1 May 2025 (Thursday) - Perry Wood to Albox Wood

 

 

I woke at three o’clock and put a load of washing in to scrub. Some might think that a strange thing to do in the small hours, but with that in to scrub it was ready to go out on the line when I got up at seven o’clock. Seven o’clock – something of a lie-in these days.

I hung out the washing, then being the first of the month I had a shave with a new razor blade. The things seem to last a month without problems. And then I did my usual scoffing toast whilst peering into the Internet. It was dull; not a lot was happening.

 

The dogs had brekkie, and we set off. First of all to the polling station to put our X for democracy. Voting is hard work. I spend an absolute age trying to determine who will be the best person for the job… take for example the local Green party. The local councillor is hopeless; nothing is her responsibility, everything is somebody else’s problem. But the Green county councillor is brilliant; hard working, and if something isn’t in his remit he will contact the person who can help. So it’s not just voting for a party, it’s knowing which person to vote for.

Reading the literature they put through the door wasn’t much help. The Green party’s fliers said that the current chap has a proven track record but didn’t actually say what he’d done. Reform UK said that we should vote for them as everyone else was crap and wouldn’t send anyone back on the next banana boat. And the Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats didn’t even bother putting a flier through the door.

In the end I decided against Reform UK because their chap said he would stop the boats full of immigrants even though the county council being elected has absolutely no control over the matter.

I decided against the Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats because they didn’t even bother putting a flier through the door.

I went for the Greens as the local chap had answered my emails about trying to sort the floods by Asda.

Will he win? We shall see,

 

We then drove up to Perry Woods. As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how the Ukrainians have struck a deal with America in which they give the Americans all sorts of mineral rights in return for military aid. As the expert being interviewed pointed out, the Ukrainians have pulled a fast one; most of the minerals are in the bits that the Russians have captured so the Americans will be forced to hoik the Russians out before they can actually get anything.

 

We got to Perry Wood and went on a little wander guided by three nearby geocaches. We found two, but not the third. The dogs were a tad wilful, but to be fair to them the place was thick with pheasants which is something of a distraction. There was a minor bit of excitement; someone had put a squirrel box at ground level. The dogs chased a squirrel, and as the poor thing shot int the box so Bailey grabbed it by the back leg. I got her off, but the red mist was up.

We had a good walk though. I took a few photos, but not of the poor squirrel.

 

We came home via Kings Wood. I wanted to see what was going on for the car park to be closed. It looked like the Forestry England people were filling in the pot holes in the car park. And clearly the message about the car park being closed hadn’t got out – there were about a dozen cars parked along the narrow lane outside the car park.

Once home I did the dogs’ monthly flea treatments, and then put the final touches to a Wherigo. Tomorrow marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first ever geocache going live. It’s known as “Blue Switch Day” and I’ve created a Wherigo in honour of the event. I wonder if it will get past the reviewer?

 

I put some shirts in to wash, then popped over the road for a spot of lunch, and with that scoffed I put “Interview with the Vampire” on Netflix and settled in for over an hour’s ironing.

With ironing ironed I then had a pootle in the garden. Generally fiddling about took over an hour, then I wrote up a little CPD, had a cuppa, and went back into the garden where I pootled some more.

 

“er indoors TM” came home from work, cast her vote for democracy, and boiled up some pizza which we scoffed whilst watching “Race Across the World” in which people struggled to make their way through the arse end of China. Much as I loved our Uzbek holiday last year, I’d never dream of doing something like that without a native guide.

 

And as is so often the way on a so-called day off I’ve not stopped, I’ve walked about ten thousand more steps than on a working day, and I’m worn out.

 

 

2 May 2025 (Friday) - Blue Switch Day

 

 

I woke in some pain at half past five this morning. My jaw was rather painful, and my hip was hurting too. But what could I do? I sucked it up and got on with my life. I made toast and peered into a dull Internet. The Wherigo I'd created yesterday went live late last night, but no one had gone near it overnight.

Bearing in mind that today was Blue Switch Day (the twenty-fifty anniversary of GPS being made available to the public) I planned  a little geo-mission to do before work, then set off a tad earlier than usual.

 

I drove round to the co-op which was rather hard work this morning. There were half a dozen builders in the place. One was buying his sandwich; the rest were just blundering about seemingly deliberately getting in everyone else's way. And there was a minor episode when I got to the till. I got my usual lunch for three pounds fifty, and a packet of extra strong mints for eighty-five pence. The woman at the till wanted five quid. I explained to her that three pounds fifty plus eighty-five pence was four pounds thirty-five pence. She said it wasn't. She said it was five pounds because the till said so.  She admitted that it didn't sound right, but who was she to dare to argue with the till?

Eventually her manager got involved. It turns out that you have to buy the meal deal on its own, and buy anything else as a separate transaction as the till isn't up to it. It would seem that it was well known and accepted in co-op circles that buying more than one item at a time was a recipe for disaster.

 

I set off to work. The pundits on the radio were interviewing the head honcho of the British Veterinary Association who had got the arse with a BBC investigation into their fees. Most vet surgeries are ultimately run by big businesses who set the prices, and she felt it unfair that the BBC should be holding the vets responsible for prices that were set by their managers. She implied that if you go to an independent vet you will get it cheaper, but wished the public good luck in finding one of those. It turns out that these days the vets would rather crack on with dealing with sick animals and leave the administration of running the show to someone else. I've had a go at running the show in the past myself; it's not easy and is best left to anyone daft enough to take it on.

 

There was also talk about yesterday's elections in which what were once minority parties would seem to have done rather well. Bearing in mind last year's landslide Labour victory at the General Election it strikes me that all the time the government of the day is struggling, the masses will vote for anyone who tells you they can do better. Actually doing better is easier said than done though. 

 

I stopped off at Lenham and walked up to the chalk cross. There's a virtual geocache there. I took a few photos, got the answers to the questions I needed to find, and got a souvenir for Blue Switch Day and a virtual easter egg too.

And so to work where there wasn't any cake, but there was chocolate pizza. At close on three hundred calories a slice I only had a small bit.

 

Being at work, today was rather dull. Effectively all the excitement was done when I got back to the car after my little walk up to the Lenham cross… at that was at seven o’clock this morning.

 

 

3 May 2025 (Saturday) - Dog Club and Boxley

 

 

In a novel break with tradition I was having a rather good night’s sleep right up to the point where Bailey woke me when she had a nightmare. The poor little thing was having serious night terrors. Eventually she settled but I didn’t really get back to sleep after that.

 

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. Oh, there was gloating and consternation on the local Facebook pages. The election results are in and it has been a landslide victory for Reform UK… Or has it? For all that they came out on top in elections all over the country, did they actually win? Look at the result of our local election. The given figures are rather misleading. The winning candidate *didn’t* win with forty-two per cent of the vote. He won with the support of forty-two per cent of those who could be arsed to go and vote. When you consider those who couldn’t be bothered he actually won with fourteen per cent of the vote.

To be fair, this isn’t news. I ranted much the same piss-poor turnout at the last county council election four years ago.

I must admit that the chap who won locally wasn’t my choice… mainly because he was rather vague about his policies (i.e. didn’t actually say anything about having any). As he said “A promise made is a promise kept” and by promising nothing he was not setting himself up to fail, was he? Mind you it is easy to be sceptical, isn’t it? I shall give him a week or so to settle in and then see where he stands on getting the river Stour dredged.

And as for the new Reform UK county council… who knows. Presumably they will put a stop to the “Operation Brock” stupidity. I shall bide my time and see what they do before condemning them out of hand.

However one thing has occurred to me. A new county council will presumably have its own new agenda and presumably this will come with a budget… one which was set when the council tax bills came through a couple of months ago. Will council tax bills be changing any time soon?

 

The plan for today had vaguely been a trip to London for the big geo-event that was taking place there. But it was only a vague plan, and I soon knocked that on the head when I realized that it would have been a long way to go and a lot of expense. Back in the day I would have organized a mass outing to something like that and a dozen or so of us would have gone along. These days… sadly I really can’t be bothered.

And I must admit to a slight sense of being a tad miffed that I spent so much time on Monday afternoon hurriedly re-writing Wherigos for the organisers of today’s event only to have them not get back to me at all.

 

Instead we went to Dog Club where we had a great time watching the dogs charging round with all of their friends. It is rather difficult to keep track of attendance as the dogs won’t sit still, but I’m sure I counted twenty dogs.

From Dog Club we drove up the motorway. Steve was on the radio; I got the mystery year (1976) and we drove up to Boxley where we met Karl and Tracey. They were doing maintenance on a series of their geocaches and we went along for the walk. Geo-maintenance is a sad necessary evil of geocaching. More and more it is becoming painfully apparent that there are two sorts of people who go geocaching… those who actually hide the things and those who don’t. Those who don’t find it easier to press the “Needs Maintenance” button rather than to sort out broken or missing film pots, and those who hide them spend their time replacing the missing or broken caches up to the point where they say “sod it”. And then those who don’t hide the things get all stressy when they have to drive over an hour to find any new caches because no one can be bothered to put out any new caches.

But this is a rant I’ve done to death.

In any case we had a rather good walk, and a very good three hours in the pub. It was somewhat ironic that after the third pint and just before the second gin & tonic a “Found It” log came in on one of the supposedly missing caches that we were about to replace.

 

I took a few photos whilst we were out, and slept most of the way home.

Once home we scoffed omelets and watched this evening’s episodes of “Doctor Who” which was rather good. This entire season has been rather good.

 

 

4 May 2025 (Sunday) - Late Shift

 

 

Social media wasn’t happy as I scoffed toast this morning. It was as well that I didn’t go to the geocaching extravaganza in London yesterday; it would seem that geocaching dot com was poggered for much of yesterday. There was also a giga-event in Prague with an estimated five thousand people along which was also stuffed by their IT failure. We realised there were issues with it yesterday when we tried to tell it that we’d replaced film pots in Boxley. Not being able to do so was an inconvenience, but nothing from which we couldn’t perk up after a few drinkies. But this morning all the geo-Facebook pages were alive with ranting from people who’d travelled hundreds of miles and spent thousands of pounds effectively to no avail.

There was still a lot of political ranting on local Facebook pages. Those who’d voted Reform were gloating; those who hadn’t were sulking. Personally I look at what Nigel Farage has done and see that over the years he’s been little more than a trouble-maker. Bearing in mind that so many of his supporters were voted in without any actual stated policies, anything might happen. In the meantime the country is ever more divided.

 

With a little time on my hands I cleaned the pond filters. This time I ran the hose from the bigger pond into a watering can. I was surprised at how little water the cleaning process used.

I then mowed the lawn, bionically burned the weeds and generally had a little tidy-up. After an hour or so the garden was looking pretty much the same as it always looks; gardening is such a frustrating pastime.

