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 naïve 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… 

 

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…

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…

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.

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!!

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…

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.