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1 October 2020
(Thursday) - Before the Late Shift
I came downstairs. Sid was rather pleased to
see me, and in his excitement so half a dozen turds popped out onto the lino.
I chivvied him outside, but it was too late. Pogo came out too, and before I
could stop him so he dire-reared all over the shingled area I’d been working
on yesterday. I wish he wouldn’t do that. I suppose I should be grateful that
half of the dogs dump on the lawn which I much easier to cope with. People
have this idyllic idea of a dog being a man’s best friend, but the reality is
somewhat different. With rain forecast later in the morning I
took three quarters of the wolf-pack down to the woods where we had a rather
good walk. We met quite a few other dog walkers, and the walk passed off
without incident… right up to the point where we were about to drive home
when a warning came up on the car’s dashboard. The garage said it was OK to drive, and I’ve
got an appointment to go see them in the morning to have the thing checked. We came home and over a late brekkie I peered
into the Internet. A favourite point had been awarded to the geocache of mine
that went live last week. It was found for the first time yesterday; eight
days for a First to Find. That was quite something. I saw that I had (again)
been appointed Clan Leader for the upcoming Munzee Clan War. My internet
provider has given me another four months unlimited mobile data. LinkedIn had
suggested I chum up with a “confidence coach” whose specialty is “helping
non-native speakers to communicate effectively in English.” I’m sure this
person is a delightful soul with whom I probably have a lot in common. But
LinkedIn is a professional network. What could I possibly want from a “confidence
coach”? I then spent a while stalking a friend on
Facebook. Facebook is good in that you can keep up with friends who you only
actually meet once a year or less. But you only see what that person wants
you to see. The friend in question was on holiday in Greece. Her husband and
children were nowhere to be seen in any of the myriad of photos, but she
seemed to be very friendly with a rather swarthy-looking chap. Has she left
her husband? Her photo still appears on his Facebook profile. I could send her a message and ask… but that
would be rather obvious. I then posted to Facebook asking for advice
about the lawn. Our lawn is a disaster. It has no end of bald patches. How
can I fix it? (bearing in mind I’ve got more dogs than sense piddling over
it at regular intervals). I’m pretty sure the obvious answer is not to
let the dogs piddle over it quite so often, but if there is anything else I
could do I’d rather try that first. I got quite a few suggestions. It was
suggested that I go over the lawn with a watering can with a couple of
tablespoons of baking soda added to the water to neutralise the dog tiddle. I
shall try that and try re-seeding the bald bits. Just as I was about to walk out of the house
I realised I'd not made a sandwich for lunch. I popped up to the corner shop
to get one, then drove to B&Q. They had quite a range of grass seeds and
lawn fertilisers, and quite a range of prices for the things too. I ended up
going with something which was lawn seed and fertiliser all in one purely to
save ten quid on the deal. And I got a watering can too. Let's hope this
does something for the lawn. I then popped round to Smyths for Lego Advent
Calendars for me, "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction TM"
and Charlie. I got there, picked the things up, and walked out again. In my
world something going so simply straightforward is something of a result.
This was a saving too. Being a sad act, I keep a record of what I spend on
this sort of thing, and I saved over five quid on last year's Advent
Calendars. Result!! I drove to work, and thought I might have my
sandwich in my car. I parked up, opened the windows, got my Kindle app going
and got scoffing. As I scoffed and read, I saw movement. There was some
little old lady walking round the car park peering into the windows of all of
the parked cars. She peered into the car next to mine, came up to my car and
clearly hadn't seen me as she stuck her head through the passenger side
window. She seemed quite entranced by the bag of crisps on the passenger
seat. When I coughed and asked if I could help her she jumped, cracked her
head on the car roof, and bolted off at a speed more appropriate for an
Olympic athlete than for a little old lady. I wonder what that was all about? The rest of the day was rather dull after
that. |
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2 October 2020
(Friday) - Award Winning
I slept well; it was a shame to wake to the
sound of torrential rain. I did plan to drive my car to the garage with a
boot full of dogs and then walk the dogs home. Instead I drove the car over
myself, left it with the nice garage people, and "er indoors TM"
collected me before brekkie. As I scoffed toast (rather later than
usual) I peered into the Internet and was frankly amazed at the attitudes
being expressed on one of the work-related Facebook groups I follow. The
group has a predominantly American membership, most of whom are very loud in
their constant condemning of President Trump; both politically and
personally. The level of hate and vitriol expressed at Mr Trump has been
quite impressive. But following this morning’s revelation that he has tested
positive for COVID-19 he is now officially “a patient”, and
consequently is now the subject of pity, concern, care and prayers. Over the
last few (thirty-nine) years I have seen this time and again. Heath
care professionals (of all flavours) have varying tolerances for the
general public but won’t hear a word against “a patient”. Aren’t they
the same people? And prayers? What is that all about?
Presumably asking God to sort out a problem that God probably set going in
the first place? I then found myself at something of a loose
end. The dogs (and I) didn’t fancy going for a walk in the monsoon
that was outside. The areas of the lawn I wanted to re-seed were under water.
And I couldn’t go to the Lego shop before work as my car was up on blocks. So I spent an hour writing up CPD. Dull, but it
needs doing. It is a legal requirement that all formally registered
healthcare professionals keep themselves up to date on professional matters
and be able to show that they have. Keeping up to date with your job is easy
enough. After all, everyone does that. But providing evidence does take some
doing. But I live in terror of being one of the five per cent of people who
are asked to provide that evidence every year. I’ve been writing that
work-related blog for years. I wonder if I will ever have to use it? With the rain showing no sign of easing I
geo-jigsaw-ed for a while until it was time to go to work. With no news about my car from the garage and
"er indoors TM" needing her car today to go visit
the birthday boy ("Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction TM"
is six today - six! - where do the years go?), "er
indoors TM" drove me up to the train station. I got my
ticket. Twelve quid. I'm sure that if I were to do the journey more often I
could get a cheaper weekly or monthly ticket, but it looks to be far cheaper
to get to work by car than by train. As I waited on platform one for the Barming
train so there was an announcement. The Barming train had been delayed by ten
minutes and was currently somewhere between Chilham and Wye. It was exactly
as this announcement finished that a train pulled in to the platform, and
another voice came over the loudspeaker announcing that the Barming train had
just arrived (which it had). Whoever it is that runs the trains does
themselves no favours. I had been looking forward to doing the
crossword in the free paper that you find on the trains, but there weren't
any free newspapers today. Do they still do those, or are they another casualty
of the pandemic? I got to work and di my thing. As I worked
one of the top bosses came round. I (and several others) got an award
for "Exceptional Service during the COVID-19 Pandemic". I
must admit I don't think that I did anything exceptional; I just showed up at
work when I was supposed to. But nevertheless the bossess pinned a medal to
my chest. I did *far* more for where I used to
work, and the bosses there thanked me with a knife in my back... but we'll
draw a line under that (one day...) |
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3 October 2020
(Saturday) - Sandbanks
I slept well right up to the point where I
woke shivering as "er indoors TM" had grabbed all
the duvet. I lay there freezing for a bit, then went downstairs, “dealt”
with Sid’s deposits, and did my morning things (as I do). Bearing in mind the garage was supposed to
phone me at lunch time yesterday and I’d heard nothing I phoned them. They’d
been too busy to look at the car yesterday. Oh well… The garage I use is
usually busy and rarely has an appointment with less than a week’s notice, so
I’m grateful that they said they would fit me in. There are those that say I
should go elsewhere where I’d get seen quicker… having experienced the less
popular garages I’d rather go somewhere that clearly has a good reputation
and if I have to wait a bit, such is life. They said they’d phone me back
later… they didn’t. I had a message. Recently I’ve put out
geocaches as puzzles and creating art on the geo-map. If you put out a “traditional”
geocache (which is easiest to set up) this immediately tells the
masses exactly what rock your film pot is under. This makes it extremely easy
to find, but does attract the newbies who then take the thing home to show
their mum, and put it back “in a better place” and generally tend to
stuff the thing up. If you make the punters solve a puzzle to find the final
location, then you generally only get the hard-core hunters of Tupperware
coming out as no one else can be arsed. And consequently you don’t have
endless (utterly unnecessary) maintenance runs to do. I’d been asked how to create the geo-art that
goes with many of these puzzles. I replied. Hopefully someone is looking to
stick more film pots under rocks. I wish more people would. More and more
geocaching is becoming something that people squabble about over the Internet
and less and less something that people actually do. We got ourselves and the dogs together and
drove out to Sandbanks where we met Karl, Tracey and Charlotte. What with
possibly collecting the car and the weather not being that good we thought a
shorter walk might suit today better, and it did. As we got boots and gaiters on we couldn’t
help but see the big sign protesting against the proposed solar farm. Projects like
this get a lot of protests about them. Mostly from the locals. I suppose if I
lived there I wouldn’t want something huge being built nearby. But the solar
farm isn’t there yet, and we had a good walk (whilst we still could)
along well marked lanes and paths. Some were rather waterlogged, but that was
hardly surprising bearing in mind how much rain we’ve had recently. But the
lanes weren’t busy, and the dogs could run off of their leads on the
footpath, which is always good. As we went we were amazed at how many
strawberries were being grown. Strawberries – in October? A lot of them were
in poly tunnels. It was a shame that the dogs had to go nosey-ing in the poly
tunnels; even more of a shame that Fudge got stuck inside and had to be
rescued. Geocache-wise it was a good walk. Perhaps the
hides were a tad trickier than the usual ones, but that is never a bad thing.
Compared to some series of caches we’ve walked, this was one of the shorter
ones, but for today that was ideal. We went knowing that some of the cache
weren’t there. We’d messaged with the friend who’d hidden them and had
arranged to replace any that were missing. We were happy to replace to of
them; the third one that eluded us had been found a week ago so we left that.
But I expect that this act of helpfulness will cause a squabble. One of the
missing caches had a written log from a previous didn’t-find-er saying
“We don’t agree with throwdowns even with permission as they are strongly
discouraged by Groundspeak” (Groundspeak being the proper name for
Geo-HQ). Personally I take the line that Groundspeak would far rather
people carried on promoting their livelihood rather than let it die a slow
and painful death. I
took a few photos as we walked. Being a short walk we were back at the
cars far earlier than usual. Stopping only briefly in Badlesmere for gaming
points (it’s a Munzee thing) we were soon home. I washed mud from the
dogs whilst "er indoors TM" drove off to
Folkestone. "Daddy’s Little Angel TM" and "Stormageddon
- Bringer of Destruction TM" needed a lift to the pet
shop. Apparently I am about to become great-grandfather to a pair of rats.
Bearing in mind how rough "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction TM"
can be with Pogo I can’t see these things lasting the weekend, but I am
assured that all will be fine. "er indoors TM" boiled up a
rather good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching “Taskmaster”
and “House of Games” on the telly. I’ve got guts ache now… |
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4 October 2020
(Sunday) - Thirty-Four Years
I slept through till after eight o’clock
today. That rarely happens. I came downstairs, fussed Sid, gathered up his
turds, and tried to chivvy him outside just in case he was holding anything
in reserve. He wasn’t keen on going out, and looking at the rain outside I
wasn’t keen on going out either. Once I’d had a shave I made some toast. I had
some of that expensive honey I’d bought at the vineyard shop with it. It was…
in all honesty just the same as every other jar of honey I’ve had except that
Tesco are knocking out jars of the stuff for one pound thirty-five pence a
go, and this stuff cost over six quid. Ever been had? I had a look at Facebook as I scoffed toast.
The nice people at Facebook had made a video for our wedding anniversary.
That was nice of them. I posted that on-line, and soon quite a few people had
pressed the “like” button. "er indoors TM" appeared and
fed the dogs. There was a little quarrel between Treacle and Pogo over
brekkie as there so often is. But what might have been a petty contretemps
soon became a full-blown punch-up as Sid came in on Pogo’s side and launched
an all-out attack on Treacle. It was all over as quickly as it started (as
dog squabbles so often are) but it was rather exciting at the time. During a lull in the rain I quickly walked
the dogs round the block, then we settled them and went for a little drive to
Hastings. As we drove through Brookland we saw signs advertising a new farm
shop. The
Old Tractor Shed Farm Shop has only been open for a few weeks, and unlike
other little countryside shops I could mention (!) they don’t seem to
be selling stuff at ridiculous prices. We got some cakes and veg and cheese,
and carried on. We drove to visit mother-in-law who was
having trouble with a leaking roof. She’d had the roof fixed relatively
recently, and yesterday another builder had looked at the roof, crossed his
arms, tilted his head, sucked air in through his teeth, and told her that
she’s had the cowboys in. Most builders do this, but I think this builder
might have had a point. We had a cuppa and cake with her, then drove
up to see my mum and dad. They too were well. We had a cuppa and cake with
them too before coming home. Once home we had yet another cuppa, and with
a little spare time I geo-puzzled. It was rather good to find some
geo-puzzles that weren’t jigsaws. And after a little puzzling we’ve now got a
few more walks for the next few weekends. It smells as though "er indoors TM"
is boiling up a rather good bit of dinner for our thirty-fourth wedding
anniversary… Here’s hoping… ideally we would have gone out for dinner
somewhere, but what with all the COVID restrictions I’d rather not. As we
found at Pizza Hut last week eating out is a chore now, rather than a
pleasure. |
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5 October 2020
(Monday) - Late Shift
Once I’d cleared up Sid’s turd bonanza I made
myself some toast and peered into the Internet. The most impressive petty
squabble this morning was in one of the Seventies Facebook groups I follow.
