22 January 2026 (Thursday) - Plov

After a good night’s sleep I checked the weather forecast. Yesterday it had been for a dry morning. This morning it said drizzle becoming rain, getting heavier as the day wore on. So I scoffed my toast quickly and took the dogs out to make the most of the best weather.

 

As we drove I listened to the radio as I do. That idiot Donald Trump was in the news again. Really he should be addressed as “President”, but sadly “that idiot” is really the best I can do. He’s announced that there is a "framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland", but he’s rather vague on the specifics, and no one had any idea what he’s talking about.

And there was an interview with the head honcho of Britain’s foster carers. I thought about turning the radio off; this is a sensitive subject for me. But I forced myself to listen, and my piss boiled. There’s fewer and fewer people willing to be foster parents, and the government is looking to ways to alleviate this As far as I’m concerned, the answer is obvious – don’t take children away from their mothers on the strength of lies made by the  inexperienced.

The woman being interviewed was saying about how foster parents are regularly inspected (so they should be), and one thing which would help the foster parents would be for them to be provided with cleaners.

So… the state can take a child into foster care because its home isn’t felt to be clean enough… and then the state will provide a cleaner for the house into which it puts the child because that house isn’t clean enough?

You can’t make this up…

I took a deep breath…

 

The woods were busy today. I’ve never seen so many squirrels about. And neither had the dogs. They had a great time. And I’ve never seen so many people in the woods either. All were friendly. It was a shame that the two young ladies had to shout everything to each other; they were walking two yards from each other and I could hear their conversation from a hundred yards away.

We had a minor episode at the half-way point. There’s a point where the path turns through a right-angle and you can’t see round the corner till you get there. Morgan had run off ahead like he does. He knows the woods and comes back when called so I wasn’t worried. But I turned the corner and saw someone who was worried. Morgan was wagging his tail at some woman who was shrieking into her phone shouting “What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do?” like a stuck record. She saw me, and asked if I knew anything about the lost dog she had just found. Bearing in mind he’d been out of my sight for maybe ten seconds I would hardly describe him as “lost”; she must have already been on the phone as she wouldn’t have had time to make a phone call in the time available.

 

We walked a slightly different route to our usual one today – it was about half a mile longer than usual. We walked for about an hour and three quarters and it stayed dry for us. So much for weather forecasts, eh?

We came home for a bath; bellies had got seriously grubby.

I voomed round the garden harvesting dog dung.

I voomed over my head with the clippers and saved a small fortune; have you seen the price of a haircut these days?

I went over the road to the shop and got the makings of dinner, and spent the afternoon making it.

 

In between boiling up some plov I watched the last three episodes of “Soulmates” which was rather good. Good science-fiction works by having believable characters, and this show worked rather well. Such a shame it has been cancelled.

 

“er indoors ^TM” came home from a day in the office. We sparked up the telly and watched more “Junior Bake Off” as we scoffed dinner. It wasn’t that bad really… I suppose. I must admit I never really like scoffing anything that I’ve cooked myself. But I can’t help but think that the entire “plov” idea was a bit keen. Next time I’ll just curry up the chicken and maybe fanny about with the rice?

But the bottle of rose wasn’t bad.

“The Traitors” is on is a minute…

 

And if any of my loyal readers are interested, here’s my recipe for plov… It was probably too much for the two of us, but unless you add a side salad or something it’s not really enough for four. The entire lot came in at about one thousand five hundred calories…

 

Ingredients

 

• Two apples
• Two parsnips
• Three carrots
• Two chicken breasts
• Half a pound of rice.
• Curry powder (whatever flavour you fancy)

 

Chop up the apples, parsnips and carrots. Chuck them into a pan of water and simmer until soft.

(about an hour or so)

Chop up the chicken breasts and fry in hot oil for a couple of minutes.

Tosh a cup of water with the curry powder in with the chicken breasts and leave it to marinade (or soak for the less culinary amongst us).

Boil up the rice for fifteen minutes.

Drain the vegetables, mash them up, and put them on the bottom of a pasta dish (about half an inch deep).

Stick the cooked chicken on the mashed vegetables.

Cover with the cooked rice (save any extra rice for the dogs – they love it).