 

I had a cuppa, then set off. As I drove to work I didn’t bother with the radio. I’d checked before I’d left home. Radio Four had the compilation of all the week’s episodes of “The Archers”, and Radio Four Extra was playing an episode of “Desert Island Discs” from a few years ago featuring David Beckham. Instead I sang along to “Ivor Biggun” songs as I went up the motorway.

The plan for today didn’t have me working, but two people had been taken ill earlier in the week. As I’ve said so many times before, if I had my time again I’d take a job in a place which periodically puts up a “closed” sign.

 

I did my bit; back in the day Sundays were rather quiet days at work. These days the hospital is open for clinics all week long, and I didn’t stop.

Today was rather busy. Dull, but busy.

 

 

5 May 2025 (Monday) - Bank Holiday

 

 

I slept reasonably well but was still awake far too early. I made toast and peered into a dull internet. There was pretty much nothing going on for once.

I sent out birthday wishes to the three friends having birthdays today, and registered an account with Kent County Council to use the tip. Something’s changed on their booking system and if you use the booking system as a guest they now charge you a tenner. That was kept quiet.

I had a flurry of emails – people had been up in Kings Wood yesterday hunting out the geocache I’d hidden there and found loads. Including the one that I had been firmly assured wasn’t there. Ho hum…

I saw our Munzee clan had reached our first monthly goal, which was a result. And I got Wordle on the fourth attempt (shush – what a stupid word).

 

I wrote up some CPD, then spent a little while looking for a USB camera that I could poke into a microscope and plug into my phone. I bought a very cheap one years ago… and lost it.

We took the dogs for a little outing, Munzing as we went. And we picked up a local geocache too and were awarded with a virtual map for our troubles.

 

Once home I had a hot cross bun and played (beat) a chess bot. To be fair it took some beating.

And then we got on with what had been the plan for the day. With the garden tidied the clans gathered and we had a rather good afternoon in the garden. To be honest I’d rather planned an afternoon in the garden with last week’s weather in mind, but we only had to retreat indoors from the rain once. It was a shame that the garden table collapsed under the weight of people sitting on it, but I never liked the thing anyway.

It was really good to catch up with friends, and we shall do so again before too much longer. Hopefully by then it will have warmed up a bit.

Eventually we said our goodbyes, came inside to warm up, and I then had a little sleep for a couple of hours.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up a rather good dinner which we scoffed whilst watching the final episode of “Tempting Fortune” in which those who’d been abstemious and good went home with very little more than those who’d been squandering with reckless abandon.

 

It turned out that today was the Jack in the Green event in Hastings… Had I remembered that it was on I might have gone down to it. But probably wouldn’t have.

 

 

6 May 2025 (Tuesday) - A Day Off

 

 

I probably shouldn’t have had quite such a doze after yesterday’s little get-together in the garden; I was wide awake for much of last night.

The internet was dull this morning. Other than photos of the Mayor-Making ceremony at Rye, seemingly no one had done anything on yesterday’s Bank Holiday. However I was presented with an advert for the Leeds Building Society… out of interest I had a little look-see. I used to have an account with them. Now their nearest branch is nearly fifty miles away.

I made a list of the geo-maintenance that needed doing in Kings Wood, Munzed, got Wordle on the sixth attempt (“suite” but it accepted “shite” as a word), and went to wake everyone else up.

 

With the dogs fed I walked them seemingly miles to where I’d left the car after Sunday’s late shift and we then drove up to the woods. As we drove the pundits on the radio were interviewing Mike Amesbury. The chap was a Labour MP until he got into a fight with a constituent after a night on the sauce, and subsequently went to prison. The chap was quite open about now realizing that he has mental health issues. The interview was quite frank, and quite interesting. And quite sad. Going to prison puts the tin lid on any political career, and he was telling the interviewer how politics was his life; being both his hobby and his job. And now he is at something of a loose end.

 

We got to the woods and went for a little walk. I’d had reports of issues with four of my geocaches. I was reliably assured that two were missing. They weren’t. There were apparently two perfectly good pots at another cache location, and a fourth one was supposedly broken. And, sure enough, there were two pots at one location, and another cache about half a mile further on was broken. So I took the extra cache and put that where the broken one was. Sorted.

As we walked so Treacle was carrying a stick as she does. I thought nothing of it until she dropped it and it didn’t sound right as it hit the ground. I looked – she was carrying another deer bone.

 

We came home. Leaving the dogs with “er indoors TM” I drove down to Folkestone with the garden strimmer and sorted out “Daddies’ Little Angel TM”’s front yard. I loaded the wreckage into the car and set off to the tip… and then realized that because of the stupidity that is booking appointments I had nearly two hours before my allotted time. So I went on a little geo-mission and found a virtual compass, matchbox jeep and sextant.

I was still an hour early at the tip, but the nice tip man wasn’t fussed. There was only one other punter there. And he said I didn’t have to pay. When I’d booked the appointment I’d been told in the confirmation email that I’d have to pay a tenner because the waste I was bringing did not originate from within the Kent administrative area. Even though it did (!)

 

I came home, and spent a few minutes putting away the chairs we’d got out in the garden yesterday. And I had a little look at the garden table. The thing had given a rather worrying wobble yesterday and we’d abandoned it in much the same way that a sailor would abandon a sinking ship. The welds had given up. There are those that are blaming Morgan for tiddling on it, but we only put it up last April. I would have expected more than one year out of it.

We did “Feed The Fish”, wrote up some CPD, and decided not to go out to Rolvenden. Last week “er indoors TM” put some geocaches out there, and she’d had reports of one already being missing. But someone went out today and found it. That saved us an outing.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up a good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching Celebrity Bake Off, and we followed this with Al Murray talking about the Raj… He’s not bald any more…

Like all supposed days off, today was full on. I’m going to work for a rest tomorrow.

 

 

7 May 2025 (Wednesday) - Dull

 

 

This morning as I went about my ablutions I had a minor shock. Banana flavoured toothpaste? The Aquafresh tube didn’t say anything about bananas. Was it banana flavoured? Had it gone off?

I scoffed toast whist watching Netflix drivel, then had a look at the Internet. This morning there was a minor squabble about the wildlife reserve at Dungeness. Are you allowed to take photographs there? There’s rules about filming, but do they only apply to professional operations? Opinions were seriously divided.

 

I set off to work via the petrol station which was surprisingly quiet, then went up the motorway to work listening to the radio as I went. There was something of a theme this morning. There was an interview with (ex) President Biden about how Badly Donald Trump is doing. And there was an interview with someone in the Indian government about their conflict with Pakistan. However I couldn’t understand a word either was saying. One was laid back and incomprehensibly slurring. The other was jabbering rants at two hundred words per minute. Neither should have been allowed to waste prime-time national radio.

 

Today was surprisingly quiet at work. Supposedly teaching a trainee today, we spent much of the time using the on-line simulator. Hospital work is odd; it really is quieter at bank holidays as people take the week off and go away.

 

Yesterday was a day off - rather full-on and busy. Today was on the dull side.

 

 

8 May 2025 (Thursday) - Another Day Off

 

 

I rolled my eyes as I read Facebook this morning. The sci-fi pages were all a-twitter about Craig Cherles’ announcement that he’s read the scripts for the proposed new episodes of “Red Dwarf” and says they are “stunning”. I hope they are, but surely the show has been done to death. The last few “Red Dwarf” specials were flops. John Cleese was right to stop “Fawlty Towers” after twelve episodes. With sixty episodes of “Red Dwarf” is it time to stop?

I didn’t have any emails of note today. I did wonder if the nice people from the geocaching “London Calling” event might have got back to me by now. It’s now ten days since I gave up a bit of time to re-write some Wherigos for them, but the messages they were sending just stopped.

I munzed, got Wordle on the fifth attempt (balmy), put a load of laundry into the washing machine, and got myself and the dogs ready for our walk.

 

As we drove to the woods there was a lot of talk on the radio about today being VE Day. There had been quite a bit on Facebook earlier, and it would seem that various national leaders are going to each other’s celebrations as signs of current political alliances rather than out of any memory about what happened at the time eighty years ago.

Whilst in no way wishing to belittle the occasion, it might have been better if it had all been done in a way to remember the past rather than to create jingoistic nostalgia for an era that never existed. I know several people who still harbour hatred for Germany and the German people because of a war that had been over twenty-five years before they were born. And look at all the refugees that came to Britain during the Second World War. They certainly wouldn’t be welcomed today.

 

We got to the woods and walked straight into “an episode”. As we walked into the woods, so one of the normal people’s dogs ran up to us. Treacle wasn’t interested (she never is) but the little two played with the other dog. And as he does Morgan was growling and grumbling, but it was all part of the play. Nothing that he doesn’t do at Dog Club every week. But the normal person wasn’t happy, and called his dog away. In retrospect I blame the other dog for not coming when called, but carrying on playing as the bloke shouted and shouted. I could see this chap wasn’t happy, so I called my two. And their immediately coming when called did nothing for his mood. Perhaps I should have kept quiet, but when he started glaring at me and mouthing off about “out of control dogs” I politely pointed out whose dogs came when called, and whose didn’t.

The other passing dog walkers gave me sympathetic smiles.

Apart from Bailey rolling in something disgusting and eating a dead bird, the next four miles were relatively uneventful.

 

We came home. Bailey had a scrub in the tub with soap. Back in the day the cubs would say “with soap” whenever they had been on the receiving end of a serious wash. I hung out the washing, and made us both a cuppa. And with “er indoors TM” off to the office I cracked on with the ironing. As I ironed I watched some episodes of “Black Mirror”. Have you seen it? It’s rather good.

 

Seeing the garden waste bin had been emptied I then got the little pressure washer out and scrubbed the bin out. It was on the smelly side. I watered the plants, gave myself a haircut, and then did the “Feed The Fish” ritual with the dogs. Treacle particularly likes doing that.

 

“er indoors TM” returned with Pogo (who was having a sleepover). She boiled up a rather good dinner which we scoffed whilst watching last night’s episode of “Race Across the World”. Last night’s episode saw the team in last place getting the heave-ho. Sadly it wasn’t the team I would have heaved.

 

Oh – and the word is that we’ve got a new Pope. I say “we”…

 

 

9 May 2025 (Friday) - Before Work

 

 

I had an awful night and barely slept at all. I gave up trying to sleep, got up, made toast and was watching more "Black Mirror" on Netflix by five o'clock. Yesterday I watched some rather good episodes of "Black Mirror" on Netflix; this morning's was rather lame and predictable. Quite unlike yesterday's, which was a shame.

As I went to get dressed I tripped over Pogo who had found there was more space on the bedroom floor than on the bed.

 

With quite a bit of spare time this morning I thought I might go for a little geo-walk before work. As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the radio were talking about the trade agreement that the UK and US have struck. I don't pretend to understand it in depth, but some irate American car dealer was wheeled on who was saying that it is now cheaper for him to buy a car which was made in Britain and have it sailed across the Atlantic than it is for him to buy one and drive it down from Canada or up from Mexico. How does that make any sense?

Interestingly there was pretty much no talk at all about the new Pope.

