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1 March 2026 (Sunday)
- Wet Sunday
Apart
from two trips to the loo in the night I had a good night, finally getting up
at half past nine. I’ve not laid in for that long for ages. I
started the morning with something of a technical failure. “er indoors TM” had
set the toaster to “crumpets”, and when you put bread in on that
setting it just warms the bread a little. But there’s no point in trying to
put the warmed bread back in again to finish the job because the toaster just
takes offence and then incinerates it. And
then my lap-top refused to do anything with any speed. Re-booting eventually
sorted it out. Having
finally got on-line, I saw there wasn’t a lot happening really. My Facebook
feed was filled with adverts for static caravans and holiday chalets. I
looked at a couple of sites last night after watching the Danny Dyer program…
not that I could see very much of my Facebook feed. For some inexplicable
reason the feed screen was perpetually scrolling down. What was that about?
If there was a key stuck then this would have stuffed up every other website
I visited, but they were all fine. Just Facebook being a pain. Another
re-boot sorted that. I
Munzed. Being the first of the month I chucked
everyone out of the clan in readiness for the Clan War starting on Tuesday. I
Wordled from “being” through “tread”
and “scope” to “fluke”, then got ready for the morning. It
was raining but we went to the garden centre. We had a voucher from Christmas
to use. We looked at bedding plants… they only had polyanthus and we’ve still
got them from last year. We got some pansy and viola seeds; I’ve got compost
and seed trays. I can have a go and if they haven’t grown by the end of the month I can get some from the garden centre when they say
they will have some in. We
took the dogs with us. It wasn’t much of a walk but taking them to Dobbies meant they think they’ve had an outing. Making
sure that Morgan was marched up the centre of every aisle stopped him peeing
on things… but once again the award for *not* taking a dump in the
garden centre went to Bailey. What is it about Dobbies
that has such a laxative effect on Treacle and Morgan? We
came home via the little row of shops in Singleton where we got a cake for
lunch… and we got talking to some woman who was a tad distraught. As she’d
driven round a nearby roundabout so a passing car
had crashed into her car; taken much of the front off of it,
and then sped off. What
would you do in a situation like that? By the time you realise what has
happened the other car is well out of sight. I had something not entirely
dissimilar when I was driving to see my dad when he was in Eastbourne
hospital. A white van was coming head on at me, and by the time I’d smashed
up the side of my car that van was well away. As the insurance company chap
said, these cars are probably not insured. We
came home. It was raining; I can do the seeds in the week. We had a cuppa and
some cake, and I wrote up the week’s continuing professional development. I have to stay abreast of the latest developments in blood
testing. Everyone who is a registered medical professional has
to stay up to date with their field. It’s a legal requirement and a
really good idea too; when I first started back at the now-demolished Royal
East Sussex Hospital it was amazing how out of touch some people were. The
biggest problem with doing CPD is actually finding
out about the latest developments in blood testing. Not that there’s any
shortage of information, but for every one bit that is useful to me there’s a
dozen bits of utter irrelevance from commercial companies trying to sell
things, or stuff written in what amounts to a foreign language from managers
trying to impress the easily impressed. I
did the dogs’ flea treatments which went rather easily today. It’s a simple
process. Each dog has a little tube of jollop which I rub on the back of
their necks. Sometimes (like today) I just rub it on the back of their
necks whist they sit nicely. Other times I have to
chase them round the house, wrestle them down and pin them to the floor to
get the stuff anywhere near them. And
with not a lot else planned for the day I opened up
the Lego maple tree set I’d got for my birthday last week and spent a couple
of hours putting it together. I’m quite pleased with how it’s turned out. I
read my Kindle for a bit until dinner time when “er indoors TM” boiled
up a very good roast which we scoffed whilst watching the semi-final of “The
Floor” and then I refereed “dog afters” when the pups each got a
bowl of vegetables covered in chicken fat. It was good to see Bailey eating
something. She really tucked in, and told Morgan off
when he’d finished his and came looking to her bowl for extras. In
retrospect little Bailey might have had too much. She does look very bloated.
I expect there will be some farting later… |
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2 March 2026 (Monday)
- Reunion
Apart
from a rather vivid nightmare in which we’d moved house to somewhere with no
light switches I had a rather good night’s sleep. I
got up at half past seven, made toast, and my piss boiled. I try not to rant
about lefty woke bollox because I’m probably quite a woke lefty myself, but
my piss boiled as I read what George Takei had posted to Facebook this morning. Apparently if you
are perpetually late for work because you are too bone idle to get your arse
out of bed, you can just claim to have “time blindness”. And it is a real thing too. I
Munzed, Wordled from “house”
through “scare” and “spine” to “slime”, then got ready
for the off. Leaving “er indoors TM” with the dogs I walked up to the train station and got a
ticket to Hastings. Again the price charged at the
counter bore absolutely no relation to what I’d been quoted on-line. Getting
the train was quite an adventure; I’ve not been on one for a few years. But
it wasn’t long before I was in Hastings. I rummaged by a billboard near the
station for geocachical reasons and found a
geocache there. I then walked over the West Hill where I failed to find three
others, but I redeemed myself by finding three in the Old Town. And having
constructively (!) spent the morning I went down to the First In Last Out where I met up with a couple of old friends.
One was over from Canada who I’d not seen since 1982. Another has been on my
Facebook list for some time, but we’d not met in person since 1995. We
spent a rather good three hours catching up, remembering old days. One of us
retired from programming Canadian computers nearly ten years ago, one of us
is semi-retired from blood testing, and one spent years
in the pharmaceutical industry and now makes (among other things)
night vision goggles. All with the same start in life; all now completely
different… But it was as though only a few weeks had passed. It
was so good to catch up. We really must do this sort of thing more often. All
too soon the clock had beaten us. We walked back through the Old Town and
into Hastings. The place has changed beyond all recognition. When I lived
there the Old Town was very run-down and Hastings itself had all the shops.
Now the decent shops are all in the Old Town and Hastings itself is just…
well… “grim” is probably the best word to describe it. In
a novel break with tradition I stayed awake all the way home… |
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3 March 2026
(Tuesday) - Early Shift
I woke at half past four feeling like death
warmed up. What was that all about? I got up, made toast and sparked up the
telly. I watched an episode of "Everybody Else Burns" with a wry
smile. Have you seen the show - it's about a family of religious crackpots
who go to a loony-fundamentalist church. For all that we all laugh at the
religious nutters, being an ex-religious nutter myself
the show struck a chord. I could see myself and many of the people with whom
I used to go to church in that show. And looking back they really were "the
people with whom I used to go to church" and (for quite a few of
them) not "friends". Taking care not to disturb “er indoors TM” and
the dogs I got dressed in the dark and set off to work. The moon was quite pretty as I drove, but by the time I found somewhere that
I could park which had a decent view of the horizon the moon had set and the
sun was up. As I drove I
listened to the pundits on the radio. Over the weekend that idiot Trump
has started yet another war in the Middle East. For all that he keeps banging
on about wanting a Nobel Peace Prize, he's quite keen on war. He's been
lambasting the Prime Minister for not wanting to get involved. I can't help
but think that the more that the international community treat that idiot
Trump like the idiot that he so demonstrably is, the better. I stopped off at Tesco in Pembury to get a
sandwich. I paid by filling the self-service machine with all my loose
change. Unlike Sainsburys in Aylesford no one seemed to care. As I walked out I noticed there were two security thugs guarding the
door. There were four security thugs on guard at Hastings railway station as
I came home yesterday. Guarding places seems to be something of a growth
industry; why does everywhere need to be guarded these days? I went in to the
early shift and did my thing. As I did, I spent much of the day thinking
about yesterday's meet-up with my old muckers. The pals I met yesterday have
pretty much ended up just like me. Not rich. Not poor. Probably best
described (as my old boss in the Harbour restaurant predicted
forty-five years ago)
as "comfortable". I can remember my
old boss from the Harbour restaurant telling me that I would be comfortable
in life... and he said that being comfortable in life was about the worst
thing that could happen to anyone. Was he right? From our chat yesterday I think it's fair to
say that all three of us are pretty much content with our lot in life. But
we'd all expected to end up in a far better position bearing in mind
what we'd been led to believe from having listened to all the propaganda
about a grammar school and university level education. Yesterday we'd talked
of others in our circle who'd ended up with much more than we have. Don't get
me wrong - I'm not jealous (well, not *that* jealous), but
I did think "what if" quite a bit today. Some of our contemporaries were (and some
still are) directors of international companies, admirals, ambassadors...
Would I have liked to have ended up as a consultant surgeon or a university
professor? Had things turned out differently I might have been, but would I
have been happier? I'm reminded of that famous maxim quoted by many
celebrities that at various times they'd been very poor and very rich, and looking back they preferred very rich. And also of another which says that money doesn't buy you happiness,
but it allows you to be miserable in comfort. As I've often said, I'm far
from poor, but I would like to be a whole lot better off. Are those of our contemporaries who are now
millionaires happy? Yesterday we talked about one of them who (like me)
has posted a lot of photos to social media, and we all agreed that in every
single photo he looked incredibly smug. Like I would be with his money… |
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4 March 2026
(Wednesday) - Foggy
I
had a terrible night… I woke to the sound of a huge crash at half past two.
It could only have been the sound of someone falling down the stairs… and
then there was silence. I lay awake for two seconds thinking that “er indoors TM” was
laying dead at the bottom of the stairs, and then
she snored. As
I got up to investigate so three dogs moved into the warm spot I’d vacated. I
came downstairs to find absolutely nothing awry (apart from some turds by
the back door where someone had tried to get outside but met a locked door).
What could that crash have been? I
then lay awake for over an hour. I eventually nodded off only to wake in a
cold sweat following a nightmare in which I was in prison for no apparent
reason and was running an illicit bar and toiletry supply shop, and the
inmates were getting rather cross about the poor ale selection and the colour
of the washbags. I
lay awake for another hour before nodding off… only to find myself embroiled
in another nightmare in which I was teaching the trainees at work how to
recognise various stars, planets and constellations only to have the bosses
complaining that these lessons should be done in daylight hours so that
everyone could see what was going on. I
got up, made toast and had a look at the Internet. I had a message from
Facebook. Last week I reported a video in which some chap was getting spiders
to fight each other to the death. Apparently that
doesn’t breach their community standards. There
wasn’t much else happening on-line this morning. I Munzed,
Wordled from “hours” through “chain”,
“wheel” and “theme” to “theft”, then got ready for the
off. I
took the dogs up to the woods where the car park was very empty – there were
only four other cars. Had the fog put people off? It was a very foggy
morning. Although the fog slowly cleared, when we started our walk there was
at best only twenty yards visibility. As
it was so foggy I took the longer route through what is often the muddier
part of the woods in the hope of seeing deer. We didn’t see deer, but I think
I heard a boar snuffling, and we rescued a normal person. At about our
furthest point from the car park we met a young lady with camera and tripod
who sadly asked if I could help her as she’d lost her bearings. She had a
map… but a map is only any use if you know where you are on the map. I put
her right and left her to her photography. And
fifty yards later the path was blocked where a tree had come down. As
we came back to the car park (where there is internet signal) my phone
pinged about a new geocache which was only a mile away and had gone live
whilst we’d been on our walk… and had been found for the first time whilst
we’d been on our walk. Ho hum… With
walk walked we came home. The dogs were surprisingly clean
so we skipped bath. I made us both a cuppa then I had a pootle in the garden.
I topped up the bird feeder, and had a little
look-see. Much of the bigger plants in big pots are sprouting again. The
polyanthus are in flower. One or two of the potted
plants look a bit iffy, but I’ll give them a week or so. Last
weekend we got some seeds and daffodils from the garden centre (the one
that Bailey didn’t crap in). Today I put the daffodils into a plant box
and planted the seeds. The instructions mentioned about keeping them warm so I’ve made a makeshift greenhouse in the back room.
The seeds might sprout; they might not. Time will tell – it always does. As
I did the seeds so I was very conscious of a smell
of tiddle. Was it the dogs? I suspect it might be rats and/or mice going
after the seed the birds spill from the feeders. There’s always been rats and
mice in the back gardens down our road ever since the council
built houses over the back (many years ago). I’ve tried humane
traps which have caught mice… but I’m then left with the dilemma of what to
do with the mice which I’ve caught. I’m too soft to kill them myself, and
when I’ve released them at the far end of the garden, Treacle has then caught
them herself (and eaten them!) I’ve
been onto Amazon and got some peppermint oil jollop the smell of
which is apparently abhorrent to rodents. It might work; it might not. Again,
time will tell. I
came in, had a hot cross bun for dinner and spent an hour marking a trainee’s
essay on bleeding disorders, then cracked on with the ironing. As I ironed I watched episode of “Four In
A Bed” as I do. And it was rather entertaining.
