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1 June 2021 (Tuesday)
- A Dull Day
I often mention about having an early night.
I actually had one last night. Ten hours working in
the garden on a rather hot day had taken its toll. I slept until three
o’clock then lay awake for a couple of hours before giving up and getting up. Over brekkie I watched last week’s episode of
“Alan Partridge”. For all that I whinge about the show, I do like it.
In today’s episode Alan confronted a cyber-troll. His had me thinking for
much of the day. I moan and grumble here, but do I troll? I hope not. Overnight pretty much nothing at all had
happened on Facebook. I had no emails of note, so I spent a couple of minutes
doing the admin on the Munzee clan war thing. Over
the last year I’ve been the admin for a Munzee clan
(it’s a team thing) but I seem to have lost
interest, the fun has gone out of it, and to keep up with the requirements
I’m having to spend money on it. Someone else is taking over and I’m taking a
step back this month. I set off to work. As I walked down the road
a cyclist pulled up next to me and started chatting. Having said "Hello
Dave" he clearly knew me. Under the face mask and cycle helmet I had
absolutely no idea who it was. I made polite conversation and pondered on who
rides down my road (heavily disguised) at half past seven in the
morning. If whoever it was is reading this, sorry I didn't recognise you. I eventually found where I'd left the car, and headed off to work. As I drove the pundits on the
radio were talking about our Prime Minister's surprise wedding that took
place last Saturday. As always it is "Good Old Boris"
as he gets away with that which no one else ever could. People who have been
divorced aren't supposed to be allowed to re-marry
in Catholic churches, are they? Apparently in very specific it is
possible to twist the teaching of the Catholic church so that they can. One
live and learns. What amazes me though is why the monarch is
legally forbidden to be Catholic, but there's nothing stopping a Prime
Minister being one. There was also some stark staring nonsense
about how scientists are re-naming the various strains of the COVID-19 virus
after letters of the Greek alphabet. Apparently calling strains "Indian"
or "Kent" was inciting
hate crimes against minorities. It was claimed that the Indian government
have got the right arse about the current most
virulent strain being labelled "Indian". I got to work and had a rather busy day, but
busy is good. It was just a shame it was so hot, but that's global warming
for you. I had to stay an hour late this evening (that wasn't so good
though). Regular readers of this drivel may recall I recently got stuck
in a traffic jam on the motorway for several hours, and I needed to make up
time for having rolled in late. I suppose the boss is right in saying that I
must do this. Back when I was the boss this was the sort of thing to which I
would turn a blind eye... and looking back the staff at the time took the piss big-time over things like that. Over the last few years I've been told by some of them that they never knew
how good they had it until someone else took over from me. I had hoped that leaving work an hour later
this evening might have made for quieter roads on the way home. There was
less traffic, but that which was on the motorway was seriously delayed by one
lorry moving at forty miles an hour in the slow lane which was being
overtaken by another lorry going at forty-one miles an hour. I wonder if this will happen again
tomorrow – I’ve got to do an extra hour then too. And in closing, today is something of an
anniversary. When I first started writing this rubbish it was on the Yahoo
360 platform. After two and a half years (in June 2009) Yahoo closed
the entire 360 thing down and so bloggers across the
world had to go elsewhere. Today marks twelve years of my rantings being
hosted by Google. Thank you Google! |
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2 June 2021
(Wednesday) - Another Dull Day
Having spent much of yesterday feeling rather
grim I slept like a log and woke this morning feeling better than I had been,
but still not one hundred per cent. Taking care not to wake Sid I made
brekkie and scoffed it whilst watching an episode of “Hardy Bucks” in
which our heroes were something of a disappointment to all and sundry. I then had my morning’s rummage round the
Internet. It was fairly peaceful this morning with
no squabbles kicking off. My in-box was also dull; the only email of note was
from the Neighbourhood Watch people telling me of local crimes. I say “local”;
there was only one crime which could be considered “local”. All the
rest of them have happened miles away. Which was probably for the best. As I drove to work the pundits on the radio
were interviewing one of the head honchos of Cumbria's chamber of commerce.
They had been looking forward to the end of lockdown restrictions until it
became clear that the entire area is very dependent on tourism. Apparently there isn't a single hotel or pub in the entire
area that is able to fill its vacancies and they won't be able to handle the
expected influx of tourists. Having been used to an abundant supply of
eastern European staff prepared to work for minimum wage, the hospitality
industry is now pretending to be surprised that Brexit has persuaded most of
these people to go home. And (you couldn't make this up) having been
instrumental in making all those workers want to go home, Wetherspoons boss
Tim Martin is now asking them all to
come back again. There was also talk about how the costs of
veterinary treatment is going through the roof as so many veterinary
practices are being bought out by private
equity companies. It was claimed that pet owners are being faced with
ridiculously high bills as a result. I must admit I'm glad someone has
recognised the problem. In his last few weeks Fudge ran up a bill of over two
thousand pounds. Just as I got to work so my phone pinged.
Gordon had tagged me in a memory. Five years ago
today he and I (and dogs) had walked round the Biggin Hill area and
he'd sent me a lovely picture of me and Fudge. That set me off... Fudge
liked seeing Gordon and Norton. For all that he was a rather independent
Tripe Hound, Fudge always recognised his friends. He used to get very excited
when he saw Gordon and Norton whenever we met. I miss our mid-week meet-ups. About the only
thing I don't like with my current job is I don't get quite so much time off
mid-week to go walking. On the other hand one of the many things I do like about my current job is the amount of
cake that goes with it. Today was a cake day. I was rather pleased about
that. With er indoors TM” off
visiting “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” I was left home alone
this evening. Usually I’d forage for dinner up at
the KFC, but tonight I wasn’t feeling in a KFC sort of mood. I made some
toast and quietly watched a few episodes of “Hardy Boys”. I wonder if
I’ve still got sunstroke (or “sun poisoning” as my cousin called it on
Facebook yesterday). Yesterday was dull… so was today. |
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3 June 2021 (Thursday)
- Late Home (Again!)
After a rather restless night I tried to make
some toast. The toaster was particularly uncooperative this morning.
Decoratively the thing can’t be bettered, but functionally it leaves a lot to
be desired. Eventually it warmed a couple of slices of bread sufficiently and
I scoffed them whilst watching an episode of “Hardy Bucks”. The internet was interesting this morning.
Someone had posted on the “Historic Hastings” website asking about a
particular house and as the thread developed someone asked why the area where
I played as a child was called the “Arvy Tarvey”. I never remembered it being called that.
Isn’t this one of the wonderful things about history though? No one really
has any idea what happened – you can just make up stuff like this and no one
quibbles. There was also some
posts about how managers in a place where I used to work are so pleased that
some of the volunteers who do vital work for them have received the Queens
Award for Voluntary Service, Using herculean restraint I didn’t say anything,
but there is a place for voluntary work and it *isn’t* in healthcare.
I can remember when this bunch of volunteers were first given the job they
do. I can remember the chap who was made redundant because someone offered to
do his job for free. As I’ve said before, no government of any political party
isn’t going to fund anything (hospitals, schools, public services) all
the time someone else is already paying for it. For example
look at the hospice where my mother died. Two thirds of their income is from
donations where the government has realised that someone else will pay for
the place. I sent out birthday wishes to “Daddy’s
Little Angel TM” and set off to work. Before going to my car
this morning I popped round the corner. A day or so
ago someone had dumped some wooden boxes by the side of the road. Yesterday I
had a stroke of genius about how I might use them to fix the knacked wooden
boxes in the garden that I built a few years ago. However
in the meantime someone else had snaffled them. Oh well... You snooze, you
lose. As I drove to work the pundits on the radio
were still obsessed with coronageddon. There
was an interview with someone or other who claimed to be a representative of
health workers (doesn't everyone claim that !). She was rather concerned
that the face masks that thousands of hospital workers wear don't actually
protect the wearer against the particulate droplets that spread the COVID virus, or stop them from spreading them either. Well... this isn't news
is it? I can remember “My Boy TM” taking a huff on his
vape-stick-thingy, putting on one of these surgical masks and then gently
breathing out clouds of vapour which spread in all directions from the edges
of his face mask. And I've smelled plenty of farts
whilst wearing a mask myself. Explain that one, science!! (Unfortunately
for me, science has already done so) There was also talk about half the students
in full time education being unhappy with having to study on-line and not
wanting to
do distance learning. As a graduate of the Open University
I managed to do a degree via distance learning, and I also have a
post-graduate certificate in the delivery of teaching via distance learning.
There's a lot to be said for a style of learning which *doesn't*
involve sleeping in a lecture theatre (posh word for classroom) every
day. I did my degree (mostly) at home
whilst working full-time, and many people in my line of work also studied and
obtained post graduate qualifications whilst doing the same. As opposed to
studying full time which has you running up debts of tens of thousands of
pounds to get a degree which you never use. So many people see having a
degree as an end in itself. Why get
a degree? Do you actually want
to learn about something in great detail whilst still being able to go
about your daily life at home (like I did)? Or do you want to get vocational
qualifications (like many of my students did back in the day)? Or do you want a three-year-piss-up (which
many of my friends openly admit to having had)? I got to work, made myself a cuppa then as I
drank it one of the girls (just returned from maternity leave) told me
she was sorry to have heard about my dog's passing. That set me off. In the
seven weeks since he's gone, something or other has set me off several times
each day. Fortunately being sat at a microscope for
much of the day I could sulk about my dog in peace without anyone clucking
over me. And having made up the time lost the other weekend meant I got to go
home on time this evening. It was a shame I only drove two miles in the
direction of home before finding that the motorway was closed. With the
eastbound lane closed and all the eastbound traffic being diverted into
Maidstone I went west and took a rather convoluted route home via Snodland, Rochester and Faversham and got home an hour
late for the third time this week. If it had been any other day of the year I wouldn’t have minded do much but it would have been
good to have seen “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” on her
birthday. I came home to find the postman had been.
I’ve got an adoption certificate from the goat sanctuary. I’ve adopted
Natalie (my goat) for another year. Apparently. I must have set the
bank direct debit to carry on going when I set it up last year. I don’t mind
though – if I don’t set an example of goat care, who will? er indoors TM” boiled up a rather
good bit of dinner and we scoffed it whilst watching the latest docu-drama
about Anne Boleyn. The show starts off by saying it is based on truth and
lies. I suppose it has to; it really isn’t racist to
say that Anne Bolen wasn’t black… is it? |
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4 June 2021 (Friday)
- Early Shift
The alarm went off much earlier than usual
today (as I was on early shift) but I was
glad that it had done so. I had been embroiled in a nightmare in which I was
running a post-apocalyptic blood-testing laboratory which had been invaded by
the Church of England’s granny battalion which was looking for families for
the orphans they’d gone round collecting. For some unexplained reason the old
dears in the Church of England’s granny battalion then went psycho, the
orphans had then killed the grannies in self-defence, and I was left looking
after dozens of murderous angelic five-year-olds. Try doing that whilst
attempting to secure some Duffy-negative O Pos
blood (!) I blame that bottle of cheap white wine we
had last night. The sound of my phone (literally) saying “Get your
arse out of its pit” came as a blessed relief. Taking care not to wake Sid I made toast,
watched an episode of “Hardy Boys” then sparked up my lap-top. Overnight someone in cyber-space had been
fiddling. The Firefox browser had been updated, but in a novel break with
tradition it still worked. Most I.T. (so-called) upgrades involve
whatever it is that has been upgraded looking incredibly fancy,
but being far less able to do the job than it was before the upgrade. Facebook was mostly quiet this morning. There
were one or two grumbles on the fishing pages from people who hadn’t gone
fishing locally last night because of the weather forecast. They had the hump
because the forecast rain hadn’t happened, and those
who had gone fishing had had a really good night. Is it my imagination, or has weather
forecasting actually got worse? I can remember a
time when the BBC’s weather forecasting app used to be quite reliable, but
these days it really is rubbish. I can’t help but think that weather
forecasting should be discontinued until those producing the forecasts can do
so with some degree of ability. I sent out birthday wishes via Facebook, and
the wish got a “like” from the birthday girl at ten past six. Ten past
six!! On your birthday, Sarah?! I set off for work as I do. As I drove off
the first thing I heard on the radio was "and
that was Carthy with the sport" and I
breathed a sigh of relief. If there is one thing more boring that watching
sport it is listening to people droning on about it. Regardless of there not having
been any sport news at all, Radio Four have five minutes devoted to sport
every hour in which various windbags pontificate. If nothing has happened then they just speculate on the what-if and the
might-be It really is a waste of air-time. Why do they have it on? I
suppose (as always) I'm in the minority and most people do want to
hear the latest trivia, what-if and might-be about whatever obscure football
or cricket game has happened in some far-flung corner of the world. Mind you for all that sport news is dull, so
was today's world news. Pretty much nothing had happened in the world.
