1 February 2025 (Saturday) - Darcie Went To Dog Club

 

 

I slept right through until the alarm off at seven o’clock this morning. I don’t know how everyone else slept, but I didn’t hear anything all night long.

Being the first of the month I cracked out a new razor blade, and once I’d scraped I sorted toast and had a look to see what the Internet had done overnight.

Yesterday evening before I went to kip I wrote up some CPD. Quite a few people had had a look at it. Over the last week it has been looked at over one thousand three hundred times. I can’t see the attraction myself; it is dull in the extreme.

I sent out a birthday wish to the one friend having a birthday this morning, and then the dogs came downstairs. By the time I’d taken them out and gathered up an epic collection of dog turds so everyone had woken and was swarming about downstairs.

 

We had brekkie… or to be precise some of us did. Others (littlun) turned their nose up at a succession of offerings.

And leaving “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” laying in state on the sofa the rest of us drove round to Repton and a rather muddy Dog Club. We arrived and opened up, and before long people started arriving. Pogo had been before, but he probably didn’t remember, and responded like pretty much every other dog does on their first time. He found it all rather overwhelming to begin with, but before long he was in the thick of it. Just like so many other dogs I’ve seen there. Little Rouleaux is a classic case in point. A month ago he arrived toward the end of a session, hiding behind his mummy’s ankles. Just like Honey who came for the first time a year ago and who also wouldn’t leave her mummy’s side. Today both of them left their mummies at the gate and came charging in to join in the fun. Mind you Dog Club probably isn’t for everyone; some rather posh woman who came for five minutes last week came along again today. I heard her apologizing to everyone about how her dog jumps up, how she’s been to so many trainers and still he jumps up. And how Dog Club doesn’t seem to be helping at all with the jumping. I just smiled – we don’t run a dog training session. We just hire a secure paddock in which dogs can run and play and generally get used to there being other dogs around. Personally I like dogs jumping up at me, but that’s just me.

After twenty minutes I saw this woman standing off by the paddock’s fence looking down on everyone else in much the same way that God might judge a dubious creation.

But we had at least twenty-one dogs along today (I counted a few times) so we can’t be doing it entirely wrong.

 

Pausing only briefly to drop “er indoors TM” at craft club we came home. As we drove Steve was doing the Mystery Year competition on the radio. Ian Dury – Hit me With Your Rhythm Stick and Driver 67? !978 definitely!

I was one year out.

We got home. Having fetched in a bumper crop of dog dung before brekkie I went round the garden again and got another epic harvest of the stuff. And then we spent the morning watching silly animal videos on YouTube and gathering up the washing up until it was time for me to fetch “er indoors TM”. I needed a break.

We came home. Littlun carried on wreaking havoc until ”Auntie Chel TM” came to visit. ”Auntie Chel TM” is littlun’s current favourite; there’s no denying that.

 

“er indoors TM” drove “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” and Darcie WaaWaa TM” home midway through the afternoon. I had a little tidy-up as the dogs slept. They were worn out with it all. As was I.

I ran round with the Hoover; the smaller dogs didn’t even have the energy to try to attack it.

 

“er indoors TM” returned and did me sausages and chips for dinner. I’d suggested she baked up the leftover KFC chips from last night’s dinner. In retrospect it wasn’t my best idea.

She then went out with Steve and Sarah to the Old Dairy Taproom where an old mucker was playing with his band. I’ve known Rick for over forty years. It would have been good to have caught up with him, but there’s only so much catching up you can do with the lead guitarist of a band; they are busy as they are working. And I’ve seen his band before, Whilst they are vey good they are also very loud. I resent going to see any sort of live music as I end up spending far too much money just to come home with a headache.

 

Instead I did a second dishwasher load and set the washing machine loose on the undercrackers and settled on the sofa underneath a pile of dogs watching more “Poldark”. Mistress Morwenna has married the sex pest vicar. Lieutenant Armitage has unhealthy desires on Demelza. And Aunt Agatha croaked.

 

 

2 February 2025 (Sunday) - A Day at the Coast

 

 

As I headed to the loo in the small hours so Bailey appeared from her basket. What was she doing downstairs? I let her into the garden, and once we’d both done our things she ran up the stairs to bed… and stopped. Treacle was standing at the foot of the bed glaring at her. I picked Bailey up and lifted her past Treacle, and all was fine. But Treacle clearly didn’t want Bailey coming up.

We all went back to bed and slept through until nearly nine o’clock.

 

I made toast and had my usual rummage round the Internet. Several people were kicking off on one of the local Facebook groups. Apparently some trees had been cut down in a local car park this morning, and some weren’t happy at the sound of a chain saw at half past seven on a Sunday morning when supposedly hard-working people were trying to sleep. It never fails to amaze me how so many people don’t realise that not everyone works and sleeps at the same time. Presumably those complaining were the same ones who have been complaining recently about how they claimed these trees were dangerous.

And then “er indoors TM” and the dogs came down. I took them into the garden and chased round with the turd-harvesting bucket. Bearing in mind I fetched in two epic harvests of dog dung yesterday I was amazed at how much was waiting to be brought in this morning.

 

We got the dogs onto their leads and went out. There is a little adventure lab series along the coast from Littlestone to Dungeness so that filled an hour. Part of it involved a little walk across the nature reserve to the sound mirrors. It was rather pretty down there, but walking on the shingle was hard work.

With ad-lab ad-labbed we then failed to find a geocache on the road to Lydd. The description said that we should look behind the concrete post. We could only see one post and there was nothing behind it.

And with a little time on our hands we went on another geo-adventure. We drove down the road from Lydd to the beach as far as we could. We parked by the sign which clearly said no motor vehicles past this point. That was just over half a mile from where we needed to be, so a little walk down a track with no cars and then a run on the beach would suit us. Or so we thought. No motor vehicles? You wouldn’t believe the number of idiots driving down that track. There were pot holes deeper than my wellies, and you could hear the crunching as the undersides of cars scraped along. But we had a good walk. We got to the beach where there was a little statue of the Mystery Man of Denge Marsh. It’s a statue of a human figure laying on the beach. No one seems to know who put it there, but apparently it has been there for at least twenty years. And (needless to say) there’s a geocache nearby.

It was only a shame that on the walk back to the car Bailey had to run under the fence into the Army shooting range (twice), but she came back.

I took a few photos as we were out and about.

 

We came home for a late lunch. A cup of coffee and a bit of Christmas cake (about half the calories we’d walked off this morning) and I had a look at my next Adventure lab project. I’ve got quite a few ideas in mind for geocaching adventure labs, and one of them is now ready to go. I shall activate it next Saturday in readiness for the geo-event I’m planning for then.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up a rather good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching a couple of episodes of “Celebrity Hunted”. Are these celebrities really that stupid that they have pre-arranged live TV shows? And are the hunters really that stupid that they didn’t check the celebrities’ schedules?

 

Today has been rather busy…

 

 

3 February 2025 (Monday) - Geo-Planning

 

 

Whenever I’m on a diet I have a weigh-in on a Monday morning. Since I started this diet ark three weeks ago I’ve lost ten pounds which is something of a result. Mind you I’ve always found that provided I ignore the pain of being constantly hungry, weight loss is easy. Keeping the weight off is the tricky bit.

I made toast and had a little look at the Internet as I do. This morning’s petty squabble on Facebook was about the unit used for measuring radiation exposure. Most people favoured calling it the roentgen, but a vociferous minority were claiming the unit was called the ronkin.

Oh, there was some serious attitude going on.

 

I went out to the car and scraped the ice off, then loaded up the dogs and took them to the woods for a little walk. We went up to Kings Wood where I checked up the final locations on some more of the geo-series I’m planning there. We had a good walk over four and a half miles; once away from the car park we didn’t see anyone else at all.

At one point I saw movement in the woods about a hundred yards in front of us. Deer. A herd of about twenty. They’d obviously seen us and were walking as fast as we were, just keeping that distance between us until we reached a crossroads of the tracks. At that point they all ran across the path in front of us. My ever-vigilant dogs completely missed them.

When we left home the thermometer in the car said it was half a degree above freezing. When we got back to the car after our walk it was nine degrees. What a difference in under three hours.

 

We came home. I’d put coats onto the smaller dogs thinking that might keep them warm and clean. But once home I had to wash both the dogs and the coats.

I made a cuppa and cut myself a slice of Christmas cake, then sparked up the laptop and carried on with my current geo-project. After three hours I’d come up with the artwork for the geo series – what people will see on the map before they start solving the puzzles and correcting the co-ordinates.

And after another two hours I’d re-written my old Crystal Maze Wherigo into a little series of brain teasers.

 

Once we’d scoffed dinner “er indoors TM” went bowling, and as the dogs snored I settled in front of the telly and watched more “Poldark”. Cornwall of two hundred years ago would seem to have been a very unmoral place. Mistress Morwenna was hankering after Drake. Her husband the vicar had tubbed her sister. And on seeing what Ross was up to with Elizabeth, Demelza decided that what was good for the goose was good for a goosing.

I gave up after two episodes. I needed a rest.

 

 

4 February 2025 (Tuesday) - This n That

 

 

After a good night’s sleep I made toast and had my usual rummage round the Internet. This morning some chap had posted on one of the work-related Facebook groups to say that yesterday a patient had brought in a lump of plastic, claimed he’d coughed it up and wanted it to be tested. This provoked a flurry of posts about other objects which other people had brought into their labs with demands for testing. I didn’t reply (which is the best way to avoid being embroiled in an argument I neither need nor want) but I remembered an incident from twenty years ago. Some aggressive chap marched through a door clearly labelled “staff only” and thrust a jam jar at me. It contained what looked like a lump of snot. Apparently this chap had peed it out that morning and caught it in his sieve. Apparently this chap always peed through a sieve so that he might trap anything untoward which he might be peeing out. He demanded that I test this object. I asked him what tests he had in mind (I was wondering about suggesting the nine times table or Latin vocabulary); the chap screamed “TEST IT” and stormed off never to be seen again.

And this morning’s squabble was from a supermarket in Rye posting CCTV images of people recorded shoplifting. Is the supermarket allowed to do that? Someone was claiming breaches of GDPR. Can you post someone’s photo without their say-so? I can remember my photo once being spread far and wide. In the mid-1980s the Boys Brigade brought out a new handbook in which a photo of me featured prominently…  I had a huge zit on the side of my nose. I hated that photo, but legally I could do nothing. It turned out that provided the photo wasn’t invading my privacy I had no control over my likeness. Mind you whether or not posting a photo of someone and accusing them of shoplifting is a whole other thing.

