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1 November 2023
(Wednesday) - Still Poorly
I
woke feeling rather grim at three o’clock so I came downstairs, and watched
an episode of “Star Trek: Lower Decks” rather than laying wide awake.
I felt a bit tired after that, and it was then that I had a stroke of genius.
Bearing in mind I spent so long asleep on the sofa yesterday and the day
before, I thought I might have a bit of a kip on the sofa, and not wake up
coughing every five minutes. If
the telly is on in broad daylight I am out like a light when on the sofa.
Last night in the dark I just gave myself a backache. So I went to back to
bed at five o’clock and disturbed the dogs, two of whom then wanted a tiddle.
Had I marched Morgan out as well he might not have had the “little
accident” that woke me at half past eight. At
least it was only the smallest of accidents. A spot maybe the size of a
fifty-pence piece. He held on to most of it to get it outside. But he does
need to be tiddled regularly. Here’s a tip that all dachshund owners know
very well, but deliberately keep a closely guarded secret. Dachshunds are
never particularly good in the toilet training department. I
look the sheet to the washing machine, and as it scrubbed I made toast and
had a look at the internet. Three Facebook friends were having a birthday
today; I sent out my birthday video to the two that have made some attempt t
contact me in the last six years. But sending that video isn’t as easy as it
once was. Facebook now tells me that the video hasn’t been independently
fact-checked and had its veracity confirmed and asks me each time if I want
to continue with that in mind. With
torrential rain outside and me still feeling like death warmed up I cracked
on with the ironing. As I ironed I watched the first episode of “Banged Up”, a
TV show in which seven so-called celebrities see how they would cope in
prison. The show was rather interesting (and frightening) but could
have done with either having real celebrities, or telling us mere mortals who
the so-called celebrities actually are. I’d not heard of any of them. After
that I sparked up Netflix and watched three episodes of the most recent
series of “The Witcher”. I watched the first two seasons and can
remember them being rather good. I watched today’s episodes with some
enjoyment, but did have quite the feeling of “WTF was that all about”. With
ironing ironed and seeing a break in the seemingly constant rain I walked the
dogs round the block. What with disease the dogs hadn’t had a walk for two
days. We went round the block; we didn’t meet anyone, we got home before the
rain started again. Feeling
a tad knackered after just going round the block I sat back on the sofa with
Morgan and Bailey (or “Baby” as “Darcie Waa Waa TM” calls
her) and watched episodes of “Four in a Bed” in which the people
with the cheapest and shabbiest establishment seemed to think that anything
better than piss-poor standards was a needless waste of effort. I
do like that show. During
the advert breaks I phoned the garage and the dentist and the hospital and
rescheduled all the appointments with people who wouldn’t want to see me if I
was diseased. We
had fish and chips for tea… and as the evening wore on I began to wilt. And
cough. And I think my temperature is going up too. I
thought I was slowly on the mend… |
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2 November 2023 (Thursday)
- Sick of Being Sick
I had something of a bad night last night.
When “er indoors TM” stopped snoring so the
thunder and lightening started, and continued right up until the snoring
started again. I gave up with sleep, came downstairs and saw that
I’d completely forgotten that I’d put a load of washing into the washing
machine last night. Ho hum… I hung that out, made brekkie and sparked up my
lap-top. This morning the thing worked far better than it ever had done. Up
till yesterday it seemed to be stuck in a vicious circle of notifications in
which some trivial thing would happen (someone clicked “Like” on a
Facebook photo, I’d had another email I never needed or wanted…) and it
would give me a notification about it. My phone would then give me the same
notification as would my watch. And then my lap-top would tell me that I had
notifications on my watch and phone. Depending on how chatty the technology
was feeling I would sometimes get up to half a dozen messages about things
about which I couldn’t care less. I had words with the lap-top last night,
and this morning it had seen the error of its ways. I got a lot less
unnecessary notifications. I had a look at my emails. I had a message. I’ve
been having issues with uploading stuff to my blog backup. The nice
people who run the web hosting are doing all sorts of wonderful IT things
behind the scenes; the practical upshot of which is that (like with every
single IT upgrade that has ever been done in all of history) the
uploading no longer actually worked. Matters weren’t helped by the way that every time
they replied to my questions (of which there were several!) they would
send me an email to tell me that they’ve replied to my message in the message
centre, and I then had to fiddle about logging in to find out what they’d
actually said. They’d sent me several links to various help screens, none of
which looked like the ones in the diagrams they sent. After quite a bit of
to-ing and fro-ing it turned out that after the upgrade that they’d done, I
needed to upload to a different place and I needed a new login name to do so.
Sadly getting to that realization was rather painful. I saw that an ELO tribute band had been playing in
Hastings last night. Had I not been diseased I might have gone along; I saw
they were still advertising tickets yesterday afternoon. A friend who went
along said the theatre was half-empty. I suppose mid-week isn’t perhaps the
most popular time to go out? And
a series of geocaches had gone live on the Romney Marsh this morning. Last
time I had the rona I managed a cheeky First to Find. Might this become a
thing? I’d seen that people on-line were saying that they’d heard from
friends that others had said that their mates reckoned that the overnight
storms had left many of the roads to the Romney Marsh flooded, and those
roads that weren’t flooded were blocked by fallen trees. However no one was
talking from first-hand experience, and Google Maps showed the traffic was
moving normally. So I zoomed down to the marsh, pulled up by a road sign… and
the heavens opened. I wasn’t put off by the thought of rain as I keep a
raincoat in the car. Or so I thought. I wonder where that went? After
a few minutes the rain passed. I soon had the cache in hand. First to Find.
Go me. I decided to leave the rest of the series for another time. I
came home, and seeing the rain was still stopped I walked the dogs round the
block, then had a five minute pootle in the garden. And I then realised that
a little drive out, a walk round the block and five minutes in the garden had
been too much for me. I was knackered and sweating. Having decided I’d had
quite enough slobbing about feeling sorry for myself I’d made a bit of a plan
for today. And I simply wasn’t physically up to it. I
was rather pissed off – the idea of a week’s sick leave is to have a bit of
bonus holiday. It certainly was the last time I had the rona. I’d rather have
gone to work than have been putting up with this. I sat on the sofa under a
pile of dogs sniffling and coughing and watched all of the remaining episode
of “The Witcher”. As
I binge-watched my phone beeped at me, and reminded me that seven years ago I
went for an interview at the Tunbridge Wells Hospital at Pembury. At the time
I didn’t think the interview went very well, but I got the job, and accepting
the job was one of my better decisions. As an example… On Monday when I go
back to work the bosses will ask me how I feel. And it will be with concern.
And if I don’t feel well enough I will take more sick leave… and won’t feel
guilty for doing so. In
my previous job when I returned to work after sickness I was met by
management with sarcasm and passive-aggressive comments about how there had
been nothing wrong with me. Once after a bout of dire rear which had had me
confined to the chodbin, and once after surgery. And
that was in a place which claimed to have a zero tolerance to bullying. I
should have changed jobs years ago |
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3 November 2023
(Friday) - Reorganising Webspace
I
woke in the middle of the night and went to the loo. As I headed back to bed
so Treacle came down and walked to the back door. I let her out and waited
for her. And waited. Bearing in mind she doesn’t play silly beggars I got a
little worried and took a torch into a cold wet night only to find that she
was playing silly beggars. As
we came in so Morgan was standing at the door. He went out and he too took an
inordinately long time to do a very short tiddle. I watched him; he sniffed
everything in the entire garden before deciding to pee up the compost bin not
two feet from the back door. As he came in so Bailey was laying in wait for
him and a play-fight kicked off before Bailey then did about a dozen circuits
of the wet dark garden before doing her widdle. By
then I was wide awake so I made a bowl of cereals and started to watch the
last episode of the current series of “Star Trek: Lower Decks”. But I
could hear a lot of movement upstairs. And whimpering too. Treacle was on the
bed and was very much “King of the Castle” and wouldn’t let the
puppies up. By
then it was half past four. Dogs can be hard work sometimes. For
the first time that I can remember I slept through the noise that the bin men
probably made. I woke about half past eight and looked out at glorious
sunshine. Today would have been a lovely morning for the woods, but bearing
in mind how quickly I wilted yesterday I just made toast and had my usual
rummage on-line. Today’s petty bickering on Facebook was about the
practicalities of the alien spaceships in the 1970s Gerry Anderson
series UFO. Some people though the things were too small; others
disagreed. Bitterly. And
some woman had replied to a comment I made about dog tracking technology some
three weeks ago. I looked into the stuff some time ago when Morgan and Bailey
went rogue, but it soon became apparent that the whole thing hinges on having
an active internet connection – which I haven’t got in the woods we walk in.
If I can’t post to Facebook or call up Google then I can’t track an errant
dog on the tracking app. It was suggested that if the dogs went AWOL in the
woods I might drive home and use the reliable internet at home to see where
they were. So…I
found myself presented with the position that given that a dog has gone
rogue, I could see where they were from five miles away and so the tracking
technology had worked. And that I was wrong in saying that the app was of no
use to me. The
fact the tracking technology couldn’t actually assist in retrieving a missing
dog was neither here nor there… With
no emails worth having I thought I might sort my web space. I have several on-line
projects which behind the scenes were a mess. The folders for all of them
were randomly all jumbled together which made it very difficult for me to see
what was going on. And now that the web hosting people have had a tidy-up I thought
I might do the same. I
started off with the
blog archive. Each month has its own folder. I moved all of them into one
folder called “diary” and in the process lost all my memories of April
2009. Recovering those took a little doing. My Advent Archive is
OK… for just under a month. My
personal Atlas of Haematology was
something I fiddle with and forget about; I need to fiddle with it more
often. My
“Beginner’s Guide to
Geocaching” has been on the back burner for far too long as has my “Beginner’s Guide to Wherigo”. And
then I found all sorts of things that I’d completely forgotten about I
found the Batcamp
archive and brought it up to date. I
found something I
created four years ago for World Book Day. I shall update that at
some point. I
found photos of when I took scouts to Canada twenty years ago and added them
to my blog archive.
