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1 March 2025
(Saturday) - Rather Busy
I
slept well. As always I peered into the Internet as
I scoffed toast this morning. A few Facebook friends were having a birthday today so I sent out wishes. One of my mates having a
birthday was an old school friend. We went to Boys Brigade together where he
fell for all the religious indoctrination and he’s now a mad-keen Baptist
minister in the West Country. Periodically we exchange messages; he seems
quite happy, but I do feel a sense of guilt about how he’s ended up. Quite
a few people were ranting about Donald Trump as well. Mr Trump met with the
Ukrainian President yesterday and the meeting didn’t go well. I
can’t help but feel that Mr. Trump didn’t say anything that really didn’t
need saying. The trouble is that opinion about him is so polarised that he
was totally the wrong person to say it. I’ve mentioned before about how
ungrateful the Ukrainian president has been ever since the start of the war,
and yesterday he was told some home truths. There’s an old proverb about not
biting the hand that feeds you; it is rather apposite here. Mr Zelensky
should really have done his homework, seen what he would be dealing with,
gone along and sucked up. That would have worked in his favour. I
munzed and wordled, then
went round to Dog Club. I was rather miffed to find that the poo bag from
last week was still hanging on the fence from where I had tied it last week.
The arrangement has always been that I open up and
put up the poo bag. I leave the gate unlocked and the poo bag in place for
the later groups and someone else locks up and takes the poo to the bin. It
turned out that the lady who usually shifted the dung wasn’t along last week,
and no one else could be bothered. Presumably someone locked up? I hope so. But
we had a rather good session; I counted twenty-two dogs at one point. Treacle
was grumpy; Treacle often is. Morgan wasn’t happy though. With “er indoors TM” at craft club, Morgan spent the first half of the session
watching the gate and crying. As
we drove home I caught the end of the Mystery Year
competition on the radio. “Birdhouse in your Soul” by “They Might
Be Giants”. I thought it was 1989. I was one year out. And then the news
came on saying how President Zelensky has made all sorts of public
announcements of gratitude to the people of America. Perhaps he’s listened? Once
home I made a cuppa and counted up the Dog Club
money, pocketed the cash and transferred fifty quid to the Repton people’s
bank account. I’ve now got another pocket of change. I
hoovered. As I hoovered so not-so-nice-next-door came out to
her car which was parked outside. There were cars parked rather close in
front and behind of it. She glared at them, glared at me (as though I was
somehow responsible) and went back inside; not even attempting to move
the car. I
then had a minor pootle round the garden. My peonie
has croaked, and one of the large ceramic pots has started crumbling. “er
indoors TM” came home and sorted us a spot of lunch, then
we had a little look round the garden centres. The idea was to get some
replacement large pots. Ideally a square one as that would fit the space of
the broken one better. I
saw exactly what I needed in Bybrook Barn, but they
weren’t giving them away so we thought we’d try the
little flowerpot-selling place in Challock that was
closed. Had we known that they were closed we wouldn’t have tried there. Dobbies had much the same as Bybrook
Barn, but were charging more, and Ham Street garden
centre didn’t really have much at all. We
came home, had a cuppa, and I went on Amazon and ordered some planters for
half the price of the cheapest garden centre. I
then had a think about the Munzee map. You can munz
a physical Munzee if it is within three hundred feet of you. So I had a look at the map, found two more places up the
alley round the back of the houses over the road where I might stick a
Munzee, and then created a PDF with piccies of all of them. “er
indoors TM” boiled a rather good bit of dinner which went
down with a bottle of the red stuff as we watched more episodes of “The
Traitors US” in which the traitors were at each other’s throats, and sadly
her with the chest got the heave-ho. Not
the decision I might have made… |
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2 March 2025 (Sunday)
- Late Shift
I
was woken by Morgan trampling over me at four o’clock. He jumped off the bed
and I chased downstairs after him to let him out. Dogs don’t understand
baking it until the morning. I
got up properly at half past eight and had my usual rummage round the
Internet as I scoffed toast. Several people were posting to Facebook
pretending to be Welsh in honour of yesterday being St David’s Day. So many
people claim to have some Celtic ancestry about which they say absolutely
nothing until everyone else talks about theirs. Interestingly no one at all
was posting about the Ukrainian President’s visit to London yesterday. You’d
have thought that after all the groundswell of opinion in favour of him after
the disastrous meeting with Donald Trump, people would be interested in him.
Wouldn’t you? I
had quite a few emails too; people had been out looking for the geocaches I’d
hidden in Kings Wood, and were saying nice things
about them. I
tested out my new way of Munzing, and it worked rather well. I got Wordle on
the fifth attempt, and then sighed. The plan for
today had been hosting a brekkie meet with friends, but friends had
double-booked themselves. Seeing the glorious weather outside, today would
have been good for a long walk but I was on the late shift. Instead I put a load of washing in to
scrub, wrote up some CPD, did the dogs’ flea
treatments and then braced for a battle. Getting the worming tablets down the
dogs’ necks isn’t always easy. Today it went very well. We broke the tablets
into pieces, wrapped each piece in a slice of ham, and the dogs yummed them up. I
hung out the washing, and set off to work. I don’t
work anywhere near as much as I used to, and I’m far happier in my work than
I ever used to be. But I still resent working at the weekends; especially
when it isn’t pouring down with rain. As
I drove to work the Archers Omnibus show was on the radio, The Archers?
Seriously? Who listens to that these days. Amazingly a quick Google search
showed me that the Archers has (on average) more than a million more
listeners than Eastenders has viewers. Work
was hard work. Back in the day hospitals were effectively closed at the
weekends, but not any more.
It’s only a shame that the staffing levels haven’t remotely kept pace with
workload. And
a shame I had to work today… the highlight of the day was giving the dogs a
tablet each. |
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3 March 2025 (Monday)
- Rather Busy
I
stood on the scales this morning as I’ve been doing every Monday morning for
the last few weeks, and saw that I’d shifted two
more pounds. The blood pressure remains pretty much unchanged though… I
made toast and had a look at the Internet. Again
social media was alive with memes and posts about Donald Trump, and again
there was pretty much nothing at all about yesterday’s summit meeting in
which various other western leaders got together and decided how the war in
Ukraine might be sorted. Sadly their plan to “sort” it was little more than continued
support for a war which will just go on and on, and they too called for
American help. And there was no mention at all about Mr Zelensky’s meeting with the King. Someone
with whom I used to work was having a birthday today. They’d told Facebook
they were seven years younger than they actually were,
What was that all about? I
took the dogs out. When we left home there were no end of parking spaces to
be had. I sighed. We walked to where I’d parked when I came home last night (three
streets away) and set off. We left Ashford in thick fog, but by the time
we got to the woods the fog had lifted. As
we walked so Morgan dived into a bush and came out looking very pleased with
himself and carrying something. Bailey ran up to him and took that something off of him and ran off. I eventually caught her. Morgan
had found (and she had stolen) half a deer’s leg complete with fur and
it still had some meat on it. I
found myself wondering where that had come from. A deer, obviously. But
whether the deer had been taken down or died of natural causes, something had
pulled the leg bone from the carcass, and pulled off
the lower part. Could a fox do that? I
eventually got the bone off of Bailey and buried it
as best I could. After the dogs had dug it up three times
I threatened them that if they dug it up again they
would go on their leads, and they left it. They clearly understood what I was
saying. Shortly
after that I heard a commotion in the woods. Some live deer ran past,
including a white one. There’s been reports of white deer in the woods
before, and now I’ve seen one. As
we walked I looked at a couple of geocaches that I
hid there a couple of weeks ago. One of them had acquired a “did not find”
log. I found it. The other one… I’d been told that it was still there at the
base of a tree, but the tree itself had been sawn down in ongoing forestry
work. And it had. Most of the tree was gone, but the cache was still where
I’d left it. We
came home for a cuppa. I munzed and wordled, then had a little pootle in the shed gathering
up rubbish. And
then I drove Treacle to the dog dentist. The vet hadn’t been impressed with
the state of her gob when she had her check-up the other week,
and had suggested a dental scaling… for at least four hundred quid (and
probably more) depending on what they found in her gob. I was reminded of
poor Sid needing dental work doing and “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” getting quotes. As we’d driven the other day
I saw a “Doggy
Dentals” van. They offered “non-invasive ultrasound teeth cleaning”
and ”anesthesia-free, effective plaque and
tartar removal” for less than a quarter of what the vet wanted. The dog dentist lady had a go at Treacle’s teeth
with an ultrasonic toothbrush, then got out some metal implement and spent
fifteen minutes scraping her teeth. Treacle was as good as gold and didn’t
put up a fight. I’ve booked her in for another session in six months time. We came home. I loaded the car ready for the tip
run, then got out the drill. One of the planters in
the garden had flooded. It flooded last year as well. I’ve been meaning to
drill a drainage hole in it for a year, and I finally got round to it. I
then drove to the tip, unloaded all the rubbish, then came home and spent a
few minutes pruning in the garden before falling asleep on the sofa. I had
intended to pressure-wash the front garden and do the ironing. Oh well; those
jobs will keep. “er
indoors TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner then went
off bowling as she does. I settled in front of the telly. Yesterday
was a bit dull. Today wasn’t. |
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4 March 2025
(Tuesday) - Late Shift
I
had something of a restless night. When Treacle sleeps at the bottom of the
bed there is room for all. When she sleeps between us there isn’t room for
anyone. Morgan and Bailey both curl up into a tight ball when they sleep;
Treacle sprawls out to take more space that would ever seem possible. Over
brekkie I peered into the Internet. It was still there. Today’s petty
squabble was on one of the aquarium-related Facebook pages in which some
people were advocating spending an awful lot of time and money buying all
sorts of chemicals and testing kits to get your fish-tank water to be what
they considered perfect. And having done that they felt that after a week you
should chuck out half the water, top up from the tap and start again with the
chemicals and the testing. Others were saying they’ve never added a chemical
or done a test ever, and just top up the tank when
the water evaporates a little. People on both sides of the quarrel were
getting really nasty with each other; and people on
both sides seemed to be keeping rather impressive fish tanks. I
was reminded of my days in keeping snakes, Star Trek fandom, kite flying…many
people would rather argue with others than learn anything from anyone else. And
not wanting more arguments I decided against posting anything to the local
geocaching page. I had several emails from people who’d been out yesterday
finding the geocaches I’d hidden in Kings Wood and had found some of the
paper logs were damp. This could only happen by people not taking the time to
do up the lids. A trivial point, but I will now have to replace those paper
logs sooner rather than later. I
munzed and wordled then
took the dogs out for a walk. Not having that much time today we went to Orlestone. On our morning walks we don’t get back from
Kings Wood until half past eleven at the best of times, and Ashford is one
huge road works at the moment. So many major
thoroughfares in Ashford are either closed or subject to traffic lights. I’d
like to think that there are valid reasons for the current traffic chaos
which has been going on for some time. However I
suspect that it is due to incompetence on whoever plans road works; if indeed there actually is any planning. We
got to the woods and had a good wander. Orlestone
is good for a shorter walk; traffic allowing we can get there, walk for a
couple of miles and be home again within the hour. It’s only a shame that for
much of the year there are two unavoidable mud-swamps. We
came home for belly washes and removal of fox poo. I made a cuppa for me
and “er indoors TM”, did some CPD, and set off for the late shift. The
roads were a lot quieter as I drove off to work than they had been when we
went to the woods. Pausing only briefly at the co-op for a sandwich I was
soon on my way up the motorway singing along to Ivor Biggun
songs. Suddenly
my car beeped at me. It had detected a loss of pressure in the front left
tyre. It does that periodically. It means that either I've got a puncture, or
it needs some air. I came off the motorway a bit early, found a car park, and
checked the pressure. I checked all four tyres. The one that supposedly had
the issue was actually the one with the highest
pressure. What was that all about? I gave them all a bit of a pump, then
drove on to the late shift which was nowhere near as bad as Sunday's had been.
Though to be honest week-day late shifts are better than weekend ones as I
have some company and assistance. As
I worked I had a message from the doggy dentist.
