4 December 2025 (Thursday) - Home Alone

I had a good night’s sleep, but again woke with a very painful right hip. Am I overdoing the walking? Let’s hope not.

I got up, did the usual morning things, and peered into the Internet as I scoffed toast as I do. I rolled my eyes as I looked at some of the work-related Facebook pages. People post up photos of blood films taken from people with various conditions, and I’m probably not far off in thinking that no matter what the condition, over ninety per cent of people looking at the pictures say “malaria” regardless. I can only hope these people aren’t in positions where their opinions are taken seriously.

And this morning’s petty argument was on a telly-related page on which people were arguing about why the fictional character Richard Bucket (pronounced Boo-quet) ever married the equally fictional Hyacinth (out of “Keeping up Appearances).

 

Despite the drizzle I took the dogs up to the woods for a walk. As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how President Putin of Russia is off visiting India today. Pretty much everyone seems worried that India is seemingly chumming up to the Russians, but after President Trump’s sticking tariffs on everyone and everything can anyone really be surprised about this.

We got to the woods where we barked at the normal people, chased a herd of deer, chewed on the squirrel carcass we found yesterday, rolled in fox poo and ate a dead mouse. All of which whilst it hossed down with rain. Some days our walk in the woods is more eventful than others.

 

We came home for a warm bath and a cuppa. I Munzed, and Wordled through “other”, “taint” and “tiddy” to get “tulip” on the fourth attempt.

And then the postman came. And my piss boiled.

If anyone ever comments that the country is hard up, or that there is a financial crisis, just laugh in their face. The country clearly is in an incredibly amazingly very good financial position. It must be; how and why else would the government be able to afford to waste money writing to me to tell me that I will react State Pension age in 2031, and that they will write to me to tell me how to claim some time in October 2030.

 

I got the ironing board out and set about the ironing. As I did my plan was to watch a DVD… We bought a new DVD player the other day which would be able to play the multi-region DVDs we’d bought off of eBay over the years… Sadly it couldn’t play any of our standard DVDs that we bought from shops.

Fortunately we still had the old DVD player, and it didn’t take that long to plumb it back in again.

Hopefully “er indoors ^TM” kept the receipt.

 

As I ironed I started watching “The Charmer”; a rather good TV series based on the books of Patrick Hamilton. And with ironing ironed I carried on watching the DVDs from under a pile of dogs. I watched the entire lot this afternoon.

 

“er indoors ^TM” came home from work and boiled up a rather good steak dinner which we scoffed whilst watching more “Game of Wool”.

 

I’ve got a stomach ache to go with the iffy hip… and here’s today’s Advent Adventure.

3 December 2025 (Wednesday) - This n That

With no alarm set we didn’t get up until after eight o’clock this morning. I had a shave, made toast and had a look at the Internet. I saw that the Geocaching Association of Great Britain had elected a new committee. This might possibly be a good thing… depending on who got elected.

A few years ago I was nominated to their committee but I chose not to get involved. When I asked what (exactly and specifically) they did, I was told it depended on who they had on their committee. If they had people who liked to travel then they would stage events all over the place. If they had people who were IT-savvy then they would do IT things. At that time they appointed a fourteen year old child (who lived a couple of hours drive away) who made the announcement that he was “in charge of geocaching in the South” and seemingly did very little else that I could see.

 

With not a lot else happening and the rain seeming to be easing off I got the dogs onto their leads and we went up to the woods. I wore a coat as rain showers had been forecast; it stayed dry for our entire walk.

We did our “winter walk” avoiding the worst of the mud. Sadly avoiding the worst of the mud also means avoiding  where we are most likely to see deer. But there it is.

As we walked we found a toilet roll that had been unwound and left in the rain about a mile and a half from the car park. And we found a squirrel that had been dead for some time. Pretty much an average walk, really. But there’s no denying that with the silly beard gone, my face certainly felt the cold.

 

We came home where paws and bellies got a wash, and I made us both a cuppa. I then phoned the local hospital. It’s been some time since I had my annual endoscope up the nose and I wanted to be sure that I will get an annual check-up. They managed to drop me off of the system after my first nasal re-bore. I phoned the out-patients department and the automated system told me that I was in position twenty-one in the queue. I wrote up some CPD for half an hour while I waited to get through. Eventually a nice lady said that I had been due for a review last September and that she would put me through to the ENT department. And then she said she couldn’t as the phones just went through to an answering machine… which had always been my experience of the ENT department.

