawn its first scalping of the year. In the past I’ve always
waited until Easter before starting in the garden, but these days I daren’t leave it that late. Bearing in mind how good the
lawn looked last year I went round with the lawn food, then scraped all the
mud off of the walking boots (that got encrusted
yesterday) and put everything away. I was closing the shed door (and
just about to come inside for a nice cuppa) when the shed door fell off
in my hands. Woops. It didn’t take *that*
long to fix but was a pain in the glass that I could have done without.
Especially bearing in mind how cold it was today and that the rain was trying
to start. Just as I finally got
that cuppa so the phone rang. Father-in-law had been
admitted to hospital this morning with a suspected thrombosis. Sadly due to that hospital’s interpretation of the COVID
rules he isn’t allowed any visitors. I spent the afternoon
ironing whilst watching episodes of “People just Do Nothing” whilst “er
indoors TM” cleaned out the kitchen cupboards (ably
assisted by Treacle and Pogo) until “Daddy’s Little Angel TM”
came to visit. Her and Big Jake were on their way to visit “My Boy TM”.
She looks like she really has swallowed a spacehopper.
After a few minutes
Cheryl arrived to give them both a lift. She’d been shopping for Yorkshire
puddings and couldn’t find any. We offered her some, and she went berserk…
best before 2018? They’ve been in the freezer. How “off” can they
be… “er indoors TM” boiled up a very
good roast dinner which we scoffed whilst watching “Lego Masters :
Australia”. Tonight’s was the Star Wars episode… I wouldn’t mind being in
that show – such a shame the UK version got cancelled… |
|
14 February
2022 (Monday) - Back to Work
I woke in the small hours to find that an
alliance of “er indoors TM” and two small dogs had captured
most of the duvet. I had just enough to cover myself, so rather than
launching a retaliatory campaign I resigned myself to being grateful that I’d
got any duvet and made myself as comfortable as I could. I went into Facebook looking to kick ass this
morning. Over the last few weeks and months and years I’ve mentioned about
the trivial squabbles that get blown out of all proportion; most recently
ones (amazingly) on the Facebook “Upstairs Downstairs: The Original
Series” page. Following a squabble over the weekend (which I missed
entirely) there was a call for volunteers to help police the group. I’ve
volunteered and have been appointed “moderator” and “group expert”
on there. Go me!! Armed with the power to moderate I cruised in there… and
everyone was behaving themselves. Let’s hope it stays that way. Mind you I’ve been helping to moderate the Julian May Sci-Fi books
Facebook group, and that one (for the most part) has been rather
uneventful. I did have an advert on my Facebook feed for some
T-shirt company operating out of Whistler in British Columbia. Apparently Facebook showed me the ad because the ad is
aimed at people with an interest in skiing (!) and Facebook (not me)
decided to add “skiing” to my list of interests. I pressed the button
to see what else was on my list of interests on my Facebook profile. It would
seem I was also interested in “cosmetics”, “fleet command”, “yoga”,
“dresses”, “funny nurses”, “marathons” and “home
schooling”. I wonder where they got those ideas from. I had a look at my emails. A new geocache had
gone live on the other side of town. If I hadn’t been on a late shift today I might well have been driving past it at the right
time and might well have had the chance of a First to Find. As it was I didn’t see that it had gone live until about half an
hour after I expected the local FTF hound would have got there. I had emails telling me that quite a few
people had awarded favourite points to the series of Wherigos
that I put out in Brook late last year. That was something of a result. And I
saw that despite having doubled the credit limit on my credit card (at the
suggestion of the nice people at Credit Karma), my credit score at Credit
Karma has remained unchanged. I took the dogs up to the park where we had a
relatively good walk. Pogo seems to be losing interest in playing “fetch”
or “catch” though. With walk walked we came home; I carried on
getting mud off of the walking boots and sorted undercrackers whilst watching
an episode of “People Just Do Nothing”, then with a little time on my
hands wrote up some CPD
and sent out a load more reminders to people about the weekend’s geo-meet
before getting ready for work. I took a rather circuitous route to work; perhaps
more circuitous than it might have been had I not taken the wrong turn
shortly after junction four of the motorway. After seemingly herculean
brain-straining I'd solved a geo-puzzle some time ago, and today was the
first time that I was (vaguely) in the area so I thought I might
winkle it out of its hidey-hole and do the secret geo-ritual to keep me
occupied on the way to work. Bearing in mind how much effort I'd put in to
solving the puzzle, finding the final film pot came as something of an
anti-climax. And with geocache found I went in to work. What
with surgery, holiday and secondments to Pembury I'd
not been in to work for five weeks. It was still there, and
was much the same as when I'd left it. I did my bit on another late shift (I
seem to be doing quite a few of these at the moment).
I quite like the late start, but I can't say I'm keen on the late finish.
Mind you, I'm in no way complaining, but the drive home straight down the
motorway is *far* easier (and forty minutes quicker) that the
tortuous cross-county drives through the lanes in the pitch darkness that I
was doing last week. |
|
15 February 2022
(Tuesday) - Another Late Shift
I asked a question on one of the work-based
Facebook groups yesterday, and was rather amazed by
some of the replies that I read as I scoffed my toast over brekkie.
Work-based Facebook groups are something of an eye-opener. Many of the people
appearing on these groups are students quite forcefully offering the wrong
answers. Quite a sizable proportion of people on there
claim to be doctors, but the lack of understanding of basic principles in
what they write shows that most are no more a doctor that either of my dogs.
