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1 July 2023
(Saturday) - Crazy Golf Day
Bailey woke me by stomping on my chest in some
agitation at seven o’clock this morning. Being a very small dog, she is too
small to get on and off the bed without help. I lifted her down and she flew
to the back garden where she did what dogs do in the garden. Objectively
speaking it was a rather average dog turd, but bearing in mind how small she
is, it would have been the equivalent of me doing one the size of a two-litre bottle of pop. As Albert Einstein once remarked, “everything’s
relative”. I made toast and had a look at the Internet. I saw
that today was Ashford’s
food and drink festival. That had been a well-kept secret. Had I known
about it with more than four hours’ notice I might have planned things
differently for today. We drove round to the co-op as I needed cash. We got
there and my idiot magnet was on top form. There was some half-wit standing
by the bakery telling the world that he was only looking and that he’d come
all the way from Newtown. No one cared, but that didn’t stop him going on
constantly like a stuck record. From the co-op we went on to Dog Club. As we drove
into the Repton estate so the dogs all started
squeaking; they knew where they were going. Dog club was great fun; the pups charged around and
played. Treacle grumped at everyone. But for all that Treacle is a grump,
she’s slowly improving. At one point I opened a bag of treats and half a
dozen other dogs swarmed around me for a treat. A few months ago there would have been no way that Treacle would
tolerate non-family dogs around me when I had treats (and she wouldn’t
have been impressed at the family dogs either). Back then she would have
aggressively chased them all away. Today she tolerated them, took her treat
when it was her turn, and didn’t react at all when I shared treats with the
other dogs. An incredibly simple and trivial thing, but a giant
leap forward for her. As we drove home we
listened to Steve on the radio. We got a mention, but I had a failure on the
mystery year. I had announced it was *definitely* either 1992 or 1984.
It was actually 1985. I wasn’t *that* far
out. Once home we had the obligatory Saturday morning
Belgian bun. Today’s were from the co-op which (in
my humble opinion!) does the best Belgian buns. We settled the dogs (who were worn out after Dog
Club) then made our way to Hastings Sea Front where the family was a
gathering in what has become a family tradition. Crazy Golf Day. Once we’d
had an ice cream a couple of dozen of us set off
round the pirate golf course
and had a great time. “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” got two
holes in one through (so I am reliably informed) “really skillful
golfing TM”. “er indoors TM”
also got a hole in one. “Darcie Waa Waa TM”
had been handed a golf ball to amuse her which she would randomly fling in
all directions and she too got a hole in one. I didn’t. With golf golfed and prizes awarded we had fish and
chips. The seagulls were incredibly brazen;
snatching food from our hands. “Darcie Waa Waa TM”
was rather impressed with them, shouting “Dog Dog
Dog” at them. We then went over to the Albion for a pint, then
went our various ways. My way was (with my brother) up to the Anchor
for a pint of Spitfire. Then on to the Pump House for a pint of Whitstable Bay. That pint was off, but the helpful staff
soon changed it, and suitably refreshed we went up to the Hastings Arms for
another pint of Spitfire. A pint of Hophead in the Dolphin was followed by a
pint of London Pride in the Cinque Ports, and an amaretto chaser in the Stag.
No trip to Hastings Old Town is complete without a pint in the FILO (Churches
pale ale) and then back to the Hastings Arms for another Spitfire and
some dinner. Five hours after everyone else had headed home I got
on the train where I fulfilled yet another tradition… I fell asleep on the
train, got all the way home, and then went half-way back to Hastings before
waking. Oh, how I chuckled. Mind you what annoyed me most was the train’s
guard/ticket collector who admitted she’d seen me fast asleep at Ashford
station and thought it would be a great joke to leave me sleeping. A friend
who works on the railway often complains that he’s had irate customers
spitting at him when on duty. With this attitude I can quite understand why… But a quick phone call to “er indoors TM”
saved the day. She didn’t mind driving out to get me at all (!) I took a few
photos of my day. It was a rather good one really. |
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2 July 2023 (Sunday)
- Gardening
Bearing in mind the gallon of ale I’d sunk yesterday
(and an amaretto chaser) I woke feeling surprisingly chipper this
morning. “er indoors TM” seemed to
be faintly miffed that I wasn’t suffering, but as I told her, hangovers are
for wimps. I recorded yesterday’s installment of history then
had a look at the Internet. I was quite intrigued to read about the fire
in Hastings yesterday. As my brother and I had been pub crawling round
the old town, one of the buildings near the station had gone up in flames.
We’d had several messages from concerned family as we’d been drinking, but as
we’d walked to the station so nothing seemed
untoward. It would seem the last bit of tidying up by the fire brigade had
been done two minutes before we’d walked past. I had an email from the antivirus company with whom
I had a set-to the other night. They “wanted more information” about
my request for a refund and gave me a web link which just led me through a
circle of web pages. So I phoned them and this time
I got through to someone whose phone seemed to be working. However
her spoken English left a lot to be desired and she was clearly reading from
a script. Obviously she didn’t want to give me a
refund, but after a little to-ing and fro-ing I got my money back. With nothing better to do with my time today I did
some gardening. First of all in the front garden.
Having had a few blasts round with the Bionic Burner I must admit I’m not
impressed with the thing. Three
weeks ago I had my first blast around the front
garden with the Bionic Burner. And I’ve had a couple of goes in the meantime.
There’s still as many weeds and grass growing between the cracks in the
paving slabs as ever there was, and despite having bionically
burned them, I’ve still got to get on my hands and knees and pull the things
out, After all is said and done, the Bionic Burner
was forty quid down the pan. After an hour’s burning and weeding and sweeping,
the front garden looked much the same as it ever did, and I moved into the
back garden. I ran out the power cable, got out the strimmer, and within a
second of having turned it on, Morgan appeared from nowhere, attacked it and
had a full-on fight with it. He got marched inside for the duration of lawn
mowing. I then hung out washing, trimmed back the overgrowth from not-so-nice-next-door’s
various plants, cleaned out the pond filter, and had a look at a
non-functioning water feature. I took the thing apart, cleaned it all out…
and then realized that it worked fine *if* I actually
plugged it in. Ho hum… Pausing only briefly to install the new toilet seat
I then got the washing in, ran round with the watering can and had a look at
my Monkey Puzzle tree. I’m quite pleased with my Monkey Puzzle tree; “er
indoors TM” got it for me one wet bank holiday eight years
ago. I set it up with a Facebook
page and apart from occasional re-pottings left
it pretty much to its own devices. It is now about five feet tall. And then I realized I’d been on the go for over four
hours As the dogs scrapped I sat
down and read my Kindle for a bit, then nodded off underneath a pile of dogs
(who had worn themselves out) whilst “er indoors TM”
boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching more “Star
Trek: Strange New Worlds”. I feel absolutely worn out… I shall just check out
the new toilet seat, and provided I don’t have to take it all apart and start
again I’m thinking of having an early night. |
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3 July 2023 (Monday)
- So Dull
I went to bed last night feeling all in having spent
much of the afternoon and evening falling asleep. I was wide awake at four
o’clock this morning. After laying awake for an hour I got up and had a go on our all-new totally
functional toilet seat. There is something strangely satisfying about sitting
on a toilet seat that stays put rather than spending ten minutes playing what
I can only describe as “chodbin buckaroo”. I made toast, watched an episode of “Shameless”
then had a look at the internet. I was probably far too early; not a lot was
happening, so I got dressed and set off to work. I stopped off at Cuckoo Lane. With today being the
start of the Munzee Clan War I needed a Qrate or
two, and whilst I was at it I deployed a carrot and
capped a Qrewzee. There's never a dull moment in
the Munzee world, but to the uninitiated it might well have looked just like
scanning bar code stickers on lamp posts. As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the radio were interviewing
Miriam Cates (MP for Penistone and
Stocksbridge) who is now a leading light in the recently formed "New
Conservatives"; a bunch of Tory MPs who have realised
that unless they sort themselves out, the Conservatives will be out on their arses at the next election. Trying to win back lost
ground they are jumping on the "send them all back where they come
from" bandwagon (which is sadly usually a vote-winner), and
as part of this they want to stop all visas to anyone coming to work in the
care sector in the UK. This woman recognised that
there is a chronic shortage of workers in the care sector,
but said a combination of raising the wages for care workers and
making it less easy for five million people to carry on taking benefits would
ease the recruitment issue. Interestingly she flatly refused to discuss just how
much the wages of the care sector might be increased, or how she might get
five million people back into the workforce, and
didn't come over anywhere near as well as she might have liked to have done
on live national radio. Mind you I take my hat off to her. If I was the
representative for Penistone (or "Penis
Town" as I'm sure it is known) I wouldn't go anywhere near a live
microphone. I got to work and did my bit on what was a rather
busy day, then drove home through the rain. And with “er indoors TM”
off bowling I spent a couple of hours catching up on the ironing. Some days
in my life are rather fun. Some are rather tedious… |
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4 July 2023 (Tuesday)
- Early Shift
Yesterday I started off by saying (about Sunday)
"I went to bed last night feeling all in having spent much of the
afternoon and evening falling asleep. I was wide awake at four o’clock this
morning". Yesterday I was knackered - I slept all through my lunch
break, and once the evening's ironing was done I was
fast asleep in front of the telly within minutes. I again had a relatively
early night last night but was still wide awake at four o'clock having seen
every hour of the night. I gave up trying to sleep, made toast, and watched
an episode of "Shameless" in which many of the protagonists
were doing the dirty deed, but only one set had actually
taken their pants off first. I'm sure I remember pants being quite an
obstacle to doing the dirty deed... it has been a while. I had a quick look at the Internet. McAfee were
still sending me emails saying that "a response was needed to service
my account" even though they gave me a refund two days ago. Other
than that not a lot had happened in the Internet
overnight so I set off to work. As I drove I listened to
the news of the day. Palestine and Israel were having yet another
fight. I can remember an interview on the radio with senior Israeli and
Palestinian officials a year or so ago. Both kept harping back to incidents
and offences which had happened long before either had been born, and both
admitted that all the time they kept doing this, there was never going to be
an end to the conflict. Sadly this conflict
continues with neither side seemingly having any interest in ending it. And there was a lot of talk about banking. Is having
a bank account a right? Can the bank tell you to get knotted and close your
account if they don't like you? Well, demonstrably they can, as has happened
to Nigel Farage. who has had his bank accounts closed allegedly as "an
act of revenge by the “establishment” for Brexit". Officially it's
nothing to do with Brexit, officially banks find high profile celebrities and
politicians to be hard work. But whilst you might be forgiven for wanting to
shake the "establishment's" hand, should the bank be able to
do this? That's the question, isn't it? Several politicians had words to say
on the matter, which I found frankly amazing. I find myself following current
affairs with something of a sense of "WTF is going on" these
days. The whole premise of a Conservative government is that they don't actually govern, isn't it? They farm out the donkey-work of running the country to those who will do it
as a private money-making business. And those running their own business can therefore
then pick and choose with whom they deal. That's been the plan for years,
hasn't it? Banks are private institutions. They aren't a public
service and so don't have to offer service to everyone, do they? If they want
to tell Nigel they won't work with him because they don't like him, that's
their prerogative. Isn't it? Along the same lines apparently the head honchos of
the country's four biggest banks are being called in to explain to the Prime
Minister why they aren't increasing interest rates to savers as high as they
might. I suspect the head honchos of the country's four biggest banks will
stick two fingers up at him. Work was work. As I cracked on
I found myself thinking about colleagues, friends and acquaintances who are
moving house at the moment. With house prices falling, now is a good
time to buy a house... provided you aren't trying to finance that
purchase by selling a house. I've often whinged that I
would like to move house, but now that doing so is a realistic proposition,
would I really? Where would we move to? Going out into the countryside to get
away from town life is all very well, but I know so many people who've done
that just to move back again as living in the arse
end of nowhere is impractical (at best). And we've got so much clutter
in the house. We'd have to chuck out so much stuff. And the house needs modernising. And I've spent so much time and money in the
garden... Work was work. Being on an early was good; I got out
early (dur!) and took the dogs to the woods. Whilst they were playing
silly beggars something caught my eye. Something big seemed to be moving away
from us down the track we were about to take. It might have been a shadow,
but I’m not convinced it wasn’t a deer. er indoors TM” boiled up a
very good bit of dinner which we washed down with a decent bottle of plonk
whilst watching another episode of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds”.
