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1 November 2018
(Thursday) - It Rained
I slept for over eight hours last night. It
is odd that I can’t sleep much during the day time after a night shift, but I
am out like a light during the night. I was eventually woken by the sound of
the torrential rain on the window this morning. There was so much I might have done today.
There was talk of fishing. I might have taken the dogs on a rather long walk.
The garden really needs a bit of attention. Everything was abandoned because
of the awful weather. Perhaps it is time for a review of my lifestyle and
find things to do which don’t involve being outside. Mind you I’m glad we’ve got the rain this
week and not last week when we were away on holiday. We had a *really*
good break in the New Forest. Was it only a week ago? Over brekkie I had a look-see at Facebook. A
friend’s granddaughter was very ill, and she was asking for prayers for the
little one. How does that work? Presumably the prayers are directed to some
god who could cure the child? Surely this begs the question of why the god
allowed the child to get ill in the first place, and why does the god have to
be begged for help. Is this god the capricious sort that allows bad things to
happen (or causes them) just so we beg for assistance? Or does it just
have no idea what is going on until we prompt it with a prayer? I’m not sure
I want anything to do with a deity like that. I wish I understood religion. Another friend was ranting on-line about what
a bitch his ex-girlfriend was and was listing her many and varied failings to
the world whilst wondering why the courts were siding with her in his ongoing
custody battle. I had the obligatory email from Amazon
suggesting I buy that which I’d already bought, and an email from the
Internet provider telling me all the wonderful deals they were offering on
the phone line that I cancelled last month. The bank had sent me an email. They’ve
started providing an e-newsletter. Someone’s obviously being paid a lot of
money to produce the thing. I wonder how many readers it will get? I for one
have no interest in reading a load of corporate nonsense. Despite the rain I took the dogs round the
park. Hardly anyone else had ventured out, but we did meet a rather
bedraggled chap and his equally bedraggled red setter which Fudge tried to
hump. When we were nearly home we met OrangeHead;
her dog was wearing a coat. Fudge flatly refuses to wear a coat
but I might try one on Treacle. We got home just as the dishwasher was
finishing. As we left I’d set both it and the
washing machine on a one-hour cycle. The dishwasher was done but the washing
machine still had half an hour to go. What was that all about? I dried the dogs and settled them, gathered
the dry washing from the radiators and went up into town. With pretty much all of the day’s possibilities being washed out I thought
I might go to the library. Having done the Snowdog
trail there were some freebies to be collected. I drove into town, got to the car park and
watched some old git push to the front of the queue for the car park tickets,
then once at the library I watched some old bat elbow her way in front of me.
When she’d finished giving the librarian serious abuse about the state of the
local bus services (?) I got to collect my free badges and pens. The
nice lady at the library told me about the upcoming Snowdog
event and the auction at which they will all be sold off. Whilst there is no
telling what price they will fetch, those “in the know” feel each Snowdog will sell for between three and five thousand
pounds. I wish I could afford one. With time still left on the car park ticket I
thought I might have a little look round town. Again
the elderly showed their complete disregard for queuing in WH Smiths and
Waterstones. I came home and found that Treacle had
knocked over all the washing I’d collected from the radiators. I knew it was
her and not Fudge; I’d put it on the chair that she uses as a jump-off point
to get on to the table. She knew she’d done wrong, but she got told off
anyway. She then spent much of the afternoon sulking at me. Over a spot of lunch
I watched another episode of “Prison Break”. It is OK, but (like
all fiction) *really* would benefit from a bit of research by the
writers. For example if you want to visit a
prisoner, you can’t just turn up. It’s not that simple. Before you can even
consider going to visit, the prisoner himself has to
add you to their list of visitors. Then the prisoner will send you a form
which you fill out and return to the prison saying exactly who is coming (only
those on the prisoner’s list are allowed) and what date you would like;
the date being about a fortnight or so into the future. *If* you are
lucky you’ll have your request approved. Along the same lines was an
e-book I’ve been reading. Billed as “hard SF” the author prides himself
on writing fiction, but with “proper” science. He was banging on about
preventing iron overloading by use of a reduced iron diet. For reasons I
could go on about (for literally hours on end) the human body don’t
work that way. I spent a little time writing up CPD. I’ve been
rather lax with that lately. I then did a week’ worth of archeoastronomy with
the nice people at Coursera; but I couldn’t concentrate on it. All I
heard was “blah blah Greek temple”. After another episode of “Prison Break”
"My Boy TM" came to visit. He was having his
mother’s wireless phone charger. It struck me it would be more efficient to
take the plug of the wireless charger and stick it into the phone, but what
do I know? With "er
indoors TM" off out tonight I fed the dogs then foraged
for my own dinner. I foraged in the general direction of KFC and foraged
rather successfully. I scoffed KFC whilst watching my DVD of “The Moonbase”; a Doctor Who story first broadcast in 1966.
Treacle seemed rather bemused as I sang the theme tune to her. I shall watch another episode of “Prison
Break”, maybe some more archeoastronomy, and then bed. It’s been
something of a rubbish day today… I could have done so much more if it hadn’t
rained. Mind you some people spend all day doing
nothing like this. What a waste of a day off. |
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2 November 2018
(Friday) - Late Shift
I slept well, but
did have a night plagued with rather vivid dreams in which the departmental
health and safety officer was walking round work clouting everyone over the
head (rather vigorously) with a clipboard and shouting “HAZARD!!”
at the most ridiculous things. Waking came as something of a blessed relief. Over brekkie Facebook reminded my that two years ago I went
for a job interview. Reading my diary from two years ago it didn’t look like
that interview went that well but looking back I’d say that was something of
a turning point in my life. I quite like working in an environment where I’m
*not* under pressure to look for my colleagues’ mistakes so that
either they get in trouble for making them, or I get in trouble for not
finding them. Mind you, looking back at where I used to work you have to
admire the genius of the administration. Having implemented a “no bullying”
policy the management can bully to their heart’s content secure in the
knowledge that no allegations of bullying will be investigated as the place
has a policy of not having bullying in the first place. Realising I was getting rather bitter and
twisted again I took a deep breath and pausing only briefly to get jam into
my phone’s charging socket I took the dogs round the park. Yesterday it rained hard all day. Today was a
beautiful morning. We had a really good walk right
up to the point where we met OrangeHead and her gang of cronies. Fudge
decided to have a transfer of allegiance and walked off with her bunch. He
does this *every* time; the only way to get him to come away is to put
his lead on and drag him. He knows this and runs away whenever I get close. I
very nearly walked off and left him there. I actually did
walk off with Treacle on the lead. After a few minutes he followed rather
sheepishly. He knew he was in trouble… We got home; I settled the pups and set off
to work. As I drove there was some utter drivel on the radio in which someone
was being interviewed about their skill in writing graphic novels. Have you
ever read a graphic novel? They boil my piss. They aren't novels at all. They
are comic books. I like a comic book (I subscribe to Viz magazine) but
a comic is a comic. Calling it a "novel" is just wrong. A
"novel" has words; a comic book has pictures. In my more unkind moments I describe graphic novels as being for
those who can't be bothered to read the words so look at the pictures instead.
Something of a subtle difference perhaps?... I turned the radio off. I'd planned myself a little geo-mission for
this morning. There were two geocaches along the A249 neither of which had
been found in over a year. I thought I might try for a resuscitation or two,
but (to be honest) I wasn't particularly hopeful about resuscitating
either. I knew my first target was going to be
problematical. Previous finders had mentioned (in their written logs)
the lack of footpaths from the roadside to the cache. The chap who'd hidden
it claimed that according to the ordnance survey maps it was smack-bang on a
footpath. I'm no expert but from the maps I could find, it looked as though
the specified location was smack-bang on some sort of parish boundary. Still,
climbing a broken fence and marching through a planted field soon had me at
the World War II pill box in which the cache was supposedly hidden. I couldn't find it. To be honest the cache was part of a series
very few of which have been found in the last couple of years. That
could be because they are clever hides, or because they aren't there any
more.... I marched back through the planted field and
across the broken fence back to my car. My second target was also not going to be
easy. It was originally hidden by someone at Kent County Council who wanted
to attract tourists to their country parks. The cache's name was "Ouch"
and the description suggested "going in backwards" and not
going in from the main road. Clearly it was going to be in the jungle of undergrowth. Approaching from the country park my GPS led
me to a thicket and said the cache was some eighty yards inside it. Like the
idiot that I am, I followed the arrow through hawthorn and bramble. After
twenty minutes I found my quarry. I was the first finder in over a year.
Another resuscitation to my name. Happy dance. Mind you I think it quite fair to say that
the person who'd first hidden it had drop-kicked the thing into a rather
thick hedge a few years ago and had left it to rot. Perhaps I should put
"Needs Archiving" on it? Pausing only briefly for a church micro (as
one does) I drove on to work. I'd planned to get to work early because
there was a flu jab clinic today. Normally I'm not keen on injections, but
after the fun I'd just had in the thickets and brambles, the flu jab was
plain sailing. And I got a sweetie too. The works canteen was offering cauliflower
cheese for lunch. Not too shabby at all. And so into work. I
did my bit and came home to mayhem. "Stormageddon - Bringer of
Destruction TM" has come to stay for the weekend. We watched
“Paw Patrol” until far too late. |
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3 November 2018
(Saturday) - Stormageddon's Visit
I woke with something of a headache and a
sore arm. Was that the after-effect of yesterday’s flu jab? I got up and had a quick look at the
Internet. It hadn’t changed *that* much since yesterday. This morning
people were grumbling about how Christmas decorations are appearing in shops
and Christmas adverts are on the telly. Personally I
think they are probably right to grumble. Every year I start off in early
November all keen and enthusiastic about the festivities, but by the time
they arrive (two months later) I’m thoroughly sick of hearing about
it. Starting all the Christmas stuff now spoils it for me. Talking of Christmas I also read that there
are no plans for a Christmas Day episode of Doctor Who as the people who make
it have
run out of ideas. I think they reached that point some time ago. I’ve not
seen last week’s episode yet and am in no rush to see it. Which (as a
life-long Doctor Who fan) is something of a shame. "er indoors TM" and "Stormageddon
- Bringer of Destruction TM" came downstairs; we got
ourselves together and drove out to the Beefeater on Eureka park where we’d
planned to meet "My Boy TM" and his branch of the
tribe for brekkie. Have you ever been to the Beefeater on Eureka
park for brekkie? I can’t recommend the place. Having been told there was a
half-hour wait to be seated we sat for forty minutes looking at empty tables
and watching people (who’d arrived after us) being seated and served.
Eventually we got a table. After half an hour of being pointedly ignored by
the staff "My Boy TM" fetched over a waitress who
took the food orders. After another half an hour they brought up various
plates of food; not one actually corresponding to
what we’d ordered. But bearing in mind how long we’d waited already, and also bearing in mind that the McDonalds over the way
had stopped doing breakfast by then, we decided to just eat it. I ate what I
could. The black pudding was red where it was still raw. I don’t mind a runny
fried egg, but it is the yolk which should be runny, not the white. As I looked at my inedible leftovers
I tried not to laugh out loud at the waitress who was clearing tables. What I
worked in a restaurant I would carry away more than two pieces of crockery at
a time when clearing a table. I also would pick up the cutlery that I
dropped; not leave it for twenty minutes. We’d read that if there were any problems we should bring them up with the duty manager. However when the duty manager came over to us we didn’t
have chance to bring anything up. He marched up, announced that we should get
a move on because breakfast was finishing in five minutes, and he marched
off. When I paid, the waitress was apologising
profusely; she knew what a poor service they’d offered. Realistically they
should have half the tables or double the staff. I told her so. She agreed
but said that this had been pointed out to the management already. Bearing in mind that the duty manager had had
his chance, I slated the place on Google and TripAdvisor. We then drove round to Bybrook
Barn garden centre to have a look at the fish stuff and the toys, and then "er indoors TM" set off to a girls’ lunch in Folkestone. So we went home to collect the
dogs, and took "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction TM" and
the family wolf-pack round the park for a walk. As we walked
I recorded some of our antic which I made into a little video. "My Boy TM" and
Cheryl went home; "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction TM"
and I settled in front of the telly and watched “The Annoying Orange”
videos on You-Tube until he got bored. We then had something of a fight which
his mother tried to referee by phone from thirty miles away. I suggested we might take to dogs up the park
again to amuse him; he readily agreed but dawdled so slowly that it was dark
by the time we got there. We came home to find "er indoors TM" had returned. She
boiled up pizzas for tea. "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction TM"
has settled in front of the telly watching walk-throughs of video games (that
he doesn’t understand) on You-Tube. "er
indoors TM" has told him it is bath time several times.
he has pointedly ignored her on each occasion. He seems to be rather
proficient at doing that… |
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4 November 2018
(Sunday) - Early Shift
Finding myself awake far earlier than I
needed to be I watched a couple of episodes of "The Good Place"
to bring me up to date as I've missed it recently. I've now caught up and
have seen all the episodes that are available. The first two seasons were
rather good; I'm rather concerned that this third season was commissioned on
the success of the previous two even though the writers didn't really have
any idea of where they might go with a third season. Much the same happened
with "The Last Ship" and "Lost" and "Last
of the Summer Wine". Such a shame that they drag out these shows far
beyond their limits. Leaving "er
indoors TM" and "Stormageddon - Bringer of
Destruction TM" and the dogs snoring I set off to
work. As I drove Rowan
Williams (The ex-Archbishop of Canterbury) was on the radio
spouting frank nonsense about music and architecture. Unlike most people I actually listened to what he said. Admittedly the words
formed sentences, but no one sentence had any logical connection with any
that came before or after. It never fails to amaze me how no one is ever
brave enough to stand up and say that pretty much anything coming from a
cleric is frank nonsense. Take this morning's witterings;
dribbling on when most people were in bed he could
say whatever rubbish came into his head secure in the knowledge that no one
would ever quibble. I would be *so* good at being a vicar. There was then an interview with a pair of sisters
who were running a successful farm in the Shetland Islands (which was far
less dull than it sounded, and far more interesting than what the
ex-archbishop had been going on about). I had planned to get petrol before going up
the motorway. In the end I decided to get petrol in Maidstone. I arrived at
the garage just as they were opening. That was good timing. I also saw that
petrol is now five pence per litre cheaper than it was when I last looked.
