5 October 2024 (Saturday) - More Sick Leave

I had a whole lot less coughing last night. It was a shame that Treacle had to have a snarling fit in the small hours because the little ones wanted to be on the bed as well as her. Treacle is odd; when we are out and about and meet other dogs she is invariably terrified and hides and clearly looks to Morgan and Bailey to protect her (not that there’s ever any protecting to be done). But when at home she can be quite mean to the littluns.

I wish she wouldn’t.

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. This morning I was presented with adverts for Crumb pet tags. These are being marketed quite forcefully at the moment. The idea is that you attach the tag to the dog’s collar. If the dog goes walkabout, anyone finding them scans the bar code on the collar with an app on their phone and the dog owner’s contact details pop up. Whilst the tags are free, there’s a monthly subscription. And the whole thing hinges on whoever finds the missing dogs having the proper app on their phone, and having internet connectivity where they are. Which I rarely have when in the woods. I don’t see any advantage of this over having my mobile phone number on the dogs’ tags, which is what I’ve already go in place.

Having said that, I can imagine that many people would spend out on a monthly subscription on this purely because they can.

 

Being Saturday we went to Dog Club. Part of me felt a tad guilty about going having phoned in sick to work, but as “er indoors ^TM” said to one of our friends, there’s a world of difference between standing in a paddock for half an hour whilst feeling grim, and being expected to crack on with a full day’s work whilst feeling grim. Sadly again Morgan was a bit of an idiot. He gets on fine with most of the other dogs, but there are two there which he doesn’t like. He spent the session on his lead.

 

Dog club went rather well. We came home and I nipped to the corner shop for an almond croissant and a pecan plat which we had with a cuppa. As I sat down to the cuppa I realized I was sweating and breathless. I was right to have pulled another sickie.

I sat on the sofa and as I scoffed coffee and croissant I carried on with the geo-puzzles that I started looking at yesterday. Given some photos taken on the Romney Marsh all I had to do was to take a virtual drive round the area until I found the places where the photos were taken. Simple enough?

I started virtually driving round… and woke up two hours later.

 

Bearing in mind what an idiot Morgan had been at Dog Club and also bearing in mind the utter failure of the muzzle we’d tried on him in the past we went on a little shopping mission to get him a firmer muzzle. We got one from Bybrook Barn which seems to fit him quite well.

As we drove I was amazed at how busy the local roads were. I suppose you’d expect Saturday afternoon to be a peak time… I rarely drive about then.

We came home and Morgan had a trial run on his muzzle. He went to sleep wearing it, so that’s got to be a good sign. I must admit I’m not at all happy about him needing a muzzle, but if he will be an idiot and nip at other dogs then he has no choice. To be fair to him there’s only a couple of dogs that rile him, and watching the other dogs playing this morning at Dog Club he’s not *that* much worse than the others. There’s a lot of rough-and-tumble going on, but Morgan just goes that little bit too far with certain other dogs.

 

As idiot-chops dozed in his muzzle I set about the dishwasher. Things haven’t been coming out of the dishie quite as clean as they might have done lately. So I took the washer arm things as apart as they would go and blasted them through with water from the shower hose. Water seemed to be flowing a bit better than it had been… So as a trial run I stuck in a load of all the stuff it had failed on overnight.

Whist the dishie cracked on we plumbed in the new DVD player. I say “new”; the thing has been sitting on the table in its box for several months. We plugged it all in, sparked it all up, and after a *lot* of farting about the thing went back in the box. Once plugged in it displayed all the menus it should, but it simply wouldn’t play any DVDs. Clearly it was talking to the telly because we can see the menus, but when we pressed “play”, everything stopped happening. I have a vague recollection that the HDMI cable we have gave us grief in the past so we’ve got a new one on order.

By the time we’d finished farting about the dishie had done its thing. It was better than it had been, but still not perfect. I shall try topping up the salt and the rinse-aid before lugging it to the tip.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching more “Bake Off: The Professionals”.

 

I think I was right to have taken today off… I might just be beginning to feel if not better, certainly on the mend.

4 October 2024 (Friday) - Wedding Anniversary

When I’m on the early shift at Pembury (like I was supposed to be today) I like to set off about six o’clock so as to give myself time to get through the sets of temporary traffic lights that plague that journey. Having already phoned in sick I eventually woke up this morning about an hour after I would have started working.

I did another COVID test; I’ve got an appointment with the dental hygienist on Monday. They say that if I’m feeling OK and testing negative then I can go ahead with the appointment. I’m testing negative, and I think I’m on the mend. I’ve still got a little way to go, but I’m certainly better than I was.

