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1 June 2025 (Sunday)
- Lazy Day
I
had a better night’s sleep last night which was something of a result. I got up
at half past eight, which is something I’ve not done for a while. Being the
first of the month I got out a new razor blade (I make them last!),
and once I’d had my scrape I made toast and had my
usual peer into the Internet. Last night’s revelation of the new Doctor Who had
for the most part gone down like a lead balloon. So-called Doctor Who fans
were all over the internet complaining and harking back to the good old days.
Sci-fi fans are a fickle lot. They are never happy; full of nostalgia for an
age that never happened. It was the reactions of the so-called fans which
killed off Star Trek (among many other TV shows). If those making TV
shows see that something is getting loads of bad reviews, then they aren’t
going to continue with it, are they? I Munzed, got Wordle on
the fourth attempt, and cracked on. Today was a bit of a balls-up. We’d turned down a
decent walk because we thought we’d be seeing “Daddies’ Little
Angel TM” today, but it turned out that we’d all got
our wires crossed. So I put a load of washing in to scrub, and painted all the fence panels that I’d
pressure-washed the other day. And with those painted I pulled the ivy off of more fence panels and pressure-washed them too.
Thirty seconds to type; six hours to do. As I painted and pressure-washed
I tried my birdsong app in the garden. It detected doves, magpies and
sparrows. No surprise there. What I thought was a crow it thought was a
jackdaw, and it totally missed the seagulls. Eventually “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” was
ready so “er indoors TM” set off to fetch
her and Pogo. I watched another episode of “Orange is the New Black”
until they returned, then sat by the pond with the most recent fruit of my
loin. We had a little drinkie whilst “er indoors TM” sorted
roast beef. And then we had a rather good bit of dinner. I’m told there’s a chance of seeing aurora this
evening. I’m no expert bit you can’t really see it
outside of a photograph. I don’t think I will bother. I don’t really think I’ve done much today, but I’m
worn out with it all… |
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2 June 2025 (Monday)
- Painting More Fence
I
saw every hour of the night, which was something of a shame, if something of
back to normal. I set a load of washing going and peered into the Internet.
Someone was grumbling on one of the pond-related Facebook pages; his pond was
over-run with water lilies. Looking at the photos you’d pay (literally)
thousands of pounds for that amount of lilies from a
garden centre. It had never occurred to this chap that someone else might
want the lilies that he felt were a nuisance. The local branch of the Labour
party were posing personal insults at Nigel
Farage. I can't say I'm a fan of the chap, but
following their recent success in local elections they now have
to prove themselves. Much like the Labour
party have got to do. It's been my experience that
"vote for me - I'm not as bad as the others" is a very weak
position to take. As a life-long right wing leftie I
find myself getting more and more disillusioned with the Labour
party. I
munzed, got Wordle on the third attempt (preen)
and then with the dogs getting up I got ready for the day. As I drove the dogs to the woods so the pundits on
the radio were interviewing the Prime Minister. The chap was saying that
Britain should be preparing for war, but was being
rather vague about why. We got to the woods and had a rather good walk. We
did our usual circuit, and once we were away from the car park
we only saw one other person. A jogger. The dogs joined in running with him which rather perplexed the chap. You’d think he’s have welcomed the company? As we walked I tried out my
birdsong app as I do. It detected a duck (again)
but didn’t detect the buzzards chirping. I’ve a theory that the smaller the
bird, the more noise it makes. Once home I made us a cuppa,
then painted the fence until “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” was
ready. I drove her home to Folkestone… then back to Ashford to get her keys
and then back to Folkestone again. I then spent a little while in the garden. I ran out the hose and topped up both ponds,
and got four more fence panes painted. I decided against going for a
fifth panel; you can get too much of a good thing. “er
indoors TM” went bowling. I
settled in front of the telly under a pile of dogs and watched a few episodes
of “Orange is the New Black”. I really ache – I’ve walked the dogs, driven to
Folkestone and back (twice) and painted some fence. I shouldn’t ache
this much… |
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3 June 2025 (Tuesday)
- A Walk, Fence Painting, Ironing, Cooking
Pretty much nothing had happened on-line last night but I had an interesting email this morning. I’ve
set up email notifications to tell me whenever anyone visits any of the geocaches we went to when in Uzbekistan (because I’m
nosey). There had been an interesting
episode in Tashkent last week. When we were about to go to Uzbekistan last year we solved a geo-puzzle and saw that the cache had
been missing for a while. We contacted the C.O. and asked if he’d like us to
replace it. He said he would. So we got to where the
thing was supposed to be and put down a new cache… all the time very
conscious that the moment we slowed down and looked at the electrical box
behind which the cache was supposed to be hidden, several local street
cleaners started watching us. Since then the pot we
put out has vanished and been replaced a few times. Last week some German
chap stopped off at that cache with his tour group, rummaged around for the
thing… and found himself taken off to the local police station where he was
asked to explain whether he was planting drugs or trying to sabotage the
electrical box behind which the cache was hidden. With only twenty-five
geocaches in the entire country, geocaching took a bit of explaining. I munzed, and got ready for the off. I took the dogs up to the
woods. As I drove the pundits on the radio were interviewing Sharren Haskel,
Israeli deputy minister for foreign affairs about an attack on an aid centre in Gaza.
The interviewer read out a statement made by the IDF (Israel Defense
Forces). Ms. Haskel then announced that the BBC couldn’t be trusted to
give impartial news then read out the same statement herself. The statement
she read was absolutely identical to that read by
the interviewer, but there was some merit in having it from a non-BBC source
(apparently), and the interview then descended into an “everyone
hates Israel; you’re a load of B***rds” rant. I’ve said before, the Israeli government
would go up inestimably in the world’s opinion if they could find a
spokesperson who could speak in a reasoned tone of voice. We got to the woods, we
walked four miles. A good walk. I fiddled about with my bird app; it claimed
to hear a firecrest. It might well have done; I have to take it on faith. We came home. I immediately went into the garden and
cracked on with fence painting. I got two more panels done before the
forecast rain started. I had a bowl of coco-puffs for lunch whilst watching
an episode of “Orange is the New Black”, then did some ironing. When
the rain eased up we did the “Feed The Fish” ceremony, then watched more telly before I
cooked dinner. I say “cooked dinner”; I bunged leftovers into a pan
with some curry powder, brown sauce and ketchup, and let it simmer
until “er indoors TM” came home from work. Dinner wasn’t that bad really; we washed it down
with a bottle of coffee stout (good old Aldi) and then I shared some
cheesy biccies with the dogs. Due to the vagaries of my shift pattern
I’ve been off work for a week. I’ve got to go back tomorrow – I wonder if
I’ve missed much… |
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4 June 2025
(Wednesday) - A Day At Work
I
woke this morning feeling full of energy and raring to go... at twenty past
one. I then didn't sleep for more than twenty minutes at a time. I gave up
and got up at five o'clock, and watched an
episode of "Big Mouth" as I scoffed toast. I
set off in the general direction of work... stopping off to deliver a
birthday card on the way. Back in the day that's what postmen used to do.
These days we get post every other day at best, and (quite frankly) if
you want a job done, do it yourself. I
also went to the petrol station. I might have spent a bit more money getting
petrol in Ashford rather than Aylesford, but the petrol station in Ashford
has sandwiches first thing in the morning. The carrots with houmous and the
flavoured water took some finding though. Nothing ever seems to stay in the
same place in the Ashford Sainsbury's petrol station. As
I drove the pundits on the radio were doing their usual thing. There was talk
about diets; apparently low calorie diets can cause
depression. That would possibly explain why I've had the hump for the
last few months? And
there was talk about nationalising the Thames Water company after some potential buyer
backed out of buying it. There was an interview with some chap whose
garden fills with sewage every time there's heavy rain because the pumping
station (which he can see from his turd-filled garden) doesn't actually pump. The pundits then played a recording from
yesterday's parliamentary session in which the minister for
something-or-other said that the government didn't want to nationalise Thames
Water as it would cost too much. It probably would right now; it was suggested
that the company should be left to go bust (which it was claimed wouldn't
take long), and once bust the investors wouldn't
actually have anything for the government to buy
out. The government could then start from scratch where the failed Thames
water left off. Harsh? Perhaps, but the current scheme ain't
working, is it? I
got to work rather earlier than I might, and went
for a little walk; Munzing as I went. As I went I
got a frog cubimal out of a qrate, and got a gold qrate too. Never a dull moment in Munzee, eh? After
a mile I was back at work, so I went in and made myself a cuppa and struggled
with Wordle. C-ASE ? The missing letter wasn't
an H... It took me an age to work out what it was. At
tea break I treated myself to a cheese scone. Last year I had one of those
every day. This year being on a diet I haven't. That's saved just over a quid
and three hundred calories a day, and helped shift
two stone. Admittedly I might be a lot more miserable for it, but (apparently)
that's diets for you. At
tea break I also started re-reading an old favourite book of mine. I first
read "The
Many Coloured Land" and its sequels over forty years ago.
I've since read them at least once every year, but they are such good books.
Every time I re-read them I see a new plot element
that I missed last time. “er
indoors TM” boiled up dinner which we washed down with a bottle of plonk whilst
watching this week’s episode of “Bake Off: The Professionals”. Sometimes
I wonder what might have happened if I’d pursued the career at the Harbour
Restaurant rather than in blood testing. I might have been on telly cooking
things. The trouble with a bottle of plonk for dinner is
that I will be fast asleep from nine o’clock this evening… and wide awake at
two o’clock tomorrow morning. |
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5 June 2025 (Thursday)
- It Rained
As
I peered into Facebook this morning an old mate was posting photos of the
motorbikes he’s restored and is now driving about. This got me thinking… I’ve
had four motorbikes and I don’t miss any of them. My first motorbike was a Suzuki AP50 which I
destroyed by driving straight into the back of a car driven by my aunt’s
ex-boyfriend (woops!) I replaced it with a Honda CB100 which I had for six
months; over four of which it spent in the workshops
of Hastings Motorcycles. Despite being the only five-star Honda dealer in
Sussex they couldn’t get the parts for it. I gave up waiting and got a Suzuki GSX250 which I
drove for a few years. My most vivid memory of it is skidding in oil in
Cornwallis Gardens (in Hastings) and then skidding up the road with
the bike pinning my ankle down as we scraped along the tarmac. After a couple
of years the thing finally fell to bits. I
eventually sold it to a friend of my father who wanted it for moto-cross. When that went I
resorted to a pedal bike for fifteen years. When we came back from the scouts
holiday in Canada in 2000 I had a lot of money left
over (the holiday turned out to be far cheaper than we had thought it
would be), and in a fit of nostalgia for an age that never existed I got
another motorbike. A Suzuki GSX650. I drove it for some time, but I have no
happy memories of that bike at all. I can remember riding it through the rain
to a works meeting in Margate, and sitting in the
meeting in wet shirt and trousers as my so-called
waterproofs were hung out steaming over a range of chairs. I can remember
riding it to a works meeting in Milton Keynes, arriving with serious
backache, and wondering about abandoning it and taking the train home.