Bargain! Resisting the temptation to have a full English
in the works canteen I went into work. I had a rather non-stop day and was
glad when the time came for me to beat a retreat. Once home I got the light-up collars on to the
dogs and we went for a little walk. I’ve noticed that you get a far more
sociable dog and dog-walker earlier in the day in the park than you get
later. As we walked in the dusk we found several
dog-walkers who didn’t understand Fudge’s urge to climb on to the backs of
their dogs. Mind you I was glad for the light-up collars.
In all honesty the new L.E.D. street lights might as well have been turned
off for all the illumination they provided this evening. The only areas where
we could see what we were doing was where the old sodium vapour lights were
still in place. We got home a little while before "er indoors TM". She’d delivered
most-recent grandchild home and there was a minor issue in that somehow over
the weekend "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction TM"
has lost a pair of trousers. I’m glad I didn’t take him home – I don’t want
"Daddy’s Little Angel TM" on my case. "er indoors TM" boiled up scran, then went off bowling. I’ve got a dog either side
of me and I dare not move. I might just watch that telly… |
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5 November 2018
(Monday) - Late Shift
I actually had an
early night last night, and apart from a minor disturbance when a wet nose
was shoved into my left armpit in the small hours, I slept for eight hours. I stood on the scales this morning. For all
that I haven’t been dieting recently I’ve not put on *that* much
weight. Maybe a pre-Christmas diet might be a good idea though. Over brekkie I peered into cyber-space. I read
something which was a sign of our times. Apparently
youths had been using an air-rifle to take pot-shots at cars in one of the
better parts of town. Naturally pretty much everyone was up in arms about it.
But… Back in the day decent people would have gone out, taken the air rifle
from the brats, snapped it as they watched, given the kids a smack round the
earhole, and that would have been the end of it. Nowadays everyone just posts
indignation from the safety of their keyboard and the brats wallow in the
glory as they boast to their mates. And everyone acts surprised when the
copycats start up. I took the dogs for a walk. Over the years
our morning walks would involve meeting loads of schoolchildren on their way
to school. The pavements would be awash with them. Over the last year
something has changed. We still see half a dozen secondary school youths on
bikes, but we don’t see *any* primary school kids any more. Do they
all go to school by car? Do they start earlier or later? Mind you we did see
“Little Miss Cheerful”. I first met “Little Miss Cheerful”
nearly thirty years ago. She lives just down the road from us and has a son
of the same age as "My Boy TM". Over the years
I’ve bumped into her at play schools, schools, cubs, youth clubs, in pubs and
clubs, in shops… so many places. And on every single occasion she has a face
like a slapped arse. The act of smiling *must* cause her physical
pain; why else would she have appeared to be thoroughly miserable ever since
the early 1990s? We also saw a squirrel which probably
wouldn’t have had an ecstatic expression on its face bearing in mind the turn
of speed the poor thing had to have to evade the hounds. After our walk I ran round
the house with the Hoover. Our Hoover is a Dyson. I set off to Tunbridge Wells. Being seconded
to Tunbridge Wells for the late shift I'd found myself a few geo-targets to
keep me out of mischief on the way to work. I say “found” – “I saw
their locations on the map” might be a more accurate statement. My first target had me solve a little puzzle
based on a post box on someone's house, do a few sums, and then set off to a
location a couple of hundred yards away. The hint was "behind tree".
The sat-nav took me straight to a large tree. However
behind this tree was a garden fence. And sitting in the garden was one of the
normal people who was watching me in the same way I might look at dog poop on
my shoe. I gave up and drove on to my backup geocache which (after doing
some sums) had me rummaging fruitlessly in an orchard (to coin a
phrase). After a while I gave up and drove in to work. After twenty minutes driving round a rather
full car park I eventually managed to park my car,
and went to the canteen for lunch. Usually the works canteen(s) are
very good. Unfortunately today was some sort of
"burger day" and I wasn't impressed. But dinner is dinner. I
scoffed it and walked in to my department to find a "red alert"
in full flow. That is one of the troubles with my line of work. I have
sometimes (in my more flippant moments) described what I do as "hours
of boredom interspersed with moments of stark panic". A ruptured
aorta is usually something which makes people sit up and take notice, as are
antibodies to the Kidd blood group system. After that, the rest of the day was something
of an anti-climax. |
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6 November 2018
(Tuesday) - Another Late Shift
As I had my morning root around the internet I saw something that was rather upsetting. For
many years I have been a staunch supporter of the nearby Capralama
Farm reindeer centre. There are all sorts of allegations
about animal abuse having taken place there. I wonder if there is any
truth in this? I also signed an e-petition about restricting
the sale of fireworks. Something needs to be done about them. Back in the day
firework were pretty and family-friendly. Now there is nothing to see on the
ground-based ones – they are just noisy explosions. Admittedly the rockets
can be pretty (the ones that don’t scream as they fly, that is) but
having them launched from lager bottles held in the hands of pissed teenagers
is hardly a safe way to carry on, is it? Perhaps there *is* something
to be said about restricting fireworks to organised displays; if only the
fact that organised displays don’t start after ten o’clock at night and go on
till after midnight (disturbing us all with the noise of the fireworks and
the resultant fire engines and ambulances). I also had an email. Some French people had
found some of my Wherigos and had written a rather
extensive “found it” log (not something I do!) but it was all
in French. So I called up Google Translate and…
Bearing in mind Google has tracked my every movement for years and knows
exactly where I go, whatever possessed it to translate from French in to
Spanish? I took the dogs round the park. Again there were no small schoolchildren. (Apparently
primary school starts half an hour earlier these days). We had a rather
good walk; Fudge wasn’t overly recalcitrant for once. We saw OrangeHead’s posse gathering by the playpark awaiting the
arrival of their leader. The dynamics of her posse is quite amusing; her “chunky
little friend” hasn’t been part of her gang for some time. The woman with
the Scotties who used to be part of a rival gang of walkers has joined her,
as has (of today) the bloke with the Red Setter. As we came home we
bumped in to Paul. We had a good chat and put the world to rights. Bearing in mind the ongoing roadworks on the
M20 I left for work rather early. As I drove the radio was playing "Women's
Hour". I listened to the program, much as it winds me up. I realise
that *some* men are evil creatures, but we're not all bad. It is a
shame that those being interviewed on that show don't seem to realise that. The program started with an expose of the sad
plight of young women working in the Houses of Parliament. Andrea Ledsom was saying how middle-aged male MPs often
employ young women for their nefarious entertainment, and
was banging on about how there is no human resources department in Westminster
to sort this sort of thing out. Of course there isn't. MPs employ their staff directly. There is no
major employer in the palace of Westminster. That was glossed over by the
presenters. Heaven forbid that facts should defend the male menace. There was also talk in the growth industry of
pre-parental counselling in which women pay counsellors good money to talk
through whether or not they should try for children.
You couldn't make this up! Don't these people have friends or family they
could talk to? Why pay some stranger to talk to them about such a personal
matter? Is the show's target audience *really* "Belinda-no-mates"? I'd set myself a couple of geocaches to try
to resuscitate before work. I eventually got to my first target. Google told
me I'd got there an hour quicker by not taking the motorway
but it was academic anyway. With several "Did Not Find" logs
I rather thought I wouldn't find this first target, and I didn't. But I did
find the next one. Happy dance. As I was walking back to my car from this
second cache my phone beeped. A message from someone who was unable to find a
cache I'd hidden. It seemed obvious that he was in the right place, so I
suspected the thing had gone missing. Film pots don't stay put under rocks.
They go walkabout. I suggested he might like to feel free to replace it. He
replied that he had nothing with which to replace it and seemed surprised
that I might suggest he would have. It sometimes winds me up that so many people
are so quick to get entertainment from hunting out film pots under rocks, but
so few are prepared to put anything back into the game. I drove in to work where (once I finally
found somewhere to park) I had a rather good lasagna
for dinner. I then got on with work. There was quite a bit to get on with
today, and I was glad when the night shift rolled in. It was a shame the motorway was closed when I
came home… |
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7 November 2018
(Wednesday) - An Evening In
Having set an alarm
I found myself wide awake at four o’clock listening to everyone else’s
snoring. I tried to get back to sleep, but eventually gave up. I got up and
watched last week’s “South Park” which was rather good. I then had my morning look at the Internet.
My phone told me I had a friend request on Facebook from someone I didn’t
know, but when I went to have a look there was nothing in the “pending”
list. Presumably another porn-monger who has had their account deleted. I had a couple of emails. Someone had put a
comment on a blog entry from three years ago trying to advertise their
gambling website. I deleted it. Geocaching HQ sent an article about someone
who’s published a list of their ten favourite
worldwide geocaches. There were some rather wonderful places photographed;
such a shame she was brandishing some football club scarf so prominently in
all of them. And (again) Amazon was suggesting I
buy what I have already bought. Bearing in mind the traffic I left for work
rather early. As I drove the pundits on the radio were discussing the recent
elections in America. The Republicans did well in some areas; the Democrats
did well in others. And for all that President Trump was trounced, it turns
out that his preferred candidates actually won in
the areas where he himself turned up and campaigned in person. For all that
he might seem to be something of a rather idiotic choice of a President, he
is certainly a charismatic one. Not that I’m making a comparison of politics
in any way but reading history it would seem that Adolf
Hitler similarly inspired the masses. Charismatic people do. It is a
shame that the electorate doesn’t see through their flannel. Did I ever mention that I’m not a great fan
of democracy? My piss then boiled as the pundits spoke
about the epidemic of knife crime which is sweeping the nation. The mother of
one victim was on the radio advocating the widespread availability of first aid
kits and trauma packs; the idea being that there should be treatment readily
available for the stabbed. I’m sorry but what a stupid idea this would
be. Given that someone has just spiked someone else, are they going to stand
around whilst passers-by tend to their victims? If they stab someone, they
want them stabbed. Surely it would be a better idea to have the
courts take a firm line. Put the knife-wielding scum in the stocks. Just like
they did in the middle ages. Stick them in the stocks with a placard saying
why they are in the stocks and let the general public pelt them with rotten
fruit. And bricks. I’m serious about this – I once worked with a
chap who hailed from deepest China where his village really did have the
stocks. He said this village was the most law-abiding place you could
imagine. He told me he could only remember the stocks being used once. That
was all that was needed. If the scum element were held to account for their crimes then they wouldn’t do it. Just like when I was a boy at the Hastings
Academy for Budding Geniuses. The Headmaster had a cane. If anyone got out of
line they got two strokes (not six). One boy
had a sore arse for a day: a thousand boys behaved themselves for a year. I
think that is a fair price. I eventually got to work where I did that
which I couldn’t avoid. As I walked to my car my phone beeped. Would I go
collect something for a friend? Of course… I
programmed my phone’s sat-nav and off I went. And
when I got a mile from my destination the phone froze. I was also a mile from
home so I went home. I can run the errand tomorrow Being the only night all week that we would
both be home we had a rather good bit of scran and
a bottle of plonk and watched the first episode of “Lego Masters”. I
quite like a bottle of plonk and I quite like Lego too. And then, just as I was getting rather sleepy
my phone bleeped. A new geocache. A direct replacement for the first one I
ever found. Bearing in mind I’d been in correspondence with the reviewer
about replacing it myself I wasn’t best pleased to see this go live. Oh well…
such is life. In protest I shan’t be publishing the twenty-two
cache series I had planned to put out. It is amazing how petty one can become over a
film pot stuck under a rock… |
|
8 November 2018
(Thursday) - More Dogs Than Sense
I slept reasonably well but again woke far
too early. I then lay awake watching the clock, finally nodding off ten
minutes before the alarm finally went off. Over brekkie I had a quick look-see at the
Internet. Last night I’d had something of a sulk about my geo-plans having
been thwarted; this morning I found I had quite a few messages of support.
