21 October 2024 (Monday) - Still Raining

One of this morning’s petty squabble on the internet was over a meme posted to Facebook about how medical care is given out free of charge in “Star Trek”. Non-Americans commenting pointed out that they don’t pay for healthcare (at the point of care). The Americans commenting fell into two groups. One group were saying what a wonderful idea free health care would be; seemingly oblivious to the fact that healthcare is given out free of charge in most of the world except America. The other group felt that free health care would be a terrible thing and that there was some merit in paying for it.

The other squabble was about a twee meme posted by some celebrity (from way back when) about how much nurses make. It was claimed that nurses make people better and make people smile, and you can’t put a price on that. I thought about pointing out the stupidity from the pandemic when everyone stood on the doorsteps and clapped the NHS. At the time I tried paying for my shopping (in Sainsburys) by clapping but they weren’t having that.

Perhaps if we in the UK adopted the American health care model then healthcare workers in te NHS might get better pay?

I also saw that ELO are going to play their last ever gig in Hyde Park next June. Do I want to go? I wouldn’t mind, but with tickets starting at about a hundred quid a go (or so the expert opinion reckons) it’s a lot of money to shell out.

 

Despite the rain I took the dogs to the woods. Sadly my idiot enthusiasm didn’t triumph over common sense today; the rain didn’t ease up until we were in the car on the way home. But the dogs seemed to like the walk. As we walked we saw a few other dog walkers braving the elements. I think a couple of them were professional dog walkers. They had a very random assortment of dogs, and we did see two vans in the car park bearing dog walker livery.

I wonder how lucrative professional dog walking is?

 

We came home where we saw not-so-nice-next-door taking a bag of rubbish to the public bin up the street. As she walked back she glared at me like I was the shit on her shoe. Treacle snarled at her; Treacle *really* doesn’t like her.

 

The dogs had a bath. No one had rolled in anything foul, but they were wet and muddy. A hot shower to warm up and shift mud was in order. And once showered, the dogs were all soon asleep.

I loaded up an assortment of old tat into the car and set off to the tip. The tip was quiet today – only two other cars were there. I unloaded, and got chatting with the chap at the tip about how much useful stuff gets dinged out. I mentioned the little shop at the tip in Hastings; the nice man said that pretty much every council-run tip in the country has little shops where they sell useable stuff… except those in Kent.

 

I came home to an email. The geo-feds had given me the thumbs-up for my adventure lab idea, and had scheduled it to go live tomorrow. So flushed with success I spent the afternoon preparing four more of the same sorts of thing.

And once “er indoors ^TM” had gone bowling I looked at four more for my old stomping ground in Hastings.

I’m really hoping this rain will stop soon.

20 October 2024 (Sunday) - Rainy Day

I slept for ten hours last night. I sleep so much better when I have no alarm set. I made toast and had a look at the Internet as I do every morning. It was there. Again no one really had seemed to have done very much. Some days it seems that either no one does anything with their lives, or if they do they don’t plaster it all over the Internet, or if they do my lap-top chooses not to tell me. Which is a shame for a very nosey person.

I munzed, got Wordle eventually, and then the dogs came downstairs. After a night in my pit I am desperate for a wazz. But the dogs are different. They get up and pootle about. They have to be chased into the garden and even then they fiddle about before eventually doing anything. I wish I had the same lack of urgency first thing in the morning – I’d stay in my pit longer.

 

I got dressed, put some washing in to scrub… and sulked. The forecast rain had started. Mind you I was very pleased that the rain didn’t come yesterday. We were very lucky with the weather for the CITO event and the geo-meet.

I pootled on-line, wrote up some CPD, and pondered my next geocaching Adventure Lab cache series. I’ve been given another five ad-labs. The idea is you find somewhere of local interest with five specific locations. At each location you set up a question to answer – the name on a sign, the distance on a milestone, something along those lines. You take GPS co-ordinates, and set it all up on-line, and it makes a little adventure for someone else to do. I’ve set up five of these already. One up the main street in Great Chart finding points of interest, one sight-seeing around Singleton Lake…

I’ve got another series of five, but I was rather at a loose end for where I might set them, and what I might have as a theme. Wherever it is needs Internet connection. I did have a plan for Kings Wood, but the mobile data up there is patchy at best.