And most of the American members participants approach everything from a
financial (rather than medical/technical) perspective. There was a petty squabble on one of the “Blake’s
Seven” Facebook pages. Reading that page is in many ways not unlike the “Upstairs
Downstairs” Facebook page. Whilst one TV show is about the landed gentry
who lived a hundred years ago and the other a sci-fi series set thousands of
years into the future, both are TV shows from forty-odd
years ago than many people don’t seem to realise are from forty years ago. And then I saw an advert for these
two dogs. Just like Fudge and Sid would have been had they lived; A very
old pug and a very old jackshund needing to be
re-homed as a double act. Could we take them on? I seriously considered it. After an “old dog induced” meltdown I
then refereed our remaining dogs’ breakfast time. Dog breakfast time is
frankly silly. They both get a bowl of food. Pogo tucks into his whilst
Treacle watches. When he’s scoffed the very last bit of his, Treacle starts
eating hers and Pogo watches her eat. But if she doesn’t start eating right
away Pogo eats hers too. Hence the need for a referee. With rain forecast in an hour or so I took
the dogs out earlier than I might have done. Ideally
we would have gone after the schoolkids would finished swarming about on
their way to school… There were no schoolkids swarming about today. Is it
half term? Seeing how it is over fifteen years since schools and “Daddy’s
Little Angel TM” parted company (not on the best of terms)
I’ve rather lost track of school holidays. We walked to the park, played “fetch” and “catch” and came home again without a single
woof at anyone or anything. I harvested yet another bumper crop of dog
dung from the garden, and was very pleased to see
the shed door was still in place following my fixing of the thing two days
ago. And as the rain started we all came inside and
watched episodes of “People Just Do Nothing” until it was time to set
off work-wards. The morning's walk to the park and back with
the hounds had been very quiet; there had been very few people about. Things
were rather different as I drove to work. Both lanes of the M20 (it
only has two lanes London-bound thanks to "Operation Brock")
were ram-packed with traffic. I eventually got to the petrol station in
Aylesford where the queue was backing out of the forecourt. And that was my day today. A mooch on the
internet, a dog walk, a bit of telly, got petrol and did the late shift. I'm
not sure exactly what I was expecting from today, but I think it fair to say
that I was expecting more than I actually got. |
|
16 February 2022
(Wednesday) - Worst Dog Walk Ever
I woke in a cold sweat in the small hours in
which one of the most likeable gentle geocaching friends of mine had become
Mr Big, had the entire geocaching community thrown into prison and was
demanding money with menaces. Only having forty pence meant I was in big
trouble. Being awake I popped to the loo, and came back just as Pogo fell off of the bed. As it
was pitch dark I couldn’t see that it was Pogo, but
judging by the crash it was either him or a rhino. Like me, that dog needs to
go on a diet. I dozed for an hour or so then made brekkie
and scoffed it (as yet another negative
COVID test incubated) whilst watching an episode of “People Just Do
Nothing”, then sparked up my lap-top in the forlorn hope that something
might have happened in cyber-space overnight. My lap-top laid an
egg as it told me that my data was on the dark web having been involved in
four data breaches. However the only breach it
wanted to tell me about was when the diet website “MyFitnessPal” got
hacked four years ago. I wonder what the other three breaches were? But that was the only excitement this morning. With
nothing else at all happening I got dressed and set off for work. As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the
radio were jabbering on about the latest development in the Prince
Andrew saga in which whoever it was that had the arse with him has now agreed
to an out
of court settlement even though she'd already received a bung of half
a million dollars. And now the scandal isn't whether or
not he sexually abused her, rather exactly where the money to pay this
woman is coming from. Is the Queen paying it? Is he paying himself? It is all
good gossip though, isn't it? The Bishop of Burnley was
then wheeled on to present "Thought for the Day". He started
off about how the Russian army looks
set to invade Ukraine, and how terrifying it is for the thousands of
innocent people caught up in the potential conflict. And just at the point
when my (and presumably everyone’s else too) attention started to
drift, the Bishop started drivelling on about how nice Jesus was, and how
although the Russian army and the Ukrainians might have a fight, we don't
have to, and we can be nice to each other instead. As though I was intending
to go out and punch someone up the throat today... Having left home rather later than I would
usually have done the roads were rather busy, but I got to work with a little
time to spare. I spent much of the day peering down a microscope and had
something of a "virusy" day; when
looking at blood you really can see when someone's got a virus infection. There was a minor disaster as I drove home.
A week ago the car’s tyre pressure warning went off and I put in some
more air. And this evening on the way home the warning went off again. That
was a pain in the glass. Fortunately I was able to
get home and park the car right outside the house so I had this idea to leave
the car for a little while so I could check the tyre pressures on cold tyres
(like you are supposed to) and come back to it once I’d walked the
dogs. I got the hounds onto their leads, got their
light-up collars on, and had the worst dog walk ever. We went round the block
via Christchurch Road, Francis Road and Bond Road, and were about a hundred
yards from home when the dogs saw a Bassett hound over the road. In their
sudden inexplicable immediate need to attack this dog they flew at it, and as
Pogo sprinted with all his might so the lead came behind my ankles and pulled
my legs out from under me. I hit the ground like a rubber duck (to coin a
phrase), but fortunately for the dogs I still had hold of their leads,
and they span completely round as they nearly pulled my arm out of its
shoulder socket. I say “fortunately for the dogs”; they missed getting
run over by inches. Once the passing postman picked me up I ranted somewhat hysterically at the dogs, and they
were as meek as lambs for the next hour or so. “er indoors TM” took over ranting
at the dogs, and I checked the car’s tyre pressures. One was a tad low. It
isn’t now. My right knee and right hip really hurt… |
|
17 February 2022
(Thursday) - Leg Really Hurts
Treacle’s whining to get back on to the bed woke
me at two o’clock, and I then lay awake for the rest of the night with a dull
throbbing in my right leg. When the dogs had me over yesterday
I must have hit the ground harder than I realised. I got fed up with laying
awake sulking, so I hobbled downstairs, made toast, and just as I was about
to make my coffee I realised I’d forgotten to switch
on the kettle. Again. With telly watched I sparked up my lap-top,
sent out three birthday messages, and seeing nothing of note on Facebook I
had a look at my emails. There was nothing worth looking at there either, so I hobbled back upstairs, glared at the
sleeping dogs who had completely forgotten about what they’d done yesterday,
got dressed, and hobbled to my car. I was so glad I’d managed to park it
outside the house last night. I was rather pleased to see that my car was
happy with its tyre pressures this morning. Mind you it did tell me that it
was due for a service in the next month. I saw this as something of a result.
My old car wouldn't give me any warnings; it would just wait until the
service was due before saying anything. Having some notice is useful as it
gives me time to book an appointment somewhere. I say "somewhere"
- I'm going with the main Skoda dealer for now. The garage I've used for the
last fifteen years have been very good, but are
victims of their own success. If I had tried to book an appointment today they wouldn't have anything for three weeks. And
because they service all makes of cars they are
something of jacks of all trades... I think it fair to say that on over half
the times I collected my car after they had had it, I would start to drive
the car away only to find a fault with the parking brake which had been of
their causing. And every time this happened they
would say "oh yes... Renaults do that, don't they?" And I
would wait for twenty minutes whilst they sorted the problem
they openly admitted they had caused. As I drove to work the pundits on the radio
were talking about the latest scandal to befall the Royal family. Some chum
of Prince Charles is alleged to
be selling honours. Honours... Some people really will pay for
one (cunningly disguising the cash as a bung to a charity). When I was
a lad my ambition was to have done something worthy
of getting an OBE as I thought an Honour was worth having. But now I know of
many people who have run scout groups and Boys Brigade companies and kite
clubs and done all sorts of voluntary work for most of their lives and had
sod-all formal recognition. Meanwhile loads of others get a gong for doing
the job for which they are massively overpaid. I ranted about this years ago (4 January
2007 to be precise), and still it continues. There was also a lot of talk about paedophilia among
Italian priests. It was claimed that as many as one in twenty Italian
priests have tried it on with children. I thought that figure a bit high, but
apparently this was true in Australia
ten years ago. There was an attempt to interview one priest
who is still an active parish priest in Italy despite a court having told him
he's not to be trusted anywhere near children. He wasn't keen to talk, but
his bishop was, and the bishop said he saw no reason to dismiss the paedo.