Cover it with tin foil, stick in a pre-warmed oven and bake at 200 degrees for half an hour or so.

Take off the cover and bake for another ten minutes.

Scoff with a bottle of rose wine (hello sailor)

 

21 January 2026 (Wednesday) - Longbeech Woods

I slept rather well last night, waking just after seven o’clock when Treacle declared “Red Alert” for no reason that I could see. It was probably as well that she did though; I was embroiled in a nightmare in which I had been seconded to the Department of Health to head up a program to screen wild rabbits for sickle cell disease, and I was the only person who could see the stupidity of rounding up wild animals to test them for a condition that they don’t have.

 

I made toast and had a look at the Internet and saw something interesting on Facebook. A question: “You are walking past a shallow pond when you see a child struggling in the water. There is no one else around—no parent or guardian. You are about to wade in to save the child, when you notice that you are wearing your most expensive new shoes, and there’s no time to remove them. Shoes or kid?”

Well, obviously I’d jump in… But I didn’t realise that I wouldn’t have to. Legally here in the UK there is no obligation for anyone to help anyone who might be in distress. Which made me think. Is there anyone who I would leave to drown? It bothers me that there might well be. Is there anyone you would leave to drown?

I also saw that last night’s squabble on the “Upstairs Downstairs” Facebook page that I moderate had died down. Late yesterday evening someone posted up a quiz about the TV show. Someone else felt the questions were too hard, and got rather nasty in their criticism. I’ve fiddled with the settings so that anything else the nasty one wants to post to the group from here on needs to be assessed by a moderator. It’s rather pathetic that a woman in her late sixties needs to be treated in this way.

I Munzed, Wordled from “after” to “cubic” in four goes, then looked out of the window again. It had been raining when I got up, but the rain had eased off a bit.

 

For a change we went somewhere different for our walk today. We’ve not been to Longbeech for a while. We got there to find much of the car park was being used as a free campsite by a huge motorhome. They often park there because they save twenty quid a night by not going to a proper campsite. But we parked up and went for a little wander. In the past I’ve mentioned that I’m not keen on Longbeech Woods as there’s effectively one long path and several paths branch off at right angles leading either to the road or to dead-ends. But since we were last there someone’s opened up new paths making it possible to have a decent walk without having to back-track on yourself all the time.

Despite the forecast rain, it didn’t rain whilst we walked, and we got over two and a half miles done; only seeing one other group as we went. It was muddy though.

 

As we drove home the pundits on the radio were talking about Finasteride. Supposedly a drug available only through prescription, it is openly advertised on-line. It claims to combat hair loss, and it would seem that not everyone is like me and resigned to being bald. A sizeable proportion of the nation’s six million slapheads want to turn back time and hand over good money to hair loss drugs. Sadly for all that this Finasteride does combat hair loss, it also shrinks the nads and reduces the base urges that inspire you to brandish the nads, which (ironically) is the main reason why many want to get their hair back, isn’t it? And in some extreme cases it also causes severe depression. And many of these side effects don’t happen until after you’ve stopped taking the drug.

Personally I think there’s something faintly ridiculous about seeing someone who was once losing their hair suddenly having the head of someone thirty years younger, but what do I know?

 

We got home. Muddy pays and bellies were hosed off in the bath. Muddy trousers went into the washing machine, and I sorted a cuppa. I then spent a couple of hours assessing trainees’ scripts. Blood borne parasites, infectious mononucleosis, sickle cell disease and anticoagulants… the sooner they get their qualifications the sooner they can do all the shifts that I keep whinging that I am too old to be doing.

 

I spent a dull afternoon watching episodes of “Four In A Bed” in which (as always) people started off friendly and end up being as nasty as possible to each other.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up pie and mash and we settled into what seems to be a standard way to spend the evening. “Junior Bake Off” followed by “The Traitors”. It was only a shame that Treacle had to elbow me in the pods.

20 January 2026 (Tuesday) - A Day At Work

I had another restless night. Having woken at one o’clock I eventually nodded off again only to be woken two hours later by no end of crashing about from the back bedroom. Treacle was having a funny five minutes. I settled her, went back to bed, and after an hour or so I woke in a cold sweat following a nightmare in which because of government enforced economies I was having to get the toilet to double up as a washing machine.