I’m assured someone will be in touch about an appointment.

I Munzed. Being the first day of the Munzee Clan War I put out some Christmas cards. And I Wordled through “about”, “trace” and “plate” to “haste”.

 

I thought about going into the garden to pootle. Over the summer I spent an inordinate amount of time pootling in the garden. But not today. In much the same way that the morning’s forecast rain showers didn’t happen, the forecast dry afternoon didn’t happen either.

Instead I had a look at something that the nice man from Infinity Table dot com had sent me about how I could get into the workings of the Sky hub to allow it to accept game requests from Chris. It all looked rather technical and with the potential to turn the Sky hub into a rather expensive brick. We can send out game requests, and that’s good enough to be getting on with for now.

 

I sorted out the undercrackers that I’d washed and tumble-dried on Monday (I always take an age to do that job), fixed the bathroom light cord, and tuned in to chess dot com. The nice people there gave me a free lesson in how to sacrifice bits to get a victory, challenged me to my daily three free puzzles, and comprehensively handed me my arse on a plate in a dozen games in which I was totally thrashed.

 

I posted up today’s installment of the advent story, and “er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we washed down with a bottle of plonk and then the dogs amazed me. Usually right after dinner they go sit on the sofa with “er indoors ^TM”. This evening they all sat around me looking hopeful. Usually when we have a bottle of plonk I crack open some cheese biscuits to share with them. They’d clearly seen the bottle of plonk and knew what that usually meant.

So I opened some cheesy biccies.

 

And then we had a go on the Infinity table… The thing accepts incoming friend requests, so why doesn’t it accept incoming game requests? 

2 December 2025 (Tuesday) - Late Shift

I had something of a lie-in this morning, finally getting up at about half past eight. I opened the second window of my Lego Advent Calendar. A bulldozer. What was I supposed to do with that? The early ones in the Advent Calendar set the course of the story, so the pressure is always on at the start of the month.

I had a shave. Oh, how I’ve missed that. I made toast and had a look at the internet as I do most mornings. It was still there.

This morning’s squabble was over a conspiracy theory about how what is considered to be a “normal” blood pressure reading has got lower over time; presumably in order to sell more anti-hypertensive drugs. The fact of the matter is that over time more and more blood pressure readings have been taken on more and more reliable devices which have given more reliable normal ranges, But as is usually the way, the most stupid and uneducated a person, the more vehemently they were advocating utter bollox. As Neil Innes once said, how sweet to be an idiot.

 

Ideally we would have gone for a walk in the woods this morning. Usually when time is pressing we go to Orlestone, but as I found yesterday the place is a swamp. So with no time to go to Kings Wood we just walked round the local streets. I don’t really like any walk when Morgan is on the lead – he becomes an idiot. He always tries to pick fights with dogs with which he would play or ignore when off the lead.

It only took quarter of an hour to walk round the block.

 

We came home for the monthly flea treatments. I can’t pretend the dogs like their flea treatments, but they don’t run and hide like Treacle used to. And then I had a minor fight with Bailey. Last week the Doggy Dentist found her gums were rather sore. Yesterday the special dental ointment arrived, and applying the stuff was something of a game. Fortunately she is small enough that I can manage on my own. She wasn’t at all keen… until she tasted it. Maybe the next time might be easier?

 

I Munzed, and Wordled through maybe, tails, ratio and faith before getting cacti on the fifth attempt. I posted up today’s Advent adventure and wrote up some CPD.

As I pootled on-line so there was a knock on the door. The Royal Mail postie had our Amazon delivery. Quite a bit of stuff from Amazon comes via Royal Mail. I suspect that the Amazon deliveries go a long way to keeping Royal Mail in business.

I struggled with a puzzle on chess dot com, then got ready for work.

 

It was rather bright and sunny as I drove off to work.  With nothing of note on the radio I sang along to my MP3s. 

I considered a little geo-adventure, but thought better of it. Instead I went to the Sainsbury's petrol station at Aylesford where I topped up, and got a tad miffed. Last week when I went to Sainsbury's I got given a voucher for double nectar points when I next got petrol with them. So I got the voucher out... and it wasn't valid. Pretty much every time I shop at Sainsburys I get these vouchers which are either worth money off of stuff I never buy, or they don't actually work.

 

I then drove on to work... very conscious that the car behind was incredibly close. As I drove I realised that the chap driving the car was shouting. Every time I slowed or stopped (and there are a lot of reasons to slow and stop along Hermitage Lane) so the chap got more and more worked up, waving his fists and making obscene gestures.