After all, they are all diaries.. I
found the start of a little “Desert
Island Discs” project that I started ages ago. I added in my current
thoughts. I should come back to this from time to time. Mind you I’m quite
pleased with the piccie I created for it. I
found the archive
of Kent Geocaching events with which I’ve clearly done nothing for
three years. I
found the start of a project I started (and forgot about) about
my Lego maxifigures
collection. I might come back to this, or I might delete it. I’m still
undecided. I
found the old website about my snakes… the
last of which I re-homed over twenty years ago. I shall keep this for
posterity, but I do need to update some of its hyperlinks. And
there was a lot of work-related training stuff which I removed from my
webspace. Fiddling
about with webspace and on-line projects kept me occupied for most of the day
which was for the best. The rain of the last week had abated and I’d been
tempted to go for a decent walk round the woods, but just taking the dogs
round the block had left me in a sweat. Eventually
I ran out of easy stuff to do with the web space. I know I’ve written lists
of top ten books before… I just don’t know what I’ve done with those lists. I
expect they will come to light eventually. Similarly I know I’ve done my
Desert Island Discs lists many times… but can only find four of them. I
had a shower, then strained my brain over some geo-puzzles. I think this one is about Sumo wrestling (though
I suspect it isn’t), and I had a stroke of absolute genius about this one.. which would have been a
brilliant stroke of absolute genius *if* you can have negative
longitude (which you can’t). “er indoors TM” boiled up a rather good bit of dinner which we washed down with
some plonk whilst catching up on this year’s season of “Bake Off”. It was rather good… |
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4 November 2023
(Saturday) - Reorganizing Spare Rooms
I
woke to the sound of Treacle squeaking so I took her and Bailey out into a
damp garden at five o’clock. Just like yesterday, both wandered round and
round before finally coming back inside. I
tried to get back to sleep, but I was cold, and the rain was rather noisy up
against the windows. And then my phone started whinging that it wanted a
virus scan. At six o’clock in the morning. I
got up at seven o’clock, made toast and had my usual look at the internet. It
was still there. My brother and nephew were posting that they’d done an
hour’s drive to Brighton where a coach would collect them ant take them to
Liverpool for today’s football match. Let’s hope it goes better that the last
one. The other week they went on a seven hour round trip to watch a 6:1
defeat. I
really didn’t fancy Dog Club this morning what with the torrential rain. The
problem is that having volunteered to unlock every week I’ve rather shot
myself in the foot as there is only one set of keys. I posted to the Dog Club
admin group that I would unlock and come home and found myself on the brink
of a “I’m more ill than you are” argument. I sighed. Dog Club is such
fun. Is this about to dissolve into one big quarrel too? I
got my waterproofs on and walked to the car (which was quite some way away)
and drove over to the Dog Club field. The roads were like rivers. I unlocked
just in case any brave souls turned up, and came straight back home. Were I
feeling a tad better I might have taken the dogs, but they would have just
got wet and filthy. As it was the walk to the car, from the car to the field
gate and back again, and (having parked up) walking home got me
soaked. I
sparked up the lap-top, tuned into Steve on the radio, and listened to the
clues for the mystery year… The Grand National was cancelled, M-People were
in the charts. I had no idea. Thirty years of Doctor Who was the giveaway.
1993. As
I strained my brain on the mystery year I also struggled with geo-puzzles. I
pretty much immediately solved the one which yesterday had given me
co-ordinates which were north of the North Pole. And armed with a hint about
another geo-puzzle I wasted an hour getting absolutely nowhere. I
then spent a little while on Google Street View virtually driving round the
Romney Marsh. There’s half a dozen geo-puzzles in the area in which photos of
roadside locations are given. All you have to do is find where the photos
were taken. But one view across the marsh is much like another and I didn’t
locate any. Seeing
a lull in the rain I took the dogs round the block. As we walked we met
OrangeHead. Back in the day me and Fudge used to meet her a lot; she earned
her sobriquet from her vividly dyed hair. These days she is much more
restrained. She was walking a small pup; her old dog had died. As her pup and
my pups sniffed each other we reminisced about old dogs. I
suggested she and her new pup might enjoy Dog Club; she said that she’d heard
good things of it (result!) but getting there without a car was
problematical. Perhaps I should have offered a lift? We
came home and I fell asleep in front of the telly underneath a pile of dogs.
Once “er indoors TM” had returned from craft
club we went to the spare bedroom, We’d had the walls re-plastered a while
back, the painting was done. It was time to make a start putting the room
back to some semblance of order. Shifting furniture about took some doing, then
as “er indoors TM” cleaned and dusted I got
the old desktop computer back together and working. It took a little fiddling
about; eventually I made the amazing discovery that plugging the right cables
into the right sockets made a load of difference. The thing is twelve years
old and it would be far cheaper to replace with a new one than to bring it up
to modern specs, but it has something which is something of a novelty these
days. It can play CDs. I
then went through some of my old rubbish. Some I want to keep; much of it is
fit for the bin. As I rummaged I found an old picture that had been drawn in
the late nineties featuring me and the people with whom I worked at the time.
I can put names to all but one of the characters. Sadly I have no idea who it
is between the woman with the clipboard and “Big Gay Al”.
Interestingly the chap who was portrayed as “Big Gay Al” went on to
become the president of the British Blood Transfusion Society. I
then took a deep breath. The next thing to be done in the back room was to
get the books and DVDs onto shelves. I don’t want to put shelves on the walls
again, so bookcases it is. Back in the day there wouldn’t have been any
delay; I would have taken my Espace to the shop, got new bookcases and
chucked them in the back of the Espace. Everything fitted into my Espace.
Much as I like my car, it isn’t big. So I would be stuck with the vagaries of
delivery drivers. And who will deliver on a Sunday? I want to get on with
sorting that room. After
a little fiddling about I ordered two bookcases from Argos who claim they
will deliver tomorrow morning. Even though it is a Sunday. Will they? Time
will tell; it always does. “er indoors TM” boiled up a rather good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst
catching up of episodes of “Bake Off”. I should really have an early night in readiness for
the bookcases which will be arriving tomorrow; possibly as early as seven
o’clock… |
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5 November 2023
(Sunday) - Flat-Pack Furniture
I
was having a particularly vivid dream in which the nation was overrun by
escaped prisoners and I’d volunteered to go to prison as the country was now
facing a shortage of them when my phone beeped. At five past seven. Yesterday
when I’d ordered the bookcases, Argos had said “We’ll ping you an email or
text to say when we’re on our way”, and so they did. They said they would
be with me within two hours. It was a shame that they couldn’t be more
specific than that two-hour window. I suppose Amazon’s live tracking has set
the bar rather high. So
I made toast and checked the Internet whilst I waited. A
good friend was posting videos of his house. Having spent years being moved
from one temporary house to another he finally got his own place over the
summer… which is now flooded out from last week’s rains. Other
people had posted piccies from firework events. Some went ahead in Sussex
last night; the rain must have held off. And again the mention of fireworks
set off the pro- and anti- firework brigades. Personally I quite like looking
at the things, but do they have to make such loud explosions? I
saw that I had loads of emails about having bought the bookcases, and
ones telling me that they were on the way (!)… and suddenly I realised
that an hour had passed and I’d done nothing but look at drivel on Facebook
whilst waiting for these bookcases. They
arrived just before nine o’clock, and I spent half an hour getting
progressively more and more angry with the things. Like all flat-packed
furniture, rather than coming with instructions they had frankly
incomprehensible diagrams (with not a single written word on them) which
meant absolutely nothing to me. I was all set to book a slot at the tip and
just throw the things away (and good riddance to them!) and go buy a
pair of proper pre-built bookcases, but “er indoors TM” wanted
a go. So I left her to it and took the dogs for a walk. And made myself quite
breathless in doing so. After she’d been fighting with the bits for a couple
of hours “er indoors TM” came to the
conclusion that both of the flat-packed bookcases were missing a vital
piece. “er indoors TM” arranged for the
missing pieces to be sent on to us and decided to get as far as she could
with the bookcases… but the missing bits wouldn’t arrive for a few days. I wasn’t happy. My whole plan for today hinged
on getting the bookcases up and in place and I seriously wanted to have a
little bonfire in the garden to get rid of the things if only out of childish
petulance. An hour later she announced she’d found the missing
bits. Oh, how I laughed. As she cracked on with the bookcases so I cracked on
with the project I started on Friday. I made a start at updating my list of favourite books (well,
it’s bookcase-related). After a while there was some minor consternation
when “er indoors TM” announced she’d put the
drawer runners on back to front. So I went up to help and put that hiccup
right whist she cracked on with the building. The plan for today was to have the bookcases built
by mid-day and then spend the afternoon putting stuff onto them and generally
getting tidy. We stopped working on the bookcases at eight o’clock this
evening. They just need the adjustable shelves fitting; we’ll do that in the
week. |
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6 November 2023
(Monday) - Butt Cream
Having
got a negative COVID test last night, it was back to work for me today. In a
novel break with tradition my alarm woke me this morning. I got up and
fortunately remembered about all the cardboard packaging I'd left laying
around in the living room before I fell over it all. I had a shave, and
needing to be cracking on this morning I didn't watch any telly. Instead I
made toast and had a little peer into the Internet to see what had happened
overnight. Having
rebooted my phone half a dozen times because the "back"
button wasn't working on the Facebook app it would seem that the nice people
at Facebook had deliberately turned it off, and people all over the world
were grumbling about it. And it would seem that the loss of a "back"
button was far more important than anything else on social media this
morning. I got dressed and then gave “er
indoors TM” a prod; she was taking a friend's littlun
to school this morning. I left her yawning as I drove off on a little Munzee
mission capping various Points of Interest before heading up the motorway to
work. As
I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how the Prime Minister
has announced that from here on in every year licences will be granted for
companies to drill in the North Sea for
oil and gas. The Labour Party have announced that they will repeal this
legislation when they come into power as it goes against all their
environmental policies. Whilst I sympathise with the environmental lobby, I
would ask what they intend we might run the country on whilst we wait for
nuclear fusion power to become a practical proposition. Duracell batteries,
perhaps? And
there was a lot of talk about the
government's promise of thirty hours of free childcare each week for
all pre-school children for all working parents of children aged nine months
and upwards. A shame that this won't come into effect for two years, but it
is a nice thought. There
were interviews with young parents about how the cost of child care is so
high, and how young mothers have been refused promotion because of child care
issues. Mind you child care isn't the ultimate panacea which it was
being made out to be; who's actually going to be doing the looking after? Has
that one been thought through? I
got to work for the early shift and did my bit whilst keeping my head down.
We had the inspectors in today. It was just a "surveillance visit",
but I still wanted nothing to do with it. I rarely blog about work, but I've
ranted loudly so many times before about inspections of blood testing
laboratories. Back in the day the inspections were of what we actually did,
of the validity of the results we produced, and whether or not the users were
happy with the service we provide. These days the assessment process has
moved out of the hands of people who know what they are assessing (Clinical
Pathology Accreditation RIP) and into the hands of the UK Accreditation
Service who assess engineering, food handling, facilities management... and
rather than focus on what we actually do, they focus on the quality of the
paperwork that we generate. I
did have a dental appointment booked for this afternoon, and I'd planned to
take the dogs out and do a tip run as well, but the bosses had asked me to be
on hand for today's inspection as they wanted "someone senior at the
microscope". I fulfilled my "senior obligations" by
formally and sternly admonishing all the trainees that under no circumstances
were they to bite the inspector, and I spent the day sulking whilst looking
at the glorious sunshine outside (after a week of torrential rain).
Ironically the inspector had a personal emergency and went home at mid-day. As
I worked I had yet another nuisance phone call from the Carphone Warehouse
trying to flog me a new phone. I told them (yet again) that I would
never get a phone from the Carphone Warehouse simply because they keep
phoning me up, and I (again) blocked their number. I
also had a phone call from “Daddy’s Little Angel TM”.
