13 November 2024 (Wednesday) - Three Years Late

Another night with an alarm set, and so another restless night. At least I stayed asleep until after three o’clock this morning. After a couple of hours I gave up and got up. I made toast and watched another episode of “The End of the Fxxxing World” in which our heroes travelled to the Isle of Sheppey. There were some spectacular aerial shots of the Kingsferry bridge; I do like seeing places that I’ve been on the telly.

As that finished I caught the end of an episode of Bullseye in which two rather greedy idiots from the 1970s gambled some frankly rubbish prizes in the hope of getting a speedboat, and lost the lot. Personally I could never see the attraction of winning a speedboat. The things are utterly impractical. Where are you going to keep it? If you store it on your drive or in the garden you’ve got to find a slipway from which to launch it. Have you ever tried to get a boat out of the water and back on to its trailer? And if you are going to keep it moored somewhere, harbour fees ain’t cheap.

I’ve experience of boats. An uncle once persuaded my father to go half-shares on a fishing boat they kept on St Leonards’ beach and I can remember my dad constantly griping about what a load of arse-ache that was.

 

I sparked up my lap-top and peered into the Internet. It was still there. Today’s petty squabble on Facebook was about why people should leave cash tips in a restaurant (of at least twenty per cent of the cost of the meal) because the waitresses are so poorly paid. Others were taking the line that it is up to employes to pay staff, not customers. People were getting rather nasty with each other on the matter.

If I’m going to leave a tip in a restaurant I’d not leave a cash tip. I’d pay it on the card so’s everyone working in the place could get a share. I used to work in the kitchen of a seaside restaurant. My basic wage was the same as the waiting staff. My take-home was a fraction of theirs. They got tips and I never did.

 

I set off to work on another dark morning. As I drove the pundits on the radio were spouting their drivel as they do. There was more talk about the Archbishop who resigned yesterday over the ongoing scandal, and talk of four more bishops who should resign. The Archbishop of York said that those who "actively covered this up" should go but he said those were not bishops. I suppose he would, wouldn't he?

As I said yesterday, in my experience bishops are a dodgy lot.

Meanwhile President Trump is planning who is going to have the top jobs in his new government. He's giving senior positions to the world's richest man Elon Musk, and to Fox News pundits and (so it was claimed) those who'd supported him in his campaign. There was quite a bit of consternation that he wasn't appointing people who'd been elected to public office but was appointing those who'd done him favours despite their having no political experience. It strikes me that Mr. Trump hasn't really got any political experience, and that's never stopped him, has it?

 

I got to work where I did my bit. In between this and that I did an external quality assessment blood film. Periodically NHS Head Office send out slides from obscure cases to check we don't miss anything important. It was in one of these that I saw some trypanosomes today.  Trypanosomes are nasty little things that get into your blood and cause sleeping sickness. I've never seen them outside of external quality assessment exercises, but I live in hope.

And I got a certificate and award for forty years service. It came in the post. Bearing in mind I hit forty years in September 2021 I can only assume it got delayed on the way somewhere.

 

I came home to find the Christmas "Viz" magazine had come in the post as well. That hadn’t been delayed.

12 November 2024 (Tuesday) - Level Two

With an alarm set I had another restless night. I woke feeling full of energy and raring to go… at twenty past midnight. I then lay awake for much of the rest of the night.

I eventually got up at five o’clock, made brekkie and sparked up Netflix. With hundreds of things to choose from, nothing appealed. I saw there was a second series of “The End of the F***ing World” so I thought I might try that; I could vaguely remember liking the first series. But I couldn’t really remember anything about it, so I started watching the first series to remind myself. I don’t remember it at all, but it was entertaining enough; two young psychos chum up and go off on a road trip.

 

I then had a quick look at the Internet in case I’m missed much overnight. I rarely do, and today was no exception. But I had an email about the household insurance. Exactly a year ago I wrote “I had an email saying the household insurance was up for renewal… at over double what I paid last year. …. Insurance companies are a pain in the glass (to coin a phrase). They always do this – they send through a renewal at a ridiculous price, and when you phone them to whinge they reduce the quote; often to lower than what it was last year”.

This morning I had the renewal email saying they were offering me the same policy as last year but two hundred pounds cheaper. I’m seeing that as a result.

 

I set off to work. One advantage of the dark mornings is that I can press the button on the car’s key and see the indicator lights flashing from quite some way away so I know where the car is. I saw it from probably about ten times the distance at which (at the last minute) I saw an idiot on an e-scooter and then another idiot on a pedal bike. Both all in black, with no lights on, half an hour before sunrise.

 

I drove to work listening to the pundits on the radio. There were calls for the Archbishop of Canterbury to resign, and as the day went on so he did throw in the sponge. Apparently some bishop or other has been kiddy-fiddling. It was alleged that the Archbishop had known about it for years but did nothing. Some official report into the matter concluded that concluded that the errant bishop might have been brought to justice ten years earlier had the Archbishop formally reported what he knew to the police.