Having been asked “what was your favourite song video of the seventies”
someone mistakenly posted an Abba video from early 1980. Did it really
matter? Cleary it did judging by the bitter vitriol that was being spewed.
Almost (but not quite as much) hatred as was being shown to the admin
of one of the “Adult Fans of Lego” groups who had just let a
ten-year-old join. I had an email from Netflix. They were
pushing a new series. I say “new” series – all the hype implied that
it was new – “Aliens”
was released on Channel Four over four years ago. I thought that was rather
cheeky of them. But nowhere near as cheeky as the three emails I had telling
me that three of the geocaches I’ve hidden need new paper logs. What boiled
my piss was that the chap who’d logged these “Needs Maintenance” has
found over thirty thousand geocaches and has only ever hidden one. Would it
cause him physical pain to contribute something to the hobby? On the plus side I found a chap who is making
fan videos
of Sparks songs; I liked those With the rain finally stopped it was dog walk
time. But with the car still in the garage it had to be round the park. We’ve
not walked round the park for a while, but this morning’s walk was a delight.
We just walked round the park. We didn’t fight with other dogs, we didn’t
roll on muck or scrubble in filthy ditches. We came back when called (Go
whistle training!) We got home just as the rain started. I popped up the road to the corner shop to
get a sandwich for later and pastries for right that moment. We scoffed our
pastries with a cuppa as I had a little look at my accounts, then I peered into
the Internet again. I solved a couple of geo-puzzles, did a little CPD, then
blagged the key to "er indoors TM"’s car. With my
car still in the garage I drove hers to and from work today… I was a tad nervous, but at least we had cake
at work… |
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6 October 2020
(Tuesday) - Grumbling and Whinging
"er indoors TM" woke me as she
got up. I thought it was still the middle of the night; it was eight o’clock. I got up, and over brekkie had a look to see
what I’d missed overnight in the World Wide Wubbish. For once I’d not missed
much. There was an attempt going on to stir discontent on a Lego-related
page, but no one was really interested in whatever bit of pettiness was being
bandied. I checked my emails, and I rolled my eyes. A
geocache I hid earlier in the year is broken. The chap who announced “This
one needs replacing” has found three thousand of the things and hasn’t
contributed anything at all to the noble sport of rummaging under rocks for
film pots. Would it have caused him physical pain to have fixed it himself? I
whinged about something similar yesterday… and I’ve had the same happen with
Munzees recently. Having stuck out (at least) one Munzee a day every
day this year, I’ve been getting stick from someone who has only hidden one
all year. In years gone by exactly the same happened in the astro club and in
the snake club. So often it is “why don’t you..” and so rarely “why
don’t we…” I’m fast coming to the conclusion that I’m being taken for a
mug. It seems that no matter what the hobby, there are those who give to it
and those who take from it. It is very easy to say “stuff it, I’m just
going to take”, but I couldn’t do it. I can’t understand how these people
can be so selfish as to not contribute anything at all to something they so
clearly enjoy, no matter what it is. I took the dogs for a walk. Yesterday’s went
well. Today’s was a disaster. It started badly when we stopped at the kerb.
Some idiot in a van demanded that we crossed the road and took umbrage that I
was teaching the dogs *not* to run out in front of cars. It was only when we got to the co-op field
that I realised I’d left the whistle at home, and all three flatly refused to
come to me when called. I eventually got them all back on their leads, but
bearing in mind they were being wilful I didn’t want to let them off the
leads again. I cut the walk short and we came home. As we walked home Pogo
flew at a passing huge dog with such force that he spun himself right round
as the lead went tight, and I heard (and felt) the bones in his neck
crunch. Stupid dog. I wish he wouldn’t do that. I got home and the garage phoned. It looks as
though there is a wiring issue with my car. The nice man says he might have
it fixed by the end of the week. I then wrote up some more CPD then geo-puzzled
for a bit before setting off work-wards. "er indoors TM" said her car's
petrol tank was half full. Not that I doubted her for one minute, but when I
got to her car I fiddled about and saw that the thing had only eighty miles
worth of petrol in it (half a tank - pah!) So once I'd established it
took petrol and not diesel, I drove to the petrol station. There was a minor
hiatus whilst some old chap dithered about at the pump for which I was
queuing. Some people are able to pull up at the pump, fill the car, pay for
petrol and clear off. Others aren't quite so efficient. Some have to fart
about, get in and out of the car half a dozen times, walk round the car
wondering where the petrol goes, stare at the petrol pump as though they have
never seen one before, stare into space for five minutes, eventually blunder
into the kiosk where they scrutinise every single thing that is for sale, and
just generally boil my piss. How is it possible to take so long over such a
simple task? Once this old chap had finally cleared off out of the way I filled
the petrol tank (with petrol) and saw that the dashboard display said
that the car now had a range of five hundred and five miles. I then drove up the motorway with ten miles
of slow lane cordoned off (despite only two gangs of half a dozen people
working two miles apart). I got to work where the car then had a range of
five hundred and forty-five miles. A trip up the motorway had generated forty
miles worth of petrol. I saw that as something of a result, and got on with
another late shift. I seem to have done quite a few of these recently. I seem to have done nothing but grumble and
whinge today… |
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7 October 2020
(Wednesday) - Before the Night Shift
There was quite an argument kicking off on
one of the local Facebook pages this morning. Someone had posted a link to a
local news agency which had reported that a thirteen-year old boy had
announced that today he was going to wear
a skirt to school even though he’s been told that he would be excluded
for doing so. There were those who commented that this was his right to do so
and anyone who disagreed was wrong. There were those who pointed out that
back in the day all the other boys would have given him a good kicking for
doing so. No one seemed to have actually read the article in which the boy in
question was described as “he does not identify as transgender but likes
expressing himself in feminine clothing”. Nor had anyone realised that
the boy had approached the news agency before any possible disciplinary
action from the school. Was he trying to make a transgender rights issue? Or
was he was just stirring trouble? Or was he looking for a few days off
school? There was also talk of an incident
in Sussex at half past ten last night in which a ten-year old child was
knocked off his bike by an elderly motorist, What was a ten year old doing
out on a bike at half past ten last night? Making sure I had my whistle I took the dogs
round the park. Unlike yesterday they were little angels… which was probably
for the best. As I walked my phone rang. It was the police. They’d been round
to our house, and "er indoors TM" had told them I
was out with the dogs. They wanted to talk to me about the episode in
Orlestone Woods a
few days ago in which the dogs barked at a passer-by and the passer-by
then attacked them. I told the policeman where in the park I was; he told me
where he was. I could see him, and I waved. I blew the whistle to get the
dogs to me and walked over to see what he wanted. It turned out that the youngster who had
tried to kick the dogs last week really was autistic, and the chap who’d
tried to whip the dogs with a length of bramble and had then followed me for
several hundred yards shouting verbal abuse and threatening physical violence
really was a professional carer. Apparently if these carers have little
episodes like this, they are required to report them to the police. I told
the nice policeman my side of the story (i.e. what happened). But
because I couldn’t be completely sure that I didn’t actually utter a swear
word I probably committed an offence under Section Four of the Public Order
Act (1986). Mind you there is no denying that the supposed carer
actually did commit an offence under that act. The policeman seemed very sensible and
reasonable about the whole matter, said it had been dealt with under the
Community Resolution scheme, and as far as he was concerned the whole
thing was over and done with. It *really* helped that he’d seen the
dogs come immediately to the sound of the whistle, and that all three waited
patiently whilst he and I chatted. Just as we got home so another policemen was
popping the paperwork for the incident through our letterbox. We chatted some
more; the matter is now resolved… Or is it? I’m intrigued as to how the police
found it was me who was involved in the squabble (not that I have anything
to hide). And on looking at the paperwork for the incident I can see the
address of the chap with whom I had the run-in. He lives just round the
corner. That was a bit silly of whoever designed the paperwork, wasn’t it?
And for all that the matter is over and there is no conviction or no criminal
record, the incident resides on a police computer, and will come to light if
ever I apply for anything which requires information from the Disclosure and
Barring Service (DBS). It was clear that the policemen involved want
the matter laid to rest; I’m sure they have far more urgent and pressing
matters. But… looking back at what happened… I took my dogs for a walk. They
got attacked and I got verbal abuse and threats of physical violence. And
somehow I’m now the villain of the piece with my details recorded? Bearing in
mind that I’m the victim in this (well, my dogs are) I wonder if the
chap who followed me for several hundred yards shouting verbal abuse and
threatening physical violence has had the same recorded about him on the
police computer? Part of me wants to stir it up to find out, but I think it
best to let it go. I then harvested a bumper crop of dog dung
from the garden, mowed the lawn, emptied flood water from the various
redundant pots, and sprinkled the grass seed I bought last week. I wonder if
it will do anything? I’m hoping the ground being already wet and the forecast
rain will work wonders on the lawn. As I sprinkled grass seed so the dogs came
out and pooped some more. How can they generate so much dung? I could have done more gardening, but I
couldn’t be bothered. I came in, dealt with a virtual blood group discrepancy,
and geo-puzzled for a bit before taking myself off to bed for the afternoon
where my sleep was plagued by nightmares in which I had been unjustly
imprisoned; even the warders felt I’d been treated unfairly. I wonder what
that was all about (!) Being fed up with geo-jigsaw puzzles I then
installed a bit of software which would automatically solve them for me. I’m
not quite sure what went wrong, but something did. It only took an hour to
put my lap-top back to how it was… and even then it still doesn’t work quite
as it used to… a bit like me really. I’m off to the night shift in a bit… |
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8 October 2020
(Thursday) - After the Night Shift
Regular readers of this drivel may recall
that I've been driving "er indoors TM" 's car
recently, and it is magic. That's not magic as in "very good",
it is magic as in "Harry Potter". When I filled it with
petrol two days ago the thing told me it had a range of five hundred and five
miles before needing refuelling. I then drove to Maidstone where it told me
it then had a range of five hundred and forty-five miles. A trip up the
motorway had generated forty miles worth of petrol. When I got into the car
last night it again had a range of five hundred and five miles before needing
refuelling, but by the time I had driven it to Sainsburys in Aylesford this
range had increased to five hundred and sixty-five miles. Whilst at Sainsburys I totally forgot to buy
that which I had specifically gone to get (armpit-squirt), but I came
out with all sorts of other stuff including coffee bags. I'd seen them
advertised on the telly - just like tea bags, but with coffee. Have you ever
tried them? You could get a pack of Kenco instant coffee for three quid which
made one hundred cups, but I got ten coffee bags for one pound fifty (and
these were the economy ones). These things aren't cheap - it doesn't take
a genius to see that each cup of coffee they make is five times the price of
the Kenco stuff. During a lull in the proceedings during last
night's night shift I tried one of them. They are certainly better than
instant coffee, but five times better? I think these probably appeal to the
sort of people who like to spend six quid on a jar of honey from the farm
shops which is no different to the stuff for a quid in Tesco. During that lull in proceedings I was also
told about issues with a Munzee I'd deployed. I asked which one; I wish I hadn't.
Despite having put out over two hundred of the things this year I was
supposed to have instant recall of each and every one of the things. With the shift done I spent a few minutes
figuring out how to get "er indoors TM"’s car radio
to tell me the morning news rather than the morning’s inane blathering from
Heart FM (not that I have anything against Heart FM). The pundits of the radio were talking about
how (apparently) President Trump has had a miraculous total recovery
from coronavirus all thanks to some totally untested drug which he is now
promising to distribute free to the masses. Those who realise that he is talking
out of his arse have said so However reality has no bearing on public
opinion, and he may well have just won the election on this promise. And
anyone who feels I’m being cynical might look at how Brexit was won on the strength
of promises of savings of millions of pounds when the truth of the matter was
completely different. There was also an interview with Prince
William and Sir David Attenborough about an
environmental project with which they are both involved. From what the
interviewer was saying it sounded interesting and laudable, but I couldn’t
understand anything that either of them was saying. I got home, and went to bed for a bit. Over a
rather late brekkie I had some toast and geo-puzzled for a bit whilst my
shirts washed. I had intended to take the dogs out, but it was raining, so
instead I got the ironing board out. I set about a week’s ironing
whilst watching “Bottom
Live 2001: An Arse Oddity”. Now that "er indoors TM"
has fixed the DVD player I might as well make the most of it. And with telly watched and ironing ironed I
geo-puzzled for an hour or so whilst keeping an eye on the weather. The
drizzle didn’t let up, and the rain was torrential when the nice lady from
Amazon called. She delivered some gadget which makes an odd noise; the idea
being that when the dogs start barking we give the thing a go and the noise
distracts the dogs from barking. We had a couple of goes; it seemed to work.
|
|
9 October 2020
(Friday) - Goldfinches
I came downstairs and chivvied Sid outside
where he did absolutely nothing. It is worrying when he does nothing outside
as he then usually craps on the kitchen floor ten minutes later. I watched a little telly then sparked up my
lap-top. In a novel break with tradition there wasn’t any arguments kicking
off on Facebook this morning. It won’t last. There wasn’t much news in my
in-box either so I got dressed and headed work-wards. "er indoors TM" had been in
her car and had re-tuned her radio. Turning it to Radio Four yesterday was
the work of seconds - it took an absolute age to do the same today. Once I'd finally tuned it in, I drove off.