“Darcie Waa Waa TM” has eaten her butt cream (“Darcie
Waa Waa TM” 's butt cream, not “Daddy’s Little
Angel TM”'s), and they were waiting for a phone call back
from NHS111 about the toxicology of butt cream. Personally I'd not eat the
stuff, but a quick Google search makes me think littlun will survive this one Being
on an early shift meant I got out early (dur!) I got home just as it
was getting dark and walked the dogs round the block. As we walked so some
half-wit on an electric scooter pulled up next to us, screamed a load of
profanities and sped off. I shouted after him that it was rather cowardly to
have a full-face balaclava on, and as he turned to the sound of my voice so
he was clipped by a passing car. Were the chap not a total half-wit he would
have stopped, having been clipped by a car but he sped off. Perhaps
I should have reported this episode to the police, but I know from bitter
experience that the police have no interest in doing anything that I consider
to be police work. I had a dunk in the shower and wrote up some CPD
until “er indoors TM” finished her work. She
boiled up a very good bit of scran then set off to bowling. I shall sit in
front of the telly and try to stay awake… |
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7 November 2023
(Tuesday) - Flat Friends
Over
brekkie I started watching something new
on Netflix. "Osmosis" is some strange French series in
which a mad scientist develops a computer-controlled chip thingy which people
swallow and it goes to their brain, logs on to the Internet and finds their
perfect partner. However, like all mad scientists, this chap is quickly
rumbled by his superiors and is chucked out on his arse. But, as is the case
with all sacked mad scientists, no one thinks to revoke his free access to
all his mad scientist equipment with which he might plan his revenge. At
the end of the first episode our mad scientist was vowing vengeance on an
ungrateful world whilst his sister was planning to use the computer
controlling chips to merge the brains of three volunteer subjects to cure her
mother whose brain had packed up for no apparent reason. The
show might chirp up; I shall try another episode before dismissing it out of
hand. But it speaks volumes that Netflix cancelled it three years ago. Pausing
only briefly to capture twenty Flat Friends (it's a Munzee thing) I
set off to work. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how
you can now use other couriers than Royal Mail when sending stuff from the
Post Office. I got the impression that Royal Mail have got the hump that
other couriers have muscled in on what was once their monopoly, but these
other couriers only want to muscle in on the profitable bits. They can
deliver a hundred letters up my street in the time it takes to deliver one
letter to someone who lives out in the back of beyond (at presumably a
hundred time the cost to them), and so (sensibly) choose only to
take the profitable work. The
obvious answer is that it is daft to charge the same price for delivering a
letter to a crowded residential estate as for delivering to an isolated
cottage with no other houses for miles around. But what do I know? There
was a lot of talk on the radio about how the King will make a speech today
outlining the government's plans for the next year (most of which
apparently he won't be keen about). There
was talk about how the death toll in Gaza has passed ten
thousand. The Israelis have now killed ten times the amount that the
Palestinians have killed. No one on the radio seems to have made the
observation that no one on the International scene dares tell the Israelis
off. There
were reports from the ongoing inquiry into the government's handling of the COVID pandemic. And
then some fatuous windbag was wheeled on to present "Thought For The
Day" in which she started off by wittering about how terrible the
situation is in Gaza, and how bad the COVID pandemic was, and then in some
incomprehensible leap of (so-called) logic announced that the problem
was that in both cases humanity had built its houses on sand rather than the
firm foundation of her god. To
my way of thinking, she’s wrong and there's four possible explanations here.
Either her god is oblivious to the situation in Gaza and the COVID pandemic,
or it don't care about them, or it is powerless to actually do anything about
them, or it is happy with the state of the world. None of which seemed to
occur to the fatuous windbag who was wittering on. But
this is the righteous mindset in action, isn't it? Everything shitty in life
is down to human nature, everything nice is a gift from god. A rather
blinkered way of thinking to which the insecure cling. A desperate hope to
curry favour with a disinterested deity so's they can go to heaven when they
croak? Perhaps. I'll
take my chances... Though *if* there is a god I might have just pissed
on my chips. What
with capturing twenty Flat Friends I was about twenty minutes later going up
the motorway today. It's amazing the difference those twenty minutes make. If
I drive up Hermitage lane before eight o'clock I drive straight to work. If I
don't get there till after eight o'clock, I have twenty minutes of stopping
and starting. I
shall get there earlier tomorrow. Work
was work. It was much the same as ever. I did what I couldn’t avoid, and then
took a serious diversion home as the east-bound slip road onto the motorway
was bunged up. So I went three miles west the wrong way up the motorway and
turned at the next junction. It turned out that the problem was one broken
down lorry. You’d think that realising the thing was about to conk out, the
driver would have pulled onto the hard shoulder, wouldn’t you? It is amazing
how one poggered vehicle can cause such a delay. “er indoors TM” boiled up a very good bit of scran which we scoffed whilst
watching more “Bake Off”. I’m thinking of having an early night now… For all
that I’d like to think I’m over last week’s bout of COVID, I’m wilting every
evening. |
|
8 November 2023
(Wednesday) - Pink Cake, Jubblies
I
had an early(ish) night last night, slept like a log and woke at four
o'clock. Much as I wasn't pleased, that was better than I often manage. I
dozed fitfully for a while before giving up, getting up and starting with the
day. Yesterday I mentioned that I'd started watching "Osmosis"
on Netflix; a series in which a mad scientist developed a computer-controlled
chip thingy which people swallowed and it went to their brain, logged on to
the Internet and found their perfect partner. Or that was the idea. In yesterday's
episode our mad scientist tested it on himself and found his perfect partner.
They set up home together, but by this morning she'd had enough of him, told
him to get knotted and did a runner. That rather put the kibosh on his
amazing scientific discovery, which was something of a shame for his
company's shareholders, if not for him. Meanwhile
one of the other test subjects flopped her jubblies out. Whether or not this
was because of the computer chip in her brain or a shallow attempt to boost
the ratings wasn't made clear. But for all that I am a fan of the things (jubblies,
not ratings) it's usually the case that getting the jubblies out is the
last resort of a bad scriptwriter. Look at the jubblies in "Game of
Thrones"; they came out and got put away in direct relationship to
the show's ratings. I
got dressed as best I could in the dark. There was a minor hiccup when I lost
a pair of socks. I got some more from the sock drawer; I expect Treacle has
now eaten the pair I lost. I
drove round to B&Q. I suspect our new bookcases haven't got enough
shelves, so I got the ingredients for an extra shelf for each of them. And
with shopping shopped I voomed round town capping Points of Interest, weapons
and evos (as one does in Munzee-World) before heading up the motorway
to work. As
I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the ongoing situation in
Gaza. The Labour Party's Shadow Minister for New Deal has resigned because
the Leader of the Labour Party won't call for a cease-fire in
Gaza. It was claimed that Sir Kier sees himself as a Prime Minister in
waiting and so consequently feels obliged to copy absolutely everything that
the American President does. And if President Biden won't call for a
cease-fire, than neither will Sir Kier. The point was made that it is
incredibly doubtful if anyone in Gaza has ever heard of Sir Kier, let alone
takes any notice of him, but why should that get in the way of political
posturing or matters of principle (depending on your personal
perspective). And
thousands of people are getting ready to march round London this Saturday) in
solidarity with the Palestinians. Despite it being Remembrance Day, the
police say they
are legally powerless to stop the protests. Perhaps they are,
perhaps it is just the latest of their feeble excuses. But again I doubt if
anyone in Gaza will take any notice of a load of shouting in London... The
motorway was surprisingly busy this morning. Again the breakdown of one lorry
caused gridlock. I found myself stuck behind a Romanian lorry
displaying a very large notice saying "We Don't Go To the UK"
which it then repeated in French. All very good political posturing for
driving round Europe, but something of an own goal when driving in Kent. Work
was work. There was cake. There was also an inordinate amount of time spent
in Trap One; something had upset my innards and I spent much of the day
wishing that my rectum could be rectified. Perhaps I'm intolerant of pink
fairy cakes? I came home through some rather nasty rain. “er
indoors TM” had already gone off out on her
evening’s mission so I had a little scoff then cracked on with the bookcases.
I sawed the two shelves to size; sadly only one of them got sawed to the
correct size. I shall take the wreckage of the mis-sawn shelf to the tip
tomorrow. I then moved the new bookcases and the old existing one about a few
times until there was some space in the back room. Surprisingly that took
nearly two hours. I shall put stuff on the shelves tomorrow. And see if I
actually need that second extra shelf… |
|
9 November 2023 (Thursday)
- Rostered Day Off
I
slept through till quarter to eight this morning when I prodded “er
indoors TM” awake. She was supposed to be up early
to be going in to the office today. Woops. I
made toast and had a little look at the Internet and saw that my Baptist
Minster friend was spouting utter drivel on his “Prayers at Ten”
podcast. He sounded rather croaky this morning. Apparently his doctor has
told him to keep quiet or he risks damaging his voice more. However you can’t
keep quiet and praise the lord at the same time, and he was earnestly
thanking his god for making him ill (for no reason that made any sense to
me). I’ve
mentioned before that I feel very guilty about this chap. His father died
when he was a toddler; we met when we were five years old and he was so
obviously latching on to any man he saw as a father figure. He idolised one
of our primary school teachers, but the damage was done at Boys Brigade where
he seemingly adopted the (very religious) leader as a surrogate
father. I can hear our old Boys Brigade leader’s platitudes in what my old
mate drivels on his podcasts. Mind
you his church seems to be quite successful; if it turns out that I am
completely wrong and there is a god, I shall claim some of the credit for my
old mate’s results. With
the weather forecast giving the weather getting worse as the day went on, and
seeing a bright morning I took the dogs up to Kings Wood. As I drove the
pundits on the radio were interviewing Nadine Dorres. Once Secretary of State
for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, she resigned with a rather nasty
letter telling the Prime Minster what she thought of him. Then (so it was
claimed) she made things difficult for the government because she didn’t
get a peerage, and has now written
a book claiming that some secret cabal is actually running the
country and that this group are responsible for the downfall of the last five
Prime Ministers. You’d
think that if there really was some secret illuminati behind the scenes
they’d stop her book being published, wouldn’t you? We
got to the woods; we had a good walk. At one point I found myself with four
dogs; we acquired one. His mummy soon appeared and said that this little dog
(a whippet about the size of Morgan) had recently captured a squirrel.
I was impressed. Our
walk went very well… right up to the point where we were about a mile from
the car when the heavens opened. I was wet through to my pants by the time we
got back to the car. Once
home the dogs had hot showers to warm them up, and they were soon snoring
whilst I carried on putting stuff back on to the bookcases, and putting it
all in some semblance of order. Somehow I’ve lost some DVDs; Auf
Wiedersehn Pet seasons three and four, Blake’s Seven seasons
one and two have gone as has the second season of The Young Ones and
two seasons of Game On., and some films seem to be missing too.
I’ve found a load of Star Trek hardback books that I really don’t want. I
wonder if anyone wants them? And “Daddy’s Little Angel TM”
says she don’t want her old Boyzone CDs if anyone wants them... I
loaded up all the packaging from the bookcases and some bags of rubbish and
took them up to the tip. The tip was surprisingly quiet at half past mid-day.
I wonder if that is always a quiet time? No
day off work is complete without ironing, and I ironed for two episodes of “Osmosis”
in which it turns out that the mad scientist’s girlfriend did love him all along,
she just didn’t like his invention and wanted to be his soul mate without a
computer having to tell him. And there was consternation when one of the
project’s beta-testers found out that his soul mate and perfect match was a
bit of a slapper and was only happy when doing the dirty deed with anyone
else and everyone else. Our
mad scientist was consequently having trouble getting people to financially
back his computer-controlled device for finding true love. Strange, that.