Perhaps the Archbishop reported it to God…

Personally I’m reminded of Bishop Peter of Sussex who was everyone’s hero back in the day when I was a god-botherer. He turned out to be a wrong ‘un.

And there was talk about the COP29 international climate change conference which has started in Azerbaijan. The Prime Minister has gone, and is apparently proudly crowing about what the UK are doing. But the Americans and the Chinese are no-shows. Without them being on-board, anything the UK does will be little more than pissing in the wind.

 

Work was work; I was on an early shift today. Given the choice I prefer those. I came home and “er indoors ^TM” went out. She was off to the cinema with Cheryl and Lacey. I settled in front of the telly and watched more episodes of “The End of the F***ing World” until she came back.

She came back with KFC, which was something of a result.

 

Oh – and our Munzee clan got to level two today…

11 November 2024 (Monday) - This n That

My old mate who travels the world from hotel to hotel rather than having any fixed abode was posting to Facebook from Hawaii this morning. There were several photos of him in various expensive-looking places. I suppose he must be happy but there’s no denying that I get homesick after only a few days away.

There were also photos of Anastasiia Pokreshchuk who has had surgery to get the world’s biggest cheekbones. She likes the look, or so she says. I suppose she would have to say that. Does anyone else find it attractive? When I was a lad there were people walking on the Moon. Shortly after we had amazing computers, mobile phones… and now we have Donald Trump and people thinking that looking frankly ridiculous is something to which we might aspire. Where did it all go wrong?

 

Treacle seemed OK on yesterday’s walk, but during the evening she had occasional limping. So rather than our usual four miles round Kings Wood we had a shorter walk today. We went down to Orlestone. We used to go there all the time, but after a couple of incidents with Morgan and Bailey (when they were smaller) we’ve not been there for ages. We went back today and all three dogs were as good as gold. We barked at some normal people who were foraging; they looked terrified. The woman foraging looked at Bailey in much the same way that I might look at a wild tiger. And we had an episode with three Dobermans, but to be fair to them they only wanted to play. It was a shame they were so big; Treacle got very defensive of Bailey, and Morgan just ran in terror.

Where we’d normally walk four miles round Kings Wood we were back at the car after a mile and a half today.

 

We came home where the dogs didn’t need a bath. In the past Orlestone has been a swamp. It wasn’t today.

I made us a cuppa, loaded up rubbish into the car and set off to the tip. A week ago I put the old poggered strimmer in the front garden in the hope that some passer-by might have been daft enough to take it. Sadly no one was.

I went to the tip and taking care not to run over the people who weren’t paying attention I get rid of a carful of rubbish then drove up to Kennington. “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” had bought a sackload of remote control toys and I had to collect them. And pay for them as well.

From there I went to Bybrook Barn. I bought a few rocks and got a few ideas for what I might do with the front garden. But just like at the tip, not one person in a hundred was looking where they were going, or seemed to have any idea that there was anyone else around them.

 

And then I had a phone call from an old colleague. The chap is up before the professional regulator. Apparently he made racist comments in private messages, but the person to whom they were sent chose not to respect the confidence.

I wish there was something I could do to help him…

 

I spent the afternoon slobbing in front of the telly watching episodes of “Four in a Bed” in which some new-age hippy spent quite some time banging on about his eco-friendly cleaning products and then had the right arse when he was told how filthy his toilets were and how they needed a good scrubbing with bleach.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up pizza and chips then went bowling. Earlier in the day I’d read a description of the film “Alien” which had been rather dubiously translated from a Hong Kong DVD so I sat with the dogs and watched it. I can remember going to see the film when I was fifteen years old and lying about my age. And now, quite a few years later, two things strike me about it.

Firstly despite being on an interstellar spaceship everyone was smoking.

Secondly just how much the film dragged on. It was about half an hour too long. I got bored with it.

10 November 2024 (Sunday) - Romney Marsh

There was a post on Facebook this morning which made me think. Apparently there is some road in nearby Headcorn with the same name as a road in Ashford. Someone living in the Ashford one has been ordering stuff on Amazon only to have found everything is being delivered to the house of the same number in the Headcorn one. Whoever lives in the Headcorn one is just taking the parcels and thinking it is Christmas. It is easy enough to get a refund from Amazon, but it is arse-ache when the replacements get sent to the wrong address as well.

Back in the day I lived in Grove Road in Hastings and we regularly got the mail for Elmgrove Road in Brighton.

We also used to get a postcard every year from someone who holidayed in Ashford-on-the-Water. We never did find who that was from, or who it was supposed to be delivered to.

 

There wasn’t much else happening in the Internet today. I sparked up the Munzee app and saw that a friend (who lives near Bluewater) had Munzed our Skyland at five o’clock in the morning. He was up and about early.

I munzed, got Wordle on the fifth attempt, and then got a message. The first fruit of my loins had poggered his back. “My Boy ^TM” and Cheryl were planning to come on a rather short walk with us today, but they had to cry off.

