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1 September 2019
(Sunday) - Bit Dull Really
Another good night’s sleep. I thought I heard
a thump in the night; did one of the dogs fall off of the bed? I got up and went to have a look at the pond.
It looked a little clearer than it was. Perhaps that bulb is doing something?
As I peered into the pond the dogs came and had a look, had their morning
tiddle, and went back to bed. I put a load of washing in to scrub, made
myself some toast and looked at the Internet to see that not a lot had been
going on overnight. So I spent over an hour fiddling about on my new Wherigo
project. An hour and a half’s effort gave another minute of game play. Once I’d hung out the washing (and
harvested the dog turds) "er indoors TM"
emerged from her pit. I ran a quick test of what I’d done so far on the
Wherigo; realised a serious mistake and spent a little while putting it
right. The Rear Admiral then arrived to collect
Sadie. Like all dogs she was no trouble on her own; but being the third dog
in a pack just meant we had far too many dogs. Jimbo looked well; his two
weeks in France seemed to have agreed with him. We then went out. First of all to Badlesmere
where there was a chance of a First to Find on a newly-published geocache.
Had we chased off after it the moment the email arrived we would have been
first. But because we’d waited for pup collection, we were beaten by fifteen
minutes. Oh well… Hopefully there will be others. We then drove down to Boys Hall where we had
a little wander. We managed to find one of the geocaches that eluded me a
couple of days ago, but the one by the railway bridge is still on my “to
be hunted down” list. We came home, and I spent a little while
sorting my fishing gear. I really needed a huge bucket for all the baits. I
couldn’t find anything in any of the shops and supermarkets, but today I
unearthed an old plastic lidded dustbin that we used as a toy box in years
gone by. That’ll do. I also looked at the trolley I take fishing.
Other fishermen laugh at my trolley for the simple reason that it has sides
and keeps everything in. “Proper” fishing trollies are flat (with
no sides), and everything is held in place by endless bungee cords. The
perfectly sensible way to lug your tackle about is seen as laughable whilst
the obviously impractical is seen as the way to go. I can only imagine that
most people are taken in by the designer label on the flat trolleys. If any of my loyal readers could explain the
merit of a designer-labelled utterly useless flat plank, please do tell. In
the meantime I’m sticking with what works. "My Boy TM"
phoned. He was building a pergola; could I pop round and help. By “help”
he meant would I hold the bits of wood whilst he hammered and drilled. With "er
indoors TM" off out with her mates for the afternoon I
was at a loose end, so something to keep me occupied was a good thing. It
only took an hour or so to get the thing in place. I came home, and watched a couple of episodes
of “Black Mirror”, then did more Wherigo. Another hour and a half’s
effort gave another minute of game play. As I gave up Wherigo-ing for the day I saw I
had some emails. People had been out looking for the geocaches I hid three
weeks ago. I knew that one specific friend was going out today, and so I’d
asked him to report on any obvious problems or issues. Some people had said
that some of my caches were in the wrong places, others said that the hints
I’d given weren’t helpful. There are those people who, when finding a film
pot in the forest, move it to where they think would be a better place.
Consequently the co ordinates and hints immediately become useless. But I was
told that all was fine with this geo-series. That is an answer that suits me. I watched an episode of “Space 1999”.
Back in the day this was the best TV show ever. Unfortunately it hasn’t stood
the test of time. I shall play some Mah-jongg, then might have
an early night. It’s not been a bad bit of time off work, has it? |
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2 September 2019
(Monday) - Doctor Who Books
I was up rather early today. Too early for
the dogs, both of whom stayed in bed as I watched an episode of "Black
Mirror" as I scoffed my granola. This morning's episode was rather
good. What if detectives could harvest the memories of those who'd witnessed
a crime and play them back to use as evidence in a court? Could you refuse to
provide those memories? What if they incriminated *you* of something
else? Is nothing sacred? I got dressed. I could tell it was
early as Treacle made no attempt to make off with my pants. It was cold as I walked out to my car. I
popped to the co-op where I got some biscuit bars for lunch, then drove off
in the direction of Pembury. As I drove the pundits on the radio were
interviewing Chuka Umunna. I was going to describe him as "the
failed politician Chuka Umunna", but like all
politicians he seems to bounce back from disaster after disaster. Having
narrowly avoided being hoiked out of the Labour party he then started his own
party (which went straight down the pan), and now he's the drivelling
democrap's Treasury and business spokesman. He's also a leading light in what
is currently known as "The Rebel Alliance"; some bunch of
politicians who are desperate to pull the plug on Boris Johnson's plan for a
no-deal Brexit. The pundits on the radio spoke at great
length about "The Rebel Alliance" and their plans. All
of them know what they don't want (a "no deal" Brexit)
however no two of them can agree on what they do want. They should send for Mrs Miller who used to
help run the Boys Brigade camps when I was a lad. When faced with a load of
boys who couldn't agree on what flavour of soup to have (some didn't like
mushroom, some didn't like tomato…) she mixed it all up and served it
out. The fact that before she started everyone liked something was
irrelevant. Because when she finished no one liked anything, and since no one
liked it, everyone was in the same boat and was being treated
equally. Chuka Umunna's rebel alliance could learn from this. There was also talk of how Japan has started commercial
whaling again. Whaling - in this day and age. Why do we have a navy if not
to torpedo this sort of thing? As I drove through Goudhurst my phone
beeped. A new geocache not three miles from work. I drove a little (long)
way out of my way to the designated parking spot only to find that the final
location was half a mile into the woods. I said some swear words and drove in
to work. The First to Find is still waiting to be had
some twelve hours later. Work was work; I did my bit and came home.
Today would have been just another dull day, but today was the day that
Terence Dicks died. He was one of my favourite authors when I was younger.
Nowadays you can see endless re-runs of Doctor Who on the telly and you can
but the DVDs. Back in the day the only way to see any sort of repeat of
Doctor Who was to read the books that he wrote. I had most of them… I wonder what happened to
them? |
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3 September 2019
(Tuesday) - Adventure Labs
I was fast asleep when Treacle decided to
start walking on my head. Having walked across it once, she walked back
again. And again. I wish she wouldn’t do that. I tried to get back to sleep; I eventually
gave up and got up feeling like death warmed up. I made myself some toast and
as I scoffed it I peered into the Internet. Facebook was heaving with
teachers whinging about what a hard life it is having to go back to work.
Doing a six-hour day after six weeks off must have come hard. There were also posts about how the local
council are planning to inspect the bins we put out and leave stickers on
bins with the wrong sort of rubbish in them. It’s getting so you need a
degree in dustbin studies before you dare throw anything away. Ashford
council posted up to one comment on Facebook saying “We're not actually
including blocks of flats and communal bins in this campaign”. Whoops! If
my bins get the thumbs-down I know where I’m chucking my rubbish. I had a load of emails telling me that people
had been out visiting my new series of geocaches. All caches found; no issues
reported. I’m relieved about that; the plan for today had been to go out and
check all was well, but it would seem that all *is* well. What do you do when you get two reports (on
the same day) about the same film pot, one of which says “GPS
co-ordinates twenty metres out” and the other says “GPS co-ordinates
spot on”? What with the vagaries of my work pattern I
was not expected to turn up at work today. Seeing a new type of geo-adventure
had appeared in Hastings Old Town I’d asked if anyone fancied a day out. As
is so often the case, most people were busy, but Gordon was free. I took the
dogs; we all met up on Hastings sea front and had quite a good time. Geocaching
Adventure Lab is a new thing. The idea is that you go somewhere, answer
questions about what you find, and each answer you get right is the
equivalent of finding a film pot under a rock. It has the advantage that
whilst a film pot can (and often does) go missing, providing an answer
should be a relatively easier way to claim a find. The Adventure lab in Hastings was based on
the blue plaques that you find on the front of houses marking where famous
people once lived. Having lived in Hastings for twenty years and worked in
the area where we were walking I found this little tour amazing. I had no
idea that the artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti had lived in Hastings. I didn’t
know that Hastings had once had its own bank based only a few yards from
where I often go on drinking sessions. As always geocaching took me to the
quirky little places. And we got nine joint First to Finds too. Result !! However from a technical perspective the
thing has one or two issues. It has to be done in an “on-line” mode.
When I go hunting Tupperware I either have a GPS unit, or a phone which I set
up at home. The Adventure Lab app requires an active Internet connection and
it eats the battery. My phone used up thirty per cent of its charge in half
an hour. And because the game requires an active Internet connection, I did
struggle a couple of times (interestingly Gordon didn’t). In many ways
the thing reminds me of a Wherigo. Perhaps this will replace them? I’d certainly go do more of these. Having bought three hours of parking (just
in case) we found ourselves back at the car after only half an hour. It
was then that I realised I’d left the car windows open. Whoops! We said our goodbyes and headed homewards. I
stopped off on the way to pick up a geocache that I’d had my eye on for some
time. Having finally figured out where this one actually was I managed to
claim another geo-resuscitation. Go me!! We came home, and I realised Treacle had
stopped shaking her head about. Before we left home she’d been constantly
shaking her head. I’d said that if she was still doing it when we got home
we’d be going to see the vet. Thinking about it, the head-shaking had stopped
when we walked out the door this morning. I wonder what that was all about. I had a spot of lunch whilst watching more “Black
Mirror” then got on with my latest Wherigo project. I amazed myself; in
four hours I got the thing to a stage where I can test it out in the field,
and I got all the cache pages written up. Hopefully I can have it all live by the
weekend. "er indoors TM" is currently
boiling up some dinner. We’ve got cheese in the fridge and a box of wine, and
Bake-Off is on the telly later. And in closing did you know it is eight years
to the day since I first met Fudge… |
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4 September 2019
(Wednesday) - So Dull
Treacle was very restless last night. When
she eventually settled down and stopped stomping about, she then (very
noisily) sucked the duvet cover for an hour or so. I finally got some
quiet about five o’clock. Over brekkie I had a look at the Internet.
Again Amazon were offering me the Kindle edition of “Brave New World”
for a quid, but on clicking the link they wanted a fiver. I’ve asked them
what’s going on; I bet I don’t get a reply. With no emails not getting immediately
deleted I got dressed and took the dogs out. We got about fifty yards from
home when the drizzle started. By the time we got to the park the rain was
rather heavy. As we walked we didn’t see any other dogs at all; no one else
was daft enough to be out. We were soaked by the time we got home. Once home I towelled off the dog using a warm
towel. Warm? The radiator was on. What was that all about? It turned out that
the timer which controls the hot water and the radiators has gone west. I’ve
messaged the plumber. Usually when on a late shift I would go on a
little adventure before work, but the rain had put paid to that. So I put the
kettle on, and watched an episode of “Black Mirror” before setting off
to work. Having got soaked a couple of hours
previously as I'd been out with the dogs I was rather miffed to drive through
glorious sunshine. As I drove the pundits on the radio were
talking about the rise of slavery in present-day UK society. Rather
worrying... I got to work and had a rather busy late
shift... and that was it for today. Yesterday was a rather good day. Today
the highlight was finding that fixing my water heating is going to cost me a
small fortune. Still it's days like today that make me
appreciate the other days that much more... |
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5 September 2019
(Thursday) - Fixing the Timer
I lay awake for quite a lot of last night. It
wasn’t having four dogs (we were dog-sitting for "Daddy’s Little
Angel TM"). I was revisiting the squabbles of three years
ago which made me feel I should leave the astro club. Having been a member
from the start, for some years I’d been increasingly worried about the
direction in which the club was going. On the one hand was me and pretty much
everyone else who wanted a friendly “by-us-and-for-us” club. On the
other hand was one very forceful and vociferous individual who was trying to
turn it into some sort of corporate entity, and would tolerate no dissent.
