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1 November 2021
(Monday) - Rather Tired
When I have an alarm set
I usually wake up far too early. And what with this frankly ridiculous daylight saving clocks going back I woke up an hour before
far too early this morning. I wondered which idiot thought the thing up. It
turns out that the idiot was one George
Hudson who was an entomologist from New Zealand who had a plan to mess
the clocks about so he could play silly beggars hunting insects (as a
hobby) in daylight before his proper job started. Why on Earth did anyone in authority listen
to him? According to Wikipedia “proponents of daylight saving time argue that most people prefer a
greater increase in daylight hours after the typical "nine to five"
workday” but daylight saving means it get dark an hour earlier now than
it did a week ago. Perhaps they mean during the summer? No matter how you
mess it about, it is still the same amount of daylight. I made toast and watched the last episode of
“Inside Job” then had a look at the Internet. It was still there. I
chucked everyone out of the Munzee clan (as it
is time for a new Clan War) sent out a birthday wish to a niece (who
is approaching thirty but in my mind is still twelve) and posted on
Facebook asking of anyone wanted the top-box that went on the old car. We’ve
not used it in years, and it is in the way of the lock-ups
in the garden. I soon got a taker for it. I got dressed;
putting on a winter shirt. I have summer and winter work shirts (the
winter ones being thicker) and I switch from one set to the other as the
daylight saving comes and goes. And then I set off to work with something of
a sense of trepidation. In all honesty I didn't much care about the old car.
I suppose I liked it; it was an old friend. But it was old. It had done a
hundred and fifty thousand miles. It had scuffs and scratches. I wasn't
bothered when I reversed it into the wall of the works car park the other
day. But my new car is new. It has that (rather yukky) new car smell.
It isn't filled with mud and dog hairs (yet). And as
yet it is unscathed. Being rather amazed at how quickly the
screens cleared of condensation I was soon heading off down the road on a
bright morning. I stopped off at the garage to check the pressure of the iffy
tyre. It had only lost four psi since Saturday (which probably wasn't a
good thing). I put some more air in. As I drove the pundits on the radio were all a-twitter
about the COP26 climate
conference in which the world leaders will talk a lot without doing very
much. Boris Johnson finally announced he doesn't like coal-fired power
stations but says that the one being built up north is nothing to do with
him, and permission for its construction rests with the local planning
authorities. Really? If this is true, then I have to
ask what power a Prime Minister really has. If this isn't true, that would
come as no surprise whatsoever bearing in mind his track record. Last night I
heard that the Wombles were going to be at COP 26. I have more confidence in
their ability to get things done than I do in our Prime Minister’s. As I drove so the travel news sprung into
life. I turned it off by pressing the "cancel" button which
had appeared. I wonder how I will turn it back on when I want it? I got to work and rather than parking just
anywhere I found myself looking for a parking space that wasn't under a tree
full of crapping birds. I then spent five minutes
looking round the car to see how many hidden pockets and compartments it had.
Nowhere near as many as the old car, which can only be a good thing bearing
in mind the amount of rubbish I used to carry round in it. As I worked I found
time to phone the car warranty people who told me to take the car to a tyre
place and let them know what the tyre people said. So
I arranged to take my car to the Aylesford branch of ATS after work. And then
the warranty people sent me a message through their app saying that they
would only accept reports from Kwik-Fit or Halfords. I sighed, cancelled the
appointment I’d made for today and contacted Kwik-Fit who can see me
tomorrow. Work was work. Being on an early meant I got
out early, but I thanks to daylight saving got home at sunset. Too dark for
the co-op field. Instead I walked the dogs round the
roads. We had a mostly good walk. Mostly. As we
stepped out of the front garden so some small child
ten yards gave a blood-curdling scream and bellowed “doggies –
doggies-doggies” seemingly on a loop. I saw this as reason enough to walk
the other way, and within five seconds I could hear this child having a
complete meltdown behind me because it wanted to stroke the dogs. Calm and controlled children can stroke Pogo
and Treacle. Hysterical screaming brats cannot. Was I being harsh? Once she’d made dinner, “er indoors TM”
went bowling. I settled in front of the telly with a dog on either side and
started watching the second season of “Another Life”. Apparently I’d seen the first season two years ago. I
didn’t remember it, it was almost as bad as last night’s episode of “Doctor
Who”, and I soon fell asleep. What a waste of an evening. |
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2 November 2021
(Tuesday) - Got The Tyre Fixed
Again I woke early. I made
brekkie and had a look at Netflix. Having finished "Inside Job"
yesterday morning and given up on "Another Life" yesterday
evening, I had planned to watch the series "Vikings" as “My
Boy TM” was insistent that I would like it... but it isn't
available on Netflix any more. Netflix did suggest
the fourth series of "Good Girls".
Having watched the first three series and enjoyed them I thought I'd give
this a go. The first episode of the new series wasn't too shabby at all. I had a very quick look at the Internet -
there wasn't much going on so I got ready for work.
I stepped out into a rather cold morning and sighed. When
I came home yesterday I'd had to park three streets
away as there was nowhere closer to home to park. This morning there were two
spaces right outside the front door. I've said before that I'd like to move
house if only to have somewhere with my own dedicated parking space. As I walked down the road
I saw that the house by the hairdressers had filled the front garden with
shingle and small trees and shrubs all in pots. A possible project for me for
next spring? I can't help but wonder if the things would be safe in the front
garden. Anyone could nick them... but then again the
potted plants in the back garden weigh a ton, and no one has messed with the
shingled area which has been there for some years. As I nervously drove off to work slowly
getting used to the new car I nearly fainted as an alarm went off. The car
told me to look out for icy roads. That was considerate of it. The pundits on the radio were all a-twitter
about the news from the COP26 conference in which world leaders promised to end
deforestation by 2030. And then the
self-congratulatory hot air was followed by an interview with a South
American chap who had been caught in the act of illegally cutting down trees
in the Amazon rain forests. As a local farmer he needs space for his crops
and animals, and no one in authority has (so he claimed) said anything
to him about not clearing field space There was also talk about the ongoing
Anglo-French row
about fishing rights. At the last minute the French have decided not to
impose sanctions against the British over the ongoing argument about rights
to fish in British waters; preferring to have discussions and negotiations
instead. I can imagine the masses seeing this as a victory for the UK, and
not as the huge concession from the French which it actually
is. Just recently social media has been alive with one particular meme about the French being able to see one
British trawler but not seeing endless boats full of illegal immigrants.
Don't people realise that these so-called illegal immigrants aren't "immigrants"
to the French. Across the channel they are "emigrants" and the French are glad to be rid of them.
Why is it that the British and the French seem to be utterly unable to get
on? Mind you if not-so-nice-next-door's house caught fire, I'd pour
petrol on mine, so I suppose there's my answer. I got to work and did my bit. At tea break I
phoned the opticians. When I got my new glasses almost (but still a few
days to go) a month ago the nice lady said that if I didn't like them I could bring them back and change them any time
within the first month. I've given the things three weeks and I hate them
with a passion. I can see fine through them. They fit well. But whenever I
look in a mirror I don't see me. I see the love-child of Brains (from "Thunderbirds")
and Joe 90. I told the people at the opticians that I'd like to change the
glasses. They told me to get knotted; I've got them
and I am stuck with them. Oh well - that's five hundred quid down the
toilet. I'm off work next week; I shall see if I can sort out a relatively
cheap new pair of specs from Boots, then I might just do what I have been
threatening and take a hammer to the current pair (that's how much I
detest them). With work worked I set off to Kwik-Fit. They
soon found the cause of the tyre pressure sensor warning – there was a nail
sticking out of the tyre. The nice people checked all the other tyres too and
pumped them all up a bit. I can only assume this was covered on the warranty
as they didn’t charge me. Having driven across Maidstone through the
after-school traffic I then navigated my way through Maidstone’s (frankly
horrendous) one-way system to the motorway. Having done seven motorway
drives it was time for something a tad more ambitious. I survived it, as did
the car. Mind you, I had another near heart attack when the engine cut out
the first time I stopped. After a little trial and error
I worked out that this was a feature. Whenever I put the car in neutral with
the hand brake on, the engine switches off. And when I press the clutch so the engine starts again. I could get used to
that. Bake-Off is on the telly in a bit. There’s
stilton and red wine and no need to be up early tomorrow… Here we go. |
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3 November 2021
(Wednesday) - Boot Dogs 2.0
As I perused the Internet over brekkie this morning I saw I had a message request on Facebook from
Jonas Jason who said “I'm horny, I need sex today. Do you want to come
with me? My private videos and your private room are here” and then gave
a link on which I didn’t really feel like clicking. Instead
I squealed him/her/it to the Facebook Feds. There was quite the argument kicking off on
one of the local Facebook pages about a local vet who hadn’t been able to
work wonders on a dying pet. All of the local vets
were getting praise and abuse in equal measure, with none seeming to do any
better than any of the others. Interestingly the vets which
came in for the most praise and least abuse were those who were furthest away
from Ashford. With a dozen or so vets within striking distance of home, why
would anyone drive for over an hour to an independent vet in a distant country
village? I was reminded of a chap with whom I used to work who wouldn’t use
any shop within forty miles of his house. Even his weekly food shopping came
from somewhere miles away for some reason he was never able to convey. I had a few emails from someone who had
visited Ashford yesterday and seemed to have been impressed with some of my Wherigos, which reminded me I’ve still got an ongoing
Wherigo project to finish. “er indoors TM” set off to Asda to collect
the shopping she’d ordered, and I finally had a look at the humungous box of
rubbish I’d emptied from the old car. I was (and am) determined not to
carry round quite so much unnecessary clutter like I did in the old car. One
such utterly useless thing I’ve been driving round with is a very old
ordnance survey map of the East Kent area. Why do I need it? I have an
interactive one on my phone, and the old one is so old it doesn’t even have Samphire Hoe
on it and that was made nearly twenty-five years ago. And the power cable to
the air-bed pump. We’ve not been camping for over four years, and the pump
for the air beds is long lost. But I’ve still got the cable for it and have
been driving it fifty miles to work and back every day. Am I the only person who does this? Look in
your car’s glove box. Go on – have a look. When did you last use anything in
there? I’ve decided that my car’s glove box will have the car’s instruction
manual, the locking nut for the wheels and a pair of sunglasses. And nothing
else! Getting the dog-proof rail across the back
seats took some doing. There isn’t a central head rest to attach the thing
to, and it is too tall to go there anyway. So I’ve
bodged one bar of it into place. If the dogs wanted to, I think they could
jump over it but it seems to act as a deterrent for
now. I then bit the bullet. Up till now the car
has been pristine. Immaculate. Quite literally just out of the showroom. I
got the dogs into the boot and we drove to Orlestone for a walk. Is that Boot Dogs 2.0 or Boot 2.0
Dogs? The dogs took to the new car well in that
they stayed in the back. As we drove the pundits on the radio were
interviewing the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan about the ongoing case in the
courts in which a serving police officer pleaded guilty to having taken
photos of two murdered women, and made degrading and
sexist insults about them on these photos which he shared with more than
forty other police officers via their WhatsApp group. Love him or loathe him,
Mr Khan made a very good point when he said that our country’s police forces
look after the country with the consent of the public, and incidents like
this do nothing to inspire that consent. As far as I’m concerned this is just
another example of the failure of the current police forces, and it is high
time we had another system. We got to the woods and had a good walk. We
barked at the same dog we barked at the last time we were there; the other
dog’s mummy had a laugh. Which is why I like going to those woods. Most of
the other dog walkers know what dogs are like, and there are never any
squabbles about dogs doing what is in their nature to do. As we walked it was so apparent that autumn
had arrived. Fallen leaves were everywhere covering the paths, and because of
this we missed one of our usual turn-offs. I wouldn’t say we were lost; how
can you get lost in such a relatively small wood and with maps on your phone?
But we did have a ten-minute detour. Once home I had a look at the lawn. I suppose
it was too wet to mow; in my mind I could hear “Nutty Noodle” the (in
all seriousness) probably insane husband of not-so-nice-next-door
shrieking at me not to mow the lawn. I’ve not seen him for some years (where
is he?) but one of his many obsessions was not to mow wet grass, and on
many occasions he formally ordered me to put the
lawn mower away as the grass was too wet. But despite it being sodden it was
long. Too long. The lawn needs to be short so that we can find (and clear
away) the dog dung. In retrospect I didn’t so much mow it as scalp it,
but it is now at a length that the dog dung is obvious and doesn’t require
searching for. It is little things like that which no one
tells you about when you get your dog… I
did a little CPD, watched an episode of “Good Girls”, and went to
bed for the afternoon. The dogs did declare “Red Alert” once, and despite
the phone’s mobile data and wi-fi being switched off, the phone did shout
about pond filter bargains on eBay. But I managed to doze off and slept for
perhaps the longest I have ever managed to sleep before a night shift. “er indoors TM” is currently
boiling up a pizza, and then I am off to the night shift. There are those who
pity me and wonder how I do it. I do find them tiring, but there is something
satisfying to be trusted to get on with the job utterly unsupervised. Here we go… |
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4 November 2021
(Thursday) - After the Night Shift The first night shift I ever did was in
August 1985. Things were rather different back then. Effectively blood
testing shut up shop at five o’clock every evening and we all went home
having completed the entire day’s work. One of us would then be available for
emergencies. If one arose out of hours then we would be phoned (on our
landlines at home) and if we agreed a blood test was needed, then we
would come in and do it. If we didn’t have a car (like I didn’t) then
a taxi would be sent for us, would wait around and then drive us home again
when we were finished. We would be paid for each time we were called in, and
on average we would be called in four times between five o’clock in the
evening and nine o’clock the next morning (though we were rarely called
after midnight). On my first night I had five calls, and on my second I
had seven. Before my third night I was taken to one side and told that if I
kept claiming at such a high rate I would draw the
attention of the finance watchdogs. Last night I started a routine shift at nine
o’clock in the evening and (apart from finishing off that which the late
shift hadn’t had time to do) had urgent blood samples from over seventy
patients by eight o’clock this morning. That’s more than one every ten
minutes. How times have changed. I was glad to see the early shift turn up
this morning. As I drove home the pundits on the radio were interviewing Kwasi Kwarteng (the
Minister of State for Business, Energy and Clean Growth) about the
ongoing Owen
Paterson scandal in which Mr Paterson has been accused of abusing his
position as an MP on behalf of firms which have allegedly given him over
twice my annual salary. I wasn’t that interested in the talk about how MPs
are not supposed to abuse their positions. Of course
they are going to make the most of being an MP. Who wouldn’t? I certainly
would. I was more interested in listening to Mr. Kwarteng squirm as the
pundits mercilessly crucified him live on national radio. Anyone who hadn’t
previously listened to Radio Four in the mornings would think the
interviewers were rather harsh. But Kwasi Kwarteng is the David Blunkett of
today. A few years ago the Labour politician David
Blunkett came on the morning radio show at every opportunity he was given,
and every time he never gave a straight answer to the straight questions
being asked of him, and the interviewers would hound him mercilessly. Every
time the interview finished with him appearing to be either evasive or
incompetent. The pundits on the radio lost one of their best stars when Mr (now
Lord) Blunkett retired from government, and they must be rubbing their
hands with glee now that Mr. Kwarteng has stepped up. I got home and saw a rather small space
outside the house. I wouldn’t have even tried to have got my old car into it,
but I did it first time with the new car’s parking sensors. Waving at “er indoors TM”
in passing, I had my morning ablutions then went to bed. Thirty seconds later
both dogs came and made themselves comfortable on top of me, and we all slept
very well until the postman came two hours later. I wasn’t going to get back
to sleep after that “Red Alert” so we went up
to the co-op field for a game of “fetch”. “Fetch” has been a
bit of a disaster recently, but “er indoors TM” had a
theory that I was throwing the ball too far for the dogs. So
I tried chucking the balls a much shorter distance, and this held Pogo’s attention far longer than usual. With walk walked both dogs were soon snoring.