But we went ahead with our walk anyway. There is a short series of a dozen geocaches near New Romney which we thought might make for a good dog walk. And it did. About a dozen geocaches over four miles on flat ground took us a couple of hours. Treacle was allowed off-lead but we took no chances with the littluns after a pheasant shot out of a ditch and we saw another dog-walker with his dog caked on fox poo. Whilst we kept Bailey and Morgan out of the fox poo, Treacle went wading in swamps.

I took a few photos as we walked. With walk walked we drove round the marsh finding up a few of the puzzle caches I’d solved in the week.

 

We came home where in a novel break with tradition “er indoors ^TM” took command of dog bath time.

Oh dear…

Personally the first thing I do when I’m doing the dog-scrubbing is to chuck all three in the tub so I know where they are, and so that they are contained and captured. Bathing them one at a time gets the first dog clean, but the second two can see what is coming and they escape still caked in whatever it was that made you want to bath them in the first place.

Eventually the dogs ended up scrubbed and we had a cuppa and a hot cross bun.

 

“er indoors ^TM” sorted a rather good curry which we scoffed whilst watching today’s episode of “Lego Masters”. We recorded it and watched it later so’s we could fast-forward through the adverts. What took an hour and a half to record took fifty-five minutes to watch. Bearing in mind how easy it is to avoid adverts I can’t help but wonder why they are still made.

9 November 2024 (Saturday) - Another Lazy Day

When I went to the loo at three o’clock this morning I saw all the lights were on next door. She was up late or early. Whichever it was. I went back to bed.

 

I got up a few hours later, made toast and had a look at Facebook and rolled my eyes. Several people weren’t happy this morning. One of the triumphs of Brexit (!) was that it created an environment in which all the UK’s immigrant workers didn’t feel comfortable any more and so many went back home. This left the country with massive shortages in the hospitality and agriculture sectors. It would seem that as well as the illegal immigrants, Donald Trump now wants to send home naturalized Americans too. Bearing in mind that America imports a *lot* of its more intelligent and highly-skilled workforce this isn’t going to end well. I’m reminded of my whinging at school about how dull the history lessons were, and our French teacher telling me that those who don’t learn the lessons of the past will repeat them for themselves.

Mind you, what is Mr. Trump actually trying to achieve? Since when has any politician ever acted in the national interest rather than just doing whatever they can to appease those who are more likely to vote for them?

And I saw an advert on-line. There’s a “Samhain Pilgrimage” tomorrow – a five mile walk across the South Downs doing all sorts of hippy things along the way. And it is only sixty quid a ticket, but if that is a bit much you can make your payment in smaller amounts. Hippies never used to charge that much back in the day.

Meanwhile on one of the nerd sites that I follow was one of the most bitter and acrimonious arguments I’ve ever seen. This one was about who would win in a fight between a Star Wars death Star and a Star Trek Borg cube. Oh, people were getting angry…

I suppose people being more worked up about hypothetical fights between fictional spaceships than they are about innocent people being deported speaks volumes about why the world is in the state it is in.

 

Being Saturday we set off to Dog Club. We had quite a few first-timers along today, and one episode. Some old chap came along with his dog. He immediately let the dog off the lead and stood and watched it trying to hump all the other dogs. This happens with dogs. Those getting humped generally tell the humper off and all is fine. However this dog wouldn’t be told, and the chap whose dog it was just stood watching. When not humping, this dog was playing rather roughly and the excitement was winding everyone up.

Morgan got so excited he had his muzzle put on as he is easily provoked.

After a few minutes this dog walked past his owner who put it on a lead for a few minutes.

Five minutes later the same dog was causing more problems and the owner was nowhere to be seen. I managed to catch the dog just as the owner bumbled round the corner from the next part of the field (he thought he’d go for a little walk). I marched the dog back to him and he got the idea. This dog stayed on the lead watching and calming down. With that dog under control things went back to usual. Which was probably for the best with (at least) seventeen dogs along today.

 

“er indoors ^TM” went off to craft club. I drove home listening to Steve on the radio. Having totally failed to guess the lyrics on the way to Dog Club I got the mystery year on the way home. ELO’s album “Out Of The Blue” and Elvis Presley dying? 1977.

We got home where the dogs had a bath. There was a distinct whiff of fox poo. And then I set about the ironing. It doesn’t iron itself.

 

“er indoors ^TM” came back from craft club and sorted a ham and pickle roll. Very nice. And then we had another lazy day. “er indoors ^TM” practiced what she’d learned at craft club and I looked at geo-puzzles in the area where we’re going on holiday next year.

“er indoors ^TM” announced she was cold and turned on the fire. Our electric heater fire blows out warm air. At the first sound of the thing working, Bailey runs and sits in the flow of warm air. When the thermostat kicks in and turns it off, she goes back to her basket until it turns on again. The other dogs aren’t at all bothered by it, but Bailey was up and down like a thing possessed all afternoon.