The episodes went from a rather nice hotel in Aberdeen to a posh country club
in the Midlands to a delightful guest house in the Lake District. And every
place had its supposed faults pointed out by some chap running a rather grim
backstreet Blackpool B&B. As
I watched telly so I took ironing out of the washing
machine and put more in. There’s never a dull moment in my life… “er
indoors TM” boiled me up a plate of egg and chips and went out to dinner
with her mates. I wrote
up a little CPD… and then I settled in front of the telly. Today’s been
rather busy. Today was supposed to be a day off. I’m working five of the next
seven days. Just like being full time again… |
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5 March 2026
(Thursday) - Bonus Day At Work
I
had something of a restless night. I have those when I have an alarm set. I
made toast and watched an episode of “Everyone Else Burns” then
sparked up the lap-top. A friend of forty-odd years
was posting photos from Sydney harbour where it was raining. For some reason
it struck me as odd that it would rain in Australia. Presumably it rains in Australia? It rains in other parts of the world. And
I saw that I’d received a “Top Fan Badge” of Facebook’s wire-haired
dachshund page… which isn’t a page that I follow. What was that all about? I
did a YouGov survey, Munzed, set the dishwasher
going and (taking care to let sleeping dogs lie) got ready for work. As
I drove up the motorway’s fast lane (as the other two lanes were filled
with slow-moving lorries) the pundits on the radio were talking about the
UK’s response to what (at the risk of appearing cynical) I can only
describe as the latest war in the Middle East. The UK has sent out some
fighter jets and will send a warship next week. I’m still rather vague about
why the Americans and Israelis started the fight in the first place, and I
can’t help but question the wisdom of getting involved in someone else’s
squabbles. Is
that wrong of me? Pausing
only briefly at Sainsburys for a sandwich I was soon at work. I got there
early and had a cuppa before I started. I also Wordled;
starting with “wanky” if only to see if it would be accepted as a
word. It was. It’s in the dictionary. One lives and
learns. And
with my cuppa downed I cracked on with work. I wasn’t originally supposed to
be in today, but the boss had messaged yesterday and said that they would be
short-handed today. Could I step into the breach? Bearing in mind the
contempt which the management where I used to work showed me, I quite like
being asked to help. At
tea break I had an email. The nice lady at Forestry England had given
permission for my planned geo-meet in Kings Wood. She says we can have a
maximum of twenty-five people. I’d be surprised if we scared up a dozen. I’ve
forwarded her letter to the geo-feds; hopefully they will accept the letter.
If not I’ve still got some time before I give up on
the idea. In any case I’ve still got a few weeks before the website will
allow me to create the web page for the event. I
came home. The Amazon man had been with the anti-rat stuff. They are little
pouches that smell really strongly of antiseptic *Really*
strongly. I’ve put one in place. I’ll give till Saturday and if it hasn’t
rained by then I’ll have a slosh round with some bleach and try another
pouch. “er
indoors TM” boiled up a very good
bit of scoff which we devoured whilst watching the latest episode of “Star
Trek; Starfleet Academy”. I won’t say that it was crap, but the
secret of good sci-fi (or any fiction really) is believable characters…
We’re at the ninth episode and I’m not really warming to any of them… I
want to like the show (after all I’m a Trekkie) but it’s not easy… |
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6 March 2026 (Friday)
- Early Shift
I
was wide awake far earlier than I might have been this morning. Having
Treacle tangled in the CPAP machine’s hose didn’t help. I was reminded of one
of the more simple minded cub scouts at camp one
year who deliberately embroiled himself in a load of tent guy ropes then got
in a total panic because he was stuck… and then did it all again. I
made toast and watched another episode of “Everyone Else Burns” which
again brought back so many memories from my days of crackpot religion, then I
had a look at the Internet. My
Facebook feed featured quite a few photos from yesterday. Yesterday was “World
Book Day” which in theory is a brilliant idea. Sadly
the application leaves something to be desired. You’d think that “World
Book Day” would involve all sorts of events and activities at schools.
Reading out excepts from your favourite book, acting out scenes, discussing
motivations… Sadly
“World Book Day” is all about dressing up as your favourite character.
And if your favourite character is actually from a
cartoon on the telly and not from a book, then who cares? Certainly not the
teachers; most of whom wouldn’t seem to have the faintest idea anyway. I
found myself remembering a particularly vicious squabble from my time in (sadly
long-dead) organised Star Trek fandom in which people who couldn’t be
bothered to read a book would use the phrase “graphic novel” where
everyone else would use the phrase “comic”. I
wandered off down the road to find my car. Despite it being a Friday there
were absolutely no signs of the bin men being about. The bins hadn't been
emptied and hadn’t been left completely blocking the pavement, and no one was
shouting swear words. Perhaps they've turned over a new leaf... or got the
hump and weren't coming? I
drove round to Sainsburys to get petrol and a sandwich. Being at the Ashford
Sainsburys petrol station at half past six means that you get a very limited
choice of sandwiches. Basically it's yesterday's
leftovers or go without. Which is more than you get at the Aylesford
Sainsbury petrol station who ding out their sarnies every evening and
there's absolutely nothing to be had until they fill the shelves at some
point in the mid-morning. I
had the choice of a dozen sandwiches left from yesterday. I got the ham and
cheese one for the simple reason that it was the only one that didn't feature
bacon. Eleven of the twelve leftover sandwiches had bacon in them. I've never
understood why bacon is so popular and have always felt that the stuff is
over-rated. It wouldn't bother me if I never had bacon ever again. Clearly I'm not alone in thinking that. I
got my petrol and set off to work. As I drove the pundits on the radio were
talking about the war in the Middle East. Perhaps I'm being cynical in
thinking this is just the latest chapter in an ongoing and never-ending
conflict. This morning there was talk about how Iran is now launching attacks
on Saudi Arabia and Qatar for seemingly no other reason than that it could. I
couldn't help but wonder if Prince Andrew has redeemed himself and the Gaza
and Ukrainian situations are now totally resolved as all of
those topics were headline news a few days ago but
none warranted a mention today. I
got to work and made myself a cuppa and did Wordle before I started.
Yesterday I started Wordle with "wanky" if only to see if
the word would be accepted. It was, and so today I started with "shite"
which was also allowed. And I had an email. The geo-feds were happy with the
letter of permission I'd got from Forestry England, so we are all circuits go
for a Midsummer's Eve picnic... Work
was work; being on the early it was still light when I got home. Raining, but
still light. I made the most of the light and the rain by chucking a couple
of buckets of diluted bleach round where I’d smelled mouse and rat wee the
other day. Having given the area a bit of a dousing the rain would wash it
clean… and hopefully Bailey won’t be quite so obsessed with hunting round the
area. “er indoors TM” boiled up chicken and
chips which we scoffed whilst watching Danny Dyer’s
Caravan Park which is amazingly entertaining, and then a couple
of episodes of “Motherland”. I’ve
worked two days on the trot… I’m worn out. |
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7 March 2026
(Saturday) - Dog Club, Games Night
As
I scoffed my toast I rolled my eyes as I saw a post
on Facebook. Someone was complaining about how someone else (with learning
disabilities) was getting loads of abuse on one of the geocaching pages. I
first saw this sort of behaviour forty years ago when Star Trek fandom was
organised through fan-run magazines in which the cowardly would lash out at
people to whom they wouldn’t even have the courage to look at if they met in
person. And now the Internet has sadly given free rein to this sort of
person. Geocaching, ponds, tropical fish, Sci-fi, local groups… some people
really refuse to be civil if they feel they can get away with being nasty. And
there were several people on one of the local Facebook pages queuing up to
demonstrate their ignorance. I don’t mean that quite as nastily as it sounds,
but it bothers me that so many people go on-line and rant about the perceived
failings of the local council, and then vote on its
composition despite being obviously unaware of what the council does and what
it is actually responsible for. But
that’s people though, isn’t it? I can remember outcry from my days as a god-botherer when some evangelical chap announced that
communism was the closest political thing to Jesus’s teachings. After a *lot*
of nastiness it turned out that maybe one church-goer
in a hundred actually knew what communism was (in
theory) all about. I
had some emails… there’s minor issues with some of my geocaches in Kings
Wood. That’s Monday’s walk planned. I
Munzed,
and started Wordle with “dicks” (which didn’t help me at all).
“Pleat” gave me an “e” (in the wrong place), and “boner”
gave me an “o”. “Gouge” helped quite a bit. “Vouge” gave
the game away. The answer was “vogue” which I’d spelt wrong on the
fifth attempt. Steve
was on the radio. This morning’s “Guess the Lyrics” competition was “The
night is young and full of possibilities”. No? I had no idea either. It
was Anita Ward – “Ring My Bell”. I can remember that song coming out;
I quite liked it. Was it really forty-seven years ago in 1979? We
got ready for the morning. We’d hoped to leave a few minutes early as I’d
parked miles away. We got to Dog Club and had a rather good time. We humped
and wallowed in mud and chased about and shared treats and generally ran
riot. For all that there were several regulars not along, I counted fourteen
dogs. As
we drove home Steve was doing the Mystery Year competition on the radio. “Absolute
Beginners” from David Bowie and “Touch Me” from Samantha Fox?
1986. The
dogs had a bath, we had a cuppa, then I went into the garden. Last week I got
new ultra-violet bulbs for the pond filters. I got them into place and turned
the pumps on. I then scraped the dead plants out of the floating baskets in
the big pond. They took some scraping. I wrote up some CPD, then had a
brainwave and went out to that which I’d dinged out of the pond earlier and
salvaged a couple of pond plant pots. I
drove over to Dobbies to get three pond plants to
put into the floating baskets. I’d had an idea that if I bought a tub of
three plants I could split the plants and use the
plant pots I’d salvaged… it was actually ten quid
cheaper to buy three individual plants (each of which came with its own
pot) rather than to buy a tub of three and re-pot them. I
came home where I had a Belgian bun, then put my new plants into place and
chucked some blanket weed treatment into the little pond. We
moved stuff around on the living room shelves and the mantlepiece and “er indoors TM” managed to destroy the Logo Bonsai tree so I spent the afternoon
totally rebuilding it. Chris
came round with the big Infinity table, and Steve soon joined us. It was a
shame that Sarah was poorly but four of us played “Game of Life” (I
came third), “Trouble” (I won!!), “Sorry” (I came
third) and “Ticket to Ride” (I came last). Hopefully there
will be five of us for next time. Treacle
has been in an odd mood all evening… I shall keep an eye on her. I’ve
got to go to work in the morning… |
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8 March 2026 (Sunday)
- Early Shift
I
slept reasonably well up till half past four. After laying
awake for a bit I got up and noticed that the lights were on in not-so-nice-next-door.
I often wonder if she runs on Japanese time; over the winter I’ve often
noticed downstairs in darkness and the bedroom light on in the early evening,
and there’s always lights on at five o’clock in the morning. I
made toast and scoffed it whilst watching an episode of “Everyone Else
Burns”, then had a little look at the Internet. Apart from having reached
our first Munzee goal this month, not much had changed since last night. I
got dressed and set off to work. It
was very foggy this morning. I felt it was far too foggy to drive through Bethersden like a lunatic with no regard for speed
limits, safety, other road users or pedestrians, but one idiot from a local
paving company obviously disagreed with me. As I have said before,
driving like an idiot is best done in unmarked cars. As
I drove I listened to the pundits on the radio who were talking about pedestrianism which was very
popular in the nineteenth century when those with too much money would pit
their lackeys against those of their mates in long distance walking races.
Some poor footmen would be expected to walk from London to York (and back)
as quickly as they possibly could, with silly amounts of money being wagered
on them. Apparently it became quite popular as a
spectator sport with thousands of people turning out to watch. I expect it
was all very entertaining all the time it is someone else doing the walking.
It was claimed that the four hundred miles from London to York and back was usually covered in about six days... four
miles round the woods in an hour or so is quite enough for me. This
was followed by an interview with some chap who claimed to regularly run over
a hundred miles in twenty-four hours. I thought that was a tad excessive, but
that is apparently only half the world record distance in that time
period. After
this was the farming program which featured a farm in the West Country which
was run by a cheesemonger who had started up a charcuterie. No? - I had no
idea what a charcuterie was either. Apparently
it's a posh butcher's shop. From
the way that they were speaking on the radio I got the impression that they
felt everyone would know what a charcuterie was. Well, I didn't and I've
learned something. And as I always say, a day when you learn nothing is
a day wasted I
took a slightly different journey to work this morning. I drove through
Pembury in the hope of finding a shop that might be open from where I might
get lunch. When I'm working at Maidstone at the weekends
I always go to the works canteen, but when at Pembury... let's just say the
canteen is not as good. I
found a corner shop that was open, got a
sandwich and drove on to the early shift and did my bit. It was a rather busy
bit as well, involving a Red Alert. And from personal experience I can
confidently assure my loyal readers that Red Alerts are nowhere near as much
fun as Captain Kirk would have you believe. During
a lull in proceedings I Wordled.
I'm testing the limits of Wordle at the moment... it
wouldn't accept "farty", but it was quite happy with "farts";
presumably because "farts" didn't contain a single letter of
today's word whereas "farty" did. And when the late shift
rolled in I slipped off for lunch and scoffed my
sandwich which wasn't bad... though I was surprised that it had a "best
before" date of the twenty-fourth. How can a sandwich be good
for two weeks? I
came home to find Treacle was back to her old self. She’d had some raw turnip
a day or so ago and during the day she’d sicked up several very hard lumps of
undigested raw turnip. She’ll have it boiled from here on it. With
her on the mend and the fish ponds up and running again I commented that I
was going to “FEED THE FISH!!” and there was quite a stampede to the
pond. The dogs go mad for the rice flakes that the fish get. “er
indoors TM” boiled up lamb chops which we scoffed whilst
watching the final of “The Floor” then more episodes
of “Motherland”. I’m thinking about an early night – I’m
worn out. |
|
9 March 2026 (Monday)
- Rostered Day Off
All
the lights were on next door when I went to the loo just before five o’clock.