 

I got up, made toast and watched another episode of “Soulmate”. It was a rather good show, but it made me think. Are all American homes about four to five times larger than my house? I’ve never seen any home in an American TV show which is even remotely close to the size of my small abode.

 

I had a look at the Internet which I do every day. The usual tripe abounded, but one thing was interesting. Over the last few days I’ve been mentioning the latest incarnation of Star Trek. Something else coming back would seem to be Blake’s Seven; there’s talk of a re-boot. Apparently some chap who has been a director in the most recent episodes had got the rights to the thing. I always thought that him who played “Avon” in the original series had those rights, but it turns out that Paul Darrow died seven years ago.

I wonder how many there will be in the new ensemble; the original “seven” never got above six.

 

I Munzed, and got ready for work. It was still dark as I set off. As I drove up a very busy motorway the pundits on the radio were talking about the latest antics of President Trump. He has invaded Venezuela. He wants Greenland. He openly insults his closest allies. He does whatever he wants with no one brave enough to say no to him.  He will carry on like this until he dies. No one will stop him; any sort of impeachment will just be ignored and there won't be any more elections until he says so. As if he's ever going to have another election after the debacle when they gave him the heave-ho last time?

Democracy, eh?

And despite the world about to dissolve into chaos there was quite a bit of talk about Victoria and David Beckham. An ex-singer and an ex-footballer quarrelling with their children is clearly of far more interest to the masses than the possible end of the world.

 

I went to Sainsburys as I do. Having acquired a lot of loose change from when I cashed up the Dog Club money at the weekend, I spent quite a while this morning paying for my shopping with one, two and five pence pieces at the self-service till. As I fed shrapnel into the machine, one of the assistants glared at me. In the past she's complained that I shouldn't use their self-service tills to get rid of my loose change, and in the past I've told her that I will pay using my card *if* there's someone operating the till for me. She won't open the till, but she will glare at me.

 

I got to work rather earlier than I might have done, but with much of Hermitage Lane being one-way because of the road works I wasn't taking any chances. Being a tad early I had a cuppa and Wordled, going from "games" to "sully" in five moves.

Work was rather busy today. Very busy. I was glad when it was home time.

 

I got through the traffic lights this evening quicker than I did this morning, and was soon home. “er indoors ^TM” boiled up cauliflower cheese and sausages which we scoffed whilst catching up with episodes of “Junior Bake Off”. We had a bottle of plonk with dinner, and I slept through more “Bake Off” than I watched.

I’m worn out…

19 January 2026 (Monday) - Blue Monday

Last night I did that thing where I woke far too early. I woke feeling full of energy and raring to go… at ten past one. I then dozed on and off until half past seven when I gave up and got up.

I stood on the scales. Having had quite a pig out this weekend I was pleasantly surprised to see that my weight had held constant over the last week.

 

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. There were lots of people saying nice things about yesterday’s geo-event that I’d organised. I rather enjoyed it myself and was very pleased at how it went.

On the other hand there were far more people saying nasty things about the new “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy”. Back in the late eighties the die-hard Star Trek fans hated “Star Trek: The Next Generation”. Twenty years ago it was the reaction of the (so-called) fans that led to the cancellation of “Star Trek: Enterprise”. And here they are doing it again.

And there was some chap claiming to be a real ale fan who was bigging up some beer describing it as “second only to Guinness”, and getting rather miffed that such a statement meant that either he didn’t know the first thing about beer, or that that what he was selling was mediocre at best.

I Munzed, and got Wordle on the last try. “Waxen” – they are putting some seriously silly words on there at the moment.

 

I got the leads onto the dogs and took them up to the woods. As we drove there was talk on the radio about the use of artificial intelligence in academia. One expert on ancient Rome was saying how there’s something or other that never happened in ancient Rome (I can’t remember what it was) but all the artificial intelligences will tell you that it did. Apparently this sort of thing is happening more and more and is known as A.I. hallucination, and is a bit of a problem… The University of Manchester is tackling this head-on and is giving all its staff and students access to the Microsoft 365 Copilot and asking them to use it and challenge it.

This will be how the world ends. Not through malicious A.I. but through A.I. mistakes.