Mind you, “Osmosis” was originally made in French. I can’t help but
feel that (like the last Netflix thing I watched – the Japanese “Alice in
Borderland”) it lost an awful lot in translation. “er indoors TM” came home. Today was her day in the office and she came home loaded up
with shopping. She boiled up pizza which we scoffed whilst watching more “Bake
Off”. I’m thinking about an early(ish) night; for a
rostered day off I’ve not stopped. I feel all-in. I’ve finally done over six
thousand steps today; the first time since going down with COVID… and when we
were out earlier I got a blister which has now burst. Yuk. |
|
10 November 2023
(Friday) - Before the Night Shift
I slept like a log and slept through till
half past seven. Seeing a decent morning outside but with rain forecast later
I got the dogs organised and we set off fort Kings Wood. As we drove the pundits on the radio were
talking about the Home Secretary who has written a letter to The Times in
which she accuses the Metropolitan Police chief Sir Mark Rowley of
anti-Israeli bias, and whilst she was at it accused him of bias involving
Northern Ireland politics, football thuggery and anti-lockdown protesters. Is
he biased? Is she just attention seeking (as
has been alleged). Either way this need a formal and impartial
investigation to find out which one of them needs sacking. We got to the woods and had a far better walk
that we did yesterday in that we didn’t get soaking wet. We did one of our
standard walks (of three and a half miles) and found the woods rather
busy. We met six other dog walkers; usually three is a lot. But all
encounters passed off with out any episodes. Treacle kept herself to herself
and the puppies said hello nicely and then walked on past. We started our walk in glorious sunshine, but
just as we came back to the car park so the sky clouded over, and there was
heavy rain before we were half way home. We certainly timed today’s walk
better than we did yesterday’s. As we were half way home so I had a complete
melt-down about missing my Fudge-dog. It’s now two and a half years since he
went. We got home and all dogs went into the bath.
Morgan and Treacle had the mud washed from their pays and bellies. Bailey had
a serious scrub; she’d been rolling in all sorts of stuff including fox poo
and dead birds. I made a cuppa for “er indoors TM” and
me, and then wrote up
some CPD before going to bed for the afternoon. I slept for four hours; finally waking when all the dogs came and
jumped on me. A spot of dinner, then I’m off to the night shift. Like all days before the night shift I spent much of today moping
about having to go to work later. Days before the night shift are so often
nothing but dull. |
|
11 November 2023
(Saturday) - Bit Tired
As
night shifts go, last night’s was one of the better ones, but I was still
glad to see the day shift arrive. As I drove home the pundits on the radio
were talking about today’s planned marches in London. Following all the
commotion in the week with the police saying they were legally unable to ban
the protest marches, marches had been planned in support of both sides of the
conflict in Gaza. I can’t help but wonder why anyone would march in London in
protest about something happening in the Middle East; who are they protesting
at? Is anyone who can do anything about it going to be listening? Somehow I
doubt it. I could be wrong but I suspect many of those going have been
attracted by all the hype. As
I got to the motorway I turned the radio from Radio Four to Radio Ashford and
listened to the fizzing and crackling. After a mile or so I could hear Steve
in the background, and as we drove past Lenham so I could hear him more
clearly. I drove straight to the Dog Club field. Had I come
home for the dogs I would have been a tad late, and seeing I had the key to
the place I felt I shouldn’t be keeping people waiting. I opened up, and
within minutes Ralph (and his human) arrived. Soon there were dogs all
over the place, and “er indoors TM” soon
arrived with a car full of dogs and “Stormageddon – Bringer of
Destruction TM” who’d stayed overnight with his
mother and sister. “Daddy’s Little Angel TM” gave Dog
Club a miss as “Darcie Waa Waa TM” was taking a
while to get going this morning. Dog
Club went rather well with a dozen dogs along. Lots of chasing and playing.
Pogo seemed to get on rather well. It’s daft… standing in a muddy field
watching a load of dogs charging about and then driving home trying to work
out the mystery year on the radio has become one of the highlights of my
week. And talking of the mystery year, I had it figured out today. I heard
the clues, I listened to the music. I was confident that it was 1983. I was
rather shocked when Steve said 1979. We
got home and rather than going to bed (as I would usually do after a night
shift) I made toast and bandied insults with “Daddy’s Little
Angel TM” for the morning. Eventually “er indoors TM” took “Daddy’s
Little Angel TM” and the littluns off shopping, and I
settled down in front of the telly underneath a pile of dogs and dozed
until “er indoors TM” returned. I had a
cuppa and checked my emails. I’ve signed up for “Beat the Peak”; some
scheme by which if we don’t use leccie at peak hours we’ll get money off our
bill. And I had a notification that “LexisNexis” carried out an
insurance risk assessment search on me. I wonder why. And the Friends of
Kings Wood were asking for volunteers to help with pond surveys. I might be
up for that. “er indoors TM” boiled up dinner then went off to Folkestone to watch some Queen
tribute band. I settled on the sofa with the dogs and watched the last
episode of “Osmosis”. The show started badly, and in all honesty went
downhill from there. I must admit I had no idea what was going on for much of
it. And then I watched a film. I’d heard good things
about “Ad Astra”.
, but I’d been lied to. It started off with the planet Earth getting attacked
by power surges from the planet Neptune. So our hero was sent to Mars (which
was where the closest space telephone was located) to ask them to stop.
On the way he was attacked by space pirates and space baboons, but on getting
to Mars he was declared psychologically round the twist. To prove his
detractors wrong he then hijacked a spaceship (accidentally killing all
the crew) and sailed all the way to Neptune where he found his Dad who
was even further round the twist than he was. As crap films go, it was on the crap side. As I watched telly so “er indoors TM” said
hello through the dog-cam. That made the dogs sit up and take notice. |
|
12 November 2023
(Sunday) - Brekkie, Dymchurch
I slept for nine hours last night; the last
few hours were spent dozing whilst fighting a battle trying to retain some of
the duvet. A battle I eventually lost. I got up, made a cuppa and had a look at the Internet to see if I’d
missed anything overnight. I hadn’t really. There was a minor argument on one
of the Radio Four Facebook pages. Someone hadn’t liked a program explaining
how evolution worked, and people who didn’t understand evolution were making
a pretty poor show of explaining it. There was a talk of an argument on one
of the Facebook pages which features old photographs of Hastings… I say “talk
of argument”; the chap who runs the group is often complaining about
people causing upset on that group. I’ve never seen any myself (which is
rare for a Facebook group); I offered to help moderate the group if that
would help, and my offer was accepted. Perhaps I might see some of the
squabbles now? I had an email that one of my geocaches in Kings Wood had gone
missing. As is always the case with missing geocaches it was one of those
furthest from the car park but replacing it will make for a good dog walk in
the week. I had an email from Sainsburys home insurance saying the household
insurance was up for renewal… at over double what I paid last year. I phoned
through to them but the people I needed to speak with didn’t work on Sundays.
Insurance companies are a pain in the glass (to coin a phrase). They
always do this – they send through a renewal at a ridiculous price, and when
you phone them to whinge they reduce the quote; often to lower than what it
was last year. We popped into town for our monthly brekkie catch-up with friends. You
can’t beat a bit of brekkie. And with brekkie scoffed we came home and I
spent a few minutes with moneysupermarket dot com looking at household
building and contents insurance. Within ten minutes I had thirty-seven quotes
that were cheaper than what Sainsbury’s were offering. Cheaper by hundreds of
pounds. With nothing else on the agenda and rain forecast for later we thought
we’d take the dogs out. We drove down to Dymchurch and did the geocaching
adventure lab caches down there. They took us on a simple but good little
guided walk, and despite the colour of the sky, the rain held off. We came home, and I spent the rest of the afternoon on the sofa
underneath a pile of dogs watching more episodes of “Four In A Bed” in
which (again) those with the crappiest Bed & Breakfasts felt they
had so much to teach to people who were doing a far better job than them. “er indoors TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching
last week’s episode of “Bake Off”; we’ve now caught up. Mind
you, this year I’ve not heard any spoilers about the show. In previous years
there’s been loads. Is it losing its popularity? I feel knackered – I really should have gone to bed yesterday… |
|
13 November 2023
(Monday) - Feeling Rather Tired
I
woke feeling full of energy and raring to go only to find it was twenty past
two. I then dozed on and off not getting more than ten minutes continuous
sleep for the rest of the night. I gave up, got up, made toast and watched
something Matt had recommended to me. "Silo" isn't
a new concept. A gaggle of people find themselves in an underground bunker;
terrified of what might be outside. Eventually someone wants to go have a
look. The first episode seemed watchable. Taking care not to wake anyone I set off through a
damp morning to find my car. Eventually I found it two streets away. I had a
quick Munzee session round the town centre, then set off up the motorway to
work. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the violence
in central London at the cenotaph on Saturday. It was claimed that
the (ex) Home Secretary egged on the far right wing groups
responsible. Did she? Possibly. She's got the sack for it anyway, and it the
ensuing cabinet reshuffle ex
Prime Minister David Cameron has returned to the front bench as
Foreign Secretary. He was one of the better Prime Ministers of recent years;
mind you it has to be said he hasn't had much competition. To be honest I
thought he'd jacked politics in after the Brexit debacle. It turns out I was
right. He had. He's not a Member of Parliament at all; he's been given a life
peerage so's he can return to government. To my mind this opens a can of worms. Aren't there
any Members of Parliament who can do the job? Not one out of over three
hundred Conservative MPs? This is setting something of a precedent isn't it -
appointing someone to do a job because all the elected candidates aren't up
to it? Apparently this happened all the time two centuries
ago… Needing petrol I popped to the Aylesford filling
station where there was mayhem. Some huge lorry was at the front pump taking
an age to fill up. The woman who had been in the car behind was marching
round formally ordering people to back up so she could get her car out. When
she bellowed to me to move I pointed out I couldn't reverse because there was
a car tight behind my car, and asked if she couldn't wait a couple of
minutes. She indignantly replied that she could not wait (clearly far too
important a person to do that), and assured me she would move the car
behind me. Some people. eh? Matters weren't helped by having half the petrol
pumps cordoned off. It turned out that one of the tills was broken, and with
only one till the cashier couldn't keep up with demand. Yesterday (apparently)
traffic was queuing a hundred yards down the road as the poor till operative
wasn't up to the job and the police had closed the place down. Work was work; as the day went on I rather wilted.
No sleep last night whilst still recovering form Friday’s night shift… I came home. “er indoors TM” boiled
up fish and chips which we scoffed whilst watching “Richard Osman’s House
of Games”. I do like that show, but it is spoiled by the contestants
clapping themselves whenever they win a round. People clapping themselves is
a pet hate of mine. I’m sure it is rarely (if ever) from conceit;
people just join in the clapping. I wish they wouldn’t. It is such a silly
trivial thing that boils my piss so much. “er indoors TM” has gone bowling. I shall watch more “silo”. |
|
14 November 2023
(Tuesday) - A Day Off
I
slept like a log last night; eight hours asleep. Originally I had an ENT
appointment booked for today, but what with having had COVID the hospital
wanted to postpone the appointment. I decided to keep the day as a day off
though. And having no need to be up early I slept like a log. Over brekkie I had my usual rummage round the
Internet. It was still there. The frankly wrong messages about Facebook
stealing all your personal data and about how speed cameras going live on the
M25 were still doing their rounds even though they’ve long been proved to be
frankly wrong. There were also reports about the possibility of
Paul McCann appearing in a new
spin-off Doctor Who series. Everyone with a stake in the franchise
seems keen on the idea… and there’s the problem. It’s now a franchise, isn’t
it? And a franchise owned by Disney. Not that I’m in any way knocking the
Disney corporation, but back in the day I got to see Doctor Who because it
was on the BBC. Paying for the BBC is compulsory (by law you have to have
a TV license). On top of that I also pay out on Sky, Netflix, Apple TV
and Paramount Plus. A subscription to Disney is perhaps one too many. With rain forecast for later I got the dogs onto
their leads and we went up to Kings Wood. As we drove the pundits on the
radio were talking about the ongoing situation in Gaza. It sounds horrific.
