30 June 2025 (Monday) - The Heatwave Continues

This morning I rolled my eyes as I peered into the Internet. Some idiot was claiming that the Titanic never sank; it had supposedly been switched with another ship which was then deliberately sunk for the insurance money. It’s a stupid idea which has long been disproved, but still other idiots were lapping it up.

It was also claimed that some twit had paid three pounds fifty for an artisan dwarf cabbage only to get a Brussels sprout, but a couple of clicks showed me that this was from the Sunday Sport. Back in the day we used to get the Sunday Sport every Sunday. It was brilliant. They had reports of the Lancaster bomber on the Moon, a donkey robbing a bank, a London bus at the South pole… Apparently the Sunday Sport is still going. Must get a copy.

My cousin was posting that she would be hiring a camper van for a week over the summer. I’d like one of those if only I had anywhere to store the thing. Keeping it at home is an advert to burglars when you use it and it’s not there.

 

Bearing in mind yesterday’s debacle I spent a few minutes seeing if I could pogger Google Maps so as to avoid the country lanes when it is doing the sat-nav. It would seem that quite a few other people had had the same issue in that Google Maps sees a dual carriageway A road being of equal worth as a six-feet-wide twisty lane, but no one had a fix.

And I looked at the prices of public transport. A family friend has moved to Newcastle. A coach takes more than twice as long to get there as a train does, but costs a tenth of the price.

 

Once dog brekkie was done I got the dogs on the leads and we went down to Orlestone. With a hot day on the cards an early shorter walk in the shade was the plan for the morning.

As we waked we met a very talkative young lady jogger in skin-tight lycra who might as well have been in the nip for all that her jogging kit was keeping secret. And we met some ornithologists. I asked a question that has been preying on my mind for some time. According to my birdsong app (and what I can hear myself) there are far more birds (and a greater variety) to the south-east side as opposed to the north-west side of Orlestone. I have no idea why, and neither did the twitchers.

 

We came home and I had a little pootle in the garden. I cleaned out both pond filters, ran out the hose and topped up both ponds, and then “My Boy ^TM” and ”Auntie Chel ^TM” arrived. They’d been having a tidy-up in their garden and had an old planter and some timbers that were destined for the tip. Did I want them? Yes please. I can use the planter, and I have a plan for the timbers. And there was an Easter Island head statue going begging too. I had that as well.

The first fruit of my loin and his entourage set off to the tip. I then set about the roots of that which I salvaged from the bog filter a week ago. Yesterday I wrote “The stems have had it, but something new might grow from the roots”. I pruned the things yesterday, and overnight there has been growth. So I chopped the root mass into four separate lumps and topped up the water that they are in. Hopefully they might grow into entire new plants… not that I need them to do so, but it would be nice.

 

After an hour I came in. It was too hot to carry on outside. I played chess against the bots with varying degrees of success until “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” came home from her appointment. I drove her and Pogo home. It was seven degrees cooler in Folkestone.

I came home, and carried on using the heatwave as best I could by putting loads of washing onto the line to dry out. In between the washing I did CPD. There was so much I could have done today. I need to finish painting the fence. I need to do something with the timbers that the first fruit of my loin brought round. I should really mow the lawn. But with temperatures in the low thirties I just sat on the sofa and did as little as possible.

 

Today has been a wasted day… it has just been far too hot.

29 June 2025 (Sunday) - Late Shift

I slept well until six o’clock, but it was too hot. Although the fan helped it was a tad noisy. I don’t like this heatwave. I lay in bed dozing and eventually got up rather later than I might have done.

I made toast and peered into the Internet. There were quite a few photos and videos from last night’s Iron Maiden gig in London; several people had taken a photo of the big notice asking people not to take photos. I suppose back in the day the band would sell photos and videos to a public who would pay good money to see what they had missed; nowadays they can find out for free by looking at Facebook.

I then spent a little while looking at dog-friendly cottages in the Cheltenham area. We might just go visit Irene in the autumn. Mind you “dog-friendly” accommodation is strange stuff. People get iffy when we say we’ve got three dogs, but our three together don’t make up one average dog.