… and then I had a stroke of genius. But I didn’t have time for it…

 

Despite the rain we took the dogs to the garden centre. We couldn’t spend all day stuck indoors; I’d go stir crazy. So we went to the pet section at Bybrook Barn garden centre to see if we could get Treacle a new lead. We lost hers yesterday whilst having a litter pick-up. Sadly we couldn’t find anything but we got a decent fruit cake.

We thought we might come home via Pets At Home to see if they had any decent leads. They didn’t, but we got some dog treats.

And we took a minor diversion on the way home to implement stage I of my stroke of genius.

 

One home we had a cuppa, and I carried out stages II and III my stroke of genius. Starting from up the road near the station you can walk down Beaver Road, along Denmark Road and into Torrington Road. A fifteen-minute walk passing the sites of five now-closed-and gone pubs; at each of which you answer a simple question.

That was stage II.

Having answered those simple questions at each stage you get given the location of a bonus geocache… that you’ve just walked past.

That was Stage III (Hiding it earlier was stage I)

Writing the cache page and ad-lab pages kept me quiet for a couple of hours. It’s now down to the geo-feds.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching tonight’s episode of “Lego Masters: Australia”. Both were rather good…

 

Hope this rain lets up soon…

19 October 2024 (Saturday) - Dog Club, CITO, Geo-Meet, Dinner

The dogs took up an amazing amount of bed space last night. Eventually I got some space when they all followed “er indoors ^TM” to the loo in the small hours, but when they came back there was an altercation about why Bailey was so smelly. For a very small cute dog she can be quite disgusting sometimes.

I got a little more kip, but not much.

 

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was still there, and much the same as ever. More and more I’m seeing utter drivel of no interest to me on my Facebook feed, and less and less of that which is actually interesting.

I munzed, and have now done all that I need to for this month’s Munzee Clan War – it is now down to everyone else. There was a little consternation on one of the other clans in that someone who needs to Munz daily hasn’t been on-line in ten days. But as long as it isn’t out clan, all is well.

And I got Wordle on the fifth attempt when I finally realized to use the American spelling. 

 

Being Saturday we set off to Dog Cub. Yesterday when working the weather was glorious. This morning we had rain. Not as heavy as it might have been, but heavier than I would have liked. We arrived at Dog Club where I’d decided that we’d open up and if the weather was that bad we’d come home. But having arrived expecting the worst we had a rather good session. Despite the rain we had a dozen dogs along. Morgan played nicely to begin with. He did get rather excited so we popped his muzzle on as a precaution and all was well. The dog we thought he’d been trying to nip came up to him several times and (with play-bows) invited him to play.

 

As we came home we listened to Steve on the radio. The mystery year was easy – Enya’s “Orinoco Flow” was in 1981… or so I was convinced. It was actually 1988… It is strange how your memory plays tricks on you; I can distinctly remember listening to this when still living at my mum’s. Another reason why it is worth my while writing a diary. Clearly I remember wrong.

We got home and dried off. I put on dry trousers and looked out my waterproof leggings, then scared up a couple of prizes for later.

 

With the rain finally looking as though it was clearing up we drove up to Badlesmere where I was staging today’s geo-meet. We started off on a litter-pick around Badlesmere Village Green. There wasn’t a lot of litter to be had, but what there was we had. Prizes were awarded for most litter collected (quite a bit) and most unusual litter (perfectly useable garden fork).

Mind you it has to be said that for all we collected some litter, we left some. Treacle’s lead went missing whilst we were there.

And with litter gathered we retreated to the Red Lion for a pint and a chat.

