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1 January 2025
(Wednesday) - Wet New Year
When
I went to bed last night I’d left the landing light
on in case littlun got up in the night. This morning
I rolled over and saw the light was off. Panic immediately set in. “er indoors TM” had clearly got up in the night and turned it off. The bedside
clock and my CPAP machine were both going, but I keep fretting about the leccie and after that shock I wasn’t going to get back to
sleep. I got up. So did Morgan. He’d spent the night with me but on seeing I
was going downstairs he went upstairs to join everyone else in the attic
room. It was only a shame I’d not woken in panic a couple
of hours earlier ten I could have driven out to Ramsgate for the sunrise geocaching meet. We’d decided against going to this
one as getting to Ramsgate for half past seven on New Year’s Day would have
been a tad keen, but if I’ been up in time… Back in the day there was always a geocaching event
on New Year’s Day. I organised two of them myself.
One in 2016 when thirty-six people and four dogs went for a walk round Great
Chart, and another in 2022 when thirty people (and a few dogs) went
over to Frogs Island to play Wherigo. Sadly other
than a lady from New Zealand staging a meet outside her hotel just before her
brekkie, no one organised anything for this year.
Several people had asked it there was anything on the cards; no one had
offered to do anything though… As
I made toast I peered into the internet. It might be a new year, but some
things never change. I’ve taken to following a Facebook group all about
people taking early retirement and sharing their experiences. It makes for
interesting reading if nothing else. One chap in his early forties had saved
up half a million quid and wondered if that was enough to retire on. How can
you have saved up half a million quid by your early forties? And other people
were asking where the best place to retire to would be? Several people on
this group (and a few I know personally) have left everyone they know
and moved hundreds (if not thousands) of miles away to lead their
dream retirements. I suppose if your dream retirement is a lonely one then
this is the way to go? And
my Facebook feed featured seemingly endless adverts for on-line dog training
classes and chess-related groups. I
put washing in to scrub. I sorted the undercrackers
I’d washed last night. I braved the elements and harvested the dog dung from
the garden. Our plan for today had been a gentle walk before taking littlun
home, but the wind and the rain weren’t good and were forecast to get worse
by mid-day. So I spent a little while looking at the
geo-map searching out a relatively easy geo-find that we might pick up on the
way home from having dropped littlun off. After
slightly more than four hours “er indoors TM” and Darcie WaaWaa TM” got
up. Littlun was in something of a bossy mood; poor grandad wasn’t allowed to
play with the cars or the Lego. She then got the hump that the dogs wanted to
eat her breakfast, and got even more stressy when
she threw it at them and they ate it. After a little while we persuaded her to allow Nanny
to get dressed, and it was time to take her home… once we’d persuaded her
that I was allowed to come along. We drove down to Folkestone where “Daddies’
Little Angel TM” and Pogo were pleased to have
littlun back. I’d planned a few possible geo-targets for our way
home. Logging a geocache find today would give us a souvenir. Fortunately we found the first one and didn’t need to go
on to any of the backups; the forecast wind and rain were getting worse. We
came home and settled ourselves in front of the telly where I slept through a
re-run of the new Wallce and Gromit film, and then slept through Mary
Poppins. Having been wide awake far too early this morning I slept through
what I wanted to watch on the telly. “er
indoors TM” boiled up a very good curry which we washed down with a rather good
bottle of plonk whilst watching the second part of the Christmas episode
of “Lego Masters: Australia”. According to the Internet the Northern Lights are
visible tonight. Such a shame it is still hossing
down. |
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2 January 2025
(Thursday) - Chess, A Walk, Traitors
I
slept well last night – for over nine hours. I was woken by a strange
gurgling bubbling sound. The hose of my CPAP machine has been getting
condensation forming in it over the last week. I expect that’s to do with it
being cold at night. I
made toast and looked at the Internet as I do. This morning my Facebook feed
was again heaving with the posts about chess which filled it yesterday. The
adverts for dog training were still there, but loads of people were
commenting that they had paid good money and had nothing back from these
courses. I also saw quite a few posts featuring the navy’s aircraft carrier
HMS Prince of Wales too. I wonder why. I
had two messages from Facebook as well. The two porn adverts that I reported
yesterday have been removed. Actually applying their
community standards might be their New Year’s resolution. I
munzed, got Wordle on the third attempt, then
seeing sunshine got dressed and got ready for the off. Once
I’d scraped the ice from the car I took the dogs up to the woods. It was a
foggy day, but we had a good walk. Once we were away from the car park we
walked for nearly four miles and only saw one other group. Mind you we did
see a huge buzzard flying through the trees. We
walked for four miles and didn’t get *that* grubby. Mind you the
little ones were shivering when I loaded them into the car. We came home for
a quick shower of paws and tummies and then I had a rather frustrating
half-hour on the phone to the insurance people. “Stewart” was more
helpful than the other two people had been at Sainsburys insurance, and after
he’d taken all my details he put me through to the
underwriter. The underwriter said that he needed an electrician’s report. I
said that one had been done on Monday and had been emailed through… I got on
to the people who sent the electrician on Monday and
they said they’d email me a copy of the report. I’m
still waiting. I’m
left pondering though. I have an insurance policy with one company. However when I come to claim, it turns out that the actual
insuring is being done by another company. All the first lot are doing seems
to be acting as a middleman. Next year I will go with the actual insurer and
(as Oliver Hardy once said) “cut out the middleman”. Pausing
only briefly to put back a fence panel that had blown out in yesterday’s
winds I then cracked on with some CPD. For dull reasons
that I explained over on that other blog I spent a few minutes Googling and I
found an advert. You can see it here. It is offering
blood film analysis (with a two-week turnaround time!) for three
hundred and twenty-eight quid. Bearing in mind I can do fifty of those a day
I think I’m missing a trick here… Then
finding myself underneath a pile of dogs I watched a couple of episodes of “Victoria”.
They were rather good, but again finding myself woefully ignorant of
nineteenth century history I turned to Wikipedia. And again
found that what was being presented as a historical drama was actually
factually incorrect. Chartists never stormed Buckingham Palace… and certainly
not just as Princess Louisa was being born. I
had another look at Facebook; I found myself still being bombarded with
adverts for chess-related pages. So I set myself up
an account on chess.com. so far I’m kicking the ass
of a both with difficulty rating “rather easy”. “er
indoors TM” came home from babysitting littlun, and boiled up fish and chips which
we scoffed whilst watching the first two episodes of the new series of “The
Traitors”. It’s a good show in which everyone turns on everyone with
the least provocation and at the slightest excuse whilst the actual traitors
pretend not to be at each other’s throats. |
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3 January 2025
(Friday) - No Internet
I
slept like a log. Despite a very cold night the hose of my CPAP machine
didn’t fill with condensation which was a minor result. I woke after a
nine-hour kip and made toast. For once pretty much nothing of note was
happening on my Facebook feed. Seeing
the electrician’s report still hadn’t arrived I phoned the emergence people
who assured me that the report was with their “work in progress team”
who were rather busy. Having spent a lifetime working in an environment where
everything really is immediate and right away, it amazes me how slowly some
people work. Seeing
the sun coming out I decided that despite the heavy frost I’d take the dogs
up to the woods. We got them into their coats, scraped the ice from the car
and off we went. The
woods were busier than usual, but again most people we met seemed to be
within half a mile of the car park. No one wants to go too far from the car.
We had a good walk, and with coats on we weren’t shivering when we got back
to the car. We
took a minor diversion as we came home. There had been a report of an issue
with one of my geocaches. Despite a dozen other people finding the thing over
the last two months I was told the co ordinates
were out and the spoiler piccie was wrong. The
co-ordinates weren’t as good as they might have been but the piccie was fine. The thing was exactly where it was
supposed to be. I
came home and made a cuppa, and as I tried to update the problematical
geocache’s web page so the internet connection died.
You don’t realise how much you use an internet connection until it isn’t
there. Rather like the house’s electricity. Being
unable to work from home, “er
indoors TM” drove in to
work. I settled in front of the telly and watched episodes of “Four in a
Bed” in which some particularly difficult woman running a guest house
only five miles away from my brother’s house insisted all her guests be in
bed by nine o’clock every night. The
internet came back on after an outage of two hours, then went back off again
just as I got the text message saying it was fixed. I thought there might
still be ongoing issues so I left it and watched the
remastered Doctor Who episode “The War Games”. Originally
broadcast in ten black and white episodes taking more than four hours to
watch it’s been colourised and cut down to an hour and a half. It was rather
good. And
then seeing the broadband was still down I phoned the helpline. A rather
helpful chap asked a few questions and arranged for an engineer to come out
tomorrow. I got an email confirming the visit. The email said “During your appointment, you may need to update your WiFi settings. This means you, or whoever is home, will
need to have access to the My Sky app”. I downloaded it, and not having any idea what my Sky ID login or
password was I phoned the people at Sky. The rather helpful chap had clearly
gone on his tea break and had been replaced by Captain Useless. He wanted to
know what my Sky ID was. I said I had no idea. He said he couldn’t tell me
what it was as it was a secret. After a lot of arguing he suggested I might
put in my email address and ask for a reset. I tried that (with him
listening) about a dozen times and no reset email came through. Captain
Useless wouldn’t do anything but keep repeating set phrases from his script.
After a while he announced that I didn’t need my Sky ID login or password for
an engineer visit even though it said that I did on the email they’d sent me. After twenty minutes I gave up on him and eventually
I found out what it was from pure guesswork just as “er indoors TM” came
home. I’ve managed to connect my lap-to to the internet
through my mobile, but it is all rather slow. We
had a rather good steak dinner washed down with a bottle of plonk and
followed up with cheese and biccies. And having had
fish, steak and biccies (no cheese though)
Treacle is now demanding more food… |
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4 January 2025
(Saturday) - Still No Internet
I
slept well again, and again no condensation in the CPAP hose. Result. I
made toast and once I’d connected my lap-top to the internet via my mobile I
had a look-see on-line. There’s consternation in New Romney where someone
who is mentally ill has been re-homed back to New Romney. I can’t work out
whether this person is actually a menace or whether
there’s just a witch hunt being staged by worried residents. Either way it
highlights the ongoing issue in adult mental health care. The government
claims to be on the case and is conducting a review… one that isn’t
planning to come up with any suggestions for at least three years. I can’t
pretend to have been a fan of the previous government, but this current one
isn’t showing itself to be any improvement. I
munzed and wordled and as
everyone else got up I got dressed and went to scrape the ice from the car.
It scraped easier than it did yesterday. We got dogs into coats and onto
leads and set off. As we drove Steve was on the radio doing the Guess the
Lyrics competition. We had no idea, but it turned out it was from the song “January” by the group
Pilot. That song always reminds me of a chap at primary school. I won’t name
him, but looking back it was quite plain that even aged ten he was “good
with colours” and “baked a moist sponge”. But despite being far
from the most macho in our school he got into a scrap through an argument
about the lyrics of that song. We
got to Dog Club. Despite it being so cold that the mud was frozen we had a
dozen dogs show up. Everyone played nicely; we had no squabbles or spats.