Any attempts to offer opinions were firmly stamped upon. The phrase “I
disagree with you for the following reasons” was seen by this chap as a
personal attack. He told me that I was “lacking ambition and direction”,
that I was “embarrassingly irrelevant”, that I was “subversive,
manipulative and a leader of negativity”, and went on to personally
attack me in front of family and friends. Random family members (who were
nothing to do with the astro club) would turn up and ask what I’d done to
offend him. Consequently I walked away from the astro
club two years ago. Occasionally over the last two years I would
hear that the club was still having troubles from this chap’s attitude. I had
heard that the club has a new chairman. He is someone else with whom I have
disagreed with in the past, but during those differences this chap seemed to
understand the difference between “I disagree with you for the following
reasons” and a personal attack. Now he’s on the committee the new boss
has been able to see all the previous astro club committee’s on-line “discussions”.
He messaged me last night on behalf of the
club offering a full apology for how I’d been treated, assured me that the
problem had been dealt with, and asked if I would consider re-joining the
club. I shall have to think about that. I made myself some toast and had a look at
Facebook as everyone else snored. There were a lot of “back to school”
photos this morning. There have been all week. I quite like them; it brings
back memories of trying to herd "Daddy’s Little Angel TM"
to school even if it was rather frustrating at the time. One chap had posted
up some meme about how ugly the schoolchildren all looked. I thought that was
rather nasty, but refrained from saying so. I’ve seen that sort of thing
before; those being hateful to the “back to school” photos are invariably
those who’ve never taken any. My piss boiled somewhat when I read about the
Woodchurch
Wagon. Apparently Ashford council has spent a small fortune buying a
minibus for the people of Woodchurch. Apparently people get very lonely when
living in the back of beyond and a minibus will help counteract social
isolation. Bearing in mind that those people living in the back of beyond in
the Woodchurch area are living in houses worth hundreds of thousands (if
not millions) of pounds, why don’t they sell up and move to somewhere
less isolated? I do get cross when my council tax money is
used to subsidise someone who is demonstrably better off than I am. As I looked at the Internet so Treacle sat
with me on the sofa, alternately chewing my shirt and chewing my hand, all
the time looking at her brother Pogo. I’m sure she was showing off that she
felt that she was allowed to chew my shirt and to chew my hand whilst he was
not. But it wasn’t long before "Daddy’s Little Angel TM"
arrived to collect Pogo and Sid. They all set off to the station, and I sat
myself in front of the telly and watched “Black Mirror” until the nice
plumber arrived. The dogs woofed a bit, the nice man did his thing, and ten minutes
later we had a new timer for the central heating and the hot water. I set off to work. It was a rather bright
morning. I did consider having a little geo-adventure on the way, but the
bosses had been good enough to let me take a couple of hours off at very
short notice (to get the plumbing sorted) so I thought it best not to.
As I drove to work the pundits on the radio were talking about the utter
shambles that is British politics. As I understand it Boris Johnson has
effectively sacked twenty Conservative MPs to get rid of what he sees as
a load of troublemakers. He has then tried to call for a general
election in order to get a whole load of new MPs into parliament who will do
what he tells them to do. However in order to call a general election he
needs the consent of two thirds of the House of Commons to agree to this, and
they have said no. Effectively this leaves the Prime Minister comprehensively
poggered. And to think he wanted the job. I got to work. The boss was glad to see me,
and thanked me for coming in. I smiled graciously; it was clear that he
thought that I'd done him a great favour by coming in late. I was of the
opinion that he had done me a favour by letting me come in late. But if he wants to think of me as being the
one who's put himself out, I'm happy to oblige. I did my bit; I even spotted a Mott cell, and
with my bit done, I came home. Once home "er indoors TM"
boiled up a rather good bit of dinner which we washed don with some of the
red wine out of that box we got. As we scoffed we watched the documentary
about women by Kathy Burke. Have you seen it? It is well worth watching.
It certainly made us think. |
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6 September 2019
(Friday) - Rostered Day Off
The internet seemed to be broken as I
attempted to peer into it as I scoffed my toast his morning. It does that
from time to time. I pulled the plug on the router and re-started it. The
internet was soon fixed, but there wasn’t much worth looking at this morning. There were a couple of arguments kicking off
on some of the Lego Facebook pages I follow. What is the collective term for
more than one Lego brick? “Lego” or “Legos”? I would ask “who
cares” but demonstrably quite a few people do judging by the row that was
going on. And what are Lego sets worth? People have been posting photos of
sets they wish to sell with a comment along the lines of “make me an offer”.
And then taking umbrage at what they see as insultingly low offers. Someone
else pointed out that it takes seconds to find out the going rate by looking
on eBay, and a very nasty argument ensued. (Lego?! – some people will squabble about
anything). I got my bits and pieces and dogs together
and we drove out to Ripper’s Wood. I once had some geocaches in there. I
archived them six months ago so if anyone else wanted to hide caches there,
then they could. No one took the opportunity, so I’ve used the area for
something of a geo-experiment. I like writing Wherigos. They are little
adventure games that you play on your phone. As you play the game you move
from location to location; finding a geocache at the end. People either love
them or pretend they haven’t got the technology to play them. But one thing
is true – compared to finding the average film pot under a rock, they can be
a bit of a faff. So I’ve created a Wherigo adventure which takes less than an
hour to play, during the course of which you get to find six film pots under
rocks. If this proves popular I shall use this idea again. We eventually got to Ripper’s Wood; the roads
round Ashford were very congested this morning. And once at the woods we had
a really good walk. I got to hide my film pots and test my Wherigo; the dogs
got to do their own thing. And we didn’t meet another soul as we walked. As I walked I had a phone call from the local
hospital’s complaints department. I’m waiting for a nasal re-bore to get rid
of these annoying nasal polyps. I was due for surgery the very week I was
starting my new job (in 2017). I said I couldn’t make that date; the
nice lady on the phone said she’d re-schedule. Because that hospital seems to
have a policy of not answering phone calls I wasn’t able to get through to
them for months to chivvy them up. When I finally got through they told me (rather
rudely) that since I hadn’t been in touch they had taken me off the
waiting list and if I wanted the surgery I could start again at the bottom of
the waiting list. It took ages to get back onto their lists; in the meantime
I’ve had two appointments, but I don’t want appointments. I want my nose
fixed so that I can breathe. I formally complained yesterday, and today
someone phoned to see what my problem was. I explained it all in great length
and they said they’d look into it. I explained that when I had the camera up
my bum all was fine, but the last time I had my nose re-bored, things only
happened when I put in complaints. The nice lady on the phone said she was
fed up with hearing that the ENT people don’t reply to phone calls. That speaks volumes, doesn’t it? We came home through traffic that was still very
heavy. I made one or two trivial tweaks to the Wherigo cartridge, and sent
the whole thing off to the geo-feds for their approval (or thumbs-down)
and then set the washing machine going on some shirts and went up the road to
get a sandwich from the corner shop. As I scoffed dinner and then ironed I watched
the last two episodes of “Black Mirror”. For a show which started so
well and continued incredibly well, the last two episodes were rather
rubbish. With telly watched I set the washing machine
loose on my pants, and took the dogs out. I had this idea that the traffic
hold-ups in town would have cleared, we could go on a quick little
geo-adventure and get petrol on the way home. We got petrol and had the
little geo-adventure, but the traffic hadn’t cleared. What should have been a
twenty minute outing took well over an hour. Once home I started provisional programming
on another Wherigo project. Two hours later "er indoors TM"
came home. It was as she came home that Fudge started quivering and shaking.
I’m hoping it was excitement at "er indoors TM"
coming home; it didn’t last long but it was rather worrying at the time. He’s
since charged round the garden shouting and has eaten his dinner so I’m going
to assume all is well and keep an eye on him. But the slightest recurrence
and he’s going to the vet. Mind you he is so scared of the vet that going
there induced shaking and quivering. I wonder if the vet does home visits? |
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7 September 2019
(Saturday) - Early Shift
I woke five minutes before the alarm was due
to go off. I had a shave; I had the bathroom heater on as I scraped. Summer
is on the way out. As I scoffed toast I had a look at the
Internet. I saw that during the night an eBay auction I’d been bidding on had
ended. My bid had been the only bid, and I’d won a 1970s classic Lego car. I
intend to find space for it on a shelf in the living room somewhere. "er
indoors TM" will never notice. And by winning this
auction I got twenty-five Nectar points too. I saw I had an email from my web browser.
Apparently the web site I occasionally use for dieting purposes has been
hacked and it is possible someone has maliciously accessed my data. If anyone
*really* wants to see my calorific intake for random weeks, they are
welcome to it. Personally I would have thought that there were far more
interesting things to find on-line? I got myself organised and set off to work.
Effectively my Saturday was yesterday. With only five more weekends off for
the rest of the year, this is going to be the way of things for me for a
while. People often give my stick about how always seem to be off work. I
work just as much as anyone else… just at different times. Where most people
do nine to five on Mondays to Fridays, I do the same about of hours but at
random times at any time. It was a rather cold morning today. As I
drove the pundits on the radio were still talking about Brexit. I must admit
that I was wrong in my predictions. I was confident that having poggered the
matter up, Theresa May would have made such a mess that her successor (probably Boris
Johnson – I got that bit right) would be hailed as a hero for having made
the most of a bad situation. Whilst I was right in that Boris Johnson did
succeed her, it would seem that he is hell-bent on making a bad situation
utterly crap beyond the wildest dreams of even his staunchest critics. There was also talk about how India's Moon mission has
gone west. But despite having presumably pranged the thing, the Indian
Prime Minister was talking of having another go. India having a mission to the Moon? I've cancelled my subscription to ActionAid.
I'm not giving aid to a country that can afford to send probes to the Moon
when my own clearly cannot. I got to work. I had a rather busy morning. I
was glad when it was going home time. Once home "er indoors TM"
and I took the dogs out for a little walk where I started provisionally
working on my next Wheri-project. We had a good little walk. Once home I had
a little look at the GPX file I’d generated on our walk, but decided against
doing anything with it. "er indoors TM" is boiling up
a pasta bake. I wonder if there’s any of that red wine left in that box? |
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8 September 2019
(Sunday) - Another Early Shift
When "er indoors TM"
wasn’t snoring last night, the sound of Treacle sucking the duvet kept me
awake. Sometimes I wonder if my little girl dog is a bit “special”? I got up (whilst it was still dark),
and as I scoffed my toast I had a look at the Internet. A cousin had
suggested I might like to follow the antics of his swimming club on Facebook.
I clicked the “like” button out of politeness; it must be forty years
since I was last in any swimming club. I had a little look and was amazed to
find that my old swimming club
is still going strong. Not a lot else had happened on the Internet
this morning, but it was only six o’clock on a Sunday morning when I looked. As I got dressed I could hear next door’s
dogs whimpering. They’d been crying all night; had they been left alone?
Treacle wasn’t bothered; she carried on sucking the duvet. It was rather cold as I drove to Pembury. I
had the car's heating on. As I drove the radio was featuring some drivel in
which some rabbi or other was showing the difference between good music,
challenging music and bad music. It all sounded bloody awful to me. Usually on a Sunday much of the talk on the
radio is of a religious nature. It wasn't this morning. Again the Brexit
debacle dominated. It would seem that the politician Amber Rudd is now in the
limelight. Having survived being given the bum's rush as Home Secretary she's
now resigned as Secretary for something-or-other (and also jacked it in
with the Conservative party) in protest about Boris Johnson's being a
knob (I present the edited version here). She described the Prime
Minister as being "the life and soul of a party, but not someone
you'd want a lift home with afterwards", and she said she feels she
can no longer be a part of the Conservative party as it currently stands.