 

I took the dogs to the woods. Yesterday the puddles and mud were frozen and the dogs wore coats. Today was eight degrees warmer. We walked one of our standard walks of just under four miles and had a rather uneventful walk. There was a minor incident when Treacle found a deer skeleton, but she lost interest after a minute or so. Bailey wasn’t interested at all. Morgan peed on it and wandered off.

 

As we drove home there was something frankly amazing on the radio, Some woman had been going to yoga classes two or three years ago and got invited to go to a weekend yoga retreat. One thing led to another and before long she found herself in an “advanced yoga class” which involved travelling abroad, handing over her passport and phone, posing for nudey pictures, giving topless massages and doing the dirty deed with the tutor. All of which (so she claimed) seemed perfectly reasonable at the time, and it was only later that she realized that none of this was standard yoga practice.

The woman speaking seemed sensible and reasonable, and wanted to be sure that no one else got taken in like she did.

Makes you think, eh?

 

Once home the dogs had the obligatory go in the bath. Paws and tummies get filthy in the woods, but they are as good as gold at bath time. I sorted us both a cuppa and the last of the Christmas cake, then wrote a new Wherigo for this year’s Kings Wood geo-plan. I went on Amazon and ordered thirty (or so) self-inking stamps for my letterbox hybrids, and with that done all that remains is to work out sixty puzzles, calculate thirty projections, write over a hundred geocache descriptions, then go stick a load of pots under rocks in the woods.

That should keep me busy…

 

I then cracked on with the ironing whilst watching more “Poldark” until the doctor rang about my blood pressure. For once I talked with someone I could understand and who seemed sensible. She didn’t patronize and tell me what I already knew. She said that coming off of night work for the time being was definitely a good thing, and said I should continue trying to lose weight. She’s arranging for all sorts of blood and urine tests and an ECG to be done, and suggests I should continue to measure my blood pressure weekly. She talked about long term medication but (like me) seemed to think it was best avoided if possible. She suggested I carry on with walking and dieting and she’ll review me in three months’ time.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up a rather good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching more “Celebrity Hunted”. As I asked a couple of days ago, are these celebrities stupid?

 

 

5 February 2025 (Wednesday) - Early Shift

 

 

I had a rather restless night. Despite having the internet connections turned off, my phone loudly announced that I had a message (about trivia) just as I was nodding off. I then did my annoying trick of sleeping soundly for two hours, waking before two o’clock and then laying awake for the rest of the night.

And so I was up silly early watching more “Poldark” in which Captain Monk Adderly started sniffing round Elizabeth. I can’t work out why Elizabeth is seen as the local beauty; she always has a face like a smacked bum.

 

I then sparked up the lap-top and saw sad news… The local Husky group is no more. Running Dog Club isn’t difficult. All I do for our group is show up, open the gate, hang up the money pot and tie a carrier bag for dog turds to the fence. Admittedly someone else from one of our later groups takes the turds away and locks the gate, but it is hardly arduous. You just stick the bag of turds into the nearest bin. And the money – count it up, pocket it and transfer that amount from your own account to the account of the people whose field it is. It really isn’t that much to do, it probably takes me five minutes each week, and everyone (humans and dogs) have such a good time.

Our dog club meets on a Saturday morning. Until recently there has been a similar group meeting on a Sunday for huskies and other large dogs. The woman running the group has had to step down, and sadly the group has now closed down. No one was prepared to take over. Could no one have found five minutes a week to keep the group running?

 

Taking care not to wake anyone I got ready for work, and once I'd scraped the ice from the car I set off. Having a few minutes spare I took a little diversion in the general direction of Stanhope to capture a dozen flat friends (it's a Munzee thing) before heading up the motorway.

Sadly I'd timed things to get on the motorway just as a load of lorries had come up the motorway from the ferry, and so with the slow lane full of lorries going at fifty miles per hour and the middle lane full of lorries overtaking them at fifty-one miles per hour I took my life in my hands and went in the fast lane. I pulled into the middle lane when I could; there was a seemingly never-ending queue of vans wanting to voom past at breakneck speed.

 

As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about President Trump's latest stroke of genius. He's going to solve the Gaza problem by annexing it and forcibly evicting two million Palestinians. Clearly that goes entirely against international law, but in cases like this who is it that enforces international law? Yes - the American army.

Will he go ahead with his plan? Probably not. I suspect he will actually claim that the plan couldn't go ahead and cite whoever is seen as Public Enemy #1 in the eyes of the American electorate and come out more popular than ever. Like him or loathe him, you have to admire him.

 

Needing lunch I popped in at  Sainsburys. I got what I needed and again there were no tills open with till operatives. That suited me today; with a ton of change from emptying the collection pot from Dog Club I bought several odds and ends and paid for it all by emptying all the silver and brass coins into the machine. One of the staff was glaring at me; I gave her a sickly smile and carried on dropping in the five and ten pence pieces.

 

I did my bit. I came home. I had an email. Someone had commented on something I'd posted to my CPD blog. They'd written "die!"  five hundred and thirty-six times. Some people would be concerned about that; I think it is rather sad that some people have nothing better to do with their time, and that whoever it was that wants me to die is too cowardly to put their name to the comment.

I wonder who it was. I have absolutely no idea.

I’ve changed the settings to stop people posting anonymously. I did that on here several years ago.

 

I wonder what’s for dinner… I’ve got seven hundred and twenty calories left on today’s allowance.

 

 

6 February 2025 (Thursday) - Full Fibre

 

 

Despite a rather vivid dream in which Bailey announced that she was no longer a dog and from now on was identifying as an arctic fox I slept rather well. “er indoors TM” ‘s alarm woke me immediately following a dream in which I had been told that the answer to today’s wordle was “smear”. What was that all about?

 

I made my toast and had my usual look at the Internet. It was still there. There was a surprising amount of grief being expressed about Brian Murphy who died yesterday. He was famous for being George Roper in “Man About the House”; a rather lame comedy from fifty years ago. He was in his nineties. This morning I read poems written about him and lamentations about his passing. The chap was ninety-two. That’s not bad, is it?

I Munzed, I found that not only was “smear” not the answer to today’s wordle but not a single one of its letters were in the word, which was actually “pupil”.

 

I took the dogs up to the woods. We set off driving through a glorious morning, but the woods are on much higher ground and as we got closer so the fog got thicker. I often wonder if it is fog or low cloud, but when we arrived visibility was less than fifty yards.

We met quite a few people in the woods today. Dogs on twenty-metre leads seemed to be popular today. I can understand having a dog on an epically long lead might be needed if there are recall issues, but an epically long lead is an ideal thing to get tangled round the trees. And we met one very nervous dog… or (to be precise) a dog whose owner told us he was nervous. The dog seemed fine. I suggested they came to Dog Club to socialize; she seemed quite keen on the idea.

As we walked so the fog/cloud lifted. We did one of our usual circuits which my watch told me was a shade over three and a half miles. It was just under four miles when we walked the same route earlier in the week.

It was only a shame that Bailey tried to eat a dead bird.

 

We came home and for once didn’t need baths. I made a cuppa, wrote up some CPD, and offered to help tidy up. The nice man from Openreach was coming to upgrade the broadband and needed to get to the front wall to drill a hole. “er indoors TM” said I wasn’t to help tidy up; it was a job she could do better on her own. She probably had a point.

It has to be said that upgrading the broadband wasn’t my idea. The nice man at Sky suggested it when the broadband went down just after Christmas. I got the impression that it was some sort of a bung to keep me sweet because the internet had been down for three days. But he also gave me two months’ supposedly free Sky Sports and I’ve just been told that from next month I’ll be charged for Sky Sports. Not that I ever wanted the sport channels. I’ve now cancelled them.

 

The nice man from Openreach arrived, fiddled about and after an hour and a half he went leaving us a nice new white router box thingy. He left the old one as well and said it would probably work for another hour or so. I plumbed my lap-top and mobile into the new network thingy.

I cracked on writing cache pages for my new load of geocaches in Kings Wood. After three hours I had a first draft for about a quarter of them. And then the Alexa stopped playing music. The old broadband had been turned off and we had to plumb it into the new. There was a minor issue in that Alexa wouldn’t accept the new network without “er indoors TM” telling it that all was fine. How many other devices want your password when connecting to a new network?

Connecting the telly was simple enough, but connecting the SkyQ box was hard work. We’re now running everything on Full Fibre. Go us!!

 

I’ve done a before and after speed check. The upload isn’t much faster, but the download is thirty per cent quicker. I suppose that must be a good thing, but I never had an issue with the old broadband.

I wonder how long it will be before Full Fibre is old hat and the next new thing is being foisted on us?

 

 

7 February 2025 (Friday) - Late Shift

 

 

I slept well. I was pleased about that. I peered into the Internet as I scoffed toast, trying to see if this full fibre (that we had installed yesterday) had made any difference. It hadn’t. It seems to have been a lot of faffing and upheaval for absolutely no benefit whatsoever. I had a little look on Google this morning which seemed to think that with ful fibre I should be having download speeds of up to nine hundred Mbps. Not one hundred and eight as it managed this morning. USwitch claimed that if I told Sky to stuff it and went with some bunch called YouFibre I could get speeds of one hundred and fifty Mbps. Bearing in mind it all comes down the same cables I’m not sure how that would work. I suppose it’s like the electricity and gas which come into my house which have different prices according to who I pay the bill to.

 

I had a look at Facebook. I wanted to ask opinions about an idea I’ve had. As we walked round the Romney Marsh last weekend I saw a rather pretty ornamental pond in someone’s garden. I’ve got enough odds and ends to make most of something along those lines, but the whole thing focusses on a waterfall. I’ve no way of easily getting leccie to the front garden so I wanted to ask for people’s experiences with solar powered water pumps. Sadly one of the Facebook UK pond groups has been formally paused. I can’t help but wonder why. I asked on another. That should be good for an argument. I’ve had a few replies – apparently solar powered pond pumps are of variable quality… or are “hitty miss” to quote one of the replies I had.

 

I munzed and Wordled, and seeing the drizzle decided against taking the dogs out. Instead I settled on the sofa and carried on writing web pages for my Kings Wood geo-series until geocaching dot com crashed. 

I took that as a sign that it was time to go to work.

 

As I walked out to my car so the bin men were blocking the road. About five hours later than usual on a Friday. Were they running late or have they changed the collection times?