Insomnia plus plonk equals rather tired… |
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5 July 2023
(Wednesday) - An Anniversary
I had an early night last night and was soon fast
asleep. Sadly Bailey didn't come up to bed with me.
When she does she settles and I get some sleep. However when she stays downstairs with “er indoors TM”
and comes to bed later she is so excited to see me she licks my head for half
an hour until she settles (like she did last night). There are some
among my loyal readers who would find this rather sweet, and some who would
find it frankly hilarious. From my perspective it is a pain in the glass (to
coin a phrase). Having been woken I struggle to get back to sleep. After another restless night I got up and watched
more "Shameless". As I watched I sorted my letter pile. When
we had the kitchen done last year we lost the shelf
on which the letter rack sat. These days the letters just get put in a pile,
and when it reaches a foot tall (quite literally) I go through it,
ding out all the envelopes and recycle the letters. Out of an epic stack of
letters I've kept hold of four. I wish people wouldn't send me post about
such utter drivel of the sort that I dinged out this morning; if anything is
of any importance these days I get a text, email or phone call about it.
Letters? It is the third decade of the twenty-first century after all. I took a rather circuitous drive to work via fifteen
points of interest (points of interest to anyone who plays Munzee: to
anyone else they were rather dull) and the petrol station. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking
about how today was the seventy-fifth birthday
of the NHS, and interviewing all sorts of people about the event. Expert or gasbag; everyone wheeled onto the radio
was of the same opinion: the NHS cannot carry on as it is without major
changes. However whilst everyone questioned had all
sorts of management catchphrases to offer on the matter, no one had a single
practical suggestion. Being radical (and perhaps a tad reactionary)
I would suggest that major change is the last thing the NHS needs. Having
been working in it since 1981 we've had nothing but forty-two years of major
changes, none of which have had any chance to take effect before being
dropped and the next scheme brought in. All the ideas, schemes and plans were
brought in (and thrown out) on the whim of the prevailing political
opinion of the moment. And at no stage has anyone ever done an independent
review to see if anything worked or didn't work or might have worked had it
been given a chance. What the NHS needs is to be left alone to get on
with it. I was particularly miffed when Sir Tony Blair had
words to say on the matter. I can remember the fortieth anniversary of
the NHS nine years before he became Prime Minister when many members of staff
at the William Harvey Hospital were wearing black armbands that day as some
sort of strange protest about the perceived state of the NHS back then. I
remember the day after the General Election of 1997 (nine years later)
when Sir Tony was elected as Prime Minister. There was a massive feeling that
great things were going to happen in the NHS. He had thirteen years to sort it
out. I can't remember things changing massively (or at all) under his
control... he’s had his chance and blew it. Too late to be opening his gob
now. I got to work and had a message from someone with
whom I used to work (many years ago). She was closing
down her garden pond; did I want her fish? At the risk of appearing
ungrateful I said no. I've got quite a few fish in the pond already; possibly
too many. I can take on some tiddlers, but not a
dozen huge Koi. If any of my loyal readers are keen, let me know... In a lull at work I
celebrated seventy-five years of the NHS by filling in some of the forms for
my planned semi-retirement next year. Interestingly a chap I've worked with
off and on for over twenty years announced today that he's retiring later
this month. He summed up my feelings when he said
"there comes a point when you know you've had enough". I
think he's right. I certainly don't dislike my job; I'm currently far happier
at my current place of work than I had been for the previous thirty years.
But I'm tired. Going part time will give me time to get bored with all sorts
of other things. Mind you I’m only semi-retiring. I wonder how many
more anniversaries of the NHS I will see before I finally and completely jack
it all in. |
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6 July 2023
(Thursday) - Little Bit of Politics
I slept through till four o'clock this morning after
which time I lay awake terrified to move for fear of squishing Bailey. Despite
her being possibly the smallest dog I've ever seen,
she really does take up an inordinate amount of space on the bed. Eventually I got up, made brekkie and watched an
episode of "Shameless" which (in a novel break with
tradition) didn't feature anyone "doing the dirty deed"
with, on or at anyone else. A triumph for puritans everywhere. I took my usual route to work past fifteen points of
(Munzee) interest, listening to the radio as I went. Again the Labour party was doing
its best to make itself unelectable. There was an interview with some Labour councillor from
somewhere in London who seemed to think that a decent meal was the start and
end of education, and simply by feeding kids everywhere we'd have a nation of
Einsteins. This was followed by all sorts of
snippets from "Yesterday in Parliament" in which major
figures of the Labour party were trying to say that
the Prime Minister's priorities should have been bandying insults with them
in the House of Commons rather than running the country. I've said before that the Labour
party boil my piss. In theory it is such a good idea;
in principle a total disaster. They can't help having idiots in the
membership, but do they have to elect them to high office? I can't help but
think that the Labour party are seriously scared at the moment; with the Conservatives in utter disarray, a
Labour government is a distinct possibility, and
they are terrified of the prospect. If a general election was called tomorrow
we really couldn’t vote for the best choice; we’d be going for the least
worst. I
got to work and did what I couldn't avoid. Today was another dull one, but I
have high hopes for the immediate future. With
work done I came home, and we spent a little while packing and loading up the
car. The plan is to drive off at half past five tomorrow morning, leaving “My
Boy TM” in charge at home. I plan to send diary updates from
deepest Suffolk, but if the Internet doesn’t reach that far I’ll be back in a
week or so… |
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7 July 2023 (Friday)
- Off On Holiday
Surprisingly “er indoors TM” was
wide awake when I woke at half past four. “Shall I turn the light on”
I asked. She said “yes”. The defence rests. Mind you the dogs weren’t quite so keen. But we got
the last of the luggage into the car and were away by quarter to seven as
planned. I Munzed like a thing possessed up the
motorway and we made good time. Bettter than others
who had been delayed (!), so we succumbed to the constant whinging from the boot and stopped at Ingarstone
services. Once I’d eventually persuaded “er indoors TM”
to use a parking space rather than randomly stopping in the road (!)
the dogs did that for which they’d been whinging,
and we carried on to the Colchester McDonalds where we all
met up. Brekkie McMuffins went down very well, and suitably
scoffed we then drove on (following the wrong car in front – woops!)
to the back of beyond where we stopped in a church’s car park and had a
little geo-wander. Sadly the “Oakley Round Robin” series of
geocaches sums up where the ancient and noble art of hunting Tupperware is
going wrong. There were eight caches over a distance where there might have
been thirty. Some are missing, most are in disrepair. But because they are
still on the geo-map they are sadly blocking the
space that someone might use. But nevertheless we had a
good walk, and with walk walked it was only a short drive to The Swan in Hoxne where we had a spot of lunch, a few pints, and
woofed at the locals. Pausing only briefly to get supplies from the co-op
we arrived at the brewery twenty minutes after their shop closed. But after
some really pitiful begging from “Yours Truly”,
the nice lady opened up for us. Forty bottles of beer, a couple of growlers
and a bottle of gin later we set off to the holiday cottage which was
fortunately only five minutes up the road. Unloading didn’t take long; we were unpacked in
about an hour or so. I found myself looking back to camping trips back in the
day when setting up took over four hours and was frankly hard work. Once unpacked we opened a growler. Have you ever
opened a growler? They don’t half fizz. But eventually we figured out where
we’d gone wrong, and had a rather good few beers and
pizza as the dogs barked at the pigeons that dared to set foot in the garden.
