23 January 2025 (Thursday) - Bailey's Bimble

I woke just before six o’clock to the sound of a dog heaving. I bunged Morgan out of bed and hurried him to he back door. I gave him as long as it took me to have a wazz then called him back in again. We all went back to bed, then just as I was nodding off so he started heaving again. Fortunately “er indoors ^TM” leapt up to deal with him this time. Unfortunately she came bad to bed with graphic descriptions of what he had thrown up.

She later worked out that he’s been eating off-cuts of electrical cables presumably left over from Monday’s episode. I thought I’d cleared all of that up. I wonder where he found those?

 

I then lay awake until “er indoors ^TM” slept through her alarm for the second time, then made myself some toast and had a look at the Internet to see if I’d missed much overnight.

Facebook presented me with a memory. Eight years ago I started my current job, and I posted a piccie of the hospital with the caption “Right.... let's see how this pans out...”. It panned out rather well, all things considered. These days I don’t have a rather petty manager ensuring absolutely everything I do is double checked. If I am a few minutes late (not that I am) there’s not a queue of people waiting to squeal me up to the feds. If I am too ill to cover a night or weekend shift I now have management that will organize cover; I don’t have to arrange my own stunt double.

There wasn’t much else going on on-line, but I had a message from “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” whose mate is getting a new pet. A marmoset which is apparently named “Marge”. I suspect having a marmoset as a pet will be all very well until it is poorly, and then finding a vet will be tricky, and finding one that doesn’t charge the Earth will be even trickier. I remember many years ago a new girl at work nervously asking me if it was true that I kept snakes. I said it was. She then (even more nervously) asked if her boyfriend might come round to see them. As the chap held a royal python he told me that he was a qualified and practicing vet, and he lived in terror of anyone bringing him a sick snake. His reptile studies at veterinary college had consisted of one afternoon lecture,  and he told me that the python he was holding was the first snake he’d ever touched.

 

With rain forecast I made an early start and got the dogs into the car before half past eight. I’ve been threatening to replace my geocaches in Kings Wood for some time. Rather than one epically far-too-long route of nearly nine miles and several Wherigo series I’ve planned out three shorter walks of about five to six miles and several smaller Wherigo adventures. Today I had a preliminary recce on one of the shorter walks – if it all goes live it will be the “Bailey’s Bimble”; a series of simple geo-puzzles over six miles. It took us just over two hours to walk, so what with hunting for the caches and doing the secret geo-rituals and having a picnic along the way, this should take people about three or four hours to do.

Our walk went well. As I plotted and made note and recorded co-ordinates so Morgan chased shadows and Bailey rolled in fox poo and Treacle wallowed in swamps. We only had one episode – after six miles and only a hundred yards from the car park I lost Morgan. After five minutes of whistling and calling, a passing Normal Person asked if that was my dog standing on the path up by the car park. I got used to Fudge straggling behind that I just can’t get my head around Morgan being in front.

 

We came home just as the forecast rain started. I fiddled about with GSAK (it’s a geocachical thing) recording my morning’s efforts, then had a Slimfast bar for lunch. It wasn’t very good, but I suspect being six months past its best didn’t help.

 

I got out the ironing board and spent the afternoon ironing whilst watching episodes of “Four in a Bed”. For all that I rarely go to a B&B, I find this show captivating.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a pasta bake which we scoffed whilst watching the latest episodes of “The Traitors” and “Junior Bake Off”, and ow I’m worn out. A dog walk, ironing, and watching telly. It’s a tough life.

22 January 2025 (Wednesday) - Rather Busy

Over brekkie I had a look at the Internet as I do. It was still there, and for once was relatively dull. I munzed and wordled and got dressed.

 

With the rain having stopped I took the dogs out for a walk. As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the Paedophile Information Exchange; a rather scary group of kiddy-fiddlers who operated quite openly about fifty years ago. They openly campaigned to abolish the age of consent and were generally not the sort of people you’d like to have anywhere near your family. Apparently there was a written list of the names and addresses of their members which was in the possession of the police in 1983, but nothing was done with it.