 

Over a rather good bit of scoff washed down with a decent bottle of plonk we watched more “Bake Off”, and having had half of a decent bottle of plonk I expect I shall spend the evening snoring in front of the telly.

8 November 2024 (Friday) - Lazy Day

I think I overdid the heavy gardening at the start of the week – I’ve been aching ever since. I hurt when I got up this morning.

I made toast and had my usual look at the Internet. It was still there. One or two people were posting about having put up their Christmas decorations already. If people want to do that, then that’d up to them. Personally I’d just rather people didn’t start so early. By the time late December comes I’m not at all hyped up for it; I’m fed up with hearing about it all.

I had a message about one of those geo-puzzles I’ve been working on. Apparently I’ve found the location I need. If so then the chap who set the geo-checker up had made a mistake in the next bit. The thing has only been found once, and that person found it without using the checker, so that was my excuse why I wasn’t getting the green light from it.

 

I turned off the lap-top (as my brain was exploding at geo-puzzles) and drove the dogs up to the woods. As we drove Desert Island Discs was on the radio. Today’s castaway was Dr Nicola Fox. Born in Hertfordshire she is currently NASA’s head of science.

Something she said made me think… She was off on some works conference a few years ago and had left her small children with her husband. He didn’t answer his phone when she phoned home one evening. She tried again later to no avail. Eventually she got through and a small voice said “Hello”. Her three-year-old son answered the phone and said that daddy was asleep laying against the wardrobe and wouldn’t wake up. When the police arrived it turned out that daddy had died a few hours previously from an aortic aneurysm.

Could you imagine that happening?

 

We got to the woods and had a good walk. We didn’t see any deer, but Morgan and Bailey found deer poo. We probably didn’t see any deer because of all the noise. The other day I commented on how quiet the woods were. Today there were a few groups walking along bellowing at each other, and the local special school was up there too. They regularly go to the woods where, rather than doing anything educational like learning their lessons, they (quite literally) run round in circles screaming. The teachers just stand watching them with rather bored expressions.

 

I came home and sorted a cuppa and a slice of cake. “er indoors ^TM” had brought coffee and walnut cake home yesterday. That was rather good. I then took a deep breath and had another go at that geo-puzzle. I’d been told I’d found the right location… had I? The whole puzzle hinged on finding a fire hydrant sign on Google Street View. Had I found the wrong one? I found another, did the sums and got the thumbs-up.

 

I had a lazy afternoon. What with gardening and pond work earlier in the week I deserved one skive this week. I slobbed on the sofa and watched episodes of “Four in a Bed” in which some vindictive old harridan had the hump that other people had better guest houses than she did and were charging less than she was. It’s a standard theme of the show, but always amusing to watch the jealousy.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a decent bit of curry which we scoffed whilst watching more “Bake Off” which we washed down with a bottle of coffee stout.

I’ve done pretty much nothing today but walk the dogs and watch telly… I still ache from sorting “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM”’s garden earlier in the week. I needed a lazy day. So why do I feel guilty that I’ve done so little today?

7 November 2024 (Thursday) - A Walk, Pond, Chess...

As I booted up my lap-top this morning the antivirus told me about the latest cyber-threat I need to look out for. Apparently whenever you access certain iffy websites a load of dodgy scripts is copied to your computer. This website then asks you to prove that you are human by calling up the windows run screen and pressing the control and “V” keys together and then pressing the “Enter” key. This then installs whatever iffy software the hackers want on your PC. I would wonder who would be dumb enough to fall for that, but you only have to look at the news from the USA to see that there are rich pickings to be had.

Quite a few of my American friends were rather worried about this morning’s news. And rightly so. Not so much about who had been voted in as about who had done the voting. I’ve often said that democracy is a very silly idea, and finally it seems that people are slowly coming to my way of thinking.

 

I got the dogs onto their leads and we drove up to the woods for a walk. We did our usual circuit. I had my phone’s camera poised but we didn’t see any deer today. We did meet a noisy pair of women not far from where the deer usually lurk though. Like the three we met the other day these two were walking a yard apart from each other but were shouting everything they had to say.

As we got back to the car so I got a whiff of something foul. Treacle had rolled in fox poo. Treacle? It’s usually the smaller two.

 

We came home for a bath, and once bathed I popped up to the corner shop to get “er indoors ^TM”’s craft magazine. Whilst I was at it I got almond croissants for us both, and then used Google Street View to drive round Romney Marsh for an hour or so looking for a fire hydrant sign (it’s a geo-thing).

Despite aching I then spent an hour in the garden putting the new patterned pond edging into place. I’m not sure if I like it, but once it has weathered in it might look better.

 

I wrote up a little CPD and drove round Romney Marsh (on my lap-top) for another hour or so. All the time listening to pings on my phone. “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” has taken to playing on-line chess, and consequently so have I. As Rik Mayall once remarked, chess is a game in which a prawn goes all the way and becomes a queen, and then it can go any way it likes.