Toward the end Bailey was shivering so Sue was cuddling her; I popped her
inside my coat. Bailey is a worry; she is so small she feels the cold. But
late at night despite the temperature she wants to spend ages in the garden
and never shivers then. As
it seems to do these days, Dog Club over-run somewhat. We got into the car to
hear the final clue for the Mystery Year competition on the radio. A Marc Almond/Gene Pitney
collaboration… surely that was *much* earlier than 1989? It
wasn’t but it certainly seems it to me. We
came home and had a cuppa and a bun, and the phone rang. The broadband man
had just had a cancellation. Could he come to us early? Yes please. The
nice man came and took one look at the socket into which the router plugs and
announced that had to go. He put in a new socket then plugged our router into
something or other and updated the software in our SkyQ
box. And then he announced that everything was working fine, looked at his
list of appointments for today and said it was odd that so many houses so
close together were having the same issue. He
then phoned the Openreach people who said there was an issue at their end
which was due to be fixed by ten o’clock on Monday evening. We
all sighed, and the nice Sky man went on his way just before mid-day…
interestingly despite the email I’d had yesterday at no point did I need the My Sky app, my Sky ID login or password. That was a load of
unnecessary arse-ache yesterday, wasn’t it? The plan for today had been to have a bit of a tidy
up in the back room, so that’s what I did. I got four bin bags of stuff I
don’t want together for the tip and an old office chair (which must be
over twenty years old) disassembled and ready to go as well. I found some
old photos too. A trip to a theme park somewhere, to the London
Dungeon, to the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy exhibition at the Science
Museum… I was only sorting stuff for about three hours, but
at the end I was worn out. As
I tidied I saw the broadband had come back on-line
at about two o’clock. I sat and having found some old exam papers from the
mid-eighties I wrote up some CPD. “er indoors TM” made some rather good soup and we scoffed it whilst watching the New
Year’s episode of “Bake Off”. And then the internet dropped
again. I phoned the Sky people again. The chap I spoke with was rather
helpful but seemed to want to get me to change my password for no reason that
I could fathom. Eventually I got him to look at the broadband issue. After a
little fiddling about it turned out that the ongoing Openreach issue hadn’t
been properly fixed. It will be fixed soon. Or so I’m told. In the meantime we’ve been offered full fibre
internet to be installed at the end of the month. |
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5 January 2025
(Sunday) - Early Shift, Rain, No Internet
I
had an alarm set; I was awake far too early. It was a shame the internet was
still down. I must admit the thing has worked without issue for years, but
when it is not working it is an issue. How can I get my regular fix of
nonsense from Netflix if I can’t connect? I used my mobile to have a little
look-see on-line. It had snowed overnight in several places here and there
within fifty miles of home, and as always in the UK panic ensued. I
munzed,
and deployed some cards. And getting nowhere with Wordle I gave up and
got ready for work. I try not to disturb “er indoors TM” and the dogs when I get ready in the mornings
but it is tricky in the winter purely because it is so dark. Trying to find
an errant sock in pitch darkness takes some doing. I
drove to work through a very dark morning. As I drove the pundits on the
radio were talking about pig farming. It sounded interesting even if I did
only catch the last few minutes of the farming program. The
weather forecast came on. There were warnings of heavy snow up north, and being slightly warmer in the south we should be
having heavy rain. We certainly were. And
then they broadcast what I can only describe as "The Religious Tripe
Show". The trouble with religious tripe is that we are all supposed
to respect religious tripe even though it doesn't stand up to any thought
whatsoever. Take this morning's episode of "The Religious Tripe Show"
for example. There was a lot of talk about President Jimmy Carter (who
died last week) and about how much effort he'd put in to organising peace
talks between religious factions. Everyone involved in the talks claimed to
be from peace-loving religions even though they'd all been fighting for years
and for all that President Carter had temporarily secured a cease fire, they’d
all kicked off again at the slightest provocation. All these
religious claim brotherly love… and can’t pick a fight quick enough. And
then there was then talk about a former lawyer who has translated
the Bible into
an obscure Scottish dialect and been given an MBE for doing so. I’m
sorry – this boils my piss to the limit and beyond. I’ve just given up my
Christmas morning to keep the hospital going. I got paid at the princely sum
of time and a third, and no one knows or cares. Some chap translates a book
that very few people read into a language that even fewer people speak, and
he gets an MBE. I’m
sorry I bothered. As
I drove into Maidstone I could see where there had been snow overnight, but
the rain had washed away most of it. I got to work and did my bit. As I did I kept an eye on the rain outside. It didn’t let up
all day. I
slipped off twenty minutes before sunset, but by the time I’d gone to get
petrol it was dark by the time I was driving down the motorway. I
came home. Martin had called round whilst I was put and left Christmas
pressies. That was good of him. Seeing the broadband was still down I phoned
the nice people at Sky again. They were aware of the issue, but the issue
wasn’t with them. They get their broadband from someone else and sell it on
to me. That someone else is on the case fixing it (or so I am told). I
had a thought about getting my broadband directly from the “someone else”,
but I’m sure that if I did so, Sky would just put up the price of their telly
channels. I
then sat on the sofa and fell asleep. Having had a rotten cough all over the
holiday period I think I might be going down with something else now. “er
indoors TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we
scoffed whilst watching more “Bake Off”. And then my phone
pinged. The Met Office had changed their overnight warning of heavy snow to
one of heavy rain. It’s
been hossing down all day; how much more can it rain? And
the broadband is still down. |
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6 January 2025
(Monday) - Broadband Restored
I
slept well, but I did hear a thump as Morgan got off the bed at five o’clock.
I hurried downstairs after him to see him anxiously circling by the back
door. I wish he’d nudge me if he wants to go out; otherwise
we’d just find a little pile by the back door. At
eleven o’clock the broadband light on the router came on. It was yellow which
meant it wasn’t working, but a light had come on which was more than had
happened all weekend. I
watched an episode of The Monocled Mutineer whilst my
shirts washed, and then ironed them watching the second episode. There
was a knock on the door. On Saturday we’d advertised our old office chair on
Facebook Marketplace. Someone wanted it. I saw that as a result all round. We
had no use for it. And if someone else wanted it they’d got something for nothing and I’d been saved the arse-ache of a trip to the
tip. As
I sorted tumble-dried undercrackers at three o’clock during the third episode
of The Monocled Mutineer so I had a text to say the
broadband was all fixed. The light on the router was yellow still, so I
pulled the router’s plug, counted to ten and after a few minutes all was
working fine. And
seeing how the working day had nearly gone (for those working today) I
phoned the home emergency people to chase up the report that I need to send
to the insurance people. It’s been a week… how much longer do they need? |
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7 January 2025
(Tuesday) - The Next Problem...
I
went to bed shortly before eleven o’clock last night and made a point of
turning off my phone’s connection to the Internet. But it too must have been
rather excited at the prospect of having broadband again, and as I nodded off
it told me of several trivial things that could have waited until the
morning. I got back to sleep only to have it continue. I wish it wouldn’t.
What with that nonsense and the usual insomnia that goes with having an alarm
set I had a rather restless night. I
got up early and in a novel break with tradition had a bowl of granola for
brekkie. Much as I like granola, at two pound fifty per packet I’d expect
more than three servings from a packet. I
watched an episode of “Victoria” because I could. Today’s episode
featured the cholera outbreak in Soho in 1854. I consider myself
something of an expert on the matter as there is a virtual geocache which features the water pump
responsible for the outbreak. I
then had a look at the internet – because I could. The Internet told me that
two friends from way back were having a birthday today. My old next door neighbour who I’ve not seen in person for over
forty years. And someone I knew from my religious days who (like me)
went on to see the darkness. I since met her again through the now defunct
snake club, and the last I heard she was running a petting zoo in Norfolk
with her girlfriend. I
munzed; our clan has got to Level One. I struggled
and gave up with Wordle, then got ready for work. I
went out to the car... and came straight back in again. When I'd got up I'd looked out of the bedroom window and the car was
fine. In the meantime a heavy frost had formed on
the car so I got a bottle of cold water to shift the ice. It
took some shifting. I
drove to work through a very dark morning. As I drove the pundits on the
radio were talking about a police investigation into the death
rate at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton. This
sort of thing pisses me off. The media are only too quick to highlight any
failing in healthcare. Have you ever noticed that when reporting on medical
mishaps, those reporting never use the term "honest mistake"?
Terms such as "incompetence" and "bungling"
are freely bandied about, and the implication is made that people actively go
to work in hospitals to deliberately harm the unwell. And having done their
level best to dissuade anyone from working in healthcare, the media is then
rubbing its hands in glee. It can then run stories about the growing waiting
lists which it is actively helping to grow. There
was then a lot of talk about the "McDonalds Claim".
Apparently quite a few McDonalds employees have suffered sexual
discrimination and harassment. Perhaps they have. Perhaps they haven't. I
don't know, but some bunch of lawyers are organising those with a grievance into a body
which can sue the McDonalds corporation. Is
this *really* the right way to address this? Personally
if I had any evidence that I'd ever worked for McDonalds this is a bandwagon
I onto which would be jumping right away, as should anyone who has ever
worked for McDonalds. Just claim someone touched your arse and/or called you
a puff, and it is money for old rope. Isn't it? Surely
there is something wrong with a system in which companies get others to make
allegations which they then investigate for financial gain? Surely a better
system would be to have all such compensation claims brought by an impartial
ombudsman who gets the same rate of pay regardless of the outcome?
Or am I missing something? I
got to work for the early shift and cracked on. As I worked so “er indoors TM” sent
a message. She’d spotted a rat in the garden. I thought Bailey had been
getting twitchy recently. So…
a rat… I don’t want any lethal traps or poison in the garden with the dogs
about. After a lot of phoning around and being told no one had anything,
eventually the local branch of B&Q said they had a lot of humane rat
traps. So I called in on the way home from work. I
couldn’t see any humane rat traps so I asked at the
counter. Again the staff were disinterested in the
extreme, but eventually I got someone to come and have a look. After a few
minutes the chap admitted he couldn’t see any either. He admitted that when
I’d phoned and been told they had lots, what they should actually
have said was that they didn’t have any. And
people whinge that Amazon is killing local shops… Hopefully the humane rat
trap arrives tomorrow. In the meantime I’ve set a
humane mouse trap. “er
indoors TM” boiled up a very good chili which we scoffed
whilst watching more of the current season of “The Traitors” in which
the really annoying one got chucked out. I don’t think that’s giving away any
spoilers; all the contestants get on my tits really. |
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8 January 2025
(Wednesday) - Pseudoangiomatous Stromal Hyperplasia
I
spent much of the night listening to “er indoors TM” telling
Bailey off. I don’t know what crimes little Bailey had committed but judging
by the amount of stick the poor dog was getting they must have been heinous. I
got up, had more granola and watched another episode of “Victoria”,
then had my usual root around the Internet. It was still there, but being
rather early in the morning no one was awake to argue with anyone else. I
checked the humane mouse trap. Overnight I'd caught one, but in trying to
extract the little thing it escaped. Ho-hum. Maybe next time I might have
Bailey to hand? Once
I'd sorted the ice from the car I set off for work. As I drove the pundits on
the radio were spouting their usual drivel as they do. As I drove there was
talk of soon-to-be President Trump. He's made an announcement that he is
serious about America obtaining Greenland and like a
bunch of idiots the EU are taking him seriously and getting twitchy. He's
never going to invade Greenland, is he? Back when he was president last time he used to remind me of the simple-minded cub scouts
who would come out with the more ridiculous nonsense in order to impress the
thicker more feeble-minded cub scouts. Which is exactly why he's being
President for a second time. He says what the voters want to hear regardless
of how implausible or impractical it might be. And then whenever whatever
nonsense he'd promised fails to materialise, he blames it all on whoever it
is that the masses hate at the time, and his popularity soars. Sometimes I
refer to Mr Trump as "that idiot", but he's only an idiot in
what he so loudly blusters about. I suspect he knows exactly what he is
doing. Democracy,
eh? Meanwhile science has reported a case of pseudoangiomatous stromal hyperplasia allegedly triggered
by a COVID vaccine. For those of my loyal readers who aren't of a medical
disposition, pseudoangiomatous stromal hyperplasia
is a technical term for "wazzo jugs".