Eventually I gave up with the bike when it was in for a service and I
borrowed “er indoors TM” car. It didn’t hurt
to drive the car, I could carry more luggage than I could shove up my jumper,
and I wasn’t in permanent fear of being wiped off the road by every passing
vehicle that was bigger than a go-kart. Motorbikes are all very well when it’s not raining,
you’ve not got far to go, and there’s no other
idiots on the road. I munzed, got Wordle (datum
– what a silly word) on the fourth attempt, put some washing in to scrub,
woke the dogs, and once they’d had brekkie I took
them out. As we drove to the woods the pundits on the radio
were interviewing the shadow chancellor of the exchequer who, like many
politicians, was spouting drivel. He started off banging on about how only
the Conservative party could be trusted with the country’s economy,
and then was apologizing for the utter financial balls-up that the Liz
Truss government had made. After a little squabbling he took the standard fall-back position of all politicians “vote for me –
I’m not as bad as the others”. We got to the woods. We started our walk. As we
walked my birdsong app detected a redstart, or so it claimed. Gordon
downloaded the same app yesterday and it thought his dog Norton was Norton’s panting was a ring-necked duck. We saw the pink flowers
I’ve seen all over the woods recently. A friend has told me they are
foxgloves. And we saw a song thrush’s egg – sadly laying broken
on the ground. How did it get there? I always thought they nested
earlier in the year? After a couple of miles the
drizzle started, and the drizzle soon became rain. We shortened our walk, and
rather than five miles we walked three and a half, and
weren’t *that* wet when we got back to the car. We came home. I hung out the washing, set the
undercrackers tumble-drying and did some CPD until the rain eased up. I went into the garden and got half of the lawn
edging painted. I trimmed back the roses hanging over the fence from not-so-nice-next-door. Just how far is it
reasonable for her roses to come over the fence? Am I being unreasonable in
thinking they shouldn’t scratch my head as I walk the stepping-stones which
run up the middle of my garden? I mowed the lawn, and
trimmed round the stepping-stones. After two and a half hours the rain started again so
I came in. And (sadly) after two and a half hours the garden looked
much the same as when I’d started. I looked at my phone – this morning’s post to
Facebook came up, and below the post was a new button – Facebook’s AI saying “More about Fat Baldy’s Adventures”. I
clicked on it but was disappointed. If it wants to know more about Fat Baldy it only has to read my
blog. As for what adventure Fat Baldy would like to have… hope springs
eternal. I then spent a little while solving geo-puzzles. I
think the idea was that I was supposed to go to certain locations, but I
could get the information easily enough from Google Street View. That saved
some farting about. “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” is visiting… she’s boiling up dinner. |
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6 June 2025 (Friday)
- Before the Late Shift
I
slept well until two o’clock. I woke to see the clock reading “2:34”
and then I didn’t really sleep much more. Eventually Treacle jumped off the
bed and started squeaking frantically. I got up; she sprinted to the back
door and flew down the garden. Part of me thinks we should have a litter tray by
the back door in case of emergencies; part of me thinks that if we had a
litter tray it would get used every night. I made toast and had my usual rummage round Facebook
as I do. More and more I’m getting postings about dying animals. I wish I
wasn’t. I’ve already had two random melt-downs about
my Fudge this week and it is over four years since
he went. I took a deep breath, and
made a point of not joining in with a squabble I saw on one of the
pension-related Facebook groups I follow. Someone had set up some scheme in
which recipients of NHS pensions got some bargain or other. Someone else had
joined the group purely to kick off about how that discriminated against
people who didn’t get the NHS pension. It was suggested that the chap set up
his own freebie-dishing-out scheme, and that was akin to a red rag to a bull.
As is always the way people would rather complain than do anything. I know I
would. The dogs all got up, eventually followed by “er
indoors TM” and “Daddies’ Little Angel TM”.
Once the dogs had had their brekkie I took them out.
As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how President Trump
and Elon Musk have been having a very bitter and very public argument.
Perhaps Mr. Musk is right; perhaps Mr. Trump might not have won the election
if not for him. But he did win the election, and consequently Mr. Musk (like
all of us) must bear in mind the thirty-third
rule of acquisition – it never hurts to suck up to the boss. We got to the woods. With limited time this morning
we went to Orlestone. There was only one other car in the car park and we walked for two miles without seeing anyone
else. The dogs were as good as gold for once. In the past they have been
willful at Orlestone; disappearing into thickets and being reluctant to come
back when called. But today they didn’t disappear, they stayed (relatively)
close, they didn’t roll in any muck, they totally ignored the two-feet-deep
puddle that we walked past on the way back to the car. As we walked I had my
birdsong app running; in the last couple of weeks that has become a
fascination of mine. In the back garden it always detects sparrows; in the
woods it has never once detected a sparrow even
though I see small birds which I have always thought were sparrows. I need to
look closer to see what they are. And this morning the app identified a goose
and three different tits too. Pogo had stayed overnight – he came on our walk
today. I had no problems with four dogs this morning. Back in the day I used
to have problems with three dogs. Looking back it
was little Fudge who was the problem; he would straggle behind so much. The
four dogs along today all stayed (relatively) together and with me. As we drove home Romesh Ranganathan was on the
radio. He was this morning’s castaway on “Desert Island Discs”.
He was very interesting, but with a frankly dreadful choice in music. Having
said that I often listen to “Desert Island Discs”, and I’ve never
heard anything by E.L.O., Sparks or Kate Bush on there. We came home – no one needed a bath (which was a
result). I ran round the garden collecting the dog turds
I didn’t collect earlier and once I’d washed my hands
I made us both a cuppa. We listened to the end of “Desert
Island Discs”, and I wrote
up some CPD until “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” returned
from her appointment. I drove her and Pogo home, then went on to the late
shift. And as is so often the way when on the late shift, the day was
effectively done by late morning. |
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7 June 2025
(Saturday) - Home Alone
I
woke shortly before five o’clock this morning which was rather better than
the previous night. I then lay there listening to the rain against the
window. The forecast had been for overnight rain, but the sound of it is
always rather depressing. I suspect this comes from listening to it (many
times) from inside a tent. I got up, made toast and had a look at the Internet.
Here’s a sign of the times… Back in the day record charts would tell you
which bands were popular. An album or single would climb the charts, peak and
then vanish into obscurity over a couple of months. These days things are far
more immediate what with digital downloads. Last week Sparks’ new album entered many
of the various album charts in position one or two. A week later the same
album isn’t even in the top one hundred of any of them. I had an offer – I could download a copy of the
Beano’s summer special. Something for nothing can’t be bad… over fifty years
ago I was an avid reader of the Beano; this year’s summer special was
something of a disappointment. And Catherine Tate was complaining about the price
of theatre tickets. With local theatres struggling to get the punters in
she’s said that the average person isn’t going to spend fifty quid on a
ticket. Make it cheaper and the people will come. She’s got a point… I munzed, and got Wordle on the fifth attempt. Reuse – what a
stupid word. Is it even a word? Shouldn’t it be re-use
with a hyphen? I set the dishwasher going, then seeing that the
rain was easing up we got ready for Dog Club. To be honest we’d get ready for
Dog Club regardless of the weather. Being the key holder
we had to at least show up and open up… “We” being me and the dogs; “er indoors TM” and
the Craft Club gang were off to some big crafting convention today. As we drove round to Repton Steve was on the radio.
I had no idea about the guess the lyrics competition. “I can't say
the words you
want to hear. I suppose you're gonna have to play it by ear”. It was “Girls Talk” by
Dave Edmonds apparently. I
must admit that my hopes for Dog Club weren’t high today. The weather
forecast for the day was awful, but we still had a dozen dogs along. Things
started badly for Morgan – with “er indoors TM” not
being along he spent the first ten minutes crying for her, but he soon joined
in the games with his friends. Playing and chasing, playing fetch, sharing
treats… we all had fun. And
as we drove home I got the radio’s mystery year
competition from the song “Sugar Baby Love” – a rather obscure song
brought back so many memories of 1974. Once home I emptied the dishwasher and put a load of
laundry in to scrub. The forecast rain still hadn’t arrived but I decided against going into the garden. The
overnight rain had left everything soaking wet. Instead
I made myself a cuppa, and as the dogs sat on the
back of the sofa and grumbled at every passer-by I
counted the Dog Club takings. People can either pay
their subs by cash or by texting the Repton centre. The cash goes in to a pot which I keep hold of. I quite like the idea of
a money pot as every two weeks I count up the money,
add on a tenner for our dogs and transfer that amount to the Repton people. I
then pocket the cash, and it saves me the time it would take going to a
cashpoint machine. It would only be a few seconds, but it saves some time. I wrote up some CPD, ironed shirts, and fell asleep
on the sofa. I woke after a few hours then had a minor pootle
in the garden until “er indoors TM” came
home. “er
indoors TM boiled up
pizza then went off to Folkestone; some comedian or other was playing at the
Leas Cliff Hall. I settled in front of the telly underneath dogs and watched
episodes of “Orange is the New Black” and watched the rain
which had finally started. The weather forecast for today had been for heavy rain
all day long and there had been formal warnings from the Met Office for thunderstorms. The overnight rain stopped at about
half past seven this morning, and the day stayed dry until six o’clock this
evening. Maybe I might start a petition asking
the government to either ban weather forecasting or have weather forecasts
carry a little announcement about just how successful they have been over the
last month? |
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8 June 2025 (Sunday)
- Another Dull Day
I
woke to a bright morning, and the birds were chirping as I scoffed toast.
Sparrows. I had my usual rummage round the Internet. Apart from endless
adverts about “Back to the Future” (what was that all about?)
Facebook was dull but I had an email about my leccie
and gas bill. My account is fifty quid in credit which is something of a
result I suppose. I Munzed and Wordled, and then the dogs got up. I followed them with a
trowel as I do, and sniggered. I could tell the rain
had been heavy last night; rather than going right up the garden to unload,
the late night turds had been dolloped only a few
feet from the back door. It’s a dog thing. I then got the ladder out and went upstairs with it.
