1 October 2025 (Wednesday) - An Early Start

 

 

I woke at four o’clock this morning and lay dozing for a couple of hours before giving up and getting up. Being the first of the month I had a scrape with a new razor blade, then made toast and had my usual rummage round the Internet.

My colleague was still in China; she was in Shanghai on Sunday; now she seems to be a thousand miles away from there in Chongqing. I liked our travelling holiday in Uzbekistan last year, but I’d not want to do a travelling holiday without a travel guide to organize me.

And a chap with who I went to college (over forty years ago) was posting all sorts of anti-Labour party memes… I’m not sure that a personal attack on anyone who voted Labour at the last election is a productive thing to do though. What was the alternative at the time? The Conservatives were in total disarray; Reform UK were very good at finding fault but not so good at coming up with solutions, the Liberal Democrats were very good at taking an age to actually say nothing…

The trouble with people who are staunch supporters of any given political party is that they treat their political party like others treat their randomly chosen favourite football team, will hear no wrong about it, and will rubbish the opposition purely because it isn’t their favourite. Policies are irrelevant to them.

 

It was rather early, but I took the dogs out anyway. I can beat the traffic that brings Ashford to a standstill by going before or after rush hour, and we got to the woods this morning at a time before I got out of bed yesterday.

We walked our usual route. As we walked we met an idiot that we see from time to time. He and his wife walk side by side shouting their conversation, and their dog has several bells attached to his collar. The pair of them are regularly shouting at the dog for no reason that I can fathom.

I go to the woods for some peace and quiet; I often wonder why they go.

We found another hornet trap by one of the ponds. There were two hornets in the trap. Have you seen these invasive hornets? They are huge; about an inch long.

Treacle round a dead rabbit, and we saw deer again. We’ve seen lots of deer recently. A fellow dog walker that we see from time to time has a theory that the deer are unsettled because of all the people foraging for mushrooms. She could have a point.

 

We came home listening to the radio. “More Or Less” was on; a program in which the statements of various politicians and officials are fact-checked. Today they were looking at Donald Trump’s claims to have ended various wars. Some of them never even happened…

Once home we had a cuppa. I Munzed and got Wordle (spoil) on the fifth attempt, then pootled in the garden. I cleared all of the dead leaves out of the smallest water feature then lifted all of the plant pots out of the smallest pond. The plant roots had gone mad so I trimmed them back so that the fish would have some space… not that I could see many fish. Before the plants grew (a few months ago) there were at least eight fish in there. One died over last weekend, but today I could only see one. Had the others gone into the murky depths or has something scoffed them. I wouldn’t have thought our frogs were big enough?

I then went and sat by the big pond to ponder the next bit of gardening… and woke up an hour later to find it was raining. Even though the BBC weather forecast said zero per cent chance of rain.

 

I had a bit of lunch (toast) then hoiked a load of tat out of the shed and into the car and did a tip run. As I unloaded I had a sly smile at one of the tip operatives loudly telling another about “that f…ing one” and pointing at a car driving out of the tip. Apparently “that f…ing one” had done quite “a f…ing lot” wrong in the eyes of the clearly miffed tip operative.

You would have thought that tip operatives would have instructions not to swear about the punters in front of the other punters, wouldn’t you?

 

I came home, made us both a cuppa, and then played Tetris and chess. I was aching somewhat. Somewhere in between a dog walk, a bit of gardening and a bit of loading up rubbish I’d overdone it. Back in the day I used to work full time and do nights as overtime and still manage all sorts of work around the house. These days I’m knackered. I would say “don’t get old” but I suppose it beats the alternative.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up pizza which we scoffed whilst watching more “Destination X“ which is getting rather competitive. The smarmy one got the heave-ho, but sadly the thick one, the dopey one and the obnoxious one got through to the next round. 

 

 

2 October 2025 (Thursday) - Digital Footprints

 

 

I slept well; I woke when one of the dogs wanted a stretch and felt the need to push against me with all their might. I wish they wouldn’t do that.

I made toast and had my usual peer into the internet. My colleague who is currently in China posted some amazing videos of the night-time drone displays that took place last night in honour of yesterday being China’s National Day. I had no idea that the first of October was a big thing in China. I was reminded of when we took the cubs to Canada and on one day found that absolutely everywhere was closed -  no one told us that the first Monday in August is a big holiday for them.

Steve and Sarah had been on a daylight outing on their holiday – a Turkish river trip is a rather pretty outing.

Nine years ago today we were off on a little break to Oxford.

I’d like a little holiday… it’s a shame I’m skint.

I munzed and Wordled and got ready for our walk.

 

There was a minor disaster as I started the car. It told me there was an error with the automatic stop/start system. Whenever I stop the car and put it into neutral the engine stops, and when I put it into gear it starts again. It saves fuel and reduces my carbon footprint (or so Skoda claim). Fixing that would be more money that I haven’t got…

We got to the woods about two hours later than we did yesterday; at about the time we were coming home yesterday. The car park was very busy, but once we were away from the car park we walked for four and a half miles and didn’t see anyone. We didn’t see any deer either; that’s the first time for quite a while that we’ve not seen deer. There was a lot of crashing about in the trees though. High up in the trees. Squirrels or birds? Something was making a lot of noise.

We came back to the car, and as I drove home I realized that the automatic stop/start system was working again. I shall have to keep an eye on that.

 

I got home and made us both a cuppa, then had a little pootle in the garden. I pruned the plants in the big pond’s bog filter. I suspect that their roots could do with pruning too, but that’s a job for another day.

I had a spot of lunch, then thought better about more pootling in the garden. Quite frankly I’m fed up with the constant aching.

Instead I then spent a while looking at the house’s buildings and contents insurance. Our current provider is stopping providing insurance and is handing it over to LV. Are LV any good? I don’t know. All I do know is that when we had electrical issues last Christmas we were told that the home emergency policy didn’t cover us. When I complained I was told that we were covered, but no refund was ever made for the emergency electrician I had to call out.

I wrote up some CPD, then taught myself how to play backgammon. Have you ever played backgammon? I’ve been meaning to find out how to play it for years… I haven’t missed much.

 

And I signed up for (and started) another Coursera course. Digital Footprint…"the data you leave behind when you go online”. As someone who has been all over the Internet pretty much since it started my digital footprint is quite immense. Have you ever Googled yourself? If you look closely there’s photos of me with snakes, looking through telescopes, drinking far too much, in Star Trek costumes, in a mankini, with cub scouts, walking through the countryside, with dogs, and even occasionally performing a blood test… that’s the kind of guy I am. But I know that whenever I post anything to the Internet it is there for keeps. That’s why this diary is far more of a hagiography (look it up!) than a biography.

It would seem that quite a few people are ashamed of who they used to be and are frightened about what they might be perceived to be… … Like all Coursera courses, this one is rather interesting. I’ve passed the first module.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up a pasta bake which we scoffed whilst watching more episodes of “Destination X” which is getting rather competitive now that the contestants have started doing the dirty to each other.

 

 

3 October 2025 (Friday) - Lazy Day

 

 

As I scoffed toast I this morning saw an advert on Facebook for a company called “Geocaching Adventures”. Some bunch organizes worldwide holidays and takes groups of people geocaching. Presumably taking the punters right up to the actual rocks under which the film pots are hidden? These holidays are about three thousand quid per person… volunteers like me hide these things for people to enjoy and someone else comes along and makes money out of it? I suppose I’ve just got the hump because I didn’t think of it first?

And there was some chap posting to a UK retirement group that I follow. Having retired a couple of years ago he sold everything, bought a camper van and now lives a nomadic lifestyle driving wherever he feels like going in the UK. A week or so of that would be fun, but living your life like that? There are so many unaddressed practicalities. How do you wash your socks for a start?

 

The rain wasn’t showing any signs of letting up so I decided against going out this morning. There’s no fun in getting wet and muddy. I put a load of washing in to scrub, and thought I might give backgammon another chance. I gave up after five minutes; I can’t see the attraction of the game. I had a go at Tetris… and soon lost interest in that too.

I Munzed. Being the first day of this month’s Clan War I deployed some cards and a guardian too. There’s never a dull moment in Munzee. I got Wordle (spasm) on the fourth attempt, and then played Mahjong whilst listening to Michael Sheen on Desert Island Discs. He was rather interesting.

 

“Daddies’ Little Angel TM” needed a lift, so I chauffeured her about. As I came home afterwards I saw that the rain had eased up so I took the dogs up to the woods. We walked a different route to our usual one. I had an idea that we might miss some of the hills, but with the car park at the highest point it is difficult to avoid them. As we walked I saw yet more of those red toadstools. They seem to be everywhere in Kings Wood at the moment.

And we saw a stag.

With its antlers it was as tall as I am. It walked down the path toward us and stopped about ten yards in front of us. It looked at me, and looked at the dogs. We looked back. As I reached for my phone to spark up the camera so it slowly walked into the undergrowth to the side, and by the time I’d got the camera app running the stag was long gone. There’s a part of the wood where I feel we are most likely to see the deer. Whilst we walk that mile I have the phone out and the camera ready. We were half a mile past there this morning when the stag appeared…

And then the rain started. Well… not so much rain as drizzle. Or not so much drizzle as fog. Or low cloud really. I’ve mentioned before that on days like today we drive up to the woods and up into the low clouds. Today as we drove down the hill so the visibility improved as we left the cloud behind and above us.

 

We came home for a warm bath. Bailey was wet and cold, Treacle had been paddling in muddy puddles, and Morgan had been rolling in something foul. I had my suspicions as to what it might have been, but I generally find it best not to try to get too much conformation of just what it is that a dog has rolled in. It is sufficient to just hose it off and give the dog a good soaping.

With dogs scrubbed I had some peanut butter for late lunch, wrote up some CPD, then had a little doze.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up fish and chips for tea which we scoffed whilst watching the final of “Destination X” which turned out to be in… I won’t say where it was. I won’t give spoilers.

But it was a good show. A sort-of cross between “Race Across The World” and “The Traitors”; it was only a shame that I took a dislike to every single contestant. In retrospect I wouldn’t have been happy with the final result no matter which one won.

 

 

4 October 2025 (Saturday) - Thirty-Nine Years Later

 

 

I slept well last night, which was a result. I made toast as I do every morning and peered into the Internet as I do every morning. There was a minor rant on one of the nostalgia groups I follow on Facebook about good old Woolworths. No one seemed to realise that if the shop really was that good it wouldn’t have closed up, would it? Do you remember Woolworths? What did it sell? Pretty much everything. What did you go there to buy? Whatever you couldn’t get in your shop of first choice, which was entirely the problem with Woolworths, wasn’t it?. Jack of all trades and master of none. There was also a minor rant on the same page about the demise of doorstep deliveries of milk. There’s a local dairy that still does doorstop deliveries. When the postman with the motorbike lived next door I found his milk bill in the front garden. Back then he was paying more than three times that he would have paid in Tesco for the same thing.

I Munzed, got Wordle (relay) on the fifth attempt and tried to listen to Radio Ashford. Steve wasn’t on this morning. Unlike last week there was actually someone speaking on the radio this morning, but he wasn’t very inspiring.

 

We drove round to Dog Club where mayhem ensued. There was a minor episode where a new dog barked at another dog and in the excitement there was about ten seconds of concerted woofing. The mummy of the new dog was distraught and was all for going home and never coming back. But in the time it took us to tell her that this sort of thing happens all the time, the dogs had forgotten their spat and were all playing nicely.

So many people are like this with dogs; the natural reaction is to come down like a ton of bricks on the first sound the dog makes and it is such a shame. Dogs rarely do anything other than shout at each other, and once the shouting is done they all know where they stand and everyone is happy… apart from the poor humans who don’t realise the dogs have already sorted it out.

 

From Dog Club we drove up to Kings Wood. The chestnuts have been falling from the trees quite a bit this week, and with the high winds coming through there won’t be many left before long. “er indoors TM” always says she wants to go chestnutting and so this was her big chance.

The car park was rather full, and the areas near the car park were swarming with normal people, but once away from there we had a good walk and got loads of chestnuts. My “Map My Walk” app said we covered three and a half miles, but at about half the speed that we walked at yesterday. I suppose that’s because we were gathering chestnuts. We gathered quite a few – ten pounds in weight’s worth.

 

We came home for a cuppa where (despite the weather forecast saying there was a zero per cent chance of rain) it was raining. We had a rather lazy afternoon watching the last of the second season of the remake of “Quantum Leap”. I never really warmed to the original, but the remake was rather good.

As we watched we had a kebab in honour of wedding anniversary. We’d originally hoped for a long weekend in the West Country, but events had conspired against us and so a kebab it was.