The show made for interesting listening. What do you do if you’ve got a list of paedos? Go and arrest someone because their name is on a list ;even though they might be completely innocent and just had their name written on that list by someone who hates them?

The people making the show tried to track down members of the police team that were investigating this. Apparently they weren’t easy to find. One was found who’d retired to Alaska in 2006. He said that the copper in charge of the team had died of cancer in the mid-eighties and claimed that when this chap died, all the investigating died with him.

 

We got to the woods. The pants we’d found last week were still hanging on the footpath sign where I’d hung them last week.

We walked our usual route. About two thirds of the way round I heard a rustling and a herd of about twenty small deer ran across the footpath; not ten yards in front of us. But they were fast. By the time I’d pulled my phone out of my pocket they were gone. And then I heard what had spooked them; two women shrieking at each other. A little while later we saw them. Riding side by side on horseback but bellowing as though they were a hundred yards apart. Why do people feel the need to be so loud?

 

Yesterday we walked a mile and a half round Orlestone and burned a hundred and forty calories. Today’s almost four miles round Kings Wood shifted six hundred.

We came home for a bath. Bailey had found some fox poo, and everyone had grubby paws and tummies.

 

I then went into the garden. Having done some serious brain-straining with Gordon over the last week we’ve got the final locations of a series of geocaches… but they are all a long way up various trees. To get at them we need ten-metre poles. I had this genius idea that the poles we used to use for banners at kite festivals might do, so I dug deep into the lock-up in the garden only to find the longest poles we had were only six metres long.

Not ten.

I sulked.

Whilst I sulked, now we’ve got leccie to the shed again I got the drill out and tightened up the bird feeder I built the other day. And then tidied the shed a bit and went on a tip run.

 

Once home I spent seemingly an age on Amazon and eBay looking at ten-metre poles. Hopefully one will arrive early next week.

And I had a phone call from the One You people. The occupational Health people at work suggested I contact One You about weight loss and blood pressure issues. Some woman who was obviously reading from a script suggested I might try to go on a diet to lose weight. I told her that over the years I’ve tried every diet there is. I told her that I was currently calorie counting and watching what I eat and have cut out all the sweeties. It was quite plain that I was already doing everything she could offer, and said I should contact my GP and ask for a tier three weight management program.

I’ll ask about that when I have my appointment in a week or so.

 

And as a load of washing got scrubbed, “er indoors ^TM” boiled up another good dinner which we scoffed whilst watching episodes of “Junior Bake Off”. Am I being sexist in being surprised at how few girls are in it?

21 January 2025 (Tuesday) - An Afternoon in Canterbury

There was actual news on Facebook this morning (as opposed to the usual drivel). There were reports of an escaped pig on the Romney Marsh. Apparently he’s been on the loose since the weekend and whilst amiable enough seems to be enjoying freedom. People seem happy enough to watch him; no one seems to want to try to catch him.

Someone claimed that the wild boar in the area (that have been there since an escape following the storm of 1987) have interbred with domestic pigs and now look like spotted pigs. I *think* I’ve seen boar in the distance at Orlestone before, but could be wrong.

People were squabbling on one of the Star Trek fan pages; a squabble easily settled by actually watching the TV show,

And then my piss boiled. Someone had been round Kings Wood at the weekend looking for the geocaches I’d hidden there. That someone wasn’t as complementary about my efforts as they might have been. But then I suppose they probably don’t realise how much effort goes in to creating a geocache as despite having found over twelve thousand of the things she’s not actually hidden a single one herself.

 

I munzed, Wordled, and as the dogs scoffed brekkie I got ready for the off. I loaded the dogs into the car, and I brought along the humane mouse trap; we’d caught a mouse.

As we drove to the woods the pundits on the radio were talking about the recent murders in Stockport. From what I can work out, some crackpot ran amok. The Prime Minister was saying all sorts of things, but I can’t help but wonder if bringing back the noose would sort it out? Hang ‘em high and leave the corpse hanging where anyone else inclined to do the same can see it. Harsh? Perhaps. But I’ve mentioned before that as a lad at school lI lived in terror of the headmaster. If you went too far you got two strokes of the cane. One boy had a sore arse for a day, and seven hundred boys behaved themselves for a year.