You'd think the paedo's flock would have said something though. Wouldn't you?
Or are they still terrified of parish priests much like a bunch of medieval
peasants would have been five hundred years ago? It never fails to amaze me
how the average Catholic is so much in awe of their local parish priest. I
used to work with a woman who was Catholic in name only, *never* went
to church, but was frankly terrified of the local priest and would hide if
she saw him in public. I went in to work for the early shift and
spent much of the day peering down a microscope. I was glad I didn’t have to
move about too much today – my leg wasn’t up to much. When the boss went for
a cuppa I quickly phoned the garage and told
him the car had asked if it could have a service. The nice man has sorted
that out for next week. And then I phoned the Swan and Dog in Great
Chart where some weeks ago (January
18th) I arranged to stage the monthly geocacher's meet-up.
I wanted to confirm the arrangements for this weekend. It was as well that I
phoned them. To begin with they claimed to know nothing about my booking...
then they asked what my phone number was, and the manager then came on and
said she had wondered what that number was that was written in their diary.
She said she could reserve me a table for six people. Bearing in mind I've
already got over fifteen people saying they are up for it,
this came as something of a blow. So while the boss
went for lunch I frantically phoned around desperately trying to scare up
another venue. I managed to get somewhere… An early shift meant an early finish. I was
home early enough to walk the dogs in daylight. We did a very quick walk
round the block. The same one we walked yesterday; this time with no “episodes”
whatsoever for which I was grateful. “er indoors TM” boiled up a very
good bit of scran which we washed down with a rather good bottle of plonk
whilst watching more of “Celebrity Hunted”. I have no idea of who
these celebrities are, but one of them has no hesitation in waggling her bare
arse at the camera (which on its own makes the
show worth watching!) However if you ever get
the chance, watch this show in the company of “er indoors TM”;
she certainly gets over-excited… And in closing, today is one year since my
mum died. I mentioned this on Facebook this morning. So many people have
reacted to that post… |
|
18 February 2022
(Friday) - Storm Eunice
I barely slept last night, finding myself
wide awake at two o’clock and then waking every few minutes from then on.
What was that all about? I gave up trying to sleep at five o’clock and
watched “People Just Do Nothing” as I scoffed toast, then had a
look-see on-line. It was probably too early to have seen much this morning,
but what I did see was mostly people preparing for the forecast storm… I say
“preparing”; spreading panic-inspiring memes is probably a better
description. With no emails worth having I ignored the
invitation to a sale of bondage equipment (!) and got ready for the
off. I left home whilst it was still dark. The
wind was picking up, and the pundits on the radio had a lot to say about the
wind. They have a lot to say most mornings, but this morning there seemed to
be something of a theme... They had a lot of interviews with people in all
sorts of places where the forecast storm was due to hit. No one had anything
to report; just to say that they were all expecting the worst. And they also
had a lot of interviews with people in all sorts of places in the Ukraine
where the Russian army is supposed to be invading. And these people also had
nothing to report; just to say that they too were all expecting the worst. I'd left home early to go to Sainsburys. The
place was rather quiet, as you might expect at seven o'clock. I bought far
too many doughnuts, and took them in to work.
Doughnuts were appreciated by all at tea time. Both
jam doughnuts (as God intended) and custard doughnuts (an
abomination). At tea time I
finished my e-book. On 6 December last year I downloaded the first of the
"Harry Potter" books to my phone's Kindle app. Today I
finished the last one. Those seven books kept me occupied for two and a half
months. They were rather good; starting as very much a child's story they got
progressively darker as they went on. Part of me would like to know what
happens to Harry Potter next, but like all stories, it is best to end it on a
high, rather than dragging it on for evermore ("Last of the Summer
Wine" and "Doctor Who" spring to mind). I've now downloaded an old favourite book of
mine. I've read "Brideshead Revisited" so many times... if
you've never read it, give it a go. As the day wore on so the wind picked up. The
forecast had been for the worst winds since “My Boy TM” was
ten days old, but the pundits on the radio over-exaggerate so much that I
hadn't taken them seriously. But I think it fair to say we did have the worst
winds for years, with bridges closing and all the county's buses stopping as
the day went on. Perhaps the road closures might have been better
taking place earlier? But (like me) no one really expected the winds
that came today. I blame the media. I can't help but feel that
they should be held to account for their scaremongering. People might have
taken the ongoing pandemic more seriously at the start had the last twenty
years not been an endless merry-go-round of end-of-the-world horror stories
of mad cow disease and AIDS and zika virus and bird flu and swine flu and
whatever. An early start meant an early finish. I
drove out of the works car park and got a hundred yards down Hermitage Lane
before having to do a U-turn because the road was blocked. Thinking myself
very clever I took a detour which would go past the DFS shop,
and was stuck in a traffic jam for half an hour whilst the police
chain-sawed the fallen tree that had come down from outside the DFS store. Once home I walked the dogs round the block.