Bailey is now booked in to have her cakehole serviced... whether she likes it
or not. My
car beeped on the way home too, and panic set in. But nil desperandum –
it wasn’t the tyres. The car was warning me it was cold. It does that as
well. |
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5 March 2025
(Wednesday) - Another Late Shift
I
had a good night’s sleep which was something of a result. I made toast and
sent out birthday wishes to one of two Facebook friends having a birthday
today. The other was a chap with whom I used to work who died five years ago.
This morning social media was rather dull. No one was really arguing. There
were a lot of rants about the traffic in Ashford though. The obvious answer
is to formally contact the local county councillor and the local MP and ask
them to identify the manager of the individuals responsible for the traffic
balls-up and have them dismiss the incompetent, but people would rather rant
on social media than talk with anyone who might be able to prevent a
reoccurrence. There was also a lot of shouting about American politics. Again it probably needs shouting about, but in the right
quarters. I
munzed, wordled, and went
to wake “er indoors TM” and the dogs who had overslept. Once they were all up and about
and had scoffed their brekkie I took the dogs out. We went to Orlestone again as it is easier when I’m pressed for
time. Mind you there’s two issues with Orlestone
Woods. Yesterday I mentioned the first problem; the mud. The second problem is the dogs’ behaviour. There’s something about Orlestone
Woods which makes them willful. Not naughty, or seriously disobedient. But wilful. If they find something foul in a hedge they
simply won’t come when called. If they chase a bird or a squirrel, they won’t
come back. They vanished for a full five minutes this morning. Their behavior
is far better in Kings Wood. As we drove home the pundits on the radio were
talking about a school in Lincolnshire where
the head teacher has had all the mirrors removed. Apparently mirrors
encourage the kids to spend too long in the toilets and make them late for
lessons. But what boiled my piss was the announcement by
some psychologist who said that although schools have a right to
institute rules, children should be part of decisions. And that is where
society has gone wrong. Children should shut their rattle, do as they are
told, and fear the consequences. And then maybe decent people wouldn’t be
scared to walk the streets. Pausing only briefly for a quick cuppa
I set off to work and in a moment of absent-mindedness I drove straight past
the co-op. I kept going - there was (and is) another a mile further
along the road. Or so I thought. The shop I went to had
the same co-op name and what looked like the same signs. But they wouldn't
accept my co-op card. It turns out there's two shops in Ashford operating
under the name of "co-op" but far from being co-operative,
they are actually in competition. As
I drove up the motorway I spent far more time in the
fast lane than I would have liked. What with caravans being towed and mobile
homes and speedboats being transported there was a lot needing space today. Unlike
yesterday the tyre pressure warning didn't kick off. I'm hoping yesterday's
pumping did the trick. Having said that, something is periodically rattling
underneath the car. I
got to work and did my thing. Another late shift, and not a bad one either
right up until going home time. And then there was one of those things that
make hospital work so interesting (!) and I was an hour and a half
late getting out. It
would happen when I’ve got an early start in the morning. |
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6 March 2025
(Thursday) - Farm, Woods, Ironing
What
with work-related disasters I didn’t get to bed till gone midnight last
night, but I didn’t sleep well. I finally nodded off just before the alarm
went off. I made toast and had a look at the Internet. I’m reluctant to jump
on the bashing Donald Trump bandwagon for the simple reason that I’m not
American, but apparently he’s been ranting about transgender mice. What he actually meant was transgenic mice. Completely different.
You’d think someone in his position would take a little trouble to research
what they are ranting about, and try to avoid making a tit of themselves,
wouldn’t you? I
left home rather early to try to avoid the traffic. As I turned right at the
end of the road I very nearly killed an idiot
motorcyclist who overtook as I was turning. I
eventually got out of Ashford; the roads were mayhem. I got to Folkestone
where I collected “Daddies’ Little
Angel TM”
and Darcie WaaWaa TM”. Littlun was rather
excited and told me we were going to see some piggies. We were. Badger’s Hill Farm is
the place I took Darcie the other week only to find they were closed. Having
determined they would be open we went back today. We went there many years
ago when grandson was small and I can remember
having a good time. We had a good time today, but I can remember there being
far more animals when we went there last time. My diary from the time mentions
llamas and maras that weren’t there today. Mind
you, we couldn’t really complain as seeing the animals was free. And because
it was free we felt we ought to spend some money in the café. That wasn’t
free. An ice cream for littlun, coffee and cake for the bigguns
gave us precious little change out of twenty quid, and I was asked how much
of a tip I would like to leave them. A
tad cheeky… I
dropped the girls home, then came home, collected the dogs and took them for
a walk rather later than we might usually go. Bearing in mind we had no time
pressures and how muddy Orlestone had been this
week, we went to Kings Wood. We had a good walk. We saw some idiot woman
struggling to control her Alsatian. We’ve seen her before; she always has the
dog on a really short lead
and it pulls her all over the place whilst she shouts swear words at it. We
gave them a wide berth. We
also saw a load of deer which Morgan and Bailey chased for maybe twenty yards
before losing interest. We
came home again. No day not at work is complete without doing the ironing, so
I ironed. As I cracked on I watched episodes of “Four
In A Bed”. As always this show didn’t compare like with like. It started
off in a bed and breakfast which looked like it was run by your favourite
auntie. The next place was run by a pair of crackpot vegetarians (complete
with frankly ridiculous beard) who made great show of only serving
vegetarian food, but specialised in eggs (?).
The third place was the sort of place my parents would have frequented many
times – a Scottish hotel specialising in coach parties. And the last place
was a restaurant which offered accommodation which was run by a chap who
massively underpaid his competitors in a shallow attempt to win. I
munzed and wordled rather
later than usual, then checked my emails. Disaster. Regular readers of this
drivel will know that the title picture of this diary changes every few
months. The background is always from photos of places that I’ve been, with
the title and a favourite quote. I’m quite a fan of Jerome K Jerome – have
you ever read his books? You should… I digress. I
make this little piccie using Microsoft publisher.
But Microsoft are discontinuing publisher in the next few months. They told
me that there wasn’t anything I could do in publisher that I couldn’t do in
Word or PowerPoint. I
farted about and made the current piccie using
PowerPoint. Back in the day I was rather good with PowerPoint; I seem to have
forgotten all about it. But what I came up with wasn’t *that* bad for
a first attempt. And
then I had a little realisation… the first piccie
like that featuring as the title of this diary read ”…
aged 42 1/2” As “er indoors TM” boiled up dinner I put a third load of washing in to scrub. Dinner was rather good; we scoffed it whilst
watching more of “The Traitors US” in which various wannabes competed
for massive amounts of money presumably to pay for their next face-lifts. I’ve had a rather busy day. I’m worn out… |
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7 March 2025 (Friday)
- This n That
I
woke at one minute to four this morning feeling like death warmed up. I lay
in bed for half an hour feeling like death warmed up, then had this idea that
I might chirp up if I got up. I made toast and scoffed it whilst watching an
episode of “Star Trek: Discovery”, then had a little look at the
internet in case anything had happened overnight. Not a lot seemed to have
kicked off on social media really, but there were a lot of photos of
yesterday’s “World Book Day” events
in which children had gone to school dressed as their favourite
fictional characters. Back in the day children were taught to read; now they
are taught to get their mothers to dress them up as their favourite TV character and hope there's a book associated
with it, safe in the knowledge that no one else knows whether there is or
not. It’s
as well this never happened thirty years ago – my two would have gone to
school in their usual attire and would be “the children whose daddy
couldn’t be arsed”. As an avid reader it bothers me that people don’t
read books (or e-books) any more. Another
thing along these lines which boils my piss is "graphic novels" - another word
for "comic books". People who can't be bothered to
read a proper book pretend that comics are literature. These things were then
largely superceded by audio books in which people actually read the story out so
you didn't even have to pick up a book (comic or otherwise). World
book day... this ain't helping my blood pressure,
is it? I
set off to work via the petrol station. There was quite the queue in the
kiosk. Only one till was open. The miserable old bat was quite openly bimbling about straightening the price labels on the
shelves and busying herself with similar trivia whilst sneering as the queue
grew. I
listened to the pundits on the radio as I drove up the motorway. Again everyone seemed incensed at the antics of Donald
Trump. Again everyone seemed to be missing the
point. Previous American presidents have seen their role as being the leader
of the western world. It's pretty plain that Mr
Trump sees his role as being that to which he was elected;
president of America. What he does which so incenses international
commentators is being done to impress those who might vote for him. He don't care about international opinion, and why should he?
There's no votes in that. I
got to work and did my bit. I helped one of the bosses set up her own CPD
blog. And now she's recording her CPD on-line I shall shamelessly blag her
efforts. And there was doughnuts at tea time... I had one - two hundred calories, and (at
the risk of appearing ungrateful) it wasn't really anything special. And
I did some e-learning - Understanding sexual misconduct in the workplace. I
got 100%. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. “er
indoors TM” boiled up bangers and mash for tea which we
scoffed whilst watching more of “The Traitors US” in which I
was so pleased to see the stupid one getting voted out. Mind you when I
say “the stupid one” I’m not narrowing it down much. This particular one didn’t so much converse with the other
contestants as massively over-react and then pull stupid grimaces at the
camera. I
must admit that I took an instant dislike to this one at the start and I’ve
been watching it ever since pretty much waiting for her to get the heave-ho. Now
that she’s gone I’m not really fussed about the
rest. I
might have an early night – that early start is certainly taking its toll… |
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8 March 2025 (Saturday)
- Dog Club, A Walk, Dinner, Games Night
As
I rummaged round the internet this morning I saw a
post from our local county councillor which really sums up our society. Over
the last week or so there has been a lot of discontent on social media as
many of the road’s main thoroughfares are blocked up with major road works.
Our local county councillor claimed that the utility companies don’t need
permission or authority to dig up a road; they can just get on and do it. And
this is what had happened. With no overall planning half
a dozen individuals have randomly made a unilateral decision. Each on their
own probably did the right thing; together it was a disaster. Clearly the
obvious fault here lies with whoever made the laws allowing this to happen. This
would be a job for our local MP… so the chaos will continue. I
went back upstairs and woke “er
indoors TM” and the dogs. Morgan
particularly takes some waking. In much the same way that some people aren’t
“morning people”, Morgan isn’t a “morning dog”. Take our walks
– if we go after ten o’clock he’s raring to go.
Before then he needs to be chivvied out of his basket and once he’s out of
the basket he will try to get back into someone else’s basket or bed. And
then my lap-top whinged and said I should use an original HP power lead. I
use the one that the thing came with – what more does it want? I
gathered an frankly epic quantity of dog dung from
the garden; you wouldn’t believe how much three small dogs generate. And we
got ready for the off. We
drove round to Repton and Dog Club where there was already a queue forming to
get in. Dog club went reasonably well; Rodney was a tad demanding, but that’s
the sort of dog Rodney is. From
Dog Club we drove up to Badlesmere where we met
Karl and Tracey and we set off for a rather good
walk round the local area. It was a walk we’ve done a few times before. It
was nowhere near as muddy as we thought it might be, and there weren’t any
shooting parties in our way. It was a shame that there were some frankly
feral horses in one of the fields through which the footpaths pass, but we
got through. After
a few miles we were back where we started, and we had a very good dinner in
the pub garden. Unusually the Red Lion in Badlesmere
wasn’t completely full at lunch time. Whenever we’ve been there before at
mid-day on a Saturday there has been standing room only. Today maybe only a
third of the tables inside were in use, and we were the only people sitting
outside. But three pints, two large ports, an all-day breakfast and bread
pudding slipped down nicely. Once
home I reported the feral horses to the Rights of Way people, and with wasn’t
long before “My Boy TM” and ”Auntie Chel TM”,
quickly followed by kebabs. We had a rather good games night. Sorry, Hungry
Hippos, Game of Life… I
took a few photos of today – I’m going to bed. I’m worn out. |
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9 March 2025 (Sunday)
- Munzee Event at Bluewater
I
forgot something rather vital yesterday evening. I went to bed pretty much
immediately after “My Boy TM” and ”Auntie Chel TM” left
last night. I woke at two o’clock to hear voices
downstairs. I completely forgot that Darcie WaaWaa TM” was
coming for a sleepover. I came downstairs, and she immediately regaled me
with a list of complaints and grievances about things her grandmother had
told her off about and said she wasn’t allowed to do. I left them to it and went back to bed. I heard them
going to bed about half an hour later. I dozed fitfully for the rest of the night;
eventually getting up about eight o’clock. Bailey was with me. Morgan and
Treacle had gone with littlun. I made toast, posted up yesterday’s diary, and
had my usual look at the Internet. Four Facebook friends were having a
birthday today; I sent out wishes. More people were whinging
about Donald Trump. Admittedly there’s probably quite a bit to whinge about,
but from the British perspective he’s not unlike Zaphod
Beeblebrox who in the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
was president of the galaxy. Zaphod
didn’t so much wield power as draw attention away
from those who did, and that’s pretty much what is happening in the UK right
now. When did anyone last hear anything about what the Prime Minister has
been getting up to? It
got to nine o’clock and I went upstairs where I could hear that “er indoors TM” and Darcie WaaWaa TM” were
up and about. They came down and had brekkie.