I got to Aylesford and had a little walk. I found a geocache in a tree's bole. I found one on the back of a roadside green electrical box. I found one behind a sign. And I found one tied in a tree. There's a thought... Whenever I hide a geocache and go back to it, it is never where I left it. Someone has always moved it. Maybe only a few feet here or there, but still these things get moved. Perhaps if I cable-tie them in place? As I walked I lost my pen... it didn't take *that* long to back-track and find it where I'd dropped it.

 

From my little walk it was only a short hop to Sainsburys to get a sandwich. I've often said that I have an idiot magnet, and it attracted one when I was at the sandwich fridge. Some half-wit was picking up every sandwich packet and giving them all a good squeeze, and the assembled throng was just watching him. I barged up and loudly announced that I wanted one that the half-wit hadn't crushed. The half-wit looked at me in blank amazement as I snatched a packet of coronation chicken sandwiches out from under his nose. This was an approach which clearly hadn't occurred to the masses, and the sandwich crushing half-wit seemed quite upset when everyone who'd been watching him shoved him out the way to get the last few remaining unmolested sarnies.

I got myself a croissant whilst I was at it. I felt I deserved one after my little walk.

 

I went in to work and made myself a cuppa to have with the croissant, and had a look at the myfitnesspal app. It announced that my croissant was two hundred and thirty calories, but my walk had only used up eighty-two. Ho hum.

I scoffed it anyway.

I then had my morning's look at the Internet. Facebook was rather dull, and I rolled my eyes when I looked at my emails. On Tuesday when in the woods I'd checked up on a geocache of mine which had been reported as missing. Someone had been unable to locate it on three separate occasions recently. This happens periodically... I get messages saying "I can't find it therefore it is missing" to which I can only answer "no one else is having problems finding it". The person who'd failed three times eventually found it yesterday... by going to the right place. I'm not sure what she'd done wrong - if you put the wrong answer into the checker it rejects the wrong answer.... unless you don't actually use the checker.

 

Work was work. I spent time peering down the microscope and saw all sorts of things. My (unmauled) Coronation chicken sandwich was rather good.

I came home via Matalan where I’d hoped to get some new shirts… they didn’t have anything I liked the look of.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up burger and chips which we scoffed whilst watching the first episode of the new series of “Taskmaster”. In a novel break with tradition there’s more contestants that I’ve heard of than I haven’t.

 

Today wasn’t bad… until I got to work.

 

 

10 May 2025 (Saturday) - Geo-Meet

 

 

I had a better night’s sleep, but was still up too early this morning. As I scoffed toast I spent a little while struggling with geo-puzzles in the general vicinity of where we were planning to go today. One particularly gave me grief. To solve the puzzle I need to identify someone who went to Tonbridge school a hundred (or so) years ago, who was married three times and whose father was a wood worker and timber merchant. I kept coming up with the name “Thomas Smythe” but when you then do the next stage of the puzzle this gives you a negative latitude.

I then turned my attention to another puzzle for which I’d convinced myself I needed to identify a road sign or milestone giving the distance to Godstone or Maidstone. After a lot of fighting with Google Street View I gave up and went and got ready for the day.

 

Once “er indoors TM” and the dogs were sorted we drove round to Dog Club. Attendance was down, but over a dozen dogs ran riot as only dogs can. We had a great time.

Rather than coming home, from Dog Club we headed to the motorway and tried not to point and laugh too much at the nice lady walking along the bypass. She clearly had an itchy back and had unceremoniously hoiked up her blouse so that her partner could give her back a good scratching.

As we drove up the motorway Steve was on the radio. I’d got the mystery year right. When did Helen Shaman (the British astronaut) go up? 1991. 

Sadly the radio signal gave out at Harrietsham.

 

We drove up to Seal where we stopped and got in the way of everyone who was preparing for some ballet thing at the village hall where we solved a little geo-puzzle, and from there we took a circuitous route to Sevenoaks Weald where the monthly geo-meet was taking place.

It really was just like old times.

There were several Adventure Lab caches set up across the village green, and as we walked about doing those so we met up with no end of old friends doing the same, and saw quite a few people we’d not seen before who looked like they were ad-labbing too.

We then adjourned to the pub for the meet itself and caught up with old friends and met new friends. Several pints, stilton ploughman’s, and pork scratchings went down very well. And after the fourth pint it was time for more geo-nonsense. We found a puzzle cache; then went up to the nearby church for more ad-labbing, then back to the village green for another ad-lab series we’d missed.

And then we got the news that the motorway was closed.

We came home cross-country and I didn’t sleep the entire way.

I took a few photos whilst we were out.

 

Having had a rather big pub dinner earlier “er indoors TM” only boiled up a small tea. We scoffed it whilst watching this evening’s episode of “Doctor Who”. The last few episodes have been rather good; this evening’s was sadly something of a disappointment.

 

I think I caught the sun whilst we were out earlier. And the fourth pint was arguably a mistake…

Bearing in mind I’ve got to be in work by half past seven in the morning maybe an early night might be a good idea.

 

 

11 May 2025 (Sunday) - Early Shift

 

 

I had an early night and woke feeling full of energy and raring to go – at ten to midnight. I then dozed on and off for much of the night, finally giving up and getting up at half past five. I made toast and peered into the Internet. A colleague was off on international holidays – she’d posted selfies from the airport. I wish more people would do that – I’m very nosey and like seeing what friends are up to.

There was a minor row kicking off on Facebook. Apparently games companies have updated their consoles so that if they detect the use of pirated games, the console automatically permanently deactivates itself.  I can see this being an issue for those using pirated games… perhaps if the things weren’t so expensive in the first place?

 

I Munzed, had a go at Wordle and gave up, and got ready for work.

As I drove to work the radio was playing the farming program. There was a prolonged (twenty minutes) interview with two sisters who farm sheep in the Peak District. Their lives sounded rather interesting, but the farming program is always much the same. They interview someone who runs a farm in the arse end of nowhere who seems to enjoy working every hour of every day come rain or shine whilst barely making ends meet, and what could be said in five minutes is dragged out over twenty. And (without wishing to sound cynical) if you hear one of these interviews you really have heard them all.

Bearing in mind the roads would probably be quiet so early in the morning I turned on the cruise control and drove at a steady seventy miles per hour the entire way from Ashford to Maidstone.  The motorway part of the journey (seventeen miles) took as long as the two non-motorway parts put together (two stretches of two miles each).

 

I got to work and had another look at Wordle, and had another look at Facebook. A good friend had his wedding reception last night. He'd dropped our invitation off with the first fruit of my loins a month ago and (sadly) that's where the invitation had stayed.

Work was rather busy. Back in the day the wards had one hour in the morning to get us any work from in-patients, and the rest of the day was emergency stuff only. These days a Sunday is much like any other day. The blood bank was particularly busy. And I struggled somewhat. I've got a pain in my side - for a week or so it has felt as though someone has kicked me in the ribs. I can't remember doing anything than might have caused an injury - I wonder what that is all about.

 

I could have taken a little diversion on the way home. A new geocache had gone live. I could have chased the First to Find, but I didn’t fancy going ten miles up the A249 to Iwade, and then coming ten miles back down again.

Instead together with “er indoors TM” and the dogs I went for a tittle walk round Orlestone Woods. Orlestone is always the go-to place for a shorter walk; we covered two and a quarter miles in fifty minutes, and as we walked we only saw one other person. The dogs did disappear into a thicket for five minutes, but that’s what dogs do. Dogs also roll in fox poo and wallow in swamps. And dogs get baths when they come home too.

 

We watched the second episode of the new series of “Taskmaster” as we scoffed a rather good chili which we washed down with a very good bottle of plonk which apparently came from the bargain bucket of Aldi.

It pays to shop about.

 

 

12 May 2025 (Monday) - Rather Busy

 

 

I had another restless night, but not as restless as some have been recently. I gave up trying to sleep, made toast and peered into the internet.

I foresee problems at Dog Club… Some woman wants to bring her huge Alsatian to the small dog session because she feels he would be terrified by the bigger dogs at the bigger dog sessions. She wasn’t impressed when I told her that the small dogs at the small dog session would be terrified of her huge Alsatian, and was even less impressed when I told her that we can’t cater for every single dog. She then tried the line that she came to Dog Club years ago when it first started and somehow seemed to think that that gave her seniority over everyone who currently goes, but after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing she says she will come to the later session, but walk round outside the paddock during the earlier sessions (presumably trying to justify why she and her dog should come in).

I’ve tried to be polite with this woman, but much as I like and enjoy Dog Club, sometimes it can be a pain. I’m reminded of the snake club and the Kent-wide sci-fi club and the snake club and the astro club. All of those started so well and ended up as one big argument. I suppose Dog Club is different in that I never asked to take it on; there have never been any elections. I volunteered to open the gate once, and suddenly I’m running the show as a (mostly) benign dictatorship.

 

With the dogs having had their brekkie we went out. As I drove there was an interview with Ruth Jones (Nessa out of Gavin and Stacey) on the radio. She was very interesting, and didn’t sound at all like her Nessa character.

This was followed by live footage from the Prime Minister’s speech in which he plans to put a stop to the uncontrolled immigration. This speech was then discussed with one of the head honchos of Reform UK who, like everyone connected with Reform UK, spoke a lot of what sounded like sense until you actually gave it any thought. For example what do you do if you advertise a job and not a single UK resident applies for it? This is something I had when I used to advertise jobs, and something that care home manager in Cornwall were asking about this morning. Sadly the chap being interviewed refused to answer this point.

 

We got to the woods and had a good walk. We mostly walked what has become our usual circuit, but we did walk a path that went up over one of the hills. We’ve seen this path from the bottom of the hill, but never walked up it before. It was rather pretty up the top.

We walked nearly four and a half miles, and as we went we only saw two other dog walkers.

 

Once home I made us both a cuppa, then cracked on in the garden. Last weekend the garden table had crunched, so I took it down and moved it out of the way. Hopefully the nice man from the council will come take it away soon. I mowed the lawn, cleaned out the little pond’s filter then ran out the hose. Whilst the ponds got topped up I went round with the small pressure-washer and hosed the bird poo of the garden gnomes. You’d be amazed how much dung the local birds generate. I suppose I’ve only myself to blame for feeding them.

 

And then I went on Amazon and ordered up more armpit squirt. The stuff is easier to order from Amazon than it is to fart about going to the shops to get. And I renewed our membership of The Friends of Kings Wood. I’m not sure what I get from being a member, but I’d rather be a member than not. And I booked vaccination appointments for Bailey and Morgan. They won’t like that, but they’d like it a lot less if they went down with some completely avoidable disease.

I wrote up some CPD, then geo-puzzled a little.

 

“er indoors TM” went bowling; I sparked up the telly. Two episodes of Doctor Who from the early 1970s were rather good. Back then the special effects weren’t that good, so the show’s makers had a plot instead. Something the makers of today’s episodes might try.

And then an episode of “Black Mirror” which was good, but not as good as the ones I watched last week.