 

Being a bit warmer today the dogs didn’t have their coats on. They don’t like their coats, and I can’t help but think that they just hold cold water and make the dogs colder. And Bailey’s coat seems to rub in places. But because it was a tad warmer the mud had melted and the dogs got a bit grubby.

The birds were singing a lot today as well. My birdsong app detected a common greenshank or so it claimed. I’ve never heard of them before.

We walked a slightly different route today. I’d had some reports that some of my geocaches were missing to I took some replacements. Of the ones that had been reported as being missing, one was missing, two weren’t. And we found something of a mystery. Last week as we walked I saw one of my caches was missing. It simply wasn’t there. When we came back this morning it was where it was supposed to be. What was that all about?

 

We got back to the car and came home for baths. I made us both a cuppa then did the admin for the geocache maintenance I’d done.

I chased up English Heritage about that EarthCache I was hoping to set up at Camber Castle.

I arranged Treacle’s vaccinations.

I marked a trainee’s portfolio work.

I wrote up some CPD.

 

I settled in front of the telly underneath a pile of dogs and watched some episodes of “Four In A Bed”. Today’s ones were particularly vicious. Everyone underpaid everyone else, there was a lot of snarling, and even some swearing. It never fails to amaze me that the contestants in this show don’t seem to realise it is a TV show and that everything is filmed. If a contestant finds piss all over a toilet or a load of hairs in the bed, then we see it on the screen. Contestants denying it and claiming that it was all lies aren’t fooling anyone and just make themselves look silly.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a decent bit of dinner then went off bowling. I sparked up Netflix and watched a couple of episodes of “Soulmates”; a rather good sci-fi show on Netflix. Imagine a system that could find your ideal and perfect partner… and how that might be abused…

 

Oh – and today was supposedly Blue Monday – the most depressing day of the year. Was it? Probably not for me. I’ve just had a rather good weekend and a good walk round the woods today. I’m quite enjoying helping the trainees with their portfolio work. Working up this EarthCache is giving me a little project. There’s more geo-meets and games nights in the pipeline. I’ve got a day at work tomorrow (which I rather like these days) and more walks in the woods later in the week.

I’m reminded of a post on one of the local Facebook pages I read over the weekend in which some billy-no-mates was bemoaning just how terrible he felt Ashford was, and in the subsequent arguing it became apparent that this chap did nothing with his life but sit and whinge and rarely (if ever) leave the house.

For all that life can conspire against you, it helps if you try to make the most of it.

18 January 2026 (Sunday) - Geo Meet

I slept well, which was a result. I made toast and had a little look at the Internet. This morning loads of people were openly laughing at President Donald Trump. I can’t work the bloke out. He’s rich, he’s got to be the most powerful person on the planet. Can he *really* he the feeble-minded simpleton that he appears to be in the news and in the media?

There was a lot of talk about 27 Codrington Road Briston which was where “The Young Ones” was filmed. Some people claiming to be working in American blood banks were asking the most fundamentally basic questions. I follow several work-related Facebook groups and it never fails to amaze me how little many of the Americans posting there seem to know. Is this the sort of health care we want in the UK?

And I saw a lot of stuff about the new “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy” show. Oh, there was squabbles. In the eighties and nineties I used to subscribe to fan-made Star Trek magazines which were basically a paper version of on-line discussion forums. The postings to that could be very bitter, personal and nasty, and thirty years later nothing has changed.

 

I Munzed, and got Wordle on the last try. My fifth try (scuba) had given me one letter in the right place, and three wrong ones. So I just randomly tried combinations if letters until the thing accepted “sumac” which apparently is a spice used in cookery. No – I’d never heard of it either.

 

We got ourselves organised and drove down to Newington. We walked the dogs round the geocaching Ad-Lab series that was there, and had a little diversion at the village hall. There was an interesting religious howling coming out of there which we ignored whilst getting clues. And clued up we then took a little walk across some wet fields to find a geocache at the base of an oak tree.

We then carried on with the Ad-Lab, and saw a few friends as we did. What a co-incidence that they were there (!)