Littlun wanted “crocodile cereals”. Having absolutely no idea what
they might be we showed her a box of something with a picture of a frog on
it, and she seemed content. We got dressed and ready and drove up to Bluewater
where there was a Munzee event taking place. Geocaching events are good;
people meet up and chat and have a good time. Munzee events are different.
There’s pretty much no actual meeting up. You just go somewhere and munz like a thing possessed. And because the rules say munzees can be far closer together than geocaches,
there’s a lot to Munz. I must admit that my hopes hadn’t been high for
today, but as there are rarely any Munzee events within striking distance of
home we wanted to support it. Even if I did have visions of aimlessly
wandering the paths round the car park. We parked up and made our way to the Event Pin - a
special Munzee put out for the day. And immediately my attitude to the event
changed. As we walked we went past a lake where the
model boat club were having a mini-regatta.
And the Event Pin itself was in a little park. I had no idea the park was
there. It was rather pretty and surprisingly large. There was a trail of
posters about The Very Hungry Caterpillar. There were ducks. We went round
the park twice before littlun had had enough. I munzed over six hundred Munzees as we went. Cards, jewel shards, cogs, greenies,
surprise wheels, gnomes, cakes, and even a rum qrate.
There were Munzees dotted all over the Bluewater
shopping centre, car park and surrounding areas; we probably got maybe one
twentieth of them. We
came home. The dogs slept. Littlun wanted to watch YouTube, or “Toobs” as she calls it. She particularly likes
Papa Joel – a chap who makes videos for the under-fives. I find him rather
irritating, but Darcie seems captivated with him. After
an hour of so “er indoors TM” woke me up to say that she was taking littlun home. I spent a little while clearing the carnage she’d
left. She does generate mess. Then I did a little CPD. Dull, but if I do five
minutes’ worth a few times a week, when I get called
up to show what I’ve done, then I’ve not got to blag anything. “er
indoors TM” came home with pizza which we scoffed whilst watching the final
of “The Traitors US”. Now that’s over we need to find something else to
watch… |
|
10 March 2025
(Monday) - Rather Busy
I slept well. I stepped on the scales and saw
I’d not lost any weight this week. Mind you bearing in mind the epic pig-outs
of the weekend I suppose holding steady is something of a result. I made
toast… as the toast cooks I usually empty the
dishwasher. Someone (me) didn’t set the thing going last night. Woops. As I scoffed my toast I peered into Facebook
as I do. Quite a few people had “liked” and commented on what I’d been
up to over the weekend. Such a shame that not many people had posted photos
of what they had been up to. Either no one had done anything, or no one
wanted to show the world their antics. A disappointment;
being a very nosey person I love seeing what everyone else has been up to. I had some emails. My credit score with
Credit Karma has gone down. Meanwhile my score with Experian has gone up. How
does that work? I took the dogs up to Kings Wood for a walk.
We parked in the lower car park as we’d had reports of missing geocaches near
there. One was missing; we replaced it. The other was broken. Totally
smashed. Someone found it laying on the ground in pieces on Saturday. I
sighed and replaced it. We then carried on with our walk. Unusually
we didn’t see any deer; we’ve seen loads this year. The dogs didn’t roll in
anything (swamps or poo), we didn’t see any normal people. The walk
was rather uneventful. And we didn’t even need a bath when we got
home. I had a quick cuppa then washed the car. As I
washed so not-so-nice-next-door came out and started
whinging about the nappies and cans of Red Bull which are appearing in her
garden. She claims that over the last few months nappies and cans of Red Bul
have been appearing in her back garden. She made a point of saying she wasn’t
accusing us of flinging things over the fence, but she had no idea where they
might be coming from. Quite frankly neither have I. I told her that we don’t
drink Red Bull (which we don’t) and that when littlun stays, her
nappies go in the bin. She saw the admission that we sometimes have a baby in
the house as an admission of guilt, got into her car and went off. I got the pressure washer out and cleaned up
our front garden, and the garden of the next-door that I (allegedly)
don’t drop nappies into. Nice-next-door was made up that I
jet-washed her garden. It was no trouble; It’s such arse ache setting up the
pressure washer that once it is all ready to go I
might as well make full use of it. And with the front of the house cleaned I
had a little go at jet-washing the stepping stones in the back garden, then
topped up the planters with soil. They had settled somewhat over the winter. “er indoors TM” called me in for a
cheese sandwich, then I went back outside again. Last year “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” got me some rather pretty hummingbird garden ornaments which I put
onto one of the garden planters. I potted some of the sweet pea seeds we
saved from last year’s sweet peas, and then I reviewed the situation. There’s
loads still to do in the garden. One of the stone planters we got from Whelans a few years ago is crumbling. Replacing that and
re-potting what is in it needs to be my next project. Then I need to pull the
weeds out of the other planters and top up the soil in them. The lawn needs
mowing. And give it a week or so and I will need to be
getting the pond going again. I’ve long-term plans to totally re-vamp
the big garden fountain, the lawn needs feeding and mowing… I decided to stop. If I do too much garden stuff I can’t move for a
day or so. In retrospect I should have done semi-retirement thirty years ago
when I was still limber enough to do all these jobs. I made us both another cuppa, wrote up some
CPD, and re-vamped the spreadsheet I use to monitor how much money I
squander. I’ve had this genius idea that I might allocate a couple of hundred
quid a month on petrol rather than starting off thinking I’ve more money than
sense (which isn’t difficult) only to find I’ve no money to get to
work because I blew all the petrol money on Lego. As I re-vamped I had
a phone call from Jonathan from the Three network. At the risk of appearing
racist I would hazard a guess that he was no more a Jonathan than I am a
Rashid. I let him waste ten minutes of his time going through his spiel as I
looked up his number on Who Called Me. Apparently
he number had been looked up over two hundred times
and had been reported as a scam, so after I’d wasted more of his time I offered him a one-off deal. He could either get
stuffed or piss off. He hung up; I blocked the number. “er indoors TM” boiled up fish and chips ten went bowling. I watched the last
episode of “Star Trek: Discovery” which rather dragged on a bit and
ended not so much on a cliffhanger as a disappointment… A decent show ending doesn’t have you looking up on-line to find out
what it was all about. |
|
11 March 2025
(Tuesday) - Early Shift
I
had something of a restless night. I gave up trying to sleep, made toast and
sparked up Netflix which suggested I might like to watch “The Other One”. Starring her from
“Alan Partridge” and the horrible one from “Downton Abbey”, so
far it is OK. I
then had a quick look at the Internet. It was still there,
and was rather dull at six o’clock this morning so I got ready for
work. I
walked out through a rather clean front garden. For all that the jet wash
makes a mess, once all has dried out, the results are quite impressive. I
drove round to the co-op that takes my co-op card (as opposed to the co-op
that doesn't) where I got a rather good sandwich, box of carrots and hummus, and a drink for less than the works
M&S wants for just a (rather manky) sandwich. It's cheaper than
the Sainsbury's petrol station too, and the co-op gives you service with a
smile rather than the Sainsbury's snarl. I
set off up the motorway listening to the pundits on the radio interviewing
some financial expert who was claiming that at the moment
how well companies are doing on the stock market is entirely down to the
political stances of the companies rather than their actual products. An
interesting prospect; look at how Tesla seems
to be going down the pan ever since its owner threw in his lot with Donald
Trump. Another
expert was brought in to add his opinion, but sadly they might as well not
have bothered. With a ridiculously thick accent no one could understand what
the chap was saying. You’d think the radio’s producers would vet who they are
having on, wouldn’t you? Or is that being discriminatory? I
got to work and spent much of the day teaching a trainee the mysteries of
blood grouping, but as always an early start made
for an early finish. I came home via Dobbies garden centre where they didn’t have what I wanted, so I
went round to Bybrook Barn where I squandered the
thick end of forty quid on pansies, polyanthus and a Helleborus. I
got them home, which took some doing. Carting from the shop to the car in a
trolley was rather easier than lugging them all individually from the car to
the back garden. “er
indoors TM” boiled up a very good chili which we washed down with a bottle of the
red stuff whist watching “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour
Dreamcoat” which I recorded from the Sky Arts channel over
Christmas. It is ages since I last watched that, but I still know all the
words. |
|
12 March 2025
(Wednesday) - A Present
I didn’t wake quite as early as I did
yesterday, but having laid wide awake in bed for far too long it was half
past five when I gave up trying to sleep. I made toast, watched another episode of “The
Other One” and had my usual root around the Internet. It was still there,
and rather dull. I did have an email from Octopus Energy though. Everyone
raves about how cheap they are and how much of a saving they have made by
swapping to them. Yesterday I sent them figures for our energy usage over the
last year. This morning they told me they would
charge me over four quid a month more than I’m currently paying. So much for
making a saving, eh? I munzed, and then set off for work. There was a minor disaster
this morning as the co-op had no coronation chicken sandwiches, so I roughed
it with ham and cheese. Mind you if that is all I have to
whinge about, things can't be that bad. Yesterday I moaned about a totally
incomprehensible speaker on the radio. This morning as I drove, the pundits
on the same radio were interviewing someone I can only describe as Ms.
Boring. There was talk about banning
slushies for under eight-year-olds because of the glycerol in them.
Some so-called expert was brought on to explain what glycerol was. Oh,
listening to her was so dull. You'd think that people going on live radio
would have a trial run beforehand to see if they were up to the job wouldn't you? I got to work, and as I walked in I tried not to laugh out loud. Two elderly people were
standing by the entrance to the lift looking at the button (with which you
call the lift) as though it were a wild animal. One nervously asked the
other if they had ever used a lift before, to which the other one replied
that she hadn't. How do you get to your eighties never having
used a lift? Work was work. The lunch of ham and cheese
sandwich wasn't at all bad even if it was twenty calories more than the
coronation chicken one I'd hoped for. And the meal deal of which it was part
was a full one pound fifty cheaper than the meal deal at the works M&S,
and the quantities were bigger too. And we had an emergency. They claim to have
them on the telly on "Casualty" - this one was nothing like
that. As the day went on I
had a delivery. A friend from the glory days of geocaching had got in touch.
He’d found a load of caching gear and wondered if I wanted it. Yes please. I came home. “er indoors TM” sorted
a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching “The Great
Pottery Throw Down”, and with dinner scoffed I had a look through my box
of caching stuff. I’ve logged the six trackables, and I need to
start thinking about what I might do with these caches. I could really have
done with them a month ago when I was putting out over a hundred. |
|
13 March 2025
(Thursday) - A Walk, Re-Potting, Laundry
I
woke this morning with something of a backache. Having no alarm set meant I
didn’t wake silly early, and a backache is usually a sign I’ve been in bed
for too long. I
made toast, and scoffed it as “er indoors TM” set off to work. As I scoffed I peered
into the Internet. There was unrest on a Facebook page I
moderate. This page has pretty much none of the pettiness and squabbling
that many other Facebook pages I follow purely because the admin on that page
have zero tolerance of pettiness and squabbling. Someone was asking why his
mate couldn’t even find the page any
more; his mate had been kicked out two weeks ago. His mate had
been troublesome in the past, but I decided to let the admin who’d kicked him
out make the announcement. And I saw someone had made a comment on this diary.
