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1 September 2024
(Sunday) - Boxley
When I was a lad I had some
toy robots called “Zeroids”. Not the Gerry
Anderson ones; you can see pictures of these ones here.
This morning as I scoffed my toast people were posting to Facebook about how
these things now sell on eBay for over a thousand quid each. I wish I’d kept
mine. Facebook had sent me a message. I like Facebook. It
allows me to be incredibly nosey and see what other people are doing and
gives me seemingly unlimited photo storage. However
it has some rather strange ideas about what it thinks is acceptable in polite
society. It’s no secret that peddling websites of porn don’t breach its
Community Standards – I regularly post up photos
of those doing so. The other day it randomly presented me with a video
of some woman wearing next to nothing running round trying to shoot a large
iguana with a bow and arrow. After a lot of gratuitous close-ups of her arse and chest she shot the iguana which was clearly in
pain. I won’t re-post the video. But it is still on
Facebook as it apparently doesn’t breach their community standards… I totally failed at Wordle and with a little time to
spare went round the garden harvesting dog dung. It’s amazing how quickly
that stuff accumulates. “er
indoors TM” and the dogs came downstairs. Morgan sat with me for a bit, He had
hiccups. Whilst he hic-ed we got ourselves organized and set off to Boxley.
Karl and Tracy were doing a maintenance run (walk) on a
series of their geocaches and we came along for the walk. Six of us (and
four dogs) set off on a rather serious uphill slog. We’d arranged
the walk so the serious uphill bit was first. Once at the top of the hill the
going was much easier, but I was amazed at how many off-road bikers we had to
avoid. Especially when you consider how difficult that place was to get to. Longbeech Wood and Kings Wood are far more accessible;
why don’t the cyclists go there? In an amazing show of self-control
we walked past the pub… mind you a country pub on a Sunday lunchtime? Heaving
with the normal people. We would have spent close on a hundred quid, and we’d
got a picnic with us anyway. About two thirds of the way round we stopped for
that picnic. Over the last few months we’ve rather
got out of the habit of picnics. I miss them. It was rather good to sit in a
field and watch the world go by. It was a shame that Bailey had to roll in
quite so much poo, but there it is. I
took a few photos as we walked. I do that. We got back to the cars; we said our goodbyes. They
took a little longer than usual. Pogo is going off with Karl and Tracy for a
little holiday. Much as we love him, four dogs is a
tad too much. Especially as when he’s with us Pogo feels he has to be guardian of the pack. When he’s on his own he
can be much more rested and doesn’t feel he has to prove himself. Once home “er indoors TM” and
the dogs had a little sleep. I strained my brain with a geo puzzle. You can
see the thing by clicking here.
There’s a load of talk about how good desserts are, some pictures of various
puddings and a formula from which you can calculate the longitude and
latitude of where there’s a little film pot under a rock. Or, as I suspect,
inside a metal gate. I’ve identified all the puddings, but how I get numbers
from them eludes me. Bearing in mind that the rules of geocaching say
that the thing has to be somewhere on the Romney
Marsh, if any of my loyal readers know how I might add strawberry cheesecake
to oatmeal biscuits and get five, please let me know. I’m reminded of my old maths
teacher who once told me that I couldn’t add apples to oranges… he’d have a
fit if he tried puzzle geocaching. “er
indoors TM” boiled up a rather good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching
the first episode of the second season of the American version of “Traitors”.
An odd show. Most of the women contestants have had rather bad plastic
surgery and look as though they have just had a smack in the chops. One who
hasn’t has one tit three times the size of the
other. Most of the men contestants have over-inflated views of their own
importance apart from the one who seems to have failed the job interview for
the role of village idiot. And ex-politician John Bercow was in there as well
for on apparent reason. All of
the contestants seemed to know all of the other contestants from other
reality TV shows, and none seemed to like anyone else. It's rather entertaining… |
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2 September 2024
(Monday) - Early Shift
I
woke in a cold sweat at half past five this morning following a rather vivid
nightmare. Something of a shame really; with Pogo off on a little holiday
there was plenty of bed space for once. I made toast and had a little look at the internet.
There was an incredibly petty squabble kicking off about a factual inaccuracy
on one of the on-screen graphics used in the TV series of “The Hitch
Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. You have to wonder
who would freeze-frame and check what had been written on a TV show from the
last century, don’t you? There wasn’t much else happening quite so early in
the morning. I sent out a couple of birthday messages to friends and
got ready for work. As I drove to work I
listened to the radio as I do. There was loads of talk about how the schools
inspector OFSTED
is dropping its one-word summary of schools. Apparently
they aren’t changing anything else about how they inspect; just the one-word
summary. I’m no expert but it strikes me that any inspector would be far
better offering advice on helping improvement rather than finding fault. Does OFSTED do that? I don’t know. And there was talk about the problem of antibiotic
resistance. Basically doctors have been giving
out antibiotics like sweeties for years, and farmers have been feeding them
to animals for years. For the most part the bacterial that antibiotics kill
have long since been killed, and so with them gone their space is being taken
by bacteria that laugh at antibiotics. And before long we’ll be back to the middle ages when an infected cut will go septic and kill
you. I was told all about this when I started in hospital
laboratories in 1981, and it was common knowledge back then. Every few years
this story does the rounds and everyone acts
surprised. I drove to work up the motorway today which had none
of that “Operation Brock” stupidity going on. I got to junction six in
seemingly record time, and then the delays started. The slip road from
junction six to junction five has road works, as does the Coldharbour
roundabout off of junction five. Mind you when I say
“road works” I mean miles of road cones and dug-up roads, but no one actually doing anything. Work was work. As I did my bit I had flashbacks from
my time in the Harbour Restaurant. Over the summer of 1981 the Italian boss
had friends staying with him. He asked the youngsters who worked for him if
we would take his friend’s teenage children out with us in the evenings. We
were a tad reluctant as they didn’t speak English
and we didn’t speak Italian. Boss gave us the price of an evening out… and we
all got on famously. Despite not speaking a word of Italian I soon found
myself able to understand it. I couldn’t speak it, but I could understand it.
Similarly the Italians couldn’t speak English but
hey understood us. I wonder what happened to them? Today some of my colleagues were chattering in
Italian. I recognized the sound, but sadly I’ve forgotten all that I picked
up over that summer holiday. And then at one o’clock a colleague had a text from
her daughter’s school. They had unilaterally decided that with effect from
today children could only be collected by parents unless a form was filled in
allowing someone else to collect the child. My colleague told the school that she needs more
than two hours notice of such a change of policy,
and that if her sister couldn’t be trusted, then she herself would collect
her daughter after work… at six o’clock. The school never replied. But isn’t this a sign of our times? Ten year olds needing to be collected from school. I used
to walk home by myself when I was seven. Being on an early shift I got out early. The journey
home took me twice as long as it used to. It took half an hour to drive the
mile and a half from work to the motorway. I did have a plan to take the dogs
to the woods after work, but I spent all of that
time in a traffic jam. I came home to find the postman had been. I
subscribe to three magazines. The postman brought the September edition of
two of them today. I will read one from cover to cover several times.
The other will go for recycling unopened... |
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3 September 2024
(Tuesday) - Hurt Our Leg
Facebook presented me with a memory today. Six
years ago today I sailed out into the Thames estuary and did a couple of geocaches out
at sea. To get to the geocache on the Red Sands seas fort you need to
sail out with the official tour guide. I chartered the boat which cost me a
small fortune, then sold tickets to recoup my losses. But I didn’t sell
tickets to just anyone; it was to a select group of friends. One thing which stuck in my mind about the trip was
the amount of bad feeling it caused. On the lead up to the trip word got
round about what was happening, and I lost count of the amount
of strangers who contacted me to tell me they were coming, and who got rather
aggressive when I told them they weren’t. There were also a lot of people I’d
never met who told me how I should advertise future trips so that the likes
of them wouldn’t miss out. I replied to all in the same way. I told them it
was a private booking for a select group, and I sent them the details so that
they could book their own trip. And in the intervening six years not one of
them has done that. There was a group of Germans who booked the boat last
year, but other than that, no one has made a group booking. I got the leads on to the dogs
and we set off for our morning adventure. Not having that much time today we
drove down to Orlestone where we had our walk. There wasn’t any other cars
in the car park when we arrived, and we didn’t see anyone at all as we
walked. As we posed for a photo so I could hear a crashing in the bushes
behind me. Fortunately the bushes were higher than
the dogs’ heads, but I *think* I saw deer running off. As all the dogs ran off chasing shadows Treacle
suddenly stopped. I caught up to her to find she was standing holding her
front left paw up. I couldn’t see anything wrong with it, but she limped on
and off all the way back to the car. She flatly refused to jump into the
boot, and I had to lift her out when we got home. Has she strained it? We came home where I washed the fox poo off of Morgan and Bailey. We had a cuppa
and a rock cake, and I set off to the local hospital. I got there and
eventually found a parking space. Sadly everyone
else had parked rather stupidly, but I managed to wedge my car in to the last
spot. I went in, booked in, and I got in to see the
surgeon ten minutes early. I rather like the chap; he is always cheerful and
happy and inspires confidence. He asked how I was, and
shoved an endoscope up my nose. Firstly up the left
nostril to show me what that looked like. Then up the right nostril where we
saw a gaping void where he’d carved out the papilloma. At the moment there is no sign of it, but I’ve had three
follow-ups before where it seemed to be gone. He’s suggested I go back in a year’s time for
another look-see. I came home via the petrol station where my idiot
magnet did its trick. There was only one person on the till; the miserable
cantankerous one with whom I’ve had run-ins previously. She was quite
obviously getting more and more wound up by some dopey woman who wanted a
packet of cigarettes for her husband. She didn’t want the cheapest or the
most expensive and kept turning down whatever brand was suggested. She
thought it was hilarious that she’d been sent to get cigarettes but had no
idea what ones she wanted, and when someone else in the queue had a word the
woman’s reaction was amazing. She turned round, saw the epic queue, and
flatly refused to believe that the length of the queue was anything to do
with her farting about. Once home I had a fiddle with my blog archive -
it had lost some of the piccies. And then I had a go at a puzzle geocache I’ve
been struggling with for years. The puzzle is just random strings of numbers
which meant absolutely nothing to me until I read the instructions. The
instructions said I needed a particular ordnance survey map and a roamer. Had I read the
instructions in the first place I might have got a First to Find on this six
years ago. I then spent much of the afternoon struggling with
an on-line jigsaw puzzle for
geo-reasons. With thunderstorms forecast for tomorrow evening we
had our seaside walk today. Even though the weather looked a tad iffy. We
went down to Folkestone Leas, but didn’t go very far. Treacle was still
limping. She’s not crying or worrying her leg, but she’s not
steady on it. If it doesn’t improve she’s going to
the vet. |
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4 September 2024
(Wednesday) - Another Early Shift
I
was woken by the sound of Treacle getting off the bed (with a bit of a
thump) at half past four. She shouldn't be jumping with her iffy leg. And
certainly shouldn't be going down the stairs. I
hurried after her and found her at the top of the stairs looking rather
pathetic. So I carried her down. She's quite a lump
to carry; let alone downstairs. We got downstairs and I put her down and went
and opened the back door. She stood by the foot of the stairs looking pathetic so I carried her outside. She hobbled about a bit
for ten minutes showing absolutely no sign of doing that for which we'd come
outside. After ten minutes she eventually squatted, and there was then the
sound of something jumping on the fence (a cat maybe). Treacle shot up
the garden like a bullet from a gun, barking like a thing possessed. When I caught up with her whatever she'd chased had
long gone, and she was looking very sorry for herself. She'd obviously again
strained whatever she'd strained yesterday. I carried her back to bed, but I was wide awake. I
made brekkie and watched another episode of "Brassic"
in which him who played "Grumio" in "Plebs"
had acquired a life-like but faulty sex doll, and
had the hump that no one would test it for him. He was keen to give it a go
himself, but not until he'd found out what the fault was. Or,
to be precise, until someone else had found out what the fault was. I set off to work a tad earlier than I might have
done. I used the time to go round town hunting down points of interest. Mind
you these points were only of interest to Munzee players. Most people would
find them rather dull. I found fourteen before heading up the motorway to
work. The motorway was frankly dangerous this morning.