Personally I quite like a kebab…

 

 

5 October 2025 (Sunday) - This n That

 

 

I had a good night’s sleep, eventually emerging from my pit at nine o’clock. I made toast and had my usual peer into the Internet as I do. Loads of people had wished us a happy anniversary on the photo I posted to Facebook yesterday. My colleague who had been in Shanghai and Chongqing last week was in Vietnam (or had been last night) and posting photos of some rather good food. Back in the day I would have been scoffing that like a thing possessed. Back in the day I was three stone heavier.

I find myself wondering just how long this diet lark will last this time. I’ve lost lots of weight in the past but have always put it all back on again. Losing weight is easy. Keeping it off – that’s the tricky part.

I munzed and got Wordle (plane) on the third attempt, then got ready for a little outing.

 

The plan for today had been to meet up with friends for brekkie at a café in the town centre but again that was calories I didn’t need to be scoffing. Instead we thought we might take a slow walk up to the town centre Munzing as we went, and meet brekkie club as they came out of the café. And that’s what we did. We then walked round town together. It was good to catch up.

I don’t go into Ashford much, and every time I go the town is different. Where once the town was nothing but estate agents it became all hairdressers, then all nail bars. Today there was more take away burger bars than ever and quite a few happy-clappy churches.

We came home past the park and had a little Munzee session round the local roads.

 

Once home I had a little doze, and “er indoors TM” had another go at the chestnuts. We came home with ten pounds (in weight) of the things yesterday. Yesterday’s lunch was roast chestnuts… Have you ever had roast chestnuts? There’s this romantic ideal about the things but getting the shells off is a lot of farting about. Today we had boiled chestnuts. Boiling then made the shells softer, but it was still a load of farting about.

We’ve still got nine and a half pounds of them left. There’s talk of pickling them now. Apparently you have to have special vinegar? Personally I’m thinking about dinging them out with the garden waste when the bin men come later in the week.

 

I then had a rummage in my box of clothes upstairs and found half a dozen pairs of new trousers which at the beginning of the year would have been far too small for me, but now they fit quite nicely; if anything, a tad baggy. That’s saved a little money.

And then we had something of a lazy afternoon. “er indoors TM” made cards, and I played Mahjongg. I downloaded half a dozen Mahjongg games from the play store… and deleted them all. Each one was crystal clear that it was just a game and no adverts whatsoever, and each one was full of endless adverts. In a fit of pique I gave them all a one-star rating on Google. And one of the game developers had the cheek to say “while the game includes some ads, we try to avoid anything annoying or disruptive. We focus on ad quality, keeping them short and easy to skip”. I have to ask why they advertise the game as being advert-free when they admit that it isn’t.

Eventually I gave up with phone apps and tried Microsoft Mahjongg on my laptop. The size was bigger and didn’t strain my eyes, but still had adverts. Graciously it gave me the option to pay so as not to have adverts.

Back in the day a new laptop came with free games. Nowadays if you don’t want adverts, you pay not to have them.

I suppose that is a sign of the times, isn’t it?.

 

We scoffed dinner whilst watching the final of “Lego Masters: Australia vs The World” in which the German young lady broke with tradition by covering up somewhat. I won’t give the result away, but I will say that I wouldn’t have voted for the model that won.

 

 

6 October 2025 (Mondy) - An Errant Dog

 

 

I slept well, but was still awake earlier than I might have been. I made toast and had my usual rummage round the Internet as I do. I had a smile as I looked at photos of the wedding of the son of one of my cousins. We weren’t invited; I didn’t expect an invite. I didn’t know anything about the wedding. I don’t think I’ve ever actually met that cousin’s son, and I’ve not seen that cousin in person for over ten years. We’ve never really been a close family. But this is why I like social media – I can see photos that otherwise I never would.

I also got to see some of the sights of Hanoi – my colleague was there this morning.

I wonder where Hanoi is?

 

I took the dogs for an early walk. As we drove the pundits on the radio were interviewing the shadow chancellor of the exchequer. The chap had several ideas about how he might run the economy better, but I have no idea what his ideas were; every time he tried to speak the interviewer interrupted him with another question. You have to wonder why they bring these people on to prime-time radio only just to talk over them.

We went to Parkwood near Appledore. A couple of weeks ago I hid a series of geocaches there and at the weekend we’d had reports that one had gone missing. We went and had a look; it hadn’t. It was where it was supposed to be.

As we walked so Bailey and Morgan ran through a fence. I called them back; Morgan came back just as a pheasant squawked. I got Morgan and Treacle on their leads, and we spent half an hour walking up and down the south end of the wood trying to find “Team Sod”. The “Map My Walk” trace shows where Bailey was with us and where she wasn’t.  

Just when I was about to start crying so she came trotting down the path clearly without a care in the world. This is the third or fourth time we’ve walked these woods recently, and every time it has been a disaster because of Bailey’s running off. I can either archive the geo-series, or Bailey will have to stay on the lead whenever we go to do geo-maintenance in those woods.

I wish I knew what goes through her head. She’s terribly behaved at Parkwood; iffy (at best) at Orelstone, but does as she’s told in Kings Wood.

 

We came home. As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the Greek civil war. Sadly they chap being interviewed wasn’t the best speaker. What could have been interesting was oh-so-dull, so I sang along to Ivor Biggun songs instead.

Once home I sorted us a cuppa, had a quick Munz, and got Wordle (amuse) on the fourth attempt before running an errand for “Daddies’ Little Angel TM”.

 

With errand run I came home and had a little look in the garden. I harvested dog dung… and then harvested another load that I missed the first time.

Despite being dry to the point of “burnt to death” a couple of months ago the lawn has been growing like a thing possessed recently. It got a trim, and then I ran round with the garden vacuum. I might have to make this the last vacuuming of the year as all the little bugs will be starting to hibernate in what I vacuum up.

I then had a little re-organize of the bags of ornamental stones and bags of compost. Hopefully they shouldn’t be pooling quite so much water from here on in.

And then I stopped. Over the summer I would spend all day fiddling about heaving and lifting and gardening and not being able to move. I’m going to have to ration myself in the garden.

 

I spent a little while solving geo-puzzles and then spent the afternoon doing the ironing (dull), and with “er indoors TM” off bowling I settled in front of the telly watching the new series of “Love, Death and Robots”. I quite like the show if only for the fact that the episodes aren’t an hour long.

 

I’ve only walked ten thousand steps today.. That’s not much for me… and most of what I walked was searching for Bailey who is currently on the sofa without a care in the world.

 

 

7 October 2025 (Tuesday) - A Power Flush

 

 

As I scoffed toast I peered into the internet and saw that my colleague on holiday in the far east had experienced a “rain stopped play” moment in northern Thailand as a series of thunderstorms were in her way.

I also saw that “poopen sharten farten” was supposedly Hindi for “full terms and conditions”… Sadly the fact that actually it isn’t hasn’t stopped endless people posting this all over the internet, but tht’s the Internet for you, isn’t it?. For every fact and correct statement on-line there’s dozens of mistakes, inaccuracies and downright lies. It would help if the masses weren’t so gullible and believed every word they read.

And the current Town Crier of Rye has written a book about the history of the office of Town Crier of Rye. To most people this would be a matter of the utmost indifference. However the current Town Crier of Rye is an old schoolfriend of mine, and (like me) he’s quite active on social media. I might just get a signed copy of the book. This Saturday is the seventy-second National Town Crier’s Championship. It’s taking place in Rye and at the moment the weather is looking good. That might be something to do after Dog Club if only to catch up with my old mucker…

I munzed, getting a dozen out of the Skyland and out of the Tree House too. That was a result.

 

I took the dogs out for a walk. As I drove the pundits on the radio were interviewing the head honcho of British Transport Police about how they aren’t going to be putting themselves out to review CCTV footage of bicycle thefts any more. Well… that’s British Transport Police for you. Back in the day “My Boy TM” was assaulted by the staff at the local railway station and British Transport Police flatly refused to do anything.

Mind you, the interviewer did let the interviewee speak, which was an improvement on yesterday’s radio broadcast.

 

We got to the woods and had a good walk. We waded in a swamp, we chased squirrels. We met another Jacksund that looked just like my dear Fudge. But most importantly we didn’t disappear for half an hour. They seem to be far better behaved in Kings Wood than they are elsewhere. Perhaps it is because they know the woods?

 

We came home to uproar. A couple of weeks ago the nice plumber disconnected the radiator in our hallway as it was leaking. He came back to replace it today… and then took the replacement back to the shop and came back with the right one. And then gave us a power flush as we’d not had one since the central heating was installed in the early nineties. This involved having some strange looking device sitting in the bath, and no end of rusty water going down the drain for much of the day.

As the nice plumber crashed and bashed about I tried to do some more of my Coursera course. Sadly they only let you do one week’s worth at a time, and this week’s stuff is locked until Thursday.

I wrote up some CPD, and then had a look at the geo-map. A new batch of Treasures had been released; this time involving Earthcaches. An Earthcache involves going to some lump of rock somewhere, doing your geology homework and sending it in to be marked. Some people are quite harsh with their marking; some don’t care. I had a plan that I could blag most of the homework from Google Street View. And I did. Five of the seven I looked at are now pretty much blagged except the selfie that I have to take when I get there.

 

I drove to Folkestone and collected “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” and Pogo who were up for a sleepover.

As we scoffed dinner so we watched last week’s episode of “Bake Off”. We’re now half way through this season and I’m still not warming to any of the contestants… or really taking much of a dislike to any of them either.

 

 

8 October 2025 (Wednesday) - Geology Homework in Whitstable

 

 

I spent a few moments clearing up the builder’s left-over dinner before I did anything else this morning. To be fair he’d not made a mess; he’d just forgotten his bag of KFC, and I’d rather the dogs didn’t have the chicken bones.

I peered into the Internet as I scoffed my toast. There was a lot of talk about Lord Michael Heseltine who, despite being in his nineties, was tearing into the Prime Minister at the Conservative party. He was comparing the current state of the UK with the rise of the Nazis in the 1930s. A tad harsh perhaps…

The trouble with human nature (one of many of the troubles) is that people love to find something different in someone else so’s they can dislike that person. What football team do you support? Are you fat? Are you bald? How big is your house?... just listen to any comedian on the telly. All of their jokes are about people not conforming to what is seen to be the norm. So what is the norm… it is all very well all the time that we are answering that question and saying that it is us, isn’t it?

 

I took the dogs out to the woods. Pogo was with us today, but we didn’t have as long as usual so we went to Orlestone. The last time we went to a wood that wasn’t our usual one Bailey disappeared for half an hour. She only disappeared for five minutes today… but did disappear for five minutes on three separate occasions. I like to let her have a run but…

When we arrived at the woods the car park was empty. As we walked we saw one other person who asked if we’d seen the deer. Apparently she’d seen a stag during the week. In all the years I’ve been walking in Orlestone Woods I’ve only seen deer once. I shall pay more attention in future.

 

We came home. “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” had finished her business, so I drove her and Pogo home, then collected “er indoors TM” and the dogs and we drove up to Whitstable. The latest load of geocaching Treasures had been announced recently and there were quite a few virtual Treasures to be had by finding various things made out of rock and answering the questions about them on the geo-website.

A lot of people find these Earthcaches daunting, but they are easy. You just turn up at the specified location, take a selfie with the rock thing in the background, then send whoever is asking the questions an attempt at an answer (and your selfie). Realistically the person asking the questions knows less about geology than the person answering and an answer of “blah blah sandstone” will usually suffice. On the rare occasion when you get a question-setter who knows a thing or two about geology you can just blind them with science by throwing in a few technical terms. “Igneous”, “Pre-Cambrian” and “Pleomorphic” usually do the trick.

We walked what I thought might be a short walk, but it turned out to be close on five miles. As we walked we did a set of adventure lab caches based on artworks painted on various buildings around Whitstable. I had no idea these mini-Banksies were there – that’s why I like this silly hobby of geocaching.

 

We came home for a cuppa and a Bakewell tart and once “er indoors TM” had been shopping we had ribs and chips for dinner which we scoffed whilst watching last night’s episode of “Bake Off”.

And having spent the afternoon in Whitstable doing Earthcaches, a new one has just gone live… In Whitstable.

 

 

9 October 2025 (Thursday) - Geo-Road-Trip

 

 

The plan had been to be waking up in a holiday cottage in the West Country, but events had conspired against us and I was scoffing toast and peering into the Internet on the sofa as usual this morning. The Internet was still there. Not much had changed overnight; little ever does. There was a new series of geocaches in New Ash Green… I can remember going there in 2019… at the time I said about the pub we visited “we arrived to find it full of drunken thugs shouting profanities whilst trying to race toy cars around the bar. We walked in and walked straight out again.”

I wonder if the pub has improved; I can’t say I’m keen to go back.

 

I Munzed, got Wordle on the fourth attempt and then spent a little while talking to the Jehovah’s Witnesses who called round. I know I shouldn’t argue with them, but they wind me up. According to them absolutely everything that is good in the world is a gift from God. But absolutely everything that is bad is the fault of either man or Satan (both of which God blessed with free will) and in no way attributable to God. And all of this is utterly beyond question because it says so in the Bible, and the Bible is infallible because it says so in the Bible.