And whilst it is incredibly unlikely that the COVID vaccine had anything to
do with it, I for one am all for ramping up the vaccination programme just in
case. Call me an old traditionalist if you will… Work
was work; but I started early and using some lieu time I was on the way home
by half past eleven. I came home via the works branch of M&S and got iced
spiced buns for lunch. And with that scoffed I started loading up the car for
a tip run. I
took a car load of rubbish to the tip; I came home
again. And then sat in front of the telly and slept for the afternoon; I was
all in. I woke as “er indoors TM” set
off on babysitting duty, put washing in, and dozed some more until there was
a knock on the door. My new humane rat trap had arrived. With no instructions
it seemed rather cheap and nasty, but I managed to figure out how I thought
it worked, so I baited it and put it into position and settled in front of
the telly. In the evenings there is all sorts of pap on UK Gold which kept me
away from bothering the rat trap. We
cracked open a bottle of plonk with which we washed down a rather good lamb
dinner, and then I attacked a lump of cheese. I shared the crackers with the
dogs; they like that. So
far the new humane rat trap hasn’t captured very
much… |
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9 January 2025
(Thursday) - Snow
“er
indoors TM” was telling Bailey what a good dog she was
last night, so I suppose that’s a step in the right direction. I got
up, “er indoors TM” set
off to work. I made toast and had a look-see to find out what I’d missed
overnight. As
I turned on my laptop so there was a message on the Whatsapp
work group. Having met traffic jams on the way to nursery a colleague was
running ten minutes late. Had that been in my old place of work there would
have been people queueing up to tell the boss that someone was late. On
arrival the one who was late would have been taken straight into the boss’s
office for twenty minutes to have a time-wasting talking-to. And then they
would have to be made up at the end of the day (*not* cutting lunch hour
short as would be sensible) and the people on the late shift would be
under orders to make a note of what time the offender actually
left. All of which in a workplace claiming to have a formal zero
tolerance of bullying. I’m so glad I left that place. In retrospect I should
have gone years earlier. Facebook
excelled itself this morning. Just recently it has been suggesting people I
might like to add to my friends list. Today it suggested a concrete manufacturer. I
had a look at the humane rat trap. Overnight something had gone inside, had
the bait, and come out again without triggering it. There are those who would
say that this is what you get when you buy the cheapest one there is on Amazon and I suspect they would be right. The
weather was brighter than it might have been so I
took the dogs out. As I drove there was an interview with God on the radio.
Or some nutter from Manchester claiming to be God. Apparently
he’s living with some woman and is running a community of seemingly harmless
nutters. Had I been interviewing him I would have asked some rather more
difficult questions… Perhaps this bloke really is God
and he’s offered the interviewer the Moon on a stick (quite literally!)
to go easy on him. We
got to the woods and found heavy snow. I say “heavy
snow”; as Albert (Einstein) once remarked “everything’s
relative”. My friends in Sweden and Canada and America and Scotland would
laugh, but when you only get snow a couple of times a year and it is
remarkable to see it lay, having a couple of inches of the stuff counts as
heavy. Having
no snow at all at home, two inches of the stuff at the woods was something of
a surprise. Had I known, the dogs would have worn their coats. But we pressed
on. The snow in the woods was patchy; quite thick in some places, icy in
other places, and melted away entirely where the sun had got through. The
pups seemed quite amazed by it, and you wouldn’t believe how much mud can be
concealed by a light sprinkling of snow. I had intended to take one of our
shorter walks, but the dogs were having fun and before I realised it, we were
at the furthest point of what is one of our standard four-mile walks. Seeing
where we were I took the short cut back to the car. I took a few photos of
the dogs in the snow. We
came home where I washed paws and bellies, did dog brekkie, and soon all
three were fast asleep. So tired that no one attempted to attack the Hoover
as I ran round with it. I
put a load of washing in to scrub then sparked up
Netflix. I watched an episode of “Victoria” as I scoffed a bit of
dinner, then watched the last episode of “Victoria” as I did some
ironing. That had been a rather good show. I then found myself at something
of a loss. What to watch next… Netflix suggested I might like to watch “65”; a film in which
some astronaut crashes his spaceship on a planet filled with dinosaurs. I
turned off half way through; it was crap. Netflix
also suggested I might like to watch “Scavengers Reign”. It too was about
people crashing spaceships, and it too was crap. I
wrote up some CPD, changed the blog picture, looked at some geo-puzzles then
sorted dinner. “er
indoors TM” had left me a
pizza which was easy enough to cook (or so I had been told). Bearing
in mind that of
the worst came to the worst I could take it round to “My Boy TM” and have ”Auntie Chel TM” cook
it, I had a go. It boiled up easily enough. I gave the dogs their dinner and scoffed mine whilst
watching the first episode of “Poldark”.
I can remember liking that in the past but I can
remember a lot more heaving bosoms than it seems to have at the moment. “er
indoors TM” should be home soon. I don’t want her to
think I’ve done nothing other than sit on my bum today, but to be honest that
is about all I’ve done. There’s loads I could do in the gardens, but it is
too cold outside. Oh
– I’ve finally got the report from the electrician’s visit of ten days ago.
I’ve sent it on to the insurance company… Let’s see what happens next. |
|
10 January 2025
(Friday) - 167/89
Being awake rather earlier than I might have
been I got up, made toast and watched an episode of “Poldark” in which
Verity’s tryst with the sea captain was revealed. I had a little look at the Internet as I do
most mornings. I seem to be seeing a lot of a Facebook group about early
retirement at the moment. Supposedly about all
aspects of early retirement, most of the talk is about money. One chap was
posting that he never invested in a pension because he didn’t believe in
them, but now aged fifty-eight he would like to know what he should invest in
so as to be able to retire comfortably in two years’
time. Another chap was complaining that the entire concept of pensions
stinks. He was furious to find that he’d spent a life earning and squandering
far more than anyone else had earned or squandered, only to end up far poorer
in his old age than people who earned far less than he had but had invested
sensibly. They let these people vote, you know… There was quite a lot of ice to scrape from
the car's windscreen this morning. And with it finally scraped I set off to
work. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about wild fires in Los Angeles, the ongoing cold snap, and the state of the UK economy. Meanwhile science has found Atlantis. Interestingly no mention was made of
Tunbridge Wells MP Mike Martin who thinks Britain could be at war with Russia in the next ten
years. I got to work and cracked on with what I
couldn't avoid. As I did my bit so my phone pinged.
It was the GP wanting me to tell him what my blood pressure was. I had no
idea, but the message said there was a self-service blood pressure machine I
might use at the surgery. So I popped in after work.
A particularly miserable-looking woman behind the counter directed me to the
machine. I stood on it, shoved my hand in and it told me I was a fat b*stard only three pressure units off of
having a heart attack. Part of me thought OMG. Part of me thought what a load
of tosh bearing in mind how much I walk the dogs. But I uploaded my info. I shall wait
patiently for the doctor to judge me. Once I’d uploaded my information it struck me
that I should have taken my thick heavy winter coat, gilet and shoes off
before I had a go on the machine… I’ll pop back next week at some point. “er indoors TM” boiled up chicken and chips which we scoffed whilst watching more
of “The Traitors” and “Junior Bake Off”. We
need to watch more from the Sky-Q box – it’s nearly three quarters full. |
|
11 January 2025
(Saturday) - Dog Club and Edenbridge I
was sleeping rather well until the bin men came up the road at half past six
this morning. You never see bin lorries out in the afternoons, do you? Do
they have to start quite so early? I
got up, made toast and prepared “Hannah” for the day then had a look
at the Internet. It was still there. People were all too quick to show off
their ignorance on social media. People usually are. Why do they do that? I
munzed, wordled, and got
we got ready for the off. It
took a surprisingly long time to scrape the ice from the “er indoors TM” – mobile, and with ice scraped we followed a car with a
seriously flat tyre to the Repton estate. What with all the delays from ice
and slow cars there was quite the queue at the gate for Dog Club when we got
there. How embarrassing. But despite the cold day we had a very good Dog
Club. The temperature stayed cold enough to keep the mud frozen, and having
two coats on Bailey meant she didn’t shiver like she had done last week With
Dog Club done we set off for Edenbridge. As we drove
we caught the last part of Steve’s Mystery Year competition on the radio –
Shine by Take That? 2006, or so I thought. It was 2007. We
listened to Steve as we drove up the motorway. And as we drove Steve gave the
lie to anyone who claims the Saturday morning radio show is pre-recorded. The
gizmo which does the music started jumping and repeating itself. I did
chuckle when Steve told listeners to talk amongst themselves whilst he sorted
the issue. As
it does, the radio signal gave out round about Harrietsham.
Heart FM isn’t the same. We
got to Edenbridge where together with Karl and Tracey we had a little wander
round the streets following a smaller geocache series. There’s plenty of
geo-series over that way, but at this time of year the countryside is one
huge swamp. I don’t mind going into the swamps, but we did have plans to go
to the geo-meet after our walk, and there is only so much mud you can take
into a pub. The
geo-meet was rather good. Karl stood us all dinner; cheeseburger with stilton
was rather good. We met up with old friends we caught up on gossip. The dogs
were rather well-behaved. I miss the old geo-meets. I
took a few photos whilst we were out. I
managed to stay awake for most of the journey home. We had a pizza for tea
and watched another episode of “The Traitors” in which the contestants
were getting particularly stressy with each other.
And then an episode of “Junior Bake Off” – those kids are rather
talented. Today
was a rather good one. The dogs have been snoring ever since we got home.
|
|
12 January 2025 (Sunday)
- Bit Dull
I slept like a log last night and woke after
nine hours asleep, then lay there not so much worrying about Friday’s session
on the doctor’s scales as pondering about it. I can’t claim I’m not
overweight or that I eat particularly healthily, but I do exercise quite a
bit; certainly more than people I know who are half
my age. So I got up and dusted
off our bathroom scales which said I was pretty much the weight I’ve been for
ages, and nearly a full stone under what the doctor’s scales said I was. With minor panic over I made some toast and
looked at the Internet. Last night I posted something on Facebook which had
received quite a few comments; the Google Street View car had found a fat
bloke in the nip in Kentucky. Click here and try Google
Street View on that parked car. This morning the bloke was brandishing his
chopper; it has now been censored. And again people
were showing off how stupid they were on Facebook. One bloke was ranting
about how science had actually proved that the
universe was only a few thousand years old, and another bloke was insistent
that water flowed from north to south, *not* downhill. There were
quite a few arguments going on. I find it best not to try to reason with the
idiot brigade. But it does bother me that these people are allowed to vote
and do jury service. I boiled a kettle of water and went out to
the ponds. I soon melted a hole in the big pond from which I could then break
the ice to allow oxygen to get in, but the ice on the little pond took some
melting. It was about an inch thick. Whilst I was at it I
harvested a bumper crop of frozen dog turds, but I’d watched Morgan emptying
out by the Monkey Puzzle tree last night and that turd was gone this morning.
Does that explain why Bailey was sick this morning, and count as a failure
for the pro-biotics which are supposed to stop her scoffing dung? “er indoors TM” set about repairing
the poggered cabinet in the bedroom. I left her to
it and made a start solving a series of geo-puzzles. Eventually “er indoors TM” then went off round to see ”Auntie
Chel TM” who was staging a film afternoon. I called
a halt on puzzle solving as my brain was hurting, and I put some washing in to scrub. I then watched more “Poldark” in which Mr. Ross did the dirty
deed on Demelza and had to marry her, and in which the sea captain (him
who’d plighted his troth) returned. I then had a little doze, and wrote up some CPD until “er
indoors TM” returned. She boiled up a rather good dinner which we
washed down with a bottle of merlot whilst watching the next episode of “The
Traitors” in which everyone believed everything that a vicar had to say
purely because she was a vicar… even though she was openly telling porkies.