 

I’m worn out; I really could do with a decent night’s sleep.

 

 

13 May 2025 (Tuesday) - Where The Hobos Go

 

 

I had another restless night. I got up at five o'clock and had a little look at the Internet as I scoffed toast. There was the most ridiculous argument ever kicking off on one of the Doctor Who related Facebook groups. Someone was wondering how many full-sized Dalek models there are in the UK. Estimates ranged from a couple of dozen up to a couple of thousands. Some idiot was getting rather aggressive that no one knew, and felt there should be some official list of full-sized Dalek models on which all of them must be registered, with sanctions for those not complying. And he was serious.

 

I also saw that the geocache I mentioned on Sunday was still unfound. It wasn't *that* much of a diversion from my journey to work... As the crow flies it was seventeen miles from home.

As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the radio were interviewing some irate farmers who had the arse. Apparently there used to be some government scheme in which farmers could apply to be paid for using their land for not farming. Letting it grow wild for butterflies, or trees... it seemed like a nice little earner. It didn't take long for all the money the government had earmarked to go, and those who were too slow to put in their application weren't happy that they'd missed a seat on the gravy train.

And there was a lot of talk about how the Prime Minister's house had burned down.

And there was a lot of talk about how Donald Trump has been given a jumbo jet by the Qatar government. 

It was unclear as to whether it was to him personally or in his capacity as President, but it was alleged that when he was President last time he was given a lot of pressies in his official capacity which have long since disappeared. Have they? Who knows.

 

According to my geo-app the geocache I was hunting this morning was seventeen miles from home as the crow flies. But as the car drives it was a shade over thirty miles. The cache was called "Where the Hobos Go" and the instructions said it was under a bridge, so I knew what I was doing. It really was where the hobos go - I scrambled down a bank and hopped over a stream. And as I searched I found a smashed vodka bottle, and I thought I got whiffs of human shit a couple of times.

The instructions said the cache was attached to a wire... I searched every wire time and time again except the right one. I won't give spoilers, but I'll say it was rather well hidden and took me half an hour to locate. But I did find it. And I was first too. Happy dance.

 

From there I went to Sainsburys where (as I shopped) someone greeted me with a cheerful "Hello Dave". A portly red-haired chap with a beard. I had no idea who they were, but they clearly knew me.

 

And the excitement of the day was all over and done with by half past seven. The rest of the day was rather dull.

 

 

14 May 2025 (Wednesday) - Two Walks and an Ad-Lab

 

 

I slept better last night. It helps when I get up and go to the loo right away rather than forever twisting and turning for hours trying to make more space inside for an over-full bladder which really needs emptying out.

 

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was still there. Irene was posting from Uzbekistan – she’s having a holiday over there. I rather enjoyed our little stay there last year. Someone with whom I worked many years ago was also on holiday – in Canada. It’s over twenty years since I went there… I suppose I enjoyed my time there, but looking back all I remember is it being constantly hard work chasing round after the cubs and scouts. One day I’d like to go back and have a proper holiday there.

 

I took the dogs out. As we drove the pundits on the radio were interviewing a member of the Israeli government about the situation in Gaza. The chap being interviewed took what seems to be the standard Israeli line in claiming that they are the victims and the rest of the world are a bunch of bastards who hate them. Today (among other things) they were claiming that every journalist in the world who wasn’t working for the Israeli press was a terrorist spy. The chap being interviewed did himself no favours.

There was also talk about Peter Sullivan who was released from prison yesterday after having had his conviction overturned. He went to prison in 1986 for a crime he didn’t commit. It turns out that the evidence proving his innocence came to light in 2015. So why did it take the legal system ten years to release him?

 

We got to the woods and had a good walk. On Monday we explored a new footpath. Today we followed a path from that one which went on for half a mile… then just fizzled out. So we turned round and came back. Mind you I was glad we’d gone along that path – I found what must be the biggest sink hole in Kings Wood. It was huge.

As we walked the dogs did their thing including chasing what looked like a black squirrel. Was it a one-off, or have they spread as far as Kent?

And the bluebells seem to be going to seed.

 

After five miles we got back to the car and came home. I made a cuppa, then went into the garden. I took apart that garden bench that collapsed the other day. The plan was to take it (and a load of other rubbish) to the tip but there weren’t any spaces available today. So instead I stripped the shed out and had a little tidy-up and re-organise. So easy to type; so much hard work to do.

 

“er indoors TM” popped up to the corner shop and came back with a croissant for lunch. I scoffed it as I wrote up some CPD, then I spent a little while doing my preparation for tomorrow’s planned outing. The plan is to walk a series of geocaches in the Biggin Hill area. Two of them were disabled for a week six weeks ago pending being replaced, so I sent a message asking if we might replace them tomorrow. As we will (hopefully) be walking straight past we can do the necessary maintenance in less than a minute whereas the poor bloke who in theory should do it would have to give up hours.

I beat the chess bots twice, then rudely woke the dogs when I announced I was going to “FEED THE FISH!!!” – that’s always rather amusing.

 

I updated the Facebook pond album – the thing has changed quite a bit since we first started digging in October 2006. I *really* need to replace the pebble-patterned vinyl, but I’ve left it too late for this summer. Oh well… it will give me a few months to find something.

 

Seeing I had a credit, I created a new geocaching Adventure Lab. Last October I spent a wet afternoon doing the preparation for loads of these only to find I can actually only create only one every three months. So having done all the preparation, creating the thing only took ten minutes. If you are at a loose end and in Ashford, download the Adventure Lab app, and take a walk round investigating places where there used to be pubs which were demolished for the building of the ring road.

 

I set the Adventure Lab live, and with “er indoors TM” having finished work we took the dogs to Orlestone Woods for a little wander. We had a good little walk; it was a shame that after two miles and only a stone’s throw from being back at the car park Treacle had to jump in a belly-deep swamp, but that’s the sort of dog she is.

 

Another day off work; another busy day…

 

 

15 May 2025 (Thursday) - Biggin Hill

 

 

I suppose I slept better than I have been doing recently. It was a shame that I was plagued with rather vivid dreams, and waking up came as something of a relief.

I made toast and peered into the Internet. It was still there. One of the American work-based Facebook groups had a post about the dangers of mouth-pipetting. In my line of work you use a pipette to suck up a measured volume of body fluid to analyse it. The force to do the actual sucking comes from a hand-held device these days, but back in the day the pipette was a long glass tube. One end went in the body fluid, and the other end in your mouth. And you’d (quite literally) suck it up. And if your attention was distracted you’d get a mouthful of pee or blood.

But you could take away the taste by puffing on the cigarette that you’d rested in the ash tray beside your microscope…

And this was why when I first started as an apprentice blood tester in 1981 it was suggested that I seriously considered not being a part of the pension scheme on account of the average blood tester dying at age fifty-eight from something nasty they’d caught in the laboratory.

These days we have health and safety… at the moment.

Here in the UK we now have enforced national standards for health and safety, testing procedures and all sorts of professional conduct. But reading the work-based Facebook groups it is painfully clear that in other parts of the world they just have a go and hope for the best. Mouth pipetting is still a thing in some places… bear that in mind when there are calls to close the NHS and replace it with something cheaper.

 

I munzed, failed at Wordle, and got ready for the off. Over the last week I’ve been working a day on – day off sort of shift pattern. Bearing in mind I’m only supposed to do two and a half days a week, I’m not quite sure what is going on. But today was my second consecutive day off.

I drove round to the co-op where the normal people were all standing about outside grumbling about how all the shelves in the place were empty. They didn’t look that empty to me.

From there I drove up the motorway listening to the pundits on the radio talking about a new initiative to get more people speaking Welsh. Is this a good thing? I’m not convinced.

 

I drove up to Karl and Tracey’s. Tracey was busy today, but Karl and I drove up to Biggin Hill. Some time ago I solved a load of geo-puzzles in the area, and today we went to go find the caches. I’d deliberately not taken the dogs, and I was right not to have done so. The start of the walk was on busy roads, and some of the paths were a tad narrow. And there were several horses in fields on the way.

As we walked we met two groups of very polite teenagers doing Duke of Edinburgh hikes. We met them within ten minutes of each other, and they were going in completely opposite directions. At least one group was going the wrong way.

As we came to the end there was a strange little episode. We came to the final hide. Karl went to one side of the road and I went to the other. Karl found the geocache and two full canisters of petrol. I was on the other side of the road and I found a brand- new battery-operated drill with a full charge.

What was that all about?

Geocaching-wise the “Spitfire Saunter” is a walk I can wholeheartedly recommend. Well-marked footpaths and straightforward hides, we had a great day. We walked just over nine miles (twenty thousand steps), and I was rather glad to see the car at the end.

 

We came home. “er indoors TM” boiled up pizza and garlic bread which we scoffed whilst watching “Race Across the World”. They’ve got to India; it looked crowded…

 

 

16 May 2025 (Friday) - Guacamole Dip

 

 

I woke at the sound of a dog jumping off the bed in the small hours. I assumed it was Morgan. He needs chasing in the night. He jumps off the bed and goes to the back garden to do that which dogs do *if* I open the door in time. But when he finds the back door is locked he then does the best he can in less than ideal circumstances and craps on the doormat. But it wasn't Morgan last night. Treacle had fallen off the bed and in my hurry to chase downstairs I tripped over her. She just wanted help to get back onto the bed. She's getting old. She can't get on the bed any more. She struggles to get into the car before our walks, and she needs lifting into the car after a walk.

 

I didn't get back to sleep after that. I got up earlier than I might have done, and as I scoffed toast I watched an episode of "Black Mirror" on Netflix. What would you do if the latest big TV show was seemingly based on every detail of your life - including that which you'd rather no one else knew about?

 

Taking care not to wake anyone I got ready for work and set off. As I drove up the motorway the pundits were talking about the assisted dying bill which is going through Parliament.

At the risk of simplifying a rather complex issue, you'd be prosecuted for allowing a dog to suffer, but you'd also be prosecuted for preventing a person suffering in the same way. Am I missing something here?

I drove to the Sainsbury's petrol station in Aylesford as their petrol is consistently cheaper than in Ashford. But I forgot that they don't get stocked up until mid-morning. So for all that I saved about a quid on the petrol I then had to make a separate journey into the supermarket to get lunch. I got myself a beef and horseradish sandwich and a little pot of guacamole and some nachos. The little pot and nachos were good for one hundred and sixty-eight calories. In the past I'd get a big bag of Doritos and a pot of the Pringles guac dip and scoff the lot for lunch; totally oblivious to the three thousand four hundred calories that was going down my neck.

 

I went in to work and had a cuppa, and had my morning's root around the Internet rather later than usual. Irene was posting piccies from Uzbekistan.  She's got to Khiva. I liked Khiva; I bought a rather sexy jacket there that I have still to wear.

And there was quite the argument in the Facebook group about big cat sightings in the UK. Someone had found what they claimed was a big cat's skull.  Others were claiming it was a dead badger. All were adamant that they were right.