Over a brekkie/lunch I had a look at the Internet. I had an email from the
nice people at Credit Karma. It would seem my credit rating went up
substantially in the last week. I wonder if that has anything to do with
buying a car? I don’t understand finance. I’ve taken out
quite a substantial loan over the next four years and blown most of my
savings… and that makes me more credit-worthy. How
does that work? I then got my usual post night shift fix of “Four
In A Bed” in which the contestants got particularly nasty with each
other. It was during this that the electrician came and fitted the new
bathroom heater; a job which took him a few minutes but would have taken me
most of the day. I am a great believer in paying an expert to do a job which
I would probably only ever do once. I can remember the bitter couple who used
to live next door being incredibly keen on DIY, and not-so-nice-net-door’s
(frankly insane) husband saying that when he moved in, the house
looked like they had been incredibly keen on DIY. And once the electrician
was off on his way (and the telly had finished) I bodged a waterproof
boot liner into the back end of the car. It will hopefully contain the filth
that the dogs pick up. However the old dog grille
thingy doesn’t fit at all now – I will have to get a new one. I’ll have a
look in Halfords tomorrow. “er indoors TM” came home and
boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching an
episode of “Taskmaster”, and then an episode of “Dogs Behaving
(Very) Badly” which gave me one or two ideas about Pogo’s
continual pulling when on the lead. Something I wish he’d stop. |
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5 November 2021
(Friday) - Late Shift
Despite a particularly vivid nightmare in
which I had been sentenced to run a dog-washing boutique I slept for over
eight hours last night. Over brekkie I sparked up my lap-top (as I
do most mornings) to see what I’d missed overnight. I rarely miss
anything worth bothering about. Despite twelve notifications on Facebook,
again I hadn’t missed much. The only thing of note was a posting on one of
the local geocaching pages from someone saying that they would be staging a
geo-meet in December (as usual)(?) but not a
Christmas party as they thought it best for everyone to “keep safe”.
The local annual Christmas geo-meet is usually good fun, and I was rather sad
to see it had been cancelled. Especially because of some COVID
misunderstanding in which a virus spreads at a party but somehow not at a
meeting of people? But then why was this being announced by someone of whom
I’d never heard. After a little stalking on the Internet
it turned out these people were from Berkshire and were presumably talking
about events taking place (or not taking place) a hundred miles away.
What was that all about? Mind you there was a fair bit of
consternation being expressed over the death
of Lionel Blair who passed away yesterday evening. Any death is sad, but
the chap was ninety-two. I thought he’d died years ago. Yesterday “er indoors TM” bought
me mats for the footwells of the new car. Risking life and limb I managed to
separate the mats; they had been fastened together with some of the most
vicious and sharpest staples you ever did see, And with them in place in the
car I drove the dogs down to Orlestone for a walk. We got to the car park
and I opened the boot to see that the boot liner I installed yesterday was in
something of a state. I suppose it lined the boot, but the tape which secured
it in place wasn’t as adhesive as it might have been what with fidgeting
dogs. Oh well… it will suffice until I find better (at a decent price). We walked a very good walk. It was a bit
cold, but not that bad. And there wasn’t that much mud. As we walked I took care not to miss the turning we’d missed a
couple of days ago. When we found that turning I
stared at it. It was obvious. How had we missed that? With walk walked we came back to a completely
empty car park. There had been three cars in it when we arrived. We’d seen no
one as we walked, and everyone had gone home by the time we’d finished our
walk. As we drove home “Desert Island Discs”
was on the radio in which the footballer Peter Schmeichel was talking about
his experiences as a carpet fitter working in a prison. The chap was interesting, and didn’t pretend to enjoy pretentious
classical music that no one really listens to (like most people on that
show do). I don’t get to hear that program very often, and usually when I
do it is rather dire. This ten minutes was rather
good. I settled the dogs; they didn't need much
settling as they were fast asleep within minutes of getting home. As I drove
off there was some rather aggressive woman on "Woman's Hour"
ranting about the way women were portrayed in the James Bond books. There's no
denying that she had a point - have you ever read any of the James Bond
books? The women in those books are portrayed as those things on which James
Bond would wipe his feet before he went down the pub. But the books were (mostly)
written before I was born. Things were *very* different back then and
Ian Fleming (the writer) has been dead for over fifty years. Quite
frankly whoever that aggressive woman was, she'd left it a little late
to take offence. Or are we to retrospectively censor the James
Bond books along with most of British history? I soon got to the car showrooms where I gave
them the V5 and the spare key for my old car, and they sorted the seemingly
broken key to the new car. It is amazing what a new battery does. Pausing only briefly in West Malling and Mereworth for geocachical reasons I made my way to the Sainsbury's
petrol station in Aylesford where despite the massive increase in petrol
prices I seemed to fill my car rather cheaply. I was pleased about that. I
also bought lunch. In the absence of Walker's crisps (after bogroll and petrol, Walker's crisps seems
to be the next great shortage) I got myself a packet of kettle crisps to
scoff with lunch, and they gave me quite the stomach ache which not even posh
biccies at tea time could sort out. The posh biccies were *very* good though. Am I being
ungrateful in wishing they had been cake? |
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6 November 2021
(Saturday) - Bit Tired
The fireworks eventually stopped last night.
Back in the day we’d have a few fireworks in the garden when Dad came home
from work. This slowly gave way to going to organised public firework
displays, but I’ve not seen quite so many of those advertised recently (I
suppose COVID has had a hand in that) but over the last few years it
seems that thing with fireworks is to let them off later and later. Four
years ago I posted on Facebook about fireworks going
off late into the evening, and that was certainly happening last night.
Incredibly thoughtless half-wits were setting off fireworks well after bed time. And not the ones that look pretty; the ones that
just make loud explosions; there were three detonations shortly before one
o’clock. There was a minor incident at five o’clock
when I went to the loo and had to have a pitched battle with the dogs on my
return to secure any bed space at all. Consequently I was rather tired
and just a tad grumpy today. As you can probably tell by reading this rant. I got rather frustrated over brekkie. Having
finally sorted the past of the paperwork with the car dealership yesterday,
last night I went on-line to tell the DVLA all about it. After going
through quite a few web pages in which I filled in no end of trivial details
they eventually told me they were closed and I might
like to try again in the morning. After filling in a lot more web pages this
morning it finally told me it that I had the wrong number on the V5C scrap of
paper. On the third attempt it finally accepted the number. They then had the
cheek to present me with one of those “how did we do” questionnaires.
I don’t like those; so often a score less than perfection leads to a formal
reprimand for an innocent individual who is utterly unable to correct the
corporate failure. I then spent a minute solving a couple of
geo-puzzles. Yesterday I’d taken a little detour to get the information to
solve a puzzle as part of planning for a future geo-walk. Having solved the puzzle it would seem the final film pot is nowhere near
where we will be walking… ho hum… I rolled my eyes as I read Facebook this
morning. Someone with whom I used to work was complaining that they had
waited for an hour and a half for a bus to take them home when they could
have walked it in fifteen minutes. This was the same person who once tried to
tell me they couldn’t get to work because of the snow when I’d walked past
their house on the way to work that very morning. Can people seriously not
walk any more? And I did have a message from “Morgana
Leslie” who seemed very keen to show me photos of her *bits*. That
was nice of her… (!) I’ve squealed him/her/it up to the Facebook Feds but I suspect that the automated processes that their
bots use won’t see anything wrong with it. Again. I took the dogs to the co-op field. I would
usually go for a more ambitious walk, but being a Saturday, Orlestone Woods and Kings Wood fill with the sort of
people who only take the dog out once a week and the sort of people who
detest dogs. The park fills with the park run people who in the past have
tried to kick dogs. The co-op field was ideal today. No one else was there,
and we played “Fetch” with a surprising degree of success. Treacle
fetches the ball and (with only a little encouragement) drops it too.
Pogo prefers to catch the ball, so I chuck one ball to get Treacle going, and
then bounce another for Pogo. After a couple of minutes
it became a tad tedious for me, but the Terrible Twins seemed to love it. As we walked home so another dog started
barking at us from twenty yards away. My two looked over the road at that dog
and didn’t seem bothered. I had them sit, and we watched the dog as it went
away. I was very pleased with how they reacted this morning, but the relaxed
attitude was more through luck than judgement. It has to
be said that our dealing with other dogs is a tad hit and miss at times. I’ve
read up a lot on dog training and watched all the videos and telly
programmes. Perhaps it is time we went to dog training classes? Seeing the dogs were both fast asleep I set
off quietly. “er indoors TM” had gone to a craft day
event thingy, and wanting to get more used to the
new car (driving in daylight is a novelty right now) I drove up to Detling where I got the information needed for a field
geo-puzzle that we might (or might not) pick up tomorrow. As I was there I saw
some woman with a GPS unit bustling about where I knew a geocache had been
hidden. I know most of the active Kent geocachers well, but had never seen
this woman before, so I thought I'd introduce myself. I've done this several
times before and in that way have met lots of people
who have turned out to be such good friends, and they too have welcomed being
introduced to a wide friendly group of people. So I went up to her and
(with a large smile) announced "I know what you are doing".
She didn't actually say "F... off Fatso"
but that was certainly the attitude she conveyed. Oh well... there are some
who go out hunting Tupperware in the company of friends and who go to regular
meet-ups. And there are those that don't. Each to
their own, but I know in which group I most definitely am. I then drove on to Aldi if only to navigate a
busy car park. Aldi itself was rather busy (heaving) with not one
person in twenty looking where they were going or what they were doing, and
in amongst the scrum were half a dozen of "The Terrified".
In their thick masks and face shields and rubber gloves they were desperately
cowering away from everyone else, failing to do so, and getting more and more
stressed. And all seemingly oblivious to the fact that every item they had in
their shopping trolley had been mauled around by countless shoppers before
them. I'm told I am too intolerant of other
people... perhaps I am. But if someone really is frightened of contracting
COVID, then going to a crowded supermarket at peak time *isn't* such a
good idea, is it? In this twenty-first century surely "The Terrified"
can get all their shopping delivered, can't they? Actually,
probably not. From my personal experience of them, I suspect "The
Terrified" wouldn't have a clue what the Internet is; let alone how
to get your shopping through it. I got my shopping, and
carried on to work. Last Saturday I got a rather good dinner in the works
canteen. I did the same again today, but got about
twice as much for my money. The woman on the servery today told me (and
anyone else who would listen) that the portion sizes were too small, and
she was giving out double helpings. I saw that as a minor result. And so to work for a
rather fraught shift. In our twenty-first century the computer is king. And a
computer-controlled state of the art blood sciences laboratory isn't really
the place to be whilst the computer that does the controlling is out of
action having an upgrade. I was reminded of the halcyon days of 1981 to 1984
when I worked in a blood testing laboratory that didn't have a computer that
ran the show. And I don't miss those days one bit. |
|
7 November 2021
(Sunday) - Detling to Boxley
(and back)
I couldn’t sleep, so I got up far too early,
made brekkie and had a look at the Internet. Now that it is all over, the
local police had posted a link to Facebook on which the public could report
fireworks being set off after midnight. Seriously? What do they want me to
say? “There were three loud explosions somewhere in the South Ashford area
at a quarter to one last night” What could they do about it? I actually went through their link for reporting this, and
gave up when I got to “Do you think the thing that’s happened has
something to do with race, disability, religion, sexual orientation, or
transgender identity?” This was followed by a begging post from
someone whose mother had died and she had no idea
just how much a spectacular funeral costs. Seriously? I’ve got a policy to
pay for my final expenses… after all, about the only thing of which we can
all be sure is that we are going to croak. Fortunately before my blood
pressure went through the roof, Treacle started dabbing at me, started
chewing my pyjamas, and then had a fight with me. Silly dog. With “er indoors TM” off
doing whatever it was he was doing today, I got myself and the dogs organised
and into the car, and we were soon on our way to Detling.
We arrived a few minutes early, and it was quite comical watching the dogs
staring at every car that came past in the desperate hope that it contained
Karl, Tracey and Charlotte. The dogs got more and
more wound up at each false alarm, and even though there were only a dozen or
so false alarms, Treacle and Pogo were at bursting point when the right car
pulled up. It wasn’t long before we were off on our way.