I didn’t go all the way and consequently lost.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up some pork chops which we scoffed whilst watching more “Bake Off”. Much as I like the show, it’s not the same since Matt Lucas left.

6 November 2024 (Wednesday) - Got a Baby

I had a minor issue with my lap-top this morning. When I booted it up the screen was upside-down. I rebooted it to no avail. But as I tilted the screen so it went back to how it should be. What was that all about?

I eventually got my morning fix of Facebook. There was petty bickering on the local Facebook groups about how one should drive round the tank roundabout. There are a few places in Ashford where the local custom is to totally disregard the highway code, and that roundabout is one of them. This roundabout regularly features on local Facebook bickering. Everyone knows how to drive round it. Everyone is adamant that they are right and everyone else is wrong. And no two people ever agree on the matter.

And I signed an on-line petition. Apparently MPs are voting on allowing terminally ill people to have the right to end their suffering. The vote is in a few week time. You can send your MP a pre-written email on the matter by clicking here. There are those who will be against this sort of thing. I suspect those people have never watched their mother or father laying hopelessly in a hospital bed for weeks with vital body systems failing from terminal cancer or from irreparable brain damage from a massive stroke. The fruits of my loin have orders to pull my plug when (not if) I get like that.

This got me thinking… I had no idea that this vote was coming up. Apart from odd snippets in the news I have no idea what MPs are voting for. Democracy, eh? We elect someone or other to go run the country for five years… and for the most part we have no idea what they are doing. My MP has got a Facebook page. It’s a shame he describes himself on it as a “digital creator” but at least he or one of his staff updates the page regularly. Our local councilor doesn’t update hers.

And talking of democracy it seems that Donald Trump has done a Grover Cleveland. If there is anyone who thinks that is a good idea to have a system of selecting government in which the considered opinion of an educated person is of the same worth as that of a half-wit who believes the ramblings of an egotistical rich idiot, could they please explain why.

 

As we drove to the woods this morning the pundits on the radio were talking about Donald Trump’s victory. It would seem that across the world there’s celebrations from Russia, China, North Korea and anyone who might have meddled in the US election in order to put him in the White House. Everywhere else is caution and a sense of quietly expecting the worst.

The woods were quiet today. Not quiet as in not a lot of people about; quiet as in silent. There weren’t any sounds or noises at all. No birds singling, no trees rustling in the wind. It was rather eerie.

As we walked we saw deer again. And unlike yesterday Morgan saw them too. He shot off in hot pursuit, but after about ten seconds of being out of my view he came back again.

And then we had an “episode”.

All three dogs were playing a rough-and-tumble game of chase and attack. They play it together all the time. A passing dog thought he might join in, found the game was a tad too rough-and-tumble for his liking, and ran away in terror with my three hot on his heels. Fortunately the woman with the dog realized what had happened and didn’t have the arse with us.

 

We came home. I made a cuppa, then got on with gardening. I mowed the lawn… then stopped mowing and gathered up all the dog turds. Then started mowing again and found a load more dog turds. Eventually I got the lawn mowed, then I went round the front garden with the bionic burner. And then I cleaned out the pond filter on the little pond. And “er indoors ^TM” was right – there is a fourth fish in the little pond. I’ve done a little looking up on-line. Apparently comets can grow to be three inches long in their first year – I can only think we’ve had babies.

 

For some reason I was aching rather a lot, so I sat down and geo-puzzled. There are several (eight) geo-puzzles on the Romney Marsh in which you are told the distance and bearing that a geocache is from the point at which the photograph in the puzzle was taken. All you have to do is find exactly where the photograph was taken. I’ve been struggling with these puzzles for some time now, but Gordon was working on these this afternoon as well, and we spent a couple of hours messaging each other and between us we came up with the locations of five of them.

 

And then the nice double-glazing man came. The frame of our front window has been cracked for years and needs replacing. The nice man measured up and quoted us a price of about five hundred quid cheaper than I was expecting him to. His company has good reviews on Google and Checkatrade.

The surveyor comes next week.

5 November 2024 (Tuesday) - Deer, Gardening

Finding myself wide awake far too early for no reason I could fathom I got up, made toast, and once I’d watched an episode of “Everyone Else Burns” I had a little look at the Internet in case I’d missed anything overnight.

I hadn’t really.

There was talk about today’s American presidential election. As an outsider looking in, it strikes me that absolutely anything would be better than Donald Trump, but an American friend has told me that Kamala Harris isn’t as brilliant as she might be. She’s told me she feels she has to choose between a large turd in a bowl and a pool of diarrhea on the sidewalk (pavement).

I suppose that’s true of elections everywhere though.

I munzed, got Wordle on the fifth attempt, then went and woke the dogs to take them out.

 

As we drove to the woods so the pundits on the radio were also talking about the American election. Interestingly many people being interviewed claimed they were voting for the candidate with the Christian values, but both Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris were extolled as the second coming and reviled as the antichrist in equal measures.

