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1 Movember 2025
(Saturday) - Late Shift
Yesterday as we drove home from Rye there was talk
on the radio about Movember. Fuelled with enthusiasm
I signed up for it, and this morning as I scoffed my toast I saw that I’d
already raised over fifty quid. That’s not bad. You can donate by clicking here. As I pootled on-line I had
Radio Four on in the background. It was spouting its usual drivel as it does
every morning. There was talk of the insurance company “Maiden Life”
which has apparently cancelled
all of its policies to cover funeral expenses. There were those
ranting about how bad it was… I suppose this is the problem of private
companies. If they go belly-up or decide they’ve had enough there’s not a lot
that you can do, is there? I Munzed; being the first
of the month I chucked everyone out of our Munzee clan in readiness for
November’s Clan War, got Wordle (motel) on the fourth attempt, and
then turned over to Radio Ashford where Steve had just started the morning
show. He started with the “Guess the Lyrics” competition. “A
million lights are dancing, And there you are a shooting star”. No – I
got that one right away – Xanadu by Olivia Newton John and the Electric Light
Orchestra. When you think about some of the wonderful music that ELO has
produced, it always strikes me as ironic that perhaps one of their weakest
songs was their only No 1 single. It had rained heavily overnight, but Saturday
morning was still Dog Club. We put on coats and wellies and set off. Dog Club was surprisingly well attended – I think I
counted twenty dogs, but it was difficult to be sure. The dogs kept moving
about. The rain held off but the field was rather muddy and the dogs all
ended up filthy. There was a minor spat between two of the dogs but it was
all shouting, it passed off as quickly as it started, and all the owners
realized that it was just a minor spat. As we drove home Steve was doing the Mystery Year
competition on the radio. XTC – Making Plans for Nigel was 1979. Definitely.
But this was followed by The Jam – Eton Rifles. That was earlier. I went for
1978 but was wrong. I had had been right with my first choice. Once home the dogs got a thorough scrubbing, I
played the bots at chess dot com, and set off to work… and sulked. The
earlier rain had given way to a really bright day. I don't mind working when
the weather is grim, but I'd rather be out doing stuff when I can. As
I drove up the motorway so I carried on listening to Steve on the radio. The
Radio Ashford reception is odd. Going north it only reaches five miles to
Kings Wood. Going west it goes for over twenty miles to
Cranbrook. Going up the motorway this morning the signal eventually
packed up at Leeds Castle - about ten miles. You'd think it would travel the
same distance in all directions, wouldn't you? I
got to work and cracked on. For all that I sulked, as the afternoon wore on
the weather got greyer, it was dark by half past five, and I didn't really
have that much chance to sulk anyway (I was rather busy!), but I did
find myself thinking about how Saturdays used to be back in the day. When
I first started in my line of work we would have morning staff in on
Saturday. They would do their bit and go home at mid-day. Someone else would
be on-call from then until nine o'clock the next morning, and would be called
in from home as and when needed to deal with emergency cases. Back in the day
they might get called in half a dozen times over that twenty-one hours. Any
more than that would have been considered excessive, and words would have
been said on the following Monday. These days things are rather
different... I probably quite didn't have to deal with a hundred blood
samples in my eight-hour shift today, but it couldn't have been far off
of it. I can't say I didn't stop, but I can say I didn't stop for very long
at all, and was very pleased to see the night shift walk in this
evening. It was only a shame that she was
half an hour late; there’d been a serious accident on the A249 which had held
her up… But road traffic accidents notwithstanding, two of
us would have worked pretty much constantly today where back in the day one
person would only get off their arse maybe once
every three hours or so. And the money was better too, but that’s another
whinge… And here we are at the end of the first day of MoVember. Only twenty-nine more days to go… https://uk.movember.com/mospace/15453545 https://www.facebook.com/donate/1355423342735210/1355423366068541/ |
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2 Movember 2025
(Sunday) - Dungeness
I
had a good night last night; sleeping for nearly nine hours. I woke to the
sound of rain. It was forecast; it wasn’t a surprise, but I always find the
sound of rain to be depressing. I got up, didn’t have a shave, made toast and peered
into the Internet as I do most mornings. It was still there. Not much would
seem to have happened overnight other than a few fireworks in Cuxton and Kennington. There were those who loved them,
and those who were up in arms that their pets didn’t like them. It’s an
argument that happens on-line hundreds of times every bonfire season. Bearing
in mind our lot don’t react to fireworks I’m not really bothered either way,
but pretty much the biggest achievement of the internet is that it allows
people to have bitter and trivial arguments with uneducated half-wits that
they will never meet. Another achievement of the Internet is that using it
to keep a diary means I can see what I’ve done before… I knew I’d done MoVember in the past. I’d forgotten that I’d done it
three times, in 2008, 2009 and most recently in 2012 when I raised a hundred
quid. This morning I saw I was already up to sixty-six quid. Whilst we waited for the rain to stop I put in some
washing, wrote
up some CPD, Munzed and Wordled
(rabid in three goes) whilst we listened to Lorraine Kelly on Desert
Island Discs. The rain stopped. I put undercrackers in to wash,
cleared the dog dung from the garden and we took the dogs out. We needed one
more specific geocache to complete the “Plush Bird Watching” series of
Treasures, and there was one of those at Littlestone. With that found we parked up just down the road at
The Lade car park and started walking down the beach. We just kept going
until I had an idea. I had a look at the map – The Pilot was just over the
shingle bank, so we popped into the place for a spot of lunch. A pint of
decent ale, a half of cider, a plate of chips and some whitebait. Very nice. The Pilot has a very large dog-friendly area; about
twenty tables with at least one dog at each table. It had the potential to be
one big fight, but all the dogs were as good as gold. There was only a few
barks and most of theme were from Treacle who was
demanding more whitebait. There was a minor issue as we sat down when the
normal person at the table next to us assured me that having us sitting near
his dogs wouldn’t work, but with no other tables free we didn’t have much
alternative. As we left the chap said he was amazed at how well behaved his
dogs had been. If he was that unsure if them he should really have had them
on leads, but what do I know? We walked back up the beach to the car where Bailey
carried on trying to instigate fights with Morgan, and having found no end of
foul beach things to eat on the way down, Treacle found even more on the way
back. I
took a few photos of a very good walk… a shame that we can’t do it
more often. I shall have to keep an eye on the tides. We came home for a cuppa, and
as we scoffed a very good dinner of home-made mushroom soup we watched last
week’s episodes of “Bake Off” and “Taskmaster”. Both were rather good. And here we are at the end of the second day of MoVember. Some people regularly don’t shave at the
weekends, and even go several days between having a scrape. How do they
manage that? The last time I did MoVember
I raised a hundred quid so that was my target for this time… I hit that
target this evening. I might just try to go a bit higher. There’s still time to give us a bung. I *think*
I’ve sent out links on Facebook, but just in case… https://uk.movember.com/mospace/15453545 https://www.facebook.com/donate/1355423342735210/1355423366068541/ |
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3 Movember 2025
(Monday) - Orlestone, Hawkhurst
I had a rather good night’s sleep, which was
something of a result. I got up and saw that my weight had gone up over the
weekend, which wasn’t so good. I made toast and peered into the internet as I do every morning. It
was still there. Not much had happened over the weekend, or so it would seem
by looking at Facebook. I’m sure people still do stuff; it’s just that fewer
people tell the world what they’ve done. But I did chuckle when I read the posts from just up the road in Harrietsham. The local council there has been given
permission from the Reform UK Kent County Council to put up the street lights
for Christmas…provided all
the flags come down first (for safety reasons). That’s ironic, isn’t it? I saw a new puzzle geocache had gone live near work; I had a look at
it, and after a few minutes saw what the puzzle was all about. Shortly after
that I had which looked to be a plausible location for the thing. If I was
working today that would have been a little adventure before work, but I
wasn’t working and so it wasn’t. I Munzed; the Munzee Clan War started today,
and got Wordle (awoke) on the fifth attempt. Pogo arrived, and he came out with me and the other three. We drove
down to Orlestone. As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about
the spread of unlicensed
ultrasound scanning. For all that there is supposedly strict control on
just who can claim they are competent to perform ultrasound scans, it would
seem that more and more people are just buying a scanner and having a go, and
a gullible public is quite happy to pay them. And there was talk of “Paddington
– The Musical”. I suppose a musical featuring a known money-spinner
is a better bet than something new and original (or am I just being
cynical?). We got to the woods. Last week I was amazed at how Orlestone wasn’t
the swamp that it usually is in the winter… today it was. The lowest
stretches were filthy, but we all had a good walk. Orlestone is ideal for a
shorter walk; such a shame that it can be so muddy. We came home and everyone had to have the mud hosed off of their
bellies, then I made a start cleaning the fish tank until “Daddies’
Little Angel TM” was ready to go home. I drove her
and Pogo home, then finished scrubbing the fish tank. One of the little fish
isn’t looking too healthy but I decided (was told!) not to flush him
just yet. We had a cuppa, I wrote up some CPD, then
seeing the rain had stopped we took the dogs for a little walk. We drove out
to Hawkhurst. As we drove so the rain came and went, but it held off for our
walk. There was an Adventure Lab series around the village green, and it made
for a good little walk. We called in to the village school, the fire beacon,
the cricket ground, the church and a house which was once the home of the son
of the fellow who discovered the planet Uranus. It was a good walk… We came home and had a cuppa and a chocolate
croissant as a late lunch. I scoffed it as I did another YouGov survey, then
had a little doze. “er indoors TM” went bowling; I settled on the sofa with a sleeping Morgan (the
girls snored on the other sofa) and watched a film on Netflix.
“Atlas” starred Jennifer Lopez as some hard-ass woman saving the
world from killer robots intent on wiping out humanity. It wasn’t a bad film,
but like most films it went on for probably at least half an hour too long. And don’t forget that there’s still time to give a bung for this
annoying MoVember thing… https://uk.movember.com/mospace/15453545 https://www.facebook.com/donate/1355423342735210/1355423366068541/ |
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4 Movember 2025 (Tuesday)
- A Day At Work
I
slept well, but was still awake a tad earlier than I might have been. I
seriously thought about having a shave. But with a hundred and thirty quid
raised for MoVember so far I thought I’d better
not. I made toast and watched an episode of “The Comic
Strip”; Netflix appears to be presenting them in random order for some
reason. I had a look at the Internet. Not much had changed overnight, but I
did have an email about a new Earthcache… in France. I Munzed,
then taking care not to wake anyone I got ready for work. As I walked to my car so a couple of kids (in
secondary school uniforms) were having a great time over the road playing
silly beggars in a supermarket shopping trolley. One was sitting in it, one
was pushing them up and down the road. Both were squealing with laughter. Interestingly as I drove off the pundits on the
radio were talking about how there are moves afoot to have smartphones banned
from schools, but loads of parents were dead against the ban as they use the
smartphones to
track the children. It’s all very well tracking the kids, but do you know
what they are getting up to in supermarket trolleys? I never tracked “My
Boy TM” or “Daddies’ Little Angel TM”,
and I was never tracked myself. Mind you, looking back my mother would have
laid an egg if she’d known I was clambering up the cliffs beneath Hastings
Castle or playing on the railway track in Coghurst
Woods. There was also talk about Sir Paul McCartney who has
released a
new autobiography. Personally I’ve never much cared for his music, but I
know I’m in a minority there. The roads were very busy this morning; I was glad
I’d got a sandwich at the local co-op as the motorway was heaving. It took an
hour to get to work today. Work was work… I did my e-learning on information
governance today. Governance… does anyone *really* know what that
means? Many years ago when I was a manager I wanted to do something or other
one way (I can’t remember exactly what it was) and all the other
managers wanted to do it the other way. Somehow keeping a straight face I
said that we had to do whatever it was my was as there were governance
issues… and everyone immediately backed down and let me have my way. And four days of not shaving didn’t go unnoticed by
my colleagues… several people commented that they’d never seen me unshaven
before. The roads were equally busy coming home. “er
indoors TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner
which we scoffed whilst watching the final of Bake-Off. Normally we would
have recorded it and watched it tomorrow, fast-forwarding through the
adverts. But there will be endless spoilers about the result tomorrow… I won’t say who won. And don’t forget that there’s still time (nearly
a whole month) to give a bung for this annoying MoVember
thing… I’m over half-way to hitting my second target. https://uk.movember.com/mospace/15453545 https://www.facebook.com/donate/1355423342735210/1355423366068541/ |
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5 Movember 2025
(Wednesday) - Another Day At Work
I was again up rather earlier than I might have
been. I scoffed toast whilst watching another randomly selected episode of “The
Comic Strip Presents” then had a little look at the Internet in case I’d
missed much overnight. I hadn’t, really, but there was an interesting post on one of
the pond-related Facebook pages that I follow. Some chap near
Birmingham was closing his pond down as he couldn't afford to keep replacing
his pumps. He's got through three in two years... I've got three pumps in my
big pond... They must all be ten years old; if not more? I
had a quick Munz, then set off to work. It
was dark as I drove off this morning. I don't like driving in the dark;
There's not that many people turn their headlights off of high beam when on
the motorway. And again the motorway was either drive at forty miles per hour
with all the juggernauts in the two slower lanes, or go at breakneck speed in
the fast lane. As
I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how the Chancellor of the
Exchequer has her work cut out for her in
her upcoming budget. I can't pretend to be her biggest fan, but bearing
in mind just how comprehensively the previous government poggered
the country's economy, whatever she does, she is on a hiding to
nothing. There
was a lot of talk about how Labour are worried about losing the next election
to Reform UK... I don't see why. Objectively they are in a far better
position than Reform
UK who are losing seats as if it is going out of fashion. But Reform
UK are obviously fans of the old adage "you can fool all of the
people all of the time if you talk loud and confidently", and it
is clearly
working for them. I
popped into Sainsburys to get a sandwich, and thought I might cash in some of
my Nectar points as I've got over fifty quid's worth of the things. Have you
ever tried to cash in Nectar points? You have to spend them in lumps of five
hundred (which is approximately amounts of three pounds forty pence)
and make up the rest on your credit card or with cash. The nice man in
Sainsburys said that this is a holdover from when Nectar points were on
physical cards (a bit like Green Shield Stamps) and no one at Nectar
HQ knows how to change it. It strikes me as a bit like farting about having
to spend some money on a Nectar card and the rest on my credit card;
especially when I put one pound and forty five pence on my credit card in
Sainsburys this morning and my local corner shops won't accept a credit card
for anything less than a fiver. But what do I know? Work
was work; it rained a bit this morning making a large puddle on the flat roof
outside our window. And when the rain stopped so the goldfinches flew down
for a bath. I quite like seeing them bathing; I probably spend far too long
watching them. Today, in a novel break with tradition, they were joined by
pigeons and pied wagtails. Here's a little observation - I've only ever seen
pied wagtails in the grounds of hospitals. (I was in the Bird Club at
primary school, you know). The
roads on the way home were even busier than they had been on the way to work.