If what was happening there was happening anywhere else in the thirty-one
other conflicts which are currently going on in the world, the
international community would be up in arms. But it strikes me that no one
dares say anything for fear of being branded antisemitic. We got to the woods and had a good (if muddy)
walk. We’d had reports that a geocache we’d hidden there last February had
gone walkabout, and the whole idea of having all of my geocaches in Kings
Wood was so that I could combine maintenance with a dog walk. The missing one
was one of those furthest from the car park, but bearing in mind we were
having a dog walk, this wasn’t that much of an issue. Mind you it was a shame
that this wasn’t one of the ones on the hard tracks but was along a grassy (mud!)
path. We got to where the cache was supposed to be, and
found it wasn’t. I popped a new one out. It was a shame that the people
logging “did not find” chose not to do put one out. As I’ve said
before they could have popped out a new pot in a fraction of the time it took
them to complain that they didn’t find it. As we walked we met several other dogs, and played
nicely with all of them. One of them was on an epically long lead, and he
wrapped his lead tightly round his human. Six times. It was only a shame that
Treacle had to wade in every single puddle and swamp we found. Every single
one. We came home and had a bath. Just a little
hosing-down of tummies and paws. For once no one rolled in anything (for
which I was grateful). The plan was to then spend a little while tidying
up in the garden, but by then the rain had started. Very heavy rain. It has
to be said I’m getting fed up with the rain. It’s been hossing down on and
off for weeks now. So I spent an hour or so looking at renewing the
house’s buildings and contents insurance. At the weekend everyone claimed
they could do it cheaper than the quote I’d had from the existing insurer.
When I looked into it today no one could, with all the quotes coming in
hundreds of pounds more expensive than what we are currently paying. We’re
staying with who we are with (for another year). Yesterday I mentioned that I wasn’t feeling on top
form. I was still rather iffy today. I spent the afternoon watching more
episode of “Silo”. A show which started well has sadly become just
another “police show with a difference”; the difference being it is
just the same as all the others. “er indoors TM” is currently Zoom-ing with her mates. I’m going to watch more
telly. If today hadn’t been a day’s leave I would probably have come home on
sick leave. |
|
15 November 2023 (Wednesday)
- Floods, Car Service
The Old Bill flew down our street at twenty past two
last night with sirens blazing. I didn’t think they were supposed to have
those on in the small hours? I then lay awake for much of the rest of the
night. I made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was
still there, but for once not a lot was going on. I sent out four birthday
messages, and each time Facebook warned me that the birthday video I send out
hadn’t been fact-checked. There are those who worry that AI will take over
the world… it may well do but not out of any sort of malevolence, but through
random actions from frankly idiotic programming. We
had to take a minor diversion as we came home. The underpass under the
railway at Asda was flooded. I can remember it flooding when I used to cycle
under there to where I used to work in the early nineties, and thirty years
later nothing has been done. I’ve sent my local councillor an email about it.
I wonder if she will do anything. |
|
16 November 2023
(Thursday) - Bit Tired
I
rather struggled with the night shift; I wasn’t feeling at all on top form
and so was very pleased to see the day shift arrive. As
I drove home I listened to the radio as I do. The new Home Secretary was
being interviewed… I say “interviewed”; the poor chap was faced with
endless statements about how crap the situation he has taken over, and
immediately after making a statement the (so-called) interviewer then
presented another one. After five minutes the Home Secretary asked why he’d
been brought on to the radio. As he pointed out, the whole idea of an
interview is that you ask someone a question, listen to what they say, and
then ask further more probing questions based on what they said. And also, as
he pointed out, a seemingly endless list of the failings of his predecessor
could have been read out whilst he stayed at home. I
was rather glad the chap said this; those presenting the news so often give
up golden opportunities when they would rather just listen to the sounds of
their own voices. I
got home, and seeing it wasn’t raining I took the dogs out. Usually I go
straight to bed but with more rain forecast for much of the rest of the day I
thought we might get in a walk whilst we could. We just walked into Ashford
and back again and apart from getting rather over-excited about a squirrel in
the Memorial Gardens the walk passed off rather well. Far better than most
local walks go. To be fair to the dogs, they really need more practice on the
leads. Perhaps they’ve been spoiled by going to the woods so often? We
got home as the rain started. It soon became rather heavy. I’m getting a tad
fed up with the seemingly constant rain we’ve had for the last few weeks.
With walk walked I had a shower and went to bed. I woke after three hours,
and as I got up so Morgan and Bailey got up too; they’d come to bed with me. I
saw loads of messages on my phone; apparently a few minutes after I’d left
work there had been some incident on the road to work and luckily I’d missed
some rather serious hold-ups. I
was pleased about that. I
then had a look through something I signed up to yesterday. Bearing in mind
that I’m hoping to take semi-retirement soon I thought I might use the dogs
as guinea pigs. Yesterday I signed up to a course with the Dog Training
College as Facebook said it was free, and I had this idea that I could use
the dogs as test subjects in this free on-line course. However I’d completely
forgotten about the fifty-ninth Rule of
Acquisition: “Free advice is seldom cheap”. The course wasn’t free
at all. The information pack and introductory video was free. The course
itself would set me back two thousand quid. Sod
that. As
usual after a night shift I spent much of the afternoon doing the ironing
whilst watching episodes of “Four In A Bed” in which some chap who
considered himself to be a “big businessman” was running far and away
the shabbiest establishment; seemingly unable to even clean his rooms, and
putting instant coffee into a cafetiere. But isn’t this typical of those who
advocate “business” and “management”; all full of
important-sounding words but rather short on actually delivering that which
they should deliver. Meanwhile
“Daddy’s Little Angel TM” has seen a UFO whilst taking
Pogo for a walk, and “Stormageddon – Bringer of Destruction TM” is
creating new life forms. I wonder if God realises he’s got competition? |
|
17 November 2023
(Friday) - Before the Late Shift
I
slept well last night, but still woke at quarter past seven feeling vaguely
miserable and “bleah”. It didn’t help that Treacle had barked at
someone crashing next door’s metal gate. Several years ago (and several
sets of neighbours ago) someone put metal railings round next door, and
every time anyone goes through the gate it crashes loud enough to wake the
dead. Or the dogs. I’m sure that passers-by bang the thing for fun. To
compound the issue there were some children standing outside shrieking too. I
got up, made toast, and had a look at the Internet. A new Lego set had been
announced – a model of the
Orient Express. A bargain at only two hundred and sixty quid. And an old
friend (from over fifty years ago) was jetting off on another foreign holiday.
He seems to have a lot of those, not that I’m being judgemental. There are
several people on my Facebook list who seem to have an inordinate amount of
foreign holidays, but I suppose that by the time I’ve spent out on three vet
plans and dog food each month there’s a hundred quid (each month) I
could put toward a holiday or squander on Lego. And
there were several of those annoying motivational memes being posted on-line.
They sometimes boil my piss. It is very easy to say that when life gives you
lemons, make lemonade when life has never given you a lemon. I
looked to see to whom I should send my birthday video today. When Facebook
tells me someone’s having a birthday I send them a little “happy birthday”
video. There were two people on my Facebook Friends list having birthdays
today. Mind you I say “people”; one was a pub and the other was
the blood
transfusion simulator that gives me problems from time to time. I
didn’t send either the video… With
a little time on my hands I took the dogs to the woods. As we drove the
pundits on the radio were talking about the sacked Home Secretary Suella
Braverman who has announced that the Prime Minister’s plan to deport asylum
seekers to Rwanda is dead in the water. Perhaps it is, but she was
singing the praises of the plan a week ago. It
never fails to entertain me that every Cabinet member when sacked suddenly no
longer feels constrained to pretend that someone else’s stupid idea (with
which they had hitherto agreed unconditionally) is actually a stroke of
genius and immediately slag it off. I’m reminded of myself when I was
forcibly removed from a position of (admittedly minor) authority some
twelve years ago and did exactly the same thing. We
got to the woods and had our walk. It was rather wet, muddy and slippery
underfoot. Usually once we are away from the car park we walk for ages
without seeing anyone. Today we met three “special” people. The
first had her dog on fifty yards of rope (rather than a lead). This
dog saw the puppies, tried to play “chase” and made a rather
impressive cats’ cradle of rope around the trees. The
next had a barking dog on a lead and was seemingly guarding one of the major
crossroads in the woods. As we approached the crossroads she shouted asking
us to keep away from her dog (which was on a lead and snarling at nothing
that I could see). I whistled and my dogs came back. We backtracked a few
dozen yards, but it became apparent that this woman wasn’t going anywhere. We
stood and looked at each other from fifty yards away. Eventually I called to
ask if she was just guarding the crossroads. She grumbled and wandered off. And
as we came back to the car park we met some chap with a dog the size of a
cart horse on the lead over which he clearly had no control. We
walked a rather shorter walk than usual today, but I was surprised to see (from
my smartwatch) that we walked half a mile further than we’d walked when
going to the garage a couple of days ago. With
walk walked we came home for a bath. Treacle particularly needed a scrub; the
other two just got generally grubby, but Treacle walks into muddy puddles
then stops and looks at me as though showing off how clever she is. And with
dogs scrubbed I set off to work via some points of interest (it's a Munzee
thing). As I drove up the motorway I tried the cruise control. I
mentioned to the nice people in the garage that there wasn't an indicator
light to say the cruise control was active. there still isn't. Either they
didn't replace the bulb or there isn't one. I wonder which it is. I
went to Sainsburys to get a sandwich for lunch. The car park was gridlocked
when I arrived; half empty when I came out. And
apart from the cake that was waiting for my afternoon tea break the day was
effectively all done by the time the late shift started... |
|
18 November 2023
(Saturday) - Telly
Last night over a late bit of scoff I found
myself watching the start of a film. “The Dirty Dozen” was something I
once watched with a load of mates at the cinema in Hastings. It’s a good
film, but I’d forgotten it played for three hours. I didn’t go to bed until
one o clock. I got up, made toast and had a look at the
Internet to see if I’d missed anything overnight. I hadn’t really. Petty
squabbles over trivia abounded, as they so often do. Today there were
arguments amongst the anti-firework fraternity of Hastings; they’ve now got
two rival Facebook groups (can you believe it?). And the often very
opinionated and nasty people on the Facebook Garden Ponds group who only last
week were advocating keeping pond surfaces as still as possible were today
insisting that splashing fountains were a good thing. The usual plan for a Saturday morning is dog
club, but it wasn’t the warmest of mornings and the fine rain would have had
Bailey soaked through within minutes. I drove over to the Repton estate to
open up. Ralph and his human were there waiting. I exchanged a few
pleasantries and left them to it. I was rather wet after a minute standing in
the rain. Once home I sat on the sofa with the dogs;
Bailey was shivering without being cold and wet. We listened to Steve on the
radio through the Alexa. In the past the Alexa hasn’t been able to tune in to
Radio Ashford; this morning it managed with no problem. I got the mystery
year pretty much right away. When was Blackadder 2 released? 1986. With the rain showing no sign of letting up
we took the dogs with us on today’s mini-adventure. To be honest we rather
needed Bailey along as we wanted to get her a waterproof coat. We spent a
little while in the pet section at Bybrook Barn trying on coat after coat.
Those marked “small” were too big, and those marked “medium”
were too small. Some were too long and not wide enough round the chest.
Others would have gone round my chest but left half of her back uncovered.