From what I've seen of the Prime Minister, this sums him up entirely. As I
once said about David Cameron, love the person or loathe the person, the
office of Prime Minister deserves respect. I don’t think Mr Johnson’s premiership
is commanding any. I wonder if Ms Rudd has made a principled
stand on something in which she believes, or if she is just posturing for
future political gain? Time will tell. It always does. I got to work; I did my bit. I came home
again. "er indoors TM" and I took the dogs for a
little walk out through the Godinton estate. Back in March I’d hidden a
series of geocaches out there, and one of them had been reported as missing (three
times). I didn’t think it was actually missing. We walked for half a mile
to find it was exactly where I’d put it in March. Oh well… the dogs liked the
walk. We made our way back to the car through a field full of very
odd-looking sheep. I’ve never seen so many sheep with their ears cocked up. As we walked we met a “rather delightful”
woman with her dog. She ranted that we should keep our f…ing dogs away from
her dog. I (very loudly) told her to f.. off, and everyone seemed
happy with the arrangement. Her dog didn’t seem at all perturbed. If her dog
really shouldn’t be bothered by other dogs then the mutt should have had a
yellow collar or a yellow harness or a yellow lead or just anything yellow. That way
other dog owners know there is an issue. Some people shouldn’t be allowed to
have dogs… Once home Treacle refused to eat her dinner.
She’s getting *very* picky just lately; quite often she’ll only eat if
she is hand-fed every scrap. Fudge however seems to have become quite the
gannet. He’s recovered completely from whatever it was that gave him the
shakes on Friday. We then had our dinner; "er indoors TM"
had boiled up some rather good scran. As we devoured it, we watched a couple
of episodes of “Timeless” via my phone’s app and the ChromeCast. The
Amazon Firestick seems to be poggered. And I was hoping to start watching
Amazon Prime stuff soon too… |
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9 September 2019
(Monday) - Stuff
A rather restless night; when Treacle doesn’t
sleep, nor does anyone else. Ironically she settled just as it was time for
me to leap into action. Over some toast I watched the first episode
of “Inside No. 9” which was rather odd. Mind you it was made by the
same people who made “The League of Gentlemen”. No morning is complete without a rummage
round the Internet, One of the children from the kite festival days has had a
little baby. I say “children”; Lucy must be in her mid-twenties now.
Where have the years gone? I had an email about a geocache I hid seven
years ago. It was broken, but having been found over a hundred and fifty
times, it has had its day. It had only been found three times this year; it
was just in the way of another potential cache that might get found more
often. I archived it. I sent a birthday wish to my nephew (whose
birthday I was sure was in December) and set off for work. It was another cold day as I left the house
this morning. And it was raining too. And the roads were very busy. As I drove to work the pundits on the radio
were talking about Brexit yet again. Apparently despite having had the law
changed so that the Prime Minister can't just say "sod it"
and declare a no-deal Brexit, the general consensus is that he is going to do
so anyway. There was then some discussion about how the country should
proceed when the Prime Minister is just doing whatever he likes. Apparently
Prime Ministrers aren't supposed to do whatever takes their fancy; I
would have thought that doing so was one of the perks of being the numero uno
honcho, but what do I know? There was also talk about plans to eradicate
malaria from the entire world within the next thirty years. Those talking
about it seemed blissfully unaware that this had been tried before but hadn't
worked. I got to work; I did my bit. Whereas most
people might be having that "Monday" feeling today,
effectively today was my Wednesday. Mind you I still felt rather hacked off
with having to roll up at work. I don't dislike my job, but I'm a tad fed up
with it. I would like to retire and do something different. If I had my time again I wouldn't choose a
workplace that never closes, and certainly wouldn't choose one that has
"red alerts" at regular intervals. Red alerts are all very
well on Star Trek, but can be rather nerve-wracking in reality. At tea break I had an email... well, lots of
emails. My new Wherigo series had gone live, as had a couple of other series
of geocaches in the county. I had emails about them, I could see the
descriptions on my phone's app, but I couldn't see anything on the app's map.
I need to see where these things are on a map. For a going out-and-about
hobby, a map is rather crucial. I fought with the phone for all of my
morning's break and all my lunch break. It was just as I was heading
home this evening that I had a stroke of genius. I disconnected my phone
from the staff wi-fi and used my mobile data. The problem was
immediately solved. There was something about the work's wi-fi that didn't
like the geo-app. I'm glad that problem's now solved. "er indoors TM" has gone
bowling. Now my Wherigo project has been accepted by the geo-feds I might
just start on a slightly more ambitious one… |
|
10 September 2019
(Tuesday) - Bake Off
I slept like a log and woke feeling full of
beans and ready to go. I looked at the clock and saw it was only two o’clock.
I saw every hour of the night after that. I gave up trying to sleep shortly
after six o’clock, and after some toast watched another episode of “Inside
No.9” which was watchable (I suppose). With telly watched I had a look at the
Internet. Pretty much nothing much had changed since last night. As I drove to work I twice found myself
behind different tankers; both of which were used by various companies to
empty cess pits. I thought it rather odd that tankers carrying that which had
been extracted from cess pits would also be bearing large logos saying "Non
Hazardous Material". If the gunge out of a cess pit isn't
hazardous, what on Earth is? As I drove I listened to the radio. The world
would seem to be in uproar at the Prime Minister's having shut down
Parliament. However everyone seemed to be glossing over the fact that he'd
merely closed it four days earlier than it would have been closed anyway. What amazed me today was the news reports of
the latest Honours list. Outgoing Prime Ministers are allowed to give out
honours and awards when they go (it is one of the perks of the job). I
would have thought this would have been a golden opportunity to reward those
who actively contribute to society. But I didn't hear mention of anyone to
whom I would have given recognition. CBEs had been given to the two
geniuses who'd overseen the most recent general election in which Teresa
May's government was firmly kicked in the knackers. And a knighthood has been
given to the bloke who devised that Brexiit deal that Parliament threw
out three times. Who would have thought that such incompetence would
be rewarded so well? On the strength of that, the Downing Street
tea lady should have been made God-Emperor of the universe. The chap who ran the Boys Brigade (for
years) when I was a lad has never received anything from an ungrateful
nation. The team who run our local scout group got nothing either.
Meanwhile people ballsing up a job (for which they get paid more than
I get paid) get honours. Funny old world. Work was much the same as ever. I did my bit,
and came home as I do. Over dinner we watched “Bake Off”. I
absolutely love that show. When it first started all those years ago (like
everyone else) I was wondering who would be bothered with a show about making
cakes, biscuits and bread. Now I sit there intently watching the bakers'
every moves, earnestly telling "er indoors TM"
that they are about to make a pig's ear of that ganache. Or I would if I knew what a ganache was... |
|
11 September 2019
(Wednesday) - It Didn't Rain (Much)
I forgot to set the dishwasher going last night.
There was a minor disaster this morning when the thing didn’t work.
Eventually it turned out that "er indoors TM" had
inadvertently pulled the thing’s plug when rummaging in the cupboard for a
sponge. I didn’t like to ask what she wanted a sponge for. As I scoffed my toast I peered into the
Internet. There was quite a lot of posts on Facebook about remembering the
9-11 bombings that took place in America eighteen years ago. Mind you none of
my American friends had posted anything on the matter; it was all from people
who’d never been near the place for years. I had some emails. Amazon were recommending
that I buy that which I bought from them last weekend. I also saw that my new
series of Wherigos had been visited five times over the last day or so. I was
pleased about that. Those who hunt film pots either love or hate Wherigos;
I’m pleased these ones seem to be popular. I might just make some more along
similar lines. I took the dogs for a little walk. We went
round Viccie park – we hadn’t been there for a little while. As we walked we
saw the nice ladies of the Jehovah’s Witnesses sheltering from the drizzle
under a tree. It was good to see they were covering their charms. Far more in
keeping with ladies of an ecclesiastical calling. As we walked we only met a couple of other
dogs. There were no “episodes”. Everyone played nicely. Much as I miss
having Pogo with us, not having him along makes for much easier walks. And as we walked out of the co-op field we
saw OrangeHead in the distance. She waved nicely at us. As we walked home my phone rang. It was the
local hospital with a date for my nasal surgery. Having been waiting since
January 2017 to get a date and not having phone calls returned, last Friday I
put in a formal complaint. Amazing what a formal complaint achieves… I’ve
been booked in for the op in just under three weeks’ time. I immediately emailed the boss to see if that
would be OK with work. She replied right away saying that it would be fine,
and that she would arrange to cover the late shifts and night shifts… I make a point of not blogging about work. I
did so when I used to work “somewhere else” and got a formal
disciplinary warning for saying that working all night made me tired. I won’t
say very much about my current place of work only to mention that I wish I’d
moved to work there years go. My previous boss wouldn’t have been anywhere
near so co-operative. The plan for today had been to go fishing.
But with rain forecast, "My Boy TM" and I decided
we didn’t want to get wet. So we drove out to The
Foundry for a rather good bit of brekkie. We came home via the tackle shop just for a
look-see. I only spent forty quid, so I suppose that wasn’t bad. When I was a
lad I used to finance my fishing from my pocket money. You couldn’t do that
these days. I came home, and set about working on my
latest Wherigo project. This one is a re-hash of something I’ve done before.
I created about five minutes of game play and it took pretty much all of the
afternoon except when I slipped out to the vets with Fudge. For some time the vet has been telling me
that Fudge is overweight. He’s not overweight now. He’s lost quite a bit of
weight over the last few months. I have no idea why; He seems fine; he’s just
a shadow of his former self. The vet gave him the once over and could find
nothing wrong. She recommended that we did blood tests to check kidney and
liver function. I readily agreed; after all that is something with which I
have a passing acquaintance. As I got to the point of having done six
hours Wherigo programming (and my head was about to explode) I had a
message. A fellow Tupperware-hunter from Cambridge was planning to come to
Ashford to play the Wherigos that I’ve written. There’s incentive to get more
ones done. "er indoors TM" flew in,
grabbed some stuff, and flew out again leaving me “home alone”. I was
still feeling rather full from that full English brekkie that I’d eaten this
morning so I popped over the road for some crisps and a pot of dip for
dinner. The plan for today had been to go fishing but
we cancelled because of the weather forecast. It didn’t rain that much today
really… |
|
12 September 2019
(Thursday) - Yus M'Lady
Over brekkie I watched another episode of “Inside
No.9”. It passed half an hour I suppose. I sparked up my lap-top. Nothing much had
happened on Facebook at all overnight, but I did see that the Gerry Anderson
fan page I follow was advertising a bargain. You can now pre-order a 1:6
scale model of “Parker” (Lady Penelope’s manservant from “Thunderbirds).
The manufacturers are taking orders and a deposit of “only” thirty
pounds secures you one. Thirty pounds? I had a look at the
website. They want two hundred quid for the actual thing. Apparently this
is a limited edition… limited to as many as they can sell perhaps? It never
fails to amaze me how people will pay good money for this sort of thing. I had a look at my emails. A new geocache had
gone live overnight. It wasn’t at all far from where I work when I am working
in Maidstone; such a shame I’m in at Pembury this week. I drove to work through a rather bright
morning. It was far too beautiful a day to be listening to all the doom and
gloom on the radio. The pundits on the radio were talking about "Operation
Yellowhammer"; the government's worst-case disaster planning
in case Brexit goes seriously tits-up. On the one hand it all seems
rather worrying. On the other hand it is as well that some plans are being
made. They then wheeled on the Labour party's
deputy leader who tried to savage the government for all the horror stories
that are circulating about the Brexit planning, but the chap refused
point-blank to say what the Labour party's stance on Brexit actually is. The
implication was that they didn't have one. There was also a lot of talk about how
prosecutions for rape are going through the roof, but convictions for rape
are at an all-time low. Are the guilty getting off? Are the innocent being
charged? I don't know. I got to work. I did chuckle when a colleague
had to suddenly take an hour or two off. A minor family emergency. Having
thought her son had run away from school it turned out that he hadn’t run away
at all. The boy had had enough of the place and had announced that he had now
left school. He’s only nine years old. I think the most recent fruit of my
loins once tried the same trick. Once home we took the dogs for a little walk,
then "er indoors TM" went off to craft club. I
shall do some more Wherigo programming… in a little while… |
|
13 September 2019
(Friday) - Results
I slept reasonably
well I suppose… I did wake with something of a sense of feeling rather pissed
off. Today wasn’t just any old day. As a lad in the seventies I used to watch
the TV show “Space 1999”. Set in a rather wonderful and fantastic
future, the show followed the adventures of a bunch of people after a
terrible accident happened on September 13th 1999. It is now
exactly twenty years after that date and the future hasn’t turned out quite
as any of us had expected. I watched an episode
of “Inside No.9” then looked at an Internet in which absolutely
nothing at all had happened overnight. As I drove to
work I listened to the radio. I caught the end of an article about how
astro-turf is *really* bad for the environment. I'd been vaguely
considering covering the garden in the stuff seeing how mowing the lawn is a
pain, and how Treacle's tiddle kills the grass. Maybe I won't? There was also talk
about how the Speaker of the House of Commons is lambasting the Prime
Minister, and the Speaker was saying how he will be using Parliamentary
processes to thwart the government's plans for a no-deal Brexit. Bearing in
mind that Parliament is now closed, he'll have a job. This got me thinking.