Pogo started to kick off at another dog… then suddenly realised what he was
doing, shut up and looked at me in a very apologetic sort of way. I’d walked the dogs immediately on getting
home. And with dogs walked I had a look in the garden fully expecting the
rickety fence between our garden and not-so-nice-next-door to be
matchwood. I was rather amazed to find no storm damage to the garden at all (so
far). I shall have another look in the morning. “er indoors TM” came home with a
job lot of shopping, and boiled up fish and chips
which we scoffed whilst watching “Celebrity Hunted”. I really do think I could do that show… when
my leg stops hurting. |
19 February
2022 (Saturday) - Geo-Meet
Having been
awake for a few hours I gave up trying to sleep, got up and watched an
episode of “People Just Do Nothing” as I scoffed toast. Rather than
sparking up my lap-top I got dressed and took the
dogs out to Great Chart. I’d planned to activate my Adventure Lab series over
there today, and the geo-feds had assured me they would be doing their bit at
11am. I could have put the physical bonus cache out during the week, but I’d
deliberately left it to the last minute. We had a
good walk. Despite one or two fallen trees (and a blown-away shed) our
way wasn’t blocked to the point of impassability like I thought it might have
been. As we walked, Treacle carried a large stick and Pogo played “catch”
as we went from the top-secret cache location up to the river and back again. We came
home. I took a hammer to my walking boot to repair a broken eyelet, then had
another look at the garden to assess storm damage. Our garden seems to have
got off unscathed but most of the fruit trees hanging over the fence from
nice next door have gone. I see that as a result as they only drop over-ripe
plums onto the shingle and they are a pain to move (unless
you are Pogo and you carry them into the house). I went up the garden to
have a closer look and tried not to laugh as I saw where the fallen trees
were. They were blocking the drive at the back of our house, and the new
owner there was sawing the wreckage away. He was nearly finished,
but told me he’d been at it for two hours. I gave
myself a quick haircut, then “er indoors TM” served up a cuppa
and some hot cross buns and all the power went off. That was a pain in the
glass. I was just about to get off my bum and check the fuses when it all
came back on again, so I asked on one of the local Facebook pages if anyone
else had had an outage. It would seem that power had
gone out for two minutes across most of Ashford. With power
restored I spent an hour or so trying (and failing) to solve
geo-puzzles. We settled
the dogs and drove round to Singleton Barn where I was hosting the monthly geo-meet. Having been let down
at short notice by the Swan and Dog in Great Chart, Singleton Barn did us
proud today, They gave us a dedicated area which we filled, I was rather
pleased with how the event went; I got to meet up with old friends and I got
to meet new friends. And I got more beer than sense too. I took a few photos
of the day too – you can see them by clicking here. I had
fifteen people who said they would be along – we ended up with twenty-six. I
was rather pleased about that. I’ve got
several really good “attended” log of the meet – one of them read “…it
was great to put some faces to geonames and meet like minded folk. Bar menu was good and company friendly…”
which was *exactly* what I was intending for today. “er indoors
TM” then drove us home, and I put the heating on
and prepared for the onslaught whilst she fetched “Daddy’s Little Angel TM”
and “Stormageddon – Bringer of Destruction TM” . “My Boy
TM” and Aunty Chel came to see
littlun and we had a good couple of hours until “Stormageddon – Bringer of
Destruction TM” had to be home. “er indoors
TM” drove him home, and
came home with Asda’s Chinese for tea. I ate far too much, and now have a
belly ache… |
|
20 February 2022
(Sunday) - Family Get-Together
After a really busy
day yesterday I slept like a log last night; finally emerging from my pit
just before nine o’clock. I made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was
still there. Quite a lot of people had said good things about yesterday’s
geocaching meeting which was pleasing. Bearing in mind I’d been let down with
only two days to go, Singleton Barn did us proud yesterday. I also saw that “Margaret Tello” was
still active on Facebook. “Margaret Tello” had sent me a friend request
on Facebook last night. She appears to be a young lady with more tits than
sense and was exhorting me to join a Whatsapp group
in which “hot women” would do the dirty deed without wanting to be
paid. I squealed her up to the Facebook feds, but as we know only too well,
offering free filth on-line doesn’t breach Facebook’s community standards. As another negative COVID test incubated I
scoffed hot cross buns and wrote
up some CPD. A year or so ago a colleague said she’d like to start
writing up a CPD
blog of her own. The most difficult bit was getting started, and now
she’s writing quite a bit on her blog. She doesn’t write quite as much as I
do but I think it fair to say that what she does write is of *far*
better quality than what I do, and so I have no hesitation in shamelessly
blagging her work. Leaving “er indoors TM”
getting jiggy with the hoover I took the dogs round to the co-op field where
we walked round once, taking care not to get involved with the game of
football that was going on. We got muddy enough walking round once; they were
playing football in a swamp. We came home and had a bath (well, those
of us covered in mud did). The dogs soon settled, and
pausing only briefly to collect Nick’s coat from Singleton Barn, “er
indoors TM” drove us down to Folkestone where “Daddy’s
Little Angel TM” had excelled herself making Sunday dinner for
the family. Eleven of us sat down and scoffed a very good dinner. It was good
for us all to meet up, and we had a really good bit
of dinner… probably far too much. “My Boy TM” left a few
minutes before us, and just as we were about to leave Folkestone the phone
rang. He was stuck in a traffic jam on the motorway; could we go get Lacey
from her work? Avoiding the blocked motorway we got
to within a few hundred yards of collecting her when we met a “Road Closed”
sign. We didn’t have to go too many miles to get to where we needed to be. And with Lacey safely delivered home I then
spent the evening fast asleep on the sofa clutching a very stuffed stomach… |
|
21 February 2022
(Monday) - Bit Dull Really
I slept reasonably
well, though having eaten far too much yesterday did leave a bloated feeling
which didn’t go away. I got up to see my bereaved
friend was having a little anti-religion rant on Facebook as today marked two
months since his wife of over thirty years had died. This made me think… I
met Graeme in 1975 when we were both in the Boys Brigade, and we both stayed
in it until I left first in1984. Looking back, although we had a wonderful
time there, the whole raison d’etre of the Boys
Brigade was to force religion onto kids and it took me many years to realise
that I had been brainwashed, I didn’t actually believe
any of what the ministers had been preaching, but I just desperately hoped it
was true. Even though I realised that the idea of the God with which we had
been presented required far too many excuses. Now over forty years
later I find myself looking back to see that the church in which we met has closed down, with one exception none of the old crowd goes
to church any more, and (by and large) the Boys Brigade failed in its
mission. I was confirmed in my disbelief at the funeral of the chap who ran
the Boys Brigade group for many years when the one person of our old gang who
stayed with the church (and is now a vicar himself) gave a little
speech/sermon in which he praised our old leader for having a strong “faith”
– this “faith” being a stubborn pig-headed insistence on clinging to a
set of beliefs which had long since been shown to be frankly wrong. I also saw I had a
load of birthday messages on Facebook, which was rather kind. “er indoors TM” and I then went for
a cheeky McBrekkie… back in the day I seemingly
lived in McDonalds. I can’t remember the last time I was in there. McBrekkie sadly wasn’t all that good. We then took the
dogs round the park for a little walk, and I then, pausing only briefly to
iron some shirts, spent the rest of the day slobbing
in front of the telly nursing an ongoing guts ache on what was probably the crappest birthday I’ve ever had… Mind you the weekend
had been good, so I can’t complain. Mid-February has always been a bad time
to have a birthday. |
|
22 February 2022
(Tuesday) - All The Twos
I got up to a wet morning. None of the weather
forecasts had predicted rain overnight, and none of the weather forecasts has
predicted rain for the morning, with the BBC only giving a ten per cent
chance of rain as I looked out of the kitchen window at the downpour. I sighed, and made
toast. Over brekkie I saw that Facebook had again
reviewed “Margaret Tello” (the porn-monger who sent me a friend
request) and again confirmed that sending links to mucky websites didn’t
go against their community standards. They did however give me the
opportunity to appeal to their Oversight Board, so I’ve sent them a message.