Some rabbi was having a rant. Apparently science has discovered that what was
originally thought to be type one diabetes in very young children is actually
not the same disease as type one diabetes in adults. Science has also
discovered a better treatment for them. This rabbi wasn't pleased that
science has taken so long to work this out. I would have thought that this
rabbi might have had a word with his boss for allowing diabetes in the first
place, but what do I know? I drove up the motorway, not knowing I'd
driven straight past two new geocaches in Hollingbourne that had gone live
just as I'd left home. But once I'd parked the car I went for a little walk
and deployed a Munzee whilst I was at it. As I do. I've deployed quite a few
near work; so far not a single person has gone out looking for them, but I
remain hopeful. Work was work; I had my appraisal today. Work
seems to be happy with me... which was something of a victory. I also spent a
minute or two too long watching the antics of goldfinches bathing in the
puddles on the flat roof outside the window. As the day went on I heard a name that I'd
not heard for a while. I won't say who it is, but if you are thinking of
getting any building work done, the cowboy who stuffed up our attic
conversion twenty years ago is currently active in the Maidstone area where
he is still taking people's money and running. It is a funny old world; I get
the police call round because someone wasn't happy with me when he tried to
whip my dogs, but rogue builders can carry on taking people's money with
impunity. With work done I popped into Aldi. It seemed
as though pretty much everyone else had as well. And about eighty per cent of
those in the shop seemed to be dragging an ill-behaved breakdancing brat with
them. The badly behaved children weren’t just shrieking and swearing and
throwing things around the shop, they all really were thrashing about as
though in the grip of epilepsy. What was that all about? I brought shopping home; we scoffed some of
it. I really should be thinking about going to kip soon – I’ve got an early
start tomorrow. |
|
10 October 2020
(Saturday) - Early Shift
Seeing Sid was fast asleep I left him
snoring. I wasn’t keen on chivvying him round the garden at six o’clock and
he looked as though he would rather stay in bed. I made toast, watched an
episode of “The Job Lot” then sparked up my lap-top. I had a
non-message from the Leas Cliff Hall who had supposedly replied to a
recommendation I’d made about them. I can’t remember ever recommending them (either
in a positive or negative way); I suppose it was some sort of a scam;
there’s a lot of it about. This morning’s bitter squabble on Facebook
was from one of the admins on one of the American-based Lego groups I follow.
Apparently some people had been asking what their Lego sets were worth, and
others were giving them deliberately low estimates so as to get themselves
bargains. I suppose it is a bit cheeky really, but if I want to know the
value of anything I have a little look-see to find out what the going rate is
on eBay. Surely common sense tells us that we are going to get very low
estimates of worth when we ask our potential buyers? I didn’t have any emails of note, but I do
think I should update my Coursera profile. They send me all sorts of emails
about advanced computer programming courses related to python. According to
wikipedia “Python is an interpreted,
high-level and general-purpose programming language. Created by Guido van
Rossum and first released in 1991, Python's design philosophy emphasizes code
readability with its notable use of significant whitespace.” According
to me pythons are rather lovely and misunderstood large snakes. I have no
interest in the computer language, but if I didn’t have a houseful of dogs, I
might just have a houseful of snakes (again). I tried to get dressed without disturbing "er
indoors TM" but doing so in the dark was tricky. Moving
about in the dark meant I didn’t see the myriad of dog toys that Treacle had
littered over the bedroom floor. “Falling head over heels” is a polite
expression, but one’s head is usually over one’s heels. “Going arse over
tit” is a far more accurate summary. It was a rather chilly morning - I had to
mess about trying to work out how to activate the heaters in the "er
indoors TM"-mobile. As I drove to work I caught
the end of the "Farming Today" slot on the radio. There was
an interview with some rural-type minister who was claiming that the
government was now able to do something-or-other (I had no idea what it
was) now that the government is not bound by EU regulations. The chap was
very embarrassed and utterly unable to reply when he was told that whatever
it was that he was ranting about had never been regulated by any sort of EU
ruling. In his bluster he all but conceded that he had been wrongly using
Brexit as a (rather lame) excuse for the government's failings for
some time (I expect this happens a lot in all walks of life).
This was followed by some utter drivel on the radio about how some gay rugby
player has become the head honcho of the national association of young
farmer's clubs, and how the LGBT community is under-represented in farming. Really? What does anyone's sexual preference have to
do with whether or not they want to be a farmer (or anything else, come to
that)? I don't usually listen to the farming news. I
don't think I will again... In the more general news there was a lot of
talk about the re-introduction of lock-down in some parts of the country, and
the pundits on the radio were interviewing some idiot who claimed that
lock-down was all very well for the soft southerners, but it was different
for hard-working northerners because they don't get as much furlough
money. Even though they do. I got to work. Before I started I peered out
of the window through which I saw goldfinches yesterday. The puddle in which
they had been spuddling had frozen overnight and the goldfinches were nowhere
to be seen. Mind you I did see a green woodpecker swooping about. Fifty years
ago I was in the Bird Club at Red Lake Primary School where I learned quite a
bit about bird recognition. Bird Club at Red Lake Primary School was quite
good fun. Once a week we'd go for a walk round the local fields looking to
see what avian life we could find. Every week at least one child would see an
eagle. I can distinctly remember one girl named Karen something-or-other who
had no interest in birds, but never missed a single meeting of Bird Club. She
came along because everyone else had sandwiches, and if she brought nothing
and looked hungry, the teacher would make everyone else give her one of their
sandwiches. Every week she got quite a feast whilst everyone else went short.
Thinking back I can also remember an old
mucker named Nicholas something-or-other who set up a rival Bird Club at the
time, and got detention for all the nudey pictures he was bringing in to
primary school for his entirely different sort of "Bird Club". I still remember quite a bit of what I
learned back then (about the feathered ones); maybe I could take up
twitching again? I've got a pair of binoculars somewhere. As I worked this morning so my phone rang. It
was the nice man at the garage. Apparently there was a broken wire between
the ABS sensor and the control unit. He's asked his chum to fix it. I did
wonder how the wire broke, but apparently these things happen. The nice man
also told me that my plenum chamber's drain was blocked, and his chum will
sort that out too. I didn't even know I had a plenum chamber. One lives and
learns. Having told the garage that I really did need
to have my car back by yesterday morning at the latest, they've told me that
it will probably be ready on Monday. Oh well - I'd rather go to a busy
garage. Presumably being busy means that a lot of people use and trust the
place. And then as I was walking along one of the
corridors I was accosted by a travelling flu clinic. Did I want a flu jab?
These people apparently roam the hospital in search of anyone who might like
a flu jab. What with the vagaries of my work pattern, getting to
pre-scheduled flu clinics can be tricky, so this worked fine for me. I
suspect that this scheme probably works very well for a lot of other people
too. Within five minutes of having met them I was
jabbed and they were on their way hunting out their next customer. I came home (because I live there) and
helped "er indoors TM" change the bedding. She’s
got a new pillow (I haven’t!), and I learned that the stripes on the
duvet go down the bed, but the striped on the duvet cover go across it. Who
would have ever guessed? I then carried on geo-puzzling for a bit (in
between falling asleep) until "er indoors TM"
boiled up some dinner which we watched whilst watching a film. “The Hunger
Games” would have been far better had its makers thought about making a a
film that *didn’t* have endless plot holes. It all looked very good
all the time you didn’t give it any thought. It could have been so much better… |
|
11 October 2020
(Sunday) - Bossingham to Stelling Minnis (and back)
It was with something of a sense of relief that
I found the kitchen floor wasn’t awash with pug turds when I came downstairs
this morning. Fudge was itching to get into the garden, Sid wasn’t keen, but
he got turfed out anyway. Fudge did what dogs are supposed to do in the
garden first thing in the morning. Sid stood by the back door looking grumpy,
then sulked because I wouldn’t let him into anywhere with carpet. I made toast, and had a look at the Internet.
Those who have only put out one Munzee all year were finding fault with the
two hundred that I have put out. In life some give and some take, and those
that take want to take more and more. It gets a little wearing sometimes. There was a minor squabble on one of the
Lego-related Facebook pages about the cost of posting Lego. Those buying felt
they were already paying over the odds. Those selling felt that postage was
just another thing on which they could make a legitimate profit. You wouldn’t
believe how much people can quarrel over Lego. I spent a few minutes looking at an
Earthcache in Canterbury. This weekend is “Earthcache Weekend” – if
you log a find on one you get a souvenir. Back in the day I’ve organised
outings and get-togethers of the Kent Geocaching community in honour of
Earthcache Day. But now…So far not one of my three Earthcaches has had a find
logged this weekend. Is it just because everyone has already done all that
are close(ish) to home, or because people can’t people be bothered
with Earthcaches? Other icon types don’t get their own “day” and
souvenir….For me it probably doesn’t help that there is only one Earthcache
within an hour of home that I haven’t done and that is in the middle of
Canterbury. I looked at the requirements of the thing. It would be easy
enough to blag from home, but I decided against doing that. I posted on the local geocaching Facebook
page asking opinions about “Earthcache Weekend” – a lot of people
replied; it seemed there was pretty much zero interest in hunting earthcaches
. We got most of the dogs onto their leads,
settled Sid, and drove out to Bossingham; Munzing as we went. We were soon
parked up in the village hall car park where we met Karl Tracey and
Charlotte, and we were all soon off on a little walk. A series of nearly
eighty geocaches had gone live in the area recently. They had been put out in
two overlapping loops; one following lanes and one following footpaths. We
went rogue and did one half of each loop so we had a walk which was half lane
and half footpath, and we will have something similar for next time too. We started off walking half of the loop on
lanes, but in reverse order (seriously rogue!) I must admit I was a
tad worried that having the dogs on the lanes might have been problematical,
but the lanes were mostly quiet. There was one minor episode when we met a
car, two horses and a flock of cyclists all at once, but other than that the
lane walking was fine. The section across fields was also good. It
was a shame that some of our party had to eat sheep poo as we walked, but
some of our party do that anyway. As we came across the fields we saw some
metal detectorists. I was hoping that the beep of my GPS might have made them
sit up and take notice, but none of them heard it (which was a shame).
There were some rather stupendous holes. Rabbits? More like subterranean
dinosaurs; I wonder what it was that had dug those. Geocache-wise we had a very good walk. I
suspect that this was in no small part due to the fact that in order to know
where to look for each of the caches you had to first solve a puzzle at home.
Putting in this extra step discourages a lot of people (specifically the
sort that re-hide the thing where they think would be a better hide once
they’ve taken it home to show their mum), and so the things you are
looking for are treated with a little more consideration. We felt that the
co-ords were maybe a tad out on one or two of the hides, but they couldn’t
have been very far off since we found all of our targets within a few minutes
each time thanks to rather helpful hints. The puzzles to solve had been jigsaws of
pictures of local hunters of Tupperware. Each of the dogs had been the
subject of a jigsaw puzzle; you can see them here, here and here. It was a shame that Fudge
almost (but not quite) tiddled on his one. As luck would have it, the cache named for Karl, Tracey and Charlotte was their
twelve thousandth find. (The ones named for "er indoors TM"
and me are on the next loop) I
took a few photos as we walked; we got back to the car and met friends
who were just off on their walk. What with lock-down we hadn’t seen them for
ages; it was good to have a socially-distanced catch-up before all saying our
goodbyes and heading home where I alternated between geo-puzzling and dozing
until "er indoors TM" served up a rather good bit
of dinner. She does that. The dogs are all fast asleep… I could really
do with joining them. |
|
12 October 2020
(Monday) - Apple Crumble
I woke from a rather vivid dream in which I
had been appointed Donald Trump’s stunt double and was facing all sorts of
criticism as I was unable to talk rubbish to the degree that the public was
expecting. I made toast, watched a little telly, then
peered into the Internet to see what had changed since last night. There had
been an interesting development on one of the Lego Facebook pages. People
have been advertising pristine complete sets and sending out half a dozen random
broken Lego bits, so now when selling stuff via that page, any photos of what
you are selling now have to have your name on a scrap of paper to prove that
what you are advertising is what you are actually selling.. Some people (buyers)
liked this development, others (sellers) weren’t convinced. I managed to get dressed without falling over
any canine-related obstacles and set off to work on a rather dark morning. As
I drove the pundits on the radio were talking to one of the head honchos of
the food industry who was up in arms about the threat to the UK posed by
American chlorinated chicken. Having loudly announced that she didn't trust
the ministers involved with the ongoing negotiations about food deals with
the US, this woman flatly refused to explain why she didn't trust them.