Bearing in mind the frankly dreadful weather forecast I was very pleased with the amount of people who came – there must have been twenty people along to the event today. Some people were old hands at the geo-meet game; others had their first meet-up today. As always the event passed off rather well. And just as it began to get a tad nippy so people went their various ways, and together with Karl and Tracy we came inside and had a rather good bit of dinner.

 

I took a few photos of our day. We came home, and we both had a little sleep. But not as much as the dogs did. It’s three hours past dog-dinner-time and they are still snoring.

18 October 2024 (Friday) - Early Shift

I was wide awake and raring to go far too early this morning. I got up and as I scoffed my brekkie I watched some utter drivel on Netflix about some West Indian family living in London in the 1980s. I doubt I shall watch any more.

 

I got dressed in the dark and went off to find my car. Having no idea where I'd left it yesterday I was rather pleased to find it right outside the house. I set off, and immediately did the first of the many emergency stops I did this morning.

Back in the day when I cycled to work (which I did for about fifteen years) I had lights on the front and back of my bike, and I wore a bright yellow hi-vis vest. An hour before dawn this morning I lost count of the amount of half-wits on bikes that I nearly ran over. Not one had any lights on their bikes, all were clad entirely in black, and all had those stupid ear buds in preventing them from hearing anything; least of all me shouting at them.

 

As I drove the pundits on the radio were interviewing one of the head honchos at Netflix who was talking about the popularity of one of their subscription packages. If you take this deal you don't get bombarded with adverts. Apparently they've done research and found that the general public doesn't like adverts and tend to fast-forward through them. If the public can’t fast-forward through them then they go to toilet during the adverts or make a cup of tea, and it turns out that if the public are forced to watch an advert for a particular product then they are more likely to buy whatever it is from a competing company.

How long had it taken them to realise this?

And there was news from the Middle East. The Israelis have killed the boss of Hamas but intend to continue the war anyway. I can remember an interview on the radio about the situation in Gaza about five years ago. People from all sides of the conflict were harping on about grievances that happened twenty years before any of them were born. All admitted that no one was prepared to give an inch, and all admitted the fighting would continue indefinitely. The people being interviewed at the time all but admitted the hatred they had for each other was so strong that they really would rather have war than peace. And (as always) it is the little people that suffer.

I would say that five years later nothing has changed, but today's interview on the matter was with someone whose accent was so think I couldn't make out a word he was saying. I wish Radio Four would sort out their phone interviews. They always go one of three ways.

The phone line keeps dropping out.

The interviewee mumbles and stutters.

The interviewee barely speaks English.

 

I got to work and did my bit. Today was rather busy. I don’t dislike work, but it is seriously getting in my way. I spent much of today looking out the window at rather good weather thinking about what I might be doing in my garden.

But an early start meant for an early finish. I came home, and saw my screws and drill bits and new wellies had arrived. I was rather pleased about that. I then took the dogs out to the garden to do the “feed the fish” ceremony. Treacle particularly likes “feed the fish”; she gets very over-excited about it. As I feed the fish I give the dogs some fish food. Are a few dried rice flakes really that good? The dogs certainly seem to think so.

Mind you, Treacle was limping a bit… perhaps she needs to take it easy? She’s getting rather old. And grey.

 

“er indoors ^TM” sorted some ribs for dinner which we scoffed whilst watching The Completely Made Up Adventures of Dick Turpin on Apple TV. It was rather good; yet another show which seems to have slipped past most people. But what with Sky and Amazon Prime and Apple TV there’s far too many channels to watch.

“er indoors ^TM” said I could scoff a box of choccies she had for her birthday. Last year. Their best before date was a year ago, but I scoffed them anyway.

I feel rather sick now.