We got to the woods on a very misty morning and saw there was only one other car in the car park. Sadly we found its occupants. As we walked a herd of deer ran across the path. I managed to get a photo of the last one, and as I put my phone away so the others came back to see where their mate had got to. And then I heard something. And so did the deer who all ran off.

There was a bellowed conversation going on and getting closer. After a minute or so a group of three women and six dogs hove into view. Walking side by side, for some inexplicable reason everything the women said to each other was shouted at maximum volume.

They went one way and we went another. But after a few minutes I could hear them again, so I changed our direction. But no matter which way I went I couldn’t get away from them. There they were, shrieking at each other. We all got back to the car park at about the same time, and they got into that other car that had been there when we arrived. Still bellowing at each other.

 

We came home. No one needed a bath, which was a result. I made us both a cuppa, then leaving “er indoors ^TM” working and the dogs snoring I drove down to Folkestone again. Yesterday I’d sorted “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM”’s front garden. Today I sorted the back. I went round with a dustbin sack and gathered up the rubbish. Then went round with the strimmer, swept up, went round with the strimmer again and swept up again. So easy to type; not so easy to do. By the time my tip appointment came round I’d got three quarters of it done. So I took seven bin bags of garden rubbish to the tip, and as I was about to come home I had a thought. There was only about an hour’s worth of work left to do in that garden. Rather than coming down tomorrow I could finish the job this afternoon.

So I went back and got nearly but not quite everything done when the strimmer started making funny noises and shaking as though it was having a fit. The bit where the strimming line goes had snapped in half; the poor thing hadn’t survived the ordeal. It has to be said that you need to be made of stern stuff to visit the abode of the most recent fruit of my loin. But rather than strimming the last bit of patio I went at it with the blade of a shovel.

That’ll do for now.

 

I gathered up those garden tools which had stayed the course, and with a bit of shoving I managed to get the strimmed greenery into one rubbish bag. I brought the lot home together with the remains of the strimmer which is currently laying in state in the front garden. These days the etiquette is that if you’ve got something to give away you leave it in the front garden. Hopefully one of the unsuspecting normal people will take it off my hands.

Mind you we left the carcass of “er indoors ^TM” bike in the garden a while ago. Someone took it, and on realizing what a state it was in, they chucked it in the dentist’s garden.

 

I then did the “feed the fish” ritual in which fish food goes down the necks of pond fish and dogs in equal amounts. As I fed the fish in the small pond I was amazed. Earlier “er indoors ^TM” had told me there were four fish in that pond. Originally we put in five, but two disappeared months ago. One seems to have returned, but it is tiny. Do fish shrink?

I made another cuppa and had a look on-line. The strimmer that died today lasted three and a half years, and Amazon say they can have a new one with me by tomorrow.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner, and we started watching the current season of “Bake Off”. We’re a little late with it this year...

4 November 2024 (Monday) - Start of a Week Off

When I wasn’t listening to snoring last night I was fighting dogs for bed space. The last time I looked at the clock was at seven o’clock, and I was sleeping blissfully when “er indoors ^TM” alarm went off half an hour later.

 

I made toast and had a look at Facebook. An old friend from my days in the Boys Brigade was posting photos from Fiji. He works as a lawyer specializing in a very specific field and so commands huge fees. Like many people these days he can work anywhere he has an Internet connection. Based in Melbourne he doesn’t work from home; he works from a succession of hotels, and this morning he was working (and posting to Facebook) from Fiji. I’m a tad jealous of the chap as he is obviously wealthy and can afford to travel. But I do wonder if he is lonely. There is rarely (if ever) anyone photographed with him or tagged in his photos. And travelling round like he does he can’t see anyone for any length of time. Mind you I saw him in the flesh a few years ago and he seemed happy enough.

 

I took the dogs up to the woods for a walk. We did our usual circuit and once we were away from the car park we walked for miles and didn’t see anyone. The dogs chased squirrels, it wasn’t that muddy at all… but (as always) Bailey found fox poo and rolled in it. The foul creature.

We came home for a wash.

“er indoors ^TM” had seen something whilst we were out. Did I want to change my car’s number plate?  Back in the day my old Espace had the number plate K17E MB. That cost me two hundred and fifty quid. For only eight hundred and fifty quid I could have BO07 DOG. One of the companies was offering a fifty per cent off deal. But when you looked closely that was fifty per cent off of their admin cost. A saving of twenty quid; not the four hundred quid that you might think. I found the same registration on another website slightly cheaper. I sent them an email asking if we might haggle.

And then I had a stroke of genius and went on the government’s website (which is where number plates come from!) only to find it was two hundred quid more expensive.