I got home, settled myself in front of the telly and promptly fell asleep. I
was woken by “er indoors TM” who
had seen a UFO. Presumably some sort of drone recording all the fireworks; it
was probably in severe danger of being shot down, what with it being
fireworks night. We
had a plate of pie and chis for dinner which we scoffed whilst watching the
final of “Hunted”. I won’t give any spoilers, but I will say that the
fugitives (and hunters) went to a few places in this episode where
I’ve been. Mind
you, thinking about spoilers we watched the final of “Bake Off”
yesterday so we wouldn’t know what happened before we’d seen it, and I’ve
heard nothing about last night’s “Bake Off” at all today. |
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6 Movember 2025
(Thursday) - Walk, Ironing, Telly
I
slept well for once; waking after seven hours sleep. It was a shame that my
hips ached, but there it is. I made toast and had a look at the Internet as I
do. People were complaining on the local Facebook pages about how fireworks
were still being let off at nearly midnight last night. Were they? I can’t
say I noticed. But what I did notice was how our dogs weren’t at all bothered
by the fireworks. Normally going berserk at the slightest provocation they
couldn’t have cared less about all the flashing and banging last night. People were also complaining about the poor standard
of driving round Ashford. They probably had a point. The trouble with local
drivers is that (for the most part) everyone knows what they are doing
and assumes that everyone else will do what they should, and acts surprised
when they don’t. Just because someone is in a “turn right” lane is
absolutely no reason whatsoever to think that person intends to turn right.
For all that there are a lot of people driving round Ashford who are
hopelessly in the wrong, matters aren’t helped by everyone else assuming that
other drivers have the faintest idea what they should be doing. And as I scoffed my toast so my phone rang. A
pre-recorded message supposedly from “Indeed Himan Resources” asking
me to add their number on WhatsApp so we could discuss a job offer. Pah! The
recorded voice was one of the most miserable I’d ever heard. I blocked the
number… my list of blocked numbers is quite long. I Munzed, got stuck on
Wordle, and stood up. Bailey immediately got over-excited. For all that the
dogs like their walks, it is definitely Bailey who wants to go out the most.
The other two take a little shifting from their beds. Leaving some workmen putting ladders up on not
so nice next door’s house I took the dogs out. As we drove to the
woods, “In
Our Time” was on the radio. Have you ever heard that show… I won’t
say it is a good show; it is variable. Sometimes it is riveting and
interesting. Other times dull. This morning’s was surprisingly captivating,
explaining the Pauli
Exclusion Principle. It’s a fundamental concept in quantum physics and
for all that those in the know like to complicate the thing, it’s a rather
simple idea. It basically states that two things can’t be in the same place
at the same time. Which is why you can’t walk through a wall. We got to the woods; we had a good four and a half
mile walk. As we walked so something white ran across the path about fifty
yards in front of us. An albino deer perhaps? There’s been talk of them in
Kings Wood but I’ve never seen one. Before. As we walked we chased squirrels and woodpeckers,
and I had a message from the most recent fruit of my loin who had run out of
sugar and wanted to know if you could use icing sugar in tea. I am reliably
informed that you can, but you probably wouldn’t want to. We came home. Surprisingly the dogs didn’t need a
bath. Whoever had been putting ladders up next door had gone. It doesn’t look
like they’d done anything that I could see; you can still see daylight
underneath the ridge tiles. I told her about that months ago; I can’t help
but wonder if she’s making a point of ignoring the problem purely because I
told her there was an issue. Still… it’s her roof that would be leaking. We
had ours done earlier in the year. Or was it last year? I made us both a cuppa and
renewed the house building and contents insurance. Our previous insurer
wanted almost double what Hastings Direct wanted… and when I called the last
lot with an issue last Christmas they didn’t want to know. When they came
bothering me to renew and I told them about the bad experience I’d had with
them and how expensive they were, they really didn’t care. Their loss… I put a load of shirts in to scrub; they are always
best ironed whilst still wet. And whilst the washing machine did its thing
I wrote up some CPD. Once it finished I cracked on with the ironing, and
as I ironed I started something new on Netflix… I say “something new”;
there’s a new season of “The Witcher”, but all I could remember about
it was that it starred him who was in the “Superman” film, so I
started watching it from the beginning. It was as well that I did; I didn’t
really remember very much about it at all. I then had a little rummage in the boot of the car.
The car has smelled very musty recently; I blame wet dogs. I took out the
topmost carpet squares and the blanket. Hopefully that will make a
difference. “er indoors TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching a
film we’d recorded months ago. “Snow White
and the Huntsman” could have been a good film… but like all
films it went on for far too long. It also really didn’t need quite so many
gratuitously bloody and violent battle scenes. A new series of “Celebrity Race Across The World”
started tonight. Why is it that our SkyQ box
records all sorts of crap that is of no interest to us, but doesn’t record
series that we actually watch? We’ll have a look at the BBC i-player tomorrow. Then having been watching series finales this week,
we then watched the last episode of “Celebrity Traitors”. Again I
won’t say what happened, but I certainly sat up and took notice at the end. And don’t forget that there’s still time to give a
bung for this annoying MoVember thing… https://uk.movember.com/mospace/15453545 https://www.facebook.com/donate/1355423342735210/1355423366068541/ |
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7 Movember 2025
(Friday) - Folkestone and Back (Twice)
For
the third day running I peered into Facebook expecting to see all sorts of
posts about the final of the TV show we’d watched the night before only to
see nothing at all on the subject. Had we not made a point of watching the
shows live then I’m sure we would have seen spoilers. But watching the shows
live meant we saw the adverts… it’s the first week of November and the
Christmas adverts are out. There are those that go mad for Christmas; I would
like to be one of them, but by starting it all two months in advance means
that by the time Christmas comes I’m rather fed up with hearing about it. There was talk about the upcoming Lego model of
the USS Enterprise-D (from Star Trek). Personally I feel the thing
looks awful, but as usual I am in the minority for thinking that. I Munzed and Wordled, and fed the dogs. Treacle turned her nose up at
her brekkie this morning. That’s unlike her. Pogo (and “Daddies’ Little
Angel TM”) arrived, and Pogo joined me and the other dogs
on our morning walk. We went to Orlestone… As we parked up I saw someone just
sitting in his car in the car park. There’s often people sitting in their
cars in the car park there. I can’t help but wonder what they are up to. We walked a rather truncated walk to avoid the mud
we found earlier in the week, but we still covered over two miles. We came home. No one needed a bath, which was a
result. I drove “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” and
Pogo home… only to find they’d lost their keys. A quick phone call and we
located the keys… fifteen miles away back in Ashford. It didn’t take that long to go back to get them. I came home via the Folkestone Sainsburys where I
picked up some odds and ends and a Victoria sponge muffin for our lunch. Have
you ever had a Sainsburys Taste The Difference Victoria sponge muffin? Don’t
bother… To be fair, it wasn’t bad. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I
was expecting much more. It was a rather disappointing way to scoff nearly a
third of my daily calorie allowance. The plan for the afternoon was to mow the lawn, but
the lawn was a tad wet. So I settled in front of the telly and watched a
couple of episodes of “The Witcher” in which the foxy one flopped them
out, which was a tad unmoral of her. “er indoors TM” boiled up fajitas for dinner which we scoffed whilst watching the
first episode of “Celebrity Race Across The World” which in
a novel break with tradition featured some (but not all) celebrities
of whom I’d heard. When I watch people in that show struggling to book
transport in bus and train stations, I always remember the young couple we
met a few times in Uzbekistan. Following pretty much the same itinerary are
us, it was so much easier for us being on an organized trip rather than
trying to sort it all out for ourselves as we went along. It seems hard
enough to find the bus or train station, and when you do, no one understands
you. My phone beeped – we’ve hit the first of this
month’s three Munzee clan targets. That’s a result. And I’m now one week into
MoVember. It seemed such a good idea after a few
beers last Friday. There’s still time to give a bung for it… https://uk.movember.com/mospace/15453545 https://www.facebook.com/donate/1355423342735210/1355423366068541/ |
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8 Movember 2025
(Saturday) - Rather Busy
I
wasn’t really paying attention to the Internet this morning as I scoffed my
toast. Having struggled to get the Alexa to put the radio on I found myself
in a rather thoughtful mood this morning. I do YouGov surveys (for the
simple reason that they give me money to do so) and last night the survey
was about how much I use the Alexa (and similar devices). One of the
questions was about would I support a setting in which the Alexa would
recognize children’s voices and only take certain orders from them. And there it was… the end of the world. Seriously. Fifty years ago Isaac Asimov wrote
a fictional story about a possible problem with the Second Law of
Robotics. To the uninitiated, this law states that a robot has to obey all
orders given to it by a human. But when faced with multiple conflicting
instructions from various people, what should the robot do? Clearly it should
prioritize the legitimate orders of those qualified to give legitimate
orders, and ignore the whims of half-wits. But how could the robot tell the
difference? A prototype robot was designed in such a way that it could
learn to decide who it should obey, and who it should ignore… and George-10
concluded that what with the vagaries and idiosyncrasies of humanity, the
only people in any way qualified to give orders to robots would be other
robots. This is the very reason why I always make a point of
thanking the Alexa whenever I ask anything of it. I Munzed, and got Wordle (arise)
on the fourth attempt. That took some doing this morning. I then strained my
brain on Steve’s “Guess the Lyrics” radio competition. “Let’s do
the milk shake, Sell it like a hot cake”. No? I’d no idea either. “er
indoors TM” said it sounded familiar… not to me it
didn’t. As we drove round to Dog Club Steve gave out the answer - it was Pop
Muzik by the one-hit-wonder M. Of course it was. Dog Club was rather good. We all stood chatting in a
field whilst fifteen (I think) dogs ran round playing. Treacle lost two
tennis balls… Treacle insists she has a tennis ball for Dog Club and seems to
lose at least one every time. The only real problem we had today was that
something or other had had a profoundly laxative effect on the dogs; there
was certainly a pot of “unloading” going on. As we drove away Steve was doing the Mystery Year
competition on the radio. Cyndi Lauper – “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”
– 1983. Well… her first version of that song was. She did another version in
1994. Rather than going home we got petrol and drove up to
Knatt’s Valley where there was a geo-event going on. Our plan was (what
with having the dogs along) to make a flying visit, and that’s what we
did. We were there long enough to say hello; it is always good to catch up
with old friends. We came home for a spot of lunch. I did the Dog Club
Money and then, having been emailed the work rota,
had a look at the next quarter’s work shifts. I did a little CPD,
handed the chess bots their
arses on a plate, then we had a minor tidy-up. Chris arrived with the Infinity Table, and Steve and
Sarah were hot on his heels. We had a very good evening, A game of Game of
Life in which I didn’t score that highly. A game of Sorry in which I was
nearly (but not quite) last. And a game of Ticket to Ride… I think it
fair to say that my average score was fourth out of five. I suspect the five pints of stout probably didn’t
help… |
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9 November 2025
(Sunday) - Bit Dull
We were rather late getting up this morning… can’t
imagine why. I made toast and had a look at the Internet as I do. There was
no end of talk about the new Star Trek Lego set that was released a few days
ago. The long-awaited Enterprise-D model has come out. Costing several
hundred pounds, personally I think the thing looks dreadful. But everyone was
all a-twitch about the typos in the set’s stickers. Leaving aside the
hyphen between NCC and 1701 that shouldn’t be there, the word “boldly” is
mis-spelt. I suspect that future versions will be corrected, and the
mis-spelling will just add to the value of the first edition sets. Some
people pay far too much for Lego, and also for Star Trek memorabilia, and
first editions of this set will be worth thousands in a few short years…
unless I buy one as an investment in which case it won’t be worth anything… “er indoors TM” set off up to town to meet friends for brekkie. I didn’t. I
scoffed quite a few calories last night, and I find that all the cafes in the
town centre echo so much that I can’t hear a word that is being said. So I Munzed, Wordled (fugue on
the fourth attempt) and read my Kindle for a bit before walking the dogs
up to town to meet her. There were quite a few people in town this morning.