Morgan nearly had one… The port was opened, as was the stilton, and it all
got very vague. It was as well that I took one
or two photos, wasn’t it? |
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8 July 2023
(Saturday) - A walk, In The Garden
I woke feeling surprisingly chipper bearing in mind
how much ale and port had gone down last night only to find it was three
o’clock. I dozen on and off for a couple of hours, but being wide awake, got
up, and was followed by two still very over-excited puppies. They went into
the garden and ran amok. But quietly amok, which was a result. After an hour or so I could hear movement
so I got up, made a cuppa, and watched the dogs
running riot round the garden as we all got up. We had brekkie;
as we scoffed we puzzled the mystery year competition. Seeing how we would
have otherwise missed it, I’d asked Steve for a heads-up and he sent us the
questions. With brekkie scoffed we hopped into the cars and
drove a little way up the road for a little walk. And we had a good walk.
Fields and lanes, it was rather pretty if a tad hot. We had ice lollies and blue ice cream half way
round. The dogs seemed to be rather partial to blue ice cream. Geocache-wise it was hard work. Geocaches come with
numbers rating how hard they are to find, and how awkward it is to get to
them. Both had been seriously underestimated for most of the series. And the
hints weren’t’ as helpful as they might have been. Billed as a walk of a
couple of hours, we spent four. With walk walked we came back to base and had a
quick wash, then sat in the garden having a quiet afternoon. The dogs ensured
that no pigeon set foot in the garden (which was kind of them) in
between their snoring. I
took a few photos today. I do that. And I had something of an early
night. I was worn out. |
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9 July 2023 (Sunday)
- Bungay
Again I found myself wide awake at four o’clock so I used the time to post up
yesterday’s photos and to write up the blog. After an hour or so I was a tad
tired so went back to sleep for a bit. But only a bit. I was wide awake
sitting in the garden watching the world go by before eight o’clock. Part of the world going by was (I think) a
deer going past the end of the garden. People awoke, and we had a rather good Full English
which we just finished as the rain started. Having had a very hot day
yesterday we had a rather heavy downpour today, so we cracked out a 1000 piece jigsaw from the cottage’s supplies and made a
start on that. Or some of us did. I fell asleep and was woken five minutes
before we were about to go out. With no weather forecast agreeing with
another we took pot luck with the weather and went
up to Bungay for a little walk. If nothing else being on hard ground (tarmac)
the idea was we wouldn’t get too muddy. We had a rather good little wander round, guided by
geocaches and the geocaching adventure lab series. It was only a shame that
Morgan was in a very truculent mood. He was hot to the touch. Sunstroke after
yesterday, perhaps?) We came home via a geocache which hadn’t been found
in over a year – a resuscitation. Go me!
It was a tad too damp for al-fresco dining this evening so we had a very good bit of dinner inside, Very
good indeed. We growled and barked at the tennis on the telly, and I had
something of an early night.If
only I could sleep when everyone else is asleep. |
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10 July 2023 (Monday)
- Dunwich (25,467 Steps!)
I did my usual thing of waking in the middle of the night, getting up,
posting photos to the Internet and going back to bed. I got up three hours later, as did everyone else and with a charged
battery in my GPS we set off to Dunwich Forest for
a little walk. Dunwich Forest was rather pretty;
not at all unlike Kings Wood really. As always our
route was laid out for us by a series of geocaches. Sadly
this series had been put out thirteen years ago and was rather “Old Skool”. Whilst in excellent repair they were spaced
out perhaps a tad too far apart with thirteen caches where I would have put
fifty. And (as is so often the case) the published distance of the
walk was seriously underestimated. Billed as four miles I wonder if six might
have been a more realistic estimate. And the sizes given were flatly wrong as
well. But it’s easy to find fault, isn’t it? As we walked we found an old leper hospital
and a flood too. From the forest we then drove down to the beach for ice creams. The
dogs had a play in the sea… well Treacle and Bailey did. Morgan showed no
interest in the water whatsoever.
By this point my watch told me my step count had gone ever twenty
thousand for the first time ever, and time was pushing on. So rather than
having a wash and brush up before dinner we went to find a pub. The Queens Head in somewhere or other was a rather good place to have
scoff, and as we scoffed we watched the frankly
humungous farm machines struggling to get down the narrow lanes lined by
frankly stupidly parked cars. And so back to base where we sat in the garden which got progressively
darker, and as we sat so the bats came out. Quite a few of them. Sitting in
the dark watching bats flittering about sounds rather lame, but if you’ve
never done it, give it a go… I took a load
of photos today… which took five attempts to get on-line… |
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11 July 2023
(Tuesday) – Southwold
Having walked the most amount
of steps that my watch has ever recorded yesterday I slept well last night
and wasn’t up for an hour uploading photos and writing diaries at four
o’clock. So it was a shame the my watch felt the
need to wake me at six o’clock to tell me that I was asleep. It really did
vibrate (rather vigorously) and tell me that it had detected that I
was asleep. I got up and said goodbye to Victoria who had to go
back to work today (which was a great shame, but there it is…) and
then spent a rather frustrating hour fighting with the cottage’s wi-fi. It
took five goes to upload yesterday’s photos. The dogs were rather quiet this morning (tired
from yesterday!) but eventually perked up when a full English breakfast
appeared. As did I. We had a rather good bit of brekkie. With brekkie scoffed we went out. It had rained hard
overnight so again somewhere with firm ground underfoot would be a plan. We
went to Southwold and had a look around. With four Adventure lab cache series
there we had plenty of things to guide us around and help us explore. Series
of cannons, old residences of the aristocracy, cannons, and haunted
hedgerows… It was a shame that the ad-lab geo-series had all
been created utterly independently of each other. One was a straightforward
run down the coast, the other three were rather random, one was sadly more an
exercise of using Google, but that’s geocaching’s adventure labs for you. We had a rather good ice cream and then headed back
to base just as the drizzle started. As the girls
jigsaw-ed I sat in an armchair and snored (loudly, I am told) for
three hours. I was woken in time for dinner; and a rather good bit of dinner
it was too. I
took a few photos today. These posted up first time. Today was rather
more restful than yesterday had been, but I was still work out at the end of
it. I had an early night. I needed one. |
|
12 July 2023
(Wednesday) - In The Back of Beyond
I slept through till when “er indoors TM” went
for a tiddle at half past four. I then lay awake for half an hour before I
too went to the loo. Whilst I was up, I uploaded yesterday’s photos which
went up straight away, then went back to bed for three more hours. Bailey
eventually woke me by trampling my chest and licking my nose. I could take a
hint, so I took her outside. It wasn’t long before we were all up. We had a rather good al-fresco
brekkie, then set off on a walk. There was a series of geocaches only three
quarters of a mile up the road, so it would make for an easy day. Or so we
thought.
It was only a shame that whilst spending perhaps too long looking for
a more elusive cache that the dogs got bored and went wading in a swamp. After six miles and fourteen thousand steps we were back at base. Dogs
got bathed (whether they liked it or not), a pint was enjoyed in the
garden, and t hen the rain started. The rain had been forecast so we couldn’t
really squabble. We adjourned inside to carry on with the jigsaw. The jigsaw
is a thousand piece one which lives in the holiday cottage. We’d found a note
inside it from previous occupants of the cottage saying they’d given up after
four days, so the girls were seeing it as a challenge to get the thing done
before we go home. As we jigsaw-ed so the sun came out. Rather than eating in, we all had a wash and brush up, and drove a
mile down the road to the Rumburgh Buck where they
serve a rather good drop of mild. As we perused the menus for dinner so “er
indoors TM” spotted something; a rather large tick
had embedded itself in Bailey’s neck. Fortunately
Karl had a tick removal tool and as I held poor Bailey in a grip of iron so
we conducted surgery to get the thing out. It was soon thrown on the paving
slab and stamped on; it was gross. After the excitement we had a rather good bit of dinner al-fresco. Fortunately there was a shelter in which we scoffed as the
forecast thunderstorm hit half way through dinner. Personally, I thought it
was rather fun. And with our scoff scoffed we went back to base where (once all
checked for more ticks) the dogs had their dinner, and we finished the
jigsaw. I saw “we” as I fully intend to share in the glory and
bragging rights even though my contribution was somewhat less than that of
others(!) As always I
took a few photos today. And had another relatively early night. I’m
finding being on holiday rather tiring; but not as much as the dogs are. For
three dogs who sleep most of every day they haven’t stopped all week and are
noticeably beginning to flag. |
|
13 July 2023 (Thursday) - In Between the Rain Showers
If we ignore the hour between three and four o’clock when I was wide
awake uploading photos and writing diary I had a
rather good sleep. We all had something of a lie-in this morning, and Karl
cooked a very good Full English breakfast. Seeing a glorious morning I laid
the table on the patio in readiness… then hurriedly moved everything inside
as the rain started. We had a good bit of brekkie on the kitchen table, then had a rather
lazy morning peering out of the window waiting for the rain to stop. When it stopped we put on our boots, went outside… and seeing the
downpour that had started went back inside again. The plan was to wander down the lane from the cottage, do a circular
walk of the nearby common and walk back to base. And that was what we did. We
wandered down a quiet country lane, seeing a deer as we went. As we walked
Bailey set off after a pheasant (I wish she wouldn’t), and on a couple
of occasions we all hid under a tree waiting for the rain to pass. With our walk walked we went back to base, and what had been a rather
dull and overcast early afternoon gave way to blue skies and bright sunshine.