Specifically on an entry from ten years ago when
I borrowed Steve’s pressure washer. Someone named Peter said “Thanks for
sharing this amazing informative post with us” which was nice. He then
went on to say “I found this helpful for, interior painting, exterior
painting, pressure washing services in Yorktown VA. call…” It didn’t take
long to see he’d been spamming other blogs too. I deleted his comment. I
took the dogs up to the woods where we had a rather uneventful walk. Once
away from the car park we walked for over an hour and didn’t see anyone else.
The mud and swamps have pretty much all dried up. We didn’t see any deer. It
was a shame that the smallest two dogs had to roll in muck, but there it is. After
three and a half miles we were back at the car. I say “three and a half
miles” as that was what my watch told me. We often walk the same walk we
did today, and the mileage varies from three and a half miles to four miles.
These watches aren’t *that* accurate. We
came home for a cuppa and biccies. There were none
of my rich tea biccies left so I raided some of “er indoors TM” Nice biccies; after all she’s got four
more packets in the cupboard. They are half the calories of rich tea. I’m
having those from now on. I
then went into the garden. Two weeks ago
I mentioned that
one of the large garden pots had started crumbling. I got the thing four and a half years ago; is that a good
lifetime? I see that four and a half years ago that pot had a palm tree in
it. That didn’t survive the first winter. My
plan today involved doing quite a few things, the first of which was to empty
the crumbling pot. I then wanted to re-pot the plant in it, clear up and make
good… and loads of other stuff which never happened. The moment I started
scooping out the decorative brindle chippings on the top of the pot, so the
rim started falling away. I got the decorative chippings out, but when I
started trying to trowel out the soil so half the
pot fell away. And then the hailstorm started. Realising I couldn’t leave the
job half-way through I persevered. I emptied the soil, cleared away the pot
carnage, re-potted the plant, de-weeded four garden planters and put the
excess soil from the poggered pot into them. I
really wanted to put the weed-proof membrane into the new pot, top up with
brindle chippings and then plant out the pansies and polyanthus I’d bought on
Tuesday, but I’d carried on through quite enough intermittent hailstorms
already. And my back was playing up. I
came in, put a load of washing in, and had a spot of lunch. When washing
finished I hung it on the airer and ironed the shirts. Shirts iron better
when wet. And then I fed my undercrackers to the washing machine. As
I ironed and washed I watched episodes of “Four in a Bed” in which
people with slightly imperfect Bed & Breakfast establishments were
lambasted by a rather vociferous old battleaxe who felt that because she was
too mean to hire staff and wanted to do every job herself to a piss-poor
standard, people should give her the leeway that she wouldn’t give others. “er
indoors TM” returned from work and boiled up pizza and
garlic bread. We scoffed it whilst watching more of “The Great
Pottery Throw Down”. It looks simple enough; I reckon I could stuff
it up given half a chance… I
wonder if I will get those garden jobs done tomorrow? |
|
14 March 2025
(Friday) - Pi Day
Perhaps
I overdid the gardening yesterday? I rather ached when I got up this morning.
I put a load of washing on, made toast and watched another episode of “The
Other One”, then had my usual rummage round the Internet as I do. It was
rather dull this morning. I
munzed and wordled until
everyone else got up. I
hung out the washing and we went to the woods. As we drove Cyndi Lauper was
on “Desert Island Discs”. She had a rather strange accent,
and chose some rather odd classical music. Seriously? We
got to the woods, and unlike yesterday today wasn’t uneventful. In the depths
of the woods we met some normal people with a
Dalmatian. On seeing us from a hundred yards away the woman stared screaming
“ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod”,
got her dog onto a lead, and they all marched into a thicket of brambles
shouting apologies at us as we passed. I have no idea what they were
apologising for. Morgan looked at the woman with utter contempt, Bailey and
Treacle ignored them, and the Dalmatian just looked embarrassed. We
waked a different route to yesterday’s. We saw deer,
but I’d forgotten that we would walk past where I buried that deer bone last
week. Bailey hadn’t. She disappeared for a few seconds and came running up
the path with it in her mouth. As she chomped on it
she snarled at the other two dogs when they came close. I eventually got the
bone off of her and put it up a tree where they
couldn’t get it… forgetting that Treacle is an accomplished tree climber. Morgan
and Bailey then mobbed Treacle trying to get the bone from her. I wasn’t that
bothered about Treacle having the bone; she just shows off with something
like that. Suddenly I realised that the little two weren’t trying to get the
bone anymore. They had found a deer skull and were biting lumps off of that. Eventually
I got the bones off of the dogs and stashed them up
a tree that Treacle couldn’t climb. And then Bailey found the dead frog I’d
taken off of her last week. She ate most of that. I
took a few photos of dogs eating that which they shouldn’t. As
we walked we met a load of schoolkids out with their
teacher and I had flashbacks. Back in the day I
hated games afternoon at school. One afternoon a week was devoted to sports.
The lads in our year were divided into five sets. Set One had all the
kids who were bound to be picked for the various school sports teams and the
kids who did athletics at county level. Set Two was the kids with a better
than even chance of being picked for school sports teams and would be in the
House sports teams. I was in Set Five with the halt and the lame and the
other fat kids. But after a while the sports master “Killer” Smith
realised there were two distinct groups of children in Set Five. There were
those who wanted to do the sports but weren’t any good, and there were those
who were utterly disinterested. Those of us who were utterly disinterested
were demoted into the newly-formed Set Six and set
out for walks in the countryside with the Latin teacher. The theory was that
if we went for a walk we would actually
move more than if we were forced to be on a football pitch where we
just stood and chatted. As
those kids walked with their mates chatting I
remembered walking in the countryside with other kids who shared my total disdain
for sports. But rather than being the punishment that “Killer” Smith
had intended it to be, we all loved our country walks. I think it is those
afternoons wandering the footpaths of East Sussex that started my love of
walking. As
we came toward the end of our walk we met a couple of familiar faces. People
were out geocaching on the series we set a month ago. We chatted for a bit,
and talking of geocaching, rather than heading home we went off to find one
ourselves. If
you log a “Found It” on a puzzle cache this weekend you get a souvenir
on account of today being Pi-Day (3-14). It only really works if you
write dates the American way, but there it is. We
drove up to Faversham where we failed to find two caches before finally being
able to say “found it” on a third. Those two DNFs put us over an hour
behind schedule. Once
home the two that had rolled in fox poo had a scrub. I made myself some
toast, then went into the garden. I potted those pansies and polyanthus that
I’d bought the other day. I put weed-proof membrane and chippings onto the
plant I’d re-potted yesterday. I dug the dead peony out of its pot and
replaced it with the Helleborus. I
had intended to set about the ironing, but by then I was all in. I made
myself another cuppa and wrote up some CPD. Dull, but has to be done. A bit like ironing I suppose. I’ll do that
next week. “er
indoors TM” boiled up
cheeseburgers. They were rather good. I think the two months past its best brie had a lot to do with it. That brie
went well with half a bottle of port. I suspect I shall be farting like a thing possessed
later, but what with deer bones and dead frogs I shall be in good company. |
|
15 March 2025
(Saturday) - Late Shift
I
slept rather well last night despite a rather vivid dream in which everyone
at work (except me) went down with a plague of zits. What was that all
about? As
I scoffed toast I peered into the Internet and saw an update from Hazel
O’Connor. Famous in the eighties she eventually moved to France where three
years ago she had a stroke, and is now dependent on Go Fund Me to pay for
ongoing care. It must be awful to have to beg like that, but long term care after a stroke doesn’t come cheap. I
remember when my Dad had a stroke
I fully expected to sell his house to pay for nursing home costs. I
had several emails. We met a couple of people geocaching in Kings Wood
yesterday; it turns out that quite a few people had been up there searching
for Tupperware. I
had an email from Uswitch – I’ve signed up with
them and it would seem that despite what everyone
claims, EDF really are far cheaper than Octopus. I
tried to Munz but my phone wasn’t having any of it.
I re-started it and was able to Munz and Wordle, but the chess app wasn’t
working. Probably for the best as “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” was
about to hand me my arse on a plate (again). Being
Saturday we all went round to Repton for Dog Club
which was fun (as usual). Morgan rather disgraced himself by getting
over-excited, but it was nothing that a little time-out didn’t solve. Dog
club is always fun; there’s usually three things going on: Games of chase,
hoping for treats, and games of dog-piggy-backs. As
we drove home we listened to Steve on the radio and I was three years out on the Mystery Year
competition. Total Eclipse of the Heart? I thought 1986. I thought wrong. It
was good not to have to bath the dogs when we got home. We had a cuppa with a
hot cross bun, and I counted up the contents of the
Dog Club collection pot, pocketed the cash and transferred that amount (plus
nine quid for my three) to the Repton people’s account. I
had a quick look in the garden to plan a shopping list from the garden centre
for tomorrow, then set off to work. I soon lost reception on Radio
Ashford, so as Steve receded into the fizzing and crackling
I turned to my rather wonderful MP3 stick and sang along to Sparks, ELO and
Ivor Biggun as I drove up the motorway. It was
surprisingly nippy as I walked from the car park into work; I couldn't help
but think that a week previously we'd been sitting in the sunshine in the
beer garden eating an al-fresco dinner. Work
was work. It usually is. Back in the day Saturday afternoon and evenings at
work would be nothing but the occasional sample from the A&E department
as everywhere else in the NHS was closed. Nowadays there's probably between
ten and twenty times the workload. But the staffing numbers remain constant and I won't mention the pay. But I've got a (part-time)
job which I actually like which is more than many
have. I'm not complaining. I
came home. I only drove round the local streets for ten minutes trying to
park this evening. As I walked down Beaver Road I
found myself peering through the window of The Locomotive. The nearest pub to
home; “My Boy TM” used to play for their pool team. For years it was a thriving
place. This evening at half past nine there were four people
in there. I counted them. It can’t stay open for much longer… Today
was really good right up until dog club ended… at
ten to ten. It was a tad dull after that. |
|
16 March 2025
(Sunday) - Gardening
I slept like a log last night right up until
the nightmare in which I was at the bar in a crowded pub where the queue at
the bar was getting longer and longer because the King (who was standing
next to me) couldn’t decide what he wanted to drink
and no one could be served before him. What was that all about? I got up, made toast and peered into the
Internet. I sent out birthday wishes to the two Facebook friends having a
birthday today. There wasn’t much else happening in
the Internet, so I munzed, got wordle on the last
attempt, and sparked up my chess app. Overnight it had updated, and was
working again, so I did something racy with a prawn to see what “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” would
make of it. Some might say I advanced the Queen’s pawn, but we don’t
encourage the normal people, do we? I put a load of washing in,
and having completely forgotten the mental notes I’d made yesterday I
had a little look in the garden to see what I needed from the garden centre.
I needed white stones, brindle chippings, lawn food, a bag of compost, two
biggish shrubs and a small plant. I harvested the dog dung (again) and
then set off to get garden stuff. Bearing in mind that Ham
Street garden centre opens half an hour earlier than Bybrook Barn I went there only to find they didn’t have
any brindle chippings or white stones. Ho hum… I got the compost and the lawn
food and the plants and went to Bybrook Barn. I
arrived there at the same time as a rather irritating chap whose wife was
constantly apologizing for him as he was continually getting in everyone’s
way. He really was utterly oblivious to the fact that he wasn’t the only
person on the planet. I went there to get two bags of stones; I
came out with five. One bag of white wouldn’t have been enough, and it was buy two get one free. And the red ones were at a bargain
price if you bought two. I came home and heaved everything into the
back garden. I got the laundry hung out, some white stones round the
cordyline and one buddleia potted before “er indoors TM” and the dogs came home from their walk. We had a cuppa and a lunch of hot cross bun, then I went back into
the garden. I got the other buddleia into its pot, then
re-potted the triffid that “er
indoors TM” wanted me to
save. And I put the new polyanthus into the pot that the triffid came out of. By the time I’d swept up, tidied up and made good six hours had
passed. I
took a few photos of what I’d done in the garden since Thursday.