Eventually we got one that fitted. From there we went down to Hythe where a
friend was running a craft stall at a craft fair, but it had the same issue
that every event we ran at the scout hut had. Being at the end of a
cul-de-sac and being totally unadvertised the only people who were along were
friends and friends-of-friends. As we drove here and there the tyre pressure
sensor on my car’s rear left tyre sounded the alarm, but the air pressure
seemed fine when I got the pump out. I wonder what that was all about? We came home, and with the rain still hossing
down we spent the afternoon catching up on films we’d recorded onto the
SkyPlus box. First of all we watched “Police Academy 4”, and then the
most recent “Downton Abbey” film. Both were rather good. We then watched three episodes of “Below Deck”; a
reality TV series about life on a cruise yacht that gets chartered out. At a
hundred thousand quid for hiring the yacht for three days you really have to
wonder exactly who can afford that sort of thing. “er indoors TM” popped up the road to the kebab shop to get dinner, and we
scoffed kebabs whilst watching a James Bond film. We’d recorded “Spectre”
a while ago, and having recorded it we managed to shave forty minutes off the
viewing time by fast-forwarding through the adverts. Today wasn’t rally a bad day; we got out for a bit, we watched some
good stuff on telly, and with the short winter day and the rain we couldn’t
have done much else… but I do feel rather hacked off that we’ve wasted a day.
Even though we haven’t. I wonder why. |
|
19 November 2023
(Sunday) - Geocaching International Film Festival
This
morning as I looked at Facebook I saw some friends had been to a bonfire
parade just outside of Lewes last night. Friends I met through kite flying,
and ones I’ve not met in person for far too long. This is why I love Facebook
– I can keep in touch despite being a four hour round trip away. Mind you the
flip side of Facebook is all the squabbling. Browsing through one petty
argument I learned the term “TERF” this
morning – it means “trans-exclusionary radical feminist” and someone
was accused of being one on a Facebook page ostensibly about Star Trek (of
all things). We
got the dogs onto their leads and went out. Up to Boughton Monchelsea for the
Geocaching International Film Festival. We’ve not done one of these before.
The idea is that hunters of Tupperware across the world make small films
about their geocaching adventures and these get shown across the world and
the worldwide geocaching community vote to decide the best one. A couple of
dozen hunters of Tupperware sat down at the Boughton Monchelsea scout hut and
after we’d all said hello the films started. Sadly we left half way through
as the dogs were getting fractious. Perhaps we might have left the dogs at
home, but having been told that Treacle isn’t averse to barking when left
alone, I’m loathe to leave them for any period of time. It
didn’t help that there was some strange child there who sat facing away from
the films and staring at the dogs whilst scoffing bowls of popcorn… On
leaving the geo-film show, our plan was to drive down to Tenterden to walk a
geocaching Adventure Lab, but a quick glance at the map showed we were
driving straight past one in Headcorn. So we stopped off there and walked up
the High Street doing a rather enjoyable little treasure hunt. We were taken
to five places where we had to get the answer to a question. All answers were
quickly found except at the fourth location where there was mention of a
footpath sign. There were two; we had the wrong one and didn’t see the right
one for a minute or so. At
each point we had to count the vowels in each answer, and with all five
locations visited we then did a few sums and soon ended up with the
co-ordinates of the final bonus geocache which was only a short walk away. This
made for a rather good little walk for the day. We
came home and I did my usual trick of watching episodes of “Four In A Bed”
in which three rather overpriced places tried (and failed) to compete
with somewhere charging a quarter of what they were asking. I
then had a stroke of genius (I have those, you know). I might put
together an entry for next year’s Geocaching International Film Festival. I’ve
already started on the script… |
|
20 November 2023
(Monday) - A Birthday
I woke at five past three shivering and spent the
rest of the night listening to snoring and shivering. An alliance of “er
indoors TM” and the dogs had secured the duvet and
weren't letting it go without a fight. I
gave up at quarter to six, got up and made toast which I scoffed whilst
watching the first episode of the second season of "Green
Eggs and Ham" which was watchable. To be honest it had the
advantage of having episodes which only played for half an hour. So much of
the stuff I find myself watching has episodes of an hour, and I watch half an
episode at a time and struggle to remember where I'd got to. With
telly watched I had a little look at Facebook, but it was probably still a
tad early for any serious squabbling to be kicking off. I got dressed and set
off to work feeling rather miserable for no reason that I could fathom. I've
been on the morose side for a little while now. Sleep depravation, maybe? I
have done a few night shifts recently. As
I drove through the rain my journey to Pembury was hampered by unattended
road works. Sections of A262 and A21 were bunged up by temporary traffic
lights which seemed to have no reason for being there. Am I being hopelessly
naïve in thinking that if some company or other cordons off a section of road
and puts up traffic lights then that company should not leave it unattended
until the job is finished? Perhaps I should write to the county council? Mind
you I wrote to my local councillor about the flooded footpath last week and
still haven't had a reply. As
I drove I listened to the radio. There are problems with evacuating the
hospital in Gaza, the mayor of Manchester was being interviewed about the
plight of the homeless... and still the pundits on the radio wasted over ten
minutes of prime air-time on (quite frankly) utter drivel about the
history of the hymn "Amazing Grace". I
got to work; I didn't get *that* wet walking from the car into the
hospital. As I did my bit I got chatting with one of the engineers who'd come
to do some maintenance on one of our analysers. He mentioned that he was
buying a house for six hundred thousand pounds. Once he'd gone we had a
little look on the internet and worked out that if he was earning the average
amount for someone in his line of work then the monthly repayments on that
mortgage would be more than he earned each month. How
can anyone afford to buy a house these days? With
work done I came home through all the road works. I stopped off at “My
Boy TM”’s house; favourite oldest granddaughter has her
seventeenth birthday today. Perhaps I’m biased, but as oldest granddaughters
go, she’s a good one. And with “er indoors TM” off
bowling I settled myself on the sofa underneath a pile of dogs and watched a
film on Netflix. “The
Wrong Missy” was rather good. It was only a shame that I spent much
of the film trying to work out what else I’d seen the wrong Missy in. She was one of the wardens in “Orange is the New
Black”. |
|
21 November 2023
(Tuesday) - Before the Night Shift
There
was the most amazingly ridiculous squabble this morning on Facebook in which
someone or other was claiming that the TV series “To The Manor Born”
was far superior to any TV shows made today because of the viewing figures it
attracted which were many times more than any TV show gets these days. The
fact that today there are over a thousand TV channels to choose from whereas
back then there were only two (no one watched the high-brow drivel on BBC
Two) never occurred to them. And
there was some very bitter squabbles about last week’s Doctor Who special on
“Children in Need” in which Davros is no longer in a wheelchair as
that is offensive to those in wheelchairs. They
let these people vote, you know. I
got the dogs onto their leads and we set off on a little mission. As we drove
there was an interview on the radio with heaven only knows who. Having missed
the start of the program I was completely in the dark about who was talking,
and consequently very soon list interest. I listen to Radio Four so as to
keep up to date with current affairs and to find out about all sorts of
things about which I would be completely ignorant, but sometimes they do
broadcast crap. When
I could have been broadening my horizons I found myself singing along to Ivor
Biggun. We
got to Kings Wood and walked the same walk we did the last time we were
there. This will probably be one of our standard walks from here on in; three
miles which takes us an hour. The only problem is that it isn’t long enough
for Morgan; at the end he was rather reluctant to come back to the lead. As
we walked we only met one group of dogs, and the meeting passed off without
event. We saw two other groups, and when the puppies ran off toward them they
both came back immediately when called. I saw that as a result. I
also got quite a bit of video footage of the dogs running about as a start of
getting material together for my entry for next year’s Geocaching
International Film Festival. It was a shame that when I got home I realised I
needed to hold my phone in “landscape” orientation to get useable
footage. All that I’d done was in “portrait”. Ho hum… Still, I learned
something from this, and as I always tell the trainees at work, a day when
you learn nothing is a day wasted (I’ve wasted a lot of days over the
years!) We came home via the vets (for flea treatments),
and then had baths. I made a cuppa for me and “er indoors TM”,
and got some (correct orientation) footage of the dogs sleeping, and
worked on the screenplay a little more. I think I have the plot of our film
for next year’s Geocaching International Film Festival figured out. I
know (vaguely) the scenes I need to film in the woods and the
piccies I need to create for the film. I just need music. If any of my loyal
readers could clang a piano to come up with any of Brahms’ Lullaby, Yakkety
Sax, The Dick Barton theme and general background music it would be
gratefully received. The people at geo-HQ are rather hot on copyright and I
need stuff which I have permission to use. I then wrote up
some CPD because that’s what I do before a night shift, had a
shower, and went to bed and despite the hot water bottle and two small dogs,
I shivered. The bed is far warmer at night than it is in the afternoon. And so I shall hope for some dinner, then I’m off to
the night shift. The last few have been rather hard work… |
|
22 November 2023
(Wednesday) - Bit Tired
I
am very much a creature of habit… every time I am on a night shift I get some
posh biscuits from Sainsburys to have with a cuppa around midnight and around
five o’clock in the morning. I either get chewy granola slices or shortbread
with Belgian chocolate. I’ve finally realised that I don’t actually like
either, and the shortbread I had last night gave me something of a guts ache
which lasted for far too long. I
was rather pleased to see the morning shift arrive. As
I drove home I listened to the radio. There’s been a cease-fire
in Gaza, but for how long? There was some Israeli chap being interviewed
who made it crystal clear that his side were only having a temporary break in
the fighting and wouldn’t rest until the other side were obliterated. This
war is going to drag on and on. There
was also an interview with Ronnie O’Sullivan (the snooker player) who
is at odds with snooker’s governing body because he would rather play in
lucrative games in China rather than in their official matches which (presumably)
don’t pay anywhere near as well. I got home, had a shave and went to bed. Yesterday
I’d mentioned that I was cold in bed. “er indoors TM” had
stuck an extra duvet on the bed, and I was rather warm this morning. Very
warm. After a couple of hours I got up and had a late
brekkie, and had a little ponder. Usually after a night shift I just do the
ironing and watch rubbish on telly, and sulk about a wasted day. So I didn’t
do that today. I got the leads onto the dogs and we went up to the
woods for a little walk. Perhaps a short walk, but a walk in the woods is
always good. As we walked I did some more filming for my latest project, this
time with my camera in “Landscape” orientation. I got some short
videos that I might be able to use. As we walked we had a minor episode. The pups ran up
to some normal people and wouldn’t come back. The normal people were making a
real fuss of the pups, and I think were giving them treats. I wish people
wouldn’t do that, but what can you say without giving offence? We came home; Treacle and Bailey had their paws
rinsed; Morgan had a full belly wash. Being low to the ground he picks up the
dirt. Seeing
how it hadn’t rained for over a day I got the lawn mower out. Perhaps the
lawn was too wet to be mowed, but it wasn’t going to get any drier, and a
mowed lawn makes for easier turd-spotting. And with lawn mowed I ran out the
pond filter hose and cleaned out the filter. It was rather overdue its clean.