 

I drove through a very wet morning listening to the radio. Various windbags were pontificating about healthy eating. Apparently healthy calories are twice the price on non-healthy ones. Perhaps that's where my diets have been going wrong? There was all sorts of talk about how politicians on all sides agree that whatever government is in power it should try to legislate in favour of healthy eating. However they all pointed out that the masses like a maccy D and don't like being told why it is bad for them. As Ronald Reagan once remarked about any political debate, “If you're explaining, you're losing”.

 

I took a minor diversion on my way to work. A new geocache went out yesterday and still hadn't been found. I thought I might get First to Find; the chap who was there first was doing the secret geo-rituals round about the time I was leaving home.

Mind you it was an odd cache. Someone's first hide and stuffed in the scout's bug hotel. I bet the scouts don't know about that. I shall be seeing one of them tomorrow - I shall see what he thinks.

 

I got to work and had a rather busy late shift. Certainly busier than I had hoped for.

 

I came home to find that “er indoors TM” had been painting. Ostensibly the door. To be honest there was more paint on the door than there was on Treacle, but not much more.

 

 

8 February 2025 (Saturday) - Dog Club, Community Celebration Event

 

 

I slept better than I might have done. The original plan was that I did last night’s night shift, but I’ve been taken off of those for a while.

I made toast and peered into the Internet. There was quite a bit of ranting about the antics of President Trump this morning. He’s now sanctioned the International Criminal Court. The rights and wrongs of the matter are immaterial really. It’s just his latest move; there will be more. People ranting on social media this morning were bemoaning about how he might be stopped. No one seems to think that it isn’t President Trump who is at fault but the system. If people are to choose their leader by having them be the winner of a popularity contest you are going to get flashy showmen elected. This is precisely what happened in the UK with Boris Johnson. Caught out in his own lies time and again, but no one cared. “Good old Boris” was the cry of so many people. If we are going to persist in this frankly ridiculous way of electing leaders by using a process in which the considered opinion of an educated person is of no more worth than the whim of a half-wit, this is going to happen time and again.

 

I Munzed and Wordled, and activated my latest geocaching Adventure Lab project. A little walk down New Street. There used to be six pubs along a road you can walk in a couple of minutes.

And with that live we got the dogs onto their leads and took them to Dog Club. There were about sixteen dogs along today. Everyone seemed to have a good time, but it was very muddy, and everyone got filthy. There were baths for everyone when they got home. The bath was black by the time our three had been scrubbed.

As we drove home Steve was doing the Mystery Year competition on the radio. When did the two-pound coin come out? 1998. I thought it was much earlier than that.

 

With dogs scrubbed I settled on the sofa and wrote up more cache pages for my Kings Wood project. I got over half of the second major series written up; that would be about as much as I could really hope for in one morning.

 

And then we got ready for the afternoon. Geocaching dot com had given me the opportunity to host a Community Celebration Event. This is a bit like a regular meet-up of geocachers, but a usual meet just involves getting together for at least quarter of an hour, saying hello, and that’s it. Anything else is extra. A Community Celebration Event lasts for at least two hours and is supposed to be a bit more than a standard meet-up. I ran one three years ago on New Year’s Day when we all played Wherigos. Today I borrowed the scout hut and we had an afternoon playing board games.

I must admit to a degree of trepidation beforehand. Would there be much interest? Would people turn up? Would it be a flop? And then as people posted their “Will Attend” logs I saw that so many people were coming form London and Essex and far away. Who were these people – would they understand what I was trying to do?

But (as I always do) I was worrying unduly. We had a really good afternoon. I laid out four trestle tables and all of them were used. Magnetic chess, open the box, Jenga, Yahtzee… people had brought games and were playing them. I met up with old friends and made some new friends and played Jenga and a wonderful card game about pirates.

And I took a few photos. I do that.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up a rather good bit of dinner which we washed down with a very good bottle of plonk whilst watching the New Year episode of “Bake Off”.

It’s been a rather good day today…

 

 

9 February 2025 (Sunday) - It Rained

 

 

I slept well; finally emerging from my pit at half last eight. I made toast and had my usual rummage round the Internet. It was much the same as ever. People were again grumbling about the latest antics of President Trump; quite a few of those whinging being non-Americans. I was reminded of a rather thick secretary with whom I worked (many years ago) saying how she was going to vote for Ronald Reagan, and was then incensed to find out that only American citizens could vote in the American presidential election.

Facebook had two messages for me this morning. It announced that that the Dog Club’s page had one member violation to review, but when I clicked on the link it announced “Good news: no violations to show”. What was that all about?

Yesterday I was presented with an advert for porn websites. I reported it and in a novel break with tradition my second message from Facebook was it saying that it agreed this went against their Community Standards and had removed it.

I had quite a few emails. People had been hunting out my geocaches before and after yesterday’s event, and everyone had said positive things about them and the event itself. I was particularly pleased with one comment: “Haven't been to many caching events, but out of all of them this one was probably my favourite”.

 

I knew the weather forecast for today was for rain, and it was raining. That didn’t stop me being miffed about it though.

So I carried on writing web pages for my Kings Wood geo-project until “er indoors TM” and the dogs came down. I Munzed and Wordled for a bit, and as the rain continued to hoss down I spent the day cracking on writing web pages. Personally I would rather have done something more constructive, but getting all the cache descriptions and stuff done is a rather fundamental part of this geo-project so I won’t say the day was entirely wasted.

 

At seven o’clock in the evening I turned off the lap-top as it was dinner time. We scoffed a rather good bit of dinner and then spent the evening staring at the telly

My watch tells me I’ve done less than five hundred steps today… After a rather good day yesterday, today was on the dull side.

 

 

10 February 2025 (Monday) - Woods, Wherigo, Weight

 

 

I made my usual toast for brekkie (two hundred and seventy eight calories) and had a look at the Internet.

As I peered into Facebook this morning I was invited to sign a petition demanding that an ice-skating rink be established in Ashford. The petition is rather interesting in that for all that it demands that an ice-skating rink be established in Ashford it is utterly silent on who it is demanding it from. I’d suggest that the local council have far more important things to spend their (our) money on – flood defences on the river by Asda immediately springs to mind. Setting up an ice rink is surely something for private enterprise, isn’t it? I can’t help but think that if there were money to be made from such a venture, someone would already be making it.

And there were calls for the Eurostar to stop at Ashford again. It used to stop. But not enough people got on or off at Ashford to make it worthwhile having the station open.

 

With rain forecast for later in the day I was keen to make an early start so I took the dogs out. As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the war in Ukraine. It is still going on despite not a lot of news coverage these days. It was suggested that the Western world has better things to spend its money on rather than financing a war which is nothing to do with them. It was also suggested that the Russian economy is in a bit of a state. It was claimed that both sides are looking for a way to end it all without losing face. Which is sadly what has probably been the case for quite some time.

 

As we’d driven so the drizzle had started. It ended as we got to the woods. I wanted to check out the last few locations for my ongoing geo-project. I had this idea that the last bit to check would make for a shorter walk, but we ended up walking about quarter of a mile more than we usually do. But I did that which I needed to do, and the dogs had a good outing too. It was a shame that Bailey had to roll in fox poo, but that’s what she does.

 

Despite the weather forecast we walked four miles with no rain. We came home for a bath: all the dogs were filthy; being low to the ground they do collect the mud. And with dogs bathed I cleaned out the bathroom shelf tray thingy. Someone hadn’t secured the lid of the dog shampoo bottle after their last scrub and it had filled the shelf tray thingy. I then ran round with the hoover… and then took a Stanley knife to the thing’s roller which was tangled up with cotton and string.

By the time I’d cleaned out the washing machine’s fabric conditioner tray and put in another washload I was worn out.

 

I updated my Kings Wood geo-database with what I’d done this morning then sorted myself a light lunch. In the past when “er indoors TM” has been in the office I’ve popped over the shop and got myself a lunch of a bag of Doritos, a pot of dip and a can of Tizer. Today I had a cup of coffee and a mince pie which was almost exactly one thousand calories less. That’s the trick to weight loss – just be aware of exactly what you are shoving down your neck.

I spent three more hours writing up Wherigo and geocache pages. I’m now at the stage where I’ve done all the preliminary location visits and written everything up. I’ve sent the entire lot to the reviewer for him to give it all a preliminary once-over and if he’s happy I’ve then got to put the actual caches out. I suspect that will take about five visits to the woods.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up six hundred calories worth of dinner and went off bowling as she does. I sparked up Netflix and caught up with the antics of the Poldark tribe. The beastly vicar has croaked. Good.

 

And in the three weeks that I’ve been going at this diet, I’ve lost nearly a stone and my blood pressure, whilst still too high, is better than it has been. Here’s hoping weight and blood pressure carry in subsiding. And stay subsided. Perhaps if I carry on having a weigh-in every Monday morning and a blood pressure every Monday evening from here on in I can keep tabs on myself?

 

 

11 February 2025 (Tuesday) - Pork Chop Giraffe

 

 

Usually I don’t hear “er indoors TM” coming to bed. I did last night – one of the dogs was in trouble for some unspecified crime.

Having had a few nights of reasonable kip, with an alarm set I didn’t really sleep well lat night, and was up and watching “Poldark” far too early. In today’s installment the foxy one who everyone fancied croaked. I could never work out why she was supposedly the foxy one as she always looked thoroughly miserable but I suppose that was her attraction.

As I watched so Morgan was going up and down the stairs. Having got up for a tiddle he was probably scared to go back to the bed as Treacle tends to guard it. She’s fine with any other dog being on the bed, but once they get off she won’t let them back on.

 

There wasn’t much happening on the internet this morning so I got ready for work. It was rather nippy as I set off. I went to the petrol station to get a sandwich. The woman behind the till asked if I wanted to make it up to a meal deal for an extra fifty pence. I explained that I was on a diet, and how many calories came in the bag of crisps and the bottle of pop. Once she’d taken my money she then said I could have had a bottle of flavoured water and a bag of fruit instead. That was helpful.

 

As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the radio were talking about the various trade tariffs that President Trump is bringing in. Pretty much everyone except President Trump thinks they are bad things. There was talk about the last load of tariffs he introduced, and the general consensus of everyone asked was that everyone has learned the lessons of tariffs *except* Donald Trump.

And there was lots of talk about the war in Gaza… but nothing about Ukraine (again).

The motorway was particularly busy this morning, and was rammed at Maidstone. I took a diversion through Aylesford to miss the worst of the traffic.

 

By the time I got to work my watch told me that I’d done more steps by half past seven in the morning than I did all day last Sunday.