And then an episode of “Junior Bake Off”. I felt sorry for the kid
that got voted out; she was up against some serious competition… Yesterday was a rather good day. Today was on
the dull side. |
|
13 January 2025
(Monday) - FTF in Perry Wood
“er
indoors TM” woke me shortly
after eight o’clock this morning; I was mumbling in my sleep apparently. I got up, made toast and had my usual root around
the Internet. Last night someone had posted to Facebook openly saying that
the entire COVID pandemic was one big hoax staged in order
to inject the masses with the vaccines for no reason that they were
prepared to divulge. I squealed the comment to Facebook; they said it didn’t
go against their community standards. I asked for a review. This morning they confirmed that posting factually incorrect
anti-vax propaganda doesn’t go against their community standards. Ho hum… And then I had a text from the doctor who wants me
to monitor my blood pressure at home. How am I supposed to do that? I went on
Amazon and ordered up a home-testing device which should arrive tomorrow. I
was just about to take the dogs to Kings Wood for our morning walk when I had
an email about a new geocache in the car park at Perry Woods. So we went to Perry Woods instead where after a quick
First to Find we had a little walk round the woods. I must admit I’m not
overly keen on Perry Woods for a walk. From experience it is rather up hill
and down hill. The car park is in the middle of the
woods so you are never really very far from a road.
There are pheasants all over the place. And it seems to be rather muddy at
this time of year too. But
we had a good walk. The dogs came back when called… far more promptly than
they did the last time we were there. As
we got back to the car park so a car pulled up with
some familiar faces inside. The chap who is usually First to Find on all
local geocaches had taken his time today. We had a little chat, then came
home where the dogs had a tummy wash and went to sleep. I sorted a cuppa for
me and “er indoors TM”. I eventually got Wordle right, then had a look in
the garden Over
the spring, summer and autumn I spent a lot of my spare time pootling in the
garden. It is a tad too cold to pootle now, and I don’t want to fiddle about
too much in case I disturb hibernating bugs. But I harvested dog dung then
gently broke up the ice on the ponds. Then I went round harvesting the dog
turds I’d missed earlier before trimming back the overgrowth from next door’s
rose bushes. Now that it is winter I could get to the thicker branches to
hack them back. I don’t like hacking her overgrowth as relations aren’t
peachy at the best of times, but last summer their roses reached half-way
across our garden. I
went round with the dog dung bucket a third time; you’d never believe how
many turds three small dogs produce. And then I pulled the off stones which
were glued to the little membranes which I bought last summer. Having
spent a couple of hours pootling I came in, scoffed a crumpet for lunch, then
sent out over fifty invites to next month’s geo-event. We’re having an
afternoon at the scout hut playing board games. I wrote up some CPD and struggled
with geo-puzzles until my phone beeped. I had a friend request on Facebook…
apparently from “er indoors TM”. Someone had set up a fake account in her name. And then my phone
beeped again. Gordon had also had a similar friend request on Facebook. We
both reported the fake profile, and the Facebook feds deleted the account in
minutes. I’ve seen quite a few of these fake accounts; someone once even set
one up in my name. I suppose people create these accounts to get access to
other people who are their friends, and can try to
scam them from a position of supposed trust. “er
indoors TM” boiled up dinner then
went bowling. I watched more “Poldark” in which Verity was giving the
sea captain the come-on, and Elizabeth wasn’t saying no to George quite as
forcefully as she might. Meanwhile
Dr Ennis was confronted with a heaving chest… I
might watch another episode in a minute… |
|
14 January 2025
(Tuesday) - Walk, Woodwork, Blood Pressure
As
I scoffed toast I had my usual root around the Internet. There’s a new goat
at the goat sanctuary. “Gregory” was found wandering around Birling; a
village not far from junction four of the M20. Presumably an unwanted pet?
You wouldn’t lose a goat and not realise, would you? But why abandon the poor
thing. Why not just take him straight to the goat sanctuary and say that you
can’t cope with him? I
munzed and wordled and
got ready for the off. With
dogs on leads (and small one in a coat) we set off. As we drove to the
woods there was an interview on the radio with Sara
Pascoe who was being asked what advice she’d give her younger self. It
was rather interesting, and made me think. What advice
would I give to me back in the seventies? Work
harder at school and give the church a lot less priority
I think. For all that I met “er
indoors TM” through the church,
looking back had I not flunked out of school half way
through A-levels with an end of year average of twenty-eight per cent I could
have been a doctor or solicitor. But when all my mates (who went on to be
doctors and solicitors and incredibly rich) were doing their studying I
was doing Boys Brigade and bible study classes. With
reports of one of my geocaches having gone missing I
wanted to check it, so we parked in the lower car park at Kings Wood...
eventually. Some idiot had parked right across the
entrance. But once parked we had a good walk. We stayed to the wider paths
and were soon where the missing geocache was supposed to be. It was missing.
The entire area had been flailed flat and the cache
and its hide had been destroyed. I popped a new cache out, and we continued
our walk. We had a good walk. We avoided the worst of the mud,
I found yet another sink hole. We met another group of one woman and six
dogs. That seemed rather keen. After
three and a half miles we were back at the car. Parked next to us was a van
of a dog-walking firm. Presumably that was the woman with the six dogs? Could I jack it all in at work and become a
professional dog walker? I probably could, but being
lazy suits me in that tomorrow I shall just turn up at work and do my thing
then go home again. I always remember an uncle who was self-employed who
spent all day working doing the actual job, and then
spent several hours every evening doing all the admin and paperwork for the
business. We
came home and I sorted a cuppa, then went into the garden and pootled. Last
week “er indoors TM” spotted a rat on the bird feeder. The rat trap was an abject
failure, so I had this idea of building some sort of thingy to hold the bird
feeder where the rat can’t get to it. It didn’t take long to build – let’s
see if it works. If it doesn’t collapse by the weekend
I’ll dob a coat of paint on it. I came in and had a stroke of genius concerning the
pi function of prime numbers and solved a geo-puzzle, then using the vignerre cipher solved another. I had a little aggro with the third geo-puzzle. Once I’d de-ciphered (using
pigpen) I was left with what I could only describe as utter gibberish.
But I got there eventually. “er
indoors TM” set off babysitting. I settled down watching more “Poldark” in
which George told Elizabeth his intentions. And they were rather beastly. And then my blood pressure monitor arrived. In a
novel break with tradition I read the instructions
and sat quietly for a few minutes before having a go. I came in with the same
diastolic as the doctor’s machine said last week, but the systolic came in
ten units lower. “er
indoors TM” returned from babysitting and boiled up lamb chops and chips. That’ll
put those ten points back on the blood pressure… |
|
15 January 2025
(Wednesday) - More Self-Indulgent Whinging
Well, there’s no denying I’ve got the arse. Last night I got “er indoors TM” to
stick her arm in my new blood pressure machine. I won’t say what her numbers
were, but I will say that according
to official figures she is rather normal, whilst I would seem to
have stage two hypertension. It is all rather funny really; having been
reasonably healthy for years, now that I know I have high blood pressure I’m
feeling all sorts of twinges in my chest. I’m sure it is entirely
psychosomatic, but it goes to show, doesn’t it? Mind you I have no idea what
it goes to show, but it must go to show something. According to heart.org if
the measurements carry on as they are at the moment, the quack
will probably prescribe blood pressure medication and lifestyle changes. I
suppose I’m long overdue to start on the statins; so many people that I know
are on them. And as for lifestyle changes… another diet in the first
instance. More exercise? How many four-mile dog walks can I do? But maybe
this might be a way of getting out of night
shifts? This morning I had granola
for brekkie rather than toast, but that did nothing for my blood pressure which
was slightly up on yesterday evening’s reading. I watched an episode of “Poldark”, then had a
little look at the Internet as I do. It was still there. Amazingly it isn’t filled
with adverts about blood pressure yet. It was very dark and foggy as I set off to work, but
having no ice to scrape from the car was something of a result. I stopped off
at the co-op for a sandwich then headed off west-wards through the -hursts
and the -dens to Pembury. As I drove I
listened to the pundits on the radio spouting their drivel. There was quite a
bit of coverage of "Yesterday in Parliament" which spoke
volumes about our parliamentary democracy. Quite a few matters were
supposedly under discussion, but each so-called debate went the same way.
Someone would make a point, and having made that point someone else would
launch a personal attack on them. A pal of the first speaker would then slag
off whoever had made that attack, and so it continued. Not a bad way to pass
your time; especially when you're getting ninety
grand a year (plus expenses) for doing so. There was also talk with some emeritus professor of
medicine who felt that BMI was a rather crap
way to measure obesity, as all it does is compare weight and height
and according to BMI, many top athletes would seem to be porkers. The chap
then went on to say that fat people should be on weight loss medication for
life. That might be me in a week or so. I got to work for the early
and had a chat with the boss about blood pressure and night work. I've been
referred to the occupational health people. I then I had a Red Alert. They are far more
nerve-wracking and far less exciting than watching Star Trek might have you
believe. And if that wasn't enough to put my blood pressure through the roof,
the insurance company phoned and said that our ongoing electrical issue isn't
covered in the policy and that we will have to pay for having the ongoing
problems repaired ourselves. Being on an early I got out early. Being at Pembury
I didn’t get home that early. Interestingly despite a rather stressful day my
evening systolic blood pressure was fifteen wotsits
less than my morning one had been. A shame I couldn’t say the same about the
diastolic, but such is life. “er
indoors TM” boiled up fajitas which we washed down with a bottle of merlot. Red
wine is good
for your blood pressure apparently. |
|
16 January 2025
(Thursday) - Undercrackers
I
got up and after I’d had a shave I had my usual rummage round the Internet.
It was still there. No one was squabbling about anything which was rather
remarkable. I Munzed, got Wordle on
the fourth go, measured blood pressure (144/88 this morning), then got
ready for the off. We had a minor contretemps on the way to the woods.
Some idiot in a black Toyota Yaris had been
tail-ending me from half-way up Brookfield road to the motorway roundabout (about
a mile) where he dangerously overtook. I slammed on the brakes to avoid
hitting him, and then I followed him as he drove not two yards from the car
in front of him all the way to Boughton Aluph (two
more miles). The car he’d been following turned off there and I then
followed him to the turn-off to the woods which he reached about five seconds
before I did. The woods were busy today – not with walkers but
with vans. We see a van driving round the woods about once a month or so.
Today we saw three different ones. Two from Forestry England; one unmarked. We also found a pair of pants. Nice pants. We’ve
found a pair of freshly shitted pants before, but these were clean. How on
Earth does anyone lose a set of undercrackers in the woods? I suspect unmoral
activity. It was warmer today than it has been so Bailey
didn’t wear her coat. I’m not sure if that was good or bad; when I wasn’t looking she got herself a serious smearing of fox poo on
her back, so once home it was into the bath. With dogs scrubbed I made myself a cuppa, then did some housework. I put washing in. I ran
round with the Hoover. And I cleaned out the fridge. I’ve been threatening to
clean out the fridge for some time, and it was quite the
adventure. There were two almost (but not quite) empty jars of
wholegrain mustard. There were two almost (but not quite) empty Jif
lemons. There was a lump of Stilton (fortunately wrapped) that I’d
forgotten about from Christmas. There were two three-quarter empty pots of
cream that I’d been keeping for no apparent reason. There were two opened
jars of Branston pickle. And I found a jar of piccalilli; I was sure we had
some. I won’t mention best before dates… I’ll just say
that quite a bit went down the chodbin, and the
winner was some ground coffee powder that went out five years ago. I’d actually cleaned out
the fridge to find out what the whiff was. Amazingly it wasn’t any of the
contents that were smelling; the drain at the back was rather grim. It’s
sorted now. The fridge is remarkably empty right now… let’s keep
it that way. I wrote
up some CPD, I watched some telly, and then I heard something. The local
Green party had stuffed the local county councilor’s newsletter through the
letterbox. I read it, and quite liked his honesty;
he admitted that there is a lot that he can’t do, but said that he was
sharing his email address in case anyone had any issues. I sent him an email
about the railway underpass by Asda which floods whenever we get heavy rain.