17 October 2024 (Thursday) - Home Alone

This morning’s petty squabble on Facebook was about the national Town Criers’ Championship which took place recently in Rye. No? – it passed off pretty much unnoticed, didn’t it? Traditionally it has been held in Hastings but over the last couple of years it has moved to Rye as Hastings Town Council say they can’t afford it any more. Those who like town crier competitions are up in arms about this. Those who don’t were pointing out that council-funded town crier competitions attract dozens of people whereas self-funding events (like the bonfire parade and Jack in the Green) attract tens of thousands. Time for a change in the way the thing is funded, perhaps? It strikes me that town crier competitions are the Radio Three of public entertainment; only there because someone else is paying for it. I wonder how long Rye town council will carry on shelling out for this event?

 

“er indoors ^TM” was having an office day today so she set off leaving me with the dogs. Yesterday Treacle had a dodgy leg, but this morning it seemed better. We went to the woods and I thought that if her leg was playing up we might cut the walk short and come home. We walked four miles; she seemed fine.

Sadly as we walked we had an “episode”. Some child was toddling along with its father, and on seeing Bailey went absolutely hysterical. I could understand it if Bailey was the size of other dogs, but she is XS of the dog world.

With walk walked we came home; I was expecting the dogs to be filthy; their bellies needed hosing off but they weren’t that grubby at all considering the overnight rain. And seeing how their backs were dry I did the monthly flea treatments. In a novel break with tradition Treacle didn’t run away. All three were as good as gold for a drop on the back of the neck.

 

My plan for today was to screw together all the wooden sleepers of the bog filter. I had a look in the shed and saw I didn’t have quite enough screws. And (to be honest) my drill bit isn’t what it once was. So I ordered up some more from Amazon, and whilst I was at it I ordered some new wellies too. My ones sprung a leak a week or so ago, and they let quite a bit of water in whilst we were up the woods earlier.

 

With plans poggered I cracked on with the ironing whilst watching a DVD. “Quadrophenia” was nowhere near as good as I remembered it. Once it had finished I got up. Treacle leapt up thinking she was missing something and she hobbled after me. Having seemingly been fine whilst in the woods she was certainly struggling this afternoon. I sat on the sofa rubbing her leg for much of the afternoon.

As I massaged I watched more episodes of “Four in a Bed” in which the proprietors of four bed and breakfast establishments competed to see who was best. The loser had the right arse about losing; amazingly he didn’t seem to realise that his establishment’s gimmick (they didn’t actually do a breakfast) would count against him.

 

“er indoors ^TM” came home. I fed her Plov Mk II. It was an improvement on what I’d boiled up a week ago. Having said that, it has still got a way to go. Mk III won’t have carrots, and korma might be a better flavour than tikka was.

As we scoffed we watched the most recent episode of “Lego Masters: Australia”. I won’t give the game away, but I will say that in this episode the weakest team were eliminated, and I smiled.

 

Oh – and Pigsy died today. He was an absolute hero back in the day. Sandy died from heart issues four years ago, and Tripitaka died of leukaemia nearly forty years ago. When you bear in mind that him who played the horse died seven years ago, there’s only Monkey left.

They don’t make TV shows like that any more.

16 October 2024 (Wednesday) - This n That

As I do on the morning after most vaccinations, I woke feeling vaguely cheated. So many people claim to have such terrible after-effects from injections. I’m sure it’s all in the mind. I blame the people giving the jab. If they were to say that this was a new vaccine and you might just possibly come out in a bright red rash then quite a few people would be reaching for the felt-tipped pens just to be sure they didn’t miss out. I can remember our BCG vaccines at school. We were told that our arms might be sore for a day or so and half our class were supposedly in agony for a week. One lad in particular would go hysterical screaming “mind my BCG!!!” if anyone came within two yards of him for the rest of the year.

 

I made toast and scoffed it whilst peering into the Internet. It was still there. Nothing much had changed really. People were squabbling over trivia as people do. But I had a pang of guilt.

Many years ago (forty-nine) I took a friend along to Boys Brigade. This chap’s father had died when he was very young, and he latched onto every man who came into his life; obviously craving a father figure. Through me, my old mate met the Boys Brigade leader who was a religious nut. And because of that my old mate became a religious nut himself. He’s now the pastor of a big Baptist church in the west country and his church regularly posts up videos of him preaching. One of his videos was on Facebook this morning.