The pundits on the radio were trying to make a big thing about Portugal
having been moved to the "Amber
List" of holiday destinations and there were calls for the
government to postpone easing
lockdown restrictions, but what does anyone expect. Global pandemics go
over years. The morning's news programs often seem to be more suited to
blowing trivia out of all proportion (and then having forgotten all about
it in a day or so). Work was work. There was no cake, but an
early start made for an early finish. I’d been looking forward to the early
finish all week having planned to take the dogs to the woods, but the rain
was against that. However I was determined to make
the most of the heavy rain. The dogs have stunk of stagnant pond ever since “Daddy’s
Little Angel TM” walked them yesterday, so I had this plan
that a walk in the rain might wash them clean(er). It didn’t really. With Pogo and Treacle walked (if not
washed) I walked Sid. We didn’t go far as he wasn’t keen on the rain. We
spent five minutes walking up to the new barber’s shop on the corner and back
again. The new barber’s shop is odd. It seems to specialise in doing frankly
ridiculous haircuts on teenaged lads, but having
said that it never seems to be short of teenaged lads queueing up for frankly
ridiculous haircuts. er indoors TM” boiled up fish and
chips and we scoffed it whilst watching the last episode of “Anne Boleyn”.
Leaving aside the fact that Anne Boleyn wasn’t black there were one or two
other glaring problems. Like Anne having a clockwork clock twenty years
before the first one was invented. |
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5 June 2021
(Saturday) - Birthday Dinner
Over brekkie I watched the last episode of
the current series of “This Time” with Alan Partridge. I do like the
show even if I feel I’ve seen it all before. And as Sid snored
I peered into the Internet to see what I’ve missed. As I turned on Facebook it suggested I keep my
page up to date. The page it mentioned was the one about my old Boys Brigade
group. I set the thing up some time ago and it really hasn’t taken off like
I’d hoped. Realistically I should do something with it or delete it. I wonder
if I might do something with it. The 8th Hastings Boys Brigade
company started some time in the 1950s (I think)
and finally packed up about ten or so years ago (I think). I’ve got
quite a bit of the history from 1975 to 1984 covered, but I have no idea
about the rest. I wonder if I might tap up some of the other Hastings-related
Facebook pages to see if anyone else who was a member at other times might
have some memories and photos, and see if I can’t
record some history. I set off to work and really couldn’t be
bothered with the news this morning. Instead I got
out my Ivor Biggun CD collection and sang along
with “The Winker’s Album (misprint)”; amazing myself that I remembered
all the words of songs I’ve not sung in over ten years. Before I walked in to work
I popped in to the branch of Marks & Spencer in the hospital where I got
cakes and cookies for everyone. Had I known the price, I would have gone to
Sainsburys when I’d got petrol earlier. Marks and Spencer were (quite
literally) double the price of Sainsburys. A bag of five cookies that
costs a quid in Sainsburys was two quid in M&S. Mind you, everyone scoffed them anyway. As I worked so my phone beeped. Scratchleyu Saidmagomed had
sent me a friend request on Facebook. She (I think) wondered if I
would like to join her snapchat group of women who need a partner. I had the
option to join to get the women I want. Looking at Scratchleyu’s
chest I thought I might be well advised to give that sort of thing a miss. Work was work, I did my bit, and came home
singing along to another Ivor Biggun album. “More
Filth Dirt Cheap” is still funny forty years after I first heard it. Once home we settled the dogs, and I learned
something. Picking Sid up is a mistake as it worries him
and he pees everywhere. It is quicker to chivvy him into where you want him
to go than it is to move him and then clear the pee. We went through several frankly ridiculous
COVID precautions; it is amazing how people who know nothing about infection
control have completely misunderstood what is actually
quite simple precautions. The waitress came to take the order…Seeing
that they had Wainwright’s ale in bottles I asked for one of those. That
caused confusion when she could not understand the difference between “Wainwrights”
and “White Wine”. So I walked up to the bar,
pointed at the bottle and asked if they had any that hadn’t been in the
fridge. The spotty oik masquerading as a barman then got involved and (rather
aggressively) said that anything in a bottle has to
be in the fridge. And then a manageress came over and said that she agreed
that ale shouldn’t be in the fridge but it had to be
because of health and safety requirements (!) It was only a shame that my credit card got
declined when I came to pay. I slept most of the way home. Once home I
walked Sid round the block whilst er indoors TM” took Pogo
and Treacle to the co-op field, then called up the bank to find why my credit
card had been declined earlier. They had no record of the thing having been
given the thumbs-down. Apparently if I try again in five days’ time they might have an answer for me… I’m not impressed… |
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6 June 2021 (Sunday)
- Bit Dull Really
I did snigger when I took Sid out into the
garden this morning. Not-so-nice-next-door was lurking on the other
side of the fence and when she realised we were
outside so she increased her volume incredibly. Sid didn’t react – he’s all
but deaf. (Pogo and Treacle would have kicked off, but they were fast
asleep). As we went back inside so she went quiet again. I’m sure she’s
done this before recently. Am I being paranoid, or has she really taken to
lurking behind the fence trying to provoke a reaction from the dogs? As I scoffed my toast
I saw that the friend request (on Facebook) from Scratchleyu
Saidmagomed was still active. The Facebook Feds
don’t move with any alacrity to deal with the iniquity of those promoting
wanton nudey prod games, do they? Not much else had happened on Facebook
overnight so I spent a while solving geo-puzzles. I’d found a few to solve,
but the were let down by rather ambiguous formulae.
(Have you ever been let down by an ambiguous formula? – it can be
something of a disappointment). For example what
is the answer to 5*4-2+1? I’ve got a degree in maths and so I know what I
think it should be, but few people have ever heard of the mnemonic "Please
Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally" (parentheses, exponents,
multiplication, division, addition, subtraction) and so in this case the
answer could be 19, 11, -2, 15, or pretty much anything at all. Or what is
meant by 6-4/2? Is that (6-4)/2 or 6-(4/2). The answer here could be either 1
or 4. Perhaps not the most important issue in the world, but when you are
dependent on getting the sums right for geo-purposes this is the difference
between doing the happy dance and rummaging in someone’s back garden. Unfortunately it has been my
experience that trying to explain the error of the ways of the puzzle-setter
is tantamount to asking for a fight, so I just tried various permutations
until I got the green light from the geo-checker until my nerves could stand
no more. I ran round the garden with the lawn mower,
then rescued a bee. The poor thing had fallen into some water in one of the
buckets in the garden. Using a spoon I fished it
out, then offered it some sugary water (that’s what all the books say to
do). It slurped the sugary water, then flew off. I saw that as a minor
result. er indoors TM” and I
then took the dogs out for a little walk. Usually
we’d go on a geocaching extravaganza at the weekend, but the chief dog-wrangler
had other things to do today. We didn’t go very far, and I didn’t take any
photos today. We just walked through some woods and along some lanes, and
then came home where we washed the mud and stagnant pond water off of the dogs. And with dogs walked our phoned beeped.
Charlotte (chief dog wrangler)’s “other things to do” today had
been a karate grading, and she’d passed. She’s now got a black belt at
karate. I’m rather impressed at that. We had croissants and coffee, then I made a
start on my next water feature. Not much of a start but I got the timber
painted. You’d be surprised how long it takes to get timber painted;
especially when dogs are trying to “help” by sitting on whatever it is
you are trying to use. er indoors TM” boiled up a very
good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching “Ade in Britain”
in which Adrian Edmondson was in Cheshire making cheese and making jam and
charming worms. If anyone else was presenting the show it would be dire in
the extreme, but he somehow brings it to life. Whilst er indoors TM” tuned
into a Zoom meeting, I had a little look at my new Wherigo project. It is
pretty much ready to go… but for it to go live, other geocaches have to go. There are those who peruse the geo-map, see
the old ones go, and then go out looking for the new ones to claim the First
to Find before they are published. You would be amazed at just how much
offence such a seemingly insignificant thing like
that has caused in the past. Whilst it is (arguably) within the strict
interpretation of the rules, it certainly isn’t within the spirit of the
rules. I shall hold off on removing the old geocaches until the last minute,
and once the new ones are in place I shall visit
them until publication. If there is any shenanigans
I shall blow what is a rather trivial matter out of all proportion on the
geocaching websites. Probably... |
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7 June 2021 (Monday)
- Before the Night Shift
Finding myself wide awake far earlier than I
needed to be I kicked er indoors TM” out of bed and we
drove the dogs down to Orlestone Woods. As we drove
the pundits on the radio were talking about the birth of Prince Harry’s daughter Lilibet. A very interesting choice of name from
someone who supposedly doesn’t want to be a Royal any more.
It is amazing how far that Prince Harry has fallen. From “national hero”
to “bit of a twit” in such a short time. I blame his new wife who
clearly knows all about how she thinks celebrities should behave,
but knows nothing at all about being Royal. It was then announced
“over to (whoever) with the sport” and it was only as I parked the car
that I realised I’d stopped listening to the radio some time ago. We had a good walk round the woods. The mud
that was there last week had dried out. The stinging nettles were five feet
high, but they weren’t bothering us. We walked our usual circuit and (apart
from the obligatory odd loner in the car park) we only saw one other
person. We exchanged pleasantries with the little old lady with the Jack
Russel and the poodle. I would say it was a good walk, but having wallowed in
a stagnant swamp, Treacle then mired herself in fox poo. We came home where it didn’t take *that*
long to wash her off. Usually on a morning before the night shift I
would fiddle about in the garden mowing the lawn and pulling weeds and
generally pootling, but I did most of that yesterday. Instead
I went straight to writing up
the CPD. Dull, but a necessary evil. I then spent a little while looking at the
geo map planning possible future walks and playing Candy Crush Saga, and with
er indoors TM” going off for her second COVID jab I went to
bed for the afternoon. er indoors TM” is currently
cooking pie and chips, then I am off to the night shift. I don’t mind night
shifts (he said!) but I do feel I waste a day
sitting round waiting to go to work… |
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8 June 2021 (Tuesday)
- Tired and Hot
A little while ago I stashed some cheese
& onion crisps in my locker at work in case I
got hungry at any stage. Last night at three o’clock I was a tad peckish so I scoffed them. They tasted awful, and as I
threw the bag away I saw that they were billed as “best
before November 2020”. I’ve had a stomach ache
that has lasted all day… Last night’s night shift reminded me of
exactly what time of year it is. In years gone by we
would take cubs camping in late May, and would go camping in early June.
Scorching hot days; bitterly cold nights. I was glad when the early shift rolled in.
Mind you, what’s in a name? An early shift is definitely “early” when
you are starting before eight o’clock in the morning. However
having been at work for eleven hours, eight o’clock in the morning seemed
rather late to me. As I got into my car the pundits on the radio
were having a rather impressive argument. It would seem that all sorts of
respected organisations (including University College London, Channel 4,
the Equality Commission, the university of Winchester to name four) are leaving
Stonewall’s Diversity Champions program. Are
they? So it was claimed. Why? I have absolutely no
idea. I *think* it was something to so with trans rights (?) There was some chap called Ben Cohen being
interviewed about the matter. I don’t know who he is, but he was having
something of a rant. He utterly failed to justify whatever position he was
trying to take (I have no idea what he was trying to say) as he rather
rudely told the interviewer that white middle-aged men (like him and me!)
have to respect the position of minorities, and implied that somehow we are fundamentally unable to do so because we
don’t claim to be part of any minority. I don’t pretend to understand
anything about the whole “trans” thing. Perhaps I’m showing my age.
But given the chance to educate me, yet again I was just aggressively told “you
don’t understand!!” I turned off the radio and sang along to rude
songs from my Ivor Biggun CDs for the rest of my
journey home. Once home I went to bed. Pogo came up and
slept with me. More and more since Fudge has gone, Pogo is seeming to be
becoming “my dog”. After four hours it was too hot to sleep. I
got up and tuned into Facebook where the Facebook Feds had sent me a message.