Parliament is now closed. When it is open, what does it actually achieve? MPs
acting in government run the country (some do it well, some not so),
but in Parliament? There is a *lot* of talk, and a lot of hot air
generated but precious little else. Let's see how what difference
Parliament's being closed for the next few weeks makes to the running of the
country, and then ask if we really need it. I did chuckle when I
heard about a Norfolk
pub's landlord had the arse because his pub was no longer in the Good
Beer Guide. He's had a whinge at his regular customers about it. but do
they have any say in the matter? When I was in the Campaign for Real Ale
I never once had a say in which pubs were nominated for awards. The local
committee would make their decisions and tell the membership what they'd
decided later. I ranted about this on May 15th 2008. Have things changed? I got as far as
Goudhurst then had to take a little diversion. There is a very narrow and
sharp bend in the road by the church there, and some idiot lorry driver had
got his lorry wedged. Some might feel sorry for the chap; I don't. How many
huge signs had he driven past telling him the road wasn't suitable for
lorries of that size? As I paid I rather
upset the old bat on the till. They gave me a little voucher with which I
could indicate which charity I thought Tesco should support. She wasn't at
all happy when I told her that I didn't think that the air ambulance or the
local hospice were charities. All the time do-gooders are funding the air
ambulance and the hospice, no government of any political party is going to
fund them properly. What wound up the old bat the most was that she couldn't
disagree with what I'd said. I went in to work and
shared Quality Street with everyone. I thought I might be Mr Popular until
they ran out... amazingly the tub was still half-full at going home
time. I took a little
longer getting home than usual. Just as I was leaving work the vet phoned to
discuss the results of Fudge’s blood tests. The vet said that she was glad
that I had a medical background as the results weren’t conclusive but… I
agreed with her. Provisionally it does look like early stage chronic renal (kidney)
disease. The next stage will be to get some urine to confirm that the reason
for the low protein levels in his blood is that he’s peeing it out. I shall
do that in a day or so. From there it might be ultrasound examination, but at
that stage we will have a treatment plan. I only stopped the
car twice on the way home to sob pathetically. Which is silly of me. I
thought there was something wrong with him but I had no idea what. Now we
know what is wrong we can come up with a treatment plan. Did I ever mention
that I never wanted a dog? |
|
14 September 2019
(Saturday) - Early Shift
It was rather dark when I got up this
morning. Having spent quite some time fighting with my latest Wherigo project
last night I'd got it to a point where I was ready for one final test before
trying it for real. I did that test over brekkie this morning. The run
through took about ten minutes. Fortunately for my nerves it all went well. As I fiddled about so Fudge was snoring. Last
night "er indoors TM" posted a video of him
running around like a thing possessed. He doesn't know he's got chronic
kidney disease, and even if he does he's certainly not letting it bother him
like I'm letting it bother me. Having successfully tested my Wherigo I saw
that absolutely nothing had happened on the Internet overnight, so I got
dressed and set off in the general direction of Maidstone. As I drove to work I listened to the radio.
The morning farming program was on and was talking about fly fishing. As is
so often the case, the fly fishermen talked about the coarse fishermen (the
sort of fishing that I do) as though we were the dog turd that they had
just trodden in. Just as this finished I arrived at a post box
in Maidstone. In theory there was a geocache there. There might well be; but
I couldn't find it. I sulked and drove off to get petrol. Interestingly
petrol is six pence per litre cheaper in Maidstone than it is in Tunbridge
Wells. As I went from the petrol station to work the pundits on the radio
were talking about how a couple of huge asteroids are narrowly missing
crashing into Earth later today. It amazed me that those on the radio
treated the whole thing as a matter of hilarity. Anything remotely science-y
is seen as the radio presenters as a subject of ridicule, but the antics of
the politicians (which are forgotten by the next day) are treated as
matters of grave importance. Just as I got to work so my phone beeped. The
geo-feds had given my wherigo plans the once-over and had found two
problems. Neither would seem to be insurmountable (I was
pleased about that). I got on with work and sulked. I had hoped to
have been able to get to today's geo-meet. But having been off for most of
the weekends in August, those who had covered me them were off on their
weekends away today. I was pleased when the relief arrived. I came
home, and we took the dogs for a walk. Having done all the testing I could
with my Wherigo we took it for field trials. There are one or two little
hiccups to be sorted, but I can do that over the next few days. I wonder what’s for dinner… |
|
15 September 2019
(Sunday) - Another Early Shift
Having had a glass or two of wine last night
I slept like a log. I woke to find "er indoors TM"
and the dogs were still out for the count. Over brekkie I watched another episode of
"Inside No.9" and found myself thinking; what *would*
you do if you realised that you'd killed the wrong person? I sparked up my lap-top and had a look at the
Internet. Using super-human restraint I didn't kick off on a squabble but...
Recently on one of the geocaching pages someone had given notice
that they intended to archive one of their series of geocaches and
replace it with a new one. I said that I felt this was a good thing to do as
(realistically) after eighteen months, most people would have done any
geo-series in Kent. Another local hunter of Tupperware disagreed, and said
that his series of caches was still being regularly found many years
after it had been put out. I had a little look at the geo-website. That
person's oldest series has only attracted two visits this year. Some of their
other old series are equally rarely walked, and quite a few of their caches
on the older series would seem to have disappeared. Some of these are up
for resuscitation having not been found in over a year. Why not archive and replace and give everyone
a new walk to do? I drafted a reply and deleted it. Taking care to let sleeping dogs lie (this
time literally rather than metaphorically) I got dressed and set off for
work. As I drove the pundits on the radio were broadcasting from a whisky
distillery in Ireland. I wish I knew why whisky was so popular; it tastes
horrible. it is my ambition to find a brand of whisky that tastes better than
"vile". There was also talk about ex Prime Minister
David Cameron's recently released memoirs in which he has been somewhat
vicious to the current Prime Minister. Those on the radio seem to have
overlooked the fact that this is what ex Prime Ministers do. Edward Heath
knifed Margaret Thatcher in the back several times. Mrs Thatcher could have been
a lot more helpful to John Major... I got to work and did my thing It was a
surprisingly busy day. As I worked my phone beeped. A message from the
geo-feds. Yesterday they’d told me that one of the locations that I was
planning to use in my latest Wherigo was actually in someone’s back garden.
Whoops. Yesterday evening we took the dogs out and on our walk I measured
those co-ordinates again. I was told that the new measurements were OK. With work done I came home. "er
indoors TM" had gone to some beano in Hyde Park, so I’d
been left “home alone”. I loaded the dogs into the boot of the car (they
seem to like being “boot dogs”), we collected "My Boy TM"
and the fierce one, and we all went down to Orlestone woods for a little
walk. The first fruit on my loin claims he’s never been there before. I think
they will go again. We had a good walk and I
took a few photos. As we walked we met some other dogs. Big
dogs. Great big dogs. Humungous great big dogs that could have a cart-horse
in a fight. Tiny little Rolo (half yorkie-half chihuahua) tried to
pick a fight with them. For all that he is tiny, he is very much the top dog
in the family wolf-pack. I’d not realised this, but when the dogs are all
together, Rolo gets aggressive towards other (non-family) dogs as he
tries to protect his pack. Silly thing! We came home; I got myself a bag of crisps
for dinner and watched the first episode of “The i-Land”; a new thing
on Netflix. So far it seems to be a cross between “Lord of the Flies”
and “Lost”. And with telly watched I put the finishing touches to my
latest Wherigo project. That only took two hours. I *think* it is now ready to go. The
plan is to test it on Tuesday… I wonder if I will actually do so? |
|
16 September 2019
(Monday) - Taking the Pee
Having gone to sleep cuddling Fudge like a
teddy bear, I was woken in the night by Treacle's crying. With him on the bed
she was reluctant to jump up. So I picked her up, put her at the end of the
bed and settled her. I dozed off and woke to find Fudge had gone
off to his basket. Over brekkie I watched an episode of "Inside
No. 9" which was set four hundred years ago in a witch trial. Did
they *really* burn people at the stake for supposedly being a witch. Did it
never occur to anyone that a *real* witch would be able to zap her accusers
with thunderbolts and would have nothing to fear from a trial? As I watched telly so I sorted out the pants
that the tumble-drier had dried last night. What a riveting life I
lead... As I drove to work the pundits on the radio
were talking about global warming. We all know it is happening. Opinion (of
those who *aren't* entirely retarded) is pretty much unanimous on what
needs to be done. So why aren't we doing it? There was also talk of a government
initiative to reduce knife crime. Schoolkids are being shown the consequences
of knife crime. Good. A pilot trial in the midlands seems to be working, and
there is talk of rolling it out across the country. Let's hope so. I got to work for the early shift. For all
that today is actually a Monday, what with having worked both days of the
last two weekends and only having had one day off mid-week, today could have
been anything to me. I got on with my daily round, and at lunch time realised
I'd forgotten to make myself a sandwich. I eventually got one from the shop
run by the league of fiends (!); I’m sure they mean well. An early start made from an early finish. I
came home and took the dogs out. While we walked I thought I might collect a
urine sample from Fudge. The vet needs one to confirm the diagnosis of kidney
failure. Have you ever tried to collect pee from a
dog? It was surprisingly tricky bearing in mind
that Fudge is a dog who is continually pissing. The vet said she wanted about
five millilitres; I managed to catch three drops during the hour’s walk round
the park. With "er indoors TM"
off bowling I put the finishing touches to my Wherigo project. The plan is to
go stick the film pots under some rocks tomorrow. I think I shall spend the rest of the evening
slobbing in front of the telly… Today has been rather dull. |
|
17 September 2019
(Tuesday) - Rostered Day Off
I didn’t really sleep that well; I spent most
of the night fretting about exactly how I was going to obtain copious amounts
of piss from a small dog who is renown for only doing a couple of drops of
the stuff at a time. Over brekkie I watched another episode of “Inside
No. 9” which was set in a Samaritan’s call centre. I once volunteered to
help with the Samaritans; after an initial chat I never heard from them
again. Perhaps they didn’t want me? When I’ve mentioned this in the past the
phrase “Lemming Tuesday” has been mentioned. I then sparked up my lap-top to have a
look-see at what I’d missed overnight. I was asked to like a local ice-cream
van’s Facebook page. Looking at that page I was directed to the Facebook
pages of other local ice-cream vans. That really is a sign of the times, isn’t it? I had a look at my emails. I smiled. The head
honchos at geocaching dot com have given me five Adventure Caches to do with
as I will. An Adventure Cache is basically a phone game in which you go to a
location and ask a question. Getting the answer right gives you the
geo-smiley-face. For those who speak geocaching, an Adventure Cache is
effectively a virtual Wherigo. Having now completed my latest Wheri-project
this will give me something to do over the next few weeks. Fudge came downstairs and asked to go
outside. I followed him, piss pot in hand. Every time he sprinkled I shoved
the pot into the spray. I ended up with a good fifteen (or so) millilitres
of dog pee in my pot, but I dread to think how much I got over my hands. As I
tried to collect his pee, Fudge looked at me (several times) in
absolute amazement. Sometimes it is *very* clear that the antics of
humans leaves him completely baffled. I went down the road to the dentist; I had an
appointment with the hygienist. I took a seat and waited. And waited. My
appointment time came and went. Just as I was about to ask if they’d
forgotten me (again) some woman burst through the door (as if she’d
been fired from a cannon, gibbered incomprehensibly and disappeared behind
the desk. Ten minutes later this woman appeared in dental costume and made a
fair stab at pronouncing my name. She led me through to one of the dental
torture chambers and started gibbering incomprehensibly again. I *think*
she was saying something about having missed the train and that this was only
her third day in the job, but I could have been wrong. She then spent ten
minutes going through all the cupboards in the room before trying to drown me
in the dentist’s chair. Usually there is a dental nurse brandishing some
suction device. Today I just had this mad woman gushing water all over me.