People are very kind. But what’s done is done and having spat my dummy out I
shall continue to sulk in a rather petulant way. Despite being well over
fifty I can be as childish as my grandchildren. I shan’t be putting a film
pot under that rock or any other in the near future.
Perhaps more worrying was reading that
Treacle’s brother Ethan is very ill. He’s eaten a packet of ibuprofen and
made himself poorly. Treacle has a habit of eating pretty much everything she
shouldn’t as well. I really must keep an eye out for exactly what she is eating. As I walked to my car
I asked my phone if there were any delays on the way to work. It said there
were; it estimated my arrival time at five past seven. I set off on a cold dark morning. The pundits
on the radio were talking about an interview with Prince Charles who was
discussing how he would approach being King. The chap is nearly seventy years
old and he's having to consider a serious career move. I'm fifteen years
younger than he is, and I'm hoping for early retirement. There was also talk about how the Foreign
Secretary is going to give a speech in France today, and great show
was made of the fact that he is going to give it in French. Isn't that just good manners? Mind you it would be better
manners if the French generally accepted that when people had a go at their language they are not going to be able to speak it
perfectly and shouldn't pretend not to be able to understand anything other
than perfection (not that I've experienced this rudeness from *every
single French person I've ever met*...) I drove through the delays that my phone had
warned me about; I got to work at half past seven. I did think that my phone
had been rather optimistic in its prediction. The night shift was pleased to see me roll
in. I'd volunteered to cover today's early shift; had I known what it was
going to be like I might not have been so keen. It wasn't the best of early
shifts. But things improved when the core cover arrived. I did my bit, and an early start made for an
early finish. I managed to run the errand that I didn’t run last night, and
once home I quickly ran the dogs round the block. Can you believe there is a
house round the corner with their Christmas lights
up inside already? With dogs walked I finished my Coursera
course about archeoastronomy. Tonight I learned a
valuable fact… when I am out walking I often wonder how far away is the
horizon. Now – given a relatively flat landscape, the visible horizon (expressed
in kilometres) is approximately the square root of 13h (if h is the
height of the observer expressed in metres). Which means that for me the
horizon is generally a shade under five kilometres away. How about that ! "er indoors TM" arrived home a
little later than usual. She’s been to Margate to collect a couple of house
guests. Sid and Pogo are going to stay with us for a little holiday. That
will be nice… |
|
9 November 2018
(Friday) - Cover Versions
For the dogs, last night was just like the
first night of cub camp. Everyone was far too excited to sleep. I went to bed
at eleven o’clock and got an hour’s sleep before "er
indoors TM" came up and then spent most of the night
arguing and fighting with the hounds. She finally went downstairs (followed
by the wolf-pack) at quarter to four and I got two hours relative peace
despite Pogo coming to check on me every ten minutes. Over brekkie I had a look at the Internet as
I do. Not much was going on, but I had a few emails this morning. Coursera
had congratulated me on completing the astroarchaeology course, and half an
hour later had then sent another email saying that I had nearly
finished it. And then Amazon made me think. I’ve recently
read a couple of rather good e-books on my Kindle app. They each cost me
ninety-nine pence. Bearing in mind that the Kindle app uses long-established
technology there aren’t that many overheads. I am reliably informed that the
author gets about a third of that money Amazon had sent me an email suggesting I buy
the “Game of Thrones” prequel e-book for twelve pounds ninety-nine
pence. Which is actually fifty pence more than they
are flogging the hardback version for. Nice little earner for them! Yesterday as I walked to my car I asked my phone if there were any delays on the way
to work. It said there were; it estimated my arrival time at five past seven.
I asked my phone the same question at the same time this morning. It
said there were no delays and estimated my arrival time at seven minutes past
seven. As I drove to work the morning's news was the
usual mix of trivial and ridiculous. There is a Dutch chap who is taking
legal action to have his age legally
reduced. He is sixty-nine years old but doesn't feel it. In much the
same way that a man might want to be a woman and can legally swap gender, he
feels he identifies as a younger person and wants to be legally recognised as
such. He's prepared to give up his pension and he also says that being twenty
years younger will improve his chances of getting a job and of getting his
end away on the dating app Tinder. I would have thought that at nearly seventy
years of age, the urge to try to pork random would be on the decrease... The Prime Minister is also under
fire from the DUP. She's in an impossible position. One of the main
reasons that the masses voted for Brexit was so that Johnnie Foreigner *wouldn't*
have unhindered access to the UK. However one of the
main reasons that years of fighting in Ireland stopped was the removal of the
border between North and South. Either we have it and the violence starts again. Or we don't and there was no point at all in
having Brexit. Which is it to be? Interestingly the global
birth rate is falling. This is widely seen as a bad thing, but bearing in
mind there are far too many people on this planet, is it really? Mind you
with the average British mother only having one point seven babies, I hope
there will be enough people to pay my pension... I got to work far easier than yesterday. The
same journey at the same time of day took eighteen minutes less. Today I was
only two minutes later than Google had estimated. I had a rather tiring day –
the lack of sleep took its toll on me. But an early start made for an early
finish. Once home I walked four dogs round the block.
That took some doing. And with dogs walked I opened my post. A little while
ago I saw that there was another CD of covers of Sparks songs being produced.
I got the first
one some twenty-one years ago from HMV in central London. Featuring some
musicians af Faith No More, Jimmy Sommerville and
Erasure it was rather good. The second came two
years later and I thought was even better. Ten years passed before I got the third from an
obscure website, but it wasn’t too shabby at all. I’m afraid that the CD which arrived today was
a bitter disappointment. |
|
10 November 2018
(Saturday) - Thornden Woods
Another restless night in which the dogs all
spent much of the night stomping all over us. I say “the dogs”; mainly
Pogo. As he’s such a lump you can’t help but be disturbed when he moves
about. I woke to the aroma of turd. I got up to find
"er indoors TM"
clearing one up. All dogs were hoiked into the garden
where three of the four pooped seemingly to prove their innocence. I’d had my
suspicions as to the phantom pooper, and that one didn’t “lay an egg”
in the garden this morning. Mind you, toilet training has never been Pogo’s strong point. We must work on that. Over brekkie I had a look at Facebook. Some
were running down the NHS, some were ranting about what nasty people their
partners and ex-partners were (and still are). As I tried to look at
everyone’s petty triviality Pogo was dabbing me for attention. For all that
he’s a big lump, he really is a soppy one. We then got the dogs and our stuff into the
car. That took some doing with double our usual number of dogs. Pausing only
briefly to clear the mess made when Pogo threw up we were soon at Thornden
Woods. We arrived just as the heavens opened. Karl, Tracey and Charlotte soon
arrived, and we sat in our cars for a while. Eventually the rains subsided to a medium
monsoon, and we decided to go for the walk. I was glad we did; we had a
rather good wander round some rather pretty woodlands. It was a shame that
the weather hadn’t read the weather forecast but the
rain had mostly stopped by eleven o’clock, and we only got caught in one
downpour. I’d worn my waterproof trousers for the first time today – they did
the trick rather well. I wish I knew what I’ve done with my gaiters. Geocache-wise it was a good route. We knew
the first two targets were missing but we’d arranged to replace them. The
rest were mostly straightforward hides… mostly. There were a couple which the
previous finder had hidden how they thought the things should have been
hidden (as opposed to how they were hidden), but their efforts were
soon thwarted by digging dogs. You can tell a geocache hasn’t been put back
right when Treacle digs it out from where she is randomly digging in the
ground. A four-mile walk was ideal for today. Pogo
and Sid aren’t used to the long walks we usually go on, and so a shorter
distance was just right to get them into the swing of things. After four miles we were back at the car. It
was only a short drive from the car park in Thornden Woods to the Prince of
Wales in Hoath. “Loose Cannon” was on the
hand pump, “Cat o’ Nine Tails” and “Friggin
in the Riggin” were in bottles. All sorts of
crisps were scoffed, and a glass of port helped to wash it all down. Pogo was sick on the drive home too… Over a rather good bit of dinner we watched
last week’s episode of “Doctor Who”. It wasn’t that good really, which
was a shame. Neither was the latest episode of “Big Bang Theory”
either. I then dozed in front of the telly for much
of the evening… |
|
11 November 2018
(Sunday) - It Rained
Another restless night. Perhaps the dogs
should sleep downstairs? There’s no denying that having four dogs is a tad
keen. Over brekkie Pogo crapped on the living room floor. It is closer to the
garden than the bedroom, so I suppose that is an improvement on yesterday. As
I scoffed my toast Fudge sat with me. He looked like it was all too much for
him as well. Facebook was filled with all sorts of stuff
for Remembrance Day this morning, as well it should be. But I couldn’t
understand what some people were posting up. Somehow
they felt that wanting to remain part of the EU as being disrespectful to
those who’d fought in the wars. Perhaps these people haven’t read much
history? Another friend was seriously proposing that the entire country
should have taken the day off work today for Remembrance. Surely one day off
wouldn’t hurt the nation, he said… Well, speaking for myself there is a very
good reason why my workplace never closes. I popped round to B&Q to buy some odds
and sods, and came home for what was supposed to be a day of D.I.Y. The light
fitting at the kitchen end of the living room has been knacked
for some time. Having been operating in the gloom for some time we decided to
replace it with a standard “rose” light fitting. But once we’d got the
old knacked fitting down we found there was far too
much loose wiring to be shoved inside a standard “rose” light fitting.
So we both went back to B&Q. There was a range of light fittings. We
needed something with a “skirt” big enough to stuff all the wiring
into, but not too heavy so’s it would bring the ceiling down. B&Q had
quite a good range of stuff. To be fair to B&Q *if* you know what
you want then they aren’t too bad. It’s when you ask their staff for advice
that you run into problems. We toyed with a colour-changing light thingy but
soon realised that the novelty of that would wear off very fast. I quite
liked the larger lights which I could only describe as “pendulous globes
of joy” but "er indoors TM"
wasn’t keen. In retrospect they were rather hideous. In the end we got
something not entirely unlike what we already had. And to my absolute
amazement we got the new thing in place on the first attempt and with minimal
fuss and absolutely no swearing whatsoever. I wonder how long it will last? I had planned to replace the garden light and
to fix the small leak on the lobby roof as well, but the rain outside put me off of that idea. I *think* I’ve found the source
of the leak and I’ve bodged something until it is dry enough to apply the
sealant. We then went to Aldi to get the shopping.