Our Munzee clan has reached the second of our monthly goals.

I had loads of emails that needed to be deleted unread.

 

I cracked on with the early shift, and at lunchtime I scoffed my nachos and guac dip. In future I shall get the carrots and houmous dip - half the calories and it tastes better.

We had a sweepstake at work for tomorrow's Eurovision Song Contest. I got Luxembourg; I was told that was good. I had no idea, so I did some research. Apparently Luxembourg has a one in two hundred and fifty chance of winning. Even worse than the UK’s chance.

 

An early start made for an early finish. The journey home took fifty minutes. Seventeen miles down the motorway took twenty minutes; two miles from work to motorway, and two miles from motorway to home took a total of half an hour.

 

Once home I ran round gathering dog turds, then ran round with the watering can, and once “er indoors TM” had finished work we took the dogs to Orlestone for a short (two miles) walk.

As we drove down we saw two red kites. We saw two smaller hawks in the woods, and a buzzard sitting on the telegraph wires as we came home. Back in the day we rarely, if ever, saw a bird of prey. Now they are more and more common. Which got me thinking… If there’s more birds of prey, there’s got to be more food for them. Bearing in mind they scoff small animals there’s got to be more food and habitat for small birds and mice and the like. But the news keeps telling us about habitat destruction?

 

 

17 May 2025 (Saturday) - Dog Club, Hinxhill, Games NIght

 

 

I was again awake too early this morning. I got up, watched a bit of telly, then peered into the Internet wondering if much had happened overnight. It hadn’t really. Not much of note had happened, but bickering and trivia abounded in social media.

I rolled my eyes as I read one of the work-related Facebook pages in which youngsters were bemoaning that they had picked the wrong career having read some made-up rubbish about artificial blood, and reports that blood banks would soon be unnecessary. I made the observation that on my first week in a blood bank I was told that there were dogs in Japan being kept alive on artificial blood, and that I should choose another career as blood banking would soon be a thing of the past.

That was September 1981...

I had an email. One of my geocaches in Kings Wood is cracked. Oh well… replacing that will be Monday’s project. We’ll be walking past it anyway.

I looked at booking a tip slot. There were appointments available today – but only at eight o’clock in t he morning. The rest of the day was booked up. I decided against an eight o’clock slot – I needed more than a few minutes to load the car and I wouldn’t have had time this morning. I’ve booked eight o’clock on Monday morning instead.

I Munzed, capping the Tree House only a minute after “er indoors TM” had (which was something of a pain in the glass), and got Wordle on the third attempt (grown) and then the dogs came down.

 

I let them out, and chased after them with a bucket and trowel. You wouldn’t believe how much dung three small dogs generate. Whilst they had brekkie I sorted the undercrackers that I’d washed and tumble-dried, and we set off to Dog Club. As we drove Steve was on the radio doing the “Guess the Lyrics” competition. “And if you see her please let her know that I'm well”. No – I’ve no idea either.

Dog Club was rather good. We arrived at the same time as Smudge and Lilly and Morgan tiddled himself in excitement. Attendance was down somewhat, but we still had at least fourteen dogs charging about and playing. They really do love it.

 

As we drove away from Dog Club Steve was doing the Mystery Year competition on the radio. “Is Vic There” by Department S. 1982? I was one year out.

Rather than coming home we took the dogs for a little walk. We drove out to the church at Hinxhill where we had a little wander round the graveyard collecting clues to find a geocache, then walked half a mile across the fields to another geocache. And with a little walk walked we drove up to Naccolt where we didn’t find a geocache (but I stung my head on a stinging nettle) and went on to Wye. There’s a co-op there where we got pastries.

 

And so home where we scoffed the pastries and had a cuppa. The pastry was sixty calories more than what we’d walked off this morning.

“er indoors TM” went shopping; I went into the garden and had another look at the disassembled garden table. It was too big to go in my car to take to the tip, but the council wanted over forty quid to take it away. I sawed it into pieces of more manageable size; it *will* fit into the car now. I then re-arranged the rockery so that the alpine plants look a tad better, then got out the watering can and had a go at the plants.

“er indoors TM” returned with the shopping. By then I was aching so I challenged the bots on chess dot com and did rather well. I’ve been playing a bot with rating two hundred and fifty recently; today I’ve taken on one with a rating of four hundred. I wonder what my rating is?

 

Steve, Sarah and Chris came round, and we had a rather good evening playing games on the Infinity table. I might not have won, but tonight’s round of “Game of Life” declared that I had been voted “Nicest Person Ever” which was something of a result.

As we played so we had the Eurovision Song Contest playing in the background. Am I being cynical in suggesting that there was a direct correlation between how crap a song was and the amount of chest being brandished by the singer?

 

 

18 May 2025 (Sunday) - Early Shift

 

 

It was after midnight before I got to bed last night. I always know when I'm having a late night when one or more of the dogs comes up with me. I woke just before three o'clock, went to the loo, and didn't really get back to sleep again after that.

I gave up trying to sleep and got up at half past five. I watched an episode of "Back", then loaded that which I could into the dishwasher, and scrubbed that which wouldn't fit. Taking care not to wake anyone I got ready for work, set the dishwasher going, and set off.

Not-so-nice-next -door was outside washing her car at half past six this morning. I gave her a cheery "Good Morning"; she replied with a grunt. I don't know what I can do about her; despite my best efforts she's just hard work. The last time I had any dealings with her she was claiming that I was throwing shitted nappies and cans of Red Bull over the fence. 

 

As I drove up the motorway the "Farming Today" program was on the radio. Today's was rather different to the usual thing they put on. They were broadcasting from a potato farm in Northumberland. This farm nearly went bankrupt a few years ago, and it came to light that the chip shop down the road was getting their chips from Egypt. Not spuds. Chips. The chip shop didn't want potatoes. They wanted chips which were ready to go into the fryer. It turns out that few people want spuds any more; most people seem to want them already chipped or baked or roasted or Jenga-ed (Did you know that Jenga fries are a thing?) or just ready to scoff.

And so the potato farmer built a huge factory to turn his spuds into whatever the punters want, and now he's laughing all the way to the bank.

 

I had a dodgy five minutes on the motorway. As you come up to junction six on the M20 there's a little slip lane for traffic wanting junctions six or five. Someone had come into that lane, realized he should have stayed on the main motorway, and was reversing back straight at me. As I swerved round the idiot, he had the cheek to give me the V-sign.

 

I got to work and did my bit. I wasn't supposed to be working today, but my colleague who was on had called in sick yesterday. As I have said many times before, if I had my time again I'd work somewhere that periodically puts up a "closed" sign. But it was rather grey and overcast as I worked. I don't mind working if I'm not missing much.

 

The weather stayed grey, but perked up a little when I got home. “er indoors TM” and I took the dogs down to Orlestone where we had a good walk. Once away from the car park we walked for over two miles without being bothered by anyone else.

There was a minor hiccup when we got back to the car. Some chap asked if we’d seen a little black and white dog. We hadn’t. His dog had gone missing this morning, and he was off to look round the woods again. I once lost Morgan and Bailey in those woods for twenty minutes and was panic stricken. But this dog had been missing for over six hours. I didn’t say anything but he could have run to Ashford or to the coast in that time.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching yesterday’s episode of “Doctor Who”. Last week’s episode was something of a disappointment, but the one we watched today was excellent. Sadly unless you are a sad anorak like me, the references to episodes of Doctor Who from sixty and forty years ago wouldn’t have meant much.

But they did to me…

 

 

19 May 2025 (Monday) - Treacle's "Stick"

 

 

For once I had a reasonable night’s sleep. I did have Bailey dabbing the back of my head several times, but nothing that kept me wide awake for hours. I saw that as a result.

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. The weekend’s big reveal had not gone down overly well on many of the Doctor Who related Facebook pages; on balance there are probably more people posting on the Doctor Who related Facebook pages who hate the show than who like the show. It’s a shame; it was the fan reaction which pretty much killed Star Trek for years when “Enterprise” was cancelled.

I Munzed. Got Wordle (pitch) on the fourth attempt, then heard a crashing sound. Pogo was coming downstairs “quietly”. Him and his mummy had had a little sleepover last night.

All the other dogs followed, and went into the garden like dogs do.

 

Yesterday I’d loaded up a carful of tip stuff. I drove it round to the tip. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about driverless cars. Apparently they will be on the streets in two years’ time. It was claimed that the things are on the streets already. The law says that they can be used *if* someone is actually sitting in the driver’s seat poised to take control at a moment’s notice. The woman presenting the article was broadcasting from one such car. Will they be in place in two years’ time? I suspect they will be like electric cars; on the streets, but in a vast minority.

 

I got to the tip and unloaded. The tip was rather (very) busy, and things weren’t helped by one of the tip operatives insisting that he personally inspected every scrap of tat. He made a point of snatching a broken fishing pole from me and spending far too long scrutinizing it before confirming what I’d told him (that it wasn’t metal) and telling me I could throw it in the general tat bin. I replied that he could throw it in the general tat bin; I had loads of other stuff to shift, and left him holding it.

 

I came home, mowed the lawn, cleaned out the pond filters, topped up the ponds, watered the plants, and watched an episode of “Black Mirror”, and wrote up some CPD until “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” had finished her appointment. I then ran her and Pogo home.

 

With a bootful of dogs we came home via Kings Wood for a somewhat later walk than usual. As we walked into the woods so a gaggle of young mothers were having a little picnic with their toddlers. One of the mothers shrieked “it’s a sausage dog” and without a word of “can we ?” or “is it all right ?” called to Morgan.

He trotted over and I had flashbacks. In years gone by people who were having a little picnic in the co-op field once called to Pogo who charged over and devoured their entire spread in less than five seconds. I didn’t want that so I called Morgan back and warned the picnicers that he would scoff all of their sandwiches. The one who’d called him looked rather taken aback, so I assured her that he wouldn’t pinch one or two sandwiches; he would have the lot given a moment’s opportunity. Fortunately he came when called and followed me into the woods.

We carried on with our walk. As we went so Treacle found a stick. You know - one of those with a hoof on one end and a bone coming out of the other. That’s at least the third deer leg she’s found this year. I would say that you have to wonder where they are coming from, but the answer is obvious. Deer. Something is clearly getting through the deer in the woods at quite a rate. I’m seeing this as more supporting evidence for my theory about there being one or more large cats in the area. After all, I’m convinced I saw a black panther in Hawkhurst twenty years ago.

As we came back toward the car the picnicers were still scoffing. They smiled in a semi-embarrassed sort of way as we walked past.

 

We came home and I cracked on with the ironing, fed the fish, and “er indoors TM” returned from a day at the office. She boiled up pizza then went bowling. I settled in front of the telly for more Netflix.

Today’s been busy…

 

 

20 May 2025 (Tuesday) - Twitching

 

 

I had a reasonable night's sleep; better than many I've had recently. But I was still wide awake at five o'clock. I got up, and stood on the scales as I'd forgotten to do so yesterday, and was rather chuffed to see that I'd lost some weight... which was surprising bearing in mind Saturday night's pig-out.

