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1 March 2022
(Tuesday) - Bit Tired
When I first started doing night shifts, the
shift went from five o’clock in the afternoon round till nine o’clock the
next morning, and (on average) I would have done far less work in any
of those sixteen hours than I did in the first hour of last night’s shift. It
was with something of a sense of relief that I greeted the early shift as he
came in. The radio was talking about nothing but the
ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine this morning; the general
consensus is that the Russians are finding the Ukraine a far tougher
nut to crack than they had expected it to be. I rolled my eyes when there was
talk about the refugees – the British Government is supposedly putting
obstacles in the way of those wanting to flee to the UK to escape the war,
and the general consensus of the British public is
that the British Government is not doing anywhere near enough to help. What
is it about this conflict that makes the average Brit want to help those in
need? Only three months ago a crowd of people stopped the launch
of Hastings lifeboat for fear that it might help refugees. Mind you the average Brit isn’t always the
sharpest nail in the box. I came off of the motorway
to find gridlock. Have you ever driven round Ashford’ Cows Roundabout at rush
hour? I wouldn’t if I were you. With traffic coming from five directions,
everyone is pressing for advantage and no one is
prepared to give any space. So everyone facing a
green traffic light can’t go anywhere as their way is blocked by someone who
jumped a red light. Each cycle of the lights was allowing (at most)
only one car through, with many cycles allowing no one. I drove the
twenty-something miles from Maidstone to the Cows Roundabout in less time
than it took me to drive the couple of hundred yards across it. The annoying thing with this roundabout is
how quickly it fills up; had I not chatted for ten minutes before leaving
work I would probably have missed the queues. I got home and went to bed for a couple of
hours; despite the dogs having two separate “Red Alerts” in that time.
I’d decided to walk the dogs after I’d had a little sleep as the weather
forecast had been better for later in the day. I think it fair to say that it
wasn’t. But we didn’t get *that* wet as we went round the block. Over a late brekkie I prepared the Munzee
clan for the forthcoming Munzee Clan War (which starts on Thursday), and recalled all my Rovers. Regular readers of this
drivel may recall that last month I bought a pack of virtual dogs to use in
the Munzee game, and so far they haven’t done very
much. When the Clan War starts on Thursday I shall
try again with them. Perhaps they need to start further from home? I also acquired two sham rocks as I
Munzee-ed. I wonder what they are all about? Usually after a night shift I do the ironing
whilst watching two and a half hours of episodes of “Four In A Bed”.
Whilst I do like that show, at least one hour of that two and a half hours is
adverts, and usually these adverts are for suffering animals and children.
This afternoon as I ironed I watched more “Trailer
Park Boys” as the dishwasher and washing machine both did their things. Until they stopped. I thought that both machines were quiet; the
power had failed on both. I pulled the plugs out, plugged them both back in,
and both were working again. What was that all about? As today is pancake day “er indoors TM”
sorted some out for dinner. I think I had eleven… I’ve got a stomach ache now… |
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2 March 2022
(Wednesday) - Before the Late Shift
I slept for over nine hours last night;
finally waking with backache. I came down to be mobbed by dogs. Pogo seemed
in fine form bearing in mind one of his dew claws came off last night. “er
indoors TM” said he’d been worrying it, and when she looked it
came off in her hand. I made toast and had a look at the Internet
as I do every morning. A friend had said yesterday that he was giving up
social media for Lent as he found it depressing. Is it? To paraphrase my old
music teacher, social media is like a dustbin; you only get out of it that
which you put in to it. Too many people use social
media as a platform on which to moan; it can be so much more than that. For example an old
friend I’ve known since the late 1970s posted on Facebook this morning. Last
night was his daughter’s last night at Air Cadets, and he’d posted several
photos of her time in the cadets. It looked like she’d done so much in a few
short years. It is a shame that people don’t realise just how much the cadets
do, and at so little cost to the parents since much of what they do is
subsidised by the Ministry of Defence. I can remember talking to a cadet
leader when I was a leader in the Boys Brigade many years ago. His cadets had
been offered a week-long summer camp on a military base featuring flying in
planes, shooting on rifle ranges, going on military assault and obstacle
courses. Our week-long summer camp featured whatever we could improvise in a
farmer’s field in Smarden, and both cost the same
price. My old friend (with the daughter) is
now employed by the Ministry of Defence to oversee the activities of the
cadets. He’s a Wing Commander… And here’s something of interest that I found
from what a friend had posted. My local MP has claimed for his
electricity bill, gas bill, water bill, telephone and broadband, and council
taxes on his parliamentary expenses. I don’t doubt that doing so is totally
legal… but I’ll just make the observation that I
can’t claim for mine. I bought three timeshares and another
Skyland, redeployed and unleashed four of my five
Rovers in readiness for the Munzee Clan War which starts tomorrow. Seeing the rain had eased off I took the dogs
out. A month or so ago Pogo seemed to be going off of
the idea of walks, but that silliness has passed, and he now loves going out.
Even if we do have to stop for a pee every few steps. He never used to do
that. When he was younger he would pee like a fire
hose (once!) and that would be it for an hour or so. Nowadays it is a
couple of drops every few paces. He learned that from Fudge. We got to the park, we played ball for a bit,
but the recent rains had turned the park into a swamp, and soon both balls
were filthy and both dogs were more interested in whichever ball had least
mud on it. We headed home sniggering at the young mother
and child twenty yards in front of us. Mother was shrieking profanities into
her phone, and the child was following behind on a bike. I say “following
behind”; “wobbling precariously” would be a better description. He
wasn’t the world’s best cyclist, and it didn’t help that his attention was very
much on the dogs and not on his bike. Every time he crashed into a parked car, mother went ballistic. However
it never once occurred to her to put the phone away and supervise her child. We came home, cleared dog turds
from the back garden, loaded up the dishwasher and watched episodes of “Trailer
Park Boys” whilst sorting undercrackers until it was time to go to the
late shift. I drove up to the co-op to get some lunch. Have
you ever been to the co-op in Brookfield Road? Despite the car park *never*
having more than two empty spaces, the place rarely has more than two or
three people in there. What's that all about? With utter drivel on the radio
I sang along to my frankly amazing choice of music as I crawled up the
motorway; you really would think that whoever it is that organises the
motorways would have sorted out "Operation Brock" by now,
wouldn't you? You never hear about the utterly poggered
M20 on the news do you? And it is worse the
further down you go - the A-road it leads to has (literally) miles of
lorries queuing to get into Dover and has had for years, but that never gets
into the news, does it? I got to the works car park and eventually
found somewhere to park; the place was amazingly full today. I phoned my dad
(he seems OK)... and that was the day's excitement (such as it was)
all over and done with. I had a busy late shift, there was no cake, I
came home... all rather dull really. |
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3 March 2022 (Thursday)
- Munz-ing Before Work
I think I slept well; I have a vague
recollection of having had a fight with Pogo in the small hours, but it may
well have been a dream. When I got up at half past five this morning Pogo was
at the foot of the bed seemingly sleeping the sleep of the just. His sister
was snoring like a thing possessed too. I watched a rather good episode of "Trailer
Park Boys" as I scoffed toast but rather than sparking up my lap-top
after telly, I set off on a little mission. With today being the start of the
Munzee Clan War I had a couple of things to do. First of all
I drove down to Wooton Road in the search for a
couple of Qrates. I found a gold one and a diamond
encrusted one as well (which was nothing like the result you might think
it would be; in fact this was something of "a
pain in the glass" as “Stormageddon – Bringer of Destruction TM”
would say), and deployed some evos at the same time (as one does).
From there I went up to the town centre to
cap some Points of Interest. For all that they are called "Points of
Interest", they are not at all interesting; in fact
they were rather dull. From there I drove up to Repton Park where I deployed
cards and barns and treasure chests (and even a Skyland) like a thing
possessed. After an hour's concerted Munz-ing I'd
got a serious amount of this month's requirements done, had accrued far more
points than sense, and then headed off up the M20 dual carriageway (it *isn't*
a motorway any more!)
to work. As I drove the pundits on the radio
were talking about the ongoing war in Ukraine. There was an interview with
one of the head honchos of the European Union who was talking about how the
EU is trying to decrease Europe's dependence on Russian gas. I must admit I
was wrong in one of my rants of last week: the UK only gets five per cent of
its gas from Russia. I thought it was far more than that. However
Germany gets over half its gas from Russia and (obviously) doesn't want
to piss on its own chips with any sanctions it imposes on Russia by having Mr
Putin turn off their gas supply. The chap being interviewed made the observation that in buying Russian gas, the EU
are actually financing the invasion of Ukraine that they are protesting
about. There was a lot of talk about how Europe is
going to massively increase its use of renewable energy, import more gas from
the USA, and possibly ramp up the use of nuclear and coal powered power
stations. It was suggested (and not denied) that the COP-26 agreements
of last year are out the window because of this. So much for stopping global
warming... I got to work, had a cuppa, and then got on
with that which I could not avoid. At tea break I finally got round to having
a look at the Internet. It would seem that today was
“World Book Day” in which
children across the country pretend to have some degree of literacy by
dressing up as their favourite film or TV character in the forlorn hope that
it was originally based on something out of a book. It is just as well this
is a relatively recent development; had it been something that was done in
the 1990s “My Boy TM” and “Daddy’s Little Angel TM”
would have been sent to school in their usual attire with instructions to
tell the teacher they were the little boy and little girl whose daddy
couldn’t be bothered. Three years ago I
came up with a list of my
top ten books for World Book Day; I think it probably fair to say that
the list is probably still good. And I saw that Facebook have had an about
turn in their Community Standards. Last night I squealed up some epically-titted bimbo who had sent me a message offering me a free
nudey sauce romp. The Facebook Feds agreed with me
that peddling filth did breach their Community Standards and they had
censored the smut on her profile picture. I’m seeing that as a victory for puritans
everywhere!! As I type this Pogo is going absolutely ham (to
coin a phrase!) – he seems to have developed an irrational fear of the
dishwasher… |
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4 March 2022 (Friday)
- Unlocking A Gold QRate
Finding myself wide awake far too early (again)
I got up, started another negative COVID test going, and set about my morning
scrape. I don't really like shaving, but I like having a beard even less, so
a morning scrape is the lesser of the two evils. I made toast and watched an episode of "Trailer
Park Boys" in which Bubbles introduced his old friend Shitty, so named after a childhood accident. I did chuckle
about that; over forty years ago we had a lad in our class with a not
dissimilar nickname following an unpleasant incident in the school shower
after a games afternoon. That chap went on to
the police force - I last saw him in 1982 in uniform in Brighton. I wonder
where he is now. His father was a policeman too and was something of a local
hero having once jumped off of Hastings pier
and saved a drowning child one cold November day. Taking care not to disturb the sleeping dogs
(or “er indoors TM”) I got dressed and had another
pre-work Munz-ing session capping nine "Points
of Dullness" and deploying ten weapons (maces, longswords
and broadswords!) around the Orchard Heights estate before heading to
work. As I drove there was a little talk on the
radio about the by-election
in Birmingham in which the Labour party held the seat and increased its
majority to slightly more than half of the votes cast... but with twelve
candidates standing and a turnout of only twenty seven per cent (as
opposed to fifty per cent at the general election three years ago) I
think it fair to say that the real winner was apathy. Those numbers really
need looking at, though. The MP for Birmingham Erdington has been
elected by (and so represents) less than fourteen per cent of the
electorate. Eighty-six per cent of the electorate either wanted someone else
or couldn't be arsed to vote. This is not unlike
many other parliamentary constituencies - the voting figures are
freely available. And people bang on about what a good thing
democracy is. The will of the people, eh? But the main focus of the news was the
ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine in which Russian forces have made a bit
of a faux pas by shelling a nuclear
power station. I think it's fair to say that if there is one thing that
shouldn't be targeted in a war, it is a nuclear power station. Most of the
so-called experts wheeled on to the radio seemed to agree with this... The
power station is now under Russian control; I wonder if there will be any
attempts to recapture it? One of the pundits being interviewed seemed to
think that if it went up it would be ten times worse than the explosion at
Chernobyl all those years ago... And at the time the radiation from Chernobyl
was measurable in Kent. I measured it!!! It caused quite a scare at the time. I got to work and cracked on with the early shift
in the desperate hope there would be cake at tea-time. There was, so the day
wasn't a bad one really. And (as I have said many times before) an
early start made for an early finish. My plan was to come home and walk the dogs
round the park. I left a dry Maidstone, and as I drove down the motorway so the drizzle got heavier. I wouldn’t say the
rain in Ashford was torrential, but it was certainly raining hard. I crept
in, woke the dogs, and it was clear they wanted to go out. So
we did… We walked up the road, then we came to cross
at the road junction I told the dogs to sit. Pogo sat, but Treacle wouldn’t.