We spent the afternoon playing cornhole and quoits and chewing dog toys and
drinking beer in the sunshine. Five minutes after the preparations for dinner
were started we all ran inside as the heavens opened
with probably the heaviest downpour of the day (and that was up against
some pretty stiff competition). The stout was opened (6.5% - oh yus!)
and we had a very good curry. The evening got progressively more vague as it went on (I wonder why) but I can
distinctly remember watching an episode of “Benidorm”,
an episode of “The Weakest Link” and watching bats in between the
rain. I
took a few photos today… in between (and during) the showers. |
|
14 July 2023 (Friday) - Coming Home
Bearing in mind we needed
a quick getaway this morning I set my alarm for the first time in a week. It
didn’t take that long to bundle everything together, and the cars were
swiftly loaded. I must admit I felt sick when I took a load of luggage out to
the car only to find the puppies running loose on the lane, but they were
swiftly rounded up. Rather than heading straight home we drove to Framlingham where we had
a little wander around, doing a spot of geocaching as we went. There was an
Adventure Lab series around the town and we followed
it around to one or two interesting places. And we found a virtual geocache
too. You don’t find many of those. We said our goodbyes and headed homewards. The drive of a hundred and
thirty miles took about two and a half hours and was truly tedious. I *really*
don’t know how people can drive for a living; I’d go stir crazy. Once home we quickly unloaded. The dogs were soon all fast asleep. “er indoors TM” set off to a booze-up with a
load of people with whom she used to work. I threw out the milk we’d
forgotten about and left in the fridge all week (yuk), watered the
rather parched garden, then started the necessary but dull job of feeding
laundry to the washing machine. I’m worn out… I’ve had a rather good week away but will be glad to go
to bed. I’ll wait until the washing machine has won its fight with my pants
though… |
|
15 July 2023
(Saturday) - Busy, Busy...
I slept right through until backache made it too
uncomfortable to stay in my pit. Waking with backache is always a sign that
I’ve had a good night’s sleep. Going away on holiday is very nice, but you
can’t beat your own bed… or your own toilet, come to that. I made toast (with peanut butter and marmalade)
and peered into the Internet. I’ve kept up a passing acquaintance with it
this last week, but today I had a look-see to find out what I had missed. So
many emails; none of which were of any interest to me. I unsubscribed from
seemingly a million and one mailing lists. Does anyone read the corporate
drivel these companies and charities send out? Being Saturday we drove
round to the Repton estate for Dog Club. As we drove so the heavens opened,
but we thought we’d chance it. Attendance at Dog Club was down, but a dozen
dogs ran riot for half an hour or so. Morgan got rather over-excited as he
does; Treacle grumbled at all and sundry as she does. But a good time was had
by all; even if most of it was spent standing under
the trees sheltering from the rain. As we drove home Steve was doing the Mystery Year on
the radio. I thought it was 1980 but it might just possibly have been 1981.
It was 1984. We came home. I put a load of washing in to scrub, had a cuppa and a
bit of cake, and had a look at the final accounts for Dad’s estate. Here’s a
tip. If ever you find yourself being an executor, when you chase up companies
and councils for outstanding money and you are told that the bills are all
settled and there are no refunds, wait a while and ask again. The pension
people gave us a bung a month ago when they said last year there was no more
money to be paid out. And the council tax people who told me the bill had
been finalized last year have now told me they owe us over five hundred quid.
I then decided to take the bull by the horns and had
a serious look at the new pond pressure filter. Every week or so I run out
the hose and give it an emptying, but according to the instructions the thing
needs a “deep clean” a couple of times a year. So, deep cleaning it
was. I knew it was going to be a mucky job and without going into graphic
detail, let’s just say that there was fish shit everywhere and I had to send
for an utterly unimpressed “er indoors TM” who was wearing
a dustbin liner for protection. The biggest problem I had was that because the
electrical extension I’d installed specifically for the new filter didn’t
work I’d buried the filter’s electrical cable to channel it to another power
socket. I’d mistakenly put most of the slack
cable at the wrong end and had left myself an incredibly short length of
cable with which to work. Oh how I laughed when I
found that the reason that the electrical extension didn’t work was that I
hadn’t plugged it in. Having had a go once I now know how I will proceed
in future. I shall turn it all off, disconnect the hoses and the leccie, carry the whole thing to the drain and upend it
into the humungous flower pot (suspended over the
drain) that I used to use for cleaning the old filters. Being a sealed
pressure filter I will be able to get the device to the drain without making
a mess on the way. With most of the fish shit mopped up, “er indoors
TM” took the dogs to the Warren with Cheryl. I would have
liked to have gone too, but instead I finished up the clean-up and then dug
up the filter’s cable (when I installed it I’d
buried it!), and made that all good. A few seconds to type, an hour to
do. With cable sorted I hung out the washing. Just as I
finished, my phone rang. It was Cheryl. Would I drive over to them with my
keys to the “er indoors TM” – mobile? “er indoors TM”’s set was locked in the car.
I would have driven over *if” I had my set of keys, but they would
have been either in the key cupboard or in my pocket. They were in neither
place. As an emergency locksmith was phoned for so I ransacked “er indoors
TM”’s handbag collection (she has a few) and found her
set of keys. Clearly she’d taken mine… though how
remains a mystery. With emergency locksmith cancelled I drove over to
the Warren and opened the car. We came home, had a bit of dinner, and sat by the
pond for a bit. And then realizing that gardening doesn’t do itself I cracked
on cutting back the jungle overflowing from not-so-nice-next-door, and
then re-arranged the rockery a little. “er indoors TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching
the first two episodes of the new re-make of “Quantum
Leap”; not so much re-make as a continuation some thirty years later.
It was rather good… |
|
16 July 2023 (Sunday)
- Not So Busy
I gave up thumping “er indoors TM”
in a futile attempt to stop her snoring and got up. With a load of washing in
to scrub I made brekkie, watched an episode of “Shameless” then
cracked on in the garden. I vacuumed the shingle, strimmed
the lawn edges, mowed, then got out the Bionic Burner and burned away the
weeds on the patio. This Bionic Burner is a load of rubbish. Admittedly it
burned the weeds, but just left burned weeds which then needed pulling out.
Pulling the weeds out by hand gets rid of them without the need to incinerate
them first. I tidied up, and with power tools away the dogs were allowed into
the garden; Morgan does attack them. I wish he wouldn’t. “er
indoors TM” went shopping; I
pulled more ivy off of the fence. I hate gardening; it is a never-ending and
ultimately futile pastime. I then assembled the garden patio heater which has
been sitting in its box in the shed for months. Billed as a portable heater
it came with screws to bolt it into the ground so that it would be fixed in
place. What was that all about? After fifteen minutes it was ready for a
trial. It worked. It is now in the shed; I suspect I shall fail to sell it on
Facebook marketplace and take it up to the tip in a few months. I sat down by the pond which had cleared nicely
after yesterday’s mishap with the pond filter. I had a look at the Internet
and saw an invite to a birthday bash. A good friend I don’t see anywhere near
often enough will be sixty in a few months’ time. Rumours
of a camping weekend turned out to be just rumours.
Sadly the plan now is a trip to a local pub to
listen to some band or other. But when I say “local pub” I mean local
to him, not me. I quite fancied a weekend’s camping trip; I seriously don’t
fancy travelling for two hours just to get a headache. “er
indoors TM” came home from shopping.
We settled the dogs and walked up to the park. We’d seen adverts for a “World
in a Tent” festival which was happening this afternoon and we went along
with high hopes. But all we found was half a dozen stalls selling food (all
with massive queues), half a dozen stalls selling overpriced hand-made tat, and a stall offering help with addiction issues.
According
to the timetable we arrived as the Nepalese Dance Group were doing their
thing. Sadly we couldn’t see any dancing going on,
but there was a deafening caterwauling being blared out of the PA system.
We’d gone along expecting to spend most of the afternoon there soaking up the
ambience; we’d seen the lot and were on our way home within ten minutes. We sat in the garden and read books for the
afternoon instead whilst scoffing mushroom crisps and guacamole dip. “er
indoors TM” boiled up a very
good bit of dinner which we scoffed watching episodes of the prequel to Star
Trek and the sequel to Quantum Leap. |
|
17 July 2023 (Monday)
- New Lap-top
I
slept through till nearly eight o’clock this morning as did “er
indoors TM” who had forgotten to set her alarm. I
took the dogs outside and had a refusal from Morgan. It had rained overnight
and he’s not keen on wet ground. But he didn’t have a choice, and I waited
with him until he did that which was expected of him. Eventually he did (clearly
under protest) and I made toast and had a look on-line. Not much seemed
to be going on in the Internet really. For something
which takes up an inordinate amount of my time, it can be rather dull at
times. Mind you I had an email from Credit Karma who
congratulated me on (yet again) paying my credit card bill on time.
I’ve complained to the bank before about their letting Credit Karma know my
business but apparently all banks tell this sort of thing to anyone who asks.
Or so the bank told me. With no rain forecast for three hours I loaded the
dogs into the car and we drove up to Kings Wood. As
we arrived the sky looked a bit iffy, but with blind faith in the BBC we set
off. Five minutes later we were sheltering under trees cowering from the
downpour, and ten minutes later we were in the car and heading home. As we
drove so the weather continually alternated between bright sunshine and
torrential rain. My plan for today had been to walk the dogs then see
about tidying the shed and having a spruce-up in the garden. But the rain had
put paid to that. So instead I went on a little
shopping spree to get some odds and sods. First of all to B&M
Bargains where yesterday “er indoors TM” had
spotted some ornaments for the garden’s fences. I negotiated my way round the
“rather special and delightful” people who infest B&M Bargains;
one of whom was getting rather irate at the till. Having acquired a money-off
voucher he was trying to see if the till staff would just give him cash for
it rather than money off of anything he might have
bought. To be fair to the shop staff they would probably have been more
interested if it looked like he hadn’t drawn the voucher himself. From B&M I went to B&Q to get some storage
drawers for tidying up the crap and clutter in the shed. It has to be said there’s a lot of crap (and no shortage
of clutter) to be tidied up. And then I went to Currys.