 

With plans for later in the day I didn’t have that long for a dog walk, so we went to Orlestone. You never know – we might have seen another wild boar.

We didn’t.

But despite the mud (and there was a lot of it) we had a good walk round. We didn’t see anyone else at all while we walked, but forty minutes dog walking uses up one hundred and forty calories. And we released the mouse into the wild as well. There are those who say I should have smacked it, but as Darcie would say “he’s so cute”.

 

We came home, and after a cuppa I set off to Folkestone. I arrived at the abode of “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” and Darcie WaaWaa ^TM” immediately told me to go away. As we walked to the car so I tried to jolly littlun up. “Don’t talk to me!” she announced, and when we got out of the car at Canterbury she told me that I couldn’t come and I had to stay in the car. We went to Subway where I was told to sit at another table. She had the right hump with me for no reason that we could fathom.

But…

We’d gone to Canterbury so that “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” could take her driving theory test. As she went in to the test centre and I started babysitting duties, Darcie WaaWaa ^TM”’s attitude changed completely. We had a great time. We went to the Beaney Museum and looked at Bagpuss and the Clangers and stuffed birds. Littlun was particularly taken by a stuffed lion.

 

After far longer than I thought we would ever manage in the museum we wandered back to find the most recent fruit of my loin. And as we walked so I slowed right down to earwig on a rather interesting conversation between what I can only describe as “two scratters”. One was an incredibly fat young male scratter with a frankly ridiculous beard that came up to the underside of (but not past) his chin. The other was a rather scruffy looking woman who seemed almost but not quite old enough to be his mother. I wish I’d recorded the conversation (ranting) She was shrieking about their not going to McDonalds. They were never going to McDonalds. She’d only mentioned McDonalds as it was the only way she could get him out of her house. But now that he was out of her house, he didn’t live there anymore. His home was now (apparently) one of the benches in Canterbury High Street. She screeched that his calling her a slag whilst at the bus stop was crossing the line. I would have liked to ask his calling her a slag at the train station or chip shop was acceptable, but it was at that point that “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” returned and I was ordered away.

 

We went back to Folkestone. The most recent fruit of my loin had another errand to run, so I had more babysitting. But seeing that littlun was fast asleep I just drove her to Ramsgate and back whilst she slept to pass the time.

 

I came home, and after a little farting about I managed to connect the step counter on my watch to the MyFitnessPal app. Having done so it says that having walked twelve thousand steps today means I am allowed to scoff a thousand extra calories. In layman’s terms a thousand extra calories is about two thirds of the sub I scoffed for lunch.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a really good diet dinner which we devoured whilst watching more “Junior Bake Off”. And with that scoffed I loaded up the dishwasher. Because the thing now has a functional power supply.

It is so good to be able to walk round the house without stepping over power cables running all over the place.

20 January 2025 (Monday) - Windows and Leccie

I didn’t really sleep very well last night; fretting about having the windows done today. I got up at seven o’clock and cleared the area round the bedroom window in readiness, then made brekkie.

I sparked up the lap-top and had a look on-line. Yesterday I joined a Facebook aquarium group and there are as many pedants ranting about measuring chemicals on there as there ever are in the Facebook pond groups. Facebook groups can be pedantic, picky and nasty, but none so much as those related to fish; either in a tank or in a pond.

There weren’t any emails in my in-box. I munzed and Wordled… and then the window replacing people arrived about an hour earlier than expected, so I wolfed the last of brekkie down and as they cracked on upstairs so we shifted stuff round the living room ready for that window’s turn later later.

 

There’s no denying I had been expecting the worst. I had visions of the entire front of the house falling out, and the crashing and bashing from upstairs did worry me.

Before long there was another knock at the door. The chap who’d replaced our bathroom tap a few weeks ago had brought his mate round to give us a quote for sorting the electrical problem. And if we thought the house was in uproar with the windows being done, that was just peanuts to what followed. As lumps of old double glazing got bashed out and lumps of new double glazing got carried in, so Gary was in the fuse box and behind the fridge and disassembling this that and the other.