Regular readers of this drivel may recall that on Saturday I got an invite to
a live-action Snapchat nudey prod fest
extravaganza. Despite my having reported it, the advert for wanton
pornography is still active on Facebook, and the Facebook Feds had sent me a
message telling me that that they “only take down content that goes
against our standards. We review and update our standards regularly, with the
help of experts”. Clearly their experts are morally lax… I spent the afternoon doing ironing and
watching episodes of “Four In A Bed”, then walked Pogo and Treacle
round the co-op field. Ideally I would have liked to
have done a bit more of a walk, but it was far too hot. This ongoing heatwave doesn’t bode well for a
few days off work… |
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9 June 2021
(Wednesday) - Start Of My Holiday
Usually having done a night shift makes for a
good night’s sleep, but I was up for the loo at two o’clock,
and was taking Sid out at five o’clock. I finally got up shortly after eight o’clock,
did another COVID test (my fiftieth negative one) and then peered into
the Internet. Regular readers of this drivel may recall my message from the
Facebook Feds yesterday who had found nothing wrong with my having been given
invites to mucky Snapchat groups. I contested their decision yesterday, and
this morning they told me they had reviewed their decision and that I was
right. Inviting random strangers to “do the dirty deed” *is*
morally lax. I’ve found that the Facebook Feds
generally ignore the first complaints, but actually do act on the second one. I was about to take Pogo and Treacle out, but
little Sid was watching me intently. He really was asking for a walk, so I
took him first. We don’t go very far, and we certainly don’t go very fast,
but he does love his little bimble up to Dan-Dan’s
and back. Once back I then did a dog-swap and took Pogo
and Treacle out. Singing along to one of my Ivor Biggun
CDs I drove the dogs out to Godinton where a
geocache of mine had gone missing. I replaced it, and we had a little wander.
As we walked so Pogo started barking at a dog coming toward us. Seeing that
this dog was the size of a large cart-horse I put
both dogs on their leads and made them sit as the dog walked past. Unfortunately this dog was being supervised by a half-wit
who made a point of bringing his dog nose-to-nose with Pogo, and who acted
surprised when Pogo reacted. As I explained to the half-wit, I don’t doubt
his dog is fine, However Treacle can be nervous at the best of times, and seeing
how large his dog was, my two were terrified. This really did come as a
revelation to the half-wit (bless him) who was so confident about how
well-behaved his dog was that he had never considered how other dogs might
feel. We came home, and I then got on with a little
project I’ve been planning for a month or so. During the first May Bank
Holiday I took apart the water feature that had been in an old whisky barrel.
The whisky barrel was on the poggered side and
needed replacing. Last week I bought all the ingredients for the barrel’s
replacement, and today I put them all together. I started off by sawing two planks into eight
shorter planks and screwed them all together. I then cut the chicken wire and
metal grille into shape (to support the stones), then sawed another
plank into four small planks (for the top deck), then put that lot all
together. Pausing only briefly for the blood flow to stop (saws are
dangerous things!) I then got out “My Boy TM”’s tile
cutter. It didn’t so much “cut” the tile (for the waterfall)
as “snap” it, but I managed to hide the dodgy edge. A quick coat of
paint, then I scraped the shingle out of the way, got it all into place,
washed the stones, put it all together and I was quite pleased with the
result. I
took a few photos as I worked. It only took me about six hours. I suspect
that I could have done it far quicker if I knew what I was doing, but I had
fun doing it. And I’ve (sort of) got the unique water feature that I
wanted rather than some generic thing that everyone else has bought from the
garden centre. I can remember being at secondary school when
my mates at the secondary modern school were taught carpentry and all sorts
of other useful stuff. I wasn’t. I was taught Latin. At the time I asked our
form master why we didn’t learn carpentry and handycrafts
and other useful stuff… he said that as a grammar school alumnus I wouldn’t
be expected to get my hands dirty; the expectation was that I would pay
people to do that sort of thing for me. That never came off, did it? But if
you’ve got a dead Roman with whom you’d like a conversation, I’m your man. Once this pandemic is but a memory I’d like to do some adult education classes in
carpentry. I enjoy doing it but I can’t help but
think that I might be so much better at it if I didn’t just make it up as I
went along. And talking of adult education, er indoors
TM” boiled up a rather good bit of dinner,
and having given me orders to keep my trap shut she tuned into an
adult education Zoom class. She’s being taught how to make floral wreaths by
some woman with a rather irritating squawky voice. Matters aren’t helped by er
indoors TM” having obtained rather short sticks (which are
supposedly a fundamental part of the wreath). I’d take the line that size
is no guarantee of quality, and I’d be more concerned that Treacle has chewed
(and still is chewing) pretty much every plant-related thing that is
supposed to be going into the floral wreaths. But having been given orders to
keep my trap shut, I’m not saying a word… |
|
10 June 2021
(Thursday) - Some Rants
Yesterday evening my lap-top
told me it wanted to update its LiveSafe Vulnerability Scanner. I told it
that if that is what floats its boat then it should pursue its dreams. When I
went to bed it had got half-way to updating itself. However
when I got up this morning it had got no further at all. I told it that it
had had its chance and blown it nd stopped the
attempt at updating. It can try again later. As I peered into the Internet this morning I rolled my eyes at the “Ashford Kent Read All
About It” Facebook page. It is a strange place in cyber-space in which
residents of Ashford band together to say how bad the place is despite hardly
any of them having visited (let alone lived) anywhere else. Someone
was griping on about how unpleasant a view you get when coming out of the
train station. I always thought it looked fine; certainly
better then the view on leaving Folkestone or
Hastings stations? And someone else was whining that their daughter had been
mocked by a gaggle of children in the park. Doesn’t that entirely sum up
today’s society. If someone rips the piss you go
tell your mum who whinges on Facebook. When I was a lad if other kids picked
on me in the park I’d slap them in the chops, and
they didn’t pick on me again. I was also presented with an advert for a
course which would supposedly teach me to speak Welsh In a week. I live in
Kent – what relevance is this to me? I went to Wales a few years back. On a
week’s holiday I only once heard Welsh being spoken. Some old chap said
something or other to which a small girl immediately replied
“Please don’t talk in Welsh Granddad, no one understands it.” I got Pogo and Treacle onto their leads and
we went out. As I drove there was an interesting discussion on the radio.
Some bloke who was once a woman (or was it the other way round?) was
furious that someone else had declared that the whole “trans thing”
offended their sensibilities. This someone had been sacked two years ago for
claiming that people cannot change biological sex and was going to an
industrial tribunal this morning to contest the sacking. The tribunal eventually ruled
that the dismissal had been wrong. It took pains to say that the ruling had
no bearing on trans rights at all, but both sides are claiming it as both a
victory and a defeat. I don’t really
understand the whole “trans thing” but I do feel it is being forced
onto me (via the morning radio) quite a bit at the moment. However I will make the observation that the trans
community don’t seem to realise that it is human nature to want to fit in to
a crowd (hence the appeal of being a football fan), and it is human
nature to be wary of anyone who is different in any way. I’m not saying that
it is right or wrong, but it is what people do. Take myself for example – when (a few
months ago) I was suddenly presented with a very attractive young lady
who only a few short months ago was a rather spotty young lad. At the time my
brain actually froze and I was (quite literally)
speechless. If that was wrong of me, then I can only apologise. We got to Hemsted
Forest and had a good walk. Some time ago one of my
geocaches out there had been chewed by a mouse. I replaced it today, and took
a rather circuitous walk back to the car park Once home I then spent three hours tidying
the shed. I say “tidying”; I pulled all the stuff out of the shed,
earmarked some of it for a tip run, and then put the rest back in again. I
suppose the shed is tidier in that I can actually get
into it now. I then spent ten minutes repairing the wooden
boxes that lurk outside the back door – over t he last few years the bottoms had got rather soggy and needed
replacing. er indoors TM” boiled up a very
good bit of dinner which we scoffed with a half-way decent bottle of red wine
whilst watching “Bake Off – The Professionals” and “The Great
British Sewing Bee”. I was once a professional chef (in 1981!) and
I’m not too shabby with a needle and thread. Not quite telly standard at
either, but enough that I can pontificate knowledgeably at the prowess of
people far better than me (in both shows). And in closing today I’m having something of
a sulk. The original plan for today had been to fly out to Gran Canaria for a family holiday. This was in lieu of last
year’s family holiday which got cancelled, and this year’s holiday has also
been cancelled. Hopefully all should be good for next year’s holiday… Will
it? Time will tell – it always does. |
|
11 June 2021 (Friday)
- Rather Busy
Finding myself wide
awake at far too early I couldn’t get back to sleep what with the bin men “quietly”
moving the bins about. Bearing in mind how hot the days have been lately I
thought I might make an early start. As I got dressed so Pogo and Treacle (and
er indoors TM”) snored. Was I going to walk on my own? I
rattled the dog leads and both Treacle and Pogo came running. We walked down the
road to the car… Literally down the road. The bin men had moved all the
recycling bins to where they would be ideally positioned for the bin lorry
which was following them (an hour or so later), but bins ideally
positioned for the bin men made the pavements impassable. Singing along to rude
songs on my Ivor Biggun CD we drove up to an empty
car park at Kings Wood, and started our walk at
quarter to six. I had received reports of three of my
geocaches needing attention, and so getting them sorted was the plan for the
morning. As is always the case, the ones that need attention were the ones
furthest from the road. Two of the ones that needed seeing to today were just
under two miles (as the crow flies) from the car park, and the third
was a mile away from them in a different direction. Usually Kings Wood is a
lovely place for a walk; today it wasn’t really. The bits through the trees
were pretty, but the thick fog had reduced the visibility in the open bits to
twenty yards at best. Walking several miles with only being able to see
twenty yards was rather dull. As we walked so the
dogs chased squirrels and were most indignant when the squirrels went up
trees. They also chased pheasants and again weren’t happy when the pheasants
went in a direction they could not follow; up. We could hear deer crashing
about in the undergrowth. Treacle wasn’t fussed about them but Pogo growled
at the sounds. As we rounded a corner three quarter round our walk we found ourselves twenty yards from a deer. It
looked at us and we looked at it. Both dogs growled uncertainly; they weren’t
at all sure what to make of it. We got back to the
car after an hour and three quarters having not met another soul. It made for
a good walk for this morning, but I have dogs that need a walk. However I couldn’t help but wonder if it really would have
caused a fellow hunter of Tupperware physical pain to have replaced the
missing caches. According to the rules, cache maintenance is up to the person
who hid the thing. But when you log “it ain’t
there” knowing full well that the one that ain’t
there is the furthest one from where you can park a car, you are asking
someone else to give up hours to sort out what you could sort out in seconds.
We got home just
before eight o’clock just as er indoors TM” was getting up.
We’d walked five miles and wanted a rest. I had second brekkie and took Sid
out for a bimble. He seemed to want to go, but he
soon became breathless, and he is getting progressively more and more unsteady
on his legs. With bimble bimbled we came home and Sid got a bath. He’d become rather smelly, but he
wasn’t al all keen on having a bath. I then spent a few
minutes scraping the weeds out of the cracks between the paving slabs in the
front garden. A passer-by suggested I might pour salt water into the cracks
to sort out the weeds. I need to do something, that’s for sure. I then mowed the
lawn. It’s a simple enough job *if* I do it regularly. er indoors TM” went off for some work
thing, and I watched seven of the eight episodes of the second season of “Love Death and
Robots”. er indoors TM” returned and we then gave
Sid a second bath and washed his bed as he’d had a little (big)
accident. I then went shopping.
To Aldi where I got some bottles for the weekend. They do have a decent ale
selection, but they also have women with faces like smacked arses on the tills. You certainly don’t feel they want you
to come back. From there I went to Matalan. Their trousers came in a range of
shapes. “Regular”, “Slim”, “Skinny” and “Super Skinny”.
