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31 December 2022 (Saturday) - New Year's Eve

I was again plagued with nightmares about the where I used to work ten years ago. What’s that all about? I’m well out of that place.
I made toast and had a look at the Internet as I do. The New Year Honours List had been published in which seemingly random people are chosen and given a medal, whilst others who’ve done exactly the same thing (often for longer) got nothing. Take the England Women’s football team that did very well earlier in the year for example. Four of the team got medals. There were over twenty in the team – what about the others?
Various celebrities got awards ostensibly for their charity work… it’s rather easier to do charity stuff when you have the time and money to do so…
Quite a few civil servants and NHS managers also got singled out too, and got public recognition for doing the job for which they are paid. Meanwhile voluntary leaders of scout groups and all sorts of clubs and societies go unrecognised.
It’s high time the UK’s honours system was revisited and made fit for purpose
It’s a rant I’ve ranted before, but one which needs to be ranted. Why should I put myself out for a place of work, missing endless children’s birthday parties and family events and having nightmares about it years later, when the manager (who was part of a management board under which the hospital got the lowest possible rating from the government inspector and consequently put into special measures) gets given an MBE?
 
Leaving “er indoors TM and Treacle in bed, I took the puppies out to Dog Club. As we drove so the rain hossed down, but it stopped as we got to the car park, so I decided to persevere; if the heavy rain came back we could easily run back to the car and come home. Over a dozen people had thought the same, and despite the field being a quagmire, we had an excellent Dog Club meeting. Especially Morgan who managed to find and roll in a quite impressive range of poo. As something of a first today he was sporting a six-inch-wide smear of bird poo on his right shoulder. Have I ever mentioned that dogs are feral creatures?
Morgan was covered in poo; many of the other dogs were caked in mud. Very impressively caked.
After forty minutes our session was up and the bigger dogs arrived. Morgan wanted to play with them too, and had to be dragged away. I felt rather sorry for the two groups following us. The field was muddy enough when we were there; after our dogs and the medium dogs had been at the field I dread to think what state the ground would have been in for the biggest dogs who come in for the last session.
 
As we drove home so I phoned “er indoors TM and gave instructions to prepare the bath, a scrubbing brush and industrial quantities of dog shampoo.
She scrubbed the dogs as I changed into clean (and dry) trousers, and with dogs scrubbed we had a cuppa and a Belgian bun. Today’s came from Lidl and was rather good. Over the years we’ve become connoisseurs of the Belgian bun. The best come from the co-op, and the poorest (amazingly) come from our local family baker’s shop which is just down the road.
 
With the rain showing no sign of letting up we loaded ourselves and the dogs into the “er indoors TM-mobile and went round to Singleton Barn where the Hunters of Tupperware were gathering for the New Year’s Eve meet-up. A couple of dozen of us had a very good meet-up. There was a minor disaster when we were asked to move to make space for a group that had pre-booked only to find (fifteen minutes later) that the pre-booked group was us.
We had a good bit of dinner, and then came home where “er indoors TM got on with her jigsaw and I and the dogs snored for an hour or so.
 
“er indoors TM sorted dinner, and we spent a rather dull evening watching (appropriately) episodes of “Not Going Out” and scoffing choccies until it was time to tune in to the New Year Zoom meet-up. In the past we’ve always had New Year parties, but with COVID we moved to on-line meet-ups, and I wasn’t keen to leave the dogs so late at night.
A dozen of us chatted until the fireworks went off at midnight… well a dozen chatted. I sat quietly as my stomach rumbled as I’d eaten far too many choccies.
 
I suppose it is time for something of a retrospective. It has been a rather eventful year.
  • I had my nose surgically re-bored (for the third time)
  • I got COVID and missed a holiday
  • We got the puppies
  • I got a new granddaughter
  • We had a week in Gran Canaria
  • I buried two family rats
  • We had a week in the New Forest
  • My Dad had  major stroke and died
  • I pranged my car
  • I joined dog club and Lego club
  • We had an excellent family pub crawl round Rye
  • To say nothing of the country having had three Prime Minister, the Queen dying and our getting a new King
Happy New Year one and all… I wonder what we’ll get in 2023?

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