We’ve been hearing a chirping from above the airing cupboard, and from the
outside it looks like the sparrows have been getting under the tiles. There
was nothing to be seen in the airing cupboard; I got into the
loft space above the back room and nothing
seemed amiss. So I got onto the flat roof above the
bathroom and had a look from the outside. The sparrows have made a little
nest underneath one of the roof tiles. They don’t seem to be doing any harm there. We took the dogs out. Bearing in mind last night’s
rain we wanted to go somewhere relatively dry so we
followed the path along the river up to Henwood and came back again, finding
three new geocaches as we went. As always when on their leads the dogs’ behavior
left something to be desired. It usually does. When running free they are
fine with other dogs; when on the lead there is
loads of snarling and barking. As we walked up the river we saw a nesting swan. The
bird was fast asleep on the net as everyone was walking to and fro along the path. We came home. After a cuppa “er
indoors TM” went round to the scout hut for a
meeting. Much as I love the scout group, it can be a nuisance. Most scouty people have nothing else in their lives as
scouting completely takes your life over (been there, done that!) so a
weekend with no scouty things is ideal for a
meeting. Personally I’d rather have had the meeting
one weekday evening but scouty people are doing scouty things every weekday evening… I was a scout leader
for thirteen years. We had the cubs meeting on a Tuesday, I’d often be
expected to show up at Beavers on a Wednesday. Monday and Thursday was
district committee meetings, Friday would be fundraising events, weekends
often had sporting events… I must have enjoyed my time as a scout leader, but
it certainly takes over. Effectively today was pretty much a non-event so’s a
one-hour meeting could happen. That’s effectively a wasted weekend. But there it is. I cleaned the fish tank filter, and both pond
filters, and got more fence painted before “er indoors TM” came
home. “er indoors TM” came
home to say that a merger is on the cards for the scout group. The group with
which I used to help has no over-elevens any more,
but has its own premises. The Stanhope scout group has no under-elevens and
meets where it can. It makes sense to combine the two. As always
I’m tempted to offer to help, but scouting really does take over. It was
mentioned that the grounds of the scout hut need tidying – we might be able
to organize a geo-meet to do that. We then spent a little while putting the new garden
table together. The old one collapsed a while ago. Over some pork chops we watched the most recent
episode of “Race Around the World”. The race is getting to the final
stages… it’s getting rather exciting, and not at all the stage in the race at
which to stuff up… |
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9 June 2025 (Monday)
- Complaining
The
weekend had been rather dull. And as is so often the way, now it is all over
it turned out there was a rather epic beer festival in Tenterden
over the weekend that I missed. Back in the day the local branch of CAMRA
used to organize a beer festival at the Rare Breeds centre. We went many
times. A while ago it was moved from the Rare Breeds centre to the Kent and
East Sussex railway in Tenterden… and yet again I
found out about it after the event. There had been an “Open Gardens” event in Challock yesterday when I could have gone and been nosey
at people’s gardens, and something else I found out as I scoffed toast was
that the chap who
created cybermen (in “Doctor Who”) used to live just up the
road in Doddington. I got the dogs onto the leads (four – as Pogo had
been with us overnight) and we set off for an adventure. As we drove the
pundits on the radio were interviewing one of the head honchos of
Reform UK. This chap had been the party’s chairman last week but had
resigned saying that working for the party was not “a good use of my time”.
He’s now come back and taken up another job with Reform UK; he was rather
vague as to what it was but did say he’d had loads of messages from members
of Reform UK urging him to remain. It was implied that being a Muslim himself
he would have a moderating effect on the party. Hopefully he will… As we drove we saw a car
with the registration “G4 MNG”; I bet that wasn’t cheap. We got to the woods and had a good walk. The ground
wasn’t that wet bearing in mind the weekend’s overnight rain but there were
puddles; some rather deep. Treacle had a wallow. I tried the birdsong app; it detected two sorts of
chiffchaff. I had thought there was only one sort; it turns out there’s four. It detected
a spotted flycatcher, and claimed to have detected a common eider which
ironically is rather rare in Kings Wood. Probably because I doubt there’s any
actually there. We came home, and I painted fence until “Daddies’
Little Angel TM” returned from her appointment. I
drove her and Pogo back home and went shopping… Oh dear. The Cheriton branch of Tesco had renovations going
on and pretty much every aisle I needed was closed. So
I drove up the motorway to the one in Willesborough.
I got what I needed and saw there was an offer on
bottles of wine. If I were to buy three or more that were on offer I would get twenty-five per cent off. I picked up
three bottles that were very clearly labelled as being in the deal – in front
of each bottle was a sign saying the wine was in the deal. I got to the till
and felt that the bill was a tad high. It turned out that for a wine to be in the deal, the
wine had to be labelled “Tesco’s Finest”. Sadly
this wasn’t what the advertisement said; it clearly
said that each of the wines I picked up were part of
the deal. And having taken my money, both the cashier and the
customer service staff refused to give a refund. I came home and sent Tesco’s head office a
complaint. Or tried to. Eventually I found a Whatsapp
number where after quite a bit of farting about I
eventually got told that a real person would be in touch with me. Someone claiming to be called Finlay Whatsapped me five minutes later wanting a photo of the
receipt and my email address, and five minutes after that he emailed me a
voucher for nearly nine quid. It pays to complain. Whilst I’d been in Tesco
I’d got us a cream slice each for lunch (diet? – what diet!). I was
rather amazed to find that there’s about fifty more calories in a croissant
than there is in a cream slice. It’s like flapjack.
I thought that stuff would be healthy. It pays to have a calorie-counting
app. I went into the garden and painted more fence. I’ve got to the panels near the house which
are behind planters and lock-ups and are difficult
to get to. And consequently I don’t get much done
before it starts hurting. I got one panel done, did the “Feed The Fish” ritual, then made us both a cuppa. After a rather good bit of scoff “er
indoors TM” went bowling like she does most Mondays.
I put “Orange is the New Black” on the telly and cracked on with the
ironing. The weekend was rather dull… today was rather busy.
I’m worn out. |
|
10 June 2025
(Tuesday) - Goldfinches
I had a rather bad night; I always do when
I’ve got an alarm set. I got up about an hour before I might have done, made
toast and watched another episode of “Orange is the New Black” before
setting off to work. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the
planned new
nuclear power station at Sizewell. The thing is now definitely going
ahead… even though construction started eighteen months ago. There were those
who welcomed it, and those who opposed it. For the most part those who
welcomed it weren’t those with it on their doorstep, and those who opposed it
were those who would be inconvenienced by the construction. Pretty much like
absolutely everything else in life really. There was also talk about humpback whales. They blow bubble
rings when
near humans, but drone footage of them all over the world shows this only
happens when humans are about. They don’t do it when no one is looking. The
implication is that they are trying to communicate… Are they? If so, what are
they saying? I’m jut hoping it’s not “so
long, and thanks for all the fish”. I popped in to Sainsburys to get a sandwich.
They didn’t have the carrot & houmous dip that I like so I had to rough
it with nachos and guacamole at three times the calories. Being in the works car park earlier than I might have been, I went for
a little walk, munzing as I went. I also had my
bird app going and it detected a dozen different birds, including
goldfinches. There’s loads of goldfinches at work; I
spent a little while peering out of the blood bank window watching them
having a bath in the puddle on the flat roof today. In between watching goldfinches we had a rather busy day, including problematical apparatus and a red alert. And it would seem that the trainees have
absolutely no idea what the phrase “a poggered
shit shop” means when describing a malfunctioning lavatory. We had a rather good tea of pizza and garlic bread, and I then
polished off the last of last week’s Vienetta and
cream. The cream might have been in the fridge for a tad too long; it tasted
OK but it’s not sitting well right now… Apart from the goldfinches, today was dull… |
|
11
June 2025 (Wednesday) - Walks, Gardening, Stuff, Hic !!!
I woke feeling full of
energy and raring to go at quarter to midnight, and
dozed fitfully for the rest of the night. I got up feeling rather grim just
before seven o’clock. out ones; the dogs prefer
the rancid ones. Dogs is foul creatures. cuppa then played on-line chess against “Daddies’
Little Angel TM” who is surprisingly good at chess . I’ve offered to pay to have it all replaced with new
fencing, but I suspect that not-so-nice-next-door realizes
that I want the fence replaced and is being difficult. With fish fed I pruned back the watercress in the
pond. It looks rather haggard. It might sprout again; if it don’t, another bag of the stuff is only a quid from
Sainsbury’s. As we scoffed and stared at the telly we cracked
open a rather good bottle of red wine, and then
opened a bottle of amaretto.
|
|
12 June 2025
(Thursday) - The Duck Theory
I slept rather well last night which wasn’t really surprising, but I must admit I had been expecting a
bit more of a headache. In retrospect polishing off an entire bottle of
amaretto was a tad keen. I made toast and peered into the Internet as I do. It was still there.
Today’s petty squabble on Facebook was about who pays the vet bills. Do you
pay the vet and claim from the insurance company, or does the insurance
company pay the vet directly? Obviously it depends
on the insurance policy that you’ve got, but people were getting amazingly
confrontational about the matter. And I was presented with adverts for a three-week cruise taking
in Antarctica, South Georgia and the Falkland Islands. I’ve been getting
these for some time now. I can’t say I’m overly keen on the idea of a cruise
anyway, and at twenty thousand quid each it’s a tad expensive. I munzed, and got Wordle on the fifth attempt. Any word with an “X”
in it takes some doing. I put some washing in, and rather than going to the
woods I cracked on in the garden. I got the lawn mowed
and a panel of fence painting before we were due at the vet for the annual
check-up and jabs. The vet seemed happy with Morgan and Bailey; sadly I don’t think the feeling was mutual. We came home, collected Treacle, and went up the woods about three
hours later than usual. We walked our usual walk and saw slow worms and fox
poo as we went. We left the slow worm alone, but the dogs ate the fox poo
that they didn’t smear over their ears and backs. Dogs is
foul creatures. Again I ran my birdsong
app, and I think I’ve discovered a hiccup with it. Periodically it detects
ducks that aren’t there… I *think* it is hearing my creaking boots. As we walked back to the car a passing normal person took a shine to
the pups. I told her not to stroke them as they were covered in fox poo. She
smiled politely at me with a “WTF are you talking about” expression,
stroked them both, and then realized that they were both covered in fox poo. I did tell her… We came home for a bath. With dogs scrubbed we had a cheese sandwich, then I cracked on with
fence painting. I got another panel painted, but the next one was in a bit of
a state, so I put the paint away and spent an hour or so sorting out poggered fence panels. The panels really need replacing, but they will do for another year. I didn’t feel like any more painting; by the time I’d run round with
the watering can and done the “Feed The Fish”
ritual the afternoon was pretty much all gone. “er indoors TM” finished work and we took the dogs down to Orlestone for an evening
walk. Bearing in mind my duck theory I wore
trainers. As we walked round the woods I did three
separate ten-minute recordings and didn’t detect a single duck. We came home and had a rather good ploughman’s lunch for tea. I’ve walked over twenty-one thousand steps today… I’m worn out. |
|
13 June 2025 (Friday)
- Bonus Late Shift
As
I peered into Facebook this morning people were singing the praises of “The
Kenny Everett TV show”. I watched an episode of that the other day. I can
remember it having been incredibly popular back in the day… but funny? It was
one of those shows where whenever a joke was made, the one making the joke
would grimace at the camera and canned laughter would be played so that you
knew it was funny. Much the same strategy was used in the show “Friends”
and many others. My mother couldn’t watch a TV comedy that didn’t tell you
when to laugh; she felt that comedies without canned laughter and people
grimacing at the camera were just odd. I munzed, wordled, and went upstairs to wake the dogs. Pogo was
with us today, and four of us drove down to Orlestone. As we got to the
turn-off for the woods we saw “Larry” walking up the main road. We
often see him – I think of him as “Larry” as he looks like Larry Fine
of the
Three Stooges. This chap walks up the main road from Ham Street to South
Ashford most mornings, and walks back again most
evenings. Sadly he always seems to be going in the
opposite direction to us; I’d offer him a lift if I could. We got to the woods. Again
I didn’t wear my walking boots; again my birdsong
app didn’t detect any ducks. But it did detect coal tits on the three times I
ran it. The Merlin birdsong app seems to have an issue with coal tits – how
common are they? When I detect them at the bottom of Orlestone Woods the app
tells me that they are uncommon. When I detect them anywhere else they aren’t uncommon. We walked the same walk we did yesterday evening.