He followed me as I drove into the hospital, and followed me to the staff car park where he couldn't get through the barrier. Which was probably for the best. I was in the mood for a good argument. And looking at the state of the chap I think I could probably have laid him out with a swift one up the bracket (which I would have claimed was self-defence).

 

I went in to work and did my bit; for all that we had a busy day today, it was a rather good one. But it is always good to see the relief arrive.

I drove home tuned to Radio 4 Extra on which Russell Tovey was playing the Admirable Crichton. It was probably as well that the DAB signal failed completely after ten minutes; it wasn’t very good…

1 December 2025 (Monday) - The Advent Calendar Starts (Again)

I’m a very superstitious person (for all that superstitions are total bollox). Many years ago my mother told me that the first thing I should say on the first day of every month was “White Rabbits, White Rabbits, White Rabbits”. And so I have done for years. Consequently I was rather miffed that my first words this morning were “fuksake” as I knocked the bedside clock flying.

 

I opened the first window of my Lego Advent Calendar… and for the sixteenth year wished I’d opened it months ago, then went to the bathroom where I rather enjoyed having a shave. I signed up for the Movember thing a month ago after we came home from a geo-meet on the evening of the last day of October. After a few beers it seemed like a good idea. In the cold light of the next day it didn’t, but by the morning of the first day of November I’d already had fifty quid of donations so I rather felt I had to go ahead with it.

In the end the mutton chops didn’t look quite as bad as they might have been. I think that being grey they looked far better than they had the last time I did it in 2012. I’m told they made me look very distinguished but they’ve gone now, and I’m also told I now look fifteen years younger..

They might come back at some stage… who knows.

 

I made toast and had a look at the internet. There was a minor episode on one of the Facebook groups I moderate, The group is about an obscure series of books from many years ago. Just recently some chap has been posting AI generated pictures of the various characters. Personally I didn’t think that he’d got any of them remotely right, but he was contributing to the group which is more than most people do. Someone else took exception to all the AI pictures last night and had posted a rather nasty comment which (as a moderator) I deleted. The chap who’d posted the AI pictures apologized when he had nothing to apologize for, and the chap who’d made the nasty comment couldn’t understand how he could disagree without being disagreeable, left the group in a sulk and everyone else was happy… which was probably for the best.

And I had a suggestion for a possible Facebook friend. Facebook periodically prompts me to send friend requests to people I might know. Generally I don’t know the people in question but this morning it came up with a rather interesting choice. I have no idea who the chap it suggested is; I’ve never met him. But I and this fellow have four mutual Facebook friends. Two geocachers, someone I met through astronomy, and someone with whom I took scouts to Canada all those years ago. Sometimes it is quite amazing just who knows who.

 

It was drizzling this morning, but I took the dogs out anyway. With time being short this morning we went to Orlestone woods for which really should be the last time this winter. The trouble with Orlestone woods is that there are two really muddy parts which really can’t be avoided. So no matter what route you take, you get filthy.

But we had a good half-hour walk.

As we drove home the pundits on the radio were talking about the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. Some people take the subject seriously; some don’t. And some people delight in showing their ignorance. The presenter really did ask one of the experts being interviewed just how important it was to look into space when searching for extra-terrestrial intelligence. Where did he think aliens hang put? Tesco?

 

We came home; the dogs had paws and bellies washed. After a quick cuppa I took Pogo to collect “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” from her appointment and took them both home on a circuitous route via Canterbury. On the way home I stopped off for a little geocache near Hythe, but sadly the hint was “small tree” and I got to where my sat-nav said I should be only to find the wreckage of a small tree which had been cut down. Ho hum…

Instead we had a little geo-mission near home over lunchtime which was successful and earned us an origami rabbit.

 

I made us another cuppa, did some CPD, then realized that I had neither Munzed nor Wordled. I put that right then had a go at the bots on chess dot com… and failed miserably.

 

“My Boy ^TM” and ”Auntie Chel ^TM” came round with a white chocolate advent calendar for me, and once we’d had dinner, “er indoors ^TM” went bowling. I settled on the sofa and watched the last episode of “Brideshead Revisited”. Six days to watch the lot… I wonder what I shall watch next?