Usually "er indoors TM"
gets the shopping on her own. I don’t usually go, and today I reminded myself
why not. The normal people were out in force today. Does it *really*
take the entire family of mum, dad, grandma and four kids to get the
shopping? Is it a supermarket or a kids’ play area? Do people really have to
physically pick up and scrutinise every single item in the shop before
deciding they don’t actually want any of it? I was glad to get home. Once home we had a quick bit of dinner then
took the dogs round the park. Four dogs is hard
work. To be honest the hardest part on our walk was Sid. He didn’t really
want to go out, and if wasn’t dragged he wouldn’t
have moved at all. It was a shame that both Fudge and Pogo decided to “express
the love that dare not speak its name” at Sid just as OrangeHead came in
our direction across the co-op field. OrangeHead was having a whinge about
the local thugs who ride their motorbikes around the co-op field. To be fair
to the local thugs they were all sitting quietly by their motorbikes and not
riding them anywhere, not one of the thugs was old enough to drive a
motorbike legally, and if they didn’t ride them round the co-op field where
would they ride them? There are those who would ask what they were doing with
motorbikes in the first place, but… “not my circus, not my monkeys”. A quick Belgian bun, then I set about ironing
shirts and trousers. A dull task, but there it is. They don’t iron
themselves. Usually on Sundays we are out. But being home
"er indoors TM" boiled
up a rather good roast dinner. Haven’t had a roast at home for some time. The
dogs enjoyed their bowlfuls of chicken and potato and vegetables. And with "er
indoors TM" off bowling I watched a couple of episodes of
“Prison Break” whilst all four dogs slept off their dinner. Perhaps I should have kept them awake so they
might sleep later? Today was rather dull… |
|
12 November 2018
(Monday) - New Pants and Cream Cakes
I slept reasonably well but woke to find
there was only me in the pit and Fudge on top of it. I came downstairs to
find "er indoors TM" on
the sofa with Treacle, Sid and Pogo. One had wanted to go tiddle during the
night, and all three had got wet in the rain. The plan was they would dry
off, and they all fell asleep. I watched “South Park” as I scoffed my
toast, then took the car to the garage for a service. They offered me a lift
home, but they wouldn’t be able to go for half an hour. The rain was only a
fine drizzle and I walked home in twenty-five minutes. Once home I got leads onto those dogs that
wanted a walk, and (leaving Sid asleep on the sofa) took Fudge,
Treacle and Pogo round the park. We had a good wander. Pogo *really*
didn’t like the snow-dog in the park and had a serious shout at it. Fudge
straggled as he does; a passing looney asked me if Fudge liked horses.
Apparently in the looney’s experience dogs that lag behind
read the Sporting Life magazine. We hurried away as quickly as we could.
There is a fine line between “whimsical” and “insane”. It was at this point that the heavens opened.
Within seconds we were all soaked. Within minutes the rain had got through to
my pants. We hurried home as quickly as we could only to find that all the
dog towels were still in the boot of "er
indoors TM"’s car. I dried the dogs off as best I could using old rags from the to-be-recycled pile. I loaded all my wet clothes into the washing
machine and set them to scrub. I got myself some dry plants and took Fudge to
the vets for his annual once-over. He wasn’t quite as frightened at the vets
as he usually is. The vet gave him a good going over. His teeth need some
brushing, and he needs to lose about a pound in weight, but generally all is
good for a dog of his age. We came home, hung wet clothes out to dry (again)
and I turned on the telly. As I did the ironing I watched “The Dirty Dozen”;
a film I’ve watched many times in the past. It starts well, but it does go on
a bit, and there’s no denying that at the end it does turn into that classic
movie from the Alexei Sayle show; “Things
Exploding”. However five minutes from
the end of the film everything stopped. We had a power cut. But only a short
one; by the time I’d got some shoes to see if the power was out up and down
the street the power was back. Looking on the local Facebook groups it would seem that much of South Ashford had a power
outage too. The garage phoned; my car was ready to be
collected. The nice man drove round to give me a lift. From the garage I went
on to Tesco. I have three pairs of trainers; all of
which leak. So I got a new pair, and whilst I was at
it I got new pants and socks and a cream cake too. I told the world about it
on Facebook; the world seemed suitably impressed, as well it might. I came home and seeing the rain had stopped I
walked all of the dogs round the block. Walking four
on my own isn’t practical. It is doubly frustrating when we came home and Sid immediately went to have a tiddle in the
living room. I caught him and marched him outside. His toilet training
sometimes leaves a bit to be desired. By now the rain had stopped. Having worked
six consecutive days last week when it was (mostly) bright and dry
I’ve just had three days off in the rain. By the time the rain stopped today
it was too dark for me to do anything much so I
scoffed my cream cake whilst watching an episode of “Lost in Space”,
and with cake devoured I sorted the undercrackers
that the washing machine had washed and dried for me (now we had some leccie again). "er indoors TM" came home from
work and the dogs immediately started playing up. Having been well behaved (asleep)
for most of the day they started attacking each other and trying to make off
with the laundry I’d worked so hard to iron. We had a rather good bit of
dinner, then "er indoors TM"
went bowling and the dogs all settled again… |
|
13 November 2018 (Tuesday)
- Nectar Card
I had a better night
last night, possibly because I went to bed an hour earlier than usual and got
some sleep before the hounds descended on my pit. Mind you the dogs didn’t
have *that* many issues overnight; I can vaguely remember a shouting
match with new-next-door’s dogs in the small hours, but it was all
rather vague. Over brekkie I
watched the most recent episode of “The Good Place” (which isn’t
really going anywhere at the moment) then
sparked up my lap-top to see what I’d missed on the Internet overnight.
Marvel comics supremo Stan
Lee had died. Whilst there had been a massive outpouring of grief on
Facebook overnight, the chap was ninety-five years old. There was also a
petty squabble kicking off on one of the American geocaching groups; some
chap regularly goes trolling there and *always* manages to stir up a
fight. I got dressed putting
on my new pants and socks, neither of which were very substantial. The socks
were on the thin side and the pants did a frankly pathetic job of keeping my
“junk” in place; I can't see any of them lasting very long. I then set
off to work. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about a
squabble between Italy and the E.U. Some Italian minister or other was being
interviewed. He made me chuckle when he said the dispute would be resolved
quicker if there were a few less tweets from either side. And I heard that the
TV fishing celebrity John
Wilson had died. I believe my brother once told him to get knotted. Today's "Thought
for the Day" was from some professor hailing form Canterbury who was
banging on about how gospel music has "sold out" in that it is no
longer exclusively sung in churches but is features in some adverts. My
attention was wandering as I found myself thinking "who cares",
and I couldn't help but wonder how many thousands of listeners turn off at
that point. I stopped off at the
petrol station this morning, It is a penny cheaper
per litre than it was last week. As I paid the chap in the till asked if I
had a nectar card. i said no. I always say no. I
have done every week for the last year or so. But today this chap asked if
I'd like one, and he gave me one. Result! Work was work;
getting home was fun! I have no idea what the hold-up was, but it took half
an hour to get out of the works car park, and a further three quarters of an
hour to get to the motorway. I came home to an empty house; "er indoors TM" had taken the hounds
round the park. I took a few minutes
to register the Nectar card that the nice man in the garage had given me this
morning. I’m not quite sure what I did, but I didn’t register it; I set up a
new one. Woops. I *think* I’ve now connected it to my eBay account (not
that I buy much with it these days). I wonder if I will
remember to use the thing. |
|
14 November 2018
(Wednesday) - Stuff
I had a rather cold night; an alliance of "er indoors TM" and the wolf-pack had
most (if not all) of the duvet. I eventually got fed up with being
cold and got up. Over toast I watched another episode of “Prison
Break” which is getting rather good, and then I sparked up the Internet.
On Facebook I had three friend requests from rather foxy transvestites who
were trying to advertise porno websites. Much as I like Facebook, the people
who run it don’t do a very good job of keeping out the rather foxy
transvestites who want to peddle porn. Perhaps when registering with Facebook
there should be a question: “Are you a rather foxy transvestite trying to
peddle porn?” It might weed out some of the undesirables. Other than blokes in skimpy dresses there
wasn’t very much going on with Facebook this morning. I set off for work. Bearing in mind just how
bad the journey home was last night I asked Google to direct me to work. I
knew things would be bad when it said to avoid the motorway. Three miles up
the A20 there is a bridge over the motorway. As I drove over it I could see all the work-bound traffic queued up and at
a standstill. I've played that game too much recently! As I drove I
listened to the pundits on the radio. They were all discussing the Brexit
deal which the Prime Minister has finally agreed with the EU. She's now got
to agree it with the UK, and this is proving to be tricky if for no other reason
that the whole thing is one big secret and
no-one know what it is. Various windbags were
either pontificating on the matter (or talking out of their backsides
depending on whether or not you agreed with them).
All were contradicting each other with their baseless speculations, but one
of them made me sit up and take notice. I wish I could remember her exact
phrasing, but her basic message was that any Brexit deal is pretty much
meaningless in the long term as the UK will probably be re-applying for
EU membership within a generation. Much as it wasn’t a popular thing to say,
none of the other windbags seemed to want to disagree with this. There was also talk about the fate of
whistle-blowers in the NHS. For all that NHS workers are supposed to be able
to speak up and point out failings in the system, it seems there are a *lot* of
whistle-blowers who have been made to suffer for their actions, and there
are precious few who haven't been made to regret opening their
traps. I wonder if the trick for successful
whistle-blowing is to give serious thought as to exactly to whom
one might squeal the faults of the system. Perhaps squealing to the
very individual who is ultimately responsible for those faults you've
found might be a bad choice? Talking totally hypothetically of course,
this might be why some people were left high and dry whilst others received a
medal from the Queen? Not that I'm bitter... I got to work after an hour and a half, and had a relatively good day. The journey home was
far easier than the journey in, and once home I got the leads on to the dogs.
We walked out of the door just as "er
indoors TM" was pulling up outside. That was a result;
walking four dogs is a challenge so I was glad of the help. With dogs walked they had their tea then ran
riot whilst "er indoors TM"
boiled up a rather good bit of scran. We scoffed it
whilst watching the most recent episode of “Doctor Who”. What was once
family entertainment has become politically correct claptrap. Such a shame. |
|
15 November 2018
(Thursday) - Job Lot
When I went to bed last night
I arranged the duvet so we would all get fair dibs of it overnight. I woke up
shivering in the small hours. I thought about trying to wrestle some of it back,
but I would be fighting a losing battle, and the old adage about letting
sleeping dogs lie has never been more true than at
three o’clock in the morning when everyone is finally quiet. I shivered for a
bit. Over brekkie I watched another episode
of “Prison Break” then had a quick look at the Internet. A friend of
mine who lives in Ohio had posted
something to Facebook which amazed me. An American glassware manufacturer
is giving all of its employees a handgun as a
Christmas bonus. Each person gets to choose exactly what sort of gun they
want; apparently “giving employees
their choice of revolver as a gift is part of an effort to promote personal
safety and team building”. I *really* don’t
understand how Americans feel that having everyone walking round with guns
makes the world a safer place. I set off for work. Bearing in mind just how
bad the journey was yesterday I again got my phone's
sat-nav app to have a look at the journey for me. It said "motorway"
today, and who am I to argue? As I drove the pundits on the radio were
discussing the Brexit
withdrawal agreement. Bearing in mind the document only came out late
last night and is over five hundred pages long I was amazed at how the people
being interviewed this morning claimed to have studied the document
thoroughly. I challenge anyone to pick up a five-hundred-page document, read
the thing overnight, and be able to discuss the thing with any authority the
next morning. (Go on - download the book "The
Mote in God's Eye" (one of my favourite reads), read the lot in one
go, then email me the location of Horace Bury's
cabin and tell me who Angus and Brigit are. I'll give you till tomorrow
morning... bet you can't do it...) As I drove it was announced that the Northern
Ireland secretary had resigned over the Brexit agreement. At tea break I saw
that the Brexit secretary had also resigned. (Mind you he was a twit - he
was on the news last week claiming to have had no idea of the importance of
the port of Dover). By lunchtime the Work and Pensions secretary had also
thrown in the sponge. And by mid-afternoon there were calls for the Prime
Minister’s resignation. Looking at the news it amazes me that anyone
is surprised at this. Did *anyone* think it would go smoothly? I drove home much easier than I thought I
might; once home I walked the dogs round the block. This is a job which is
much easier to write than do. Leaving aside the mayhem of four dogs, with the
new “lighting” used on the streets of South Ashford, much of the
pavements of Francis Road were in utter darkness. Now that’s not “not very bright”;
that’s “so dark I couldn’t see my dogs”. I’d send another letter of
complaint to the council if I thought it might achieve anything. With walk walked I refereed dog feeding time.
Fudge then sat on the sofa with me, and Treacle ran in circles round Pogo who
was being vigorously “gayed-up” by
Sid. Sid continued in this vein until he got too breathless to continue.
Fortunately (being a pug) that didn’t take too long. My phone then beeped. The email I’d been hoping
for. A couple of days ago I’d seen something on eBay of which I liked the
look. A “job lot” of Lego. Three kilogrammes of the stuff including
two motors, lights, gears, base plates… It looked like a rather good “job
lot”. In a fit of idiot enthusiasm I put on a
maximum bid of fifty quid secure in the knowledge that there must be a
hundred quid’s worth there and I didn’t have a hope of winning it. I expected
the final price to be about a hundred and twenty to a hundred and fifty
pounds. This evening I won it for seventeen quid. Result !! Of course I’ve still got to
receive the thing, but the seller looks to he a
hospice so I’m relatively confident they will send the stuff. A few years ago I had
plans to make a 1970s Lego diorama with buildings and train track and stuff.