As I watched telly I could hear that not-so-nice-next-door was also up. She's something of an early bird, and some mornings she shouts "Oi!-Oi!-Oi!" for ten minutes like she did today at quarter past six. Not especially loud, but loud enough to be heard over the drivel I was watching on the telly. Was she doing some sort of exercises?

With telly watched I had a quick look at the Internet as I do. Not much had happened overnight. I sent birthday wishes to Gordon, and pondered over my emails. My Credit Karma score has gone up by eleven points whilst my Experian score has fallen by nineteen. Bearing in mind that both effectively measure the same thing, I have to wonder how does that work?

 

I set off to work. As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the radio were talking about some bill in the House of Lords which is supposed to make sure that singers and actors get their bit when recordings of them are used by AI generators. A rather obscure point took up a lot of air-time; the most surprising bit of which was the discovery that him who played "Gay Colin" in Eastenders is now a lord. Whilst playing one of the first openly gay characters on TV was rather ground-breaking, I found myself wondering if that warranted being made a lord? It turns out the chap has been rather (very) active in political circles. A bit like him who played Baldrick in Blackadder.

Perhaps I should get all political and I might be a sir or a lord.

 

I got to work and as I walked  through the car park I brandished my phone. Last night I'd downloaded a bird song recognition app. It detected robins and blackbirds in the garden, and this morning it identified wrens in the works car park. Mind you for all that I've seen blackbirds and robins in the back garden, I have absolutely no idea whether there really are wrens in the works car park. I'm taking the app entirely on trust,

I did my bit at work, and being on an early we had time to take the dogs to Orlestone this evening. While we were there my bird song app detected blue tits and chiff-chaffs and blackcaps and haddock and rhododendrons… nine different species of bird including a goldcrest which is apparently “uncommon”.

 

And in closing today I'll make the observation that Operation Brock is being brought back tomorrow. So much for the new Reform UK county council doing away with it. To quote our new county councilor “A promise made is a promise kept” and since he never actually promised anything I suppose I might be being a tad harsh. I’ll send him an email, but to my mind he’s already fallen at the first hurdle.

 

 

21 May 2025 (Wednesday) - Ham Street Woods

 

 

I slept reasonably well, but was still wide awake at five o’clock. I watched the last episode of “Back” then sparked up my lap-top. I had a message from the Facebook feds. On Monday I was presented with a posting of a picture of a close-up of full-on lady bits. I reported it, but apparently it didn’t go against their Community Standards. One lives and learns. There wasn’t much else of note happening on-line this morning really.

I sent out some birthday wishes to people on my Friends list who were having a birthday today as sending birthday wishes to anyone else would be silly, and got ready for work.

 

As I walked up the road I listened to the most beautiful dawn chorus... sung by sparrows. Who would have thought that such common plain little things could sing so wonderfully. I'm rather taken with my birdsong app.

As I drove to work the pundits on the radio were talking about how the co-op's supply chain has been comprehensively poggered by the recent cyber-attack. That would explain why the local co-op looked like the locusts had just swarmed through. Apparently the attack was done by "scattered spider" - a  bunch of teenagers.  I'd send them to bed with no supper and take their phones off of them, but what do I know?

The co-op’s sandwiches aisle was pretty much empty, so I went to Sainsbury's instead. If nothing else, Sainsbury's do coronation chicken.

 

I got to work and had rather a full-on day. But as I worked I got a reply to the email I sent to the county councillor.  I emailed him about Operation Brock last night and he replied this morning. Apparently he don't actually start counciling until tomorrow, but he assures me he's on the case, and is looking to stockpile all the lorries on Lyddon Hill race course. I can't say I like his party, but he's replied quicker than his predecessor did, and he's come up with a concrete proposal.

That's a step in the right direction. I wonder if he can sort the flooding by Asda? I’ve asked him if he might have a go.

 

Another early start made for another early finish. It’s only a shame that the roads are so busy at early shift kick-out. It took twice as long to drive the two miles from work to the motorway as it did to drive the seventeen miles down the motorway.

 

We took the dogs out. For a change we tried Ham Street Woods. The drizzle probably didn’t help but it was rather muddy in places. But on the plus side the dogs were well-behaved. There’s something about Orlestone Woods which sets them off; they are willful and take an age to come when called when we are there. But they were as good as gold this evening. It’s just a shame that Ham Street Woods are so small.

As we walked the Red Route of a mile and a quarter I tried out my bird song app. I detected nine birds this evening including two new ones. A jackdaw and a mistle thrush. Or “Missile thrush” as it was known to the more simple-minded of the Red Lake Primary School bird club. I was a member of my primary school’s bird club. We had great times – we’d go out for a walk one lunchtime every week under the gimlet eye of Mrs. Wright, and pretty much every week we had one reported sighting of a golden eagle.

We came home where all the dogs had a bath.

 

I’ve only done ten thousand steps today… that’s the lowest step count for some time …

 

 

22 May 2025 (Thursday) - Longbeech Woods, Shirts

 

 

I slept for at least three hours longer than usual last night which was a result. I got up and stood on the scales and saw I’d put on a pound, which wasn’t quite so much the result.

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. I had an email. Our new county councilor has been appointed deputy cabinet member for the Environment, and he claims he’s on the case about the flooding at the Asda underpass. He’s also said that the council is overspent and that he “will need to at times think outside the box” but he also says “thankfully, I'm up for the challenge”. Maybe he is. He certainly replies to emails in a fraction of the time his predecessor took. To my mind he’s got two things to do. Stop Operation Brock, and stop the floods. Will he do it? Time will tell. It always does.

 

I Munzed and Wordled. There was a minor episode as Morgan wouldn’t get out of bed for his brekkie, and then I took the dogs out.

We drove up to Kings Wood only to find the road from the A251 to the woods was closed. I could have taken a serious diversion to come in to White Hill from the other end. It was as well that I didn’t – the entire road was closed. Instead we kept going. As we drove I thought about Perry Wood, but the trouble with that place is that the car park is right in the middle, and wherever you walk you aren’t far from a road. And there’s a lot of hills involved.

Instead we went to Longbeech Woods where we walked for nearly three miles and my birdsong app detected a dozen birds including a duck and four tits(!)

 

With walk walked we came home for a cuppa, then I went shopping. I need some shirts for work. Long sleeved casual ones with a breast pocket. Tesco had none, and neither did Asda. I had a look in the outlet centre. They had some… but even at their bargain reduction price they were still about for times the price I’d be prepared to pay.

 

I came home, went on eBay and got two shirts for a third of the price the shops in the outlet centre wanted for one, wrote up some CPD, then had a little look in the garden. I cleaned out the little pond’s filter then gave the little cupboard and seat by the big pond a lick of paint.

I could have carried on pootling, but over the last few weeks and months I’ve rather overdone it, so I came in and spent an hour or so playing bots at chess. I’ve been doing this quite a bit recently; a week or so ago I started playing a bot which is supposedly better than the one I’d been playing previously; it doesn’t seem to be.

 

We had planned a little walk this evening, but the rain put us off. “er indoors TM” boiled up some dinner which we scoffed whilst watching the latest episode of “Race Across the World” in which the contestants crossed northern India with varying degrees of success.

 

Today’s been a rather good day off work, but I’m going to work for a rest tomorrow.

 

 

23 May 2025 (Friday) - Back to Work

 

 

I didn't have the best night's sleep; I got the impression there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing going on, to say nothing of dogs being told off. I gave up trying to sleep and got up before half past five.

I made toast and watched the last episode of "Black Mirror". What would you do if you find yourself porking your hitherto platonic best mate in a virtual reality world?

I liked "Black Mirror"; sadly so far there's no talk of another season.

 

I set off to find my car; in the past I've commented that the bin men had left the emptied bins strewn all over the pavement. This morning they'd made an effort to leave the pavement passable. That was kind of them. 

I set off to work and set the cruise control for forty-nine miles per hour and drove through the stupidity that is Operation Brock. No lorries were being held in the coast-bound lane, but (as always) there were several cars that had mistakenly driven into it.

As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how the Israeli Prime Minister has got the arse. Perhaps I don't listen to the right news channels? Perhaps the BBC are totally biased? But it strikes me that no matter what atrocities the  Israelis claim have been done to them, they feel it is quite acceptable for them to do exactly the same thing to others.

There was a lot of talk about the Chagos Islands. Originally a British overseas territory, the UK has handed the place over to Mauritius and is leasing back a military base on the understanding that any military operations being launched from there are first cleared with the Mauritian government -   that’s the government that's best of buddies with the Russians, the Chinese, and pretty much anyone the UK might be picking a fight with.

And there was talk about the Hay Festival which got me thinking. When we were in Uzbekistan last year we got rather chummy with a Welsh couple who often spoke about the Hay Festival and how they enjoyed it and went every year. For two weeks we were very friendly with these people... until we stepped off the plane and have never seen or heard from them since.

There were twenty-seven of us on that holiday trip. One is still on my Facebook list; the others went from being best of mates to complete strangers at the drop of a hat. Such a shame. I suppose this is what happens on these holiday tours? I suppose if (when) we go on others the same will happen again?

 

I went to the Aylesford Sainsburys to get petrol (as it is cheaper than Ashford) and there was a minor issue when I came to pay. The card reader wouldn't accept the contactless payment and I had to stick my card in the slot to pay. As I drove off, my watch beeped with a message that my contactless limit had been reached.

But there was no problem with the contactless payments when I paid for some shopping in Sainsburys, or when I topped up my pre-payment at the works car park. What was that all about?

 

Work was work. I was tempted to get myself a cheese scone before I started. A year ago I used to have one of those every day with a cuppa as a second brekkie. Similarly I would pop into the works branch of M&S on my way out​ and get a bag of chocolate covered Brazil nuts to scoff on my way home. I've worked out that these two treats accounted for half my daily calorie allowance... 

Calorie counting can be scary.

 

I did my bit and came home (without a bag of chocolate covered Brazil nuts) and drove down the Operation Brock bit, taking rather longer to get home for no apparent reason; there couldn’t have been more than half a dozen vehicles driving down the lane reserved for Operation Brock.

By the time I got home there wasn’t really time for a walk in the woods…Instead we had an evening of watching drivel on the telly…

 

 

24 May 2025 (Saturday) - Dog Club, Garden Centres

 

 

I woke to the sound of rain on the window. Much as the garden needs the rain, it could have rained yesterday when I was at work (!)

I got up, made toast, and had a look at the Internet. Five people were having a birthday today; I sent out birthday wishes, then had a look at Facebook. My professional institute was advocating people write to their MP to tell them about biomedical science day. I’ve written to my MP a few times recently. Having stood for election saying that he’s full of energy and looking for change for the people of Ashford, I’ve sadly formed the opinion that he is very much one who does what his party tells him. Like his predecessor he’s all about getting his photo taken and seemingly being in the limelight when someone else has actually done something. Am I being unfair to him? Possibly. But I won’t be bothering him about biomedical science day. Instead I chivvied him up about the flooding at the Adsa underpass.