I mentioned it the
other day. Last year I emailed the local councilor about it. All she did
was email me a link to report a flood. Let’s see if the county councilor will
do anything. Whilst I was at it I
emailed my MP about it as well. And then my phone rang. The Occupational Health
people from work have advised me to come off night shifts until my blood
pressure stabilizes. They’ve also told me to lose weight. That’s easier said
than done. I made a point of sitting and taking it easy whilst
watching the telly for a while, then took my evening blood pressure
measurement. I did it three times as per instructions; the average was 160/98
which is still firmly in the stage two hypertension category. I always think
of stage two hypertensives as breathless fat old sods gasping for air; not
sprightly fat old sods who regularly walk the dogs four miles round the
woods. “er
indoors TM” boiled up dinner which we scoffed whilst watching another episode of
“The Traitors” which is a strangely captivating show. Most of the
contestants (the Faithful) have to guess who are the traitors. With absolutely no clues or evidence
whatsoever, the whole thing just becomes one big popularity contest. It’s rather amusing… |
|
17 January 2025
(Friday) - Early Shift
With
an alarm set I woke about three hours earlier today than I did yesterday. I
lay awake for a while, then gave up and got up. This morning’s average blood
pressure was 152/89 which is about average. Average for me; far from good for
anyone else. I watched “Poldark” in which it would seem that Verity’s estrangement was at an end,
but Elizabeth was up for a portion and made no secret to Ross about it. I had a quick look at the
Internet. It was still there. Unlike yesterday (which was a tad dull)
there were a few squabbles kicking off this morning. Antibiotics for a fungal
infection… anyone with the slightest medical knowledge would understand why
that wouldn’t work, but those who actually knew nothing about it wouldn’t be told, and made great show of demonstrating that they knew
nothing. And pension provision… the Facebook Retirement UK page is always
good for bitterness. This morning some very silly fellow (in his late
fifties) was asking how much his pension would be each week. He was
rather dismayed to find that his future pension bore no relation to his
current mammoth salary and everything to do with how little (i.e. nothing)
he’d paid in to a pension fund. It was very dark as I set off to work, but not foggy
as it had been on Wednesday. I popped to the Sainsbury's
petrol station on the way. As well as having petrol, they have sandwiches
early in the morning. For some reason the Aylesford filling station never has
sandwiches before mid-morning. The miserable old bat I've met before was on
duty, but she was happy and cheerful for once. That made a change. I drove off up the motor way listening to the
pundits on the radio. Global warming is getting worse with carbon dioxide
levels going
through the roof. The world will (probably) see me out, but I
despair for what Lacey, Jake and Darcie will have to contend with. And there's been a cease-fire declared in the
ongoing conflict in Gaza... But some of the head honchos of the Israeli
government have resigned in disgust,
openly saying they want the war to continue. Apparently making any concessions at all to the
other side is a bad thing, and these resigning ministers feel that any
concessions should be made by their opponents and certainly not by them. However they've agreed not to try to bring the Israeli
government down *if* war resumes at the end of the cease-fire in six weeks time. They really want the war to continue. I can vividly remember an interview with people on
both sides of a previous iteration of this conflict a few years ago when
neither side were prepared to budge an inch and both sides were harping back to perceived insults
from over fifty years ago. I've said before that the war in the Middle East
will run and run, and it is the poor innocents on the ground who suffer. I got to work and cracked on with the early shift.
As I did my bit the boss confirmed that I won't be doing night shifts until
my blood pressure is sorted. A minor result I suppose. I've only got one
night in the next couple of months but being a Friday night
it would have made for a tricky time getting to Dog Club. With my bit done I came home. This evening’s blood
pressure was exactly the same as this morning’s;
152/89. And with that done we scoffed dinner whilst watching more of “The
Traitors” and “Junior Bake Off”. Today has been… rather frustrating really. We’ve got
the windows being done next week. Once that’s done we can look to getting the electrical issue sorted.
I’ve still got a couple more days of blood pressure monitoring to do before
the doc tells me about a lifetime on tablets and the need to diet. So much to
get done, but nothing I can do right now. There’s an awful lot in my life that’s pending at the moment; I just wish we could get on with it. |
|
18 January 2025
(Saturday) - Dog Club, A Sleepover
I had a relatively good night asleep up until
about five o’clock when I had the most vivid nightmare in which someone with
whom I worked (over forty years ago) claimed that we’d both done the
dirty deed at each other in a dream, and they had the right hump that I was
utterly indifferent about it. I’m blaming blood pressure. I got up and had a bit of brekkie whilst peering at the Internet. This
morning a flat-earther was kicking off. Mind you I say “a flat-earther”;
more often than not these people are deliberately
winding others up. If you stand on the beach and look at the horizon you can
see the world is round. Mind you, people thought it was flat for hundreds of
years even though they could see it was round. I then saw an avert for “Bark Free Masterclass” which claimed
to be a free way of stopping your dog barking. Treacle does get a bit woofy in the evenings when she wants biscuits
so I thought I’d give it a go. It was a scam. After a five-minute video about
what a pain it is having you dog bite the postman, they then asked for a
hundred dollars. You’d think that someone would report these misleading
scams, wouldn’t you? I did. I Munzed, got Wordle on the second attempt, harvested
a bumper crop of dog turds and got ready for the morning. It was a tad cold so the dogs all got their coats on. It has to be said that they are far better with coats than my
Fudge ever was. And once coated we set off to Repton. As we drove Steve was on the radio doing the “Guess the Lyrics”
competition. I had no idea what that was, and we got to the paddock at Repton
before he told us what it was. Dog Club went rather well. For all that he loves chasing other dogs,
Morgan seems to have stopped nipping. There was quite a bit of chasing going
on today, as well as wallowing in the muddy puddles, and scrounging for dog
treats. Together with one of the smaller children I tried counting dogs. The
trouble with trying to get a dog count is that they all keep moving about. We
both counted a few times, and our estimates of attendance ranged from
seventeen to twenty-two. As we got into the car to come home Steve gave the last clue for the
Mystery Year competition. Blockbuster by Sweet. 1973. We came home. As “er indoors TM” looked
for somewhere to park I popped to the corner shop where I got us almond
croissants. Almonds are good for lowering blood pressure,
so that was a result. There are those that say that croissants aren’t so
good, but you can’t have everything. I suspect that after I see the doc next week I won’t be able to have anything, but time will tell. We had a cuppa with those almond croissants and I counted up the Dog Club money. Some
people pay their Dog Club subs directly to the Repton people via text
message. Others prefer to pay cash so I pop a pot
out and every couple of weeks I count up the takings and transfer that amount
(plus nine quid for our three) to the Repton people’s bank account. I
won’t say how much I transfer every couple of weeks, but I’ll make the observation that it is some months since I’ve had
to get any cash out of a cashpoint machine. “er indoors TM” went shopping and I watched an episode of “Poldark”. Much
as I’m liking the show I can remember Demelza’s bosom heaving a lot more when
I watched it last time. From an entirely beastly point of view
I can remember her having a far more impressive chest than the one she isn’t
brandishing at the moment. And with “er indoors TM” returned
from shopping I fell asleep in front of the telly and slept for most of the
afternoon. The evening wasn’t quite so restful though. Darcie WaaWaa TM” has come for a
sleepover. After a rather intense session of dog-snogging and then refusing
to eat our pizza we then created a new game which involves shouting “CATCH !” and then flinging various assorted objects
around the kitchen. I’m worn out… And my blood pressure is noticeably up on this morning. |
|
19 January 2025
(Sunday) - Peanut Butter
With “er
indoors TM” and the dogs up in the attic room with
littlun last night I slept rather well. I woke at seven o’clock this morning
and thought I might have a little peace before they all got up. I made toast
and got as far as the title credits rolling on an episode of “Poldark”
before they all came stomping downstairs. Darcie made off with a piece of my toast and scoffed
it all. She’s notoriously difficult to feed; like her mother was at her age
she doesn’t like much and only eats tiny amounts of what she does like. She
seems to like peanut butter and marmalade on toast though, but I’m not going
to push it. I can remember my dear old mother force-feeding me, my brother
and both the fruits of my loin, and going hysterical if we didn’t eat enough
to feed a family of four for a week. I posted a photo of her scoffing her toast and my
cousin posted a photo of her peanut butter and marmalade on toast. In the
past no one I’ve ever met has heard of having peanut butter and marmalade on
toast, let alone tried it. If my cousin is scoffing it
then presumably it is a family thing? Whilst Darcie WaaWaa TM” played
Dig-Dug and watched strange videos on “toobs”
(You-Tube) I stood on the scales. I’ve lost two pounds since last
week, which is a step in the right direction. And my blood pressure was
noticeably down on yesterday. This morning it was
143/82 compared to 161/89 last night. Littlun’s “toobs”
moved on to a rather annoying song about a frog’s grandmother’s wig, and I
reactivated my account on MyFitnessPal.
In the past I’ve found that two things work for weight loss for me. Calorie
counting and being constantly hungry. So here we go. Again. As I solved geo-puzzles so littlun’s “toobs” started playing a rather annoying song
about why you shouldn’t drink water from the toilet. And then I had an email from the power company. You
really would think that whoever it is that runs EDF would realise
that it is warmer in the summer and colder in the winter. Consequently
my spending more money on heating in the winter and less in the summer
shouldn’t come as a surprise to them. Should it? At mid-day we took littun
home. She sang
“Jingle Bells” all the way home which was rather sweet
really. And with her deposited back with her mother
we took a rather circuitous route home across the Romney Marsh picking up
solved but unfound (by us) puzzle geocaches. Once home we had a cuppa
and a hot cross bun (two hundred calories!) and with no end of other
more important stuff I might be doing I slobbed in
front of the telly watching episodes of “Four In
A Bed”. There was a glamping site, two rather good pubs which offered
accommodation, and a rather shabby hotel charging over double the price of
everyone else. Annoyingly they all remained friendly
and no one fell out with anyone else. I did my evening blood pressure measurement, and
when I entered the result onto the doctor’s website rather than its generic “thank
you – same again tomorrow” message it told me that the conversation about
a week’s monitoring was over and that over the week my blood pressure had
averaged 153/91 which isn’t that good really. I suspect the doc will be on the phone tomorrow. I
hope so. “er
indoors TM” sorted a rather good dinner using up the last of the Christmas
parsnips. Parsnips
lower blood pressure apparently. And in closing today I’ve spent quite a bit of today
thinking about my brother. He left home at half past four this morning to get
to Brighton for a six o’clock pickup. The coach then took him to Old Trafford
for the football where he watched Brighton and Hove Albion beat Man City.
He’s now on the way back and expects to be home shortly after midnight. |
|
20 January 2025
(Monday) - Windows and Leccie
I
didn’t really sleep very well last night; fretting
about having the windows done today. I got up at seven o’clock and cleared
the area round the bedroom window in readiness, then made brekkie. I sparked up the lap-top and had a look on-line.