 

I made toast and had a look at the Internet just in case I’d missed anything. There was a bit of a squabble about electric cars taking place on one of the Facebook pages I follow. It would seem the price of them is coming down, and having bought one, very few people them go back to a petrol or diesel car. I must admit I’d love an electric car. But… The things have a range of about two hundred miles (about!). Which is about (!) three trips to work. Bearing in mind that in the works car park there are spaces for two thousand cars and chargers for two cars. And also bearing in mind that I rarely get to park outside the house, an electric car remains impractical.

 

Despite feeling rather iffy I still took the dogs to the woods. They get fractious if not given a walk. We went to Longbeech where again a huge foreign camper van was taking up most of the car park. I’ve been told that this car park features on an on-line list of places where you can park a camper van for free, and that’s why there’s so often huge camper vans taking the piss.

Apart from Bailey rolling in fox poo the walk passed off rather well. For all that I was a gasping sweating mess when we got to the end of the walk, I was nowhere near as bad as I had been yesterday.

 

We came home, washed off the fox poo, hung out the washing, and I cracked on with geo-puzzling. After some herculean brain straining I eventually got the thumbs-up from the geo-checker on the puzzle with which I’ve been fighting for the last three days. If I’m feeling better that might make for a little mission over the weekend. Or it might not.

I then started on some more geo-puzzles in the Romney Marsh area. These ones are dead simple… in theory. The puzzle gives you a photo of a location on the Romney Marsh. All you have to do is find where that location is. Then once you’ve found where it is the puzzle tells you how far from that spot the actual geocache is, and in what direction. You can use a website (geocaching toolbox) to work out the final location given the photographed location, distance and direction. All you have to do is work out where the photograph was taken. And that’s easy enough. Google Street View will show you that.

There’s eight puzzles of this sort. I took screen shots of all eight final locations, and after an hour driving my lap-top round the Romney Marsh using Google Street View I hadn’t found any.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a rather good bit of dinner this evening which we washed down with a bottle of plonk as we watched more “Bake Off: The Professionals”. Sometimes I wonder if I’d paid more attention to “Boss” from my days at the Harbour Restaurant might I have ended up as a professional chef?

 

And in closing, today is my thirty-eighth wedding anniversary.

3 October 2024 (Thursday) - And Still Feeling Grim

 

I slept rather well. I made toast and peered into the Internet, As I did I suddenly had a coughing fit, my temperature went through the roof and I came over incredibly sweaty. The first time I had COVID I can remember thinking the thing was something of a disappointment; I only knew I was ill as at the time work insisted we did tests twice a week. Such a shame I couldn’t have had that variety of COVID this time.

 

Facebook was rather quiet this morning. I had a munz from the comfort of the sofa. Today marked the start of this month’s Clan War. And then I got Worldle. Eventually.

Bearing in mind I wasn’t well I should have stayed home. But it was a bright sunny morning so I took the dogs out. Bearing in mind I was supposed to be back at work tomorrow I should have been up for a dog walk? Shouldn’t I?

We drove to Longbeech Woods for a change. We walked a rather short walk and at the end I was cold, clammy, breathless and dripping sweat. I phoned work and the boss agreed I should take tomorrow and Saturday off sick. Whilst this is obviously the sensible thing to do, part of me isn’t happy about this. Admittedly it isn’t that long since I had two weeks off sick following my nasal re-bore. But apart from that I can’t remember the last time I took sick leave. But it is because I don’t remember things like this that I write this diary. I had a week off sick last November when I had COVID last time, and then a week in April 2022 when I had a week off with COVID for the first time. And a week in January 2022 when I had my nose done last time.

I don’t think that’s a bad sick record really. I can remember back in the day when I was a manager having to have words with quite a few people who had taken at least one day off sick every week for more than a year.

But I still feel bad about it.

 

“er indoors ^TM” said goodbye and went off to see “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM”. They were doing birthday things for grandson. I would have loved to have gone along, but it wouldn’t be fair for me to be breathing disease over everyone so I stayed home.

I had another look at the geo-puzzle with which I was fighting yesterday. And after ten minutes gave up. Instead I slobbed on the sofa with the dogs and watched a film on You-Tube. Just recently all the Star Trek related Facebook pages have been raving about the release of “Farragut Forward”; the latest fan-made Star Trek thing on You-Tube. Like all fan-made Star Trek things it was something of a disappointment. Filled with endless references to all the Star Trek series and films it didn’t actually feature anything new or original.