 

The chap who’d replaced our bathroom tap had to go to Eastbourne, so declining the offer of a cuppa he left the merry throng.

Mid-day came and passed. The bashing from the windows continued, and the power continued going off and on. Eventually Gary announced that the problem was that we didn’t have any neutral in the downstairs ring main, and to prove a point he borrowed some from the upstairs one. However he was at a loss to work out where it had gone. So he systematically disassembled every downstairs socket. I must admit I thought he was wasting his time when he took apart the one I use every day to power the lap-top on which I write this diary, but with most of the house’s electricals in pieces I didn’t dare say anything that might have upset him. Pausing only briefly to allow a huge window pane to be carried in, he got busy with his screwdriver and then gave a loud “Ah-ha”.

I’m no expert but it looked to me as though there were far too many wires hanging out of the socket, Not all were actually attached to anything, and Gary said that the inside of the socket looked iffy.

 

As the nice window man stared clouting the new window frame with a glass hammer, I drove Gary over to The Electrical Counter. I had no idea this place existed; it is *the* go-to place for anything electrical from now on. They’ve got pretty much everything you might ever need, and the helpful staff will order in anything they don’t have.

We got some new sockets, cable, cable fixings, strange mysterious things, and a myriad of light bulbs.

 

We came home, and as the nice window men were getting jiggy with the mastic, Gary replaced the poggered socket, removed the cable that was borrowing neutral from upstairs, and announced all was done.

He then went round the house replacing pretty much all the light bulbs. I had no idea just how inefficient our lighting was. We replaced no end of fifty-watt light bulbs with five watt ones and they are every bit as bright, if not brighter.

 

I then ran Gary home just as it was getting dark. It was only as I thanked him profusely that I realized that he’d only come to give us a quote and had actually fixed the issue for us. But to be fair he couldn’t really give a quote until he’d identified the problem, and fixing the problem only took about a quarter of the time identifying it had taken.

I came home to find the nice window men had gone. Having been worrying about getting the windows done, that part of today passed off amazingly without worry. Having said that I shall now be watching the windows like a pork (to coin a phrase) just in case.

And shall also be waiting for the electricity to pop as well…

 

“er indoors ^TM” sorted dinner then went bowling. I settled on the sofa underneath a pile of dogs watching an episode of “Poldark” in which Ross was being a very silly boy. As I watched I listened to the washing machine having a go at my undercrackers. It is doing so without the use of an extension cable for the first time in three weeks. If it manages I shall try the tumble-dry setting as an encore.

I’m hoping for the best.

19 January 2025 (Sunday) - Peanut Butter

With “er indoors ^TM” and the dogs up in the attic room with littlun last night I slept rather well. I woke at seven o’clock this morning and thought I might have a little peace before they all got up. I made toast and got as far as the title credits rolling on an episode of “Poldark” before they all came stomping downstairs.

Darcie made off with a piece of my toast and scoffed it all. She’s notoriously difficult to feed; like her mother was at her age she doesn’t like much and only eats tiny amounts of what she does like. She seems to like peanut butter and marmalade on toast though, but I’m not going to push it. I can remember my dear old mother force-feeding me, my brother and both the fruits of my loin, and going hysterical if we didn’t eat enough to feed a family of four for a week.

I posted a photo of her scoffing her toast and my cousin posted a photo of her peanut butter and marmalade on toast. In the past no one I’ve ever met has heard of having peanut butter and marmalade on toast, let alone tried it. If my cousin is scoffing it then presumably it is a family thing?

 

Whilst Darcie WaaWaa ^TM” played Dig-Dug and watched strange videos on “toobs” (You-Tube) I stood on the scales. I’ve lost two pounds since last week, which is a step in the right direction. And my blood pressure was noticeably down on yesterday. This morning it was 143/82 compared to 161/89 last night.

Littlun’s “toobs” moved on to a rather annoying song about a frog’s grandmother’s wig, and I reactivated my account on MyFitnessPal. In the past I’ve found that two things work for weight loss for me. Calorie counting and being constantly hungry. So here we go. Again.