No matter what point I raised with the chap he had an answer which was frankly laughable, but he was completely convinced with his veracity. As I tried to reason with him I was reminded of myself of forty years ago when I was a Steward in the Methodist Church (I really was!).

 

I took a deep breath and got ready for the day. Yesterday we went to Whitstable collecting specific geocaches for the “Fossils” series of geo-treasures. As we were fossiling yesterday we found one or two other geocaches which counted towards another series of geo-treasures, so today we had a little outing hunting out more geocaches which counted towards that River Expedition Puzzle series of Treasures. Each one we hunted out had a unique difficulty and terrain rating.

We started off on a green in Willesborough, and from there moved to a footpath in Brabourne where despite having been whinging for a tiddle for five minutes, Treacle flatly refused to empty out.

We then went to Bossingham where there is the most impressive windmill, and then lurked suspiciously (and unsuccessfully) outside a church in Elham.

We fussed donkeys in Tilmanstone, saw a huge hornet in Little Mongeham, and found a very small tree house in Tickenhurst.

We had a rather good walk from the church in Ickham before having a little stroll in some woods in Hackington.

We were rather worn out by the time we got home.

 

We had a rather late lunch of scones with jam and clotted cream (there’s five hundred calories), and looked at the geo-map to plan an adventure for tomorrow. Hopefully we can complete the “Fossils” series of geo-treasures and almost (but not quite) finish the River Expedition Puzzle series.

 

Over a dinner of pizza and garlic bread we watched the first episode of “Celebrity Traitors” which featured Sir Stephen Fry, Celia Imrie, Jonathon Ross, Jethro Palmer (from “Viz” magazine), the postman from “After Life”, the annoying camp one with the squawky voice, the dopey blonde who was married to Jon Richardson, some woman with an epically huge chest who seemed vaguely familiar, and over a dozen other so-called celebrities of whom I’d never previously heard.

Have you ever watched the show? Three of the contestants are “The Traitors”. The rest have no idea who is a traitor and who isn’t. During the day they all work together and every evening everyone tries to work out (randomly guess) and chuck out a traitor. Because only the traitors know who is a real traitor, the real traitors don’t get chucked out and everyone pretends to be surprised when the wrong ones get the heave-ho. And then every night the traitors get to chuck out anyone who had got any inkling of who should actually get the bum’s rush.

It's actually a rather good show…

 

 

10 October 2025 (Friday) - High Tide

 

 

I did that horrible thing last night where I woke feeling full of energy and raring to go only to find it was ten to one. I nodded off again only to have “er indoors TM” wake me when she wanted to see who else wanted a tiddle at three o’clock, and then have a mass panic five minutes later when she couldn’t find Bailey (who was happy as Larry playing silly beggars in the back garden)

 

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. A friend had posted a very interesting quote from Terry Pratchett (of all people) about this craze of tying flags to lamp posts.

The trouble with the flag nonsense is that a lot of people just follow what they think everyone else is doing with no real understanding of the issues at hand. Take Hastings for example…  A little while ago someone there made a big effort for Ukrainian refugees and there was massive local enthusiasm and support for this.

This is the same town which had only a few month previously prevented the local lifeboat going out to help one of the little boats which was in distress.

The masses rarely do or say what they actually think or believe in. They follow what they think everyone else thinks or believes in.

 

I took the dogs up to the woods. Unlike yesterday’s late start we were out of the house before sunrise this morning. We got to the car park at Kings Wood to find only one other car in the car park.

We had a good, if dull, walk. No fox poo, no swamps. The dogs didn’t see the squirrels, I didn’t see the deer. We met one other person. His poor dog had what seemed to be a cow bell attached to its collar; you could hear the poor thing from half a mile away… which is probably why we didn’t see any deer.

As we walked back to the car there was a strange noise – it really did sound like a large dog was being murdered in the distance. I wonder what that was all about.

We did the same walk which we often do, and today my Map My Walk app said the same walk was quarter of a mile less than it had been the last time we did it.

 

We drove home listening to the artist Angela Harding on Desert Island Discs. She sounded to be a very interesting person, but her choice of music… The first record was what “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” used to play (and what I call the mutherf---ker chorus). The second was some strange poem by Ted Hughes. The third was an operatic thing about birds in Suffolk which really was howled rather than sung. Fortunately for my nerves we got home before the fourth choice was played.

 

Having had my car telling me that all the tyres were a tad under-pressured I pumped them all up, then we took the dogs on a little geo-Treasure hunt across the Romney Marsh,

First of all to Ruckinge where the plan was to walk a circular route to collect two geocaches. Sadly the route wasn’t as circular as it might be as the stile where the path goes through someone’s back garden was impassable. To be honest if I had a public footpath going through my garden I’d make sure it was impassable too.

We then drove down to the church at Brookland where we did another Earthcache… here’s a geology lesson for you. There’s no rocks native to the Romney Marsh as the whole place is a marsh. All the rocks were dragged down from higher ground hundreds of years ago to build stuff, and as buildings fell down so the rocks were all used in other buildings. And so whatever buildings which are less than a hundred years old are a total mish-mash of leftovers of older buildings. Don’t say I never learn you nothing.

Doing this Earthcache got us an e-souvenir. It’s Earthcache weekend for those who like blagging their geology homework.

 

We thought the dogs might like a run so we drove down to Broomhill Sands where dogs are allowed on the beach… Or that is dogs are allowed on the beach when the tide isn’t in and the beach isn’t under water. Though I suppose they could have had a swim. They weren’t keen.

We drove up to Coles Wood and had a little walk hunting out the last geo-target of the day. It would have been good to have let the dogs run, but the two smallest had both got the scent of something and both clearly had the red mist up.

 

We came home and, like yesterday, had a late lunch of scones with jam and cream. I Munzed, and amazed myself by getting Wordle (lever) on the second attempt.

I settled on the sofa and had a literary afternoon – the latest edition of “Viz” had arrived.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up steak and chips for dinner which we scoffed whilst watching the second episode of “Celebrity Traitors”. I have no idea who the one who got chucked out in yesterday’s murder was, and today’s episode ended on a cliffhanger in which any of three could be getting the heave-ho… and I’ve never heard of any of those three either.

 

 

11 October 2025 (Saturday) - Oyez !!!

 

 

I slept through till about four o’clock and then lay dozing on and off before finally giving up and getting up at seven o’clock. I made toast and peered into the Internet as I do.

There was a bit of a theme of people complaining about the price of going to the pub; some people were blaming Brexit, and that was good for a squabble. After all the amount of tax on a pint of beer in many EU countries is half that charged in the UK. Even thought it was much the same back when the UK was in the EU…   The Brexit debacle was years ago.. Surely it’s time to move on (as best we can) even if (maybe one person in fifty understood what Brexit was all about?

There was talk about National Identity cards and people both for and against them were posting memes featuring Nigel Farage (for no reason that I could fathom).

I Munzed, got Wordle (stack) on the third attempt then voomed round the garden with a bucket and trowel gathering dog dung. Those little dogs generate a serious amount of poop.

And Steve was back on the radio this morning. I got the “Guess the Lyrics” competition right away – “So let her go don’t start spoiling the show it’s a bad dream”. No? – E.L.O. – Livin Thing.

 

We went round to Dog Club. We arrived, Bailey went straight into a bush, brought out a lump of fox poo, strategically placed it right in the middle of a grassed area where there was loads of space, and then rolled in it. Foul creature.

Attendance seemed to be down but we still had fifteen dogs along, including a new pup that put Morgan in his place (which needed doing!)

 

We hadn’t planned on coming home after Dog Club, but Bailey needed a wash. It didn’t take that long to hose the fox muck from her. We then set off to Rye and the seventy-second town crier championship competition which was being organized by the town crier of Rye with whom I went to school some fifty years ago.

We parked up and walked in to town and found all the criers outside the town hall getting ready for the procession to the Gun Garden. The drumming band led the procession, followed by the town criers, then the local pirate club… together with loads of others we joined in at the end and marched along as though we had every right to be there. No one told us we couldn’t.

 

We got to the Gun Garden and made ourselves comfortable, and eighteen town criers loudly shouted the merits of their home towns. It was strangely captivating… and all too soon we were breaking for lunch. My old mate announced that there would be an hour and a half for lunch and to reconvene at two o’clock when the public would be invited to have a go at making a cry.

We walked down to the quay where we had a portion of sausage and chips each and shared much of it with the dogs. Perhaps I’m hopelessly out of touch, but I paid over sixteen quid for two portions of chips, two sausages and two tins of fizz. Am I wrong in thinking that is *far* too much or am I just mean?

 

We returned to the Gun Garden where we met some Americans (from Kentucky) who seemed very taken with the dogs, and then the second part of the day started. I was the first member of the public to have a go at doing an Oyez!

There was a nice lady with a noise-o-meter to see who was the loudest… it wasn’t me.

And then all the criers had to make a loud cry about “peace”. I sat down and just soaked up the ambiance. Eighteen loud announcements… some were more serious than others. Three were in Flemish (there were four international entries), and at quarter past three the last cry finished and some chap came up with a melodeon and led the crowd in singing sea shanties whilst the judges deliberated. The chap on the melodeon had written a shanty especially for the day… it was a shame that he forgot the words, but he kept going. He too was rather good; we had a very good sing-song.

And then the winner was announced – the winner of this year’s national town crier championship comes from Belgium… Personally my money had been on the Beadle.

 

I’m going back next year… it was a rather good day out. Nothing epic or spectacular, but hundreds of people watching town criers from far and wide doing their town crying, having a go themselves, and having a little sing-song. The dogs were as good as gold; Treacle in particular was fascinated by the melodeon.

 

We came home and it wasn’t long before Chris, Steve and Sarah came round for an evening of games on the Infinity Table. Game of Life, Sorry Ticket to Ride… I came second to last in all the games, but it was a really good evening. A very good end to a very good day.

I’m worn out with it all.

 

 

12 October 2025 (Sunday) - Bit Tired

 

 

I slept like a log last night. Apart from a quick tiddle in the small hours I was in my pit and sparko for ten hours. It was a shame I woke up with a pain in my right hip. It plays up from time to time.

I made toast and peered into the Internet. There was quite a bit of talk about yesterday’s fun at the Town Crier championships, and I’ve been thinking about it quite a bit. Ashford doesn’t have a town crier. I wonder if I might fill the void? Presumably I’d have to contact the local council about it? Was there a town crier in the past? Is there all the regalia in a cupboard somewhere at the civic centre? I’ve sent an email to the mayor. I wonder what they might say on the subject?

There were also some photos of the old Royal East Sussex Hospital on the Hastings History pages, and several people were commenting about what happy times they’d had working there. I suppose I must have had some good times there but, forty years later, I just remember what a toxic place it was. I would walk in every morning, and the people I didn’t say hello to right away would take offence and wouldn’t talk to me for the rest of the day because I’d said hello to someone else first.

I Munzed, got Wordle (wound) on the fourth attempt then took Morgan outside. He was asking to go out and let’s just say that it was as well that he did.

 

I tried to carry on with my Coursera course about my digital footprint, but hit a snag. It turns out that only the first week of the course is free. If I want to carry on with it I have to pay. That’s cheeky; Coursera courses never used to be like that.

I’m not paying.

I did some CPD, then we took the dogs out.

 

We had a little walk along the Greensand Way sorting out some issues with geocaches that “er indoors TM” had hidden. Some needed new paper logs, some supposedly had iffy co-ordinates that needed updating. As always geocaching maintenance boils my piss. Anyone could pop in a new scrap of paper to be signed. If you think that the given co-ordinates are awry, the device that makes you think that will provide you with what it thinks they should be. Why not send those in rather than a snarky message?

And with maintenance maintained it was only a short drive to Orlestone Woods where we walked a shorter walk than we usually do. I say “a shorter walk” – it was the walk which used to be our standard walk back when Fudge was with us, but what now takes forty minutes used to take well over an hour where he used to straggle so much.

 

We came home for a cuppa and the dogs were soon snoring, so I woke them with the announcement that I was going to “FEED THE FISH”. That made them sit up and pay attention.

And feeling rather worn out I slobbed on the sofa reading my Kindle. “Diamond Mask” is the second book in a rather good series which I have read many times… at least once a year since each book in the series was published (the first being published over forty years ago). They are rather good – I can never work out why they aren’t far more well-known.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up meatballs and pasta which we scoffed whilst watching the first episode of the current season of “Taskmaster”, and then an episode of “Rich Holiday Poor Holiday”. Have you ever seen it? Two pretentious idiots with far more money than sense rough it on the sort of holiday that most people go on, and then take two proles on a holiday that costs more than the average car.

It must be wonderful to have far too much money… 

 

 

13 October 2025 (Monday) - Drizzle

 

 

I stood on the scales this morning. I’m under fourteen and a half stones. That’s a result. I made toast and peered into the Internet as I do every morning.