With “er indoors TM” not along the dogs
didn’t disappear into any thickets, didn’t run off, and didn’t need to be
called at all. Mind you Treacle did wallow in a swamp and the smallest two
did roll in fox poo; you can’t have everything. We came home. Being Friday morning “Desert Island
Discs” was on the radio. This morning’s castaway was someone
of whom I’d never heard of; some professor who specialized in
emergency planning. I once knew a chap who worked in emergency planning. He
told me he loved it – apparently whenever there had been an emergency for
which there had been no plan, the local press would crucify whoever had had
the emergency. This chap said he spent all day playing “what if”
thinking up the most obscure disaster scenarios and making contingency plans
for them. As we drove home we saw
that “Larry” had got to Park Farm – that was a shade over four miles
from where we’d seen him earlier. If I was walking that route every day I wouldn’t go up the main road. There’s
loads of back lanes that are far prettier (and safer) I wrote
up some CPD, and got ready for work. I wasn’t supposed to be at work
today, but the boss had asked me if I could help out
by doing a late shift. Bearing in mind that I’m on the skint
side, and that only a few short years ago I wasn’t trusted to do anything
unsupervised, I’m only too happy to help. Even on a black Friday. Not that
I’m overly superstitious, but many years ago I worked with a senior manager
who took every Friday the thirteenth off work. He said he would take no
chances. I set off to work... via Folkestone to drop off
those who'd stayed overnight. I then had this idea to set the car’s cruise
control and drive at a steady seventy miles per hour for the thirty-five
miles from Folkestone to work thereby taking half an hour. A genius idea in
theory; utterly impractical in practice. The trouble with cruise
control is that no one else uses it, and so you are constantly either driving
up other people's rear ends, or having people
driving up your rear end. And it didn't help that a ferry or the Eurostar had
just chucked out giving two lanes of lorries overtaking each other at one
mile per hour difference in speed. I
got some petrol and went in to work for the late shift. Work was much the
same as ever. Unlike Tuesday we didn't have any red alerts, and we had cake;
I was grateful for small mercies. It was a shame there was a thunderstorm on the way
home, but I got in before the torrential rain started. And in closing today I seem to have formed a blister
on my right thumb. I have no idea how that got there – possibly from all the
fence painting? |
|
14 June 2025
(Saturday) - Dog Club, Geo-Meet
I
slept through until my alarm went off at seven o’clock this morning. I saw
that as a result. I made toast and peered into a Facebook which was rather
polarized (isn’t it always?) There were those posting photos of last
night’s lightning, and there were those who were pretending to be utterly
disinterested. I suppose it is the same with photos of anything. Everything
is interesting on first sight, but after the five hundredth photo, the
interest tends to wane. I had an email about a new geocache this morning. I
have alerts set up to tell me about new geocaches within thirty miles of
home. Back in the day it was rare for there not to have
been at least one new one every day. It’s been two weeks since the
last one went live. And I had a text from the doctor. They want another
week’s worth of twice-daily blood pressure
measurements. We drove round to Dog Club. As we drove Steve was
doing the “Guess the Lyrics” competition on the radio. “Father forgive me, I tried not to do it” ?
No? – Pet Shop Boys; It’s A Sin. Attendance was down at Dog Club, but we had a great
time. Charging about; getting into mischief, more treats than sense…A great
time was had by all. As we drove away Steve was doing the Mystery Year
competition on the radio. When was the siege of the Iranian Embassy in
London? 1980. Steve didn’t give the answer until later this
morning; I was pleased about that. It gives me more of a
chance. “er
indoors TM” came home to get ready for her adventure. I took the dogs out for
ours. We drove to Staple where the monthly geo-meet was happening at the
Black Pig. This was the fourth time we’ve met there,
and it has always been an excellent meet-up. Today we had a rather good game of Bat and Trap in
which I scored three points; tripling my previous best score. The dogs had
dog biscuits from the bar, and also had chicken
skins. Chicken skins are new to us – they are basically the chicken version
of pork scratchings. They had salami sticks too. After nearly three hours the dogs got a tad
fractious, so I brought them home. We said hello and goodbye to “er
indoors TM” who was off to Margate for some 80s
music evening thingy at Dreamland. I put a load of washing in to
scrub. I dishwashered and ironed and watched
episodes of “Orange is the New Black” as the dogs all snored. I decided against taking them out this evening;
they’ve had a rather busy day today… As have I. |
|
15 June 2025 (Sunday)
- Father's Day
I
had something of a lie-in this morning; By the time “er indoors TM” got
home from her Margate adventure last night it was getting on for one o’clock. I didn’t do toast this
morning. Instead I sat and had a go at some
geo-puzzles. There’s one near
where we had yesterday’s meet. Ostensibly about
cabbages, it has had me struggling for over a year. I got a little pointer
yesterday and this morning I finally got the thumbs-up from the checker. I munzed, got wordle on
the fourth attempt, and had another look at the geo-puzzle that went live for
yesterday’s meet. There had been a minor cock-up with the publication of that
puzzle. When it was sent in to the geo-feds it read
“All you have to do to find the cache is to solve this puzzle N51
15.ABC E001 15.DEF” and this was followed by pictures of pigs
labelled A to F. However the pictures of pigs never
appeared in the published puzzle. I got to the meet
early yesterday and started looking for six-digit strings of numbers. I found
them on the date the pub was built, on the fire
alarm… Had I pressed the “refresh” button on my app I would have seen
that the error had been spotted and corrected. Eventually once I was pointed
at the right website I figured out what I was supposed to be doing to solve
it. “My Boy TM” called round and we went to McDonalds for a Father’s Day McMuffin. The
local cafes were crowded out for Father's Day brekkies,
but McDonalds was all but empty. We came home for a cuppa
and looked into the pond. “My Boy TM” pointed
out that the biggest Koi was looking rather thin and ill. I suppose seeing
him every day I’d not noticed, but he don’t look
well. We then went out for a little walk. We wanted
somewhere shaded as the forecast was for a hot day, and somewhere with a
series of geocaches that met the specific requirements for the new “Event
Mementoes” series of Treasures. The “Another Crockham
Wood Trek” series looked as though it would fit the bill. It did. We had a rather good walk. The paths were a bit
vague (non-existent) in parts. The geocaches weren’t that easy to
find. Treacle wallowed in a stagnant ditch, and we took no chances and kept
Morgan and Bailey on their leads. But we walked a
rather good (if hilly) three miles over two
hours. As I walked I had my
birdsong app running. It didn’t detect any ducks today, and it detected ten
more species of bird at the western edge of the wood compared to the eastern
edge. Birds can be very locallised things. I
took some photos as we walked. We came home via a frankly stupid route at the end
of which we decided that the sat-nav in “er indoors TM”’s
car has had its chance and blown it. But once home we had a rather good hour
or so sitting in the garden. I put so much time and effort into the garden it
would be a shame not to enjoy it from time to time. “er
indoors TM” went and had a little lie down. I spent a while struggling with more
geo-puzzles. We had a rather good dinner of pork chops whilst
watching “Taskmaster”. I’m feeling washed out; a late
night last night, possibly too much sun this weekend… The forecast is
for a little less sun tomorrow. We shall see. It still seems odd not going to see my dad… |
|
16 June 2025 (Monday)
- More Treasures (Planets)
I stepped on the scales this morning. I was
under fifteen stone for the first time in years. I did my blood pressure
which also seems to be down on what it was six months ago. Something of a
result, I suppose. I scoffed toast and peered into the Internet. It was still there. With “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” needing
a lift mid-morning I took the dogs out early. As we drove to the woods the
pundits on the radio were talking to some Israeli spokesman or other. And
like most Israeli spokesmen, this woman was utterly unreasonable. She felt it
was perfectly fine for the Israelis to have launched a massive and unprovoked
attack on the Iranians on the pretext of they might possibly attack
Israel at some point in the future. But this woman felt it was utterly wrong
of the Iranians to retaliate. We got to the woods and walked our usual circuit. I went in trainers
today, and the birdsong app didn’t detect any ducks. We did see a slow worm,
Treacle and Pogo found a wet ditch, Morgan and Bailey found fox poo, and
Treacle found a deer bone. As we walked we heard
several large things crashing in the trees. A few
months ago we would have been able to see deer
through the trees; now what with all the leaves we can’t. We headed up the slope to the car park just as loads of normal people
were walking down. Pausing only briefly to bark at them we were soon back at the car. We came home, and I solved geo-puzzles until “Daddies’ Little
Angel TM” was done. Her and Pogo then went home to
disaster. The pavement was dug up outside her flat. Including the entrance to
her flat. The nice men had to stop work to let her through. We took a circuitous route home. Last week two new loads of geocaching
treasures were launched. We got one series yesterday. Today it was time
to look at “planets”. Only certain geocaches count for getting these
souvenirs, and I’d planned a route home. The first stop was at puzzle based on benches
in a churchyard in Capel. That was simple enough. The second involved a
rather epic word search and I don’t think it was actually
there. The third and fourth adventures were straightforward;
if involving a little hike. The last was a pain. I managed to work out the
eastings of where the thing was hidden, but the northings eluded me. So I looked at the map and plotted a straight line along
which the eastings co-ordinates laid. There was only one point where a
footpath crossed that line, so I went and had a look, and there was a tree
stump at the vital point. And inside that tree stump was what I was hunting… Sadly it was too late to
do any gardening when I got home, but there it is. Anyway
the most recent fruit of my loins has the strimmer… With that in mind I
decided to leave it with her and get myself a new one. I had a look on Amazon
and saw one that claimed next day delivery. I
pressed the buttons and once it had got my money it said I would have it by
the beginning of next month… I get that a lot on Amazon. “er indoors TM” boiled up a rather good bit of dinner then went bowling as she does
most Mondays. I settled in front of the telly, did my evening blood pressure
measurements and watched more “Orange is the New Black” as
the dishwasher dishwashed. I’m feeling rather worn out… |
|
17 June 2025
(Tuesday) - Late Shift
There
was consternation on the local Facebook pages this morning as I scoffed
toast; someone had been flying a drone around the Repton estate (where we
have Dog Club) and the locals weren’t happy. It was claimed that someone
was using it to peer through windows, and others were claiming to have tried
to shoot it down with catapults and air rifles. And there was talk about a new Gerry
Anderson TV show. I did my blood pressure, Munzed,
got wordle (prank) on the last go, and took
the dogs out. As we drove the pundits on the radio were
interviewing the Archbishop of
Liverpool (no – I didn’t know Liverpool had an Archbishop either)
about how Liverpool Cathedral had been upgraded to a Grade
One listed building. Personally I find this to
be a matter of utter indifference, but bearing in
mind that ten minutes of peak-time national radio was devoted to the matter,
there must be plenty of people who are interested. Or perhaps the radio
producer is a religious nut. And then the sport news came on the radio and my
mind wandered. Not having that much time today we went to Orlestone.