She was growling at another dog walking away from us on the other side of the
road. Pogo then realised that Treacle wasn’t happy and started barking too. I
got them to stop the excessive noise, but they were both snarling and
growling at the dog on the other side of the road who had now stopped and was
also making a fuss. At the other end of this other dog’s lead was what I can
only describe as an idiot child who was staring at my dogs as though they
were some sort of entertainment, seemingly oblivious that her dog was also
kicking off. After a few minutes I asked this idiot child if she wanted
something or was just trying to provoke all three dogs. At this she seemed to
wake up and realise she was supposed to be taking a dog for a walk, and then
hurried off away from us. Why do I attract these nutters? We only went round the block, but it was
enough of a walk for us to come home soaked. Once home we towelled off, then I capped the
Tree House and in doing so unlocked the Gold QRate
I’d acquired yesterday (and apparently spelled wrongly in yesterday’s
blog!) and released a Maintenance Bot Cubimal (there’s
never a dull moment in the world of Munzee!) “er indoors TM” boiled up some fish
and chips which we scoffed whilst watching a couple of episodes of “Yonderland”. I’m feeling tired… these early starts are all
very well, but I’d rather not be awake *quite* so early. |
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5 March 2022
(Saturday) - Early Shift
Finding myself wide awake far too early (yet
again) I made toast and watched another episode of "Trailer
Park Boys" before setting off on yet another little Munzee mission.
I've got this theory that if I "go ham" at the Munzee Clan
War requirements over the next few days I can take it easy later in the
month. It was rather dark as I set off, and once I'd capped nine points
of interest I saw it was just getting light as I was
sticking bar codes to ten lamp posts in the Orchard Heights estate. The motorway was surprisingly busy for a
Saturday early morning; I suppose only having two lanes (and them both
restricted to fifty miles per hour) didn't help. I caught the tail end of
a piece on the radio about how much farmland is turned over to producing red
meat and how it would be far more productively used growing vegetables. It
may well be more productively used growing vegetables, but I quite like
scoffing red meat. There was a lot of talk about the ongoing war
in Ukraine. The global opinion is against Russia, but Russia doesn't seem to
care. There was very little air-time devoted to
whatever it is that has pranged
into the Moon. The consensus of opinion is that
it was a Chinese rocket; even though the Chinese say it wasn't. Whatever it
was that pranged did so at some speed though, and apparently scientists are
looking forward to see the dust cloud generated; I
suspect they don't get out much and are easily amused. I got to work and did the early shift which
was far busier than I would have liked it to be, with too many distractions
from the C, S and K blood group antigens (as happens in my world). As
I worked “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” phoned. She is trying to
persuade “Stormageddon – Bringer of Destruction TM” to have
a haircut, and he’s not keen on the idea. Apparently
I was cited as one who isn’t overburdened with hair; he replied that if I
didn’t have Lego I wouldn’t have anything. Mind you, with his long hair, SBOD looks more
like his grandmother every day. With work worked I came home missing “Daddy’s
Little Angel TM” and “Stormageddon – Bringer of Destruction
TM” by minutes. Whilst “er indoors TM” drove
them home I fell asleep watching an episode of “Trailer Park Boys”. The dogs woke me with their commotion when “er
indoors TM” came home. I spent a little while getting “Hannah”
ready for tomorrow’s planned walk. “My Boy TM” phoned – did
we fancy going out for a curry with them. Usually I would, but I really
wasn’t feeling it this evening. I’m feeling rather washed out… |
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6 March 2022 (Sunday)
- Meopham
Some nights I lay awake unable to get to
sleep. Other nights (like last night) there is an endless commotion of
dogs falling off the bed, dogs crying to get on the bed, of snoring, of
stomping about the bed, of quarrelling with whoever it is you’ve just stomped
on… why can’t everyone just find a bit of bed and sleep quietly? It that so
much to ask? I again gave up the battle of trying to
sleep, made toast and peered into the Internet; what
with early morning Munzing missions, I’ve not done
that for a few days, and hadn’t really missed much. Since the flurry of
photos of children dressed as their favourite TV character for World Book Day
(last Thursday) very few people had put much up on Facebook at all,
which was a shame. I’m nosey and like to see what other people are doing.
Pretty much everything on Facebook this morning was the same picture of a
fish posted to all the fishing groups, the same picture of a recently
deceased dog posted to all the dog groups, the same picture of Lego for sale
posted to all the Lego groups… I read an email about a geo-meet planned in a
few weeks’ time in Seaford, had a little look at the Munzee map (to plan a
possible little mission for mid-week), capped the Tree House, and then
kicked everyone else out of their pit. Why should they be asleep when they’d
kept me awake for most of the night? It wasn’t long before we were on our way up
the M20 (Munz-ing as we went), and were soon in Meopham
where met up with Karl Tracey, Charlotte and some random old biddy who had
latched on to us in the mistaken belief that we were the local chapter of the
Ramblers. (Do I look like a Rambler?) We sent her up the road to some other group
that looked like they were going for a walk. Were they The Ramblers? I have
no idea, but whoever they were, they took the old biddy with them in the
opposite direction to the one in which we were going, and that was seen as
something as a result by all concerned. (Well… by me at least). With the normal people out of the way we set
off on our walk. Pausing only briefly to rummage very suspiciously round the flag pole at the nearest windmill, we were soon out of the
village and following paths and lanes as we love to do whenever we can. As we
walked we met some very friendly horses who really
didn’t deserve the reaction they got from Treacle. We saw a garden pond
undergoing some serious maintenance; I say “garden pond”; the island
in the middle of this garden pond was bigger than my garden pond, and I stood
for five minutes in frank admiration and jealousy of what everyone else
probably saw as a rather large hole in the ground. We had our picnic lunch as we do; for some
reason we seemed to find it hard work to sit down on the ground today, and I
for one certainly struggled to get up again. What was that all about? Bearing in mind how warm it had been when we
walked round Kings Wood a few short weeks ago, it was really
cold today. The fields were waterlogged in many places, and the
footpaths were quagmires. But we made the most of it. As always our route
was laid out for us by a series of geocaches. Billed as a walk of five miles,
“Hannah” measured it at just over seven and a half miles. It was a
good walk but… There is always a “but”, isn’t there? The only criticism I could really level
against this geo-series is that we did find some of the hides rather tricky.
That isn’t a bad thing, but the most difficult ones weren’t where I would
have put them. One was overlooked by a house, one
was in a busy suburban area and one was on a (admittedly quiet)
country lane. Personally I would have put the harder
hides out in the countryside along a footpath where you can spend an age
rummaging in the undergrowth. But I am just being picky here; it was a good
walk across some beautiful scenery. I am very grateful that someone has taken
the time and put in a lot of effort to give us a really good
guided walk. Mind you I must admit that it was with
something of a sense of relief that I got back to the car; the elastic in my
undercrackers had given out rather early in the walk and had made for a
rather uncomfortable day. Have you ever tried climbing over a broken stile
with your pants south of your chuff? It isn’t something I would recommend. We said our goodbyes, and Munzed
all the way home. It was something of a novelty for me not to sleep after a
walk. Once home “er indoors TM”
scrubbed the dogs whilst I uploaded photos to show the world what we’d been
up to today. I
took a few photos as we walked (as I do), and today my camera took
them as .jpg files which my laptop understands, not .huic files (like it
did last time) which my laptop does not. Once “er indoors TM” had
scrubbed the dogs, I then scrubbed the bath. Both dogs are snoring, and I am reliably
dinner won’t be long… |
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7 March 2022 (Monday)
- Before the Late Shift
A good walk yesterday had everyone sleeping
well last night. I woke at eight o’clock to see “er indoors TM”
and Treacle had got up but Pogo was still snoring at the foot of the bed. We got up and finding “er indoors TM”
in the shower I skipped having a shave, made toast
and peered into the Internet once the laptop’s browser finally started
working. More and more I find that I click the icon and the thing does
nothing but sound like a helicopter taking off. It is clearly doing all sorts
of things in the background, but *not* doing the job I want it to do.
This seems to be an “IT thing”; people who know IT seem to think there
is some strange merit in having a computer not actually able to do the job it
is intended to do. I eventually got to see what was going on
on-line. The photos I’d posted yesterday had been liked by quite a few
people. Other friends were on holiday in Ely and in Cornwall and looked to be
having a good time. Being nosey I like seeing what other people are doing. I saw that the March Geo-Meet has been
announced… on a weekend that I can’t make. And I saw that someone had been out walking
the series of caches I’d hidden in Hemsted Forest
and had been less than complimentary about some of the hints that I’d given.
What did the chap expect? The place is a forest; there aren’t many places to
hide a film pot other than at the base of a tree. So if a film pot is hidden
at the base of a tree, I can’t really say much else for a hint other than “base
of tree”, can I?. Mind you he’d replaced one of the missing
caches, so I shouldn’t really grumble. With “er indoors TM” out of
the way I had my shave, then walked the dogs round the park where my idiot
magnet was working at full power. First of all we
attracted some woman with a baby in a pram and a very over-excited spaniel.
This woman loudly announced to her spaniel that my dogs would like to play “ball”
with him. It came as something of a shock for her to find that my dogs won’t
even play “ball” with each other; let alone with some strange dog
they’d never seen before. Whilst I was refereeing this set-to, some other
idiot woman arrived with her two dogs on the longest extending leads you ever
did see. Her dogs soon tangled her, the woman with the pram, the pram, me,
and all of the dogs into the biggest knot in the
history of knots. There is a place for extending dog leads, and
it is *not* wrapped around my ankles. We came home to find a geocacher rummaging in
the box in the front garden. Geocachers do that. I harvested a bumper crop of dog poo, then
sat on the sofa (with snoring dogs) and fiddled on my lap-top (which
was now working) as the washing machine did it
thing. I saw a friend had posted on Facebook about the stupidity
of teaching schoolchildren about “fronted adverbials” (whatever
they are) and how teaching the kids something useful might be a good
idea. The article was written from the arts point
of view, but much the same is true in the sciences too. I was talking with a
tutor at the University of Westminster a few years ago (in 2005!) who
told me that the first term/semester of a particular biosciences course had
been changed to being purely remedial/catchup sessions covering all the stuff
that the students hadn’t been taught in “A” levels any more. I had a quick go at “Sweardle” and “Lewdle”,
wrote up some CPD, sent
out a birthday wish to someone who is two weeks younger than me (and not
several years older as I always thought), and seeing both dogs were fast
asleep I got ready for work… And that was it for the day. The late shift
was horrible (I had to do work!) and got home far too late to do
anything… Same again tomorrow… |
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8 March 2022
(Tuesday) - Quite Odd (!)
The dogs and “er indoors TM”
slept well, and consequently so did I. I set another negative COVID test
going, made toast, and had a little fight with my lap-top.
It wasn’t keen on getting started this morning. Eventually it staggered into
action. I think the poor thing is getting old, but what with spending out on
new cam belts and new kitchens I’d rather not replace it just yet. I peered at the Internet to see what I’d
missed (if anything) overnight. Facebook gave me ten notifications; sadly not one was worth the electricity it had taken to
generate. There was a rather sad attempt to start an argument on one of
the Radio Four related Facebook pages in which someone who is always arguing
about trans rights was trying to turn a post about financial controls into an
anti-men rant. Fortunately no one was taking the
bait. There was quite a good a squabble on one of the Hastings-related
Facebook pages in which someone was organising an event (this coming
weekend) in which the masses would march up and down Hastings
sea front in support of the Ukrainians whose country has been invaded. Some
people thought the march was a good idea; others didn’t. Personally
I suspect that Vladimir Putin is going to be forever unaware of a couple of
dozen people walking along Hastings sea front, but I didn’t say as much,
plenty of other people had already done so. However I did make the mistake of
saying that I found it rather ironic that this march is taking place in a
town which only a few short months ago saw a load of residents trying to stop
the life boat being launched for fear it might be saving drowning
refugees. “er indoors TM” was getting rather
paranoid this morning; not having seen a “I Can Has Cheezeburgers”
meme for months, they were mentioned on some quiz show or other at the
weekend, and apparently her Facebook feed is now filled with them. Apparently
one of the devices in the house is obviously spying on us. Whichever it is,
it obviously doesn’t consider me worth spamming, does it? I took the dogs to the park. They were as
good as gold. They played “ball” for a bit, then walked (off
the leads) perfectly at heel. I could see other dog walkers watching in
amazement at how well behaved my two were today. As we walked home down Christchurch Road a
passing mad woman told me my dogs looked “quite odd”, then hurried
away at the insistence of her husband. It was probably as well that she
hurried away(!) Once home I filled the dishwasher, spent five
minutes plunging the bath’s plug hole, played “Sweardle”
(which I got right on the fourth attempt) and “Lewdle”
in which I failed entirely. Apparently “Gonzo” is now a rude word? I
thought “Gonzo” was a chicken-obsessed muppet? After a quick go on the
blood transfusion compatibility simulator (good old CPD!) I
watched the “Trailer Park Boys” and polished my walking boots whilst
trying not to wake the dogs who were snoring on either side of me. Leaving the dogs snoring I set off to work.