I went back to bed, and got up at eight. I
made toast and sent out birthday wishes to the four Facebook friends having
birthdays, then had a little look-see to find out if I’d missed much
overnight. I hadn’t really. Someone who’d never once taken the trouble to
hide a geocache of their own was on one of the Facebook geocaching pages
moaning about how people only ever put out small hides these days. I wrote a
reply… and deleted it. I couldn’t be bothered to argue. But this is the way
of the world isn’t it. No matter what the hobby (geocaching, astronomy,
keeping snakes, kite-flying, sci-fi fandom, scouting, dogs…) no one ever says “why don’t we…”. It is always “why don’t
you…” I
took the dogs out. We walked down the road to the car… then I remembered that
I’d parked it up the road. We
drove up to the woods where it was very foggy. As we walked Morgan marched
off in front as he does. He stopped at a corner and started growling. I
looked round the corner and saw some woman pinning a red setter to the
ground. This woman was constantly asking “are they all right” whilst
glancing at Morgan and Bailey. I assured her that they were, and she got up.
Her dog gave me a look of total embarrassment and walked
past. What was that all about? Our
walk today was one that was spelled out by our recent emails. We’d had
reports that four of the geocaches I’d hidden in the woods were missing, so I
planned a walk which would visit each of them. One was missing; three were
where they were supposed to be. As
we walked we saw some horses about a hundred yards
in front of us. I was rather pleased that the dogs saw them and ignored them. I
lost the dogs in the fog a few times, but each time they came back when I
whistled. And
we found a rather nice woolly hat. I put it on a waymarker
post so hopefully the owner will see it. But if it is still there on our next
walk, I’m having it. After
either six miles (according to my phone) or six and three quarter
miles (according to my watch) we got back to the car. We
came home for a cuppa, and with that guzzled I voomed
round the garden with the lawnmower. You forget just how fast a lawn can
grow. I
wanted to crack in in the garden, but the bugs are still (mostly) hibernating and I didn’t want to disturb them. And I’d
already done six miles round the woods and mowed the lawn. It’s rather easy
to overdo it and end up aching for a week, so I settled in front of the telly
and watched episode of “Four In A Bed” in which everyone started off being all
buddy-buddy but fell out quite spectacularly at the end. I
spent a little while playing with ChatGPT… I’m only allowed a few photos each
day (because I’m mean and have the free version). I’ve created a little album of the better
photos I’ve made over the last few days and weeks. I’m quite pleased with
what it can do. “er
indoors TM” boiled up pizza and
chips then went off bowling. I sparked up Netflix and started watching a
film. “Stripes”
was something of a disappointment… I’m sure I can remember it being much
better. I turned it off half-way through. It hasn’t stood the test of
time. |
|
10 March 2026
(Tuesday) - Early Shift
With
an alarm set I didn’t sleep well. I woke before two o’clock and then dozed
for fifteen minutes at a time at most. I gave up and got up at five o’clock
and watched the last episode of “Everyone Else Burns” in which our
heroes finally saw through the utter bollox that was the cult which had held
them captive for years… I
suppose that show worked really well for me because
I was once a religious crackpot; I wonder how everyone else related to it? I
wonder what I might watch next? I
sparked up my lap-top and had a little look at the Internet. Not much had
happened overnight so I got ready for work. When
we came home from the woods yesterday I'd managed to
park outside the house, so I didn't have to walk the streets trying to find
where I'd left the car this morning. As
I drove to work the pundits on the radio were talking about the ongoing war
in the Middle East. Apparently Donald Trump made
some speech yesterday which has calmed the markets and oil prices have
dropped quite a bit from the prices they were at yesterday. Personally I find nothing that bloke says as being
calming, but what do I know? The pundits on the radio were interviewing
various windbags all of whom were predicting rising inflation and fuel
prices... which is odd as yesterday's post brought a letter from the energy
company saying my combined leccie and gas bill was
going down by a tenner a month. And that was following me having had the
heating on a lot more over the last few months because it was winter. More and more I find myself
utterly bemused by the world I'm in. I
stopped off in Sainsburys to get a sandwich. I eventually got one; some idiot
was standing right in front of the fridge in everyone's way,
and seemed to have gone into some sort of trance. He seemed to be
genuinely surprised when he came to and saw half a dozen people waiting for
him to get out of the way. Again the tills were all closed. The
miserable harridan who often glares at the people using the self-service
tills wasn't there today, but there were a few members of staff (who could
have been on the tills) laughing and joking with each other. Again I emptied a pocket full of loose change into the
self-service machine, but it's not the same without the sour faced old bat so
obviously taking offence at my doing so. It was only as I walked out that I
remembered that I should have got some tennis balls for Dog Club. I
went into work where I had a rather busy day. Things started badly with a Red
Alert (that's two this week and it is only Tuesday!), and the day just
went on from there. But
an early start made for an early finish. “er indoors TM” boiled
up a rather good chicken curry which we washed down with a bottle of cabernet
sauvignon. A red bottle. I’ve had the white stuff before and not been
impressed, but the red stuff was rather good. AS we scoffed and swilled we
watched some episodes of “Motherland”
which were rather good. We’re now watching episodes of “Clarkson’s Farm”
which aren’t. |
|
11 March 2026
(Wednesday) - Another Early Shift
Again with an alarm set I
had a rather bad night and was again up far too early. I made toast and
started something new on Netflix. I’ve only seen the first episode, but “Vladimir” seems to be
entertaining enough. Unlike many other shows the episodes are only half an
hour long which stops my attention wandering. I then had a little look at the Internet.
There was consternation on one of the geocaching pages as the people at
geo-HQ have finally realised that there is software you can use to make your
phone think you are half-way across the world and so allows you to cheat at a
location-based game. And having realised this they are making moves to stop
people cheating. Moves than an IT-proficient company would have made year
ago. It never fails to amaze me just how IT-illiterate geocaching is when you
bear in mind just how high-tech the hobby would seem to be. As I'd watched telly I'd heard the rain
on the window. The rain had pretty much stopped by the time I left home. I'd
made a point of remembering where I'd parked last night and so knew where my
car was. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the ongoing
war in the Middle East. HMS Dragon has finally been dispatched but won't get
there for a week. Apparently its role is to defend
an RAF base which has already been bombed. There was also talk about how the Iranians
have closed the Strait of Hormuz even though
Donald Trump says they can't, and if they try to he will kick ass. Meanwhile the annual world watercress eating
competition has been won for the seventeenth time by someone who can't stand the stuff. I stopped off at Sainsburys to get a
sandwich. In a novel break with tradition I got beef
and horseradish rather than coronation chicken because the sign on the shelf
said it was forty pence cheaper. It was a shame that the sign hadn't told the
till. I thought about kicking off, but the staff there are troublesome at the
best of times so I thought it best not to cause a
fuss. On the plus side I got some tennis balls for Dog Club. I went in to work and did my bit. During tea
break I had a message from home; apparently Morgan had been caught chewing on
a contact lens. We're not sure where he got it from; I find it best not to
ask in those situations. Another early start made for another early
finish, and this evening I got home far faster than I did yesterday. Once home I had a little kip until “er indoors TM” boiled
up pie and chips which we scoffed whilst watching more “Motherland”.
I’d forgotten that Debbie The Chosen One had played the “council mother”. I’ve been on the go for eighteen hours… and
I’ve done so little of note today. |
|
12 March 2026
(Thursday) - Home Alone
With
no alarm set I had a decent night. I slept through till nearly seven o’clock.
I got up, made toast and had a look at the Internet. Last night I’d been
looking at bottles of stout on Amazon; this morning my Facebook feed was
filled with adverts for beer and posts from pub-related Facebook pages. It would seem that a pint of stout is over ten quid in
some of the pubs in London. More and more, a pub is
a luxury beyond the pockets of most people. I
took the dogs out. As we drove the pundits on the radio were interviewing
some politician or other. The person and the topic of the interview were
irrelevant as it just went the same way of every political interview.
Something scandalous had happened, and some government minister agreed to go
on national radio to be interviewed about the matter only to evade every
question asked of them. Why go on the radio at all if all you are going to do
is effectively make yourself and your chosen party look bad? We
got to the woods an hour earlier than usual and the car park was a lot busier
than it is at nine o’clock. We set off on our walk and soon met two normal
people having an argument. Their dogs were playing, but clearly these people
didn’t know what dog play looked like, and both were shouting at the other to
call their dog away. Morgan and Bailey joining in probably didn’t help
matters at all, but they came away when I called them. We walked off leaving
the normal people arguing and the dogs playing. Apart
from that, the walk was rather uneventful. We went round four and a bit miles and came back to the car when I noticed the fox
poo smeared all up Bailey’s back. Up to that point
I’d hoped we might not have needed a bath when we got home. We
came home and had that bath. I put a load of washing in to
scrub, made myself a cuppa and Munzed. Then I had a
little look at Wordle. Bearing in mind the state Bailey had been in earlier I
started with “turds” which gave me an “s” in the wrong place.
Following on from that I tried “shite” which was a mistake as I
already knew the “t” wasn’t there, but it told me where the “s”
went. “Spell” got me almost there, and “smell” did the trick. We
then had a minor commotion as “My Boy TM” came to visit. He returned the pressure-washer he’d borrowed at
the weekend and helped me take the shingle-patterned liner off
of the pond’s bog filter. The stuff never
looked right. I really want to get some sort of waterproof lino-type stuff with a dark rock pattern, but I just
can’t find any. I played with ChatGPT some
more, and wrote up some CPD until
the washing machine finished. I ironed shirts, then voomed
round with the Hoover, dinged out the recycling, sorted out the event page
for my planned midsummer’s eve picnic and generally tidied up. As I fiddled around I watched “Vladimir” on
Netflix. It was a rather good show about a couple of aging university
professors who had an “open marriage” in which they both carried on porking whoever they fancied. I found myself reminded of
a chap with whom I used to work who could never keep it inside his trousers. With
the dogs snoring I loudly announced that I was going to “FEED THE FISH”.
That caused some minor mayhem. “er
indoors TM” came home from a day at the office. Pogo came with her – he’s having a
little holiday with us. We had a pasta bake for tea whilst watching the last
episode of the current season of “Starfleet
Academy”. There’s going to be another season next year; it’s got
another chance… As long as there’s been spin-offs of Star Trek (since
the animated series in 1973) I’ve been whinging
about those who don’t like the spin-offs… and here I am now one of those I
used to whinge about. |
|
13 March 2026
(Friday) - A Day's Leave
I slept far better than I thought I might;
Pogo was quiet last night and didn’t starfish across the bed. He’s quite a
lump and can take up space. I smiled as I scoffed toast. The geo-feds
have looked at my plans for the midsummer’s eve event and given it the
thumbs-up. Because of the rules they can’t make the thing live for a week or
so; apparently events can only be published three months or less in advance.
Oh well… at least all is in order. There was someone on one of the local
Facebook groups asking for recommendations for a decent vet. This question
comes up all the time, and every vet within twenty miles get praise and
criticism. When looking for a vet people seem to forget two important points.
Firstly vets are regularly inspected by the Royal
College of Veterinary Surgeons and the government and any which aren’t any
good are closed down. And secondly vets aren’t the
NHS which is free. They are businesses which aren’t. Sadly (like going to
the pub) having a pet is fast becoming the province of those who can
afford it. Meanwhile a lost episode of Doctor Who has been found. I Munzed – our
Munzee Clan has reached the second of our monthly goals. I Wordled from “found” through “knave” and “renal”
to “eaten” then had a minor sulk. I’d had the offer to go on a
geocaching outing to London today. Originally I
couldn’t get the day off but I asked on Tuesday and
got the day off… but had forgotten about the geo-outing. By the time I
remembered everyone else would have been on the train. Ho hum… I took the dogs out. As we drove to the
woods Jessie Buckley was on Desert
Island Discs. She sounded to be an interesting person… even though I’d never
heard of her before. We got to the woods and walked four miles. We
saw some horses, but the dogs came back when called, and other than that the
walk was completely uneventful. But it was a *lot* muddier than it had
been yesterday; the overnight rain had seen to that. We came home via the petrol station… bearing
in mind all the doom and gloom on the news about petrol prices the stuff has
only gone up by three pence per litre in the last week. Having said that, it
will probably go through the roof now. We came home for baths. Pogo had been good as
gold up the woods, and whilst he was no trouble at bath time, the bath was definitely crowded with four dogs in it. I made us both a cuppa and then spent a
little while playing with ChatGPT again. It made a good cartoon of the dogs
in the wood and of them playing in mud, but when it came to making pictures
of them in the bath it duplicated the Morgan dog. I asked it to remove one of
them and it removed both. It got it right on the third attempt, but with only
getting five free pictures a day there’s very little scope for cock-up. I spent a few minutes solving geo-puzzles,
then had a little doze on the sofa and woke with a neck ache. I spent the
afternoon (as I so often do) watching episodes of “Four In A Bed” in which (as so
often happens) the most confident contestants ran an utter shambles of a
place and came last. I then announced that it was time to “FEED
THE FISH”. The dogs always like that. Sadly when
I came to top up the fish food I managed to spill
bird seed everywhere, but it didn’t take that long to clear up. “er indoors TM” boiled up fish and
chips which we scoffed whilst watching the latest episode of Danny Dyer’s Caravan Park.
