24 November 2020 (Tuesday) - Before the Night Shift

What could have been a very good night’s sleep was somewhat marred by one of the dogs kicking me in the goolies in the small hours. Something like that makes you sit up and taken notice (both metaphorically and literally).
Bearing in mind how well yesterday’s early walk went I thought I might try it again. We left home a few minutes before sunrise and again had a good walk round Orlestone Woods. The Terrible Twins chased each other and chased squirrels up trees, Fudge straggled as he does. We were only two minutes from the end when we met anyone. When we walked toward where the path does a hairpin bend I could hear the little old lady with the poodle and the Jack Russell telling her dogs to come back. As we came round the corner she exclaimed “Oh – it’s you” and let her dogs off their leads. She too has met the normal people who occasionally can infest the woods and doesn’t want to take chances

As we got back to the car park we met another dog walker of our acquaintance who was clearing up the McLitter that gets thrown around. And we saw the “odd chap” who was still there in his car. I say “odd chap”; he is probably a pleasant enough person. But when we have our early walks we often get there to find him sitting in his car in the car park (with engine off and headlights on), and with walk walked we come back to find him still there. I wonder why.

 

As we drove home there was some utter drivel on the radio about how snooker players have got the hump. It would seem that efforts to have snooker classified as a “sport” have failed because it isn’t.

Once home I made some toast and peered into the Internet. As always squabbles abounded. Many so-called Doctor Who fans were still complaining about Jodie Whittaker playing the lead part in the show. Personally I’m not impressed with her, but I think I’ve not been impressed with many of the people in the lead role since Colin Baker was sacked in 1986. Sci-fi fans are a funny lot – so quick to complain about that which they profess to love. And they were certainly complaining about the show today. The forthcoming Christmas special has already been dismissed out of hand by many fane even though the show won’t be aired for another month.

There was some rather impressive nastiness on the Lego Facebook pages as some chap (clearly posting under a fake name) was getting rather over-excited and nasty about some video or other in which a Lego car was crashed, and had attracted quite a lot of bad feeling and hatred to himself.  I would have thought that the joy of Lego cars is that you *can* do a “demolition derby” without damaging the Lego. Personally I’m rather more miffed at Facebook’s continuing to allow people to use aliases when I’m not allowed to do so myself.

Someone else was whinging about their Lego delivery. Using some app or other they were able to track the delivery driver. When this person posted their whinge the delivery driver had already driven past their house three times, was only on his thirty-eighth delivery, and their delivery was number one hundred and forty.

 

I wrote up a little CPD then had a look at the monthly accounts. As always I’m not doing that badly really. But (also) as always a *lot* more money would be useful; particularly as it looks like the bathroom roof is going to need a serious overhaul before too much longer.

 

I went to bed for the afternoon where I slept for three hours. Just after I woke "Daddy’s Little Angel ^TM" phoned. She’s planning to make a fire pit. I can’t see that one ending well.

Hopefully "er indoors ^TM" will boil up some dinner soon, then I’m off to the night shift.

23 November 2020 (Monday) - Before the Late Shift

I slept well but was still awake before dawn. I got up and as I shaved I saw it was getting light outside. Bearing in mind all the normal people that had been swarming round the woods on Saturday I thought an early start might be in order today. I woke those dogs who would be up for a walk, and we drove down to Orlestone Woods. We arrived to find only one other car in the car park. There was quite a bit of littler there though. There is someone who gets McDonalds from the drive-through (presumably), eats it in the car park at Orlestone, and throws the rubbish out the car window when they are done. I wish they wouldn’t. There were also a few empty cider cans too.

We ignored the litter (next time we should take a bin bag) and had a good walk. On Saturday we had been plagued by normal people demanding that the dogs should have been on their leads (it’s the law!!!). Today we went all the way round the woods off of the leads. We had a great time. We made two action videos (whistle training and ditch jumping), we barked at squirrels and also barked at absolutely nothing at all. As we walked we only met one other group – the little old lady with her giant poodle and Jack Russell. We chatted for a few moments. She too has met the normal people who plague the woods later in the day. She smiled as she said that was the reason why she goes out so early (like we do).

 

As we drove home the pundits on the radio were talking about the demise of Donald Trump. It was hinted that perhaps the reason why he’s so slow to implement COVID-19 precautions in America is a subconscious way of punishing the electorate for not voting him back in. That seemed a rather worrying perspective.