It didn’t take *that* long for me to remember where I’d left my car
last night. And I wasn’t stuck in a traffic jam on the M20 for *too*
long really. I got to work… and the rest of the day was
dull. Incredibly hectic,,, but dull nonetheless. |
|
9 March 2022
(Wednesday) - Road Trip
After a night spent asleep (and not
listening to snoring, quarrelling and growling)
I made toast and peered into the Internet, and rolled my eyes. Only a few
short years ago one of the main reasons the UK left the EU was that the
British public didn’t want foreigners coming into the UK without any sort of
control. And now the same public is up in arms because that policy is actually in
place and refugees need visas. Yesterday I mentioned that the town that
tried to stop the lifeboat from saving refugees is now marching in support of
them. What is the point of democracy when the electorate doesn’t actually know what it wants? Five friends had a birthday today; unusually
all five people were people with whom I have actually
spoken in the last few months, and all got the birthday video. I
redeemed some Sham Rocks (it’s a Munzee thing) then we went to the
park… We got there without incident and whilst
Treacle carried her ball Pogo alternated between playing catch and sniffing
the dog pee on all the trees. Just as we were walking through the Chinese garden we had fun (!) Treacle was cowering up
against me as some huge fluffy dog was towering over her. There was some
odd-looking chap at the other end of this dog’s lead
and I asked him to drag his dog away. Rather than replying he made some odd
sound which was half-way between a laugh and a cough. So
I repeated myself and told him to take his dog away before Treacle nipped it.
He made the same laughing-coughing noise and seemed utterly unconcerned when
Treacle did nip his dog (like I warned him). We hurried off; he
followed us. We turned right; he followed us. We turned left, he followed us.
We met some other dog walkers and I warned them of this bloke and dog; the
woman replied “what, him there?” and pointed at him, and said that she
too had had issues with him and his dog as well. Eventually we shook the
bloke off by loudly announcing “will you stop f…ing
following us” and going back the way we came. The child that shouted at Pogo on the way
home was a mere trifle in comparison. We hadn’t been home long when “Daddy’s
Little Angel TM” arrived for the start of our little road
trip. First of all to the petrol station (Sainsburys
in Ashford) where it turned out that they were selling the cheapest
petrol we saw anywhere today. From there we popped to the hospital for a
quick check-up; favourite youngest granddaughter is still smaller than the average
unborn baby at her stage of pregnancy. The littlun’s mother, grandmother and
great grandmothers are all short-arses but I’m not
sure that has been taken into consideration. She’s got a scan booked for
tomorrow – you’d think they’d have done it all in the one visit today,
wouldn’t you? We then popped to Tesco for Belgian buns,
drove home to collect the dogs, and set off to Hastings to see Dad. It didn’t take long to get to the old
homestead. We had a cuppa and scoffed the buns and put the world to rights.
Dad seemed reasonably well.; he’s being messed about by his local hospital
though. If he doesn’t get any sense from them in the next day or so I shall
kick some arse. The dogs were well behaved, but after a while
they got restless so we said our goodbyes and took
the dogs for a little walk. Bearing in mind today is a Qrewzee day (it’s a Munzee thing) and there were
quite a few of them at Winchelsea Beach, we went there. We walked (and Qrewzee-ed) from the car park up to the old lifeboat
station and back. It was a lovely walk; a distance of just
over two miles. Nothing to what we used to walk back in the day, but turned out to be quite far enough when your
unborn granddaughter is playing football with your daughter’s innards. It was
a shame that one of the dogs’ tennis balls got lost, but there is only so
much following round behind dogs picking up their balls that you can do. From Winchelsea Beach we followed the coast
road through Rye, Camber, Lydd and Dungeness to
Folkestone where we dropped “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” home,
and also dropped Pogo off. He’s having a little sleepover with his mummy
today. I’d rather he didn’t, but he is “Daddy’s Little Angel TM”’s
dog and is (in theory) just having a prolonged holiday with us. Shortly after we’d said our goodbyes I slammed on the car’s brakes to avoid crashing
into a car, the driver of which had decided not to slow down at all for a
roundabout, but just took it at breakneck speed expecting everyone else to
get out of her way. Fortunately everyone did, even
though the etiquette is that that people slow down when approaching a
roundabout… I squealed her up to rate-driver dot com, and
then the car’s tyre pressure warning came up for all four tyres. We came home, I had a cuppa and pootled on
the Internet a little whilst I waited for the car’s tyres to cool down, then
went out and used the gadget “er indoors TM” had got me to
check and pump the tyres. All were just on the border of what their pressure
should be, so I put a bit more air into them (as you do) then ironed
shirts until “er indoors TM” came home. For a rostered day off, today has been rather
busy… |
|
10 March 2022
(Thursday) - Early Shift
With Pogo off on a sleepover with his mummy
there was some bed space last night. I did get some sleep but finding myself
wide awake far too early yet again I made toast and watched another episode
of "Trailer Park Boys" in which Ricky's brain told him to go
on an epic drinking session. Ricky seems to have a love-hate relationship
with his brain; at the moment they aren't getting on
very well. Leaving “er indoors TM” and
Treacle snoring I set off to work and watched with frank amazement as the
driver of one small van deliberately dangerously cut in front of another at
the Cows Roundabout, and then both drivers deliberately tried to ram each
other and drive each other off of the road. Fortunately one managed a decoy move to send the other up
the motorway slip road (and away). It was quite amazing to watch, but
at the same time rather scary to be driving behind. As I drove to work the talk on the radio was
about the situation in the Ukraine... and nothing else. Admittedly the
situation in the Ukraine is dire with the invading forces supposedly now
bombing a hospital but back in the day the morning news used to cover a
range of stories. This morning there was no mention of the discovery of Shackleton's
ship Endurance found at the sea bed a century
after it sank. There was no mention of the ongoing disastrous aftermath of
Brexit that I suffer every day in "Operation Brock"
or the ongoing miles
of queues of lorries at Dover, and even coronageddon
is very much yesterday's chip-wrappings even though another
peak is expected. I got to work for the early shift. Today
wasn't originally an early for me, but I'd been asked to step in at short
notice, and seeing how I am usually up early anyway, getting out of work
nearly two hours early is always something of a bonus. I did my bit, and
came home arriving just as “er indoors TM” and
Treacle came back from their walk. “er indoors TM” then set
off to the kitchen shop to mess about with their kitchen simulator. I stayed
home and did the ironing, then fell asleep with Treacle. “er indoors TM” eventually came
home with a kebab (very nice!) which we scoffed whilst watching more
episodes of “Yonderland”. I’m going to have an early night… as the day
has gone one today I’ve felt progressively more and
more grim. I wonder if I’m sickening for something? |
|
11 March 2022
(Friday) - Having A Malfunction
I woke feeling full
of energy and raring to go only to see it was twenty past one. I then dozed fitfully
for the rest of the night listening to Treacle sucking the duvet and feeling
progressively more and more grotty as time went past. I thought better of
saying “sod it” and phoning in sick, got up and watched an episode of
“Trailer Park Boys” which (it has to be
said) after eight seasons was getting to be rather “more of the same”.
I sparked up my
lap-top and peered into the internet. Facebook told me that I had been made a
“top fan” of Viz comic’s Facebook page. I wonder why? I can’t say I
look at that page from one week to the next. And my MP had been out and
about. He’s quite active on social media. He actually does
very little himself, just seems to use Facebook to somehow take the credit
for what other people have been doing. I had an email from
geocaching HQ. They’ve added something to their Adventure Lab so that you can
now select a theme for any Adventure Labs that you have built… A theme ?!
Seriously? Their messaging system is still crap (at best), their
official app is inferior to every other geocaching app there is, you can’t
load caches on to your GPS without third party software, they don’t have the
ability to stop people cheating on the GPS-based part of the game, in order
to even do the hobby (without *major* inconvenience) you need to buy
someone else’s software, and still they fart around with utterly irrelevant
fripperies like “themes”. I set off west-wards
to Pembury on a rather bright morning. As I drove the pundits on the radio
were talking about the Ukrainian situation and about precious little else.
Whilst the situation there is dire, of the one hour and twenty minutes or
radio that I listened to this morning, about one hour and ten minutes was
focussed on the Ukraine. I listen to the morning radio to find out what is
going on in the world; not to become an expert on the BBC's spin on one small
part of human activity. Mind you there was a five minute
section on the massively increasing price of petrol. Here's
an eye-opener. Take a litre of petrol: Current
(this morning) average cost 159.57 pence. Of
that: Wholesale
price (oil production & refining) 56.38 pence Wholesale
biofuel price (that goes in with it) 10.7 pence Delivery
and distribution costs 1.7 pence Retail
margin (forecourt costs & profit) 5.59 pence Duty
57.95pence VAT (20%)
26.59 pence Greenhouse
Gas Obligation & Development Fuel Obligation 0.654 pence So the litre of petrol
costs about seventy-four pence, and about eighty-five pence of the
price is tax. Over half of the cost of every litre of petrol we buy is tax.
There's something to write to your MP about. I wasn't originally
supposed to be working in Pembury today, but I was glad that I was. I got to
stop off at the little shop in Sissinghurst which has a rather good beer
selection. And with beer bought I then got to watch the rather good road rage
which kicks off at that bottleneck where seemingly no one is prepared to give
way to anyone else. Work was work. It
would have been a quiet day had we not spent most of it having a malfunction
(as you do). And with work worked
I came home. “er indoors TM” boiled up dinner and we
watched the second episode of the second season of “Star Trek: Picard”.
Bearing in mind what a disappointment the first season turned out to be, so far this new season is rather good. |
|
12 March 2022
(Saturday) - Playing Games and Watching Telly
I slept through till nine o’clock this
morning, set a COVID test going, made toast, and sat and watched my lap-top doing absolutely nothing at all. The poor thing is
getting slower and slower to start; so much so that it is not far from being
fit only for the dustbin. Eventually it got going and I had a look at
the internet. Five friends had birthdays today… I say
“five friends”. One actual friend that I’ve known for over forty
years. Two childhood friends of “Daddy’s Little Angel TM”
who in my mind are still misbehaving children and can’t possibly now be in
their early thirties. Someone with whom I used to work, helped massively back
in the day, and haven’t heard a thing from in over ten years, and someone who
(I think) used to be big in the local geocaching scene years
ago. Not much else was going on in social media this morning and there
were no emails of note at all. “er indoors TM” set off to spend
the day in Folkestone with “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” and “Stormageddon
– Bringer of Destruction TM”. I didn’t go; I stayed with
Treacle. I don’t like leaving the dogs even though they only spend most of
the day asleep. I set the washing machine going and we went
for a little walk. Without her brother along, Treacle walked very well (with
no pulling at all) and we walked a little circuit round South Ashford Munzing as we went. We munzed
enough to open the two Qrates I got on Wednesday (which
was something of a result) and didn’t have a single “episode” at
all. In fact we got barked at by several other dogs
and it was quite nice not to be the one having to tell the dog off. We came home to find the washing machine still
going, so while it did its thing we went into the garden. I harvested the dog
dung, and seeing how the garden was suddenly devoid
of the stuff, Treacle did some more. Oh how I
thanked her for her contribution(!) I got the lawn mowed,
then cut back more of that plum tree at the back of the garden. The plums are
always too high to pick, and they just fall onto the shingle and attract
wasps. The tree took some cutting, but between a saw and a pair of secateurs
I got the biggest branch down and cut it into bits which were small enough to
go in the garden waste bin. I then washed the back windows as “er
indoors TM” had threatened dire retribution if I didn’t. It was all rather hard work; I ached somewhat
after an hour or so of chopping and snipping and sawing and washing, so I got
a spot of lunch and scoffed it whilst watching an episode of “Trailer Park
Boys” in which all of our heroes agreed that
Ricky needed to sort his brain out. I spent the afternoon playing an old
favourite game. “Star
Trek: Elite Force” was state of the art when it was first released…
twenty years ago (!) Now… I still like it. There’s a video of the complete game
on You-Tube and it plays for over four hours. Looking at that video it would seem that I spent all afternoon to get about a
quarter of the way through the game. But it kept me amused. “er indoors TM” came home and boiled
up a rather good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching episodes of “Yonderland”. I’d forgotten that Stephen Fry had been
in the last season as “Cuddly Dick”. Today has been rather busy. I did think today
would be rather dull but it hasn’t been too bad
really, even if lots of it was spent in computer games and watching the
telly… |
|
13 March 2022
(Sunday) - Late Shift
I slept in until nine
o’clock again, which was a result. I got up, and as I emptied the sink as I
shaved, rather than draining away never to be seen again, all the water came
up the bath’s plug hole. Oh dear. I made toast and
sparked up my lap-top which seemed far more keen on
doing stuff today than it had been yesterday. There was a photo on one of the
local Facebook pages that made me think. It was a photo of the chap who used
to organise the Ashford carnivals (years ago) standing in front of the
float which used to carry “Miss Ashford” in the procession. That
procession used to come up our road and past our house; sadly
I can remember “Miss Ashford” having to be behind a screen of chicken
wire because local thugs used catapults to fire pennies at the girls. There
hasn’t been an Ashford carnival for years… purely because no one could be
bothered to organise one. Having been involved in this sort of thing in the
past, I’m certainly not volunteering(!) There was
consternation being expressed over the admission that the government is not