There were more photos and videos of Saturday’s Town Crier event in Rye.

There were all sorts of memes and posts about tipping the serving staff in restaurants for no apparent reason. I can remember my days working in a restaurant. Admittedly it was a few years ago… All the people working in the Harbour Restaurant got paid a pound per hour. I used to work about eight hours a day, and got about fifty quid a week in wages. But I did the cooking and the washing up and pretty much everything *except* ask the punters what they wanted and slap the plates in front of them. Those who did nothing *except* ask the punters what they wanted and slap the plates in front of them were also paid a pound per hour and used to work about eight hours a day. But they took home close on double what I did as they got tips.

If you are going to leave a tip in a restaurant, make sure it goes into a collection pot (and not into the waitress’s hand) so those who actually do the hard work get a share.

 

Yesterday I found that I couldn’t continue my Coursera course without paying for it. I whinged at them, and overnight they replied that “We recently launched a new course preview experience to replace our previous audit experience. Now, you're able to preview the first module of nearly every course on Coursera for free”. I used to be able to access every course in its entirety for free. It is such a shame that they’ve done this.

 

We got the leads onto the dogs and I took them out. As we drove the pundits on the radio were interviewing the Conservative politician Tom Tugendhat who seemed to think that the Prime Minister was blind to the Chinese attempting to take over the world. Are they? If so, they must be mad.

We got to the woods. It was rather overcast and misty, but we had a good walk. It was rather peaceful; there was some bird song but not much. It is now very apparent that I got my birdsong app during mating season when all the birds were shouting for attention; they are a lot quieter these days.

As we walked I saw several squirrels that the dogs didn’t, and a stag in the distance. The stag posed for nearly a minute; it was only a shame that the zoom function on my phone isn’t what it might be.

As we walked the mist became drizzle, and we were rather damp by the time we got back to the car. It was odd that we walked exactly the same route that we did on Friday but today it was quarter of a mile longer.

 

We came home to have grubby tummies washed, then as I had a cuppa so the dogs all settled and snored.

I then popped round the corner to replace a geocache of mine which someone had admitted to having dropped and lost. As I walked so I saw that the drizzle was getting worse.

Once home again I decided against mowing the lawn and doing the pond filter. Hopefully it will be a tad drier tomorrow. Instead of gardening I Munzed, got Wordle (beard) on the second attempt and wrote up some CPD.

And with the drizzle showing no signs of abating I got out my Lego pirate ship and set about rebuilding it. That kept me out of mischief for much of the afternoon.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up pizza for tea, and with that scoffed she went bowling. I cracked on with the ironing whilst watching “The Forsyte Saga” on Netflix. It was a quite good show… though a tad on the un-moral side…

 

 

14 October 2025 (Tuesday) - An Optician Appointment

 

 

 

I slept reasonably well despite a rather vivid dream in which I was taking a cycling holiday across the entire width of Canada which was completely uphill; no matter which direction in which I went.

I made toast and had my usual look at the Internet as I do. One friend had pointed out that today is Hastings Day – the nine hundred and fifty-ninth anniversary of the Battle of Hastings from which so much British history follows. Bearing in mind that with the current surge in patriotism having people painting roundabouts and zebra crossings and hanging flags from everything, people would have made more of a fuss about it, wouldn’t you?

There wasn’t a lot happening on Facebook this morning but I had a few emails. There’s some fellow hunter of Tupperware coming to Kent at the end of the month and they’ve organized a couple of geo-meets. Sadly at the most inconvenient times and in the most awkward places to get to… early morning in Whitstable and early evening in Rye.

And no matter where I looked on-line this morning I was presented with adverts for tickets to go and see Brighton and Hove Albion playing football. Sadly the advertisers have set their target audience as anyone aged over eighteen living in the UK and so waste a lot of their money sending me the adverts. You’d think they’d target their advertising, wouldn’t you?

 

I Munzed, finally got Wordle (forum – it took some getting today), and leaving the dogs under the care of “er indoors TM” I went to the optician.

I’ve not had much luck with opticians. In October 2019 one of the big high street opticians gave me double vision. My next eye test was with the local independent optician who said that if I wasn’t at all happy with the glasses they provided I should go back to them… and when I did they made it quite clear that they had had my money and that was it. So two years ago I went to Boots and they seem OK so far…

This morning the nice lady stuck me in front of the machine which blew air in my eyes, and in front of the machine which flashed lights, and in front of the one which took photos of the insides of my eyes. I was told that all of that was good, and then I had the eye test. I thought my eyes weren’t what they once were, and I was right. My close-up vision needs even more help. So I’ve got some new glasses on the way…  over two hundred quid cheaper than what I paid four years ago. Will they be any good – I’ll find out in a couple of weeks’ time. Apparently Boots get their specs made up in Germany and it takes longer to send the frames there and have the things posted back than it takes to actually make the lenses.

 

I came home and took the dogs to the woods. We walked a different walk to our usual one, but we had a good walk. As we went I was amazed by the amount of acorns and chestnuts laying on the ground. When we went chestnutting a couple of weeks ago I was worried we’d be leaving the squirrels short. Clearly not.

As we walked there was something big crashing about in a thicket. Morgan barked at it, and I heard a snuffling snorking sound that was very reminiscent of pigs that we’ve walked past on our travels. Are there wild boar in Kings Wood? Opinion is divided. There are those who claim that Kent has the highest amount of wild boar in the UK; there are those who claim that this was once the case but they’ve been hunted to extinction. Either way something was two miles from the car park in Kings Wood doing a very good pig impression late this morning. I find myself thinking back a couple of months when I discovered some epic turds in Kings Wood and the people on the Big Cat Facebook page thought they might be from a boar.

 

We’d walked in the drizzle; it was dry when we came home. I’ve mentioned before that Kings Wood is high; the altitude map shows it’s about a hundred and fifty metres higher than my house. We’d effectively been walking in low cloud.

Seeing it was dry at home, once I’d given the dogs’ bellies a quick hosing down I voomed round the garden with the lawn mower. Two weeks ago I mentioned that I’d poked the bird seed into holes in the lawn. That grass has sprouted quite impressively… Well, the seeds I planted have. I just need to plant a whole lot more. Or will it spread?

 

I was rather worn out by this time, so I slobbed on the sofa and as the dogs snored I watched more of “The Forsyte Saga” in which him who played “Hornblower” did the dirty deed with Irene-ey (not Irene – Irene-ey!) and got what was coming to him (in more ways than one). Irene-ey then went on to almost (but not quite) do the dirty deed at Granddad, and then Soames was up for a portion.

Those Forsytes are on the un-moral side.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up some fajitas which we scoffed whilst watching another episode of “Taskmaster” and then the first episode of the new season of “Hunted” in which a pair of idiots who didn’t know a single person outside of Croydon ran to Ashford because they though Ashford was not only out in the sticks but beyond the reach of CCTV…

I’ve sure a lot of people on these reality TV shows are paid to pretend to be stupid.

 

 

15 October 2025 (Wednesday) - Back to Work

 

 

With an alarm set I didn’t sleep very well. I woke at quarter past two and then just dozed on and off before finally giving up and getting up at half past five.

I watched more of “The Forsyte Saga” in which Soames was trying it on with Irene-ey, and Jolyon was off to fight in the Boer war. I’ve heard of the Boer war; I really should educate myself and find out what it was all about. Sadly history was something that school made a point of killing stone dead.

 

I had a little look at the Internet to see if I’d missed much overnight. I rarely do, and this morning was no exception. Nothing much had happened that anyone felt worth reporting, no one was having a birthday… so I Munzed, got Wordle (spoof) on the fifth attempt and got ready for work… wearing a pair of new trousers that I’d found in the cupboard that were considerably smaller than my usual work trousers that I’ve been wearing for the last year.

 

I set off to work on a dark foggy morning. Being a dark foggy morning you would think that cyclists would have had their lights on and not be riding like idiots down the unlit roads, wouldn't you?

As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the situation in Gaza. For all that President Trump is expecting to end up with a Nobel Peace Prize, those in the know were saying that what was a war zone a week ago is now an anarchy with no authority replacing the warring factions he's had chivved out of the place, and sadly the peace process isn’t expected to last.

And there was a lot of talk about the prices charged by vets. There's calls to have vets either charge a lot less, or make it known that the stuff they prescribe can be bought far cheaper on-line. a couple of people were wheeled on claiming that what they paid their vet sixty quid for could be bought off the Internet for sixteen quid. As I've said before, it pays to shop about.

And there was a lot of talk about global temperatures going through the roof. Somewhat ironic since as I drove I found myself following a double decker bus. As it turned corners in front of me, I could see there wasn't any passengers on it. It didn't stop to let anyone on of off at all in the fifteen miles between Ashford and Cranbrook, and unlike my car, the bus's engine didn't automatically stop at any of the traffic lights we met along the way. Instead it carried on belching out foul smoke.

And they say buses are the green way forward...

 

I got to work. I’d not been at work for a couple of weeks. Back in the day I used to feel physically sick about going back to the toxic environment where I used to work. I quite liked going back to work this morning. Everyone was friendly; I was trusted to get on with the work and not micro-managed with suspicion and contempt.

I had a surprisingly full-on day, and in the two weeks that I’d been off the nights had certainly drawn in. It was getting dark when I left work, and very dark when I got home.

 

I came home to find “er indoors TM” boiling up a rather good bit of scoff. She does that. We had a bottle of plonk with it too…

Being at work I only walked four thousand steps today. My average over the last two weeks was over ten thousand per day…

 

 

16 October 2025 (Thursday) - Mud, Lego

 

 

I woke at silly o’clock again, and made the most of it by putting a load of washing in so that when I got up properly I could hang it out. And with it hung out (a few hours later) I made my usual toast and coffee. We’ve got Morrison’s coffee at the moment, and sadly it is the worst coffee I have ever had.

Social media was dull this morning but I had some emails. I had a replay from the town council about Ashford’s lack of a town crier… I say “town council” Apparently “Ashford Borough Council has never had a Town Crier since its inception in 1974. The role of Town Crier is one that is more synonymous with a Town Council (third tier local Council authorities) than a Borough or District Council”. The nice people went on to say that what with the proposed reorganization of the local councils in Kent, having a Town Crier isn’t something they would be considering any time soon.

Oh well… so much for that idea.

I Munzed, opening a Qrate, got Wordle (catty) on the fourth attempt, and took the dogs out.

 

It was dry when we left home. The BBC weather forecast said zero per cent chance of rain. As we drove up to the woods so the drizzle started and got heavier, and it rained on and off for our entire walk. We walked a slightly different walk to our usual one, but whichever way you go the woods have got noticeably muddier. 

On Tuesday I mentioned that I thought I heard pigs at the two-miles point. I *definitely* heard pigs today at about the same (ish) point. Something big was snuffling and snorting not ten yards from me in the thicket. I couldn’t see anything but whatever it was, it was incredibly noisy.

 

We got back to the car after four and a half miles. Morgan was funny; he is very good at coming when called *unless* he knows we are going home and he wants more walk. He stopped about ten yards before  where I put his lead on, and when I called him, so he pretended not to hear me. I marched up to him with the lead and as I bent down to him so he looked away with a rather indignant expression.

As we’d driven up to the woods there had been a rather interesting program on the radio about Thomas Hardy. As we drove home where was some utter tripe about “culture” featuring someone howling in French accompanied on an out-of-tune accordion. That got turned off.

 

Once home it was a belly wash for all the dogs. This will be the way forward for the next few months; they love their walk in the woods, but their bellies do get grubby.

I made us a cuppa, then wrote up some CPD. Apparently there’s to be yet another country-wide review of pathology services… That should keep management types in business, but sums up all that is wrong with the NHS. I’ve seen this so many times, and so has anyone who follows the news. What happens is that there is a review of healthcare. Something or other is suggested. But before whatever has been suggested is fully implemented, something else is suggested. That which had been started is immediately abandoned and the new idea is implemented. But before that is fully implemented, yet another idea is suggested.

No idea is ever given long enough to take effect. No idea is ever evaluated to see whether it was good or bad. Every idea is brought in and thrown out on the whim of whichever politician is calling the shots at the time. And I’m breaking no confidences in saying this. Just read the news and the political histories of the last few decades… Am I wrong?

What the NHS needs is one over-arching review, and the recommendations of that review to be put in place and tested over a period of a year or so before reviewing and making improvements to what has been started.

What it doesn’t need is to be starting from scratch again and again with annoying regularity.

 

I spent a few hours carrying on putting my Lego pirate ship back together again. When it got taken apart (destroyed) all of the bits supposedly got put into one box. It would seem a few bits got mislaid.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up a good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching an episode of “Taskmaster” and then an episode of “Celebrity Traitors”. Mind you for all that it is a “celebrity” show, so far two have been banished and two murdered, and I have no idea who any of those were.