Yesterday I joined a Facebook aquarium group and there are as many pedants
ranting about measuring chemicals on there as there ever are in the Facebook pond groups. Facebook groups can be pedantic,
picky and nasty, but none so much as those related to fish;
either in a tank or in a pond. There weren’t any emails in my in-box. I munzed and Wordled… and then
the window replacing people arrived about an hour earlier than expected, so I
wolfed the last of brekkie down and as they cracked on upstairs
so we shifted stuff round the living room ready for that window’s turn later later. There’s no denying I had been expecting the worst. I
had visions of the entire front of the house falling out, and the crashing
and bashing from upstairs did worry me. Before long there was another knock at the door. The
chap who’d replaced our bathroom tap a few weeks ago had brought his mate
round to give us a quote for sorting the electrical problem. And if we
thought the house was in uproar with the windows being done, that was just
peanuts to what followed. As lumps of old double glazing got bashed out and
lumps of new double glazing got carried in, so Gary
was in the fuse box and behind the fridge and disassembling this that and the
other. The chap who’d replaced our bathroom tap had to go
to Eastbourne, so declining the offer of a cuppa he
left the merry throng. Mid-day came and passed. The bashing from the
windows continued, and the power continued going off and on. Eventually Gary
announced that the problem was that we didn’t have any neutral in the
downstairs ring main, and to prove a point he borrowed some from the upstairs
one. However he was at a loss to work out where it
had gone. So he systematically disassembled every
downstairs socket. I must admit I thought he was wasting his time when he
took apart the one I use every day to power the
lap-top on which I write this diary, but with most of the house’s electricals
in pieces I didn’t dare say anything that might have upset him. Pausing only
briefly to allow a huge window pane to be carried
in, he got busy with his screwdriver and then gave a loud “Ah-ha”. I’m no expert but it looked to me as though there
were far too many wires hanging out of the socket, Not
all were actually attached to anything, and Gary said that the inside of the
socket looked iffy. As the nice window man stared clouting the new
window frame with a glass hammer, I drove Gary over to The Electrical Counter. I had
no idea this place existed; it is *the* go-to place for anything
electrical from now on. They’ve got pretty much everything you might ever
need, and the helpful staff will order in anything
they don’t have. We got some new sockets, cable, cable fixings,
strange mysterious things, and a myriad of light bulbs. We came home, and as the nice window men were
getting jiggy with the mastic, Gary replaced the poggered
socket, removed the cable that was borrowing neutral from upstairs, and
announced all was done. He then went round the house replacing pretty much all
the light bulbs. I had no idea just how inefficient our lighting was. We
replaced no end of fifty-watt light bulbs with five watt
ones and they are every bit as bright, if not brighter. I then ran Gary home just as it was getting dark. It
was only as I thanked him profusely that I realized that he’d only come to
give us a quote and had actually fixed the issue for
us. But to be fair he couldn’t really give a quote until he’d identified the
problem, and fixing the problem only took about a quarter of the time
identifying it had taken. I came home to find the nice window men had gone.
Having been worrying about getting the windows done, that part of today
passed off amazingly without worry. Having said that I shall now be watching
the windows like a pork (to coin a phrase) just in case. And shall also be waiting for the electricity to pop
as well… “er
indoors TM” sorted dinner then went bowling. I settled on the sofa underneath a
pile of dogs watching an episode of “Poldark” in which Ross was
being a very silly boy. As I watched I listened to the washing machine having
a go at my undercrackers. It is doing so without the use of an extension
cable for the first time in three weeks. If it manages
I shall try the tumble-dry setting as an encore. I’m hoping for the best. |
|
21 January 2025
(Tuesday) - An Afternoon in Canterbury
There
was actual news on Facebook this morning (as opposed to the usual drivel).
There were reports of an escaped pig on the Romney Marsh. Apparently
he’s been on the loose since the weekend and whilst amiable enough seems to
be enjoying freedom. People seem happy enough to watch him; no one seems to
want to try to catch him. Someone claimed that the wild boar in the area (that
have been there since an escape following the storm of 1987) have
interbred with domestic pigs and now look like spotted pigs. I *think*
I’ve seen boar in the distance at Orlestone before, but could be wrong. People were squabbling on one of the Star Trek fan
pages; a squabble easily settled by actually watching
the TV show, And then my piss boiled. Someone had been round
Kings Wood at the weekend looking for the geocaches I’d hidden there. That
someone wasn’t as complementary about my efforts as they might have been. But
then I suppose they probably don’t realise how much
effort goes in to creating a geocache as despite
having found over twelve thousand of the things
she’s not actually hidden a single one herself. I munzed, Wordled, and as the dogs scoffed brekkie
I got ready for the off. I loaded the dogs into the car, and I brought along
the humane mouse trap; we’d caught a mouse. As we drove to the woods the pundits on the radio
were talking about the recent murders in Stockport.
From what I can work out, some crackpot ran amok. The Prime Minister was
saying all sorts of things, but I can’t help but wonder if bringing back the
noose would sort it out? Hang ‘em high and leave
the corpse hanging where anyone else inclined to do the same can see it.
Harsh? Perhaps. But I’ve mentioned before that as a lad at school lI lived in terror of the headmaster. If you went too far
you got two strokes of the cane. One boy had a sore arse
for a day, and seven hundred boys behaved themselves for a year. With plans for later in the day I didn’t have that
long for a dog walk, so we went to Orlestone. You
never know – we might have seen another wild boar. We didn’t. But despite the mud (and there was a lot of it)
we had a good walk round. We didn’t see anyone else at all while we walked,
but forty minutes dog walking uses up one hundred and forty calories. And we
released the mouse into the wild as well. There are those who say I should
have smacked it, but as Darcie would say “he’s so cute”. We came home, and after a cuppa
I set off to Folkestone. I arrived at the abode of “Daddies’ Little
Angel TM” and Darcie WaaWaa TM” immediately
told me to go away. As we walked to the car so I
tried to jolly littlun up. “Don’t talk to me!” she announced, and when
we got out of the car at Canterbury she told me that
I couldn’t come and I had to stay in the car. We went to Subway where I was
told to sit at another table. She had the right hump with me for no reason
that we could fathom. But… We’d gone to Canterbury so that “Daddies’
Little Angel TM” could take her driving theory test.
As she went in to the test centre and I started
babysitting duties, Darcie WaaWaa TM”’s
attitude changed completely. We had a great time. We went to the Beaney
Museum and looked at Bagpuss and the Clangers and stuffed birds. Littlun was particularly
taken by a stuffed lion. After far longer than I thought we would ever manage
in the museum we wandered back to find the most recent fruit of my loin. And
as we walked so I slowed right down to earwig on a
rather interesting conversation between what I can only describe as “two scratters”. One was an incredibly fat young male scratter with a frankly ridiculous beard that came up to
the underside of (but not past) his chin. The other was a rather
scruffy looking woman who seemed almost but not quite old enough to be his
mother. I wish I’d recorded the conversation (ranting) She was
shrieking about their not going to McDonalds. They were
never going to McDonalds. She’d only mentioned McDonalds as it was the only
way she could get him out of her house. But now that he was out of her house,
he didn’t live there anymore. His home was now (apparently) one of the
benches in Canterbury High Street. She screeched that his calling her a slag
whilst at the bus stop was crossing the line. I would have liked to ask his
calling her a slag at the train station or chip shop was acceptable, but it
was at that point that “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” returned
and I was ordered away. We went back to Folkestone. The most recent fruit of
my loin had another errand to run, so I had more babysitting. But seeing that
littlun was fast asleep I just drove her to Ramsgate and back whilst she
slept to pass the time. I came home, and after a little farting about I
managed to connect the step counter on my watch to the MyFitnessPal app.
Having done so it says that having walked twelve thousand steps today means I
am allowed to scoff a thousand extra calories. In layman’s terms a thousand
extra calories is about two thirds of the sub I
scoffed for lunch. “er
indoors TM” boiled up a really good diet dinner which we devoured whilst watching
more “Junior Bake Off”. And with that scoffed I loaded up the dishwasher.
Because the thing now has a functional power supply. It is so good to be able to walk round the house
without stepping over power cables running all over
the place. |
|
22 January 2025
(Wednesday) - Rather Busy
Over brekkie I had a look at the Internet as
I do. It was still there, and for once was relatively dull. I munzed and wordled and got
dressed. With the rain having stopped I took the dogs out for a walk. As we
drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the Paedophile
Information Exchange; a rather scary group of kiddy-fiddlers who
operated quite openly about fifty years ago. They openly campaigned to
abolish the age of consent and were generally not the sort of people you’d
like to have anywhere near your family. Apparently
there was a written list of the names and addresses of their members which
was in the possession of the police in 1983, but nothing was done with it. The show made for interesting listening. What do you do if you’ve got
a list of paedos? Go and arrest someone because their name is on a list ;even though they might be completely innocent and
just had their name written on that list by someone who hates them? The people making the show tried to track down members of the police
team that were investigating this. Apparently they
weren’t easy to find. One was found who’d retired to Alaska in 2006. He said
that the copper in charge of the team had died of cancer in the mid-eighties
and claimed that when this chap died, all the investigating died with him. We got to the woods. The pants we’d found last week were still hanging
on the footpath sign where I’d hung them last week. We walked our usual route. About two thirds of the way round I heard a
rustling and a herd of about twenty small deer ran across the footpath; not ten yards in front of us. But they were
fast. By the time I’d pulled my phone out of my pocket they were gone. And
then I heard what had spooked them; two women shrieking at each other. A
little while later we saw them. Riding side by side on horseback but
bellowing as though they were a hundred yards apart. Why do people feel the
need to be so loud? Yesterday we walked a mile and a half round Orlestone
and burned a hundred and forty calories. Today’s almost four miles round
Kings Wood shifted six hundred. We came home for a bath. Bailey had found some fox poo, and everyone
had grubby paws and tummies. I then went into the garden. Having done some serious brain-straining
with Gordon over the last week we’ve got the final locations of a series of
geocaches… but they are all a long way up various trees.
To get at them we need ten-metre poles. I had this
genius idea that the poles we used to use for banners at kite festivals might
do, so I dug deep into the lock-up in the garden only to find the longest
poles we had were only six metres long. Not ten. I sulked. Whilst I sulked, now we’ve got leccie to the
shed again I got the drill out and tightened up the bird feeder I built the
other day. And then tidied the shed a bit and went on a tip run. Once home I spent seemingly an age on Amazon and eBay looking at ten-metre poles. Hopefully one will arrive early next week. And I had a phone call from the One You people.
The occupational Health people at work suggested I contact One You about
weight loss and blood pressure issues. Some woman
who was obviously reading from a script suggested I might try to go on a diet
to lose weight. I told her that over the years I’ve tried every diet there
is. I told her that I was currently calorie counting and watching what I eat
and have cut out all the sweeties. It was quite plain that I was already
doing everything she could offer, and said I should contact my GP and ask for
a tier three weight management program. I’ll ask about that when I have my appointment in a week or so. And as a load of washing got scrubbed, “er indoors TM” boiled
up another good dinner which we scoffed whilst watching episodes of “Junior
Bake Off”. Am I being sexist in being surprised at how few girls are in
it? |
|
23 January 2025
(Thursday) - Bailey's Bimble
I
woke just before six o’clock to the sound of a dog heaving. I bunged Morgan
out of bed and hurried him to he back door. I gave
him as long as it took me to have a wazz then called him back in again. We all went back to
bed, then just as I was nodding off so he started
heaving again. Fortunately “er indoors TM” leapt
up to deal with him this time. Unfortunately she
came bad to bed with graphic descriptions of what he had thrown up. She later worked out that he’s been eating off-cuts
of electrical cables presumably left over from Monday’s episode. I thought
I’d cleared all of that up. I wonder where he found those? I then lay awake until “er indoors TM” slept
through her alarm for the second time, then made myself some toast and had a
look at the Internet to see if I’d missed much overnight. Facebook presented me with a memory. Eight years ago I started my current job, and I posted a piccie of the hospital with the caption “Right....
let's see how this pans out...”. It panned out rather well, all things
considered. These days I don’t have a rather petty manager ensuring
absolutely everything I do is double checked. If I am a few minutes late (not
that I am) there’s not a queue of people waiting to squeal me up to the
feds. If I am too ill to cover a night or weekend shift
I now have management that will organize cover; I don’t have to arrange my
own stunt double. There wasn’t much else going on on-line, but I had a
message from “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” whose
mate is getting a new pet. A marmoset which is apparently named “Marge”.