She would drench me for a couple of minutes, then go rummaging in all the
cupboards. Twice she left the room for no adequately explored reason; leaving
me laid back in the chair. Perhaps she really is new to the job; I won’t
complain just yet. I then took Fudge’s pee to the vets. There
was a minor kerfuffle as they announced that the pee had to be less than two
hours old. No one had told me anything about that. They took the pee and said
they would have a go. For a hundred and thirty quid I hoped they would have a
bloody good go. I came home, and took the dogs out to
Challock. Having finally got the Wherigo project all done, it was time to
hide the pots. We had a rather good walk; as we walked we didn’t meet up with
anyone at all. As I walked I tested the Wherigo cartridge and it worked fine
(again). We came home and I told the geo-feds that it
was all ready to go live. I had a quick sandwich, then went out with
"My Boy TM". He’d heard of a lake not that far from
home that was new to us. We drove out for a little look-see. There are two
lakes there. One has been recently dug out and looks like it has been
recently dug out. But the established lake looks rather pretty. We shall have
to have a day fishing there at some stage. We came home, and I spent the afternoon
ironing whilst watching episodes of “The i-Land” on Netflix. It seems
to have got better as it has gone along. "er indoors TM" will be home
soon. Bake-Off is on later… I’ve been rather busy on a rostered day off. |
|
18 September 2019
(Wednesday) - Covered in Mud
I slept like a log – I usually do after a
couple of glasses of red wine. I woke to find both dogs on the bed, and for
once they had arranged themselves so they weren’t taking up as much space as
was physically possible. Over brekkie I watched the last episode of “The
i-Land”; I didn’t realise there were only seven episodes of it. Now I’ve
seen the lot it wasn’t bad, but (like most things on telly) it wasn’t
really an original story. It had ideas that were old in science-fiction
before I was born. I had a look at the Internet to see if the
comment I made last night had received any replies. I’d been thinking about
this Adventure Labs thingy that geocaching dot com had given me. There is one
of these in Hastings based on the blue plaques that English Heritage put on
houses. I walked it last week with Gordon. I was amazed at how many famous
people had lived in Hastings old town. I thought I might shamelessly steal
the idea and have a little tour of the blue plaques in Ashford. However I
only knew of one, so last night I asked on one of the local groups if anyone
knew of any others of these plaques in Ashford. There are a few – possibly enough for me to
use for this project. As I browsed Facebook I also saw some piccies
of the new house into which one of my son’s mates has just moved. It is
beautiful. It is huge. He’s (apparently) paid a deposit of thirty
thousand pounds, and is paying a mortgage of over a thousand pounds a month
for the next thirty years. He earns double what I earn, and he drills holes
in the road. If I had my time again I would *definitely*
choose a different line of work. Money might not buy happiness, but it allows
you to be miserable in comfort. As I drove to work the pundits on the radio
were talking about that idiot Jeremy Corbyn. As a life-long leftie it
bothers me that I think of Mr Corbyn as "that idiot Jeremy Corbyn”.
He's now announced that a future Labour government will come up with a Brexit
deal of its own and offer the public a choice of his deal or of no Brexit.
Bearing in mind that the best political minds of our time haven't come up
with anything acceptable to anyone in the last three years, I can't see
"that idiot" coming up with anything. Apparently he is going
to remain neutral between his scheme and not leaving the EU. Whether this is
because of impartiality, or because he hasn't a clue what he is doing remains
unclear. I stopped off at Aldi in Aylesford. I got
there a couple of minutes before they opened, and (as usual) the
toothless half-wit was acting as self-appointed doorman, and was rather
disappointed that no one was taking any notice of him. I went in for shower gel and came out with
what looks like a lifetime's supply of bog-roll and some telescopic pruning
shears. I am going to give not-so-nice-next-door's clematis a haircut it
won't forget. I went in to work. As I worked I got a
message. The Wherigo project I created recently had gone live, and people had
been out and had a go. All eight caches have been found, so I shall take that
to mean that what I created works OK. And then the vet phoned. Fudge's wee sample (that
I took in yesterday) was full of protein. No surprises there; the level
of the stuff in his blood is incredibly low. The stuff has to be
going somewhere. The next step it an ultrasound examination of
his kidneys. It is unlikely that there is a kidney infection, but there might
be a stone which is making the organs play up. That is booked for next week.
In the meantime the vet suggested we carry on as we have been doing for the
last few weeks and months. Fudge certainly has been doing just that; none of
this seems to be bothering him very much. As I drove home so "er indoors TM"
sent a message. I met up with her at the river in Great Chart where the dogs
had a spuddle. Treacle jumped up at me once or twice – those trousers I
washed yesterday are going back in the wash again this evening… |
|
19 September 2019
(Thursday) - Advent Calendars
I was woken at half past two when "er
indoors TM" loudly announced “Treacle! Stop!” Ironically
no one seems to have any idea what Treacle was supposedly doing. Being on a late shift I got up a couple of
hours later than usual. With no alarm set I slept right through. I made some
toast and had a look at the Internet. It was much the same as it had ever
been. A squabble was kicking off on one of the fishing pages I follow. There
was a photograph of a fish. Was it a roach or was it a rudd? This has been an
argument which has been kicking off for years. Opinion was that it was a
roach/rudd hybrid. Roach/rudd hybrids have been a bone of contention in
piscatorial circles for years because although everyone has seen them and
caught them, they are actually impossible because roach (Rutilus rutilus) and rudd (Scardinius erythrophthalmus) are different species. Creating a
roach/rudd hybrid would be akin to crossing a carthorse with a hedgehog. (Wouldn’t
it?) I saw my father-in-law had responded to
something I’d posted last night on one of his Facebook posts. He claimed that
Luxembourg got back thirty-three quid for every pound they contribute to the
European Union. Leaving aside they don’t contribute any quids at all (they
bung in Euros) they only get back six quid for every pound they
contribute. His attitude to the European Union amazes me. He goes on major
motorcycle tours round Europe on a regular basis. Until recently he’s rarely
mentioned the EU except to say he likes his holidays there. Now you’d think
Satan had raised Hitler from the dead across the channel. I also saw a new geocache had gone live. "er indoors TM" had hidden it.
If she’d arranged for it to have gone live when I wasn’t on a late shift I
would have driven past it on the way to work and have had the chance of a
First to Find. Oh well… I took the dogs out for a little circuit of the park. It is a pretty
walk, but we do meet the normal people as we go. Today we ran into… I won’t
mention her by name, but we first met this woman thirty years ago at mother
and toddler groups. Since then we’ve seen her at all sorts of places as her son
and "My
Boy TM" were at the same schools, and her sons were all
cub scouts. In all those thirty years I have never seen this woman smile. Not
once. Perhaps she *is* happy, but she just has the same expression
that a bulldog would have when licking piss from a stinging nettle; she looks
so miserable. And today she looked as glum as ever. We walked past the Jehovah’s Witnesses stall.
They’ve got new people on that stall; they seemed pleasant enough. They
didn’t bother me, which was a result. We came home through the co-op field where I
field-tested a little idea I’ve got for a future Wherigo. It didn’t actually
work, but in failing I saw where it had gone wrong. We came home. I fed the fish. That new bulb I
put in the filter seems to have done some good. As I set off for work Women's Hour was on the
radio. They were discussing a book of which I had never heard, and having
listened to two minutes of their talking I don't think I will be downloading
it any time soon. I turned off the radio. With a little time to spare I drove
up to Bluewater. I'd had an email that this year's Lego advent calendars were
available. I'd tried to get them via mail order, but PayPal would seem to be
broken. When I tried to use PayPal on the Lego website I just got the blue
spinning wheel of e-death. So I went old-skool and drove to the shop. The
nice man in the Lego shop greeted me as I arrived. The last time I'd
been to the Lego shop was in August when the place had been swarming with
children. I mentioned to the nice man that I preferred the place when it
wasn't heaving with kids. He agreed with me. Children in a Lego shop - what
is the world coming to !! I got myself a Lego advent calendar, and one
each for grandsons as well. They like that sort of thing. I got myself a rather overpriced caramel milk
shake from the rather overpriced caramel milk shake shop, and (once
I'd finally found where I'd left my car) I set off for work and the late
shift. Work was surprisingly busy. Just as we were
coming up to (most people's) going home time, one of my colleagues
said she'd rather be doing the late shift with me. Thursday night is sports
night for her children. They have an hour at football club, then an hour's
swimming lessons. I commented (sarcastically) that the swimming would
save the need for a bath. She laughed, and said she'd planned it that way. "My Boy TM" used
to have his swimming lessons on a Saturday morning. He'd spuddle about for
half an hour, then we'd go get a pastie. I miss those days... |
|
20 August 2019
(Friday) - Another Late Shift
I slept well; now that Pogo has gone back to
where he lives I don’t spend all night with an air of waiting for a fight to
kick off any more. Not that Pogo was to blame; Treacle was (is) the
pugnacious one but she seems to kick off at Fudge far less than she used to
have a go at her brother. It was a shame that the bin men had to be
quite so noisy quite so early. As I scoffed my toast I had a look at
Facebook. There is a page I follow about all the
local crimes and villainy. It was posting about how the police’s counter
terrorism unit had been raiding some house not five miles away. Everyone was
up in arms whinging about what a terrible place Ashford has become. It
strikes me that this page is full of doom and gloom and horror stories, but I
have never seen any of the things they claim are happening on a daily basis.
I’ve never had gangs of Kosovans on the doorstep demanding money. I’ve never had
gypsies in the shed trying to steal the lawn mower. I’ve never felt the need
to make the public aware of the danger of two teenagers sitting on a park
bench. Whilst there might be some truth in some of the stories, I honestly
feel that much of it is made up nonsense. Interestingly this Facebook page has recently
acquired a rival.
I’ve joined the rival page out of interest. This new group is all about “freedom
off speech” and it has only one rule: “please be polite other member's”. Equally literate, I then had a notification of a new geocache. I read
the description with interest. Apparently this one is “tided to the tree”. And they say education is alive and well…. (This isn’t having a go at dyslexia. This
is having a go at people being too lazy to take a few seconds to pause and
re-read what they have written!) I took the dogs round the park. We’ve not been round the park much
lately, and today proved exactly why I’d rather go elsewhere. Orlestone Woods
and Kings Wood don’t have many people there, and those who are there seem to
understand dogs. Viccie Park seems to be attracting those with “furry
precious princesses”. I lost count of the number of other dog walkers who
shrieked in terror when Fudge wandered over to see their dog. Mind you we made the most of our walk. And despite chronic kidney
failure, Fudge showed the squirrels who was boss. One idiot squirrel jumped
out of a tree not two feet in front of Treacle. Treacle and squirrel stared
at each other; Fudge leapt into action. He very nearly caught it. We came home. I spent a few minutes looking at the geocaching
adventure lab thingy that I’ve been awarded. I’d like to be able to do
something fun with it, but it doesn’t seem to lend itself to the sort of
nonsense I like to do with Wherigos. The chap who put out the series in
Hastings had a really good idea with the more obscure blue plaques. There’s a
good tour in London of “Jack the Ripper” sites, but there isn’t a lot
I can do locally. I’m really not that keen on ending up with a tour round the
“Museum of Dull Bits of Broken Pots” which (unfortunately) so
many of these Adventure caches seem to be. I had a look round the Internet seeing what historical stuff I could
find out about Ashford that wasn’t incredibly dull. I’m probably going to end
up doing some history tour involving the old jail (that no one knows about),
the house with a fake top floor (that no one knows about), the tank (that
everyone knows about) and two other things which I will probably make up.