We had a rather good walk along well-marked paths with only a little lane
walking. And they were very quiet lanes. Admittedly there were some
incredibly serious “up” bits, but that’s the North Downs for you. (That’s
why we chose this route when “er indoors TM” was busy elsewhere) As we walked we had
one of those laugh out loud moments when both dogs mistook a statue of a cat
for a real cat and flew at it. Both got nose-to nose with the statue before
realising their mistake. And I chuckled when the rest of our gang found a
geocache that we’d seemingly already signed. I went to it yesterday on my way
to work and signed it in advance for a bit of a laugh. Up to that point of
our walk I’d had amazing trouble not to giggle about what I’d done. I suppose
this sounds rather sad to those who don’t hunt Tupperware (and those that
do!), but it kept me amused. It wasn’t far from there that a phone box had
been decked out with poppies; I’d not seen that sort of thing before – it was
rather well done. It was only a shame that Pogo got a thorn in
his paw. But with Charlotte holding him up (that took some doing!) we
soon got it out, and in doing so got muddy Pogo paw prints all over my GPS. We also saw stickers on various metal posts
for “Augustine Camino” – it turns out this is a week-long pilgrimage
from Rochester to Ramsgate. A pilgrimage… these still happen. As I do, I
took a few photos as we walked. Despite the uphill, this was a very good
place to walk. I’d certainly take the dogs back again. Once I’d got the photos onto the Internet
Stuart arrived to collect the old car top box. We got it into his van but it took some doing. I watched a little telly, then “er indoors
TM” came home and boiled up a rather good bit of dinner which
we scoffed whilst watching this evening’s episode of “Doctor Who”.
There wee quite a few nods to what had gone before
(if you were watching the show in 1973), and it was far better than
last week’s rather disappointing instalment. I’m hoping things continue in
this vein next week… |
|
8 November 2021
(Monday) - A Day Off (?) There were no fireworks last night; none that
I heard anyway. I got up shortly before seven o’clock, made toast and peered
into the internet. It was still there… mostly. Facebook wasn’t though. The
thing didn’t seem to be working right, and after a minute or so came up with
a “Quack Quack Oops” message. After a little
while it came back, but I was rather lost without the ability to see what had
been going on in the world over the weekend. It was just a shame that very
few denizens of the world had chosen to share what they’d been doing with the
world. I got the leads on to the dogs and eventually
got them into the back of the car. Some idiot had
parked his van far too close behind my car. We then went for an early morning
constitutional around Orlestone Woods. As we walked we met three other people with dogs. Treacle
quivered in terror from the first two, and Pogo
barked at them. Treacle wasn’t at all bothered by the third, and so neither
was Pogo. Had this happened in Viccie Park no end
of offence would have been taken, and sarcastic comments about feral dogs
would have appeared on the local Facebook pages. But things are different in Orlestone Woods. It probably helped having met all the
other dogs and people many times before, but we all had a good laugh about
it. We came home, and I put a load of whites in
to wash. My washing machine is getting old; really I
should think about a new one. I might treat myself to a new iron and ironing
board at the same time. But I won’t mention anything to “er indoors TM”;
that might be my Christmas pressie if I do. With washing machine doing its thing I took
Pogo to the vet for his booster jabs. There was a minor altercation in the
reception when one of the “special” people had the hump as the staff
wouldn’t allow her dog to use the weighing scales because it hadn’t had any
vaccinations. Apparently this woman didn’t believe
in vaccinations (!) When the reception staff asked her why she was at
the vets where vaccination is a major part in animal healthcare, she had no
answer. You really could see her thinking it through, and then she asked if
the reception staff thought she should get her dog vaccinated. I got called
in just as they were making the arrangements for the dog to get jabbed. Pogo got jabbed. I also got told off (on
his behalf) about what a porker he is. Weighing in at a shade over twenty
kilogrammes, the vet says fifteen should be more realistic. They’ve suggested
we persevere with his diet until the New Year and then bring him back for a
weigh-in. There was talk of seeing a nutritionist (which is covered on his
health plan) and high fibre dog food. I then spent the best part of an hour sorting
rubbish for a tip run. As I moved all the rubbish from the garden to a
humungous pile in the hallway so the postman came.
Both dogs flew to the door having no trouble leaping over the piles of rubbish.
However they were both rather stuck when they tried
to get back again. With the dogs out of the way I then set about
loading the rubbish into the car. It took some loading. One of the
disadvantages of a smaller car is that it is smaller (dur!) With the car loaded I sat down with a cuppa.
By then it was only eleven o’clock and I felt knackered. I turned on the
telly and fell asleep. Fortunately I woke in time for
the tip run. The tip now offers half-hour slots rather than two-hour slots. I
arrived dead on time to find I was the only car there. I unloaded my rubbish
under the gimlet stares of several tip staff who were very keen to make sure
I got the right rubbish in the right receptacle. But they did seem perhaps a
tad too interested – what did they think I was going to chuck in their skips? From there I went to Halfords. Last Thursday I put a boot liner into
the car, and on the next day I commented that the thing hadn’t stayed in
place. Having given it three try-outs I have concluded that it was a load of
rubbish. I’ve reviewed it on Amazon saying “This was perhaps the most useless item
I have ever bought. Utterly unfit for purpose it made no attempt to line the
boot. The adhesive tape made no effort to stick to anything,
and having wrapped itself round the dogs three times it is now in the
bin and has been replaced with something far superior from Halfords”. I got a far better liner from Halfords
together with a mat-thingy and a new dog grille. The parcel shelf does ride
up the dog grille somewhat, but this grille doesn’t rattle like a thing
possessed. I might need to take the parcel shelf out of the car to be able to
see better through the rear-view mirror though. We shall see (figuratively
and literally). I then got some Chrimbo pressies for “er
indoors TM”; I shall keep quiet about where I went and what I
got, and I then went on to the hospital where I was greeted by not-so-nice-next-door
who seems to have a job there directing the public about as they arrive. I
nearly didn’t recognise her as she was smiling, and what with the face mask
and the new glasses I don’t think she recognised me at all. I took my place in the ENT clinic’s waiting
area and amused myself listening to the ranting of another patient who was
furious to have arrived for an appointment booked months ago only to find the
hospital had cancelled it without telling her. I was only ten minutes late getting in to see
the specialist. I say “specialist”. I’d gone hoping to see a
consultant ENT surgeon; I got fobbed off with a registrar. He had a look up
my nose and then contradicted everything the last chap said. On
24 May 2021 I was told that although the polyps had returned there was no
sign of the papilloma. Today I was told there is no way of knowing if the
papilloma has returned because the polyps are in the way. Back in May I was
told that papilloma was no cause for concern. Today I was told I would be
booked for urgent surgery just in case… Perhaps there is cause for concern… I came home via B&Q where I got a new
light for the kitchen. I took the old one with me as they come in all shapes
and sizes. I had this naïve idea that if I got one with the same words as
were written on the old one then all would be fine. After fifteen minutes of brain-strain with
two assistants helping me I managed to come home
with the right replacement bulb. But these days the tubes are LED and need
new starter units too. Nothing is simple, is it? “er indoors TM” came home, sorted a
rather good bit of dinner then went off bowling. Bearing in mind no day off
work is complete without a dose of ironing I set about the laundry whilst
watching a couple of episodes of “Good Girls”. For a supposed day off, today has been rather
hard work… |
|
9 November 2021
(Tuesday) - Lydd (in the rain)
With no need to be up early, why did Royal
Mail send me a text message to say they would be delivering a COVID testing kit
this morning? Bearing in mind the thing goes through the letterbox there was
no need to bother me, was there? I found myself thinking for much of the day
having read a post on a “Hitch Hikers’ Guide to the Galaxy” Facebook page
I follow. An American follower of that page had posted “My sister and I
are planning a trip to England and Scotland next year and we are looking for
authentic not traditional touristy stuff to do”. England *and*
Scotland in a week? I was reminded of the biography of a policeman I once
read who said that most American tourists seemed to think that the UK was the
size of a small provincial town. He went on to say that he’d lost count of
the amount of American tourists he’d found over the
years in Borough High Street (in Southwark) who were distraught.
Having arranged to meet their friends in “London High Street” it came
as a shock to all of them to realise London has over six hundred “High Street”s. Where would you want to see in England and
Scotland though? The Tower of London for sure. Bath with its Roman history
would be a must (and Stonehenge as it is only thirty miles from Bath).
Hampton Court really should be on the list. We found a guided tour round
Oxford was a cracking day out. There’s loads to see
and do in Canterbury. Dover Castle and the White Cliffs are always good.
Cornwall is spectacular… There’s a week… most of it would be spent
travelling and you’d not be getting out of the south of England… “er indoors TM” was off work today
as well, so we got the dogs organised and drove down to Lydd. We’d had a really good walk round there doing a Wherigo a few weeks
ago and went back today for a combined multicache – Adventure Lab – Munzee mission. We hadn’t expected the drizzle, but as always we had two choices. We could make the most of it,
or we could sulk. So we made the most of it. As luck
would have it we had parked almost on top of the
first stage of the Adventure Lab GPS game, and we followed the stages from
the old courthouse on a rather good little guided tour through the churchyard
up the High Street, past the Garden of Remembrance to the fire station. We
paused at the Garden of Remembrance to have a look, and to answer some
questions which led us to a geocache. And with multi-geocache and Adventure
Lab games done, we followed a trail of twenty or so Munzees
back to the car. If nothing else, GPS-based games stop you getting lost on a
dog walk. Even if we did get a little wet from the rain. Rain which had only
a two per cent chance of happening as we drove home through it. My plan for the afternoon had been to get
busy in the garden, but the rain put paid to that idea. So instead
I cleaned out the fish tank. So easy to type, not so easy to do. But after a
couple of hours the thing was clean. “er indoors TM” then set off to
visit “Daddy’s Little Angel TM”. I stayed home and nursed a
backache whilst watching episodes of “Good Girls” until she returned.
Once back she boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst
watching this week’s episode of “Bake Off”. Today wasn’t quite as busy as yesterday… but
my back aches now… |
|
10 November 2021
(Wednesday) - Another Day Off
Despite a rather aching back I slept very well
last night, which was something of a result. I came downstairs and spent a
few minutes looking at the amazingly clean fish tank. It did look good… I
really should have a go at it more often. It looks so much better for a
little attention – and the little fish deserve it too. I sparked up the lap-top and peered into the
Internet as I scoffed brekkie. It was still there, Overnight a posting had
appeared on one of the local Facebook pages about an incident which happened
at three o’clock in the morning a few days ago. Some youngsters were seen
supposedly assaulting another, and the local neighbourhood watch organiser
had posted about it starting with “Still trying to pin point these youths”… I can’t help but think that
had the person who saw this contacted the police right away rather than
posting to a Facebook argument site a few hours later, then (just possibly)
the guilty might have been caught. With absolutely nothing at all seeming to
have happened in cyber-space I got dressed and took the dogs out. As we drove to the woods Sajid Javid (the
Health Secretary) was being interviewed on the radio. Having been asked
about the practicality of his brainwave to force
all NHS staff to have COVID vaccinations he simply didn’t answer any
question put to him. He was equally reticent with questions about ongoing
sleaze allegations levelled at several Conservative MPs who seem to be
getting a year’s salary for a day’s work. We got to the woods and had a good walk. Pogo
barked at quite a few sparrows (for no reason I could fathom). As we walked we met the little old lady with the poodle and the
Jack Russell. She commented on me having changed my car, which made me think.
Today was only the fourth time I’d taken the new car to the woods and she knew I had a new car. In the past people at
work had commented on my having a blue Renault scenic. In all honesty I have
absolutely no idea what car most people drive. If pushed I could probably
tell the colour of maybe three of four people’s cars. Does everyone but me
know all about everyone else’s cars? With walk walked we came home. I settled the
dogs and went out on a little mission. Firstly to
Hastings. I stopped off at the farm shop in Ickelsham
where I got some cakes, and Dad and I scoffed them as I visited; I’d not been
down to see him for a while and he was keen to see
the new car. The car got his seal of approval, and then he showed me his
garden. It has been dug up by foxes. He’s watched them doing it. An aunt has
an idea that she can get some lion poo which will scare of the foxes. If it
was anyone else I would roll my eyes with a “yeah,
right!” but I would not be at all surprised to see that aunt come up with
a job lot of lion poo. From Dad’s I came back to Ashford then had a
little drive around. For all that I’ve lined the car’s boot, the lip of the
boot needs a cover pulling over it each time the dogs go in and out. They
have been in and out half a dozen times and they don’t understand the need
for a cover. The nice man at the Skoda garage says they can fit a firm
plastic cover to protect the paintwork, and he quoted a price which was about
half that which I expected him to quote. He’s ordered the part. The next thing to do was to batten down the
boot cover thingy which was blocking up the view out of the rear window (as
the thing came half way up the dog grille). All
I needed to sort it was two humungous paper clips to hold it down. I could
get them from any decent stationery shop so I drove
round to Staples… only to find it had shut down about a year ago. It’s
amazing what happens when you aren’t playing attention. I popped next door to Home Bargains to see if
they had paper clips. I think it fair to say that the chap I asked didn’t
even know what a paper clip was. Fortunately
Sainsburys had some. And then I went for a blood test… before I
get more nasal surgery I have to get a scan of my
sinuses done. This involves having a contrast medium injected, and we have to be sure my kidneys are up to shifting this
contrast medium… hence the blood test. As I sat and waited to be called in I almost laughed out loud at the sign I read on the
phlebotomy department’s door. It mentioned not going inside until invited as
this “can impact on patient confidentiality”. If this is an issue (which
it is!), why has the hospital put their phlebotomy waiting area in the
hospital’s (very busy) foyer where the world and his wife can see who
is waiting for a blood test? I don’t know if not-so-nice-next-door saw
me, but if she didn’t that was more through luck than judgement . And if
being seen waiting for a blood test isn’t enough, the phlebotomists have to bellow out the names of the next patient to make
themselves heard over the ambient noise (which was so loud as to be rather
painful). Several acquaintances smiled at me as I waited for the needle.. So much for patient confidentiality,
eh? I’ve not only removed the name of the NHS
Trust in question from the photo, but also the name of the person who
authorised that sign about patient confidentiality. However
that person is someone who is on my Facebook list and was one of my trainees
many years ago. I sent her a message expressing my chagrin, and words don’t
exist to express the disappointment I felt when she replied in
management-talk rather than in English. Suitably needled I came home and spent the
afternoon on the sofa watching episodes of “Four In A Bed” whilst
cuddling dogs. Today’s episodes of “Four In A Bed” were more
entertaining than usual. With five minutes till bed-time,
one set of contestants announced that they couldn’t stay in a certain B&B
because of the overpowering smell of vomit in their room. They then left, and
all the other contestants went to the room in question where no one could
smell anything. That made for a good argument. “er indoors TM” eventually came
home and we watched the first few episodes of “The Cockfields”
on UK Gold. Featuring her from “Alan Partridge”, “Betty” from
Frank Spencer and Rab C Nesbitt himself, they was rather good. As were the three bottles of ale I sank
whilst watching them. |
|
11 November 2021 (Thursday)
- Another Wherigo Series
I slept like a log
despite “er indoors TM” having a set-to with the dogs in the
small hours. Pausing only briefly to unblock the bath’s drain I had a shave,
made brekkie and peered into the Internet.