 

Despite the rain we set off to Dog Club. As we drove Steve was on the radio. The “Guess the Lyrics” competition was tricky. “Oh, won't you sign up your name? We'd like to feel you're acceptable”. No – I had no idea either. It was the Logical Song by Supertramp. He then played a rather good cover version of Itchycoo Park. I must ask him who sang it.

Dog Cub was fun. Attendance seemed to be down, but we had sixteen dogs along for the usual mayhem. And the rain dried up after the first ten minutes. It was a shame we completely missed the Mystery Year competition on the radio as we were late getting away… Maybe one day Steve might do an outside broadcast from Dog Club?

 

We came home via the co-op for cake. You can’t beat a co-op Belgian bun even if it is four hundred calories. As I scoffed it I looked at the monthly accounts. They’ve been worse. They could be better.

We then went on a little outing. First of all to Bybrook Barn where they had a garden table at bargain price. I very nearly snapped it up… until I realized that the table was entirely the wrong shape and size for our garden. We had a little chat with Tracy in the shoe department, then went on to Ham Street garden centre to have a look at their garden tables.

They didn’t have any.

The garden centre at Tenterden had a sign outside saying it had a large garden furniture department. It didn’t.

“er indoors TM” then remembered a little place in Lenham that specialized in garden furniture. I suppose you could have taken what they were selling and put it in the garden, but I’d say they specialized in massively overpriced tat.

You know when you are old when you spend a weekend day going to the garden centres.

 

We came home and had a look on Amazon where they had garden tables at about a quarter of the price of local garden centres. As I’ve said before many times, the days of the traditional shops are numbered.

Over a cuppa and a late lunch I spent a little while geo-puzzling. I messaged Gordon to ask his opinion on one puzzle, and we had a very confusing few minutes where both of us thought we were trying to solve the same puzzle… even though we were looking at different ones.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up a rather good curry which we scoffed whilst watching tonight’s episode of “Doctor Who”. It was one of the best episodes for years. It’s such a shame that Ncuti Gatwa is getting the heave-ho.

 

Hannah (my GPS unit) is programmed for tomorrow. We’ve got an early start in the morning; I really should have an early night… I’ll just play a bot or two at chess…

 

 

25 May 2025 (Sunday) - Ashdown Forest

 

 

Nearly two months ago I bought a clock which projects the time on to the ceiling, and every time I looked at it I was trying to puzzle out what it said because it was projecting at right angles to the way I was looking at it. Last night before I went to kip I turned the thing through ninety degrees so I could tell the time at a glance, and I slept much better… until three o’clock when I popped to the loo and in doing so ceded my bed space to an alliance of dogs who weren’t giving up their captured territory without a fight.

 

Despite it being a Bank Holiday weekend we were up at six o’clock, scoffing toast and peering into the Internet. It was rather dull; I suppose everyone was still in bed? Mind you quite a few people had been posting late last night and in to the small hours. One thing made me think – a friend had commented that he’d been driving on autopilot and found himself wondering exactly where he was on his journey home. I was reminded of a time back in the day before night shifts when we would be called in to the hospital from home when needed; often several times after midnight. After one such call I woke up and found I was driving past the KFC at four o'clock in the morning. Emergency stop... that woke me up.

 

I munzed and got Wordle on the fourth attempt. “Grift” no? – I only got it as it was seemingly the only word that would fit. I looked it up. It means engage in petty or small-scale swindling apparently. One lives and learns.

As I Munzed and wordled so Morgan sneaked back upstairs to bed. We had a rather early start this morning and in the same way that some people aren’t “morning people”, Morgan isn’t a “morning dog”.

 

We got ourselves organized, and with dogs out of bed we drove off at half past seven. We made good time and were in the car park at Hindleap by nine o’clock. Karl and Tracey were already there, and it wasn’t long before we were off on our walk. The weather forecast for the day was for good weather, and after a miserable first hour (with a few rain showers) the weather soon chirped up. A geo-friend had put out a series of fifty geocaches and following them led us on a rather good guided walk. Footpaths and quiet lanes, fields and woodlands. We met some friendly cows, and a puddle full of tadpoles. We clambered under bridges and up trees. We crossed fords. We crossed the Greenwich meridian, and went from hunting geocaches with “east” in their co-ordinates to hunting ones with “west”.

At about the half-way point we found we were walking past a pub. So we stopped walking and had a pint. Or two. And at about seven and a half miles in we stopped and had a little picnic. And two more pints. It was at this point when little Bailey fell asleep in the dog water bowl.

I sparked up my birdsong app a few times; I was amazed at how disappointing the thing was. At most it only found four birds at once, and nothing more adventurous than a robin.

 

Geocache-wise this was a rather good walk. We found all of the caches in the series. There was one cache that was off to one side along a little footpath. Out on its own, hid by someone who has never actually found a geocache, my GPS felt the thing was ten yards the other side of a barbed wire fence. That got the DNF.

But this is a series I could recommend to anyone starting the honorable and ancient art of hunting film pots under rocks. Loads of caches, all easy finds along a well-marked route.

I took a few photos as we walked.

 

After eleven and a half miles we were back at the car. We said our goodbyes and headed homewards. I slept much of the way. I’ve walked more, but not for a long time. And I think that twenty-six thousand steps is my highest that I’ve ever recorded. It is certainly the longest walk that Morgan and Bailey have done.

The dogs seemed shattered, but they rallied enough to do the “Feed the Fish” ritual once we were home. It was rather late by the time we got home so we had a kebab for tea.

 

 

26 May 2025 (Monday) - Bank Holiday

 

 

Despite the longest walk for some time yesterday I didn’t sleep very well last night. I peered into the Internet as I scoffed my morning toast. It was still there. According to social media very little had happened yesterday. I suspect things happened; just no one chose to tell the world about it. Such a shame when you are a very nosey person like I am.

I had a message though. Someone had contacted me via the Dog Club Facebook page. They have a lurcher that wants to play with other dogs…  All the details about Dog Club are on the page. No one reads them. Everyone asks the same questions and I spend ages messaging to and fro with people. Maybe one in ten of these people every pluck up the courage to actually turn up at Dog Club…
 
I wandered off down the road to find my car. After all these years I still walk past not-so-nice-next-door's front door with a sense of dread. For years he would lie in wait for me, and as I walked past he would burst out shouting "I say! I say!" and then regale me with a list of petty triviality about whichever of the locals he felt had slighted him recently, and whatever aspect of my life he had decided to disapprove of.  How I mowed my lawn, the colour I painted my shed, my choice of garden décor, who I spoke with in the street... he found fault with everything I did and felt it his duty to put me right with annoying regularity. If I didn't listen to him ranting on, he would take offence and start ranting about that.

I wonder whatever happened to him?

 
I found my car and wet off to work. I drove up the motorway through the Operation Brock stupidity in which I was tail-ended by a Belgian lorry who clearly felt I wasn't going fast enough. I just slowed until he got the message, overtook me and then drove off at speed. I've heard it said that the speed penalties incurred in the Operation Brock only apply to UK drivers. Apparently they now do apply to foreign drivers, but it is difficult to enforce... or so those that can't be bothered to enforce it claim.
As I drove I listened to the pundits on the radio. This morning I was amazed by the quality of the so-called experts they were interviewing. One spoke with the most boring nasal drone and totally failed to grip my attention. Another had endless phones and message beeps going off in the background. I've said before, you'd think that there would be some vetting about who they are going to bring on to live national radio, wouldn't you?  

 
As I pulled into the works car park so my phone beeped. A new geocache at Lenham station. I could have got it on the way to work had I been starting just a little later.
I got on with work. There's been three Bank Holiday Mondays this year... I've worked two of them. I don't mind working Bank Holidays when the weather is iffy, but the morning was rather glorious as I looked out of the window. The forecast rain hadn't happened. I looked out of the window a few times as I worked. As the morning wore on so the clouds gathered. It was raining by the time I came home. Fortunately whilst it was raining in Maidstone, it was still bright at home.

 
We took the dogs to Orlestone for a little walk. The dogs were mostly well behaved, but we had a minor episode when Bailey ran into a thicket and came out with a bloody head. She’d obviously caught herself on one of the bigger brambles. Silly dog.
As we walked I tried out my birdsong app. I told me that it had detected a goldcrest which was “rare”. Mind you, Wikipedia doesn’t think that goldcrests are “rare”. And if my faith in my app hadn’t been absolute, I might just be a tad suspicious when it told me that it had detected a swan.

I shall test it in Kings Wood tomorrow…

 

 

27 May 2025 (Tuesday) - It Rained

 

 

I had a rather good night. I find that getting up when I need the loo helps. When I got up at four o clock this morning I put a load of washing in. Admittedly I did have to battle for bed space when I went back to my pit but I then got three more hours asleep which I wouldn’t have had if I’d just been tossing and turning resisting the call of the loo.

I got up at seven o’clock and hung the washing out.

 

I found myself thinking as I peered into Facebook this morning. There was one of these little cartoons on Facebook in which a manager was asking a junior employee why they weren’t applying for promotion. Their reply was “I don’t want to become you”. I immediately thought of several people I’ve known over the years who are now in rather senior positions and are just shadows of their former selves. Their once bright and bubbly personalities are long gone; their every word now a well-rehearsed management catch-phrase. Singing the praises of that with which they clearly don’t agree; perhaps that’s why I never got on as a manager?

I munzed; our clan has now got all our monthly targets. And I got wordle (sport) on the third attempt.

 

I took the dogs out. As we drove the pundits on the radio were interviewing some windbag about how well Reform UK are doing in the opinion polls. I’m not sure who the windbag was, but he said that Nigel Farage has made a political career out of telling the public what they want to hear, secure in the knowledge that he will never have to deliver/ But now after their victory in the local elections they are going to have to deliver. The point was made that if they had this success on the run-up to a general election, Nigel Farage would be the next Prime Minister. But with four years to go, Reform UK has got a hill to climb. Will they climb it? I’m reminded of the Liberal Democrats who went into a coalition with the Conservatives some years ago and totally failed to live up to what they’d promised.

But time will tell. It always does.

 

We got to the woods where my birdsong app detected another goldcrest, but today it didn’t think it was rare. Maybe after yesterday’s diary entry it had read Wikipedia? We walked four and a half miles; the dogs were completely oblivious to the herd of deer that ran past at the half-way point.

We got back to the car just as the drizzle started (two hours earlier than had been forecast). We came home where I had a look at my boots. At the weekend the sole of the heel of one of my boots had come adrift. Last night I glued it back in place, and it seemed to survive today’s walk. Let’s hope that’s fixed; the expense of a new pair of boots is an expense I can do without.

Seeing the drizzle was getting heavier I got all the damp washing off of the line, and hung it round the house. What are radiators for if not for drying wet washing?