I’ve been thinking about a new laptop for ages as the old one takes an age to
start up, keeps hanging, and the labels on the A, S, E, H and L keys have
completely worn away. Jose told me the average lap-top
is good for three to four years; the old one had done seven, so I think I got
my money’s worth from it. I walked into Currys at
ten past eleven. I waited. And waited. As I stood there so four other people
came in, got served and carried their purchases out. At twenty to twelve (after
half an hour of waiting) I walked out. As I walked out so the chap who
had been so studiously ignoring me asked if he could help me. I said that he
could have done so half an hour previously, and that I would spend thousands
of pounds somewhere else. Having conspicuously deliberately ignored me for
half an hour this chap then pretended he had no idea I had been waiting. I
told him that it was very unlikely that he had not seen me, but all the other
staff had and they had ignored me too. As I walked off so he continued blustering after me. I took my shopping home, then drove down to Folkestone. The motorway was like a river, the rain was
that hard. The Folkestone branch of Currys was *completely* different to the Ashford
one; I was greeted by helpful staff the instant I walked into the shop, and
the chap there took me through all the lap-tops on display. Fifteen minutes
later I came out with a new one, and a 2Tb hard drive for backup purposes as
well. Seeing
a break in the rain I drove to the coast to see if “Daddy’s Little
Angel TM” and “Darcie
Waa Waa TM” fancied McLunch. They had been out for a walk on the Leas where
there had been no rain all day. Torrential in Cheriton, completely dry a mile
away. We
had a good spot of McLunch, but here’s a tip. If
you use the self-service machines you can pimp your
burger. Don’t ask for extra sauce on your Big Mac; I didn’t so much have a
Big Mac as the ingredients of a Big Mac all swimming about in a sea of some
strange pink juice. I came home, and started
the rather tedious business of backing up all of the stuff from the old
lap-top that I need on my new one. That took some time. And with back-up
backed up I activated the new lap-top. Once I’d
logged into my Microsoft and Google accounts I was
amazed how much the thing automatically restored for itself, but it still
took over an hour to get it to the bare minimum of readiness. With “er indoors TM” off
bowling I spent a couple of hours doing the ironing, then had a go at posting
this blog entry from the new lap-top. I hope it
worked… |
|
18 July 2023
(Tuesday) - Tidying the Shed
When
I booted the new lap-top this morning it was raring to go in less than a
minute. I saw that as something of a result; the old one would sometimes take
up to quarter of an hour before it felt any urge to respond to any buttons I
might have pressed. I was into the internet far faster than I’ve been
for years, and was immediately judging people with
whom I used to work who were setting off on their third Mediterranean holiday
of this year. And a minor squabble had kicked off about some company who had
started up in Ashford selling cakes but refused to deliver and was incredibly
cagey about where they were located. A rather strange business model. I took the dogs up to Kings Wood. We had a good
walk; when it is just me the dogs behave themselves perfectly;
when there’s anyone else along with us they tend to play up. I wish they
wouldn’t. We walked right round the woods, meeting several other dogs as we
went, and every meeting passed off without incident. With walk walked we came home and as the dogs slept
so I cracked on tidying up the shed. It has to be
said that the thing was something of a mess. Yesterday I got a set of drawers
to help tidy stuff into. Perhaps I might have taken out the benching and put
a level one in; instead I sawed up the old planking
which has been laying round the garden for ages and used that to prop the
shelves level. I tidied. I found half a dozen packets of clout
nails. I found several sets of hacksaw blades. I found an old hedge trimmer
that was broken; I remember intending taking that
thing to the tip years ago. I found four tubs of ant powder and three tins of
WD40. I found a whole load of pond filter stuff which is of no use to me at
all (and which is now up on Facebook
Marketplace), and loads of tent poles. I wonder what happened to the tent? As I remarked to new-next-door if
you want anything from a set of bellows through to an aircraft carrier,
before spending any money, have a look in my shed first. With about one tenth if the shed tidied
I loaded up the car with loads of black bags of rubbish, several poggered carpets, the knacked hedge trimmer and more
broken torches than sense, and after a quick sandwich took all the tat to the
tip. You still need to book an appointment at the tip, but nowadays you can
get same day appointments. The tip was rather entertaining; as a fellow punter
unloaded his bags of rubbish so one of the tip staff ran up and started
bellowing “PLASTIC, PLASTIC”. The chap with bags of plastic gave the tip
operative a few minutes then asked why he was bellowing “PLASTIC, PLASTIC”. The
tip operative rather pompously explained where plastic was supposed to be
put. The chap with the plastic pointed out (in much the same way that you
might speak to a rather simple-minded child) that he was fully aware of
where the plastic recycling goes, and went on to
explain how one might better convey this information rather than by bellowing
“PLASTIC, PLASTIC”. I just about managed not to laugh out loud. From the tip I went to Sainsburys; “er
indoors TM” had given me a shopping list. And with
shopping shopped I came home and put out the garden ornaments that I’d bought
yesterday in B&M Bargains. Bearing in mind they came from B&M
Bargains I’m quite impressed with them. “er
indoors TM” boiled up
bangers and mash for scran and we watched another episode of the new series
of “Quantum Leap”. I’m quite getting into this; even though I’m pretty sure I
can guess what is going to happen at the end… I’m slowly getting used to the new laptop… the
biggest hiccup is that the “\” key is where I expect the down-arrow to be, so
every time I try to page down in a word document (like when I’m writing
this) I suddenly get “\\\\\\\\\” appearing. Today’s major victory was saving pictures in .jpg
format rather than .psp format. Whilst this
probably doesn’t mean much to many people, I’m quite chuffed about it. If this blog entry uploads OK
I shall attempt to install FileZilla and GSAK… |
|
19 July 2023
(Wednesday) - More Holiday
Morgan
woke me when he started stomping about shortly after seven o’clock this
morning. For a small dog he can certainly stomp. I got up, made toast and
had a look at the internet. It was still there. As always
a common theme was dead dogs. Why do so many people feel the need to
constantly post really sad and upsetting memes about
dogs dying? This was immediately followed by a video from six years ago of my
Fudge playing with the garden fountain. After a little melt-down I carried on
seeing if there was anything else in the Internet. After something of a hiatus I had two
friend requests this morning. Both appeared to be “wipe clean”,
but the second would seem to play a little too rough. I sent out three birthday wishes to friends, and got ready for the day. With the weather forecast giving zero per cent
chance of rain before the evening I took the dogs up to Kings Wood. We saw
several joggers, and again the dogs were all as good as gold. As we walked so
the sky got darker and about a mile from the car so
the drizzle started. I cut the walk short and we
headed back. Just as we came to the car park so we
had a refusal. The girls came to have their leads put on, but Morgan was
rather reluctant. It was quite plain that he wanted more of a walk. But he
was out of luck. I walked the ten paces to him and put his lead on. Five minutes later as we drove through Boughton Aluph so the torrential rain
started. But we got home to find the pavements bone dry. No rain at all only
five miles away. I popped up the road to the corner shop to get
pastries; we had a cuppa then I cracked on in the
shed some more. I lost count of the amount of new
paintbrushes I found, and there was plenty of fence varnish in there that I
never knew about. As well as the floating pond plant pot I knew I had, I
found another too. I’m not sure if either “er indoors TM” ‘s
inflatable canoe or my old rubber dingy are seaworthy though. I didn’t ding out *quite* so much today, but
there were several very rusty bits of tat which hadn’t seen the light of day
since our last camping trip; including two kettles which you could poke your
finger through. I still managed to load up a car full of tat though,
and after a quick bit of lunch set off to the tip. The tip was its usual self; I have a plan of action
when unloading there. On arrival I immediately put one or two smaller items
into the smaller skips; electrical recycling or
clothes recycling or metal salvage. I then make a point of taking the
cardboard boxes the small things were in to the cardboard recycling, and then
asking the staff what I should do with some obscure bit of rubbish (today
it was a broken shed window and a Camping Gaz canister)/ At first sight
this might seem to be farting around, but *if* you go through this
rigmarole the staff are far happier to let you then chuck half a dozen black
sacks into the general waste. If you don’t go through this ritual
they think you simply can’t be arsed and insist
that they go through your black sacks with you. And consequently
you end up spending an hour lugging this that and the other all over the tip,
and listening to the staff getting quite aggressive with each other about the
ultimate fate of every little thing you never want to see again. Take for
example some poor old sod’s cheese-grater. Was it metal or plastic? They
argued for ages over that one! From the tip I popped to Sainsburys and brought
cream cakes home for me and “er indoors TM”. We
scoffed them with a cuppa as she did her working
from home and I did my watching an episode of “Shameless”. And then I
floated my pond plant pots and filled them with Lamb’s Lettuce. I would say
that “Lamb’s Lettuce” is posh water cress, but it is ten pence a bag
cheaper. It might grow in the pond; it might not. The fish seem keen on
knocking the floating plant pots about though. There was a knock on the door; it was Martin. We
settled the dogs and went out to the Beefeater where a few of the old gang
had gathered for dinner in honour of Chris’s
birthday. Having had dodgy experiences there before my hopes weren’t high,
but we had a very good dinner. It is ages since we last got together… really
should do it more often. |
|
20 July 2023
(Thursday) - Feeling Worn Out
Bailey was whinging at three o’clock this
morning. I thought she wanted a tiddle so I took her
outside. She wanted to go outside, but not for the toilet. She just wanted to
play silly beggars (a favourite game of all dogs). After ten minutes she
got bored, did the tiddle she could have done straight away, and we all went
back to bed. As I scoffed toast five hours later I had
another little fight with the new laptop. For all that it is set to “UK
English” it still wants to use US spellings. I wish it wouldn’t. With rain forecast for late morning I took the dogs up to the woods
where we had a good walk following some of the lesser-used paths. The dogs behaved
themselves; we only met two other groups and both encounters passed off
without incident. After an hour and a half we were back at the
car and soon heading home. Once home rather than stopping for a cuppa I cracked on in the garden. “er indoors TM” wanted some plant
pots swapping round. It kept me out of mischief for five minutes, then I
popped to B&M Bargains to get the dragonfly fence ornaments I forgot to
get yesterday. As I drove home so the heavens opened. Once home seeing I couldn’t crack on in the garden I phoned British
Gas to sort out the mess they’d made of my Dad’s gas
and leccie bill. Having been told they were sending
out a cheque to refund the balance of the account, I never received one. They
said they’d cancel that cheque and send a replacement. Eventually a cheque
arrived so I paid it in to my account… only to find that what had arrived was
the cheque that they had cancelled. After a little to-ing and fro-ing I was asked if I had a “general enquiry”.