I think it might be time to start that project… |
|
16 November 2018
(Friday) - Cake !!
After another restless night I was up early
and watching “Prison Break” rather earlier than I might have liked. I
quite like “Prison Break” in that (like in “Game of Thrones”)
the writers have no qualms about killing off a major character. In “Star
Trek” you know full well that the captain survives, but “Jones from
accounts” isn’t going to make it to the first advert break. Not so in “Prison
Break”. Having got up earlier than intended I had
some spare time after watching telly, so I thought I’d have a more leisurely
look at the Internet this morning. A shame there wasn’t much to see. I drove off to work through a rather dismal
murky morning. As I drove the pundits on the radio were discussing the effect
of Brexit with one of the leading lights at Rolls Royce. The chap being
interviewed wasn't impressed with what he saw as a total debacle. He said
that with his firm (and plenty of others) looking set to give up with
the UK altogether, this week he was having conversations with government
officials which really he should have had the week
after the Brexit referendum. My American friends have asked me what the UK
is thinking of by going through with Brexit, and I am sure that in years to
come my grandchildren (and great-grandchildren yet unborn) will be
amazed at the history books. I wonder if they will have anything quite as
momentous (and at the same time shambolic) in their lifetimes? The
thing was so badly misrepresented before the referendum by blatant lies on
one side and "Project Fear" on the other. If it was something you'd bought in the shop you'd take it back and
get a refund under the Trades Description Act. Having done the journey to Maidstone in a
fraction of the time that the journey usually takes (for no apparent
reason) I popped into Aldi. I went in for some biscuits and came out with
peppermints and a shirt. And so on to work where I had a rather good
day. A colleague was having a sixtieth birthday, and we had cake. Lots of it. I came home and walked the dogs round the
roads. Again the lighting was so dim as to be
dangerous. I’ve written to my local councillor about the matter. I bet he
does nothing; that’s what he did last time. I then looked at my Nectar account. Having
bodged it to my eBay account was supposed to have been worth two hundred and
fifty points, and the emails from last night’s Lego result said I’d got
another seventeen. According to my Nectar homepage I’ve got no points at all.
Nothing. Sod all. The FAQ on the Nectar website does say that
it can take a month for the points to show up. Oh well… it would seem I’d not
been missing much all these years. "er indoors TM" came home with
"Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction TM" in
tow. He’s here for the weekend. (That will be nice!) He started off by
asking which dog was Pogo; clearly I’m not alone in
being unable to tell one dog from the other. We then had something of a
refusal over dinner and he is currently destroying "er indoors TM"’s card-making thingy. Last time was hard work… let’s see how this
pans out… |
|
17 November 2018
(Saturday) - County Cachers' Meet
With most of the wolf-pack spending the night
in the top bedroom with "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction TM"
I thought I might have got a decent night’s sleep. I only had Sid in with me,
and he was on the floor. But his snoring was enough to have me seeing every
hour of the night. I got up at seven o’clock and watched most of
an episode of “Prison Break” before mayhem ensued. Dog breakfast time was interesting. Fudge
flatly refused to eat his, preferring to sit with me on the sofa. We offered
hm his bowl on the sofa, and he ate the lot. He was clearly hungry but would
rather be on the sofa. What was that all about? I checked out my Nectar account. The points I
got for my Lego bargain have been added to my Nectar account. I’d spent
seventeen quid and got nine pence back. Well, it’s hardly a “get rich
quick” scheme but it’s better than a poke up the bum with a sharp stick.
Meanwhile "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction TM"
was playing with some fairy princess helicopter thing that used to belong to
his mother. Treacle got hold of it and chewed it until S.B.O.D. took it from
her and told her she was a “pain in the glass”. I had an email. Yesterday I complained to my
local councillor about the crap street lighting and said I doubted that he’d
do much. He emailed this morning to say he wasn’t going to do anything. If
any of my loyal readers are wondering for whom to vote at the next election,
I’d say that as far as I am concerned George Kowaree
has had his chance and has blown it. I then took Fudge for a little adventure. We
walked up to the train station and got on the train to Hollingbourne.
We sat and waited and eventually the train got moving. Eventually we got to Hollingbourne only fifteen minutes later than planned.
Karl Tracey and Charlotte were at the station waiting for us, and after a
quick relocate to the village hall (where we met Nick) we had a rather
good wander round the local fields finding half a dozen geocaches as we went. With caches found we drove up to Doddington
where the local hunters of Tupperware were having their monthly meeting.
Stout, cheese, ploughman’s, ham, port, talking Tupperware, meeting friends…
not a bad way to spend a winter afternoon. I
took a few photos whilst I was out. Eventually "er
indoors TM" and "Stormageddon - Bringer of
Destruction TM" came out to join us. Another glass of
port, and then we came home. We spent the evening watching “Octonauts”, “Toot the Tiny Tug Boat” and “Blaze
the Monster Truck”; periodically phoning "Daddy’s Little Angel TM"
to find out why we were having melt-downs for no explicable reason… Bed time can’t come soon enough… |
|
18 November 2018
(Sunday) - Before the Night Shift
We had a different allocation of dogs last
night. The “Terrible Twins” and Sid went to the attic bedroom with "er indoors TM" and "Stormageddon
- Bringer of Destruction TM" leaving Fudge with me on top
of my pit. However the “Terrible Twins”
clearly weren’t happy with us being split up and Pogo and Treacle came to
check on us several times during the night; each time licking my nose to
check all was well. The seven o’clock check was rather vigorous and it was at
that point that I got up. No one else did though; just me. I got up, had brekkie, looked at the
Internet, played “Candy Crush Saga”, got rather bored. Eventually
everyone else got up, and after a little “Octonauts”
we went for a walk round the park. I say “walk”; “the slowest
dawdle humanly possible”
would probably sum it up better. We started with a minor
melt-down. "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction TM"
was insistent he took Pogo’s lead despite being
nowhere near strong enough. After Pogo pulled him over for the third time I
got involved and said no. We went hysterical over this too. After an age we
got to the play park where we waited and waited. It was at this point that
Fudge had had enough, and he wandered off. After twenty minutes of searching
one of the passing normal people told us they’d seen him a quarter of a mile
away up by the main park gates. He’d walked up to where we put leads on after
our walks and was patiently waiting for everyone to catch up. Having been itching to get out, I was glad to
get home again. Over a cuppa and a slice of cake I spent a
little while solving geo-puzzles for a possible walk some time over the next
few weeks. I then took myself off to bed for a couple of hours. The idea
would be that I would have a little sleep whilst "er
indoors TM" took "Stormageddon - Bringer of
Destruction TM" and Sid back to Margate (apparently
Pogo is staying a little longer). That was the idea – the reality was
quite a bit of You-Tube noise and slamming doors. And when they finally went
the remaining dogs barked incessantly. I got up and in five minutes got two bin bags
of rubbish from the back bedroom. That room is full to overflowing with tat, and I’ve finally had enough. If I haven’t used
something in a year then clearly I don’t want or
need it. I settled the dogs and drove off on the
evening's mission. First of all to the co-op for
this and that. Whilst I was in there I got some cash
from their cashpoint machine. That thing *never* gives an advice slip with
the money, and again it didn't this evening. As I was paying for my stuff I mentioned this to the chap on the till. He agreed
it never gives advice slips; clearly not seeing it as anything to do with
him. Perhaps it isn't; he only works there. What do I know? I then drove round to the Beefeater. Bearing
in mind the debacle of brekkie we had there the other week I was
surprised that we were going back, but there was a family dinner there this
evening. I arrived and met up with in-laws (if that's what you call
prospective daughter-in-law's family). "er
indoors TM" and everyone else soon arrived. We took our
table and waited. And waited. Despite having given them our orders
yesterday, the food took an hour and twenty minutes to come out. And when it
did it was awful. The potatoes probably were good when they were first cooked
(several hours previously) but by the time they'd got to us they were
fit for the bin. The swede and runner beans clearly hadn't been warmed since
they were taken from the fridge (they really were that cold),
and my lump of lamb was burned on the outside. After fifteen minutes of
concerted grumbling the waitress wandered out with some gravy. We demanded to see the manager who eventually
came out. He listened to our complaints, and once we'd told him of his
failings (precisely and in great detail)
he acknowledged that we were entitled to our opinion. His opinion was that we
were wrong, and he claimed he was entitled to that opinion. It was only when
we said we'd take the uneaten food to the Trading Standards people that
he actually sat up and took notice. He then
completely contradicted himself, said that they didn't usually serve roast
dinner in the evening and they'd kept ours since lunch time as a special
favour to us, claimed to have already bollocked the
chef for what was clearly a piss-poor set of dinners, said there would
be no charge, and went on to offer free dessert to everyone. He did try
to lay on the guilt a little bit by saying how the waitress was crying her
eyes out in the toilet, but we quickly told him that he was being utterly
unfair on the poor girl by expecting her to deliver such rubbish
dinners one hour and twenty minutes late. He had no answer to that. (Mind you I can't help but wonder what the
Trading Standards people would have said if we'd turned up at their
office with our left-overs. And the manager clearly hadn't noticed
that I'd been so hungry that regardless of just how bad the dinner was I'd
devoured all of mine anyway.) Bearing in mind how long we'd waited for
a frankly dreadful first course, and also bearing in mind I had places to be , I said my goodbyes and set off to
Gillingham. A week or so I'd collected a parcel to give to Nick at yesterday's
geo-meet and had completely forgotten to take it along. It didn't take
me long to deliver the parcel this evening, and it took even less time
to get to the general vicinity of work. There is a McDonalds in the general
vicinity of work... Remembering that the rest of the family were scoffing
free pudding I shelled out eighty-nine pence for a McFlurry.
As I scoffed, the people on the next table were grumbling about how piss-poor
their burgers were. I smiled to myself and said nothing. I farted rather impressively all through the
night shift. I blame that iffy dinner... |
|
19 November 2018
(Monday) - Between the Night Shifts
It wasn’t a bad night shift last night, but I
am always glad to see the relief arrive. As I drove home the pundits on the
radio were interviewing some Belgian chap who was giving the Belgian
perspective of Brexit. He took the line that the UK has had the best part of
two years to come up with a deal; the UK negotiating team had presumably
known what was being negotiated for all of that
time, and they’ve left it rather late to announce that the proposed deal
sucks fish. I think the fellow has probably got a point. Yesterday I’d bagged up some rubbish; I stopped
off at the tip to get rid of it on my way home. As I was driving into the tip
there was some idiot in a small car driving up the wrong side of the road in an attempt to overtake everyone and everything.
Narrowly avoiding going head-on into a dustbin lorry he then tried to
overtake me on the entrance to the tip; no mean feat when the entrance road
is only one car wide. When we got to the tip this car parked almost (but
not quite) blocking the exit. The driver (who looked far too young to
be driving) then tried to heave various items of furniture to the bulky
waste skip. I did chuckle; the big man when behind the wheel; not strong
enough to pick up a dining chair when not behind the wheel. Once I’d unloaded
my rubbish I squeezed my car past where he’d tried
to block the way out of the tip. I complimented him on his parking. I think
the sarcasm went right over his head. I got home to find some rather excited dogs.
I walked them round the park. As we came past the fountain
I felt rather sad, The snow dog that was there yesterday has now gone. They
have all been collected in for a farewell event in a week or so. The fountain
wasn’t the same without the snow dog. We got home before the forecast rain. Having
borrowed new-next-door’s ladder (mine is in Margate) I spent a
few minutes dobbing waterproofing onto the bathroom roof. It has leaked a bit
in the heavy rain recently. As I dobbed I saw a
rather large gap by the fascia board. I shall need some filler for that. I had a scrub and took myself off to bed. Before
I’d started on the roof I’d popped a hot water
bottle in the bed (I get cold feet when I sleep during the day). Pogo
and Treacle were both curled up together on top on the duvet just where the
hot water bottle was. I moved them off; they moved back on. Eventually I tricked them by moving the
bottle and sleeping diagonally across the bed until half past three when I
was woken by a phone call from 0161 711 0322. I wonder who that was? I got up, watched an episode of “Prison
Break”, then carried on tidying up the back bedroom. I say “tidying up”;
“throwing away” is closer to the truth. I found a few coats and
hoodies that I’d not seen for years; all rather mildew-ed. I found a broken
CD rack. I found loads of old documents - do I *really* want the paperwork
for a life assurance policy that I cancelled in 1996? I loaded the rubbish
into the back of my car for another tip run in the morning, then geo-puzzled
for a while. "er indoors TM" is boiling up
a quiche, then I’m off to another night shift… |
|
20 November 2018
(Tuesday) - After The Night Shifts
As I drove home the pundits on the radio were
interviewing Peter
Lilley. A conservative MP for many years he’s looking set to go to the
House of Lords. Or he was until this morning’s radio interview. Having been a
staunch Brexiteer he was being interviewed on an alternative for the Prime
Minister’s plans for Brexit which now are quite clearly dead in the water.