Apparently last night the local police decided to do something about
anti-social behaviour in the Newtown area of Ashford. Several people were
posting on one of the local Facebook groups asking what all the blue lights
were about, and the local Neighbourhood Watch organiser pointed out the link
to the local police’s pages about combatting anti-social behaviour. I suspect
that the more streetwise thugs will use this to plan their thuggery at times
when the local coppers are elsewhere. I spent a few minutes
getting “Hannah” ready for the off. The dogs needed a walk, and a
couple of months ago I’d done all of the hard work
of setting up a new geocache series. Quite frankly I wasn’t really keen on
setting up a new geo-series since I’ve got quite enough out there already (nine
series with over a hundred and fifty caches) and
they can be hard work at times. Everyone is very keen to walk the series I
put out, and most people are even keener to point out any problems. Even
though they could fix the problem themselves quicker than they could tell me
about them. And there’s no denying that one particular
person’s arrogant way of sneering at the rest of the geocaching
community in general and me and “er indoors TM” in
particular had really left me disinclined to carry on hiding caches. But having done
pretty much all of the work involved in creating a new series already (except
having put the film pots under rocks), and
having two dogs needing a walk I thought I might as well see this little
project through. If it becomes arse-ache I will get rid of it - after all,
archiving a geocache is just the click of a button. We went out to the
top-secret location. I’ve kept it quiet as there really are people who go out
blindly hunting for the things desperately hoping to be there before anyone
else, and then when the geocaches are formally published they go back to wait
to tell potential First to Find-ers that they are a
couple of days too late. (No - I wouldn’t believe it either unless I’d actually had it happen to me!) The area was far
muddier than it had been a month or so ago, and I nearly went arse over tit on the slippery stiles a couple of times, but
we had a good walk. Once home “er
indoors TM” got the dogs bathed whilst I sorted out all the
geo-admin for the new series of geocaches we’d
hidden, then “er indoors TM” set off to collect “Daddy’s
Little Angel TM”. I cuddled dogs on the sofa whilst watching
episodes of “Good Girls” until they all arrived home. Having been
scanned, “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” is nearly as porky as
her father. I then drove them all home, and left the
dogs with them. The dogs are having a little sleepover, and the house seems
rather empty without them. |
|
12 November 2021
(Friday) - One Day in London
With the dogs having a little sleepover with
“Daddy’s Little Angel TM” I slept like a log. I doubt she
did, but am I bothered? Over brekkie I had my usual rummage around
the internet. I love Facebook; if only to watch some of the arguments which
abound on there. Yesterday a chap with whom I went to college (forty years
ago) was having a particularly impressive squabble with someone with whom
I used to work (fifteen years ago). Without going into the details of
the squabble, one had the hump and was feeling particularly poorly treated.
The other was claiming that this chap had merely received the same treatment
from officialdom that he had previously arranged to be dished out to others. And on a bird-watching
(feathered variety) page I follow was a rather strange yellow sea-bird
that had evaded all attempts at identification until a small child pointed
out it was a seagull covered in curry sauce. I had an email from Credit Karma. Despite my
credit rating having gone up last week, it has plummeted by twenty-three
points this week. I think they have realised I’ve bought a car. But nil
desperandum (as they used to say). I can recover those lost points
and there are two things that they recommend I might do. Firstly
having taken on a loan they suggest I don’t take on any more. However they do recommend I increase my credit limit to
over fifteen thousand pounds. So I should both not
take on more debt and take on more debt… how does that work? I also had an email from the people who look
after the house buildings and contents insurance. In the past I used to go
with Hastings Direct. Every year they would write to me in mid-November and
say that the policy would cost a hundred quid more in the following year, I
would then phone them up and haggle, and we’d agree on a far more modest
increase in price. The current people have said that next year’s policy will
be five quid less than this year’s. I’ll take that. With no dogs to settle we set off on today’s
mission. We walked to the railway station and found no queue at all, so soon
got our train ticket. Which is more than people will be doing tomorrow it
would seem. With Rye’s busiest day of the year tomorrow, the trains aren’t
going to be stopping there tomorrow. I wonder how much that will increase the
bonfire parade’s carbon footprint? Two stops into our journey Joe joined us on
the train, and we put the world to rights as we travelled up to Charing
Cross, then on the Circle line to Tower Hill where we’d arranged to meet up
with Pam, Brian and Irene. As we were in the area anyway we thought we’d give a shout out to see if any
other hunters of Tupperware would be in the area and would like to meet up to
say hello. A few people were able to come find us, and we all chatted for a
few minutes before everyone else went their ways and we went ours. The plan for today was a quick sortie round
St Katharine’s Dock. then to follow the various stages of a multi-geocache “One Day in London”. This would take
us on an epic hike from Tower Bridge round the Tower of London, across London
Bridge, through Borough Market to the Millennium Bridge, up to St Paul’s then
on to the London Eye, the South Bank, Parliament Square, St James’s Park,
Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden and on to the British
Museum. In retrospect this was perhaps a tad
ambitious, but in London that doesn’t matter. When we plan a geo-walk in the countryside we have to finish what we start as we need to
get back to the cars. In London there are tube stations all over the place,
and if we don’t finish what we have planned then we can just come back
another day. We had a really good
catch-up with friends as we wandered across Tower Bridge where we found two
of the most ingenious caches I’ve ever seen, and we then carried on past and
round the Tower of London, taking our time and enjoying an all-too-infrequent
catch-up. Irene, Pam and Brian
had to leave us when we got to Borough Market, and together with “er
indoors TM” and Joe I wandered up to St Paul’s where we did a
little geology homework and rolled our eyes at the cost of getting into St
Paul’s. t would have been good to have had a look inside, but twenty quid?
Each? By now time was pushing on and the (completely
not forecast) rain was getting a tad heavy. So
we decided to blag the clues we needed at St Pauls from the Internet, and had
a little wander up to the Barbican where two surly chaps in hi-vis jackets
wouldn’t let us in to the grounds of St Bartholomew the Great’s church. We
needed to go in there to get the answer to one of the questions for the
Adventure Lab we were doing. We knew the answer was a type of tree, and after
guessing (wrongly) the name of every tree we could think of, I sneaked
in to find the plaque which held our answer. If you ever have to
think of a random tree, I bet you wouldn’t think of a Persian Ironwood, would
you? Finding the nearest pub to the Persian
Ironwood had stopped doing food we found a rather good pub (the Fox and Anchor) for a rather
good late lunch. From here we started heading back to Charing
Cross… slowly. On the way we got rather lost (were
we trespassing?) in the Barbers’ Physic Garden? And having gone into Bank
tube station, how on Earth did we manage to actually get
on to the train at Monument? We Munzee-ed like
things possessed at Charing Cross, and had a good
chuckle at the drunk teenagers on the train home who thought they were oh-so-subtle
when they all went into the toilet together to drink their White Lightning. Saying goodbye to Joe at Headcorn
we were soon home where we got car keys and drove to Folkestone to collect
the dogs from “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” who assures us they
behaved themselves. I doubt it somehow… I took
quite a few photos today. Today was rather good, if tiring. “er
indoors TM” has gone to bed before me, and that very rarely
happens. |
|
13 November 2021
(Saturday) - Chuck It Out The Window
Despite the dogs
being back from their little holiday I slept like a log last night. I woke,
made toast and had a minor battle with the lap-top.
Every week it has an update. Sometimes this is a minor inconvenience which
just makes it a little slower to start. Other times like this morning I
really was left wondering if it would be quicker to walk down the road to
Curry’s and buy a new lap-top rather than waiting for it to fart around only
to end up being exactly the same as it was before (in
every respect). My car has a fancy computer, and unless the garage update it, it will stay the same as it was when I got it
until the day when I get shot of it. Eventually I got
on-line and had a little look-see. Last night I sent a message asking for a
hint about one geocache which had evaded us in London yesterday. The thing
had a four and a half (out of five) difficulty rating
so it wasn’t going to be easy to find. The chap who’d hidden it replied today
saying that we had been looking in the right place, and the thing was in
plain sight with “Geocache” written on it. I’ve asked for a bit of a
hint(!) We also did two earthcaches
yesterday and having sent in the answers to our geology homework (as well
as to another question we had to answer) I’d had no replies overnight,
which was a tad disappointing. I had a look at
Facebook. Quite a few people had clicked the “like” button of the
photos I posted of yesterday’s geo-trip to London. There was a lot of
discontent about people scamming in the Ashford area. Claiming to be running
a dog rescue they were actually running a “get
rich quick” scheme which is all very well for the person getting rich
quick, but not so good for everyone else getting poorer. Two people were
having birthdays today. I added both onto my Facebook friends list over ten
years ago, and it is over ten years since I’ve had anything at all to do with
them. Neither seem to post to Facebook from one month to the next, and I
decided the connection was too tenuous to warrant sending a birthday video.
Getting one of those is akin to a Paul Hollywood handshake in “Bake Off”
in my world !! There had been vague
plans to go to a geocaching film show today (it’s an annual thing), and also Rye Bonfire Parade had been suggested, but “Daddy’s
Little Angel TM” was moving house today. With “er indoors TM”
not quite ready I drove down to Folkestone, listening to Steve on the
radio. I got as far as the Channel Tunnel turn-off before the signal gave
out. I arrived at the current
abode of the most recent fruit of my loin, and we carried loads of stuff down
four flights of stairs, loaded up the car, went back for more until the car
was full, and drove the hundred yards to her new flat. It was a shame that we
couldn’t drive straight there; what with the one-way system we had to go
round the houses (quite literally) to get there. Whilst “er indoors
TM” and Jake did the paperwork with the new landlord I fiddled
about with the car’s connection to my phone, and
used it to ring “My Boy TM” who didn’t seem that impressed. We then went back to
the old flat, carried no end of stuff down four flights of stairs, loaded up
the car, drove round the houses… you get the idea. It was all far easier to
type than it was to do. Eventually I persuaded “Daddy’s Little Angel TM”
that it would be far less arse-ache to chuck it all out of the window to
where the car was parked below. Admittedly there is a limit to what you can
chuck out of a second storey window with any hope of it surviving, but we saved
quite a few trips up and down the stairs by doing that. After a few hours of
this “er indoors TM” arrived to join in. She timed her
arrival well, getting there only seconds after the Deliveroo lady had dropped
off McDinner. Once we’d McScoffed we took another load down the road, and then we
were at the point for heavy lifting. The furniture is scheduled to be shifted
tomorrow when “man with van” will be there for the heavy lifting. I
intend to go along to generally offer sage advice and get in the way whilst
lifting nothing at all myself. “er indoors TM” and “Daddy’s
Little Angel TM” then wanted to go shopping for mops and
curtains and all the sort of stuff you buy with a new house (supposedly).
I came home and took the dogs to the co-op field where we had a rather good
game of “Fetch”. Interestingly the area of the co-op field which had
been sprayed with weed killer is now cordoned off. With walk walked I
made a cuppa, and had quite a few plans for the garden, but Treacle and Pogo
had jumped up to be either side of me on the sofa. So
I slobbed watching telly all afternoon with a dog
on either side. As I watched so my phone beeped. Someone had been out and
done my new Wherigo series. All worked well, which was something of a result.
Despite no end of field trials there is usually something which goes wrong
when the things are used in earnest for the first time. “er indoors TM” came home and
boiled up a rather good bit of dinner which we washed down with bottle of
plonk and then (as I cracked open the stilton) we followed up with a
bottle of port. As we scoffed and guzzled we watched
the fourth “Harry Potter” film. Not a bad evening really… |
|
14 November 2021 (Sunday) - Moving House, Curry Night
I had something of a terrible night spending much
of the time shivering with no duvet at all. I suppose I should really hoik the dogs off of the bed,
but there it is. I burned some toast (which took some doing
with our toaster) and had a look at the Internet as I do most mornings. I
had a message. Yesterday someone had done my new Wherigo series and had
claimed they were first there. Someone else had also claimed to have been
first on some of them. It seemed that the second chap had figured out where
to look from the map I posted on here last Thursday, and
had done so on other maps I’d put on here in the past. That would have taken
some doing. I was glad to have been told this; I thought I was being
physically stalked. I also saw I had an invite to a Munzee clan which was good. Munzing
(for me) works better when part of a group, and
is more fun that way. Quite a few people were posting remembrance day
stuff to Facebook. I thought about doing so, but not having anyone that I
know directly who died in any war, I didn’t feel it right to do so. I drove down to Folkestone again for Day Two of “Daddy’s
Little Angel TM”’s moving house, and in a rather fortuitous
bit of timing I arrived just as the last of the heavy lifting had been
done. Mind you there was still a *lot* of not so heavy lifting to be
done, and very little that “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” would
allow to be chucked out of a window. Personally I
would have thought that pillows, duvets and rugs would have been ideal
candidates for a lobbing from the second storey, but what do I know? There’s no denying that had Folkestone’s one-way
system been designed by someone who wanted to do the same journeys as me,
then the moving would have gone better. You can see the new flat from the old
– it can’t be more than a hundred yards driving back from new to old. But
when driving from the old flat you get to about twenty yards from the new
flat and are faced with a “no entry” sign and have
to go (quite literally) all round the houses to get there. After half a dozen trips the old flat was finally
empty. I left “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” organising the new
flat and “er indoors TM” scrubbing the old one, and came home. I took the dogs up to the co-op field for a
little game of “Fetch”. This is a game which is played with varying
degrees of success; today’s was one of the better
ones. My state of mind was helped by our only meeting one other set of dogs
on the way there, and it was those dogs that kicked off, and my two that
looked on in amazement. With walk walked the dogs slept as I worked on my
next little Wherigo project. I’ve been working on this for a couple of weeks
now; it would be churlish of me to just abandon it. I got quite a lot done
this afternoon; so much so that I’ve been able to ask the geo-Feds if the
locations I have in mind are acceptable. I then spent an age trying (and failing)
to download some of the albums that I’ve bought from Amazon over the years.