 

After this was the seemingly obligatory episodes of “Four in a Bed” in which everyone tries to justify that whatever it is with which they are finding fault is a serious misdemeanor when done by someone else, but actually perfectly acceptable when they do it themselves.

As I watched so my new digital thermometer arrived. The thing claims my temperature is fine. It probably is, and if it is (which it probably is) can only be a step in the right direction.

 

I made some toast for tea, and as I scoffed it I watched a film on Netflix. “Uglies” was rather good. In some ways it featured ideas which were already old fifty years ago when they formed the premise of “Logan’s Run”, but with a twist.

Apparently it was based on a book… wonder if I can get that on the Kindle?

2 October 2024 (Wednesday) - Still Feeling Grim

I slept well last night. Not quite so much coughing, but as I scoffed toast I did feel that I was running a temperature.

The internet was much the same as ever. Squabbles and trivia abounded as they do. But I had an email. Geocaching HQ have given me a Community Celebration Event – the ability to run a special event next year. I had one once before when we ran a Wherigo event. I wonder what I can do with this one? I’ve a vague idea to hire a village hall and have an afternoon of pub games. The obvious location for this would be in a room in a pub somewhere, but that would get rather expensive. It’s at times like this that being a scout leader was useful in that I had access to a scout hut.

 

I munzed, I got Wordle in three goes. Bearing in mind the dogs hadn’t had a decent walk in four days I took them up to the woods. That was a mistake. We walked for two miles; at the end I was sweating, clammy and breathless.

As we walked we had a minor episode. As we came to a crossroads so we saw some chap hysterically screaming. We watched as a small labrador slinked toward him, but on seeing us ran to us. My three dogs ran up to the dog and all said hello. This didn’t go down well with Mr. Shouty who started bellowing even more. I whistled to call my three. They came to me, and after a moment his dog followed. I told the dog he had to go to Mr. Shouty. Dogs understand (they really do) and reluctantly the dog walked back. We carried on walking, but in less that a minute Mr. Shouty was bellowing again. All the dogs were playing together nicely and he didn’t like it. So I called my three with a whistling sound (which worked) and he called his with hysterical screaming (which didn’t). He then started ranting about how he was having problems because his dog was attracted to the sound of the whistling which I use to call my three. I suggested he tried a different sound to attract his dog as hysterical screaming clearly wasn’t working. Eventually he got his dog on a lead and marched off in the direction of the car park. It was the way we were going anyway. I couldn’t see why the dogs couldn’t walk together as that was the way that we were going but he clearly wasn’t having any of it. On any other day we would have walked off in a different direction but I was feeling all-in so we gave him a few minutes and then followed slowly.

 

As we drove home my piss boiled. The pundits on the radio were talking about the case of Lucy Letby; the nurse who has gone to prison having been found guilty of murdering several babies at the Countess of Chester hospital. Apparently new evidence has come to light, not the least of which was the fact that she wasn’t even on duty (or anywhere near the hospital) on the day when one of the babies died. There was some expert being interviewed who implied that the babies who died were so ill they should have been in a specialist paediatric hospital (and not where they were) and also implied that Ms. Letby was a scapegoat for the failings of a system which wasn’t up to the job.

There are calls for a re-trial… but will that get to the truth of the matter? It’s been my (admittedly limited) experience that legal types seem to enjoy debating and posturing and trying to make themselves look good rather than actually getting to the truth. On the one occasion I found myself in court I defended myself, and the prosecuting barrister openly told me I wasn’t making a good job of defending myself, and then made a very eloquent and posturing speech on my behalf totally contradicting what she’d just said herself.

What we as a society need is legal types paid to get to the truth. At the moment they are paid to either bang someone up and/or get someone off. A subtle difference.

British justice, eh?

Mind you, the BBC deserve being called out too. Bearing in mind they once ran a prime time show painting Ms Letby as the devil incarnate, it’s a tad ironic that they should now have a complete about-face and claim she’s an innocent victim.

 

We came home. I scrubbed the mud off of dogs’ bellies then collapsed on the sofa. I’d certainly overdone it with this morning’s walk. With the weather having seriously chirped up and loads of stuff I might be getting on with outside, I just sat and struggled with some fiendishly difficult geo-puzzles. Mind you I say “fiendishly difficult”; the puzzles aren’t *that* hard once you spot the theme of the puzzle. The trick is spotting the theme. The chap who set them is a friend of mine, and I’ve been first to find on four of his puzzles. So they are solvable if you can spot what they are all about. With a concerted effort I solved one that I’d been struggling with since July. Flushed with success I then spent two fruitless hours fighting with another. If only I knew who the people in the pictures were… Google image search told me some of them, but by no means all.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a rather good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching the most recent season of “Bake off: The Professionals”. It was rather good.