I’ve got to pop into town on Monday to see the optician. I shall have a look
then. With the dogs asleep I set off to work. With a few minutes to spare I drove to
Sainsburys to get some petrol. Just as I was about to pull up at the pump I
had to slam on the brakes as some selfish prat flew past the queue, flew past
the cars at the pumps, and straight to the pump from which I was only a
few feet. Having slammed on the brakes I filled my car with petrol at the
pump at which I found myself. Ironically I had filled my car and was
in the queue in the kiosk before Mr Speedy. As he joined the queue I
suggested that he might like to barge to the front. Several people who
were queuing chuckled. Mr Speedy pretended not to hear me. As I paid for my petrol I also got a
sandwich; again I'd forgotten to make myself one before leaving home. I've
done that twice this week. I drove in to work, I parked up. As I got out
of my car I nearly broke my neck as I fell over on a conker which was laying
on the ground. Conkers on the ground - there's a sign of our times. Back in
the day conkers were stripped from trees long before they would fall
naturally my children who would play "conkers". Do kids put
them on strings and clout each other over the knuckles any more? |
|
21 September 2019
(Saturday) - Bekesbourne
I slept well again, despite a very rumbly stomach. I wonder what I’ve
eaten to have set it making such noises? As I looked at Facebook over brekkie I sent out a few birthday wishes,
then after fighting with the printer (it doesn’t work!) I made some
provisional plans for my next Wherigo project. Following on from the feedback
from my two recent Wherigos (which have been entirely positive) I’ve
got a plan to do “The Crystal Maze” in the co-op field. I can divide
the field into the four zones. In each zone there will be four games. The
player will be randomly given a game to play in each zone. If they win they
get time toward the final task. And depending on how well they do in the
final task they will be given the co-ordinates of one of three geocaches (gold,
silver or bronze). If people want to find all three caches then they have
to go through the maze again. Being randomly presented with four games out of
sixteen should give a different game each time, and only taking fifteen
minutes (maximum) to go through the maze should mean that people could
do the lot in less than an hour. It will mean a lot of programming, but what else would I do with my
time? We got ourselves organized and into the car. First of all we went to
the post office in Singleton. I had a letter to send by recorded delivery.
The woman behind the counter (rather aggressively) told me that “recorded
delivery” and “signed for” are the same thing these days. As I was
paying, the woman at the till next to me asked her customer if he would like
“recorded delivery” or “signed for”. I left the two women behind the counter having a rather heated
argument. We drove out to Bekesbourne. We listened to Ashford radio for as long
as we could, if only to listen to the woman presenter. She..um… was a
….yeah… little… um… hesitant….yeah… and….yeah ….
struggled … um …. to string… yeah… more…than…two…yeah….words…um…together.
We got to Bekesbourne where we went on a little walk which was marked
out (as always) by geocaches. Today’s route was one we’d walked before
five and a half years ago (on 26 January 2014). In the meantime many
of the caches had been replaced, and so with about two thirds of the route
being new caches we thought we might have a little walk. We bimbled about. The route was mainly off-road and so ideal for the dogs.
One of the paths we followed went right through the middle of Howlett’s zoo
and it was rather fun to see the elephants. It was a shame that Treacle had
to try to pick a fight with a wild pig (of some sort); it is amazing
how brave she can be when there is a sturdy fence between her and that with
which she is arguing. We had a minor episode when one of the normal people latched on to us.
I’m all for allowing dogs to socialize with other dogs, but within limits. If
you *really* want a full-time playmate for your dog, get yourself
another dog. Geocache-wise it was a good walk. Caches were sensibly placed, and the
hides weren’t overly difficult. One had us struggling for half an hour, but
we’d got the wrong idea from the hint that had been given. With walk done we drove up to a rather amazing place. There used to be
a geocache there which I found in 2014 when I wrote “... It was actually
rather scary. In a corner of a field there were about a hundred concrete
pyramids; each about a metre tall. The pyramids were very old and whatever
their original use was would seem to have disappeared into the mists of time.
Many of these pyramids were now under stinging nettles and brambles. But many
were still visible, and they all looked incredibly out of place. It was eerie
- almost like something out of an episode of "Doctor Who".” I’ve since found that those concrete pyramids are tank traps from the
last war. The original geocache there had been archived, so we popped in to
have a look and to find the replacement. There was an issue with this cache. There wasn’t one cache there.
There were three. The original from 2005 (which had been archived but was
still there and was fine). The “new” one from 2015 (which was
broken), and one which someone threw down recently. We tided things up.
We took the dry paper log from the broken cache and put it into the unbroken
watertight one, cleared away the rubbish and told the cache owner what we’d
done. That took us about a minute. It certainly took me longer to type it
than to do it. According to the rules we should have told the C.O. to sort it
out, but why have him waste half a day when we had it done in seconds? Similarly we’d seen one of the caches on the series we’d walked as
being missing and before we left home we’d arranged to replace it as we’d be
walking by anyway. It never fails to amaze me that we are in the minority when it comes
to fixing geo-problems. Most people just post a “sort it out dogbreath”
log and walk away. Much like one chap had done yesterday (on both of these
caches). We came home; I posted some photos of our walk up on to Facebook. For some inexplicable reason Facebook tagged
several of the photos as having been taken in Ramsgate. "er indoors TM" boiled up a
rather good bit of dinner then went off to the Saturday film night where they
were showing “Dumbo”. I stayed home with the dogs, and as they slept I
watched “The Lego Batman Movie”. I’d not seen it before. It was rather
good… |
|
22 September 2019
(Sunday) - Late Shift
I slept for ten hours last night, finally emerging from my pit just
before nine o’clock. That rarely happens these days. I looked out at the rain, made myself some toast, and peered into the
Internet as I do most mornings. Facebook was rather dull; had no one done
anything yesterday? Mind you there was a row kicking off on one of the
national Facebook groups. Yesterday I whinged about how few people help
others out when hunting Tupperware. Today some chap was griping about how
somebody *had* helped him out, and the world and his wife were jumping
on the bandwagon about how people shouldn’t feel obliged to get off their
arses and help out. Ironically it seems to me that (with a few exceptions)
the less anyone has ever actually contributed to the hobby, the more they
feel they don’t have to. With no emails of note I carried on working on my crystal maze Wherigo
project. I had a plan to have a game in it in which players have six weights
(of differing weight) and three areas into which they put the weights.
The idea is that to win you have the same amount of weight in each area.
Creating the weights and the areas in the software took over an hour. I
stopped at that point; I will figure out the programming of this bit later. (and
that is just one game of sixteen) We took the dogs for a walk. We were going to go round the park, but
just as we left the house, the heavens opened so we decided to walk the
pavements up to the station and come back through black alley. Treacle looked
rather elegant in her girly-pink raincoat. She looked rather less elegant as
she tried to eat the human excrement that was up by the old B&Q. It never
fails to amaze me how the local crime-fighting Facebook pages are up in arms
about “Foreign man eats chips” or “Teenagers sitting on bench”
but no one bats an eyelid when the night-clubbers have a crap in the gutter
on the way home. We hadn't been back from our walk long when
the doorbell rang. No one ever rings our doorbell! Brother-in-law and nephew
had been in the area visiting a car show and had popped in. We chatted for a
bit - they were lucky to have caught us as we are usually out and about on
Sundays. I set off for work. As I drove I listened to
the radio. I caught the end of Desert Island Discs. Some musician called Thom
Yorke (I've never heard of him either) was singing the praises of the
song "Lilac Wine" by Nina Simone. They played a few
minutes of it; I was glad they cut it short. This was followed by the seventh episode of
the eighty-fifth season of "Just a Minute", which never
fails to entertain
And on a sadder note Aron Eisenberg has died.
He was the actor who played “Nog” in Star Trek. He was five years
younger than me… |
|
23 September 2019
(Monday) - £500 Later...
I woke feeling like death warmed up. I’ve
felt better after a gallon of ale. What was that all about? Over a bowl of granola I watched another
episode of “Inside No. 9” then on seeing that nothing had happened to
the Internet overnight I got the leads on to the dogs and we went out. After
fifteen minutes I found where I’d parked the car last night. We drove out to
the garage and left the car there for a service. Walking home meant that our
way was plagued with the morning school run, but it was quite entertaining. There would seem to be a new “thing”
with cyclists. You have to cycle along with really dark sunglasses (so you
can’t see anything) and have those stupid huge headphones on (so you
can’t hear anything). You don’t hold the handlebars because one hand is
holding a cup of coffee and the other hand is fiddling with your mobile
phone. And you have to have a surprised expression because you have no idea
why you have just cycled into a hedge. We saw this a few times as we walked home. Once home the dogs ate their brekkie and I
went down the road to the dentist. Unlike last week’s debacle, today’s
appointment passed off OK. I was in the chair five minutes early, and the
dentist was soon rummaging about inside my gob shouting out strange numbers
and weird words. “Mesial three” and “proximal seven” and the
like. I would have shouted “Bingo!” had I not had a mouthful of dental
ironmongery, With dentist done I went into town. I had a
plan to have a provisional recce for this Adventure Lab thingy. But (to be
honest) I couldn’t find five items of historical interest that weren’t
either boring or dull or both. I went on to the optician. They did some
preliminary farting about measuring eye pressures and photographing my
retinas, then the optician herself did it all again. The eye test itself
lasted for maybe ten minutes. My prescription has changed quite a bit (apparently).
I’ve ordered some new glasses – I collect them in two weeks. I came home, and over a sandwich watched
another episode of “Inside No.9” then fell asleep. I woke an hour
later when the garage phoned. The car was ready. I got up, and the dogs
immediately leapt up in excitement. I’d planned to walk them over with me to
get the car, but how did they know that? Our walk to the garage was far more dull than
our walk home this morning; it was a shame we got caught in a rain shower. It only took forty minutes to get to the
garage. The service had found all sorts of things that needed an eye keeping
on, but as the nice man said, the car is twelve years old. He also said that
the cost of the service was peanuts compared to the cost of servicing the
newer cars. Oh well… as long as the car keeps going. I’d set the washing machine lose on my shirts before we went to the
garage. We came home just as it was finishing. Both dogs went back to sleep
and I spent an hour or so ironing. As I ironed I watched the last two
episodes of the current season of “Peaky Blinders”. For a show which
started very well, it had started to flounder, but the last two episodes were
rather good. I’m told there will be a sixth season. "er indoors TM" came home, boiled
up some dinner and went off bowling. Once I’d unblocked the dishwasher I
watched the first episode of “Nightflyers”
on Netflix. It was OK; I understand it has already been cancelled… For a rostered day off, today has been rather
busy. And expensive. I just hope that dishwasher is salvageable. And Fudge
has got an ultrasound that needs paying for later in the week… |
|
24 September 2019 (Tuesday)
- Flat Battery
I made myself some toast, and as I scoffed it I started the week’s
course of antibiotics and steroids as a run-up to next week’s surgical nasal
re-bore. I also watched the second episode of “Nightflyers” which,
although entertaining, is like most sci-fi in that it is clearly written by
someone who’s good at the fiction but rather shaky on the science. Take the
journey the spaceship is on. To quote Douglas Adams “Space is big. Really
big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I
mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's
just peanuts to space”. You can’t get out to where the aliens might be in
just a few months. Or take the crew. Any crew of any spaceship is going to
have to be educated. No spaceship is going to be carrying a load of gung-ho
half-wit marines for no adequately explored reason. Nor are they going to be
carrying a couple of sex-crazed lesbians who merely get jiggy with each other
at regular intervals just to chivvy along an otherwise tired storyline. With telly watched I sparked up my lap-top to see what I’d missed in
the Internet overnight. “Esperanza Deeds” had sent me a friend request
on Facebook. In fact it was more than a request for friendship. She suggested
I might like to join her Whatsapp group “nudeysauceromp849”. I can
only imagine that those of a more puritanical nature had seen to the closure
of Whatsapp groups “nudeysauceromp1” through to “nudeysauceromp848”.