I saw a load of people round the war memorial. Back in the day I used to take
the cubs up to that ceremony. These days I probably wouldn’t; it’s all got a
little bit too political… We took a circuitous walk home past the park and
round the local roads. The dogs needed their outing, and we Munzed as we walked, opening Qrates
and freeing cubimals as you do. As we walked, a
passing cyclist boiled my piss. I used to cycle to and from work for years;
I’m not unsympathetic to them. But more and more they are just accidents
waiting to happen, and when the accidents happen everyone loudly claims it isn’t
the cyclist’s fault. Take this morning’s half-wit. Both hands on his phone
and not one on the handlebars, cycling down the wrong side of the road
looking down at his phone and being unable to hear anything at all because of
the ear-buds. We got home, had a cuppa,
then I had a pootle in the garden. It was probably
too wet to mow the lawn, but I mowed it anyway. It wasn’t going to get any
drier if I’d left it, and the shorter the grass, the easier it is to find dog
turds. Whilst I was at it I pruned the potted shrubs. I might plant them in
the ground next spring; I might leave them in the tubs, We shall see. And
whilst I was at it I cleaned out the big pond’s filter. I topped up the bird
feeder, and seeing how well the bird seed I’d planted in the lawn had
sprouted, I planted some more seeds in the bare patches of the lawn. And then
I made a point of stopping. Over the last year I’ve overdone it in the garden
too many times and hurt for several days afterwards. I made us both a cuppa, then
had a little look at the Internet. My Lego pirate ship is missing one
latticed window. I can’t find a spare anywhere, so I ordered one… finding the
exact part took some doing, but I eventually found it. And I ordered a Lego
tulip petal too as we’d managed to lose one of those as well. I found myself watching what was on the telly – the
last of the Harry Potter films. I couldn’t believe that was made fourteen
years ago. And we followed this with the first episode of “Game
of Wool” which is basically “Bake Off” but with knitting rather
than cooking. It was strangely captivating… Yesterday was rather full-on. In comparison, today
has been rather dull. |
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10 Movember 2025
(Monday) - Rain Stopped Play
What with restless dogs and all the snoring I
had a terrible night. I gave up trying to sleep, made toast and watched half
an episode of “The Witcher”. It’s a good show, but you have to wonder
why they made the episodes an hour and ten minutes long. I had my usual look at the Internet and saw something that made me
think… Amongst the various Reform UK councilors that have been given the
heave-ho from Reform UK are five members of the Kent and Medway Fire
Authority. And with them being out on their arses
means that spending money on the local fire brigade is rather problematic (i.e.
no one can spend anything). The fire brigade union aren’t
at all happy… and I can’t say that I am either. There’s no denying that
our (relatively) new Labour MP has turned
out to be something of a disappointment, and sadly the bunch that set up
because of the public’s disillusionment with the government haven’t lived up
to their promise either. The trouble with Reform UK is that they are currently riding on the
public’s being (understandably) hacked off with the current and
previous governments. Pretty much everyone advocating for them on-line is
doing so because they are perceived as a change from political parties who’ve
been something of a disappointment in the past. But the current and previous
governments were formed by people in political parties which have a stated
ideology and principles. Reform UK is running on the ticket of “vote for
us; we aren’t as crap as them”, and that only ever works as a political
standpoint if you *aren’t* demonstrably “as crap as them”. “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” needed a lift to Canterbury, so I drove down to her flat and
once I’d walked the dogs up the leas we set off.
The roads were rather busy and we were only ten minutes late getting to where
we needed to be. The drive was rather fraught – Pogo has taken a visceral
dislike to umbrellas and there were quite a few being brandished today. Bearing in mind the weather forecast said the rain would stop by
mid-morning I’d taken the dogs with the idea that we would come home via
Kings Wood and have a walk with Pogo… Sadly, rather than stopping, the rain
got heavier. We got to Kings Wood and I thought we’d try a walk (as we
were driving past anyway) but after five minutes it was obvious that we
were wasting our time, so we abandoned. Morgan wasn’t happy though. He had to
be put on the lead and dragged back to the car. Once home I made us both a cuppa, and having
had my plans for the morning washed out I was at a bit of a loose end. My
usual fallback position is to do some CPD, and I did. And
also when at a loose end I look at geo-puzzles. I looked at about a dozen or
so which are probably within an hour’s drive of home… and solved five. I had a spicy rib flavoured pot noodle for
lunch. It was something of a disappointment both in flavour
and in it being over five hundred calories. And then it was time to
collect “Daddies’ Little Angel TM”. I loaded Pogo
into the car, we collected the most recent fruit of my loin, and drove back
to her flat through the dark and through frankly awful rain. Being Monday, “er indoors TM” went
bowling. I settled in front of the telly and watched a couple of episodes of
“The Witcher” whilst rubbing the irritating beard that I will shave
into shape in a day or so. So many people have beards… I hate the thing.
Still, a third of its time has now passed. If you want to give a donation to it, here’s the links (again)… https://uk.movember.com/mospace/15453545 https://www.facebook.com/donate/1355423342735210/1355423366068541/ |
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11 Movember 2025
(Tuesday) - Drizzle
With
the dogs settled and no snoring I had a good night which was a result. I made
toast, watched half an episode of “The Witcher” then had a look at the
Internet as I do most mornings. It was still there. Some friends were at the
airport going on holiday. Some were in Scotland on holiday. I felt a twinge
of jealousy, but every time I go on a foreign holiday I always get homesick.
I don’t like leaving the dogs. “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” still had business in Canterbury, so I drove down to collect
her. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how new laws are
coming in which should reduce the amount of animals used for research and in
the production of new drugs. And it’s about time too. In 1983 I wrote a
dissertation for my HNC entitled “The Ethics and Science of Animal
Experimentation”. When I wrote that I was rather horrified to find
out that much of the testing of new drugs performed on animals had little (if
any) basis in science, but were legal requirements. Take for example the LD50
value. Wikipedia
says that “The value of LD50 for a substance is the dose required
to kill half the members of a tested population after a specified test
duration”. When I wrote my dissertation in 1983 it was widely known
that the LD50 values produced on populations of rats had very little
application to humanity, but every drug had to have a known LD50 value before
it could be marketed, and this was the case until 1999. It bothers me that
what I knew forty-two years ago is only now being brought into law. And there was talk about what changes people might
want to make to the rules of football. Football
star Gary Linekar has things to say on the matter, as has the head
coach of Manchester City, but rather than inviting them onto the radio,
they did an outside broadcast asking the opinions of nine year old
schoolchildren. With “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” collected
and delivered I drove on to Kings Wood with a bootful
of dogs. Yesterday our walk was rained off. This morning when I left home
there was supposedly a zero per cent chance of rain for the morning… to be
fair the drizzle had eased up by the time we got to the woods car park. We walked a shorter version our usual walk… one
which last year was our standard walk. And probably will be our standard walk
for the coming winter as it bypasses much of the mud. As we walked we met some normal people, and a
professional dog walker we see from time to time. His dog played really
nicely with Morgan and Pogo, which was something of a result. We came home. The boys had their bellies washed; the
girls were surprisingly clean. I made us both a cuppa
then perused the geo-map. More geocaching Treasures had been released this
morning. After a little brain-straining I planned some geo-missions for us.
Collecting Origami Animals in Southend, gathering Dog Figurines in
Folkestone, and getting some Snow Globes in Sandwich will probably feature in
future diary entries. I then drove Pogo over to collect his mummy and took
the pair of them home. “er indoors TM” boiled up a pasta bake which we scoffed whilst watching the second
episode of “Game of Wool”; a strangely captivating show. Today has been rather dull… |
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12 Movember 2025
(Wednesday) - Another Dull Day
I slept reasonably well, but could have done
with an hour’s more kip. I made toast and watched the second half of the
episode of “The Witcher” that I started yesterday morning. It would
seem that a lot of what I’ve been watching was a retrospective… which would
explain why it didn’t seem to make a lot of sense. I sparked up my lap-top. According to the local Facebook pages it
would seem that the local media are trying to stir
it all up about our local county councilor. Elected last May and
given the job of deputy head honcho of the environment portfolio he’s now
sitting as a county council back bencher with no explanation for his
departure from the environment post. I can’t pretend to be Reform UK’s
greatest fan, but I’ve messaged the chap about Operation Brock and the
flooding river, and he took the trouble to reply himself (rather than
having some lackey do it like our MP did). The chap was in the news
recently for getting involved with the plight
of the homeless problem. He’s only been in post for six months; it would
be a shame to have someone who looks like they are doing something hounded
out of office. “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” had another day of it in Canterbury today, so I drove down to
collect her and Pogo. As I drove the pundits on the radio were interviewing
someone or other from the union that looks after professional football
players. Apparently those who hoof a ball round a field once a week (for
a weekly
pay packet which is far in advance of what I get a year) have
got the arse about their workload. What
with football league and various knockout cups and the Euros their workload (if
you can call it that) is increasing, and they feel that having to hoof a
ball round a field any more than once a week is unreasonable. Here’s an offer for those who pay their wages. I’ll quite happily hoof
a ball round a field once a day for five days a week, and I’ll take their
weekly wage as my yearly wage. Seriously. I collected the most recent fruit of my loin, deposited her where she
had to be, and took four dogs to Kings Wood. We had a minor incident… we
sometimes have this minor incident when Pogo is along. Being a very small
dog, Bailey generally keeps herself to herself. But when Pogo is with us she
knows that he’s got her back, so she sometimes gets gobby with other dogs
safe in the knowledge that if it all kicks off, Pogo will back her up (and
Pogo is quite a lump). I wish she wouldn’t… We came home, and what with “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” being
finished earlier than expected I left “er indoors TM” washing
Morgan and took Pogo to collect her. With her deposited home I came home for a late lunch. I had a vague
plan to go for another outing, but by the time I’d done an anticlockwise
circuit of half the county, a walk round the woods and a clockwise circuit of
half the county I had less than two hours of daylight left. Instead I munzed, got Wordle (deuce) on the fourth attempt,
wrote up some CPD,
then challenged the chess bots (and lost). “er indoors TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst
watching a new thing on telly featuring Sandi
Toksvig doing archeology. Have you ever watched archeology on the telly?