With Operation Brock gone for this week there were two lanes of lorries all
the way from Ashford to Maidstone. The slow lane had lorries moving at about
forty-five miles per hour, and the middle lane was full of other lorries
overtaking them... at about forty-six miles per hour. All the cars were in the fast lane, and I found
myself constantly having to dip in between the lorries of the middle lane to
allow whoever was driving a couple of yards from my back bumper (and
flashing their lights) to get past. You'd think the traffic police would
get involved, wouldn't you? As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking
about how the police have arrested a fourteen year old child who has
supposedly murdered an eighty-year old chap. Has he? I don't know.
If he has, let's have a public televised execution. Seriously. When I was a
lad if we messed about at school the headmaster caned us. One boy had a sore arse for a day and a thousand boys behaved themselves for
a year. Publicly killing off one murderer would serve as an example. Wouldn't it? Work was much the same as ever. But an early start
made for an early finish. Again road works meant I
was rather later home than I might have been. I got home and the dogs came to
see me as they do. Treacle had obviously just woken up and was stiff and her
leg was still playing up. In all the excitement her leg must have twinged so
she snarled at Bailey, and Bailey tiddled in terror. “er
indoors TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching
episodes of “The Traitors US”. I’ve taken to watching it in
the hope that the contestants I dislike most get the heave-ho. And the
contestants are all so bland and banal finding one to dislike more than the
others takes some doing. I’ve taken to judging them on the
basis of who is wearing the most stupid hat… Treacle’s leg still isn’t right. |
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5 September 2024
(Thursday) - It Rained
The
sound of heavy rain against the window woke me at four o’clock. Judging by
the snoring it didn’t seem to wake anyone else though. I nodded off again and slept through for another
four hours until backache forced me to stop laying there. I got up, took
those dogs who wanted to go out outside, then made brekkie. There was a minor
disaster as the milk had gone off. Milk seems to be going off quite a lot at the moment. Fortunately we
found some powdered stuff in the cupboard. Unfortunately
it was best before over two years ago. That went the way of the liquid stuff. As I scoffed brekkie I peered into the Internet as I
do. As it has been doing for the last few days my Facebook feed was filled
with articles about the late Freddie Mercury. I don’t dislike the chap. I
quite like some of his music. But what has possessed Facebook to bombard me
with his stuff just lately? There was a rant on one of the Facebook pages I
follow. The tired old argument about how cash is king. Except it isn’t. I
found myself thinking back over forty years to the Harbour restaurant before
credit cards were quite such a thing. The boss would take thousands of pounds
of cash to the bank twice a week. Two of us would go as bodyguards as he
wasn't happy carrying such large amounts. And then all the banks in Hastings
Old Town closed and what was a twenty minute job
suddenly took an hour... at the time of day when restaurant staff should be
doing restaurant things. And because no one accepted cards back in those days
boss always carried a wad of notes in his pocket to pay staff wages and
suppliers’ bills. His wad was about half an inch thick. He lived in permanent
fear of being mugged. Despite the rain I took Morgan and Bailey for a
walk. Treacle stayed behind; she was still limping this morning. We drove up
to Kings Wood and as we arrived so the rain
slackened off a little. I’d had reports that three of my geocaches were
missing. One was and two weren’t. Sadly one that
wasn’t missing was broken. Earlier in the year Gordon gave me a rather good
geocache container – a little owl. It is tied to a tree about a mile from the
car park in Kings Wood - you can find it by solving a little puzzle. But someone
has got rather heavy handed with it and broken the lid. It is OK for the time
being though. We walked back to the car. As we walked Morgan and Bailey
were as good as gold. It winds me up the no one ever sees them behaving
themselves. Everyone sees them being pains in the glass though (to coin a
phrase). As we drove home we found
ourselves in the middle of a queue of seemingly endless cyclists all the way
from the woods back to Ashford. I was once told that cyclists aren’t allowed
to have races along the roads, so instead they organize time trials in which
they set off at thirty second intervals and the fastest one to complete
whatever route they have chosen wins. Was that what was happening today? I did my best to overtake the cyclists safely. Other
drivers didn’t. The whole thing seemed rather dangerous. Ironically as we drove home my MP3 player randomly
chose to play ELO’s “Concerto
For a Rainy Day”. We got home where the pups had a bath. They’d not
rolled in anything but being low down they’d got wet
and muddy. A hot shower sorted them out. I popped up the road for pastries
and milk, and made a cuppa
for me and “er indoors TM”. With the rain not letting up I spent a little while
uploading photos that “er indoors TM” had found
the other day. Piccies from our old school trip to
Hindleap Warren in 1975 and Boys
Brigade camp some time in the late 1970s.
I’m still in touch with some of the people from the good old days. I say “in
touch”; I see photos and updates from them periodically on Facebook, and
occasionally we comment on what the other has been up to. But so many other
people have fallen by the wayside. Take for example the old Open University
gang. One of the albums of photos that has come to light was from my OU days.
I didn’t put those piccies on-line. Clearly from the pictures I was having a
whale of a time, but who were those people? As I perused the photos I had
vague recollections. One might have been a policeman from Dartford, I think
one did the same job as me somewhere in the London area, I think two were
from Brighton, but as for the rest? Thirty years ago
we were such a part of each others’ lives; now
total strangers about whom I’d not given a thought in years. I wrote up some CPD, then with the rain
getting heavier and heavier turned on the telly and watched episodes of “Four
in a Bed” in which (as is always the case) those with a massively over-inflated
opinion of themselves were shocked to find some of their contestants doing a
far better job than they were and for half the price. “er
indoors TM” boiled up a
very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching more of “The
Traitors US”. In theory the contestants use wit and deduction to work out
which of their number can’t be trusted. In practice the whole thing is little
more than a popularity contest, and it is the bitching and jostling for
position that makes it so entertaining. And then I had a message from work. Could I go in
for a few hours tomorrow? Go on then… what with the current and forecast rain
it isn’t as though I could do much tomorrow anyway. And one should always
bear in mind the thirty-third
Rule of Acquistion. |
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6 September 2024
(Friday) - Swizzed
I
slept like a log and woke feeling raring to go… at half past midnight. And
then I just dozed on and off. This happens annoyingly often. Eventually I gave up, got up and watched an episode
of “Brassic” in which him who was “Grumio”
turned up in a camper van which he’d converted into a mobile sex dungeon
despite having no road tax, MOT or driving licence. I then did my usual peer into the Internet. There
wasn’t a lot happening so I had a quick Munz, then
struggled with Wordle. I’ve been playing that for the last few weeks; I’m not
very good at it. I set off to work and immediately spent a few
seconds retrieving the recycling bin and the food waste bin from where the
bin men had abandoned them. Having heard them bellowing as I'd been watching
the telly I rather thought I'd have to do that job before someone whose bin
they'd lost came and nicked ours. As I drove out of Ashford
so I noticed a motorbike in my rear view mirror. It had its headlight on full
beam, flew past me rather dangerously at the traffic lights by Matalan and
sped round the roundabout where it caused no end of chaos by conking out
right in everyone's way. I remembered my old motorbike; a Suzuki GSX 250
which went for scrap about forty years ago. It too used to conk out without
warning whenever it rained. There was an interview on the radio with Dwayne Fields (no
- I'd never heard of him either) who has become the Chief Scout taking
over from Bear Grylls. From what the chap said he seems to be ideal for the
position. Mind you I did sit up and take notice when he said that half a
million youngsters were members. I thought it was far more than that - and
membership has grown
in the last year. I was in the cubs as a child. I lasted one week as a
scout, finding it rather scary. I was dragooned to assist our local group
when “My Boy TM” was eight, and I stayed as
a leader for thirteen years. It was fun at the time, but it did insidiously
rather take over my life. I got to work where I was swizzed. Yesterday I was
asked if I could do some extra hours to help out.
Bearing in mind the thirty-third Rule of
Acquisition "it never hurts to suck up to the boss"
I agreed to work the morning .After all a colleague whose birthday it was
said she would be bringing in cakes today. However I
didn't consider the two hundred and eighty fifth Rule of Acquisition "no
good deed goes unpunished"; my colleague has gone down with COVID,
phoned in sick and there were no cakes. And to add insult to injury I’d been
asked to come in because she was not coming in. I worked for the morning, then came home at mid-day.