30 Movember 2025 (Sunday) - End of the Mo(nth)

I had a bit of a lie-in and had my morning’s perusal of the Internet at half past nine. Over four and half hours previously my brother had got up to set off to Nottingham to watch the football. He must love it. A group of local (ish) geocachers were posting to Facebook from Gatwick airport – they were off to Dublin.

And there was on-line mention of the Museum of the Moving Image in London. I went there many years ago and had a really good day out… apparently it closed over twenty-five years ago.

I Munzed, It wasn’t money, it wasn’t mardy. Mucky was a bit closer. It was muggy.

 

We got the dogs on to their leads and took them out. Sadly I forgot that from now until Christmas I really need to avoid the roads by the MacArthur Glen outlet centre. It didn’t take *that* long to get out of the traffic jam, but it did take a while to take a circuitous route to get out of Ashford. We drove to Ham Street where we found a puzzle geocache that I’d solved a few weeks ago, and we got a virtual Chihuahua for our troubles.

We drove on to Rye where we had a little circular walk gathering more virtual dog figurines. We got a Yorkshire Terrier, a Papillon and a Pomeranian and completed the set. From there we drove up to Tenterden where there was a little al-fresco geo-meet going on. It was good to catch up with friends old and new. And it was rather sad to say goodbye to our new friend Billy who had organized the meet. He’s now off to Cornwall for three weeks, then he’s spending the winter in Portugal before going back home to Canada. Safe travels Billy…

 

We took advent calendars round to the first fruit of my loins, then came home for a cuppa. Having found all the virtual dog figurines and virtual film festival tickets, the next virtual geo-things to find are origami animals (there’s never a dull moment in geocaching!). However there are fourteen of these things to find, and they are rather few and far between. I spent a few minutes planning some little adventures to go find those ones.

 

“Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” and Pogo came for a little sleepover. We had a rather good Shepherd’s pie for dinner and followed it up with Tesco hot chocolate fudge cake. Have you ever had a Tesco hot chocolate fudge cake? It was possibly the worst dessert I have ever had…

Such a shame.

 

And it is the end of the month. The frankly dreadful mutton chop have raised three hundred and fifty-two quid. Having raised over three hundred quid I apparently get a free pair of socks from them. Personally I’d rather they spent the money on the charity, but they’ve clearly already bought the socks.

I think the fundraiser remains open for a few more days, but for one last time…

https://uk.movember.com/mospace/15453545

https://www.facebook.com/donate/1355423342735210/1355423366068541/

29 Movember 2025 (Saturday) - Lazy Day

I heard “er indoors ^TM” get up in the night. Presumably she didn’t discover any little accidents? I then slept through till seven o’clock when I got up, made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was still there, and remarkably quiet for once. No one seemed to be bickering over triviality, but my piss did boil over one of the twee memes being posted. As I have said before I have often been told that when life hands me lemons I should make lemonade. However I have rarely (if ever) been told that by anyone who has ever even seen a lemon, let alone been handed one.

 

I perused the geo-map, Munzed, and started Wordle with “lemon” which gave me no letters whatsoever. “Strap” gave me the R, but in the wrong place. “Brick” gave me the correct place for the R (but nothing else), and with precious few letters left I got it with “Gruff” on the fourth attempt.

As I Munzed and Wordled so Steve was on the radio. He said that the weather would chirp up by the evening, and then did the “Guess the Lyrics” competition. “And I was there and not dancing with anyone” No? – “Chain Reaction” by Diana Ross.

 

The earlier heavy rain had eased up somewhat by the time we set off to Dog Club, and stopped by the time we got there. Sadly it had been bad enough to put people off of going, and we had perhaps the lowest turn-out of the year. But nevertheless nine dogs had a great (if rather muddy) time.

As we drove home Steve was doing the “Mystery Year” competition on the radio, The release of the twenty pence piece and the Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands? 1982. I can remember getting my first ever twenty pence piece; it was in a little shop in Brighton. I’d no idea that a twenty pence piece was a thing, and only accepted it for the novelty value. I took it back to college, showed the rest of my class and was suddenly quite the centre of attention.

And I remember the Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands. I can remember that a lot of people had no idea where the Falkland Islands were (and still are), and a surprising number of people I knew thought they were somewhere off the coast of Scotland with the Orkneys and the Shetlands.

 

There was a serious dog bath session when we got home; the dogs were filthy. As were we. A load of clothes went into the washing machine, and with “er indoors ^TM” off to the cinema with Cheryl I settled in to doing the ironing. And with ironing ironed I cuddled with Bailey on the sofa watching more episodes of “Brideshead Revisited” until “er indoors ^TM” returned. There wasn’t much else I might have done – the rain had returned with a vengeance.