Work was work. We had a Red Alert. I’ve mentioned before they are much more fun on Star Trek. Or anywhere else other than where I am really. But being on an early shift meant I got out early. I came home via the electrical shop where I went three weeks ago; the light bulbs I ordered were finally in. And I popped the keys to the scout hut back to Pam. It was good to catch up – Pam was saying that the scout group needs a new chairman. I wonder if I might do that?

 

I came home to find my favourite lady in residence. “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” has an appointment in the morning so littlun is staying with us until mid-day tomorrow. She’s become incredibly polite just lately; constantly saying “Morgan will you please get out of the way” every time he come close. Sadly every time I take that which she shouldn’t have away from her she runs to her grandmother announcing “Granddad has stolen my toy”. Mind you (in much the same way) every time “er indoors TM” tells her off she complains to me.

We’ve had pizza and watermelon, played “pork chop giraffe”, and it has just gone bed time. I personally think bed time before midnight is ambitious but here’s hoping.

 

Oh – and the geo-feds are (mostly) happy with the first quarter of my Kings Wood geo-series…

 

 

12 February 2025 (Wednesday) - Chairman?

 

 

I slept like a log to begin with last night - I didn't hear littlun at all. Presumably she slept too? Mind you I was wide awake at half past four. I got up, made toast and watched another episode of "Poldark" in which George was feeling Elizabeth's loss keenly. So keenly that he went a bit doolally. Poor George.

I got myself ready for work and set off to find the car. It was where I'd left it last night a couple of streets away.  As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how the government has changed the immigration laws so that if anyone enters the UK illegally then they can't get UK citizenship ever. Will that deter those coming across in boats? We shall see.

And the head honcho of the metropolitan police wasn't happy that the courts have decided that failing the vetting required to be a copper isn't grounds to sack one. Apparently there are twenty-nine coppers who are that bad that they wouldn't get a job as a copper if they applied today, but now they are in, they are in for life.

 

I got to work a bit early, made a cuppa and got Wordle on the fourth attempt.  My phone presented me (via a "memories" app) with a photo from a walk I went on with my Fudge seven years ago when he and Sid were doing "dog piggy-backs". I miss those silly dogs.

I also emailed the Scout Association asking what being a group chairman actually involves. When I was asked to be a leader (all those years ago) I was told it would only be one hour a week. It was actually over two hours on meeting night, another evening each week on preparation for the meeting night and often another evening a week on top of that on meetings. At least one entire weekend day a month was spent on some activity or other. We had three long weekends away every year, and a week-long camp - and all the preparation that went with that. And by the time I realised this, it was too late to back out.

I've got more time on my hands these days, but I'm a tad older, more tired, and nowhere near as patient as I used to be. If I'm going to be group chairman I'd like to know exactly what is involved before I commit to anything.

 

"My bit" at work today involved being on the haemostasis bench , and had a minor issue with an instrument adjusting its thermals. You wouldn't think a state-of-the-art coagulometer wore long johns would you?

By the time I went home my little section had processed over one hundred blood samples. It wasn't that long ago when a similar section in another hospital where I once worked had six such samples in one day and the boss sent a formal memorandum telling all the medics and wards that they were over-using the service and should be more judicious in that which they were requesting.

How times change.

 

The Scout Association’s support centre manager has emailed me back with a load of what I can only describe as management catchphrases. Pages and pages of words which mean absolutely nothing to me.

I’d like to help what I still see as “my” scout group, but what I think they need is someone who takes “management bollox” seriously. I shall ask scouting friends and see what they think.

 

 

13 February 2025 (Thursday) - Cheeky FTF

 

 

As I scoffed toast “er indoors TM” said there was a new puzzle geocache near Faversham. As I was planning to head in that general direction anyway I had a little look at the puzzle. “Uhjlv xw dupd uhjr olehud sruwxv hjr” “What am I? A BC D EFGH IJKL”?. After a quick decipher, translation and transposition I had a longitude and latitude which wasn’t *that* far (twenty minute drive) from Kings Wood car park, so I bundled the dogs into the car and set off.

 

As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about inflation, Ukraine, politics… the important part of all of which was seemingly meaningless words. None of the people being interviewed seemed to speak plain English. But one thing stood out. Apparently President Trump has announced that he will stop the war in Ukraine. Bearing in mind the USA has paid the thick end of two hundred billion dollars on the Ukraine’s war efforts (about ten times what the UK has given), President Trump could stop the war tomorrow. All he has to do is withdraw US funding and Ukraine has lost. Consequently it seems that it will be President Trump and not the Ukrainians who will decide the cease fire arrangements, or so it was claimed this morning.

 

We got to Faversham, parked up, and soon had that geocache in hand. And we were First to Find as well. Go us.

From there it wasn’t too far to Kings Wood where we had a good walk. The woods were rather busy today. Once we are away from the car park we often walk all the way round and see maybe one or two people. Seeing four is a lot. I lost count of how many people were there today. It was a shame that Bailey had to roll in muck, and when we got back to the car I saw Morgan had rolled in muck as well.

Such is life.

 

We came home to find that the parking spaces outside the house had been barriered off. A couple of weeks ago some bloke claiming to be from the council put “no parking” cones outside the house. A few days later I saw someone had removed them and stacked them up. Perhaps someone is going to fix the hole in the road opposite?

I made a cuppa, scoffed a mince pie and had a little look at the Internet. I had an email telling me that my most recent Amazon purchase (a key for bleeding the radiator) came with a two months’ free  Audible trial. If I signed up I could access all these Audible things but after two months I would have to start paying for them. Personally I’m not keen on the idea. A book (or e-book) is something you read for yourself; not something that someone else reads to you. Or so I’ve always thought.

I wrote up some CPD, then did the ironing whilst watching episodes of “Four in a Bed”. As is so often the way one couple remarked that another place was very well, but wasn’t the sort of place that they personally would holiday in. And having been told that, the one who felt slighted went from being everyone’s best mate to being a vindictive old cow in the blink of an eye.

 

“er indoors TM” sorted sausages and chips for dinner which we scoffed whilst watching another episode of “Celebrity Hunted”. I’ve rather changed my mind about that show. Initially I thought the fugitives were being rather silly by continually appearing on live TV and radio, but I wonder if the show’s producers asked them to do so to give the hunters a chance. It strikes me that the hunters couldn’t find their own bums even with a mate shouting instructions at them through a megaphone.

 

 

14 February 2025 (Friday) - Oh Deer

 

 

I was up far too early again this morning. As I scoffed toast I watched more “Poldark” in which Master Drake was up for a portion, but Mistress Morwenna wasn’t having any of it, and Ross would seem to have fallen foul of the Georgian MI5.

I then had a quick look round the Internet as I do most mornings. It was still there. Our new MP was posting all sorts of nonsense to his Facebook page. His predecessor had a way of posting all sorts of local news to his Facebook page in such a way that he seemed to be somehow taking the credit for everyone else’s efforts, and our new chap seems to be following in the same vein.

There wasn’t much else going on, so I got ready for work.

 

I set off for work listening to the pundits on the radio as I do. Apparently the Russians took a pot shot at the nuclear power station in Chernobyl yesterday- the one that went bang all those years ago and is still pretty dangerous. The Ukrainian leader claims that this shows that the Russians have no interest in negotiating a cease fire, and was being rather vocal on the matter. I can't help but think that he should watch his lip. Several so-called experts were wheeled on who talked about Ukraine and Gaza and seemed to feel that President Trump doesn't think that the USA should be forever sorting out the world's problems any more.  He's probably got a point - how much does the USA spent on other people's problems? Probably far more than they want to. There was then quite a bit of doom and gloom expressed about what might happen on a global scale if the USA takes an isolationist stance. The Russians and Chinese would have pretty much a free hand to invade where they please. Not that the Russians can really afford it.

 

I got to work. I wasn't supposed to be working today, but I'd been asked to pop in and help for the morning. I was happy to do so. I didn't have much planned for today other than a dog walk, and that could be put back a few hours. I did a morning’s worth of work and came home at mid-day and we went for our walk then.

Morgan was funny. I’ve decided he’s not a “morning” dog. Every morning when it is walk time he won’t get out of his basket and will run upstairs to avoid going out, even though he clearly loves it when we get to the woods. But if offered a walk later in the day he’s dead keen.

 

We went to the woods and walked a little further than usual. Bailey saw a squirrel at extreme distance and nearly caught it. Morgan nearly had a dead mouse. All three totally missed the herd of deer crossing the path fifty yards in front of us, and didn’t even notice when they stopped and (really did) pose for the camera.

Amazingly the dogs got back to the car reasonably clean, and didn’t need a bath once we got home.

 

Once home I phoned Kent County Council’s Highways department about the barriers blocking off the parking bay outside the house. They said that there was nothing planned up our road and that they would get someone to look into what was going on, and gave me a reference number – 860893.

 

“er indoors TM” went off out with Steve and Sarah to see some comedian or other. I boiled myself up a pizza (which was nowhere near as difficult as I thought it might be) and settled on the sofa with the dogs and had a Poldark-a-thon. I’ve seen all of that show now – it took just over a month to binge-watch all five seasons. I wonder what I shall watch next.

 

 

15 February 2025 (Saturday) - Dog Club, Lego, Games Night

 

 

My alarm woke me at seven o’clock this morning. That rarely happens. I got up, made toast and had my usual rummage round the Internet. There was quite a bit of talk about how filming is due to start on the new.series of “Red Dwarf”. For once there was no argument or bickering on Facebook about it. Everyone was agreed that Red Dwarf has had its day (about twenty-five years ago) and should be allowed to retire gracefully. The show was hilarious to begin with, but it has been done to death.   

There was a similar sense of unanimity on the local Ashford Facebook page where seeming the the whole town was condemning some woman who was offering to walk dogs for ten quid an hour whilst claiming that she wasn’t doing it as a business and consequently didn’t need to have insurance or pay tax on her earnings.

I munzed, got Wordle on the fifth attempt, and got ready for the off.

 

As we drove to Repton Steve was doing the “Guess the Lyrics” competition on the radio, “You count the days but does it all add up to you”? – Living by Numbers – New Musik – 1980? No? – I recognized it when the song was played.

We got to Repton and Dog Club and had a very good (if rather muddy) time. We all stood in a cold field making polite conversation whilst about twenty dogs ran riot. The dogs all had fun; I loved it.

As it so often does, Dog Club overran a bit, but we caught the end of the Mystery Year competition as we drove home. Live Aid? Yes – I know it was 1985, but I always say 1986.