Once home I loaded the dogs int the car and we drove up to Kings Wood. As I’d
driven down the motorway the weather had gone from bright to torrential rain
and back again a few times. Going to the woods was taking a chance. As we parked so my phone beeped with the news that
the Met Office had cancelled the extreme weather warning for heavy rain and we had a good walk. Having had a report that
another of my geocaches had gone missing I went to check. It was where it was
supposed to be, but since I hid it nearly two years ago the ferns have grown
rather thickly around it. We had a shorter-than-usual walk today. Treacle
seemed better when we left home and wasn’t limping. But after half a mile she
was walking rather awkwardly so we cut our walk short. I didn’t want her
over-exerting herself. Despite walking awkwardly she
was still running round like a thing possessed when she saw a shadow that
offended her. We came home and I spent a couple of hours fast
asleep on the sofa “er
indoors TM” boiled up fish and chips which we scoffed watching more of “The
Traitors US” in which those who weren’t in the clique watched those
in the clique whilst making no secret of their jealousy. Whilst totally not
realizing they weren’t actually missing
anything… |
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7 September 2024
(Saturday) - Dog Club, Geo Meet, Family Get-Together
I
slept rather well for a change. That was nice. I made brekkie and peered into the internet. Not a
lot was going on really. I did chuckle as I saw I’d been told off – yesterday
someone asked for recommendations for local aquatic shops. I recommended some
local ones and gave my honest experiences of the aquatic shop closest to
work. Over the last seven years I’ve called in many times and found them
rude, unhelpful and rather expensive. Over the last couple of years I’ve only been in when I’ve forgotten how bad the
shop was only to be reminded why I rarely go in there. Some young girl
thought it wrong of me to say so. What did she want of me? To lie and say the place
was fine, or to keep quiet and let others experience the rudeness for
themselves? The last time I went in there I stood and waited for
over ten minutes whist the staff all stood around listening to one of their
number talking about the amount of blood spilled in a fist fight that someone
or other had been involved in the previous day. I Munzed and Wordled, and then being Saturday
we set off to Dog Club. As we drove I got Steve’s “Guess
the Lyrics” contest on the radio right away. “I can dim the lights and
sing you songs full of sad things”. No? Click here for
the video. We got to Dog Club where Morgan disgraced himself.
He’s fine with other dogs until the other dog shows fear. Then he just gets
aggressive and has to have a time out We came home and had a cuppa
and a bun. Whilst we’d been at dog club a new puzzle geocache had
gone live. I spent a little while struggling with the puzzle. Perhaps too
long. By the time I’d solved it time was running out. Bearing in mind it was
a short diversion from our afternoon drive we left it for later. And drove
out to Wye where the monthly geo-meet was happening. As geo-meets go it wasn’t the most well attended,
but ten of us sat in the pub garden and put the world to rights. And it was
something of a milestone for me; geo-find 15151. From Wye we drove to Hastings. We took a little
diversion to find that geocache the puzzle of which I’d solved earlier. Sadly having not gone straight there but having gone to
the meet-up we missed being First to Find. But to be honest I’d rather meet
up with friends. We carried on to Hastings
where family gathered for a get-together for a couple of
birthdays. We had a rather good get-together which got progressively more vague as the afternoon wore on, and I slept most (all)
of the way home. Today has been rather busy… I
took a few photos. And (where has the time gone?) today marks
two years since my Dad died… |
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8 September 2024
(Sunday) - Before the Night Shift
I
slept right through till half past eight this morning. As I scoffed my toast so I got an email. A new geocache only a mile away.
I sped off in the desperate hope of being first and got to where it was
supposed to be only to find a geo-pal was already there hunting. From the hint the thing should have been obvious. It
wasn’t. After a few minutes my pal sent a message to the chap who’d hidden
it. Or to be precise, the chap who had told Geocaching HQ that he had hidden
it. Apparently he’d not got round to hiding the
thing… even though when you go through creating a new one on-line you
actually tick a box saying that you’ve hidden it and it is in place. I sighed and came home. As “er indoors TM” pootled about I had a look at the internet. I rolled my
eyes on our Munzee Clans Facebook page. There was a photo of something pretty central to Munzee Clans and someone had commented “What
is this?” This would be like going onto a football page and asking what a
goal was, or going on a cricket page and claiming you had no idea what a
wicket was. And then a notification came through that the chap
who’d not hidden the geocache had gone out and done so. The weather forecast for this morning was
thunderstorms and a ninety per cent chance of rain. As we sat and looked at
the glorious sunshine we thought we’d go out. So we went out and despite the glorious sunshine there
were showers. Very odd showers. There would be torrential rain, then a
hundred yards up the road the pavements were completely dry. And there was a
glorious blue sky all the time. We drove up to Eastwell where “er
indoors TM” had been told that some of her geocaches
were missing. Replacing them made a short dog walk. We came home and I spent a little while farting
about on Amazon ordering bits and bobs. And after half an hour I went outside
to pump up the car tyre. It had told me it had low pressure as we’d driven
home. It had very low pressure. I’ve never seen it so low. By the time I’d
driven it to Kwik Fit it was completely flat. The nice man at Kwik Fit said he might be able to do
something with it today, but they were busy and short-handed
and I should leave it with them. He specifically said it wasn’t worth my
while waiting. As I walked home so the torrential rain started. I
was soaked by the time I got home, and I’d developed a blister that bad burst
and was profusely bleeding too. Just as I was taking off wet undercrackers so my phone rang. It was the nice man at
Kwik Fit asking if I’d hit a pot hole today. “er indoors TM” said I had as we’d
driven back from Eastwell. The nice man at Kwik Fit said that would wreck a
tyre… I wouldn’t mind quite so much if the tyre had been more than six weeks
old; I’d only had the thing replaced on 26 July. To add insult to injury he said I might like to go
collect the car… And then my phone told me that the payment had been
declined on all the stuff I’d bought from Amazon earlier. When the bank wrote
to me a month ago and said they’d updated everything when they sent out my
new credit card they lied. “er
indoors TM” drove me out to
get the car, and once home I went to bed for the afternoon. I’m hoping for an
early dinner and then off to the night shift. I’m hoping to get up the
motorway before it closes. I wish the highways people would stop messing about. |
|
9 September 2024 (Monday) - After the Night Shift
The
first night shift I ever did was in early 1985. I was phoned and asked to do my
thing on five separate occasions. I finished the last one at half past
midnight. Last night’s shift was five hours shorter than that
one of all those years ago. Far from getting a phone call every time I was needed I just stayed in work and dealt with stuff as it
arrived, and stuff arrived constantly all night long. Including a red alert
during the hour before midnight. I was rather pleased to see the early shift arrive
this morning. As I came home I listened
to the radio. There was talk about what our new Prime Minister was getting up
to. Something about public finances… From what I could work out it is being
claimed that the previous government cooked the books
and it has now come to light that he country is massively in debt; far more
so that was ever thought. The obvious answer (so some shrieking harridan
claimed) was to tax the extremely rich. I had hoped the Labour party had given up on such divisive ways years
ago. Taxing the rich is all very well all the time the country has got rich
people to tax. But were I massively rich and was
told that I would have to pay far more tax purely because I could, I would up
sticks and piss off to another country where it
wouldn’t cost me quite so much. I got home just as “er indoors TM” was
walking down the road with the dogs. She’d taken her car for its MOT, and
walking the dogs back gave them an outing. I stood and waited for them.
Treacle saw me but the other two were too busy sniffling about and didn’t see
me. Which is why when we are in the woods they walk
straight past squirrels and don’t see deer only twenty yards away. I had a shave and shower and went to bed. Morgan and
Bailey followed me. Morgan jumped on the bed and curled up. Being too small
to jump up Bailey just looked at me rather pathetically. So, falling for her
ruse, I lifted her up and she flew at her brother and a rather vigorous
play-fight kicked off. They eventually settled. Over a mid-day brekkie I
peered into the Internet. Facebook randomly decided I might like crochet and
presented me with a post from a crochet group in which various people were
having a really nasty, spiteful and personal
argument about the difference between tortoises and turtles. On a crochet
group. Some people will argue about anything. And I then realised
something. Up until the last election our local MP was all over Facebook like
a rash. Since he got the heave-ho he’s been quiet (well
he would be, wouldn’t he?) But I’ve not heard a single thing from our new
chap. Does he not do social media or am I looking in the wrong place? I got the ironing board out and spent some time this
afternoon ironing. As I sorted shirts I watched
episodes of “Four In A Bed”. This afternoon’s episodes were rather
good in that not a lot of love was last between the contestants. That show is
always best when those taking part hate each other. “er
indoors TM” boiled up sausages and chips and went bowling. As she walked out the door she announced that as she’d picked up her coat she’d destroyed
my ironing board. That wasn’t *our* ironing board. That was *my* ironing
board… Ho hum… |
|
10 September 2024
(Tuesday) - Rather Tired
Despite Sunday’s night shift I slept for two
hours last night and was wide awake at one o’clock. I lay there for half an
hour before nodding off, and woke again at half past
five feeling like death warmed up. I made toast and peered into a rather dull internet. Other than a
public outpouring of grief for the actor James Earl Jones who died yesterday not
a lot was happening on Facebook. However I did have seemingly
endless posts about two 1960s TV series – Captain Scarlet and The Time
Tunnel. I wonder why? I had a quick Munz, struggled with Wordle, then got ready for work. As I drove the pundits on the radio were also banging on about the
death of James Earl Jones. Intending no disrespect to the chap I can't help
but wonder why he and so many of his ilk are so newsworthy. Go to any local
theatre and you will find dozens of actors who are every bit as good as the
ones on the telly and in films. They do their acting for the fun of it, don't
command ridiculous wages since they do it as a hobby, and no one cries
crocodile tears when they croak. I'm sure Mr Jones
gave some stunning performances, but I'm also sure that dozens if not
hundreds of other actors could have done just as good a job for a fraction of
the price. Why are celebrity actors held in such awe by the public? Football players are the same. There was also a lot of talk about the government's plans to cut the
winter fuel
allowance for pensioners. Apparently the pension
is going up, so what the government takes with one hand it is giving back
with the other. I went up the motorway to the needlessly closed slip road at junction
six where I turned off and drove through Aylesford. As I drove
I was conscious of a white van being far too close behind me. It overtook me
rather dangerously on a blind corner and then being unable to go any further
carried on about ten yards in front of me tail-ending the car in front of it
for the next mile or so until recklessly swerving into a building site.
Pedestrians didn't actually dive out of its way... I spent much of the day giggling. When I first started this line of
work many years ago one of the very first things I learned that people who
collect blood samples are called "phlebotomists". They are
known to all and sundry in the hospital as "fleabows".