If any of my loyal readers know how to do that, do let me know… With “er
indoors TM” having returned and the dogs fed, we went for
something of an evening out. We went up to Cinnamon Spice to meet up with the
first fruit of my (our) loins. With a message that they were running
late we stocked up on poppadums and dips and
scoffed ourselves silly until “My Boy TM” and Cheryl
arrived, and they were soon followed by Matt and Glenn. We sat and chatted
and scoffed. The food was excellent, and it was good to catch up with family.
It was just a shame that the place was so noisy I could hardly hear a
word. I’ve got
such a bellyache now… and “er indoors TM” had got the hump.
Pogo just licked her phone’s screen and the thing seems to have gone west. |
|
15 November 2021
(Monday) - Late Shift
I had an early night last night hoping my
stomach would settle. It didn’t. I woke at one o’clock and then saw every
hour of the rest of the night. I made some toast in the futile hope of
settling my innards and sparked up my lap-top to see what had happened
overnight. Last night I posted on the “Upstairs Downstairs” Facebook
group. “Upstairs Downstairs” is a
favourite TV show of mine despite it being so old, and talking of old, over the
thirty years of history that the show covered, the characters never aged. I’d
not really realised that before, and I pointed it out. A trivial little
point, but my posting attracted a lot of comment; all positive and not a
single negative bitter comment which so often plagues social media. There were quite a few spoilers on-line about
last night’s episode of “Doctor Who”. We were out last night when it aired, and didn’t think to watch it when we came home. I
was on a late shift tonight, and tomorrow night (quite frankly) I
really would rather watch “Bake Off”. Such a shame for someone who
went to school with Doctor Who both figuratively and literally. Quite
literally – one of the boys in our class thought he was Doctor Who. With “The
Doctor” written on all his school books rather
than his given name (to which he would not answer) I wonder what ever
happened to him? As I peered into the depths of the Internet so the letterbox rattled. A handful of junk mail.
Estate Agents, fitness classes… Is physical junk mail still a thing? If
nothing else it woke the dogs who both declared “Red
Alert”. I sent out a few birthday
wishes, got dressed and drove round to the Skoda dealer. Not wanting the lip
of the boot of the car to be scuffed up by dog claws I'd arranged to have a
cover fitted over the paintwork bit today. I got to the garage, handed over
my keys and took a seat. After fifteen minutes the nice lady asked if I knew
that there was a recall notice that had been issued on my car. I didn't...
Apparently the car needed a software update. So (feeling as though I had
no choice) I agreed to let them get on with it. And I continued to sit
and wait. And wait. When I was there last week the nice man said that the job
would take about twenty minutes, and would be quicker
if I could clean the paintwork first (which was what I'd done).
After forty-five minutes the nice lady told me that the part
they had ordered was the wrong part, and they would get another one. I booked
another appointment for later in the week, and when the software update was
finished (twenty more minutes later) I went home, “er indoors TM” and I took the dogs
out. We went to Great Chart where we did our usual walk from the cricket
pavilion to the river and back, and Pogo utterly
disgraced himself by incessantly barking at another dog. Fortunately
that dog wasn't bothered, but I was; particularly when he was actively
running away from me as I tried to restrain him. When I finally got him back
on the lead he was incredibly subdued. He knew he'd
been bad... So why did he do it? Leaving “er indoors TM” and
dogs at home I set off in the general direction of work, planning a route via
"points of interest" Munzees. I
need to Munz sixty of the things in this month's
clan war. I got ten this morning which was something of a result. I went to work via the petrol station. When I
took my car to the garage earlier it had a range of a hundred and fifty
miles. After the software update it had a range of seventy miles (that
upgrade took a lot of fuel!). As I paid for
the petrol I got myself lunch. The petrol station
was selling vanilla flavoured diet coke. Who would have thought such things
were possible? Have you ever tried vanilla flavoured diet coke? I can't say I
was keen... For all that the stuff was something of a novelty, “er indoors
TM” assures me I regularly get a bottle of vanilla flavoured
diet coke and remark on how I don’t like the stuff. And so to work for a
rather busy late shift. It was… much the same as it ever was. But I enjoy it
these days; for many years I didn’t. As I type this so Pogo is snuggled up to me
as close as he can get. He thinks I’m still cross with him… Today was rather dull… |
|
16 November 2021
(Tuesday) - Radar (!)
The dogs didn’t keep me up all night with
their fidgeting but I still woke feeling rather
grim. Almost as though the hangover I should have had on Sunday morning
arrived two days late. I made toast and watched an episode of “Big
Mouth” as another COVID test incubated, then had my usual root about the
Internet. As the lap-top eventually got itself going it told me that McAfee
had something to say. I always though the McAfee thing was just an anti-virus
but apparently it is much more. This morning it told me that my information
was available on the dark web. There have (apparently) been breaches
at myfitnesspal and Kickstarter. So
if anyone wants to see my periodic attempts at dieting or wants to make
charitable donations in my name I am powerless to stop them. Unless I change
my passwords. Not that I can remember what those two passwords were… Facebook was relatively quiet; someone who
lives not too far from me was telling the Ashford Facebook page of the
troubles they were having with their neighbours. I was rather glad to realise
that it wasn’t just me who has a not-so-nice-next-door. Having made a
concerted effort to get on with the neighbours (even offering to pay a
thousand quid replacing her fence), I’ve given up trying. It is easier
just to ignore her like she ignores me. Such a shame, really. With no one having a birthday I had no
birthday wishes to send, so I got ready for work. As I drove to work the pundits on the radio
were interviewing some windbag or other who was talking about how the NHS is
facing the toughest
winter in its history. No news there - every winter would
seem to be the NHS's toughest; it always has been up till now. But today's
prattling came up with something which hasn't been mentioned before. "NHS
Providers" (whoever they are) is urging the government
to offer cash bonuses of about five hundred quid to stop social care staff
leaving for jobs in "hospitality, supermarkets, or online firms such
as Amazon". It's good that someone in authority has realised this.
Me - I've been saying it for years. Just think it through... on the one hand
you can work at all hours of the night and day clearing up other people's shit (figuratively and literally) and risk being
sacked without any references if you do anything wrong. Or you can work for
more money doing a weekday nine-to-five and have evenings and weekends to
yourself... There was also talk about the Prime
Minister's father who
was accused of touching up Caroline Nokes, the
Conservative MP for Romsey and Southampton North. Did he? Quite frankly I
neither know nor care. I suppose it made for good gossip, but surely there
were more pressing things in the news than an alleged goosing from ten years ago? And it would seem that Science actually found
Planet Nine years ago. I suppose back then Pluto was still a planet and this would have been Planet Ten (or in Roman
numerals X) that science found… hence the confusion? I planned my route to work via "points
of interest" Munzees. I need to Munz sixty of the things in this month's clan war. I got
eleven more this morning, and I've now got all that I need to get (until
next month). I also had something of a shock too this morning. As I drove an icon appeared on my car's
display thingy - a cartoon depiction of two cars with what looked like
an exclamation mark between them. Apparently this is
the "front
assist" warning. According to Skoda's website it is a
collision-alert safety system monitoring the situation in front of the
vehicle via radar. I suppose that when I saw the thing flash up, another car
had just cut in front of me a bit sharpish. I didn't know my car had radar.
As I read the article it would seem that the radar
gives the car the ability to slam on the brakes itself if it thinks I'm driving
like a lunatic. I wonder what else there is to find out about this
car... I got to work; there were chocolate rolls.
Not cake, but not bad. Either way it was better than the carrot and pasta the
dogs have just had for their dinner. They’ve each eaten all the pasta and
left the carrot… until the other came to see what was left in the bowl then
they scoffed the lot. Rather eat something you don’t like, than let your
brother or sister have it… |
|
17 November 2021
(Wednesday) - This n That
The dogs slept well last night, and when they
sleep well, so does everyone else. I was rather pleased about that. I made toast and scoffed it whilst watching
an episode of “Big Mouth” which was rather good. I think I probably
missed an awful lot of the jokes, but that is probably true of most American
comedies. I then had a look at the Internet. I had a message from some woman who wants to
revisit dog licences. Last night she posted to one of the local Facebook
groups. She’s started a petition suggesting that people undergo psychological
testing before being allowed to have a dog. I made the mistake of commenting
that it is a good idea in theory but somewhat impractical. Her post got no
end of hate comments (as does pretty much everything posted to the Ashford
Facebook groups). This woman wanted to answer my question and sesnt me a personal message, but again said a lot of
impressive sounding things whilst not saying anything practical. How do you
psychologically assess if someone should have a dog? Who would do it? How
much would it cost? How easy would it be to blag the test? There was also a frankly amazing posting to
one of the work-based Facebook groups from someone in America. Having taken
one of their departmental analysers apart (for some obscure reason)
she was having trouble reassembling it. Could someone send photos of the
innards of a working analyser so that they could see what goes where.
Seriously? Is a service contract *that* expensive? The regulators
would lay an egg if this happened in the UK. I wandered down the road collecting gnome
helmets (it’s a Munzee thing) as I wondered
where I'd left the car, and was approached by a
woman who was walking her dog. I say "walking her dog";
"being dragged by her dog" was a more accurate description.
She recognised me having seen me out and about with my two hounds,
and wanted to ask me how I got them to stop pulling on the lead. I
didn't actually laugh out loud, but I couldn't help
but wonder at what split second it was that she'd seen me *not* being
dragged about by Pogo and Treacle. As I drove to work the pundits on the radio
were talking about the recent terrorist
bombing in Liverpool. An awful lot was being made of how the bomber had
converted from Islam to Christianity. I couldn't see how any religious
conversion had any bearing on the matter. Have you ever read the Bible or the
Koran? Both advocate (in spirit if not explicitly) *not*
blowing people up. But I was wrong… religion has a major part to play with
asylum seeking. Apparently many asylum seekers
coming to the UK and pretend to become Christians. They can then claim they
will be persecuted in the country from which they have fled… persecuted for
the religion they didn’t have when they fled !! There was an interview with a
vicar who was talking about how impatient the average asylum seeker is to get
baptised. I got to work. I did my bit. There was cake.
Just an average day in Paradise, really. And like any average day in Paradise I got an offer of free filth as I perused
Facebook on my phone at tea time. Heagneya Elisa
suggested that if I wanted a vulgar woman by my side
I might join her Whatsapp group as "everything
is free without money". Also at tea time I made a
phone call and sorted out a venue for the Kent Geocachers' New Year's Day
event. In the past the new year's day event was one of the highlights of the
geo-calendar, but much of the social side of geocaching died with lockdowns.
There have been a few social events since formal meet-ups
have been allowed again and the ones I've been to have been rather fun - two
major hikes round London and an afternoon in the pub in Badlesmere.
Hopefully we can get this going again, and with it re-start the hobby
locally. I did chuckle as I came home. When I filled
the car with petrol on Monday at the filling station near work the display told
me it had a range of four hundred and five miles before it would run out of
petrol. Since then I have driven one hundred and
twenty-eight miles as I went home and back to work two and a half times. The
car now has a range of four hundred and thirty- five miles before it runs out
of petrol. Driving over a hundred miles has used minus thirty quid’s worth of
fuel. “er indoors TM” is out with the
dogs right now. I wonder if they are pulling? And I
wonder what’s for dinner… |
|
18 November 2021
(Thursday) - Fuel Gauges
I was wide awake from three o'clock this
morning. I wish I hadn't been. It was rather nippy this morning; I was glad
we'd got the bathroom heater fixed. I made toast and scoffed it whilst watching
what turned out to be the Christmas episode of "Big Mouth".
The new series started well, but like most TV shows that get to season five
it seems to be running out of steam. Today's episode was certainly the
weakest so far. Much of it simply wasn't funny. Finding myself up too early for anything much
to have kicked off on Facebook I set off to work. I wandered down a rather
dark road again collecting gnome helmets (It’s a Munzee
thing), and got to my car who told me that it
was only three degrees, and I should watch for icy roads. Rather ironic as
the pundits on the radio were remarking on what a warm day it was. The morning's radio focussed on yesterday's
Prime Minister's questions in Parliament. Apparently Boris Johnson and Sir
Kier Starmer had been squabbling like
schoolchildren with the Speaker having
to have words with the Prime Minister at one point. Is this any way to
run a country? Various windbags on the radio were making mention of how few
Conservative MPs had shown up to Parliament for Prime Minister's questions
and this has been seen as a sign of how Boris Johnson is losing the support
of his party. Is he? It has to be said he's not one
of our better Prime Ministers, is he? But what other options do we have?
Isn't it sad that in British politics we rarely get the best choice, just the
least worst option. There was also a lot of talk about the
Government's proposals to prevent MPs from taking
on second jobs. Bearing in mind the piss-poor turnout of MPs at
yesterday's Prime Minister's questions you have to
wonder why they weren't where the nation pays them to be. Where were they
all, and just what were they all doing with their time? Were they actively
showing their discontent with Boris Johnson, or doing something that paid
better? To be fair to some of the moonlighting MPs,
someone was on the radio this morning saying that MPs are only elected for
five years at a time and they need to keep up their
professional skills for when they lose the next election. I suppose that's a
valid point; they don't want to end up high and dry, do they?.