I reported her to the Facebook feds, but I expect that she doesn’t breach
Facebook’s community standards. However other than “Esperanza”,
nothing much else had happened in cyberspace. I drove toward Tunbridge Wells through a very
wet and dismal morning. As I peered through the gloom the pundits on
the radio were interviewing the leader of some union or other. This bloke was
pontificating on climate change and Brexit and loudly presenting his personal
opinion as though it were scientific fact. Speaking as someone who was a
union rep for years myself, doesn't this just sum up what is wrong with
today's Trade Union movement? They then interviewed some MP or other who
got rather cross when challenged about the Labour party's position on Brexit.
Apparently they endorse both leave and remain and seem to feel that this is
both sensible and reasonable. I can't help but think that seeing how neither
side of the Brexit argument has a majority with the general public, having no
fixed stance on the issue will lose them the least amount of
votes. Mind you nothing will lose them as many votes
as their leader "that idiot Jeremy Corbyn" who today was
announced to be the most unpopular
Leader of the Opposition since records began. And that has been up
against some pretty stiff competition. They then wheeled on some vicar who talked
utter tripe on the "Thought for the Day" section. Having
admitted to having irrational fears over the silliest of things, she said
that she overcomes her irrational fears from the confidence she gets from the
church. So she overcomes irrational fear by
confidence in something else equally (if not more) irrational. Why
does Radio Four present such stark nonsense as a rational position? I got to the work's car park; I got soaked
running from the car to work. Once there I did my bit despite the contents of
my pockets falling out. I wish trouser manufacturers made pockets a tad more
sturdy; it is always the pockets of any pair of trousers that wear out first
for me. Mind you, on the plus side I got a custard doughnut. As I worked I had a phone call from "the
hospital". I glossed over the fact that I was already in one (that's
where I work) and answered the nice lady's questions. She had all sorts of
questions about what might have changed since I had my pre-med assessment
several months ago. I don't think anything had changed at all, but we had to
got through her entire list. That took some time. With my bit done I went back to my car. My
phone was down to only having five per cent charge. Why was it so flat? Rather than going straight home we called in to see the first fruit of
my loin. It is his birthday tomorrow, and Cheryl had boiled up a rather good bit
of dinner. Boiling up good bits of dinner seems to be a feature in our
family. Bake Off’s on in a minute… |
|
25 September 2019
(Wednesday) - Family Birthdays
On 1 November 2014 I wrote here “I didn't get to bed till nearly
2am. After an hour's laying awake I was watching "Toddlers and
Tiaras" on the TLC channel before 6am. I *hate* these poxy steroids”.
Despite only having just started taking this course, I think much the same
thing is happening again. I was up far too early this morning. Over a bowl of
granola I watched “Nightflyers”; like most sci-fi it is very good
unless you think about what is going on. Everyone is familiar with the delays
in communication when NASA control was speaking to the astronauts on the
Moon. The delay in communication with someone who is out at the heliopause
would be the best part of a day. Instantaneous communication just wouldn’t
happen. And if a spaceship were to go out there, it is pretty unlikely that
crew members wouldn’t have met each other before lift-off. I suppose most people don’t think too deeply about the telly programs
they are watching… or is this one of the reasons that the show got cancelled? I had a look at the Internet; nothing much had happened, but I did
roll my eyes at one story I saw on one of the local Facebook groups. A local
father has died, and the family are trying to crowdfund the funeral. I’ve
seen this sort of appeal on Facebook a few times recently. As a father
myself, it annoys me. If there is one thing of which we can be sure of in
life, it is that we are going to croak. It is often said that all insurance
is something of a gamble. Having life insurance *isn’t* a gamble;
who’s going to live forever? And life insurance isn’t that expensive really.
Far cheaper than a trip down the pub each month. I drove toward Tunbridge Wells through
another very wet and dismal morning. As I peered through the torrential
rain the pundits on the radio were interviewing Michael Gove (who
is now secretary for something or other). He was being asked about
yesterday's announcement from the supreme court that the Prime Minister's
decision to close Parliament had been illegal. He said that he disagreed with
the decision, but would respect it. When challenged to apologise for the
matter (seven times) he refused. He implied that he feels no need for
something he considers was the right thing to do even if it has been shown to
be wrong. I suspect the country's prisons are similarly full
of people who disagree with the courts. One part of the morning's news was
worrying. There were interviews with members of the public concerning
yesterday's momentous announcement that the Prime Minister misled the
Queen; most of those interviewed didn't hesitate to show their
ignorance. How is it that this episode doesn't seem
to have affected the Prime Minister's standing with the general
public at all. A small minority see him for the dangerous madman that he
is, but most see him as a well-meaning buffoon who is somehow standing
up for the man in the street (even though he has absolutely nothing
at all in common with the man in the street). It amazes me that most people are blissfully
unaware that Mr Johnson has (in the past) vehemently campaigned for
both leaving and remaining in the European Union; his final stance being
based on what would best suit his personal political ambitions. There was also talk from across the Atlantic
about moves to impeach President Trump. But concerns have been voiced that
far from getting him out of office, an impeachment will be seen as sour
grapes on the part of his political enemies and could well end up
securing him a disastrous second term in office. And they say democracy is a good thing... I got to work; I did my thing. I had my phone
in "Airplane Mode" today to see if it would conserve the
battery power. It worked somewhat, but did leave me out of touch with the
rest of the world for large parts of the day (specifically those parts
when I should have been working anyway) Bearing in mind the pocket of my trousers gave up yesterday I came
home via Matalan where I got new trousers with an incredibly little amount of
fuss. "er indoors TM" has gone to
the scout group meeting; she’s still scout group secretary. She’s supposedly
coming home via the fish and chip shop. Oh – and two members of the family have birthdays today. |
|
26 September 2019
(Thursday) - Ultrasound Scanning
Having seen every hour of the night I gave up trying to sleep. Over a
bowl of granola I watched more “Nightflyers” which kept me amused for forty
minutes, then I peered into the Internet. Some petty rants I read last night
had continued. People were complaining about how poorly supported the local cinema
is, and were afraid it might close if people don’t start using it. I *think*
the last time I went to the cinema was in February 2018 when my seat cost me
over a tenner. I had to sit through half an hour of adverts and put up with
the Great Unwashed burping and farting all the way through the film.
For the same money (actually slightly less) I can (and do) get
a month’s worth of Netflix, and for the price of "er indoors TM"’s ticket we
get a month’s worth of Amazon Prime on the telly. Would losing the cinema be
such a loss? I don’t really think so. One friend was banging on about how hard up she was. Having come back
from a two-month tour of Europe she’s now complaining that she’s so hard up
some friend of hers has had to pay the next two terms of her daughter’s
school fees (about twelve thousand pounds). Personally I know I will
never afford a two-month tour of Europe, and it was my experience that
state-run schools were free. I put on my new shirt and new trousers and (leaving "er indoors TM"
and the dogs asleep) set off towards work through another murky morning. As I peered through
the torrential rain the pundits on the radio were talking about the
Prime Minister's appearance in Parliament yesterday. Having had the worst
slating imaginable from the supreme court he was unrepentant and insulting. There was also talk of the Duke of Cambridge
officiating at the official naming ceremony of the Royal Research Ship "Sir
David Attenborough". There had been a public vote to name the ship.
The winning suggestion, “Boaty McBoatface" wasn't used for the
simple reason that it was a silly idea. No one's quibbled about this *because*
it was a silly idea. You might think the same reasoning might be
applied to Brexit and the Prime Minister... I spent much of the day worrying about Fudge. He’d been allowed none
of our dinner last night (and he loves fish). He’d been allowed
nothing to eat or drink this morning. "er indoors TM" had left him
with the vet at nine o’clock this morning. Today was ultrasound day. Having
established that his kidneys aren’t right, it was time to have a look at
them. We were expecting to pick him up sometime in the late afternoon; we
had a phone call at ten o’clock. All was done and could we collect him as he
was being rather shouty and disruptive. The ultrasound had showed nothing structurally wrong with the kidneys;
no growths or stones. So far all the signs seem to be pointing to chronic
kidney disease. The vets have directed us to the website of the International
Renal interest Society and want to see him again in two weeks’ time. In
the meantime, we’ll look at getting food which is low in phosphorus, protein,
and sodium. And cheese is out (he won’t like that). The vet has
advised some food to get. It ain’t cheap, and I bet he won’t like it. I came home from work to an empty house. "er indoors TM" had taken the
dogs to the park. Treacle had been her usual self; the one who is supposedly oh-so-poorly
had chased squirrels and then porked several other dogs. When they came home he charged into the house like a whirlwind, wolfed
his dinner and then destroyed both his and Treacle’s new toys. Other than a
shaved patch on his side, you wouldn’t think there was anything amiss. |
|
27 September 2019
(Friday) - Retirement Seminar
Yesterday as I drove to work I charged my phone from my car. I arrived
at work with a full charge, and by mid-afternoon the thing was at zero per
cent charge. In a similar length of time overnight it only used eighteen per
cent of its battery power. I’m blaming working two floors beneath ground
level, even if I am getting warnings that the McAfee security is making
unnatural demands of the phone. I didn’t sleep well; over brekkie I watched another episode of “Nightflyers”
in which pretty much nothing at all happened, then I had a quick look at the
Internet. My cousin is on holiday in Cornwall and had posted up some photos.
Being a nosey person, I wish more people would do that sort of thing. Someone
else had posted a link to a rather interesting article which probably explains why the world is such a sad place. I replied with a link from the Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. As I drove to work the pundits on the radio must have been short of
news. They were interviewing the general public to find their opinions about
current affairs. Perhaps they were rather subjective in the interviews they
chose to broadcast, or perhaps they really did only interview half-wits. But
there were no shortage of people ready to demonstrate their ignorance on
national radio. One chap was saying that we should go for that really easy
Brexit that he voted for, not this one with the backdoor (Irish backstop?)
that isn’t working. Another one was banging on about how Parliament is full
of traitors but was utterly unable to explain what he meant by that. You have to admire stupidity. And so to work.. I say “work”. I was at a pre-retirement
seminar today. It was rather good. Fifteen of us sat down and a chap lead us
through all sorts of things that we didn’t know about retirement and hadn’t
even thought about; all with the caveat that what he told us was correct
today, but anything might happen in the future. We started off with that always unpopular thing they always do in
these training sessions of being divided into small groups to discuss stuff.