"Do you trust them? I don't" was her refrain. Does she know
something we don't? Being given her chance to express herself live on
national radio she just made a twit of herself. It happens quite a lot on the
morning news program - which is one of the reasons I like the show so much. Also making a twit of herself was some
northern GP who was ranting about the threatened local lockdowns for the
north of the UK. She felt that the pub closures were wrong. Going to the pub
(seemingly constantly from her description) is apparently the only
pleasure in life for many people up north. She felt that the amount of
coronavirus spread in pubs was just a drop in the ocean compared to the
amount spread in taxis. This woman then ranted for five minutes about the
danger to life and limb posed by taxis which (she claimed) breed far
more virus up north than they do down south. As I listened to the radio I
somehow felt ashamed that I live within ten miles of the south coast. If
nothing else, coronaggeddon has *really* aggravated the north-south
divide. Pausing only briefly in Sissinghurst to
deploy a horoscope Munzee (it cost me over a quid, you know) I was
soon at work where we not only had cake, but we had apple crumble and cream
too. I was rather pleased when I heard that I was
going to spend the afternoon on a Microsoft Teams meeting taking part in a
distance-learning course about blood-borne parasites. But I was disappointed.
The meeting.... let's just say that having done a post-graduate certificate
in distance-based learning a few years ago it struck me that the speaker did
pretty much everything I'd been told not to do. I shall blog about it in another place in a day or
so. "er indoors TM" boiled up a
rather good bit of dinner, and with it scoffed I slept in front of the telly
through most of the rest of the evening. I hate it when that happens… |
|
13 October 2020
(Tuesday) - This n That
As I scoffed toast I
kept glancing at our smart meter which (supposedly) records our gas
and electric usage. I’ve thought there was something wring with the thing
ever since we had it. It seems to think that we have used half our day’s
ration before six o’clock every day. I rolled my eyes as I
peered into the Internet this morning. There was quite a squabble kicking off
on one of the Lego-related Facebook groups again. You’d be amazed how nasty
it gets on those pages of the Internet. One person wanted to know why Lego
don’t sell glue with their kits and was asking for advice on what glue everyone
else used. Was it a wind-up? Possibly. But there was a lot of nastiness being
bandied about. Much like there is just three miles down the road. Events just three
miles down the road are making headline news half-way round the world. There
was an article in the
Los Angeles Times talking about the digging up of much of Sevington to
build a lorry park where lorries will wait now that the Brexit regulations
are coming into effect and causing hours of delays for traffic. The article
interviewed locals who were up in arms; they didn’t vote to have their
village dug up to build a lorry park… I wonder what they
thought would happen when the open borders closed? Did people *really*
not see this coming? I walked down the
road to capture a Smaragd (it's a Munzee thing), then walked back up
the road to find "er indoors TM" 's car. I got to
where I thought I'd left her car only to find that where I thought I'd left
her car yesterday was actually where I'd left it the day before. It turned
out that her car was just where I'd captured that Smaragd. So I walked back
down the road again, and set off. As I drove to work
the pundits on the radio were talking drivel as they usually do. President
Trump seems to have staged a miraculous recovery from coronavirus and was
staging an open-air meet-up of his supporters. But despite dishing out face
masks to the masses at a political rally he wasn't wearing one himself, nor
were any of his followers. From what was broadcast it didn't seem to be a
political rally; more of a rabble-rousing. But that is what the rabble want,
and it is the rabble that do the voting. There was also talk
about next year's school exams. They've been put back a few weeks and will
now take place in August which was being portrayed as one of the worst things
to have ever happened to the British educational system. Endless experts and
headmasters and teachers were wheeled on. All of them were unanimous in
loudly declaring that postponing exams by less than a month was detrimental
to pretty much the entire universe and everyone who inhabits it. Is this *really*
a bad thing? I can't see the problem, but am I being cynical when I say that
I'm used to working in August. As I drove to work so
my phone beeped. Our Munzee clan has reached level one, which was something
of a result. Work was work. I had
the last of the apple crumble, then did my thing. There was a lot of talk of CPD too. And with work and
thing done I came home where we watched this week’s episode of “Bake Off”.
It was rather good – even if we had to re-wind because I fell asleep half-way
through. |
|
14 October 2020 (Wednesday) - An Extra Night
Shift
I came downstairs and chased Sid into the garden.
He stood on the doorstep viewing the garden with utter contempt before going
back inside. I had a shave and chased him out again (to no avail). He then shouted his disdain quite loudly when I
wouldn’t let him into any of the carpeted areas of the house and had a
serious sulk. I made toast, and (with Fudge by my side)
scoffed it whilst having a look-see at the Internet. This morning my Facebook
feed was filled with adverts for cat food. It turned out that the cat food
manufactures were wanting to reach “people like our target audience”. I found myself spending much of the day thinking
about something my cousin had posted this morning. “Right. We had
lockdown, we closed schools pubs etc....we all (mostly) wear masks sanitize
our hands.... this has been going on for MONTHS. Now we're facing it all
again. Hello? Am I alone in thinking this disease is
here to stay? Yes I know there is no vaccine yet but all the
precautions we have taken thus far have proven fruitless. Let businesses trade, leave the bloody kids in
school and get on with living. I'm not making trivial the disease, but I fear we
will lose a lot more if we don’t get on with life.” This is something that I suspect we’ve all been
thinking for a while now. Until a vaccine is developed (and when that might
be is pure speculation) we currently have two options. We can either
cower in terror and run up huge bills. Or we can get on with life and run the
risk of getting the virus. I am fast coming to the conclusion that the
problem here is the “run up huge bills” bit. There was a chap being
interviewed on the radio the other day. The government has ordered him to
close his pub, but he still has to pay five thousand pounds every month in
rent and various associated taxes. We as a nation have to choose between the
public’s health and the economy’s health. Our leaders have made that choice
for us, and have decided that the economy is more important than people. Our current economic system sucks. It has done
for some time. I had a message about one of my geocaches.
Someone who has found twenty thousand of the things (and only hidden three
in the last few years) had found one of my caches which seemed to have
been put back in the wrong place. If you are presented with a multi-trunked
tree and a beech tree, the hint says “multi-trunked tree” but you find
the thing at the base of the beech, where would *you* put it back?
Personally I’d put it back where the description said. I wouldn’t put it back
in the wrong place and then message someone else about it and expect them to
give up half a day and go move the thing a few yards, but that’s just me. I got the leads on to the dogs that were coming
out with me, and then we had a little “episode”. At times of high
excitement (pre-walk, when dinner is being served, when the doorbell goes)
Sid craps all over the place and Pogo and Treacle play-fight rather intensely
at Fudge. This morning’s play-fighting was too vigorous, and it took a while
to calm everyone down. We walked out through Frog’s Island where we had
a near-miss. Some local half-wit was coming past with a red setter and some
other nondescript mutt, so I walked away from the path and blew the whistle.
My three dogs came away from the local half-wit and came to me and I gave them
all a treat for coming away from a potential incident. Clearly not knowing
the first thing about how a dog’s brain works, the local half-wit loudly
announced to his dogs that we had dog treats, and they all came over looking
hopeful. Fortunately we managed to escape without
incident, but did he *really* think that any dog would share food with
an unknown dog? My three (four) quarrel enough over scraps and they
all live together. We got to the garage; I got my car back. I
half-jokingly said to the chap behind the counter that the thing was getting
old. He agreed and said there was probably another year left in it. Perhaps
it is time to think about a new(er) car? Bearing in mind that I only
ever intended to have this car for four years and it has lasted me for
eleven, it has done well. The mortgage will be paid off next year (hopefully)
so maybe that might be new car time? But what car? Do Renault still make
Scenics? And how much do they cost nowadays? Whatever car I get really needs to be a hatchback
(so that the dogs can jump into it) and needs a contained boot area (so
that the dogs stay put). We drove home. Much as I’m grateful for the loan
of the "er indoors TM"-mobile it was good
to have my own car back again. I then drove Sid to the groomer to get his
claws clipped. That was a waste of time – the groomer now only clips claws by
appointment. And despite my having post-graduate qualifications in the
science of human physiology and disease and having worked in the area for
nearly forty years I was subjected to a technically inaccurate ad-hoc lecture
on advanced immunology from a spotty child who has a sistifikat in combing
dogs. I geo-puzzled for an hour or so, then took myself
off to bed. Going to bed in the afternoon is odd. When I go to bed at eleven
o’clock at night I fall asleep within seconds. When I go to bed at one
o’clock in the afternoon I lay awake for twenty minutes desperately trying to
get warm. It might be over thirty degrees outside; I might have a hot water
bottle; I just cannot get warm in bed in the afternoons; at night it is never
an issue. I got
to sleep and slept for three hours until some delivery or other came for the
home-worker and the dogs went mad. Hopefully "er indoors TM"
will boil up some dinner, then it is off to the night shift. I volunteered
for this one… |
|
15 October 2020 (Thursday) - Tired, A Puncture
The night shift was much as night shifts are; I
was glad to see the relief arrive. As I drove home the pundits on the radio
were interviewing the business secretary. Some government advisor or other
has attacked the government as many people simply cannot afford to live on
the payments they get under the latest lock-down arrangements. The minister
felt that the allegation that people were being forced to prostitute
themselves was all very sad, but nowhere near as sad as the effect that
coronageddon is having on the economy. The minister seemed somewhat
frustrated that the public at large can’t seem to grasp the (supposed)
fact that the economy is far more important than people. Doesn’t this sum up all that is wrong with our
society? I got home and went to bed where (despite
having been awake all night) I lay awake for an age before finally
nodding off. Again I couldn’t get warm. What is it with trying to sleep
during the day? I scoffed some toast, and then as it was "er indoors TM"’s
lunch break we took the dogs out. The plan was to go out to Great Chart… We got to my car to find it had a flat tyre. The dogs were excitable and the car was parked,
so the tyre could wait. We walked the dogs round the park where we had a mostly
good walk. There was one minor episode when Pogo got overly friendly with a
passing ball of fluff, but that passed off without too much fuss. Once home I thought I’d better sort out the
puncture. Having been driving motor vehicles since 1980 this is my first ever
puncture so it was all rather a big adventure for me. I googled “tyre
repairs within half a mile of me”. The first place that came up was in
Providence Street. Whilst it is more than a stone’s throw away, if I was to
shout, you would hear me in Providence Street. I could walk there in less
than two minutes. If you were going to drive anywhere at all from Providence
Street you would go past my house. The nice lady at “Mobile Tyres”
told me that I was “outside their area”. I did ask how they could
possibly stay in business with such a small area of operation, but the
sarcasm went over her head. I phoned a few other local tyre repair people
only to find that the phone was always being asked by the same people in
Providence Street. I finally got through to a company whose phone
wasn’t being asked by the lady round the corner. This chap said he would
normally be only too happy to come and help me, but his big end had gone and
he was waiting for help himself. Halfords advertised tyre repairs on-line. When I
phoned them they said they didn’t do tyres. Eventually I hit on the idea of using the
breakdown cover that comes with my car insurance. I should have done that
first. The insurance people sent out the RAC who were with me within an
hour. Have you ever had a tyre changed? I was amazed.
The nice man jacked up the front of the car and soon had the front wheel off.
He then got the spare (I never knew my car had a spare) and put it in
place, but was insistent that this was only a very temporary fix and I should
go to a proper tyre place as soon as possible. He stuck the wheel with the
punctured tyre in the car’s boot and went off on his way. It was with something of a sense of relief that I
then had a functional car again, but it needed a proper fix. I phoned the
tyre people up the road (the ones who don’t do call outs) and they
said they sort me out right away. I drove round at a snail’s pace. Perhaps
the spare was up to greater speeds, but I wasn’t going to chance it. And half an hour and twenty quid later the tyre
was fixed. In retrospect it was all a big adventure, but at the time it was
all rather stressful. I suppose any tyre can get a puncture at any time, but
having been without a car for two weeks it seemed odd that it should go only
a day after it had been in the garage for a fortnight. A rather good bit of dinner; a bottle of red wine
and a decent helping of amaretto… I should sleep well. |
|
16 October 2020 (Friday)
- Rostered Day Off
I slept through till after eight o’clock this
morning. That rarely happens. Over brekkie I peered into the Internet to see
what had happened in the world. The Brexit negotiations are going more
and more pear-shaped. According to official government figures more
and more people are now coming to the conclusion that Brexit was a big
mistake, but it is a mistake that has been made, and there is no point in
harping on about it (even though that’s what I’m doing). With the
final unequivocal Brexit-means Brexit deadline for an agreement having been
passed (yesterday) there’s now to be a further couple of weeks
talking. I wonder if it will achieve anything? There has already been four
years of talking. As I said on 13
July 2016 “We've voted to leave the EU. It's time to either crap or
get off the khazi” A friend was posting on Facebook about
supporting small businesses in the run up to Christmas, and he was
encouraging the world and his wife to tout their wares. Don’t get me wrong –
I’m all for supporting the little guy… but when they are selling petrol at
ten pence a litre more than other garages, when their honey is five pounds
per jar more than the corner shop, when their home-made wine tastes of
vinegar and is twice the price of the stuff in Tesco… Mind you my eyes rolled
at one local business. Are you too busy to write Christmas cards? Someone
locally was offering to hand-write and post Christmas cards (with
hand-written envelopes) for people who are too busy to write the things
themselves. Really? Once you’ve farted about deciding on your festive message
and sending through the names and addresses of those you can’t be bothered to
send a card to, how much time have you actually saved? I popped the leads on to the dogs, and with a
car that works we drove out to Great Chart. I drove with a feeling of “what
will go wrong with the car next”; I do get rather paranoid. As we drove,
Floella Benjamin (of “Play School fame) was the castaway on the radio
on “Desert Island Discs”. She said that her lame to fame was that
before she became a TV celebrity she was the first woman employee of a
British bank to be allowed to wear trousers to work. We got to Great Chart and had a little walk.