I suspect having a marmoset as a pet will be all very well until it is
poorly, and then finding a vet will be tricky, and finding one that doesn’t
charge the Earth will be even trickier. I remember many years ago a new girl
at work nervously asking me if it was true that I kept snakes. I said it was.
She then (even more nervously) asked if her boyfriend might come round
to see them. As the chap held a royal python he told
me that he was a qualified and practicing vet, and he lived in terror of
anyone bringing him a sick snake. His reptile studies at veterinary college
had consisted of one afternoon lecture, and he
told me that the python he was holding was the first snake he’d ever touched. With rain forecast I made an early start and got the
dogs into the car before half past eight. I’ve been threatening to replace my
geocaches in Kings Wood for some time. Rather than one epically far-too-long
route of nearly nine miles and several Wherigo series I’ve planned out three
shorter walks of about five to six miles and several smaller Wherigo
adventures. Today I had a preliminary recce on one of the shorter walks – if
it all goes live it will be the “Bailey’s Bimble”; a series of simple
geo-puzzles over six miles. It took us just over two hours to walk, so what
with hunting for the caches and doing the secret geo-rituals and having a
picnic along the way, this should take people about three or four hours to
do. Our walk went well. As I plotted and made note and recorded co-ordinates so
Morgan chased shadows and Bailey rolled in fox poo and Treacle wallowed in
swamps. We only had one episode – after six miles and only a hundred yards
from the car park I lost Morgan. After five minutes of whistling and calling,
a passing Normal Person asked if that was my dog standing on the path up by
the car park. I got used to Fudge straggling behind that I just can’t get my
head around Morgan being in front. We came home just as the forecast rain started. I
fiddled about with GSAK (it’s a geocachical
thing) recording my morning’s efforts, then had a Slimfast
bar for lunch. It wasn’t very good, but I suspect being six months past its
best didn’t help. I got out the ironing board and spent the afternoon
ironing whilst watching episodes of “Four in a Bed”. For all that I
rarely go to a B&B, I find this show captivating. “er
indoors TM” boiled up a pasta bake which we scoffed whilst watching the latest
episodes of “The Traitors” and “Junior Bake
Off”, and now I’m worn out. A dog walk, ironing, and watching telly.
It’s a tough life. |
|
24 January 2025
(Friday) - Morgan's Meander
I
was sleeping rather well, but Bailey woke me in the small hours with the
sounds of her having a nightmare. She was having serious night terrors. I
managed to wake her and she seemed very confused and
disorientated. She went straight back to sleep. I eventually nodded off, and then slept through till half past eight. I made toast and had a little look at the Internet
as I do. Just recently Facebook has been making suggestions to me about who I
might add to my friends list. It has been suggesting some seriously obscure
people who I really don’t know from Adam. Today it suggested a caravan park
in St. Leonards. There was a minor squabble on one of the Star Trek
Facebook pages about whether or not there’s beer in
the Star Trek universe. Sadly no one on either side of the argument made reference of the episode in
which Chief O’Brien has a pint of ale. I doubt any of those arguing had ever
seen that episode… or many others. I munzed and Wordled, and
seeing the rain outside decided against going out. Instead
I went through the bank statements. Some call me mean, but every month I go
through and account for every penny; it is amazing what you might forget that
you’ve bought, or how many cancelled direct debits keep on paying out. What
with one thing and another I’ve had a rather expensive month, but what is
money for if not to squander foolishly. And then the rain stopped. I got the dogs organized and we drove up to the
woods. Yesterday I had a preliminary recce on the planned “Bailey’s Bimble”
series of geocaches. Today I checked out the route for the “Morgan’s
Meander”. If the geo-feds are in agreement this
will be twenty-nine geocaches over a walk of six miles. As we walked I heard a crashing in the bushes and another herd of deer came
running past. The dogs set off in hot pursuit, but all three immediately
stopped and came back when I whistled. Those dogs wind me up. When I take
them out on my own they are as good as gold.
Whenever anyone else is about to watch, they play up big-time. As we walked we only met
one other dog walker. She and her dog were at the furthest point of our walk
from the car park, and her dog ran up to say hello before she noticed us. All
the dogs were quite happily sniffing when she saw us. She then panicked, ran
up, put her dog on the lead and dragged him away whilst studiously ignoring
me. What was that all about? After six miles we were back at
the car. We came home for serious bath time (with soap!). The woods had been very muddy and the dogs
were filthy. Once scrubbed they were all soon snoring and I sorted out all
the co-ordinate and notes I’d made. There was a lot to sort. And then I went
through my Wherigo archive to see what I might fit in the gaps between the
three geo-series I’ve got in mind. There’s a lot more still to sort. And then Chris offered me the hide he had in Kings
Wood. And then I realized it was dark outside. So much for
what I had planned in the shed. “er
indoors TM” boiled up pizza and chips and went off to the pantomime with Steve and
Sarah. I settled down underneath a pile of dogs and watched a couple of
episodes of “Poldark”. Yesterday I said I was worn out after a dog walk,
ironing, and watching telly. Today I didn’t do the ironing and I’m still worn
out… |
|
25 January 2025
(Saturday) - A Sleepover
I
slept like a log last night finally waking ten minutes before the alarm was
due to go off. I made toast and wondered if I’d missed much on-line
overnight. I hadn’t really. This morning’s petty squabbles were odd. Someone in a hospital in America had posted a photograph
of something rather huge that had been pulled out someone else’s
bum. The squabble was about the ethics of posting photos of work-related
things on-line. I post work related things from time to time on another blog, but make
sure everything is anonymous. The object pulled from someone’s bum was
utterly anonymous. It couldn’t be traced to anyone at all, but still people
wanted to argue. And someone else commented on the old Russian
submarine currently rotting in the river Medway calling it a “nice saw”.
Others immediately showed this person the error of his ways by pointing out
he meant “eye saw”. Personally I thought the
submarine was an eyesore, but what do I know? I munzed and wordled, and we got ready for the off. We drove round to Repton. As we drove Steve was on
the radio doing the “Guess the Lyrics” competition. Some lyrics I’d
never heard of came from the Yazoo song “Don’t Go” which I thought I
knew rather well. Dog club was fun; if a tad
cold. We had several new dogs along. One didn’t last very long though. The
dog was getting on famously when one of the long-standing members arrived.
New woman announced that her dog doesn’t get on with the established member,
and after five minutes of her dog and its supposed enemy utterly ignoring
each other, the new woman went home. Oh well… Everyone else seemed to have a whale of a time
though. As we drove home I got the
“Mystery Year” competition on the radio wrong. Michael Fagin sitting
on the Queen’s bed? I thought it was 1983. I was one year out. Last week after Dog Club we had almond croissants
with a cuppa. For all that the almonds are good for
blood pressure, the croissant bit is a tad high in calories. Rather than an
almond croissant I had a biccie at five hundred
calories less. As Steve played on the radio
I cracked on with my Kings Wood geo-project. I re-wrote the two multi-wherigos that I’m planning to put out. That took a while. “er
indoors TM” went off shopping and returned with "Darcie WaaWaa TM” who was having a
sleepover. We had a great afternoon in which she
played with the Lego and the toy cars and the plastic dinosaurs and all the
other toys, and told me I wasn’t allowed to play
with anything. And she marched into the kitchen and squealed me up
to “er indoors TM” when I put her phone onto
charge. After dinner she nodded off, and as she slept so we
watched the final of “The Traitors”. It was a rather good show. I
won’t say who won, but I will say that the people I didn’t like got chucked
out a long time ago. “er
indoors TM” and littlun are both in the attic room together with Bailey and
Treacle. Me and Morgan are staying downstairs where it is quiet… for
now. |
|
26 January 2025
(Sunday) - Raining Hard
I
was rather late to bed last night. Yesterday evening just as I was about to
go to kip I realized we had the heating on
continuous because littlun was staying. So that would have been an ideal
opportunity to dry wet washing. We didn’t actually have any wet washing so I put a load through the machine and by the
time I’d hung that over the radiators it was well past midnight. I woke before seven
o’clock, and had the same idea again, so I put another load in to wash,
gathered up the dry, and went back to bed where I lay wide awake for an hour
before giving up trying to sleep and getting up. I made brekkie and had my usual root around the
Internet to see if I’d missed much. Last night was Burns Night and the
world and his wife were suddenly claiming to be fiercely proud of their
Scottish heritage… a heritage about which many keep very quiet for most of
the year presumably because they don’t have one. I get rather annoyed about Scottish patriotism.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in any way being disrespectful to Scotland or the
Scottish, but what winds me up is those who live and work within a few miles
of my house who claim to be Scottish and to be proud of it. If Scotland is as
brilliant as these people (very occasionally) claim, why are they
living as far away from Scotland as it is possible to be whilst remaining on
the same island? Interestingly none of my actually
Scottish friends had anything to say about Burns Night. The washing machine bleeped to tell me it had done
its worst at the laundry, so I hung that out, and I then cracked on
re-writing Wherigos for my Kings Wood project.
After an hour I heard a sound. Bailey had been asleep in her bed in the
living room the whole time. Presumably more peace and quiet there than up in
the attic room with littlun. As littlun wreaked havoc I heard a noise outside.