keeping any formal record of the ongoing freight
delays at Dover. Of course they aren’t. You
don’t generate evidence showing that your policy didn’t work, do you? And a friend was grumbling about her bad neighbours…
I couldn’t help but think about not-so-nice-next-door and the fun
we’ve had over the years. Over twenty years ago I offended him in the way I brought
up my children, in the way I mowed my lawn, by having friends visit, by
having builders work inside *my* house without his permission, by
being liked by other neighbours… Among other craziness he formally accused me
of murdering his first wife who had died ten years before I ever met him. With the lap-top telling me that rain was on the way I went into
the garden to have a look at the drains. They didn’t seem blocked; all seemed
fine. I filled the bath with water; that drained away without problem. I
flushed the loo; that too drained away quickly. I wonder what the
issue with the sink this morning was all about. Feeling spots of rain I closed up the drain and quickly zoomed round the
garden gathering turds. With only one dog currently in residence there is a
lot less dung… but more than you might expect. I had planned a quiet
hour to myself for the last part of the morning, but “er indoors TM”
was getting fractious. She’d bought a lap-top for “Daddy’s Little Angel TM”
to use whilst she was working, but her contract came to an end when the
government abandoned all COVID restrictions and so the lap-top
was spare. “er indoors TM” had this idea to replace her (frankly
knackered) old lap-top with the new one, but the new one is in “S”
mode. I didn’t know that lap-tops can have “S”
mode (not “safe” mode; “S” mode). When a lap-top
enters “S”-mode it becomes utterly useless and unable to do absolutely
anything at all, Whilst coming out of “S”- mode is apparently an
irreversible thing to do, it isn’t easy to do. You can get quite stressy trying to do it. Whist lap-tops flatly
refused to leave “S” mode I spent a few minutes rummaging round a Klingon
spaceship in “Star Trek: Elite Force” before it was time to go to
work. I set off through the
rain to work, listening to "Just A Minute"
on the radio as I drove. Sue Perkins was doing her best to fill the huge gap
left by Nicholas Parsons (who died over two years ago!), but despite
the able assistance of Stephen Fry and Paul Merton, the show lacked
something. It wasn't so much entertainment as listening to other people
enjoying themselves. A subtle distinction, maybe, but the contestants
on the show weren't really funny; I would best
describe them as being self-satisfied and perhaps even smug. I can't help but
wonder if after fifty years the show has run its course? It should have gone
with Nicholas Parsons, really. I got to work and
went straight to the works canteen. Fish fingers and chips followed by
chocolate sponge and chocolate custard set me up for the late shift. I'd
rather not have been working today, but I did get some comfort from looking
out of the window at a wet afternoon. I wasn't missing anything. Back
in the day a Sunday afternoon shift would (generally) be dull to the
point of being tedious, but that was when hospitals were effectively closed
at the weekends. Nowadays there are quite a few clinics going which generate
work for me, and I was rather busier than I had really hoped to be. I’ve got another late
shift tomorrow… |
|
14 March 2022 (Monday) - It Rained
The bathroom sink was draining incredibly slowly
again this morning. Perhaps it is time to stick some “Mr Muscle”
jollop down it (again)? I made toast and had a look at the Internet. I
was able to do so on my lap-top; the one “er indoors TM”
has blagged from “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” is still stuck
in “S”- mode and is consequently “f… all use to man or beast” (as
my brother used to say). The internet was still there. Not many friends
had posted much to social media over the weekend
which was a shame, though I did see one group of friends had braved the rain
and the mud and had gone for a walk yesterday. I rolled my eyes when I read
one of the “Doctor Who” Facebook groups I follow, With only a
squillion “Doctor Who” Facebook groups to choose from, someone has now
started yet another one and was trying to get people to join it but wasn’t
having much luck. With his every posting written in block capitals and filled
with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors he came over as a rather thick
schoolboy who wasn’t trying very hard. Why do people make such piss-poor
postings to social media when there is no end of software available which
spell-checks and looks for problems in the grammar? Does it really take *that* much time and effort to re-read
what you’ve typed out and ask yourself if it conveys what you intend it to? Four friends were having birthdays today. I sent
the birthday video to each of their Facebook pages, and
got ready to take Treacle to the park. I got dressed… and wasn’t at all happy about how
my new trousers fitted. The legs were far too long. I measured them; they
were exactly the size I ordered… inside leg twenty-nine inches. My inside leg
has been twenty-nine inches since I told my mum I was old enough to buy my
own trousers over forty years ago. I measured my inside leg… and measured it
again… and measured it again with a different tape measure… and got “er
indoors TM” to check. My inside leg is now only twenty-eight
inches. I then measured my height. I have been five feet ten inches tall for
years. I am now only five feet eight and a half inches. I’m not bowed over or
stooping… I have shrunk. Apparently this is not unusual;
people typically lose half
an inch every ten years after the age of forty. I wonder how much more I will
shrink? Wasn’t there a film made about this sort of thing? I set the washing machine going then took Treacle
round the park. Despite being without Pogo (who is still on his holiday)
she took the opportunity to bark at a passing dog (from the safety of the
other side of the road), but other than that her behaviour was perfect.
Which was more than could be said for a passing brat who tried to grab
Treacle as though she was a rag doll. The brat’s mother seemed very surprised
when I asked how many times her brat has got himself bitten by attacking dogs
in that way; it never occurred to her that a dog would see be3ing roughly
grabbed by a stranger as an attack. I patiently explained how to ask a dog’s
owner if they might stroke the dog, and mother and brat looked at me as
though I was the stupid one. As we walked round the park there were signs up.
The council has said that they will not tolerate verbal and physical abuse of
the gardeners in the park. I suppose if the council wasn’t hell-bent on
chopping down quite so many healthy trees there wouldn’t be an issue. Rather than walking home we only walked a third
of the way home and drove the rest of the way. Last night when I came home
after the late shift I had to park four streets away
as there was nowhere closer to home to park. For all that “er indoors TM”
wants a new bathroom and a new kitchen, I’d rather move house to somewhere
with parking. Every late shift is the same… I drive past the front door about
twenty minutes before I walk through it as it takes than long to find
somewhere to park and then walk back home. Once home I finally got round to trying to book
tickets for next month’s Sparks concert. They are playing in Bexhill… and all
the tickets have sold out. I really should have booked a long time ago; who would have thought that such an obscure band
would be so popular. The washing machine had done its thing so I hung clothes out on the clothes horse,
activated the dishwasher, and spent an hour on the sofa alternately cuddling
with Treacle and playing “Star Trek: Elite Force” as I listened to the
rain outside. And all too soon it was time to drive to work through that
rain… even though the BBC forecast said that at that moment I should expect
sunny intervals with only a five per cent chance of rain. Pausing only to brave the monsoon at the co-op I
was soon on my way to work. As I drove I couldn't
help but reflect on just how crap the weather forecast was today. I once made
a serious error at work and was crucified for it, but when the weather
forecasters get it wrong, everyone laughs... because no one really expects
much from them anyway. Yet again I
find myself questioning my career choices... |
|
15 March 2022
(Tuesday) - A Last Day
The bathroom sink drained away nicely this
morning after I had a shave, even if it did make some rather loud gurgling
noises. I made toast and watched an episode of “Trailer
Park Boys” which did make me snigger, then I sparked up my lap-top to
peer into the Internet (as I do most mornings). It was still there.
Not much was going on in social media really. I had a couple of emails
telling me of two new geocaches just that little bit too far away to go
chasing First To Find. I had an email telling me about a job as a blood
tester where I used to work in Canterbury. As if I’d want to go back there…
And I had an email from Sky telling me they are putting their prices up. All
rather dull. It was a rather bright morning as I drove up
the busy motorway this morning. As always these days
for the first half of my journey there were only two lanes on the motorway in
use in either direction, and a speed limit of fifty miles an hour on them.
There are loads of signs saying that this speed limit is for the safety of
those working on the motorway and I would be in complete agreement with that
speed limit... *if* I ever saw anyone actually
working on the motorway. Currently there is about ten miles of the M20
with speed restrictions (in both directions) and I've not seen anyone
working on either side of the motorway there for weeks. As I drove the pundits on the radio were
saying how over forty-three thousand people in the UK have offered space in their homes for
refugees fleeing from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. That's quite
impressive bearing in mind that only a few short months ago British people
tried to stop the launch of lifeboats about to rescue refugees. What is it about the Ukrainian situation that
has captured the public's sympathy? There are twenty countries in the world currently
engaged in wars (that's over ten per cent of the countries of the
world); no one is clamouring to look out for the people of Cameroon or
South Sudan, are they? And the UK's treatment of many of the people that were
abandoned following the start of the Afghan civil war was frankly abysmal. So what is it about the Ukrainians that makes us sit up
and take notice? Is it the worry that this time next year the Russians will
be invading us? As I got to work my phone pinged. The nice
computers at Munzee HQ have awarded me ZeeQrew
status. If you go round sticking bar-codes to lamp posts and dog poo bins,
then this is a big thing. It is akin to getting a knighthood in the real
world. If you don't go round sticking bar-codes to lamp posts and dog poo
bins (like most people don't) it is a matter of the utmost triviality. Work was a bit sad today; it was a
colleague’s last day. She brought in cake (which was very well received),
but it was sad to see her go. She's off to East Anglia, so I will (quite
possibly) never see her again outside of my Facebook feed. And this
made me think. How many other people are just like her; a major part of my
life for a few years, and now just a name on social media that (at best)
stirs a faint memory. I have half a dozen people on my Facebook list like
this; I *think* I worked with them years ago (judging by mutual
Facebook friends), but I have no memory of them, and if I saw them in the
street I would walk straight past them without
recognising them. That's rather sad really, isn't it? I wished her a happy life at going home time,
then came home through ten miles of speed restrictions despite no one being
there to benefit from the traffic having slowed down. I came home to find an Amazon delivery. The
new Blokus set had arrived… smaller than the old
one was. But I expect it works just the same. “er indoors TM” boiled up a rather
good bit of chicken katzu which we washed down with
a bottle of Liebfraumilch (old skool!) as we
watched the final of “Lego Masters: Australia”. That was a really good show. It is a shame it’s now over, but I’ve
downloaded he first episode of the second season of “Lego Masters: USA”
to watch with our next bottle of plonk. |
|
16 March 2022
(Wednesday) - Before the Night Shift
I slept well last night. I would have slept
longer but “er indoors TM”’s phone started having
notification buzzes every five minutes from six o’clock onwards. I got up, had a shave (in a sink which
drained afterwards), made toast and had my usual rummage around the
Internet. I sent out two birthday wishes, and then had a look at Facebook.
There was a rather idiotic argument kicking off on one of the “Doctor Who”
related groups about some scientific inaccuracies in the program. One chap
was ranting that the intricacies of nuclear physics aren’t exactly as
portrayed in an episode from the 1970s. Another was ranting that it was just
a TV show and the first chap should get a life. Personally I felt the second chap was in the wrong for
being so stupid that he didn’t realise that the first chap was also a thicko
too. And there was a frankly ridiculous squabble
on one of the “proper science” Facebook groups about a space-rock
thingy that crashed into the north Atlantic a couple of days ago. Described
as “half
the size of a giraffe” no end of people felt this was a rather stupid
description of size, and no end of equally laughable alternative units of
measurement were being offered. I also saw there was a beer festival in Tenterden being advertised for later in the year. I’ve
not done a beer festival for years; I was set to organise a mass trip out to
it… and then I read the rest of the advert. Live music was an attraction. Oh
dear… It’s not that I don’t like live music; I *love* live music when
it is done well, however it is rarely done well. It is usually done very
badly by people who are nowhere near as good as they think they are, and who
turn up the volume to try to compensate for a lack of talent. I’ve heard live
music at beer festivals before and with one exception (Dover) it has
all been terrible. Live music isn’t supposed to give you a headache. Rather than walking round the park today I
had an idea that we might try Orlestone woods. Orlestone is less than ten minutes from home, we rarely
see anyone else on the walk and it is a pretty place to walk. But Orlestone is only any good during the summer months. We
avoid it during the winter as the mud is too thick, and it was really muddy today. As we walked
we met two other dog owners. One encounter passed off fine, the other was
something of a disaster. Three huge dogs came bounding up to Treacle as the
dogs’ owners shouted out that all was well because their dogs are friendly. I
shouted back that all was not well as Treacle is not. If another dog walks
past she is (usually) fine. If another dog comes up slowly to say hello she tolerates it. But if a huge dog (or three)
bound up to her and tower over her getting in her face she is terrified. And
nips. The other dogs soon pissed
off, and we continued our wallow through the swamps. For some strange
reason half of the car park had been roped off. I wonder what that was all
about? We came home and once Treacle had her bath she
was soon snoring on the back of the sofa. I set the washing machine loose on
laundry, booked a slot at the tip in a couple of weeks’ time and spent half
an hour writing up some CPD.