I say “little”; it was about three miles. We walked down to the river,
then across the fields almost out to Ripper’s Wood, and back again. A
geocache of mine had gone missing. I get the odd “DNF” (Did Not
Find) report on caches from time to time, but with four consecutive
didn’t-finds from hunters of Tupperware (with finds totalling over forty
thousand between them) I thought I should go do something. Sure enough
the cache was missing. It was soon replaced, and going there and back did
make a good dog walk. But it was as well that I had a spare morning to go
walking today. I’ve mentioned before that although the rules do say that it
is up to the hider to sort any issues, when I go out hunting Tupperware I do
my homework and ask the hider if they want any missing ones replaced. As we walked we met other dogs. An elderly
couple had a gaggle of hounds who barked and growled at my dogs who then
barked and growled back. And we then all walked together with all dogs
playing happily for over a mile. It was *so* good to meet other dog
owners who understand what dogs are like and what dogs do. After the initial
shouting, all the dogs were best of buddies. It really is a dog thing. Also as we walked I realised my foot felt
damp. There was a split in the leather of my boot; it was half an inch long.
I suppose I can’t complain – my boots get some serious use and this pair have
done me for over two years (I got them on 15 April 2018) With damp dogs returned to "er
indoors TM"; I drove out to Go Outdoors in Canterbury
where after a little standing around waiting, the nice lady helped me sort
out a new pair of boots. They weren’t cheap, but (like with most things)
you get what you pay for. They come with an interesting guarantee: “… we
guarantee every product for its lifetime. This is the length of time any
piece of kit can be reasonably expected to keep delivering the same great
performance as when it was new.” So they are guaranteed not to fall apart
until such time as they do fall apart. That’s useful. I came home to find "Daddy’s Little
Angel TM" and "Stormageddon - Bringer of
Destruction TM" in residence. "Stormageddon -
Bringer of Destruction TM" had a McBurger that he didn’t
want to eat and was getting very stressed because the dogs did want to eat
it. If he would only have put it out of their reach, all would have been
well. But he was adamant he would put it where they could get it, and then
got more and more angry as the dogs tried to get it. In the end I ate it. After an hour or so they had to make tracks;
I drove them down to Folkestone, and came home to find it was nearly five
o’clock. I had so much planned for today. Being Friday we had fish and chips which we
scoffed watching the first episode of the new season of “Star Trek:
Discovery”. As a life-long trekkie I could write a major dissertation on
why I thought the episode was less than stunning, but I’ll just gloss over
the fact that the Andorians were brandishing the guns that Sea Devils used in
Doctor Who, say that it was utter crap and leave it at that. |
|
17 October 2020
(Saturday) - Back to Bossingham
I felt a little light-headed when I got up
this morning. I do hope I’m not sickening for anything. I came downstairs and
cleared up the turds that Sid had done overnight. At least they were by the
back door – he’d made some attempt. I made toast and peered into the Internet. I
wasn’t the only one to have been less than enthusiastic about last night’s
new Star Trek episode. If you had paid close attention there were all sorts
of little things in the background which had been popped in for the fans. I
didn’t notice all of them; I think I need to watch the show again to see if I
can spot all of them, and to give the show a second chance. Having thought
about it overnight, it bothers me. As a life-long trekkie with trekkie tattoos
and having founded a Star Trek fan club myself it bothers me that the makers
of the show are now pandering to the likes of me. There are endless little
bits of “fanwank” instead of a plot. Also it doesn’t help that the makers are
flooding the market to maximise their profit. I got a Netflix subscription
purely to watch “Star Trek: Discovery” and then the next show came out
on Amazon Prime. There’s a new cartoon series exclusively on CBS (which
would cost me too). I wonder if that will ever come out on DVD? I won’t
ever see it otherwise. With nothing else of note in cyberspace we
got ourselves and the dogs organised and drove off listening to Steve on
Radio Ashford as we went. The radio signal didn’t quite follow us all the way
to Bosingham village hall where we met Karl, Tracey and Charlotte. Last
weekend we’d walked the first half of a series of geocaches out that way.
Today we went back to do the second half. Having gone rogue on the order in which we
cached last week we also went rogue again today, following the sequence from
two to eleven, then in reverse order from sixty-eight back to thirty-eight.
But again in doing so we go a mix of lane and footpath walking. Some of the
lanes were a tad busy, but that can be true of any road. But the footpaths
took us through some pretty countryside, and there weren’t *that* many
pheasants that the dogs chased. As we walked we found a couple of rope
swings. One was a tad flimsy, but we played on the other. I say “played”;
Charlotte had a go for a few seconds and then we swung it about and Pogo chased and
jumped at it. He would have stayed there all day. As we walked we found something of a novelty
in this day and age – an open pub. I pulled a face mask from my pocket and
went in and got a round of drinks. And as the ladies were savouring their
drinks I got me and Karl another. Whilst it was rather good to sit in the
beer garden and have a pint or two, there’s no denying that I’ve had better
pints than those served at the Rose and Crown in Stelling Minnis. The first
was a tad iffy; it tasted OK but had a faint odour of manure about it. Seeing
that the second ale was being put on I thought we’d try that. I thought that
you can’t go wrong with an ale that has just been put on; this one had bits
of stuff floating in it. As we walked we met other hunters of
Tupperware. We’d met them yesterday when they were finding the cache in our
front garden. It was good to catch up again. We walked seven miles today. Perhaps that was
a bit much for the first outing of my new boots? I’d had to take them off in
the car as we’d driven to the start. They were so tight it was like having my
foot in a vice. But a combination of swapping to thinner socks and squeezing
the boots about seemed to have done the trick, and the boots were OK. Geocache-wise it was a good walk with straightforward
finds. All with helpful hinds and all with good GPS co-ordinates. Thought I
must admit that walking the entire series of seventy-nine caches in one go
would be something of a mission. Walking it in two halves (as we did)
made it much easier. I
took a few photos as we walked. It wasn’t a bad place to walk. We came home, and all of us had a little doze
– that walk took it out of us all. I really should have an early night – I‘ve
got an early start tomorrow… |
|
18 October 2020
(Sunday) - Early Shift
I woke feeling full of beans and raring to
go, looked at the clock, and my heart sank when I saw it was only quarter
past one. One of the dogs then dared to fidget, and "er indoors TM"
spent much of the rest of the night in a pitched battle with fidgetting dogs.
When she wasn't fighting with dogs she was snoring. I gave up trying to sleep
shortly before five o'clock. I was rather pleased to see that the kitchen
was a turd-free zone, but I suppose it had been too early for Sid to have
"done" anything. I made toast, and watched an episode of
"The Job Lot" before peering into the Internet. Not a lot
had happened overnight; to be honest it was probably far too early on a
Sunday morning for much to be happening. But I was rather sad to see all the
memories that Facebook was posting up for my perusal. If not for
coronageddon, this weekend would have been the Hastings bonfire parade. We've
had such fun there over the years. I suppose this year's entire bonfire
season has gone west. I was rather relieved to have been able to
drive away to work this morning. Partly relief at not having to blag "er
indoors TM"'s car, and partly relieved that the roads
were clear. Yesterday all sorts of rumours were spreading that our road was
to be dug up this morning and that there would be no vehicular access either
to or from the roads round home. Back in the day the council would stick
signs to lamp posts and pop leaflets through your door about this sort of
thing. These days you just get third-hand rumours via Facebook. As I drove the farming news was on the radio.
There was a lot of talk about a horse-riding school in Brixton. The people
being interviewed made a great fuss that the place wasn't just a riding
school; it did all sorts of other things too. But no one seemed to be able to
list a single activity that this place offered other than horse riding. The
people running the place made great show of the huge running costs that the
place has, but how they bent over backwards to make the place affordable to
all. As I listened I was reminded of my time as a scout leader when we
too made enormous efforts to subsidise what we did for people with far more
money than we had. And (from what I've heard) scouting still does
that. As I drove through Biddenden a car flew past
me (at probably double the speed limit). Driving like an idiot is all
very well, but it is best not done in quite such a memorable car. If any of
my loyal readers see a rather huge car with the registration "W 8EAR",
give it a wide berth. I got to work. There's no denying I hadn't
wanted to work today, but apart from a simultaneous double whammy from both
the Kidd and Kell blood group systems the day wasn’t a bad one. An early
start made for an early finish, and with a few minutes spare I popped up to
Paddock Wood where I did a little Munzee resuscitation. But only a little.
When the sticker has faded beyond only recognition there is only so many that
you can replace before you run out of Munzee stickers. Another reason why I’m
leaning more to Munzee over the old Tupperware game is that they actively
encourage you to be helpful to each other in replacing missing things and
keeping the game going. I came home to find "er indoors TM"
in the garden gathering turds. In a house with more dogs than sense,
gathering turds is a full-time occupation. She’s also got herself a new plant. It is
purple. Wonder how long dinner will be…? |
|
19 October 2020
(Monday) - Another Early Shift
This morning I woke at twenty past one. I lay
awake for a while, and was just nodding off when "er indoors TM"
went to the loo. She went as quiet as a mouse, but the dogs had to follow her
and they thundered down the stairs. Dogs don’t do “stealth mode”. Over a very early brekkie I watched another
episode of “The Job Lot” then had a quick look-see at the Internet as
I do. I was pleasantly amazed at the response I’d
had to something I posted onto one of the Munzee Facebook pages. Yesterday I
replaced a few missing Munzees and wanted to be sure that this was the done
thing. There was one hundred per cent universal agreement that this was not
only the done thing, but was to be applauded. I couldn’t help but compare
this to geocaching where the majority opinion is never to do anything to help
anyone else for fear of condemnation and vituperation from the self-appointed
geo-police. More and more I’m finding that Munzeeing is
fun whereas geocaching isn’t what it once was. And on the geocaching front I saw that over
the weekend I’d had more than two hundred “Found It” logs on geocaches
that I’d hidden. I didn’t read all of them, but I skimmed through, and one
made me roll my eyes. Four and a half years ago I wrote a Wherigo cartridge
which (after a *lot* of testing) formed part of a series of geocaches
I put out near Challock. The cartridge was played seventy-six times then, and
it received twenty-six favourite points. I then adjusted the locations in the
cartridge (and nothing else) and have incorporated it into one of the
new series of geocaches I’ve put out this year. In its second incarnation it
has been played thirty-four more times (and got ten more favourite points).
But yesterday I got told that the cartridge has a bug in it. No details were
forthcoming; just “a bug”. A bug which hasn’t come to light despite a
*lot* of testing and a hundred and ten successful completions? Is
there a bug? If so, I’d like to know what it is, but somehow I doubt it. I
suspect it is easier to claim the thing isn’t working than to admit that you
might have pressed the wrong button? This morning’s Facebook squabble was about an
advert that appeared on my Facebook feed. Ostensibly selling crisps, there
was a feeling that the young lady in the advert was brandishing far too much
chest. Personally I’m a fan of chests. I was tempted to make a comment about
nibbling on her tasties, but the sexists and the feminists were already
getting quite aggressive enough. I didn’t need to wind anyone or anything up. I got myself ready for work and said goodbye
to everyone. Some grunted at me, some wagged their tails. Fudge turned away
and ignored me. He seems to have a little sulk when I go out without him.
Perhaps he wants to come to work? There were quite a few people walking dogs up
the road at six o'clock in pitch darkness as I walked to my car. I then
nearly flattened a cyclist and a teenager on a scooter; both dressed all in
black with no lights at all. I've said before that the utterly inadequate
street lighting in Ashford certainly isn't what was promised when it was
installed. And now that it is installed, no one in authority seems to want to
take responsibility for it. As I drove to work there was a lot of talk on
the radio about how central government is giving tens of millions of pounds
to the councils in Liverpool and Manchester. Not because they need the money,
but as some sort of bribe to get them to accept
the lock-down conditions. I must admit to a degree of confusion here. I
always thought that local councils took orders from central government. The
Prime Minister is the boss, not some tin-pot mayor of some tin-pot council?