The car park was rather busy, but as we walked we
only saw a couple of other dog walkers. Mind you, they were a worry. We see
so many other dog walkers who on seeing another dog are immediately gripped
by panic and start babbling about how friendly their dog is; their panic
obviously upsetting all the dogs. We saw a couple of those today. We rolled
in dust (thankfully missing the nearby fox poo). We totally missed
seeing the squirrels, and the swamp score was one all; I made a point of not
walking past the mucky filthy swamp, but I forgot the deep puddle by the car
park which Treacle hadn’t forgotten about. Again I didn’t wear my walking boots; again the
birdsong app didn’t detect any ducks. But as I walked
I found myself thinking. The birdsong app would have me believe there were at
least a dozen different sorts of birds in Orlestone woods. As we walked I saw a crow and a pigeon, and some small birds
flitting about which could have been anything. Going bird-spotting with a
pair of binoculars is far less productive. We came home. We had a cuppa
and I did some more CPD,
then got the hair trimmer out and gave myself a little haircut. Whilst I was
at it I gave Bailey a trim too; she was getting a
little wispy. She wasn’t keen on it, but made a lot
less fuss than the last time I gave her a haircut. I think the finished
result has left her looking a lot tidier; even if
she did have a serious sulk. I gathered dog dung, fed the fish, and got ready for
work. I
set off to the late shift. I was going to get lunch in the co-op
but the car park was heaving, so I drove up the motorway to Sainsburys at
Aylesford where in a novel break with tradition they had staff working the
tills. I
got scoff, then went in to work where I did my bit. At tea break I saw
that Facebook’s artificial intelligence was offering its sage advice on the
post I’d made from the woods this morning. I’d commented that we’d bothered
normal people and made a point of not going near the swamp on our morning
walk; Facebook’s AI was having a go at explaining why. I suppose it’s good
that the thing is having a go, but it needs a bit more practice. Coming home was a game – Chart Road was closed. I
wonder if that will be opened in the morning. I need that road to get to
Kings Wood tomorrow. I need to think about how I can wind up Facebook’s
Meta AI while I’m there. |
|
18 June 2025
(Wednesday) - A Day Off ?
Today’s main task was to top up the water in
the pond… I knew it needed doing, but last night the water lever was really low. Being wide awake far too early this morning as
I had a shave I could hear noise outside. Not-so-nice-next-door was
crashing about her garden at six o’clock. Seeing she was up and making noise
I decided the sound of running out a hose was nothing in comparison to what
she was doing so I ran out the hose and started the topping up. I made toast, watched some telly, then peered into the internet. It
was still there. There was upset from friends in Folkestone as apparently the
harbour arm is to have housing
built on it in addition to more businesses. Good luck with that –
the beach is a bleak place for nine months of the year; let alone effectively
being a hundred yards out at sea. There wasn’t a lot else going on. I checked my blood pressure, munzed, got Wordle at the third attempt and went to have
a look at how the pond was doing. I turned off the hose, put some washing in,
and took the dogs out. As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about last night’s
vote in Parliament to de-criminalise abortion. And rightly so. Someone or
other was brought on who commented how the UK’s attitude to abortion is
completely at odds to that of the USA. Because here in the UK we consider the
issue whereas in the USA the average punter goes with what their religious leaders
tell them to think. The observation was made that Americans go big on
religious freedoms which (for the most part) means to blindly do as
they are told by those threatening them with eternal damnation if they don’t
hand over lots of money. This was followed by talk about Independent
Bookshop Week. Again what could have been an
interesting discussion was totally scuppered by the
guest speaker constantly mumbling “Um – yeah – you know” rather than
using coherent sentences. You’d think that the radio show’s producers might
have recorded that little interview yesterday and thrown it away rather than
wasting live air-time. We got to the woods and walked a different route to our usual one.
Joggers seemed to be out in force today. As we walked the dogs found
something disgusting and rolled in it and ate it until I could chivvy them
away from it. We came home for a wash. With dogs washed I finished off topping up the pond, then watered
round as I had the hose out, and I got a couple of fence panels painted. I’m
now on to the bigger panels which take longer to do. I got two done, then got
the acrylic paints out and painted up a garden ornament. One which hung on the front of my mum’s house
for years. It’s supposed to be birds on a branch, but because it had never
been painted it could have been anything. I got the leaves and branches
painted; I shall do the birds tomorrow. I then sat down by the pond… and fell asleep. “er indoors TM” finished work and we took the dogs down to Orlestone. The dogs
were rather willful this evening. Treacle found a swamp, and Bailey vanished
down a rabbit hole. Morgan was a good boy, but we were waiting for him to run
amok. We came home via Long Length where there was (and still is) a particular geocache finding
which gives us one of the Planet Treasures that we’ve been hunting. The
description for the series of caches said “This
is not the average geocache route as you will not find any normal small
container on its own, it either has something with it, it is an unusual container or you have to find a way to retrieve it”.
The description for this particular cache said “Behind
the log. Stay here all day every day to get inside”. We found an old
toolbox behind a log. I wonder what all the hype was about. We came home where Treacle had her second bath of the day, and I had a
look at the pond. The water level has definitely gone
down again. It has been hot recently… but not *that* hot? I do hope
the pond hasn’t sprung a leak… I shall top it up and have a look in the morning. Today was a not-working-day. I haven’t stopped and I’ve walked over
twenty thousand steps. There’s talk of opening a bottle of plonk in a bit. I deserve one. |
|
19 June 2025
(Thursday) - Another Day Off ?
I got up at half past seven, turned off the hose and
made toast which I scoffed whilst peering into the Internet. It was much the
same as ever. There was a post to the Dog Club’s
Facebook page; someone had seen an adder on the field by the rugby club. Some
people get rather paranoid about snakes. Personally I think they are lovely things but
I know of people who won’t go to certain woods and fields because a snake was
once seen in the general vicinity. They really do seem to think that a two foot long grass snake is going to attack them. There were several people posting photos of domestic
cats to the Big Cats Facebook pages claiming that Tiddles from next door was a wild puma, and a surprising amount
of posts from the flat Earth brigade. Some people really do think the Earth
is flat. I did my blood pressure, munzed and wordled, and got the dogs onto their leads. As we drove
up to the woods the pundits on the radio were talking about audio books. I
say “audio books” – they aren’t books at all, are they? They are
recordings of someone else reading a book which saves you the effort of actually reading it. Some woman was being interviewed who
was singing the praises of listening to someone reading a book to you. Apparently it allows you to multi-task; multi-tasking
being the process where you stuff up several things at the same time. If
people like listening to recordings of someone else reading a book, then
that’s fine. But don’t call it “reading a book”; it isn’t. Neither is
reading a comic and calling it a “graphic novel”. (I’ve done this
rant before, haven’t I?) We got to the woods and had a good walk. I avoided
the rancid thing we found yesterday; the dogs just found other putrid things
in which to roll. I wore my boots today; the birdsong app didn’t
detect any ducks. Perhaps there are ducks in Kings Wood; perhaps it isn’t my
squeaking boots? We came home for another bath, and I then had
another look at the pond. Was the water level lower again? I started painting fence panels and got two done. I
can remember many years ago reckoning that the bigger panels took an hour and
a quarter each to paint, and that estimate still holds. I then painted up our
Green Man garden ornament, finished up painting my
mum’s old ornament which I started painting yesterday, and then painted a
third fence panel. All the time looking at the pond. That water level was definitely
going down… In the first instance I need
to work out where the leak is, so I disconnected the
bog filter so that the output from the pressure filter goes
directly back into the main pond. If the water level goes down then the leak is in the
main pond, and that will be a major job for which I will need help (he
smiled hopefully). If the water level doesn’t go down
then the issue is in the bog filter and there’s a couple of possibilities.
Either the plant roots have gone mad and need a little pruning. Or there’s an actual leak. Both are relatively easy fixes compared to re-lining
the main pond. We shall see what happens. After five and a bit hours
I decided that I’d done enough garden work. If you stand at the back door it looks just the same as it did when I started. If
you look closer the pond looks a lot worse with water gushing out of a random
hose. “er
indoors TM” finished work, and we took the dogs to Orlestone as the evening was cooling.
We had a good walk; as we pootled I had my birdsong app running. A dozen
different birds on the first ten minutes walking from the car. And only a
blackbird and a robin on the ten minutes from the
half-way point. I’ve noticed before that the birds are far noisier on the
eastern side of Orlestone woods than they are on the western. We came home; for a laugh I told the Alexa to play “Spasmo radio”. Have you ever tried doing
that? He’s not bad… I shall measure my blood pressure in a minute. And on another non-working day I’ve covered over
seventeen thousand steps. I’m going to work tomorrow for a bit of a rest. I
really am. |
|
20 June 2025 (Friday)
- Going to Work (For A Rest)
Yesterday
had been the hottest day of the year, and so the night was rather warm. I
didn’t sleep very well, and was in the garden
looking at the pond shortly after five o’clock. With the bog filter bypassed
the water level didn’t look as though it had dropped much overnight (if at
all) which was something of a result. However as I walked up the garden so a seagull flew
away from the side of the pond – what was that one up to? I made toast and watched an episode of “Orange is
the New Black”. As I watched I did my blood pressure,
and then had a little look at the Internet. Today’s petty squabble was
about which company to use to get your take-away delivered. As if a take-away
isn’t expensive enough already, there’s now a range of companies you can pay
to go get it for you. It would seem that many are
getting the order wrong, and on delivering the wrong stuff the delivery chap
then pretends not to speak English and it can take
up to three days for the company to process the complaint. I had some emails… Some people went looking for some
of my geocaches in Kings Wood earlier in the week. I walked within a few
yards of where there was a possible issue yesterday and the day before. Such
a shame they couldn’t have told me about the problem right away… I
set off to work... and then spent a few minutes picking up the rubbish strewn
across the pavement outside the house. The bin men had been out today, and if
someone's black bin bursts open then the rubbish goes everywhere except with
the bin men. It didn't take that long to clear up that for which I pay close
on two hundred quid a month in council tax for someone else to shift. Perhaps
I'm being a tad unfair to the bin men... Perhaps it's not up to them to clear
up the bags that they burst open? It's just that I think it is...