As I solved geo-puzzles so littlun’s “toobs” started playing a rather annoying song about why you shouldn’t drink water from the toilet.

And then I had an email from the power company. You really would think that whoever it is that runs EDF would realise that it is warmer in the summer and colder in the winter. Consequently my spending more money on heating in the winter and less in the summer shouldn’t come as a surprise to them. Should it?

 

At mid-day we took littun home. She sang “Jingle Bells” all the way home which was rather sweet really. And with her deposited back with her mother we took a rather circuitous route home across the Romney Marsh picking up solved but unfound (by us) puzzle geocaches.

Once home we had a cuppa and a hot cross bun (two hundred calories!) and with no end of other more important stuff I might be doing I slobbed in front of the telly watching episodes of “Four In A Bed”. There was a glamping site, two rather good pubs which offered accommodation, and a rather shabby hotel charging over double the price of everyone else. Annoyingly they all remained friendly and no one fell out with anyone else.

 

I did my evening blood pressure measurement, and when I entered the result onto the doctor’s website rather than its generic “thank you – same again tomorrow” message it told me that the conversation about a week’s monitoring was over and that over the week my blood pressure had averaged 153/91 which isn’t that good really.

I suspect the doc will be on the phone tomorrow. I hope so.

 

“er indoors ^TM” sorted a rather good dinner using up the last of the Christmas parsnips. Parsnips lower blood pressure apparently.

 

And in closing today I’ve spent quite a bit of today thinking about my brother. He left home at half past four this morning to get to Brighton for a six o’clock pickup. The coach then took him to Old Trafford for the football where he watched Brighton and Hove Albion beat Man City. He’s now on the way back and expects to be home shortly after midnight.

18 January 2025 (Saturday) - Dog Club, A Sleepover

I had a relatively good night asleep up until about five o’clock when I had the most vivid nightmare in which someone with whom I worked (over forty years ago) claimed that we’d both done the dirty deed at each other in a dream, and they had the right hump that I was utterly indifferent about it.

I’m blaming blood pressure.

 

I got up and had a bit of brekkie whilst peering at the Internet. This morning a flat-earther was kicking off. Mind you I say “a flat-earther”; more often than not these people are deliberately winding others up. If you stand on the beach and look at the horizon you can see the world is round. Mind you, people thought it was flat for hundreds of years even though they could see it was round.

I then saw an avert for “Bark Free Masterclass” which claimed to be a free way of stopping your dog barking. Treacle does get a bit woofy in the evenings when she wants biscuits so I thought I’d give it a go. It was a scam. After a five-minute video about what a pain it is having you dog bite the postman, they then asked for a hundred dollars. You’d think that someone would report these misleading scams, wouldn’t you?

I did.

 

I Munzed, got Wordle on the second attempt, harvested a bumper crop of dog turds and got ready for the morning. It was a tad cold so the dogs all got their coats on. It has to be said that they are far better with coats than my Fudge ever was. And once coated we set off to Repton.

As we drove Steve was on the radio doing the “Guess the Lyrics” competition. I had no idea what that was, and we got to the paddock at Repton before he told us what it was.

 

Dog Club went rather well. For all that he loves chasing other dogs, Morgan seems to have stopped nipping. There was quite a bit of chasing going on today, as well as wallowing in the muddy puddles, and scrounging for dog treats. Together with one of the smaller children I tried counting dogs. The trouble with trying to get a dog count is that they all keep moving about. We both counted a few times, and our estimates of attendance ranged from seventeen to twenty-two.

As we got into the car to come home Steve gave the last clue for the Mystery Year competition. Blockbuster by Sweet. 1973.

 

We came home. As “er indoors ^TM” looked for somewhere to park I popped to the corner shop where I got us almond croissants. Almonds are good for lowering blood pressure, so that was a result. There are those that say that croissants aren’t so good, but you can’t have everything. I suspect that after I see the doc next week I won’t be able to have anything, but time will tell.