What would we miss about working? What would we do to fill the time when we
used to work? What worries did we have? We were then presented with some factual information about the state
pension. It was at this point that the first idiot chirped up. He wasn’t
happy that the state pension age had gone up. To be fair, neither was I, but
no one had told this idiot that the bloke presenting the session wasn’t the
government minister who made the rules. This idiot was not at all happy when
the speaker told him “these are the rules; I didn’t make them”. We eventually got back on topic; I didn’t realise that you can defer
your state pension. Did you know that you don’t have to take your pension at
retirement age? If you work another year you get five point eight per cent
more state pension if you take it that year later. Mind you having lost out
on the first year’s pension you then have to live seventeen years to make a
net profit. The nice man then spoke about the NHS
pension. For me this was the bit I wanted to know about. He’s given me some
web sites to check, and I need to speak to the boss on Monday, but my
provisional plan now is to take semi-retirement in four and a half years’
time. (I’ve added a countdown timer to my blog. Four and a half years
sounds rather more manageable that one thousand six hundred and seven days). By now our heads were spinning. We adjourned
for lunch. After lunch we had a rather depressing talk about wills and
lasting powers of attorney (a job for "My Boy TM"
should I go doolally) and funding long-term care should it be needed. It was at this point that another idiot got
angry… The session had been very good. The speaker
asked people to comment and ask questions as we went along. Most people did (I
certainly did); most people’s questions were sensible and relevant, but
there were a couple of half-wits in the group. I must admit I agreed with one
of the half-wits that if you need long-term nursing care then it sucks that
you have to pay for it. I also agreed that I would rather leave my house to
the fruits of my loin rather than sell it to pay for massively overpriced
nursing homes. But that is an argument to have elsewhere. The nice chap at
the front could only tell us what was happening now; he had no power to
change the rules. We then spoke about inflation and savings and
tax… and at this point my brain overloaded. Fortunately I think the nice man
presenting the session realised this would happen as this was the end of his
presentation. He’s given us some websites to review and will phone us on
Monday to answer any questions. Perhaps I should have gone in to work for the
last hour, but I was down to be on the course all day, and to be honest my
mind wouldn’t have been on the job. I had a *lot* to ponder. Seeing
the glorious sunshine I thought I might ponder whilst walking the dogs round
the park. We got half-way round the park when the
heavens opened. We came home and dried off. I did have a
vague plan to go to the geo-meet that was taking place this evening, but by
the time "er indoors TM" had been shopping, it
was all a little late. So following on from today’s seminar I tried to access
my on-line pension statement. It only took an hour to do. We had a rather good bit of fish and chips,
then I looked at the monthly accounts… Bearing in mind I’ve had a serious fix
to the water heating, a major car service, new varifocal specs and an epic
vet bill all in the last month I’m rather pleased that I’ve actually got some
money left. After all, what is money for, if not to
squander foolishly? |
|
28 September 2019
(Saturday) - A Birthday Gathering
Having been wide awake for the best part of
an hour I got up just after three o’clock and watched a rather disappointing
episode of “Nightflyers”. The plot items in this episode had been done
better years ago in “Doctor Who”, “Space 1999” and the Roger
Mellie “Tomorrow’s World” episode in Viz magazine. As I watched telly I charged my phone. I went
back to bed with a fully charged phone, lay awake and restless for a few
hours and found half the charge had gone, and had a message that the “McAfee
Livesafe” app had been making excessive demands again. I’ve uninstalled that app. No matter what it
does, if it is so battery-intensive that I need to charge every few hours, it
make the phone unusable. I gave up trying to sleep and got up just
before eight o’clock. I looked up prednisone on the Internet. I’ve been
taking it as a run-up to next Tuesday’s operation. The idea I it will shrink
the nasal polyps to make their removal easier. One of the known
side-effects is that it stuffs up your sleep. It also gives digestive
troubles (which is why I’m farting like a fruit-bat) and gives weight
loss – my face is suddenly incredibly bony. I spent a couple of hours working on my
Crystal Maze Wherigo. I got to the point where I thought I’ve built the first
game (of sixteen) which I thought worked *if* you do it right –
It failed utterly in testing, Pausing only briefly to snap my bootlace we
then set off in the car. As we drove the Saturday morning local radio
announcer was gasping for air. No longer hesitating over every word (clearly
reading from a script) she was now puffing into the microphone. Does her
script not have punctuation? We drove out to Boys Hall. We’ve been there a
few times recently trying to find the geocaches which were hidden there.
We’ve finally now found the lot, but they took some finding. We came home and I ordered new bootlaces from
Amazon. Part of me wanted to support a local business and help the little
man. Another part of me didn’t want to spend an hour buying a pair of
bootlaces. After a cuppa and a Belgian bun we wandered
round the road to a little afternoon soiree. A fiftieth birthday party. We
had a rather good time; far too much to eat and drink. Once I’d had an
elegant sufficiency of ale I had a glass of whisky which wasn’t actually that
bad at all. This was washed down by a (seemingly) gallon of gin. And
then we started on the port and cheese. I
took a few photos as I do. We came home with heads spinning… we’d had a
good time but we’d had to make a choice. As well as the birthday party we’d
had an invitation to a gig at which the band of some friends was playing.
We’d missed a wedding. And we’d missed a family bash as well. If only we could have got to everything… My head really is spinning. |
|
29 September 2019
(Sunday) - Early Shift
I think I possibly had one of my worst night's
sleep ever last night. I lay dozing fitfully for two hours with my stomach
rumbling constantly. I got up and watched a rather clever episode of
"Inside No.9" and scoffed some granola before going back to
bed just before two o'clock. My stomach was now settled, but the noise of
torrential rain kept me awake until five o'clock when I gave up trying to
sleep. I got up, and over some toast watched another episode of "Nightflyers".
The plot had leapt eight months forward. Characters who once hated each other
were now best friends. Characters who hadn't really had much to do with each
other were having a baby together (on a spaceship?). This program hasn't been thought out at all. As I drove to work the pundits on the radio
were talking (amongst other things) about the Labour MP Patricia Hodge
who now faces deselection. According to the rules a standing MP has to have
the support of two thirds of those in the vote of the local party. She'd
fallen short; she'd only got fifty-five per cent of the vote. But only fifteen per cent of those eligible
to vote had cast an "X". Doesn't that really sum up the
state of our so-called democracy. No one can be bothered with it. As I pulled in to the works car park my car
beeped. I had a message from it on the dashboard display – “Oil Pressure
Fault”. I needed that… I got to work; my fourth consecutive weekend
to be working. But as I always say, I don’t mind working at the weekend when
it is raining. And "er indoors TM" has also noticed
that it rains a lot when I’m working at the weekends. Work was busy. And frustrating. But being
busy, the time soon passed. And with a knackered car waiting outside I spent
a little while sorting out the times of the train home. Home time came… I went out to my car to leave
my sandwich box in it (didn’t want to carry that home) and to pick up
the packet of extra-strong mints that was in the car. And to get a raincoat
too; there’s a spare coat in the car. But in the time it took me to walk to the car
I’d gone into auto-pilot. I’d completely forgotten about the oil pressure
fault. And so had the car. We both drove off quite happily. It was a shame
that the car remembered the oil pressure fault before I did. Half way down
the M20 just as the traffic was being filtered into the fast lane (as the
slower lanes were closed because of a car on fire down the road) I got
the warning together with frantic beeping and the stop light came on too.
Gripped by absolute panic I pulled onto the hard shoulder. I was so grateful
that I’d listened to the man from the insurance company and put the breakdown
number into my phone. I got through to the breakdown people; they
took down my particulars (oo-er!), told me the nice breakdown man
would be along in forty-five minutes, and they texted me a link on which I
could track where the nice breakdown man was. However, rather than having a
countdown timer of when the nice breakdown man would arrive, the link seemed
to be a random number generator. The expected arrival time went from less
than a minute up to fifteen minutes a couple of times. The times in the
piccie above really are in the order I received them. Eventually (after a wait of an hour and
three quarters) he rolled up. I was glad to see him; half an hour after
my breaking down all the electricals had gone in the car too. The electrical issue was easy… With the car’s
engine off, I’d been charging my phone, I’d had the blowers clearing the
windscreen, I’d had the radio on. I’d flattened the battery. The oil pressure fault… The nice breakdown
man checked the oil. The very end of the dipstick had gone. And then I
remembered that the nice man in the garage did say at last Monday’s servicing
that the end had dropped into the sump. He said that it *probably*
wouldn’t be an issue. The nice breakdown man had a theory that the bit of
dipstick was obstructing the flow of oil. He could see that the stuff was
moving (I have no idea how, I just had utter faith in him), and when
he started the engine he said he could hear it wasn’t poggered. The nice
breakdown man suggested I drove home slowly and he’d follow, and that I
should stop if anything seemed awry. We got to within two miles of home
before the warning message came on again. The car is parked outside. It can stay there.
I’ll get in touch with the garage in the morning. Once home I wanted a little rest, but the
dogs were having none of it. We got leads on, and despite the rain went for a
little walk round the roads. We came home just as "er indoors TM"
arrived back from Margate having been visiting "Daddy’s Little Angel TM". She boiled up a rather good bit of dinner
which we scoffed whilst watching “Tattoo Fixers”; for someone who’s
covered in tattoos, I can’t help but wonder what some other tattoo-ed people
were thinking of. I’m going to have an early night – I’m worn
out. I barely slept last night, and I’ve got to be on the train at quarter
past six tomorrow morning… |
|
30 September 2019
(Monday) - Train to Work
I think I had another of my worst
night's sleep ever last night. I woke up at two o'clock and couldn't get back
to sleep. After half an hour I got up and emptied the dishwasher, and as I
had a quick tiddle I heard the most amazing noises. Fudge's coughing has to
be heard to be believed; he really does cough like a duck quacks. I let him out for a tiddle, then spent ten
minutes trying to round him up again. One of his favourite activities is
playing silly beggars in the dark. I went back to bed and lay wide awake until
half past four. I got up then, and over brekkie took the last of these
steroid tablets. I *really* don't like them; it is those that
stuff up my ability to sleep. As I scoffed brekkie I watched an episode of
"Inside No.9" which featured crossword puzzles.
Prophetic? With my car being problematical I didn't
fancy breaking down again, so I left home at twenty to six and walked to the
train station. It was still very dark as I walked up the road, and the
darkness was in no way abated by the pathetic street lighting. Ashford
council has spent a small fortune replacing all the street lights with these
LED things that don't actually illuminate the pavements. There was talk of
them being installed back in the day when I was on the committee of the astro
club, and what has been delivered is *not* what was promised. I have
sent letters of complaint here and there in the past. Now winter is coming I
might do so again. I got to the train station; the ticket price
bore no relation to the on-line information I’d looked up yesterday. I got the six o'clock train. I had the
carriage to myself, and as I headed westwards I did the crossword in the free
newspaper. I just did the one with the straightforward clues:
"Frozen water I-E; we like big ones T-TS". None of this
cryptic rubbish such as "underwater steamer goes backwards to
Newcastle we hear 2,4,3" which turns out to be "up your bum"
for no reason that anyone can fathom (least of all the person who wrote it). I changed train at Maidstone East. Having had
a carriage to myself I found myself sharing a carriage with loads of the
normal people. One of them had spread his office paperwork all over the table
between us. It all looked rather interesting; especially the letters marked
"confidential". He gave me the evil eyes when he realised
that I was more interested in them than he was. I got to Barming; I walked up a very noisy
road to work. I could have walked faster had some idiot not been bimbling
along at a snail's pace. Why do these incredibly slow people have to take up
the entire pavement? I arrived at work an hour and a half after
I'd left home. Not bad time I suppose. I would prefer to have driven, but it
wasn't a bad journey up. On arrival I went straight to the works
canteen; I felt I deserved a cooked brekkie. I had one and was disappointed.
The works canteen dinners are usually very good. Their brekkie wasn’t all
that this morning. By the time I started the early shift at
quarter to eight I felt like the day was already half-done. Work was rather busy; but I'd buttered up the
bosses and they'd allowed me to slip out a few minutes early. With the train
home leaving five minutes before the end of my shift, getting it was going to
be tricky. I got to the station to find that the on-line
information was again wrong, but I didn’t have to wait too long for a train.
As I came home I did the crossword in the free evening paper; I nearly got it
all done. Once home I walked the dogs round the co-op
field. We didn’t meet anyone else, we didn’t run into any other dogs. We had
a good walk. "er indoors TM" came home and
boiled up a rather good bit of dinner before going bowling. I spent a little
more time on my new Wherigo project. After Saturday’s disaster I *think*
I’ve got the first game working. That’s only taken about six hours
programming. I’m a bit nervous about tomorrow… I’m finally
having my nose re-bored (again). |