Some chap was putting out road cones outside. Apparently
he was planning on fixing a pot hole some time tomorrow and was 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. However when I told him that there was no cone there when I’d parked the car
on the previous day he changed his tune and said that he was only putting
cones out and they didn’t take effect until the following evening. But he was
adamant that it was within his power to declare anywhere he liked 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. The chap clearly had the arse
that he had to work on a Sunday morning… I’ve written to my Kent County
Councilor to suggest that if KCC want my car moved, someone might pop a note
through my letterbox rather than letting me find out randomly from some irate
workman… Mind you he didn’t reply the last time I
wrote to him. Littlun continued to wreak havoc. In between
wreaking she was squealing me up to her grandmother
for pretty much everything she thought she might be able to blame me for. She
then fed the cheese of her Dairylea lunchable to Morgan and immediately told Nanny that
Grandad had given her dinner to the dogs. “My Boy TM” and ”Auntie Chel TM” came to visit,
and she was as good as gold with them. The plan had been to take littlun
and the dogs for a short walk in Dymchurch before taking her home, but the
rain was against that. So we just took her home, and
on our return had a cuppa. I then sparked up the
lap-top again and got busy with writing Wherigos “er
indoors TM” boiled up scran which we scoffed whilst watching “Junior Bake
Off” which was rather good, and “The Traitors
Uncloaked” which wasn’t. I’d rather hoped for better. And in closing, today would have been my dad’s
eighty-nineth birthday. |
|
27 January 2025
(Monday) - Treacle's Trek
I
slept like a log last night. I’ve been sleeping rather better lately. I got
up at about eight o’clock and stepped on the scales. I’ve lost four pounds
over this last week. I don’t think I’ve made a lot of mention on social media
about this current diet, but as I scoffed toast so
my Facebook feed was filled with adverts for weight loss medication. “er
indoors TM” set off to work. Seeing the forecast rain hadn’t happened I took a
chance and took the dogs to the woods. We went to the lower car park and
walked the third of the series of geocaches I’ve got planned. “Treacle’s
Trek” took us along the southern edge of Kings Wood and was quite muddy
in parts. As we walked along the edge of the woods there were pheasants
everywhere, which stressed the dogs quite a bit. As we walked
we met a few other dog walkers. One chap was having troubles. Having jogged past
with his dog, two minutes later we caught up with him with his dog on a lead being marched out of a thicket. He commented on how
my three managed off the lead. Apparently when his
dog is off the lead it finds a dead animal every hundred yards. Ironically five minutes later I pulled a small bone out of Morgan’s mouth. The other two series of geocaches I’m planning came
in at almost exactly six miles. Today’s did too, but
for some reason it seemed less. We came home for a serious go in the shower. All
three dogs were filthy, and Morgan in particular was
covered in fox poo. What is the attraction of that stuff? I warmed up a couple of leftover sausages
from last night and scoffed them with a bag of crisps for dinner. As I
scoffed I watched the new “Star Trek: Section 31”
film. It was crap. It had been made by someone who had looked up Star Trek on
Wikipedia so that they could bung in a few of the things that have appeared
in the past. But rather than looking it up on Wikipedia, they should have actually watched the show. The attraction of Star Trek is
likeable characters. I didn’t warm to any of the
characters in the film, and I was counting the minutes until it finally
ended. I then spent a little while working on the notes I’d
made whilst going our little walk this morning. Updating co-ordinates and
location descriptions and glaring errors in the Wherigo I tested. And as the
dogs continued to snore I munzed and got Wordle on
the fourth attempt. And as I’d been sitting still for a while I checked
my blood pressure. Noticeable down on a week ago,
but still far too high. “er
indoors TM” boiled up bacon, eggs and hash browns which had far fewer calories
than you might imagine. She then went bowling, and I watched an episode of
“Poldark”. We’re into season three and there are far fewer bosoms heaving
than I remember their being. I shall write more Wherigo until “er
indoors TM” comes home. |
|
28 January 2025
(Tuesday) - Before The Late Shift
Having
been sleeping well for over a week I woke at five past one this morning and
then dozed fitfully for the rest of the night. What sleep I did get was
plagued by nightmares about taking scouts on a motorbike tour of Japan; each
scout being accompanied by a diarrhea-ridden pug of
their own. I made toast and just as it was ready
so the dogs came trotting downstairs. I’m convinced they hear the toast pop
out, come down and ask to go out just so I get cold toast. It happens every
morning. I peered into the Internet as I do. It was still
there. There wasn’t much happening on Facebook really. Yesterday I found a
Facebook group supposedly about the underpass by the railway bridge which
keeps flooding. I mentioned on it that I’d emailed the local councilor who
hadn’t replied. The local councilor replied there to say that his official
council email wasn’t working. Apparently officialdom
has known about the flooding at the Asda underpass for years, but there is
petty squabbling about which office is responsible for dealing with the
issue. I was then in trouble. “er
indoors TM” had eventually realized that I had added
hairy bollox and big tits to her Alexa shopping list. I munzed, got Wordle at
the third attempt, and looked at the rain. Not having that long this morning,
Kings Wood was out anyway. Kings Wood was muddy yesterday so Orlestone would have been a swamp. I had planned a little
walk up to the park, but it was raining hard and the
dogs were asleep anyway. So I sat on the sofa and carried on with my geo-plans for my new Kings
Wood series. After an hour I realized that the very first thing
I’d done this morning was a mistake, so as “er indoors TM” made
us both a cuppa I started again from the beginning. After a while I had plotted the locations for icons
on the geo-map for about half of what I’ve got in mind for Kings Wood.
There’s so much more to hiding a geocache than simply sticking a film pot
under a rock. I drove off to work through a rather dismal morning.
I should really have stopped at the co-op to get some lunch. Instead I thought I'd treat myself to something special
from the works M&S. I got to work and got a frankly disappointing chicken
fajita roll. The co-op do something far better for a
fraction of the price. And with lunch bought I
cracked on with work. Having had a couple of days off last week I'd not been
there for a while. In the past I've dreaded going back to work after a long
time off; I don't do that these days. Mind you, like any other late shift, the day was
pretty much done by mid day. |
|
29 January 2025
(Wednesday) - This n That
Again I was awake shortly after one o’clock
and then spent the rest of the night dozing fitfully. I gave up trying to
sleep at five o’clock, got up and made toast. One small mercy of getting up
really early is that the dogs don’t and I get to
scoff the toast whilst it is still warm. I watched an episode of “Poldark” in which
our hero went to revolutionary France seemingly because he could, and then I
had a little look at the internet Three people on my Facebook friends list were having
birthdays today. I sent out birthday wishes to two of them. I didn’t bother
with the third on account of him being a hamster that died ten years ago. I checked my emails. I have permission for my new
series of geocaches in Kings Wood. I was pleased about that after the amount
of time and effort I’ve already put in to this
project. And I had an email from the county councilor. I’d
sent him an email about the flooding at the Asda underpass. I naively thought
the council could do a bit of dredging, build a wall and all would be heigh
ho pip and dandy. But it turns out that: Ashford Borough Council are responsible for
the maintenance of the path Kent
County Council are responsible for maintenance of the accessibility of a
Public Right of Way The
Environment Agency are responsible for the maintenance of waterways and flood
management And
Network Rail are involved as they own the land The councilor chap says that no one wants to actually do anything as doing so sets a precedent for
future expenses. He says he is trying to get all parties talking, but matters
aren’t helped by Network Rail refusing to talk to anyone about the matter.
He’s of the opinion that at the end of the day the Environment Agency are the
ones who should be getting it sorted, so he’s chivvying the local MP to
chivvy them. I suppose he’s having a go, but he did mention that
there was a similar division of responsibilities in a local railway underpass
where it took six months to change a lightbulb. Will anything actually happen
at the Asda underpass? It was flooding twenty-five years ago, and I suspect
it will still be flooding in twenty-five years’ time. And I had an email from the RSPB. The great
birdwatch was last weekend. I’d forgotten all about it. Taking care not to wake anyone I got ready for work
and set off. Yesterday I got a chicken fajita wrap from the works M&S
which was crap. Today I went to the co-op and got a similar wrap, a bag of
crisps and a drink for a quid less than what I paid in M&S for just the
wrap. As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the radio
were talking about the Doomsday
clock. Some bunch of international scientists reckon that Russian nuclear
threats, the invasion of Ukraine (to say nothing of other wars), military
applications of artificial intelligence and the climate crisis means that
global catastrophe is closer than ever. Is it? Probably. There were allegations that the bishop of
Liverpool has
been misbehaving. Am I being cynical in thinking he's heard about
the Doomsday Clock and is making hay whilst the sun shines? Not that bishops
should do that sort of thing. If a bishop isn't going to take a moral stance,
who will? And the BBC
is making cuts to its World Service. By axing a hundred and thirty
jobs it plans to save six million quid. So the
average person getting the heave-ho earns over forty-five thousand a year.
That’s ten thousand a year more than the average UK worker gets.
And it is the average UK worker that pays the TV licence
fee that funds the BBC. A gravy train which is long overdue to be de-railed. I got to work. I did my bit. And at lunchtime I
scoffed that co-op chicken fajita wrap. It was far better than the one I got
from M&S yesterday. Over dinner this evening we watched the final of “Junior
Bake Off”. Now we’ve seen all of that and all of
“The Traitors” we’ve got to find something else to watch. I wonder what. |
|
30 January 2025
(Thursday) - Esher Common
I
had another terrible night’s sleep. I had an early night last night and woke
after a couple of hours. I then lay half awake and half asleep until half
past four when I gave up trying to sleep and got up. I made toast, watched more “Poldark” in which
Master Drake was besotted with Mistress Morwenna. As happens to the best of
us. And then I set off. First of all
to the petrol station where the miserable old bat on the till was remarkably
cheerful for once. And then up the motorway. As I drove there was all
sorts of talk on the radio about how water bills are going
through the roof. Having sold off the water companies (years ago) the amazing revelation has been made that rather than
giving it all to shareholders as dividends, the money people have paid as
water bills should have been spent on maintaining and replacing the existing
infrastructure. And so after years of neglect the
water companies are leaping into action. And having leapt they’ve all
realized they pissed away all their income. And tere was all sorts of
talk about the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and also
an interview with her. She made some speech yesterday about how she plans to make
Britain great again; such a shame that no one really seemed to believe her. The traffic wasn’t that bad today. Google had told
me that it would take between an hour and a half and two and a half hours to
get to Esher Common; it took two hours. A couple of weeks ago I wrote
“Having done some serious brain-straining with Gordon over
the last week we’ve got the final locations of a series of geocaches… but
they are all a long way up various trees. To get at them we need ten-metre poles”. Geocaches rarely go up trees, so
chasing after these ones was a must-do. Equipped with the co-ordinates of the trees up which
these geocaches were put, and with poles to get at them, I met up with Gordon
and Ralph and we had a very good wander round Esher Common. Despite being up
trees, the geocaches we were hunting weren’t as obvious as you might think. I
had suggested waiting until the mud had dried; Gordon had pointed out that by
then the leaves would be out. I struggled to see the caches on bare trees;
with leaves the caches would have been all but invisible. And for all that
reaching ten metres up a tree to get a cache down was tricky, putting them
back took some doing. Despite it being a rather cold day, the sun shone
and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky all day. And I caught the sun too. I
took a few photos as we walked about today. We had a good day
covering… well… Gordon’s step count was fourteen thousand; mine was
twenty thousand. And my GPS said we’d done nearly eight miles whereas Ralph’s
said just over six. I got home about twelve hours after I’d set
off. “er indoors TM” boiled
up lemon meringue pie for dinner. Maybe not as “diet dinner” as it
might be, but to keep the calories down that was all we had. And we started watching “Celebrity Hunted”. A shame I’ve never heard of any of these so-called
celebrities. |
|
31 January 2025
(Friday) - Traffic Jam
I
slept better last night, but was still awake far too
early. Rather than laying awake waiting for the
alarm to go off I got up, made toast and watched an episode of “Poldark”.
It was rather good; a shame that Netflix say they are pulling the series from
their schedule in a month’s time. I then had my usual morning’s
rummage round the internet. Our local MP was posting to Facebook about plans to
totally abandon the entire concept of “Operation Brock”. Whilst that
would be a good idea in principle, an “ambitious new alternative to the
hated 50mph contraflow” and “the government has agreed to push forward
with work on a long-term solution” doesn’t actually say
anything, does it? I
got ready for work and set off through a rather damp morning. Pausing only
briefly to get a coronation chicken sandwich from the co-op I was soon off up
the motorway. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking
about the government’s “Land Use
Framework”; in which the government has announced that about nine per
cent of the country’s farming land will need to be converted into forest and
wild habitats by 2050 to meet the government's net zero and nature targets.
As various experts and windbags pontificated, a couple of interesting points
came out. I didn’t realise that a third of the UK’s
electricity comes from wind power. And I had no idea that more people are
members of the green movement than are members of political parties. This was followed by an interview with the police
minister who seemed to admit that police budgets were being cut whilst at the
same time claiming that more money was being spent on policing than ever
before. I got to work and had a rather good day, but even so
I was glad when it was home time. Just after I’d got home
I heard a commotion outside. There is always congestion outside the house;
the road is narrow and there’s always people coming and going at the little shop over the road. This evening two buses
had met head-on. Each was followed by a queue of traffic and there was quite
a bit of shouting going on. And then “er indoors TM” arrived
with “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” and Darcie
WaaWaa TM” who are up for
the weekend. KFC, silly animal videos on YouTube, and dog mayhem.
I’m worn out. |