It’s a lie. It looks so interesting, but I know the truth. About fifteen years ago we were regulars at the archeology club. They
would organize digs in which I would be expected to do all the digging. It
was hours of back-breaking work, but the moment I unearthed anything remotely
interesting I would be unceremoniously hoiked out
of the trench I’d dug so’s that the self-appointed experts could take over.
We even had some pompous and pretentious archeology undergraduate who would
sit and watch me dig who actually said that he was too important to do the
menial grunt work of digging. His face was a picture when I got out of the
trench, gave him the shovel and told him that I was more important than he
was. Apparently the archology club has since been subsumed by the Lenham Heritage Society.
Probably for the best. Oh – and Facebook would seem to have had a funny turn. |
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13 Movember 2025
(Thursday) - We Had KFC
There
was sad news on Facebook this morning. The Ghost Train in Dymchurch closed a
couple of weeks ago and has now been demolished. I can remember going on
there in the late 70s on a day trip from Boys Brigade camp when one of our
number (known to all as “Killer”) had a go and was terrified. There
was someone asking for advice about keeping terrapins on one of the Facebook
pond-related pages, and people were being polite and helpful. That’s a novel
break with tradition; let’s hope it continues. And there was talk about a
supposedly upcoming government announcement about the pension age rising.
Let’s hope not for a while, eh? Some new geocaches had gone live; a series of six
challenge caches. To claim a find on the first one you have to have found two
geocache types in two countries, for the third three geocache types in three
countries, and so on… We are good up to four icon types in four different
countries (Belgium, Uzbekistan, France and Spain). Some people thrive
on that sort of thing; everyone plays the game differently. Each to their
own, I suppose… as long as people are playing nicely and not squabbling. I Munzed, got Wordle (tinge)
on the second go, and got ready for the off. We drove up to Kings Wood where we walked three and
a half miles. Walking about an hour and a half later than usual there were a
lot more people in the woods. We didn’t see any deer but there was plenty of
evidence of them (turds), and quite a few squirrels too. I ran my
bird-detecting app twice; the first time it found a Bonapart’s Gull;
a rare visitor to the UK and which is the only gull to nest in trees. There’s
plenty of those in King’s Wood. We came home for a cuppa
and an out-of-date Bakewell tart. After I’d scoffed it I told my diet app
about it and found that it was over four hundred calories. Back in the day
what with it being a week past it’s sell-by I would have scoffed two just to
use them up, and that would be half my day’s calorie allowance in one hit.
And whilst I’m calorie counting, a three and a half mile walk round the woods
equates to just over one and a half Bakewell tarts. I did some chess puzzles;
you can do three a day (for free) on chess dot com. I then drove down to Folkestone. “Daddies’
Little Angel TM” had a video meeting which was the
culmination of this week’s meetings. I sat with her… I won’t elaborate today.
One day I might. Let’s just say that it’s become something of a family
tradition that when there’s major family disaster we have KFC, and (sod
the calories) that’s what we scoffed this evening for tea. In a week’s time it’s Black Friday… to cheer us up a
tad, bearing in mind what fun our monthly games nights are, I might
just get an Infinity Table if
there’s any going cheap… Oh – and if you give a bung of twenty quid or more
to the stupid moustache thingy, the nice people at Pringles will match your donation. If you want to give a donation to it, here’s the
links (again)… https://uk.movember.com/mospace/15453545 https://www.facebook.com/donate/1355423342735210/1355423366068541/ |
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14 Movember 2025
(Friday) - Doing Housework
I had maybe three hours sleep last night. I got up
and made toast and peered into the Internet. Facebook is my usual go-to, but
it seemed to be having an episode. As well as telling me I had thousands of
notifications but not showing me any, it told me about the same birthdays it
old me yesterday and my so-called “news” feed was filled with stuff
from weeks ago. But I did see one thing that
made me think. Cereals, getting married, going to the gym, soap, beer and
restaurants all seem to be in decline. Mind you, the Facebook bots were well aware that I’d
been looking at Infinity Tables yesterday judging by the amount of adverts I
had for them. The plan for the morning was (as always) to
take the dogs out, but it was a bit damp outside, so instead I cracked on
with a geo-project. There’s plans afoot for a big series of Adventure Labs,
and I got my contribution ready. The plan is for it to be released on an
unsuspecting public some time in the New Year. The dogs weren’t happy at our not going out… I
decided against going to the woods. With heavy rain showers forecast I didn’t
want to be stuck in a torrential downpour in a swamp two miles from the car.
So “er indoors TM” joined us this morning
and we took four dogs (Pogo had a little sleepover last night) round
the local roads having a little Munzee session. I say “little” – we
walked nearly two miles and Munzed over forty
times. We came home for a cuppa.
I got Wordle (lurid) on the third attempt then had a look at planning
tomorrow’s booze-up… The plan was to meet up with my brother for a beer or
two in Rye. But what with it being the bonfire procession tomorrow evening
the last train comes back to Ashford at quarter to three in the afternoon.
You’d think that there would be thousands of potential customers an they’d
put on extra trains, wouldn’t you? But no – they are topping the trains
altogether, Go figure. “My Boy TM” and ”Auntie Chel TM” came to visit
and use the shower. They’ve got issues with their boiler in that something
inside it has melted and is giving off iffy fumes. With them scrubbed we put the world to rights. At
the moment there’s a lot in our world which needs putting to rights. One day
I will elaborate… but not today. And with them off to get grubby again and the
drizzle getting worse we had something of a dull day doing housework. We
cleared the shelves of dragons and Lego, had a good dust around, cleared away
all the other assorted rubbish which had been put on shelves and left, and
then put it all back together again. It only took three hours. We had a bit of toast for a late lunch, then cracked
on with more shelf clearing/cleaning. We cleared out the shelves behind the
telly. Amongst other tat I found a pair of glasses from six years ago. I had a little sleep, and then put the telly on and
watched something on the Film 4 channel. I can remember going to the cinema
many years ago to see Daleks
– Invasion Earth 2150 and thinking it was brilliant. Now… it’s an
entertaining film, but the plot has got more holes than my socks. As I watched the daleks so I scoffed a bowl of
peanuts… “er indoors TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching
the final of Taskmaster. It was rather good, but my innards are giving me
gyp. I blame the peanuts… Oh – and if you give a bung of twenty quid or more
to the stupid moustache thingy, the nice people at Pringles will match your donation. If you want to give a donation to it, here’s the
links (again)… https://uk.movember.com/mospace/15453545 https://www.facebook.com/donate/1355423342735210/1355423366068541/ I’m nearly up to two hundred quid… |
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15 Movember 2025
(Saturday) - Dog Club, Tenterden
I
slept well; it helps enormously if the dogs are settled. I made toast and peered
into the Internet in case anything much had changed overnight. It hadn’t
really… or had it? My Facebook feed was filled with stuff which was mostly
from over a week ago. We tuned to Radio Ashford where Steve was presenting
the morning program. He said that it would be mostly dry today, and he was
backed up by the Met Office’s weather forecast which said that at most there
would be a ten per cent chance of rain in Ashford today, and that would be in
the late afternoon. However the BBC claimed that at no point locally would
there be less than a sixty per cent chance of rain. As I have said before I
would love to be held to the same standard of competency as a meteorologist.
But when has any healthcare professional got away with “Oh, it wasn’t
wind, it was terminal cancer was it? Ho ho
ho… silly me”. Steve then gave the “Guess the Lyrics”
competition. “I love your personality but I don’t want our love on show”.
No? It was Eddie Grant – I Don’t Wanna Dance. I Munzed, got Wordle (clung)
on the fifth attempt, and got ready for the off. We drove round to Dog Club where we had a good
session. Pogo was with us; I did have reservations about how he would get on,
but he clearly seemed to remember the place. He joined in the “sitting
nicely for treats” and didn’t snap at anyone. He played chase… he was a
tad keen at the humping but you can’t have everything. I suppose I’d rate him
at six and a half out of ten with the observation that there was room for
improvement. As we drove home Steve was doing the Mystery Year
competition on the radio. Steeleye Span’s hat (arse!),
Jasper Carrot’s Funky Moped… I thought 1978 but it was three years earlier.
1975 We had a cuppa and a
Bakewell tart in the hope that it might settle my innards. I *really*
shouldn’t have had those peanuts yesterday. I do like peanuts, but they don’t
like me. We then drove down to Tenterden.
First of all we went out to Smallhythe where we
found a geocache which qualified for giving us a virtual snow globe, then we
went into Tenterden. We tried to park; the place
was heaving. We eventually found somewhere to park in a back street then made
our way to the church. We walked through the absolute mayhem, that was the
Christmas Fayre. It took a ridiculously long time to walk a ridiculously
small distance. Am I being hopelessly naïve in thinking that in the same way
that drivers need to pass a driving test in order to be able to drive on the
roads, people should have to pass some sort of test before being allowed to
walk on a pavement? So many people were just randomly blundering all over the
place and randomly stopping whenever the voices in their heads felt that
doing so might be a good idea. We got to the church where we met a Canadian chap
who was holidaying in the area who had organized a geo-meet-up. Before
everyone else arrived we had a little chat which convinced me that I would
like to go back to Canada. And then once everyone else arrived we chatted as
we do. I do like these geo-meets. From the meet we drove out to the McCann’s brewery
tap room. It was a bit of an experiment to see how Pogo would get on. He
seemed to cope all right with our first pint, so I got a flight of beer (Three
thirds of different pints) for myself, some pork scratchings
for the pups, and ordered some dinner for us all. We (the humans) had
a pizza and cheesy chips, and I shared a portion of whitebait with the dogs.
Dinner all round, a few drinks and change out of fifty quid. Not too shabby
at all. Hopefully I can stage next February’s geo-meet
there. We came home. I set the washing machine loose on my
undercrackers, shaved the frankly awful beard into an even worse set of
mutton chops and had a little kip. “er indoors TM” boiled up egg and chips and we scoffed it whilst watching Bottom 2001: An Arse Oddity. 2001 – is that really twenty-four years
old? And in closing we are now half-way through MoVember and it is now in shape. I’ve been here before.
People accept the frankly awful beard, but I will now spend the next two
weeks explaining that I realise that the mutton
chops are *really* bad and are for charity. If you give a donation of twenty
quid or more to it, the nice people at Pringles will match your donation. Here’s the links (again)… https://uk.movember.com/mospace/15453545 https://www.facebook.com/donate/1355423342735210/1355423366068541/ I’m nearly up to two hundred quid… The Facebook page
says I’ve raised one more quid than the official Movember page says… |
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16 Movember 2025
(Sunday) - Virtual Snow Globes
We had something of a late night last night, and so didn’t get up
until after nine this morning. I had a bit of a shave (now half my face is
up for shaving), made toast and had a look at the Internet. Several
people were squabbling about how TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp had been
having a dig at children’s author Michael Rosen for using a buss pass rather than paying for his ticket. As Mr. Rosen
pointed out, he’s entitled to the bus pass and he’s used the NHS and state
schools and other things to which he is entitled, and why shouldn’t he? Ms. Allsopp didn’t really do herself any favours
by trying to take the moral high ground; especially when it was pointed out
that her
father had been in the House of Lords but didn’t make any speeches
in there from 1999 until his death in 2024. It turns out that Ms. Allsopp has
been mired in controversy before, suggesting that people might afford houses
if they cut out” coffee, Netflix, and going to the gym” before
she quit Twitter. Personally I can’t help but wonder why she picked these fights in the
first place. People were also whinging on-line about
the Christmas
market at Tenterden. We were there yesterday,
Three quid for a cookie. Ten quid for chips. The place was heaving with
people with maybe one person in fifty looking where they were going, with
everyone blundering into everyone else and seeming to be surprised when they
did... It would seem that I wasn’t the only person who wasn’t impressed. A friend had started a group on Facebook for
people who *don’t* fill this fish tanks with all sorts of chemicals.