 

I then drove down to Folkestone. Whilst “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” and Darcie WaaWaa ^TM” have been on their little sojourn in Enfield, the garden of their flat in Folkestone has run riot. Gardens do that. I went down with a car full of garden tools and had a go at her front yard. I gathered up the rubbish, and found an Amazon parcel underneath it all. I then started off pulling weeds. After an hour I realized it was taking an age so as an experiment I had a little go with the strimmer. In retrospect I should have started off with the strimmer. Mind you it made a mess, so I popped inside and got “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM”’s broom. Sadly it fell into four bits on the fifth stroke. I managed to sweep up using the biggest fragment, then had a look at her back yard. There were some rather tall weeds there, so I pulled them. By the time I’d pulled them and bagged them I’d had enough. I loaded six bags of rubbish and a poggered microwave into my car. As I’d worked I’d found a poggered microwave (as you do).

I drove all the rubbish to the tip… While I wasn’t paying attention the tip at Folkestone has been moved. It used to be up near Hawkinge. Now it’s at Shornecliffe. Only about five miles away, but once I’d driven five miles to the wrong place, and then driven to the right place I was rather miffed to find that Folkestone’s tip also operates an appointment system. However I didn’t see the notice until I’d got into the tip and I had to drive through anyway. So I drove in, and on the way to beg the nice man to allow me to empty my rubbish I bunged quite a bit of it into the skip on my way past.

I gave the nice man a load of flannel, and he was very good about it.

 

“er indoors ^TM” sorted sausages and chips then went bowling for the evening. I sat on the sofa and watched a film. The latest re-make of “All Quiet on the Western Front” wasn’t as good as the previous versions of the film, or the original book. Sadly this re-make was rather crap and abandoned any attempt at plot or storyline in favour of things exploding. I watched the film two years ago and wasn’t impressed then either.

3 November 2024 (Sunday) - Early Shift

I had an alarm set, and so didn't sleep very well. It didn't help that every time I moved about “er indoors ^TM” told Morgan off. Poor pup.

I gave up trying to sleep, got up and made toast which I scoffed whilst watching an episode of "Everyone Else Burns". In today's episode our hero had to fend off the amorous advances of a fellow congregant.  Shortly after we moved away from Hastings I heard that an old friend from our old church had a similar issue with the (female) organist wanting to get lesbidacious with his wife. Personally I would see that as a result, but things are different when you are a religious nut.

 

I had a quick look at the Internet. It would seem a nephew has got a new girlfriend. It must be difficult being young these days. Pretty much everyone that nephews and nieces hook up with seem to come with children from previous relationships.

As I watched telly and Facebook-stalked a prospective niece-in-law I could hear strange noises coming from next door. Last week I mentioned how she gets up really early every day. Quite often she makes strange noises before six o’clock - a sort of series of grunting-coughing sounds. Perhaps she does some sort of exercise?

 

I drove to work listening to what I can only describe as utter drivel on the radio. It was so bad I found myself listening in disbelief that something so dire warranted being played on national radio. There was some idiot waxing loquacious about how wonderful clear food packaging is because you can see what you are getting, and was trying to make out that tins were a complete rip-off as anything might be inside a tin and you would never know until you bought it and opened it.

This was followed by an interview with a farmer in the deep south of America who was talking about how the seasons are very different to how he remembered them as a child. He said that he used to go fishing for crayfish in the local swamps when he was a lad; these days no one dares go near because of the alligators. He got very aggressive when anyone suggested this might be global warming in action.

 

Just as I got to work “er indoors ^TM” sent a message. Bailey had blown. Twice. Yesterday someone had posted on the Dog Club Facebook page saying their pup had been ill when they got home, and someone else had posted that there was a bug going round giving dogs iffy guts. My lot have iffy enough guts already without bugs helping them along. Last night Morgan was rather squitty, this morning Bailey was throwing up; perhaps they have got a bug.

 

I did my bit at work. Last Sunday was a rather bright day and I sulked because I had to work. Today was rather overcast; I don't mind working on days like that. Even if I was far busier than I expected to be. I blame all these ill people.

But an early start made for an early finish. Over the summer we could take the dogs out after an early shift; this time of year I barely get home before the light starts fading.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good bit of scran. Spicy pork chops, cauliflower cheese, and a large lump of trifle. Oh yus!!  As we scoffed it we watched this evening’s episode of “Lego Masters: Australia”. I’d love to have a go at the amount of Lego the contestants get to play with.

2 November 2024 (Saturday) - Dog Club and Egerton

As I peered into Facebook this morning I learned something. There’s a nuclear bunker nearby. About twenty miles away in Brede there’s a nuclear bunker at the waterworks. The place has open days on the first Saturday of each month, so I’ve missed that for now. But it could be good for a day out some time.

I’ve walked past Brede waterworks many times, and commented on the place. If you look closely you’ll see dodos. Yes – dodos. The supposedly extinct birds. There’s loads of them there (you don’t have to look that closely). They aren’t geese and they aren’t ducks or swans. The only thing they resemble is a stuffed dodo I once saw at the Natural History museum.

And I saw my brother was on the coach from Brighton to Liverpool to watch the football. He must love it.