Over the last three days there’s probably over ten hours’
effort and close on ninety quid’s worth of squander spent on the garden. You
really wouldn’t think it, would you? I ran round with the watering can, got the laundry in off the line and
put another load in to scrub, and reviewed the situation. The lawn needs a
mow. The ponds need turning on. The wooden planter I
made last year needs sanding and painting. The yard needs a
tidy. A lot of the garden ornaments look tired and need scrubbing or
replacing… I left that all for later and made myself a
cuppa. I felt I deserved it. There’s only so much garden I can do and still
be able to move the next day. “er indoors TM” sorted a gammon joint
which we scoffed whilst watching episodes of “The Great Pottery Throw
Down”. I was left wondering - how do you get into pottery?
Everyone’s got a kitchen so baking is easy enough to
have a crack at. But just the basic set-up in pottery would cost an arm and a
leg. And in closing, today is March 16th.
Back in the day it was the start of the close season. Every year there would
be no fishing from March 16th till June 16th so
that the fish might breed in peace. Nowadays it doesn’t seem to happen. The
law states that it still applies to rivers and canals, but it doesn’t seem to
be enforced. I’ve not been fishing for years. Five and a
half to be precise. The
last time I went was when I caught my biggest fish ever. |
|
17 March 2025
(Monday) - Walk, Whelan's
I
didn’t sleep very well last night. When I finally got warm
so the dogs started fidgeting, and when they finally settled so the aching
started. I must have overdone the gardening yesterday. I
got up, made toast and watched an episode of “The Other One” then
sparked up my lap-top. There wasn’t a lot going on
this morning really, but there were a few photos of the Maison Dieu in Dover.
The place has been closed for two years (that’s why there’s been no beer
festivals there), and from what I could see it looks just the same as when they
started. “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” had made her move in our chess game. She’d had my prawn with her
horsey, which I thought was fighting talk. I
threatened her horsey with the bishop’s prawn on E3 and hoped for the best.
Amazingly she made a bit of a bad move and I huffed
her horsey with the bish.
She wasn’t impressed. I
munzed, and got a butterfly and a qrate too, and I got Wordle on the third attempt. And
then I spent an age fighting with the Met Office app on my phone. It was “having
an issue” as it was unable to load data. It finally started working in
the early evening.. I
went down the road to the dentist as I had an appointment with the dentist
and the hygienist. As I stood outside with everyone else waiting for someone
to open the door so my phone rang. It was one of the
dentist’s receptionists telling me that the appointment with the hygienist
had been cancelled. Eventually
someone opened the door. Everyone who had been queuing outside all went to
the counter where three receptionists were sitting, only to be rudely told
that reception was self-service and we were directed
to some pad-devices by the door. I
got in to see the dentist ten minutes after my scheduled appointment was due
to start. Bearing in mind I was due to be first one of the day,
that wasn’t a good start for them. The dentist rummaged in my gob and
muttered something incomprehensible. After a few minutes rummaging his
assistant said that all was done, and the reception people made an
appointment with the hygienist for Friday and with the dentist for six
months’ time. I
really should change dentist; I’ve not been happy with the lot down the road
for years. I
came home, collected the dogs, and drove them up to Kings Wood where we
walked a different walk to usual. Over the weekend someone had gone
geocaching at the top end of the woods and had lost their glasses. I thought
we might try to find them; we didn’t, but we did find some socks. And we met
Amie and Willow too. We walked with them for a bit. It was good to catch up. With
walk walked I took the dogs home, then drove up to Sheerness and Whelan’s.
Some of our garden ornaments were looking rather tired, so I spent a small
fortune replacing them. Whelan’s stuff is heavy; by the time I’d lugged it
round their yard and into the car, and then from the car to the back garden I
was knackered. I
spent an hour fighting with my phone and lap-top to check my state pension
forecast. It wasn’t easy. I finally established that taking semi-retirement
hasn’t affected my state pension. I
then went into the garden and hung up the garden clock that “My Boy TM” and ”Auntie Chel TM” got
me for Christmas. I’d deliberately not put it up earlier,
but wanted to wait until I started on the garden. And then I got out
the paints and started painting up the gnomes I’d
bought earlier. I’ve got the red, yellow, blue and
white done. Green and black and pink will come
later. Painting gnomes is like potting plants and sorting shingle
and any other garden job; it takes far longer than you’d think it should
take. “er
indoors TM” has gone
bowling. I’ve done the ironing. I’ve watched the last two episodes of “The
Other One”. I think I might paint some more gnomes… |
|
18 March 2025
(Tuesday) - At The Dog Dentist
I ached again when I got up this morning.
I’ve been overdoing it a bit lately with all this garden nonsense. I made toast and had a look at the Internet.
It was still there, and much the same as ever. No one was really doing very
much on Facebook, which was a shame. A new geocache had appeared on the map –
this one in Biddenden. It involved solving a
puzzle, and I’d soon solved it. I thought about chasing after a First to
Find, but someone else had already found it two minutes before I saw the
thing. Ho hum… I munzed and wordled, and
sparked up my chess app. Overnight “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” had been attempting to advance her rook, so I countered with a
horsey, and then took the dogs out. As we drove to the woods so the pundits on the radio were interviewing
Adrian Edmonson about his radio play “Waiting for Waiting for
Godot”. He didn’t really sell it very well. We got to the woods and had a rather good walk. We saw the Dalmatian
we saw the other day; the woman with the dog was as strange as ever; again marching deep into a thicket to avoid us, and then coming out once we’d passed. All the dogs ate
horse poo, and we saw a herd of deer. As we walked so
we saw a rather morose looking pair, and their dog
ran up to us. Said dog had a dead squirrel in its mouth and looked very
pleased about it. Needless to say my three all
wanted a go with the dead squirrel, and weren’t happy that the other dog
wouldn’t share. We came home via the Sainsbury’s petrol
station where the usually miserable old bat was quite chirpy. She’s usually
got a face like a smacked bum at six o’clock, but was
a different person at eleven. Perhaps she’s not a morning person? I made a cuppa, then cracked on in the
garden. I mowed the lawn and had a tidy-up of the smaller gravelled area. It
does look a bit better, but was hard work. I’ve hoiked out several little garden ornaments; I shall get
the big pressure-washer out later in the week and see if they scrub up any
good. Somehow I doubt they will, but I need to get
the big pressure-washer out anyway. I had a hot cross bun for lunch, then took
Bailey out. First of all we went to the garden
centre where I had a look at the water features. They were offering last
year’s models at rock-bottom prices… Rock-bottom prices being about double
what Amazon were charging. From there I took Bailey to the Doggy Dentist. I took
Treacle the other day and we had a
really good session. Today’s didn’t go quite as
well. If Treacle’s behaviour had been nine out of ten, I think it’s fair to
say that Bailey scored minus three. She wriggled and struggled. The doggy
dentist did a good job, but there’s still quite a bit of cleaning to be done
on the inside surfaces of her teeth. We’ve got another appointment in three
months’ time. I’m taking the fact that she’s allowed back as something of a
result. In the meantime we’ve got homework – we’ve
got to get her used to having her mouth mauled about. We came home for a cuppa. I got more paint
onto the gnomes, and then I had a video call. On Sunday when I was in the
garden centre some chap was offering cheap rate leccie
and gas. I’m up for cheap rate anything so I made an appointment. He wanted
me to have the figures together of what I was currently paying… I won’t say he was selling a scam, but he was
pushing a strange arrangement where I would get leccie,
gas, broadband, mobile, credit card, house and contents insurance all through
the one company. The savings he promised would all come through cashbacks on
the credit card. Personally I’m not keen on having
everything through the one company; if I have the arse with one (like the
buildings insurance!!!) I don’t want to have to cancel everything. As “er indoors TM” boiled
up dinner I watched “Ancient
Aliens: The Ultimate Evidence” on the history channel. Have you ever watched
the show? There was absolutely no evidence whatsoever; ultimate or otherwise.
Instead, several feeble-minded simpletons attributed everything they don’t
understand to aliens. Give it a go – it is hilarious… up to the
moment when you realise that there really are people who believe this rubbish
and these people are allowed to vote and do jury service. |
|
19 March 2025
(Wednesday) - Gardening
I
ached again this morning when I got up. This really sucks. Yesterday all I
did was walk the dogs, mow the lawn, an hour’s light gardening and took
Bailey to the dentist and I’m all in the next day. I
made toast and had a look at Facebook as I do. Friends were complaining about
the government’s cuts to the welfare system. I’m not saying that
the system was perfect; it probably needed an overhaul. But as a life-long
leftie it bothers me that the Labour party only
seem to stand up for their values when they are not in a
position to do anything about that for which they claim to stand. And I saw an advert for cable ties. You can buy them
for pennies from a hardware shop to tie things with. Or you can buy them as a
fashion accessory for hundreds of pounds.
Your choice. I
munzed and wordled, then
loaded the dogs into the car and we went up to the woods for a walk. We’d had
reports of one of my geocaches being missing; it
was. We replaced it as we went round the woods on our walk. There were quite
a few people about today. As we went so the dogs ran up to another dog which
immediately kicked off. I whistled and my three ran straight back to me. As
we walked off I could hear that dog’s owners having
a heated argument about why their dog can’t come when called like my dogs did.
When my hounds come when called it is rather impressive. We
came home. The two smallest dogs had a bath. They’d both rolled in different
disgusting things. And once bathed I sorted us both a cuppa then got on with
my plans for the day. I hung out the washing.. and
had to pause that to gather up an epic crop of dog turds. I then disassembled
the pond’s pressure filter for the annual replacement of the ultra-violet
light bulb. I eventually got it all apart (it took some doing), and got the old bulb out (that took some doing too).
It was at that point that I found that the new replacement bulb was broken.
Ho hum… I
phoned the aquatic shops to see if they had the right model of replacement
bulb. In a perfect world they would make these filters with one-size-sits-all light
bulbs, but they come in a range of shapes and sizes and wattages. No one at Bybrook Barn would answer the phone, but the nice people
at Dobbies said they had a bulb that would fit. I
went to Dobbies. It’s never my first choice of
places to go. They ain’t cheap, and there’s not one
customer in a hundred in there looking where they are going, and the place
has an amazingly laxative effect on the dogs. But I wasn’t taking the dogs.
It was the only place with the bulb I wanted… and I could just shove the blundering
customers out of the way. Whilst
I was at it I got a job lot of violas; six for a
fiver in Bybrook Barn, in an amazing display of
competitive pricing Dobbies were knocking them out
as seven quid for nine. I never got round to using them today, but (in
theory) I will use them tomorrow. By
then it was lunch time. I had a cold cross bun and a
cuppa then cracked on in the garden again. I got that new bulb into the
pressure filter, and whilst I was at it I replaced
the input nozzle that had sprung a leak late last year. I ran out the
pressure filter hose, and once it was connected I
sparked it up; I didn’t want the muck that had over-wintered in the filter to
go back into the pond. Instead that went onto the monkey-puzzle tree. It
seems to like fish filter muck. With
the pond woken for the year I ran out the pressure-washer and had a blat at some of the old garden ornaments. They didn’t
really clean up any good. Yesterday I said that they wouldn’t, didn’t I? The
jug from the water feature didn’t come up too bad though… I shall paint it up
and keep an eye out for something to replace it. I
sparked up the little pond; the cascade in that doesn’t really do much other
than act as a reservoir for muck, so I removed it. I pruned the plants in
both ponds, and made us both a cuppa and skibbits (as “Darcie WaaWaa TM” refers
to biscuits) and then there was a knock on
the door. The sander I’d ordered from Amazon had arrived. I
had been thinking of replacing the water feature and the planter I built last
year, but that would be expense and effort. I had this stroke of genius (I
have those from time to time) that I might sand them both down and give
them a lick of paint and see if they might perk up. I sprayed varnish onto the gnomes I’ve been
painting. Hopefully this will have them last a tad longer than the last ones…
Having said that, the last ones were painted for the first time on 17 June
2007 so if they do last longer they will probably
see me out. I
got the sander out and read the instructions. The instructions had clearly
been written in some obscure language and converted (not translated!)