The group might take off; here’s hoping. I Munzed, got Wordle (wield) on the
third attempt, and thought about doing something. Originally the plan for
today was to go to Hollingbourne for a film-show
geo-meet, but it turned out that dogs weren’t allowed in the place. We could
have left them at home, but it can be arse ache
going out and coming back to collect the dogs and going out again. The back-up plan was a dog walk round Mote Park, but the weather was
against us. So we did a few multi-geocaches that would give us a little walk
and qualify for Snow Globe Treasures with the plan that if the drizzle turned
into rain, we wouldn’t be far from the car. We drove out to the arse-end of nowhere
where we got the number of a telegraph pole, did a few sums, and found a
little geocache hidden just up the lane. From there it was a short hop to Frittenden Village Hall where we got some numbers from
another telegraph pole, did more sums and then went for a little walk looking
at some rather nice garden ponds. And then into Cranbrook where we’d got the
final location of a multi-geocache some time ago, but had got distracted and
went to the pub instead. As it happened the drizzle stopped and we could have gone round Mote
Park anyway…but we got three snow globe geo-Treasures, which was something of
a result. We got home shortly after two o’clock and had a quiet afternoon. I get
very stir-crazy and bored if I’m not doing something, but I spent the
afternoon sitting on the sofa. I finished the second book in a series of books that
I can thoroughly recommend if you like that sort of thing… “that sort of
thing” being best described as “Horatio Hornblower in outer space”.
I wrote up some CPD,
played the bots at Mahjongg and chess, and had a little doze with the dogs…
The dogs are odd things. No one ever sees how they spend probably ninety per
cent of their time; snuggled up next to me fast asleep like teddy bears. Did I ever mention that I never wanted a dog? “er indoors TM” boiled up a rather good Sunday roast which we scoffed whilst watching
the second episode of the current season of “Celebrity
Race Across The World”. There’s four teams, two are trying their
best, and two just seem to be on a free holiday. We followed this with an episode of “Canal Boat Diaries”.
It’s a rather good show following the adventures of some chap sailing his
narrowboat along the canals of England. It looks like hard work, and I can’t
help but wonder how the chap finances a life of sailing his narrowboat along
the canals of England. Meanwhile we’re now over the half-way point, and here’s the links (again)… https://uk.movember.com/mospace/15453545 https://www.facebook.com/donate/1355423342735210/1355423366068541/ One more bung, and we’ll be past the two hundred quid mark. |
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17 Movember 2025
(Monday) - Walk, Ironing, Dentist
I
woke to the sound of Morgan jumping off of the bed in the small hours. When
he gets up there’s no hanging around. If he can’t get out of the back door,
he unloads as close to “out of the back door” as he can. I got there in time, but came back to bed to find my
warm spot had been annexed by Pogo. I shoved him over, but then had to
contend with Morgan stomping up and down because Pogo was in his usual space.
Some nights everyone sticks to their own bit of the bed and all is peachy.
Other nights it is one big squabble. The obvious answer is to have the dogs
sleep in their own beds… but I said that years ago. I had a bit of a shave and tidied up the mutton
chops, then stood on the scales. I’ve lost a couple more pounds; I’m now
exactly three stones lighter than I was at the start of the year. I’m seeing
that as a result. But, as I always say, weight loss is easy. I’ve done it
before. Keeping the weight off – that’s the tricky bit. I made toast and had a look at the Internet. Someone
had reported a post on the “Upstairs Downstairs” Facebook page that I
help moderate. Someone else had posted mucky photos on there. That’s the
second time that’s happened over the last few days… that’s another person who
has got themselves banned. I took the dogs up to Kings Wood where my piss
boiled. Last year I spent months trying to organise
a litter pick but the officials at Forestry England were awkward and
obstructive and making all sorts of problems and objections. Over the weekend
there was an organized orienteering event which left the grassed areas by the
car park little more than a sea of mud, and left the woods awash with blue
paint, and their direction signs have been left behind too. We started our walk earlier than we have done
recently. Being there shortly after sunrise there were only two other cars in
the car park, and we only saw one other group on our way round. It was a
shame that Pogo had to scream at them, but that’s Pogo. We walked our usual walk. As we went so the dogs
nibbled on horse poo (as they do). But we did see some deer; if only
fleetingly. We came home to find no parking anywhere near home.
I parked two streets away, and as we parked so everyone else had driven off.
We walked back from the car past six parking spaces. Ho hum… Now it’s winter, baths after a walk are the done
thing. Bellies get rather muddy when we are out, and get rather crusty as the
mud dries on the drive home. With bellies washed I popped down the road to
the dentist to see if they could fix the tooth that broke at the weekend;
they made an appointment for the afternoon. “er indoors TM” wasn’t in the office today so I made us both a cuppa,
and we had a lemon curd bun with it. Very nice. I Munzed, getting six
bouncers out of a tree house. I’ve often mentioned that there’s never a dull
moment in Munzee. Eventually I got Wordle to work and got “clamp” on
the fifth attempt. I watched a couple of episodes of “The Witcher”
whilst doing the ironing, then did some CPD. The bots at chess
dot com then gave me a free lesson, and I then played them with various
degrees of success. I went into the garden where I gathered dog dung and
pulled dead leaves out of the pond. And then to the dentist. I was in and out in fifteen
minutes. The dentist smoothed off the sharp edge of the broken tooth and put
in what he called an “intermediate filling”. He said to see how it
went. There’s very little tooth left for him to fill, and he didn’t seem to
want to be drawn on what happens if and when this intermediate filling gives
up the ghost. I suppose that now the sharp edge has gone, if this fix fails then
the immediate urgency to sort it won’t be what it was. I then spent a little while looking at lino. Last year when I built the expanded bog filter for
the pond I put up some stone-effect pond liner to cover where the water goes
from the filter to the main pond, but it looks a bit crap in that it is far
too light in colour. I really need some sort of pond liner/lino that is much darker. I couldn’t find anything
on-line, so I’m left with going old-skool and
actually going to the shop to have a look. I’ll do that tomorrow. “er indoors TM” boiled up cheeseburgers then went bowling. I settled on the sofa
underneath a pile of dogs and watched another episode of “The
Witcher”. I’m thinking early night after last night’s
restlessness… |
|
18 Movember 2025
(Tuesday) - Early Shift
Another restless night… if only people and
dogs could lie down and stay put for the night; I don’t spend the night
stomping about the place, falling off the bed and whinging to be helped back
up again, do I? I made toast and had a little look at the Internet. A Facebook friend
was having a birthday today. One of my ex-cub scouts; he’s thirty-six today.
Thirty-six. How did that happen? I can remember giving him a stern telling
off in a field in Ruckinge which only seems to be
five years ago at most. Where did all that time go? I had emails; both my Credit Karma and Experian scores have gone up
this month. I have no idea why… perhaps buying a year’s worth of house
buildings and contents insurance is a good thing in their eyes? But if so,
who has told them about it? I’ve made a point of telling the bank that they
are absolutely *not* to share my financial information with anyone. Mind you, I take what these credit agencies say with a pinch of salt.
Credit Karma did suggest I might reduce by energy bills by eleven quid a
month by changing my energy supplier. They suggested I move to the company
with whom I’m actually already with. And Experian have since emailed asking
me about my experience of looking up my credit rating. I went out to the car and saw that winter had
officially arrived. In my world the first day od
winter is the first day that I find the car covered in ice. I would have
scraped it off if I had been able to find the ice scraper... some cold water
did the trick and I got myself a new scraper from the garage when I paid for
petrol. I got a little wound up in the garage this
morning. They were short-handed with only one person on the tills, and the
chap at the front of the queue was obviously lonely. The petrol stations seem
to attract lonely people in the early mornings, with massive queues of people
wanting to pay forming as the chap at the front chatters on about trivia. Narrowly avoiding being splattered by a huge
lorry as I tried to get onto the motorway I listened to the blather from the
pundits on the radio. There was a lot of talk about how hospices are funded. I can remember
ranting about this when my mother was in the hospice. The places are
clearly needed, but about three quarters of their funding comes from charity
donations. If ever there was something that should be funded by the NHS, it
is hospices. And there was also talk about how the law is
changing so that tickets for concerts cannot be bought and then sold on at a
massive profit. It will be illegal to charge more than the ticket's face value. Mind you, the
expert being interviewed said that this new rule would change nothing. People
with tickets for a sold-out concert would still charge extortionate amounts
for it and get it from people who wanted to see those concerts. It's called
market forces. I got to work and did my bit. Not having been
in to work for a couple of weeks my colleagues hadn't seen the Mo in all its
glory. Everyone was complementary about the thing... and I think people were
genuinely impressed with it. Can't say that I am, but there it is. Being on the early I finished early, but it
was still getting dark as I came out. I took a little diversion to a nearby
carpet shop to see if they had any lino with a dark
rock design. They didn’t. There were two nice men in the shop who were both
very helpful, but both agreed that if I couldn’t find what I wanted on-line
then it probably doesn’t exist. That’s a pain in the glass… Another pain in the glass was that as I got
home my car told me that it would like a service. I’ve booked one for next
week, but that’s more expense I could do without. “er indoors TM” boiled up a very good cauliflower cheese which we washed down with a
birthday pressie bottle of plonk whilst watching
the third episode of “Game
Of Wool”. For a show which is “Bake Off does
knitting” it is rather good. In tonight’s episode the Team GB
swimming team modelled knitted swimwear. Knitted swimwear – is that a thing? Meanwhile we’re now over two hundred quid and here’s the links (again)… https://uk.movember.com/mospace/15453545 https://www.facebook.com/donate/1355423342735210/1355423366068541/ |
|
19 Movember 2025
(Wednesday) - Another Early Shift
I
had a restless night, waking shortly after one o’clock and seeing every
fifteen minutes for the rest of the night. I gave up trying to sleep and got
up far too early. I made toast, but I didn’t fancy watching the telly, and
with nothing much happening on-line I thought I might have a little
geo-adventure before work. I
got dressed, and set about the ice on the car with the new ice scraper, then
drove off through the dark to Maidstone. As always the lorries on the
motorway were a nightmare; they either don’t see the cars that they nearly
run off the road, or they don’t care. It really could be either option. As
I drove the pundits on the radio were all getting rather over-excited about
the allegations that Chinese spies are chumming up with MPs and their
lackies (via
LinkedIn). Is this really a threat to national security? Surely MPs and
their lackeys aren’t stupid enough to pass state secrets to any old person
who sent them a friend request on LinkedIn, are they? I’m rather amazed that
the Chinese embassy has taken offense at this; to my simple mind the whole
thing reminds me of Wun Tun and Too Tun
the Chinese Spies from
“The Dandy” from fifty years ago. And
there was talk of George Osbourne. Once Chancellor of
the Exchequer, he’s currently being billed as a serious candidate to be head
honcho at HSBC, or el supremo at the BBC, or the
next British ambassador to the USA. Personally I would have thought that each
job would have had very different requirements, but what do I know? I
got to South Maidstone where I had my eye on two geocaches. The first one was
a multi-cache. I had to go to a bench on a street on which there was a key
safe containing information about where the final geocache was hidden. It
turned out that the thing was hidden in the nearby library which didn’t open
for another couple of hours. Ho hum… I
went for a short drive and found the final part of a puzzle geocache which
I’d solved months ago, then went in to work where I had a rather good day. Being
on an early shift meant I got out before it got too dark. Bearing in mind how
busy the way home from work was last night I wondered about taking a
different route home past that library before it closed. What
a silly idea… If
took nearly forty minutes to drive across Maidstone, and when I got to the
library I very nearly turned round there and then. The place was in a rather
run-down precinct where various teenaged scratters
were trying to pull wheelies trying to impress any passer-by who might be
feeble-minded enough to be impressed by a scratter
who can’t quite stay on a pedal bike. Armed
with the information I needed to find the geocache I went into the library. I
asked for the book I needed and said it was for the geocache. The nice lady
smiled and said that she was under orders not to help anyone looking for it…
Fair enough. After fifteen minutes searching I gave up. The nice lady said
there were two copies of the book I was looking for… she went to the shelf
and also found there weren’t any. Having fallen at the first three hurdles I
was all set to give up and go home, but the nice lady said that*if*
I’d found the book (that wasn’t there) there was a note inside which
would tell me to randomly hunt round the library looking for a locked box.
And seeing that I’d clearly lost all interest in the silly idea the nice lady
showed me the box. It
was sealed with a padlock… but nil desperandum… in the
information I’d found earlier was the combination to the padlock. It was
strangely apt that the combination didn’t open the padlock. Having
wasted forty more minutes I thanked the nice lady for her time and help and
set off home-wards. Getting
home took some doing; the roads were rather busy. We had a very good bit of
scoff whilst watching Sandi Toksvig getting all archaeological at Hadrian’s
wall. I’ve never been there… that might be a road trip. Two days going up, a
day there, two days coming back again… I might just start planning. |
|
20 Movember 2025
(Thursday) - Cold
With
no alarm set I slept reasonably well. I would have slept better had I got up
for a tiddle at four o’clock rather than thinking I’d manage, and shifting
about every half hour to get comfortable. I
got up half an hour after I started working yesterday, made toast and had a
look at the Internet. Facebook was alive with whinging this morning. One
Facebook group supposedly about NHS wages was embroiled in a major argument
about the Gaza situation. Flat Earthers were trying to hijack an Australian
astronomy group. Flat Earthers boil my piss because they are truly stupid.