So what on Earth is going on? If some local council is refusing to toe the
line, this is tantamount to secession, isn't it? If I was Mr Johnson, I'd
declare the council disbanded, have direct rule from Westminster for the
area, send in the army and have the so-called mayor stuck in prison. After
all, that's what the Spanish did when the
Catalans got arsey, wasn't it? I go to work and did my bit. And with my bit
done I took a little detour on my way home to go find a geocache. This was one the
puzzle of which I’d solved a while ago, but I never seemed to be in the right
place with time to go hunt for it. Today I had a spare few minutes. I parked
up somewhere between Ashford and Tunbridge Wells, and after a few minutes the
cache was in my hand. Happy dance. The cache was… I won’t give spoilers, but I will say that a
lot of time, thought and effort had gone into making what I found. But as is
so often the case with these special ones, they are fragile. Whilst the thing
doesn’t actually need maintenance just yet, part of it is already broken and
I am only the eighth person to have fiddled with the thing. Which is why I
stick to putting film pots under rocks and do my clever bits in the
programming (and creating bug in!) wherigoes. Pausing only briefly to deploy a Munzee I was
soon home. Fudge had got over his sulk, and we all charged down the garden to
feed the pond fish. The pond is rather clear at the moment. The clarity of my
pond is something that I’ve (quite frankly) given up worrying about. I
will clean the filter, bung in all sorts of flocculants, replace the UV bulb
and the pond will have the texture of mud. I’ve done nothing with it for a
month and it is crystal clear. Go figure! Much as I like the early finish of the early
shift (it gives me time after work to do something), two early starts
have taken their toll… I’m worn out. |
|
20 October 2020
(Tuesday) - A New Friend (?)
This morning I slept through till quarter past
four. That was a result. I would have slept longer had Treacle not been
crying. She wanted to come up on to the bed but wanted to be picked up; she
didn’t want to jump. She rarely wants to jump up – I think she is frightened
of landing on a sleeping Pogo. I lay awake for a while, then gave up trying
to sleep. I came downstairs and chased Sid round the garden in the forlorn
hope that he might “do” something out there. He didn’t. I watched an episode of “The Job Lot”
then sparked up my lap-top. “Le On (mistress kattie)” had sent me a
friend request on Facebook. He, she or it claims to be looking for “an
obedient, honest loyal and understanding male slave submissive to be my
property to own.” If any of my loyal readers can do as they are told and
are up for a portion I’ll pass on your details. I don’t think my back is
quite up for a chest of that calibre. I posted something to that effect on my
Facebook page this morning; I've posted things like this before. I expect
that once again I will be told that this post breaches Facebook's standards
whilst “Le On (mistress kattie)” continues to brandish her wazzo
jubblies to the world. There wasn’t much else on the Internet to
compare with “Le On (mistress kattie)”’s chest, so I got myself ready
for work. As I drove to work there was a lot of talk
about the total collapse of the Brexit negotiations. I was going to
sarcastically write "as if no one saw this coming" but unfortunately
it is quite plain that not that many people *did* see this one coming. There was also a lot of talk about lock-downs
in Wales and Ireland to try to halt the spread of the corona virus. A
lock-down is needed to stop the virus, but as we've seen before the virus
comes back when the lock-down is eased. And as endless politicians keep
pointing out, the economy is far more important (to those who make the
decisions) than the nation's health. We really need to have a completely
different economic system in which people don't have to decide between being
unable to afford to live or spreading a killer virus. There was a little bit of chat about today
being World Statistics Day, and
there was a rather basic lecture presented on just exactly what statistics
are, and how you *can't* prove anything with statistics. There was also talk about NASA's plan to
capture a lump
of an asteroid. You would have thought that this might have captured the
public's interest, wouldn't you. I stopped off at Tesco where I got some bits
and bobs. Despite being hermetically sealed away behind plastic barriers, the
till staff were all still wearing disease-spreading gloves. And then it was
on to a rather busy day at work complicated somewhat by the vagaries of the
Kidd blood group system. I came home, and "er indoors TM"
boiled up a particularly good bit of dinner which we washed down with a
bottle of plonk whilst watching “Bake-Off”. And with dinner scoffed we
had some cheese. "er indoors TM" got her roule to
herself; I had to share my blue brie with four dogs. It is odd how they know
who will give them cheese and who won’t… |
|
21 October 2020
(Wednesday) - Bit Dull
Sid was rather lively this morning when I got
up, but he flatly refused to go outside. I had my shave and came out of the
bathroom to find he’d crapped on the lino. He had a major sulk when I refused
to let him into anywhere with a carpet. I watched another episode of “The Job Lot”
then had a look at the Internet. There was yet another squabble kicking off
on one of the Lego-related Facebook pages. If you go into a Lego shop you can
buy a pint of the Lego bricks for a tenner. You can get thousands of the
little Lego flowers into a pint pot and lots more besides. Some chap was
selling fifty of these flowers for three quid, and others were giving him
stick for blatant profiteering. Mind you a lot of people do this. One of the
chaps working on the Lego shop at Bluewater once told me there are people who
come in to their shop every day and buy loads of the little bits; far more
than anyone would ever use. He said he challenged a few of them; they openly
admitted they were selling them on at a profit. With nothing else of note going on I braved
the rain and went to find where I’d left my car. I’d left it quite a way from
home, and I was rather damp by the time I found it. As I drove to work the pundits on the radio
were interviewing
Nottingham City Council leader David Mellen. Overnight the Prime Minister
and the Health Secretary had both mentioned ongoing talks with Nottingham
city council, but the leader of that council was adamant that no talks had
taken place. So… Either one side or the other doesn’t know
what is going on and should be sacked for incompetence (is it too much to
ask that our leaders know their arses from their elbows?) Or one side or the other is lying and should
be sacked for deliberately misleading the public. I have no idea which it is,
but the Prime Minister does have a track record
of telling porkies. And that is entirely what is wrong with our
country right now. The Prime Minister “tells porkies”. It is expected
of him; everyone expects him to be disingenuous. Perhaps if we as a nation
held our elected officials to a higher standard or if he were held to account
like any public figure should be, might things be different? As I drove to work it slowly got light. Or “lighter”,
with the ongoing rain it was rather dismal when I arrived. It didn’t really
brighten up all day, and was again dark when I got home. That’s the trouble
with working at Tunbridge Wells; for much of the year when I am based there I
leave for work in the dark and get home in the dark. Gammon and chips, a tin of “Doctor Pepper”,
an episode of “Taskmaster”… today was rather dull really. |
|
22 October 2020
(Thursday) - Late Shift
With no alarm set I slept through till five
past eight this morning. I came downstairs (hotly followed by three dogs),
and Sid then tried to go the way from which we had all gone. Sid then watched
Fudge, Treacle and Pogo race into the garden with a “WTF do you want to go
out there for?” expression. Despite frog-marching him outside he didn’t “do”
anything. Sometimes I despair over Sid. Short of picking him up and squeezing
there’s not a lot I can do to get him to “go” outside. Again he sulked when he then wasn’t allowed
anywhere with a carpet. Pausing only briefly to work out where "er
indoors TM" had hidden the jam I made myself some toast,
then peered into the internet as I scoffed it. This morning things were
relatively peaceful. No immoral young ladies were brandishing their chests,
no one was quarrelling about the price of Lego. Some chap was asking if
anyone would sell him a dalek at far below the going rate, but no one was
taking the bait. I did have an email telling me about a new geocache that I could
possibly have gone for (had I been on a core shift at Maidstone today).
But I expect the bloke up the road had already been there. Back in the day I
used to try to get one “First to Find” on a geocache a month. But with
one local hunter of Tupperware who really does drop everything and run the
very second a new one is released, and another seemingly scouring the
countryside hunting out all likely locations hoping to find them before they
are released, much of the enjoyment has been sucked out of what was once a
fun game. Much the same happened with the astro club, and the snake club.
Such a shame. I got the leads on to the dog and we went out
for a walk. The plan was to drive out to Great Chart, but what with an
ambulance coming round the corner I had to turn left where I should have
turned right. Autopilot kicked in, and we ended up at Orlestone Woods. Over
the summer that was our go-to place for a walk, but after the unpleasantness
of September 29th and the subsequent waste of police time on
October 7th I have been reluctant to go back there. But we arrived
to find an empty car park. No one else was there. What could possibly go
wrong this time? As it happened nothing did go wrong (apart
from Fudge rolling in something foul). We met a couple of other dog
walkers. One lot arrived after us; another had parked on one of the lanes
which go round the edge of the woods. I’ve seen their car parked before. I
can’t help but wonder why they would park on a narrow lane when there is a
perfectly good car park nearby, but what do I know? Both groups of dog walkers said hello; both
mentioned that we’d not been to the woods for a while. I mentioned our
encounter with the autistic walkers (and subsequent attack on the dogs).
One chap said that he’d had something similar happen to him a while back. I
wonder if it was the same people that I’d met? We came home. There was an “episode”
as we parked when a rather huge dog saw us (from inside his house) and
started throwing itself at the window in an attempt to get at us. We didn’t
hang around. I got the dogs in, got changed and set off to work, and after
half a mile I did a U-turn. Brookfield Road (the main road heading west
out of Ashford) was closed. I followed a rather epic queue of traffic
back the way I'd come. I eventually navigated my way to Sainsbury's
where I got petrol, and having forgotten to bring lunch I got a sandwich too.
The woman on the till had me scan in all of my purchases myself, seemingly
oblivious to the fact that in doing so she was making herself demonstrably
redundant. No one operates the tills in many stores; it won't be long before
she too is out of work. With enough petrol to get to work I headed
for Tunbridge Wells. I had a pang of guilt as I drove past the family-owned
petrol station in Biddenden. There were all sorts of signs up about how we
should support the little shops and small businesses. But I did a few sums in
my head. The petrol that I'd bought from Sainsbury's would be over a fiver
more expensive from them (to say nothing of getting a sandwich). I'm
all for supporting the little people, but charity begins at home (sorry!) I nearly got to Goudhurst when I found myself
in another rather epic queue of traffic. And nothing was coming down the road
the other way. Was the road blocked at the church again? Sure enough yet
another juggernaut had ignored all the signs and got itself wedged in the
tight bend in the road. Fortunately I was able to take a minor diversion
through some incredibly narrow lanes, and it wasn't *that* long before
I was in the works car park. Pausing only briefly to deploy a Munzee in the
general vicinity I scoffed lunch and had a look at the Internet via my phone.
One of the local Facebook groups had just published a notice about Brookfield
Road being closed. As I said last Sunday, back in the day you would know in
advance about road closures. Work was work; but hard work. What with the
vagaries of my shift pattern I rarely work more than three days without a
break. Doing five consecutive days (like everyone else does) has come
as something of a shock this week… |
|
23 October 2020
(Friday) - Rostered Day Off
I slept well again, waking shortly after
seven o’clock finding myself cuddling Treacle as though she was a teddy bear.
Yesterday I was chatting with one of the bosses at work who was complaining
about his insomnia; laying wide awake worrying about work-related problems
over which he had no power to put right. I can remember spending many years
doing the same; I don’t miss that at all. I made some toast and peered into the
Internet as I do most mornings. A friend who is an IT professional was
bitterly complaining about the new-look Facebook layout. Admittedly it looks
awful and is vastly inferior to what came before in many ways, but that is IT
for you. Those who work in the field are forever fiddling with it; after any
upgrade what happens behind the scenes is a wonder of technology, but
whatever it is that has been upgraded is left less able to do the actual job
for which it is required. I took the dogs down to Orlestone Woods for a
walk. We had a good wander. As we walked we met some people that we’ve met
before. They told me that they too had met the couple with whom I’d had the
run-in a few weeks ago. And they too had received a visit from the police.