I know that there's laws against me shoving off for five years and then just
carrying on doing what I do as though nothing had happened. But how many of
our MPs are keeping up professional skills, and how many are
opportunistically selling their influence (as has been alleged)? Just as I got to work so my phone beeped. My
geocaching Community Celebration Event had been published. Stage Two of the
New Year's Day plan was all circuits go. I then got on with the early shift. It was
quite exciting – I saw some trypanosomes. You don’t see those very often. In fact most people go their entire lives without seeing any. I came home via the Skoda garage. On Monday
they ordered the right part to protect the back of my car from Boot Dogs, and
they fitted it this evening. Yesterday I mentioned about how my car's range
until refuelling had gone up during this week. As I got to the garage this evening I saw it was still holding constant, and that the
fuel gauge said I still had a full tank of petrol even though the trip meter
said I’d done a hundred and eighty miles since re-fuelling on Monday. I had
wondered if the sensor is a bit iffy and I’d had a look on-line. One or two
of the Skoda forums seemed to think that you can do about a hundred and fifty
miles on a full tank of petrol before the sensor wakes up. I asked the nice
man at Skoda if he could have a look at the fuel tank sensor. He said it all
appeared to be fine, and said that his Skoda usually
does about two hundred miles before the fuel gauge drops below the “completely
full” line. Once home I put the leads and light-up
collars onto the dogs and we had a little walk round
the block. Two houses in Francis Road have got their Christmas decorations up
already. That’s a bit keen. The walk wasn’t one of our better ones. We
didn’t have so much of an “episode”; more of a “Box Set including
Christmas Special” as a local cat realised that its very existence was
annoying the dogs and so it deliberately stalked our movements until I
finally shouted a swear word at it. I made a cuppa as I pootled on-line planning
for New Year’s Day. As I did so I had a text telling me about a hospital
appointment. I opened up the link and it told me all
about an MRI scan on New Year’s Day that I had apparently agreed to by
opening that link. Odd really as I thought I had an MRI scan at Canterbury
tomorrow as a prelude to an appointment with the consultant in a couple of
weeks’ time. I tried phoning the out-patients department but they had all gone home. I wonder if this
means tomorrow’s appointment is cancelled? Oh well…
I shall drive to Canterbury in the morning and either spend my time with the MRI
people or with the complaints department. Over the last few years I only seem to get anything done at the local
hospital by going through the complaints department… I’m getting a little bit fed up with this… |
|
19 November 2021
(Friday) - CT Scan
I wasn’t allowed anything to eat or drink
this morning so I skipped the telly and went
straight to the Internet. As always my Facebook feed
was filled with posts of dead dogs. I’ve joined a few dog-related pages on
there, and more and more postings are from people saying that their dog died.
The dog sites are supposed to be fun, and they are just depressing. I then
had another little melt-down about Fudge (I get those most days). There were also a few people trying to sell
milk shakes on-line as some sort of a diet. The same thing was supposed to
aid in weight loss and weight gain. How does that work? I then spent a little while going through my
emails and unsubscribing from all the emails that I just delete unopened.
There were quite a few. I also saw I had an email from SpecSavers
telling me it was time for my eye test. Bearing in mind I had a week off sick
with double vision after their last effort, did they really think I would be
going back to them? And so off on a journey I used to take quite
a lot. I worked at the Kent and Canterbury hospital for quite a few years and
the A28 was never a good road. With speed limit changing every mile or so (and
no one taking any notice of it) there were still just as many temporary
traffic lights along its length. And the junction of the A28 with the A252
was as horrendous as ever. But I saw that the relevant authorities have taken
steps. There were signs up saying that the junction has a poor record for
traffic collisions. I read that as saying “We
know there is a problem and we are ignoring it”. And the roads round
Nunnery Fields were every bit as bad as I remembered them. I got to the car park which I could always
remember as being full to capacity with queues to get in,
and was pleasantly surprised to find plenty of spaces. I was also
pleasantly surprised to see that my car’s fuel gauge had started working.
With the trip reader telling me I’d gone two hundred miles since re-fuelling,
the fuel gauge needle had finally moved off of the “full” level and
the range it felt it could do until re-fuelling had dropped.. It wasn’t long before I was in the waiting
area for the CT scan department. There were two or three patients, and half a
dozen hangers-on (as is always the way). I sat and read my Kindle app
until I was called in. Or “out” to be precise. The nice lady called my
name, told me I was hers (result!) and took me outside to a large
shipping container in the car park. The CT scanner (and two more members
of staff) were in this container. (I’ve noticed that quite a few
hospitals have the CT scanners in shipping containers outside. Why is that?) I confirmed who I was, answered a few
questions and laid down on the scanner’s bed thingy. The nice radiographer
stuck a needle in my arm, injected something or other, and the CT scanner
made a noise like an arthritic helicopter. Just at the point when I thought
the machine was going to do explode it suddenly stopped, and the nice lady
told me that it was all done and that I could go home. I don’t honestly know what I was expecting
from a CT scan, but quite frankly I had been expecting more, and was rather
disappointed. I made all the staff laugh when I told them so. Co-incidentally Facebook reminded me that I
had a CT scan five years
ago yesterday. Looking back I think that was
something of an anti-climax too. I came home and collected the dogs and we
drove down to Orlestone Woods. Pogo had a few
woofing fits. One was at some dogs in the distance; the others were barking
for barking’s sake. I wish he wouldn’t do that. But the protective rubber
strip over the back bumper seemed to do the trick. Paw prints are now on that
and not on the paintwork. We came home and by the time I’d fiddled
about and made toast the morning was gone. I had a quick shower and went off
to bed for the afternoon. I slept as well as I could with a dog snoring on
either side. After a few hours I got up and caught up with CPD. I rather
suspect I do far too much of the stuff, but I’d rather do too much than not
enough. Every year five per cent of blood testers have their CPD efforts
formally reviewed, and I live in terror of that happening to me. “er indoors TM” will be home soon.
I’m hoping she will boil up some dinner, then I am off to the night shift. I
expect I’ll go via Sainsbury’s as shower gel, peanut butter and red wine
doesn’t buy itself. I wonder if I will get into an argument with
one of “The Terrified” again. Have you ever been to a supermarket at
about eight o’clock in the evening recently? They are full of people who are
so scared of the germ-riddled world that they really should do all their
shopping on-line… if only they weren’t too thick to actually
do it. (Harsh? Possibly. Fed up with them? Definitely!) |
|
20 November 2021 (Satuday) - Bit Tired
As I drove home the pundits on the radio were
talking about the ongoing illegal immigrant crisis. Apparently a thousand
illegal immigrants came ashore across the Kent coast this week, and the Prime
Minister is said to be “exasperated” as the Home Secretary is coming
up with scheme
after scheme which fails to stem the tide of rubber dinghies rocking up
on the beaches. There was an interview with a rather nasty-sounding woman on
the radio this morning who described watching the refugees come ashore every
day. Given her way she would have set mines a mile out to sea… and sadly that
is the attitude of most people. I don’t know what the solution to the problem
is…but how about seeing asylum seekers as less of a problem and more of an
opportunity? Let them work for the benefits they get?… Most of them do
already (I work with some!). Why doesn’t the media show the
hard-working refugees doing the jobs that so many Brits simply won’t do? As I got closer to home
I rather got sick of the narrow-minded jingoism on the radio and pressed the
button to call up Radio Ashford. It called up a *lot* of interference.
I had to get surprisingly close to home before I could hear Steve on the
radio. And I did wonder why my car didn’t see him as “Radio Ashford”;
it just came up with “107.1”. All the other radio stations come up
with a name on the display and a little picture too. Is that something the
radio station transmits or something the car does? I got home and went to bed for the morning
where I slept for a couple of hours. Once I woke “er indoors TM”
set off to deliver stuff from the lock-up to “Daddy’s Little Angel TM”.
While she was out I did the ironing whilst watching
the second season of “Tiger King”; five episodes with the main
protagonist still in prison took some doing. It was an odd show really.
Pretty much everyone involved in the show was either trying to kill everyone
else or suing everyone else for trying to kill them. “er indoors TM” returned with a
bone each for the dogs from “Daddy’s Little Angel TM”. I’m
not keen on the dogs having bones; they are allowed
them with one of us holding the bone to strictly supervise them. After half
an hour’s chewing we decided enough was enough, but I was a split second
faster in taking Pogo’s than “er indoors TM”
was in taking Treacle’s. Treacle thought Pogo was going to have hers and a
rather nasty quarrel ensued. I wish they wouldn’t do that. “er indoors TM” is boiling up what
smells like a rather good bit of dinner. I might crack open that bottle of
red wine I bought in Sainsbury’s last night… Like most days after a night shift, today was
oh-so-dull. Today was also granddaughter’s birthday. Back in the day
we’d all go out for dinner. These days she goes out with her boyfriend… |
|
21 November 2021
(Sunday) - Badlesmere
Despite a rather vivid dream in which Jose
persuaded us to take a day trip to Canada I slept for over nine hours list
night. I sleep well after night shifts, but they clearly mess with my head;
why else would I have thought that I could have started up a bureau de change
in Vancouver selling seventy-five pence for a quid? To be fair it would have
been a nice little earner. I made toast and rolled my eyes as I read Facebook.
Someone living locally had another car bash into her parked car yesterday and
was asking if anyone had any dashcam footage of what had happened. She also
offered whoever it was who did it the chance to own up before going to the
police. Whilst having your car damaged isn’t fun, this woman did herself no
favours. Why wait a day or so for Facebook to pass its judgement before going
to the police… And then I remembered my
endless ranting of the past. This is Kent police isn’t it… the same lot who
told me not to waste police time by formally complaining when they arrested
and imprisoned an innocent member of my family with no evidence whatsoever. I
doubt Kent police would do anything with dashcam footage. I saw the dashcam
footage that they were given when “Stormageddon – Bringer of Destruction TM”
‘s father was run over by a car going through a red traffic light. If
they refused to do anything over that, I can’t see them getting off their arse for a bashed wing mirror. I programmed “Hannah” then got ready
for the day. We drove up to Kings Wood. Hoping to meet with Tracey, Karl and Charlotte, we met with disaster. The car park at
Kings Wood can sometimes be a bit busy but once we get a few hundred yards
from the car park we can walk miles without seeing anyone. But this morning
we not only found the car park full with stalls but
there were cars up and down the lanes for as far as the eye could see.
Apparently today was an annual triathlon event. Even if we had managed to
park the cars, the woods would have been filled with runners. I would have
thought that the organisers might have publicised their intention to
monopolise the woods; if only to let the likes of us know to go somewhere
else. Fortunately Badlesmere
wasn’t too far up the road so we drove a few miles and wandered round
exploring (as we do). Starting from the Red Lion there are some
wonderful walks to be had there. And there’s not too much in the way of hills
either. There are pheasants everywhere though, which can be a problem. But
the dogs got to be off of their leads for much of
the way, and we had a very good walk. The weather was odd though. We sat and
had a really good picnic lunch, but an hour later we
sat in the beer garden at the Red Lion and shivered. How can the temperature
change so quickly? I
took a few photos as we walked. Once home I showed them to the world, and
we had a cuppa with scones, jam and cream. Very
nice. Pogo snuggled up to me and I then snored for an hour or so in front of
the telly. “er indoors TM” boiled up a rather
bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching tonight’s episode of “Doctor
Who” which was a lot better than what has gone before in the current series
and was a lot better than anything the show has put out for a few years. I want to like it… |
|
22 November 2021
(Monday) - Bit Dull
I slept like a log until “er indoors TM”
and the dogs came to bed shortly after midnight, Ninety per cent of the duvet
then went east and once Treacle finally settled so the torrential rain
started. After several concerted attempts to reclaim some duvet
I eventually gave up trying to sleep and got up. As I do most mornings I made toast, watched
whatever I was following on Netflix (this morning an episode of “Big
Mouth”) then sparked up my lap-top to see what the Internet was doing. It
was still there. The piccies I’d posted of yesterday’s walk had got quite a
few likes. I was rather interested to see a colleague had taken her family to
a chocolate-making day-out-thingy. That looked like fun. There was a post from the moderator of a
Sparks-related Facebook group who (following a petty squabble yesterday)
was saying that he had better things to do than babysit a Facebook group
24/7. Whilst I sympathise with the sentiment, the way to run a good Facebook
group is with a rod of iron. With so many keyboard warriors looking for a
fight, make it crystal clear that people should play nicely. I saw that the new series of geocaches I
created a couple of weeks ago had been visited over the weekend and had been
given some favourite points (which was nice). I also saw that three of
them didn’t get found (which was not so nice). Have they gone missing
already? Seriously? I had a quick Munz
and was rather pleased to see that I’ve done all I need to do for the month’s
clan war (team game) and all the team goals have been achieved. All
that remains are for one or two others to complete their individual
requirements. A good bit of silliness achieved again! I did smile at the weather forecast as I
drove to work. As my windscreen wipers were frantically trying to clear the
rain so the weather forecasters were talking about a dry day for everyone.
Sometimes I wonder if they might just stick their heads out of the window to
see what the weather is actually doing before making
idiots of themselves. As I left home the pundits on the radio were
interviewing the Shadow Minister for Health who was finding no end of fault
with the government's social care and health policies whist flatly refusing
to come up with any better suggestions of his own. The
"vote for me because the others are crap" argument only
works when the others are demonstrably more crap
than you are. Sadly there wasn't much
else of note on the radio this morning. I listened to it for forty
minutes on the way to work, and can remember nothing
of what was said. Mind you the display on the car’s radio did have a funny
five minutes. The setup button flashed green, the pre-set station list moved
across to the right and the thing called up the setup screen all on its own.