They really are. Just go to the beach and look at the horizon. You can see
the curvature of the Earth. It’s not massive, but you can see that the
horizon isn’t flat. And
there was a lot of quarrelling about cheating in geocaching. The
Internet has turned out to be something of a disappointment, hasn’t it? With
all of human knowledge at our fingertips and instantaneous communication, all
the Internet has done has allowed us to engage in fruitless petty bickering
with half-wits that we will never meet. I
Munzed, got Wordle (grave) on the fifth
attempt, and sent out birthday wishes to oldest granddaughter. Back in the
day we’d go out to dinner with her and her mates. Now she’s grown up she does
her own thing. “er indoors TM” got the dogs into their
coats, and leaving her working I took the dogs up to the woods. It was rather
cold this morning; as we walked so the mud was starting to melt. As we walked
we saw another dog walker. On seeing us the chap was clearly gripped by panic
and frantically tried to get his dog to come back to him. I did an about-turn
and went back the other way; people like that are best avoided. About
half a mile further on we saw something odd… There was a chap twenty yards
off the path acting rather oddly… When I looked closely I was shocked. The
chap had a deer carcass hanging from a tree and he was butchering it. In the
past the Forestry England people have had organised deer culls in the woods,
but they’ve had vans and lorries up there, signs warning to keep dogs under
control, and the carcasses all went into a trailer and were taken away. This
morning’s performance all looked a bit dubious to me. Having
had coats on the dogs didn’t need baths when we got home. I made us both a
cuppa and phoned Forestry England to tell them about the chap carving up the
deer. Not that they would have been able to do anything about it; he would
have been long gone by then. It might all have been above board; the chap
might well have a licence and permission… but it all seemed a bit dodgy
compared to the previous deer shooting that I’ve seen up there before. I
then sparked up my lap-top and tuned into work despite being on a day off.
One of the transfusion practitioners was giving a talk about
transfusion related circulatory overload. Being able to tune in to a useful
talk when I’m not in at work is what the Internet is for; not for quarrelling
with strangers. I
then had a quick go in the garden. I harvested a bumper crop of dog dung and
topped up the bird feeders; the poor little things will need food during this
cold snap. And now that we’ve had two very cold nights both ponds will be
rather cold so I turned the pond pumps off. That’s the ponds shut down for
the winter. There’s work that needs doing in both… but in the spring when it
is warm, eh? Having cleared up some shelf space last weekend I
spent a little while this afternoon putting together a Lego set I’d got as a pressie last Christmas. I’m rather pleased with it. We watched the third episode of “Celebrity Race
Across the World” in which the two previously rather useless teams seemed
to suddenly realise that they were in a race. And the birds haven’t touched the seeds in the
feeder… |
|
21 Movember 2025
(Friday) - The Last Snow Globe
Last
night I did that thing that I do oh-so-often. I woke full of energy and
raring to go only to find it was ten past two. I dozed on and off and eventually nodded off just as
the bin men came crashing up the road. I gave up and got up at seven o’clock,
made toast and rolled my eyes at the Internet. Apparently calling someone
bald can be construed as sexual harassment, and all those looking to argue
on-line were arguing about it. Not many of those getting hot under the collar
realized that this wasn’t news; the court ruling on this happened three
years ago. And there was a lot of talk about the by-election in
Hastings. There were a lot of people banging the Reform UK drum… not because
of anything that might have been good about Reform UK but because of how bad
the opposition was. “Vote for us – we’re not as bad as they are” is
only a valid political stance all the time “us” isn’t as bad as “them”.
Bearing in mind the platform on which Reform UK stood at the last county
council elections, it is rather ironic that they’ve awarded the contract to
maintain all of Kent's roads for the next twenty-one years to a
French owned company. I Munzed, got Wordle (vowel)
on the fourth attempt, and looked out of the window. I had planned to take the dogs out… but for all that
the weather forecast said it would be sunny with a seven per cent chance of
rain, it was snowing. So I put the radio on where the pundits on said radio
were talking about the COVID enquiry which has released its findings…
It’s no surprise that it was critical of the government of the time. To be
fair to Boris Johnson (and that takes some doing) whatever he did
would have been wrong. Had he brought in lockdowns earlier then the enquiry
would have whinged about how much money that might
have cost the country. And then Sir Tim Berners Lee (inventor
of the Internet) was wheeled on to be the castaway on Desert Island
Discs. He was rather interesting, but his choices of music were… let’s just
say they wouldn’t have been my choices. By the time he’d finished the heavy snow was but a
memory, and the rain which followed it had stopped. It was rather bright
outside. By then it was time to collect “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” and
drive her about. I loaded the dogs into the car and took them with me. We got
to where we needed to be a few minutes early and I thought I might walk them
for a little while… Suddenly they started barking. I got out of the car to
find a half-wit grimacing through the boot window at them. The half-wit
commented on how noisy they were. I told her that the dogs were barking at
her. She carried on grimacing through the back window. In the end I had to
tell her (in no uncertain terms) to go away so that I could get them
out. She wasn’t happy about that. “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” soon arrived. I drove her home, then as we were in the area and
it had stopped raining we went to Radnor Park for a little walk. The place
has been seriously expanded. Forty years ago we lived just round the corner
and the park was just one big field by the railway station. There’s now a
rather pretty area down the bottom. I didn’t like to let the dogs off the
leads as we walked, and the squirrels knew it. The squirrels didn’t run off
up the trees like they do in the woods. They really did sit on the edge of
the paths taunting the dogs. As we were passing it, I hunted out a geocache which
qualified for the current virtual snow globes series of Treasures. That’s all
the snow globes now found. It’s Dog Figurines and Origami Animals next. We came home where the dogs were soon fast asleep. I
emptied the dishwasher, watched an episode of “The Witcher”, then
remembered that I’d intended to put a load of washing in. Woops. So I put the
washing on, and watched another episode. As I watched “My Boy TM” came
to use the shower. His boiler is still poggered.
The council sent someone to fix it the other day… the fix-it man arrived at
ten to six in the evening and brought the wrong parts with him. There’s talk
of the fix-it man coming back on Monday, but we aren’t holding our breath… I had a little doze underneath the dogs. “er
indoors TM” then boiled up some pizza which we
scoffed whilst watching David
Jason’s Secret Service in which Sir David Jason presented a
documentary about the history of spying. There was (apparently) a *lot*
of secret service activity in Folkestone during the First World War. The show was surprisingly good… Meanwhile the lifetime mutton chops are now over two
thirds done, and here’s the links (again)… https://uk.movember.com/mospace/15453545 https://www.facebook.com/donate/1355423342735210/1355423366068541/ |
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22 Movember 2025
(Saturday) - Dog Club, Infinity Table
It wasn’t as cold as it has been recently
when I got up this morning. It never used to be cold before we had the loft
conversion done. For all that the extra space is useful, the loft conversion
was something of a disaster. The chap who did it walked away half-way through
the job, and it turned out that he walked away from many other jobs too. From
what I can work out he only ever finished one, and that was the loft of the
friend who recommended him. I looked him up on the Internet this morning…
he’s still in business. Can you believe it? He’s spent years talking people’s
money, having himself declared bankrupt, then starting up again and it’s all
perfectly legal. I suppose I could go poke a dog turd through his letter box… There wasn’t an awful lot else happening on the Internet this morning
really. There was some whinging about the poor
quality of careers
advice at schools. This is hardly news though, is it? I can remember the
careers advice at the Hastings Academy for Budding Geniuses from back in the
day. The official position was that if you didn’t intend going to university
then you had no business being in that school. The failures who didn’t go to
university (and they were clearly seen as failures) were pointed to
jobs in banking or as army officers. As I fiddled about, Steve was on the radio. The “Guess the Lyrics”
competition “I got a funny feeling when she walked in the room”. No? –
“Oh What A Night” by the Four Seasons. Steve’s weather forecast was interesting. He read out that the morning
would be good, then commented about how grim it looked out the window. He did
say it would be dry this morning, and if I can’t trust him, who can I trust? With “er indoors TM” off to craft
club I took the dogs round to Repton and Dog Club. It was cold, but Stave had
said it would be dry, and he was right. We started off with a minor issue –
there was three quarters of a dead hawk on the field… if we’d left it there
the dogs would have had it, so with no better suggestions being forthcoming I
suggested we chucked it on the toolshed roof. It’s probably still there. The dogs had a great time; despite the cold there were about fifteen
dogs along. There was a minor issue when little Bailey got trampled by the
bigger dogs; she found herself in their way as they played chase. She did
scream rather loudly, and the screaming continued long after the bigger dogs
had charged off. I was rather worried that she’d been hurt, but she soon
calmed. There didn’t seem to be any obvious harm done; I think she was
frightened rather than hurt. As we drove home I got the Mystery Year competition on the radio
right… When did Princess Anne get divorced and Frankie Howerd die? 1992. Once home I put my trousers into wash. Trousers get very filthy at Dog
Club. I counted up the Dog Club takings, and had a look at the geo-map before
making myself a cuppa and watching a couple of
episodes of “The Witcher” until my delivery arrived. It wasn’t cheap, but I’d been putting a bit aside over the last month
or so and waiting for the Black Friday deals. On Thursday seeing the price
was reduced by over a hundred quid, I ordered us a small Infinity table. I
sparked it up, and it immediately wanted to update its software. It wouldn’t
(couldn’t) do anything until it had got that done, so I spent a couple
of hours trying to connect it to the Internet until “er indoors TM” came
home. She spent an hour trying as well. Bearing in mind Chris had managed it
with his I begged help. Chris was a star – he popped round and after a couple of hours
fiddling about he established that our Sky router appears on the networks as
the Sky router, but is actually transmitting internet things at two different
frequencies. We got round this by connecting it via a mobile hot-spot from my
phone. The thing still can only connect to the Internet via my phone, but
we’ve got a fix for now. We can sort it properly later – we can’t be the only
people with an Infinity table who use Sky. We had a quick bit of dinner, then spent the evening playing with the
new Infinity table. We’ve downloaded quite a few games. Old favourites like “Game of Life”, “Sorry” and
“Trivial Pursuit”, and we’ve tried some new ones. “Trouble” is
basically the old 70s favourite “Frustration”
and “Tilez” is “Blokus”. As we played we had a bag of pretzels that went out of date a month
ago… or that is we opened the bag. Treacle had far too many of them, and is
now farting. |
|
23 Movember 2025
(Sunday) - Late Shift
I slept through till nine o’clock this morning. We were
up rather late last night what with the novelty of the new Infinity table. I
found myself thinking back to one night in the mid-eighties when we got a
state of the art games console (Atari 2600) and
sat up until six o’clock in the morning playing “Centipede” As I scoffed toast I saw my aunt had commented on
something I’d posted on Facebook yesterday evening. I’ taken a photo of the
Infinity table’s version of “Frustration” and mentioned that I used to
beat her all the time at that game fifty years ago. And all my cousins had
pressed the “like” button and commented. Looking back it would seem
that my poor aunt had been playing “Frustration” every single day for
years with a succession of nephews and nieces. I Munzed, got Wordle (bunny)
on the third attempt which was rather impressive, and then looked out of the
window. I’ve complained about the weather forecasts recently… it would seem
that they are relatively good at forecasting when it comes to predicting
rain. I had hoped to go out for a little walk before the late shift but it
was hossing down. I went into the garden quickly to harvest the dog
dung. That’s a job which is best done before the turds get too wet. Have you
ever tried harvesting saturated dog turds? Take it from me – you’d rather
not. I wrote
up some CPD, did a YouGov survey, did some puzzles on chess dot com, and
as the rain stopped and the sun came out so I set off to the late shift. With nothing but tripe on the radio I sang along to
the music on my MP3 player as I drove to work. Last week I treated myself to
Queen's Greatest Hits Volumes I, II and III so I had something different
to howl along to. I stopped off at Sainsburys to get some cash. I was
planning to get some tennis balls for Dog Club as well, but the place was
heaving, so I didn't. I
got to work, had a spot of lunch, then cracked on. As I started I saw
there was a little parcel waiting for me. A
few days ago a colleague was a little bit late for her shift and
I'd covered for her. She felt guilty about getting caught in a traffic jam
and had got me a little pressie. That will go down nicely. I
got on with work. As I've said before, back in the day weekends really were
emergency work only. Now weekends are pretty much like any other day with
clinics and all sorts going ahead. As well they should. As
I worked I had a phone call from “er indoors TM” to
say that Bailey had escaped and had been returned by a passer-by. And
then I had a phone call from nice-next-door. “er indoors TM” was
using her phone to tell me she'd locked herself out. I'm not quite sure how
she managed to do that, but I was detailed to phone “My Boy TM” and
have him go round with some keys. I did that whilst having all sorts of
nightmare visions of what was going on at home. Eventually I got a message
that they had they sent for a locksmith... who charged close on two hundred
quid for five minutes work. Also
whilst I was out Chris popped round with something that plugs into the router
so that the Infinity table can see the Internet. Today’s been rather stressful… Meanwhile the mutton chops are now into their last
week, and here’s the links (again)… https://uk.movember.com/mospace/15453545 https://www.facebook.com/donate/1355423342735210/1355423366068541/ |
|
24 Movember 2025
(Monday) - Walk, Dentist
We’ve taken to putting Gold Radio on the Alexa in
the mornings (except for Saturdays) and this morning there were quite
a few Christmas songs being played. There are those who go mad for Christmas;
as I drove home last night there were several houses locally with their
Christmas lights up (including nice next door). It was all rather
festive, but as I’ve said before, for me the trouble with starting Christmas
too early is that I’ve had enough of it by mid-December. After all, there’s
still a week to go before the Advent
Calendar opens. Perhaps this year I might try something different, I
might join in, do all the Christmas stuff in early December, and ignore the
thing when it actually happens. It’s a thought… I made toast and peered into the Internet to see
what else I might moan about (I’m doing that too much). Several people
were posting memes about it being Monday; roll on Friday… I quite like my
current work pattern. What with no two weeks being the same I don’t get any
Monday morning feelings. I Munzed and then got
stuck after my first attempt at Wordle so I got dressed and despite the
weather forecast took the dogs out. As we drove to the woods so the pundits on the radio
were talking about palm reading. It was claimed that for all that it is a
load of old tosh, loads of influential people have believed in it over the
years including Sir Isaac Newton. We got to the woods where the mud had melted. We had
a good walk; if a tad muddy. As we walked so a deer crossed the path not ten
yards away from me. It calmly looked at me, watched me got my phone out to
try to take a photo, and just walked off as I tried to take the piccie. We came back to the car park to see a pair of normal
people shouting at their dog for no reason that I could fathom. Some people
spend their entire walk shouting at their dogs; we walked four and a half
miles and I didn’t have to tell mine off at all. We came home for a bath… bellies were very grubby. I
made us both a cuppa and had a look at the monthly
accounts. They could be worse, but they could certainly do with being a whole
lot better. With the dogs settled we needed a little shopping.