Apparently they had “looked at the autistic chap in a funny way”. You really would think that the police would
have better things to do with their limited time and resources, wouldn’t you? Taking great care not to look at anyone in
any sort of way at all we walked with these people. Usually we walk alone,
but it does Treacle good to walk with other dogs. With walk walked I took the dogs home, then
drove out to Cheeseman’s Lane. A
geocache of mine had been reported missing. It probably is missing. The
thing is under a bridge across which a country lane crosses a river. Seeing
the water was a lot deeper than I remember it being I thought I wouldn’t
chance my wellies. I shall blag a pair of waders from "My Boy TM"
and go back next week. I came home via Newtown Green for Munzee
purposes where my barcode-related activities were rewarded with a briefcase
and a spyderbot. If you are into sticking barcodes on to lamp posts, this is
rather impressive; if you aren’t a Munzee-er this is probably rather trivial. I came home myself to find that "er
indoors TM" had spent quite some time clearing up dog
sick. Whist I was out, Pogo had brought up his brekkie. I wonder what that
was all about? He’d been fine when out on his walk. I got busy in the garden. The lawn had grown
quite a bit recently. The lawn “feed & seed” has certainly fed the
lawn, but once it was mown I could see the bare patches were still there. It
hadn’t seeded much. And then my phone beeped. Regular readers of this drivel may recall
that on August 25th I received a rather unmoral invitation (via
Facebook) from “Shawn Bearden” who wanted to be my friend on
Facebook and had invited me to an exclusive WhatsApp sex group. I commented
about this at the time on Facebook when I wrote “I bet Facebook will
delete that post... but won’t do anything about the porn monger in the
picture...” This morning Facebook told me they have
deleted my post and have given me a formal warning for going against their
community standards on suicide and self-injury (!) Someone advertises
pornography on Facebook. I highlight the breach of standards, and I’m the one
in trouble. Despite several messages with their automated
system, Facebook are adamant that I am the villain of the piece. I’ve posted
screenshots of their warnings onto my Facebook page. If that doesn’t get me
banned, nothing will. Meanwhile the porn-mongers continue to peddle
their filth. Another friend got a warning from the
Facebook feds for asking if someone could get her some paracetamol whilst she
was shielding as that went against their drugs policy. "er indoors TM" took a lunch
break and we popped down to the carpet shop. The hall carpet is (at least)
thirty years old and needs replacing. We’ve found something which shouldn’t
show the dirt (too much) and the nice man will come and fit it next
month. As the rain fell I ironed shirts and
trousers, and then pootled about with my Lego city. I’m wondering if I might
do away with some of the custom-build houses in it and replace them with ones
more akin to the designs of 1970s Lego. That will give me something to do
over the long winter evenings. "er indoors TM" went to the
fish & chips shop to get dinner which we scoffed whilst watching this
week’s episode of “Star Trek: Discovery” which was streets ahead of
last week’s episode. We followed this with an episode of “Taskmaster”,
and as it passed nine o’clock some idiot started setting off fireworks. |
|
24 October 2020
(Saturday) - Late Shift
I slept through till after eight o’clock this
morning. I came down and Sid headed straight for the back door (which was
good) dropping turds as he went (which was bad). Once I’d sorted the pup I had some brekkie
and peered into the Internet. I’d received a lot of messages of support about
yesterday’s little warning from Facebook. Last night I logged my Facebook
warning as a fault on their “report a problem” page, but had received
no reply this morning, so I spent a rather vengeful and bitter five minutes
logging quite a few of their adverts as “sexually inappropriate” (as
they were). A lot of people were posting on Facebook
today complaining about the government’s refusal to provide free school meals for the
next six months. I was a little confused. Those who openly advocated against
socialist values on the run-up to the last election were now demanding them
from the Conservative government who make no secret of their love of the
capitalist approach. Holding those in need in contempt is all very well all
the time it is someone else who is in need, isn’t it? As everyone else snored I looked at the
monthly accounts. Bearing in mind I spent far too much on garden ornaments
and new boots before having an unexpected car calamity last month, and then
bought a carpet yesterday, I could be a whole lot worse off. I suppose seeing
that the gas and leccie bill is thirty quid a month cheaper is something of a
bonus. Or is it? I didn’t think the SmartMeter was working properly. I’ve
been watching the thing recently. How can we have used nearly half of the
day’s leccie and gas by five o’clock each morning? I contacted the on-line
help thingy through the leccie company’s website and found myself talking
with either an automated bot or someone who was determined to follow a
pre-prepared script. After a little to-in and fro-ing and fiddling with the
meter I got told that “I see that your smart meter are giving us the
incorrect reads and it seems that your smart meter need to be commissioned”.
The next utterance was “It seems that there is some interruption of
Bluetooth devices, router or any other equipment which is creating a signal
issue between smart meter and Inhouse display”. And because the
SmartMeter hasn’t been right for months (!) they’ve been estimating
the bill for months. They’ve referred the matter to their
dedicated SmartMeter team who will be in touch over the next few days. The plan had been to walk the dogs before I set
off to work, but it was raining and we’d run out of time anyway. Since I'd
made toast with the last of the bread I thought I'd better get myself a
sandwich on the way to work. There had been some decent sandwiches in Dobbies
when we were last there, and some rather unusual beers too. I got to Dobbies
to find their food section had been taken over by Marks and Spencer. They had
all sorts of poncy food, but not a single sandwich. And a rather good
selection of tinned lager (!)... So I headed west-wards thinking I might try
the little shop in Bethersden. I got there and found that they might have
sandwiches - the little girl behind the till looked a bit vague on the
matter, but she was confident that they had a good selection of ales.
Personally I call four different tinned lagers a piss-poor selection of ales,
but what do I know. I eventually got to drive away from this
place. Some arrogant idiot had stopped his car in the middle of the road
behind my car whilst his wife went shopping. He assured me he wouldn't be
long, but he people who were trying to drive up and down the road that he was
blocking persuaded him to move. It was shortly after here that I nearly ran
over two idiot children. Pulling wheelies on their bikes they were utterly
oblivious to traffic and didn't seem to be at all bothered that they were on
the wrong side of the road cycling head-on directly at me. Finally I found sandwiches and some bottled
beer (for tomorrow) in Sissinghurst. As I drove the pundits on the radio were
interviewing some chap who had given away a small fortune recently. Having
started following some scammer on Instagram, this chap was rather jealous of
the scammer's lifestyle. The scammer offered a similar champagne-and-fast-cars
lifestyle to anyone who wanted it. All you had to do was subscribe to his
stocks and shares portfolio scheme. The chap on the radio handed over
twenty-eight thousand pounds, and others handed over sums of money totally
over four million pounds. The scammer has now vanished, and so has the four
million pounds. The chap on the radio was amazed that he is
now widely regarded as a twit, and was desperate to prove that he wasn't
stupid. He wasn't convincing anyone. I got to work and di my bit on a particularly
busy day. I’ve always said I don’t mind working when the weather is bad, but
the weather was particularly bad today. Driving home through the wind and
rain took some doing, if only because of the swerving about blown-down
branches. I came home to find "er indoors TM"
had baked a loaf. It was rather good. As I’m typing this, the rain is so heavy that
the telly keeps stopping as the rain on the Sky dish is blocking the
satellite signal. I hope my new fence stands up to this wind… |
25 October 2020 (Sunday) - Rain, Lego, Dinner
What with the clocks going back I got to sleep
for nearly nine hours. This “clocks going back” thing is a load of
rubbish, isn’t it? Officially it is called “daylight saving”. I looked it all up on-line. All
the reasons for it seem rather nonsensical. Moving the clocks about doesn’t
actually save anything, does it? All it does is move the hours of daylight
from the evening to the morning. Personally I’d rather have the lighter
evenings. Quite a few people were saying the same on Facebook this morning. There were
also quite a few posts on Facebook from local businesses all of whom were
offering free meals for schoolchildren since the government won’t. On the
one hand this is a good thing. On the other hand, having the general public
randomly sorting out that which central government should be doing rather
makes the entire concept of a government somewhat redundant, doesn’t it? I did
chuckle when I checked my emails. My Microsoft Outlook had decided that an
official email from Microsoft was spam and had stuck it in the “junk”
folder. The plan
for the morning had been a very quick walk round Tenterden, but the rain was
rather against that. And as is always the way when it rains, the dogs refused
to go out through the back door into the back garden (because of the rain)
but still wanted to go out of the front door for a walk. We had a very quick round-the-block
and all got rather damp. It was as well we didn’t have our usual weekend
walktoday – the weather was terrible. I then
spent a little while fiddling with my Lego town. I’ve
re-vamped the right-hand end to incorporate Darth Vader’s riding school and
moved the pond-side house a bit. There’s a video of what I’ve done here. There’s
still quite a bit to do with it. The double-decker bus needs passengers,
there’s three houses I don’t like and may re-build or replace, and I’d like
to add lights to the train. Adding lights is easy enough… getting leccie to
the lights isn’t. I’ve found some Lego leccie plugs which I’ve ordered from
Italy, but they don’t come with any cable. I shall try B&Q when I get a
minute. With "er
indoors TM" delivering a telly to "Daddy’s Little
Angel TM" I pootled on the Internet for a bit watching
all sorts of stuff on You-Tube. And with telly delivered we went round to
"My Boy TM" where Cheryl had boiled up a very
good bit of dinner. I scoffed far too much, then we watched David
Attenborough and Blue Planet II. It would
have been good to have stayed longer, but clocks having gone back had made
for hungry dogs. We came home and with dogs having scoffed we watched “Taskmaster”. Having
done very little other than playing Lego and eating today, for some odd
reason I’m worn out. |
|
26 October 2020
(Monday) - Late Shift
I had a stroke of genius this morning. Fudge
rarely eats all of his breakfast in one go; preferring to finish it after our
morning walk (when he is hungry). But by then all the other dogs have
forgotten that they finished their brekkie earlier, and they get the hump.
Finding myself awake at really silly o’clock (what with the clocks going
back) I had this idea that if we went for our walk before brekkie, Fudge
might eat all of his brekkie when we came back. We drove down to Orlestone Woods where we had
a really good walk. It was pretty much the walk we usually have, but good in
that we didn’t see another soul, and had the place to ourselves. As we walked I saw something which made me think.
Paw prints in the mud. Whatever had left them had been big. Deer? Wild boar?
One of those big black cats? It was probably a big dog, but before I could
take a photo of the paw print a game of dog-chase (featuring Pogo and
Treacle) charged right through the thing destroying it completely. As we drove home the pundits on the radio
were talking about the hijacking of the oil tanker Nave Andromeda.
From what was said and from what has been reported, something seems odd. The
hijackers stowed away on the ship in Nigeria and hid until the ship was five
minutes away from the headquarters of the Special Boat Service when they
sprung their hijack. The commandos of the SBS had the tanker re-captured in less
than ten minutes. And the hijackers are supposedly asylum seekers hoping to
get into the UK. Really? If I was hijacking an oil tanker, I’d do it
on the high seas, not within sight of a commando unit. And if I wanted to
seek asylum in the UK I wouldn’t hijack an oil tanker on its way there. Either the hijackers are a bunch of
half-wits, or there is more to this story than meets the eye. We got home where Fudge only ate half of his
brekkie. So much for my stroke of genius. As I scoffed my brekkie I peered into the
Internet. In less than a month there’s a whole new Animaniacs
series coming to our tellies (together with a resurrection of “Pinky and
the Brain”). I say “our tellies” – there is if your telly is
hooked up to Hulu. But seeing how Hulu is an American subscription video on
demand service not available in the UK, that is something else I shan’t be
seeing. I’ve whinged about this in the past, haven’t I? Back in the day there
was God’s own BBC. Then those common oiks from ITV got in on the act, but
using advertising their channels were free to the public. The thin end of the
wedge was almost thirty-four years ago when BSB kicked off (remember their
squarials?), and Sky TV followed them four years later. And now the
pay-per-view market is getting silly. If you want to watch the new episodes
of “Star Trek” you have to subscribe to three different pay-per-view
outfits, and I will probably never see the new episodes of “Spitting Image”.
I suppose I am lucky in that I lead quite an active life and telly isn’t *that*
important to me, but there are a lot of people (I used to work with quite
a few) whose entire life revolves around watching the telly and
incessantly talking about it with their equally TV-obsessed acquaintances. With a few moments to spare I did a little CPD. The blood
transfusion simulator gave me an ABO discrepancy combined with anti-s, but I
rose to the challenge. I was rather pleased about that. I then added to a
Munzee virtual garden (which was easier said than done). I set off in the general direction of work.
Pausing only briefly at Leeds Castle for a flat friend (it's a Munzee
thing) I then went to Notcutts garden centre with the vague idea of
getting "er indoors TM" a Christmas pressie or
two. It was a shame that seemingly the rest of the human race had had
the same idea. The place was heaving. I had a little look-see at what they had for
sale. They had all sorts of things, but nothing cheap. To be honest when I
saw the artificial Christmas tree which was up for sale at five hundred
pounds I turned round and walked away. I went to Aldi hoping they might have
had something in the cheapo-bargain aisle, but there wasn't anything worth
having. They had some bottles of red wine though... I got one of those. I drove on to work and did my bit. Having a
late start means I can do stuff before work... but I don't like the late
finish. |
|
27 October 2020
(Tuesday) - Not on a Late Shift
I was sleeping like a log when the most
enormous crash woke me. Pogo had fallen off the bed. I’m surprised he didn’t
go through the floor judging by the noise he made as he hit it. I lay awake for a while, then gave up trying
to sleep and got up. Over a bowl of granola I watched an episode of “The
Job Lot” then tuned in to the Internet to see if much had happened
overnight. There was quite a bit of sadness being shown
on many of the fishing-related Facebook pages as today saw the release of the
last-ever edition of the ”Angler’s Mail”; a weekly magazine featuring
articles about all sorts of fishing. A lot of people were sad to see it go,
but seeing how not one of them had actually read the thing in years is it
surprising that it is packing up? I deployed a Munzee into the Christmas garden
that is being prepared near Sevenoaks, and checked my emails. Someone had a
hunt for Tupperware in Challock a couple of days ago and said nice things
about my Kings Wood Munzees, and he also liked the Wherigo series I hid in
the area. “We were really enjoying the walk
and have never done a Wherigo quite like this before”… I think that was the reaction I have been hoping for. I also had an email from Amazon who have been reviewing that which
I've bought from them recently. They felt I might like to buy Doctor Who DVDs
that had been dubbed into German? With "er
indoors TM" and all the hounds
still asleep I set off to work through a rather overcast wet morning. As I
drove the pundits on the radio were interviewing some religious-type who was
wittering on about how both President Trump and his opponent in the upcoming
election have tried to seize the religious high ground, and somehow have both
succeeded. There was some amazingly convoluted reason as to why this is
possible; it was something to do with religion being all things to all
people, and it can be whatever you want it to be. Strange stuff, religion. There was also an interview with the head honcho of the Royal College
of Surgeons who was calling for all COVID-19 positive patients to be put into
certain hospitals, and all COVID-19 negative patients to be put into others.