As luck would have it, some spotty oik with a “manager” badge wandered
past and I gave him some stick. Keeping a straight face
I told him that this sizing criteria was discriminating against the more
rotund gentleman. As he blustered a rather pathetic apology
I told him that the next time I visited I expected to see the range expanded
to include “Fat Bastard”. He smiled nervously. I then field tested
my latest Wherigo project, and with successful field testing done, I put out
the caches for the project, came home and did the geo-admin. We had fish and chips
whilst watching the last episode of “Taskmaster” and then I fell
asleep in front of the telly. Today has been rather busy… |
|
12 June 2021
(Saturday) - Goodbye Sid
For various reasons “Daddy’s Little Angel TM”
hasn’t been able to have her dogs with her for a while, and we’ve been
looking after them. I found myself laying
awake listening for Sid this morning. Yesterday he had taken a serious turn
for the worse. He’s been as deaf as a post for ages, been incredibly unsteady
on his legs for some time now and had pretty much no control over his poops
for months. He’s been struggling to get up (without help) more and
more recently. Yesterday his bladder control went, and he
had been peeing blood too. This morning he was still laying on the puppy pad
we’d settled him on last night, and it was rather sodden in blood-stained
pee. I helped him up and helped him outside, but he was leaking blood-stained
pee as he went. I made a few phone calls. I drove down to Folkestone to collect “Daddy’s
Little Angel TM”, and we spent the morning sitting with Sid
waiting for the vet from the dog crematorium to arrive. She agreed that his
time had come and she did what vets from the dog
crematorium do. We shall miss Sid. He was quite the
character. I first met him on Tuesday 27 September 2011.Wanting to feed him,
“Daddy’s Little Angel TM” had found a tube of dog meat in
my fridge. She didn’t realise that the stuff was six weeks past its best and
that I was saving it to use as fishing bait, and consequently Sid ingratiated
himself into the family by dire-rear-ing all over
the lino. Unlike other family dogs Sid didn’t like
water; Sid couldn’t swim. Amazingly he was heavier than water and on two
occasions I actually watched him sink when he fell
into ponds. “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” pulled him out of our
garden pond, and I can remember pulling him from the depths of Singleton Lake
when he was two feet deep and slowly going down. Mind you he liked the beach
(keeping away from the sea) where he would eat sand if left
unsupervised. He would come on walks with family and
friends, but when he was tired he would stop. He
would stop dead and refuse to walk another step. On several occasions we
ended walks carrying Sid as he simply would not go any further. He was quite
a heavy lump to carry about. Sid was an accomplished camper and came along
on family camps and to kite festivals where he made the most of the holidays
– on one occasion when some key lime pie was dropped
he spent over an hour licking a patch of grass. He used to come tunnel-ratting back in the
day (when we used to explore the various tunnels in the chalk cliffs near
Dover); when our attention was on clambering in and out of where we
weren’t supposed to be, so Sid would take the opportunity to eat the poo of
whatever animals had been nearby recently. He *hated* having his paws touched
which was a problem as his claws grew so fast. I would take him to the
groomer for claw clipping and listen in frank amazement at the horrific
screams coming from such a small dog. He had a stop-watch stomach; on the stroke of
six o’clock he would go into the kitchen and start shouting for his dinner. He even featured in two geocaches (much to
the disgust of the most recent fruit of my loin) He was never my dog. He was only ever having
an extended holiday with us. I will miss him… |
13 June 2021 (Sunday) - A Bimble Round
Bobbing
Yesterday
had been rather stressful, but I was still awake far too early. Towards their
ends both Sid and Fudge had given up with the scrum of the bedroom,
preferring a little more space and sleeping downstairs. I came downstairs to
a very empty living room this morning. I made
toast, opened my third COVID-testing kit and did my
fifty-first (negative) COVID test. The website on which I register the
test results told me I had an eighty-eight per cent reporting performance
even though I’ve done a test every four days (without
fail) ever since I was first required to do one. How does that work? As I
scoffed the toast I watched the last episode of “Love,
Death and Robots”. Have you watched any of these shows? They are worth
the Netflix subscription themselves. I then
peered into the Internet. Over a hundred people had reacted to the photos of
Sid I’d posted to Facebook last night. Once I’d
stopped blubbing I had a look at the rest of
Facebook. I sent out birthday wishes to a family friend, and then rolled my
eyes when I saw that the LGBTQ community were making their presence felt on
the Facebook “Upstairs Downstairs” page. Don’t
get me wrong – I’m not bashing the LGBTQ community; just utterly amazed that
they felt any need to say anything when nothing needed to be said. And then I
had a flurry of emails. The Wherigo series that I put out on Friday had been
published. Or (to be precise) they’d been
published on geocaching dot com. In order for that
to happen they’d actually been published on Wherigo dot com late on Friday
afternoon, and a couple of people had realised that. Despite a
hot day forecast we got ourselves and the dogs organised and set off to
Sittingbourne. Karl and Tracey had planned to do a little geo-maintenance on
one of their series of caches today. Since they knew were all
of the geocaches were on their series (or knew where they were
supposed to be!), the idea was that this shouldn’t take as long as usual
and make for a shorter walk on a hot day. We soon got
to Sittingboune, parked on their driveway, and six
of us (and two dogs) set off. Today was rather hot, but we’d put the dog’s cooling bandannas into the freezer
before we left home, and (together with two litres of iced water) they
kept the pups cool. Mind you the hounds did find some cooling mud on the way. We
met a busybody landowner who was insistent that he told us where the footpath
went (even though we could clearly see the way). Like many landowners,
this chap didn’t want us using a public right of
way. We walked
through a solar farm where a remote-controlled drone seemed rather interested
in watching what we were doing. We saw a
buzzard and a heron and some oak-apples, and I got to climb a tree. The iced
water (for the dogs) just about held out, and we were soon in the back
garden having refreshing bottles of beer and cider. My first bottle got me
five badges on the Untappd app, but none of the others got me anything. After
a while the sun had moved round and we spent an
entertaining few minutes arranging a sunshade. I say “we”; the ladies
did all the work; I sat and offered sage advice (that was very helpful of me, wasn’t it?) We had
rather good pizza followed by rather good gateau, and as the afternoon wore
on and the heat subsided so the birds and the squirrels were all over the
feeders. We saw sparrows and coal tits. I *think* there were
greenfinches, and the bees were all over the foxgloves, but it all became
rather vague when the port came out.... I
took a few photos as we walked, and as we sat. Today was a rather good
day. Must do it again… |
|
14 June 2021
(Monday) - A Rather Hot Day
I slept
like a log last night. Bearing in mind the stress of Saturday and the amount
of ale I sank yesterday, that wasn’t really a
surprise. I got up,
and wrote yesterday’s blog, posted up photos to Facebook, and did all the
geo-admin for yesterday’s walk as I scoffed toast. That only took an hour or
so. As I started so I saw two new geocaches had gone live at twelve minutes
past seven. A little later I looked at the descriptions of these new caches.
One had been found thirty-five minutes after publication. Bearing in mind
that cache was a twenty-minute drive away (when the roads aren’t heaving with the morning rush hour), someone
had clearly sprinted out like a scalded cat desperate to get that First to
Find. And having got that First to Find had then flown off (obviously at
breakneck speed) to claim another First To Find only thirteen minutes
later at a church which was a ten-minute drive away. I had
another iffy friend request on Facebook this morning. “Bella Reekado” (who has a rather impressive chest barely
restrained by a rather saucy bra) wanted to my pal. Mind you, unlike the
average porn-monger, she wasn’t pushing any dodgy
websites. Just some saucy undercrackers and a friend request. I wasn’t having any of it though. If I don’t
take a moral stance, who will? Just as I
was pondering what to do with myself today so my
phone rang. It was “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” who had just
been told that Sid’s ashes were ready for collection. It took two weeks to
get my Fudge’s ashes back. Sid’s were ready in less than two days. er indoors TM” and I got
the dogs into the car and drove out to collect Sid’s remains. Much as the
vets were excellent with my Fudge, having had two dogs put to rest recently
it has to be said that Cherry Tree Gentle
Farewells is the way to go when the time comes. With Sid’s casket
collected we took it down to “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” who
was rather surprised at just how small it was. Leaving her
working we came home via some woods that we’d found.
It was getting warm, but if the dogs weren’t walked
they would just become unmanageable. We found some woods on our way home and
walked for about fifteen minutes. I offered them fresh water as we went. They
didn’t want fresh water, but yummed
up manky stagnant puddle water. We came
home, scoffed the last of yesterday’s pizza, then (despite the heat) I
loaded up my car with all the tat I’d mucked out of
the shed last week. It didn’t take long, but I was
worn out at the end of it. As er indoors TM” set about
tidying up the bedroom I pulled the curtains (to keep the heat out)
and settled down in front of the telly for an afternoon of “Four In A Bed”. With telly
finished, er indoors TM” went shopping. I stayed home for
my Amazon delivery. I plan to disguise the fish pond’s
filter later this week. I ordered the camouflage netting on Saturday on the “click
to get it by 10pm”. It arrived at six o’clock this evening; some
forty-four hours late. Mind you it is rare that I’ve
ever had an issue with Amazon so I shouldn’t grumble (too much). A
friend of mine is currently complaining over on Facebook that her Amazon
parcel has just been chucked over her garden wall into her fish
pond. er indoors TM” boiled up
a rather good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching the last episode
of “SAS: Who Dares Wins”. I like watching the show
but I certainly wouldn’t want to take part in it. I hope it
cools down tomorrow… |
|
15 June 2021 (Tuesday)
- Disguising A Filter
It was a rather warm night last night – I didn’t sleep that well. Being wide awake far too early (as
usual) I got up and over brekkie peered into the Internet. It was much
the same as ever. Despite the Prime Minister having extended the final phase
of lock-down last night, there seemed to be more interest on-line in Jodie
Whittaker not appearing on the cover of next year’s “Doctor Who”
annual. There was speculation that this was because she is leaving the
series. I’m wondering if this is because she was even worse in the role that
the one they wheeled on in the late 1980s
deliberately to kill the program off. I sparked up Magic Map to see if the woods we
found yesterday would be acceptable to the geo-feds for cache hides. I got
rather confused with Magic Map, and eventually asked Gordon for help. He
understands the Magic Map where I don’t. It didn’t take him long to work out that where I had planned
had scheduled monuments on it and so geocaches wouldn’t be allowed. Oh well… I then drove my car (with its full load of
rubbish) round to the tip. Ashford’s tip has this system where you have to book appointments to get shot of your rubbish.
There was an entertaining five minutes as the chap in the car directly in
front of me hadn’t booked an appointment, and he had
the right arse as the tip staff told him to go home and book an appointment
and escorted him out of the tip (with his car still full of rubbish). I came home, and with er indoors TM”
doing whatever it was that she was doing I went into the garden and made a
start on today’s project. We’ve had our garden pond
for fifteen years and we are on to our second pond filter. The filter does a
wonderful job, but it looks awful. A great big green box just sitting above
the pond, I had a plan to disguise it, and with the camouflage netting having
arrived yesterday I made a start on boxing the filter. Stage One was to
simply build a box around the filter. Despite breaking a drill bit, it didn’t take that long to build, and it took even less time
to find out I’d made it too small. By the time I’d
got the box to the right size er indoors TM” had finished
doing whatever it was that she was doing, so we got the dogs together and set
out on a little adventure. Pausing only briefly to collect Rolo (“My Boy TM” was having his boiler
serviced!) we drove the family wolf-pack down to Orlestone
Woods. Knowing it would be warm we chose Orlestone
because it has a lot of shade, and we took plenty of water for the dogs. Sadly nowadays we have a seriously diminished family
wolf-pack, but we had a good walk. We only saw one other group as we
wandered; a couple of old men who were brandishing some sort of large net
about. Were they catching butterflies? Pogo had seen them and wasn’t at all fussed about them until Rolo
went up to see what they were doing. Pogo then got very shouty; he is in no
way top dog (that has always been Rolo for all
that he is tiny) but Pogo does see himself as protector of the pack. Fortunately (like dear Sid used to) Rolo hates water so he came home
clean. However Pogo doesn’t mind a paddle, and
Treacle is the archetypal swamp-monster. They both found plenty of ditches in
which to wallow as we walked. So having taken Rolo
to his home we came home to bath time. As er indoors TM” scrubbed
the stagnant mud out of Pogo and Treacle’s fur I went back to the garden and
did Stage Two of disguising the fish-pond filter: I got the camouflage
netting onto the box I’d made earlier. Within minutes of my hammering the
netting into place so “not-so-nice-next-door” came into her garden and
made a point of making a lot of noise as she watered her plants. Now (I have to wonder) who waters their plants at the hottest
part of one of the hottest days of the year. Was she deliberately provoking
the dogs (again)? She did go indoors at the dogs’ first bark. I had this idea to neatly
arrange the netting over the box, but it didn’t go on as neatly as I’d
hoped. In the end I clouted in as many clout nails as I could and tied the
rest of it into place. With the camo-box in place it just looked like a
camouflaged fish pond filter rather than a plain
fish pond filter. But after a little judicious rearranging of the rockery it didn’t look too bad. Will the camo-box survive?