This week he organised the caravan park’s entertainment by wheeling on some
showbiz pals of his. Any doubts I might have had about not wanting a caravan
on Sheppey were firmly killed by watching his eighties night… I’ve always fancied the idea of a caravan or
a camper van… but it’s not practical and if the TV show is anything to go by I’m fast changing my mind. |
|
14 March 2026
(Saturday) - Scadbury Park
I
woke shortly after at four o’clock in a cold sweat following a nightmare in
which I’d been seconded to take over the medical laboratory at my old primary
school which wasn’t making a profit. I wasn’t at all sure that anyone could
make a profit by performing blood tests (for free) on small children,
but what do I know? I
got up at seven o’clock, made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was
still there, and was much the same as ever. This
morning the political squabbles were rather bitter as people who are staunch
Reform and Conservative supporters were now dead against the war in the
Middle East which only a few days ago they’d been
supporting. The reason for their change of heart? – the leaders of
their chosen political partes had changed
their minds. Politics winds me up. So many people choose a political party
and then go along with what that party says rather than forming an opinion of
their own. I
saw my brother was off to see the football. Having driven to Brighton to get
on the coach at some silly hour he was on his way to Sunderland. I
Munzed, got Wordle (ankle) on the fifth
attempt, and strained my brain as Steve did the “Guess the Lyrics”
competition on the radio. “Baby baby, when I lay
with you there’s no place I’d rather be”? No? It was “I Feel For You” by Chaka Khan. If it’s any consolation
I had no idea either. We
drove round to Repton and Dog Club where I wasn’t happy to see that the
people at the later sessions had forgotten to shift last week’s dog poo bag (again).
But other than that we had a (mostly) good
session. It was a shame that Bailey escaped, but apart from that, a couple of
minor quarrels and some humping a good time was had by all. It
probably helped by having all the humans standing in the sun where it was
warmer. For some reason we always seem to stand in the shadows. From
Dog Club we drove off for a little walk. AS we drove Steve was doing the
Mystery Year competition on the radio. When did the SAS storm the QE2? 1972. We
listened to Steve as far as Leeds castle which was where the radio signal
gave out. From there we listened to my MP3 player until we got to Sidcup and Scadbury park. There were geocaching souvenirs for
finding fourteen puzzle geocaches today, and with eighteen in the park, Scadbury seemed to be the place to go to. We’ve
been there before (not that I can remember the place) and I would
certainly go back… but perhaps not at the weekend. It was heaving with normal
people. But for the most part they did their thing and we did ours. It was
only a shame that we dropped Pogo’s lead and had to
back-track a few hundred yards. After
a couple of hours we were back at the car. We’d had
a good walk, and as a geocaching walk I can’t
recommend it highly enough. About as many caches as it would be possible to
get, mostly straightforward finds… I took quite a few photos whilst
we were out. We
took a little diversion on the way home to drop Pogo home after his little
holiday. We met up with his mummy at the playpark where she was having some
time with little Jake. Little Jake isn’t so little anymore; he’s taller than
his grandmother. We’d not seen him for far too long, and after a little ice-breaker with the dogs today we will definitely
meet up again. Soon. We
came home via Repton where I was pleased to see that the dog poo bag had
gone. I don’t know who took it, and (in all honesty) I don’t much care.
It has been sorted and so that is one less thing for me to do. Once
home we had a cuppa. I did the geo-admin to get the e-souvenirs, had the
obligatory go on ChatGPT then went back out to my car. As we’d driven my car
had whinged that the tyre pressures were low so I
pumped them up. I’ve not done that for four months. Is that bad? I never used
to pump up the tyres on previous cars. Partly because they never whinged at
me about low tyre pressure, partly because no one else checks tyre pressures,
but mostly because the nice man in the garage had told me that tyre pressures
are a servicing thing. Was he wrong? We
had a little doze, then got the Infinity table out and played “Ticket to
Ride” pretty much all the way around the world… we had a little drinkie
or two as we played. It was all rather vague by the time the amaretto came
out. I thought I had three bottles of the stuff,,, I
could only find one, |
|
15 March 2026
(Sunday) - Geo-Meet, Maidstone, Telly
I
slept well, but woke just before seven o’clock with
something of a guts ache. I lay there wondering if it was only a fart… I
decided to take no chances and got up. I
made toast and had a look at the Internet as I do. It was much the same as it
ever is. Taking
care not to disturb anyone I got dressed and once I’d scraped the ice off the
car I drove up to Maidstone. There was a breakfast geo-meet today, and there
are some geo-puzzles in the area which involve finding where a particular photos was taken. I thought I might have a
little walk solving those puzzles before the meet. As
I drove the pundits on the radio were interviewing some Christians who live
in a war zone somewhere or other. Rather than seeing the senseless violence
and massacre as being tragic, these crackpots somehow thought it all evidence
of their god’s love. How on Earth did that work? I
almost fell at the first hurdle when I got to Maidstone. The car park I found
wasn’t a RingGo one. It was Apcoa which meant
downloading and setting up their app. Back in the day you could just put some
money into the machine. Nowadays everything has its own individual app, and
you have to waste fifteen minutes setting up
something you will never use again. I’ve seen RingGo everywhere; I’ve never
seen Apcoa anywhere. With
car eventually parked I went for a little wander. I found three of the
locations I was seeking and got the information I needed. Three eluded me
though. I still need to find a ruined church, “the year of the bird” (?) and a church with a square belfry with an
odd turret on one side. Feeling
a bit peckish I thought I might go to where we were having the geo-meet and
have brekkie before everyone else arrived. We were meeting in the local
Wetherspoons… Wetherspoons
aren’t bad in that they are cheap and cheerful and
you know what you are getting… Well… let me rephrase that. Wetherspoons
are bad. OK,
they are cheap (if far from cheerful), and you know what you are
getting… You are getting ignored by the surly and disinterested
schoolchildren who work there, and eventually you will get rather substandard
food not so much served up by them as slapped down in front of you by them.
It’s a sad look-out when they can’t fry an egg, isn’t it. With
a very poor massively over-priced brekkie scoffed everyone else arrived, and
we had a rather good half an hour chatting. It seemed I missed a rather good
walk round London on Friday…but with my mates having walked forty-five
thousand steps I’m rather glad I hadn’t joined them. It
would have been good to have stayed longer, but I had to get home. As
I drove home, heart surgeon Stephen Westaby was on Desert
Island Discs. He was surprisingly interesting. Apparently
he was a very quiet and shy chap until he sustained a serious head injury
after which he was very loud and outgoing. Makes you think, doesn’t it? He
made a very interesting point about the surgical league tables that the
government is so keen on. He doesn’t do that well on those league tables…
because he’s doing open heart surgery on patients who are critically ill.
Comparing him with someone who specialises in ingrowing toenails is hardly
fair, is it? I
got home and “er indoors TM” went
out to a Mother’s Day bash with “My Boy TM” and
his tribe. I took the dogs out. Bearing in mind how many normal people had
been swarming round Scadbury Park yesterday I
decided against Kings Wood today. Instead we walked
round the block. One of my Wherigos had a “did
not find” reported last week. We walked round to it and saw it was where
it was supposed to be. We
came home, and once I’d been round the garden with a bucket gathering turds I got the lawn mower out. After two minutes I turned
the lawn mower off and went and got the turd bucket again. I started mowing;
I went and got the turd bucket again. You’d be amazed at how much dung three
small dogs can generate. I
made myself a cuppa, then had a look at the clues I’d gathered whilst walking
round Maidstone earlier. I came up with some locations which look sensible on
Google street view… I
Munzed, then Wordled. “Music”
gave me nothing, but amazingly “trade” gave me four correct letters in
the correct places, and so with only one possibility I got it on the third
attempt with “grade”. I
then settled underneath a pile of dogs and watched a couple of episodes of “Pride
and Prejudice” until five past three. That was when ChatGPT said that I
could again ask it to make some pictures. I got it to make more dog pictures.
I’ve made quite a few of these… I wonder when the
novelty will wear off. “er
indoors TM” came home with
left-over dinner meat for the dogs and a chocolate éclair for me. Result all round. She sorted a pizza for tea and we watched more of
the TV show about Jon Richardson helping to restore a derelict pub in Yorkshire. For
all that there’s a massive fundraising campaign to do the place up, and loads
of people volunteering to help, I can’t help wonder
why the place closed. The answer has to be something
I’m forever ranting about… Out
of interest I’ve done some sums… The
village where Jon Richardson’s pub is in has (about) one
hundred and sixty-six residents. Last
year (2025) the average UK pub (that didn’t go bust) had a
turnover of ten
thousand pounds per week. So either everyone in the village needs to
spend sixty quid a week in the pub or they need to get loads of tourists in.
But look
on a map – the place is miles from anywhere. I
wish them well… |
|
16 March 2026
(Monday) - New Computer, Dead Squirrel
I
was up far too early this morning. I stood on the scales… my weight is slowly
creeping up again. Back to calorie counting I suppose. I
made toast and coffee and watched another episode of “Pride and Prejudice”
in which Miss Elizabeth Bennett commented “The more I see of the world the
more I am dissatisfied with it”. She’s probably got a point. I
then had a quick look at the Internet. It was still there. There were one or
two things posted from friends and one or two snippets from groups and pages
I follow, but more and more I find my Facebook feed
to be filled with adverts about stuff in which I have absolutely no interest
whatsoever. I
had a quick Munz, then got ready for work. I
drove round to the co-op to get a sandwich. Their meal deal is twenty pence
cheaper than Sainsbury's, but the selection is rather poorer. I shall go to
Sainsbury's next time. As
I drove up the motorway the pundits on the radio were interviewing a retired
general about he situation
in the Middle East. Apparently President Trump is
demanding that his NATO allies should get involved in the war he's started, and is threatening dire consequences for anyone
who doesn't help him out. The general being interviewed seemed to be of the opinion that he would be surprised if anyone
would help Trump out. NATO is supposed to be all about mutual defence; not
jumping in to help so-called allies who've unilaterally picked a fight of
their own making and found that they've bitten off more than they can chew. And
there was talk about oil theft... with the price of oil going through the
roof it would seem that anyone who heats their house
using oil is at risk of having organised gangs turning up and nicking the
stuff. I
got to work. I wasn't supposed to be in today, but I'd offered to do extra
hours this morning to help out testing the new
computer system that we are getting in a few months' time. It didn't help
that the chap who was going to show me what was what with the new system was
off sick, so. I had a Teams session with one of the IT people from Dartford
instead. I’ve got to grips with how the system works. Sort of. I’m having
another go tomorrow. I
came home and took the dogs to the woods. We got to the car park at Kings
Wood just before two o’clock to find there wasn’t any other cars in the car
park. We
walked for just over four miles according to my phone. According to my watch
it was just under five miles. Treacle found a dead squirrel in the first
hundred yards and carried it the whole way. Bailey found some fox poo, and I
went base over apex in the mud. No harm done, but I need to be a tad more
careful. It won’t be that long before I will be too old to have falls. Today’s
route took us past a geocache of mine that two people had reported that they
couldn’t find. I found it - the cache was clearly there… We
came home. Mud was washed from bellies, fox poo was
washed from backs. We fed the fish, and I then made a cuppa for “er indoors TM” and
me, and did us a slice of coffee and walnut cake
each too. I put a load of washing in to scrub and
had a little doze, then “er
indoors TM” went bowling and I
watched more “Pride and Prejudice” in which Mr Wickham meddled with
tradesmen’s daughters. I’m
quite worn out… |
|
17 March 2026
(Tuesday) - Three Years Later...
Being wide awake far too early I watched the
last episode of “Pride and Prejudice” and found myself thinking. In
much of the show getting a letter was a big thing. Sending a letter was the
only way of communicating over any distance. You would take an age composing
a letter, the thing would then be sent and take a couple of days to get where
it was intended to go, and you wouldn’t expect a reply for a week at best. It
is so easy to take today’s instant communication for granted. And talking of instant communication I
sparked up the lap-top. Back in the day I used to
have a newspaper instead which would give me a snapshot of the state of the
world as it had been late the day before. These days the Internet allows
instant updates and the ability to comment and reply… and we just use this to
argue and squabble, This morning’s squabbles were rather
embarrassing. There’s been an outbreak of meningitis locally, and so many people
were posting about it on local Facebook groups seemingly only to demonstrate
their ignorance. Just because one of the victims was of school age doesn’t
mean that schools give you meningitis. Just because people with meningitis
are in hospital doesn’t mean that you can contract meningitis by being in the
hospital’s general vicinity. Vaccinations do *not* cause autism… It bothers me that not only are so many
people so thick, they also clearly take great pride in showing it. As I drove to work so the pundits on the
radio were again talking about the war in the Middle East. They were
interviewing the head honcho of Hays Travel. Can you believe
that holiday bookings for destinations in the Middle East are seriously down?