to English by Google translate. The instructions seemed to put an inordinate
amount of importance on a nozzle which was “design to collect dust task”,
but notwithstanding tasks (collect dust or otherwise) it managed to
sand down that which I wanted sanding. I
shall see if anything has perked up after tomorrow’s painting. I was too
tired to get the paint out today. By
that time I’d spent five hours working in the
garden, and (in all honesty) it looked much the same as when I’d
started. I voomed round with the watering can, then
performed a test of canine memory. Last
year whenever I mentioned “I’m going to feed the fish” the dogs would
fly to the pond in the hopes of getting some fish food. With the pumps in the
pond running the fish were moving about, so I made my announcement. Despite
it being five months or more since I last said it, the dogs flew to the pond. They
remembered. And
they still like fish food. The
fish had some too. “er
indoors TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching more “Throw
Down”. We had a bottle of plonk too… and some port. |
|
20 March 2025 (Thursday)
- Holiday Day Four
I
woke feeling full of energy and raring to go – at three o’clock. I dozed on
and off for the rest of the night and finally nodded off just as “er indoors TM”’s alarm went off at seven. I voomed straight into the
garden and had a look at the ponds. The big one is clearing; something has
been splashing in the little one. Three fish vanished from that pond last
year. I shall have to think about building some sort of cover for it. I made toast and had my usual rummage round the
Internet. Much of Kent was seemingly up in arms about the closure of one of
the county’s
oldest pubs. I did wonder just how many of those crying crocodile tears
had ever been into the place; let alone spent any money in there. I took the dogs to the woods. As we drove the Defence Minister was being interviewed on the radio, and
he made a point of not answering a single question that was put to him. We
got to Kings Wood; the car park was all but empty with only three other cars
there. We started our walk and saw a herd of deer within minutes. Not ten
seconds behind them came a jogger and his dog. I commented on the deer; the
jogger wasn’t having any of it. He was adamant that I was mistaken. There had
been no deer – if there had been his dog would have been after them like a
shot. I smiled sweetly. We
saw more deer later in our walk as well… At
about the half-way point (the furthest point at which a car or van can get
into the woods) we met a group of half a dozen people in Forestry England
clothing with three Forestry England pick-up trucks. One of them had a
trailer attached to it inside which about a dozen dead deer were hanging. The
Forestry England people fussed the dogs and we got
talking. I commented how we’d seen deer today, and this year we’d seen deer
more often than we didn’t. “And that’s the problem” one of the
Forestry England people commented. Apparently the
rate at which we saw deer in previous years was about right; maybe once every
two months. It would seem that last year and this
year they’ve been breeding like things possessed and are having to be culled.
I was reminded of Bob from the snake club who was a gamekeeper in the Challock area twenty years ago. He said that he was under
orders to shoot one deer a day every day to keep the numbers in check. With
walk walked we came home. Yesterday we saw loads of people in the woods.
There was hardly anyone there today. With “er indoors TM” having
an office day I made myself a cuppa, munzed and wordled, and had a look in the garden. The
plan for today was to sort the larger of the gravelled areas, and that’s what
I did. I painted up the old jug part of the water feature, then painted the
wood bits I’d sanded yesterday. I varnished the jug, heaved out the old
garden ornaments and heaved in the new. Put the old planter into place,
filled it with compost and planted those violas I’d bought yesterday. There
was a minor hiccup in that I thought I’d bought nine violas; I’d actually got twenty. Did I ever mention I’ve got a degree
in maths? I
had a spot of lunch (yesterday’s leftovers) then spent an hour or so
painting gnomes before running round with the watering can and then doing the
“feeding the fish” ritual. I took a few photos of
today’s efforts. Far from being a week off work; I’m working harder than ever. And I’ve a list of
things as long as my arm to do tomorrow. “er
indoors TM” boiled up pork chops which
we scoffed whilst watching more “Throw Down”. Painting gnomes isn’t
entirely unlike what the potters do in that show. I’m
supposedly having a week’s holiday from work this week. I’ve not stopped. |
|
21 March 2025
(Friday) - Another Cancelled Appointment
Treacle
had rather spread out last night; I spent an
inordinate amount of time trying to reclaim any bed space; finally giving up
and getting up at half past six. I had a look in the garden; something had
again been splashing in the little pond. I
made toast and had a look at the Internet. I had an email from geocaching HQ.
There’s to be a geo-picnic in June in Lydd. I put that in the diary. I’d
missed a geo-meet-up last night; there has been a little get-together in Frittenden. Geocaching HQ openly admit that their
messaging and notification system doesn’t work with complete reliability
which is why whenever I organise a meet-up I advertise it far and wide so no one misses out. Sadly
in this respect (as in many others) I am in a minority. And
I saw that a friend was having a birthday today. Fifty years ago me and Dougal were best of mates. I last saw him in
the flesh twenty years ago… I
munzed and wordled and
then popped round to B&Q. Usually I avoid that place like the plague, but
I needed a cover for the small pond. A trellis would be ideal but it wouldn’t
easily fit in the car so I went to B&Q, got one
and carried it home. Compared to previous visits this was rather good. I
then took the dogs up to the woods. As I drove the pundits on the radio were
interviewing the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. If you listened
to what he said, he sounded rather impressive… until you realised that what
he was saying bore little (if any) relation to reality. He was adamant
that at the end of this government’s term the average household will be
paying three hundred quid a year less for leccie
and gas. However when presented with the fact that
the average household is currently paying a hundred and fifty quid a year
more than this time last year, he all but stuck his fingers in his ears and
shouted “la-la-la-I’m-not-listening”. We
got to the woods. Again there were only three other
cars in the car park. We had a good walk. Despite an empty car park there
were quite a few young ladies jogging round in tight spandex. Some of them
might as well have run round in the nip for all that they were keeping secret. As
we walked I had a phone call from the dentist
cancelling today’s appointment. We
came home. I made us a cuppa then went down to the dentist to reschedule. I
made an appointment for next week, and I made a point of telling them that
this appointment is set in stone. They asked what I meant by that. I told
them that over the years they have cancelled more appointments than they have
kept, and I don’t want this one cancelling. As
I walked out I heard the receptionist telling her
mate that they are receptionists, not punchbags. I shall find another
dentist; I’ve not been happy with this one for years. I
drove round to Bybrook Barn to get water lilies,
comets, compost and rockery plants. They had compost and rockery plants, but
no lilies and the fish weren’t for sale. Apparently
it is too early in the season for anything pond-related… I
went round to Dobbies where there was an incredibly
helpful chap. They had a range of lilies; which colour would I like? And
whilst they didn’t have any comets they had a lot of
small goldfish. The chap said he’d scoop up a large net-full and hand pick
the ones I liked. Dobbies aren’t cheap, but they
are helpful. I
got the water lily and goldfish into the small pond, then sawed the trellis
to shape. When the saw went through my thumb there wasn’t *that* much
blood really. And then I painted the trellis. I hate painting trellis; it
takes an absolute age. I then shifted some of the old garden ornaments to the
end of the garden; I had this sudden stroke of genius (I have those from
time to time) that they might add to the rockery. I
did plan to pot the last of the violas I bought on Wednesday and the alpines
I bought today, but by the time I was in a position
to do that my back was playing up and it was four o’clock. I tidied up and
made up both a cuppa. I shall pot the plants over the weekend. “er
indoors TM” set off to fetch “Darcie WaaWaa TM” who
was coming up for a little sleepover. We had a game of “doll kiss
chase” then littlun and Treacle had a great game chasing around the
living room. We all scoffed far too much pizza, and littlun went to bed
amazingly early. I suspect she will be up before midnight, but we
shall see… |
|
22
March 2025 (Saturday) - Darcie, Dog Club, Backache
I spent much of the night listening for sounds
of littlun, but I didn’t hear a thing from her. What little sleep I did have
was rather restless. I woke in a cold sweat shortly after midnight following
a nightmare in which littlun had decided that she wanted to play “Squid
Game”. As she’s only three we played a non-lethal version in which every
time she stuffed up, grandad got an electric shock. And after waking up at
half past five following another nightmare in which the theme tune to
her favourite You-Tube video had been
re-written to “It’s Steve and Maggie – squawking like a bast”, and
somehow I’d got the blame. I gave up trying to sleep and made toast. As
I peered into the Internet I saw two friends had
birthdays today. One was a colleague who was forty today. Forty? I would have
guessed late twenties. And another was a chap with whom I went to school so I know how old he is… even though he has always
seemed about twenty years older than me. I munzed and wordled, and
then woke the girls and the dogs. It took a little longer than usual to get
ready this morning, Darcie doesn’t go as quick as she might, but we were soon
all on our way to Repton. Dog Club was rather busy this morning; loads of
dogs; loads of mayhem. Littlun loved it and spent quite a bit of time playing
ball with Roo (one of the larger dogs). Roo loved it; as did littlun.
It was only a shame that some of the bigger dogs crashed into me during their
chase game which rather put my back out. We came home via the bakery down the road. We
usually have a bun with our coffee on a Saturday morning
but we’d forgotten to get any today. So I popped
into the local bakery. This place is usually a disappointment, but I thought
we might give it another chance, and sadly it will be a while before we go
back. It is places like this that give me
absolutely no confidence in on-line reviews. Scoring very well on TripAdvisor the reviews
seem to be describing a different place. The cream slices we had today were
stale with rather foul chemicals in place of cream, and were exactly what
we’ve had before from there, but people on-line can’t speak highly enough
about them. I’m reminded of an author friend of mine who has been given
five-star reviews for some of his books by people who openly admit they’ve
not read them. With yukky buns scoffed littlun ran riot. The
dogs all sat with me, and I fell asleep in front of “Toobs”
(as littlun called You-Tube). I was fast asleep for over an hour. I
woke in time to say goodbye to “er indoors TM” and “Darcie WaaWaa TM” who
were off to a lambing event at the school farm in Tenterden. I tried to do a little tidying-up but my back wasn’t having any of it,
so I sat on my bum and watched more “Squid Game 2” on Netflix. I
could remember the first season being a tad slow to get going; the second
season has effectively wasted the first two episodes, but it eventually
perked up. The girls returned and wreaked havoc before
littlun was returned to her home. I watched more “Squid Game 2” then
fell asleep again. It wasn’t long before “er indoors TM” returned, and hot on her heels came Chris, Sarah and Steve. We
had a rather good evening on the infinity table. A
game of “Game of Life”, a game of “Sorry”, a game of “Ticket
to Ride”…
a rather good evening. Today’s step count has come in at about ten thousand steps less than
the average for the last week… My back hurt when I got up this morning and it has been giving me gyp
all day. |
|
23 March 2025
(Sunday) - Still Got Backache
I
was rather late to bed last night, and slept through
till eight o’clock this morning. I woke to the sound of Morgan jumping off
the bed. That is a wake-up call; he don’t hang about
in the morning… Perhaps I do him a disservice… but he can be a pain
in the glass. If I take my time before getting up and chasing after him and
he gets to the back door before me, there will be a pile of turds by the time
I get there. If I leap up and come downstairs with him and get to the door
before him, it’s a different story. He pootles
round the garden, sniffing everything and anything, and often goes back to
bed without doing anything. I
put my watch on. It can be rather sarcastic at times. As I put it on this
morning it told me that I have activity goals, and
asked if today was the day I would meet them.
Bearing in mind that it unilaterally told me that my step count goal was six
thousand steps per day and that up till yesterday I’d done over twelve
thousand steps a day for over a week I thought it was being a tad out of
order. I
had a little look at the Internet. It was still there. People had been
enjoying the decent weather yesterday and had been posting photos of what
they had been up to. I like that as I’m nosey. There was consternation being
expressed about the cost of eating out on some of the
local pages. There’s a pub in Folkestone charging a fiver for a portion of
peas. We go out for a meal with friends every couple of months and the bill
comes in at the thick end of two hundred quid. Pubs ain’t
a cheap option. I
munzed, got Wordle on the fifth attempt (dopey)
and got ready for the day. There
was a knock on the door. A little while ago a group of us would meet up once
a month in the town centre for brekkie. But I could never hear a word that
was said in the place as the background was too noisy and the place echoed.