 

We came home and had a cuppa, and there was a knock on the door. Rob and Lizzie were passing. It was good to catch up.

I then counted up the Dog Club money. The people whose field it is ask for one pound fifty per dog per week. I put up a pot for the money, and once home count it all up, pocket it and transfer that amount (plus a fiver for our three) to the field owner’s bank account. It works well – I’ve not had to get cash from the bank for ages… but it does leave me with far too much loose change. I mentioned this to the chap who runs the local corner shop a while ago and he said he’d welcome the loose change.

So I took forty quid’s worth of change to the corner shop.

Never again.

There was someone different behind the counter today. I told him that the shop owner had told me he’d like the loose change. The chap behind the counter looked at me as though I was the shit on his shoe and phoned the owner. I heard him saying that someone claiming to be called Dave was trying to unload coins. He then took a ridiculous amount of time to inspect and count the change, and made a point of turning away from me every time another person walked anywhere near his counter. He then announced he would only take the pound coins and the twenty pence pieces, and inspected every single one.

Bearing in mind I’ve been shopping in there for over forty years and was doing them a favour I can’t say I was at all impressed.

 

I had a bit of a tidy up, and cleaned out the fish tank. I could do with replacing that tank with one that is slightly bigger but the same height. I spent a little while looking on-line but no one seems to make tanks that are only twelve inches high. I shall have to look at getting a bespoke one made.

And then with a little time on my hands I cracked open a Christmas pressie. “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” had bought me the Lego Chrysanthemum (from their Botanical range) and I spent a rather pleasant hour putting it together.

 

Steve Sarah and Chris came round for the evening and we had a rather good session on the Infinity table. Game of life, Sorry, Ticket to Ride… I rather enjoy our games nights… but I might have let the diet slip a little this evening.

 

 

16 February 2025 (Sunday) - Cranbrook and Hawkhurst

 

 

I didn’t get out of my pit until nine o’clock this morning. Something of a result. I made toast and had a look on-line. In the Ashford Facebook group people were grumbling about energy prices. As the grumbles went on one thing became very apparent. Your energy bill is less to do with how much you use and all to do with who you pay. People using seemingly the same amount of power were paying wildly different amounts. I can’t understand the entire power market thing. If I change my supplier I pay a different amount of money, but it is exactly the same gas and leccie which I am using.

In the same group someone else was telling the world that she’d lost her air-pods and had tracked them down to a particular house in Quantock Drive. Having posted pictures of where her phone said the things were, and having accused the people in that house of having stolen them, she was rather miffed to be told that the GPS accuracy was no better than a hundred feet and it could be in any one of a dozen houses. She was even more miffed to be told she might get sued for defamation of character for making such public accusations.

I had an email from Credit Karma who said I’d hit a milestone in my credit journey because I’d paid down my credit card every month for the last six months. I’ve actually paid it down every month for as long as I’ve had a credit card (forty-odd years). It bothers me how much these people know about my financial dealings. I’ve asked the bank how these people know supposedly confidential financial information, and the bank claim that these credit agencies have access to everyone’s business.

 

I munzed and Wordled, then solved a few geo-puzzles and wrote up some CPD before the off.

We drove out to Cranbrook where we thought we might tire the dogs walking the Ad-Lab geocache series. We had a good walk. We found a multi-cache whilst we were at it and also identified a problem with the nearby Church Micro. As we walked back to the car we found ourselves walking past Larkins Alehouse. From the outside it looked rather quiet, but we went in to find a wonderful pub. The place welcomed dogs, and had a rather good beer selection, and was filled with the most welcoming people. We sat and chatted with a rather friendly couple who also had dogs, and as we chatted I got through two pints of a rather good porter.

From Cranbrook it was a short hop to Hawkhurst and the Royal Oak where we met up with family and had a very good Sunday roast. “er indoors TM” and I had an entire roast chicken between us to say nothing of far too many vegetables. The dogs certainly didn’t go hungry. The dessert menu was equally good. They had Larkins ale on the hand pump and things got rather vague as the afternoon wore on.

 

 

17 February 2025 (Monday) - Putting Out The New Caches

 

 

Having had a rather epic pig-out over the weekend it was hardly surprising that my weight had gone up when I stood on the scales this morning. I’d hoped it wouldn’t, but there it was. I made toast and had my usual peer into the Internet wondering if much had changed. It hadn’t.

 

I got the dogs organized and we set off out. As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the situation in Ukraine. It would seem that President Trump has decided what is going to happen, and bearing in mind who’s got the big bucks and the big guns, what he says goes. As Ron once wrote and Russell sang (it’s a Sparks thing) “might makes right when you are wrong”. Apparently the Prime Minister was flying out to an emergency meeting of European leaders who’ve all got the arse that they are being sidelined. I suspect they’ve actually got the arse because they’ve finally realized that previous American presidents have listened to them out of a sense of being polite rather than because they warrant being listened to.

 

We got to the woods where I started on the next phase of my Kings Wood geo-project. I walked around putting out one third of the new caches. Today I went across the northern side of the wood. I managed to find quite a few of the old pots and re-use them.

As we walked Bailey whinged a bit; it had been rather cold when we’d started so she had her coat on. She seemed warm so I took it off, and the whinging stopped.

It was only a shame that after eight miles we got back to the car to find Morgan was covered in fox poo.

 

We came home. Morgan had a bath, and before long all dogs were snoring. I cracked on with the geo-admin. I archived the old one hundred and eight geocaches, and sent thirty-eight new cache pages in to the geo-feds for their perusal.

I munzed and wordled, and feeling that at nineteen thousand steps I’d overdone the morning I settled on the sofa and watched episodes of “Four in a Bed”. Today’s contestants were a little old lady who was renting out spare bedrooms, a couple of pubs, and a frankly epic hotel with a staff of over twenty which was run by a chap who was pretending to be camp. Annoyingly no one really fell out with anyone else.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up a good pasta bake which we scoffed whilst watching telly. “Celebrity Hunted” is just annoying. Surely anyone going on that show would know to stay away from central London?

 

I really should have an early night – I want to replace the caches in the south part of Kings Wood tomorrow which means parking in the lower car park, and that is small and fills quickly.

And it is now four years since my mum died…

 

 

18 February 2025 (Tuesday) - Forty-Three More New Caches

 

 

I slept well, but got up a little earlier than I might have done. I made toast and peered into a rather dull internet. Not much was happening at all this morning. I Munzed and got an incredibly silly wordle on the second to last try. “Indie”? Is that a word?

 

I got coats onto Morgan and Bailey (as it was cold) and leads onto all three and we set off to the woods again. As we drove the pundits on the radio were again talking about how President Trump is going to sort out the Ukrainian situation. There wasn’t actually anything new being said on the matter, but that didn’t stop the windbags pontificating in the matter.

 

We got to the woods. I had hoped to park in the lower car park for today’s phase of my Kings Wood geo-project, and setting off early meant that we got a space. There are loads of spaces at the top car park, but only half a dozen spaces at the lower one. We could have parked at the top and walked down, but that would have added to an already long walk.

As we walked away from the car park we saw a few other dog walkers. All of whom seemed to be gripped by panic when they saw my three off the leads. About half-way round our walk we saw a familiar face; a chap who regularly walks dogs round the woods. I said how good it was to see another dog walker who wasn’t terrified at the sight of another dog. He laughed and said he knew exactly what I meant.

We also saw a chap I call “Billy Big Bolllox”. He walks round with four huge dogs and always swears at my three when he sees them. He never seems to see me, and when I ask him if there is an issue he all but craps himself in terror. Which was what happened today. All the mouth at the dogs until I came round the corner when he was suddenly all smiles and ingratiating.

 

As we walked we saw deer. I’m no expert but I *think* there are two different species of deer in Kings Wood.

The first lot we saw today were up by the viewpoint facing Canterbury. These deer were bigger taller deer not entirely unlike ponies in their build. About half an hour and a mile later we saw another herd. These ones were much smaller; shaped rather like sheep.

Once we were a little way round our walk my phone beeped. The thirty-eight geocaches that we hid at the north side of the woods yesterday had gone live, and geocaching HQ had awarded me a little e-souvenir for hiding them.

 

We came home having hidden forty-three more geocaches. I did the paperwork, and then phoned the council. Last Thursday someone had coned off half of half of the parking bay outside our house. Whilst we’d been up the woods someone had extended the coned area and put cones on the bay up the road. The council are sending someone out to have a look as there is no record of any need for these cones. Mind you they said that last Friday…

 

With “er indoors TM” off out running an errand I started dinner going and whilst it simmered I sparked up Netflix and watched a film. “The Pope’s Exorcist” was a rather good film in which it turned out that the King of Hell had resisted all attempts at being exorcised in the fifteenth century and so had been locked in a disused monastery in Spain. And then some clueless American had bought the monastery and opened it up so’s King Devil could get out.

The lead character was based on a real-life character, not that exorcism is really a thing, but it made for a good film.

 

“er indoors TM” returned and I doshed out dinner. I was rather impressed with how it came out. Mind you, plov is simple enough to do, and a bottle of “fresh and fruity” Blossom Hill washed it down nicely.

Hic…

 

 

19 February 2025 (Wednesday) - Thirty-One More New Caches

 

 

I woke to the sound of a dog jumping off the bed in the mall hours followed by the sound of heaving. I leapt up and chivvied Morgan outside. I didn’t get back to sleep after that.

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. There was quite a bit of talk about “Doctor Who” this morning. Apparently filming on the next season finished last week, and there’s rumours of the BBC cancelling the show. Even though the Disney corporation have paid a small fortune to keep it going. Apparently there’s “fan backlash” and “ratings concern”. The fan backlash being that the stories are of incredibly variable standard, and the ratings concern being that people don’t watch it any more because the standard is so variable.

 

Once the dogs had scoffed their brekkie I took them up the woods for the last phase of fetching in the old caches and putting out the new.

As we drove the pundits on the radio were interviewing some ex-aide of President Trump. This chap said that President Trump really does have a way of randomly deciding what is going on in the world regardless of reality, and when he’s got something dangerously wrong has to be persuaded that he is wrong. And he apparently takes quite a bit of persuading.

That explains a lot.

There was also talk about the Ukrainian premier who was ranting his ingratitude again. Bearing in mind that if it wasn’t for the rest of the world his country would have been overrun years ago, you’d think he’d be a bit more thankful for the amount of aid and help he’s getting.