The very first time I heard this I had a mental image of one of the Banana
Splits communicating via a honking horn whilst wielding a needle and syringe,
and that set me off. This morning, years later, there was talk of "fleabows"
and that mental image came straight back. Work was work. I took a little diversion on the way home and popped
into the Red Lion in Badlesmere where I confirmed
that all was good for next month’s geo-meet. It was. The plan was to then come home and take the dogs out, but when I as
home so the heavens opened. We did the “Feeding The
Fish” ritual and I wrote the web page for the October geo-meet I’d just
arranged. Dinner was rather good… it was just a shame I could hardly stay awake. |
|
11 September 2024
(Wednesday) - Dentist, Sunset, Kebab
“er
indoors TM” and Treacle had
some sort of altercation at three o'clock, and I didn't really get back to sleep
after that. I eventually gave up laying in my pit, got up and as I scoffed toast I watched another episode of "Brassic" in which our heroes went camping. Him who
played "Grumio" in "Plebs" was all for the
Great Outdoors, gave himself dodgy guts from eating iffy berries and earned
himself the sobriquet "Shitticus
Maximus" which left me giggling all day. Meanwhile the ladies stayed
at home and went thieving. Much as I like the show it seems to have run out of
steam. Why would all the lads go camping when not one of them actually wants to go camping? And having been the voice of
reason and decency for four seasons, why does the leading lady take all the
others thieving when she's been so outspoken about it previously. And there was another major issue... one of the
characters claimed to have been thrown out of the cubs. As a cub leader of
thirteen years, take it from me. No one in the history of scouting has *ever*
been thrown out of cubs. The leaders love the problem children and bend over
backwards for them. Leaving “er indoors TM” and
the dogs snoring I set off for work. As I drove there was talk on the radio
about last night's televised debate between the candidates for the upcoming
American presidential election. Apparently Donald
Trump made an idiot of himself (again), but the pundits seemed to feel
that was expected. In the end the most important thing to emerge about the
election didn't come from the debate at all though. Apparently Taylor
Swift has announced that she is going to vote for Kamala Harris, and
because she is voting that way, so will millions of her followers as well.
Democracy eh, Can't beat it... I got to work and cracked on as I do. It wasn't a
bad day really; there was cake. I'm a great fan of the stuff. But cake
notwithstanding I was out the door like a shot at the stroke of going home
time. I came home, brushed my teeth and went to the
dentist for a check-up. The chap rooted about in my gob,
gave me the thumbs-up and told me to see the hygienist in a couple of weeks’
time. He said I should come back in six months’ time for X-rays when he would
think about replacing fillings. We then drove down to Folkestone for our mid-week
walk along the lees. The channel was the clearest I’ve ever seen it. We had a
little walk, but only a little one; it was rather cold. And it got dark
ridiculously early. We drove home into the sunset. Being a bit late home we had kebab for dinner. It
was rather good. We scoffed it whilst watching the penultimate episode of “The
Traitors US”. For all that it is supposedly reality TV, the contestants
were getting rather nasty with each other… |
|
12 September 2024
(Thursday) - Arguing with the Geo-Feds
Another restless night. Usually
I sleep like a log for several nights after a night shift. I wonder what was
different this time? I got up, made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was still
there. I saw I had an email… and my piss boiled. On Tuesday I tried to
organize the monthly geocaching meet-up for October. The Red Lion in Badlesmere are up for it so I tried to set up the meet.
Bearing in mind the pub is usually busy until mid-afternoon I thought we
might stage a little litter picking as a formal geo-activity on the village
green before. The usual geo-fed with whom I deal is on holiday. His stand in was
being rather difficult. *If* there was to be a litter picking session
then that had to be the main event, and the write-up I’d provided for the
session in the pub should reflect that. I went to one of these litter-picks followed by a meet up in Deal
in April
this year, and something seemingly identical took place less than
two weeks ago in Seaford, Both passed off with no such squabbles whatsoever. If there was one word to describe the geo-feds it would be
inconsistent. They pick on “er indoors TM” about
her caches needing maintenance when two people have logged that they can’t
find the things, but let other people’s ones go for
over a year with the DNF logs piling up. A friend who lives ten miles away
has the geo-feds finding trivial issue after trivial issue with his proposed
hides, but when his wife tries to put out *exactly* the same thing
there are no problems at all. It says quite clearly in the rules that a
geo-meet is not to be a rallying point for people then going off geocaching
but a friend who lives twenty miles west does exactly that without problems. Bearing in mind that so few people are creating geo-events these days
you’d think they’d be a tad more encouraging… I sent a terse reply, and pointed out that
the geo-litter-pick was wishful thinking at best. I pointed out that I’d sent
an email to who I thought was the relevant parish clerk on Tuesday, but with
a postal address in Scotland I wasn’t expecting a reply. I also pointed out
that I’d tried to organize a similar litter-pick in Kings Wood over the
winter, but I gave up after six months of procrastination from Forestry
England. Just as I finished typing this rant so the
stand-in geo-fed published my geo-meet
for October. Clearly my terse email had worked. After a rather wet few days today was glorious
so I took the dogs up to the woods. We took a rather shorter route than usual
as I didn’t want to over-exert Treacle’s leg. But she seemed fine. As we walked we met three other dogs. Two encounters were fine;
one wasn’t. If Morgan meets another dog and they aren’t scared of him then
all is heigh-ho, pip and dandy. But if they show any fear
he gets rather aggressive. I wish he wouldn’t. We came home. Amazingly the dogs weren’t filthy and didn’t need a
bath. So I popped to the corner shop and got us some
pastries. You can’t go wrong with an almond croissant. With that scoffed I went into the garden. I harvested a bumper crop of
dog turds, and then mowed the lawn and found more. The whole idea of keeping
the lawn short is that you can see the dog turds at harvest time, but the
lawn had shot up over the last week’s rain. I then started a timer, ran out the big hose pipe, cleaned the pond’s
pressure filter, put the big hose pipe away and stopped the timer. Before I
got the pressure filter, cleaning the pond filter was a back-breaking smelly
job that took over an hour. Today it took just under ten minutes from start
to finish and I didn’t end up smelling of fish poo. I got out the bionic burner and had a zap at the weeds growing in the
cracks in the front garden. Back in the day I would get on my hands and knees
and pull the weeds. Now I go out and zap round with the burner in a fraction
of the time and don’t end up with backache. The trick to gardening is finding easy ways to do it. Having said that
I can hear my mother telling me off about it. She used to see any sort of labour-saving device or activity as cheating. My
grandmother was also insistent that there was merit in doing any job the most
difficult and labourious way possible. Just as I put the bionic burner away my phone pinged. I had an email
from the parish clerk who I’d emailed on Tuesday giving full permission for
the geo-litter-pick. I *really* hadn’t expected a reply; let alone one
so soon. I spent a little while creating the web page for the
geo-litter-picking and sent a grovelling email to
the geo-Fed to whom I’d been rather terse earlier. How embarrassing. Mind you I’m wondering if I shouldn’t send a message to the head
honcho of Forestry England. I spent over six months last winter emailing to
and fro to their local office offering the services
of a bunch of volunteers to do some litter picking for them. After endless
procrastination from them I eventually gave up. A local parish council were
only too happy to have us turn up and pick litter and all was sorted in less
than two days in one email. Feeling rather worn out I sat on the sofa and spent time watching
episodes of “Four In a Bed” in the hope that
the contestants would get nasty with each other. In the first place visited
some bloke (who acted like a precious princess) pretended there were
jizz stains in his bed and insisted that the sheets be changed. Sadly in his establishment there really were turd stains
on the bog brush and matted hair in the plug hole. The losers were rather
disappointed to lose but didn’t seem to realise
that a cabin in a houseboat couldn’t command three times the price of a
proper bedroom in a proper house, and the winners squeaked through by not
rattling anyone’s cages. “er indoors TM” boiled up a very good curry which we washed down with a bottle of
Liebfraumilch whilst watching the last episode of “The Traitors
US” which to my annoyance was won by the very first contestant to
whom I’d taken an instant dislike. This was followed by some program in which the contestants of that
show all came back together to talk about how the show went. There wasn’t one
woman who hadn’t had her face surgically re-built
and her tits pumped up like barrage balloons. I can’t help but wonder why
they had all spent so much money to look so odd. For a rostered day off I’ve been rather busy. And just as I was about
to post today’s diary entry the geo-feds published my geo-litter-pick. Result!! |
|
13 September 2024
(Friday) - Dog Tablets
I
had another restless night. I'm getting fed up with them. I got up rather
earlier than I might have done, made toast and scoffed it whilst watching an
episode of "Brassic" in which
Grumio was again running round in the nip. He seems to do that a lot. It was rather cold as I walked out to find my car.
For once I didn't have far to go to find it. I drove round to Sainsbury's
petrol station to refuel. The miserable old bat was on the till again, and
she was gossiping with her mate. The two of them were managing to do the
tills and take the money without interacting with the customers at all as
they carried on their conversation. It would seem her mate has some sort of
dietary intolerance. The miserable old bat would name a food, and her mate
would say how it affected her. As I listened it appeared there wasn't a
single thing that didn't either bung her up solid or have her squitting through the eye of a needle (as she so
eloquently put it). I'm no consultant enterologist but it strikes me that
the obvious thing to do here is to take two foods with completely opposite
effects and eat them together. Surely one would counteract the other? As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the radio
were talking about the ongoing crisis in dentistry where there is spiralling tooth
decay in children. This is strange... my teeth are crap;
as a child and teenager I had filling after filling. But the fruits of my
loin had much better fangs as did their generation. When they were younger
there was talk of children and teenagers having no fillings at all. I can
remember cubs at days out having the most healthy
packed lunches. It would seem that now they've grown
up they are rebelling and giving their children sugar to sprinkle on their
sweets. And there was talk about how President Putin has
seriously got
the arse with the Western world for giving
the Ukrainians weapons. He's threatening dire repercussions if the weapons
given by Western countries supposedly for use on Ukrainian soil are fired
into Russia. It just amazes me that whoever is that is handing
out missiles didn't see this coming. I got to work; I did my bit. As I worked
I phoned the bank to tell them about next week's holiday, and to tell them
not to put a stop on my credit card when they see it is being used overseas.