As I played with the blood bank simulator so
there was a rattle of the letterbox. Treacle went berserk because the postman
had been. He’d delivered the council tax bill for the next year. It wasn’t as
bad as I had been expecting, but it has gone up by more than my wages have
gone up. I went to bed for the afternoon and slept for
about three hours, then spent an hour or so leading the Hazard Team round a
Borg cube in “Star Trek: Elite Force”, then with “er indoors TM”
home I smiled at her in the hope of getting some dinner. I’m off to the night shift in a minute… I
need to get petrol on the way. Petrol prices have gone through the roof, but
I have a plan. When I come to pay I shall stand at
the till and clap. Seeing how the government expected me to take that instead
of a pay rise last year, let’s see how much the clapping is worth in real
terms, shall we? |
|
17 March 2022
(Thursday) - Bottle of Plonk
After a busy night shift
I was glad to see the early shift turn up. I drove home listening to the
radio, and there wasn’t an awful lot to listen to. In a novel break with
tradition there wasn’t endless talk about the ongoing situation in Ukraine;
instead the pundits on the radio focussed on the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who has been held in prison in Iran
for many years (for “allegedly plotting against the Iranian government”).
However rather than giving any actual news, they kept repeating how her
family was pleased to have her home (as though that was a surprise to
anyone) then interviewed the Minister of State for
Europe and North America who kept repeating that all the details of her
release are confidential and he couldn’t say anything. I got home, had a shave
and went to bed where despite Treacle’s barking at shadows for much of the
morning I managed three hours asleep, finally getting up at mid-day. I made
toast and scoffed it as I peered into social media rather later than usual.
One friend was having a birthday today, and a few people (who live locally)
were pretending to be Irish in honour of today being St Patrick’s Day. This
boils my piss. (Sorry!) These are the same
people who pretend to be Scottish on Burns night and at New Year despite
having no Scottish heritage at all either. I once challenged one of these
people asking why (if your Celtic heritage is so important) do you
live as far away from Scotland and Ireland as you can possibly get whilst
still being in the UK? I never got a reply. There had been talk of me driving “Daddy’s
Little Angel TM” to the hospital for another scan this afternoon, but having heard nothing I popped the lead on
to Treacle and walked her up to the park (leaving the washing machine
having a go at some laundry). On the way there she grumbled at a couple
of other dogs from the safety of the other side of the road, but once at the
park we walked round as good as gold; which was
something of a bonus. As we walked I did a little
crafty Munz-ing but my Munzee app has developed an
issue. It is fine immediately after the phone re-starts, but when I go back
to the app after a few minutes the icons and text are all huge. I wonder if
there is an easy fix for this? We came home and I cracked on with the
ironing whilst watching episodes of “Trailer Park Boys”, then got the
lap-top out and as the washing machine did its best with my undercrackers I
played “Star Trek: Elite Force” as Treacle sucked on my T-shirt (for
some strange reason). “er indoors TM” came home and
boiled up a really good bit of dinner which was washed down with a rather
good bottle of Sainsbury’s Hock as we watched episodes of “Yonderland”. Sainsbury’s Hock isn’t at all shabby
– and it is less than a fiver for a bottle. I shall get some more of that stuff. |
|
18 March 2022
(Friday) - This n That
Apart from one particularly vivid nightmare
in which I had been conscripted (by the Prime Minister) to lead a
group of Cub Scouts who had joined the Open University (?) I slept
soundly for over nine hours last night. I eventually woke at half past seven
feeling like death warmed up. I came downstairs where the smell of “er
indoors TM”’s tea nearly (but not quite) made me throw
up. The smell of tea first thing in the morning always does that to me. Pausing only briefly to run out of shaving
gel, the bathroom sink worked fine this morning, and soon I was peering into
the Internet scoffing toast and swilling coffee (*not* tea!) Facebook was surprisingly busy this morning.
Last night seemed to be “post your old school photos” day to one of
the Hastings Facebook pages, so I’d posted a photo of our class of ’75 in the
hope that some old school friends might see it. Of the twenty-nine other
people in the photo three are in my Facebook friends list, and I could name a
dozen others, Mind you I don’t remember that photo being taken and I’m not
sure which one was me. Someone who once was on my Facebook friends list and
defriended me (no idea why) said she could name twenty-two of the
people in the photo… but didn’t actually do so. A friend had gone to see a live band playing
locally last night and had posted up a little video. I’d like to think that
it was his phone that hadn’t done the band justice; all I could hear was a
bloody awful noise. And there was a lot of talk about a march of
support this weekend for the sacked P&O workers.
P&O ferries have sacked eight hundred workers and has replaced them with
people who will do the job cheaper. I suppose that now that the UK doesn’t
have to mess about with those annoying European laws about
workers’ rights, this is the free market for you… it is only a short step
from this to sending children back down the mines, isn’t it? I took Treacle for a little walk. Bearing in
mind the state of the woods on Wednesday we just did a quick circuit of the
park which passed off without incident. Treacle is as good as gold *if*
she is left alone by those that she doesn’t know. She walked perfectly at
heel all the way carrying her tennis ball, perfectly happy. We came home, and I started “preparing for
inspection”. I can vividly remember trying to tidy the house when the
fruits of my loin were young. Back then “My Boy TM” flatly
refused to co-operate in any way at all, repeatedly sarcastically asking if
the Queen was coming. Nowadays we have to tidy up
before he comes. He wanted to borrow a chess set today as he has decided to
teach Cheryl how to play chess. I can just imagine her reaction to being told
that a prawn goes all the way and becomes a queen. And then it can go any way
it likes(!) Just as I’d sorted out the landslide of
carrier bags that collapsed when I pulled the Hoover out my phone beeped. He
wouldn’t be collecting the chess set today after all. I was vaguely disappointed by that. As
Treacle snored on the sofa next to me, I played “Star Trek: Elite Force”
for an hour or so and then (leaving her fast asleep) set off in the
general direction of work. I drove up to the co-op where the car park
was heaving. The car park for the little row of shops there is nowhere near
big enough. I went into the co-op and fought my way through a sea of
schoolgirls. What were they doing in the co-op at mid-morning? Why weren't
they at school? I got a sandwich, set off up the motorway and
took over twenty minutes to travel two miles. The traffic wasn't actually at
a standstill, but was crawling oh-so-slowly. And
after two miles of single-digit speeds the traffic
then sped up to its usual pace with seemingly no reason for the delay at all.
I had planned a little geo-mission to give me something to do before work,
but the time I'd set aside for geo-mission was more than taken up by the
traffic delay. So I went straight to work where I
learned something. Did you know that modern driving licences are
only valid for ten years? I didn't know that. A colleague found out today
that her driving licence expires next Monday. (Woops!) Suitably
panic-stricken I checked my driving licence. Mine is good for another twelve
years (until my seventieth birthday). The colleague whose
licence expires on Monday had a good laugh at my driving licence; it was
issued before she was born. I felt old… |
|
19 March 2022
(Saturday) - Dismantling the Arbour
I slept well. As I scoffed my toast I watched
“Trailer Park Boys”. Ricky is now living in a barn “like people
used to before houses were invented” and had found a goat (which he
thought was a “double unicorn”). I sparked up my lap-top.
Facebook was still there, but not a lot was happening quite so early in the
morning. One friend had had a bad night with a drunken neighbour making noise
until the small hours. We had that many years ago from the side where the
neighbours change regularly. One chap would come home drunk and play his
noisy music which would continue after he’d fallen asleep. After the second
or third time I hammered on his front door at six o'clock the next morning
and told him that if he wanted to have his music on in the small hours then
he would be woken after only two hours sleep. He started to argue; I
explained that whatever he said was fine, but the price of his music was only
two hours sleep, and that was not negotiable. He never did it again and moved
out shortly after, never to be seen again. Nothing else was going on in
the Internet, so I got ready for work. I set off to work, and after a couple of
miles I realised I'd forgotten the swipe card I needed to get into the works
car park. It didn't take that long to go back home to get it. As I drove to work the pundits on the radio
were talking about how President Putin is to be charged with war crimes.
I'm not saying that what the Russian forces are doing in Ukraine is within
the remit of international law, but I have difficulty with the concept of
"war crimes". Surely the whole point of a war is that any
attempt at reasoned discussion and legal process to sort a disagreement has
failed, and force is being used to impose your will on your enemy. War is per
se illegal, isn’t it? Can you really "fight nicely"? The
entire concept seems to be something of a non sequitur to me. There was also talk of the Duke and Duchess
of Cambridge having run
into problems on their tour of the Caribbean. It is all very well for Prince
William to be spouting his high ideals and green visions; he’s not poor.
Unlike the villagers who can’t afford to face the consequences of what he has
in mind. Meanwhile science has discovered Star
Trek's Mirror universe. As I drove up the motorway
I saw there were people actually working in the ten mile stretch that has
been cordoned off along the motorway. There were there at half past seven on
a Saturday morning, and they were also there at half past nine last night. Mind you there was no one to be seen in the
entire ten miles as I came home at half past one this afternoon. I came home and mowed the lawn, sprinkled out
some lawn food and pulled weeds out of the shingle, then stared into the
pond. It is incredibly clear right now; you can see right to the bottom. I
fed the fish, then had a little look at the arbour. Despite “er indoors TM”
giving the thing a serious overhaul two years ago (when I put my arse through it), it was poggered.
I thought about trying to effect more repairs to
keep it going, but it had had it. There is only so many bits of perished wood
you can screw together. We originally built the thing on 8 April 2007 (to
be honest, Jose built it) so we’ve had our money’s worth out of it. “My Boy TM” called round to
collect the chess set, and once he’d gone I set
about dismantling the arbour. A little judicious screwdrivering
ably assisted by some wanton hammering soon had the thing in pieces. Some of
the fragments will go to the tip; some will be recycled into a garden screen
to hide all the tat stuffed down the side of the shed. I’m reliably informed the new garden bench
will arrive tomorrow evening. “er indoors TM” made pizza (from
scratch!) which we scoffed whilst watching the latest episode of “Star
Trek: Picard” in which our heroes travelled back in time because… because
that’s what you do in Star Trek. Last week’s episode of “Star Trek: Picard”
was rather good. This week they did the same old story which has been done
better at least a couple of dozen times already. I’ve programmed “Hannah” for tomorrow.
I might make a sandwich for tomorrow before I go to bed… Or I might not. |
|
20 March 2022
(Sunday) - Marden to Hush Heath (and back)
I ached when I got up this morning; taking that
arbour apart yesterday must have been more like hard work than I realised. I made toast and watched an episode of “Trailer
Park Boys” in which Bubbles was terrorised by a samsquanch
(!) then I sparked up the lap-top as I
usually do most mornings. I had some messages – yesterday I saw that there
are a few geocaches on today’s walk which looked to be missing, and I asked
the owners if they would like us to replace them if we couldn’t find them.
They all said “yes please”. According to the
rules, replacing a missing cache is the responsibility of whoever hid it;
according to common sense why should they give up a couple of hours to make a
special journey to do what we can do in less than a minute? There wasn’t *that* much kicking off
on Facebook this morning. Perhaps I was too early on a Sunday? There were on
or two amazing things being asked on some of the work-related Facebook pages
though. In the UK there are national standards concerning all aspects of
blood transfusion; in the USA it would seem that every individual lab makes
it up as they go along and there were “how do we…” and “do we have
to…” and “the lab down the road says…” With “er indoors TM” off to
visit “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” and “Stormageddon –
Bringer of Destruction TM” I got Treacle into her new harness,
and we set off to the car. As we walked down the road there was some strange
woman dragging half a dozen tree branches down the road. Each must have
been over five metres in length. Assuming she wanted them as firewood I
wondered if she might want the fragments of the arbour I disassembled
yesterday, so I asked her. After a few minutes it became clear she didn’t
speak English. At all. This (sadly) isn’t uncommon and bothers me. I
like to think I’m not racist, but how can anyone live in a country where they
don’t speak the language (not even the tiniest amount)? It just can’t
be practical, can it? We drove out to Marden; I’d deliberately set
off early so that we could drive to a couple of locations to collect
information needed for a field puzzle, and having
counted bollards and found the right telegraph pole I sat in the car park
with Treacle working out the puzzle until Karl, Trace and Charlotte arrived. We set off on our walk. The ground was
nowhere near as muddy as we thought it might have been. We had a good walk
with very few hills. There were perhaps a few too many stiles, but Treacle
managed them without too many problems. Mind you we did have one or two
issues with Treacle. She was continually stopping; wanting to pick up bigger
and bigger sticks. And there was a “near miss” event when a Dalmatian
got in her face. If the dog had come up slowly, all would have been fine. We had another “episode” at lunch
time. Having found an ideal spot about twenty yards from the road we had just
sat down to have our picnic when some “delightful fellow” walked up
and told us we were trespassing in his woods. I think he was looking for a
fight and he wasn’t quite sure what to do when he didn’t get one. Seeing we
weren’t the gang of vagrants and ne'er do wells I think he was expecting he
said we could stay and have our picnic. Which we did. Though to be honest if
I was that fellow, I would sell the woods and use the profit to buy a full
set of teeth. Shortly after lunch we walked past the Hush
Heath winery. We considered having a look at their shop; I’m glad we didn’t.
have you seen their
prices? At thirty quid a bottle, they ain’t
giving it away. As we walked I found
myself looking in admiration at the amount of frankly wonderful garden ponds
we saw, and we all spent a few minutes looking at the model railway set-up
someone had going round their garden; complete with railway bridges over the
pond. The very next house had alpacas in the garden… Geocache-wise, the series we followed was
perhaps not the easiest. Many of the caches were in places that were rather
overlooked. Some of the hints didn’t seem to make much sense to me. And we
felt that some of the GPS co-ordinates were a tad awry. But a bit of a
challenge is never a bad thing. Someone had taken the trouble to set out a
guided walk for us in a rather pretty area, and I am very grateful for that. After having walked the series
we hunted out two multi-caches. One of them was one we didn’t find when we
were last in the area since it had been almost (but not quite) in
someone’s back garden and had been “muggled”
(found by the normal people and thrown away as rubbish). Since our
last visit it has been relocated and we found it deep in a thicket. The other was one that hadn’t been found in
over a year; we found it. Because it hadn’t been found in over a year it
qualifies as a “resuscitation” and there is
all sorts of gloating that goes with that (if rummaging in hedgerows for
small pots floats your boat). I
took a few photos as we walked. Once home, as Treacle snored on the sofa
next to me, I posted them on-line. “er indoors TM” came home, and hot
on her heels was the builder chap who is going to be fitting the new kitchen
in a few weeks’ time. They made all sorts of plans; I agreed to everything.