We’ll see what comes of that, Not much I expect. And we had an email from the power company
saying that the combined gas and leccie bill is
going up by sixty quid a month to over two hundred quid. Do any of my loyal
readers get gas and leccie cheaper? I shall need to make some economies, I think… Being up early I set off on a rather
circuitous trip to the aquatic shop in Rolvenden
via a geocache based on the war memorial
in Beckley and one in memory of a spitfire
pilot who crashed in nearby Northiam. I got to
the pond shop. I needed a new fluorescent tube for the pond’s filter, so I
took the old one, and said “one of these please”. I always take
the old one as if I don’t I am convinced I will come
out with the wrong thing. It was as well I took the old one in today; there
was quite a conference behind the counter trying to decide which bulb was the
one I needed. As I drove home my car’s trye pressure
warning came up again. Bearing in mind that this is the third time it has
done this in a month I thought that (just maybe) I might get someone
to give it the once-over. The nice man in Kwik-Fit said he might be able to
fit me in this afternoon, but the nice man in ATS said he’d sort me out right
there (result!). The tyre with the warning had a tear in it which was
irreparable, and another one was on the poggered
side too. It was quite ironic really… I’d taken a little
detour this morning to find two geocaches so’s I’d get a souvenir for finding
two geocaches on 22-2-22 and ended up spending 2 hundred quid on 2 new tyres. Once home I took the dogs out (much later
than I’d intended). We went to the park. I won’t say we had a good walk,
but I will say that my dogs’ behaviour was impeccable. We played “fetch”
and “catch” for a bit, then both dogs walked perfectly at heel as we went
round the park. As we walked along by the river we were joined by another
dog. I have no idea whose dog it was; there was
no-one else to be seen. My two didn’t react (which I saw as something of a
result) even though the other dog was charging about like a thing
possessed. It was a shame that this dog decided to charge almost but not
quite underneath a cyclist coming the other way. After a screech of brakes
and a lot of shouting whilst the errant hound sprinted off into the distance,
the irate cyclist told me I should keep my dogs under control. I pointed at
my two (with some pride) who were both still at heel and said that
they were under control, and walked off. As we
walked the cyclist sped off in pursuit of the dog who had caused the “episode”.
I wonder if he got the fight he was so clearly
looking for Still… not my circus, not my monkeys. After this, the passing vagrant telling me
the new council shed was made of liquid cocaine came as something of an
anti-climax. With walk walked I went into the garden and
cleaned out the fish pond’s filter. I used to do
this in the bath, but it stinks, and the last time I did it in the bath I
blocked the plug hole, so now I’ve got a rather good (if somewhat
Heath-Robinson) arrangement with a hose pipe and a huge flowerpot that I
stand over the drain. It didn’t take *that* long to clean out, and
with clean filter innards I put the filter all back together again (with
the new fluorescent tube), turned it all on, and the whole lot leaked
like a sieve with water gushing out in all over the place. Oh, how I laughed. I had intended to carry on in the garden for
the afternoon, but it had clouded over and was rather cold. So I put the screwdrivers and saws away (the filter had
taken quite a bit of fixing!), reeled in the hose, and thought about a
late lunch as the rain started. I spent the afternoon watching “Downton
Abbey: The Movie” and then dozed until “er indoors TM”
came home and boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we washed down with a
decent bottle of plonk whilst watching “Lego Masters: Australia”. After the stomach ache
of yesterday, today was a rather good (if busy and expensive) day. |
|
23 February 2022
(Wednesday) - During the Car Service
As I scoffed my toast
I saw I had a message about a Wherigo I’d put out in Canterbury which had
been giving people some trouble. I created the thing seven years ago and had
thought about archiving it when I stopped working in Canterbury five years
ago, but it seems to have been OK up until now. The software seems to have
developed a bug in which it throws up random QR codes where it shouldn’t. I
wish it wouldn’t. And the nice people at Credit Karma had
emailed me to say my credit score has gone up, They’d suggested I ask the
bank to increase the limit on my credit card so over two weeks ago I did just
that, and now they have increased my score by eleven points, which has taken
it from “Good” to “Excellent”. I suppose this is worth having? After a little farting around on-line
I found that the people who make these scores won’t say what the national
average credit score is for the UK, but they did say that area with the
highest score is Kingston-upon-Thames which has an average score of five
hundred and forty-seven. I suppose you’d expect no less from
Kingston-upon-Thames, would you? And there was a lot of talk on Facebook on
the work-related groups in which an American blood tester was gloating that
she’d just had a cut-price birth. Apparently because yesterday was the
midwife’s birthday (or something) the cost of the medical expenses
that went with the birth was only thousands of dollars, rather than tens of
thousands of dollars. There was then quite the debate (squabble) among
the American blood testers about the going rate for a birth, and the consensus of opinion was to shop around before deciding to
go into labour. Doesn’t this make you realise just how wonderful the NHS is… I went down the road to the dentist. As always I’d had no end of messages from them about COVID
precautions and the need for face coverings, and as always not one of the
receptionists had a face mask over their noses as well as their mouths. There was minor panic there as their computer
system had crashed, but I got to see the hygienist right away as hygienists
apparently don’t need computers. She had a rummaging in my gob, told me it was mostly OK, and said to come back in
six months. In the time it took her to do that, the computers had been fixed,
so the dentist could see me. I’m not saying he didn’t do a thorough job, but
I was in and out in less than two minutes. I collected the dogs and drove out to the
Skoda garage. The nice people in the garage seemed rather taken with the
dogs, and they suggested that seeing how my car had no service history, maybe
a full service might be a good idea. I left the car with them; they said to
give it a couple of hours. I had a plan to put out a Church Micro
geocache at Sevington, then walk out to Mersham and back. We got to Sevington
church where we met with something of a disaster. The footpath I intended to
follow has been diverted seeing how the inland border facility has been built
across it. So rather than following the old footpath, we explored the new
ones. Bearing in mind it is February that was probably a better plan as the
new paths are all on hard standing. From the church we followed a loop round
the inland border facility up to the new(ish)
green footpath over the motorway, and then walked up past the hospital, over
the motorway again and down through Boys Hall back to the garage. Thirty
seconds to type, two and a half hours to walk. I
took a few photos as we walked; apart from Treacle going rogue and
picking a fight with a swan it was a good walk. I got back to the garage with something of a sense
of dread. What would they have found on the service? Surprisingly little,
really. There were a couple of advisories… I shall get those done in the next
month or so. And we got out having spent about two hundred quid less than I
had been expecting. And whilst they hadn’t given the car a full valeting,
someone had scraped out a lot of the mud which was something of a result. We came home and it wasn’t long before the
dogs were both snoring after their exertions. There was no end of stuff I
should have got on with, but there is something strangely satisfying about
having a dog sleeping on you, and the rules are that you cannot disturb a
sleeping dog, so I watched two series of “Trailer Park Boys”. I stopped Trailer Park Boys” to nip to
the loo, and when I came on “Married
At First Sight: Australia” was on, and I found myself captivated by
it. The premise is that total strangers get married and then… well, from what