I
drove off to work listening to the pundits on the radio who were talking
about how the Assisted Dying Bill is reaching a tricky stage in Parliament
today. Apparently this afternoon's vote would make
or break the chances of me being able to have my plug pulled when I become
totally knackered. It seemed as though it was going
to be passed into law when it was first proposed but things looked far
from certain this morning... In
the end the vote was in favour of allowing people to choose when they'd had
enough, but the vote was close. A *lot* of
MPs who were originally all for it voted against it today The
Assisted Dying Bill illustrates exactly how our political system works... Something
was suggested that the majority thought was a good idea and that the majority
wanted (in this case being able to decide when to end your own life when
you become very ill). A small minority disliked the idea and knew exactly
which MPs to canvass and where to bring pressure to bear, and the minority
viewpoint very nearly won the day because the minority is vocal and organised
whereas the majority is rather apathetic. I'm
reminded of the woman who was the landlady of our little flat in Folkestone
forty years ago. She ran one of the first vegan restaurants in the UK,
she was very pro-animal rights, she was very anti-Greenham Common, she wanted
to save the whales. In 1984 she was seen as a joke. She knew she was laughed
at from all sides, but her and her mates were passionate about what everyone
else thought was silly and they persevered... and
today what was once seen as crackpot and laughable opinions are now
mainstream. I
went to work via Sainsburys where I got a sandwich and a few tins of beer for
the weekend. The weather forecast looks as though it will be too hot to do
much other than sit in the garden and drink beer this weekend so (like all
scouts everywhere) I thought I might be prepared. I
went in to work; there was cake. I
was glad of the air conditioning. I was glad of sitting at a microscope.
Yesterday I commented that I was going to work today for a rest; compared to
the effort of the last couple of days I certainly did. Today’s
step count didn’t get over six thousand… |
|
21 June 2025
(Saturday) - Busy Day
I
slept reasonably well, but again woke on my back and
found it rather painful to try to roll over. That seems to be happening more
and more these days. I got up and had another look at the pond today; the
water level is pretty much what it was on Thursday evening. This tells me
that it was losing water from the bog filter. Either the bog filter has a
leak, or it needs a *lot* of the plants hoiking
out. Bering in mind that pond plants aren’t cheap I’m not keen on binning the
plants… I have a plan for building a water feature which
will incorporate the plants… I need a pump though. Or if any of my loyal
readers would like some pond plants… I made toast and had my usual rummage round the
Internet. Some friends were having a birthday today. One was having his
thirtieth birthday… Thirty. I can remember going to see him only a few hours
after he was born. There was a photo of a local traffic warden on one
of the local Facebook pages, and a lot of hatred being spewed about the chap.
It’s been my experience that it takes a certain sort of person to be a
traffic warden… I Munzed – our clan has
reached the second of our monthly targets. I wordled
and got it on the fourth attempt. Having submitted a blood pressure reading every morning
and evening this last week it seemed odd not doing so this morning. In
January I did a week’s worth of measurements, and now six months later and
two stone lighter I’ve just completed another weeks’ worth. Like my weight the blood pressure is down…
it’s eighty per cent of what it was. It’s still probably a tad high, but if I
keep up the weight loss hopefully I won’t need to
take the tablets. I’ll see what the quack says. We got ourselves organized for Dog Club, As we drove Steve was doing the “Guess the Lyrics”
competition on the radio. “You seem so far away though you are standing
near”. No? – Abba – SOS. We didn’t think there would be much of a turn-out
for Dog Club what with it being so warm, but I counted fifteen dogs. And
counting them takes some doing – they all keep moving about. We had a couple
of new dogs along; a good time was had by all. It was a shame Treacle got a
tad grumpy, but that’s the sort of dog she is. As we came home Steve was doing the Mystery Year
competition on the radio. Several vaguely familiar tunes, and when was the
Grand National declared void? It was either 1982 or 1993… I guessed the later one and got it right. We came home for a cuppa
and to count up the Dog Club takings.
Takings at Dog Club is definitely down on what it
once was, but attendance doesn’t seem * that* down. I can only
assume people are paying by text message. And with cuppa drunk we
set off out again. This time to Lydd where there was a little geo-meet on the
Rype. It was really good. A dozen of us sat under
the shade of one of the bigger trees and had a picnic and just chatted for a
couple of hours. We came home again. I had a little tidy-up in the
garden and put up the smaller event shelter and had a look at the pond. The
water level was fine, but there was a big problem. Our biggest fish has been
losing weight for some time. He didn’t look that good last weekend, and this
afternoon he was just floating on the surface of the pond. I pulled him out,
gave him a serious clout just to be sure (the same clout that it is
illegal to give a human in the same position) and disposed of the
carcass. It was all a bit sad really. We paid a hundred and
fifty quid for him in early January 2008 from a man from Devizes that at we
met at a bus stop somewhere near junction 16 of the M4. I like to think that
we bought him from *the*
man from Devizes. but we will never know. Steve, Sarah and Chris came round for the evening and we had a rather good few hours playing on the
infinity table. Game of Life; Sorry, Ticket to Ride… a good way to spend the
evening. Today was a rather busy day. Today was the longest day of the
year. From here on the days get shorter. |
|
22 June 2025 (Sunday)
- Lazy Day
I slept well despite the heat,
and woke to the sound of distant thunder at six o’clock. I then lay
awake for a couple of hours before finally conceding that I wasn’t going to
get back to kip. I got up and had a look at the pond. The water lever
was fine, but it had rained overnight. The event shelter I’d put up yesterday
was wet, and I saw that I’d left the shed door open overnight. Woops. Oh
well… it would soon dry out. By the time I’d had a shave and emptied the dishwasher and made toast
it was nine o’clock. The time at which we’d originally planned to meet up for
the start of a rather epic geocaching walk seventy miles away in Essex. We’d
been planning this walk for some time, but the forecasted heatwave had me worried. A few days ago I
messaged the event’s group chat and said that it was too hot for the dogs and we’d be pulling out. Within a few hours pretty
much everyone else pulled out too. We’re looking to try
again in September. There wasn’t much happening on-line, but I saw a new series of geocaches had gone live in the Edenbridge area, so I spent
a little while solving those puzzles I could from home. Some are ones for
which you can’t get the required information from Google Street View, which
was a nuisance. I munzed and got Wordle on the fourth
attempt. Thrum. What a stupid word. I wrote up some CPD, then
swapped a few messages with Gordon who was running on free electricity. We
have the same leccie company - apparently if you go
in their app and tell it that you are using leccie
at non-peak times, then it gives you free leccie on
a Sunday morning. The trouble is that you need to go on the app… I already
have far too many apps which I never use. I wonder how many other bargains
there are to which I am totally oblivious. I pootled in the garden a little… but it was
too hot. I played the bots at chess, and it wasn’t
long before friends arrived, and we had a rather good afternoon sitting in
the garden drinking beer, feeding crisps to the dogs and putting the world to
rights. Sometimes a lazy day is what I need… |
|
23 June 2025 (Monday)
- Another Busy Day
I
slept well despite the heat. I got up and checked the pond. The water level
was holding; I’m pretty sure that by bypassing the bog filter and the water
level being OK I’ve established where the issue is. As I checked the pond I had a chuckle. I heard the sound of a door opening. Not-so-nice-next-door came out into her back garden, stopped,
closed and locked the door. When I go into the back garden
I leave the back door open. She never does. The door is open just long enough
for her to slip through, then it is closed and locked. I’ve never seen that
door left open. What’s that all about? I made toast and had a look at a dull internet. I
saw our new MP had made a mistake. He’d made great
show of writing a letter to the head honcho of the
local hospital complaining about the parking charges, and
pointed out that other hospitals in Kent don’t charge patients and visitors
for parking. It was a shame that he was wrong, and the other hospitals *do* charge
for parking. It’s a silly mistake that he could have avoided by a couple
of seconds on Google. As a life-long leftie I must admit that finally
having a Labour MP has been something of a
disappointment. I munzed, and got Wordle (oddly) on the last attempt. And
once the dogs were breakfasted we went for a little
walk. As we drove the pundits on the radio were
interviewing the Foreign Secretary. The Foreign Secretary was asked a
straight question – had the Americans acted in accordance with international
law or illegally in their recent attack on Iran.
A straight question – yes or no. The chap flatly refused to answer. Pogo was with us today – he is funny. As we drove
into the car park at the woods
so he started squealing in excitement. And as we
walked round the woods so Pogo was shouting at the bigger dogs… until he
realized that the bigger dogs were friends with our three dogs that he
thought he was protecting. You could see his embarrassment when he realized
that we were all friends, and he would then join in the sniffing and general saying hello. As we walked we rolled in
fox poo and ate dead mice. There were quite a few dead mice today – had the
recent heatwave done for them? And we saw two deer as well. Two together,
which was unusual. We either see deer on their own or in a herd. Just seeing two was strange. We walked a different route to our usual one; with
reports of two of my geocaches
being missing I went and had a look. One was missing; one was still
there. We walked more than usual today – fourteen thousand
steps over six and a half miles I came home, Bailey had a bath, and I ran “Daddies’
Little Angel TM” and Pogo home, then took Bailey to
the Doggy Dentist. She didn’t like it; we had quite the
fight. Her back teeth are good – her front ones not so good. Crunching the
chicken’s feet is working for the back teeth; I need to be better at brushing
her front teeth myself. We went on to the garden centre to get a big pond
plant pot. There was a minor incident at the checkout; the woman on the till
thought one of the pots someone was buying was overpriced. And on finding
that it was priced correctly she then had quite the rant about how expensive
the pot was. . Once home again I had another look at the pond. I
stripped out about two thirds of the plants in the bog filter. Some went
straight into the green waste bin. Some sort-of
survived and I’ve transplanted some of those into the main pond and some into
a big bucket. They might survive; they might not. The water in the bog filter
is flowing much better now, but there’s not the depth in there that there
might be. Perhaps over the winter I might add another layer of sleepers just
to allow for root growth. Mind you I’m still hoping that it was massive root
overgrowth causing the thing to overflow which was the issue and not a leak.