They said they wouldn't. I told them that they said that to several friends
only to go on and stop theirs. And I phoned the vet to organise
flea and worming treatments for the dogs. Flea treatments is easy enough; you
just rub some jollop on the back of their necks. But getting a worming pill
down a canine neck takes some doing. As I found out this evening. I came home via the vets where I picked up the
treatments. I popped Bailey’s tablet into a lump of cheese and she yummed it up. Morgan was also easily tricked into having
his. But Treacle has seen it all before. I hid her tablet in a piece of
cheese. She took the cheese, gave it one bite, spat it all out and quickly
ate all the cheese leaving the tablet. I tried again and we had a repeat
performance. I pinned her down and poked the tablet down her throat. She
glared at me and spat it out. Eventually I tricked her by putting the tablet
into a lump of cheese about the size of a golf ball which she immediately
devoured before the other two could get any. “er
indoors TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching
another episode of “Race Across the World”. Our heroes were
heading out of Brazil into Argentina. Maybe we might go there one day… if
only it wasn’t so far away. And in closing today spare a thought for Moonbase
Alpha. When I was a lad there was a wonderful sci-fi show on
the telly. It was set on a fictional Moonbase Alpha, and they had various
adventures as the Moon travelled through space. The Moon was off on its
travels having been blasted out of Earth orbit on 13 September 1999. When I watched that show this all seemed so far into
the future... it's now twenty-five years ago. I think it fair to say that the
future didn't pan out quite how Gerry Anderson would have had us believe. |
|
14 September 2024
(Saturday) - FTF, Dog Club, Games Night
As
I peered into Facebook as I scoffed toast this morning
I saw that a chap I know had posted something. His son was starting work as a
trainee paramedic. I thought about commenting but it wouldn’t have gone down
well. Today marks forty-three years since I started
working in blood testing. And as I start the longest holiday from work that
I’ve had for years I’m wondering… Apart from one hiccup thirteen years ago
it’s not been a bad old game. But it certainly wasn’t what it might have been
or what I had hoped. When I packed up my previous job of general dogsbody at the Harbour Restaurant (having worked up
from being a corporal dogsbody) the boss had
one thing to say about going to work for the NHS. He said that I would be comfortable,
and that would be the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone. Looking back he was right. Perhaps I’ll feel differently after two weeks off.
Perhaps having gone part time I’m finding work is getting in the way. But
after all these years I’m rather bored with it. I sparked up Wordle and in a novel break with
tradition I got it in three goes. I always start with “table” and more often than not that is a rather silly first move in
that it rarely gives me anything. But today was different. Just as I was rather bored and waiting to get out to
Dog Club so my phone beeped. A new geocache. Did we
have time to chase it? Well we were nearly ready to
go out. A little diversion to our planned drive, a handy parking space, a
quick rummage in a hedge and the thing was soon in my hand. First to Find
too… Result. We then drove on to Dog Club listening to Steve on
the radio. And I got a “First to Get It Right” on the “Guess the
Lyrics” competition as well. “I was walking down the street
concentrating on trucking right”. No? Click here for the
answer. We got to Dog Club where we had a little experiment.
The first time Morgan played up we put his muzzle on him. It stayed on for a
couple of minutes and he *really* didn’t like it. For the rest of the session he was rather better behaved than he might have
been. He still ran about and played, but there was none of the forceful
dominance with which he so often pisses on his chips. We came home. Well, me and the dogs did. “er indoors TM” set off to craft
club. Being left “home alone” we did what we always do when left home
alone. The dogs went to sleep and I cracked on with
the ironing. Ironing didn’t take long, and “er
indoors TM” returned from craft club. We thought
we’d spend a few seconds taking the garden table down. It took half an hour
to work out how to collapse the thing, and there was quite a bit of blood
from where it bit my finger. I then spent another half an hour rearranging
the rubbish behind the shed to put the table in there. I don’t want to leave
it constantly up as it has left bare patches on the lawn. I then spent much of the rest of the afternoon fast
asleep underneath a pile of dogs. Steve, Sarah and Chris came round for the evening and we had a rather good session on the Infinity
Table. I came second at “Game of Life”, last at “Sorry” and I
amazed myself by winning “Ticket to Ride”. My finger is rather sore where a lump got chopped
out when we were fighting with the table earlier… |
|
15 September 2024
(Sunday) - Road Trip
I
slept well. Over brekkie I had my usual rummage round the Internet. On the
Facebook page for my old school people were asking what happened to an old
friend of mine. The chap is now a Baptist minister in the West Country; I
learned that to some at school he was known as “Captain Caveman”? I
don’t remember that… There was quite the spat kicking off on an American Facebook
friend’s page. She was bemoaning the amount oof shootings in America and some
friend of hers was getting incredibly aggressive about the right to bear arms
and the need to defend himself and his family. Admittedly it is over twenty
years since I went to America but is the place really so lawless that people
need at least one gun each? And some half-wit on one of the groups I follow was
getting rather aggressive about the revelation that the UK imports
electricity from France. Apparently that was all
supposed to have stopped with Brexit (!) Sometimes reading what is posted on social media is
more informative about the world we live in than the morning news. We got ourselves organized, loaded up the car and
went on a little road trip. Munzing like a thing possessed as “er
indoors TM” drove we went up to Enfield where “Daddies’
Little Angel TM” and “Darcie WaaWaa TM” are
currently living. We’ve not seen them for a while, and when we met the
reaction of my favourite lady spoke volumes. “Nanny!!!”
she shouted. Then “BABY!!!”. Then “TREACLE-CHUG!!”. Then “MORGAN!!”.
A few minutes passed as she fussed the dogs, then as an afterthought “oh,
granddad”. We went for a little walk to the playpark, then onto
the round-and-round playpark where me and littlun played
chase for a while before having our picnic. We then walked on to monkey playpark. I’d not been
to Enfield before. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t
what I saw. The place was lovely. Well-kept estates, beautiful
grassed areas, excellent playparks. It was a shame that a bunch of travellers had set up a caravan encampment on one of the
greens and were abandoning all their rubbish. It was so good to see two of my favourite
ladies, but time was pushing on. We came home via Epping Forest where there
was (and still is) a virtual geocache. We stopped and selfie-ed before
getting on the motorway and heading to Sittingbourne. We had a very good afternoon with Karl, Tracey, Jess
and Charlotte. We put the world to rights, we had a very good dinner, I had
three pints and a couple of G&Ts. But again time was pushing
on. Treacle seemed settled which was good. She’s staying with Karl, Tracey,
Jess and Charlotte whilst we go on holiday. We said our goodbyes, and it
wasn’t long before we were in the traffic jam on the M20 which was
closed (for no apparent reason) for much of the way from
Maidstone to Ashford… not that I noticed as I slept most of the way. Morgan and Bailey are worn out from today. And so am
I… |
|
16 September 2024
(Monday) - Packing
I
slept like a log again last night which was something of a result. I made
toast as I do and peered into the Internet as I do. Facebook suggested I
might like to join a group called “Pot Smoking Atheists who like Dogs”.
I didn’t join. There wasn’t much else going on in cyberspace
really. I Wordled and got it on the third go after
an amazing triumph of pot luck over skill. I took the dogs out for a walk. As we drove to the
woods there was some program on the radio about freedom. It was one of those
programs that Radio Four specializes in; so nonsensical that you find
yourself listening in disbelief that such stark staring gibberish would be
spouted on a national radio show. It started with some chap drivelling on about how no one is free unless they have the ability to do whatever they want. But everyone
doing what they want will impinge on everyone else trying to do what they
want. As is so often the way these days there was a lot of ranting about
people’s rights, but very little said about people’s responsibilities. The
second part of the show was given over to some Ukrainian poet who had the arse because she seemed to think that the entire
Ukrainian conflict had been staged to undermine her freedom to spout bad
poetry and so she had fled to England. Not for safety but so she could spout
bad poetry in what she considered to be freedom. We got to the woods and walked for nearly four
miles. With Treacle away on her holiday I only had two dogs with me. Usually Treacle walks with me whilst the other two run
about; today Bailey walked with me pretty much all the way. Do they think I
need looking after? We met several groups of dogs as we walked; the
meetings mostly passed off uneventfully. But there was a minor episode with a
group of cockerpoos. One of them got into a game of chase with Morgan, and
after a couple of minutes Morgan got over-excited as he does. He started
trying to nip the other dog. I shouted at him and threatened him with having
his muzzle put on. He immediately stopped still, then slinked over to me with
his ears down and looking very shamefaced. I’m seeing that as a result. We came home. I did a bit of ironing, and packed for
our holiday, then prepared a gpx file. And then
with less than a day to go I had a stroke of genius and spent much of the
afternoon trying to get my old phone sparked up and back to life. I had this
naďve idea that I might get a data only e-sim card for it. Having spent three
hours charging it and updating the software and removing the apps I don’t use
and updating the apps I will use, I then discovered that the thing doesn’t
support e-sims. I shall take it anyway and see if I can buy a data
only sim card somewhere. Anything would be cheaper that what my mobile
provider wants – two quid per megabyte. “er
indoors TM” went bowling and I watched the last episode of “Kaos” which
was rather good. I really should have an early night – the adventure
starts tomorrow. And that’s me done for a little while. The next
diary entry on here will (probably) appear in two weeks
time. I’m off on my holidays in the morning… |
|
17 September 2024
(Tuesday) - Travelling Hopefully
In
the past we’ve fannied around when going to the
airport with the park and ride. This time we had a taxi collect us from home
and take us there. We got to Heathrow airport and did the standard
farting about. Checking in bags, passport checks, body searches… eventually
we were through and with some time to spare we went to the Prince of Wales –
the pub in terminal four. “er indoors TM” had
fish and chips; I had the full English breakfast and a pint of Camden stout. It wasn’t the best pint of Camden stout I’d ever
had; it was a shame that the barman let slip after the meal by asking if I
wanted a second pint of Guinness. Pausing only briefly to get “er
indoors TM” a new handbag (she somehow destroyed
her old one) we sat around waiting to be called, and eventually we were
on the plane. It has to be said that Uzbekistan
Airways put on a good show. The plane was spacious
and every passenger had their own monitor on which they culd
play games and watch films and music. I watched a “Ghostbusters” film.
As I watched the air hostess came round with wine and with a rather good bit
of dinner. We took off at mid-afternoon, but what with the
vagaries of time zones it was three in the morning by the time we landed. And
then we started the tedious process of passports and luggage. As I watched
loads of other people milling about I slipped off to
one of the nearby stalls and in less than ten minutes my old mobile was
running on Uzbek mobile data. As the clock stormed past four am we realized we had
a minor hiccup in that no rep from the travel company could be found.