 

I munzed and wordled then went into the garden for a bit. I pruned those pond plants I was hoping to salvage. The stems have had it, but something new might grow from the roots. I emptied the green rubbish from the dustbin into the garden into the green waste bin out front, then scrubbed out the dustbin in the garden that I put the green stuff into. It was rather smelly.

The new strimmer arrived, and by the time I’d put it together an hour had passed and it was getting rather warm. I came inside. I thought about chasing the First to Find on a geocache in Gillingham, but it was a long way out of my way, so I did some chess puzzles and played one of the bots on chess.com. Those bots are rather good at chess.

 

I soon got fed up with losing to the chess bots, and seeing I had a few moments spare I changed my mind and decided to chase that First to Find in Gillingham. With the month ending tomorrow my ongoing streak of getting at least one FTF a month was about to come to a crashing end. 

I set the sat-nav which immediately directed me away from a road closure near Matalan about which I knew nothing. But having gone up in my estimation it then pissed on its chips by taking me along every country lane it could find in the vicinity of Farthing Corner before insisting that I went up a closed road in the arse-end of nowhere. You'd think that whoever it is that gives permission for roads to be officially closed would tell Google, wouldn't you?

The diversion only added ten minutes to my trip, and it wasn't long before I was standing on the side of a no-stopping road in Gillingham looking with dismay at a rather grim little grassed area. I had a little look about and saw nothing. The thing I was looking for was supposed to be a "small" which would be about the size of an apple, and had a terrain rating of one which meant that it could be got at by someone in a wheelchair... Then I had a stroke of genius. I re-read the description of that for which I was hunting. The person who'd hid it had only ever found one geocache... so realising that I could be looking absolutely anywhere for absolutely anything I broadened my search and soon found a fake leaf half-way up a tree.  Though it was a fake leaf that no one else had yet found. I was first, which was all that mattered. Go me.

Whilst I'm pleased that someone had taken the time to give me a little fun this morning it's a shame that the reviewers don't insist that people get a little more experience (so they understand the silly geocaching game) before they allow them to hide things.  

I drove on to work feeling rather pleased with myself. Having been beaten to yesterday's FTF and facing the prospect of a broken FTF streak had rather boiled my piss. Mind you it is only (so far) a streak of six months. I once got to one month off of two years before blowing the streak.

 

I got to work and went to the works M&S to get a sandwich... and then walked straight out. Their sandwiches aren't that good compared to anyone else's.  Their water bottles are half the size of what you can get in Tesco or Sainsburys or the co-op. And their meal deal is over one pound fifty more.

I went to the League of Friends shop and got a coronation chicken sandwich instead. 

The late shift was a tad too much like hard work for my liking, and the coronation chicken sandwich was a disappointment.

 

As I drove home an old Frankie Howerd radio show was being broadcast… it hadn’t stood the test of time. Bearing in mind how good some of the output of Radio Four can be you have to wonder why they put out such drivel on Radio Four Extra…

 

And now I’m going to check on Bailey. She’s developed a habit of going up the garden bothering frogs late every evening. I wish she wouldn’t

28 June 2025 (Saturday) - A Hot Day

I woke about five o’clock and did that thing where I lay half awake and half asleep in desperate need of the loo. Had I got up and gone to the loo I could have gone back to bed and back to sleep, but I didn’t. Eventually I got up at the sound of Morgan jumping off the bed. I got up, and he immediately jumped back on to the bed and into the warm spot I’d just left.

 

I made toast and had my usual look at the Internet. Prince William was getting a load of stick on Facebook as his dog has had puppies. Like anyone under public scrutiny Prince William is in a no-win position. There will always be someone looking to find fault with whatever he does.

There was a lot of fussing on the Romney Marsh Facebook page where someone had found a dog.

And those whose life is a relative bed of roses were posting twee motivational memes.

I munzed, got Wordle (stump) on the third attempt, and got ready for the day.

 

Yesterday I’d had the offer for a day’s geocaching in Edenbridge, but it would have been a tad hot. Today we could have gone to Milton Keynes for the Great British Geocaching Party. That was my plan for today. We would get out of Dog Club promptly, drive off, and be there by late morning… or so I thought until I looked at Google maps to plan the route. Getting there would have been a two and a half hour drive.