The obvious question would be who would be so dumb as to book a holiday in a
war zone, but it would seem that quite a few people
have done so, and quite a few aren’t cancelling their arrangements. And Donald Trump has got the arse. Having
slapped financial tariffs on all of his allies and then having been
incredibly rude about them in public, he’s now acting surprised when no one wants to help to put him out
of the hole he’s dug for himself. I popped in to
Sainsburys for a sandwich then went on to work for another day fighting with
the new computer. I say “fighting”; I made rather good progress with
it. Today I was testing out the instruction manual to see if there’s any
areas where the instructions might be bettered. I found a couple. And then I came home. I did have a plan to take the dogs out,
but “er indoors TM” had
taken them round the block earlier. And I’d had to park a ridiculously long
way away from the house. Instead we did “FEED THE
FISH”. I had a little doze, and then I had a
message. Apparently my mum and dad’s old house is
up for sale. Looking at the photos, the chap we sold it to has done a
load of work on it including replacing all the windows and putting in patio
doors, a new kitchen and bathroom, and decorating throughout… with that in
mind , looking at the asking price and comparing that to what we sold it for,
the chap who bought if off us hasn’t made quite the profit you might think he
might have made. |
|
18 March 2026
(Wednesday) - This N That
I
didn’t have the best of nights. The dogs were fidgety and restless and with
an alarm set I spent much of the night looking at the clock as I so often do. I
made toast and had a look at the telly. I started watching a new thing on
Netflix – a documentary about dinosaurs. It was rather good,
but… many years ago when I kept snakes I read up a
lot on reptiles and it would seem that much of what
we know about dinosaurs is really best guesses based
on fossiled bones. But it was a good TV show. I
then had my usual rummage round the Internet. As well as people proudly
showing off their ignorance about meningitis on Facebook there were quite a
few people talking about St Patrick’s Day yesterday. As happens every year no
end of people who’ve never been any closer to the Emerald Isle than the M25
were claiming Irish heritage and professing a love of Guinness. Guinness
boils my piss. It’s not a bad pint, but when you look at just how many dark
beers are readily available in supermarkets, it’s probably at the bottom of
the range for quality. As I’ve said before (endlessly!) Guinness is a
triumph of marketing. It
would seem I missed a geo-meet-up in Frittenden
last night. Whenever I stage a geocaching meet I
make a point of contacting all the hunters of Tupperware within a twenty-mile
radius to let them know and I usually get a decent turn out. Many other
people make the effort to put on a meet but don’t tell anyone… and no one
knows there is a get-together happening. Ho hum… As
I drove to work I listened to the pundits on the
radio spouting their morning nonsense. The Scottish Parliament has thrown out the assisted
dying bill. Apparently the whole idea of letting
terminally ill people choose to pull their own plug is fraught with problems
in that people might feel pressured to pull their own plugs and it would be
better to force people to carry on suffering instead. Can't
see it myself. And
there was an interview with some businesswoman about how there's a new boss at the Disney corporation. When asked about
how this new bloke would affect the company this woman (in between her
hesitation) effectively spoke in a foreign language. She really did say
"erm... meaningless catch-phrase... er...
management buzz-word... erm... more meaningless catch-phrases... um..." and ended by saying
that it was all sixty-forty. Why
do they have these people on the radio? As
I drove I popped in to the co-op
to get a sandwich. I'd not had much luck on Monday
but I wondered if they had just been left with the dregs from the weekend and
they might have been re-stocked by the middle of the week... I got there to
find a woman in co-op uniform standing on a step fiddling about inside the
fridge. They had some sandwiches, but none of the snacks that make up the
meal deal. I asked the woman in the co-op uniform if they had any. She
apologised and said that she didn't work there; she was only doing a
stock-take(!) I
then had a stroke of genius - Waitrose would only be a short diversion
as I drove past Repton... I got there to find the place didn't open for
another hour. I
tried the works branch of M&S. A rather manky sandwich and a rather empty
bag of crisps (and a bottle of water) were up for sale at over two quid more
than Sainsburys were knocking out (rather better) meal deals. I
got something from the hospital's league of friends
shop. I shall go back to Sainsburys next time. Being
on flexible extra hours to help out today I got to
escape earlier than I might usually have done. I came home, and seeing a
rather lovely afternoon I took the dogs out. It was perhaps a tad late for
four miles round Kings Wood so we had two miles
round Orlestone instead. We
got to the car park to find only one space free. I’ve never seen the place so
busy. As we walked into the woods so some chap came
the other way with binoculars and a seriously impressive zoom lens on his
camera. He announced that I must be one of the locals who goes to the woods
all the time, and he apologized. Apparently there
have been several sightings of the large tortoiseshell butterfly in Orlestone
over the last week or so. These things grow to three inches across;
supposedly extinct in the UK, it isn’t extinct any more, and people have travelled
across the country to see them. I didn’t see any myself, but my new-found
friend had seen some and was only too happy to share his photograph. And I was only too
happy to take the credit. In
between exchanging pleasantries with several other butterfly-spotters we had
an episode… Some
idiot woman came past on a pedal bike with two large dogs in tow. One of them
chased Bailey who sprinted off into the woods screaming in terror (like
she does). The idiot woman started laughing but before I could react,
Morgan flew off in pursuit. About two seconds later so idiot woman’s dog came
sprinting back with Morgan in hot pursuit and with a clump of idiot woman’s
dog’s fur in his mouth. I didn’t say anything; I didn’t feel that I needed
to, but in all honesty I don’t think that idiot
woman had noticed anything.. I
whistled to my dogs, and we walked off leaving her and her dogs behind. I
had hoped we wouldn’t have needed a bath when we got home, but (as she
always does) Treacle had wallowed in a swamp in the way back to the car. With
bellies and paws washed we did “FEED THE FISH” and I made us both a
cuppa with a lump of coffee and walnut cake. I then asked ChatGPT to make a picture of Mickey Mouse chairing a business meeting
which I was planning on using for today’s blog photo, but after a few seconds
it told me “We’re so sorry, but the image we created may violate our guardrails
concerning similarity to third-party content”. I suppose it is right… I suppose Mickey Mouse is copyrighted by the
Disney corporation. So I tried to get the picture
above. I got it to make a picture on the fourth
attempt – it kept giving me the reply “We’re so sorry, but the prompt may
violate our content policies”. I’d given it a picture of Bailey and had
asked for a picture of her chasing a butterfly whilst being chased by a big
scary dog herself. Eventually I think I found that the problem was that
ChatGPT doesn’t like the word “scary”. In the week or so that I’ve been
playing with ChatGPT I must admit I’m rather impressed with the
thing. “er
indoors TM” boiled up sausages and chips which we scoffed
whilst watching The Great Pottery Throw Down… I’ve not messed about with clay
since primary school. I wouldn’t mind having another go… |
|
19 March 2026
(Thursday) - Microsoft Copilot
I woke feeling full of energy and ready for
the day… at twenty to two. I then dozed on and off for the rest of the night.
Unlike last night the dogs were settled, but I wasn’t. I got up at five o’clock and watched more of
the Netflix dinosaur documentary. It is very
entertaining but a lot of what it presents as fact can only be speculation at
best… how would anyone know details of the courtship rituals of animals that
went extinct two hundred million years ago? And on a purely personal note, I
might try listening to it before bed rather than after it; Morgan Freeman’s
narration is rather soporific, isn’t it? I had a little look at the Internet as I do.
There was all sorts of bickering about all sorts of
subjects. One argument particularly caught my eye… a day or so I accepted an
invitation to a pubs-related group. It would seem that the
chap who invited me has invited loads of other people in the hope of getting
elected onto the ruling committee of the Campaign
for Real Ale. I was a CAMRA member many years ago. Back then the local branch
was very clearly a little clique of mates with no interest of having anyone
joining in with their little gang. I packed up CAMRA as at the time it was
quite plain that they had no interest in the opinions of their membership. “Pubs
ot the Year” would be voted for by a committee
who would announce the decision after it was made… the committees would
announce their own elections after it had happened. It would seem this sort
of thing is still going on. I got involved years ago, but now… not my circus,
not my monkeys. As I drove to work I
listened to the pundits on the radio who were talking about yesterday's Prime
Minister's question time in the House of Commons. Quite a bit of footage from
it was played on the radio; it sounded as though it had been an utter
debacle. Some MP or other would ask the Prime Minister a question about
something or other. Members of his own party would ask him about his recent
triumphs, and the Prime Minister would thank that person for their question,
and there would be mutual congratulations all round. And then members of
opposition parties would try to embarrass the Prime Minister by asking about
recent balls-ups, and rather than replying about the balls-up in question,
the Prime Minister would then embark on either a personal attack on the
questioner or a more general attack on the questioner's political party, and
drag up all sorts of their historical balls-ups. At no point was anything on any matter ever
seen as a good or bad idea; everything discussed had become a party political matter. This is entirely what is wrong
with politics, isn't it? One party will say "we like cheese and onion
crisps", and no other political party will ever again eat a crisp of
any flavour, let alone cheese and onion. Work was work; again
I was doing extra helping out with the new computer
system. I had a productive morning, but reached a
sensible stopping point so slipped out a tad earlier than I might have done. I came home, bundled up the dogs and took
them to Orlestone which was again heaving with butterfly hunters. I *think*
I might have seen one or two of the large tortoiseshell butterflies. I say *think*;
I’m not sure, but there were very large things fluttering about at the bottom
of the woods. They were the wrong shape and size for birds,
and were changing direction far too rapidly to be a bird. Had it been
at dusk I would have said they were bats, but it was three o’clock in the
afternoon. We came home and did “FEED THE FISH”.
I fiddled about on-line looking at the price of paying for CharGPT… Would I use it enough to warrant seven quid a
month? Only getting five free piccies a day with ChatGPT is a tad
restrictive… but then I realised that Microsoft Copilot does pictures and I
pay for that already… Having spent a few weeks learning ChatGPT I’ve now got
to learn something new, but I’ll (hopefully) be able to do more with
it… |
|
20 March 2026
(Friday) - A Day Off (?)
I
slept through till half past four last night which was something of a result.
And once I’d tiddled I went back to kip and slept
through till after eight o’clock which was even better. I
got up and made toast. Whenever I make toast when it isn’t silly-early the
dogs listen for the sound of the toast popping up then come charging down
needing to immediately go outside. It’s not so bad now that it is getting
warmer outside; I can leave the back door open. But over the winter I have to fart around with them and I get cold toast. “er indoors TM” says
that they don’t do it deliberately (they are only dogs!) but they
really do wait for the toast to pop up every single time. I
had my usual look at the Internet. The local pages were all incensed at the
county council where all of the opposition councillors walked out of some debate
or other when they weren’t getting their own way. Looking at the details of
the mater, they were probably right to do so… but this is how our (so-called)
democracy works, isn’t it. If there is a majority which agrees, then the
minority’s viewpoint doesn’t get a look in. This obviously raises the
questions of who elected the majority, and was that
electorate competent to do so… but no one is asking those questions. And
there was a post on the Dog Club’s Facebook page asking if we only meet on
Saturdays. Maybe someone could tell me where I’m going wrong with that
Facebook page. When you call it up there is a pinned post saying where we
meet, when we meet and how much it costs. But (apart from me posting
photos of the weekly meets) ninety-nine per cent of the posts on that
page are from people (who have never been to Dog Club and will never go)
asking where we meet, when we meet and how much it costs. I
took the dogs up to the woods. Quite often Morgan isn’t keen to go; he’s not
a “morning dog” but he was up for it today. We started our walk and my
heart sank when we met some of the normal people. Some old woman (probably
about five years younger than me!) was having near-hysterics because her
dog had found a dead squirrel and wouldn’t put it down. I suggested that she
just let her dog carry the squirrel. I told her that Treacle often picks up
dead squirrels and carries them for miles, and when we get back to the car she drops it. The old woman didn’t actually
call me a liar, but it was quite plain that she didn’t believe that
anyone would let their dog carry a dead squirrel about. Am
I wrong to let Treacle carry one when she finds one. She clearly enjoys it. We
met a young mother jogging along with her baby in a push chair. She said
she’d not been to the woods before. I explained that if she stayed on the
track she was on it goes in a big circle and after four miles she’d be back
where she’d started from. She seemed keen; I explained the importance of
staying on the track… I hope she didn’t wander off of
it. And
at the furthest point of our walk from the car park
we saw the first bluebells of the year. After
four and a bit miles we were back at the car. We
came home where we didn’t really need a bath (result!) I made us a cuppa and I played with Microsoft Copilot. For nearly
twenty years every blog entry I’ve made had had a picture with it. Photos
I’ve taken are easy enough to get, but it isn’t always so simple if I want
something vaguely related to whatever I’m ranting about. Like today. ChatGPT
was good, but will only allow me five images a day.
Microsoft Copilot seems to have less limitation, but… I suppose I just need
to specify what I want of it. This morning as I walked round the woods I took some photos, and when I got home
I asked Microsoft Copilot to work its magic. You can see the results here. It looks OK, but
that post had one or two issues behind the scenes:
But
it got there in the end. Mostly. Like with ChatGPT’s images, if you look closely you’ll find inaccuracies and errors. But I’m quite
pleased with what I got. Not bad for a first attempt. I
then remembered I hadn’t Munzed or Wordled. Munzing was easy enough; I opened a gold qrate and got another. And then I Wordled.