Bearing in mind that everyone says that black is white when it comes to
Brexit, the pundits on the radio had an independent expert on hand to
fact-check what Mr (not Lord yet) Lilley was saying. To be fair to
Peter the independent expert agreed with much of what he was saying; only
quibbling with some of the more trivial of the petty details. (Like the
petty details of Britain’s trading arrangements with the US). But Mr (not
Lord yet) Lilley took great exception to being fact-checked and rather
spat his dummy out on live radio. It comes to something when the presenter
had to tell
him to calm down. It was a rather horrible morning to be
driving; cold, wet and miserable. The relief had been delayed this morning
and so I too was delayed getting home. I took the dogs out, but it was
bitterly cold, and three dogs is just too much like hard work when you aren’t
on top form. We cut the walk short and came home. I then had a little burn-up. Whilst tidying
up over the last few days I found some of the paperwork from the little
episode of unpleasantness I had at work seven years ago. Some of it can just
go in the recycling; some needed to be shredded. Shredding brought back
several rather unhappy memories, so I gave up shredding and just set fire to
it. "er indoors TM" has
got a chiminea in the garden so I thought seeing how it was raining outside
no one would object to me having a little fire. There wouldn’t be much smoke
as it was raining… There would have been less smoke if I’d
burned the shed down. I took myself off to bed and found a minor
disaster. The bit of my CPAP machine that goes up my nose has gone missing. I
had the bedroom apart but couldn’t find it. I’m guessing a dog has eaten it. I managed a couple of hours’ sleep then got up and watched an episode of “Prison
Break” as I scoffed a lunch of malt loaf and cashew nuts. Perhaps not
everyone’s choice of lunch, but they were in the cupboard, and I like malt
loaf and cashew nuts. I did some ironing this afternoon whilst
watching a film on Netflix. “Arrival” was made
a couple of years ago and according to Wikipedia it was one of the best films
of 2016. All I can say is that there must have been some rather crap films
made in that year. Like many sci-fi films made over the last forty years it
follows the same formula of the film 2001. Start well, go on until people
start to get bored, and then drag the ending out with some psychedelic drivel
that no one understands. “Interstellar” was just the same. I dozed until "er
indoors TM" came home. She boiled up a rather good bit of
dinner which we scoffed whilst watching this week’s episode of “Lego Masters”.
We had a bottle of plonk with dinner.
Yesterday I’d got us a bottle of “Campo Viejo” as Sainsbury were
knocking it out at a fiver off of the usual price.
Billed as one of the world’s top six per cent of wines I wasn’t impressed. And it is Lacey’s birthday today. Twelve
years old – where have the years gone? |
|
21 November 2018
(Wednesday) - Afternoon Tea
I slept a lot better than I thought I might have
done; late last night the missing part of my CPAP machine appeared in
Treacle’s mouth. There weren’t *too* many teeth marks, I fixed the
thing and slept for over eight hours. I looked at Facebook over brekkie and rolled
my eyes. An ex-colleague “saw the light” a few years ago and Jesus has
had him for a sunbeam. He was posting on Facebook about “Praise de Lawd !!!” for all the good things in his life but was
again drawing a blank over the bad. I can remember a God-bothering good
friend of mine finding fifty pence in the street and saying a loud and public
prayer claiming it was a sign from God. But when he trod in a dog turd five
minutes later that was just unlucky. (This chap is now a Baptist pastor). Similarly eye-roll-provoking was pro-Brexit
MP Nadine Dorries who has apparently attacked
the government’s Brexit plan as it would leave the UK with no
representation in the European Parliament. I must be missing something here?
Surely this woman understands what “leaving the European Union”
entails? Perhaps it is all a wind-up? Let’s hope so. If not, how can she
possibly be an MP. I then did one of those You-Gov surveys. It
asked about all sots of things including my sex
life. What does the government want to know about nudey
sauce romps? It also asked about my leccie and gas
supplies and asked about any benefits they offered. Vaguely wondering if this
was in any way connected with nudey sauce romps I
answered their questions and then wondered if the leccie
and gas people do Nectar points. I went to the leccie
and gas people’s website and used their “live chat” thingy. After a
rather tortuous conversation I found out that they stopped doing Nectar
points years ago. That’s a shame. Now that I’ve got a Nectar account I’m rather keen to get some points. Apparently one
thousand nectar points are worth a fiver, and I’ve currently only got
twenty-six. With the dogs leaded up "er indoors TM" and I took them round
the park. Three dogs are so much easier when you’ve got someone else along.
It was only a shame that Pogo had to crap in front of the nice lady at the
bus stop. As we got to the park
we saw a police car driving round the footpaths. What was that about?
Interestingly we also saw a chap spray-painting the wall in the play park.
The police clearly hadn’t nicked him. Mind you it was rather cold today. I was glad
to get home. We settled the dogs and went out to Tesco.
Eleven days ago I wrote “I have three pairs of
trainers; all of which leak. So I got a new pair…”
When I was putting on those trainers last Friday one of the lace-holes ripped
open. The shoes lasted for three days and ripped open on the fourth time I
used them. I took them back today. The nice lady said did I want to change
them. I said I did, but I couldn’t as Tesco had nothing in my size. No size
ten shoes whatsoever. They gave me a refund. From Tesco we went to Hastings and collected
my mummy and daddy. We’d arranged to take them out for afternoon
tea at the Royal Victoria Hotel on the sea front. In years gone by the
Royal Victoria Hotel was a firm favourite place of the in-laws. Family
reunions, weddings, meals… all sorts of events and family bashes. I got
the distinct impression that absolutely nothing has changed in that hotel in
the intervening twenty years. Mind you they did us proud this afternoon.
Enough tea and coffee to sail a battleship on, sandwiches, scones with cream
and jam, posh cakes, waiter service, and even tablecloths and classical music
in the background. And (courtesy of Groupon) all less than seven quid
per person. I was impressed as was "er
indoors TM". And mum and dad liked it (which was the
main thing). They’d never been out for afternoon tea before… says the old
hand at the game who has now done it four times! I *really* like
afternoon tea. You get to go somewhere posh and just drink coffee (or tea)
and stuff your face until you feel sick. If anyone is ever thinking of buying
me a pressie and is stuck for an idea… (hint hint!) We drove mum and dad home, then popped round
to visit mother-in-law briefly. Next time she’ll be taken out to tea. Home again. I wanted to get home before the
rush hour. We got home just before five o’clock. It was rather dark as I
parked. We’d taken my car as the back seat of the "er indoors TM"-mobile is a tad
grubby. (I blame the dogs). Once home I loaded my fishing gear into my
car. The smell of fish dissipates far quicker than the mud of dogs. "er indoors TM" boiled up a
very good dinner. As we scoffed it we watched last
weekend’s episode of “Doctor Who” which this week wasn’t as bad as
some of the episodes of this season have been. “Young Sheldon” and “Big
Bang Theory” were also good. Today was a day’s annual leave… wasn’t a bad
one… |
|
22 November 2018
(Thursday) - A Day's Fishing
I had a decent
night’s sleep. I have a vague recollection of a dog barking in the small
hours, but I might have been dreaming. Unless I hear anything to the contrary I will assume I was. I got up early and over brekkie watched the
most recent instalment of “The Good Place”. After several weeks of
going nowhere the plot has picked up again. I got dressed, and with two layers of socks,
two layers of troosers and no less than six layers
on top I drove round to collect "My Boy TM".
Together we went to the co-op to get a packed lunch and seeing how the
Brookfield café was already open we had a fry-up. A rather good fry-up. And then just as it was getting light we drove out to Cranbrook and Hartley Lands Fishery.
We wanted to get one day’s fishing in before it got too cold. Hartley Lands fishery is a rather good place
to be. It is beautiful, and as we fished we watched
the ducks and herons flying about. We watched a little rat swimming around,
and we laughed at the pheasant who was very bravely stomping around us
picking up any of the fishing baits that we’d dropped. There’s no denying that it was cold today but
being layered up it wasn’t *too* bad. I used the new wellies I’d
bought from Aldi the other week; they were something of a disappointment. The
heels were rather high. They would probably be ideal for a transvestite who
wants or needs to traverse mud, but they weren’t that stable for standard
piscatorial pursuits. Fishing-wise it wasn’t too shabby. We didn’t
catch anywhere near as many as we have in previous trips, but what we caught
were of rather impressive size. I had three; the smallest of which was twelve
pounds in weight. The biggest was my personal best carp. "My Boy TM"
had eight. We estimated the smallest as being about eight pounds in weight. We knew it was late November; we knew we
couldn’t fish for as long as we’d like to. The temperate was dropping by
mid-afternoon. We started packing up at quarter to four and by the time we
got home it was dark. "er indoors TM" boiled up a
rather decent bit of sausage and chips this evening and went off as she does.
I settled in front of the telly with the dogs and slept through a couple of
episodes of “Prison Break”. I think I might have a cold coming on… |
|
23 November 2018
(Friday) - Got a Cold
I had something of an early night last night but
didn’t sleep overly well. I woke feeling full of energy and raring to go only
to find it was only half past one. I then lay awake for much of the night as
Fudge grumbled every time any else so much as breathed. I dozed off just before the alarm went off, and didn’t have time to watch an episode of “Prison
Break”. I thought I might see what ws on the
telly. The Sky-Plus box’s menu looked interesting at half past five, but have
you ever watched the telly at half past five? The menus all say that there is
this show and that show on. In reality there is just
a test card saying that programs start at six o’clock. I wish they wouldn’t
do that. So I looked at the
Internet over brekkie. Facebook was relatively dull for once. Apart
from the attention-seekers flaunting their maladies there were a few people
posting about today being the fifty-fifth anniversary of the first
broadcasting of “Doctor Who”. An anniversary I might well have missed. I had an email from the fishing tackle shop.
They have jumped on the “Black Friday” bandwagon. Here’s a link to
what they are touting. I’ve grumbled before about the price of fishing
tackle. Yesterday "My Boy TM" was being less than
complementary about my knackered old fishing gear. The entire fishing
community seems to have fallen for the marketing ploy that if two things are
utterly identical in every way but price, then the more expensive one is
clearly superior in every way. Having said that, "er indoors TM" found a black screw on
the kitchen floor last night. I wonder if it fell off the fishing trolley I bought that was one hundred quid cheaper than
the one from which screws *don’t* fall off? As I drove to work the pundits on the radio
were discussing Black Friday deals. Apparently they
are all one big con; "Which" magazine claimed that nine out
of every deal billed as a "Black Friday Special” was no different
to the deal offered all year round. There was also discussion about Dame Floella Benjamin who was on the kids
TV show "Play School" years ago. When did she become a
"dame"? She’s also now a Liberal Democrat politician. It’s
amazing what happens when you aren’t paying attention. I went to work via Sainsburys where I would
have used my Nectar card *if* I'd actually received
the thing. Instead I just quoted my Nectar number, and after several attempts
the nice lady on the till managed to type it in properly. I've now got
seventy-three pence worth of Nectar points. Seventy-three pence isn't much in the great scheme of things, but it is
seventy-three pence for nothing for me. As I then drove up the motorway my piss
boiled. The country's ex-chief racist Nigel Farage was being interviewed on
the radio. His successor as leader of UKIP has taken on British National
Party and English Defence League front runner Tommy Robinson
as some sort of advisor. All I know about the bloke is what I hear and read
in the news; from what I can work out he has historically been even too
racist for the racists; UKIP must be in a bad way if even Nigel Farage isn't
overly keen on this turn of events. I eventually got to work through some serious
traffic, and did my bit whilst not feeling on top
form. I seem to have caught a cold. A shame really; I could have done with
being a tad more sprightly today. But an early start
made for an early finish, and with the dogs walked I had a look at my in-box.