I sighed. I’d been looking forward to going to that.

As we got organized this morning Steve was on the radio doing the “Guess the Lyrics” competition. “"Forget your sorrow, let it all fade away. Forget tomorrow, let's start living for today". No – I had no idea either. It was "Music and Lights" by Imagination… apparently.

Dog Club was fun today. It usually is. We had the usual dog mayhem. One of our younger dog herders had a little camera which printed black and white low-res photos. They were surprisingly good photos

 

From Dog Club we drove out to Canterbury. We only needed to get one more geocaching Planets treasure, but you have to find a very specific sort of geocache to get the treasure. I’d seen there was one in Nackington, and there were two other caches that we would be going past. I thought it might make for a decent short walk on a warm day; it was a walk of half a mile which was plenty long enough for today.

On our way we tried to listen to Steve doing the Mystery Year competition on the radio, but there was some technical issue on the radio. The signal kept cutting out which was a nuisance. Trying to work out what the year is has become good fun; even more so now that the contest runs a little later and we get more of a chance after Dog Club. We eventually heard enough to realise it was 1985 today.

As we drove home so my phone beeped with news of a new geocache near Ruckinge. Had we been at home when we had the news we would have been first ones to find it. As we were in Canterbury we were beaten to it. Ho hum…

 

We came home for coffee and cake, and then had a rather dull afternoon. It was too hot to do anything so we sat in the garden and I alternated between Kindle, flicking through Facebook on my phone and sleeping.

Despite the heat it would seem people were doing stuff though. Several friends with only one friend in common (me) were off to London to see Iron Maiden. Other friends were at Glastonbury. Personally I couldn’t imagine anything worse than going off on a hot day to deliberately get a headache, but what do I know?

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a decent chili which we scoffed whilst watching a couple of episodes of the (relatively) new series of “Quantum Leap”. They were rather good.

We then had a look at what else was on the Paramount Plus channel. There was quite a lot actually. But the trouble with Paramount Plus is that you can’t fast-forward through the adverts. Which is a dilemma for the advertisers. Do you fast-forward through the adverts and not see them? Or do you make a note of what you are being forced to watch and make a point of not buying those products on principle?

27 June 2025 (Friday) - A Warm Day

The bin men were quieter than usual as they went up the road this morning. Some days they just do the job, other days they bellow up the street to each other at six o’clock.

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was still there. People were complaining on Facebook today about ill-mannered children in restaurants. I was reminded of cubs at cub camp. Before we went away we would always have the parents in and explain to them how a sit-down meal worked, and ask them to have one or two at home as a practice run. One or two parents would take offence, but most admitted that sitting down to dinner was something that rarely happened. Most parents saw nothing wrong with bolting the food as fast as possible (an entire meal devoured in maybe thirty seconds) and then running round screaming.

I remember a couple of children from Ruckinge from millionaire families who couldn’t eat anything which hadn’t first been thrown across the room.

And there was an interesting article about how youngsters these days don’t want to run up a bar bill, preferring to pay for each drink as they go.

Each to their own…

 

I took the dogs to the woods. As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how the government has backtracked on their attempts to put loads of disabled people into even more poverty. As I’ve said before, the Labour party are incredibly principled all the time they don’t have to stand by their principles.

We got to the woods; we did one of our standard walks. We saw a slow worm. I *think* I heard deer crashing about. My app detected a short toed treecreeper… It’s detected those a few times now, even though you supposedly don’t get them in the UK.

After four miles we were back at the car. We came home listening to someone of whom we’d never previously heard on Desert Island Discs. This woman mumbled and muttered and claimed that one of her records would have been the music to Swan Lake. Seriously?

 

I came home for a cuppa, Munzed and got Wordle (plain) on the third attempt. Go me! I then had a look on Amazon to chase up the strimmer that I ordered two weeks ago… The order was still sitting in my basket. I never actually ordered the thing. Woops.

Supposedly it should come tomorrow.