Bearing in mind what I’d just been doing I started with “image” and
worked through “paint” and “radio” to “oasis”. And
I remembered that I had trainees’ work to mark as well. That took a while. I
put some shirts in to scrub and whilst that scrubbed
I took Treacle and Bailey to the Doggy Dentist Doggy
dentist went well… or as well as it could. Treacle’s
got a chipped back tooth, and Bailey’s teeth needed serious attention. It’s
quite clear that she’s gone off of the chicken’s
feet she gets offered (and turns down) every night. I
shall have to pin them down every evening and get busy with the toothbrush. I
keep saying that. We
came home and I got on with the ironing. Dull, but it needed doing. As I ironed I watched drivel on the UK Gold channel… or U and
Gold as it is now called. I wrote up some CPD, and programmed
Hannah (my GPS unit) for tomorrow. “er
indoors TM” boiled up fish
and chips which we scoffed whilst watching the latest episode of “Danny
Dyer’s Caravan Park”. I’m still in two minds as to whether I want to get
a chalet in Leysdown. And then, starting as we mean to continue, we brushed
the dogs’ teeth. I’ve
had four days at work this week and for all that it was perhaps a bit much (!)
today was hardly restful. And
in closing today I’ll just whinge that my shoulder still hurts. It went
crunch when I took my coat out of my locker at work yesterday, and it’s been really painful ever since. |
|
21 March 2026
(Saturday) - Dog Club, Cat Figurines, Infinity Table
I
woke at three o’clock last night when Morgan was having a nightmare and was
kicking me. I then dozed on and off, finally getting up shortly after six
o’clock. I
stood on the scales. I did that last night just before going to bed. Despite
having had a tiddle (and consequently shifting some weight that way)
I’d put on three pounds overnight. How was that possible? I
made toast and watched more of the Netflix documentary on dinosaurs. It was
interesting, but again a *lot* of what can only be speculation as
passed off as fact. I
then had a little look at the internet. For once there wasn’t much kicking
off. On one of the local groups people were talking about the tattoo shop up
the road which was once an ironmongers. I made the observation “That ironmongers was once the office of UKIP
(or whatever the party was called then)” partly because it was, and partly to see what squabbles would be
made from an innocent and factually correct statement. No one rose to the
bait. Two of the people on my Facebook friends list had
birthdays today. One was an old friend from my days in the Boys Brigade who
I’ve seen once in the last forty years, and the other died five years ago. A local (ish) pub -
the Blacksmith’s Arms – is closing. Being near where I used to work, a group
of us used to go there on a Friday evening after work. Looking back that was thirty years ago. And
I was presented with several posts exhorting the dangers of ChatGPT…
apparently my recent use of AI to generate caricatures will not only make
money for some non-specified mysterious cabal, but
also allow the machines to take over the world. I
Munzed and Wordled and
listened to Steve on the radio. The “Guess the Lyrics” competition had
me stumped. “Back in 68 in a sweaty club before Jimmys machine and a rock
steady rub”. No – It was “Geno” by Dexy’s
Midnight Runners. Some twelve years ago I found a geocache which was
hidden where the video to one of their other songs had been filmed. We
got the dogs (and ourselves) organised and set off to Repton and the
busiest Dog Club of the year (so far). I *think* I counted
nineteen dogs and then four more came into the field. But despite so many
dogs we had a good time. There was no squabbling or fighting or humping. As
we drove down the motorway so Steve was doing the
Mystery Year competition on the radio, When was
construction completed in the Channel Tunnel? 1993. We
drove to Newington where there was a series of geocaches along the bottom of
the Downs. They would give us a good little walk, and finding each one would
qualify us for the latest series of geocaching Treasures. The track was
surprisingly mud-free. We didn’t find one of the geocaches, but we had a good
walk. I had no idea that track was there – we walked for a mile at the end of
which we had a rather good view of the White Horse that is carved into the
hills above Folkestone. And
then we walked back to the car. A two mile walk, and
home by one o’clock… We
came home for cheese on toast. I’d taken some photos at Dog Club and
on our walk so I showed them to the world, and then I had a look in the
garden. I
strimmed the lawn edges and mowed the lawn. I
pulled weeds out of the shingle round the pond and bionically
burned other weeds. I de-bunged the aerator pump in the pond,
and pulled loads of stringy algae out of the small pond, then gave the
small pond another dose of the algae treatment. I
had a look at the area under that back window where Bailey seems to spend a
lot of time hunting. I couldn’t see any rats or mice, or any evidence of
them. But I couldn’t move the boxes out of the way as they looked as though
they are about to collapse. I shall have to have a measure-up and build a
replacement. Bearing in mind I made the old boxes out of scrap wood over ten
years ago, they’ve not done badly. I
gave myself a haircut then had a little sit-down… and woke up half an hour
later when “er indoors TM” asked me to help fetch the shopping in. We
got the Infinity Table out, and I spent the evening having my arse handed to
me on a plate as we played several different versions of “Ticket To Ride”. France, Switzerland, Germany, UK, Asia… I lost
the lot. |
|
22 March 2026
(Sunday) - Geo-Meet
I
did my usual trick of sleeping like a log and then waking full of energy and
raring to go… at five past three. I nodded off but only dozed fitfully after
that. I
gave up trying to sleep and scoffed toast as I watched another episode of the
Netflix documentary about dinosaurs in which two of them did the dirty deed.
I suppose dinosaurs must have done the dirty deed, but did we need it on
Netflix? And
then I had my usual rummage round the Internet. Two friends were having a
birthday today. I sent them the video. There wasn’t much else happening at
half past six on a Sunday morning though. As I rummaged through a dull
internet I could hear not-so-nice-next-door shouting “Hey!
Hey! Hey!” She does some sort of exercises in the morning which involves
this shouting. All the time she’s not bothering the dogs she’s not bothering
me. And
talking of not bothering the dogs, I dressed quietly and set off to work. As
I drove to work I listened to the pundits on the
radio who were talking about religious stuff as they do on a Sunday morning.
There was quite a bit of talk about the investiture of the new Archbishop of
Canterbury. It was repeated several times that the service starts with her
turning up and banging on the door of Canterbury Cathedral, and there was loads of talk about how this is symbolic of how (many
years ago) the new Archbishops would walk down the Pilgrim's Way making a
pilgrimage. It strikes me that she certainly ain't
going to be hiking the hundred and twenty miles from Winchester, so why mess
about pretending that she has? And
there was talk about the Pope. My initial thought was that this current Pope ain't much good; what's he actually
done? And then it turned out he's done quite a bit... according
to Catholic sources. There's a lesson for all of us there... Well - two
lessons. Firstly it would seem
that the news I listen to has chosen not to report on him very much.
And secondly if I do my own research, pretty much everything I am going to
find out is written by someone with a vested interest in writing what they
are writing. It
was very foggy as I drove. And the roads were a worry. There were birds,
squirrels and rabbits charging all over the place, and several dead badgers
on the roadside. I'm quite confident I didn't splat anything, but I did
swerve a few times. Pausing
only briefly a mile or so from the hospital for geo-reasons I soon got to
work and got stuck in. Originally I was down to be
doing the late shift, but I'd rather not do a late shift if I can avoid it.
With no alarm set I certainly sleep better, but I still spend the time before
I have to go to work sulking that I've got to go to
work. And a late shift makes for a rather late finish. My colleague doing the
morning shift was up for a swap, and so was I. And as I’d driven in this morning I remembered that this afternoon there was a
geo-meet. Originally being on the late shift meant I wouldn’t have been able
to get along. But not being on the late shift meat that we could. I
drove home, collected “er indoors TM” and
the dogs and we drove down to the meet. With a little time on our hands we
drove on to Walmer where we found some people trying not to look suspicious
as they had found the geocache we were looking for. From there we drove on
past another geocache… the lid was missing and the
thing was awash, I popped a new logsheet
inside it; the logsheet
having its own container. That will keep it going for a while longer. We
went onto the meet-up. It is always good to catch up with friends. One had
brought her dogs along. Treacle and Bailey were fine with them. Morgan was
better than he has been in the past, so I’m taking that as a result. We
had coffee and cake and the chance to get the co-ordinates of an NFC cache.
NFC caches are rather obscure things. They beam the final location of the
geocache to whatever device you use via Near Field Communication. My Garmin
GPS device does NFC easily. My phone has an app… If you like endless adverts
I can’t recommend that app highly enough. But we got the information we needed, and got the cache too. We
took a circuitous route home via three more geocaches. One in a picnic site,
one near a farm, and one on a cycle path. And with the last one we completed
the latest set of geo-Treasures. That’s
that done for another month… We
came home where the dogs were soon snoring; they’d had quite the adventure
today. And once I’d washed a very good dinner down with a bottle of plonk and
some amaretto I was soon snoring too… |
|
23 March 2026
(Monday) - A Day Off
I woke with a start to the sound of a loud
crash at ten to one this morning. Morgan had got tangled in the hose of my
CPAP machine, got into a panic and bolted, taking the CPAP machine and
bedside clock with him. He was terrified… it was as well he is sent out for a
late night tiddle before bed time. With him eventually settled I slept through
till eight o’clock, got up and made toast. Facebook was the same as ever.
There’s one chap who plagues the geocaching pages on Facebook who was
bemoaning about how nasty everyone else can be, and why doesn’t anyone set up
a Facebook page which is monitored and moderated. Needless to say it was all “why doesn’t someone else” and
comments about “why don’t you do it yourself” were seen as a personal
attack. And there was a post on one of the
work-related Facebook groups from someone in America asking about how to get
compatible blood for transfusion. Reading the posts from American blood
bankers is always interesting. Some of them are state-of-the-art and
up to date on the cutting edge of progress and others (like the one
posting today) ask the most basic and simplistic questions. This
morning’s question really was along the lines of a motorist saying that their
car has stopped going and that they’d heard that good results have been
achieved from putting petrol in the petrol tank, and does anyone have any
experience of this. I went down the road to the dentist. Having
messaged me twice, emailed me four times and phoned me I thought I’d better
not miss the appointments. The dentist had a go, took some X-rays and said I
was good for another six months. And then I went in to the hygienist where I
nearly drowned in the chair. But I came out with a cleaned gob, which must be
a result. With dentist done I took the dogs up to the
woods. We did our usual circuit, and as we walked my birdsong app
detected a red-tailed hawk. That was clever of
it as they aren’t a bird which is native to the UK. Perhaps it had escaped
from somewhere. Like America? Treacle detected some horse poo and ate it,
and Bailey detected some fox poo and had a very good roll in it. Foul
creature! We came home for a bath. I made us both a
cuppa, then I spent a few minutes going through my payslip. We operate a
system where any overtime or extra we work is paid the next month, so it is
quite easy to lose track of where you are and what you’ve been paid. Most
people don’t bother, but I’m incredibly mean and account for every hour and
every penny. Sometimes I spot a mistake in my favour… I went into the garden,
harvested dog dung, then wound out the big waste hose. I stuck
one end at the base of the monkey puzzle tree, attached the other end to the
pond’s pressure filter, and gave the filter a cleaning. Quite a bit of grungy
muck came out. But what is grungy muck to me is rather good to a monkey
puzzle tree. I topped up the bird feeder, then had a
little sit by the pond. It’s definitely coming back
to life. I would have sat there for longer, but after half an hour I got
rather cold so I came back inside and made us both a
cuppa. I wrote up some CPD… I realised I hadn’t
Munzed, so I Munzed. Our
Clan reached the last of our monthly targets today and got all
of our in-game rewards. “er indoors TM” boiled
up pizza and went bowling. I watched the last of the Netflix dinosaur
documentary. What to watch next… |
|
24 March 2026
(Tuesday) - Bit Dull
Having
been awake for most of the night I gave up trying to sleep and got up at half
past four. I made toast, watched an episode of “Derek” on Netflix. It
passed the time. And
with time on my hands I had a look at the monthly
accounts. I wasted quite a bit of time talking to the bank querying some
suspicious activity… Why do so many companies use such stupid names? My
monthly direct debit to the dentist isn’t recorded on my bank account as “dentist”
or anything remotely like that. It comes up as “Tabeo
Plans”. Similarly the monthly bung I give to the
goat sanctuary comes up as “DS16JAN”. Why? I
got the accounts done and accounted for all that I squander each month. As always my accounts are far better than they might be, but
as always I wish I had far more money in there. So
many people I know don’t go through their bank statements every month
accounting for every penny. Am I really as skint as
I think I might be, or am I just mean? As
I drove up the motorway so the pundits on the radio were talking about the
ongoing war in the Middle East. President Trump said that the peace
negotiations were going well; the Iranians said there weren't any peace
negotiations going on. What was that all about? And
there was talk about a report coming out today on the bills charged by vet surgeries. Not that anyone
felt they were overcharging (much!) but there was an interview with
some woman whose dog had a lump. She claimed the UK-based vets had wanted one
thousand six hundred pounds whilst a vet she saw in Italy vet charged her one
hundred and forty quid for the job. I
took a minor diversion to the petrol station at Aylesford's Sainsburys. There
petrol was far too expensive, but was five pence per
litre cheaper than Ashford's. As
I was there I got a sandwich. The Aylesford
Sainsburys petrol station don't stock up on
sandwiches until mid-morning so I had to rough it with the leftovers from
yesterday. I tried smoked salmon with cream cheese; I won't be trying it
again. I
was in on an extra day (doing IT stuff) today so (within reason)
I could do the hours that suited me. So I started
early and finished early. I came home and took the dogs to the woods for a
walk. A week ago the car park at
Orlestone was heaving with people coming from far and wide to see the
no-longer extinct butterfly. I think it’s fair to say that the novelty has
worn off; we got to the car park which last week must have had fifty cars in
it. This afternoon we were the third car. We
had a good walk, but as always in Orlestone the dogs were more adventurous
and less inclined to come when called. It was a shame that Bailey had to
reprise her fox poo episode of yesterday, and that Treacle had to wallow in
the swamp when we were two minutes from the end of our walk. We
came home for a bath. “er indoors TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching
some episodes of “The Other
Bennett Sister”. It’s rather good, but I suspect that unless you
are quite up on what happened in “Pride and Prejudice” a lot
of the story might not make sense. We’ve caught up with the show now, and we’ve got to
wait for the next episode to come out. I’d far rather binge-watch the lot in
a few days rather than spreading it out. I
was up silly-early this morning and I’ve got another early start tomorrow. I
really should have an early night. |
|
25 March 2026
(Wednesday) - Ker-Ching!!!
I
slept far better last night than I did the night before,
but was still wide awake at four o’clock. I gave up trying to sleep (as
I so often do), made toast and watched an episode of “Derek” then
had my usual peer into the Internet. There
was a lot of talk about proposals to move the tank in the Town
Centre. Gifted to the people of Ashford over a hundred years ago there are
suggestions that the tank should be moved to some museum in Dorset…
Supposedly. Everyone was up in arms saying the tank should stay where it is.