It has to be said that the thing was built with no
expense spent. I made it out of wood left over from when we had the roof done
and from the water feature I built last week, and
put it together with whatever screws I’d found when I tidied the shed a few
days ago. I then spent a few minutes generally pootling
in the garden. Cutting back the jungle that pours over the fence from “not-so-nice-next-door”
(I have asked her to pull it all back!) and pulling weeds from shingle
kept me occupied for a while. With er indoors TM”
Zoom-meeting her chums I turned on the telly and watched something I’d missed
recently. The second episode of the new series of “Inside No 9” was
rather good. I shall pretend that the series started with that episode, and
that what had been billed as the first episode was something else entirely… |
|
16 June 2021
(Wednesday) - Still Too Hot
Over brekkie I watched the third episode of
the current series of “Inside No 9”. It was really
good, thought-provoking, and I certainly didn’t see the twist at the
end. Utterly unlike the first episode of the series which I suspect had many
people turn off and not bother with the rest (which would have been such a
shame). Bearing in mind the weather forecast er
indoors TM” and I took the dogs out early today. She wanted to
hide some geocaches. I won’t say where and I didn’t
post any piccies to Facebook as we walked. There really are those who stalk
my movements in the desperate hope of getting a First to Find by seeing where
I’ve been (can you believe it?!). We walked
about two miles, we gave the dogs lots of water, but the heat was too much
for them. Both stopped to lie down and refused to go any further until they’d had a rest (twice). With walk walked I hung out a second load of
washing, then had a little look-see in the lock-ups.
I put up the event shelter and some tables (for later) and looked at
our metal camping tables. When I say “looked at”,
that is what I did. I looked at them. Over the years we have used them to
destruction. I really need to put them all up and salvage maybe two useable
tables out of the bits and throw the rest away. But I need a day which is not
baking hot in which to do it. I then ran out the hose and set up a paddling
pool for the dogs. They are funny things – they are straight into muddy
ditches and stagnant ponds but show no interest whatsoever in clean water. I straightened out the shingle by the pond (i.e. kicked it about to cover the weed-proof
membranes) then sat and watched the pond fish for a bit. One of them
looked to be swimming rather oddly. Is he sickening for something? As I
stared at the fish so er indoors TM” came up with an iced
caramel coffee. Very nice. By mid-day the
washing was dry, and it was too hot to be outside, so I set about the ironing
whilst watching episodes of “Four In A Bed” as I do. As always those
who were the most critical of others were the ones who were actually the poorest performers themselves. As the afternoon cooled so I went into the
garden and organised chairs and tables, and it wasn’t
long before “My Boy TM” and Cheryl arrived so we could
celebrate (if that is the right word) what would have been the last
evening of our foreign holiday. We had a rather good evening sitting in the
garden; having spent hours of effort on it over the last few months (and
over seven hundred quid) it was good to enjoy it. er indoors TM”
boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we washed
down with copious amounts of beer. Usually I’d be on
the ale, but what with the heat of the day I had something of a "strange
beer from the Polish shop" sort of evening. We sat and scoffed and drank up until ten to
nine when the forecast rain arrived (ten minutes early). We got most
of the chairs and tables and stuff into the shed; the event shelter can be
put away tomorrow once it dries out. |
|
17 June 2021
(Thursday) - On The Beach
Whilst tidying the bedroom recently er
indoors TM” found an old stereo and put it in place where the
old telly (that we never watched) used to be. Last night at the stroke
of midnight the thing started playing “Vienna” by Ultravox.
What with that and recurrent nightmares about recently deceased dogs I didn’t sleep very well. I di my
fifty-second COVID test (negative), made toast and peered into the
Internet. There was a row kicking off on the Facebook “Garden Ponds UK”
group. Some chap was claiming to have a “well established pond which had
space for any fish needing re-homing due to pond closures”. Other people
claimed he had a swimming pool he’d just set up and
was looking for free fish to sell at a profit on behalf of an Essex-based
aquatic company. But the row soon went beyond that which had provoked it and
the name-calling was quite impressive. And there was talk of John De Lancie appearing in Star Trek again next year. People
were complaining loudly since he has visibly aged since his last appearance
just over twenty years ago. Some people really will argue about anything. And talking about arguing about anything,
those who had been grumbling about the excessive heat of the last few days
were complaining about the heavy rain that had fallen overnight. That’s a really “British” thing to do, isn’t it? No
matter what the weather, it is always a cause for complaint. We got the dogs (and ourselves)
together and set off to Hastings to visit Dad and give him his Father’s Day
card and pressie. After we’d been driving for ten
minutes we turned round and came home to pick up his Father’s Day card and
pressie (which we had left behind). We got as far as Rye before having
to stop for the dogs to poop, and the then stopped two miles further on in
Winchelsea so that they could tiddle. Dad was well. We stayed for a cuppa, but the
dogs were rather fractious so we took them on to the
beach at Pett Level. Were dogs allowed there? We
had no idea so took pot luck and on seeing no “No
Dogs” signs we carried on. We had an excellent walk. The tide was out,
there was a sea breeze, and there was fog coming in from the sea. It was
nowhere near as hot as it has been recently. The dogs had great fun on the
beach and in the sea. As we headed home I
rather fancied a ploughman’s lunch so we took a rather scenic route up to Warehorne where I hoped that we might be able to get a
table at the Woolpack for lunch. The place was rather busy, but they had
tables free. er indoors TM” had fish and chips; I had a
cheese ploughman’s lunch with a couple of pints of their ale followed by a
crème brule. Very tasty. I took a
few photos whilst we were out. Once home we put away the event shelter
and then bathed the dogs. Having got covered in sand and salt at the beach
they had then got a good coating of mud from under the table in the pub
garden. I then dozed in front of the telly whist the
forecast rain didn’t fall. We scoffed the left-overs from last night for a bit of tea – we weren’t
hungry after the pub dinner. We watched Tuesday’s episode of “Bake Off;
The Professionals”, and slobbed in front of the
telly. I should have an early night – there is thunder forecast for three
o’clock. I wonder if it will happen? |
|
18 June 2021 (Friday)
- Escape Room
“Vienna” by Ultravox
again woke me at the stroke of midnight. I shall take the CD out of the
stereo tonight. I slept marginally better last night than I did the night
before, but only marginally. Over brekkie I peered into the Internet and
saw the row on the hunting Tupperware page was continuing. It seems to me
there are two sorts of people who have geocaching accounts. There are those
who actually go out and do the hobby (and whose
geo-score is consequently high), and there are those who only
occasionally do the hobby (often preferring to argue about it on-line
instead, and whose geo-score is consequently low). Those with low scores
always use the phrase “it’s all about the numbers” as some sort of
insult directed at those with a higher geo-score. It isn’t
an insult that works, though. If you are going to go on a geocaching walk
twice a month, bearing in mind that most walks have at least twenty caches on
them you would expect your geo-score to increase by about five hundred a
year. The chap mouthing off last night has found two hundred in eighteen
months, less than twenty this year, hidden none of his own, and (like most
keyboard warriors) never actually been to a meet-up. This is so typical
of Facebook groups. No matter what the hobby (baking cakes, building Lego,
garden ponds, being a Monty Python fan, testing blood, having dogs, peering
through telescopes at space, going fishing…) there are those who haven’t actually done the hobby for months (if not
years) but who just want an argument. I did have some encouraging geo-emails this
morning though. A couple of people had driven a hundred miles to Ashford
yesterday to play some of my Wherigos. They said very nice things about them and gave out loads of
Favourite Points. That’s what hunting Tupperware
should be – having fun and not looking to make a squabble where there needn’t
be one. I then braved the weather and drove my car
over to the garage for its service. I say “braved the weather”; there
had been heavy rain when I’d got up but the rain had
stopped. Usually I take the dogs with me to the
garage and we walk back. I’d decided against that
today because of the rain – the rain which had stopped. The BBC’s weather
forecasting does leave much to be desired. A few weeks ago
a group of us were sheltering from a downpour under a tree on the Romney
Marsh when the BBC’s weather app said there was only a nine per cent chance
of rain. When er indoors TM” picked me up from the garage
we had no rain at all despite the BBC feeling there was an eighty per cent
chance of the stuff. Ignoring the alleged eighty per cent chance
of rain we took the dogs for a little walk. We took the path up to Little
Burton and came home via the vets (for dog weigh-ins). As we walked we met a blind Labrador. The dog was bounding about
and sniffling about. Pogo and Treacle were both as good as gold with him; did
they know he was blind, and were they making allowances? The nice lady with
him said that the dog’s going blind was a genetic thing, and this made me
think. Would I cope with a blind dog? I suppose so. He seemed to be enjoying
himself. Much like poor little Sid was making the most of it right up until
he couldn’t any more. We were out for two and a half hours, walked
nearly six miles and didn’t see a spot of rain. Mind you I say “walked nearly six miles”;
I got that from my Google Timeline. Have you ever looked at your Google
Timeline? Call up Google Maps and click on “Your Timeline” from the
drop-down menu. It has got a fairly good record of my movements since May 17 2014. I wonder why that day? – There is nothing on my
diary to suggest why. But it isn’t perfect. It lists
home as my most visited place in that time (which I suppose it is). However work comes in at both second and fourth place, and
where I used to work come in at fifth and seventh place. How does that work?
It lists Wye Downs as my eighth most visited place, and that *certainly*
can’t be right. How can it seriously think I’ve been there more times than I’ve been to Orlestone Woods (which only managed thirteenth place
behind Sainsbury’s and Morrison’s). However
whilst it isn’t entirely one hundred per cent, I will certainly leave my
phone at home should I ever decide I’m going to leave the house to murder
someone. Flushed with enthusiasm sparked by two people
having travelled a hundred miles to play my Wherigos
I then spent a little while thinking about another Wherigo series. I have an
idea and a location. “My Boy TM” then pulled up
outside and (despite the traffic) we all drove out to Canterbury where
we spent an hour inside the old jail. Quite literally inside the jail trying
to get out. I’d never done an Escape Room before; it
was being in an hour-long episode of “The Crystal Maze”. It was a
shame we didn’t get out in the time allotted, but we
had almost solved the puzzles. From there we drove back to Ashford and went
up to “Cinnamon Spice” for a bit of dinner. Perhaps my finishing off
everyone else’s dinner was something of a mistake. I feel somewhat stuffed now… |
|
19 June 2021
(Saturday) - This n That
That infernal stereo started up again at the stroke
of midnight. And then an hour later the football thugs staggering home
screaming about “Ing-Ur-Lund” set the dogs off. Add to that several
curry-induced trips to the loo; I didn’t have the
best night’s sleep. I made brekkie and peered at my lap-top. The thing has decided to give me a short cut to
Microsoft’s local weather forecast. The prediction was “cloudy with a
sixty-seven per cent chance of rain”. On other weather forecasts the
prediction will be “raining with a forty per cent chance of rain”. Go
figure. The rows on Facebook weren’t
that bad today. Today people seemed to be in a “selling things” sort
of mood. Diet shakes were being rather aggressively forced at me today, but I
did laugh at the advert being brandished. The advert mentioned “long
country walks” and “results may vary”. Well, I’ve
been doing long country walks for years and that’s achieved pretty much
nothing in the way of weight loss. These massively overpriced shakes might
work for some people; for me the only way to achieve
weight loss is to be constantly hungry. But people fall for these adverts.