When I said I had a specific enquiry I was assured I was talking to the right
person. Eventually it turned out that when they said
“we posted the cheque two weeks ago” what they actually meant was “we
will post it next week”. As is always the case with these companies, it
would have been so much easier had they employed anyone who actually spoke English. Sadly (so I am reliably
informed) asking for someone who speaks English is offensive. I watched a couple of episodes of “Shameless”, then on seeing
that the rain had stopped I bodged a repair
to not-so-nice-next-door’s fence then hung the dragonfly
ornaments. “er indoors TM” boiled
up a very good curry which we scoffed whist watching the latest episode of
“Star Trek”. Having done incredibly little today I’m surprisingly worn out. |
|
21 July 2023 (Friday)
- Posing For The Camera
I
slept well. When the dogs are settled, everyone is settled. I made toast and
had a little look at the Internet as I do most mornings in the hope of seeing
something new and interesting, enlightening or
provocative. As usual I was rather disappointed. I saw that two new geocaches had gone out (presumably)
on the Romney Marsh; both needing some serious puzzle-solving effort before
the things could be found. I’ll have a look at them when I’m bored… There was an interesting post on one of the
Sparks-related Facebook pages that I follow. Some chap was whinging. Having followed them on their worldwide tour he
was disappointed that they played the same set at every venue. He must have
some money(!) Others were getting rather nasty about him. And three people on my Facebook friends list had
birthdays today. Bearing in mind not one of them had made any effort to
contact me over the last few years I found myself wondering if maybe I might
prune that list a little. I took the dogs out for a walk. As we drove to the
woods so “Desert Island Discs” was starting; today featuring some
footballer or other. I tried to listen, but it really didn’t grip my
interest. Perhaps if I followed football I might
have been more entranced, but I really can’t see the attraction of watching
others hoofing a ball about. And for all that watching someone else hoofing a
ball about is dull, listening to some sycophantic presenter rabbiting on
about it was dull in the extreme. I turned to my fall-back
position of Ivor Biggun songs and sang along until
we got to Kings Wood. Once at the wood we wandered round for three miles (so
my watch said). As we walked I waited until we
were about as far from anyone else as we might be, and with no distractions I
tried our latest futile pastime “posing for the camera”. It took quite
a while to get any photos. Treacle sat still, but the puppies mobbed her; licking all round her muzzle (it’s a dog
submissive thing). And when they finally stopped that nonsense so each
would wander off as soon as I got the other into a posing position. I can remember having problems getting Pogo and
Fudge to pose as well… We came home, and I pootled
in the garden some more. A quick clean of the pond filter, a quick sweep
round the yard, a quick blast with the Bionic Burner… and two hours later it
all looked just the same as when I’d started. I spent the afternoon slobbing
by the pond reading the Secret Diary of Adrian Mole until the totally
not-forecast rain started. “er
indoors TM” sorted salmon for dinner. I’m reliably
informed it was healthy. It wasn’t bad but might have been better with chips. As we scoffed we watched a
couple of episodes of “Bake Off – The Professionals”. There’s no
denying I was hoping for some pretentious idiot to build some elaborate
pastry construction only to have it collapse at the last minute. I was sadly disappointed… |
|
22 July 2023
(Saturday) - A Lazy Day
During
the week the carcass of a dead whale washed up in the beach to the south of
us. This morning someone posted photos of it on-line, and
told the world not to re-circulate his photos without written permission.
Obviously loads of people did; several of them claiming to have been the ones
who actually took the photos in the first place.
Some people really do just go looking for an argument. And there was still no message from the chap who was
supposedly coming to collect some fish pond filter
stuff. Having found a couple of bags of fish pond
filter meshes and media in the shed the other day I put them onto Facebook
marketplace a few days ago. Have you ever seen Facebook Marketplace? Whenever
I’ve tried to buy anything I see complete knackered
crap for twice the price of brand new from the shop. Right now
I’m trying to sell brand new for a fraction of the shop price, and basically
having people suggest I pay them to take it away for me… If any of my loyal
readers want the insides for fish pond box filters,
just let me know, otherwise it will go to the tip in a week or so. I’ve no
use for the stuff and it is in my way. Being Saturday we went
round to dog club. There was quite a good turn-out today including one rather
nervous older lady who seemed incredibly terrified by the whole concept of
Dog Club. After a few minutes encouragement she let her little dog off the
lead, and it was so good to see her little dog sniff around, say hello to
everyone else and within minutes be having a great time. As was the lady. Morgan and Bailey had their usual excitement, and
Treacle made progress; if slowly. She sniffed a few bums,
and tolerated other (non-family) dogs being between me and her
when treats were being given out. As we drove home Steve was doing the mystery year on
the radio. I was sure it was 1973 right up to the last question…
decimalization. 1971. We
settled the dogs and drove down to Folkstone where grandson “Stormageddon
– Bringer of Destruction TM” was being something of
a “pain in the glass” as he might say. Once he finally agreed to get dressed we went for a little walk (to McDonalds). I
had the Big Mac; “Darcie Waa Waa TM” had
the pot of ketchup, and a great time was had by all. We popped in to the ice
cream shop on the way home where they had a very good range of ice creams at
half the price we paid in Southwold a couple of weeks ago. Pausing only briefly to get a cheeky FTF on a
geocaching Adventure Lab we came home (via Tesco). The plan was to
plant (chuck in the pond) the watercress we got in Tesco, but the rain
was against us. And I wasn’t feeling very well, so I dozed on the sofa
underneath a pile of dogs for most of the afternoon. “er
indoors TM” boiled up pizza which we scoffed whilst
watching another episode of “Bake Off: The Professionals”. Today was a rather lazy one – for the first time in
two weeks I walked under ten thousand steps today. |
|
23 July 2023 (Sunday)
- Last Day Off
I
got up to find the rain hossing down despite only
an eleven per cent chance of rain. Regardless of the elements I went out to
the pond, took out the Lamb’s lettuce (which pond-wise had been an abject
failure) and popped in the watercress we’d got yesterday. Hopefully it
will do better than the Lamb’s lettuce; it can’t do much worse. As the rain continued I had
my usual look at the Internet. It was still there. Today’s argument on
Facebook was about the White Rock Theatre in Hastings which faces closure next
year as the current lease comes to an end. And it was the old, old story in
that no one wanted the place to close… even though no one had been there for
years. I must admit I’d rather the place stayed open… even if the last time I
went there was taking “My Boy TM” and “Daddy’s
Little Angel TM” to see Geoffrey, Bungle, George and Zippy in “Rainbow” some
time in the early 1990s. It’s the same with pubs closing
down all over the place. No one is happy about it
but no one uses the pubs. Mind you with beer at a fiver in the pub, and a
theatre ticket over thirty quid (for next weekend’s show) is it
surprising these places are shutting down? I then had a look at my photo archive. I’ve got
nearly two hundred gigabytes of photos – as time has gone on so photo size (in
bytes) has got bigger and bigger. In the past I’ve just saved everything
I ever photographed. I need to be a tad more judicious in deleting crap photos. Some of the earlier photos were in .cam format. Bitberry file
opener was recommended to open these but failed. As did Irfanview.
Eventually XN view came up trumps and I was able to look at photos I’ve not
seen in years. Including some photos of a baby born in November 2001. I
wonder who that was? I’ve no idea. We settled the dogs and with “er indoors TM” foot
still playing up we drove up to the town centre where we met up with friends
for our monthly brekkie and catch-up. It was good to catch up. It was good to
scoff brekkie too. We came home, and I spent a couple of hours pootling in the garden, weeding
and trimming and Bionic Burning. Two hours effort just to have it look just
like it always used to. We
spent the afternoon slobbing by the pond reading
more of the Secret Diary of Adrian Mole. “er
indoors TM” boiled up a
rather good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching the latest episode
of “Star Trek”. A crossover episode between the live-action “Strange
New Worlds” and the cartoon-animation “Lower Decks” set over a
hundred years later. I thought it would be awful; it was one of the best “Star
Trek” episodes ever (and that’s up against some pretty
stiff competition). I’ve had a good couple of weeks off work, but
tomorrow I’m back to the grind. And (to be honest) I’m quite looking
forward to it. For many years I would feel physically sick at the prospect of
going to work… not any more. |
|
24 July 2023 (Monday)
- Back To Work
With
the schools all being off from today I had this idea that the roads
(particularly the motorway) would be quieter and so I might get away with
leaving for work rather later this morning. And so I
might have a (relative) lie-in. The dogs weren't spread-eagled; such a
shame I had to spend much of the night clouting a snoring “er
indoors TM” . I got up, wasted twenty minutes trying to find what
I'd done with my sandwich box, then made toast and watched an episode of
"Shameless" before setting off to work. As I drove I listened to the radio. Not having heard the news
for a couple of weeks I wondered what I'd missed in the world. Precious little really. The drive to work took about forty minutes; I
listened to the radio the entire way and I can remember hardly anything. The
only point of note was the revelation that the green initiatives needed to
save the planet are costly, and are a vote -loser.