And shortly after the builder went so someone else was at the door. I was
thinking it was the new garden bench. It was actually the
grocery delivery. It turns out that the new garden bench hasn’t been ordered
yet. Yesterday when I wrote “I’m reliably informed the new garden bench
will arrive tomorrow evening” it turns out that I had been reliably
informed that the groceries would be arriving. It’s amazing what you miss when you aren’t
paying attention… |
|
21 March 2022
(Monday) - Another Diet
I didn’t make toast
this morning. Instead I had a delicious and filling Slimfast shake (!) Periodically the voices in my
head tell me to go on a diet, and that is what they have been saying for a
little while. I’ve always been fat, and I hate it. “er indoors TM” has bought some Slimfast kits, so we are giving these a go for a couple
of weeks. The trouble with diets is that I’ve tried so many, and few work for
me.. Five – two, Atkins, keto-generating,
no-farting-on-a-Tuesday… over the years I’ve tried so many diets and I’ve
found that nothing helps me lose weight as much as being constantly hungry.
But I shall give this Slimfast diet a go though, and see what happens. I stood on the scales this
morning and was seventeen stone and one pound. That’s ten pounds up on when I
last weighed myself. Let’s see how much I
can shift. As I enjoyed my
delicious and filling Slimfast shake (!) I
watched an episode of “Trailer Park Boys” in which our heroes were up
to their usual antics, them went on-line for a bit. I spent ages being unable
to log into my “MyFitnessPal” app until I hit on the frankly genius
idea of turning on the phone’s internet connection. That did the trick. I then had a little
look at Facebook (as I do every morning). I posted up a photo of what
I’d had for brekkie, then had a look to see what I’d missed overnight. A month ago (on 22
February) I was whinging about a friend request I had received via
Facebook. Someone had sent me pure filth. I’d reported it to Facebook, and I
wrote “Over brekkie I saw that Facebook had again reviewed “Margaret
Tello” (the porn-monger who sent me a friend request) and again confirmed
that sending links to mucky websites didn’t go against their community
standards. They did however give me the opportunity to appeal to their
Oversight Board, so I’ve sent them a message. We’ll see what comes of that,
Not much I expect”. This morning I saw that Facebook’s Oversight Board
had chosen to do nothing about the wanton hawking of smut. I also saw that
the porn-monger’s Facebook profile is still active, and still
advertising very unmoral (not to say unhygienic either) activities. So
much for taking a moral stance. Nothing else seemed
to be going on in the Internet, so I got ready for
work. For all that
yesterday was supposedly the first day of spring, I had t
spend a few minutes scraping the ice from my car this morning. As I drove up
the motorway I listened to the pundits on the radio
who were spouting their usual brand of drivel. This morning there was talk
that the Prime Minister is now regretting his remarks made over the weekend,
and the Chancellor of the Exchequer didn't
agree with him at all. Apparently that idiot
Johnson was trying to draw parallels between Britain's leaving the EU and the
Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion, and in doing so had given more
fuel to his detractors. It strikes me that the only similarity between the
Russian invasion of the Ukraine and Brexit was that both seemed a good idea
at the time to those who instigated them, and both could really have done
with having been thought out a little more than they actually
were. It bothers me that I
really do now see our Prime Minister as "that idiot Johnson".
Like them or loathe them, a Prime Minister should really command respect,
shouldn't they? I got to work for the
early shift, and did that which I couldn't avoid. There
was cake today, but I ignored the stuff. Mind you I say "cake"
- it was doughnuts. Doughnuts are strange things. If you get a jam doughnut
from Tesco that is good for two hundred and eighty-nine calories. But the
same thing from Sainsburys is only two hundred and twenty calories. So it might be argued that getting your doughnuts from
Tesco is healthy eating. I didn't have any
doughnuts. Instead I had an apple at morning
tea break (sixty-three calories), a "very berry meal
replacement bar" (!) for lunch (two hundred and twenty five
calories) and a miniscule bag of sour cream and chive pretzels at
afternoon tea break (ninety nine calories) As I worked I exchanged a few messages with “Daddy’s Little
Angel TM”. Pogo has developed a very sore nose which wasn't
getting any better, so I suggested he went to the vet. Because he is
registered with our vet she brought him up on the
train and took him there. I was glad she took him and not me; she could have
the argument about how overweight he is. I managed to
sweet-talk the boss into letting me slip out a few minutes early; for all
that “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” had got to the vet’s, she
also had a load of shopping to collect from Asda and needed to be there
promptly, so Dad’s taxi came to the rescue. Eventually. I was rather thwarted
by the ramp onto the motorway being blocked, and a police car going down the
motorway at a sensible speed (who *ever* overtakes a police car?) We were only a few
minutes late getting to Asda; it was a shame that when Asda get your shopping
order together for you they don’t put any of it in
bags. We just filled the back of my car with it all loose,
and drove that back to “Daddy’s Little Angel TM”’s
flat. As shopping was being
shifted about I had a look at Pogo’s
nose. It is far worse than it appears in the photo. Apparently
he is allergic to something he’s been sniffing in (the beach, maybe?)
and the allergic rash has got infected. Poor pup. He’s now on anti-histamines and antibiotics and wearing a cone of
shame. Pogo was funny this
afternoon - for all that he has been living with us for years, he makes no
secret who is his favourite person. He follows “Daddy’s Little Angel TM”
like a second shadow, and whenever she disappears he
cries and gets very agitated until she re-appears. Pausing only briefly
to do the geocaching Adventure lab that “er indoors TM” set
up only a hundred yards from where “Daddy’s Little Angel TM”
lives I came home. “er indoors TM” boiled up a really good dinner (six hundred calories) and has
gone bowling. I shall spend the
evening playing “Star Trek: Elite Force” I think… Surprisingly despite
ending the day nearly three hundred calories under my daily diet goal, I’m
not hungry… |
|
22 March 2022
(Tuesday) - Diet Day Two
Again I gave toast a miss
this morning. Instead I had a “high protein
summer strawberry flavour shake” which was surprisingly filling and a
hundred less calories. I watched another episode of “Trailer Park Boys”
then sparked up my lap-top. Facebook was remarkably dull this morning.
There was a bit of an argument kicking off about the way in which you have to book appointments at the tip days in advance. Some
people love it, but it don’t work for me. I don’t
know when I’ve going to have a load for the tip, or whether it will all go in
one car full or not. Apparently the council are
keeping the appointment system because of the findings of a public
consultation they held… Public consultation? That was a well-kept secret. I sent out two birthday videos, then had a
look at my emails. The nice people at Credit Karma told me my credit rating
had gone up by three points this week, but seemed to
be utterly unable to explain why. When I clicked the “Find Out Why”
button absolutely nothing happened. I found where I'd parked my car yesterday (two
streets away) and set off to work. As I drove the pundits on the radio
were talking about the ongoing
situation in Ukraine in which neither side looks as though they are going
to make any concessions. One side wants to take over the country; the other
doesn't want them to. Both sides have got a long way to go before any
agreement can be reached. And (as always) it is the innocents who will
suffer. Meanwhile (at first sight) it seems
that the Japanese are having problems
with Russia too. The Japanese are trying to draw parallels between how
the Russian Army had "manoeuvres" on the Ukrainian border
before invading Ukraine, and how Russia is now holding military exercises off
the coat of the Kuril Islands. However these islands haven't been Japanese
islands ever since Russia was given them after the second world war, and the
fact that historically they were always
Russian until the Japanese captured them in 1904 (and held them until
1945) seems to have eluded everyone. It took a little longer than usual to get to
work today. The ten-mile stretch of fifty miles an hour has been extended to
twenty with the overnight reinstatement
of “Operation Brock” in the expectation of problems following the
unpleasantness in which P&O Ferries sacked all their staff and got people
who would work for less money. I got to work for the early shift and did my
bit. As I worked I did chuckle about a visiting
engineer who seemed to spend most of the shift shouting into his phone about
how he needed to make the C.U. visible. He might have had more (any)
success had anyone other than him known what he was talking about. With work worked I drove up to Meopham as I had somewhere to go. I’d programmed my sat nav to a post-code, and I had a house number. You’d
think that would be easy enough, wouldn’t you? In most streets the house numbers start at one, and go up as high as there are houses to go up to. However in the place I went to, the houses are all
custom-built on random plots of land, and seem to be numbered in order of
being built. The road started with house thirty-seven and counted down (with
some missing numbers) to twenty-two… then shot up to sixty-something. I saw
a chap in his garden and asked if he knew where number six was. He laughed
and said it could be anywhere. His house was fifty-four
but he openly admitted that the number was utterly meaningless. I eventually found where I was supposed to
be; the nice lady knew that visitors had problems and was waiting in her
garden. I’d gone up there as a few weeks ago I’d seen an advert telling of jackshunds for sale. Yesterday the advert was still
on-line. Fudge was a jackshund. Do I want another one? To be honest I’m not
sure. But with Pogo making no secret that he would rather be back with “Daddy’s
Little Angel TM” I think it fair to say there’s a vacancy for
a dog in our house. There were two puppies to be seen. One is a
dead ringer for Fudge, and for all that I wanted a boy, looking so much like
Fudge I would subconsciously be expecting that dog to be my Fudge, and that
wouldn’t be fair on him. The little girl is a sweetie, though. I shall go back with “er indoors TM”
in a few days’ time. I came back home down the motorway and
through “Operation Brock”. On what would normally be the coast-bound
carriageway were four miles of a double queue of lorries. “er indoors TM” boiled up an
incredibly low calorie dinner which I followed up
with a Muller Light yogurt (fat free!) and ended the day over two
hundred calories under my daily allowance. Result! |
23 March 2022 (Wednesday) - Before The Late Shift
I slept
like a log last night and woke at half past seven still feeling tired. What
was that all about? I didn’t make toast; I had another Slimfast
shake thingy then had a look at the Internet as I do. It was
still there, I saw a
friend had started a business in which people pay her for the privilege of
sitting around in the village hall whilst she makes all sorts of odd noises
by running a wet finger round the edges of various large pots and
occasionally clouting them with a drumstick (the pots, not the people).
She calls it “sound therapy” and the masses can’t give her their money
quick enough. I suppose I’m just jealous that I didn’t think that one up. And I was
rather sad to see that geocaching HQ have announced a new load of souvenirs for the
next few months – you go out and find some (thirty) geocaches in April
and May and you’ll get a couple of e-souvenirs. I suppose I will play the
game, but it bothers me that there is so much more that the paid staff at
geo-HQ could be doing. I’ve ranted about this before, but this e-souvenir for
going and finding caches is just a re-hash of something they’ve been doing
for some time now. Looking at the public profile of many of my friends who
used to be active in the noble pursuit of rummaging for film pots in hedges it is clear that a lot of them didn’t bother with the last
load of e-souvenirs. Such
a shame geo-HQ won’t do something more original that might bring back the
punters that are leaving geocaching (in droves) to go play other silly
games. As I got up
from brekkie (Slimfast), Treacle was rather
funny. She (and all the other dogs) have
never made any secret that “er indoors TM” is their
favourite, and they follow her like second shadows (all the time top
favourite person “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” is elsewhere). But
Treacle was all over me this morning. She knows who takes her up the park in
the mornings of a late shift. I filled
the washing machine, and we set off. We had a
minor “episode” as we walked up Christchurch Road. Some woman was
walking along the pavement toward us. Clearly she
didn’t like dogs, or was scared of them. Surely the obvious thing to do was
to cross over the (very quiet) road when she was still fifty yards
away. But instead she waited until we were walking
past her (with me between her and Treacle) when she screamed and leapt
into the road. I pointed out that it was a rather small dog on the end of the
lead, and not a tiger, and we carried on our way, leaving her standing in the
way of oncoming traffic. And then as
we walked round the park we saw a woman with a russet-coloured spaniel. As we
passed she did the biggest fart you ever did hear. I
hurried away gripped with a fit of the giggles. We came
home. Treacle was soon fast asleep, and I emptied the washing machine and set
a second load going, then made a cuppa and with it I had a Slimfast choc caramel treat. It was surprisingly good,
lasted far longer than a biccie, and was less
calories. I wrote up a little CPD, but soon
lost interest in it. It is on the dull side. Instead
I solved the puzzle for a puzzle geocache that had gone live this morning. I
thought it might give me a little adventure before work until I discovered
that finding it would mean a twenty-mile diversion. I thought better of that.