 

We got to the woods. Today was a rather shorter walk of only five and a half miles and we only put out thirty-one caches today. We met a few other dogwalkers, and the meetings all passed off reasonably well… All except one. Some woman and her dog were bumbling along behind us toward the end of our walk, so we stopped at one of the points where I wanted to hide a cache so she could come past. I’m not keen on having the normal people seeing me hiding a film pot under a rock; it is easier not going into endless explanations. She wasn’t keen to come past though, and stood ten yards away staring at me. I pointed out that we had stopped so as she could come past. On the third time of telling her she slowly pootled past. We caught up with her fifty yards later when she asked which car park we were heading to. I said the upper one. She asked where the lower one was, and wasn’t at all impressed to hear she’d walked past it half a mile previously. And then she kicked off a rant in which it was all my fault that she’d missed the lower car park as she had been following me and I’d deliberately headed toward the wrong car park. That fact that my car was parked in what she felt was the wrong car park was apparently utterly irrelevant.

 

We came home. I did the geo-admin and sent it all off to the geo-feds. I had a cuppa then took Treacle to the vets for her annual once-over. The vet says she is overweight (we know that) and has suggested biopsies for her various lumps. Personally I’m of the opinion that they are just fatty lumps but it wouldn’t hurt to have them looked at. The vet has also suggested bringing her in to have her teeth scaled and polished. We’ll see if concerted brushing can’t so the trick first; I’m not keen on having her knocked out for no real reason.

 

And then I drove down to Folkestone. “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” had an appointment so I was in charge of littlun for an hour or so. We went to the garden centre and looked at the fish. It was marginally cheaper than the zoo and kept her amused.

 

“er indoors TM” was off out with her mates this evening. I boiled myself up a pizza and watched a film on Netflix. “Vicious Little Letters”. It was rather good.

 

The dogs are snoring and I’m feeling worn out. It’s been a busy day today…

 

 

20 February 2025 (Thursday) - Rather Busy

 

 

Again I was woken in the small hours by the sound of Morgan jumping off the bed. I chased after him, let him out, did my own business, and then lay awake for much of the rest of the night.

 

As I made brekkie so road works finally started over the road. On the morning of Sunday 26 January I had an interesting conversation with the driver of a KCC lorry registration BA23 FDV. The fellow was putting out road cones along the parking area outside our house with a view to fixing a rather small pot hole.

He seemed rather angry that cars were parked in the parking bay. He pointed out my car and said it shouldn’t be there because he’d just put out a road cone. He claimed that his putting out a road cone immediately made that place a no parking zone.

I suggested that rather than going out on a Sunday morning and trying to cordon off swathes of residential parking, he might be better advised to have his office people put leaflets through the doors of local residents to let them know of upcoming road works. This chap was adamant that contacting locals was a waste of time as nobody takes any notice of such notifications, and was adamant that his deciding that somewhere was a no-parking zone was all the authority he needed to cordon off a parking space.

He bustled off indignantly, and a few days later the cones went. They came back with some barriers on Thursday 13 February. On Friday 14 February I phoned the highways department at Kent County Council who assured me that whoever had put out the barriers had not followed proper procedure and there was no record of any such parking restrictions. They told me someone would investigate and get back to me, and gave me the reference 860893.

I chased them on Monday 17 February when they still had no record of any planned road works.

Late yesterday afternoon I had a phone call telling me that the barriers were so that traffic could pass as a pot hole might be fixed.

Work started shortly after 8am this morning, and even then there was nothing on the 1-network website

 

I got the dogs onto their leads and we went out. I chatted with the blokes working over the road. They were pleasant enough. I asked them who decides what holes need fixing bearing in mind there’s dozens of bigger ones locally. They both laughed and said that “the council” decide which holes need fixing, but neither seemed to know the name of who exactly it is that gives them their instructions.

 

We drove up to the woods. As we drove the pundits on the radio were still talking about President Trump. Facebook was alive with talk of him too. No one seems to have realized that he is the democratically elected president. Perhaps people might like to redirect their anger and frustration at a process which allows frankly laughable outcomes because the considered opinion of an educated person is of no more worth than the whim of a half-wit.

 

We got to the woods where we had a good walk. Unlike the previous three days we weren’t hiding geocaches and so we walked a shorter walk. Only about three and a half miles. As we walked we saw something which was frankly laughable… all the time it was someone else’s dog. A young couple were desperately trying to untangle a twenty-five metre dog lead from a dozen coppiced multi-trunked trees whilst a dog the size of a small horse was going frantic at the end of the lead. As the couple struggled (one with the dog, one with the untangling) some chap in a Hi-Viz jacket was loudly giving instructions which everyone seemed to be ignoring. Morgan trotted up to the tangled dog and barked. I whistled and he turned and trotted up to me. There was a look of pure jealousy on the face of the young woman fighting with the huge dog. It is always rather satisfying when my dogs do as they are told.

 

We drove home past many very large pot holes; so many I lost count. We got home about two hours after we left to find the road works had all been done.

The dogs had a bath, and I sorted us both a cuppa. I wrote a letter to the county councilor. He seemed to try to do something about the floods by Asda; maybe he can get involved with the workings of Kent Highways. Either they might sort out their employees, or sort out their processes. Either way, something needs sorting.

 

Something that definitely needed sorting was my fish tank. I took out all the old plastic plants and ornaments and changed half of the water. I scrubbed the plastic plants and ornaments and changed more water. Then scrubbed the plastic plants and ornaments again and changed more water. Just as I was on the verge of scrubbing everything for a squillionth time so there was a knock at the door. The nice Amazon man had delivered the new fish tank filter I’d ordered yesterday. New filter – how about new plastic plants and ornaments?

 

Leaving the fish tank in disarray I popped to the doctor’s. I had an appointment for blood & urine tests and an ECG. The nice nurse stuck a needle into me and took some blood… and pulled the needle out before releasing the torniquet. Releasing the torniquet first is the first thing phlebotomists are taught. Doing that makes sure you don’t get a bruise. The nice nurse then did the ECG, and there was then an embarrassing twenty minutes whilst she fought with the computer; re-booting it several times to no avail.. She had to send the ECG trace to the duty doctor who was in another surgery several miles away. I did wonder why the doctor in the next room couldn’t have had a look at it, but what do I know?

Eventually I was told I wasn’t on the verge of a heart attack, and I set off to Bybrook Barn where I spent far too much on new plastic plants and ornaments for the fish tank.

 

I came home and reassembled the fish tank. The gravel and the fish are the same as was in there this morning but all else is new. The water was taking a while to clear; I suspect the new filter has got its work cut out for it. Mind you the filter aerates as well as filters and is so much quieter than the old one.

 

Whilst I’d been ECG-ing and getting new tank stuff so the geo-feds had published the caches we’d hidden yesterday. So I’ve now got something of a sense of achievement. That’s one hundred and twelve new geocaches I’ve put out this week. I’ve been working on this project for a few months… I wonder what I can do next.

 

And just as the fish tank was getting clear so the fish decided to dig in the gravel and clag it all up again…

 

 

21 February 2025 (Friday) - Happy Birthday To Me

 

 

I woke to the sound of Morgan jumping off the bed at four o’clock, so I hurried after him. He did the same a few minutes after I’d got back to bed; this time I heard him trying to be sick as I bundled him outside. I did catch him trying to chew on a dead deer’s carcass when we were at the woods yesterday. I wonder if he will learn the lesson?

We all eventually settled, and were then woken by the bin men coming up the road at six o’clock.

In the past on my birthday we’d be woken at twenty past seven by a phone call from my Mum. Not any more…

 

I nodded off again, and woke shortly after nine o’clock. I made toast and sent out birthday wishes to three of my Facebook friends who were also having birthdays today. Many years ago (about fifty-five) it came as a major revelation that my birthday wasn’t that special. Other people shared it. I had no idea that this was possible, and I can remember being incredibly surprised about it. There was a thing at Red Lake Primary School that when it was your birthday you stood at the front of the class and everyone else sang “Happy Birthday to You”. As I walked out to the front of the class I was amazed to see Leslie Marriott and Johnny Walker also walking out as well.

I really did go to school with Johnny Walker. It was years later (about ten) that I realized he’d been named after a bottle of whisky.

There were three of us who shared the birthday in my year at secondary school. Chris Sampson was one. It transpired that he and I were very distantly related. I can’t remember who the other lad was.

One of my trainees at work (the fifteenth that I took from starting through to qualification) also had her birthday today, but as we both agreed, it had been my birthday first.

A few celebrities share my birthday; the most famous being James Beck (Private Walker in Dad’s Army), Alan Rickman (Severus Snape from Harry Potter) and Charlotte Church.

Historically apart from an obscure species of parrot going extinct (in 1918) not much of note happened on this day.

 

As I scoffed toast I saw that the fish tank had become very clear overnight, but the new pagoda ornament I’d bought yesterday was listing at a very rakish angle. Bearing in mind the amount of muck that poor filter had probably shifted overnight I cleaned it out and put the pagoda straight. Doing that stirred up plenty more muck.

 

We got the dogs onto their leads, but didn’t go up to the woods. It had been grubby enough yesterday and had rained overnight so we walked into Ashford and wandered round the memorial gardens, the north park and once round the outlet centre. The mems has been done up rather well, and the outlet centre is amazingly dog friendly with the majority od shops welcoming dogs in. I wouldn’t dare take a dog into any of those shops though. I couldn’t afford an accident – not at those prices.

Our walk was guided by a couple of geocaching adventure labs, and we came home having added eleven more smiley faces to our scores (it’s a geo-thing).

 

We came home for a cuppa, and I spent a little while looking at the fish tank. The time and effort (and nearly fifty quid!) spent on it yesterday seems to have paid off. It looks a whole lot better, and the fish seem to be a bit more active.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up a rather good bit of dinner which we washed down with a bottle of plonk and a bottle of port. The evening became rather vague…

 

 

22 February 2025 (Saturday) - Dog Club, Lego, Ironing, Telly

 

 

I didn’t hear Morgan getting up in the night but I heard my phone. The wi-fi and the mobile data were both turned off but it was still getting notifications about all sorts of things all night long. Does it get them through the Bluetooth? And if so, from where?

 

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. Yesterday I had birthday wishes from well over a hundred people. I was rather flattered and humbled… until I realized that I’ve got over six hundred people on my Facebook friends list. Which means that for every one that was kind enough to send a wish, five others couldn’t be arsed.