 

I popped to the garden centre. One of the plants in the little pond has become rather top-heavy. It needs re-potting. I got a bigger pond pot, but when I got home the rain had got even heavier. Re-potting will keep until the rain stops.

I wrote up CPD, then played the bots at chess with varying degrees of success. And with the rain showing no sign of abating I considered re-vamping one of my old Wherigo series and re-launching it… if I could only find somewhere to put it. Dering Wood is owned by Woodland Trust who want me to apply for formal permission for each and every geocache I hide there. That’s too much like arse-ache. Perry Wood would have been a good place *if* it wasn’t already full of caches. Ripper’s Wood is somewhere I’ve hidden caches before, but there’s no easy nearby parking and it involves going through a field of sheep, which isn’t easy with three dogs. Much the same could be said of the Godinton estate.

I eventually struck on somewhere that I might use, and spent an hour or so re-writing the old Wherigo cartridge. It’s proved popular in the past; you never know – people might like to play it a fourth time. And if they don’t, they don’t have to. No one is forcing them.

 

Once we finished our morning walk, the rest of the day has been rather dull. A shame about the rain…

 

 

28 May 2025 (Wednesday) - Dull

 

 

I slept well, which was something of a result, but was still wide awake a couple of hours earlier than I might have been.

Over toast I watched the first episode of the new series of “Big Mouth” then had a quick look at the Internet just in case I’d missed anything overnight. I always check it every morning; there’s rarely much of note. There wasn’t this morning. I munzed, but on my new shirt (which had arrived via eBay yesterday) and got ready for work.

 

I wandered off down the road to find my car.  I'd parked it a couple of streets away yesterday for the simple reason that I couldn't park any closer to home.

As I walked so a driving school car came by... rather slowly. Was someone seriously having a driving lesson at quarter to seven?

 

I drove round to the co-op where I spent a few minutes fighting with the self-service checkout. I eventually realised that the problem was me. What I thought was a five pence piece was a Canadian ten cent piece; the self service machine knew the difference and wasn't having any of it.

 

I drove up the motorway - the Operation Brock stupidity had gone. The thing had been in place for less than a week, and had cost hundreds of thousands of pounds. If the county council claim to be skint, that's an economy they could make.

There was then talk about how the new German premier is looking to be seen to be leading NATO as the general consensus is that America isn't keen to do so.

And there was talk about legalising cannabis. Personally I hope it doesn't happen - the stuff stinks.

The news today was on the dull side.

 

I got to work and did my bit; albeit in a bit of a sulk. Having spent much of my day yesterday at a loose end as it had been raining, today was bright and dry. there was so much I could have done at home. I spent the day showing one of the trainees what's what. I quite like doing that. However so that he gained experience, he did all the work and I just stood and watched that he didn’t stuff it up. That was a tad dull too.

 

Today was dull…

 

 

29 May 2025 (Thursday) - Fraud

 

 

When I went to bed last night the weather forecast said there was zero per cent chance of rain this morning. I woke needing the loo at three o’clock so I had this idea that if I put a load of washing in, it would be ready to hang out on the line when I got up. I got up at seven o’clock to find it was raining.

I hung the wet washing round the radiators, and put the undercrackers in to wash.

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. Not much had happened overnight really. It rarely does.

I had a text from the bank. Overnight someone had tried to take twenty quid from my account from a card I rarely use. Being mean I account for every penny I spend, and so knew that I’d not spent that.

The bank has cancelled that card and will send me a new one.

I munzed. The requirements for next month’s munzing Clan War was out. Each month we group together with other munzers and we get prizes depending on how many bar codes stuck to lamp posts we scan. There’s six levels of prizes; level three is easy whilst level four is nigh-on impossible. We tend to go for level three.

I worrdled… how many words start with “qua”? Loads.

 

With the rain easing up I took the dogs up to the woods. We got to the car park and only saw two other cars. The rain had certainly put people off.

Having had reports of a missing geocache I planned our walk around that one. We got there to find it was missing. It didn’t take long to replace, we were in the woods anyway, and the rules do say that it is up to me (as the person who hid it) to replace it. But if it were me I would have messaged the one supposedly responsible for the maintenance before I set off. Was there any maintenance to be done? Did they want any missing caches replaced? I’d have welcomed someone helping out.

We carried on with our walk. We didn’t see many other people in the woods, but we saw three Forestry England vans driving about.

As we walked I had my birdsong app going. It detected two goldcrests, and didn’t think that either was rare (unlike it did on Monday), but it did detect two new birds (nuthatch and marsh tit). However it claimed to have detected a swan and totally failed to detect the crow that was squawking. I can’t help but wonder just how reliable that app is.

It was only a shame that when we got back to the car (after five and a quarter miles) Bailey’s lead wasn’t round my neck. I wasn’t going to back-track. Hopefully someone else will find it and add it to the pile of lost property that is gathering at the car park. Failing that we’ll just use one of the spare leads.

 

We came home. I made us a cuppa, then mowed the lawn. And with the lawn mowed I voomed round with the bionic burner. That thing does sort the weeds, but you’ve got to be regular with it. The adverts imply you wave it about once and that’s it. It certainly isn’t.

I then cracked on with the ironing. As I ironed so there was a knock at the door. The shirts I’d ordered from Amazon had arrived. And they are going back. They look cheap and dreadful. I ordered two more of the ones I got from eBay; I like those ones.

Sending the crap shirts back to Amazon was painless. I told them I didn’t like them. They emailed me a bar code. I took the shirts to the post office, showed the nice man the bar code on my phone, and that was it.

 

“er indoors TM” sorted fish and chips which we scoffed whilst watching this week’s episode of “Race Across the World”. The race has become rather exciting; having spent last week’s episode pathetically grizzling, the young girl has got her arse in gear and made great strides.

 

And I’ve just had an email. The chap who reported the missing geocache this morning has now announced that one of my geocaches is broken and needs replacing… one I walked straight past this morning whilst on my way to replace the missing one. Such a shame he couldn’t have reported all the issues at once…

 

 

30 May 2025 (Friday) - Disappointment

 

 

For some reason my Facebook feed this morning was filled with stuff about Jeremy Clarkson. There’s lots of people who love his shows; I’m not one of them. I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in his antics. So why was I told about him, his car-related shows, his farm, his pub, the bloke who works with him, and some girl who joined his show only to leave?

And there were two new geocaches locally… which showed me a problem in my in-box. The emails telling me about them weren’t in my in-box at twenty to eight. But at ten to eight they were, and were timed at half past seven. So what is the time of the email all about? It clearly isn’t the time that I get it.

 

I Munzee-ed and in getting over a thousand points I was awarded ten Zeds. Zeds is a crypto-currency used in Munzee and is worth about seven pence, so that was a result. I got Wordle on the fourth attempt (idiom), and then my phone beeped to tell me that someone had attempted to scam me yesterday, and that I’d been in touch with the bank about it.

 

I took the dogs up to the woods. We went there yesterday to replace a missing geocache; today we went to replace a broken one. The thing was where I’d left in back in February, and it was broken. I put out a new one, and we carried on with our walk. We walked ninety per cent of the walk we did yesterday in the hope of finding Bailey’s lead. We didn’t. But I did detect a woodpecker with my birdsong app. Bailey detected something foul and had to be bathed when we got home.

 

“Daddies’ Little Angel TM” had been staying for the night. I drove her home, and as I came back I listened to the new album from Sparks that I had downloaded. Despite it being #1 in the charts, it was something of a disappointment. I’ve always considered myself to be a fan of Sparks, but in retrospect they released three very good albums in 1974-75, and after a little lapse there were another three good ones in 1981 – 83. I can’t say I’ve liked any of their albums since “Plagiarism” in 1997. I suppose that they are going to change their stye over time… I just hanker for the good old days.

 

I scoffed a hot cross bun for dinner, then had a look in the garden. Before thinking about painting the fence I really needed to shift the green lichen, so I spent an hour zapping the fence with the little pressure washer until the battery went flat.

I then made a cuppa and spent a while looking at geo-puzzles. I solved two…

 

“er indoors TM” sorted dinner then went off out on the razz with her mates. I settled on the sofa with the dogs and watched “Orange is the New Black” and scoffed a bag of peanuts which went out of date a month ago.

I’ve got guts ache now…

 

 

31 May 2025 (Saturday) - Dog Club and a Dog Walk

 

 

I went to bed with stomach ache last night. It was still there at four o’clock when I went to the loo (and put washing in to scrub) and at quarter to seven as I hung the washing out on the line.

I made toast and saw a new geocache had gone live. Less than a mile away, but with only an hour until we had to be going to Dog Club I didn’t really have time to go hunt for it. Instead I carried on scoffing my toast and peering into the Internet. I saw a Facebook friend had a birthday today. The husband of one of my ex-trainees; I would have said he was in his mid to late twenties; he was forty-one today. Where do the years go?

Irene had posted up photos from Samarkand. It’s a rather pretty place.

And then I saw that the First to Find on the new geocache went less than twenty minutes after I received the email. That was keen. I could have got it… I’ve already had a First to Find this month though.

I munzed, got Wordle on the third attempt, and got ready for the off.

 

There was a minor disaster today as Steve wasn’t on the radio, and no stand-in had been deployed. There was music and adverts, but no “Guess the Lyrics” competition as we went to Dog Club.

Dog Club was fun. We probably had about twenty dogs along. Treacle found a couple of girls who fussed her and she was happy. Morgan watched the bigger dogs having rough and tumble but didn’t get involved. He did get a bit boisterous with one of the smaller dogs, but he soon got told off, which is what he needs.

 

From Dog Club “er indoors TM” went straight to craft club. I took the pups home, made myself a cuppa and watched a bit of telly until I got bored of the telly. I pootled in the garden until “er indoors TM” came home. We had a lunch of hot cross buns then I got bored again.

Yesterday I pressure-washed the fence. This afternoon I painted it until the heat of the day passed, and then we took the dogs for a walk.

I looked at the geo-map and worked out a little walk that we might do whilst collecting two geocaches on the way. We drove out to Pennypot Wood and walked a circular walk of about three miles. It was a rather good walk which was only marred by Bailey trying to vanish down a rabbit hole – you can see some photos I took by clicking here.

 

We came home where “er indoors TM” boiled up a very good dinner which we washed down with a bottle of red Cabernet Sauvignon. Red? I thought the stuff only came in white. The white Cabernet Sauvignon is generally mildly inferior to vinegar; the red version was possibly one of the best red wines I’ve ever had. Apparently you can get it in Aldi as one of their bargain wines for less than three quid.

If anyone fancies a bottle of red wine… or wants to get me a pressie…

I wonder if it will give me a headache in the morning?

As we scoffed and drank we watched the last episode of the current season of Doctor Who. It was rather good; such a shame that they’ve given Ncuti Gatwa the heave-ho. As for his replacement… I won’t give spoilers but I will say I didn’t see that one coming.