The council has said they won’t do anything without a full public
consultation. No one would actually seem to have
made a formal suggestion, but everyone was incensed about what looks to be
baseless rumours. And
I saw a friend was celebrating a tenth wedding anniversary. Is it really ten
years ago? Yes - it was. I
Munzed,
and taking care not to disturb anyone I got ready for work. As
I drove I noticed that a local petrol station was
knocking petrol out at six pence a litre cheaper than it had been a couple of
days ago. I’d seen quite a few angry posts on local Facebook groups naming
the petrol station and threatening never again to buy from those who were
blatantly profiteering… I wonder if this price reduction was the result of a
social media campaign or just market forces in action… after all if you are
going to sell petrol at six pence per litre more than the other local
garages, people are going to go elsewhere. I
headed west-wards to Pembury. This morning the pundits on the radio were
talking about nothing but oil prices. President Trump is apparently still claiming that the peace
negotiations are going well; so well that the Iranians have given him some
big gift (but he was rather vague on the details) Meanwhile the
Iranians are still saying there's no negotiations going on. The sensible
money seems to think that President Trump is wasting time until the US armed
forces get to the Middle East when he will then use them to kick some arse. With
absolutely nothing else being reported on, presumably there's nothing going
on in Gaza, and ex-Prince Andrew hasn't porked
anyone recently? I
stopped off at Tesco to get a sandwich. Their meal deal is ten pence cheaper
than the one in Sainsbury's, but I did have to contend with the young
lads filling the shelves who were rather passive-aggressively swearing at
each other. It also bothered me that rather than having staff operating the
tills, it is all self-service with two or three members of staff standing
watching the customers with obvious contempt. I
got to work early and carried on with the IT testing I’ve been doing
recently. It was perhaps a tad frustrating at times, but it made a change to
my usual routine. I
came home. We did “FEED THE FISH”. “er indoors TM” sorted us a cuppa, and I did a You-Gov
survey about this and that. It gave me two hundred points to my account, and
as that put me over five thousand points
I got to redeem them. I chose to have fifty quid in cash which has already
been transferred to my bank account. You-Gov isn’t the biggest of
earners, but each survey takes about five minutes, and I get fifty quid once
a year or so, which has got to be better than a poke up the bum with a sharp
stick. If any of my loyal readers fancy jumping on this gravy train let me
know; I get points for recommending people (I think). We
had a rather good dinner of enchiladas which we washed down with a bottle of
plonk whilst watching an episode of “Throw Down”. I
might regret the two glasses of amaretto I had for dessert… |
|
26 March 2026
(Thursday) - A Day Off
I
was sleeping like a log when the shouty dog woke me just after half past six.
Someone locally walks a small dog round our roads from time to time. The dog
barks constantly without ever stopping. I wish it wouldn’t. I dozed for a
bit, finally getting up just before eight o’clock when I made toast and had a
look at the internet. I do that every day. Social
media could be such a boon to humanity… There
were two rather spectacular arguments on Facebook this morning… The chap who
I mentioned the other day when he felt he was being victimised on one of the
geocaching Facebook groups has now set up his own group. But rather than
posting sensible comments and questions to his group, he’s been just dashing
out the first thing that comes into his head and pressing send (rather
than re-reading and spell-checking) and not only is he posting
incomprehensible gibberish, he’s also taking offence
when no one understands what he’s going on about. And
there was a rather bitter squabble on one of the fish tank related groups
when someone asked a genuine question. Admittedly a bit of a rather basic
question, but why can’t people just either answer or ignore. Why do people
have to make such supercilious comments? I
Munzed, and Wordled from
“scale” through “merry” and “feted” before coming up
with “befit”. I
got dressed and took the dogs out. We went up to the woods where we had a
rather eventful time. Our walk started well, but Morgan will growl at the
people he sees that he doesn’t know. He seriously resents anyone being in
what he sees as his personal woods. We walked our usual route; at about the
furthest point form the car I saw something move in the distance. It was a
stag with (at least) four does with him. I stood for a good five
minutes trying to get a decent photo. The camera on my phone does its best, but only has a maximum of times ten zoom. The
dogs didn’t see the deer at all. I
saw a few more bluebells then we had a little
episode. I heard screaming. Bailey was chasing a small rabbit. Chasing it
right at Treacle who caught it and shook it hard. In the time it took me to
get to Treacle (about five seconds) she and Bailey were pulling the
rabbit about like an old sock. I got it off of them
and got them on their leads. I hoped the rabbit would hop off… it tried to
crawl away. They’d broken its back. I
did the decent thing for the poor rabbit and dragged the dogs away. Or the
two that needed dragging. Morgan had shown no interest in the whole debacle. After
about four hundred yards the girls stopped trying to pull back to the dead
rabbit. I walked another hundred yards and let them off of
their leads. Bailey went off to see what Morgan was sniffing at; Treacle was
like a bullet from a gun. She totally ignored my calls and ran right back to
where we’d left the dead rabbit. Once she’d got it
she came back. Sort of. She carried the dead rabbit back but wouldn’t get
within a yard of me. She simply wouldn’t let me take it from her. So I let her carry it. The thing was dead and carrying it
wouldn’t hurt anyone. And
then I saw something that made me smile. As a youngster in the Boys Brigade we would load all of our
tents and sleeping bags and kit into our backpacks and go for expeditions. We
met a gaggle of young girls who (oh so politely) asked if I could show
them where they were on their map. I had the same map on my phone (on my
geo-app) so we were able to pinpoint where they
were… about half a mile from the car park where they had started about an
hour previously. But they didn’t seem disheartened at their lack of progress.
They were happy to know where they were, and openly admitted they had no idea
where they were supposed to be going anyway. I
posted some photos of our walk to the internet, and when we got back to the car I got the dogs onto their leads and told Treacle to
drop the rabbit. She’s funny like that; if she’s carrying something she
insists on carrying it, but knows to drop it at the
end of the walk. We did “boot dogs” and I went to stop the “Map My
Walk” app, but the screen on my phone wasn’t working. It’s all very well
having a device that works by touching the screen all the time that the
screen responds to being touched. Pressing the side button, and various
combinations of buttons did nothing. We
came home where it was as well we didn’t need baths.
With my phone still poggered I walked up to the
town. I didn’t drive as with no working phone I had no RingGo app ro pay for parking. Back
in the day there used to be loads of little phone repair shops. Nowadays most
of them have been replaced with nail bars. As I searched for a shop I’d all but decided that I would be coming home with
a new phone which would cost a fortune and need no end of setting up. But
what choice did I have? Without a phone I couldn’t pay for a car park. I use
the phone as a camera and to play various silly games. Its Kindle app means I
can read books without having to carry a library about. It tells me which
birds are singing when I hear birdsong. I can’t pay bills without it, and if
I couldn’t post bollox to Facebook I’d go
stir-crazy. And
I use it to communicate with people too. I
eventually found that the phone shop I’d used before was one of only two that
are still in business. The nice man asked if I’d tried restarting it. I said
I’d tried everything… it turned out that I’d not tried pressing the side
button and the volume down button together. That re-started the phone and all
was well. Pulling the plug and plugging it back in always works – all the
time you know where the plug is. What
a sense of relief… But as the nice man in the shop said, the phone is old. I
got it in March 2021; is it time to get a
new one? I suspect I shall ponder the idea for a day or so, and as soon as I
stop getting adverts for new phones in my Facebook feed
I will forget all about it until it packs up again. I
came home past the corner shop where I got us celebratory almond croissants
for lunch. I
made myself a cuppa and had that croissant whilst cracking on with one or two
little jobs that needed doing… whilst feeling rather relived that I wasn’t
having to set up a new phone. I
told the admin people at work that I’ve just done two days overtime. I
struggled with the FTP uploader for mankybadger.co.uk – Apparently
now I’ve upgraded I need to upload to a new IP address… I would if I could.
In the end I messaged the nice lady to ask for help. Eventually we got it
sorted. I
had a little fight with my NHS app. I’ve now installed a passkey (whatever
that means) I
updated my ever-growing list of passwords – it is as well to have that
somewhere safe *before* my phone dies again. And I cartoon-ised the photos I’d
posted from the woods earlier. Personally I thought
that people would be getting fed up with my obsession with Microsoft CoPilot,
but yesterday at work several people said that they really liked the happy
cartoon pictures I’ve been posting up recently. After
three hours of sitting on my arse I thought I’d better get up. I’d originally
planned to do a tip run today, but what with Ashford’s tip still being closed
that wasn’t an option. I announced that I was going to “FEED THE FISH”.
I had hoped to make the dogs jump up with a start, but they knew that we feed
the pond fish in the late afternoon every day, and they’d all been watching
and waiting. Whilst
I was at it I harvested dog dung. We
had pie and chips for dinner, then sparked up the Infinity Table and played
Chris across the internet… or so we thought. After a while it seemed to us
that Chris had picked up the French version of “Ticket to Ride” really quickly and was very fast at doing his moves. However it seemed to Chris that we were taking forever to
make a move. The connection had dropped and the Table was doing Chris’s moves
for him. But the connection held up for other games. Odd… I’ve
had a good day off… it’s back to work again tomorrow. |
|
27 March 2026
(Friday) - Early Shift
With
an alarm set I didn’t sleep as well as I might. I was up, scoffing toast and
watching an episode of “Derek” by five o’clock, before having a little
root around the internet. It was fairly quiet at
half past five this morning, but there was a little argument. Someone had
made the (patently obvious) statement that out of any twenty people,
no matter how they are judged nine will be above average. Not only did most
people disagree, most people were very happy to
proudly show off their ignorance. I
Munzed. I set the dishwasher going (I forgot
that last night), got dressed and set off to work. As
I drove to work I listened to the radio as I
do. There are calls for the government to apologize for the forced adoptions that happened after the war
when babies were taken away from their mothers simply because the mothers
weren't married. Whilst what happened was obviously wrong, as I've said
before how can anyone apologize for things that happened before they were
born? Are those who were responsible going to be held to account
posthumously? Surely it would be better to look at current forced adoptions
and stop the totally unnecessary ones before any apologies are needed and
sack the people involved. Not that I'm in any way bitter. And
as the doctors prepare to go on strike asking for a twenty-six per cent pay
rise their own union's staff are on strike themselves having been offered a
below inflation rise of less than three per cent. I
suppose (if nothing else) it made a change from listening to the
antics of the demonstrably senile President Trump. I
stopped off at Tesco to get myself a sandwich. The shelf fillers weren't
swearing at each other. Instead some were leaning
against the fridges talking about Lanzarote. Others were talking about how
useless they were at using any form of technology; like so many people they
took pride in being unable to do the simplest things. The staff supposedly
overseeing the self-service checkouts weren't idly chattering though; they
were just glowering at the public as though daring them to ask for help. I
did my bit… I came home through drizzle. Not bad enough that we couldn’t do “FEED
THE FISH” but bad enough to put me off taking the dogs to the woods. It’s
supposed to be chirping up by the morning. Today
has been dull… And
after yesterday's debacle I've made a list of what
I've used my phone for today.
I
knew I used the phone a lot but didn’t realise just how much… I’d be rather
stuck without it. And today I didn’t use the calculator or camera or do any
shopping with it or park my car… |
|
28 March 2026 (Saturday)
- A Rather Good Day
I
slept through till six o’clock this morning, but
woke aching. I ache more and more these days. I came
downstairs to find Morgan in his basket. He said hello and ran upstairs, but
by the time I’d had a shave he was back downstairs again. He looked at me and
looked at the stairs so I went up with him. Treacle
was standing on the edge of the bed glaring at him. He’s scared of Treacle; if she’s on the bed or on a sofa he doesn’t dare
go up. He looked at me again and I lifted him up past Treacle. Once he’s up and
on the same level as Treacle all is fine; it’s just the getting up that is an
issue. I
went back downstairs, made toast and had my usual look at the Internet. For
once it was remarkably quiet. I sent birthday wishes to my nephew’s three
Facebook accounts and then Munzed. I opened a qrate and got a cubimal (as
one does) then Wordled my way from “slept”
through “grout” to “afoot” as no other word would fit. I
wasted twenty minutes trying to work out how to change my status in the works
Whatsapp group to read “The fat bald one”,
and then Steve came on the radio. This morning’s “Guess the Lyrics”
was “Some people work for a living some people work for fun. Girl I just
work for you”. No. I had no idea either. It was Wham – “Everything She
Wants”. We
drove round to Repton and Dog Club where a good time was had by all. He
played chase, we fetched balls, we had treats. All rather simple pleasures,
but we all love it. As
we drove away Steve was doing the Mystery year competition on the radio.