Having worked out that everyone could eat at home cheaper than it would cost
for just me to go to the café we decided to reinstate monthly meet-ups, but have them at home. And that’s what we did today.
Five of us had a rather good full English brekkie, and
put the world to rights. We
then took the dogs for a little outing. A little wander round the church at
Appledore getting clues to find a nearby geocache. Finding it gave us a
geo-souvenir. As
we walked back to the car we walked past an antique shop. I liked the look of
a planter in the window… but not the price. And the more I looked the more
overpriced I saw everything was. We
did have a plan to have a crafty half on the way home. We stopped off at the
Old Dairy taproom. There was very limited space, and as what I can only
describe as the family from hell marched in I
decided I didn’t fancy staying. Our
journey home would take us past the local CAMRA pub of the year. We had a look. One
end was a posh restaurant, the other had several people standing round a pool
table swearing. We didn’t stay there either. We
came home a little earlier than we might have done. “er indoors TM” and the dogs had a little sleep. I wrote up some CPD. Dull but
necessary. “er
indoors TM” found the lamb
I had in the freezer for plov, and boiled it into a rather good bit of dinner which we
scoffed whilst watching more “Throw Down”. My
back still hurts, and I’m not feeling quite the full one hundred per cent. I
hope I’m not sickening for something. |
|
24 March 2025
(Monday) - Lazy Day
I
had a go on the scales this morning. My weight is under sixteen stone for the
first time in (probably) ten years. Do I feel any healthier? Probably
not. Sadly my blood pressure isn’t coming down. I
made toast and had a look at the Internet. Local
Facebook pages are entertaining. The Ashford one this morning featured quite
a lot of ranting about plans to demolish a local shopping precinct and
replace it with a car park. Sadly for all that
everyone was saying what they should do with the location, pretty much no one
seemed to know exactly who the mysterious “they” were. And
on that same page a young lad was touting for trade for his newly-started gardening business claiming he had lots of
gardening experience from sorting his grandmother’s back yard. These
people vote, you know I
took the dogs out. As we drove to the woods the pundits on the radio were
interviewing the Minister for Transport about the debacle at Heathrow Airport
last week when the place closed for a day after a fire closed an electrical
sub-station. It is now being claimed that the place had enough power from other sources. Personally
I can’t see what anyone expects from the Minister for Transport. Heathrow
Airport isn’t under government control; it is run by a private company like
pretty much all of the country’s infrastructure. We
got to the woods and had a good walk. Last week the place had pretty much
dried out, but some light rain over the weekend had turned the place into a
quagmire. The dogs got filthy… and all found fox poo too. We
came home for baths, and once they were bathed I
cracked on in the garden. I wanted to plant the last of the viola and the
alpines I’d bought last week, and have a little
tidy-up. I didn’t think it would take more than an hour or so; it took two.
My back was rather tender at the end of it. Rather
than cracking on with more garden stuff I decided to take it easy for the
rest of the day… I
got a spicy chicken Polish pot noodle for lunch from the shop over the road, and scoffed it whilst watching the last episode of
the current season of “Squid Game”, then had a little look at the
monthly accounts. They aren’t bad really… but it has to
be said that the two hundred and fifty quid I blew on the garden last week
has made a dent. But finding myself far more flush
than I was a few short years ago I decided to do some good. I signed up with
“Lend With
Care”
– it’s a way to help people across the world. I invested the amount of money
I might spend on a round in the pub in a Philippine pig farm run by a chap
called Edgar. It might help him; it might not. Time will tell. I
then started watching “Beef” on Netflix as the
washing machine had a go at the undercrackers. It was entertaining enough – “Beef”;
not washing the undercrackers. “er
indoors TM” went bowling. I stayed sitting in front of the telly and watched a
film on Netflix. “The Electric State” was
a rather good film. Starring her from “Stranger Things” it
was a sort of a cross between “Mad Max” and “Toy
Story”. My
back is better than it was… but it is still giving me twinges. |
|
25 March 2025
(Tuesday) - Back to Work
Morgan
woke me in the night as he jumped off the bed, but “er indoors TM” chased
after him. Having been woken I just lay there until five o'clock when I gave
up trying to sleep and got up. Having set an alarm meant I wouldn't get much
sleep. I
made toast and watched more "Beef". It's an oddly
captivating story. There wasn't much happening on Facebook at six
o'clock so once I'd scraped the ice from the car I set off to work. I
went via the co-op where I got their meal deal and some other odds and ends. Sadly either the woman on the till, or the till itself was
a bit special. I had to pay for the stuff in the meal deal first, get the
change and then bag it all up *then* buy the second load of stuff in
an entirely separate transaction. What
was that all about. As
I came out of the co-op so another special chap
arrived. He had one of those cars with a deliberately noisy exhaust. He
didn't so much park it as abandon it in the middle of the car park, and got out of the car shouting a running commentary
of his life to whoever might be listening. I'm sure the locals loved that at
half past six in the morning. As
I drove to work the pundits on the radio were talking about how American
government officials had texted all sorts of confidential
information to
a journalist. Sadly that's just the sort of thing
the world seems to expect from America at the moment.
Foa all that everyone seems to laugh at the "Make America Great Again"
thing, the sentiment is spot-on. It's just being pursued by entirely the
wrong people. And
there was talk about Morrisons closing stores and cafes. This isn't
surprising really. We have razor blades, toilet roll
and dog food delivered as Amazon is cheaper than any supermarket. I
got to work for the early shift and cracked on. I had hoped a day at work
might be something of a rest for my back; it wasn't. I really should have
phoned in sick and put my feet up. But an early start made for an early
finish. I
came home and ran round the garden with the watering can. The garden does
look better after a week’s work on it. “er
indoors TM” boiled up a rather good pasta bake which we scoffed whilst watching
the semi-final of “Throw Down”. The one I thought would be
going home turned out to be potter of the week. These days I do feel that a day at work is rather
unproductive… and dull. |
|
26 March 2025
(Wednesday) - Dull
Another
restless night. I *always* have those when I’ve got an alarm set. I
made a point of staying in bed until six o’clock this morning. Over brekkie I watched an episode of “Beef”
in which the main characters did the dirty deed for no adequately explored
reason, and I then sparked up my lap-top. The
internet was still there. Not a lot had changed overnight really. American
friends were still bemoaning the many failings of President Trump. Personally I can’t help but feel that we might all learn
from history here. There are many historic parallels here, but the vast majority of wannabe-dictators through the ages
were a lot younger than Mr. Trump. If I lived in America
I’d be keeping my head down and waiting for nature to take its course rather
than having him create retrospective laws calling for the internment of any
dissidents. And our local MP had posted something about the
proposed second
Thames estuary crossing. One of the many reasons that our previous MP
wasn’t popular was his endless posting to social media about what other
people had done whilst rarely (if ever) seeming to do anything
himself. Our new chap seems to has
followed in the footsteps of his predecessor. Pausing only briefly to get lunch from the co-op I set off to work. There was an interesting statistic
mentioned on the radio today. These days children are more likely to have a
mobile phone (over 90%) than they are to live with both parents (71%). There was also an interview with the Ukrainian Foreign Minister.
Bearing in mind the hectoring and demanding attitude from Ukrainian
officials over the last few years, she sounded incredibly different in
today’s interview compared to similar interviews of the past. She sounded
genuinely grateful for the international help that her country has had. And there was an interview with one of the coaches
of some UK sporting team or other. Apparently the UK is taking part in some big sporting event and the odds are against the UK team. But this coach
says that he was an “internal optimist”. I got to work and my phone
beeped. The razor blades I’d ordered from Amazon less than twelve hours
previously had arrived. That was a result. Work was rather hard work today, but I spent the
morning looking forward to dinner time. Whilst at the co-op as well as a
coronation chicken sandwich I’d also got myself some apple and salted caramel
dipper. Such a disappointment… Today was dull. But I’m not at work tomorrow, so am hoping for a decent kip. |
|
27 March 2025
(Thursday) - Rostered Day Off
With no alarm set I woke four hours later than I did
yesterday. I got up and made toast, then had a look at the Internet. I was
presented with a memory. Three years ago we took a drive to have a look
at two
little puppies. Back them Morgan and Bailey were going to be called
William and Spud… if I’d had my way. There wasn’t much else happening on-line.
I Munzed – our clan has reached its monthly target and I was awarded with a mace, a typewriter, colour
credits and zeds. Never a dull moment in Munzee. I then got Wordle on the
second attempt. Go me. I got dressed and despite Alexa telling me about a
weather warning for fog I took the dogs out. There wasn’t any fog. As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking to
the author
of a new book about the relationship between Paul McCartney and John
Lennon. There was then ten minutes spent talking
about how wonderful the Beatles had been. Personally
I never really warmed to them, but I just see that as yet another example of how out of step I am with the
rest of the world. We got to the woods where we’d had reports of a geocache we’d hidden being missing. It was;
we replaced it. It’s no trouble to replace them when they are missing; it
gives us a target for our dog walk. But you really can put out a new one
quicker than you can tell me that one isn’t there. From the missing geocache we then followed a
four-mile circuit round the woods. I saw a slow worm. Morgan rolled in
something foul. Bailey ate several disgusting objects that I couldn’t get off of her including a dead mouse and a dead frog. We came home to find that the double-glazing people
had been. They came two
months ago and put new windows in. I wasn’t impressed with the
finish, and they came this morning to put it right. If you don’t look too
closely it doesn’t look *that* bad. If any of my loyal readers are thinking about
replacing their windows I can tell you one firm to
avoid. I made us both a cuppa then spent a bit of time in the garden. I mowed the
lawn, went round with the garden vacuum cleaner, cleaned both ponds’ filters,
and re-potted some of the little potted plants. I then found myself looking
at the rockery and walked away. Shifting rocks would definitely
do for a bad back. I then spent a little while looking at house building and contents insurance. Bearing in mind the
debacle that Sainsburys made of our electrical issue over Christmas (and
cost us the thick end of two hundred quid) I had a little look about on
Go Compare and got some cheaper quotes. And some more expensive quotes.
Putting in the same information gave a range of quotes from under three
hundred quid to over a thousand. It certainly pays to shop about. I went down the road to the dentist. On the third
attempt they kept the appointment with the hygienist. Having paid for it I
thought I’d have my money’s worth before I go somewhere else. “er
indoors TM” and ”Auntie Chel TM” have gone to the Leas Cliff Hall for the evening for some Bob Marley
tribute band thingy. I sat on the sofa with the dogs and scoffed pizza whilst
watching a film on Netflix. “No Hard
Feelings” was crap. I turned it off after half an hour, and watched more “Beef” in which
everyone now hates everyone else with a passion. And now my Facebook feed is filling up with adverts
for house insurance… At least my back isn’t as bad as it was. |
|
28 March 2025
(Friday) - Dull (Again)
Yesterday
with no alarm set I slept through till ten to eight. Today with an alarm set
I woke at ten to three. I dozed on and off, and
eventually gave up trying to sleep at half past five. I made toast and
started watching “Orange is the New Black” on Netflix (again),
then had a little look at the Internet in the desperate hope that something
might have happened overnight. It hadn’t really. Someone who was very big in my life fifteen to
twenty years ago had posted an anti-dog post to Facebook effectively claiming
they do little else than bark, shit and fart. Many years ago
I would probably have agreed with him… but fifteen years ago I found myself
in a very black place. A small dog was there for me when others
weren’t. He died four years ago and I still miss
him. Back in the day I used to organize all sorts of social events and
activities. These days if my dogs can’t go, I won’t go. I never used to be a dog person. My nephew was having a birthday today; he was
twenty-six. Where does the time go? I sent birthday wishes to all three of
his Facebook accounts then Munzed, and got ready for work. I
stopped off at the co-op where some idiot was walking past with one of those
surgical face masks tucked up under (*not* over) his nose. I managed
not to laugh out loud; what do these people think they will achieve? All the
time their nose is sticking out they might as well not bother with the thing. I
got my lunch and scanned it through the self-service machine. It wanted six
quid. I told it to go whistle and took my stuff to the counter where the nice
lady at the till charged three pounds fifty. You need to watch these
self-service machines. I
set off up the motorway to work. As I drove the pundits on the radio were
talking about the King whose cancer treatment has hit a "bump in the road"
and he has had to cancel his official engagements for today. He's being
amazingly open about his illness - you'd have never known anything about the
late Queen having been ill, would you. She kept going right to the very end. And
there was talk about the WH Smith chain having been sold and being re-branded
as TG Jones. They
then wheeled on that odious Nigel Farage. One thing he said struck a
chord. When challenged about the Reform UK MP with whom he’s had a
falling-out he said that Reform UK has millions of people who are
still loyal to him. Loyal to him. Not the party, but to him. Reform UK, like
the Brexit party before it is nothing more than a cult. The
mind-set he encourages makes me thoroughly ashamed to be British. Work
was work. It usually is. The money is nice and I
work with a decent bunch of people, but I'm finding more and more these days
that I really can't be arsed with it. Still, it's only (on average)
two and a half days a week, and occasionally it can be interesting... if you
like that sort of thing. With work worked I came
home. “er indoors TM” boiled
up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching celebrity
Bake-Off. It was rather good… |
|
29 March 2025
(Saturday) - Oko Lele
I
was up an hour or so earlier than I might have been today. I went into the
garden; last night Bailey caught a mouse. I cornered her and she dropped it.