I wonder what that was all about? Work was work. Not a bad day really, but it
would have been better if there was cake. there were biscuits, but they
aren't the same. And with work done I came home. As I do. “er
indoors TM” set off bowling and I slobbed
in front of the telly watching a couple of episodes of “Good Girls” as
my stomach ached. It’s been doing that since the curry of a week ago… Today was on the dull side… |
|
23 November 2021
(Tuesday) - Matilda
Treacle thought I didn’t see her in the
darkness as she quietly sneaked into the warm spot I left in the bed as I got
up. I made brekkie and watched the last episode of the current series of “Big
Mouth”. Apparently it has been renewed for
another season. I then spent a few minutes stalking someone
on-line. Yesterday I found a list of famous people who
went to my old school. There were twenty people on that list of whom I’d
heard of two. Interestingly the one who had been an MP for Brighton and must have
been in my year at school rang no bells whatsoever, but I think I walked to
school once or twice with the chap who was the British
ambassador to Kazakhstan; he lived twenty doors down the road from where
I used to live. He’s apparently now retired. Other than endless adverts for stuff which in
the past would have been given to the scouts’ jumble sale there was very
little of note on Facebook this morning so I sent
out four birthday wishes and I got myself ready for work… thinking of the
ambassador who has retired. I don’t dislike my job. I really do like it. But…
after working full time for forty years and two months (and in various
part time jobs for three years before that) I think I might like to
retire. It was particularly nippy as I walked to the
car this morning, and as I drove off through a bright (if cold) morning so the weather forecaster was drivelling on about
showers in the South East which never came. As I drove the pundits on the radio were
talking about how Prince Charles had opened a major new Astro-Zeneca
facility. They got the bit about Prince Charles right, but the chap
conducting the interview get pretty much every other aspect of virology and
immunology wrong. You'd think they'd spend a few minutes priming hm before
the interview, wouldn't you? There was also a lot of abuse directed at the
Prime Minister over his rather abysmal speech
which he gave to business leaders yesterday. A clip of it was played on the
radio; it was painful to hear. And some vicar or other seemed to think that
no matter how difficult a life an abused child or an asylum seeker had, Jesus
had it worse, and was somehow attempting to claim a moral high ground that no
one else was claiming. Work was much the same as ever until the
early afternoon . As I was putting blood into the blood bank (awaiting
collection to take to one of the wards) so I met a new colleague. "Matilda"
is a self-directed cleaning robot. Inadvertently I'd got in the way, and it (she?)
said hello, cracked a joke, and waited for me to move before carrying on
cleaning the corridor. There are those who worry about the rise of
the machines. Personally if I was a self-aware robot
bent on world domination I wouldn't start off scrubbing my corridor. Getting home took some doing; the motorway
was rather busy and the roads locally were heaving.
Pausing only briefly to argue with “Daddy’s Little Angel TM”
I had a little look on eBay at Lego maxifigures and
got a couple of bargains. The price of those things is amazing – the stuff
which is commonplace can be ridiculously expensive; if you look carefully the
obscure parts can be picked up ridiculously cheaply… when I get bored I might just post up a piccie
of what to look for in Lego maxifigures – if only
so that my loyal readers know what to get me for a pressie… “er indoors TM” boiled up a rather
good bit of dinner and we cracked open a bottle of plonk to wash it down as
we watched the “Bake Off” final. Starting watching
twenty minutes after the start of the show we could fast-forward through the
adverts. Or we could have done had the Sky-Q box recorded the show. We’ll try again on the +1 channel in half an
hour… |
|
24 November 2021
(Wednesday) - Red Alert
Over brekkie I watched the last episode of “Good
Girls”. For a show which seemed to lose its way toward the end, the last
episode was rather good up until the last five minutes then ended leaving me
thinking “WTF was that all about?” As I watched so another COVID test incubated.
This one was negative. I would say “as usual” but with much of the
family currently testing positive I did wonder how it would turn out. The
entire family (except me) had something big planned for Friday; that’s
cancelled now. Such a shame. I had my usual root around the internet. Not
a lot was happening on social media. I had an email to say that someone had
liked the Wherigo I intend to archive in a week or so. I had an email from
Credit Karma saying that I was paying far too much for my car loan, and offered me the chance to get a cheaper loan. All of their offers of cheaper loans were about thirty
quid a month more than I am paying now. An ex-colleague was having a birthday. I sent
her the usual birthday video and saw one or two other ex-colleagues had sent
her birthday wishes too. This left me in something of a pensive mood; for
many years I spent more time with these people than I did my own family. Now
I haven’t seen any of them for over ten years, and I could be dead for all
any of them know. I wandered up the road to where I’d left the
car last night, and set off to work. As I drove out
of Ashford the pundits on the radio were talking about “Soccer Without Borders”l an initiative
to help girls and young women across the world play football. Personally I can’t stand the sport, but there really are
great swathes of the planet where women are forbidden to play football. When
I was a lad I had such high hopes for the future, and instead we seem to be
on the verge of a new Dark Age. They then wheeled on the Labour MP Yvette
Cooper who was talking about the government’s failure to address the armada
of dinghies carrying refugees across the channel. Whilst she was right in
saying that something needed to be done, despite being given ample
opportunity to do so, she suggested absolutely nothing herself either as her
own idea or as Labour party policy. That’s twice this week that Labour MPs
have rubbished the government whilst having nothing of their own to offer
instead. Then it was time for “Thought for the Day”
which was frankly laughable. The vicar blathering the platitudes today
started off his spiel by likening God to a midwife, he then waffled several
disjointed and utterly unconnected sentences, then made the assertion that
since everyone loves midwives, that makes his God really really
brill and trif. I got to work and did my bit. And as is so
often the case I again got more evidence for the careers advice that I offer
to children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and anyone who will listen. My
advice is simple; never take on a job that has “Red Alerts”; they are
never as exciting as they appear on the telly. If today’s job was an episode
of “Star Trek” we would have had a lot of Klingons on the view screen.
If today’ job was an episode of “Doctor Who” we would have had Daleks all over the shop. Having got our emergency to the stage where I
felt confident to hand it over, I headed home (only a few minutes late
getting out) and again seemed to spend as long driving round the local
roads looking for a parking space as I did driving
the twenty-five miles from Maidstone to Ashford. “er indoors TM” boiled up a very
good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching an episode of “Taskmaster”.
It was very good, but like so many shows it features no end of celebrities
who seem to be famous for being on that sort of show. I then had a little look at the monthly
accounts. I’m nowhere near as skint as I was a few years ago. Amazingly the
old car was costing me more each month for road tax than the new car costs
for a whole year. And then I had a message. Could I do the
night shift tomorrow night? I suppose so… |
|
25 November 2021
(Thursday) - Not on the Early Shift
As I scoffed my brekkie I peered into the
Internet (as I do) and saw several of the same sort of advert on many
of the Lego-related Facebook sites. One of them read “So I have 4 lego harry potter calenders
left due to timewasters and holding them for people who suddenly then ghost
me” and the others were in the same vein. All ended with a little tirade
about how the Advent Calendars (which had been bought to make a profit)
are now being sold at a loss. It would seem that in the
past there has been quite the market in selling Lego Advent Calendars but now
people are asking themselves why they should pay over the odds for something
they can buy themselves direct from Amazon. And those who have made profit
this way in the past have been left high and dry. There was someone else asking what was the best way to take payment for second-hand Lego as
they felt that Paypal was taking too much of a slice
of their profit. There really is a growth industry in selling Lego. Perhaps
this is a bandwagon on which I might jump? The plan for today had been to do the early
shift but what with a colleague’s children going COVID-positive (I have
grandchildren that have done that!) I was asked to do the night shift. I
don’t mind doing nights… I get the day time to walk
the dogs. We walked seemingly miles to where I’d left
the car and set off. As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about
who the guest editors of the morning news program will be over the Christmas
period. Every year when everyone else is on holiday and I’m still working,
the morning news show is hijacked by various people of whom I have never
heard, all of whom have their own personal agendas to push. It would seem
this year is no different – I’ve only heard of one of the people
they’ve got lined up – and I thought he died years ago. They also rather worried me when it was
announced that the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
didn’t realise that TV’s Channel
4 wasn’t publicly funded. We got to Brook. A couple of weeks ago I hid
several Wherigo caches over that way. Over the weekend I’d had reports that
three of them had gone missing. Two of them would seem to have disappeared;
one was still there. With caches located or replaced we then had a
rather good walk. It was amazing just how muddy the area had become in a
couple of weeks, but the dogs seemed to like the walk. And they didn’t seem
to mind the bath they had to have when we got home. Both mud and fox poo had
to be scrubbed away. Just as we were settling down so there was a
sound at the door. The postman had delivered a couple of letters and the dogs
were going berserk. The commotion seemed to be lasting for far too long so I went out to see what was going on. Postie was
standing right at the door seeming to be deliberately provoking the dogs. As
I chased the dogs into the living room so postie
hurried away. I opened the door to see postie actually
running down the street. Had he been deliberately provoking them? It would
seem so. The postman had brought a letter from the
local hospital. Apparently there was some issue with
some CPAP machines in which they would overheat if used in tropical climates.
The hospital wondered if I had one of those, and also wondered if I could
give them a ring as they had absolutely no information on exactly which model
of CPAP they’d given me. However
the phone number they gave me went to an answer machine which told me it was
unable to take any messages. I’ll try again tomorrow. I made a cuppa and logged what I’d done on
our walk the geo-website. If I don’t do that I only
have people whinging at me about it, then I spent a little while copying old
CDs onto the USB music stick I use in the car. The old car’s MP3 player was
rather special and didn’t recognise half of what was on the stick. I’m hoping
the new one MP3 player will. I watched a couple of episodes of the new
season of “F is for Family” then went to bed for the afternoon.
Despite having a hot water bottle, I shivered. Have you ever tried to sleep
during the afternoon? I am always *so* cold. Perhaps if I had hoiked Treacle off of the hot
water bottle things might have been better? After a few hours of shivering
I got up and did the final on-line preparations for the New Years’ Day
geo-event. That’s pretty much ready to go now. Rather than going for an
extremely muddy walk we’ll play a couple of Wherigos
at Frog’s Island then walk round to the Riverside for a pint. I’m hoping that “er indoors TM”
will be home soon to sort some dinner, then I shall be off to work. I wonder if that MP3 stick will work? |
26 November 2021 (Friday) - Bit Tired
I got some
petrol last night before work. The old car was good for five trips to work
and back (plus a bit of driving here and there) on a full tank of
petrol. This car did eight trips. The range thingy said it still had a
hundred and thirty-five miles before it would conk out, but the trip meter
said I'd done four hundred and seventy miles since I'd filled it the last
time, and once I'd filled it, it said I had a range of four hundred miles. I
wonder if there's a way to get it to re-set the range estimating software? I did my
bit on the night shift and with my bit done I went out to the car park where
the car was waiting... and realised that it is now "the car"
and not "the new car". Today marks four weeks since I got it
and in that time we've gone for many dog walks and
brought back the mud and fox poo which goes with a dog walk. I've done
a tip run, and endless house-moving runs for “Daddy’s Little Angel TM”.
We've been to Kwik-Fit to get one of the tyres sorted, and even had a
software update. It has lost the "new car" smell and now has
a faint whiff of wet dog and fox poo; which is as it
should be. I drove
home through a rather dark and dismal morning. As I drove the pundits on the
radio were spouting their usual brand of drivel. This morning they were
talking about the latest row between
the British and French governments. The specifics of the row are immaterial,
but the French Premier in absolutely right when he says
“You don’t communicate via tweets and open
letters”. Boris Johnson seems to
be taking the lead from that idiot Donald Trump. Clearly Boris Johnson is
more interested in appealing to the electorate via Twitter than he is in
achieving international diplomacy. When the whole COVID thing blew up Boris Johnson appeared on telly
seeming very statesman-like. He had the chance to firmly lead the nation and
be a latter-day Churchill. It seems he’s deliberately thrown it all away. Is
he *really* the incompetent idiot that he seems to pretend to be? And talking of COVID there is another strain on the way. By all
reports a nasty one. Is it? When COVID was first announced I was
incredibly sceptical since the end of the world had
been announced so many times before. A couple of years ago I was wrong. COVID
*was* serious. So… what about this new strain. A serious concern or
more media scaremongering? I got home, said goodbye to “er indoors TM” as she
went out, had a shower, then poured a whole load of drain unblocker
down the plughole and went to bed. Two minutes later the dogs came up and
made themselves comfortable on me, and we all slept till mid-day when I
flushed the drain unblocker jollop away. The
plughole seemed to flow rather better than it had been doing. I set the
washing machine going on some shirts, and seeing a
break in the rain I took the dogs for a quick walk round the roads. I wasn’t
going to go far as the sky looked black. The woods were out as we’d got
filthy yesterday and we’d had a lot of rain since. We had a really good walk up until we got home. I unlocked the
front door, opened it, and was about to let the dogs in; we have this thing
where the first dog to sit gets to go in first. It sounds daft but they both
seem to understand the game. It was at this point that some odd woman who had
been walking her dogs down the road loudly announced that they were going to
say “hello” and marched up our front path. Pogo and Treacle hadn’t
seen her coming and were suddenly confronted with a stranger and two large
dogs on their territory and bearing down on them. The idiot
woman had no idea what she had done wrong… I made a bit of late brekkie, then spent the afternoon ironing whilst
watching episodes of “Four in a Bed” in which the pretentious prats
were trounced by the decent contestants. As I ironed and watched telly so the phone
rang. Some shyster was trying to get me to take out
a service contract on my Sky-Q box. I say “my” Sky-Q box; it is Sky’s
Sky-Q box. I owned the old Sky-Plus box and so if it went belly-up it was my
problem. However one of the selling points of the
Sky-Q box is that it is theirs, and if it goes west it is their problem.