Eventually we found him outside the airport; it transpired that he wasn’t
allowed inside the arrivals area… if only we’d been told that. The chap told us on which coach to get, and just as
I sat down so some random voice announced that she was very sorry but she had lost all her luggage and had sent her
husband to find it. Commotion ensued, and then two minutes later the same
voice announced that her luggage was on the coach where her husband had put
it, but her husband was now off in pursuit of the luggage he’d put on the coach, and was himself now lost. I
took a few photos as we travelled, and with travelling done we
rolled into bed as it got light at six o’clock in the morning. |
|
18 September 2024
(Wednesday) - Tashkent
Having got to bed at six o’clock in the morning
the rep said that the plan for the morning was to catch up on sleep. But with
limited time in Tashkent I decided that sleep was
for wimps. I’m not convinced that “er indoors TM” agreed,
but she was scoffing brekkie with me not three hours after we’d gone to kip. Brekkie was odd; I had a bowl of muesli that tasted of cheap bubblegum
and followed it with a plate of cheese and curried tomatoes. We went for a little walk. As always when anywhere new I sparked up
the geocaching map. The noble art of hunting Tupperware is still in its
infancy in Uzbekistan, but we still scored three smiley faces (it’s a
geo-thing), and as we did we found Independence Square, loads of
fountains, and a statue of Amir Timur too. We made our way back to the hotel. Having thought that Uzbekistan
would be random huts in a desert we’d been rather shocked to find that
Tashkent was not entirely unlike London, Paris or any other large Western
city. Once at the hotel we got a pint and sat outside watching the busy
world go by. And it was busy. At mid-day we went to the hotel’s lobby where our group rallied.
Having gone on an organized holiday trip we knew there would be other people
with us. Half a dozen? A dozen? Our group numbered twenty-seven. Our rep explained that he was standing in until the proper rep arrived, and took us to what was billed as a traditional
Uzbek house for a traditional Uzbek dinner. Salad, soup, fruit… there was
loads of it. And then we got on the coach and set off to have a look round a
mosque. And a mausoleum. And the busiest food market you ever did see. Apparently the coach couldn’t wait at the market so we
took a tube train to go find it. The Uzbek tube train was frankly amazing if
for no other reason than that it wasn’t that different to the one in London.
I really wasn’t expecting that. It was a shame that the tube train took us to
where the coach was parked at the Uzbekistan Museum of Dull Bits of Broken
Pots, but there it is. Having pretended to be enthralled by the broken pots we went back to
the hotel. This evening we had been left to fend for
ourselves for dinner, so we sat on the hotel’s verandah and had pizza and
chips which we washed down with a litre of the
local beer and a gin and tonic. Whilst we’d scoffed the cleaners had been at our room. “er indoors TM” wasn’t impressed.
She’d not wanted anyone to clean the room as they would see it was in a “pig
state sty” (to coin a phrase). I took
a few photos today. After yesterday’s late finish I’m feeling all
in. |
|
19 September 2024 (Thursday)
- Tashkent to Khiva
Despite
all the travelling of two days ago followed by two hour’s
sleep I had a terrible night. When the cats weren’t screeching the drunks
were shouting. I didn’t think Muslim countries had drunks? Despite two full-on days, we had another in store
today. The alarm went off at four am, and as we packed
I could hear other alarms going off. Most noticeably the one in the room next
door which was continuous for over an hour. Bearing in mind we were probably
the youngest people on this trip I couldn’t help but wonder if the person in
the room next door had dropped dead. We assembled in the hotel foyer with all our luggage
two hours before breakfast would be served where we met our new guide Fax.
The previous bloke had been a stand-in as our proper guide had been unable to
get to Tashkent – all train seats had been booked for some huge football
event. We piled onto the coach and were given our promised
breakfast boxes. I say “boxes”; a carrier bag containing two apples, a
banana and a yogurt of dubious flavour. Have you
ever tried eating a yogurt on a coach? It takes some doing. We drove to the airport and did the entire “airport
performance” again and soon were on the plane to Urgench.
A four-hundred mile distance to cover would have
taken thirteen hours on the coach so we were flying. I nodded off and snored
myself awake three times on the flight. It wasn’t long before we were on another coach and
setting off to heaven-only-knows-where. We piled off
the coach and had a look around an old hill fort. It was claimed that this
place was thousands of years old, but made of sand
and straw it didn’t look very substantial. I was rather intrigued by why
anyone would build a hill fort in the arse end of
nowhere. With nothing to defend why would anyone be there, let alone want to
attack it? We piled on the coach and went to the next
attraction. The washroom. I say “washroom” – in many ways Uzbekistan
is far more modernized than I had been expecting, but so far
the toilets are at best feral. But if you like pissing in a hole in the
ground the place can’t be bettered. We did see a lizard outside the washroom
so the stop here wasn’t entirely wasted. I had a look at the geo-map. There was one geocache
in the vicinity – twelve miles away. As we drove on to our next stop we were getting closer and closer to it, and when we
pulled up by some yurts it was only half a mile away. We then traipsed across some sand dunes to another
hill fort supposedly defending some scrap of desert from anyone who would be
mad enough to want to attack it. I set off at a pace as it was clear that the
geocache I’d seen on the map was in that direction.
There’s no denying that “er indoors TM” was
wilting on the march across the dunes. But we got there. Our guide (Fax)
told us all about the history of the place and gave us fifteen minutes to go
exploring. By this time we were a couple of hundred
yards from the geocache I’d spotted on the map. It didn’t take long to find.
I was glad that we found it – the next closest one was fifty-six miles away. We traipsed back across the dunes to some yurts
where dinner was waiting for us. A traditional Uzbek meal as the locals would
have scoffed years ago. Whilst the yurts were elaborately decorated inside,
no one had thought through the logistics of traditionally eating by
traditionally all sitting on the ground. We were the youngest on the trip,
and getting everyone down to the tables which were only six inches off the
ground took some doing. And getting up afterwards was problematical for me,
if not anyone else. The food was plentiful… if you like raw whole
tomatoes and cucumbers followed by a bowl of boiled potatoes, carrots and
onions then you would have been in seventh heaven. Pausing only briefly to take a photograph of a camel
we piled back on the coach and set off on the fifty-six miles to our hotel. I
knew it was fifty-six miles as there was a geocache just outside the place.
As always the geo-map was rather useful. We got to our second hotel which was rather good.
After a quick wash and brush-up we assembled and had
dinner in the hotel’s restaurant. We had one of the best meals we’ve had so
far on our trip, but sadly that wasn’t up against much competition. After
chatting with some of our fellow travellers I found
that our guide was able to change dollars into the local money. Before we set
off we’d read (in so many places) that the
Uzbek people would rather have dollars than their own. It turns out they don’t. I changed a hundred dollars into soms,
and with one thousand Uzbek soms being worth a
shade under six pence, I’m now a millionaire. As I do, I
took a few photos today. I wonder what’s on the cards for tomorrow. I’m worn
out – a more restful day would be nice. |
|
20 September 2024
(Friday) - Khiva
As
I do whenever I go on holiday I miss home. And I
miss my dogs. I was particularly homesick this morning, but
got up determined to make the most of the day. I slept better than I had for the last few days and we went into breakfast shortly after eight
o’clock… as did everyone else. The place was heaving. But the breakfast was
better than we’d had in Tashkent and was streets ahead of the carrier bag
we’d been given yesterday. It was only a shame the coffee machine wasn’t up
to the job and was spilling the stuff all over the tablecloth. We all assembled. With twenty-seven of us, there’s
always something of an atmosphere of a school trip on every excursion. This morning we had a walking tour around the city. Seeing
there was a reverse Wherigo cache nearby I sparked up my phone. With one of
these your phone tells you how far you are from the geocache you are hunting,
and when you get close enough it tells you the GPS co-ordinates and gives you
a photo of the hide. As we walked so the thing counted down and down, and
we actually stopped about two yards from it. Seeing
where it was I thought we’d come back later. It
wasn’t far from the hotel, and it was far more interesting listening to our
guide Fax. He really brings enthusiasm to his talks, and he is clearly very
knowledgeable, but some of the things he says… Apparently William Shakespeare
got a lot of his ideas from Uzbek legends, and you can keep milk cold by
dropping a frog into a jug of the stuff. We had a good walk round Khiva visiting all sorts of
places of interest. Most of them were “madrasas” and involved
taking shoes off on every visit. I wish I’d brought along a pair of slip-ons. We popped back to the hotel if for no other reason
to use the toilet. Uzbek toilets are on the feral side. We were left to our own devices for the afternoon.
We went back into the town to have a closer look at the bits we’d seen
earlier and to go at our own pace. Our own pace was slow enough to get the
only two geocaches within fifty miles. We got pressies for people back home and I got an
amazingly sexy jacket. I doubt I will ever wear it, but it is there should
the occasion arise. After a brief lay-down our group assembled and we
walked into town for a meal which was accompanied by local entertainment.
There was a lot of howling and some strange sort of play which looked interesting but I had no idea what it was all about.
Something to do with a small boy stealing a pie I
think? After a quick pint in the bar with some of our group
we went back to our rooms again feeling worn out. I
took a few photos today. |
|
21 September 2024
(Saturday) - Khiva to Bukhara
We
knew what the itinerary for the trip would be so we can’t complain… but again
we packed up our luggage and with packing packed we had brekkie. Earlier than
yesterday there were a lot fewer people swarming
about, and with brekkie scoffed we all piled on the coach and set off. After half an hour we pulled up by the side of a
field where one of our number ran off down a track to find a shrub to hide
behind. The rest of us piled off the coach and Fax (the guide) gave us
an impromptu talk on the cotton trade in Uzbekistan. We then drove on to a proper toilet. Or what passes
for a proper toilet in Uzbekistan. Me – I’d call it a rather gruesome hole in
the ground, but what do I know? From here we picked up a rather impressive modern
motorway. On a par with anything here in the UK; if not better. Apparently
the Chinese
are paying for a motorway network in Uzbekistan in exchange for the
rights to any gas they might find whilst prospecting along the way. We stopped off at an Uzbek service station for lunch
which wasn’t bad really… if you like raw tomatoes and cucumbers followed by
potato and carrot soup. Some of our number braved the holes in the ground
into which you piss (I hesitate to use the term “toilet”); those who
thought they would instead clench stayed inside and had some of the brandy Fax was offering. If nothing else it helped
us sleep for the afternoon’s drive. As Fax waxed loquacious about how men don’t need to
wash but women will die if they don’t, and about gangrene of the knob we
headed on to our next destination. After two hundred and fifty miles we got to Bukhara
at half past four. Once checked into the hotel we all met up for a little
wander round the Jewish quarter of the town. We visited a synagogue and the
rabbi there was very welcoming and gave us quite an interesting talk (which
Fax translated for us). Dinner was rather good… to be fair it wasn’t
anything special but compared to what had gone before it was rather good. So far the food has been something of a disappointment. What
the Uzbeks lack in quality they make up for in quantity. Five courses were a
tad much. We went back to the hotel for a quick drink. I had a
gin and tonic which tasted almost, but not quite, entirely unlike gin and
tonic. And we then fought with the hotel’s wi-fi. Despite two fifferent hotel wi0fis, nwither
worked outside the hotel’s reception area. I
took a few photos today. But not that many – much of today had been
spent sitting on a coach. And I’ve now got a stupendous guts ache. |
|
22 September 2024
(Sunday) - Bukhara
Another bad night’s sleep – the bed was rock
hard. We went down to brekkie and again I fancied a cup of coffee
but it was not to be. Hotels in Uzbekistan don’t seem to have catering coffee
machines. They have the sort of thing you have in your house which is all
very well when you are making one cup of coffee. But taking over a minute to
make one cup and a queue of dozens of people didn’t work for me. As we breakfasted so one of our number, a particularly posh old lady,
commented on my tattoos and asked if I’d been in the merchant navy. We took a coach trip to the other side of town and walked back to the
hotel slowly. As we walked we visited The Ark – a huge
fort, and called in to mosques (shoes off – shoes on). Our guide Fax
knew several market traders and they chatted with us in passable English, and
we visited a traditional carpet shop who gave us tea whilst they gave us a
mini-demonstration and talk. As we walked Fax explained that people weren’t staring at us because
we were English – they were staring at him. Being with Titan holidays (a
subsidiary of Saga) our guide was holding up a huge “Titan” banner
so we could see where he was. Apparently “Titan” is Uzbek for “Viagra”. We went back to the hotel where we were left to our own devices for
the afternoon. We sparked up the geocaching map to give us a guided tour and
we found two caches, watched a cat jumping a stream and had three ice creams
before going back to the hotel for an hour’s sleep. There is a phrase about getting your knickers in a twist. Somehow or
other “er indoors TM” got her bra in a knot.