With most people voting for short-term interest it
would seem that the political parties are considering dropping all green
promises in order to get votes. Have I ever mentioned about what a stupid idea
democracy is? I got to work; it was much the same as when I'd left
it a couple of weeks ago. As I worked I saw someone
– someone with whom I used to work some time ago had come to visit. We had a
little catch-up; chatting with her reinforced my conviction that I am far
better off where I work now than where I used to be. “er
indoors TM” boiled up chops and chips and went bowling.
I got out the ironing board. It has to be said that
today was rather dull. |
|
My
piss boiled somewhat as I watched an episode of
"Shameless" this morning. The entire plot hinged on a
character being held prisoner in a hospital ward by the machinations of one
crooked member of staff. This was clearly just not possible in real life, and was pure laziness on the part of the writers.
Fiction only works if it is plausible, and sadly this morning's episode
wasn't. I had a quick look at the Internet. It turned
out there had been a geo-meet yesterday lunchtime not a mile from work. That
had been either a well-kept secret, or a warning that I should really pay
more attention to what is going on. Bearing in mind the thing was publicised
and that I'd had an email about it, I suspect the latter. It's amazing
what you miss if you don't stay alert, as Zaphod Beeblebrox once remarked. I set off to work. As I drove up the
motorway there was a mile or so of lorries being held as part of "Operation
Brock" as part of the government's plan to pogger
all cross-channel traffic. I'm not saying the pre-Brexit
arrangements were perfect, but they were certainly streets ahead of what
happens these days. As I drove the pundits on the radio were
interviewing several Israeli citizens about what their government did over
the weekend. Details on what it actually did were
rather sparse. Some new laws were brought in, or some old laws repealed... I
don't know. But the attitudes of those being interviewed spoke volumes. Some
didn't like what the government had done and were furious that they felt that
they now lived in a dictatorship rather than a democracy. Others who were in favour of whatever had happened were furious about how an
anti-democratic fraction were trying to oppose the government. Can't beat "the will of the people",
eh? And then there was an interview with a Labour MP and a (trans) Lib-Dem councillor about the changes in the Labour
Party's official position of what actually constitutes
being a "trans woman". Details about the official position
were sadly lacking, but the general feeling was that in
order to be legally recognised as a woman
one should do more than put on a dress and demand to be called "Brenda".
The Labour MP made a rather good and reasoned case
about how easy it is to invade women-only safe spaces, but sadly the (trans)
Lib-Dem councillor wittered
on at great length not really making much sense to me, and then shot herself
(?) in the foot by saying that none of her constituents have the
slightest interest in trans issues. Don't these two incidents sum up today's
world, though? Two separate and unrelated things about which the specific
details are vague (at best) but still there was no shortage of people
willing to go on national radio to argue about them. I got to work and had something of a "platelet
clumping" sort of day. I get those; quite possibly more than most. In between clumps I carried on filling out
forms for my semi-retirement which is now (hopefully) less than seven
months away. And with work worked I came home, and had a little look at the monthly accounts. They
have been a whole lot worse; but (as always) am I wrong in wanting to
have far too much money? I'm hoping that this relative affluence will
continue in seven months' time when the planned semi-retirement comes. The
idea is that retirement will put me on half-wages, but still working two and
a half days each week will leave me on the same money. The trouble is that
being at work stops me squandering. Being away from work for half the week
will (quite probably) give me far too much opportunity to
squander. |
|
26 July 2023
(Wednesday) - Intimations of Mortality
I
had a rather bad night's sleep. When everyone else is restless, so am I. And
when I finally nodded off I was gripped by an
incredibly vivid dream in which the NHS had embraced a new cost-saving
measure in which no printed information would use the letter characters on a
keyboard. Words would be spelled out by seemingly random sequences of numbers
and punctuation marks, and consequently my letter of complaint about this
stupid idea was problematical to write (to say the least). I got up earlier than I might have done, watched an
episode of "Shameless" and then set off to work. As I drove
up the road far too much air-time was devoted to
Nigel Farage's banking difficulties. It turns out that his bank account
really was closed
for political reasons and not because he wasn't rich enough for
Coutts. The head honcho of the Nat West who'd led the BBC to
believe it was purely because of financial issues has since resigned. She
really should have kept her trap shut, if for no other reason than to keep Mr Farage out of the news. Freedom of speech is one
thing... but I can't stand the chap. I saw him once, and he oozed arrogance
and contempt. There was also a lot of talk about green issues. The
Prime Minster is signaling that he is prepared to take
a softer stance on environmental concerns. The ULEZ around London
is seen
as a vote-loser. And Lord Frost has announced that rising
temperatures are
good for the UK. As always, those advocating "f... the planet"
are those who look to make short term profit. However
when they raise the point that no matter what the UK does is merely pissing
in the wind compared to the amount of carbon chucked out by the newly built
Chinese power stations it is difficult to argue, isn't it? Perhaps the "Just
Stop Oil" protestors might go glue themselves to a road in central
Beijing and see how they get on over there? I stopped off at Sainsbury's as I had to get one or
two bits and bobs. I'd forgotten just how rubbish the Aylesford
branch of Sainsbury's can be. Once I'd got what I needed I went to the tills
only to find no one manning them. There were four members of staff standing
round the self-service tills watching the public in much the same way that I
might watch something entertaining on the telly. When there were no
self-serving customers to laugh at, they just chatted about what had been on
telly last night, and showed one another stuff on
their mobiles phones. They really don't care. In the past I've suggested they might open a till
themselves, but this morning I really couldn't be arsed. Part of my shopping was a BBQ chicken sandwich for
lunch. It gave me quite the gutsache. Having spent
much of the morning peering down a microscope I spent much of the afternoon
closeted in the work's "trap one" with a dose of fizzy gravy
(to
coin a phrase). Perhaps I should have gone home sick? I didn't want
to take the risk of being more than a few seconds from a functional chodbin though. As I drove home “er indoors TM” sent
instructions for me to go to Asda. So I did. As I
walked round there were two teenaged girls shrieking at each other and not
looking where they were going. One crashed into me; the other fell about
laughing “you bumped into that old man!” Whilst factually correct, this has bothered me far
more than it should. I’m not old… I don’t retire properly for another seven
and a half years… And Asda also had four members of staff watching the
self-service tills whilst the manned tills stood closed. |
|
27 July 2023
(Thursday) - Early Shift
I
had a better night's sleep last night. As I've said before, it helps when
everyone else is settled. I made toast, watched some telly, saw that pretty
much nothing had happened on-line, and set off to work through the drizzle. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking
about "Martyn's
Law"; a new law named in tribute of Martyn Hett, who was killed
alongside twenty-one other people in the Manchester Arena terrorist attack of
2017. The idea is to protect public safety but as is so often the case,
bureaucracy has made a nonsense out of a very sensible idea. Apparently village halls will need formal security
arrangements (when they don't) but pop-up markets (the sort of
places that terrorists strike) won't. There was an interview with the mother of Martyn
Hett, and (like most live radio) not a lot of thought or preparation
had gone into the interview. The woman being interviewed clearly had a
houseful (presumably a party in honour of her
being on the radio) and she couldn't hear the interviewer over the
background noise. And the interviewer was haranguing this poor woman about
the many failings of this law. Clearly she had
nothing to do with the wording of the law or its implementation and to make
her apologise for the failings of something which
was nothing to do with her was rather unfair. There was also talk about the overnight coup in
Niger. The military have taken command. Col Maj Amadou Abdramane appeared on the local telly (flanked by nine
other uniformed soldiers) and announced: "We, the defence and security forces... have decided to put an end
to the regime you know... this follows the continuing deterioration of the
security situation, and poor economic and social governance." Apparently the general public over there have now got the arse
as they only elected their new President last year. As I said the other day,
democracy is a wonderful thing all the time those you elect are doing what
you want them to do. Demonstrably when they don't, it is up to whoever feels
the need to do the democratic thing of making sure they get their own way. As
Ron and Russell once said (sang) "Might makes
right though you’re wrong". Meanwhile the American Congress has convened a panel to look into UAPs. UAPs? No - I had no idea either. It would seem that unidentified anomalous phenomenon (UAPs)
is the modern phrase for UFOs. Presumably because if you talk about UAPs no
one knows what you are talking about, but if you talk about UFOs, everyone
thinks you are a half-wit. Either way we're still in denial that it might be
aliens. Meanwhile whilst Congress argues, the aliens would
seem to have
pranged a spaceship on Mars. I stopped off at the petrol station on my way to
work. It was rather busy for seven o'clock in the morning. Mind you when I
say "busy" there were cars parked at most of the pumps, but
no one at all with these cars, and no one but me in
the kiosk. What was going on there? I'd been asked to do the early shift today. I was up
for that. I always get to work relatively early anyway, and
getting there a tad earlier than usual means I get home nearly two hours
earlier than usual. Pretty much all of my colleagues
hate the earlies as they have housefuls to feed and organise
and pack off to play school, school, college and work. Me - I just try not to
wake “er indoors TM” or any of the dogs in
the morning. Work was the same as ever, but
getting out early meant I got to take the dogs to the woods. We went to Orlestone where they ran round like things possessed. I
wouldn’t say their behavior is worse in Orlestone
than in Kings Wood, but they certainly stay closer to me in Kings Wood than
they do in Orlestone. I took advantage of their
running further today by practicing whistle training. It worked rather well. With walk walked I then got the lawn mower out and
scalped the lawn. The plan is that we’ll need it relatively short for the
weekend… weather permitting. I wonder if the weather will permit? |
|
28 July 2023 (Friday)
- Another Early Shift
I
woke finding myself tangled up in the hose from my CPAP device. In between extricating
myself and knocking it on the floor I managed to wake Morgan, who was not at
all impressed by the commotion. I couldn't get back to sleep after that. Every morning I turn the telly on before I start the
toast going. Sometimes the Sky-Q box wants to update itself and that can take
an age. This morning it didn't, and as I made a sandwich for lunch I listened to the infomercials that are broadcast at
silly o'clock. Toda there was one about a certain brand of garden products,
all of which are powered by the same battery. The presenter was waxing
lyrically about the advantages of this battery and how brilliant it was, how
much in love he was with this battery, he'd already taken it home to meet his
mother and was planning to get married to it in the near
future. This was followed by another infomercial about a
wireless charging gadget. Voiced by the same presenter it went on about how
all batteries are a load of crap, there's not a good
one on the planet, and only a half-wit would every use anything that was
battery powered. I wonder if the makers of these two adverts realise this presenter is clearly happy to say that shit is sugar if paid enough. I watched an episode of "Shameless"
then had a quick look at the Internet. There's a particular group I follow on
Facebook. Ostensibly offering help on garden ponds to beginners it seems to
be filled with keyboard warriors who wait for someone to admit to ignorance,
and then make a point of trying to humiliate them. I wonder what these people get out of it? Half a dozen different (and unconnected)
friends had also posted various seemingly random photos on their Facebook
pages all with the caption "if you know, you know". I had no
idea what any of them were talking about; I certainly didn't know. I set off to work. As I drove down the road the bin
lorry was coming up the other way. Rather than deliberately parking in the
middle of the narrowest part of the road to deliberately obstruct the
traffic, today the bin lorry had done the decent thing and pulled over to one
side where there was space to pass. What was that all about? As I drove the pundits on the radio were
interviewing the head honcho of Google UK who didn't really come over as well
as she might have done. She made great show of how her company (and she
personally) took great pains to ensure that smut and lies were kept off
the internet. And then shot herself in the foot by admitting that because of
end-to-end encryption no one has any idea what nonsense is being posted
on-line until someone else makes a complaint. And there was talk of how much the government is
spending on housing asylum seekers, and how the government is going to stop
using hotels and start using
tents to house them. On the one hand I have nothing but sympathy for
people fleeing persecution and running for their lives. But on the other hand there are plenty of safe places that they run through
on their way to the UK. Meanwhile rather than sending a whole load of top secret stuff to the Americans, the Ministry of Defence has emailed it to the Russian's best friends
instead. Whoops! Mind you it turns out that the Americans have made
the same
mistake themselves... I wonder if anyone will get sacked over this? Somehow I doubt it. Work was work; I came home and took the dogs down to
Orlestone where (unusually) the woods were
crawling with dogs that couldn’t be trusted off of
the lead despite being a mile into the wood. The puppies ran toward the first
pair that we saw and those dogs started snapping and
snarling and growling and straining at their leads. I blew the whistle and the pups came straight back. We took a turn
off from the path into the woods away from them, and as we went so the people
with the nasty dogs started a serious argument. “Why can’t you train our
dogs to do that… did you see how good they were… our dogs are an
embarrassment…” I did feel rather smug. Five minutes later I heard a fuss behind me. “F..k! F..k! F..k! F..k!”