After a little farting around I got through to Dan in their help centre who
assured my that Sky did in fact own the Sky-Q box
which was on loan to me. The postman then arrived with my latest eBay bargain. Twelve quid for
a job lot of Lego. At least four of the bits in that job lot were worth
twelve quid each; it pays to shop around. I could have gone out this evening. The Rear Admiral’s band was
playing in one of the pubs in the town centre. I thought about going… but it
is cold and wet outside. And I’m feeling tired after the night shift. And
going to see any live music in a local pub always goes the same way. You meet
up with a load of friends but can’t hear a word they say and end up spending
the fat end of fifty quid to get a headache. Instead
we slobbed in front of the telly. Time for an early night… |
|
27 November 2021
(Saturday) - It Rained
Apart from a trip to the loo in the small
hours I slept for ten hours last night, and woke to
the sounds of Pogo having a nightmare. He was squeaking and making the most odd noises. I lay awake for a few minutes listening
to him and to the sound of the rain against the window, then got up and made
brekkie. As I scoffed my toast
I had a little look-see into the Internet. It was still there. I sent out a
couple of birthday wishes then had my usual rummage round Facebook. Someone
claiming to be Ashford-based was selling Lego on one of the local groups.
Used and unboxed sets for not much more than you can get the things new and
boxed on Amazon. Someone else was selling a job lot collection-only in East
Sussex. I sent a message asking what was in the job lot but heard nothing
back. I’m not sure how I get all these adverts in my Facebook feed as I’ve
turned all the selling notifications off. Other than the adverts and a few whinges
about the bad weather there wasn’t much happening on Facebook. I had a few
emails telling me that three people had visited some of my Wherigos yesterday. Rather than using the “found it”
logs to comment on how much time and effort I’d put in to creating the
software, there were gripes about how the paper logs were wet and they
weren’t going to keep replacing them for me. I composed a little reply but
thought better of sending it. In theory it is up to the person who hid the geocache
to replace a wet paper log. In practice if you find a wet log you can replace
it in less time than it takes to type out a report that it is wet. And you
can get ten paper logs from one sheet of A4 paper, and you can get two
thousand sheets of A4 paper for less
than ten quid. So… you can replace the logs in every geocache I have ever
found, have over six thousand strips of paper left, and still have change out
of a tenner. My last package from NE Geocaching supplies (for the camo
tape and the plastic bags for the paper logs) cost me over thirty quid. As I have said before, there are those that
give to the hobby and there are those that take. I got dressed in something of a sulking mood.
I had such high hopes for what was only my second full
weekend off since July, but the rain outside was torrential. I went up
to the attic room and had a little sort-out of the Lego I’ve been buying
recently. As always when buying second-hand Lego, with every bit that is
worth having are a dozen bits that no one really want or needs. After an hour
or so I made up another dozen more maxi-figures including three yellow-bodies
ones, and quite a few red-headed ones. I really need to count
up how many more hands I need (those are what I am missing). I
suppose that (like rummaging under rocks for film pots), obscure Lego from fifty years ago
isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but it keeps me happy (or if not happy, not
ranting about trivia). Seeing a break in the rain, “er indoors TM”
and I took the dogs round the block for a little walk. We didn’t go far, and
other than having a poo (not me!), not a lot happened on the walk,
which was for the best. “er indoors TM” then went into town
to post a parcel. Back in the day when the Post Office was in the business of
posting letters and parcels there was a little post office just up the road
in the corner shop. But now they are in the business of making a profit we have to go into town to send a parcel. I say “we”;
I let “er indoors TM” go on her own. She wanted to go round
all the shops and I would rather stay at home with the dogs. I suppose that’s
just as well; after all what are dogs for if not to be with? I spent an hour or so trying to get the telly
to pick up Pluto TV (since that’s where Star Trek: Discovery is to be
broadcast in the UK) but the telly wasn’t having
any of it. I downloaded the Pluto TV app to my phone and couldn’t find Star
Trek on Pluto TV either there or on the lap-top either so perhaps I’m not missing
out after all? With the rain showing no sign of abating I
played “Cookie Jam” on Facebook Games until “er indoors TM”
came home. She boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst
watching the sixth “Harry Potter” film and washed it down with a
bottle of plonk. Not a bad evening but the rest of the day was
rather dull. |
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28 November 2021
(Sunday) - So Cold.
I slept like a log right up to when my phone
beeped with a text message from work reminding me to take a COVID test. I
sent the relevant department a rather pointed email saying that bearing that
this is only my second complete weekend off work since July, is it too much
to ask to not be woken far too early on a Sunday morning. Finding myself awake I got up and did another
(negative) COVID test, then made brekkie and had a look at the
Internet. There was more consternation about the Prime
Minister’s announcement (yesterday) that in response to the new COVID
variant, people coming in to the UK will be required
to take a PCR test on the second day in the UK and then self-isolate and
self-test until they get a negative result. Self isolate…
having been squashed like sardines through a crowded airport and shuttle
coach to their car or taxi? And masks are again compulsory in shops but not
pubs or restaurants. I’m not belittling the crisis at all, but my concern
with the mask-wearing is that it lulls people into a false sense of security.
Find a vaping friend and have them take a suck on the vape, pull up a mask (correctly
fitting from bridge of nose to under the chin) and then have them breath
out normally. You will see clouds of vapour coming out in all directions.
Admittedly a lot more vapour than in a normal breath, but this will visualise
where the normal breath goes, and it is this which would be carrying virus.
The mask contains coughs and sneezes, but I’d question how much reduction to
viral spreading they do for people who are breathing normally. I played “Cookie Jam” on Facebook
games as “er indoors TM” got ready. We’d decided that today
was going to be too cold, too windy and too muddy
for a long walk so we settled the dogs and went to visit parents. Getting out of Ashford took some doing. The
road we would normally use to avoid the outlet centre was closed, and the
traffic was queued up in all directions to get in to
the place. Have you ever been to the MacArthur
Glen outlet centre in Ashford? You can see the place from our attic window and I’ve not been there for two years. There is
nothing that they sell that I can’t get from Amazon, but the public love it. Pausing only briefly in Ham Street for geocachical reasons we were soon in Hastings. First of all we called in to see Dad who seemed well. He showed us
his mouse traps – he caught a mouse in his kitchen on Thursday. Just the one,
and since then there hasn’t been any tell-tale signs (mouse turds) but he’s got traps ready. From there we went on to mother-in-law. She
too seemed OK not having fallen off of any more
ladders recently (!) Sister-in-law and nephews were also about,
and “er indoors TM” chatted with them whilst I found myself
engrossed in the snooker which was on the telly. Once home we took the dogs round the block.
As we’d sat with parents I’d been glancing out of the window at the bright
day and wondering why we’d cancelled our planned walk. After thirty seconds
of our dog walk my nose was running and I was shivering. Today was a bright
day, but oh, it was cold!! With walk walked we had a cuppa and a Belgian
bun and with a near-Herculean effort I managed to organise a family
pre-Christmas dinner. Finding a day that everyone could make took some doing. “er indoors TM” boiled up a very
good bit of dinner which we watched whilst watching tonight’s episode of “Doctor
Who”. Unlike quite
a lot of people we are still watching the show. Over the last few weeks I’ve been rather scathing about it, and I think I’ve
worked out why. Leaving aside the fact that I can’t warm to any of the main
characters, the writers are trying too hard. Back in the day Doctor Who
specialised in the hero averting rather simple minor disasters. But since the
re-boot every season tries to out-do the previous in scale of disaster to be
averted and complexity of incomprehensible plot. And (apart from yet
another end of the universe) does anyone know what was going on? Having said that,
there
was a lot of nods to what had gone before in tonight’s show. I quite liked
the reference to the
War Machines which I suspect went over the heads of the
vast majority of viewers. I suspect that the viewers of today’s show
would laugh at the simplicity of the props used in the War Machines, but back
then the writers knew the special effects weren’t up to much
so they had a decent story instead. |
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29 November 2021
(Monday) - Sorting the DNFs
I slept like a log. Over brekkie I sparked up
the lap-top as I do, and sent out a couple of birthday
wishes. Judging by the lack of anything much of note on social media it would seem that I hadn’t been alone in having had
something of a dull weekend. There was quite a bitter tirade on one of the
Hastings Old Town Facebook pages; apparently over the weekend there had been
a two-minute silence for the asylum seekers who had recently drowned, and
quite a few people had posted racial hatred about it on that page. The page’s
moderator had a little rant saying how shocked and surprised she was. I was tempted
to point out that had she ever done any moderating of that page she wouldn’t
be surprised in the slightest but thought better of commenting. I had a quick fight with GSAK (it’s a
geocaching thing) and got myself ready for this morning’s mission. Having
had reports of missing geocaches in Kings Wood I found out which ones needed
a look-see. And as is always the case, the two which needed my attention was
one which was about as far from the car park as was possible to get on the
north edge of the wood, and one which was right down on the south edge. We went out to the car to find that winter
had officially arrived. The start of winter is the first time when I have to scrape ice from the car’s windows, and that was
today. With ice scraped we drove through rush hour traffic up to Kings Wood
where we had a very good (if cold) walk. It would have been too cold
for a proper geocaching outing with all the stopping and starting that would
entail. And it would have been too cold for poor Fudge who used to dawdle at
a snail’s pace. But Treacle and Pogo ran about like mad things and didn’t
seem too bothered by the frost. In fact the only
problem was that they were thirsty and the puddles were frozen over. But Pogo
soon worked out how to stamp through the ice. As we walked we met
four and a half other groups of dog walkers, and each encounter passed off
without incident. We all had a little sniff and kept going which was for the
best. The half of a group of dog walkers was one chap whose dog had
disappeared into the woods. I did sympathise; Fudge once vanished for an hour
in those woods in pursuit of heaven only knows what. Our plan was geo-maintenance. The cache at
the north of the woods was clearly missing which was odd. It was definitely there when I walked past it two months ago. We
popped a new one out. The cache at the south of the woods wasn’t missing. I
found it right away which was also odd as three other people had logged that
they couldn’t find it. I wonder what was going on there. I took a
few photos as we walked – it was rather pretty today.
a bright winter’s day can be very pretty, if very cold. With walk walked we came home, and within
minutes both dogs were curled up and fast asleep. I then had a look at my
in-box to plan our next geo-maintenance walk. Every time someone logs a “Did
Not Find” on a geocache that I’ve hidden an email goes into a specific
folder in my in-box so I know if there are any
issues. This morning there were sixteen such emails (I’d not looked at
that folder for a couple of weeks which was remiss of me!). Five of them
were about the two caches I sorted today. Four were about the ones that we
sorted last Thursday. Five were on ones that other people have found in the
meantime (and so don’t need me to do anything). All that I have left
to sort are two possible issues on my “Out In The Sticks”. Needless
to say these two are at opposite sides of a
six-mile circular walk. Still, never mind. I created the series with dogs in
mind and sorting the issues might make for a dog walk next weekend (weather
and mud permitting). I filled a hot water bottle and went to bed
for the afternoon. Why is it the bed is so cold during the daytime? When “er
indoors TM” is having a kip she
doesn’t realise the dogs sneak under the covers with her. They know I won’t
have it though, and don’t try with me. Instead they
lie on top of the duvet on either side of me and pin me down. I managed a few
hours sleep, then spent half a rather
claustrophobic hour being utterly unable to move. I’m hoping “er indoors TM”
will be home soon to boil up some dinner, then I’m off to the night shift. And in closing, today marks five years since
we got Treacle and “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” got Pogo… |
|
30 November 2021
(Tuesday) - Bit Tired
As I drove home from the night shift the
pundits on the radio were interviewing the head of MI6 who apparently goes by
the code-name of “C”. The interview lasted from pretty much all of my drive home from Maidstone and was frankly
something of a disappointment. Apparently MI6 does
have a “Q-Branch” but any special gadgets they use aren’t made by
their boffins but are bought in. And if anyone in MI6 gets a memo on green
ink, then that memo has come directly from “C”. “C” himself
likes the James Bond films but took great pains to point out that James Bond
is seriously in the realms of fiction. He was rather reticent about exactly
what it is that MI6 actually does. I got the
impression that he didn’t want to cause widespread panic by admitting that
there really are evil super-villains in hollowed-out volcanoes planning world
domination. Once home I had a quick scrub then went to
bed for a few hours; waking to find a snoring Pogo with his head on my
shoulder and his nose in my ear. We went for a quick walk round the block; a
good walk with no “episodes” at all. It was only a shame that when the
normal people stopped to fuss the dogs, whilst Pogo was up for the attention
Treacle cowered away in obvious terror. Twice. She really is a nervous little
dog. With walk walked we came home, and I set the
dishwasher and washing machine going and spent the afternoon wrapping chrimbo pressies whilst watching episodes of “Four in
a Bed”. Today’s episodes featured a particularly vindictive woman. If two
contestants rate the cleanliness of a bed & breakfast at ten out of ten,
how can the third rate it at four out of ten with any conviction? It was late afternoon before I got round to
having my usual trawl of the Internet. I had a dozen notification on
Facebook; none for anything of note. Credit Karma told me that several people
had been checking my creditworthiness, but clicking
to find more details (like they suggested) achieved nothing. I finally got through to the CPAP machine
people at the hospital. I say “got through”; I was able to leave a message
for them as their answerphone was taking messages (which it hadn’t been
since late last week). Apparently they want to
know what CPAP machine I’ve got. I would have thought they would have known? It doesn’t really inspire you with
confidence, does it? I then created the Facebook album for this
year’s Advent adventure. I wonder what this year’s will be about. Over
the years my annual Advent story has developed life of its own. It
really does have a cult following with dozens of people tuning in to see what
happens next. And (I think it is fair to say) no one is more surprised
by each day’s instalment than me. Every year I get the calendar in September and it sits unopened on the shelf for a couple
of months. I opened the lid of the box this afternoon and took photos, but
each actual window doesn’t get opened until that day arrives. Most days in
December are the same for me. I open the window of the Advent Calendar when I
get up and then spend all day thinking “WTF can I say about that“. I
really don’t make it easy for myself. Anyone else would open the thing up and
have a look-see, but I won’t. I don’t want to spoil the surprise. “er indoors TM” boiled up a rather
good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching the Christmas episode of
“Gavin and Stacey” (from 2008) which is memorable for Stacey
being in the shower in the nip. I suspect Christmas specials from years gone
by will be infesting the TV screens for the next few weeks. However I suspect Stacey in the nip won’t be doing the
same… Shame, really… |