Quite a few songs that I’d not heard, and the question of when did the first
run of Doctor Who end. I knew that was 1989, so why did I say 1990? We
drove up to Chartham for a little walk. As we’d driven home past Chartham
last Sunday so two new geocaches had gone live. Over the week one friend had
gone out and couldn’t find them. And still with no one having logged First to
Find we thought we’d try our luck. The two of them (and another geocache)
would mark out a walk of two miles. We
started badly… Looking for the first cache had us rummaging on a fence just
outside someone’s back door. We gave up and went on with our walk. We went up
through the village and across fields with a rather spectacular view down to
a rusting barn in which there was supposedly a geocache hidden. Having the
farmer standing there watching rather put us off searching. We
walked along the lane to where the next cache was supposedly hidden. Geocache hides
are graded by the hider with a rating from one (rather obvious) to
five (fiendishly difficult). This one had been rated as a two. I
eventually found it; I think a rating of four might have been more
appropriate. But a find is a find. And a First to Find is even better. The
cache was named “FTF can name this cache” so I sent in a suggestion
for a new name… Our
route took us back past the first cache that we’d failed to find earlier. But
having seen the one we did find gave me an idea of what we might be looking
for, and we soon found it. And another First to Find too. And
as an added bonus as we drove home
we stopped near Wye where a bouncing Munzee garden had landed (as they do)
and we Munzed like things possessed until the
garden bounced off to somewhere else in the world. We
came home. According to the forecast the rain was supposed to have started by
the early afternoon. It was rather sunny. As we’d walked
we’d gone past a little shop where we’d got a coffee and walnut cake. We had
some of that with a cuppa and I counted up the
takings form Dog Club. We had twenty-one pounds eighty-six pence. At one
pound fifty per dog, how did that work? I
then spent a little while building the Lego hibiscus that I’d got for
Christmas. I’m quite pleased with it. As I Lego-ed so we had a hailstorm. The
weather forecast wasn’t *that* far out. I
planned a little walk for tomorrow, and then Chris popped round. After the
little hiccup with the internet connection between our Infinity Tables the
other night he thought he’s sort out our router. It
resisted sorting. But
we got out our Table and played all sorts of versions of “Ticket To Ride”. I do like that game… |
|
29 March 2026
(Sunday) - Spring Forward
What
with daylight saving it was nearly two o’clock before I went to bed last
night. Again I popped to the loo while it was still
dark, and again Morgan was on the floor wanting to get onto the bed but
frightened of Treacle who was glaring at him. I lifted him up, and both dogs
settled. I
got up shortly after nine o’clock which wasn’t really quite
the lie-in it might have been. Yesterday that would have been eight o’clock. I
made toast and wondered what the Alexa was playing. We usually ask it to
play Gold Radio which is quite
entertaining. This morning it had decided to play EKR Gold which is some
obscure European station. As
the radio played some rather grim tripe I rummaged round the Internet. It was
much the same as ever. Had no one *really* been out and done anything
yesterday? I’m nosey; I want to see what other people have been up to. I
sent out birthday wishes and had a look at my emails, Some
new geocaches in Willesborough. They will make a
walk for another day. And one in Hastings… Yesterday I whinged about the ones
we found being far more tricky than the instructions
would have had us believe. Another such went out in Hastings today. To
find it you have to go to a given location and using
a special torch look for a message written in paint that only becomes visible
when you shine ultra-violet light on it. This message gives you another
location to go to. You go there and use your phone to scan for a Bluetooth
beacon. You then rummage in the technical data it gives you to get some
information. You then do some sums with these numbers to get the final
location that you are looking for. And this is rated difficulty two (out
of five). There’s film pots stuck under rocks
that have been rated more tricky. I
Munzed, and Wordled. “Rated”
gave me nothing at all. “Clung” did a bit better, and “chuff”
got me over half-way there, and I got it with “chump” on the fourth
attempt. I
set the washing machine going and we took the dogs for a little walk. We’d
looked at the map and seen two sets of geocaching Adventure Labs running
along the canal near Hamstreet, so we walked along
the canal and walked back again. We had one minor episode when some idiot
took exception when Morgan growled at his dog. He got rather abusive and
seemed to take offence that I’d been taking photos of my dogs… he even came
back after the squabble to shout “dickhead” at me (albeit from a
safe distance). After
that, Bailey’s rolling in fox poo and Treacle’s going in the canal were
something of an anticlimax. We
came home where fox poo was washed off. I hung out the laundry on the clothes
horse. I had hoped to stick it on the washing line, but the bright morning
was becoming very overcast, and with rain forecast I didn’t want to bring
laundry in wetter than it had gone out. We
had a cuppa with the last of yesterday’s coffee and walnut cake, then I had a
little look at the geo-map. There’s a meet-up planned in early May near
Wilmington. A drive out, a little geocaching in the village, a hike up the
hill and a picnic with a view… Could be a plan. And
then I went into the garden. A few months ago I had a problem with algae in the fish tank. I popped
six Ramshorn snails in last Christmas and the problem is gone… I started with
six snails; I’ve now got twenty or more. Would they do a similar job in the
small outdoor fish pond… I’ve tried every other
algae cure. I took some of the weed from the fish
tank with some snails on it and dropped it in the
little pond. Will that work? I then had a look at the big pond. The aerating pump
was running very slowly so I took it apart, cleaned it all out, put it back together again and got the thing working
perfectly. Sadly the screwdriver I used to fix it is
now at the bottom of the pond… I need a magnet on a length
of string to get it out. Or a new screwdriver. I
came in and sat on the sofa. I read my Kindle app for a bit… then nodded off
for an hour or so. I hate that. I lay wide awake in bed for hours on end, and
when I am supposed to be awake I’m sparko. Once
awake I marked trainee work for an hour or so. It’s something I can do and
it’s only fair on the trainees that they get feedback on their efforts. I can
remember when I started trying to complete a specialist portfolio of my own
some years ago, and gave up as it was taking about
four months for me to get anything marked. “er
indoors TM” boiled up bangers and mash which we scoffed
whilst watching more “Throw Down”. It made me think - how do you do pottery
as a hobby? The wheel and kiln and drying stuff is going to take up a *lot*
of space. I
wonder if I could clear up the attic room and have a go? |
|
30 March 2026
(Monday) - A Day Off
This
“clocks going forward” nonsense means I sleep a little longer than I
might usually. Last night was a rather good one – I stayed asleep until
nearly eight o’clock. I
made toast and had a look at the Internet. There was a squabble about why
society shouldn’t give anything at all to anyone who needed help… Some people
can be very right-wing and very anti-commie-pinko social mindedness… right up
to the point where they actually need some help
themselves. I blame Margaret Thatcher who taught so many people that a house
was a financial investment rather than something to live in. And
I found out tha the actor who played Young Mr Grace
in “Are You Being Served” and Mr Blewitt in “Dad’s Army” came from my home town of Hastings. I
never knew that. I
Munzed,
and got ready for the off. I
took the dogs up to Kings Wood. As we drove the pundits on the radio were
talking about the Great Strike of 1926. It was rather interesting… so much of
history would seem to have been interesting. Looking back
the history teacher we had at school would seem to have done his level
best to have killed the subject stone dead. His style of teaching was to read
out the text book, and we would write down what he
said. He could have made it interesting, but sadly
didn’t seem to want to do so. We
got to the woods and waked our usual route. With my hiking boots on (rather
than wellies) we went faster than usual with Map My Walk saying I was
doing each mile in less than twenty minutes rather than in about twenty-two (or
so) minutes. Not that it was a race. As
we walked we met three other groups and said hello
nicely. We didn’t roll in anything, didn’t wallow in any swamps, and didn’t
see off any rabbits or squirrels. In many ways an ideal (if dull)
walk. As
we came home I saw that the petrol station up the
road had put up the price of petrol by two pence per litre whilst we’d been
out. We
came home for a cuppa, I put a load of shirts and
undercrackers into the washing machine then I went into the garden. I
gathered a bumper crop of dog turds. How can three small dogs generate so
much dung? I strimmed the lawn’s edges and
mowed the lawn. It’s a shame our lawn looks such a state, but my attempts to
re-seed to with bird seed over the winter have worked to an extent. I might
try that some more next winter; the trouble is that poking each seed in one
by one takes an age. I ran out the hose (now that the hose pipe ban is
over!) and topped up both ponds and watered the plants which are coming
back. The pansies I planted a few weeks ago have come to nothing, but last
year’s polyanthus are blooming. I might well get some more of those. Pansies
and violas are pretty but they don’t seem to last. And
then I packed up and came in. I was worn out, and it was rather cold outside. I
Wordled from “about” via “overt” and
“onset” (even though I knew the “o” wasn’t at the start!) to
get it right with “comet”. I wrote up some CPD. I tumble-dried the
undercrackers, then set about the ironing. As
I ironed I watched episodes of “Four In A Bed” in which everyone
was matey and friends right up until the last episode when the fussiest one
was shown to be running far and away the poorest B&B. I
do far more on a day off than I ever do at work. “er
indoors TM” boiled up pizza then went bowling. I
sparked up Netflix and put on a film I’ve been meaning to watch for ages.
Sadly “Borderlands” was
a load of tripe, and I turned it off half-way through. I’m
going to work tomorrow – for a bit of a rest. Oh
– and today would have been my parents’ sixty-ninth wedding anniversary. |
|
31 March 2026
(Tuesday) - Artificial Intelligence
I
was up early as I always am when there’s an alarm set. I turned the telly on
as I made toast. I always do that because for
some odd reason the SkyQ box takes an age to boot
up in the mornings. As I fiddled in the kitchen so the thing eventually came
on and was playing a teleshopping advert for a cordless pressure washer. I’ve got the exact
same thing in the shed; the advert on telly was misleading (to say the
least). I suppose I should really complain to the advertising standards
people… As
I scoffed toast I watched an episode of “Derek”
and then had my little look at the Internet. It was still there. American
blood bankers were posting to the work-related Facebook pages asking social
media questions that are common knowledge to anyone who has worked for maybe
half an hour in a UK blood bank… I’m sure there must be some competent
American blood bankers but they are clearly making a
point of not sharing their wisdom with their trainees. And
another friend was posting a six-year anniversary of his leaving a toxic
workplace. I worked in one of those… you don’t really realise just how bad a
workplace is until you go somewhere else. I
Munzed,
and got ready for work… in a summer shirt. Now the clocks have gone
forward the winter shirts are back in the cupboard
and the summer shirts have come out. I’m told that most people don’t have
summer and winter shirts. Most people don’t go hunting for Tupperware under
rocks, have Star Trek tattoos and more dogs than sense so I’m again in the
minority. As
I joined the motorway I narrowly avoided being run off the road by a lorry of
the Napolitrans
company. As I've said before it is a bit daft to drive like an
idiot when you've got your company's name emblazoned over what you are
driving. I would complain to their head office, but I doubt they'd take any
notice. As
I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the Artemis mission to
the Moon which is supposedly blasting off tomorrow.
It was mentioned that this should be a big thing for schools as the
astronauts who will be on the first manned mission to Mars will currently be
in those schools. Will
they? I'd
like to think so, but... I can remember getting very excited when the very
same thing was said during the Apollo missions of the early seventies when I
was at school. That sadly came to nothing, didn't it. I can remember a
few years after the Apollos when I was at the secondary school's astronomy
club. Someone asked the physics teacher when he thought the first landing on
Mars would be. The fellow was spot on with his reply. He said it would be
when the Americans got worried that the Russians or Chinese might get there
first. This was in the late seventies, and the teacher said (and was
probably right) that the technology to get to Mars existed back then, but
the financing didn't. I
stopped off in Sainsburys for some supplies for the weekend and a sandwich.
In a novel break with tradition they'd opened one of
the tills operated by a member of their staff. I smiled at the nice lady on
the till. She didn't smile back; her face might have cracked if she had done
so. Oh, she was miserable. I
went on to work and did my bit, and came home again.
Once home I asked Microsoft Copilot to do something. “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” says that the A.I. knows too much about me and I should be
careful what I tell it. So I asked it to make a
caricature of me based on everything it knows about me and it came up with
the photo above on the left. When I asked it how and why it had come up this
picture it told me “I
based the caricature on everything I’ve learned about your creative
preferences and interests. You’ve shown a clear love for cartoon and
caricature art styles, bright, happy moods, and playful, whimsical depictions
of everyday life—especially when they involve pets, nature, or humorous takes
on technology. So,
I imagined you surrounded by the things that spark your curiosity and joy:
fantasy books, gaming dice, pop culture icons, and a touch of tech humor. The scene blends fantasy and sci‑fi elements
with a cozy, creative workspace vibe—reflecting your mix of imagination, humor, and intellect.”. Well…
I like sci-fi and fantasy… but I’m not massively impressed with the Discworld
books. I honestly think “Lord of the Rings” is one of the most
tedious books I’ve ever read, and I’d never heard of “The Wheel Of Time”. I’ve
no real interest in films; most play for too long. Star
Wars is (at best) over-rated. I’ve
not played any dice games for over twenty years. I’m
a dog person, not a cat person. I’ve
absolutely no interest in collecting Bobbleheads. And
the person in the picture looks nothing like me… I
suggested it might try again. It had a go but stopped and told me “It looks like the image request was blocked because the system
interpreted it as potentially involving copyrighted material. That can happen
sometimes even when the request is totally innocent — it’s more of a
protective misfire than anything you did wrong. Here’s
the good news: we can absolutely try again, and I can help you phrase it in a
way that avoids triggering that filter. If
you’d like, you can simply say something like: “Create
a whimsical cartoon caricature of me based on my preferences.” “ So I asked it to “Create a whimsical cartoon
caricature of me based on my preferences”. This
time it came up with the one on the right. It still looks nothing like me,
but there’s a dog in there. And I suppose fox poo features in my life… When
I asked it what prompted it to come up with that picture it replied “the caricature wasn’t meant to be a literal likeness of your face or
body. I don’t actually know what you look like, so I
built the image around your personality and preferences instead. Here’s
what guided it:
It’s
more of a visual caricature of your vibe than your appearance — a portrait of
your interests and energy rather than your face.” I
don’t think A.I. is going to take over the world just yet… |