I then spent a little while fighting with the puzzle featuring the piccie above. I think I’ve identified about half of them now. Many still elude me though…

 

In theory I should be feeling a bit better now. In practice it ain’t happening…

1 October 2024 (Tuesday) - -Pulling A Sickie

I slept like a log for five whole hours, then went to the loo and spent the rest of the night coughing. Last night I’d been messaging with one of the bosses who’d suggested I pull a sickie today, and overnight another of the bosses messaged to say that the rules say that I have to be off sick for five days after testing positive for the rona. Which meant I couldn’t go into work today anyway. I can go in as planned on Friday… if I’m feeling well enough. Will I be? I thought I was chirping up yesterday but clearly I wasn’t.

I’m assuming “er indoors ^TM” has the same disease. She went down with it last Wednesday and seems to be on the mend so maybe I’ll be in to work on Friday. We shall see.

 

I made toast and had a look at the Internet as I do. For the last two weeks we were away with a group of decent people. Living in close proximity for pretty much the entire time that we weren’t asleep, there wasn’t a single word of argument or disagreement. People can get along if they try. However look at the Internet this morning. People were bitterly arguing about the time signal pips which go off every hour on Radio Four. Can you think of anything more trivial about which to bicker?

And then my lap-top suggested that I might like to use a proper official branded power cable from the supplier. What was that all about? It’s been quite happy with the power cable it came with up till now.

 

I then phoned the bank. Having had a look at my accounts the other day I saw I had been charged interest on my credit card. Not much. A piddling amount really. But having paid off the account in full every month there shouldn’t have been any interest at all.

Apparently I was charged interest because I’d bought all those dollars in August, and you have to pay interest when you get cash on your credit card. And they charge interest for a few months afterwards even if you pay off the balance in full. Or so I was told.

I explained to the chap in a slow and patient way that having sent me hundred dollar bills (which were no use to me) I had to waste half a day finding anywhere that could change them. And then the bank had the audacity to bill me for that. I’ve whinged about my bank before. They are very good at saying sorry… but having asked friends I’ve formed the distinct impression that the banks are all the same.

 

Being very aware of the dogs looking hopefully at me and finding myself going stir crazy sitting on the sofa I thought I might relieve the boredom by taking the dogs for a walk. We only went round the block; a very short walk. I then fixed the power to the shed (a fuse had blown), fed the dogs and did a little washing up. That was all. And I was dripping sweat, breathless and all-in.

I went back to the sofa.

 

I wrote up a little CPD (after all I’m not on holiday any more), and then saw I had another dubious friend request on Facebook. On her Facebook page Raven tells the world she is a “professional dominate mistress”.

Facebook does give me a lot – unlimited photo storage, instant access to what friends, colleagues and acquaintances are up to all over the world… but it isn’t perfect. It will immediately veto any post containing words it doesn’t like (try posting the word t-w-a-t and see what happens!), but you can ask for a review of an advert of a prostitute’s unmoral services only to be told that advertising porn doesn’t breach their community standards.

 

As I fought with a geo-puzzle so the doorbell rang. My Lego advent calendar had arrived. Every year since 2010 I’ve out a little advent adventure on Facebook. Every year I get the Lego advent calendar and make a point of not opening it until December, and then only opening it one window at a time. It isn’t me that makes up the adventures I write; it really is the strange voices in my head, and (quite frankly) no one is more amazed than me with what I come up with. I really should open the advent calendar now and work out the story in advance, but I’m not going to.

 

Still feeling grim I got the ironing board out and attacked the ironing whilst watching episodes of “Four in a Bed”. This afternoon’s episodes featured an opinionated idiot who would not shut up about healthy living and the quality of food (claiming to be a trained chef). However the breakfasts he offered consisted of a shop-bought yogurt and a banana, and he wasn’t at all happy to be caught chain smoking, and on questioning he admitted that he’d had no formal training as a chef but was entirely self-taught. He went on to take serious offence that he was being judged against others who were far better at what they did than he was at what he did. He felt he should be judged for what he did in isolation and consequently bearing in mind that he does exactly what he claims to do, he felt he should have scored full marks on everything

 

Despite the rain “er indoors ^TM” went off to this evening’s geo-meet. I would have liked to have gone along but bearing in mind I was off sick and a walk round the block had worm me out earlier I thought better of it.

I slobbed in front of the telly under dogs until she came home. She came home with fish and chips.

They ain’t cheap these days…