Had I been working in Pembury today, things might
have been different. Instead I spent a little while
looking up suitable names for a small white dog (for no reason at all!)
and found pretty much every suitable name had already been taken by either a
colleague, friend or granddaughter. Leaving
Treacle snoring and dreaming (dogs really do have dreams!) I set of to
work. There was something on the radio about men who use violence against
women, and (as always with this sort of thing) I formed the distinct
impression that those talking held me personally responsible for every bit of
abuse that has ever happened. So I turned it off and
howled along to my own choice of music as I crawled up the motorway to the
petrol station. Usually
when on the late shift I would get a sandwich and a grab-bag of crisps for
lunch when getting petrol but being on a diet I gave that a miss, and drove to the works car park where I read my
Kindle app for a bit and scoffed a “Very Berry Meal Replacement Bar”
before going in to work. And that
was it for the day really. A very busy late shift, and then a diversion round
Hermitage Lane meant I was ten minutes late getting to the motorway along
which I crawled home. |
|
24 March 2022 (Thursday)
- Rostered Day Off
I slept through till eight o’clock this
morning which was something of a result. I had a shave, set another COVID
test going and cracked open a café latte Slimfast
shake thingy which I scoffed as I peered at the Internet. There wasn’t much going on with Facebook this
morning. A friend had shared a memory of their having seen The ELO Experience
a few years ago and was looking forward to seeing them in Whitstable next
weekend. I saw them at the Sinden theatre in Tenterden about ten years ago and they were rather good.
I was rather miffed to find out I’d missed the chance to get tickets to see
them again - I follow them on Facebook and hadn’t seen any mention of their
coming to Kent again. Having got yet another negative COVID test I
then tried to order up some more. I went through ten different screens before
being told they’d run out. You’d think they’d tell you right away, wouldn’t
you? I tried again (many times) through the day to no avail. I wonder
what the boss will say tomorrow – it is on her orders that I’m doing so many. Treacle was keen to go out, so I put the
electric screwdriver on to charge (!) and we walked up to the park,
did our usual circuit and came home again. We met no
loonies or nutters, no one bothered us and we woofed
and barked at no one. With walk walked I got busy in the garden. At
the weekend I took apart the old arbour we’d had for fifteen years. Much of
the wood had rotted through, but the sides were still good, so I upcycled
them. I’ve got all sorts of things in the garden that I use that don’t fit in
the shed. The huge bucket/pot for cleaning out the fish
pond filter. Various buckets of stones for future garden features. A
dustbin half-filled with soil. The garden waste dustbin… all of which live
down the side of the shed and they look awful. So
using the planks from the arbour that weren’t rotten I built the slatted
sides and backs of the old arbour into a screen. There was a minor mishap
when the drill bit snapped, and another minor mishap when one of the screws
got stuck half-way and wouldn’t budge. But nothing I couldn’t sort with a
spare drill bit and a hefty clout with a hammer. You can see a few photos of what
I did here. The end result wasn’t too shabby. It
would look better if attached to the wall or the shed… but that involves
going to B&Q and spending money on parts. I did everything today from
left-over bits and bobs. I then had a look at the household accounts
and totted up what I’d squandered over the last month. As always
I’m nowhere near as skint as I might be, but nowhere near as rich as I want
to be. I scoffed a “Choc Chip Tasty Balanced Meal
Bar” then played “Star Trek: Elite Force” for a while. I had
intended to do more out in the garden, but I ached a bit, so I turned on the
telly and watched more “Trailer Park Boys” in which our heroes
tried to capture a samsquanch (!) for
financial gain. “er indoors TM” is boiling up
dinner – the Slimfast recipe sheet comes up with pretty decent scran and change out of six hundred calories.
I shall have a tin of diet coke with it – have you seen how many calories
there are in a bottle of plonk? |
|
25 March 2022
(Friday) - A Maze Ing
I was wide awake at half past three this
morning and having lain awake for two hours I gave up with the idea of sleep
and got up. As I slurped my Slimfast
strawberry wotsit I watched an episode of “Trailer
Park Boys” in which Rick’s brain sadly let him down again, then had a
look at the Internet (as I do). It was still there, but not much was
going on quite so early in the morning. I had several emails about job
vacancies; seemingly the world is crying out for quality managers. “Quality
management” is something which boils my piss.
You’d think it was all about making sure that a given workplace is performing
to a high standard, wouldn’t you? It isn’t though. It is all about making
sure that meaningless paperwork is all written in the right coloured ink. I took something of a circuitous route to my
car this morning capping and scattering as I went (it's a Munzee thing).
As I drove to work I listened to the radio as I do
most mornings. I listen to the radio as I want to know what is going on
in the world; this morning I didn't learn much. It really did seem to
be "National Make Yourself Inaudible Day". The first chap
being interviewed was the Shadow Secretary for Something or Other whose
mobile phone didn't stop making a variety of odd beeping noises. This was
followed by someone talking about the P&O Ferries scandal... I say "talking",
"repeating the same meaningless catchphrases" would have been
closer to the truth. And then there was someone with an accent so thick he
could have been talking about absolutely anything at all. The only person I
heard with any clarity was a bishop on the "Thought For The Day"
who was talking about Mother's Day (which is this coming Sunday). Apparently mothers are positive proof of the existence of
God; God sent mothers to help us all because everyone needs help in this
crappy world. However the bishop glossed over why
his God had made the world so crappy, and then rather disproved his own point
by talking about a couple of people who are shining examples of decent people
even though their mothers died when they were very young. I got to work where I had something of a busy
(if dull) day. And with busy (if dull) day done I came home.
What with “Operation Brock” it took slightly over twice the time it
usually takes to get home. Once home “er indoors TM”
boiled up a good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching the fourth
episode of the new season of “Star Trek: Picard”. Two weeks ago I said that the show had picked up, and last week I
said I wasn’t impressed. I’m wondering if this season has peaked rather too
soon… We then watched a film on Amazon Prime. “Dave Made a Maze”
was rather odd. Have you ever seen it? Give it a go… |
|
26 March
2022 (Saturday) - Bit Dull Really
I slept better last night, but
was still awake earlier than I’d have liked. I scoffed the last of the diet
brekkie shake thingies in my Slimfast box, then
watched an episode of “Trailer Park Boys”. Two of our heroes had
decided it was time to turn up the heat. However
Ricky thought it was time for “turnips in the heat”. In the end they
were distracted by an altercation with a porcupig. Facebook was rather dull this morning as was my
in-box, so taking care not to wake Treacle or “er indoors TM”
I got ready for work. As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the
radio were spouting their usual drivel. In the past their usual drivel used
to be a balanced summary of the day’s news. However
these days their usual drivel is endless speculation about what is going on
in Ukraine. Will the Americans do this? Why aren’t the Chinese doing that?
There must be something happening in the world other than the conflict in Ukraine? I got to work and had a far busier morning that I
had intended to have. If anyone ever tells you that blood group O Negative
can be transfused into anyone, ask if they would have liked my morning in
which I had an O Negative patient whose blood would have made short work of
pretty much most of the population. A long time ago I once described working
in a blood bank as hours of tedium interspersed by moments of stark panic,
and after many years’ reflection I think that is a fair summary. I came home, woke Treacle (she was fast asleep)
and took her round the block for a little stroll. Her flea treatment stuff
was ready for collection from the vet so we went to
get it. She wasn’t keen on going in there at all. She cried and wanted me to
carry her and quivered in terror when the receptionist tried to pet her.
Fudge never liked the vet either. We came home and I had a little look in the back
garden. It was as well that I did; the screen I built on Thursday had
collapsed. That lasted a long time (!) I shall have another look at it
in the week, but I think it might well be going to the tip. Rather than
sorting it out I slobbed in front of the telly
until “er indoors TM” came home. She boiled up a Slimfast recipe – a fry-up with sausages, bacon, fried
egg and change out of six hundred calories. As we scoffed it we
watched the first of the Stand Up To Cancer “Celebrity Bake Off”
episodes in which one of the celebrities started off by admitting that she
wasn’t so much a baker as a cake enthusiast. A little later she said that
some people were meant to be, and others were meant to be baked for. And my Munzee
app told me we’ve got to our Clan War target for this month, which was a
result. |
|
27 March 2022
(Sunday) - Mother's Day
What with receiving a drunk phone call at one
o’clock, listening to snoring, and Treacle slurping on the duvet for much of
the small hours I didn’t have the most restful of nights. Having the clocks
going forward an hour didn’t help much either. Having run out of Slimfast
shakes I had toast and coffee as I watched “Trailer Park Boys” before
sparking up the lap-top. There was a minor squabble
happening on one of the kite-flying Facebook pages in which there was
consternation being expressed at people giving daily spoilers for the answers
to Wordle. I had hoped to see photos of what I’d missed
yesterday; there had been a Kent county geo-meet while I’d been working but
no one had posted any photos of what had happened. And a friend’s band had been playing last
night but no photos of that had appeared either. We drove up to Meopham.
Regular readers of this drivel may recall that last Tuesday I went to Meopham to look at puppies and I wrote “There were two
puppies to be seen. One is a dead ringer for Fudge, and for all that I wanted
a boy, looking so much like Fudge I would subconsciously be expecting that
dog to be my Fudge, and that wouldn’t be fair on him. The little girl is a
sweetie, though. I shall go back with “er indoors TM” in a
few days’ time”. In the intervening time I’ve been looking at photos of
the puppies and decided that there are marked differences between the little
boy and my Fudge. And seeing how the little girl seemed to be hiding behind
her brother I wasn’t happy about separating the puppies. Seeing how no one
had been up to buy them in the meantime I saw this as fate telling me to get both of them. The nice lady seemed delighted that brother
and sister puppies would be staying together. I amazed myself by doing a bank
transfer from my phone… and we collect the babies in a couple of weeks’ time.
Hopefully by then we’ll have names for them. I was thinking “William”
and “Spud” but have been told “No!” from pretty much everyone
who has heard the suggestion. I took a
few photos of the puppies, and after half an hour’s fussing them we
really had to make a move. We came back to Ashford where we collected “My
Boy TM”. “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” has
known all along about the puppies, but we decided that the first fruit of my
loin might not be as receptive to the news as his sister. We thought it best
that the news came from his mother rather than from me; the difference being
his just laying an egg as opposed to going full-on bat-shit-mental at me. We then drove down to Dymchurch where I’d
been told there was a family get-together going on. Having been in a caravan
for a girlie weekend Cheryl and Lacey were meeting us at the pub in
Dymchurch…Having got to Dymchurch I then drove along the coast for several
miles to where we were supposed to be. It wasn’t long before a dozen of us were all
together at The Neptune for
Mother’s Day… Have you ever been to The Neptune? Being
right next to a caravan park it has a captive clientele and the fact that it
has a captive clientele was obvious. The food was good; most of us had the
carvery, but the staff were a tad hopeless. The chap dishing out the food was
dealing with each plate as though that was the first one
he’d ever done. Bless him. It was good to catch up with family, but
after a while we all went our separate ways (as we do). We drove home,
collected Treacle (once we’d woken her) then together with “My Boy TM”
and Rolo we had a little walk round Singleton Lake.
Treacle really enjoyed the walk. Having spent every single walk since Pogo
went home last Monday stuck to my side it was good to see her running about
and playing. Having had a decent bit of dinner earlier we
skipped tea (and had a cuppa and biccies instead)
and watched an episode of “Richard Osman’s House of Games”. Today has been rather busy. |
28 March 2022 (Monday) - A Day Off Work
I woke
feeling a tad grim. I had a shave as another negative COVID test incubated,
then stood on the scales. Over the last week I’ve shifted four pounds in
weight. That’s a result. But with no more Slimfast
shakes just yet I made toast and had a look at the Internet. Facebook presented
me with two adverts today that made me roll my eyes. One was for a clinic in
Madrid which specialises in making “lady bits” for/in/on (delete as
appropriate) men who are wanting gender reassignment surgery. I can’t
help but wonder how much these people spent on advertising their clinic, but
it is clearly money down the drain as I don’t live anywhere near Madrid, and have quite enough worries with my own “tackle”,
let alone having lady’s bits as well (or instead of – I’m a bit vague as
to the specifics). And the
other advert… it was for a porno website. It had the “sponsored”
thingy on which showed they had paid Facebook good money to run their advert.