There’s no denying the pressure filter is much easier to clean than the old
box filters were, but I do need to do something about the reel onto which I
wind the hose. I need some way of lifting it off of the ground for easy
winding. And then I looked at the bog filter. The plants are clearly past
their best, but what do I do? Prune the pond plants or leave them? In theory
the obvious place to ask for advice would be one of the pond-related Facebook
pages. In practice those pages are sarcasm central. I asked advice on the
East Midlands Koi page… The East Midlands Koi Facebook page is that rare
exception to the rule in that it has active moderators who immediately chuck
out the keyboard warriors and attention-seekers. I
got advice. After an hour or so in the garden I came in and was
making a cuppa for me and “er indoors TM” when
I heard a commotion outside. There was some chap outside new-next-door
rolling round the pavement pissed as a fart. He was bellowing for help
because he was trying to take his trousers off and couldn’t get them over his
shoe. Nice-next-door phoned me; she was a tad concerned. I went out to see
what was going on. The pissed fellow tried to explain his life story to me; I
understood maybe one word in fifty. Luckily his mate appeared and took him
away; ostensibly to put him into a taxi. If I was driving a taxi, I wouldn’t
have taken him. I then spent a little while creating graphics for my
Geocaching International Film Festival entry until “er indoors TM” boiled
up a very good bit of scoff which we devoured whilst watching yesterday’s “Bake
Off” semi-final. I was rather surprised at who got chucked out… |
|
23 November 2023 (Thursday) - Rostered Day Off
I had a rather good night’s sleep last
night, which was something of a result. With “er indoors TM” off
to the office today I sorted the dogs’ brekkies, then as they all slept I
sorted my own and had a little look at the Internet to see what had changed
overnight. Not much, really. A few people were posting
to social media pointing out that today was the sixtieth anniversary of the
first ever episode of “Doctor Who”, a few people were having
birthdays, but this morning was a quiet one on the Internet. I got dressed and took the dogs to the
woods. As we drove out of Ashford it was a rather bright morning, but Kings
Wood is high up, and we actually drove up into the fog. We had a rather misty
walk, the fog not clearing until we were nearly half way round. We walked a
longer walk today. Having been coming home covered in mud recently I had this
naïve idea to stick to the better paths. But that made for a much longer walk
(as it is all the short cuts that are muddy) and Morgan got caked in
fox poo anyway. We
came home, scrubbed off the fox poo, and as Morgan’s frankly foul collar went
through the washing machine I created the opening segment of my entry for
next year’s Geocaching International Film Festival. I’ve got this idea that I
need to make a rough and ready first draft of the entire thing, then work on
improving each bit. If nothing else it will keep me out of mischief. With
the dogs asleep I spent the afternoon ironing and watching “Squid Game:
The Challenge” which was a live-action version of “Squid Game”
but in which no one croaked. And
then to the dentist for a root canal filling… |
|
24 November 2023
(Friday) - This n That
I
woke far too early following a rather vivid nightmare in which I and a load
of my old muckers from the Boys Brigade (from the late 1970s) had been
seconded into the Merchant Navy in order to make up the numbers for the posh
dinners they were planning. We could do whatever we liked during the day
time, but all of us had to be in Portsmouth Harbour every evening for a
sit-down meal. Sitting down on the quayside whatever the weather. What
was that all about? I
hobbled downstairs. Overnight I'd developed a seriously painful right hip; it
felt as though I'd been kicked. How did that happen? Over
toast I watched an animated episode
of "Dad's Army"; someone or other has taken the old
radio broadcasts of the TV episodes that were lost and has animated them in
much the same way that the missing episodes of "Doctor Who"
have been animated. Having seen the missing "Dad's Army"
episodes recreated with new actors, the animations are far better for the
simple reason that you can see which characters are which. In the re-created
episodes I couldn't tell who any of the new actors were supposed to be
playing. I
tried not to make too much noise as I got ready for work, but I suspect I
could have been heard miles away. Now that the back room is sorted maybe I
might squirt my armpits in there in the mornings. If I did that I could
switch the light on rather than crash about in the darkness trying to find
which tin has got some deodorant left in it, and which is one of the
half-dozen empty ones I've not got round to throwing away. I
set off for work and was immediately confused by the bin lorry coming down
the road. For over thirty years the bin lorry has come up the road; why has
it changed its direction? As
I drove there was a lot to worry about in the news. With migration into the
UK hitting an
all-time high, right wing groups are calling for a stop to all
immigration. The racist politician (from the "Reclaim" party)
being interviewed this morning made the tired old comments that as a nation
we shouldn't be reliant on immigrant workers, and that UK citizens should be
doing care home and hospital work. The fact that this has all been said
before (time and again) and UK citizens clearly aren't interested
didn't deter him in the least. Mind you this chap was adamant that
immigration should stop; better to have no one doing the work than to have
immigrant workers was the implication. I
wonder who this bloke was; I wouldn't vote for him. Meanwhile
elections in the Netherlands have come up with a new leader for their
country. One of his election pledges was a ban on the building of any new
mosques. I wonder how he will get on with that. With
a few minutes spare I went to the petrol station to re-fuel; I was getting a
tad low on the stuff. Petrol in Aylesford was eight pence per litre cheaper
than in Ashford. Or would have been had the petrol station been open. Sadly
it wasn't. I
went into Sainsburys to get lunch, and to ask if anyone knew of a petrol
station that might be open. No one did, but luckily for my back (which was
saved from pushing my car), whilst I'd bought a sandwich Sainsburys had
re-opened their petrol station. I
got to work and did my bit. I spent quite a bit of time today emailing more
stuff to various people about my (hopefully) upcoming retirement. Just
three months to go until I take semi-retirement. I don't dislike my job, but
as the pension date approaches I find myself getting progressively more and
more tired. I find myself taking longer and longer to recover from the night
shifts, the late shifts are hard work, and given a choice it would be early
shifts all the way since they finish two hours earlier than the core ones. Being
on an early today was a result. Mind you a few months ago I would have come
home and taken the dogs to the woods. Today I raced the dusk home, and it was
dark by the time I got home. I
stuck the dishwasher cleaning jollop into the dishwasher, set it going, and
tried to have a look at the monthly accounts. Tried and failed; the
excitement of today’s Black Friday was too much for the bank,
and their app and website had crashed. After
a few hours it came back and I could get to my statements and have a look at
the accounts. Could be better, could be worse… My
hip still hurts. |
|
25 November 2023
(Saturday) - Rather Busy
I
slept well, but woke feeling oddly morose. I wonder why. Over brekkie I had
my usual look at Facebook and saw my brother and nephew were off on their
football adventures again. This time to Nottingham. Four and a half hours
each way. I’ve said before that I really don’t understand the attraction of
football. I wish I did; so many other people love it. One or two people were
posting twee memes, and there were again an inordinate amount of posts about
scantily clad teenage girls and dying dogs. People often talk about how
social media spies on us and presents us with what we’ve been talking about
and browsing for… if it did I would have endless posts about living dogs and
Lego. And someone with whom “er indoors TM” works
passed his driving test this morning… before eight o’clock. What time do
driving tests start? Despite it being a cold morning we went to dog club.
The rain has put us off recently, but cold and dry is far better than cold
and wet. We had a great time with a dozen dogs running riot. And with dog club done we set off on our second
mission of the day. As we drove to Badlesmere Steve was doing the mystery
year competition on the radio. In which year did Concorde stop flying after
twenty-six years? I can remember seeing Concorde flying in 1976 when I was at
my Uncle Eric’s house in Orpington… 1976 + 26 = 2002. I was one year out. It
was 2003. “er indoors TM” said that Steve
actually said “twenty-seven years”. For some reason the radio reception was rather iffy
today (that’s my excuse!) and we were listening to the radio
through “er indoors TM” ‘s radio app on her
phone. We
got to Badlesmere where Karl, Tracey and Charlotte were waiting for us, and
we had a rather good walk round our usual circuit up there. As we walked
there was a minor contretemps with some old bat (presumably the landowner)
who quite rightly pointed out that we weren’t on the official footpath.
However the reason for that was that there was a pheasant shoot taking place
on the official footpath and it would have been extremely dangerous to have
been where we should really have been. When
I get a minute I shall find an email address and tell her to piss off. With
walk walked we were soon back at the cars. As always we’d parked by the Red
Lion pub (can you believe it?) where we had a particularly good bit of
dinner. The dogs were a tad woofy over lunch, but there were quite a few dogs
in the place today, and to be fair to the pups, once they’d woofed to tell us
there were other dogs they (relatively) soon shut up again. It
would have been good to have stayed longer, but there was quite a bit on the
agenda today. We said our goodbyes and came home. “er
indoors TM” dropped me and the dogs home and she
went off to collect “Daddy’s Little Angel TM”,
“Stormageddon – Bringer of Destruction TM” and “Darcie
Waa Waa TM” whilst I had a chat with the roofer. The
chap got out a ladder and scrambled up on top of the roof. I didn’t go with
him, but he took a few photos up there and showed them to me. My
suspicions were right; some maintenance is due. “er
indoors TM” and the tribe arrived, and we all went up
into Ashford for the Carnival of the Baubles. It was… I suppose it was OK. It
could have been better. But billed as a festival of lights, maybe only one
person in ten in the procession had made any effort. Most were just walking
along in their everyday clothes. Would it have caused them physical pain to
have stuck a glow-stick on their head or popped on a hi-vis jacket and joined
in? We
came home and spent the evening watching daft animal videos on You-Tube. I
took a few photos during the day. It’s been a rather busy one. |
|
26 November 2023
(Sunday) - Early Shift “Darcie Waa Waa TM” didn't
settle last night, and when she doesn't settle, neither does anyone
else. Perhaps having the heating on all night for her meant the house
was too warm? I don't know but I couldn't have had more than fifteen minutes
continuous sleep all night. I gave up trying at five o'clock and came
downstairs where “er indoors TM” was sitting
with her. The dogs asked to go out, so I took them out and Pogo ran round the
garden screaming. He doesn't bark; he screams. I wish he wouldn't. As do all
my neighbours, I expect. I
scoffed a bit of toast, and once I'd scraped the ice from the car I set off
to work (at 6am!). It was a cold morning this morning. As I drove I
listened to the radio. There is rarely much of interest on the radio early on
a Sunday morning, and today was no exception. I
caught the second half of "Something Understood".