There was a post on the Dog Club Facebook page from someone who’d only been once before. Did we still meet if it was raining. I had a look outside and saw it was hossing down. There’s no denying that the bottle of port last night had been a tad overkill, and I didn’t relish the prospect of standing in the mud in a downpour with a hangover. But before I could officially cancel, others had posted that they were going.

 

I munzed and wordled, and we went off to go stand in the mud in a downpour. The rain soon stopped, but what we lacked in rain we made up for in mud. We all had a great time, but we all got filthy. The dogs all arrived looking clean, and within minutes all were sodden and dripping with mud. But the happy faces!!

As we drove home Steve was doing the mystery year competition on the radio. When was the first Lidl store opened in the UK? I thought it was 1993. I was only one year out.

 

We came home for serious dog washing. With soap. And dog coats, dog towels and our muddy trousers went into the washing machine. Then I had a stroke of genius and took the dog coats back out and pulled the lumps of mud off before they blocked up the washing machine.

“er indoors TM” sorted us both a cuppa and a hot cross bun, and I had a little look at the internet. I had some emails. A fellow hunter of Tupperware had been up to Kings Wood this morning and got First to Find on the last two unfound geocaches that I hid earlier in the week. I *think* that’s all of them found now, so I know they are all there and all is good with them. From here on in it should just be ongoing maintenance with them which I should be able to do on our regular dog walks.

Or that’s the plan.

 

“er indoors TM” spent the morning carrying with making a model kit she got a while back. I built one of my birthday pressies – a Lego bamboo. I do like the Lego botanical series. And with “er indoors TM” off visiting her mum for the afternoon I cracked on with the ironing. As I ironed I watched episodes of “Sick Note”; a rather entertaining series featuring him who played Ron Weasley in “Harry Potter”.

As I ironed my phone rang. It was nice-next-door. Did I have a plunger she could borrow as her toilet was blocked. I have two plungers which I popped round and left with her. I’m quite happy to supply plungers; I’m not so keen on unbunging chodbins.

The plungers came back (suitably cleaned) ten minutes later with an assurance that they had done the trick. I was rather pleased about that, and was pleased to have been of help. She’s the sixteenth neighbour who’s lived in that house in the thirty-four years we’ve lived here, and we’ve probably had more to do with her than with all the others combined.

 

And then with a little time on my hands I went into the garden, got out the pressure washer and had a go at the paved areas out the back. I made a point of not blasting into the nooks and crannies where things might be hibernating, but the area outside the back door isn’t black any more.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up pizza for dinner which we scoffed whilst watching “The Traitors US”. The American show differs from the UK version in that the contestants in the American one have all been on various reality TV shows and if you aren’t up on American TV then the alliances and hatreds don’t make much sense, and there is a ridiculous amount of overacting.

 

I’ve got to go to work tomorrow… I hope my phone is quiet overnight.

 

 

23 February 2025 (Sunday) - Tra La La !!!

 

 

With an alarm set I woke far too early. I gave up trying to sleep and was up watching more episodes of “Sick Note” at five o’clock. It’s a rather good show.

I had a look at the Internet. It was still there, but rather quiet so early on a Sunday morning. Trying not to disturb anyone I got ready for work.

 

I set off for work listening to the pundits on the radio as I do. This morning there was a surprisingly interesting article on the radio about men's undercrackers.  Apparently two fifths of adult men have their partners go buy their underwear for them, and a third have their mothers go get them. It was claimed that if left to his own devices, the average bloke only buys new pants once every five years,  and most men have at least one set of pants that is over twenty years old. It has to be said that some of mine are a tad threadbare, but twenty years? The elastic doesn't last that long... does it?

I can remember the last time I bought undercrackers. It was on Amazon... and now I think about it, that was three years ago... I suppose that when you get a good set of undercrackers you want to keep hold of them, don't you?

 

I got to work and did my bit. I must admit I hadn't been looking forward to having a Sunday shift at the end of a week off, but these days only doing half the hours I used to, most weeks seem like a week off. In the past I might have had a cheeky brekkie at the works canteen before going in, but I gave that a miss today.

Similarly in the past as I walked out I would often treat myself to a bag of chocolate coated Brazil nuts from the works branch of M&S...  but that's a thousand calories I neither need nor want. 

 

I came home to find the house in uproar. “er indoors TM” was having a tidy-up. As she moved piles of clutter about I made us both a cuppa after first chucking out the remains of the tea she’d made earlier. What is it with tea drinkers? I see this all the time at home, at work, and my mother and father were the same. Given a cup of coffee someone will drink the lot. Given a cup of tea someone will drink maybe three mouthfuls and leave the rest to get chucked away once it is cold.

 

I wrote up a little CPD. Every Saturday the American Society of Hematology post up a photo of something you might see down the microscope and you have to identify (if you want to). This weekend it was stomatocytes.

Perhaps I’m a bit daft and a bit sensitive, but seeing stomatocytes gives me flashbacks to when an eighteen year old me was peering down a microscope whilst a rather nasty and vindictive senior MLSO (who I later found out had once fallen out with my uncle) was almost hysterical in his ranting about how useless I was because I couldn’t identify stomatocytes despite never having seen them before and having at best only a few weeks’ experience of looking at blood films.

The Royal East Sussex Hospital was a truly delightful place to work all those years ago… but looking back I remember so many of those people with whom I worked and make a point of trying my hardest not to be like they were…

 

I had quite a few emails this evening. Friends had been up the woods hunting out the geocaches I’d hidden in the week, and had said nice things about them.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up a rather good chili which we scoffed whilst watching more “The Traitors US”. I’m finding myself more and more fascinated by one of the contestants who has spent a fortune on plastic surgery. Her head looks as though it has been stretched out and her mouth looks like she’s been smacked in the kisser with a cricket bat. I suspect she thinks she looks lovely. If it were me I’d be asking for a refund.

 

 

24 February 2025 (Monday) - Hurt My Back

 

 

I had planned to take the dogs up to the woods this morning, but as I woke I heard heavy rain against the window. Ho Hum.

I made toast and peered into the internet and saw I’d been welcomed into a Facebook group – International Camping Adventures. I didn’t remember joining it; it looked to be a rather dull group (and that’s up against some pretty stiff competition) so I left it.

And Facebook sent me a message too. Yesterday something popped up in my Facebook feed which looked interesting. I clicked on it and it went straight to hard-core porn. I reported this, but (yet again) serious filth doesn’t go against their “community standards”.

 

With the rain showing no sign of letting up I had a look at my finances. The electrical issues of the last month came in a lot cheaper than they might have done, but still was an expense I didn’t need, and I’m seriously regretting having had the windows replaced. I hesitate to say the job was bodged, but I’m not at all happy with the finish, and we will probably have to pay someone else to put it right.

As I counted the pennies I remembered the Vex card that work gave me last year as a long service award. It’s in my Google wallet and is of no use to me whatsoever. It is supposedly worth fifty quid… I can use it to get fifty quid’s worth of stuff that I don’t want from a shop I would otherwise never go into.

On the plus side there’s no council tax or water bill this month, and all the mucking about with the broadband had reduced the Sky bill by a tenner a month.

 

As the rain continued I had this idea that the pressure washer generates loads of wet mess, so if I had a pressure wash round the garden the rain might wash away the muck. I got a little bit done before the battery went flat. That’s the trouble with a battery-powered pressure washer – you (I) need to remember to keep the batteries charged.

 

I Munzed and Wordled. I did a YouGov survey and wrote up CPD until the rain stopped. Finding myself getting rather restless I took the dogs to the woods where we walked for four miles. We did get rather muddy, but what did we expect really? It was a shame that Bailey had to roll in something disgusting, but that’s what she does.

We had baths when we returned, and I had a cup of coffee and a couple of biccies for lunch. I was tempted to have a pot noodle, but one of those contains two thirds of the calories I’d walked off round the woods earlier.

 

With one battery charged I went back out into the garden and blasted across the patio for a bit. Once blasted it is a rather nice pale sandy colour, but before blasting the patio is covered in a thick black gunge. It was clean not six months ago; where does all this muck come from?

The battery lasted about as long as my back did. When we were at the woods I slipped in the mud; I think I’ve pulled something.

I sat and played chess against the bots on chess dot com until I was able to move again.

 

“er indoors TM” went off to bowling. I settled in front of the telly with the dogs and watched a film on Netflix. “Renfield” was billed as an action comedy horror. It was entertaining enough but could have done with a little (lot) less action and a little (any at all) more comedy.

 

And in closing I’ll mention that the goldfish are doing it again. Having spent loads of time and effort getting their tank pristine, they’ve developed an odd habit. Every evening they start digging in the gravel and the tank goes from beautifully clear to so murky you can’t see anything. Overnight they stop digging and the tank clears. They then swim about for the day, and in the evening start digging again. They seem happy; apparently it’s what goldfish do.

 

My back really hurts…

 

 

25 February 2025 (Tuesday) - Traffic, Axolotls

 

 

I didn’t have the best of nights last night. I woke in the small hours in desperate need of the loo, and rather than getting up, going and going back to kip (which would have taken about two minutes) I spent hours twisting and turning and trying to resist the urge to get up.

Eventually I rose, did that which I should have done hours before, made toast and had my usual look at the Internet. It was much the same as ever. This morning there was some chap ranting on one of the Facebook pages I follow. He was ranting about how he’s never used algebra in his life, and why should children be taught it? This is a rant which appears from time to time and is always ranted by the genuinely stupid. Everyone uses algebra every single day, and those who claim they don’t, don’t actually know what algebra is.

 

I munzed and wordled, and seeing the rain had stopped I took the dogs out. The traffic round Ashford was a nightmare this morning. Again there was gridlock at the Cows roundabout, and matters weren’t helped by people trying to randomly swap lanes but not using indicators to show where they wanted to go.

The trouble with Ashford’s traffic is that what with the motorway and the train lines the town is cut into sections between which it is rather difficult to move. It only takes one road to get a delay and the whole town stops.

 

We eventually got to the woods where we had a good walk. The same route of four miles as yesterday. Bailey found a bone and some fox poo, but nothing that a dunk in the bath (with soap!) couldn’t shift.

As the rain started again I went into the garden and did some more pressure-washing of the patio. The little hand-held pressure-washer is so much easier to use than the big one in the shed, but neither is much good for my back.

 

I then drove to the post office. Sky wanted the old router back. I would have thought that the obvious thing for them to have done would have been to have the bloke take away the old when he delivered the new, but what do I know.

From there I drove down to Folkestone to collect my favourite lady for an afternoon out. I’d been messaging with Badger’s Hill Farm about visiting there this afternoon. They told me that we should wear wellies as it would be muddy. Sadly they didn’t tell me not to bother going as the place would be closed.