We had a cuppa with those almond croissants and I counted up the Dog Club money. Some people pay their Dog Club subs directly to the Repton people via text message. Others prefer to pay cash so I pop a pot out and every couple of weeks I count up the takings and transfer that amount (plus nine quid for our three) to the Repton people’s bank account. I won’t say how much I transfer every couple of weeks, but I’ll make the observation that it is some months since I’ve had to get any cash out of a cashpoint machine.

 

“er indoors ^TM” went shopping and I watched an episode of “Poldark”. Much as I’m liking the show I can remember Demelza’s bosom heaving a lot more when I watched it last time. From an entirely beastly point of view I can remember her having a far more impressive chest than the one she isn’t brandishing at the moment. And with “er indoors ^TM” returned from shopping I fell asleep in front of the telly and slept for most of the afternoon.

 

The evening wasn’t quite so restful though. Darcie WaaWaa ^TM” has come for a sleepover. After a rather intense session of dog-snogging and then refusing to eat our pizza we then created a new game which involves shouting “CATCH !” and then flinging various assorted objects around the kitchen.

I’m worn out… And my blood pressure is noticeably up on this morning.

 

17 January 2025 (Friday) - Early Shift

With an alarm set I woke about three hours earlier today than I did yesterday. I lay awake for a while, then gave up and got up. This morning’s average blood pressure was 152/89 which is about average. Average for me; far from good for anyone else.

I watched “Poldark” in which it would seem that Verity’s estrangement was at an end, but Elizabeth was up for a portion and made no secret to Ross about it.

 

I had a quick look at the Internet. It was still there. Unlike yesterday (which was a tad dull) there were a few squabbles kicking off this morning. Antibiotics for a fungal infection… anyone with the slightest medical knowledge would understand why that wouldn’t work, but those who actually knew nothing about it wouldn’t be told, and made great show of demonstrating that they knew nothing. And pension provision… the Facebook Retirement UK page is always good for bitterness. This morning some very silly fellow (in his late fifties) was asking how much his pension would be each week. He was rather dismayed to find that his future pension bore no relation to his current mammoth salary and everything to do with how little (i.e. nothing) he’d paid in to a pension fund.

 

It was very dark as I set off to work, but not foggy as it had been on Wednesday. I popped to the Sainsbury's petrol station on the way. As well as having petrol, they have sandwiches early in the morning. For some reason the Aylesford filling station never has sandwiches before mid-morning. The miserable old bat I've met before was on duty, but she was happy and cheerful for once. That made a change.

 

I drove off up the motor way listening to the pundits on the radio. Global warming is getting worse with carbon dioxide levels going through the roof. The world will (probably) see me out, but I despair for what Lacey, Jake and Darcie will have to contend with.

And there's been a cease-fire declared in the ongoing conflict in Gaza... But some of the head honchos of the Israeli government have resigned in disgust, openly saying they want the war to continue.

Apparently making any concessions at all to the other side is a bad thing, and these resigning ministers feel that any concessions should be made by their opponents and certainly not by them. However they've agreed not to try to bring the Israeli government down *if* war resumes at the end of the cease-fire in six weeks time. They really want the war to continue.

I can vividly remember an interview with people on both sides of a previous iteration of this conflict a few years ago when neither side were prepared to budge an inch and both sides were harping back to perceived insults from over fifty years ago.

I've said before that the war in the Middle East will run and run, and it is the poor innocents on the ground who suffer.

 

I got to work and cracked on with the early shift. As I did my bit the boss confirmed that I won't be doing night shifts until my blood pressure is sorted. A minor result I suppose. I've only got one night in the next couple of months but being a Friday night it would have made for a tricky time getting to Dog Club.

 

With my bit done I came home. This evening’s blood pressure was exactly the same as this morning’s; 152/89. And with that done we scoffed dinner whilst watching more of “The Traitors” and “Junior Bake Off”.

 

Today has been… rather frustrating really. We’ve got the windows being done next week. Once that’s done we can look to getting the electrical issue sorted. I’ve still got a couple more days of blood pressure monitoring to do before the doc tells me about a lifetime on tablets and the need to diet. So much to get done, but nothing I can do right now.

There’s an awful lot in my life that’s pending at the moment; I just wish we could get on with it.