Being up before the emails came in this morning I’d
had several messages during the day. Hartley Lands Fishery had shared the album of
photos I took yesterday; I had a message asking for my advice on matters
piscatorial from someone who’d seen it. They think I must be brilliant at
fishing. I haven’t told "My Boy TM" about this
yet; I can’t see him being impressed. I had another email from Kent County Council
about the local street lighting. They assured me that the local street lights
are “at the appropriate level”. What a load of rubbish.… if the lights
are at the right level then the level itself has been set wrong. How can they
be “appropriate” when it is too dark to be able to see the dog on the
end of the lead you are holding? I’d walked the dogs round the side roads
this evening. There are islands of light round the lamp posts, but seas of
darkness between them. With the shadows of parked cars
it really is too dark to see anything. I then filled out a reference for a friend. I
won’t say who, or for what job, and I filled out a questionnaire about
fishing for the Environment Agency. My job lot of Lego that I ordered last week has
arrived. It looks rather good. The lights in it alone are worth what I paid
for it all (*if* they work). There is a motor and battery pack which
look good (*if* they work). I’m not sure about the rest. I need to
find somewhere to spread it all out to have a look. Somewhere where Treacle
can’t eat any of it… I might do that tomorrow… I feel grotty. |
|
24 November 2018
(Saturday) - Rainy Day
I was out like a light last night and slept
for eight hours until the dogs went mad when the postman knocked on the door.
This morning postie brought me w little Lego house I’d won on eBay. And being
from Royal Mail he knocked on the door and delivered it rather than leaving
it laying in the front garden as other delivery firms so often do (like
they did yesterday). The postman also delivered my Nectar card.
That only took two weeks to arrive. Mind you in that two weeks I’ve racked up
two hundred points which is one whole quid. I played a little “Candy Crush Saga”
and joined a couple of Facebook groups which are to do with 1970s Lego.
Bearing in mind that Facebook groups about geocaching, astronomy snakes,
kite-flying, fishing, blood tests, dogs and beer are often little more than
one huge squabble my hopes aren’t high. But you never know… We got the dogs’ leads on to them. The plan
for today had been a walk out at High Halden, but
the miserable weather and the equally dismal forecast meant that we’d
postponed that. Instead we thought we’d go to Canterbury. A small drive to
get Pogo used to the car, a short walk for the dogs, and some shopping. We got to Canterbury easily enough and parked
up near London Road and walked round an estate finding geocaches as we went.
An hour’s walk of about a mile or so blew away some cobwebs. We then went on to “Go Outdoors” where
we’d planned to get some stuff for the winter. I like that shop if only
because dogs are allowed in. We went to the shoe department where we met a
pinch-faced version of the TV character Hyacinth Bucket. This old bat was
ordering her husband around as though he was a wilful child. Clearly he was taking too long to choose his footwear; I
couldn’t believe it what she snatched the shoes I was holding, brandished
them at her husband and ordered him to have those. Looking back
I should have told her the error of her ways, but at the time I was too
shocked to say anything. "er indoors TM" couldn’t stop
laughing. I also got new gaiters as I’d lost my old
ones, and also picked up an assortment of gloves,
socks and hats. Treacle (true to form) tried to eat the socks before
we’d even lifted them off of the shelf. It was somewhat ironic that when I put the
shopping into the boot of the car that I discovered my old gaiters laying
there. Whilst "er
indoors TM" got petrol at Morrison’s car park I went in
to the supermarket for Belgian buns. Morrisons at mid-day was a nightmare; a
thousand people were shopping, each one seemingly totally unaware that there
was anyone else in the shop at all. How can people be *so* oblivious
of the world around them? We stopped off at the pet shop in Chartham where the nice lady in the shop gave each of the
dogs a treat. I’m not blaming her in any way, but up until then Pogo had been
fine. Ten minutes later he blew; fetching his breakfast all over the car’s
back seat. The traffic was rather bad getting home. I *really*
can’t see the attraction of the MacArthur Glen shopping centre. I’ve been
there so many times; they don’t sell anything you can’t buy cheaper
elsewhere, but people travel for miles to shop there, and it adds an age to
our journey home. Once home I scoffed the Belgian bun I’d got in Morrisons. "er
indoors TM" cleaned up dog sick from the back seat of her
car. There was a surprising amount of dog sick to be cleaned up. As she
scrubbed the dogs barked at her as they watched her every move through the
window. I could have helped I suppose, but I wasn’t
feeling very well. I slobbed on the sofa for an
hour or so feeling grotty. After a rather good bit of dinner "er indoors TM" went off to the
Saturday film night. I stayed home, and with the dogs all sleeping I had a go
at putting together some Lego houses for the scenery for my planned train set
thingy. One house worked rather well. The other looks rather
earthquake-damaged. Still, it’s not bad for a first attempt. I’m going to slob in front of the telly some
more, I think. I’m still not right… |
|
25 November 2018
(Sunday) - Before the Night Shift
I woke shivering at four o’clock. After a
quick trip to the loo I reorganised the dogs (mainly Treacle) so I could
get some space on the bed. Despite Fudge grumbling seemingly every five
minutes I then slept through till after eight o’clock. I scoffed brekkie, and then got into a petty
squabble on Facebook. Just recently people who are very much in favour of
Brexit have been posting memes about why Britain fought a war a hundred years
ago just to hand power to Germany now. It strikes me that this is exactly
what Britain is doing by leaving the EU and giving up all involvement with
all the decision-making bodies. For all that I was clearly wrong, no one
could actually explain why. I played “Candy Crush” games on the
Internet until everyone else got up an hour later. I then spent a few minutes working on my
fishing trolley. "er indoors TM"
found a black screw on the kitchen floor on Thursday. Whilst the screw looks
a match for those on the trolley, I can’t find anywhere it might have come
from. I shall keep the screw and wait for the trolley to collapse. Then I
might know where it goes. And then my phone beeped. I’d won another
eBay bargain. We took the dogs out for a little walk. "er indoors TM" has a series of
geocaches locally. Some people had been whinging that they couldn’t find
them, so we did a little maintenance run. If nothing else, it made a good
walk for the wolf-pack. They didn’t get *that* grubby. And being quite
close to home it was a short drive and Pogo wasn’t sick. And (to be honest)
what with this rotten cold an hour was quite enough for me. We came home via the co-op. For all that
their Belgian buns are forty pence more expensive than Morrison’s, they are
far superior. Cliff popped round for a few minutes. It was
good to see him. He’s got a lot of time off over the next few weeks.
Sometimes I wonder about my choice of career; this year I’ve got both
Christmas Day and Boxing Day off work and that’s it. Mind you I get a *lot*
of time off at other times so I shouldn’t grumble. I took myself off to bed and got a few hours’
sleep. I could have slept longer had I not needed the loo; coffee with that
Belgian bun had been a mistake. Mind you I slept better than I usually do
during the day; having "er indoors TM"
on hand to shush the dogs made a difference. Soon be dinner time, then time for the night
shift. Today has been rather dull… the entire weekend has been rather dull. |
|
26 November 2018
(Monday) - Between the Night Shifts
As I drove home from work the pundits on the
radio were talking to the latest Brexit Secretary who was calling for
everyone to get behind the Prime Minister’s Brexit plan. With no alternative
to what is widely regarded as a rather crappy deal the nation was told that
we either accept what is offered of “go back to square one”. Finding
myself more and more amazed that no one saw this shambles
coming, perhaps now is the time to go back to square one. Not “square one” of Brexit but “square
one” of the entire concept of democracy. Over the last two years I’ve heard so many
opinions on the topic of Brexit; for and against. Most start with “I don’t
really understand politics but…” and most seem to be referring to some
cloud-cuckoo land which bears no relation whatsoever to reality. On the one
hand, the European Union *isn’t” the forerunner of the utopian society
of “Star Trek” (which some think it is). On the other hand,
leaving the EU *isn’t* going to transform the Commonwealth of Nations
into the British Empire (which others assure me it will). Is anyone surprised that Spain see a golden
opportunity to re-take Gibraltar? Is anyone surprised that the French are
going to fish in UK coastal waters whether the British like it or not? Perhaps we might go back to a “square one”
from which people have to demonstrate at least a passing understanding of
that for which they are voting *before* they put an “X” in a
box? People have to demonstrate an ability to be
able to drive a car before they go out and mow down innocent pedestrians.
Most professions insist on some sort of qualification before allowing people
to practice. And here we are in a so-called “democracy” where an
intelligent considered opinion is of no more worth than randomly doing what
the newspaper tells you to do. Meanwhile the Chinese have announced the
birth of the world’s first
genetically-edited humans. Is this *such* a bad thing? My piss had cooled by the time I got home.
Once home I walked the dogs round the park. Walking three dogs is hard work,
but it isn’t fair on them not to walk them. We did a shortened version of our
usual route, and we went in the other direction to what we usually take. On
our usual normal morning stomp we meet up with OrangeHead’s posse just as we are leaving the park and we
have a five-minute “episode” as Fudge wreaks havoc with them. I didn’t
fancy that today. Our walk (for once) was uneventful.
Fudge’s straggling probably added twenty minutes to the journey, and we got
caught in a few rain showers, but “uneventful” was good. With our walk done I took myself off to bed.
I put the phone onto silent and managed five hours sleep. That’s not bad for
during the day. As I slept Pogo came and slept on top of me. He’s a lovely
little dog. I say “little”; he’s something of a tank, but he’s such a
good-natured and affectionate pup. He had no idea that he’s something of a
tank. I got up at half past three,
and scoffed the left-over chicken drumsticks as a late lunch. There
were three; I allowed each dog to have a go at one each as I held the bone (They
aren’t allowed chicken bones unsupervised). They seemed to like their
treat, then they all went back to sleep. I wish I could have done that. I slobbed in front
of the telly until "er indoors TM"
came home. She’s boiling up dinner, then I’m off to another night shift. I wish I could shift this cold… |
|
27 November 2018 (Tuesday)
- After the Night Shift
During a break on the night shift I saw I'd
won another eBay auction. More 1970s Lego. Hopefully when it arrives this set
of gears will be the basis of a windmill for the Lego diorama that I have in
mind. I did my bit at work and headed home. Much as
I like the night shifts I do find them tiring. It
was a shame that it took so long to get home this morning. The overhead
motorway notice boards mentioned an “incident” which was causing
delays. The “incident” was that someone had managed to drive off of the motorway into a hedge, and everyone was slowing
to a walking pace to have a good look at what was going on. As I drove the pundits on the radio were
talking Brexit again. President Trump has now stuck his beak in and declared
that the proposed deal sucks fish. Does he *really* think we don’t
know that? I got home just as "er indoors TM" was leaving. She had
the hump because overnight some other car had scraped against hers. To be
fair to her it has left quite a mark. I then took the dogs round the park. Bearing
in mind the shambles of recent walks I thought I’d try something different.
Rather than having three leads pulling me about I dug out the old
double-ended elastic lead and had the “terrible twins” on that. I
originally got the double-ended elastic lead to have Treacle and Fudge on the
same lead. It worked until Treacle grew from being a baby and I gave up with
it when she was dragging him around. But the thing worked quite well today.
Treacle and Pogo are about the same size and weight, and rather than dragging
me about, they effectively cancelled out each other’s pulling. Once home I made myself some toast and had a
look at Facebook. One chap who was posting all sorts of Christian “God is
welcome in my house” crap yesterday was this morning posting rather
hateful racist memes. I pointed out to him that Jesus, Mary and Joseph were
refugees at one point. (They actually were – look
it up in the Bible - Matthew 2:13–23). It didn’t go down as well as it
might have done. I *think* that if wannabe Christians knew what the
word “refugee” actually meant then a lot less
offence would have been taken. I had a look at the Facebook marketplace
thingy as well. Have you ever looked at it? I wouldn't bother. It is standard
practice on most selling websites that you put something up for sale and say
what it costs. The featured price that you see on the advert is what the item
in question actually costs. Quite a straightforward
idea; a shame they don’t use it in Facebook marketplace. Everything appears
to be dirt cheap to get your interest, but the actual price is buried deep in
the article description. I lost count of the amount
of things I looked at which were billed as "Free" only to
see the actual price of "£20" (or more) being buried
deep in the description. Oh well... As I scoffed my toast the new part for my CPAP
machine arrived. I’d phoned the local hospital a week ago to get it sent out;
it took a week to get here. To be fair to Royal Mail it was posted yesterday.