 

 

17 October 2025 (Friday) - Early Shift

 

 

Every night the dogs come up to bed about an hour after I’ve nodded off and bounce all over me and lick my head in utter excitement. On the one hand it is incredibly sweet of them. On the other hand I wish they’d just let me sleep.

I got up rather early this morning nd watched more of “The Forsyte Saga” in which young Jolyon was killed at Mafeking and Irene-ey is expecting, and is up the tub too.

 

I sparked up my lap-top and had a look at the Internet. It was still there, and again I had endless adverts exhorting me to pay good money to go watch Brighton and Hove Albion playing football. I can’t imagine why anyone would watch football; let alone pay to do so. I realize that millions love it, but I have to ask why? Seriously – what is the attraction? If you watch five minutes of a game (be it kids kicking a ball round the park or the word cup final) you really have seen all the game has to offer. (or I have!)

 

I took care to let sleeping dogs lie in the hope that they might take the hint, and got ready for work. It was very dark and dismal as I set off this morning. I was up before the bin men, and arrived at the petrol station just as the miserable one was removing the bollards which they have out when they are closed.

I got my petrol, and set off west-wards through the -hursts and the -dens listening to the pundits on the radio as I do. This morning they were interviewing some very irate farmers. It would seem that up until this year farmers had been paid to leave some of their fields untended so that wildlife could grow, but this year the rules had changed, there was different paperwork to fill in, and a lot of farmers didn't find out until it was too late to plough up and plant up. Some were irate that they'd lost money on the deal. Some were irate that wildlife habitats which had grown over the years were just being demolished. Either way, it all seemed to be one big balls-up.

There was also talk about how the Ukrainian leader was visiting President Trump today, and about how the Americans are trying to scupper some environmentally friendly shipping agreement. In both cases everyone being interviewed took pains to point out that no matter what you want from the Americans, you can get it if you swallow your pride and suck up to Mr. Trump and tell him what a big man he is. Whenever he is mentioned on the radio he is described in much the same way that I used to describe the more simple-minded cub scouts (when I was very much involved with the cub scouts). Surely the leader of the Western world isn't that shallow? Is he? 

 

As I drove through the endless drizzle I had to chuckle at the weather forecast. Apparently the weather is going to turn at the weekend and the current dry spell is going to end and we will have the first rain for a couple of weeks... Don't these weather forecasters ever actually look at reality. We've had drizzle and rain for the last couple of weeks. Perhaps it will go dry at the weekend?

 

I got to work for the early shift and did my bit. After a couple of hours I slipped off to get my flu jab.  Just the flu jab; this year they aren't offering the covid jab as well. If I want it I can spark up my NHS app and pay for it. Ninety-eight quid...

But there were some freebies to be had. As well as the injection I got given a a free pen and a choccie bar which went down very nicely at tea break... even if it was a hundred and fifty calories that I didn't really need. That's the trouble with choccie bars. They don't fill you up,  they are full of calories, and (when you have to pay for them) they ain't cheap. Admittedly cheaper than a covid jab though.

And we had something of a buffet lunch as well; a colleague had a big birthday last weekend.  So much for the diet, eh?

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up dinner which we scoffed whilst watching more “Celebrity Traitors” in which a celebrity I’ve actually heard of got the heave-ho…

 

 

18 October 2025 (Saturday) - Adventure Day

 

 

I woke at three thirty-three this morning. An odd time to see on the clock. I then dozed in and off before finally getting up and watching an episode of “The Forsyte Saga”. It’s an odd show – is it actually some sci-fi program in which the family are actually immortals? They seem to be storming through history without aging in the slightest.

 

I sparked up the lap-top and had a look at the Internet. It was still there. People were still whinging about “the flags” on the local Facebook page. It would seem that no one really has a clear idea about why there are cheap flags being attached to every lamp post in the country, but because someone has done it, everyone else is copying lemming-like. If people are proud of their country then that is very nice for them. Sadly more and more I’m finding myself ashamed of it, and stupidity like this isn’t helping.

And then there was the news that Prince Andrew is giving up his royal titles. I feel sorry for Prince Andrew really. Now...

 

I Munzed, got Wordle (haven) on the fifth attempt, and listened to Steve doing the “Guess the Lyrics” competition on the radio. “Since you went away I’ve been hanging around”. No? – “What Have I Done to Deserve This” by the Pet Shop Boys.

 

Being Saturday we went round to Repton and Dog Club. Attendance seemed to be down, but I counted (at least) fourteen dogs. We had a great time. We shared treats, we fetched balls… have you ever seen a Basset hound playing chase with a springer spaniel?

I did notice that some of those who used to be regular attendees were arriving as we were leaving; their dogs have graduated to the later sessions for bigger dogs. So they are still part of the club. That’s good.

 

As we drove home so Steve was still on the radio now doing the “Mystery Year” competition. Freddie Laker and Skytrain? 1977. I can distinctly remember an incredibly rich distant cousin (who I’ve not seen in years) mouthing off about how making trans-Atlantic flights available to the masses was a bad thing. I can remember that cousin being sent to spend the summer at my grandmother’s house so that he was near me and I could be his friend so that he would have a friend. He was pleasant enough I suppose. I wonder what he’s doing now. The last I heard (some time ago) was that his incredibly rich father had set him up in business twice, and he’d gone bust twice.

I should really have kept in touch…

 

Once home we had a cuppa and the last of the coffee cake, then took the dogs for a little walk. Today was geocaching Adventure Day, and if you did a series of Adventure Labs then you got an e-souvenir. So we walked them up to the railway station and home via a circuitous walk doing geocaching ad-labs and Munzing as we went. It made for a walk… but not really much of an “adventure”.

We came home, and I spent a couple of hours putting the finishing touches to my Lego pirate ship. It’s now going to live on top of the fish tank. That’s nice, isn’t it (!)

 

I then got on with marking some of the trainees’ essays, and wrote up some CPD whilst “er indoors TM” went shopping. She returned with Whitby buns – there’s three hundred calories.

And it wasn’t long until dinner time. A rather good chili which we scoffed whilst watching another episode of “Taskmaster”.

Today’s been something of a lazy one… and I’ve got to work tomorrow.

 

 

19 October 2025 (Sunday) - Early Shift

 

 

I didn’t sleep that well. Having yet again woken far too early I then only dozed, looking at the clock seemingly every ten minutes.

I eventually got up, made toast and watched more of “The Forsyte Saga”. Half an episode… why do the makers of these programs make them an hour and a quarter long?

 

I had a quick look at the Internet in case I’d missed anything. For once I had - Last night was Hastings Bonfire Parade. Back in the day that was one of our regular annual fixtures. We used to go down to Hastings and meet up with family and friends some time in the early afternoon, set up in our favourite Hastings pub (the First In Last Out) and have a go at their beer list. By the time the procession came past the pub, I for one would be away with the fairies. We’d then all stagger off following the procession to the sea front to watch the bonfire and fireworks, losing each other as we walked through the tens of thousands of people swarming about the place. Eventually we’d find each other in time to say goodbye, and then walk over a mile uphill to where we’d left the car (as every other parking space closer had long since been parked in). And having tiddled over a hundred quid up a wall I’d then spend the next day with a headache.

Perhaps it was as well that I’d forgotten that last night was Hastings Bonfire Parade?

 

There was some utter tripe about farming in the Outer Hebrides on the radio as I drove to work, so I switched to a different radio station. I'd had a look at the schedules and saw that Desert Island Discs was on Radio Four Extra this morning. Clare Balding was the castaway. She's been in Celebrity Traitors recently  and was rather interesting. It was a shame that today’s program was a repeat from twelve years ago.  It was also a shame that the program was on DAB, and the reception for that is either excellent or nothing. On the FM radio the program can get a bit fizzy when the signal isn't good. With the DAB in my car there's either perfect reception or utter silence with nothing in between. As I drove so the radio would periodically just go silent.

I wish it wouldn't.

 

I'd left home earlier than I might. When I did the early shift on Friday the journey to Pembury took an hour and a half. This morning it took fifty minutes. I'd left home in the dark, and arrived at work in the dark.

I had a cuppa and then did my bit. As I always say I don’t mind working at the weekends when it is raining, and it was raining today.

 

It was raining as I came home. There was some alleged comedy on Radio Four Extra as I drove. Starring Bernard Cribbins and Frank Thornton it really was so dreadful that I found myself listening in disbelief that something quite so dire would warrant being on national radio. But fortunately for my nerves the reception was as bad as it had been this morning, and after five miles I turned over to Ivor Biggon on my memory stick.

It wasn’t that long ago that we would take the dogs to the woods after an early shift, but it was raining and already getting a bit dark when I got home, so I just announced that I was going to “FEED THE FISH”, and the usual mayhem ensued.

 

I then cracked on solving geo-puzzles. Simple ones that I could manage. As I puzzled “er indoors TM” boiled up a chicken dinner which we scoffed whilst watching “Taskmaster”.

I really should have an early night – I’m feeling all-in.

 

 

20 October 2025 (Monday) - It Rained (All Day)

 

 

I really should have gone to bed early last night. Instead I fell asleep on the sofa and woke with neck ache at midnight. I took myself off to bed, and spent far too long listening to the sound of the rain on the window.

I eventually got up, made toast, and had a look at the Internet as I do. Not much had really changed overnight. It rarely does.

I Munzed, got Wordle (limbo) on the fourth attempt, fed the dogs, put some washing in then got busy with the scrubbing brush. A couple of weeks ago we got loads of chestnuts from the woods. Some have been boiled, some pickled… and everything with which they have come into contact has been stained brown and the dishwasher isn’t touching that staining. A good soak and a good scrub went a long way to sorting it. Another soak and another go through the dishwasher should do the trick.

“Daddies’ Little Angel TM” and Pogo arrived. She had an errand to run; Pogo came with me and the other dogs for a little walk.

 

As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about Gaza. For all that the cease fire is still in place, both sides are still killing each other.

We drove down to Park Wood near Appledore this morning. A month or so ago I hid some geocaches in those woods and one of them had reports that someone couldn’t find it.

We got to the woods to see quite a bit of the car park was taken up by a French camper van. Much the same happens in Longbeech Woods near Charing. With no barrier across the car park, camper vans can get a free night before setting off to the cross-channel ferries.

We walked out to where the supposedly missing cache was. It was where it was supposed to be. We then walked a figure-of-eight round the woods back to the car. I let Bailey off the lead where I dared, but bearing in mind her previous episodes, she was on the lead whenever we were within fifty yards of any fence that I couldn’t cross without destroying. To be fair to her she was better behaved than she had been on previous trips to Park Wood. And Pogo was as good as gold.

 

We went out expecting rain; we were lucky. There was a bit, but the tree cover kept it off of us. But it rained hard as we drove home.

Once home we had bellies and paws washed, then I drove “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” and Pogo home through some frankly torrential rain. I had planned to mow the lawn when I got back, but that wasn’t going to happen with the weather alternating between bright sunshine and heavy showers every fifteen minutes for the rest of the day. So I sat and struggled with some geo-puzzles in the area where we will (hopefully) be going on holiday next year. I wrote up some CPD, and had a little think...

Yesterday had been rather dull. The highlight of the day had been listening to “Desert Island Discs” and that finished at quarter to seven in the morning. I suppose with pretty much nothing of note having happened yesterday or today that’s why I’ve been thinking of my own “Desert Island Discs” choices ever since. It’s two years since I last thought seriously about them, and I had a little update this afternoon. There’s now two Sparks cover versions in there… On closer inspection my choices are mostly cover versions… there’s only one original in my current eight songs.

I really should revisit my list of favourite books too…

 

And then I had an email. Over the last few months I’ve been emailing the local MP and the local councilor about the flooding at the Asda underpass. The MP has established that the flood defences (or lack of them) are the responsibility of Kent County Council. Kent County Council say they can’t afford to sort the issue; the issue being that the river needs dredging. I tried posting about the problem to one of the local Facebook pages. The solution to getting the underpass to stop flooding is so obvious. If enough people contact the local councilor then they will spend money on sorting the issue. After all, look at how much money they’ve got to squander on the Operation Brock stupidity. But (as ever) people have plenty of time to engage in petty bickering on-line, but not the two minutes it would take to send an email to a councilor.

Oh well… with the current torrential rain the underpass will be flooded by the morning. But why should I care? It’s not as though I need to go through there very often. In fact I only go through there once every six months when I walk to and from getting the car serviced. And at the last service I established that it’s a far shorter walk to avoid the underpass altogether.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up quiche and chips which we scoffed whilst watching last night’s episode of “Hunted”. Are these contestants stupid? Have they never watched previous episodes of the show? Why go on the show if you have a visceral hatred of sleeping in a tent? Why go on the show if you aren’t prepared to go anywhere other than to the house of a friend?

And then we watched last week’s Bake Off. The more I watch that show the more I’m convinced I shouldn’t have given up professional cooking all those year ago.