some thug was shouting as his greyhound and the puppies were sniffing each
other. Again I blew the whistle; again my dogs came
to me. “Thank f...k for that” announced the
thug, who then walked up to his dog, put it on a lead and walked off in the
opposite direction. And just as we came toward the final stretch of the
walk we met grannie, two children and two dogs. The puppies went to say
hello; their dogs said hello to the puppies. All was heigh, ho, pip and dandy (to coin a phrase) when grannie
loudly announced that she would let this gentleman and his dogs come past as
her dogs are very scared. The children with her commented that the dogs
weren’t scared at all (clearly they
weren’t). Grannie announced that the dogs were scared whether they looked
it or not. I blew the whistle and the puppies came
away. Grannie’s dogs wanted to come too… If you aren’t going to let your dogs
off of the lead there are plenty of places to take
them. To the beach, to the park… why go where you know you are going to have
the arse with dogs that *can*
be trusted off the lead? |
|
29 July 2023
(Saturday) - Garden Party
I
woke to the sound of the forecast rain. Many years of sleeping in tents has
set up a Pavlovian reflex in me in that waking to the sound of rain
immediately sets off a sulk. A double sulk today as today’s dog club had been
cancelled as there was renovation work going on in the field we use. I made toast and had my usual look at the internet.
It was still there. Some friends had posted photos of their holidays. As
always those who regularly plead poverty were on rather impressive hollibobs. I found myself missing the Facebook friendship
of an old mucker’s ex- who would regularly tell the world how poor she was
either from her half-million-pound house or from her four
month long tours of Europe, and how she couldn’t afford her daughter’s
twelve thousand pound school fees. I wonder whatever happened to her? The doorbell rang; the Iceland delivery was on the
doorstep. Far more prompt than we’d expected; the sound of the doorbell woke
the dogs. With no dog club to drive to we tuned in to Steve on
the radio via the internet and I immediately narrowed the mystery year down
to some time in the 1990s. Eventually when I had to
commit I was right with 1997. And
then I decided that idiot enthusiasm always (occasionally) trumps
common sense and I set up the garden in readiness for a garden party. As I
heaved and strained I messaged with “Daddy’s
Little Angel TM”. Reluctantly we came
to the conclusion that she was going to have to miss the party because
of the train strike. Several other friends also cried off because of the
train strike. Everyone asked the same question: what do the strikers hope to
achieve? The answer is clear; they will get their own way. Rather like my
small grandson when he has a hissy fit, if he shouts and screams and
generally misbehaves he (sometimes) gets what
he wants. The railways are much the same. By being generally bloody-minded
with no regard for anyone but self, a train driver in his first year earns
far more than my boss’s boss despite years of study, training
and experience. Despite the train strike we had a good afternoon in
the garden. It was good to catch up with friends we see far too infrequently/
The afternoon raced away, but (as always) I
took a few photos during the afternoon. I had a really good
afternoon; really must do this again… |
|
30 July 2023 (Sunday)
- Before the Night Shift
As
the washing machine did its thing I peered into the
internet this morning. There were several people posting about yesterday’s
garden party. Everyone who got along seemed to have had a good time (I
certainly did), some had other commitments which stopped them getting
along, some had been personally stuffed up by the train strike. But there
were over forty people who had been invited along from whom I’ve heard
nothing. Did they not see the messages? I’ve organised events in the past
through Facebook Events and had similar. Perhaps I need a better way of
contacting people? There was a rather impressive squabble on one of the
Sparks-related Facebook pages; someone had started posting various puzzles
the answer to which were songs by Sparks, and so many people were grumbling
that the answers were songs more than five years old… Quite bitterly
grumbling. I got the garden-full of chairs, tables and shelters
disassembled and put away, hung out the washing and then sat and scoffed
left-over cake as I read more of Adrian Mole’s secret diaries. Have you ever
read all of them? I realise that Adrian Mole is a
fictitious made-up character, but I’ve always felt that the author tired of
her creation. Toward the end she was particularly nasty to poor Adrian. “er
indoors TM” went off to see
her mum; I went to bed. I stayed in bed for a couple of hours, seemingly
constantly shouting at Treacle who was seemingly constantly barking for
absolutely no reason whatsoever. I eventually got up and watched an episode of “Shameless”
during which Treacle was absolutely silent. Mind you as I’d slept it had been raining very hard.
There had been a geo-meet this afternoon not a million miles from work which
had sadly been rained off. “er
indoors TM” is boiling up
dinner, and then I’m off to the night shift in a bit. Today was dull. But at
least the rain came today. Today was dull, but yesterday had been rather
good. |
|
31 July 2023 (Monday)
- So Tired
In
between doing work last night I re-read old diary entries. On 25 March 2012 I
wrote about night shifts" "Best described as hours of boredom
interspersed by moments of panic... I've always said that I don't mind night
work. I don't, but I really have to qualify that
statement. I don't mind the actual night work itself, but I hate spending the
day before the night shift sulking at the thought of having to do the night
shift. It's never anywhere near as bad as I expect it to be;
I just resent the fact the I have work to look forward to. I'd rather get up
each morning and go straight to work". And that really summed up yesterday for me. I really
did just pootle about killing time before going to
work. And (just as I said) the shift was nowhere near as bad as I
expected it to be. But I was still glad when the early shift came in. As I drove home the pundits on the radio were
looking to make an argument with some government spokesman or other. Despite
the government’s green targets, there are still plans to use fossil fuels for
some years yet. Totally in line with these published plans, the Prime
Minister has announced it is far more sensible to use fossil fuels from the
North Sea (the supply of which the UK controls) rather than stuff from
Russia (which can be and has been turned off at a moment’s notice). And there was talk of Andrew Malkinson.
Having been in prison for seventeen years for a crime he did not commit he
was found innocent by the appeal court last week and released. And now he’s
been billed for the cost
of keeping him inside. How is that fair? I got home and went to bed where I slept until the
Amazon driver came. Having been happy to leave deliveries on the doorstep for
ages, today he made a point of knocking. Loudly. I needed to get up anyway. I made a rather late brekkie and had a look at the
Internet. It was still there. Two friends had a birthday today – I sent out
the birthday video (as I do). Not a lot else was going on so seeing a
break in the rain I took the dogs round the block. Ideally a trip to the
woods would have been good, but the forecast was rain
all day, and we’d come home wet and muddy. We had a totally uneventful walk round the block,
but we did see quite a few grown men pedalling
about on children’s bikes. What is it with riding a bike that is far too
small for you these days? With nothing else on the agenda
I spent the afternoon doing the ironing, and with that done I sat on the sofa
and stared at the telly. “er indoors TM” sorted
dinner then went bowling, and I carried on staring at the telly. Sleeping, ironing, telly… As I said I don’t mind the
night shift, but the day before it is spent in a sulk, and more and more the
day after is spent in a zombie-like stupor as I’m fit for nothing. Mind you there’s not *too* many night shifts
before semi-retirement… I wonder if I can weasel my way out of night shifts
when I go part time? |