We shall see. I had a text from the doctor. She said “Your
average home blood pressure readings are in an optimum range. So, no
further action is required at this stage. Please continue to keep an eye on
your blood pressure at home”. I’m seeing that as a result. We had pizza for dinner, then went bowling. I
watched an episode of “Orange is the New Black” then had a look at
more geo-puzzles. Some people simply don’t want them solved… |
|
24 June 2025
(Tuesday) - Late Shift
The
pond’s level this morning was what it was last night
so I think it fair to say there’s no leak. The plants that I moved into the
pond looked a bit of a state though. I shall give them a day or so to sort
themselves out before I hoik them out. Similarly the plants in the bucket look as though have had
it. Maybe something will sprout from the roots? I made toast and had my usual look at the Internet. It was still there. Our local MP was
posting photos form a primary school which has
recently benefited from the government’s free breakfast club initiative.
Whilst it is a good idea, I don’t see why the breakfast club had to come with
its brand
new building. This would be utterly impractical in the rain and cold
weather to say nothing of a complete waste of money. Doesn’t the school
already have a canteen or dining hall? And people were kicking off on one of the
Hastings-related Facebook groups that I follow complaining about Hastings
council (again). The boating lake has been bought out by the people
who run the local amusement arcades and this was
seen as council corruption by a load of people who openly admitted they were
too apathetic to vote when they had the chance. I took the dogs to Orlestone this morning. We had a
good walk. We didn’t roll in anything and came back when
called. We walked straight past the normal people when we saw them, and after
two miles were back at the car. It started raining as we got home. I gathered dog
turds, made us both a cuppa
and looked at the monthly accounts. They could be worse, but they could be a
whole lot better. I wrote
up some CPD (dull!), looked at some geo-puzzles (with
varying successes) and got ready for work. It was as I was about to walk out the door that I
remembered my plan was to put a load of washing in earlier. I left “er
indoors TM” with instructions and set off. ...
and that was effectively it for today. I drove round to the petrol station
then set off up the motorway to work and the late shift. The late shift
wasn't bad really. It
was still daylight as I drove home. That won’t last long… |
|
25 June 2025
(Wednesday) - Another Day At Work
I
thought I’d slept well, but was wide awake before
four o’clock. I lay there for an hour before getting up and watching an
episode of “Orange is the New Black” and then sparking up my lap-top
to see what was going on in the world. There was upset on one of the local Facebook groups
this morning as it
was clamed that the new Kent County
Council has cancelled a third of its meetings as the new councilors are still
having induction training. You’d think that being told what the job involved
would be something that would be covered in the first week, wouldn’t you? The
new council has been in place for nearly two months; how long does this lot
need to learn the job? It was suggested that part of the delay about actually doing anything was that councilors were still
waiting for enhanced criminal record (DBS) checks to be done.
You’d think that individuals standing for public office would have all this
stuff sorted before the election rather than finding out that they aren’t
suitable for public office some two months later, wouldn’t you. And there was
talk about the new cabinet member that the council
has appointed to make efficiencies at Kent County Council. Apparently whoever
it is can claim thirty seven thousand quid more than the
usual allowances. Nice work if you can get it, eh?. It has to be said that our
new Reform UK county council isn’t getting off to a good start, is it? I’ve
been criticizing our new MP about here quite a bit as well. I expect they
will all be out on their arses at the next
election… all it would take would be for someone else to promise the moon on
a stick to a gullible electorate. There wasn’t much else happening on-line so I munzed, set the dishwasher going and got ready for work. I
went to the co-op to get a sandwich. Oh, my idiot magnet was at full power
today. I couldn't get anywhere near the fridges as some epically fat woman
was standing in everyone's way, holding the fridge door open and squeezing
everything inside that she could get hold of. I managed to snatch a chicken
sandwich before she crushed it; she was clearly not pleased about that. And
as I walked off so I crashed into some idiot with
one of those surgical face masks that was tucked under his nose. The chap actually took it off when he came to pay so he could have
a conversation with the woman on the till. What was that all about? As
I drove up the motorway the pundits on the
radio were interviewing Wes Streeting, the Secretary of State for
Health and Social Care. They were talking about the government's
planned reforms to the welfare payments. I say "reforms"...
The Labour party has a problem that it is very clear about what it stands for
all the time it isn't in a position to actually do anything about what it stands for. Now that it
is in a position to stand up for those who need
help, it would rather not. It's happened before and I expect it will happen
again. Needless
to say, our local MP is toeing the party line. And
there was talk about the results of America's strike on Iran's nuclear facility last weekend Trump
says he's put the tin lid on the Iranians; the Iranians say he just damaged
the front door. Both were shouting "fake news" at each
other. I
got to work; I treated myself to a cheese scone and got on with the day.
Yesterday had been a tad dull; today we had a Red Alert. I suppose that (without
wishing to appear cynical) that's what blood bank work is like - hours of
tedium interspersed with moments of stark terror. On reflection
today probably wasn't the best day to have a work experience lad about the
place. I came home to sad news. The son of the chap who
used to run our od Boys Brigade had died. I still
think of him as the young lieutenant in our BB sneaking cans of cheap beer to
summer camp and sinking them in the military canal at Ruckinge…
he would have been seventy-one in just over a month. Where have the years
gone? I really should organize a get-together of the old faces before we all
go. “er
indoors TM” boiled up a rather good dinner which we washed down with one of our
better bottles of plonk. I’d get more wine from Pieroth
if I didn’t have to be rude to the reps to stop them bothering me. They are a
tad pushy… |
|
26 June 2025
(Thursday) - A Minor Result
I
put a load of undercrackers in to wash in when I went to the loo at four
o’clock. When I got up later they were ready to
tumble-dry. That’s efficiency ! I looked out of the window at the rain… even though
the weather forecast for that moment locally gave zero per cent chance of
rain. It must be wonderful to be a weather forecaster. The money ain’t bad, and no one has any expectations of you
whatsoever. If the tap is still dripping after the plumber calls, the
customer is all over Facebook ranting. If the car is still playing up after
the trip to the garage, the car goes straight back
and the mechanic knows all about it. But we just accept that weather forecasters
simply can’t do the job for which they are paid… and we all carry on paying
them anyway. Social media was relatively quiet this morning apart
from a colleague ranting about her useless husband. She rants about her
seemingly useless husband quite a bit; I don’t know if they’ve recently split
up. I don’t like to ask. I Munzed – our Munzee clan
had achieved all our goals for this month, which was something of a result. And with the rain drying up I put my boots on and
took the dogs out. The roads were rather busy this morning, but we got
to the woods and had a good walk. As we went we saw
a couple of other groups in the distance, but only one group got close enough
for a chat; a couple with a labrador that we meet from time to time. We
commented on how much litter there was in the woods. To be fair, very little
compared to many places, but more than there ever used to be. As we walked today I picked up tissue paper, tin cans and plastic
bottles. Unlike Monday we didn’t see deer, but there was
relatively fresh deer poo, and I saw three slow worms. Bailey found a deer
bone that she wasn’t keen to give up. And my birdsong app would have me
believe it detected a duck. I had my walking boots on today… I’m sure there’s
a correlation between my walking boots and duck detection. As we walked up the slope to the car park so the drizzle started again. We came home to see the
postman had been. Good news. In the last financial year
I paid too much tax, and HMRC had sent me instructions on how to claim what I
was owed. It wasn’t a massive amount, but it was better than a poke up the
bum. I put shirts in to wash, made myself a cuppa and went through the process of getting my refund.
It should be with me within five days. And then I put “Orange is the New Black” on
the telly, sorted the now-dried undercrackers and
cracked on with the ironing. It took a surprisingly long time. I wrote
up a little CPD,
solved some geo-puzzles, had a little sleep then had a look in the garden. Once I’d gathered dog turds (there were several)
I had a look at the plants I’d transplanted from the bog filter to the main
pond the other day. A few might have survived; most hadn’t. We had a rather good bit of dinner whilst watching
an episode of “Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly” in which one problem pup
was getting very stressed every time his owners got jiggy. Personally if more dogs (and humans too) took a moral stance… Like all of my non-working
days, today was rather busy. |
|
27 June 2025 (Friday)
- A Warm Day
The
bin men were quieter than usual as they went up the road this morning. Some
days they just do the job, other days they bellow up the street to each other
at six o’clock. I made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was
still there. People were complaining on Facebook today about ill-mannered
children in restaurants. I was reminded of cubs at cub camp. Before we went away we would always have the parents in and explain to
them how a sit-down meal worked, and ask them to
have one or two at home as a practice run. One or two parents would take
offence, but most admitted that sitting down to dinner was something that
rarely happened. Most parents saw nothing wrong with bolting the food as fast
as possible (an entire meal devoured in maybe thirty seconds) and then
running round screaming. I remember a couple of children from Ruckinge from millionaire families who couldn’t eat
anything which hadn’t first been thrown across the room. And there was an interesting article about how
youngsters these days don’t want to run
up a bar bill, preferring to pay for each drink as they go. Each to their own… I took the dogs to the woods. As we drove the
pundits on the radio were talking about how the government has backtracked on their
attempts to put loads of disabled people into even more poverty. As
I’ve said before, the Labour party are incredibly
principled all the time they don’t have to stand by their principles. We got to the woods; we did one of our standard
walks. We saw a slow worm. I *think* I heard deer crashing about. My
app detected a short toed treecreeper… It’s detected
those a few times now, even though you supposedly don’t get them in the
UK. After four miles we were back at
the car. We came home listening to someone of whom we’d never previously
heard on Desert Island Discs. This woman mumbled and muttered and claimed
that one of her records would have been the music to Swan Lake. Seriously? I came home for a cuppa, Munzed and got Wordle (plain) on the third
attempt. Go me! I then had a look on Amazon to chase
up the strimmer that I ordered two weeks ago… The order was still sitting in
my basket. I never actually ordered the thing. Woops. Supposedly it should come tomorrow. We ran “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” and
Pogo home, and then drove up to where I ended up
with a DNF at a geocache in the general vicinity of Dover last week. I’d got
a little hint from someone who’d been there before, and after a little
searching found the thing. From there we took a circuitous route home to get
another geocache. This one involved a short (half-mile)
walk down the river Stour which is certainly bigger and prettier near Pegwell Bay than it is in Ashford..