 

It’s still raining…

 

 

21 October 2025 (Tuesday) - Another Dull Day

 

 

Having spent much of the night wide awake and very restless I finally nodded off sometime after four o’clock, and woke at six o’clock feeling like death warmed up.

I made toast, opened the apricot jam, and watched another episode of “The Forsyte Saga” in which Soames’ daughter was quite openly trying to pork Irene’ey’s son, and Winifred’s paramour was doing the dirty deed with all and sundry. I then had a quick look at the Internet. It was much the same as it usually is. Nothing much seemed to have happened overnight, and I had no emails at all.

Taking care not to wake anyone I got ready for work.

 

As I walked out of the house I couldn't remember where I left my car, so in desperation I pressed the key button so see if any car indicator lights flashed. They did - over a hundred and fifty yards down the road by the dentist. I had no idea the key fob thingy had such a range.

I got to the car - it really smells musty. The carpets the dogs sit on need a good airing: I shall see to that when I get a minute.

 

As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the ongoing situation in Gaza. As well as the Israelis and Palestinians still attacking each other, both sides were reported to be having something of a civil war in which no end of people on both sides were being accused of being collaborators.

There was yet more talk about Prince Andrew and his involvement with Jeffery Epstein. I can't help but wonder how much longer he will be before he's not a prince anymore. There's also talk about Elon Musk being involved as well, and hints in the media about President Trump. Why don't the judiciary just release all their files on the matter, formally accuse everyone against whom there is allegations and be get it all out in the open? Sadly, so many times in the past they've waited for the accused parties to be safely dead before doing anything. Am I being cynical in feeling that It's probably better that the public get to throw bricks at Prince (for now) Andrew and Stuart Hall which they never could with Cyril Smith and Jimmy Saville.

And Penguin and Club chocolate bars aren't chocolate bars any more.  They are "chocolate flavoured" as they don't have enough choccy.

I had a club bar the other day. Have you seen them recently? they've shrunk.

 

I drove in to Sainsburys in Aylesford where in a novel break with tradition I got a beef and horseradish sandwich, and had a minor altercation with the old bat who glares at the self-service tills. I went up to the only one which took cash. She wasn't happy as you supposedly have to have used a trolly to be able to use that particular machine. I told her I was going to use that machine as I was paying with cash. She told me that I could use another machine and pay by card. I smiled at her sweetly (!) and proceeded to put almost (but not quite) four quid into the machine in copper coins and five, ten and twenty pence pieces. She *really* wasn't happy about that.

 

I got to work and did my bit. As I worked I looked out of the window at the dry day. I'd been off yesterday and it had hossed down most of the day. I was at work today and there was so much I could have done at home. Was it wrong of me to have a perverse pleasure when the heavy rain started in the early afternoon, and then sulk when it stopped half an hour later?

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up a rather good bit of scran which we scoffed whilst watching last night’s episode of “Hunted”. I quite like the show if only because “er indoors TM” is very entertaining when it is on. She gets so wound up with the stupidity of the contestants. To be honest once you evade the hunters at the very start, winning that show would be so easy. You just take a month’s worth of cash with you. You stay in the countryside. You don’t go anywhere urban where there’s loads of web cams. You don’t use a phone or a credit card or a card for a cash dispensing machine. And (most importantly) you don’t try to provoke the hunters. I’m convinced that the program makers either get the contestants to live dangerously, or only accept stupid contestants.

 

Today was dull… apricot jam was the highlight. And that was dull.

 

 

22 October 2025 (Wednesday) - Late Shift

 

 

I had a bit of a restless night. Is a good night’s sleep so much to ask for? I got up and put some apricot jam on my toast. I can’t say I’m overly keen on that stuff. And as the dogs all slept I had a little look at the Internet.

There was quite a bit about Prince (at the moment) Andrew and how he’s living in a mansion rent-free. The masses are up in arms about this… but the truth of the matter is slightly different. He paid a million quid up-front when he moved in, then spent a further seven and a half million quid doing the place up. There was an interview with the people who look after crown estates on the radio yesterday when they said that when they drew up the arrangement they felt that they had the best side of the deal… but admitted that that was before he turned out to be a sex offender. If he is. Don’t get me wrong… be might well be, but I don’t know for sure. According to British justice an individual is innocent until proven guilty. On the one hand there’s allegations against Prince Andrew, on the other he claims he didn’t do it. Obviously (as Mandy Rice-Davies once said) “Well, he would, wouldn’t he”, but this is today’s justice isn’t it? The rights and the wrongs are secondary to the picture painted by a media keen to increase its circulation to increase its profits. And the masses just go along with what they are told.

After all look at all those postmasters who went to prison for supposedly fiddling the Horizon computer system (which they didn’t). Initially everyone hated them because the papers told them to… until the papers all said they’d done no wrong, then everyone loved them.

 

And then the fish tank light came on. Eventually. It’s on a timer and more and more the thing has a few minutes flickering before doing what it should. I suppose I should bite the bullet and get a new one, but I am nothing if not incredibly mean.

 

“Daddies’ Little Angel TM” and Pogo arrived. “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” had an errand to run this morning and I’d suggested that Pogo might like to come on our morning walk.

We went down to Orlestone and walked for two miles. We did what used to be our standard walk back in the day when I used to take Pogo, Treacle and Fudge there, and Pogo remembered every twist and turn of the trail. As we walked Bailey was noticeably better than she often is. Admittedly she did wander further than any of the others, but she only once went what I thought was too far, and she immediately came back when I whistled.

Bearing in mind how much rain we’ve had lately and how that place is a swamp for much of the year, I was amazed at how relatively dry the place was. No one needed a bath when we got home.

 

The dogs all settled; I got changed and set off to work. I took a rather circuitous route to hunt out a geocache; I’m easily amused. The one I hunted today took some finding. What with a restless night, dog walk and geo-hunting I was worn out by the time I started work, but I had a good shift.

There was cake.

 

On the flip side there was torrential rain all the way home. The journey home from Pembury is bad enough on a bright summer evening. Let alone in the dark with the roads like rivers.

This rain is supposedly in for a couple of days. I’d been having high hopes for the weekend…

 

 

23 October 2025 (Thursday) - Still Raining

 

 

I had a better night last night. I’d been expecting the rain to be noisy against the window but it wasn’t, which was a result. I got up shortly before eight o’clock and in a novel break with tradition put the radio on in the living room.

Apparently someone is looking for a private tutor for their child. Currently only one year old, the parents want to end up with a child with a received pronunciation, “reasonable” music theory; an understanding of cricket, tennis, rugby, polo and rowing, good hand-eye coordination, good manners and a place at Eton. They are offering a hundred and eighty thousand quid a year to anyone who will take the child in hand.

I’ve only met one person with a received pronunciation… and that person was widely ridiculed for it.

And there was a lot of consternation about the chap who came to the UK on a small boat, was returned to France under the latest one-in-one-out scheme, and came straight back a couple of weeks later. It was claimed that the French aren’t doing enough to stop the boats… Of course they aren’t. Why would they? The French have got a potential problem in that if they stop all the people trying to get to the UK then what will they do with them? The obvious answer is to let them go on their way and wave them off with a smile.

Ten years ago the EU had a problem with migrants wanting to get to one of their member states. Now the EU’s only problem is the migrants passing through to get to a non-EU state, and the problem is solved by letting them go. Did no one else see this coming? It’s a bit late to pretend to be surprised.

 

The dogs had their brekkie, and seeing that the forecast storm was actually just a bit of drizzle I thought we might try a walk in the woods. After all I had geo-business up there. As we drove I carried on listening to the radio and found myself wondering. Yesterday I had a little rant that Prince Andrew has been crucified in the media recently, and how much the media shapes public opinion. As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how today the King was meeting with Pope Leo I, and how the UK doesn’t have an ambassador to the Vatican any more as the post was discontinued some years ago. This was all announced as we drove down Brookfield Road. As we drove past the motorway (a mile later) there was an apology – the King can’t possibly be meeting with Pope Leo I as he croaked about one thousand five hundred years ago. The King was actually meeting Pope Leo XIV. And as we drove through Kennington (another mile further on) there was another apology; the UK *does* have an ambassador to the Vatican.

Trivial points perhaps, but our opinion is only ever as good as that which we are told so that we can form that opinion.

 

We got to the woods where the drizzle had got rather heavier. I thought we might attempt a walk, but after a couple of hundred yards it was obvious it would have been daft to try to continue. You know it is too wet when (despite not having had an accident) your pants are wet. We went back to the car… and I had some defiance. Morgan never wants to go back to the car unless we’ve walked four miles or more. He was defiant yesterday after only two miles, and he *seriously* wasn’t having it this morning. He looked me in the eye and ran off on the route we usually take. After a couple of hundred yards he stopped, and looked back at me as though to say “come on then”.

He was easily captured though, and we went home.

There was a minor delay as we drove home – the road at the bottom of Challock Hill was flooded – there was a water board lorry there trying to pump the water away.

 

We came home, put on dry clothes, hung out wet coats and leads, put wet clothes into the washing machine, and settled down for a dull day.

I wrote the cache page for the geocache we’d hidden this morning. Many years ago someone else had put a few caches in Kings Wood, and they are slowly falling into disrepair. As the geo-feds archive them so I’m replacing them.

I Munzed, got Wordle (drill) on the fourth attempt, updated my diary with the leave I’ve booked from work, and then spent over half an hour fighting with my bank accounts to work out why I was worse off than I thought I should be. I eventually found I’d written down one payment twice. Woops. Still, I’m now fifty quid better off than I thought I might be.

I wrote up some CPD, and solved some geo-puzzles. Look at this one. I solved it. Go me!!

 

I’ve cracked open a bottle of plonk. We can swill that down with dinner…

There’s so much I could have done if it hadn’t been raining today… I’ve been saying that a lot lately.

 

 

24 October 2025 (Friday) - Early Shift

 

 

I hadn’t been asleep long last night when I was woken by Morgan shoving his nose in my face to say hello. Once he was sure I was awake he then settled. I eventually nodded off only to have Bailey licking my hand until I fussed her. She eventually settled, and I then slept through till four o’clock. I lay awake for a while, gave up trying to sleep, got up and watched half an episode of “The Forsyte Saga” in which Irene-ey went on a holiday to Paris and was particularly popular with the barman.

 

I sparked up my lap-top which told me that Facebook has a new policy. I can use it without adverts if I pay three quid a month. I decided to carry on with the free version for now. I sent out birthday wishes, and seeing not a lot had changed overnight I got ready for work.

 

It was dark as I left home. Very dark, and the motorway was surprisingly busy. A combination of being pitch black and so much traffic going far too fast had me effectively stuck in the slow lane all the way to Maidstone.

As I drove there was a lot of talk about yesterday's by-election in Wales in which the Welsh Nationalists won what had been a safe Labour seat for over a hundred years. Reform UK did quite well as well and as is always the case the pundits on the radio were making great show about how this was a vote of no confidence for the Westminster government. And as is always the case everyone ignored that this is what happens in any by-election relatively early in the term of a government. One of the many troubles with democracy is that any government of any party has to make hard decisions, but still have to suck up to a (frankly) thick electorate who will hand power to anyone who tells them what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear. As Oliver Hardy once remarked, "twas ever thus".

And there was talk about Donald Trump who has broken off all trade negotiations with Canada after someone or other in Canada said rude things about the tariffs that Trump loves so much. 

Some expert being interviewed was quite open that everyone needs to realise that Donald Trump is "erratic" and this is the sort of behaviour that the world should expect from him. It was quite clear that expecting “presidential” behaviour from him was a waste of time.

I can't help but wonder if he *really* was the best candidate the Republican party could come up with... or is this just another case of a gullible electorate being too thick to realise that politicians will say that sh*t is sugar in order to get your vote. Democracy, eh?

 

I stopped off at Sainsburys to get lunch. There was a lot of shelf filling going on, and I had to chuckle at the supervisor who was bossing the shelf fillers about in much the same way that I used to chivvy recalcitrant cub scouts. I tried not to laugh out loud.

 

And then it was on to work for the early shift.  Yesterday when I wasn’t working it hosed hard all day. Today was a lovely bright day, and I spent much of the day sulking about it.

At tea break one of my colleagues was having a minor whinge about management. Everyone does that, but with varying degrees of justification. Bearing in mind the thirty-third Rule of Acquisition my current colleagues have absolutely nothing to complain about compared to where I was twenty-five years ago. Hearing today’s whinge I found myself thinking back to the night shifts of the late nineties. As I did the night work so the boss of the time would be in his office (sometimes until after two o’clock in the morning) doing all his paperwork. He never did paperwork when the bulk of the staff were in; he would spend that time continually walking round and round the department (like a security guard) and pounce on anyone he felt wasn’t working to their utmost. No one dared speak or even smile when he was on patrol.