She didn’t return for long; she went out on a shopping trip, and I carried on slobbing on the sofa watching more “Brideshead Revisited”.

Have you ever watched it? I’ve seen it so many times I know what everyone is going to say, but it is such a good story I will probably carry on watching it time and time again. The original book is a firm favourite of mine too.

 

“er indoors ^TM” returned and spent a little while taking photos of the sunset. It was a very pretty one; just a shame it happened so early in the afternoon. Mind you it’s less than a month till the shortest day so this can’t really be a surprise.

 

I played the bots at chess dot com a few times, and seriously struggled. The level one thousand bot is rather good. “er indoors ^TM” left me home alone again going off to see her mum. I thought better of going; for all that I’d had something of a lazy day I felt like continuing. Either I’d been sitting awkwardly on the sofa earlier or I’ve been overdoing the walking. But whichever it was, my hips had been giving me gip I didn’t fancy exerting them any more than I needed to. Hips can be dodgy.

Instead I cuddled with Bailey on the sofa and watched more “Brideshead Revisited”…

28 Movember 2025 (Friday) - Hit The Target

We had a rather late night last night and so I didn’t wake for the loo trip until half past four. Although it was still dark I know the way from the bed to the toilet so I didn’t need the light. However had I turned the light on I wouldn’t have trodden barefoot in the pile of dog diarrhea on the lino in the lobby by the bathroom. Oh well… it didn’t take that long to clear up, and it was on the lino rather than a carpet.

I went back to bed and slept though till after eight o’clock. I got up and because it was light I could see the puddle of dog tiddle on the kitchen lino.

Oh well… they rarely have little accidents, and when they do you can see they’ve tried to get out.

 

I scoffed toast whilst the dogs scoffed their brekkie then we went to the woods for a walk. As we drove so Sir Salman Rushdie was on the radio on Desert Island Discs. Some of his music choices were rather good, some were awful.

We got to the woods. Being a bit later than usual there were loads of normal people there… but as always once we were a few hundred yards from the car park we didn’t see anyone. We walked our usual four and a half mile walk, and probably won’t be doing that for a little while – it was seriously muddy in places.

We got back to the car park to find something of a commotion going on. Cars were trying to get in and out of the car park, no one was moving and there were heated voices. A couple of other people hurried over to get involved, but it was neither my circus nor my monkeys, and whatever it was all about was sorted by the time I’d got the dogs into the car’s boot.

 

As we drove home there was a fascinating article on the radio. Some chap had been running a scam in which he was importing tea from Africa to Scotland and selling it claiming that it had actually been grown on his plantations in Scotland. One so-called expert said a kilo of top tea from Africa could be sold for a hundred times its cost if passed off as Scottish. Mind you I would take what these so-called experts have to say with a pinch of salt as is was them who were agreeing that the scam tea tasted different to other teas which were actually exactly the same, and who were giving it awards.

 

We got home where I made us a cuppa, then rather than settling down there was a little errand to be run. In Folkestone. But the errand didn’t take long, and it wasn’t *that* much of a diversion into Lyminge on the way home. There’s a geocache there (there’s geocaches everywhere if you look hard enough) which you find by answering some questions about the village sign. We’d originally answered those questions eight years ago but the actual cache was missing then. We tried again last year as well, but failed…

Today was third time lucky…  and we got a virtual Shih Tzu as well.

 

Once home we saw there was a temporary Munzee garden nearby, so that was good for a blast and ten thousand Munzee points. I got Wordle (colic) on the fourth attempt. And I looked at the post…

I’ve had a letter from the tax people. Apparently I owe them the thick end of sixteen hundred quid. Ho hum… if I’m not finding dog shit on the lino, I’m faced with a tax man with his hand out… Such is life.

 

We had a very good bit of dinner whilst watching “Celebrity Race Across The World” in which Team Useless stormed into the lead, and the idiots seem to be falling further and further behind. We then sparked up the Infinity table and spent a little while struggling with the challenging remote players function. We can challenge people over the Internet, but people don’t seem able to challenge us…

 

Meanwhile the mutton chops have got two days to go. Many thanks to everyone who’s donated. I’ve reached my extended goal of two hundred and fifty quid, and here’s the links (again)…

https://uk.movember.com/mospace/15453545

https://www.facebook.com/donate/1355423342735210/1355423366068541/