So much for their community standards. I saw a new
geocache had gone live near Orlestone Woods. Back
in the day I would have chased after being First to Find, but I had things to
do today. And (in all honesty) all the fun has long since been sucked
out from being first anyway. I took
Treacle out for a little walk. She walked well, and
shot away from my side twice to chase squirrels. I wish she wouldn’t, but
probably nowhere near as much as the squirrels wish she wouldn’t. Other
than that, the walk passed off pretty much uneventfully. Mind you we did see
one particularly “council” mother and four brats marching up
Christchurch Road, all munching pies out of paper bags bearing the “Greggs”
logo. I wondered what was going on there… the nearest Greggs is in the
pedestrian area in the town centre, and they were walking in completely the
wrong direction to have come from there. We took a
little detour on the way home to collect my car, and
drove it home where I loaded it full of rubbish to take to the tip. The tip was
hard work. It was busier than it has been for a long time, and pretty much
everyone had driven there with one small bag of tat and was emptying the tat
one item at a time into the skips. And all were seemingly oblivious to the
fact that anyone else was at the tip. If they didn’t walk into you, you found
yourself falling over the tip operative who was clearly making a point of
getting in everyone else’s way. From there
I went to the hospital for a post-op follow up. I got to see the ENT
specialist today (and wasn’t fobbed off with his apprentice). He
shoved an endoscope up my nose and after a (quite literally)
eye-watering few minutes told me all was well, and suggested I come back for
a check-up in a year’s time. I then went
to my car… As I’d
driven into the car park the barriers were being guarded by three hired thugs
who wanted to know why I was going into the hospital’s car park. I told them
because I was going to the hospital (I left off adding “dur!”). As I
came out there was a fourth hired thug who insisted on operating the exit
barrier for me. I asked him why there were four people guarding the barriers;
he (very rudely) said that the barriers were being monitored. I can’t
help but wonder what they were being monitored for? Who else but people
attending the hospital wants to park in a hospital car park? And the entire
thing is ticket controlled. The time anyone enters and leaves the car park is
automatically recorded, as is the amount of people using the car park. And they
say the NHS is short of money… Once home I
had a Slimfast meal bar (still got some of
those!) then had a pootle in the garden. Regular readers of this drivel
may recall that last Thursday I built a garden screen to hide all the garden
tat. Regular readers of this drivel may also recall that two days later it
collapsed. So I put the ironing on hold, took the
screen apart and rebuilt it with a right angle so it would be a tad more
self-supporting. However there was a lot of
unscrewing involved, and that seemed to take a lot more battery power from
the electric screwdriver. But after a couple of hours farting
about (interspersed with reading my e-book as the screwdriver charged)
I came up with something perhaps a tad more stable than I’d had before. I spent a
few minutes playing “Worms”, then “er indoors TM”
boiled up a dirty curry (!) which we washed down with a pint of stout
(all told there was change out of eight hundred calories) whist
watching “Richard Osman’s House of Games”; a TV show I quite
like. I rather ache
now – I think I overdid the carpentry in the garden today… |
|
29 March 2022
(Tuesday) - Rather Busy
I again woke feeling like death warmed up and
would definitely have phoned in sick had I been at
work today. But by the time I’d got up, made toast
and turned the telly on I was feeling fine. I watched an episode of “Trailer Park Boys”
I which our heroes got confused between zombies and aliens, then woke Treacle
and took her out. We drove over to the garage where the car was
having “car things” done today. Whilst I have detailed knowledge and
understanding of most of the surgical procedures that people have done to
them, the car equivalents are a total mystery to me. We got to the garage a
few minutes early and… Poor Treacle. She obviously had associated the car drive as
the forerunner of one of our weekend walks, and so she massively over-reacted
every time a car or another person came near. However
after initially getting very over-excited to see someone in the distance she
then cowered in terror when she realised that it was a stranger and not a
friend. I also felt rather sorry for the dog-lovers who had seen a dog
apparently very keen to see them, coming up to see her only to find a dog
cowering in terror and *seriously* not wanting to say hello. We left the car with the nice people at the
garage and walked home along the river following a walk I used to do with my
Fudge back in the day. As we walked I remembered hm
being smothered in fox poo as we walked that way, and someone insisting on
stroking him and consequently getting fox poo all over their hands. We got home where I set the washing machine
loose on shirts and then got the ironing board out and spent a couple
of hours watching a film. “Disobedience”
was a rather good film. Leaving aside the gratuitous girlie snogging it made
me think. The film was all about a young woman who had eventually managed to
escape her religious upbringing. I sometimes wonder if we hadn’t moved away
from Hastings, would we still be wrapped up in the church? I’d done ironing this morning since rain had
been forecast. But seeing that the weather had ignored the forecast I went
into the garden. Regular readers of this drivel may recall that a couple of
weeks ago I disassembled the garden arbour. “er indoors TM”
had bought a replacement bench from Wayfair, and I thought I might build the
thing this morning. I expected it to take a couple of hours and involve a lot
of swearing; the whole thing went together in about twenty minutes. It looks
rather good, but is a tad on the flimsy side. The
old arbour lasted over twelve years before I put my arse
through it for the first time. I seriously doubt if this bench will survive
the year. Time will tell; it always does. I then ran round the garden with the lawn
mower, and just as I finished so my phone rang. The car was ready for
collection. Seeing it was still not raining, after a bite
of dinner I took Treacle to go get the car. We walked back the way we came.
As we walked we saw a few other dogs; Treacle just
kept away from them, which suited me. I’d rather she said hello and sniffed,
but I’ll settle for just keeping a distance. As we walked we saw
“her from down the road”. “Her from down the road” lives down
the road (obviously) and has a son who went to school with the first
fruit of my loin. So we’ve been seeing her
intermittently since the early nineties, and in all that time she has never
once smiled. She *always* has an expression which really is that of a
morose bulldog licking piss from a stinging nettle.
And today was no exception. As we passed her in South Willesborough
I smiled and said hello. She grunted, with a face (quite frankly) like
a smacked arse. We got to the garage and collected the car.
The bill was two hundred pounds less than what they had told me it would be,
which was something of a result. And the nice man at the garage was impressed
when Treacle did “boot dog” and jumped into the car’s boot as he
handed the key back. As we drove home we
saw “her from down the road” coming past our house, still looking
rather glum. Once home I sat myself down, and as Treacle
growled bravely at the world from the safety of the sofa (safely behind double
glazing) I spent an hour or so playing “Worms”. Incoming !!!! “er indoors TM” boiled up home made pizza again which we washed down with a bottle
of “Les
Calcaires Pinot Noir” which I can only
describe as “not too shabby at all!” As we scoffed and drank we watched the first episode of the second season of
“Lego Masters USA”. Not a bad way to spend the evening… |
|
30 March 2022
(Wednesday) - Lazy Day
With no tip runs or car services on the
itinerary I had planned a bit of a lie-in. I stayed in bed until eight
o’clock laying there with the most intense headache which went five minutes
after I’d got up. I made toast and had a look at the Internet.
There were a lot of comments on the photo album I’d posted to Facebook on
Sunday. Having gone two days with no one having commented, I thought
something was odd… So last night I had a look and I learned something. If you
create an album of photos or pictures on Facebook and have someone else
contribute to that album as well, Facebook automatically sets that album so
that only you and the other contributor can see it. If you want it to be visible
to everyone you have to go into the settings
yourself. I didn’t know that. I also saw something on Facebook which made
me think. Last October I
had a little rant about a pub in one of the villages just outside Ashford
which had been given a
quarter of a million quid of taxpayer’s money to re-open. Today people in
that village were whinging about what a shame it was that their village pub was
closed. Is it still closed? People claiming to live near the pub maintained
it was still closed. How long does it take to re-open a pub? From their
Facebook group it seems the pub is now periodically operating out of the
local village hall? Interestingly when I had my little rant last October I’d seen photos of my local MP who was posing for
the camera together with the people supposedly re-opening the pub. By
co-incidence his constituency office shares the same post code as this pub. I took Treacle for a little walk up to the
park where she kept her distance from everyone and everything (as she does),
and then went on a little shopping spree. I’d got a voucher for Matalan
offering me twenty per cent off the bill if I spent more than thirty quid
with them. I had a little look around and realised there wasn’t a single
thing there that I wanted. I wonder how many people spend thirty quid on
stuff they don’t want just to get the discount. I then went on to Tesco for this and that.
Tesco was dull; it usually is. I came home to find postie had been and had
delivered the deeds to the house. The building society doesn’t want
them any more now that the mortgage is paid off, and (apparently) the
actual paper deeds are worthless as they official ones are now the electronic
copies held by the Land Registry. One lives and learns. I had a little look at the deeds over a
cuppa… they were on the dull side. I’m not sure what I was expecting from
them, but I had been expecting more. And then I started wondering about vet insurance for the puppies. Fudge was insured, but the policy I bought was changed by the company
after I bought it so
that any condition that he had was only covered by their policy for a year
after diagnosis. So toward the end I was paying
seventy quid a month and pretty much nothing was covered any more as he’d had
all sorts of things diagnosed in the past. I then had something of a lazy day. I watched
some episodes of “Four In A Bed” in which one chap proudly boasted of
how all his cooking skills were self-taught, and then had the right hump when
it turned out he was rubbish at cooking. The contestants in this show do make
me laugh – they go on national television with a golden opportunity to
advertise their business, and so many of them do little more than piss on their chips. “er indoors TM” boiled up a rather
good bit of carrot soup which we scoffed whilst watching another episode of “Lego
Masters: USA” which was rather good. The contestants had to make
particularly good scenes featuring Lego superheroes which then got blown up (the
scenes, not the superheroes). Rather appropriate as the host of the show
is the chap who voiced Lego Batman in “The Lego Batman Movie”. |
|
31 March 2022
(Thursday) - Busy Day
I found myself remembering old times as I
read Facebook this morning. One of the NHS-related Facebook pages I follow
was having the same tired old argument about the pay rates of NHS staff. Some
were ranting about why NHS staff sit back and take it and were advocating
wholesale strikes. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your
perspective) working for the NHS doesn’t generally appeal to the sort of
worker who goes on strike. Whenever there has been any talk of industrial
action in the past, the first thing to be organised is cover for those going
on strike, which rather defeats the object of the exercise, doesn’t it? I was
part of an NHS strike nearly forty years ago. We staged a sit-in in the works
canteen in the (now demolished) Royal East Sussex Hospital,
and having been on strike for exactly one hour we all went back to
work… and went home late having made up for all that we’d not done during the
hour’s strike. There were picket lines at the (now
demolished) Royal East Sussex Hospital manned by nurses who all loudly
advocated solidarity, and who all went back to work having accepted the (relatively)
huge pay rise given to the nurses whilst the rest of us got sod all. There was also once a picket line at the (now
demolished) Ashford Hospital as well. I only remember the one. Everyone
was standing around minding their own business when a coach load of miners
turned up to “express their solidarity with the nurses”. Some of the
miners then assaulted the bored policeman who had been watching the picket,
and following that, everyone abandoned the picket line
and all went home. I’ve often wondered if that coach really had been full of
miners or if it had all been a set-up. In any event, “solidarity” in the NHS
is a bit of a joke. There are “doctors and nurses” and there is “all
the other little people” and I know which camp I am in. I sent out birthday wishes to two friends,
then had a little look at my emails. Ironically the NHS Jobs Vacancy Service
told me of quite a few openings and opportunities for blood testers. Seeing the weather forecast had been wrong (again)
I took Treacle up to the park. It was rather cold, and as we walked we saw a gaggle of schoolchildren out and about
doing something or other. Whatever it was, they all had a worksheet to ensure
that any fun was well and truly sucked out of whatever the outing was all
about. Fifty years ago I used to have those.
Whenever we went anywhere from school we had to
complete an incredibly dull worksheet which (I am sure) was purely to
keep us quiet. With walk walked I scraped the mud off of “er indoors TM”’s walking boots, plungered the bath plug hole and played a round or two of
“Worms” then set off on the business of the day. I drove down to Folkestone to collect “Daddy’s
Little Angel TM” and Pogo and, pausing only briefly to get her
mother some flowers from Tesco, we went to the vet. Pogey’s allergy problem
seems to have resolved itself, and his diet is going well; he’s lost a
kilogram. We then dropped flowers and Pogo at home (as
he’s coming on holiday with us next week) and found ways to waste a
couple of hours. We had a KFC lunch, then had a look at water features in Dobbies. I got some ideas for future projects, then we
went round to Bybrook Barn where we made nuisances
of ourselves in the shoe department before heading back to the Eureka park
for McMilkShakes. We then went up to the hospital for scans and
seemingly endless waiting for midwives, then I drove the most recent fruit of
my loins (and the granddaughter she is baking) back to Folkestone. I came home via Sainsburys where I got some
shopping and petrol, then came home where I set the washing machine going and
did some more ironing whilst watching episodes of “Trailer Park Boys”
in which Ricky was again having troubles with his brain. But being “a word
of his man” he decided to “keep his friends close and his enemy’s
toaster”. I also watched a few minutes of channel 5’s “National
Treasure, National Disgrace” which dished the dirt on disgraced
celebrities Jimmy Saville, Rolf Harris, Stuart Hall and Gary Glitter. All
sorts of people from the entertainment industry were wheeled on to say just
how evil these celebrities had been… I’m in no way defending them, but I can’t
help but think that the main national disgrace here is why these people kept
quiet about the criminal abuse for so many years. “er indoors TM” came home rather
late – she’d been talking to the kitchen people about our plans for a new
kitchen. Being rather late she asked if I fancied KFC for dinner. Two helping
of the stuff did for my diet today. She claims she don’t read this drivel… let’s
see who squeals me up… |