I’m so glad I don’t have that any more.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up a very good dinner this evening which we scoffed whilst watching another episode of “Celebrity Traitors” in which Jethro Palmer (out of Viz magazine) got rather gobby. I would have voted him out just for being that gobby. And I would have voted him out for his silly haircut… does anyone over fifteen years of age *really* have a Mohican?

And in tonight’s episode the hostess (Claudia Winkleman) would seem to have gone a rather strange colour.

And then I had a look at the monthly accounts. I had rather hoped that by this stage of my life I would be a whole lot better off… or am I just being greedy?

 

And despite being at work today I walked three thousand steps more today than I did yesterday…

 

 

25 October 2025 (Saturday) - Dog Club, Fish Shop Open Day

 

 

I had a reasonable night I suppose, but was still awake too early, and was worrying if the dogs were warm enough. A strange thing to worry about – they seemed fine.

I made toast and had a little look at the Internet. As I sparked up my lap-top the anti-virus told me that it had upgraded its opinion of our home network to “trusted”… It’s had long enough to decide.

I saw my brother was off to watch football in Manchester. A round trip of over ten hours and five hundred miles. He and so many others clearly love it. I *really* wish I could see the attraction of football.

I saw a post from our MP on Facebook. He was grinning at the camera from the local hospice. I must admit to having great disappointment in our local MP. The last chap would go to the opening of an envelope to get his photo taken, and would manage to somehow take all the credit for everyone else’s efforts without actually saying or doing anything himself. And the new chap is doing much the same. I had such high hopes for him… my first ever Labour MP has turned out to be something of a let down.

I had an email from one of the people who walked round Kings Wood a month ago finding over a hundred geocaches in eight hours thanking me for the time and effort I put into the game. That was decent of him… So many people go charging off hunting for film pots under rocks without a thought for who puts the things out, and certainly with no intentions of hiding any themselves.

I also had a couple of comments to this blog overnight. Florence and Stacy both thought they might try to get me to advertise their scams. They thought wrong…

 

Steve was on the radio doing the Guess the Lyrics competition. “I want to tell you the things I know you’ve been waiting to hear”. No – me neither. Steve later told me it was Showaddywaddy - Under the Moon of Love.

As we listened so Treacle ran round the living room with a carrier bag. Knowing she wasn’t supposed to have it she made a point of running up to me and “er indoors TM”, proudly showing her treasure, and running off again.

 

We went round to Dog Club where we had a mostly good session. It was a shame that Morgan disgraced himself, but that’s the sort of dog he is.

With Dog Club done we came home. “er indoors TM” went off to craft club. I took the dogs home listening to the mystery year competition on the radio. Enola Gay by OMD, Robert Runcie becoming archbishop… 1980.

 

Once home I listened to Steve on the radio for a bit, then cracked on with the ironing whilst watching the last of The Forsyte Saga. It has to be said there were some thoroughly dislikable people in that show.

 

I had a little doze until “er indoors TM” came home, and then leaving her in charge of the dogs I drove round to the Ellingham estate. A few weeks ago I saw a sign as I drove home pointing the way to the “Koi Open Day”. A little looking on-line took me to a new fish shop… A little more looking on-line told me it wasn’t really a fish shop. They are more of a mail-order service that has open days for the public from time to time. Today was one of their open days. I’d been looking forward to it, and as is always the case when you look forward to something it is a disappointment. The place operated from behind secure fencing topped with barbed wire.

There was one frankly huge pond with various fish that were about the size of the ones in my pond and which (to my uneducated eye) were nowhere near as pretty. The prices of these ranged from three hundred pounds upwards.

There were half a dozen paddling pools containing fish smaller than those in my pond (and again nothing special to look at) all billed as “open day specials” and up for sale at prices between fifty and a hundred quid.

I gave it two minutes (certainly no longer) and moved on. I was reminded of my Uncle Terry who used to breed fancy canaries. He had a huge shed in his garden with hundreds of birds in it. He would breed them for shows and the shapes of wings, beaks, bodies, feet etc. had to be exactly just so. However if you just wanted a pet, any bird would do. I suspect this pond shop is much the same. They specialize in the fancy stuff. If you want a pure-bred hara-kiri-nagasaki then that is the place to go. If you want a pretty fish then go to the garden centre to get a prettier fish cheaper.

 

I then drove round to the garden centre. I’ve mentioned a few times recently how the fish tank light has been taking an age to stop flashing and start up. This morning it simply didn’t start up at all. I got a new LED light… thirty quid. Thirty quid !! I was thinking it would be about half of that. It was only when I got home and looked on Amazon I saw that I could have got one for half of that.

And as I was in the area I popped into Sainsburys for a bottle of port. There’s some blue cheese in the fridge that might go nicely with that later,

 

Once home I plumbed in the new fish tank light, and prepared “Hannah” for tomorrow’s adventure. I shall have a shower in a minute, and the quicker “er indoors TM” boils up dinner the quicker I can set about that port…

 

 

26 October 2025 (Sunday) - Geo-Meet, Scenic Views, Treasures

 

 

The clocks went back an hour last night so I was wide awake an hour earlier than usual and spent far longer than I usually do laying awake, hurting every time I moved, and desperately wishing I hadn’t spent so much of yesterday evening fast asleep in front of the telly.

 

I put several clocks right, made coffee (but not toast this morning) and had a look at the Internet.

As I pootled on-line so I listened to the radio. As it does on Sunday mornings the radio was talking about religious stuff. It started off by trying to bridge the gap between churches trying to welcome in the gay community, and the Bible quite clearly saying that gay is wrong. Various windbags wittered on at length in the hope that if they blathered on long enough people would stop listening (it works with most sermons that most vicars make, doesn’t it?). It speaks volumes that no official representative of the Church of England and no bishops replied to the formal invitations to come on the show and speak.

And there was an interview with some Catholic or other who seemed to think that the Church of England have appointed a female Archbishop of Canterbury purely to spite them.

This was followed by a live broadcast from some church or other. Back in the day I was very religious, but it is some time since I saw the darkness. As I listened to the service I found myself again questioning the basic tenets of Christianity. Why did Jesus have to die? Because humanity didn’t follow God’s (frankly strange) rules? Couldn’t God have made those rules a tad more obvious to humanity? And why does the creator of the universe need to be told how wonderful it is all the time? Is it *really* that insecure?

In all my time in the church (I ended up a Steward in the Methodist Church you know) I never found any two people who actually agreed on what the Church was all about.

I don’t know the meaning of life or what life is all about, but from experience and observation I’m pretty sure that the Christian Church has got it wrong.

 

The Internet was much the same as ever. My social media feed was alternating between adverts for ornaments celebrating dead pets and people mourning the death of June Lockhart (Maureen Robinson in the 1960s TV show “Lost in Space”)

I had an email telling me that someone wanted to comment on this diary. Yesterday I mentioned that Florence and Stacy both thought they might try to get me to advertise their scam; overnight Arnold tried to get me to advertise the same one.

I Munzed and got Wordle (plump) on the last attempt, then walked up to town.

 

The monthly geo-meet-up was a breakfast meet in Wetherspoons this morning. Being spread over a couple of hours it’s quite possible I missed several friends, but I got there for the start and had the medium breakfast and chatted with a dozen friends until I got the message that “er indoors TM” was outside with the dogs. I took over dog duty and she came in for a bit.

Can you believe Wetherspoons don’t allow dogs in?

 

We then drove up to Sevenoaks. Bryan and CA had acquired a load of jigsaw puzzles that were surplus to requirements and wondered if “er indoors TM” might like them. It was good to catch up; for years we would meet up at kiting events but over the last few years we’ve hardly seen each other at all. We really must do something about that. We didn’t stay anywhere near as long as we might, but Treacle was getting very fractious and shouty.

 

From Sevenoaks we drove a few miles south to Leigh for the first of our dog walks. The latest “Treasures” thing on geocaching involves hunting out a particular sort of geocache with particular attributes, and there were thirteen of the things in Leigh. We had a very good walk; the terrain was flat, there weren’t any animals in the fields. It was a very good walk. Treacle had a good run, but Morgan and Bailey stayed on their leads. We didn’t really know the area, there were a lot of fences Bailey could have run through, and they had the red mist up having seen several squirrels.

The walk was called “The Sixty Minute Stroll”; it took us an hour and three quarters. From there we headed home, but took a little diversion at Sissinghurst where we parked in Digdog Lane and walked half a mile down to Sissinghurst Castle and back again as there were three more of those geocaches along that path.

The footpath from Digdog Lane to Sissinghurst Castle was perhaps one of the busiest footpaths I have ever seen; there were dozens of normal people wandering up and down. None of them saw us doing our geo-nonsense, but we did have to wait quite a while for the normal people to pass. Having Bailey in a bit of a barky mood helped to chivvy them away.

We set off with sixteen of these particular geocaches in our sights; we found fifteen. We had a rather good day today.

 

We came home for a rather late lunch of a cuppa with scones and jam and cream, and after a little slobbing about we had a very good dinner which we scoffed whilst watching “Canal Boat Diaries”. It’s a good show which follows the adventures of some chap sailing round the canals of the Midlands on his narrow boat.

I for one wonder how he finances this…

 

 

27 October 2025 (Monday) - Intimations of Mortality

 

 

Again with this clocks going back nonsense I was once more wide awake far too early. If I lay in bed wide awake for any length of time my arms go numb and my legs hurt, which rather sucks.

I eventually got up and had a look at a rather dull Internet. Three friends on Facebook were having a birthday today. One I see quite regularly, one with whom I work, and one I’ve not seen in probably fifteen years. There were a few photos of the Koi that people were trying to sell on some of the pond-related Facebook groups. As I said on Saturday, pure-bred Koi don’t seem to be the prettiest of fish. Back when we dug the pond I only wanted Koi in it, but in the meantime ornamental goldfish, shubunkins and comets have become far prettier. Or Koi less pretty…

Other than that not a lot else had happened on the social media that I follow.

 

“Daddies’ Little Angel TM” and Pogo had come up for a sleepover last night; Pogo came to the woods with us for our walk this morning. We went to Orlestone and had a good (if dull) walk. The highlight was Pogo screaming at the normal people, I wish he wouldn’t.

We came home and I sent a complaint to geocaching dot com. For years they’ve been selling “trackables”; a tag which you attach to something or other and you can then log its visit to every geocache you find. Each of the dogs has a trackable tag and from that you can tell that (for example) Bailey has travelled thirteen thousand three hundred miles between the geocaches she’s been to. However some people have been abusing the system and logging (literally) thousands of the things every time they find a film pot under a rock and the servers at geocaching dot com can’t cope. So to sort this, the “IT experts” at geocaching dot com have poggered the system so that you can only log twenty trackables every fifteen minutes, which makes my telling the world that I’ve found a film pot under a rock take far longer than it needs to if I find more than half a dozen.

I’ve complained to them in the past about similarly petty triviality. In the past they’ve not cared: I doubt they will be bothered by this one either.

I Munzed, got Wordle (fetid) on the third attempt and then drove “Daddies’ Little Angel TM” and Pogo home.

 

Once home I had some sad news. My godson has died. He was only thirty-four. His father had been on Facebook earlier saying he’d had a bad night with him. He went in to see him at eight o’clock this morning and that was it…

Over the years we’d never kept in touch as much as we should have done. I suppose it’s some small consolation that they came over for a few afternoons in the garden over the last couple of summers.

 

I went into the garden and pootled. Dog dung doesn’t gather itself. I mowed the lawn. Seeing how the grass seeds I planted a while ago had sprouted I planted some more. I say “planted”; I poked a hole in the bare soil with a tent peg and shoved one of the bird seeds into it. But after a while my back started hurting so I stopped and came inside.

I spent a little while looking at the house building and contents insurance. It runs out at the end of November so I can’t actually get the policy for a few days yet, but I thought I might as well start having a look. My current insurer wants nearly nine hundred quid for the next year and flatly refuses to go any cheaper. Hastings Direct want a few pence under five hundred quid. It’s a no-brainer, isn’t it?

 

I then dozed in front of the telly watching episodes of “The Comic Strip Presents” until “er indoors TM” boiled up sausages and chips before going bowling. I watched more Comic Strip while pondering today’s sad news. I’ve pondered little else for most of the day.

Death comes to us all. But at thirty-four?

 

And today marks my seven thousandth blog entry… 

 

 

28 October 2025 (Tuesday) - Bit Dull Really

 

 

It was a shame that “er indoors TM” chose to have quite such an argument with the dogs on the first night that I’d managed a decent sleep for ages, but there it was.

Once woken I can rarely get back to sleep. I made toast, watched an episode of “The Comic Strip Presents” and had a look at the Internet. Overnight my godson’s father had posted one or two more comments. I first met my godson’s father in 1975 when we were at the Boys Brigade together. He lived next door to my future mother-in-law, and his sister was the best friend of “er indoors TM”. He’s not had much luck over the years. His sister died in 2005 aged only thirty-eight after a very protracted illness. His wife died very suddenly a couple of years ago. His brother was taken very ill over the summer and now needs continual nursing. Some people seem to get all the bad luck.