Whilst this is an eminently sensible idea I'm sure there are laws against
this sort of segregation. In a not utterly different way, when I was a cub
scout leader we got told off for sticking all the bed-wetters in the same
tent. Work was work. Not one of the better days, but looking back over forty
years certainly not one of the worse ones either. But I was still glad when
home time came round. And once home I cornered my furriest little girl. I spent a few minutes last night squeezing a
rather purulent zit on Treacle’s belly. The soppy little girl didn’t seem at
all bothered by what I was doing, even though I was giving it some stick.
This evening her tum looked fine for which I was pleased. I then spent a few minutes writing up a case
study about leishmaniasis; a particularly nasty disease which is spread
by some dogs (NOT mine!!!) . Hopefully "er indoors TM"
will boil up some dinner in a bit. Bake Off is on soon. |
|
28 October 2020
(Wednesday) - Rather Dull
For some reason I woke feeling like death warmed up. I hoped I might
chirp up over brekkie, but Sid just whinged at me constantly as I scoffed
granola and tried to watch an episode of “The Job Lot”. With telly watched I wasted ten minutes trying to add to the Christmas
Munzee garden that several of us Munzers are trying to create in Knowle Park.
What could have been a ten-second job took an age; why is IT never
straight-forward? I then peered into Facebook. I am still on a warning for highlighting
breaches of their community standards, but those breaches continue to abound.
And with no emails of note I sent out birthday wishes and set off work-wards As I drove to work there was a lot of talk of coronageddon on the
radio. There were all sorts of people being wheeled on who were insisting
that the Prime Minister should change the COVID-19 restrictions at Christmas
time. Some professor or other was saying that (by the strict letter of the
law) many older people were now having to choose between physical and
mental health. Should they avoid the virus or avoid their family? But as the various discussions, reasonings and ranting went on it
became very apparent that this was the minority viewpoint. Most of the (so-called)
experts being interviewed were very much of the opinion that (what with
the law having changed so often and so quickly) it is possible to make a
case that you haven't got a clue what is going on, and many are doing so when
challenged. Apparently most people now see the laws about how many people can
meet and where they can meet (the rule of six and other such rules) as
being vague confused suggestions at best, and not in any way binding. It was
suggested by several of those on the radio this morning that the general
public are going to have their usual Christmas this year regardless of
anything that the Prime Minister might say. Isn't this what's wrong with the country right now? The laws of the
land are being seen as something that we can obey or not (depending on our
whim), and then we can act surprised (with a clear conscience)
when the pandemic surges back with a third wave in the New Year. I got to the works car park, and (in a spirit of anarchy)
walked round the neighborhood sticking bar-codes onto lamp posts as I went
before getting on with my daily round. My daily round was a rather busy one
today; I was glad when home time came round. Pausing only briefly in Marks and Spencer (where the staff were all
using face coverings as neck warmers) I came home, and "er indoors TM" then slipped
out to walk round the neighborhood sticking bar-codes onto lamp
posts as she went. I’ve taken to walking round another neighborhood when I
stick my bar-codes to lamp posts; perhaps I’m being petty but there are those
locally who are taking advantage of my good nature (if you can call
sticking bar-codes onto lamp posts being good-natured). Hopefully"er
indoors TM" will boil up some dinner soon. Today was incredibly dull… |
|
29 October 2020
(Thursday) - Still Dull
As the credits ran at the end of today’s episode of “The Job Lot”
I was amazed to see that the show had a dialect coach. What on Earth does one
of them do? I looked it up on Wikipedia, and whilst I was at it, I saw that they earn far more
than I do. Ho hum… I had quite a flurry of messages this morning. There is serious
consternation in the geocaching world. Apparently one of the First to Find
brigade went out randomly looking for unpublished geocaches last week and
found one. When the things got published, this chap claimed to be First to
Find. I can’t say I’m happy with that myself, but it is within the letter of
the law, if not the spirit of the law. But when someone else went out to find
the thing (properly) it was apparent that the person who’d claimed to
have found it previously hadn’t (as the paper log inside was unsigned).
A rather trivial episode? Perhaps, but for those of us who are into this sort
of thing, to say this was a bit cheeky is an understatement. Meanwhile in Bexhill a local councilor is getting stick about his Hallowe’en decorations. Hundreds support what the chap has
done with his house, but a vanishingly small minority disapprove, I’m reminded of my time as a Cub Scout leader. We had Hallowe’en fun
for years until an American missionary got involved, claimed we were
encouraging the kids to be devil-worshippers, and the whole thing got the
kibosh. Such a shame. But this is what is wrong with society these days. One or two vocal
crackpots make a noise, and the majority stay silent at the time, then
grumble afterwards when the minority have got their way. I took a little diversion to the park on my way to work this morning (for
Munzee reasons) then set off up the motorway. As I drove the pundits on
the radio were talking about how the pandemic is affecting the homeless. One
homeless chap who was interviewed seemed quite chirpy and was adamant that he
was actually far better off than a lot of people who had homes. Apparently
his “faith in the Lord sustains him”. Perhaps it does? I was talking with a colleague today who mentioned
that “everyone has to worship something” and had trouble understanding
how many people really do seem to manage without having any sort of religion. There was also all sorts of discussions on the radio about the
effectiveness of lock-downs, what with an estimated one hundred thousand
people contracting COVID-19 every day in the UK. That sounds a lot, but even
at that rate it will still take close on two years for the entire population
to get the virus. I got to work where I had another busy day. I’m getting fed up with
these. Yesterday I’d told everyone that my plan for today was to be taking it
easy but that didn’t happen. I was non-stop all day and was glad when home
time came. Once home I sparked up the lap-top and tuned in to the weekly Zoom
geo-meet. I’ve not been joining in with these for a while; it was good to
catch up. I must admit I’d rather given up on those recently; the blatant
racial hatred had been somewhat off-putting. But tonight those who previously
prefixed their every utterance with “I’m not racist but…” were
somewhere else. "er indoors TM" boiled up a
rather good bit of dinner, then slipped off out, Her daily Munzee challenge
will take some doing. Compared to hers, my one was rather easy this morning I think I might just have an early night, if only to see if that might
shift today’s ear-worm. The theme to “Parsley Boobs” has
been stuck in my head all day long today. It has been rather annoying… |
|
30 October 2020
(Friday) - Before the Night Shift
I was fast asleep when the bin men came crashing up the street at half
past six this morning. If the crashing hadn’t woken everyone, they then
started shouting up the street to each other (just to be sure).
Finding myself wide awake I took the dogs for an early walk. We drove down to Orlestone Woods where we found an empty car park. We
walked our usual circuit and didn’t see another soul. Fudge straggled behind,
sniffing everything as he bimbled. Treacle and Pogo chased each other and had
a whale of a time. Remembering the tracks I saw in the mud on Monday I looked
to see if anything huge had been prowling overnight. I saw a few of what
might have been deer tracks, but there were no monsters today. We walked for nearly an hour and didn’t meet anyone else; we came back
to a car park which was as empty as when we’d left it. As we drove home the pundits on the radio were talking about how
Jeremy Corbyn has been suspended from the Labour party over the ongoing row
about anti-Semitism. Is it rife in the Labour party? Has Mr Corbyn done
wrong? I don’t know, but I do know that Mr Corbyn has done something to
offend the media. When did you last hear anything positive about the chap?
Anything at all? Ever? If he said that the sky was blue and grass was green,
there would be headline news denying it. But this is not just about Jeremy
Corbyn. One of the top union leaders has announced that this latest debacle
could well cost the Labour party the next election. Will it? I can’t help but wonder if this is a deliberate ploy by the
Labour party to do just that. Over the years they have bent over backwards to
make themselves unelectable, and when you look at what the Conservatives have
done over the same time period, making the Labour party a worse choice must
have taken some doing. Once home I made some toast then peered into the Internet. I used it to
send out birthday wishes, to capture a cyclops and help build a reindeer (it’s
a Munzee thing), and to see what I’d missed overnight. I hadn’t really
missed much. I then wrote up some CPD and ironed shirts before going into the garden to clear up all the
fallen leaves. There is a huge tree in the garden of the house three houses
down the road. In the summer it blocks out the sun; in the autumn it fills
the back garden with fallen leaves. I’ve whinged at the people who live there
(many times) who assure me they’ve told the landlord, but nothing gets
done. I emailed the council about it this morning. I then went through my letter rack. There were letters going back
nearly two years. Whoops. Perhaps if people sent less “crap” letters I
might take more notice of the ones I did get. I saw that I had over a year’s
worth of bank statements even though I get my bank statements on-line. I
logged into my bank account and sure enough the thing was set to on-line statements
only (and has been for some time). I asked their automated system why
they were still sending me paper statements. It replied “Unfortunately
your query is slightly too complex for me to understand. Please ask me again
using a single sentence, bearing in mind I work best when I am asked one
question at a time”. So much for technology, eh? So I phoned the bank and
spoke to some woman. Over the noise of her baby crying in the background she
assured me that I don’t get paper statements. Oh, how we both laughed. I programmed “Hannah” for tomorrow (hoping the weather holds
out) and took myself off to bed. I managed to stay there for four hours
despite dogs barking for various trivialities during the afternoon. One
advantage of having "er
indoors TM" working from home is that she can quieten the dogs
when I’m trying to sleep before work. I woke to find that the council had replied
to my earlier email. However they aren’t going to do anything as the tree is
on “privet land”. I considered writing back to say that the tree in
question was a sycamore and not a privet bush but thought better of it. I’m hoping "er
indoors TM" will boil up some dinner, then I’m off to the
night shift… Not keen on night shift on a Friday, but to be fair I’m even
less keen on night shift on a Saturday, so I can’t grumble… |
|
31 October 2020
(Saturday) - After the Night Shift
I was glad when the relief arrived this morning. Last night’s was one
of the busier night shifts. I collected "er
indoors TM" and those dogs that don’t go and hide at walkies
time, and we went down to Orlestone Woods. There were quite a lot of cars in
the car park, but we only met one other group as we walked. It was a lady and
two dogs that we have met before; her dogs are very friendly, but huge, and
Treacle is terrified of them. One of the huge dogs bounded up to me and
jumped up. I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if the people
who called the police on me ever met a dog of this size. With walk walked I went to bed and slept like
a log. Eventually the noise of the torrential rain woke me. Over a rather
late brekkie I peered into the internet to see the entire world was
distraught. Sean Connery had died. The chap was ninety years old so it can’t
be really unexpected, but the postings on social media were rather telling. Seemingly the entire universe saw the death
of Sean Connery as the death of James Bond. But less than a minute’s research
shows that Mr Connery didn’t like the Bond association. He once told Time
magazine that he was ”fed up to here
with the whole Bond bit" and was quoted in the Observer as saying
"I have always hated that damned James Bond. I'd like to kill him".
In Mr. Connery’s biography Michael Caine is quoted as saying "you didn't raise the
subject of Bond. He was, and is, a much better actor than just playing James
Bond, but he became synonymous with Bond. He'd be walking down the street and
people would say, "Look, there's James Bond." That was particularly
upsetting to him." It is a funny old life being an actor. Despite a varied career of many
years, so many people find themselves remembered for just one role out of
hundreds. Take Ed Tudor-Pole for example. He *hates* the Crystal maze,
but who can name anything else he’s ever done (even though he’s done a
*lot* of other things). Or take Robert Pattinson, star of the “Twilight” films he
despised. I wasted half an hour trying to solve a geo-puzzle. Despite having
been told that the puzzle was based on tropical cyclones I got nowhere. Was
it based on the intensity force? The year of the cyclone? Wind speed?
Barometric pressure? I then struggled (and failed) with some other geo-puzzles
involving post offices, Sir Thomas Smythe, and random street names in the
Otford area. Some geo-puzzles are put out to be solved, and some aren’t. I must
admit I’ve hidden one recently which seems to have the punters foxed. Do
people enjoy trying to solve these things? They aren’t so much “difficult”
as just require people to keep randomly guessing and guessing until they hit
on whichever random thing you’ve chosen. With all sorts of rumours abounding that the Prime Minister was to
make a statement to the nation we sparked up the telly and tuned in to the
news. All sorts of pundits were making all sorts of sage announcements whilst
the nation waited for Mr. Johnson to finally show up on screen. After nearly three hours he came on with a couple of advisors. His
advisors droned on for twenty minutes or so. It was a shame that they were
incredibly boring and that the slides they used to illustrate their points
were confused and only half-visible on our TV screen. Eventually the Prime
Minister spoke. It took him nearly fifteen minutes to say that basically
we’re having a lock-down again. He started taking questions from the press;
all of them seemed to be trying to big themselves up and embarrass Mr.
Johnson rather than asking anything relevant. I can’t help but feel that Boris Johnson has blown a golden
opportunity for himself. Given a national crisis the likes of which we’ve
never seen before he could have been decisive and gone down in history with
Churchill or Lloyd-George. Instead he’s waffled on, been indecisive,
wishy-washy (and in desperate need of a haircut) and is now seen as
something of a national embarrassment. Such a shame. "er indoors TM" boiled up a
rather good bit of dinner which we coffed whilst watching this week’s episode
of “Star Trek: Discovery”. The season started very badly, but has
improved beyond all recognition. I think I’d like the show more if I could
warm to the leading character. To be honest if the writers killed her off in
the next episode it would improve the show no end… |