As we walked I had a little chat with some
fishermen. It looked a lovely day to be fishing. Today’s two finds gave us two more “Planets”
treasures. Ony one more to get now. I could probably have got the lot myself
had I gone off out with Ralph and Gordon today; they
were off to Edenbridge to walk an epic cache series, but it was a tad hot to
go very far in today’s heat. It was warm enough at
the woods earlier and we’d got home just after ten
o’clock, and half a mile along the river a little later was plenty for us. We came home via the petrol station at Morrisons in
Canterbury. I pootled in the garden for a bit, but
it was rather warm. I came in and dozed in front of the telly. We had steak and chips for tea… |
|
28 June 2025
(Saturday) - A Hot Day
I
woke about five o’clock and did that thing where I lay half awake and half
asleep in desperate need of the loo. Had I got up and gone to the loo I could
have gone back to bed and back to sleep, but I didn’t. Eventually I got up at
the sound of Morgan jumping off the bed. I got up, and he immediately jumped
back on to the bed and into the warm spot I’d just left. I made toast and had my usual look at the Internet. Prince William was getting a load of
stick on Facebook as his dog
has had puppies. Like anyone under public scrutiny Prince William is in a
no-win position. There will always be someone looking to find fault with
whatever he does. There was a lot of fussing on the Romney Marsh
Facebook page where someone had found a dog. And those whose life is a relative bed of roses were
posting twee motivational memes. I munzed, got Wordle (stump)
on the third attempt, and got ready for the day. Yesterday I’d had the offer for a day’s geocaching
in Edenbridge, but it would have been a tad hot. Today we could have gone to
Milton Keynes for the Great British
Geocaching Party. That was my plan for today. We would get out of Dog
Club promptly, drive off, and be there by late morning… or so I thought until
I looked at Google maps to plan the route. Getting there would have been a two and a half hour drive. I sighed. I’d been looking forward to going to that. As we got organized this morning Steve was on the
radio doing the “Guess the Lyrics” competition. “"Forget your
sorrow, let it all fade away. Forget tomorrow, let's start living for today". No
– I had no idea either. It was "Music and Lights" by
Imagination… apparently. Dog Club was fun today. It usually is. We had the
usual dog mayhem. One of our younger dog herders had a little camera which
printed black and white low-res photos. They were surprisingly good photos From Dog Club we drove out to Canterbury. We only
needed to get one more geocaching Planets treasure, but you have to find a very specific sort of geocache to get the
treasure. I’d seen there was one in Nackington, and
there were two other caches that we would be going
past. I thought it might make for a decent short
walk on a warm day; it was a walk of half a mile which was plenty long enough
for today. On our way we tried to listen to Steve doing the
Mystery Year competition on the radio, but there was some technical issue on
the radio. The signal kept cutting out which was a nuisance. Trying to work
out what the year is has become good fun; even more so now that the contest
runs a little later and we get more of a chance after Dog Club. We eventually
heard enough to realise it was 1985 today. As we drove home so my
phone beeped with news of a new geocache near Ruckinge.
Had we been at home when we had the news we would have been first ones to find it. As we were in Canterbury we were
beaten to it. Ho hum… We came home for coffee and cake,
and then had a rather dull afternoon. It was too hot to do anything so we sat in the garden
and I alternated between Kindle, flicking through Facebook on my phone and
sleeping. Despite the heat it would seem people were doing
stuff though. Several friends with only one friend in common (me) were
off to London to see Iron Maiden. Other friends were at Glastonbury. Personally I couldn’t imagine anything worse than going
off on a hot day to deliberately get a headache, but what do I know? “er
indoors TM” boiled up a decent chili which we scoffed whilst watching a couple of
episodes of the (relatively) new series of “Quantum
Leap”. They were rather good. We then had a look at what else was on the Paramount
Plus channel. There was quite a lot actually. But
the trouble with Paramount Plus is that you can’t fast-forward through the
adverts. Which is a dilemma for the advertisers. Do you fast-forward through
the adverts and not see them? Or do you make a note of what you are being
forced to watch and make a point of not buying those products on principle? |
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29 June 2025 (Sunday)
- Late Shift
I
slept well until six o’clock, but it was too hot. Although the fan helped it
was a tad noisy. I don’t like this heatwave. I lay in bed dozing and
eventually got up rather later than I might have done. I made toast and peered into the Internet. There
were quite a few photos and videos from last night’s Iron Maiden gig in
London; several people had taken a photo of the big notice asking people not
to take photos. I suppose back in the day the band would sell photos and
videos to a public who would pay good money to see
what they had missed; nowadays they can find out for free by looking at
Facebook. I then spent a little while looking at dog-friendly
cottages in the Cheltenham area. We might just go visit Irene in the autumn.
Mind you “dog-friendly” accommodation is strange stuff. People get
iffy when we say we’ve got three dogs, but our three together don’t make up
one average dog. I munzed and wordled then went into the garden for a bit. I pruned
those pond plants I was hoping to salvage. The stems have had it, but
something new might grow from the roots. I emptied the green rubbish from the
dustbin into the garden into the green waste bin out front, then scrubbed out
the dustbin in the garden that I put the green stuff into. It was rather
smelly. The new strimmer arrived, and by the time I’d put it
together an hour had passed and it was getting
rather warm. I came inside. I thought about chasing the First to Find on a
geocache in Gillingham, but it was a long way out of my way, so I did some
chess puzzles and played one of the bots on chess.com. Those bots are rather
good at chess. I
soon got fed up with losing to the chess bots, and seeing I had a few moments
spare I changed my mind and decided to chase that First to Find in
Gillingham. With the month ending tomorrow my ongoing streak of getting at
least one FTF a month was about to come to a crashing end. I
set the sat-nav which immediately directed me away from a road closure near
Matalan about which I knew nothing. But having gone up in my estimation it
then pissed on its chips by taking me along every country lane it could find
in the vicinity of Farthing Corner before insisting that I went up a closed
road in the arse-end of nowhere. You'd think that whoever it is that gives
permission for roads to be officially closed would tell Google, wouldn't you? The
diversion only added ten minutes to my trip, and it wasn't long before I was
standing on the side of a no-stopping road in Gillingham looking with dismay
at a rather grim little grassed area. I had a little look about and saw
nothing. The thing I was looking for was supposed to be a "small"
which would be about the size of an apple, and had a terrain rating of one
which meant that it could be got at by someone in a wheelchair... Then I had
a stroke of genius. I re-read the description of that for which I was
hunting. The person who'd hid it had only ever found one geocache... so
realising that I could be looking absolutely anywhere
for absolutely anything I broadened my search and soon found a fake leaf
half-way up a tree. Though it was a fake leaf that no one else had yet
found. I was first, which was all that mattered. Go me. Whilst
I'm pleased that someone had taken the time to give me a little fun this
morning it's a shame that the reviewers don't insist that people get a little
more experience (so they understand the silly geocaching game) before
they allow them to hide things. I
drove on to work feeling rather pleased with myself. Having been beaten to
yesterday's FTF and facing the prospect of a broken FTF streak had rather
boiled my piss. Mind you it is only (so far) a streak of six months. I
once got to one month off of two years before
blowing the streak. I
got to work and went to the works M&S to get a sandwich... and then
walked straight out. Their sandwiches aren't that good compared to anyone
else's. Their water bottles are half the size of what you can get in
Tesco or Sainsburys or the co-op. And their meal deal is over one pound fifty
more. I
went to the League of Friends shop and got a coronation chicken sandwich
instead. The
late shift was a tad too much like hard work for my liking, and the coronation
chicken sandwich was a disappointment. As
I drove home an old Frankie Howerd radio show was being broadcast… it hadn’t
stood the test of time. Bearing in mind how good some of the output of Radio
Four can be you have to wonder why they put out such drivel on Radio Four
Extra… And now I’m going to check on Bailey. She’s
developed a habit of going up the garden bothering frogs late every evening.
I wish she wouldn’t |
|
30 June 2025 (Monday)
- The Heatwave Continues
This morning I rolled my
eyes as I peered into the Internet. Some idiot was claiming that the Titanic
never sank; it had supposedly been switched with another ship which was then
deliberately sunk for the insurance money. It’s a stupid idea which has long
been disproved, but still other idiots were lapping it up. It was also claimed that some twit had paid three
pounds fifty for an artisan
dwarf cabbage only to get a Brussels sprout, but a couple of clicks
showed me that this was from the Sunday Sport. Back in the day we used to get
the Sunday Sport every Sunday. It
was brilliant. They had reports of the Lancaster bomber on the Moon, a
donkey robbing a bank, a London bus at the South pole… Apparently the Sunday
Sport is still going. Must get a copy. My cousin was posting that she would be hiring a
camper van for a week over the summer. I’d like one of those if only I had
anywhere to store the thing. Keeping it at home is an advert to burglars when you use it and it’s not there. Bearing in mind yesterday’s debacle I spent a few
minutes seeing if I could pogger Google Maps so as to avoid the country lanes when it is doing the sat-nav. It would seem that quite
a few other people had had the same issue in that Google Maps sees a dual
carriageway A road being of equal worth as a six-feet-wide twisty lane, but
no one had a fix. And I looked at the prices of public transport. A
family friend has moved to Newcastle. A coach takes more than twice as long
to get there as a train does, but costs a tenth of
the price. Once dog brekkie was done I
got the dogs on the leads and we went down to
Orlestone. With a hot day on the cards an early shorter walk in the shade was
the plan for the morning. As we waked we met a very talkative young lady
jogger in skin-tight lycra who might as well have
been in the nip for all that her jogging kit was keeping secret. And we met
some ornithologists. I asked a question that has been preying on my mind for
some time. According to my birdsong app (and what I can hear myself)
there are far more birds (and a greater variety) to the south-east
side as opposed to the north-west side of Orlestone. I have no idea why, and
neither did the twitchers. We came home and I had a little pootle
in the garden. I cleaned out both pond filters, ran out the hose and topped
up both ponds, and then “My Boy TM” and ”Auntie Chel TM” arrived.
They’d been having a tidy-up in their garden and had an old planter and some
timbers that were destined for the tip. Did I want
them? Yes please. I can use the planter, and I have a plan for the timbers.
And there was an Easter Island head statue going begging too. I had that as
well. The first fruit of my loin and his entourage set off
to the tip. I then set about the roots of that which I salvaged from the bog
filter a week ago. Yesterday I wrote “The stems have had it, but something
new might grow from the roots”. I pruned the things yesterday, and
overnight there has been growth. So I chopped the
root mass into four separate lumps and topped up the water that they are in.
Hopefully they might grow into entire new plants… not that I need them to do
so, but it would be nice. After an hour I came in. It was too hot to carry on outside. I played chess against the bots with
varying degrees of success until “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” came
home from her appointment. I drove her and Pogo home. It was seven degrees
cooler in Folkestone. I came home, and carried on
using the heatwave as best I could by putting loads of washing onto the line
to dry out. In between the washing I did CPD. There was so much
I could have done today. I need to finish painting the fence. I need to do
something with the timbers that the first fruit of my loin
brought round. I should really mow the lawn. But with temperatures in the low
thirties I just sat on the sofa and did as little as
possible. Today has been a wasted day… it has just been far
too hot. |
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