But with knot untangled we were on our way to a local restaurant where we had
a little cooking masterclass and then the best meal of the trip so far. Plov
isn’t bad really. We walked back to the hotel. Despite it being late
evening all the market stalls were still open. We got back to the hotel where we had a quick gin and tonic, then
fought with the Internet. And having established a connection we swore at the news from home.
The plan for the week was that Morgan and Bailey would stay with the first
fruit of my loin for the first week, and then a friend from Dog Club would
have them for the second. Having dropped the pups off, after half an
hour “My Boy TM” got a phone call to come
and collect them. Apparently Bailey had attacked
their dog (seriously?) and their eight year old daughter was
terrified. He’d gone back to see the eight-year-old playing with them, the
husband of the family demanding that the dogs go, and the woman who’d offered
to take them was nowhere to be seen. The reason for the dogs going to a second place for the second week
was that “My Boy TM” and Cheryl had things
to do and were off on holiday themselves. With no possibility of cutting our holiday short (there’s only two
flights a week from Uzbekistan to the UK and we were four hundred miles from
the airport) we frantically messaged all over the place, but Cheryl
decided that it was too much stress for the pups and they cancelled their
holiday, with a friend from Dog Club dog-sitting when Cheryl had a couple of
appointments. I
took a few photos today… I do that. |
|
23
September 2024 (Monday) - Bukhara Day Two
What with all of the
stress of dog sitting issues I took a while to get to sleep last night. Sadly I was woken by some strange music playing form four
until five in the morning. Brekkie
was something of a scrum this morning, and with brekkie scoffed we were soon
all assembled in the hotel foyer and onto the coach. Fax did a head count to
check everyone was together – it really was just like taking the cubs on an
outing. We
took the coach out to what was billed as the “Indian Village” which
was rather pretty and ornate. Fax gave us a lot of religious talk here. There
were peacocks all over the place and we found a dog. I don’t know if it was a
stray or not. Up until now we’d only seen two dogs – both being walked after
dark. We made quite a fuss of this dog; had it been back home the dog would
have come home with us. Back
on the coach and on to the Summer Palace which had two sets of toilets. “Regular”
and “Emergency”. Sadly an emergency toilet in
Uzbekistan doesn’t cater for the sort of potty emergencies that I was having.
Squatting over a hole in the ground three feet from my bum is no substitute
for putting my arse into a proper bum-sink. Passing
over the frankly feral toilet arrangements the Summer Palace was also rather
pretty. Back
on the coach again. Gettng on and off of a coach has been a feature of this trip. From here
we went to a car park near which was one of the worst statues of Mickey Mouse
that I’ve ever seen. I can only imagine that Mickey has picked up whatever it
is that is upsetting my guts. It was a short walk to the oldest mausoleum in
Bukhara (and that is up against some pretty serious
competition). We
chatted with some market traders that Fax knew – they were selling some
rather good stuff, and then went on to the plumbing museum where our guide
got into an argument. He was telling us about some incident that happened
locally during the Soviet era when a passing Russian tourist got rather
angry. She didn’t claim that what Fax was saying was wrong. But she thought
it wrong that our guide should give us any factual
information, and said he should stick to telling us Uzbekian fairy tales. Fax
seemed rather miffed; we all reassured him. The chap had been wonderful.
Giving us snippets of history from three thousand years ago up to the present
day, he made no attempt to gloss over any of the unpleasant parts. History is
history. We
went back to the hotel where there were proper toilets. It had been three day since I have dared to fart without the safety net of a
chodbin, and I was glad I’d not risked it earlier. We
were left to our own devices for the afternoon. Yesterday a couple of our
number had told us of where they’d lunched. We had ice creams there yesterday
and today we had a rather good bit of scoff. Having gone out expecting the
pace to be little more than shacks in a desert we were rather amazed to find i-pads being used as menus. A glass of rather good fruit
juice each, a decent pizza and a very good cheesecake and for all that the
bill ran to six figures it came in less than sixteen quid in UK money. Once
we’d finished feeding the kitten that had shamelessly joined us we walked round the market; I took a selfie with a
sleeping cat. We had a pint by an ornamental lake and watched a stray dog
getting a drink and having a bath. We
went back to the hotel where the hotel staff came up to our room. Having been
constantly complaining about the lack of wi-fi in our room a chap came up,
took our phones, pressed all the buttons that we’d pressed, pointed at the
screen saying “internet not connected” and
then typed something into his phone using Google Translate. He brandished his
phone at me which said “it is fixed” and
wandered off with a smile on his face. This evening we were out for dinner again. Dinner was rather
good (by the standards of the trip). As we ate so a band was playing
traditional music whilst young girls modelled various clothes we might like
to buy. The clothes were odd; at best they might have been used as pyjamas. One of
our number had a birthday today. The band struck up “Happy Birthday to You”
and we had (proper) cake all round before all going back to the hotel. Having
heard good things about the rooftop bar we walked up to find it was something
of a disappointment, so we had a gin and tonic in the foyer bar, This one tasted nothing like last night’s one. As always I took quite
a few photos. |
|
24 September 2024
(Tuesday) - (Another) Road Trip
Brekkie
was a bit iffy. To be honest the hotel in Bukhara has been far and away the
worst food-wise. We finished our packing and seeing the expression on the
face of the hotel porter I carried out suitcases
downstairs myself. We loaded up the coach and set off on another road
trip. Unlike the trip from Khiva, the roads onwards were
rather pot-holed. After two hours we found some feral toilets. The public
toilets in Uzbekistan are grim (to say the least), and every one has some local
demanding three thousand soms before you can use
the place. Personally I think eighteen pence to piss
in a hole in the ground is overpriced, but what do I know? Today’s toilet had
some local chap taking the money who got incredibly over-excited when he
heard we were from the UK, and started telling everyone about how his is a Manchester United fan. After another two hours we were at our lunch stop.
Lunch was much the same as what we’ve come to expect – salad followed by soup
followed by a strange main course followed by melon. And then back on the coach again to Shahriabs. At Shahriabs we had a good
wander round the Amir Timur park. It would have been
a better wander had it not been so hot. The coach told us that he external temperature was forty-one degrees. But taking
a selfie at the statue and answering a couple of questions gave us the
thumbs-up for an Earthcache. Back to the coach and we drove off along fifty miles
of what we were assured was the worst highway in Uzbekistan. The driver was
slaloming around the pot holes rather impressively. It was rather late by the time we finished our two hundred mile road trip and we got to the hotel in
Samarkand. Perhaps I did the place an injustice, but from the outside the
hotel did look like “Guest House
Paradiso”. Dinner wasn’t bad, but the beer was pricey, and the
wi-fi isn’t good. |
|
25 September 2024
(Wednesday) - Samarkand
I
think in retrospect I’d done our hotel a disservice. Having decided that the
place was “Guest House Paradiso” last night wasn’t helped by a
dreadfully hot night and having to unplug an incredibly noisy fridge at three
o’clock in the morning. I wasn’t in the best of moods when I came down for
brekkie. The waiter asked if I would like coffee. Yes please - I would. Would
I like americano, espresso, Montevideo, arseacheandchipso… I wanted a cup of coffee. A cup. With
coffee in it. Was that so much to ask? Clearly it was, so I contented myself
with some fruit juice and sulked. My opinion of the hotel wasn’t helped when we got on
the coach and were asked who was it who’d paid the
previous night’s drinks bill on their Visa card; apparently it might have
been anyone. Again all twenty-seven of us piled onto the coach and after a few minutes
we were at the observatory of Ulugh Beg. We did all the touristy things, then
once we had a few minutes to ourselves I slipped off to find a geocache. Having solved the
puzzle weeks ago and having being presented with a
picture of the location I saw it was behind a wall. I hopped on to the wall
and tried to look inconspicuous as I searched. A nearby market trader came
over, smiled, reached over the wall and handed me the geocache. I bought a T-shirt from him; I felt I owed him that
much. From here we went on to the tomb of St Daniel. According to Wikipedia the
tomb is in Iran, but the Uzbeks
would disagree. Apart from some religious chap howling, the place was
rather interesting; it was a shame that we were supposed to believe that the
Pope of the Greek Orthodox Church had resurrected a nearby tree, but there it
is. We piled back on to the coach and made our way to
another museum of dull bits of broken pots where we had a video show. And
once I’d slept through that we had a few minutes free time to get
over-excited bout the dull bits of broken pots. AS
no one was watching I nipped over the road for geocachical
reasons. Pausing only briefly to visit a winery (this is a
Muslim country, you know!) we had a very good bit of dinner. Well… to be
honest the dinner was just the same as pretty much every meal we’ve had here,
but the location was rather good. A very posh ornate restaurant. Just how I
always envisioned Samarkand as being. And with dinner scoffed we went on to Amir Timur’s
mausoleum, The Uzbeks get very over-excited about mausoleums; far too
over-excited if you ask me. With mausoleum visited we had some free time. We
went for a little walk again guided by local geocaches. It was good to walk
round seeing the locals. One of them stopped me and pointed at my water
bottle and jabbered. I replied that I didn’t understand him. On hearing I was
English he asked if I had whisky in my water bottle, and could he please have
some. Another success for my idiot magnet. Our dinner was in a local restaurant. Apparently a
rather posh local restaurant, but apart from the birthday cake served up for
one of our number whose birthday it was, the food really wasn’t anything
special. We came back to the hotel. With twenty-three of our
number off to bed, four of us had a little drinkie ion the bar. No gin and
tonic, but a brandy and lemonade was every bit as
good. Or would have been had there been any lemonade. Sprite is an acceptable substitute… isn’t it? I took a few
photos of the day as I do. |
|
26 September 2024
(Thursday) - Samarkand Day Two
I
had a rather good night’s sleep which was something of a result. And a (relatively)
very good brekkie too. We did our packing. Having moved the tea tray to the
floor because there was no plug anywhere within reach of the kettle’s power
cable, as we had a last-minute check of the room we
discovered the kettle’s extension cable. We took our cases to the hotel’s lobby. The coach
took us to more mausoleums, then leaving us behind set off with the cases on
the road back to Tashkent taking a seven hour
journey. We stayed for another day in Samarkand. The mausoleums were good if you like mausoleums. If
you don’t then (quite frankly) you’ve no business being in Uzbekistan. From the mausoleums we walked up to the market. We
were warned to be careful of gypsies in the market. Apparently
they hypnotize you and rob you. We took no chances and walked up the road
where we found a rather good little café. They offered Big Macs and probably
will continue to do so until the McDonalds corporation get wind of them. We
had a chicken skewer each and a couple of glasses of pop,
and change out of a fiver. We all met up again after dinner and walked along an
avenue of conker trees. Who would have thought they
had conker trees in Samarkand? We went on to Registan Square where we
admired the madrasahs and then had a little wander around. I found a stall
selling raspberry milk shakes. before setting off for dinner. Yet another
traditional Uzbek dinner. It has to be said that by
this stage I would have killed for pie and chips. And with dinner scoffed we aid goodbye to Samarkand.