And I had an email from geocaching dot com in response to the whinge I’d sent them about the trackable debacle. They’d clearly read the first word and just sent a generic reply. I replied to that with “I would thank you for your reply, but instead I feel I should make the observation that over the last twelve years I have had cause to communicate with your office on several occasions. You have never once actually answered what I have asked“. Sadly that will be the end of the matter. They never engage in correspondence.

 

I got dressed; putting on a winter shirt. I have “summer” and “winter” shirts and as the clocks went back an hour on Sunday so the summer shirts went away and the winter shirts came out.

 

As I drove home yesterday my car had asked for some petrol, so I popped round to Sainsburys this morning to get it some. I could probably have saved myself a quid if I'd filled up at Aylesford, but probably didn't have enough petrol to get there.

Sainsbury's filling station was much the same as ever. It usually is.

 

As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the radio were talking about Jamaica where Hurricane Melissa was about to hit with wind speeds of over a hundred and seventy five miles per hour. Some local dignitary was on the radio making great show of only having five words to say: "Almighty father, please save us". You'd think that any god that was able to save anyone from the hurricane would never have sent the hurricane in the first place, wouldn't you? Mind you I can remember a religious crackpot of my acquaintance saying that god sends these tribulations as it likes us to ask it for help.

That's a bit odd, isn't it?

And there was talk about a disused army base near Inverness being repurposed to house asylum seekers. Apparently this wasn't a popular move as the average asylum seeker doesn't want to be housed in Scotland, and asylum seekers don’t stay in Scotland. They make their way to England.

At the risk of appearing to be heartless, they should be grateful that with the public's current attitude they are being allowed to stay at all. I must admit their being free to move came as something of a surprise to me. I naively thought that they stayed where they were put as though imprisoned. If they are free to go where they like, then it’s hardly surprising the country’s got a problem, is it? Or am I just being nasty?

And there was an interview with one of Reform UK's MPs who seemed to think that the Reform MPs and councillors who got into power at the last elections need longer to get to grips with being in power. He wouldn't hear a word against Kent County Council, but pretended he knew nothing about the Reform councillors there who've been thrown out of the party.

Mind you they made no secret that when (not if) they take over, asylum seekers will stay where they are put.

 

The motorway very busy this morning, but was so much easier to navigate than the country lanes to Pembury I've been taking recently.

I got to work and did my bit, and by home time it was completely dark.

 

I came home to find “er indoors TM” had been rummaging in the freezer and had found some liver and chicken breasts. She claimed they had gone off. Does frozen stuff go off? I thought that the whole point of a freezer was that stuff didn’t go off in there. She fried it all up for the dogs, and if it has gone off she can throw a bucket of water over any sloppy turds in the morning.

 

We had fish and chips for dinner and scoffed it whilst catching up with the current season of “Hunted” which is worth watching if only to laugh as “er indoors TM” gets progressively more and more wound up at the stupidity of the contestants. It would be so easy to do well at that show. You just set up a tent in the arse end of nowhere… where we are most likely to see the deer in Kings Wood, or Bailey’s rabbit hole at Orlestone would be ideal locations.

You arrange for friends of friends of friends to come past every couple of days with supplies.

And then you just keep your head down.

I could do it… if I could take my dogs. I would miss them.

 

 

29 October 2025 (Wednesday) - Still Dull

 

 

I slept better last night than I had done for some time, but was still up before five o’clock. I watched an episode of “The Comic Strip Presents”, then seeing nothing had happened on-line I set off to work.

 

As I drove to work so the pundits on the radio were talking about the new Home Secretary who has announced that the Home Office is not fit for purpose. There’s no denying there’s been a lot of Home Office balls ups over the last few months and years. Illegal immigrant sex offenders being released from prison, the Windrush and Horizon scandals… the new Home Secretary has a golden opportunity to sort it all out.

Bet she won’t.

And then there was a lot of talk about artificial intelligence. But no one was talking about whether it was a boon to humanity, whether it would take over the world… all anyone could talk about was how much money could be made from it.

A.I. could quite easily take over the world by whispering weasel words of profit into the right ears.

 

Pausing only briefly to get a sandwich from Tesco I went in to work for the early shift. Work was rather good today; but being at Pembury the journey there wasn’t the best,  and I drove home through failing light and heavy rain. I’ve often remarked that whilst I quite like working at Pembury I hate going there.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up dinner for me, and went off out with her mates. I settled in front of the telly and watched a film on Netflix. “I Am Mother” is billed on Wikipedia as an “Australian Cyberpunk thriller film“. Personally I’d describe it as a load of old tripe. 

Another load of tripe was the new series of Alan Partridge… Perhaps I’m being unfair to it? It reminded me of the Fawlty Towers play or the last six seasons of Red Dwarf in that whilst it was entertaining enough, there was nothing new in it at all.

 

Today has been dull… 

 

 

30 October 2025 (Thursday) - Not At Work

 

 

As I scoffed toast a friend of mine was posting to Facebook about the current situation in Sudan. Thousands of people were killed yesterday, the atrocities are horrible… why was there no mention of this in the news?

I listen to BBC Radio Four news on my drive to work and my drive home (on the days I work) – it’s probably about two hours a day,  There are those who accuse them of bias… both my seriously left wing and right wing friends hate the BBC so I assume they must be somewhere in the middle. They seem to cover the same sorts of things from one day to the next, which is pretty much the same sort of things that every other news outlet is covering… And there’s a lot that doesn’t get mentioned.

I find myself wondering just who decides what is newsworthy and what slant to put on it. Take the Prince Andrew debacle for example. Everyone wants him hoiked out of his rent-free mansion. A week or so ago there was an interview with a representative of the agency who agreed the arrangement for his lease. At the time they felt it was a good deal for them. Now they’ve changed their minds pretty much because that’s what the media feel. I suspect the Gaza war gets mentioned because this causes allegations of antisemitism which is a subject dear to many people’s hearts, and that makes for heated interviews and is entertaining.

There’s forty-five wars going on right now. I doubt the average person listening to any UK news agency has heard of more than two or three of them.

 

I Munzed, started having a go at Wordle, but got stuck after two goes so as “er indoors TM” gave the dogs their scran I got dressed.

I took the dogs up to the woods. As we drove there was a rather interesting program about bird migrations. How do they know where to go? Why do they go? Why don’t all birds go? Why do older and younger birds go at different times? The answer to all the questions was “don’t really know” but there were several interesting theories. The people being interviewed had been working on these questions for years. I would be crap at being a full-time academic. I would soon lose interest and start wondering about something else.

 

We got to the woods where autumn has seriously hit the place with a vengeance. With fallen leaves everywhere it was very hard to see what was footpath and what wasn’t.

We walked a different route to any of our usual ones; I had reports of one of my geocaches to the south of the woods being missing. We got to where it was, and I could see it from five yards away. I hid it like it was supposed to be hidden, and we carried on with our walk. We waded in swamps, we chased squirrels, joggers and a buzzard, we bothered normal people and rolled in horse poo. A great time was had by all.

We were at the woods rather later than usual today, and the place was really busy. We must have met half a dozen other groups. Usually seeing two is a lot.

As we drove home the war in Sudan was the headline news at mid day…

 

We got home where the dogs had a bath. Treacle had been in the swamps. Morgan had been rolling in horse poo. And Bailey got a scrub just in case.

I then sat in front of the telly and watched some episodes of “Four In A Bed”. Four Bed & Breakfast establishments went into competition… the first was rather eco-friendly but pleasant enough. The second was run by a chap with a rather nasty assistant manager who tried to underpay everyone. The third was run by a chap who spent all his time on the golf course, trusting his business to inexperienced schoolgirl cleaners, and the fourth run by some new-age hippy who regularly had conversations with the rooms in her B&B (the actual rooms!). The first lot won for the simple reason that by going first they hadn’t had any chance to fall out with everyone else.

I then passed judgement on a trainee’s homework then wrote up a little CPD as I do. It’s amazing how long it took to just get all my useful links into one list… and then I managed to trash that list by mistake and had to re-write it all from scratch. It only took an hour or so to find all the links I needed. I saved all the information this time though; as I might have mentioned before, backups are what you do after you've lost all your data.

 

“er indoors TM” boiled up a rather good bit of dinner. Back in the day I used to be rather disparaging about anything which might be described as “healthy”. Back in the day I was over three stones heavier and with blood pressure through the roof. And not knowing what I was missing; it was very tasty. We washed it down with a bottle of Liebfraumilch. At three quid a bottle it wasn’t too shabby at all. And I followed it up with port and cheesy biccies.

As we scoffed and swussed we watched last night’s episode of “Celebrity Traitors” which was rather good. I won’t give spoilers, but it strikes me that it must be very different to play the game than it is to watch it.

Today has been a rather good day off… even if I did spend an hour marking a trainee’s essay.

 

 

31 October 2025 (Friday) - A Walk, New Glasses, Geo-Meet

 

 

I woke in the small hours with a dilemma. I had plenty of bed space but needed the loo. I could either keep the bed space and be bursting for a tiddle for the rest of the night, or I could get up and lose the bed space to the dogs. I got up and when I came back where there had been space for everyone there was no longer space for anyone. I eventually secured a bit of space as half-asleep dogs grumbled about being shoved over.

 

I got up at eight o’clock and turned on the radio. The pundits on that radio were talking about how the King has declared that his brother is no longer a prince. Bearing in mind that there’s been no formal judgement on the allegations against Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (as he is now known), is the King just going with something that will make him popular with the masses? I’m not defending Andrew at all, but would the late Queen have done this? Not that I have any faith in the courts or the judicial system, but so much for the principle of “innocent until proven guilty”, eh?

Interestingly this very question appeared in a YouGov poll I did later today in which I found that only five per cent of the population feel that the King has been a tad hasty here. Eighty-nine per cent of those asked feel the King was right to take the “prince” title from him. Oh well… I’ve always known that I was in the minority.

I also saw that a blog entry from September had received a comment overnight. Clifford Esther had posted a load of claptrap about a spiritual herbalist who had casted all sorts of magical spells to his advantage. If any of my loyal readers would like to avail themselves of the services of a spell-casting spiritual herbalist then good luck to them. I’m not encouraging that sort of nonsense.

 

I Munzed, had two goes at Wordle and got stuck, got dressed and “er indoors TM” joined us for our walk in the woods today. And with her along we had no nonsense or shenanigans at all. No one rolled in anything, no one waded in anything. As we walked we saw that someone had put fairy doors at the bases of some of the trees, and we saw deer too.

We walked for four miles, and got back to the car just as the forecast rain started. We came home, had a Whitby bun for lunch then I popped into town to get my new glasses. I went to Boots, they spent a few minutes checking they fitted right, and I was on my way and home within an hour. I’m always a tad dubious with new glasses ever since one of the major optician chains gave me double vision a few years ago.

The new glasses don’t seem that much different to the old ones… I suppose that’s as it should be.

 

With a little time on my hands I wrote up some more CPD. For all that I have to keep a record of what I do to ensure I keep up to date with work-related matters (it’s the law!), sometimes I wonder if I overdo it. And other times I winder if I don’t do enough. I take the line of “little and often”. Other colleagues don’t do often, but when they do some CPD they write a full-blown essay. I suppose I’ll find if I’m doing it right if and when I get called up for formal audit of what I’ve done. Five per cent of us (registered biomedical scientists) get formally audited once every two years. Our audit time was last month, so I’m good until 2027, and anything might happen in the meantime. I might retire completely (unlikely). I might completely change career (unlikely). I might drop dead (best not, eh?) 

I’ll carry on doing CPD…

 

Once the rain eased up we drove down to Rye for a little geo-session. Last Sunday we went out hunting geocaches that qualified us for the “Plush Bird Watching” series of geo-Treasures. There’s some of those in Rye, and there was a geo-meet too.

We wandered here, there and thither getting the geocaches. Half way through we had a little rest and popped in to the Waterworks (a micro-pub in the old toilets) where we had toffee-apple cider, a very good porter, and pork scratchings, and then went up to The Mermaid where the geo-meet was taking place. I must admit to a degree of bias – up until now. I’ve not liked The Mermaid… widely billed as the best pub in Rye (by far), when I last visited the place, the staff knew that it was widely billed as the best pub in Rye (by far) and consequently were up their own arse about it. But things have clearly changed in the meantime.  We had a very good meet-up this evening, and having had a very good experience there I’d certainly go back to the place.

 

We came home. “er indoors TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner and we scoffed it whilst watching last night’s episode of “The Traitors”. There’s only one more episode to go… are the Traitors going to win?

 

And in closing today I’ve decided to do Movember (for the third time). Feel free to contribute by clicking here. I’ve randomly set a target of raising a hundred quid… I’m up to thirty quid already.