From Newington we drove up to the Blue Silo micropub. We found this place a month ago and thought it might make an idea venue for a geo-meet, and it did. Over twenty of us turned out. It was good to meet up with friends; I do like the geo-meets. Excellent beer, sausage rolls, scotch eggs… it was a shame that Morgan had to be an idiot, but he got banished to the car boot, and after a few minutes in “dog prison” he soon behaved himself.

The organisers were very pleased with the amount of customers I’d brought in, and offered us the use of their private room for future meets. That was a result.

I took a few photos whilst we were out.

 

We came home where I had a little doze. Perhaps the afternoon’s fifth pint was a tad keen. “er indoors ^TM” boiled up pork chops which we scoffed whilst watching Friday’s episode of “Junior Bake Off”. We’ve now caught up with that show until tomorrow’s episode.

We’re now watching “The Floor” with Rob Bryden.

 

And there’s a constant hissing sound in my ears. I’ve had tinnitus for weeks and it’s not getting any better…

Perhaps I should see someone about it.

17 January 2026 (Saturday) - Dog Club, Star Trek, Games Night

I woke feeling full of energy and raring to go… at three o’clock. I then dozed on and off for the rest of the night finally getting up shortly before seven o’clock.

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was still there and much the same as ever it was carrying out its vital role. Its vital role being to allow people to argue bitterly over trivia. The NHS, fish tanks, frozen plasma, frogspawn… no matter what the topic there were people queueing up to squabble.

I had a look at my emails. Someone had been round Kings Wood yesterday and found over thirty of the caches I’d hidden up there. That was a relief – I won’t have to replace those ones just yet.

And I had some replies. A couple of days ago I looked at getting a custom-made fish tank which might better fit into the space where the current fish tank sits. The firm which advertises “We offer high end bespoke aquarium design & installation services including manufacture and maintaining aquariums for private and commercial clients in the UK” replied to say “Sorry this isn’t something we can help with”. One must wonder what a company that makes fish tanks can help with, if not with making fish tanks. Another company got back to me saying they could make be a tank to the size and shape I wanted… for two hundred quid (not including delivery).

I think I’ll make do with what I’ve got.

I Munzed, and started a new Wordle streak. Starting with “begin” I went through “tithe” and “field” to come up with “fiery”.

 

As I fiddled on-line so Steve was on the radio. I amazed myself with the “Guess the Lyrics” competition this morning. “All you need is your own imagination so use it, that’s what it’s for”. No? – Vogue by Madonna… How did I know that one?

 

Being Saturday we went round to Repton and Dog Club. There was a minor hiccup this morning as I arrived to find a sign on the car park gate saying that the car park was closed due to an electrical fault. I didn’t unlock that gate but went in through the side gate. And then some woman drove up, unlocked the gate and drove in. I asked her if we were allowed to use the car park as there was a sign saying the car park was closed. She stared blankly at me so I pointed out the notice. From the way she looked at it I got the distinct impression that she couldn’t read, and she chattered on about how we needed to use the car park.

I’ve emailed the centre to find out what’s going on.

Other than that, Dog Club passed off rather well. It was a bit cold and a bit muddy, but everyone seemed to have a good time. We had about fifteen dogs along, and the only fly in the ointment was when Luna and Morgan rolled in fox poo.

 

“er indoors ^TM” set off to Craft Club. As I drove the dogs home Steve was doing the “Mystery Year” competition on the radio. The Strawbs “Part of the Union” and the launch of the Austin Allegro? 1973.

We had a bath; muddy paws and fox poo needed scrubbing. I hung out the washing, had a little tidy-up (not that you’d notice!) and ran round with the Hoover. I then gathered dog dung from the garden and topped up the bird feeder. Seeing how the fallen bird seed was sprouting I scattered some of it over the lawn.

I made myself a cuppa, then spent a little while assessing more trainee’s work and wrote up a little CPD all in between shouting at the dogs who were barking at absolutely everything that went past the house.

 

The dogs eventually nodded off, and so did I. “er indoors ^TM” woke me when she came home with dinner. We scoffed it as we watched the first two episodes of the new “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy”. I won’t say it was rubbish; it wasn’t. It was rather good really. There were loads of little Easter Eggs in there for the fans (if you watched closely enough), but I suppose that what with it being the twelfth Star Trek series (yes – there’s twelve Star Trek series and that’s not counting the films!) it seemed as though it was just yet more of the same. Rather good more of the same… but it was nothing new. I don’t know what I was expecting from it, but I had been expecting something different to what it was.