 

I put some washing in to scrub and we set off to Dog Club where we had a rather good session. Last week the dogs were all rather excited; this week they were all a bit quieter. We had at least twelve dogs along today – it is difficult to keep count as they all keep moving about. Morgan managed the entire session without having his muzzle on. Bailey rolled in something foul. Treacle had a ball and was happy. And the forecast rain held off too.

As we’d driven to Dog Club Steve had been on the radio doing the “Guess the Lyrics” competition. I got it right - “Blondie” with “Picture This”. As we drove away I got the Mystery Year competition too. “Ghostbusters” was in 1984. As was Tommy Cooper’s death. I can distinctly remember talking about Tommy Cooper’s death when I was working at the Royal East Sussex Hospital. Everyone else was saying that they’d seen it happen on the live TV show “Live from Her Majesty’s”, and all I could think was who would be sad enough to watch “Live from Her Majesty’s”.

 

Rather than coming home we took the dogs for a bit of a walk. What with me working tomorrow I wanted to do something with today, and if we came straight home after Dog Club we’d never go out again after, so we drove out to Egerton. There’s a series of geocaches from Hothfield to Egerton; a line of twenty-two of the things. Periodically we’ve been out and walked a few, then come back to the car. There were seven left that we hadn’t done. Parking in Egerton the furthest of them was just under a mile away as the crow flies, so that made for a rather good little walk. It was a tad muddy in places, and getting at some of the caches was a bit tricky as the brambles had grown rather impressively, but we found five of the seven we were after, and had a good walk too.

I took a few photos as we walked.

 

We came home for a wash. Some of us needed washing more than others. As “er indoors ^TM” and the dogs snored I carried on trying to solve geo-puzzles. If any of my loyal readers know of an app for locating fire hydrants or telegraph poles…

As I puzzled I had a message. One of the pups from Dog Club has got sickness and dire rear. Had anyone fed her anything? It has to be said that Dog Club can sometimes be one big feast. She might have had one of the tiny treats that I give out? Dogs is odd – the slightest thing can set them off being ill, but then they can have a good feast of fox poo and be fine (other than rancid farting).

 

And then I fell asleep…

1 November 2024 (Friday) - Nice Little Earner

I woke to the sound of a thud as Treacle jumped off the bed at four o'clock. Less than five seconds later she was whimpering and crying because she wanted help to get back on to the bed. Once back on the bed she made herself comfortable.

I gave up trying to sleep and got up.

 

Being the first of the month I got out a new razor blade. I'm mean - I make them last for a month. As I made toast I saw the lights were on next door. Not-so-nice-next-door seems to be up and about very early in the mornings, and now it is darker in the evenings I've noticed all the downstairs lights off and the bedroom light on at half past eight in the evening. I must admit that given the choice I'd got to bed early and get up early. If I could I'd set off for the dog walks in the dark and get to the woods for dawn. I doubt I'd be given the choice though.

 

I scoffed my toast watching another episode of "Everyone Else Burns". In today's episode the crackpot preacher was arranging marriages for his flock. Back in my religious days no one ever went quite that far, but we were certainly told what was and was not suitable pre-marital behaviour. Although I was beginning to turn to the dark side when it happened, the vicar did come round and tell us off when he heard that we were "living in sin" in Folkestone.

I had a little look at the Internet - last night was Hallowe'en. I completely forgot about that. It seemed from the local Facebook pages that nowadays you don't have kiddies banging on people's doors demanding sweeties any more. These days the etiquette seems to be that you put a huge bowl of sweeties where you can see in with your doorbell camera and leave it for the kiddies to help themselves. You record what happens, and then you judge children on how much they take. And post photos of the greediest ones to social media.

That caused one or two squabbles.

 

I got dressed and woke “er indoors ^TM” who needed to move her car. What with the idiot decisions of the local highways people there were a few dozen less parking spaces locally last night, so the “er indoors ^TM”-mobile spent the night on double yellow lines. She moved her car into the space I left before she got a ticket and before anyone else had that space. You might think that moving a car before six o'clock a tad keen, but I've seen traffic wardens out and about at half past midnight before.

 

Pausing only briefly to get petrol I was soon off up a dark motorway. But at least it wasn't raining today. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about David Goldstone. Having been involved with Transport for London, the UK Olympics and HS2, the chap is now heading up the government's Value for Money office. Only having to work for one day a week and being paid at nine hundred and fifty quid a day, he's laughing all the way to the bank. How do you get tickets for that gravy train?

 

And there was talk about ex-Harrods boss Mohamed Al Fayed. Apparently the Metropolitan Police were told of allegations of sexual assault done by this bloke a decade earlier than the Met would have us believe.

But it's all largely irrelevant as (yet again) the chap has been dead a year. What are the Met going to do? Stick his corpse in the dock?

 

Work was much the same as ever. I did my bit, and then came home to find the builder having a look at the bathroom. “er indoors ^TM” wants to get the bathroom done. Presumably not in the same way that the dogs have been “done” but what do I know? I suppose a nice new bathroom might be nice.

 

There’s rumours of cracking open a bottle of plonk shortly…