At the risk of seeming negative, Samarkand was something of a disappointment.
When I was a lad, adventure comics painted Samarkand as a far-off land of
mystery and intrigue where the likes of James Bond did derring-doo
with Johnny Foreigner. In reality Samarkand isn’t any different from any other city. We went to the train station which was something of
an adventure. Having been promised tickets on the Shark
Train it turned out there weren’t any tickets available, so we took
the standard train back to the first hotel in which we’d stayed in Tashkent. We got to bed shortly after one o’clock. I took
a few photos today. I do that. |
|
27 September 2024
(Friday) - Travelling Home
Having
got to bed at one o’clock last night I’d set the alarm for six am. We had an
early brekkie and had to be on our way promptly as the local roads were being
closed as the Uzbek President was visiting. We piled onto the coach and went to the airport
where we said goodbye to our guide Fax… and with him gone we were no longer a
group. For ten days we’d worked together and been to wonderful places
together. We’d had a really good group which had
gelled well. But with our guide gone we were on our own and became a load of
individuals and couples. As we went through the airports
we would see others from our group and exchange pleasantries, but the holiday
was over. We did the airport things. We checked in. We handed
over our luggage and got searched. We did passports. And we were only an hour
and a half late getting on the plane. As we flew for six and a half hours
I fiddled wit the i-pad
thingy the airline provided on the headrest of the seat in front of me. I
watched a film. “Chickenhare
and the Hamster of Darkness” was one of those films that was
so dreadful that it was excellent. And with that watched I played 2048; a surprisingly engrossing
game. And eventually we touched down. Luggage collected,
taxi home found and we were home sixteen hours after
we’d left the hotel this morning, “My Boy TM” and Cheryl brought Morgan and Bailey home, “er indoors TM” got
KFC for dinner… I
took a few photos as we travelled. As I do. I’m now thinking about our holiday… “holiday”
is completely the wrong word to use. It was certainly a good time. But “holiday”
implies rest, and it certainly wasn’t restful. Ten nights spent in five
hotels made for a rather busy time. And…
But don’t let me put you off. Some of our party
alleviated the toilet issues by bringing a supply of cereal bars and not
eating any of the local food. If you are thinking of Uzbekistan, there’s
worse places to visit. But bear in mind:
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28 September 2024
(Saturday) - Back to Reality
I
was wide awake at four o’clock this morning. I’m going to say that was
because my body was still running on Uzbek time where it was eight o’clock. I got up and made toast and a cuppa.
How I’ve missed a couple of slices of toast with peanut butter and marmalade
washed down by a cup of black coffee. I put loads of washing in to scrub and started writing up my diaries of the
holiday. It wasn’t long before “er indoors TM” came
down. Once I’d hung out the washing and put more in we set off to Dog Club. It was much the same as ever;
everyone has fun; loads of woofing… We came home, hung out the second load of washing,
and once I’d written up even more diary we drove up
to Badlesmere where we met Karl. Tracy, Jess,
Charlotte, pogo and Treacle. We walked our usual walk, and
came back to the pub for our dinner. Dinner was good, but as we scoffed
I felt myself wilting. Once home I feltched in the
laundry, sat quietly and went to bed at eight o’clock. I think I caught something on my travels… I
took a few photos today. |
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29 September 2024
(Sunday) - Got The Rona
I
slept like a long last night but woke up feeling rough. I had this naďve idea
that if I got up and pootled about I might perk up
so I put another load of washing in, had a shave and made brekkie. I hadn’t
perked up much so I mowed the lawn and it nearly
killed me. Bearing in mind I had some old COVID tests left over from the days
when I had to do twice-weekly testing I thought I’d use one to prove I didn’t
have COVID… Oh well – I’ve got COVID. Again. Plans for going to B&Q and the garden centre
went out the window. Instead I sat on the sofa (feeling
grim) and looked at the monthly accounts. They could be better; they
could be a whole lot worse. It would seem that I’ve
been charged interest on the things for which I used my credit card when we
were away. You would have thought that when I spoke to the bank
they might have mentioned that, wouldn’t you? I paid the credit card bill – I
overpaid. There’s still three transactions that
haven’t appeared on the statement yet. I’m paying as little interest on those
as I can - I’m mean like that. I then had a look at Project GC. One of the many
failings of geocaching dot com is that it simply isn’t fit for purpose. If
all you want to do is go find a rock under which there might be a film pot,
then their app is about the poorest app with which you might do that. But if
you want to look at the statistics of what you’ve found – most found in a
day, furthest apart finds in a day… then that’s where third party suppliers
come in. I asked Project GC how many geocaches we’d found
whilst on holiday compared to other tourists. With one or two caches every
fifty miles or so we went not intending to do much caching, but if we were
walking past one we thought we’d have a go. It turns out that we came home the UK’s top finders
of Uzbek caches… With so much I could have done today I spent the
afternoon washing and tumble-drying undercrackers and socks whilst watching
episodes of “Four in a Bed” in which the contestants had taken to
checking out their rivals on price comparison websites to see if people were
deliberately undercharging. It all got rather nasty and turned out that it is
quite legal for third party to hire a hotel room and then let it on at a
higher price. “er
indoors TM” boiled up lamb chops, and I then slept for much of the evening… |
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30 September 2024
(Monday) - Writing A Website
I
would have had a better night’s sleep had the rain not been hammering down on
the window seemingly all night long. I got up and made toast and a cuppa…
one major difference between out holiday in Uzbekistan and home is that I can
have toast with jam (as opposed to some strange substance). And
another is that I can have a proper mug of coffee that isn’t all swallowed in
one gulp. For all that I really enjoyed our time away, the
food did leave a lot to be desired. If you like a selection of strange
unidentified things for brekkie, and salad followed by potato and carrot soup
followed by lumps of meat, with melon for dessert all with generous side
orders of whole tomatoes and cucumber for dinner, then Uzbekistan is the
place to be. Mind you in all fairness for all that I criticize
the lack of variety over there, if I can I always have the same thing for
brekkie every day. The plan for today was to loads the dogs into the
boot (they love it!), drive to the garage and go for a walk whilst the
car had its MOT done. But it was hossing down. So I took the car to the garage and “er
indoors TM” picked me up on her way home from collecting the
shopping from Asda. We came home, and as the dogs snored
I looked at our holiday spending (I’m mean like that). Having been
told that everywhere in Uzbekistan would rather be paid in US dollars we
found that the vast majority of places flatly refuse
to take them, and those that do take them grudgingly and guess at what they
think the exchange rate might be. So we came home
with quite a few US dollars. The local branch of my bank is temporarily closed,
and even when is open they can’t take US dollars. Apparently
the branch in Canterbury can… that’s half a day’s mission for later in the
week. I’ve also got three hundred and fifty thousand Uzbek
soms which I doubt anyone is going to change up for
me. But bearing in mind that’s only worth about twenty quid I shall sit on
them in the hope that someone will be following in our footsteps, and I can
give them a pressie. With the rain showing no sign of easing up I sent
out one or two (over fifty!) messages about the upcoming geo-event I’m
planning for three weeks’ time. There’s quite a few
people who seem to have started hunting Tupperware relatively recently but
haven’t quite been brave enough to come to a meet. Admittedly it does take a
bit of courage to meet new people… some of them might come… you never know. And then my phone rang. It was the garage. My car
had passed its MOT and there weren’t even any advisories. That was a result;
I had been worried that the pot-hole which took out
a tyre a little while ago might have done more damage. I had absolutely no
reason to think that (other than paranoia)
but I was still expecting to have to shell out the thick end of a thousand
quid. That was a result. The rain had eased up. I was all for walking the
dogs over to get the car, but “er indoors TM” said
I should take it easy; I was still on the mend. So
she drove me over to get the car. Bearing in mind I was under orders to take it easy I
sat on the sofa. It wasn’t long before Morgan cuddled up with me. Rather than
wasting time watching telly I made a little website of our recent holiday.
You can see it by
clicking here. I’m rather conscious that I’m not shutting up about
our holiday. For all that it was hard work, it was an adventure. But on
thinking about it, it was different. It was a change to my routine. I am a
creature of habit. I have friends who post holiday
photos to Facebook every couple of months. Some people I know really do go on
foreign holidays at least once every two months; if not more often. “er
indoors TM” went off bowling as she does most Mondays. I ironed shirts and
bandannas whilst watching an old favourite film of
mine. I’ve seen “Goodbye Mr Chips” so
many times. Tonight I watched the version from the
ITV hub. I’m pretty sure quite a bit of the film had been cut. I must watch
my DVD version of it. But first I must set up the DVD player we bought
months ago and is still sitting in its box… |