There was a particular nearby geocache on the way, finding which would give
you the first of the next set of geocaching Treasures. I found it (or its
temporary replacement) and got a virtual pug for my troubles. The Tesco clubcard got me
a reduction on some bottles of stout, and then it was home for a spot of
lunch. I then had a little look at the geo-map to plan
getting more geo-Treasures. The current series is virtual dog figurines which
look to be good fun. There’s a few near Winchelsea which might make for a
little walk this weekend if the weather is up for it. And then leaving Morgan with “er
indoors TM”, I loaded Treacle and Bailey into the
car and we went to Doggy
Dentist. Morgan’s gob seems OK, but the girls’ teeth aren’t what they
might be, so every three months they go to the dentist for a scale and
polish… much like humans do. Both were as good as gold during their
treatments, but both had the thumbs-down in different ways. Bailey has a sore
gum and needs cream applying, and Treacle is chomping her daily chicken’s
foot on only one side of her mouth and its teeth scraping goodness is only
working on that side of her mouth. We shall work on those two issues, and hopefully
there will be some improvement before their next appointment in late
February. “er indoors TM” went off bowling and I watched an episode of “The
Witcher”. I’m now into season three, and I have to admit I’m
watching it with something of a sense of “WTF is going on”. There’s
some meaty hunk who’s a dab hand with a sword (both metal and
pork) and a rather foxy sorceress-woman both of whom are protecting
some princess or other. But why they are protecting her, and why the baddies
want to capture her is anyone’s guess. Perhaps a little more plot and a
little less swordfighting (both metal and
pork) wouldn’t go amiss? Meanwhile the mutton chops are now into their last
week, and here’s the links (again)… https://uk.movember.com/mospace/15453545 https://www.facebook.com/donate/1355423342735210/1355423366068541/ |
|
25 Movember 2025
(Tuesday) - Car Service and Stuff
I
felt rather rough this morning when I got up, having again done that thing where
I woke up full of energy and raring to go only to find it was twenty past
one. After laying awake for a
while I got up, made toast and thought better about putting the telly on. I
have no idea what was going on with “The Witcher” and couldn’t be arsed to start watching anything else, so I had a look at
the Internet – it’s a standard fall-back position.
I sent out birthday wishes to the one friend having a birthday today, and had
my usual look at Facebook. There was a rather entertaining photo on one of
the pages I follow. Seemingly taking the piss out of a religious band, it
turned out the thing was made-up
satire. So much on the internet is just made-up, isn’t it? And our local councilor posted that there’s going to
be a closure
of a local footpath so that necessary work can be done. It’s a shame
that the closure will come into effect a few days before Christmas, and then
will probably stay closed but with nothing going on between Christmas and the
New Year. This is the sort of silliness that the chap got voted in to stop,
isn’t it? And there was whinging on
one of the Hastings-related Facebook pages I follow. An arcade of shops had
closed because no one shopped in them. Many people were blaming the council.
Don’t people realise that it isn’t the local
council that opens and closes shops; the shops are profit-making businesses,
and all the time it is quicker and cheaper to have an Amazon van deliver
things to your door the shops will carry on closing. I Munzed and opened a gold
qrate getting a mini-vendor cubimal.
There’s never a dull moment in Munzee, is there? I got Wordle on the fourth
attempt, and got ready for the off whilst the dogs ate their brekkie…
eventually. Bailey will only eat hers if she has a spoon of
Treacle’s senior dog food mixed in. I loaded the dogs into the car and we drove over to
the garage where we left the car for a service. We had a little episode as we walked home. Some
idiot on a pedal bike got rather impatient because the pavement wasn’t wide
enough for him to get past us and he expected us to step out if the way into
the road for him. He got rather angry when I suggested that he should go on
the road as cycling on the pavement was illegal. I probably didn’t help
matters much when I corrected him. He said that cycling on the path wasn’t “f…ing illegal”; I agreed that it wasn’t “f…ing illegal”, it was just “illegal” (a
subtle difference). Which
it is. I also noticed loads of dog turds on the pavements
as we walked home. When I was a lad, dog turds everywhere was de rigeur. People started picking up the turds in
the nineties, but just lately it would seem that us who gather the dung are
in a minority. I got home and made us both a cuppa.
And then I had an email form the garage saying that my car was due for a
service. And then I had another email from the garage with a video of the
underside of my car. I played it a few times but sadly couldn’t understand a
word that the chap on the video was saying. I saw someone outside looking uncertain. Someone
fiddling on their phone was looking at our garden… I went out – it was a
fellow hunter of Tupperware looking for the huge geocache in our front
garden. We had a little chat… that huge box in the front garden is broken and
needs replacing. It’s needed replacing for some time, but the chap I spoke
with this morning has given me a little idea of something that might work… I got the message that the car was ready, so I
walked the dogs back over to get it. The service went well; there were a
couple of advisories, but the nice man said that nothing needed doing
immediately. Which was probably just as well. We came home where I plumbed in the new DVD player. Not
that we watch that many DVDs, but quite of few of ours are American ones and
the old DVD player can’t play them. The new one seemed to manage on the one I
tested it with. It’s a shame that the battery compartment on the remote
control doesn’t close, but you can’t have everything. I did a little CPD, and then seeing
a rather bright day outside I thought I might take the dogs for a decent
walk. Coming back from the garage and then going back to
get the car had been a dull walk, but by mid-day the woods would have been
heaving with normal people. I looked at the geo-map and wondered if a little
walk along a track in Godmersham might give the
pups a little run. We drove out there only to find what I’d hoped was a track
was actually a tarmac-ed lane. But it wasn’t busy and we had a good walk, and
found a couple of geocaches, and got a couple of virtual dog figurines whilst
we were at it. We came home via Chartham where we totally failed to
find a geocache in a derelict barn, but did find one stuck to a gate. Once home I made us a cuppa
with a Seal bar for lunch, then I played the bots at chess dot com. You can
set just how good the bots are on that website. I’ve slowly worked up to
being able to occasionally beat a level seven hundred bot. I thought it might
be time to ramp it up a tad more so I took on a level one thousand bot which
comprehensively caned my arse. Several times. After a rather good bit of dinner we sparked up the
Infinity table and had a little experiment with it. One of the joys of the
thing is that you can challenge people on other tables to play games
remotely. We can challenge others, but we don’t seem to be able to accept
requests from others to join in. I expect we’ll sort it out… |
|
26 Movember 2025
(Wednesday) - Early Shift
There
was a minor hiccup when I got up this morning… I spent a few minutes clearing
up a pile of cold dog sick. Treacle did seem to be rather out of sorts
yesterday evening. I made toast and posted up yesterday’s diary entry;
we were rather late to bed last night what with trying (and failing)
to accept game requests on the Infinity table. I posted on one of the
Infinity table Facebook groups to see if anyone had experienced this.
Hopefully I’ll get an answer… though cynically I expect that I’ll have the
same experience I’ve had with pond, fish tank and geocaching pages in that
for every one sensible person in the group there will be half a dozen
keyboard warriors. There wasn’t much else happening at six o’clock this
morning. I sent out birthday wishes to a colleague, then got ready for work. Just
as I was about to set off so Treacle came downstairs asking to go out. I went
with her as she looked a little iffy. She did what dogs do in the garden, and
went back to bed. I
went off to find my car. As I scraped the ice from my car so the unmistakable
smell of wacky baccie came floating through the
morning air. there wasn't anyone about; someone was clearly having a puff in
their own house. I don't want to appear judgmental, if people want to smoke
that stuff, that's up to them. After all I like a pint or two. But my
pint or two doesn't stink quite like the funny fags do. I
got the ice scraped from my car and drove off to work. The motorway was
rather busy this morning. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking
about the massive drop in Puffin numbers on Farne Island. I'd
hitherto never heard of Farne Island; let alone its
puffins. And
there was loads of speculation about what the Chancellor of the Exchequer was
going to announce in the afternoon's budget. The poor woman was on a hiding
to nothing really. If she didn't sting people to raise money for the
country's ailing economy she'd lose votes for poggering
the country's economy. If she did sting people to raise money for the
country's ailing economy she'd lose votes from people who didn't want to be
stung for their money. I
went to Sainsbury's to get a sandwich. As I drove into the car park there
were loads of cars in the car park which were thick with ice; obviously
having been there all night. Do Sainsbury's have staff there all night?