Take a photos of a chubby young lady, then take
another photo of her wearing clothes six sizes larger and everyone thinks
that she’s lost weight. And someone else was offering to clean your shoes for
you… with a range of cleanings starting from twenty quid!!! Isn’t this a sign
of our times in that despite so many people being in such hardships, people
would still rather pay someone else to polish their shoes? I did see a photo that made me remember old
times though. Someone had posted a photo of Guestling
Green on the “Hastings and Area, Past and Present” Facebook page. On
that photo you could clearly see a pub. “The Hope” was somewhere I
used to visit occasionally in the mid to late 1980s purely to see the
landlord. The most unwelcoming, miserable and bitter
person you ever did see. As you walked through the door he would rudely snarl
“Are you eighteen?” and when you gave your age (at the time it was
mid to late twenties) he would look at you in open disbelief. He would
always engage the customers in conversation, and no matter what their opinion
he would rudely dismiss it. I always thought that this was some odd novelty
act, but people posting to the “Hastings and Area, Past and Present”
Facebook page seemed to think that it was no act; the chap really was an
incredibly bitter man who really wasn’t at all
suited to the hospitality industry. er indoors TM” gave me a lift to the
garage to collect my car. It had been serviced yesterday. One or two things
needed doing. I had some change out of seven hundred quid… but not much. I’ve
always said that I will drive the car until it dies, but (nearly)
seven hundred quid (!?) The nice man at the garage said that if it was
his car he would see how it fares at the next MOT.
Perhaps I might do that. Having had the car for thirteen years it has very
rarely let me down. If I get rid of it and replace it
I may well just be buying someone else’s trouble. er indoors TM” and I got the leads
onto the dogs and we took them for a little walk. I won’t say where since I was planning out a new series of Wherigo
caches. I will say that the dogs got filthy in mud though, but the long grass
we then went through was so wet that they came home absolutely
pristine having had all the mud washed off of them. My boots got
cleaned by the grass too; that saved twenty quid (!) Once home I made a start planning my new Wheri-series. Having got it pretty much all done during
the afternoon (whilst it rained) I can’t help
but wonder if I am happy with the location, but with a Wherigo the actual
location is pretty much a piddling detail. er indoors TM” then took Pogo to
Folkestone. For all that he has been with us for months (if not years)
he is “Daddy’s Little Angel TM”’s dog and she wanted him
back (if only for a few days holiday). I can’t
really say no, but I’m not at all happy with this. We’ve
gone from four dogs down to one in a very short space of time, and poor
Treacle doesn’t understand it at all. The house seems incredibly empty right now… |
|
20 July 2021 (Sunday)
- End Of The Holiday
I slept till nine o’clock this morning, and got up to an incredibly empty house. I’ve always said that we had far too many dogs, but we’ve
only got one now. Pogo will be back in a few days but we’re
missing him. It didn’t help when I turned on
Facebook and was immediately presented with a memory – a video of Fudge
playing in the river. I then had a little think about my geocaching
Community Celebration Event. As lockdown eases, several people (me
included) have been given the opportunity to run a geocaching Community
Celebration Event. This is supposed to be something special. Not just a “turn
up, smile and go home” (like many geo-meets) but a proper “event”.
I had an idea for a pub quiz, but that gets costly for those who support the
pub, and I find it frankly embarrassing watching others make a glass of tap
water last all afternoon. I had an idea for a hike, but the geo-feds said no
to that in an email I received this morning. I’ve got
one or two other plans, but I’m wondering if I can be bothered. The more I look into it, it seems that the idea is that I put on an
epic extravaganza that lasts for (at least) two hours. However to claim the credit for attending all anyone needs
to do is turn up, say “hello Dave” and then go home again. Quite a few
people have said that no matter what is happening, turning up, saying “hello
Dave” and then going home again is what they will do. I phoned Dad to wish him a happy Father’s
Day; we’d popped down with a pressie a couple of
days ago. Like me, he doesn’t really go much on
Father’s Day. Bearing in mind how soaked we’d
got yesterday we’d decided not to go on a major walk today, and so I found
myself at something of a loose end for much of the day today. I was that
bored that I got the old camping tables out of the lock-ups
and gave them a once-over. Two are OK; two are salvageable. I just need
several yards of elastic to fix them. After a spot of lunch
I put the finishing touches to my current Wheri-project
whilst all the time peering out of the window. It wasn’t
*that* bad outside. Maybe we could have gone out somewhere? After a couple of hours checking and re-checking I think the Wherigo is all but finished. All I
need now is an email of permission (or not) from the landowner and
then I can see what the geo-feds have to say about it. With the ran seeming to have completely given
up on the idea of falling we took Treacle out for a short walk. We drove out
to Wye from where we walked a cross-country route up to the farm shop and
back again. I found a geocache on the way; er indoors TM”
found two. Treacle found (and got) a rabbit. I wish she hadn’t. Mind you I think that rabbit must have been a
sick one. When Pogo caught a rabbit last year it was after a prolonged chase,
and he only managed to snag it when the rabbit ran head-first into a tree and
knocked itself senseless. There was no major chase involved today; suddenly
Treacle just had a rabbit in her mouth. Getting the dead rabbit from her took some
doing. Her recall was always the worst of all the dogs. I often felt she only
came back to us because Fudge or Pogo had come back. If Pogo is going to have
holidays with his mummy as a regular thing, Treacle will be on the lead a
whole lot more. We came home. Treacle had a bath, and I sat
and listened to not-so-nice-next-door clanging on her piano. I say “clanging
on her piano”; to be fair to her she’s not that
bad really. She’s far better than I ever was when I
took piano lessons some twenty-five years ago. But she’s
nowhere near as good as you would think someone would be having practiced for
two hours a day, every day, for the last twenty years. And that’s my little
holiday over and done with. It hasn’t been a bad break I suppose… it was a
shame that over this last two weeks the weather has been (mostly)
either *far* too hot or pouring hard, and for much of the time when
the weather wasn’t against me I was crying about
dead dogs. But there it is.. I’m back to work
tomorrow. I am looking forward to it (I really am!) In years gone by I would be walking in to a guilt trip from the boss saying
how much hard work it had been when I’d been on leave, whilst at the same
time making it abundantly clear that he didn’t think I could be trusted to
actually do the job unsupervised. There is talk of where I used to work being
merged with where I now work… If that happens I am *not*
going to take the crap I took from their management (for many years).
Perhaps I might retire if that happened? |
|
21 July 2021 (Monday)
- Back to Work
After something of a restless night I made toast, and as yet another negative COVID test
cooked so I watched an episode of “Inside No 9“ before having a little
look-see at the Internet. Something that caught my eye was the “sexier
than a squirrel” challenge being advertised on Facebook. It promised
to have dogs stop pulling on their leads in just three weeks. I was up for
that until I clicked the link and saw it was some American-based thing for
which I only had to pay thirty quid (!) That can go whistle. Other
than that there wasn’t anything else happening on
Facebook. There was a new geocache sort-of on the way to work. I suppose I *could*
have gone for the First to Find, but thought better
of it. I put on my new trousers and set off to work.
I walked out to my car. Despite a ninety-four per cent chance of rain (according
to the BBC) it was a dry morning. Clearly reality was in error. As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the
radio were talking about a report to be released by the US government some time soon which is supposed to address the issue of what UFOs
actually are. The report is expected to be rather vague, as you
might expect. Personally I can't see UFOs being down
to aliens. I rather suspect UFOs are the work of the Russians and the Chinese
deliberately winding up the Americans. There was also a lot of talk over how the
Royal Academy has
banned the work of renowned artist Jess de Wahls over what was supposed
to be "transphobic views". Ms de Wahls was interviewed on
the radio this morning. She claimed her "transphobic views"
was making the claim that once upon a time stating that there were two
genders was a fact; nowadays that statement is a (rather questionable)
opinion. Is she right or wrong? I'm not going to
touch that one with a barge pole, but I will make the observation that when
you add this incident to the removal of statues all across the country and
the re-writing of history, you really have to ask what kind of totalitarian
state we are finding ourselves in. Freedom of speech clearly has been thrown
out of the window now that (so it seems) anyone can claim to be
legitimately offended by anything at all. I'm reminded of my
landlady in the mid-1980s who belonged to what was seen to be a crackpot
extremist fringe group. Everyone laughed at her and her mates, and whilst
everyone laughed, she and her mates stood in various elections... Now they
call the shots. No one laughs at environmental issues any
more, do they? People might complain about the rise of what
is seen as a "woke agenda" but few (none) actually do anything to reverse the trend, do they? I got to work - I did my bit. By then reality
had seen the error of its ways by being at odds with the BBC's weather
forecast this morning, and the rain was torrential for much of the day. With my bit done I headed homewards. Having
had reports of issues with the Wherigo I put out a week or so ago I went and
had a little look-see, and having look-seen I came
home and put up a Wherigo version 1.2. Let’s hope
this solves the issue that several people have had… It is a shame that so
many people have already downloaded that which is now out of date, but there
it is. I’m now going to spend
half an hour in the loo reading the most recent copy of Viz… |
|
22 June 2021
(Tuesday) - Stuff
As I scoffed my toast this morning
I watched an episode of “Inside No 9” (which was particularly good)
before sparking up the lap-top. Having had an email from Geo-HQ last night
confirming my concerns about the geocaching Community Celebration Event I
asked on one of the local geocaching forums what people would do if I staged
an event. Would they turn up and take part? Would they pop by in passing?
Would they give it a miss? There were a few replies
this morning. I think it is fair to say that those who always go to meet-ups
would be there, and those that don’t wouldn’t, and
there were a few who had no idea what I was asking. Whenever I look at that
Facebook geocaching page it never fails to amaze me how there are quite a lot
of people who spend an inordinate amount of time actually
doing the hobby but seem to know relatively little about it. I was
reminded of one young cub scout who wasn’t at all
happy when I wouldn’t give him the “sportsman” badge (many years
ago); despite going to rugby club every week he didn’t know how many
people were on a team, how points were scored, how long a game was played
for, or even the name of the rugby club he had been attending every week for
the previous year. With no arguments kicking off on-line, and
with no emails worth the electricity to send them I turned off my lap-top and
set off to work. Yesterday as I drove to work on a dry morning the pundits on
the radio were talking about the rain. This morning as the windscreen wipers
rattled at full pelt there was talk of a dry day everywhere with just
possibly a spot of rain in Kent. There was also a lot of talk about football -
apparently there is some big football tournament going on at the moment (?)
The ex-manager of the England football team Sven Goran Eriksson was wheeled on and he wittered on (for seemingly ages) without
actually saying anything. This utter waste of air-time
was then compounded by the "Thought for the Day" in which
some vicar or other was blathering on about heart disease. It was very
difficult to understand that this chap was saying because it sounded like he
was shouting down a drain pipe. It rather brought
back to mind the strange sounds made by my brother when he used to sing down
the bath's plug hole some forty-odd years ago. I usually quite like listening
to the radio on my drive to work; this morning was something of a
disappointment. I got to work and heard that a colleague has
resigned. Having been off sick for some time, the chap isn't
coming back. Which is probably for the best for him. Hospital work never
suited him; he only ever had one topic of conversation which was how much he
disliked the various shifts. What did he think the work pattern would be? It
is a hospital - it never closes. I can only liken it to someone getting a job
in a school then announcing they hate children, or
getting a job on a dairy farm and then complaining about the smell. Work was rather busy today; I felt all in
when it was time to go home. er indoors TM” boiled up a
particularly good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching the last few
episodes of “Intelligence”
(which wasn’t bad) and an episode of “The
World’s Most Scenic Railway Journeys” featuring a rather beautiful
tour around Sri Lanka. I wouldn’t mind
going there for a holiday – there are so many beautiful places in the world
where I have never been. er indoors TM” isn’t keen on Sri
Lanka… if any of my loyal readers are up for it… |
|
23 June 2021
(Wednesday) - Before the Night Shift
As I looked at Facebook this morning I saw that “we” both won and lost last
night (?) After a couple of seconds on Google News I found out
that the England football team won its match whist the Scottish football team
lost. But friends were posting about the games in such a way that everyone
supposedly knew what they were talking about. And to be fair, most people
did. I wish I understood the attraction of
football. To me it is an incredibly simplistic game, and after watching it
for five minutes you really have seen all that it has to offer. But so many
people love it. I am clearly missing something. Somewhere else that I am missing something is
Brexit. Today marks five years since the decision was taken to implement it
and despite still waiting to hear a single reason in favour of it that isn’t either racist or factually wrong, millions still
insist it was the right thing to do. Having left the EU in large part because
people didn’t want unelected bureaucrats giving out the orders (even
though they weren’t), the UK has just announced it is going into some trade deal with Pacific
counties… in which (so it would seem) unelected bureaucrats will
be giving out the orders. However this is being
brandished as some sort of triumph. Again, clearly I am
missing something here as well. Sometimes I get fed up with being in the
minority. Treacle started squeaking at me so I took her for a walk. As we went down the road to
the car so she tried to pick a fight with a dog on
the other side of the road. With Pogo off on a little holiday it has become *so*
clear that he has been taking the blame for her bad behaviour. We drove to Orlestone
Woods and walked round. Treacle carried a stick pretty much the entire way
and wouldn’t put it down. I think it fair to say
that refusing to drop the stick played a large part in one squirrel’s escape.