I could see they then immediately regretted having been so stupid. I found myself thinking of someone who was
once a good friend who I haven’t seen for years. This someone has spent the
last twenty-odd years throwing himself head-first into one disastrous relationship
after another. Having moved in with an utterly unsuitable partner in less
than a week, he then had months (if not years) to regret the decision…
only to go and do it again. I’ve not seen him for some time as the
last-but-one disaster forbade him from associating with any of “his geek
mates” of which I am apparently one. “er indoors TM” came home with a
ton of KFC. That was good. If “er indoors TM” were to croak
I certainly wouldn’t be on a “Married At First Sight” show; I’d want
to know I was setting up shop with someone who would feed me. |
|
24 February 2022
(Thursday) - It Rained. A Lot
I didn’t have the best of nights. I woke in a
cold sweat after only a couple of hours sleep having had a nightmare in which
I’d had an owl telling me I’d been accepted into Hogwarts School Of
Witchcraft and Wizardry. There was an apology that it was fifty years late,
but Dumbledore himself said I’d got “sod all else to do so you might as
well”. Having got to the school I soon found that I’d been invited under
false pretences; pretty much all of the students
were dead following a mishap with a “f*ck the f*ckers
up” jinx and Dumbledore was looking for a stooge to take the blame. And
that was when I woke in a cold sweat. Sometimes I wonder about what goes on
inside my head. I went to the loo to calm my nerves and came
back to find no space in the bed at all as the dogs had made themselves
comfortable. “er indoors TM”’s alarm woke me
shortly after seven, and with her showing no signs of moving I went back to
sleep and was blissfully snoozing when the dogs suddenly had a “Red Alert”
for absolutely no reason whatsoever at eight o’clock. I made toast and scoffed it while yet another negative COVID test incubated, and as I
had a look on-line. The Internet was still there, but not really
much of note was going on in people’s lives. Everyone was up in arms
about the Russian
invasion of Ukraine, but what can the likes of us do about it? As I rummaged in a rather dull Internet I
listened to the sound of the rain against the window. This rain had been
forecast; it was a shame that the forecast couldn’t have been wrong today.
But what could we do? As always we had two choices.
We could sulk, or we could get on with it. The dogs were asking to go out;
Pogo was trying to herd me to the front door, so I put on a coat and thought
we’d have a walk round the block. But seeing the rain had stopped I thought
we’d have a proper walk. We drove up to Kings Wood and set off on our
walk. I slipped in the mud to begin with, but the mud wasn’t *that*
bad. It wasn’t that long before we came to a fallen tree. I took a photo of
it; I
took a few photos as we walked. I had a plan to create an album of photos
of the damage caused by last week’s storm. Bearing in mind
the carnage of the great storm of 1987, there was disappointingly
little damage to be photographed today. When we got about as far from the car as we
were planning to get so the sky darkened and the heavens opened
and we got soaked. So much for the rain stopping. We squelched our way back
to the car and got home to find glorious sunshine. As the washing machine scrubbed the mud out
of the trousers I’d walked earlier I listened to
that idiot of a Prime Minister we’ve got who was addressing the nation about
the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He comes across so well in these speeches,
and then goes on to embarrass himself very soon after, doesn’t he? He was
banging on about the sanctions that the UK is going to impose on Russia…
doesn’t he realise how much the price of the gas we import from Russia has
gone up? Sixty quid a month for me alone! Whilst I do feel for the Ukrainians
whose country is fast going back to being a Russian satellite, what *can*
the UK realistically do? Until such time as the UK is not utterly dependent on
Russian gas, the sad fact is the UK needs to think very carefully before pissing on its own chips. I got out the ironing board,
and tried to sort the laundry as Pogo made himself a little nest out
of what I was trying to iron. As I fought with ironing and Pogo
I watched an afternoon’s worth of “Four In A Bed” which started off
with the first contestant crying about how lovely everyone had been to her,
and ended up with her crying because everyone hated her. I do like that show
(as I have said before), but watching it as
it is broadcast is a silly thing to do. I could probably have saved nearly an
hour by pre-recording and fast-forwarding through the adverts. Also as I fought with
ironing and Pogo I kept glancing out of the window at the weather which was
alternating from glorious sunshine to (not forecast) torrential rain
and back again with regularity. With ironing ironed and telly watched I had a
look at the monthly accounts. They are a lot better than they might be, but
nowhere near as good as I wish they were. I just want to have far too much
money. Is that so much to ask? “er indoors TM” boiled up a very
good bit of dinner which we scoffed as she yelled abuse at the telly as it
showed us the last episode of “Celebrity Hunted”. I won’t give the
game away, but I will say that two of the contestants were incredibly
unlucky. As we scoffed it we
necked perhaps one of the best
bottles of white wine that I have ever had. At less than four quid a
bottle it gives the lie to the pretentious, doesn’t it? |
|
25 February 2022
(Friday) - Watching The Telly
I woke feeling rather unsettled and restless for
absolutely no reason that I could work out. I made toast, turned on my
lap-top and peered into the Internet as I do most mornings. The situation in
Ukraine is bad for the people who live there, and in a typical sign of our
times everyone and his wife were expressing solidarity wit
the underdogs by sticking a Ukrainian flag on their Facebook profile picture. As the situation in the Ukraine continues to deteriorate I can’t help but find myself wondering about
what’s been going on in the world in the last thirty-odd years. I can
remember the failed
coup in the old USSR in 1991. I was at an Open University summer school
at the time, and we thought it was a resounding victory for the West. The
Cold War had been going on for as long as I could remember. I’d spent nearly
thirty years in the shadow of nuclear Armageddon, and the Russian threat was
finally receding. From that failed coup the USSR started to falter, and
eventually fell apart… and then what happened in the meantime? Whilst we in the west learned to become
offended at pretty much everything and anything and started to re-write
history to expunge anything that is not politically correct, and to
exponentially increase the amount of genders that
there may or may not be, the Russians licked their wounds and re-built their
army. And here we are again facing the threat that the world faced when I was
a lad, sadly this time having nothing with which to actually
face it. The Russian invasion of the Ukraine will
continue. And then where will he invade next? Who is going to stop him? With
total control of much of Europe’s gas supply, and
facing a generation whose greatest asset is to take offence, what is to stop
Mr Putin achieving that which his predecessors dreamt about. There was also talk about some trivia on an
episode of “Star Trek: Discovery” that was on telly last night. Mind
you when I say “on telly” I mean “on some
obscure pay-per-view channel that very few people are aware of, let alone pay
for”. Back in the day everyone loved “Star Trek”; these days the
makers sell the show to the channel that bids the highest, and hardly anyone
sees it anymore. I had a look at my emails. NHS Jobs has
randomly decided to start sending me notifications of vacancies that might
interest me. It was only when they arrived today that I realised I’d not had
any of those for years. It would seem that there are still vacancies for
blood testers all over the place; if anything the
shortage has increased. I also had a suggestion from LinkedIn that I
might like to congratulate someone I’d never heard of on her promotion to “Senior
Bimbo” or some other meaningless title. I have no idea who this person
is… much like most of the people on my LinkedIn contact list. Not wanting to take the dogs out during the
rush hour I had a go on “Sweardle” and got
it right on the third attempt with “turd” but struggled with “Lewdle” where the answer was “thicc”.