 

Steve, Sarah and Chris arrived and we had a very good evening playing games on Chris’s big Infinity Table. The first game (Game of Life) was a tad difficult as the table was incredibly unresponsive, but rebooting and turning off the Internet connection sorted the issue. We then had a very good game of Sorry and of Ticket to Ride. I came last, but we had a good time.

I do like our games nights…

16 January 2026 (Friday) - Early Shift

I slept reasonably well I suppose, bearing in mind I had an alarm set. Better than I have in the past. But because I had an alarm set I was wide awake far too early like I usually am when I have an alarm set.

I watched the last episode of “The Young Ones” then had a little look at the Internet. It was still there, and not a lot was going on at half past five. I had a quick Munz, and got ready for work.

 

There were no bin men to be seen this morning, and no bin lorry blocking the road as there so often is when I set off on a Friday morning. They hadn't even sent the advance party to move all the bins in such a way that they totally block the pavement (as they usually do). Either they were running late, or changed the bin collection day.

 

I drove round to the petrol station to refuel. Petrol looked a tad pricey; I could probably have got it cheaper in Aylesford but the petrol station there doesn't have sandwiches until late morning. And so for all that I might have saved some money, I'd have had to mess about going into the main Sainsburys to get lunch. On the plus side the voucher I had for getting double nectar points worked this time. 

I need to work out just how much a Nectar point is worth. I've accumulated about fifty quid's worth of them (according to my Nectar app) but I've been collecting them for years. I should really start spending more of them.

 

As I drove the pundits on the radio were interviewing the head honcho of the Leon fast food chain. No?  I'd never heard of them either. Apparently they flog meals that you can microwave. The bloke was rather interesting; he said that when he appoints anyone, he looks for someone who can make meals to be microwaved. He was very clear that he had no interest in hiring anyone with a "business mindset". He went on at great length that in his experience people with a "business mindset" don't make as much money for his company as people who can actually do the job. He maintained that if you can do the job then that is how to make money; people who feel that they can "make money" don't actually do a very good job (for him the job is making dinners) and so sell less product.

The chap's probably got a point; this is exactly what happened in the episodes of "Four In A Bed" that I watched yesterday.

 

I got to work early, made myself a cuppa and wordled unsuccessfully. After six goes I still hadn't got it right (racer), so my streak of getting it right for eighty-three consecutive days came to a crashing end.

I got on with work, and sulked as I kept looking out of the window. Yesterday on a day off I'd been kept indoors by constant heavy rain. It was a dry bright day today. Probably a tad cold, but dry. We could have gone for a long walk round the woods. It's probably for the best that we didn't; I seem to have constantly aching hips these days, but I do like a long walk round the woods.

 

Just before lunch time I had a phone call from someone called Mella who claimed to be calling on behalf of the Three network. Apparently my Three sim card would be blocking up in two days' time unless I gave her lots of money. I asked her how many people fall for that scam because I'd like to start a scam like that myself. Mella pretended not to understand. I then asked her how she sleeps at night. She asked me what I meant by that; I explained that decent people don't randomly phone strangers and try to con them out of money. She didn't think there was anything wrong in trying to trick me into paying for a phone service that I don't use. I asked her how she would feel if I reported her to the police for trying to obtain money under false pretences. She replied that I could report her to whoever I liked.

I suppose that call went better than some I've had. I actually did make one of these scammers cry once; that idiot woman was trying to sell double glazing for a company with which I'd had an incredibly bad experience and had a track record of declaring itself bankrupt and then starting up again under a slightly different name. That woman claimed to have had no idea of the history of her employer. From her reaction she might have been telling the truth.

Mella seemed to be quite aware that she was operating a scam. I've blocked her number, but I expect her or someone else will just call from another number before too much longer.

 

An early start made for an early finish, but it was dark when I got home. “er indoors ^TM” boiled up a good dinner and we scoffed it whilst watching more “Junior Bake Off” and “Traitors”.

I’m feeling a bit worn out – the poor night and early start has taken its toll…