As we walked we met
one other person. She asked about Pogo and Fudge, and that set me off. Once home I gave the lawn a once-over. The
heat of last week didn’t do it any favours, but it
still looks better than it ever has. I then spent a little while writing up CPD. All rather
dull, but that CPD blog gets four hundred views each week. I can’t help but wonder who reads it… I write it because I’m obliged to keep myself up to date on professional
matters, and this is as good a way as any to show I am doing so. It might (just
possibly) get formally assessed one day. The thing is (deliberately)
done anonymously… I wonder if anyone has ever blagged it and tried to pass it
off as their own for their assessment? I took myself off to bed for the afternoon.
When I woke er indoors TM” had vanished. She was off to the
cinema with Cheryl. But I woke to find Pogo on top of me – he had returned
from his little holiday. I then sat in front of the telly for a couple of
hours watching drivel on Netflix with a dog on either side. I’m off to the night
shift in a bit… I don’t *really* mind night shifts, but the day before
them can be rather dull. As today was… |
|
24 June 2021
(Thursday) - Bit Tired
The night shift wasn’t
bad (as night shifts go). As I drove home the pundits on the radio
were clucking about how Russian jets have been buzzing the British naval ship
HMS Defender in the Black Sea. When you consider that HMS Defender is
supposedly on its way to aggravate the Chinese, you have to
wonder what it was doing in the Black Sea if not trying to provoke an
argument. Two minutes looking at a map shows that the Black Sea isn’t on the way to China. It’s a bit like me popping in to the nearest pub when on the way to Tesco… which
probably explains exactly why HMS Defender is in the Black Sea. There was also a lot of talk about John
McAfee who had been found
dead in a Spanish prison. He was apparently awaiting extradition to
America where he faced charges of tax evasion. I would have thought that
someone who pioneered anti-virus software would have been quite “normal”,
but apparently he believed all sorts of conspiracy
theories. It was alleged that it was paranoia that fuelled his anti-virus
research, and one chap being interviewed implied that Mr McAfee actually created quite a few computer viruses himself to
give grounds for his paranoia. Did he? I don’t know,
but they were queuing up to dish the dirt on the chap this morning. I got home, and went
to bed where I slept until mid-day. Over a rather late brekkie I saw I had an
email from the local council. What did I think of my last trip to the tip? I
suppose it was good of them to ask – I suggested they might do away with
appointments and just let people get rid of their rubbish when they’ve got rubbish to get rid of, rather than having it
kicking round in the way for a week or so (asking to be fly-tipped).
And I also saw that the local council were asking (on their Facebook page)
how they can make Ashford safer. I suggested getting rid of these silly l.e.d. street lights that
haven’t delivered what was promised and don’t actually light the streets at
all. I wonder if the council will take any notice of me. Somehow
I doubt it. I then took the dogs for a little walk up to
the co-op field and back again. As we walked so Pogo tiddled every few steps.
That set me off… that was Fudge’s influence. When Pogo first came to stay
with us he would do one epic tiddle per walk. He learned from Fudge to spread
it out and do a couple of drops, every couple of steps, for miles. As we went up Christchurch Road there was an
intense smell of gas. There was a British Gas van in attendance, but the two
chaps (in British Gas tabards) both seemed for more intent on peering
at their phones than they did on dealing with any leak. We got to the co-op field,
and had a good time. Some of the time Treacle ran with Pogo, some of
the time she bimbled on her own. But she didn’t stay glued to my side like she did at the woods
yesterday. She is so much more confident when Pogo is around. I then spent a little while looking at the
household accounts. Having accounted for every penny I spent last month I
think it is fair to say I spent a lot of pennies. A car service costing twice
as much as I had expected on top of dear little Sid’s final expenses had cost
quite a bit more than I might have hoped to have spent. But there it is. I
need a car to get to work, and Sid had been with the family for so long that
I wasn’t going to skimp on him. And I’m not *that* skint really. After all, what is
money for if not to squander foolishly? I did the ironing whilst watching episodes of
“Four In A Bed”. I do like that show, but I have to
wonder if they decide in advance who is going to be the villain of the piece
before they start. This afternoon we had some old biddy actively finding
fault with absolutely everything she could. If someone had given her a
million quid she would have complained that she
wanted two million. And they don’t compare like with
like in that show. In today’s show a B&B
(in a country village) which I’ve driven past many times on the
way to work was pitted against a hotel (charging over twice the price)
on
Brighton sea front. er indoors TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we washed down with a
rather good bottle of red wine (hic!) whilst watching this week’s
episode of “Bake Off: The Professionals”. I could have been a
top-class chef… (!) |
|
25 June 2021 (Friday)
- Awesome !!
I must have been tired last night - the bin
men didn’t wake me s they came up the road
ridiculously early. I got up rather later than I had hoped, made brekkie, and
peered into a rather dull internet. There wasn’t a
lot going on really. My fellow Ashfordians were
running the town down on Facebook, but that is always the case. Those that
have lived here (and nowhere else) all their lives are so quick to
find fault with the place. Today’s fault? – the fault was entirely that of
the local council. Apparently the local council
should be forcing chain stores to be opening branches in the High Street. I didn’t think that was how the free market worked, but what
do I know? My cousin had posted an article
about James Corden; a good actor, not so nice in reality. Celebrities can
be like this. A friend of my mother once lived next door to Don “Lofty” Estelle
who was far from the perfect neighbour. And I can remember my grandmother
never having a good word for Charlie Chaplin who
had been a family friend when he was young. Seeing how the forecast rain hadn’t come we took the dogs down to Orlestone
woods (where we found the forecast rain). But despite the heavy
drizzle we walked round. With Pogo along, Treacle was far braver than she had
been a couple of days ago. And despite the drizzle we saw far more people
than we usually do in those woods. We met four other dog-walkers (which is
unheard of down there), and as we were leaving so others were arriving. Once home er indoors TM”
got on with work; leaving me to wash the dogs. Future dogs (not that we
are having any more!) will be white. That’s not in
any way racist; that is practical. Not only do white dogs do better in the
heat, but you can also see the dirt on a white dog. Neither Pogo nor Treacle
looked grubby, but the bath was black by the time I had finished scrubbing
them. I rather wasted the morning playing Candy
Crush Saga on Facebook and looking at frankly insoluble geo-puzzles. People
who set geo-puzzles fall into two groups. On the one had there are those who
want to give people a little brain teaser. On the other hand
are those who want the personal satisfaction of knowing that people
can’t solve the conundrum that they have created. I’ve set one of these. With nearly forty
incorrect solutions, four correct solutions and only two people ever having
found the cache I leave it active as an example of the stupidity of that sort
of thing. I drove to work singing along to an Ivor Biggun CD, had a quiet lunch scoffing my sandwich whilst
reading Alexei Sayle's autobiography, and got on
with the late shift. As I was up to my eyes in blood groups (as one
becomes from time to time) I heard a cough. I looked up and saw pretty
much all of my colleagues ranged around me
smiling. And one of the bosses was brandishing a wrapped pressie. It
turned out people had been talking about me recently - the general
consensus was that what with losing Mum in February, losing
Fudge in April, and Sid passing a couple of weeks ago I'd had something of a
hard time recently. I had to agree with them. For all that I try to put on my
smiley face and make the most of it, at the moment (in
the words of the song) "it sucks to be me".
My colleagues had clubbed together and got me the "Everyone is
Awesome" Lego set. Bearing in mind I've
never been happier at work than I have been for these last four years, I felt
that was rather appropriate. |
|
26 June
2021 (Saturday) - A New Boss
I
rolled my eyes when I turned on my lap-top this morning. Facebook was awash
with those twee memes about “always being there for people who want a chat”.
All sorts of people were posting them today. I didn’t
join in. It was my experience that when I really needed someone for a chat,
the very people I thought would be there for me weren’t,
and people I barely knew stepped up. But then this is what social media is
all about, isn’t it? There
was a bit of talk on my old school’s Facebook group wondering about old
teachers. One had recently died (aged ninety-seven), and some of them
are still going. My old school’s Facebook group is rather interesting if only
for seeing what my contemporaries have done, and
wondering what might have been. People with whom I went to school have ended
up in all the corners of the world. Some are in Sweden, some in America, some
in Australia, some in the Medway towns, one just down the road from me. Some
have become millionaires, some are skint. I
had a message via Facebook from Rita Kornegay who (so she claims) is a
single woman in UK who would like me to video chat with her and the lots of
beautiful women who are (apparently) waiting for me. I
also had an email from the nice people at Credit Karma. A few months ago (in
a moment of boredom) I signed up with them, and the emails I they send me
are frankly incomprehensible. They suggest that to improve my credit score I
should ask the bank for a higher credit limit on my credit card. But when I
used the card for major expenses (such as Fudge’s vet bills, car servicing
and Sid’s funeral costs) my credit score went down? I
then spent some time trying to get ready for tomorrow’s planned
geo-maintenance walk out at Great Chart. I printed off some paper logs and
tried to cut them to size. “Tried” being the operative word. Scissors
come in two types. “Cutting scissors” which actually cut that which
you are trying to cut, and “chewing scissors” which cut nothing at
all, but just chew at whatever it is you are trying to cut and mangle it. The
manufacturers unfortunately make no such distinction, and it has been my
experience that for every pair of “cutting scissors” I have had, I
have had twenty pairs of “chewing scissors”. I
then wasted half an hour searching for bisons.
Bisons are small metal geocache containers. I have a stash of half a dozen or
more of the things which are always in my way when I don’t
need them. But when I do need them, they grow legs, walk away
and hide from me. So I buy more, use one, and add
the rest to the growing stash which reappears when I’m not actively searching
for it. As
I drove off towards work so the radio was playing
the "From Our Own Correspondent" program. Have you ever
listened to that at all? I can't recommend it - it
is incredibly depressing. Today's show featured reports on children held in
detention camps on the US-Mexico border, all sorts of unpleasantness coming
from the recent political pardons in Spain, concerns from Afghanistan where
locals are fleeing in terror as the western alliance is pulling out... I
turned it off and headed up the motorway singing along to an Ivor Biggun CD. I made rather good time; I was rather
conscious of my trip to the Saturday late shift a month ago when I spent
three hours stuck in traffic. Seeing
the queues for the drive-through McDonalds I went straight to work where I
got dinner from the works canteen. It wasn't bad...
Usually their food is rather good. Today's wasn't
anything I could complain about but was a minor disappointment compared to
what I usually get. However I've had far worse food
elsewhere at far greater cost. Work
was work – rather quiet for a Saturday late shift for which I was grateful.
As I took a break I saw that my boss had resigned. The
Health Secretary has jumped before he got pushed. Despite allegations of
giving backhanders to his mate’s husband and allegations of having it away
with said mate, he’s actually going because of
pictures of him braking social distancing guidelines whilst doing the dirty
deed with her. |
|
27 June 2021 (Sunday)
- A Walk, Bingo, Sad News
Yesterday I ran out of shaving gel and
immediately forgot all about it. Have you ever tried to shave with just soap
and water? It takes some doing. Over a bit of brekkie
I watched an episode of “Bonding” before sparking up the lap-top to
peer into the Internet. It was much the same as ever. Most of the Lego Facebook
groups carried the same advert exhorting us all to join yet another Lego
Facebook group. I was going to ask why people keep creating Facebook groups
when there are already so many in existence (for whatever the hobby is).