Have you ever listened to it? Give it a go; words can't describe how
pretentious this drivel is. Supposedly about the power of memory, there were
no end of readings of poetry which meant absolutely nothing to me (or
anyone else I suspect). For all that there can be some interesting stuff
on Radio Four, there is also a lot of highbrow rubbish that is of no interest
to anyone but a vanishingly small minority. This
was followed with an interview with Kelvin
Fletcher. Apparently he was in Emmerdale and on Strictly Come Dancing,
and he's jacked it all in to run a farm up north somewhere. He and his wife
talked for half an hour without really saying anything. Surely
there could have been something better to broadcast before seven o’clock this
morning? I
got to Pembury just as dawn was breaking, and got on with work. There's no
denying that I didn't want to go to work today. I'd been sulking about it all
week. I was probably over-reacting; I get worked up about working on my own
at Pembury. Being a trauma centre, things can got from peachy to not-so
peachy in seconds. I’ve had worse shifts than today, but I’ve certainly had
better ones. And
with shift shifted I came home listening to the end of “Desert Island
Discs” in which Matt Smith (of Doctor Who fame) was
advocating some frankly dreadful music. My choices for that show are
listed here. I
got home just as “er indoors TM” was taking
“Daddy’s Little Angel TM” and her tribe home. I would
much rather have been home with them today rather than working, but at least
I got to see them today, if only in passing. “er indoors TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner. I cracked open a bottle of
Sainsbury’s plonk, and we watched yesterday’s Doctor Who sixtieth
anniversary special. Bearing in mind how disappointing Doctor Who has
been over the last few years, my hopes weren’t high. But the episode was
rather good. Mind you I can’t help but think it a shame that they brought
David Tennant back. Up till now the show has always moved forward… was this
episode a backward step? |
|
27 November 2023
(Monday) - Iffy Innards
I
slept like a log last night, which was something of a result. Mind you I did
have an early night after falling asleep on the sofa. I suppose I needed one
after a night of “Darcie Waa Waa TM” screaming and
a bottle of plonk yesterday evening. Over brekkie I watched another of the animated
"Dads Army" episodes; watching it as a recorded program on
the SkyQ box is the way to do it. Being able to fast-forward through twenty
minutes of adverts meant I watched it in only twenty minutes. You'd think
advertisers would give up, wouldn't you? There's no need to watch adverts,
and I don't. To be honest (being an awkward bugger) if I find myself
faced with an advert I can't avoid, I tend to avoid that product. I set off to work on a rather rainy morning, but
half past six this morning was a full ten degrees warmer than half past six
was yesterday. As I drove there was a lot of talk on the radio about the
upcoming United Nations climate talks. This latest round are being hosted by
the United Arab Emirates. Apparently the BBC have found out that the United
Arab Emirates plans to use its role as the host of UN climate talks as an
opportunity to strike oil and
gas deals. It was claimed that leaked briefing documents revealed plans
to discuss fossil fuel deals with fifteen other nations. Like anyone would really be surprised about that... There was a lot of talk about the
cease-fire in Gaza and pretty much everyone was hoping that the
cease fire might be extended. It's a shame that there had to be conflict in
the first place, but whilst pretty much everyone interviewed on the matter is
keen for the hostilities to stop, they've all got their decades-long
grievances that they won't let go. I got to work and made a bee-line for Trap One. Over
the weekend “Stormageddon – Bringer of Destruction TM” had
dodgy guts, and whatever it was, I think I've now got it. I spent an
inordinate amount of time in Trap One today. Still, what are grandchildren for if not for
spreading infections, eh? In between dashing to the chodbin I did my bit at
work. Work went better than it did yesterday; I prefer working with others
around me, rather than being on my own for extended periods. Over a mid-morning cuppa I sparked up the Internet
through my phone. Someone had posted to one of the Dalek-related Facebook
pages that I follow that they had just discovered the "Doctor Who and
the Daleks" films made in the
1960s. Someone else had commented asking how any so-called Doctor Who fan
couldn't know about these films, and the petty name-calling that this
generated was rather impressive, to say the least. After nearly two weeks my local councillor had
replied to the email I'd sent her about the floods by Asda. She said she'd
look into it. Will she? I wonder. And I got a quote for the repairs to the roof
following the chap's having had a look on Saturday. With my bit done I came home. It wasn’t that long
ago that I would take the dogs for a walk after an early shift. Today it was
dark and raining. So I sat and wrote up some CPD, and my piss boiled
about one of the articles that had been emailed to me. It’s no secret
that a few years ago I made a serious mistake at work for which I was
comprehensively crucified. Now it seems the same workplace allow their staff
to openly
admit to mistakes, for which everyone involved has (presumably)
got off scot-free. With “er indoors TM” off
bowling I settled myself on the sofa underneath a pile of dogs and watched
the fourth episode of “Squid Game: The Challenge”. It was rather good.
Now it’s finished I shall have a little kip; I’m not going to move until the
dogs wake up. If a dog falls asleep on you, you can’t move them. It’s the
law. Even if you desperately need the loo. |
|
28 November 2023
(Tuesday) - Feeling a Bit Poorly
I
slept rather well. Over brekkie I started watching a new thing from Channel
Four. "The
Couple Next Door" stars her who was Demelza in Poldark who moves
in next door to a rather saucy set of neighbours who seem to invite
equally saucy friends round for regular sessions of jiggery-porkery. And over
the road lives Hugh Dennis playing a rather sad peeping Tom who is watching
it all with his telescope. In a novel break with tradition, her who was
Demelza in Poldark did remove her undercrackers before “performing the
dirty deed” in today's episode, but her protagonist forgot to do so. I
then had a quick look at the Internet. Our Munzee Clan has reached our target
for the month, which was something of a result. And I deleted a comment from
a sci-fi Facebook group that I moderate. Based on the books of Julian
May, that group generally doesn't need much moderation. But today's
uncharacteristically nasty comment came from someone who didn't even know
which books Ms May had and hadn't written. As
I got dressed I could hear a commotion outside. Some chap was standing
outside our house bellowing two different conversations into two different
mobile phones. Fortunately he'd gone by the time I went out. For
once the morning's news was interesting. Bits of the
asteroid Bennu have arrived at the Natural History museum for
analysis, and manned long-distance space travel looks (possibly) to be
a practical proposition as human
hibernation might not be the fantasy it has always been billed to
be. There
was also a lot of fuss made about the Greek Prime Minister having the hump
because Rishi Sunak has cancelled a meeting with
him. The Greeks want the Elgin Marbles back. Bearing they are only in England
under the most dubious of circumstances, and also bearing in mind that the
average bloke in the street is utterly disinterested in the things, why not
give them back? I
got to work. The iffy guts I had yesterday were continuing, and I felt rather
tired for much of the day. As I worked I had several messages from “er indoors TM”. The scaffolders arrived shortly after nine o’clock, and the roofers
arrived soon after that. Treacle woofed a bit, and Morgan watched out the
window with interest. I’m reliably assured that most of the roof work is
now done, and that the roofers will be back in the morning to finish up and
tidy up. “er
indoors TM” boiled up a rather good bit of scran
this evening (as she does) and we watched the final of “Bake
Off”. I won’t say who won it, but I will say that if I was a betting
man I would be out of pocket right now. My
guts are still iffy, I still feel tired, and I think I’ve got a sore throat
coming on… |
|
29 November 2023
(Wednesday) - Dull
I
slept rather well, but still woke over an hour earlier than I might have
done. I made toast and watched the second episode of “The Couple Next Door”
in which her who used to be Demelza in Poldark intimated that she was up for
a portion of jiggery-porkery from the neighbours, and in which Hugh Dennis
nearly got a punch up the bracket. I
then had a look at Facebook… Last night we made a point of watching the final
of “Bake Off” only a few minutes after it was broadcast. I was glad we
did; this morning spoilers abounded. I
walked two streets away to where I’d parked the car last night, and spent a
few minutes scraping the ice off of it, then set off to work. As I drove the
pundits on the radio were talking about how the Prime Minister of Australia has
apologized to survivors of the thalidomide scandal and their
families. I’m not in any way detracting from the horrific birth defects that
happened, but the thalidomide scandal was sixty years ago, and the Australian
Prime Minister is sixty years old.
How can he possibly give a credible apology for something that happened when
he was in nappies? There
was an interview with one of the keepers at Edinburgh Zoo where the giant
pandas were being made ready to go
home to China. There was talk about how the arrangement for their being
in Edinburgh was a ten-year loan from the Chinese government. There was also
talk that the zoo was paying three
quarters of a million quid to the Chinese government each year to
have the pandas. I wonder which is right? And
there was the seemingly obligatory interview with someone from Gaza. I have
no idea on which side the person being interviewed was on. It might sound
heartless, but everyone from Gaza being interviewed says the same thing. They
all have an axe to grind and no one will be content until the other side is
totally obliterated. I
got to work where we had the inspectors in. I smiled sweety at them, and then
did my utmost to avoid them. For the most part I succeeded. As
I worked I had a message from the roofer. Having been all set to crack on
today he’d been delayed, his fan belt had gone. I’m not sure where it went,
but fan belts do that. As she took the dogs for their constitutional, “er
indoors TM” took a photo of our roof. There’s no
denying that after twenty years it probably needed some maintenance; I’m glad
it wasn’t me who had to go up there. Having
watched the final of “Bake Off” yesterday we watched the final of “Taskmaster”
this evening. It was rather good. Today
was dull… and I’m not feeling well either… |
|
30 November 2023
(Thursday) - A Day's Leave
I
woke feeling rather grim this morning; whatever lurgy I’ve got has turned
into some sort of cold. But as always I can sulk or get on with my life. I
got on with my life. I
made toast and had a look at the Internet as I do. This morning there were
several posts on the 1970s nostalgia Facebook pages all of which showed some
random still from a film with comments “this was always popular” or “I
liked this one” and me feeling that I was the only person in the world
who had no idea what the film was. I am so tempted to post up a random family
photo and comment “watched this one last night” and see how many
people pretend they know what the film was (when it wasn’t a film at all). I
had a look at my emails. I saw some people had been out in Kings Wood finding
the geocaches I’d hidden there, and unusually a new geocache had gone out.
Another fiendishly difficult puzzle though. Several geo-meets had been
created over the next few weeks too. None particularly local though, which
was a shame. I
did a YouGov survey, then as the dogs had their brekkie I got ready for the
morning’s mission. Leaving “er indoors TM” in
charge at home I took the dogs up to Kings Wood. It was a bright morning at
home, but again we drove up into the fog. As we walked so the fog slowly
lifted and the mud (which was frozen on arrival) slowly melted. We had a good walk round the woods. We ate some
horse poo, and with no fox poo to be found we rolled in a dead sparrow. As we
walked we saw several birds of prey. More than we usually see. And they were
all fairly close. Was I being paranoid in thinking that they had their eye on
Bailey? We
came home and met the roofer bloke clambering up a ladder. The roofer chap
was finishing the work on the flat roof up on top, but showed me photos of
the state of the roof over our bedroom. The bits I thought would be an
issue are fixed, but more problems have been found. Part of me is thinking “OMG!!!”
and part of me is thinking that now we know there’s an issue we can get it
sorted before it becomes a problem. After
all, what is money for if not to squander on roof repairs? I
washed the dogs’ paws, legs and bellies, then had a look at the pond. It was
crystal clear. Bearing in mind how cold it has been recently the water flow
would have made sure the water was cold, and consequently the fish all in
torpor (fish hibernation). So I turned off the pumps and the filter,
took the filter apart, cleaned it all out and put it all back together again
empty ready for the winter. Several Februarys ago I
wrote “Every year I turn the filter off when the pond is shut down in
November, and every year I don’t clean it out then. Instead I leave carp
turds festering over the winter so they are nice and ripe a few months later
when I come to clean the thing out.” I didn’t make that mistake today. It
needs the new bulb putting in place; I can do that another time. I’m
really pleased with this pressure filter. Back in the day I used huge box
filter things. They were heavy. Carrying them down the garden to the drain (where
I can clean them) involved my getting covered in fish poo flavoured pond
water, and the cleaning took over an hour. I started off with one of those
things on 22 March 2007 (when “My Boy TM” installed the
first one) and I struggled on with that sort of filtering for just over
sixteen years until 26
April this year when I put in the pressure filter. It’s
brilliant. I wish I’d installed one years ago. Leaving aside the fact the
thing does an excellent job, I can do a quick clean in twenty minutes, or a
deep clean (like I did this morning) in half an hour. The quick clean
can be done without moving the filter at all, and being a lot lighter and
being a sealed unit means I can take the filter to the drain for a deep clean
without slopping fish poo all over the place. It
takes longer to get set up to do the cleaning and to tidy away afterwards
than it does to actually clean. Life is so much easier when you’re not
spreading fish poo flavoured muck all over the place. I
then had a little tidy-up round the garden. As I pootled I kept looking up at
the roof. The nice roofer is doing work on our house and new-next-door at
the same time and he was all over the roof. This made me think… There’s no
way I would clamber all over the roof. But I think nothing of spending large
parts of my day dealing with other people’s blood. No
day off work is complete without doing the ironing; I spent some time with
the ironing whilst watching more “Squid Games: The Challenge” It’s a “reality
TV” sort of show, or so it is billed. I hope it is all acted out; some of
the contestants being interviewed are truly nasty. With
ironing ironed I settled myself on the sofa… and woke two hours later.
Despite having cracked on with the day I still felt rather grim, and probably
needed the sleep. “er indoors TM” has
gone out with her mates. I’ve just set up the Facebook album for this year’s
Advent Calendar. I really should open the thing, shouldn’t I? For a day’s holiday I’ve not stopped… |