I put it up by the pond in the naïve hope that it was in shock rather than
dead, and this morning it was gone. I suspect the local cats have had it. I made toast and watched an episode of “Orange is
the New Black”. There are those who having
watched a TV show won’t watch it again because they
know what is going to happen. I find that in the
better-made TV shows there’s a lot of stuff you miss on the first time round and this is
certainly true in this show. I sparked up my lap-top.
People were again ranting about the latest antics of President Trump. I’ve
formed the impression that where the world is going wrong with Mr Trump is that we are all holding him to the same
standard of other politicians. But he isn’t a politician. He is a second-rate
celebrity. He doesn’t know politics; he doesn’t actually
know very much at all. He tries to boost his ego by appealing to and
amusing the more simple-minded who will vote for him. In many ways he reminds
me of the thicker cub scouts with whom I dealt when
I was a scout leader. Boris Johnson was much the same,
as is Nigel Farage. It’s not about policies. It’s
about personalities. This is perhaps the biggest failing of democracy; people
who aren’t capable of making a sensible decision
vote for those who amuse and entertain them. I can remember back when Boris
Johnson had been caught out in some of his bigger lies, and several family
members were laughing about it and cheering for “good old Boris” in
much the same way that they would for a TV star or sporting personality. I sent out birthday wishes to two friends, then had
a look at my emails. The geocache we replaced on Thursday had been found and
all was well with it. A diary entry from last month had attracted a
comment. On
15 February I had a rather good day. Someone claiming to be called
Angelika commented with a little advert for some crackpot who can solve all
relationship issues, such as breakup, divorce, pregnancy by casting magic
spells. I deleted her nonsense. And I had an email from Lendwithcare.
Edgar has got all the money he needs for his goat farm. Here’s
hoping he makes a go of it. I added “hairy bollox” and “wazzo pair of jugs” to “er
indoors TM”’s shopping list simply by telling the Alexa
to do so, and woke “er indoors TM” and
the dogs. I munzed, got Wordle on the second
attempt, cleared a bumper crop of dog turds from the garden and got ready for
the off. Being Saturday we went round to Repton and Dog Club.
As we drove Steve was doing the “guess the lyrics” competition on the
radio. “It's a crazy situation you always keep me waiting” No? it was
Kylie Minogue’s “I should be so lucky”,,, in
more ways than one as I texted to Steve. We got to the Dog Club field and opened
up. The field had dried out considerably since last week, and we had a
good time. Mostly. Some of the bigger dogs do get a bit boisterous sometimes,
but it was the second smallest (Bailey) who disgraced herself today. On the way home I was one year out with the mystery
year – when was Spaghetti junction opened? “er
indoors TM” set off to craft club. I took the dogs home, and after I’d done myself
a cuppa and counted the Dog Club takings I cracked
on with the ironing whilst watching more “Orange is the New
Black”. After two episodes I’d got it all
done. I had a little pootle in
the garden until “er indoors TM” came home
with “Darcie WaaWaa TM” who
was up for a little sleepover. Apparently she’s told her mother that she is
going to stay at Morgan and Bailey’s house. I’m under no illusions as to who
she has come to see, We played dog-snogging and watched oko lele;
a rather surreal Malaysian cartoon about a boy scout and two cavemen who get
into all sorts of strange adventures. So far they’ve met pirates, a genie, a
green cyclops, Monkey (from
the seventies TV show) and a rather foxy cave-woman in a leopard-skin
bikini who drives round on a silver motorbike and brandishes a bazooka. Littlun has fallen asleep at the
moment, and I’m still watching oko lele. Morgan is watching over littun. There’s talk of a bubble bath later… I’ve wished her
grandmother good luck with that. |
|
30 March 2025
(Sunday) - Early Shift
For
years I've been struggling with a bedside clock with a very small LED display
which I simply can't see from the bed without lifting my head and squinting
my eyes. My new one arrived yesterday evening; good
old Amazon. It took a bit of farting around to set up
but I've now got a clock which projects the time onto the ceiling. I love it.
It was reduced from over thirty quid to eight quid - it pays to look at the
bargain pages on Amazon. Sadly it came with a USB
connection rather than a plug, but such is life. I certainly slept a bit
better being able to just look upwards whenever I wondered what the time was
rather than having to lift my carcass up. It
was a shame that “er indoors TM” and
her entourage had to be quite so noisy when they all went to the loo at three
o'clock, and an even bigger shame that the stupidity that is daylight saving
had to happen last night but there it is. With an alarm set I was wide awake
at five o'clock (or four o'clock as it would have been yesterday). I
got up, made toast and watched an episode of "Orange is the New Black"
in which everyone kept their chests in check which was a novel break with
tradition for that show. I
got dressed and set off for work. As I drove there was an interview on
the radio with someone who was farming in the Scilly Isles. It sounded like a
rather beautiful place to be, but programs about scenic places are best done
on the telly; not the radio. And
there was talk about the UK government's response to President Trump's imposition of tariffs on the sale of
British goods to America. I don't understand what President Trump is up to
with these tariffs. I looked them up. From what I can
work out, the American government is putting a tax onto various things that
America is importing. This tax being paid to the American government by
whoever it is that is doing the buying. In theory it makes the stuff
more expensive for the Americans and encourages them to buy home-produced
things. In practice shipping stuff half-way round the world ain't cheap and so if it was cheaper to buy
home-produced things the Americans would already be doing so. And
having had a tariff put on their product, the sellers generally say "get stuffed!" and sell their stuff
elsewhere. Tariffs hurt the ones buying the products, not the ones selling
them, but President Trump, like those who vote for him, doesn't really
understand what tariffs are all about. I
got to work and did that which I couldn't avoid. I'm going off working at the
weekends. Back in the day on weekend we were open only for emergency cases as
there was only one person in, whereas during the week there's a full house. However over the years things have changed and
the workload has increased massively. But the staffing level has
remained constant. It's much the same issue that GPs face. The
government has blithely announced that GP
surgeries will be open in the evenings and at weekends but not done much (anything
at all) about providing more (any) staff. Just
as I was about to come home so my phone told me about a new geocache... one
specifically thanking me for my contributions to the ancient and
honourable art of hunting for plastic pots under rocks. The puzzle had what
looked like an obvious theme.. I had the right idea,
got the thumbs-up and I came home singing along to Ivor Biggun
songs, taking a little diversion on the way. First one to find it...
result. I
came home and was immediately in trouble. Littlun was holding court with the
dogs in the hallway as I walked in. She screamed and ran, and I could hear
her in the kitchen telling her grandmother (in a very indignant tone)
that grandad had made her jump. Littlun
helped me feed the fish… I say helped. Like the dogs, she too scoffs the fish
food. And
with the fish fed “er indoors TM” took littlun home. I watched more “Orange is the New Black”,
then had a little doze until “er indoors TM” returned.
She came back with a load of laundry from the most recent fruit of my loin.
The first lot is already hanging up, and the undercracker
load is going through right now. I’ll get the rest scrubbed and out on the
line tomorrow. Oh…
today was Mother’s Day. It’s been four years since my mum went. Back in the
day the tribes would gather for Mother’s Day. She used to love it. And today
would have been her sixty-eighth wedding anniversary too. |
|
31 March 2025
(Monday) - Rather Busy
Yesterday
I acquired a pile of laundry from the most recent fruit of my loin. Having
got two loads sorted last night, finding myself awake at four o’clock this
morning I put a third load in, and went back to bed for a bit. That load was
out on the line and the last lot was in washing by half past seven. Before I shaved I stepped
on the scales. I’ve shifted another pound this week. I made toast and had my
usual look at the Internet. It was much the same as
ever. People all around the world were finding fault with President Trump…
including some Lutheran
bishops who’ve got the arse because the
President has established a new task force to eradicate anti-Christian bias.
You’d think that bishops would like someone going round enforcing their
crackpot nonsense wouldn’t you? It turns out that
the crackpot nonsense being enforced isn’t exactly their specific
interpretation of crackpot nonsense. There’s religion for you. From my days
of being a Steward in the Methodist church I know that there’s not two
so-called Christians on the planet who actually believe
the same thing. Two good friends had birthdays today; neither of
whom I see often enough these days. One lives in Cheltenham and we’re hoping
to go down to visit later in the year – we’ve been looking at dog friendly
B&Bs in the area. The other was someone with whom I walked to school
every day for years. We were in the Boys Brigade together, went fishing and
drinking together… he’s lived in Sweden for over thirty years. We meet up on
rare occasions. Did you know there’s no ferries from the UK to Scandinavia any more? Whenever he comes to
the UK he faces a car drive of a thousand miles. I munzed, got Wordle (booty)
on the fourth attempt following shine, black and brood, hung out a second
load of washing, put a third load in, then took the dogs out. We went up to the woods where we had a good walk.
Relatively uneventful… up to the point where Bailey found a leg bone. She had
been rather subdued earlier; eating grass in the garden this morning. She had
bellyache and then ate the foul muck she found when we are
out. Like a deer’s leg bone. We came home where I sorted us
a cuppa, hung out more washing then went on a
little road trip. A new geocache had gone live in Tenterden.
Normally I wouldn’t have bothered but I could combine that with some garden
shopping. Or so I thought. I got to Turner’s field in Tenterden
where I drew a blank. The description said “directly
above you is a branch, there is a hole in the top of the branch”. The
branches I could reach had nothing. There was an obvious-looking hidey-hole about fifteen feet up, but I wasn’t going to
climb up. It later transpired that the chap whose geocache it was is a complete novice, and he plans to put the thing
out tomorrow. From there I drove down to Rolvenden and World of
Water. The filter in my little pond needs cleaning out with annoying
regularity. I had this idea that a pressure filter (like the big pond has)
might be a plan. Sadly the smallest available is
designed for a pond five times the size and costs over two hundred quid. I had a look at water
lilies too. Last year they were being sold for twelve quid
a plant. This year the going rate is twenty-five quid. I came home via Tenterden
garden centre where the water lilies were going at thirty quid each. If any of my loyal readers know of a pond or river
that has water lilies… Failing that I’m going to send “My Boy TM” into
the pond the next time he goes fishing. I voomed round the garden
with the bionic burner, then once I’d arranged a car service for next week I
had a look on Amazon. They had water lilies… three for twenty quid. It pays
to shop around. However these were billed as “maximum
depth 30 cm” so that’s no good. The garden gnomes
on Amazon were (surprisingly) more expensive than Whelan’s. I ordered
some fish food for the pond fish though. Rather than just re-ordering what I
used to get I had a look, and for two quid more than I usually spend I got a
bag of over twice the size. With Darcie now eating the fish
food (as well as the dogs) I need as
much as I can get. “er
indoors TM” boiled up fish and chips then went bowling. I settled on the sofa
underneath a pile of dogs and watched “Orange is the New Black”. Today was supposedly a day off – I’m worn out. |