I suppose it is so that whoever it is that creates the group has ultimate
power over that group. (Like when the Astro club’s Facebook page got
deleted after one squabble too many). And I saw several adverts on Facebook for “Dog Friendly”
– a magazine advertising all sorts of tourist attractions, cafes and pubs
that are dog friendly. It struck me as rather odd that whoever it is that
runs “Dog Friendly” magazine wanted nearly twenty quid a year for
their magazine when there were over three hundred comments on their advert
from people who were taking the opportunity to advertise their dog-friendly
businesses. I hoofed Pogo and Treacle out of bed, gave
them their brekkie, and taking care not to disturb er indoors TM”
(too much) we drove out to Great Chart. er indoors TM”
had other plans for today (as did Charlotte) but Tracey, Karl,
Treacle, Pogo and I had planned a little walk. The rain was a tad heavier than had been
forecast when we started (there wasn’t supposed to
be any rain!) but we carried on regardless, and the rain soon stopped. We
had a rather good walk following the series of geocaches I’d
hidden along the Greensand Way last year. It was a shame that the dogs were
on-the-lead off-the-lead all the time, but there it is. There are a lot of
sheep fields on the way, and Treacle in particular
can’t be trusted. However, the dogs had a rather good bowl of special
rice for their picnic lunch and got a good play in the river too. Despite the overcast day, I managed to catch
the sun, and Tracey suffered with the grass pollen too. Because we were following a series of caches
that I had set we made good time. As we went we made
sure that they were all OK. Most were. Only one was missing. Thirty-four
geocaches over seven miles… not a bad series really. I
took a few photos as we walked. With walk walked we said our goodbyes. We
came home, collected Pogo’s bag and drove him down
to Folkestone where he is having a little holiday with his mummy. After all
he is “Daddy’s Little Angel TM”’s dog. I‘m missing him
already, but he will be back with us in a few days. er indoors TM” still wasn’t home,
and with the rain having got worse (and thunderstorms forecast) I
didn’t fancy going up the KFC to forage. I hand-fed Treacle her tea until she
started eating on her own (she learned that from Fudge!), made myself
peanut butter on toast, and tuned in to the family Zoom/bingo game. I missed
the last one. I must admit I was a bit sceptical about joining tonight’s but I was glad I did. It was good to catch up
with family, and we did chuckle. “My Boy TM” was calling
the bingo numbers via an app on his phone, and we got to the point where the
thing had run out of numbers and still no one had won. The app he was using
was unable to count higher than seventy-five. With technical difficulties eventually
resolved I only ended up being two pounds fifty pence down on the evening And I’m afraid I’m
going to close on a sad note tonight. A very good
friend is very unwell. He told me that he’d had
problems the last time we met, but that was ages ago. What with people
drifting apart and lock-downs we’ve not met up for
over two years. His problems have got much worse over the intervening time. |
|
28 June 2021 (Monday)
- This n That
Lacking any suggestions for anything worth
watching, I started watching "Fresh Meat"
(on Netflix) as I scoffed toast this morning. It wasn't
a bad show... it wasn't good. It kept me occupied early in the morning. Being on an early shift I skipped my morning
trawl of the internet and set off to work. The deputy leader of the Labour party Angela
Lansbury was being interviewed on the radio as I drove. Making the most of
the opportunity to
stick the knife into disgraced ex-health secretary Matt Hancock she was
now trying to dig the dirt on Gina Coladangelo (her
who Matt Hancock has been allegedly porking
recently). Ms Lansbury didn't do herself any
justice on the radio though. I've mentioned before that (as a life-long
leftie) the Labour party is a disappointment at best, and in reality is something of a joke. Rather than coming over
with authority and conviction, Ms Lansbury came over as “Karen from
Facebook” and would have done far better to have taken care to pronounce
her words better (if not properly) and shrieked a little less. There was also an interview with someone who
was once something big in security circles who was intrigued by the photos of
Mr Hancock's grabbing of Ms Coladangelo's arse that have been all over the media recently. Bearing
in mind that once upon a time top ministers’ offices were routinely searched
for bugging equipment, she wondered how a closed-circuit TV camera had gone
unnoticed in Mr Hancock's office (let alone how the tabloids had
access to it). There was also talk about how a load of top secret government documents have been found laying
around at a bus stop but this didn't seem anywhere near as interesting to
the pundits on the radio as dishing the dirt on a disgraced minister I got petrol, and went in
to the early shift. Work was work. I did my bit, I did e-learning and
digital morphological QA (as one does). In years gone by the
mere mention of the word "work" in a blog was sufficient for
a manager to issue me with a formal written warning (for bringing the
place into disrepute) but things are different now. So different
that said manager has even sent me a friend request on Facebook. With work done I drove up to Beckenham to
visit Terry and Irene. We’ve not met up for a couple
of years. It was really good to catch up (if not
under the best of circumstances). We shall meet up again soon – Beckenham
isn’t far from work – and it is a straightforward
drive too. er indoors TM” boiled up a rather
good bit of dinner which we watched whilst watching “The Great British
Sewing Bee”. I used to be a dab hand with a needle back in the day. Treacle is currently walking round the living
room with a chew treat, crying inconsolably as she is trying to find
somewhere to hide it. I can’t work out why she is so
distraught. |
|
29 July 2021
(Tuesday) - Awesome !!
Another restless night… I only seem to get a
proper night’s sleep just after a night shift. I slept like a log last night
up until two o’clock, then woke every twenty minutes. I got up, made brekkie, and as yet another negative COVID test incubated I watched
half an episode of “Fresh Meat” before having a quick look at the
Internet. It was still there, but not a lot was happening. I got ready for work and set off.. As I walked down the road to find my car my
phone beeped. A message from the Munzee clan. I
stepped down as Munzee clan leader last month (I
wasn't feeling it what with Fudge having gone and
Sid looking very ill) so someone else took over from me. In all honesty
there wasn't much to take over, but this morning I
found out that my successor has made even less effort than I have this month
and so the clan isn't going to reach its target (and consequently not get
the rewards). All rather trivial in the great scheme of things, but quite
a major issue if sticking bar codes onto lamp posts is what floats your boat. I drove through the drizzle up the motorway
with my piss boiling as I listened to the radio.
Shop workers all over the country in little corner shops and in large supermarkets
(Morrisons, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys were all mentioned by name)
are getting rather fed up of being physically assaulted by customers and the
police are doing
absolutely nothing about it. I can't say I'm
surprised... Well, I'm rather shocked that this is
happening, but (quite frankly) the police's response is exactly what
I've come to expect of them. I've mentioned before
how I have absolutely no confidence whatsoever in the police to do absolutely
anything at all that you might traditionally expect of a policeman. Yet again
they do nothing when a crime has clearly been committed. Which isn't to say that the police do nothing at all. I've had coppers victimising me personally twice in the
last year. (Once for daring to visit my Dad just after my mum died, and
once when I was supposedly at fault when some strange passer-by decided to
whip Pogo with brambles for no reason whatsoever). It would seem that
I'm
not alone in feeling this way. Serving
policemen do too. Perhaps if we had a police force that
kicked arse where arse needs kicking (rather than
picking on those who arse does not) perhaps society might be better...? I got to work and cracked on with the early
shift. At tea break I finished the e-book I was reading. "The
Supernova Era" by Cixin Liu was rather
good. I've always liked post-apocalyptic fiction and
this book was not too shabby at all (to quote “My Boy TM”).
Imagine "Lord Of The Flies" on a global scale. A colleague recommended
the e-book, and now I've finished it I've downloaded
another by the same author. So far I'm quite
impressed with what I've read of his books. He seems to be an up-to-date
Chinese Arthur C Clarke. I came home via Lidl. I got a bottle of wine which
cheered up an otherwise dull shopping basket, and then spent an hour longer
than usual trying to get home along a bunged-up motorway. I had planned to
take Treacle for a little walk, but it was raining rather hard when I finally
got home. er indoors TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner then vanished off upstairs to
Zoom at her friends. I opened the Lego pressie that my colleagues had given
me on Friday. The sensible part of me said to keep it unopened and pristine
in its box and to sell it for an absolute fortune in a few years’ time. But
it is no secret that “sensible” has never really played a large part
in my life. The set took about forty-five minutes to
build. From a Lego builder’s point of view this is one of the best sets ever.
Bright colours, straightforward build, unique pieces… it’s
got pride of place in the living room above the telly between the SkyQ box and the DVD player… I *might* take it apart and rebuild it
with the orange and yellow swapped over with the black and the brown. At the
moment the darkest part is on the edge and it
doesn’t stand out as well as it might. |
|
30 June 2021
(Wednesday) - Rise of the Machines (Pah!)
As I wandered to the bathroom this morning I was conscious of a rather odd sound coming from
the dishwasher. Usually the only sounds it makes are
those of plates getting a good seeing to. Which is as it should be. There are
two schools of thought when it comes to dealing with dishwashers, as expounded
on the "Extreme
Dishwasher Loading" Facebook page. There are those who pander to
the machines, filling them with salt and rinse aid and regularly cleaning the
filters and generally sucking up to the devices. And there are those who feel
that the machine should know its place and do what is expected of it (or
face re-programming with a mallet!) I am firmly in the second camp. Trying to
keep the dishwasher sweet is just prolonging the inevitable collapse of
humanity when the machines eventually rise up. I
maintain that if we rule the machines with a rod of iron
they will know their place. However, overnight the dishwasher had
suffered some sort of malfunction. Five minutes with the thing in pieces soon
revealed the problem. Its out-pipe was blocked absolutely solid with congealed fat. I can only assume
that er indoors TM” had tried to wash half a pound of lard
in it. With fat scraped out and chucked down the
toilet (let's hope that don't block up too)
I set the dishwasher to the "hyper-scrub" setting with a
triple dose of dishwasher tablets and left it to do its thing. I watched half of an episode of "Fresh
Meat" then peered into the Internet. The photo I had posted last
night of my Lego piccie had got nearly ninety
"likes" on Facebook. There were a lot of comments about "it's
coming home". Presumably "it" being the football
trophy for which all sorts of teams are currently competing. "It"
might well be coming home, but I thought better of making the observation
that it is a shame that the same can't be said for shipments of fresh
fruit and vegetables. There was also a minor squabble kicking off
on the Facebook page for fans of the 1970 TV show “Upstairs
Downstairs” in which some people had become rather abusive toward each
other – over “Upstairs Downstairs” !!! Some people go onto the
internet to follow their hobby, others just go to argue… Mind you I think
that for a lot of people, arguing *is* the hobby. And talking of arguing about hobbies, it is
no secret that I’m not a fan of keeping geocaches going for ever, but there
is one just round the corner from
home that I hid seven years ago and it is still
going strong. It is a liar’s cache. In order to
claim a find you have to make up a story (in your written log) making
out how hard and difficult the thing was to get to. It is a good bit of
silliness, quite a few people follow it, and over the years it has garnered
sixty favourite points. A few years ago someone from
central Europe asked if they could copy the idea. I was very
happy for them to do so. To be honest it wasn’t
my idea in the first place. I shamelessly blagged it from someone else. And
liar’s caches are allowed for in the official rules anyway. Yesterday someone else asked if they could
use the idea. Again I had no problems with it… This morning the first person sent me a
message saying that the second person lives just a mile down the road from
her, that the second person’s geocache is a load of
crap, that the second person is a b*stard, and that
I should tell her she can’t have a liar’s cache. I’m tempted to say “not
my circus, not my monkeys” (because it is not my circus and certainly
isn’t my monkeys) but I suspect the phrase would lose a lot in
translation. I shall keep quiet and hope it all blows over. I set off to work. For all the talk about shortages
of lorry drivers, they were out and about in full force of the motorway
this morning. Is it my cynical imagination, or do they *really* slow
down and bunch up in the slow lane as they pass the slip roads? Are they
deliberately not letting cars on to the motorway? It certainly seemed that
way on the M20 this morning at junctions nine, eight and seven. And since
when have they been allowed to drive at fifty miles per hour in the
motorway's fast lane (as they were this morning)? I got to work, did that which I couldn’t avoid, and came home again. I came home to a
letter from a landowner who is quite happy for me to put geocaches on his
land – provided I told him exactly where I put them. I spent a little while
fiddling about with maps. It struck me as odd that the chap wasn’t interested in a precise set of GPS co-ordinates or
plots of locations; instead preferring a best guess hand-drawn on a
pdf. er indoors TM” boiled up dinner,
and with it scoffed I set the dishwasher going right away. It worked as it
should… which is just as well for it bearing in mind that I won’t take failure from it lightly… |