So why did it take six days to get sent out? I would complain, but I know
from experience that the management of that place loves nothing more than a
complaint. Oh, the meetings and emails and paperwork they can generate… I took myself off to bed; after an hour or so
there was a frantic hammering on the front door. Some smarmy git in a cheap
suit asked if he’d woken me up. I told him he had. He apologised and asked if
I was a night worker. I said I was (today I am!) He apologised again
and said there had been some mistake as he makes a point of never waking
night workers. But as I was up anyway he tried to
sell me cheap double glazing. I didn’t *actually* tell him to get
knotted. Surely common sense tells him that if he goes round
bashing on front doors indiscriminately he’s going to wake night workers? As I was up I had
some lunch (peanut butter on toast; same as brekkie) and then spent
the afternoon putting the washing machine through its paces. And with washing
washed and ironing ironed I had a look at the household accounts. As always they aren’t *that* bad really. More money
would be nice, but if I can afford to be wasting my money on Lego I can’t be that hard up, can I? I then fell asleep in front of the telly. "er indoors TM" came home and
boiled up a rather good bit of dinner. We devoured it with a bottle of
Chilean red wine whilst watching this week’s “Doctor Who”. I’ve not
been overly keen on the show over the last few years, but this episode was
rather good. And then we watched the semi-final of “Lego Masters”.
Brilliant!! |
|
28 November 2018
(Wednesday) - The Lego Shop
Having done two night shifts it was no
surprise that I was out like a light last night. Nine hours asleep was good.
It is a long time since I found myself laying in
bed so long that I got back ache. As I scoffed brekkie
I had a look at Facebook. Yesterday’s squabble over religion seems to have
subsided; the wannabe Christians have got out a dictionary, looked up the
word “refugee” and have conceded that the dictionary definition of the
word actually does apply to what the Bible says
happened to Jesus, Mary and Joseph. The wannabe Christians don’t like it very
much, but then neither do any refugees either. And then I saw that a family member had used
the “check in” facility on Facebook to tell the world they were at Shellness.
Facebook even posts a map to show the world where is it. Another family member had immediately
commented “where are you?” I took the dogs round the park. Fudge did
straggle somewhat today, and Pogo tried to pick a
fight with a greyhound. We met the dog warden and had a chat. She was rather
concerned that I had lost a dog. I told her I hadn’t and had a quick
roll-call. She was insistent that she’d seen me ten minutes earlier with four
dogs. I said I only had three… she said that being a dog warden (and
counting dogs) was her job. After a little to-ing and fro-ing
she let me go. However she made it clear that if any
errant hounds should appear in the park then they would be my missing pup. Once home I settled the dogs and drove round
to collect Matt. Together we drove up to Bluewater
and the Lego shop. Whilst the job lot of Lego I’d bought the other day was a
super-bargain, it was a tad short on roof tiles. I could have ordered up a
job lot of roof tiles from eBay. I looked at the on-line Lego store
and saw that the tiles I wanted were seventeen pence each; I could have
ordered them from there. But I’d heard that you could go to the Lego shop in
Bluewater (and just hope they’ve got the ones you want) and get a pint
of bricks for twelve quid. So that is what we did. We went to the Lego store. You really do take a plastic pint tumbler and
fill it with bricks. Matt had done this before… You don’t just
fill the tumbler. You join the larger bricks together into stacks. You carefully
arrange the stacks in your pint tumbler. You then scoop in the smallest
bricks loose; one handful at a time and shaking as you go. The people at the
Lego shop expect kids who chuck bricks in willy-nilly and have tumblers which
are full of mostly air. Mine was rather judiciously arranged. By the time I
was done I don’t think it would have been possible to have got another brick
in the tumbler. Whilst paying for my stuff, the nice lady on
the counter asked if I would like to join the Lego VIP club. I did so; it is
like a Lego Nectar card. Result! We had a little mooch round Bluewater as we
were there; it is years since I last visited. We had a sandwich, then came
home. Going to Bluewater with Matt was ideal for today; he’s had a cold
recently too, today was rather murky and wet. A day looking at Lego and
putting the world to rights was just what the doctor ordered. Once home I made myself a cuppa, called up
the on-line Lego store, and had a look at what I’d bought. Whilst they didn’t
have the exact roof tiles I wanted I got something
which would do the job, and I got about sixty-five quid’s worth of Lego for
twelve pounds. I see that as something of a result. I saw my credit card bill was available
on-line. I downloaded it and checked it. Call me mean it you will ("My
Boy TM" does) but every month I go through it and
account for every penny. Today I accounted for every penny. Each and every seventy-odd thousand
of them; they all add up. I then ironed for a couple of hours until "er indoors TM" came home for a flying
visit. With some works thing on this evening I was left dog-sitting. I expect
I shall watch more episodes of “Prison Break”… |
|
29 November 2018 (Thursday) -
Before the Late Shift
Every morning as my lap-top boots up it shows a
picture from somewhere round the world. The current picture looked rather
familiar… it was from Butchart
Gardens in Canada. I’ve been there. Looking at the place on-line it looks
beautiful; I can remember it being rather tedious. Isn’t that negative of me…
but ornamental gardens often are tedious. After five minutes of looking at
flowers you really have seen it all. Mind you I went there with the scouts. Much of my
memories of scouting are of utter tedium; shepherding a dozen ungrateful
brats around places where they didn’t want to be tended to suck the fun out
of everything. I packed up being a scout leader when I realised it was *supposed*
to be fun. Looking back I think I’d been doing it
wrong for some time before I finally knocked it on the head. I had a little snigger when I looked at Facebook
this morning. I saw an advert for “Montgomery
Scott Blended Scotch Whisky”. From my days in active Trekkie-ing I just know that no end of people are
going to hand over a small fortune for something they would never otherwise
buy if it didn’t have a Star Trek logo on it. I can remember being at the “Star
Trek Experience” in Bournemouth over twenty years ago when a pencil set (like
you’d see in the pound store) was up for sale for forty quid purely
because someone had printed “Star Trek” on it. People were buying
them. I wish I’d had that idea first. Other than that there
wasn’t a lot kicking off on Facebook for once. My in-box was equally uninspiring. Amazon had
sent me emails suggesting I buy that which I had already bought. NHS jobs
suggested I apply for jobs I didn’t really want. LinkedIn had sent me a load
of gibberish written in a foreign language (I don’t speak “management”). I gave up and took the dogs for a walk. We got
half way round the park before the rain hit. We came home again. I spent five minutes loading rubbish into the
car, then settled the dogs and drove off. I had a few chores to do on the way
to work. First of all to the vet's where my piss
boiled somewhat. Fudge and Treacle are due for their flea treatments. I
thought we had loads of the stuff in the cupboard; we'd run out. I phoned the
vet yesterday evening to arrange to collect some this morning only to be told
I didn't have to arrange anything in advance; I could just turn up in the
morning. So I turned up and explained why I was
there and I waited and waited. Getting the flea treatments took an age. I
asked if things might have been better had I phoned last night to say I was
coming; the nice lady on reception said that would have been for the best,
and perhaps I might do that next time. I thought about mentioning that I had actually done just that, but sometimes it is best not to
stir these things more than they need to be. I then took a car load of rubbish to the tip.
Most of it went into the right skips, but I had a broken decanter that was
too big for the hole in the glass recycling skip. I asked the nice man where
I should stick it. Surprisingly he didn't give the obvious answer, but said
it goes in the glass recycling. I explained patiently that it was too big for
the hole. Consternation was achieved all round as all the tip operatives
huddled together trying to decide what to do when something is too big for
the hole. After five minutes they put the knacked
decanter on to a shelf next to an old clock and said I should leave it with
them. I did so. I then went to Longacres
garden centre (Bybrook Barn to most
people). Yesterday during our run-in with the dog warden she'd said that
she was pleased to see that Fudge had his address and our name on a tag on
his collar. She completely missed the fact that
he hadn't. Fudge and Treacle had tags with my phone number (and nothing
else) and Pogo had nothing at all. I thought I'd better get that sorted
before we have another ding-dong with her (it can only be a matter of
time...) The pet tag gizmo at the vets had gone west, but
the one at Bybrook Barn was working. The nice lady
behind the counter (who operates it) wouldn't take my instructions for
the tags verbally; she insisted that I wrote down what I wanted to appear on
them. And having written down my name, address, post code and phone number I
then had to spell each one out to her as she couldn't read my writing. Eventually I handed over thirty quid (ten quid
per tag) to find she'd spelt "Beaver" (as in Beaver
Road) wrong on each tag... Pausing only briefly to fail to locate a geocache
in Barming I went in to work where the canteen was
doing a rather good lasagne. It was really tasty and
filling. I'm sure it is in no way connected with the fact that I was farting
all afternoon. And can you believe it is now two years since we
took on Treacle. Where has the time gone? |
|
30 November 2018
(Friday) - Pink Cupcake
The first job of today was to apply the dogs’
flea treatments. Pogo and Fudge weren’t at all bothered, but Treacle *hates*
it. When she saw the packet she ran away, tried to hide upstairs and flatly
refused to come anywhere near us. After a futile attempt to try to encourage
her, we finally caught her in a pincer movement. With a neck full of “Advocate” she
then sulked. As I scoffed my brekkie there wasn’t much
kicking off on Facebook for once. No squabbles, and the bare minimum of
attention-seeking. Rather dull really; that’ not why I look at the website at
all. My in-box was equally dull. I had one email. Go Outdoors offered me
fifteen per cent off of my next shopping trip there
as a thank you for spending near on a hundred quid with them last weekend.
Having spent near on a hundred quid with them last weekend I don’t think I’m
going to be going back there any time soon. And their offer ends in three
weeks’ time. Ho hum… I took the now-road-legal dogs for a walk
round the park. As walks go it wasn’t one of the more successful ones. Whilst
Fudge kept up (mostly), Pogo was a pain in the glass (as
"Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction TM" would say).
He seems to have an issue with other dogs that are on leads. Other dogs
running round the park loose are no problem; he’ll
sniff them or ignore them or play with them. But (to him) another dog
on a lead is an invitation to a fight. It all became rather tiresome; I
didn’t actually tell the nice man with a dachshund
to f… off in those exact words, but the sentiment was certainly there. I got home with something of a sense of
relief. I played a little Candy Crush Soda Saga in
the vain hope that whilst I was hop e the postman might arrive, I settled the
dogs (who were all already fast asleep) and set off. With a little time on my hands I thought I
might take the scenic route to work via a geocache or two. My first target
was in Pluckley. I arrived to find a throng of
normal people swarming all around it, but they had all gone within minutes
and I was soon doing the happy dance. As one does. It was as well that the throng
of normal people had all shoved off as I would have looked rather daft doing
the happy dance with them swarming. My second target was at a (relatively)
local airfield. The given directions had me rather foxed. "PLEASE USE
THESE DIRECTIONS" they read. "..... Ahead of you is a gate
with no public access. Go past this gate...". Finding myself at a
gate which clearly said "no public access"
and aerodrome staff telling me there was no public access I drove to the car
park and went the long way round. I eventually found what I was looking for,
and a trackable too. Finding a film pot under a rock is exciting enough;
finding one with a trackable in it is the biz!!... if you like that sort of
thing. A surprising amount of people don't. My third target was somewhere that I'd been
before. On November 5th I wrote "...the hint was "behind
tree". The sat-nav took me straight to a large tree. However
behind this tree was a garden fence. And sitting in the garden was one of the
normal people who was watching me in the same way I might look at dog poop on
my shoe". I got to this tree easily enough today. The normal person
has moved a caravan up to within two feet of this tree, but it is on his side
of the fence. He was nowhere to be seen this morning
so I slipped in and found what I was looking for. I was the first person to
have rummaged around that tree in over a year - another resuscitation.
Another happy dance. My fourth target eluded me. To find it I had
to solve a puzzle and then look six feet up a tree at the location the puzzle
took me to. I'd obviously stuffed up solving the puzzle as I found myself in
a muddy field some fifty-four yards from the nearest tree (I measured it!). From here a straight line to work took my
right past the geocache I couldn't find yesterday. Half an hour rummaging in
the hedge to no avail yesterday - found in less than ten seconds today. I drove in to work where I took off my boots
and put on trainers. A shame I’d not got a matching pair, but I don’t think
anyone noticed. I had a rather good bit of cauliflower cheese for dinner, and
then did that which I couldn't avoid. Mind you it wasn't a bad day. We had
cake today. A pink cupcake. It was that sort of a day. My hip hurts from walking round in
mis-matched trainers all afternoon and evening… |
|
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