There's not many (i.e. none) houses within sensible walking distance. I
was in and out in minutes; I fed the self-service machine with all my change
and it gave me a voucher for double nectar points on petrol. So I went to the
petrol station to make the most of it. As
I worked “er indoors TM” messaged
- Treacle had been sick again. Twice. I did my bit and then made my way home
as best I could. Originally the plan for today had been to come home, collect
Treacle and Bailey and take them to Doggy Dentist but I thought time might
have been tight so I rescheduled their appointment for last Monday. I
was right to have done so – it was gone five o’clock before I got home. I
wouldn’t have got the girls across town in twenty minutes with tonight’s
traffic. I
got home to find that Treacle had perked up a bit. As I sat on the sofa so
she climbed behind me and dabbed my head. She seriously tucked into her
dinner, and scoffed it all. “er indoors TM” went out to see her dad who was staying locally with friends. As the
washing machine did its thing with my shirts I wrote up some CPD, then
ironed the shirts. Shirts are best ironed whilst still wet. As I ironed I watched the first episode of the TV
adaptation of “Brideshead
Revisited”; a favourite of mine. How can it
be forty-four years old? |
|
27 Movember 2025
(Thursday) - Walk, Funeral, Pizza
I
woke in the small hours like I so often do, but I got up, had that tiddle, and
went back to sleep for another three hours. I really should do that more
often rather than laying there, shifting about and trying to pretend I don’t
need the loo. I made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was
much the same as ever. People were complaining about yesterday’s budget, but
what could the Chancellor of the Exchequer do? If she don’t get enough money
to run the country, people won’t vote for her, and she can only get the money
from people who potentially might vote for her. If there was an easy fix to
financing the country it would have been done years ago, wouldn’t it? Half (ninety
per cent) of the trouble she faces is that most people don’t understand
how politics and government work. Rather than educating themselves and
looking into the various issues, people tend to pick a political party and
stick with it through thick and thin in much the same way that they would
pick a football team. There’s an old maxim which says that you can fool all
of the people all of the time as long as you talk loudly and confidently…
which explains the popularity of the likes of Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage. And I had a flurry of emails. A new series of
geocaches overlooking the Channel Tunnel terminal. That will make for a walk
at some point. “er indoors TM” did dog breakfast whilst I got dressed, and I took the dogs up to the
woods. As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about some AI
invention that takes various pop songs and gives them a new twist. There was
a hard rock version of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” and
reggae versions of this and that. The inventors of this AI thing have got the
hump because the people whose songs their AI thingy is tweaking want
royalties. Surely this can’t be a surprise? We got to the woods and within a hundred yards I
skidded in the mud and ricked my back. The woods were rather muddy today. We
walked a shorter walk today; only three and a half miles, and we’ll probably
be doing this walk for a few months now much of our usual walk is now a
swamp. We didn’t see any deer today; just as we approached
the area where we are most likely to see them so I heard a couple of women we
see from time to time… I usually hear them about five minutes before I see
them. Despite walking about two yards apart, everything they have to say is
bellowed. In the past they’ve mentioned to me that they’ve never seen deer in
the woods. I wonder why. We came home for a bath, and I harvested an epic
crop of dog dung from the garden. I’d not been out there with a bucket since
Monday… I really shouldn’t leave it so long. Amazingly I’ve met several
people who say they’ve never been round their gardens harvesting. Either
their dogs crap elsewhere, or it don’t bear thinking about. I then chopped a bit of chip-board into shape to act
as a dog gate, and then made us both a cuppa. I Munzed, unlocking a diamond qrate
(as one does) and then bearing in mind what I’d just been sawing I
stuck “board” into Wordle. From there I worked through “risky”
and “runic” to get “remit” on the fourth attempt. I wrote up some CPD, and got my
arse comprehensively handed to me on a plate by the
bots at chess dot com. Leaving the dogs settled in the kitchen (as a bit
of an experiment) we drove down to Hastings. Many years ago I joined the Boys Brigade. One of my
mates from way back when lived next door to “er indoors TM”’s
family. He and I were half of a group
of four who went on to get the Boys Brigade’s top award. Over the
years we’ve gone our separate ways, but still managed to keep in touch;
managing it more over the last few years. His son died
a month ago, and today was the funeral. It passed off as well as any funeral might. There
was a rather good turn-out, but it was a shame that others we knew from all
those years ago didn’t show, including some who’ve since taken holy orders. We came home to find the dogs seemed OK. Bailey had
escaped the kitchen, and Morgan was incredibly over-excited to see us. We had
a quick tidy-up then “er indoors TM” went off
to meet Karl, Tracey Jess and Charlotte at the bowling alley. My back was
still a tad twingy. But it wasn’t long before
everyone was back home and we had a few pizzas and a few beers and a few goes
on the Infinity table. Today had been rather busy… |
|
28 Movember 2025
(Friday) - Hit The Target
We
had a rather late night last night and so I didn’t wake for the loo trip
until half past four. Although it was still dark I know the way from the bed
to the toilet so I didn’t need the light. However had I turned the light on I
wouldn’t have trodden barefoot in the pile of dog diarrhea
on the lino in the lobby by the bathroom. Oh well… it didn’t take that long
to clear up, and it was on the lino rather than a carpet. I went back to bed and slept though till after eight
o’clock. I got up and because it was light I could see the puddle of dog
tiddle on the kitchen lino. Oh well… they rarely have little accidents, and when
they do you can see they’ve tried to get out. I scoffed toast whilst the dogs scoffed their
brekkie then we went to the woods for a walk. As we drove so Sir Salman
Rushdie was on the radio on Desert Island Discs. Some of his music choices
were rather good, some were awful. We got to the woods. Being a bit later than usual
there were loads of normal people there… but as always once we were a few
hundred yards from the car park we didn’t see anyone. We walked our usual
four and a half mile walk, and probably won’t be doing that for a little
while – it was seriously muddy in places. We got back to the car park to find something of a
commotion going on. Cars were trying to get in and out of the car park, no
one was moving and there were heated voices. A couple of other people hurried
over to get involved, but it was neither my circus nor my monkeys, and
whatever it was all about was sorted by the time I’d got the dogs into the
car’s boot. As we drove home there was a fascinating article on
the radio. Some chap had been running a scam in
which he was importing tea from Africa to Scotland and selling it
claiming that it had actually been grown on his plantations in Scotland. One
so-called expert said a kilo of top tea from Africa could be sold for a
hundred times its cost if passed off as Scottish. Mind you I would take what
these so-called experts have to say with a pinch of salt as is was them who
were agreeing that the scam tea tasted different to other teas which were
actually exactly the same, and who were giving it awards. We got home where I made us a cuppa,
then rather than settling down there was a little errand to be run. In
Folkestone. But the errand didn’t take long, and it wasn’t *that* much
of a diversion into Lyminge on the way home.
There’s a geocache there (there’s geocaches everywhere if you look hard
enough) which you find by answering some questions about the village
sign. We’d originally answered those questions eight
years ago but the actual cache was missing then. We tried
again last year as well, but failed… Today was third time lucky… and we got a
virtual Shih Tzu as well. Once home we saw there was a temporary Munzee garden
nearby, so that was good for a blast and ten thousand Munzee points. I got
Wordle (colic) on the fourth attempt. And I looked at the post… I’ve had a letter from the tax people. Apparently I
owe them the thick end of sixteen hundred quid. Ho hum… if I’m not finding
dog shit on the lino, I’m faced with a tax man with
his hand out… Such is life. We had a very good bit of dinner whilst watching “Celebrity
Race Across The World” in which Team Useless stormed into the lead, and the
idiots seem to be falling further and further behind. We then sparked up the
Infinity table and spent a little while struggling with the challenging
remote players function. We can challenge people over the Internet, but
people don’t seem able to challenge us… Meanwhile the mutton chops have got two days to go.
Many thanks to everyone who’s donated. I’ve reached my extended goal of two
hundred and fifty quid, and here’s the links (again)… https://uk.movember.com/mospace/15453545 https://www.facebook.com/donate/1355423342735210/1355423366068541/ |
|
29 Movember 2025
(Saturday) - Lazy Day
I
heard “er indoors TM” get up in the night. Presumably
she didn’t discover any little accidents? I then slept through till seven
o’clock when I got up, made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was
still there, and remarkably quiet for once. No one seemed to be bickering
over triviality, but my piss did boil over one of the twee memes being
posted. As I have said before I have often been told that when life hands me
lemons I should make lemonade. However I have rarely (if ever) been
told that by anyone who has ever even seen a lemon, let alone been handed
one. I perused the geo-map, Munzed,
and started Wordle with “lemon” which gave me no letters whatsoever. “Strap”
gave me the R, but in the wrong place. “Brick” gave me the correct
place for the R (but nothing else), and with precious few letters left
I got it with “Gruff” on the fourth attempt. As I Munzed and Wordled so Steve was on the radio. He said that the
weather would chirp up by the evening, and then did the “Guess the Lyrics”
competition. “And I was there and not dancing with anyone” No? – “Chain
Reaction” by Diana Ross. The earlier heavy rain had eased up somewhat by the
time we set off to Dog Club, and stopped by the time we got there. Sadly it
had been bad enough to put people off of going, and we had perhaps the lowest
turn-out of the year. But nevertheless nine dogs had a great (if rather
muddy) time. As we drove home Steve was doing the “Mystery
Year” competition on the radio, The release of the twenty pence piece and
the Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands? 1982. I can remember
getting my first ever twenty pence piece; it was in a little shop in
Brighton. I’d no idea that a twenty pence piece was a thing, and only
accepted it for the novelty value. I took it back to college, showed the rest
of my class and was suddenly quite the centre of attention. And I remember the Argentinian invasion of the
Falkland Islands. I can remember that a lot of people had no idea where the
Falkland Islands were (and still are), and a surprising number of people
I knew thought they were somewhere off the coast of Scotland with the Orkneys
and the Shetlands. There was a serious dog bath session when we got
home; the dogs were filthy. As were we. A load of clothes went into the
washing machine, and with “er indoors TM” off
to the cinema with Cheryl I settled in to doing the ironing. And with ironing
ironed I cuddled with Bailey on the sofa watching more episodes of “Brideshead
Revisited” until “er indoors TM” returned.
There wasn’t much else I might have done – the rain had returned with a
vengeance. She didn’t return for long; she went out on a
shopping trip, and I carried on slobbing on the
sofa watching more “Brideshead Revisited”. Have you ever watched it? I’ve seen it so many times
I know what everyone is going to say, but it is such a good story I will
probably carry on watching it time and time again. The original book is a
firm favourite of mine too. “er indoors TM” returned and spent a little while taking photos of the sunset. It was
a very pretty one; just a shame it happened so early in the afternoon. Mind
you it’s less than a month till the shortest day so this can’t really be a
surprise. I played the bots at chess dot com a few times, and
seriously struggled. The level one thousand bot is rather good. “er
indoors TM” left me home alone again going off to
see her mum. I thought better of going; for all that I’d had something of a
lazy day I felt like continuing. Either I’d been sitting awkwardly on the
sofa earlier or I’ve been overdoing the walking. But whichever it was, my
hips had been giving me gip I didn’t fancy exerting
them any more than I needed to. Hips can be dodgy. Instead I cuddled with Bailey on the sofa and
watched more “Brideshead Revisited”… |
|
30 Movember 2025
(Sunday) - End of the Mo(nth)
I
had a bit of a lie-in and had my morning’s perusal of the Internet at half
past nine. Over four and half hours previously my brother had got up to set
off to Nottingham to watch the football. He must love it. A group of local (ish) geocachers were posting to Facebook from
Gatwick airport – they were off to Dublin. And there was on-line mention of the Museum
of the Moving Image in London. I went there many years ago and had a
really good day out… apparently it closed over twenty-five years ago. I Munzed, It wasn’t money,
it wasn’t mardy. Mucky was a bit closer. It was
muggy. We got the dogs on to their leads and took them out.
Sadly I forgot that from now until Christmas I really need to avoid the roads
by the MacArthur Glen outlet centre. It didn’t take *that* long to get
out of the traffic jam, but it did take a while to take a circuitous route to
get out of Ashford. We drove to Ham Street where we found a puzzle geocache
that I’d solved a few weeks ago, and we got a virtual Chihuahua for our
troubles. We drove on to Rye where we had a little circular
walk gathering more virtual dog figurines. We got a Yorkshire Terrier, a
Papillon and a Pomeranian and completed the set. From there we drove up to Tenterden where there was a little al-fresco geo-meet
going on. It was good to catch up with friends old and new. And it was rather
sad to say goodbye to our new friend Billy who had organized the meet. He’s
now off to Cornwall for three weeks, then he’s spending the winter in
Portugal before going back home to Canada. Safe travels Billy… We took advent calendars round to the first fruit of
my loins, then came home for a cuppa. Having found
all the virtual dog figurines and virtual film festival tickets, the next
virtual geo-things to find are origami animals (there’s never a dull
moment in geocaching!). However there are fourteen of these things to
find, and they are rather few and far between. I spent a few minutes planning
some little adventures to go find those ones. “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” and Pogo came for a little sleepover. We had a rather good
Shepherd’s pie for dinner and followed it up with Tesco hot
chocolate fudge cake. Have you ever had a Tesco hot chocolate fudge cake?
It was possibly the worst dessert I have ever had… Such a shame. And it is the end of the month. The frankly dreadful
mutton chop have raised three hundred and fifty-two quid. Having raised over
three hundred quid I apparently get a free pair of socks from them.
Personally I’d rather they spent the money on the charity, but they’ve
clearly already bought the socks. I think the fundraiser remains open for a few more
days, but for one last time… https://uk.movember.com/mospace/15453545 https://www.facebook.com/donate/1355423342735210/1355423366068541/ |