“Sweardle” is a bit of fun, but I am
convinced that “Lewdle” makes its own words
up. Seeing a bright day outside I got the dogs
into the car and we set off. I listened to thirty
seconds of “Desert Islands Discs” in which some mad woman was going on
about never turning up the opportunity to commune with goats (!)
before turning to my wonderful choice in music. We drove past the petrol
station in Brookfield Road where the queue for panic-buying of petrol was
starting to build up, and we drove on up to Kings Wood where we had a very
good walk. From the car park we followed the paths until we were a mile and a
half from the car as the crow flies (according to my OS app), and then
followed other paths back. Again we saw quite a few
dogs on leads over a mile from the nearest roads. Do they *all* have
recall problems? My two didn’t react at any of the other dogs; I was so
pleased with them. We also saw quite a few birds of prey too. If
the predators are out in force, then the prey must be doing well too. We came home past Sainsburys where the
panic-buying queue wasn’t as long as it has been in
the past. With walk walked some of us had a quick bath,
and then I ran round the garden with the lawn mower. The ground was a tad
soft, but the lawn needed mowing. And by then it was mid-day. I popped up the
road for a sandwich but seeing the kebab shop open I came back with meat and
chips to share with the dogs. I had intended to carry on in the garden but
finding myself underneath a pile of sleeping dogs I just watched the telly
for a bit. “The
Gentleman” was a rather good film about gangsters which passed a
couple of hours as the kebab meat digested, then after a little sleep I hung
out washing and watched “Trailer Park Boys” which is always fun. I watched quite a lot of “Trailer Park
Boys” today… |
|
26 February
2022 (Saturday) - Far Far Ago
As I scoffed toast and peered into the Internet it
was all very negative this morning. There was a lot of talk about the ongoing
situation in the Ukraine in which the Russians are effectively doing what
they want whilst everyone else sits back and wrings their hands. I saw that
whoever it is that runs Rochester Cathedral had arranged for the colours of
the Ukrainian flag to be shone on its spire as they pray for peace. Isn’t
this just a concrete example of the futility of what they preach?
Shining different coloured torches whilst their god is unwilling or unable to
stop the suffering? I had a flurry of messages and emails from the
Isle of Wight branch of Halfords. Someone with the same name as me lives there. He must have a similar email too as I
periodically get messages from wherever the chap has recently visited on the
Isle of Wight. His building society were emailing me last year. And I got told about a
new puzzle geocache up near Thanet. Based on types of curry, the thing kept
me occupied for a few minutes before I decided to give up as I doubt I’ll be going anywhere near it any time soon. We got ourselves and the dogs organised and
walked to the “er indoors TM”-mobile, and set off. We saw that the
queue for petrol at the BP garage was nowhere near as long as we might have
been led to believe. It wasn’t long before we were at Badlesmere
from where we met up with Karl, Tracey and Charlotte and had a rather good
walk. There was a horse in one of the first fields we crossed;
as we crossed it the horse vaguely sauntered in our general direction but
never got closer than twenty yards away. As we crossed the next field we met a chap with a dog who said that the horse
hates his dog and was waiting for him, and a few minutes later there was
quite the commotion kicking off behind us. We carried on through the woods and into a field
in which a load of animals had clearly recently been trampling through. We
had quite the discussion as to whether it had been sheep or deer until
Charlotte hit on the (frankly genius) idea of having a look around and
spotted a load of sheep.
After a couple of hours walking
we were back where we’d left the cars… right outside a pub. Strange, eh? We
had a pint or two and a very good bit of dinner. As always I
took a few photos as we walked and scoffed. I slept most of the way home; I am reliably
informed there were four cars queuing outside the petrol station in
Brookfield Road. Still
feeling very stuffed from a very good dinner we slobbed
in front of the telly and spent the evening watching episodes of “Yonderland”.
If you’ve never seen it, it’s on the Sky catch-up thingy… It’s not too
shabby… |
|
27 February 2022
(Sunday) - Now I Ache...