 

Once home I made some toast and sparked up the lap-top. I’d taken a few photos while we walked. Posting them to Facebook took some doing, but eventually I managed it. I sent out some birthday wishes, and then rolled my eyes at what I read on the Geocaching UK page. Someone had lost a camera and was asking for people to look out for it. Rather than just saying “OK”, there were those that were taking the opportunity to whinge about how anyone could be so careless as to lose a camera. Some people only want to argue… interestingly one of those was someone who was recently banned from one of the Kent geocaching pages. Do these people learn nothing?

Resisting the temptation to tall the squabblers to get knotted I then did a little CPD. That CPD blog gets an amazing amount of views bearing in mind it is incredibly dull. What’s the attraction?

 

With a little time to spare I popped to Sainsburys. My car windows were a tad grubby and I thought I'd get something to clean them up a bit.

Sainsburys was heaving; hundreds of people with not one looking where they were going. There were quite a few small children too. Shouldn't they have been at school?

I got sandwiches for dinner, I got beer and wine for Christmas... I totally forgot to get anything for cleaning the car's windows. And as is so often the way when on the late shift, pretty much everything of note in my life today was over and done with by mid day.

 

22 November 2020 (Sunday) - Early Shift

The dogs were still last night for which I was grateful, but I woke twice with the most intense headaches. What was that all about?

I made some toast whilst Sid snored, and leaving him snoring I scoffed it whilst watching another episode of "People Just Do Nothing". I do like the show if for no other reason that it really does capture the essence of how thick people don't realise they are thick.

Talking of which I then sparked up my lap-top and using herculean restraint I stopped myself commenting to a post I'd read on Facebook. A friend was saying that she can't wait to get the COVID-19 vaccine. A friend of hers was advising against taking the vaccine. She'd "done research" which showed the vaccines weren't safe. Don't you just love all the "Karen"s on Facebook who honestly do think that in misunderstanding something they've read on a crackpot conspiracy theory page on the Internet they suddenly know far more than experts who teach at PhD level. It really is the Dunning Kruger effect in action.

It would be funny if they weren't actually endangering people's lives.

 

I went out to find my car; it was only three streets away. Today there was no ice to scrape - it was ten degrees warmer this morning than it had been at the same time on Friday morning. I took a little detour to Stanhope before going to the motorway. There was a geocache there and seeing how I'd not logged a find for a couple of weeks I thought I'd better break the slump. There are those who would just fabricate the dates, but I don't like to do that (even though no one else would ever know).

I then set off up the motorway. As always the talk on the radio was of a religious nature. The Archbishop of Canterbury is to take a six-month holiday next year. The Archbishop of York and the Bishop of London will step into the breach for any emergencies that might pop up during that time. I must admit that I'm rather vague as to what the Archbishop of Canterbury actually does that he might need a stunt double for. All I know of the chap is that which Viz magazine takes the piss out of. I expect we will all find out what he does when he isn't there (wherever "there" is) to do it next year.

There was also a lot of talk about the "Muslim Pro" app that you can get for your phone. It translates the Koran into whatever language you want, tells you where Mecca is, and allegedly sells your data to the US military. Leaving aside that I was once told that the Koran shouldn't be translated and should be read in the original Arabic (is that really true?) don't the manufacturers of all apps sell data? Is the BBC just trying to stir it because the word "Muslim" was mentioned? They seem to have a history of doing that.

There was also some frankly ridiculous drivel about since following Brexit the regulations over the welfare of the country's farm animals are now the sole responsibility of the government, and something has been overlooked. The argument went along the lines of because it says in the Bible that all creation worships God, farm animals shouldn't be distracted from their primary pastime of praising the Almighty. Consequently the government should ensure that the animal's welfare is protected to that they can concentrate on saying their prayers. I must admit that when not locked down I spend a lot of time walking in the countryside and I've yet to see a particularly pious pig or any reverent cows or devout horses. Perhaps the European regulations prevented the livestock from being as devout as God intended? Perhaps now they can pursue a life of holiness?

 

I got to work and had a rather busy shift. As I sat down at one point I felt a little chilly "down below". Somehow or other I'd ripped the arse out of my trousers. Just as well I wear a white coat, isn't it?

Pausing only briefly for petrol I came home. "er indoors ^TM" had gone to visit relatives and so the dogs were excited to see me. The excitement lasted for less than five minutes and they all went back to sleep, and so did I.

"er indoors ^TM" came home and we all woke up. She boiled up a rather good roast dinner which we scoffed whilst watching an episode of “Taskmaster”. We had intended to watch an episode of “The Crown” but we couldn’t. It would seem that Netflix have changed the rules so that only two people can watch at once, and the fruits of my loin had beaten me to it. I might need to upgrade that…