In these videos he spouts stark staring nonsense and has a bible quote for absolutely every single thing that happens. Going to McDonalds, having a pee, watching “Bake Off”, taking the dogs out… he has a verse for everything. All of which seems perfectly sensible to him and all of which are clearly ridiculous and don’t stand up to any reasoned thought whatsoever. Sometimes when watching his videos I fear for his sanity…and it’s all my fault that he got religion.

 

I Munzed, then got ready for the day. I put washing in to scrub then took the dogs up to Kings Wood. I had “did not find” logs on two of my geocaches. One was there, one wasn’t. I replaced the missing one. As we walked we met other dog walkers; every meeting passed off without incident. It usually does when there is no one to see the dogs behaving themselves.

 

We came home. I had a cuppa then cracked on with the current pond project. I (sort of) levelled up the area at the top of the pond which I had dug out over the weekend, lined the sleeper at the top of the pond, got weed-proof membranes in place and put the sleepers for the bog filter roughly in place. Thirty seconds to type; over three hours to do. As I worked I spirit-levelled every bit individually, but with it all (sort of) together it looked more pissed than a pissed thing. Oh well… if all goes to plan it will all be hidden by rocks and plants anyway.

The plan is that tomorrow I shall attach all the bits of wood together. I wonder if I will.

 

I came in, had a cuppa and realized I could hardly move. I had a look at my bank account, did some CPD, and suddenly remembered that I’d put some washing on the line earlier. I got that lot in, then slobbed about on the telly sleeping through some utter twaddle on the “Blaze” channel about how the Americans stole atom bombs form aliens during the second world war.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a rather good dinner which we scoffed whilst watching more “Lego Masters: Australia” as a thunderstorm started. It was as well we’ve no end of stuff recorded on the Sky-Q box as the rain was so heavy it poggered the TV satellite signal.

Let’s hope it comes back.

15 October 2024 (Tuesday) - Late Shift

I slept well. Apparently “er indoors ^TM” didn’t. She was in and out with Treacle several times during the night.

I made toast and had my usual rummage round the Internet. There was a major rant happening on one of the local Facebook groups about a local GP surgery. They open their phone lines at eight o’clock for an hour, but say they might close them early if all the appointments go. Apparently this morning the phone lines closed at five past eight.

Thinking back to yesterday’s rant it is quite clear that the GPs can’t cope, so why on Earth does Lord Darzi want to burden them with more work…?

 

I munzed, I failed at Wordle, and took the dogs for a walk. Not having as long as we usually have, we just walked to the park and back. As we walked we saw “OrangeHead” whose head today was a vivid russet. Back in the day when I used to take Fudge to the park we would regularly meet “OrangeHead” and a gang of her mates. I laughingly called the mates “OrangeHead’s posse” and the membership of the posse would ebb and flow. From time to time I’d see her going in one direction and some of her posse going in another. Chatting with them they would all be falling out with each other all the time. It would seem that in the years since we regularly walked round the park she’s still got a posse. I wonder if they still quarrel.

 

I also saw something that boiled my piss. There’s some relatively new houses that have been built near the park overlooking the river, It would take over six years wages of the average UK citizen to buy one of them. Alternatively you could get one by taking out a mortgage over twenty-five years and paying back over a thousand quid a month. Sitting on the other side of the river from these houses is a tent in which some poor homeless sod had set up.

This isn’t the future I was promised…

 

We came home. Because we’ve got a home to come to. The dogs had brekkie, and on seeing a new geocache had gone live not a million miles from work I set off early in the hope of getting a First to Find.

I didn’t get it.

I went on to work where as well as having a rather busy afternoon I also had both my COVID and flu injections, and came home through the rain.

 

Mind you not getting to be First to Find, being busy and having injections pales into insignificance compared to that poor sod in his tent in Viccie Park in the rain.