I woke rather earlier than I would have liked
and lay awake with a vague feeling of restlessness, guilt and vaguely sulking
for no reason that I could fathom. Had I forgotten to do something? Had I
done something wrong? This strange nagging feeling stayed with me for much of
the morning. I made toast and peered into the Internet,
and Facebook immediately presented me with the last photo I took of
all four dogs in the car when we drove over to Great Chart and did a
little litter picking. I had a little melt-down, and then carried on peering
into the Internet. It was still there. I sent out birthday wishes to four
people whose birthday it was today, and was rather
disappointed to see that so few people had seemed to have done anything
yesterday. One friend had been to a car rally and another to the RHS gardens
at Wisley, but that was it. I took the dogs for a very quick walk round
the block, then as “er indoors TM” set off to collect “Daddy’s
Little Angel TM” and “Stormageddon – Bringer of Destruction
TM” I went into the garden and did a little tidying up. I
flushed through the water features, ran out the hose and topped up the pond,
and pulled weeds out of the shingle. That only took an hour, so with a little
time on my hands (and a house full of mayhem) I went to get the
pressure washer out of the shed only to find that “My Boy TM”
still had it. Whilst I waited for Cheryl to deliver it, I pulled the weeds
from the front garden. Cheryl delivered the pressure washer, and I
scrubbed up the stepping stones in the lawn, and the
stone benches and the stone flowerpots and the patio by the shed… and in
doing so reminded myself why I so rarely get the pressure washer out. Whilst
it is good fun, and whilst it does scrub things up very clean, it throws a *lot*
of water about and soon turns the garden into a swamp. I lifted the drain cover, swept as much of
the flood into it as I could, then had a look at the tree overhanging from
the drive at the end of my garden. The tree is a plum tree and in the autumn it drops plums onto the shingle. Fat wet plums
which splatter and attract wasps. I’ve done some research
and found out that I can’t help myself to the plums before they fall, and
once they’ve fallen I’m not supposed to do anything with them but offer them
to the chap whose tree it is. But I *can* cut back overhanging
branches. So I did. I’m technically supposed to
offer them to the chap whose tree it is, but I chopped the branches up really small and stuck them into my green waste bin. And
then decided I ached too much to continue. Before coming inside
I looked up the garden, and reminded myself about why I don’t like gardening.
I took the left-hand photo above shortly after ten o’clock this morning and
took the right-hand one just before four o’clock this afternoon. Can you see
the difference? I can’t. I’m not being big-headed when I say I have a good
back garden; it looks OK, I’m very pleased with the pond and water features;
the shingled areas and statues are good, But I seem to spend an inordinate
amount of time just keeping the garden as it is. I came inside where “Stormageddon –
Bringer of Destruction TM” was playing with several marble-run
games and watching Raa Raa the Noisy Lion on
Lube-Tube (as he calls it). It seems SBOD is uncertain as to
which of Granddad or Raa Raa
the Noisy Lion is cleverest. But he did tell me a joke. What do you call a
goat that gets run over? A dead goat…(well, I laughed!) “er indoors TM” took “Daddy’s
Little Angel TM” and “Stormageddon – Bringer of Destruction
TM” back from whence they’d come while I set the
dishwasher and washing machine going, and spent an
hour fighting with a geo-puzzle that had been published during the afternoon. Over a rather good dinner we watched the
penultimate episode of “Lego Masters: Australia”. It was rather good, and watching it having recorded it earlier we were
able to fast-forward through all the adverts and cut a two-hour program down
to less than an hour and a half. I ache… and I think I caught the sun today. |
|
28 February 2022
(Monday) - Before The Night Shift
“er indoors TM” went to the loo in
the small hours, and it was a good twenty seconds before either dog charged
after her. What was that all about? Needless to say
no one charged after me when I went a few minutes later.… Over toast I peered into the Internet. It was
still there. And dull. Every morning I have a look at Facebook to see what
friends and colleagues and acquaintances have been doing, and most mornings I
am disappointed. This morning there were a couple of photos from the weekend,
a few pictures of flags and sunflowers to show unity with Ukrainians, and one
friend had got a new cat, but the vast majority of
posts on my feed this morning were advertising some rather overpriced brand
of dog food. Most of the six hundred and twenty people on my friends list had
very little to say which was a shame. As I’ve said before I am a very nosey
person and I want to know what everyone else is up to. I had a flurry of emails; people had been out
finding geocaches I’d hidden; Over fifty “Found It” logs including one
on a cache which has been missing for some time and I had been intending to
replace on Wednesday on my way to work. I was pleased that one had been
replaced. From what people had written it was clear that the cache was
missing, and the people walking past did in thirty seconds that which would
have taken over an hour for me to do. I then played “Sweardle”
which I got right on the third attempt and “Lewdle”
which I got on the second, registered another negative COVID test and rolled
my eyes. This was the one hundred and sixteenth COVID test I have registered
on-line. I have done one every four days with monotonous regularity ever
since I was first told to do one every four days… and the website tells me
that my reporting performance is only eighty-eight per cent. How does that
work? I took the dogs to the park with our clean
and washed tennis balls. Recently there have been squabbles over both dogs
wanting the cleaner ball, but having put both tennis
balls through the washing machine, today we had none of that. We did stop a squabble though; two male
blackbirds were having a full-on fight, and it was only when Treacle nearly
had the pair of them that they broke up. We also saw OrangeHead who now has a
whole new posse; there were six of them. Mind you one of the newcomers to the
group had a dog which was “playing dog piggy backs” with another
newcomer’s dog, so I doubt those two will stay the course. We came home to find postie delivering a
parcel. As well as some Munzee stickers I’d ordered
a small piece of trackable Lego. Sadly the people at
the on-line shop had bored a keyring through it. As a piece of Lego it is now only fit for the dustbin. I shall send the
thing out as a geocaching trackable and fully expect it to go missing within
a month. I emailed the shop to ask if the do any
trackable Lego that they haven’t destroyed before selling it; they replied
claiming that the product was clearly labelled as having a key ring attached…
I had another look at the product description… they were right. Oh well… I then wrote up some CPD like I usually do
before a night shift (I am a creature of habit!) and was rather amazed
to see that my CPD blog
has been read over four hundred times in this last week, and spent a while
struggling with a geo-puzzle. The
thing went live yesterday afternoon and I couldn’t
solve it then, so I’d asked for a pointer only to be told there was an error
in the puzzle description (even though someone had already been out
rummaging round all the places that met the given hint and had presumably struck
lucky). I couldn’t solve it this morning either, but by the afternoon a
soluble version was available. I spent twenty minutes in increasing panic
trying to find Treacle only to eventually see she was on the bed laying on
top of the hot water bottle I’d put in there earlier. I went to bed for the afternoon and didn’t
really have a good sleep. When “er indoors TM” is there,
both dogs settle immediately (they don’t dare not). Treacle was still
this afternoon, but Pogo was not. I gave up trying
to sleep after a few hours and watched some episodes of “Trailer Park Boys”.
“er indoors TM” will be home soon,
and will hopefully feed me, then I’m off to the night shift… via Sainsburys
for shopping and petrol. I wonder if the stupidity of queuing for petrol is
still going on? |