Oh well… it was only an hour’s worth of wasted driving.

From there it wasn’t *that* far to Bybrook Bark to look at their fish. Sadly they were having a delivery of fish and so the aquarium was closed. I took a deep breath. But we got to see the pond fish, some angel fish and an axolotl too. Littlun seems to like axolotls. She was quite taken with the acers outside as well.

An acer is a far more practical proposition at the moment.

 

By then it was home time, and we had something of a reprise of this morning’s drive to the woods. What is usually a five-minute drive from the garden centre to the motorway took forty-five minutes. It took me four times as long to get to the motorway as it took to get from Ashford to Folkestone.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up fish and chips for tea which we scoffed whilst watching the last episode of “Celebrity Hunted”. I won’t say what happened or who (if indeed anyone) won, but I must admit that having been convinced I would do OK on that show, now I’m not so sure. Mind you, when you realise the amount of CCTV that would seems to be across the country, some sort of a disguise would be a must. Wouldn’t it?

 

My back still hurts… Perhaps the four-mile walk, the hour with the pressure-washer and carrying littlun round the garden centre was a tad too much?

And the goldfish have stirred up the muck in their tank again.

 

 

26 February 2025 (Wednesday) - Early Shift, Telly, Fembots

 

 

I slept well, but was wide awake at four o’clock. I lay awake for a bit, then gave up trying to sleep, got up and watched another episode of “Sick Note” then had a little look at the Internet. Our new MP was posting more propaganda from the Labour party. He’s been in post for several months now, and I’m rather disappointed in him. The last chap did very little but post to social media attempting to take the credit for other people’s efforts. This new chap just posts Labour party propaganda to social media.

I don’t really know what I was expecting from a Labour party MP, but taking over from a Conservative who had been caught with porn on his computer I had been expecting more.

 

There wasn’t much else going on, so I got ready for work. It was starting to get light as I left home this morning, and the seagulls were squawking like things possessed. I wonder what had wound them up.

I walked to where I'd parked the car yesterday evening. It was quite a way away. I scraped off the ice and drove round to the co-op. Having loads of change from the Dog Club pot I asked if they'd be interested in having my pound coins in exchange for notes. 

They were.

 

I then set off up the motorway listening to the pundits on the radio as I went.  As I went there was all sorts of talk about Donald Trump. He's said that America wants dibs on Ukrainian mineral deposits. Bearing in mind how much the Americans have done for the Ukrainians that's not unreasonable, is it?

And there was talk of how the UK is upping spending on the defence budget. Opinion was divided as to why. Some felt it was sucking up to Donald Trump, others felt that America has had enough of spending money on defending Europe and Europe needs to defend itself from now on. I suspect there's truth to both arguments.

 

I got to work and did my bit on the early shift. As I worked I had a message from the first fruit of my loin. Did I have a pressure washer? Yes, thank you I replied. I went on to say I have got two. He was asking because he’s not got any now. His one blew up this morning. Mind you I say “blew up”, it actually stopped working and loads of smoke came out of it, but the end result is the same.

He wants to borrow one of mine, though he is rather vague as to whether he wishes to pressure-wash with it or to blow it up. I expect I will find out eventually. I’ll just make the proviso that if (when) he blows it up he can take the remains to the tip.

 

“er indoors TM” went off out to the Marlowe with Steve and Sarah to see some comedian or other. I sorted myself a pizza and sparked up Netflix. “Subservience” was a rather good film, but like many sci-fi ideas wasn’t a new story. Whilst Asimov’s TN-3 and JN-1 came to mind, I was mostly reminded of Edmund Cooper’s Marion-A. It was a shame that the robot in this evening’s film ended up being a total psycho, but that’s what most robots on the telly end up being, isn’t it? Robots of cheap sci-fi stories of seventy years ago were much better thought-out. And they didn’t walk round in saucy undercrackers doing the dirty deed either.

 

 

27 February 2025 (Thursday) - More Pressure-Washing

 

 

I slept well until Treacle woke me with her barking at eight o’clock. “er indoors TM” had not taken her to the loo with her, and Treacle wasn’t happy about that.

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was still there. Consternation was being expressed this morning about the local council’s decision to demolish a large area of the town centre. Quite a few people were indignantly asking where they were going to go shopping now. I suspect they will go get their shopping from the same place where they were expressing their indignation. I don’t think I’ve bought anything from that shopping mall in years. There’s all sorts of twee maxims about supporting local businesses, but why should people pay way over the odds for things you can get delivered to your doorstep the very next day?

From what I can see the place has an endless succession of shops opening, not being able to afford the rent, and closing again. I can’t remember the last time I was there.

I was reminded of the Eurostar which stopped calling at Ashford. No one ever used it, but complained what the service stopped *because* no one used it.

A lot of people were blaming the local council. Admittedly they have made the decision to demolish, but as I’ve said before, we get the local council that we vote for. To paraphrase the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, anyone who is capable of getting themselves elected should on no account be allowed to do the job.

 

Once I’d Munzed and Wordled I took the dogs out. As I drove “In Our Time” was on the radio. Sometimes that is a really interesting and insightful program. Other times… today’s was about the historical interpretation of the Hindu goddess Kali. Whilst I am sure there are many people who would be enthralled, I wasn’t. I turned the radio off.

We had a good walk round the woods. It was a tad muddy, but we expected that. As we walked we rolled in fox poo, chewed on a bone of some sort, played with a dead frog… all the standard sort of thing we do.

We walked for four miles and came home for a bath. With soap.

 

I had a cuppa, then got out the mains-powered pressure washer. The battery-powered one is very quick to set up but is really not a heavy-duty thing. The mains-powered one takes quite a bit of setting up, but once it’s ready it is good to do large areas quickly. I went over what had taken me several hours with the battery-powered one in half an hour. Admittedly it did generate quite a flood, but it got the job done. Mind you when I say “half an hour”, that didn’t include running out the hose pipe, getting it all set up and tidying away again afterwards.

I just buffed up the patio and a few stepping stones and gave the drain a blast. I’m not going to give the garden a proper cleaning until all the bugs have finished hibernating.

 

I had planned to pootle until my back wouldn’t take any more; after an hour and a half I got a few twinges, so I packed up and had a little look at the fish tank. It’s been a week since I got shot of the undergravel filter (which wasn’t doing much) and replaced it with a filter on the side of the tank. It has done wonders, but every evening when I feed the fish they then dig up the gravel and stir up muck. But last night I realised that they were stirring up far less much than they had been doing. So I cleaned out the new filter. It was full of gunge. In the past when they’ve stirred up the muck it has obviously just gone straight back into the gravel. This new filter is getting the muck out. I should have got one years ago.

Feeling flushed with success I put a load of undercrackers in to scrub. As the washing machine did its thing I wrote up some CPD, then made some toast for dinner.

 

I tried watching some telly this afternoon. I turned to Netflix and gave “Sense8” a go. After an hour I turned it off. There was no plot that I could fathom, and I’ve no time for a show that takes several episodes to get going. It had its chance and blew it. Similarly “Vicious” was also crap. No end of canned laughter makes a show funny if it isn’t actually funny.

 

My favourite lady came home with her grandmother this evening. She’s having a sleepover with us. So far she’s eaten an orange pepper, bossed the dogs about (and snogged them all), accused me of wanting her crisps, and told her grandmother off for not giving me my dinner.

She’s currently giving out the orders to Morgan, Treacle and “er indoors TM”. Bailey is hiding on the sofa with me.

Littlun can be hard work sometimes…

 

 

28 February 2025 (Friday) - Calories

 

 

What with “er indoors TM”, littlun and the dogs all up in the attic room I slept rather well, but was still wide awake at half past four.  I got up, made toast and scoffed it whilst watching an episode of "Star Trek: Discovery". I'd forgotten that I was a season behind with it. The show was rather good; it was only a shame that when watching stuff on the Paramount Plus app you can't fast-forward through the adverts. However you can make a mental note of what company the advert was for, and being sure not to use their products.  As I was once told by a boss many years ago, there's more ways of killing a cat than choking it with cream.

I remember the chap who gave me that sage advice had just been told off by his boss for taking too long at a tea break. He gave me that advice, then went off early to his lunch break and came back (drunk) four hours later. 

 

I scraped the ice from the car then drove round to Sainsbury's to get petrol. Have you ever driven round Ashford at six o'clock? There's some very odd people on the roads at that time of day who seem to think that speed limits don't apply that early in the morning and get very cross whenever I drive at the speed limit. They always fly past me at the earliest opportunity and whizz off dangerously at breakneck speeds in what are residential areas.

I got my petrol, then headed west-wards through the -hursts and the -dens to Pembury.

 

As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the Prime Minister's meeting with Donald Trump yesterday. Apparently the Prime Minster is claiming that the talks went very well. The more cynical observers being interviewed think that the talks went well because the King invited Mr Trump over for an official state visit. It was claimed that Mr Trump goes for that sort of thing, and an example was cited from his first presidency when he apparently took more notice of an Australian golfer than of the Australian government.

There was also talk about how farmers aren't letting their sheep graze on Dartmoor as sheep theft has reached epic proportions.

All the country's meat suppliers are adamant that they check on where their meat comes from, but someone's shifting humongous proportions of hooky lamb.

 

I'd left for work early today. Usually the roads to Pembury aren't the easiest to get through,  but there were only three sets of temporary traffic lights today and I got there far too early. If nothing else it meant that I could park.

I did my bit. There as cake. However in a herculean effort of self-control I didn't scoff any. That was about five hundred calories I saved.  Another saving was getting a box of fruit with my meal deal lunch I got from the petrol station. That fruit box was two hundred and twenty calories less than the bag of crisps I usually get. 

I find this calorie counting is much easier when I've had a walk round the woods with the dogs as that usually gives me an extra six hundred calories to play with.

 

And here’s a thought… I’m doing this diet because on 10 January my GP randomly messaged me to say they would like me to go into the surgery to give them a blood pressure reading from their self-service machine. I did – it was 167 / 89.

Three days later they asked if I would get myself a monitor and give them blood pressure readings twice daily for a week. Over the week it averaged well into the stage two hypertension category.

Two weeks after I gave them the readings I had a telephone appointment with a pharmacist (i) who said everything about blood pressure that I’d read on Google and didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. She suggested blood tests and an ECG which were then done last week (a further two weeks later).

It’s now eight weeks since I found I’ve got high blood pressure and I’m still waiting to see a doctor.