 

We ran “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” and Pogo home, and then drove up to where I ended up with a DNF at a geocache in the general vicinity of Dover last week. I’d got a little hint from someone who’d been there before, and after a little searching found the thing.

From there we took a circuitous route home to get another geocache. This one involved a short (half-mile) walk down the river Stour which is certainly bigger and prettier near Pegwell Bay than it is in Ashford.. As we walked I had a little chat with some fishermen. It looked a lovely day to be fishing.

Today’s two finds gave us two more “Planets” treasures. Ony one more to get now. I could probably have got the lot myself had I gone off out with Ralph and Gordon today; they were off to Edenbridge to walk an epic cache series, but it was a tad hot to go very far in today’s heat. It was warm enough at the woods earlier and we’d got home just after ten o’clock, and half a mile along the river a little later was plenty for us.

 

We came home via the petrol station at Morrisons in Canterbury. I pootled in the garden for a bit, but it was rather warm. I came in and dozed in front of the telly.

We had steak and chips for tea…

26 June 2025 (Thursday) - A Minor Result

I put a load of undercrackers in to wash in when I went to the loo at four o’clock. When I got up later they were ready to tumble-dry. That’s efficiency !

I looked out of the window at the rain… even though the weather forecast for that moment locally gave zero per cent chance of rain. It must be wonderful to be a weather forecaster. The money ain’t bad, and no one has any expectations of you whatsoever. If the tap is still dripping after the plumber calls, the customer is all over Facebook ranting. If the car is still playing up after the trip to the garage, the car goes straight back and the mechanic knows all about it. But we just accept that weather forecasters simply can’t do the job for which they are paid… and we all carry on paying them anyway.

 

Social media was relatively quiet this morning apart from a colleague ranting about her useless husband. She rants about her seemingly useless husband quite a bit; I don’t know if they’ve recently split up. I don’t like to ask.

I Munzed – our Munzee clan had achieved all our goals for this month, which was something of a result.

And with the rain drying up I put my boots on and took the dogs out.

 

The roads were rather busy this morning, but we got to the woods and had a good walk. As we went we saw a couple of other groups in the distance, but only one group got close enough for a chat; a couple with a labrador that we meet from time to time. We commented on how much litter there was in the woods. To be fair, very little compared to many places, but more than there ever used to be. As we walked today I picked up tissue paper, tin cans and plastic bottles.

Unlike Monday we didn’t see deer, but there was relatively fresh deer poo, and I saw three slow worms. Bailey found a deer bone that she wasn’t keen to give up. And my birdsong app would have me believe it detected a duck. I had my walking boots on today… I’m sure there’s a correlation between my walking boots and duck detection.

 

As we walked up the slope to the car park so the drizzle started again. We came home to see the postman had been. Good news. In the last financial year I paid too much tax, and HMRC had sent me instructions on how to claim what I was owed. It wasn’t a massive amount, but it was better than a poke up the bum.

I put shirts in to wash, made myself a cuppa and went through the process of getting my refund. It should be with me within five days.

 

And then I put “Orange is the New Black” on the telly, sorted the now-dried undercrackers and cracked on with the ironing. It took a surprisingly long time. I wrote up a little CPD, solved some geo-puzzles, had a little sleep then had a look in the garden.

Once I’d gathered dog turds (there were several) I had a look at the plants I’d transplanted from the bog filter to the main pond the other day. A few might have survived; most hadn’t.

 

We had a rather good bit of dinner whilst watching an episode of “Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly” in which one problem pup was getting very stressed every time his owners got jiggy.

Personally if more dogs (and humans too) took a moral stance…

Like all of my non-working days, today was rather busy.

25 June 2025 (Wednesday) - Another Day At Work

I thought I’d slept well, but was wide awake before four o’clock. I lay there for an hour before getting up and watching an episode of “Orange is the New Black” and then sparking up my lap-top to see what was going on in the world.

There was upset on one of the local Facebook groups this morning as it was clamed that the new Kent County Council has cancelled a third of its meetings as the new councilors are still having induction training. You’d think that being told what the job involved would be something that would be covered in the first week, wouldn’t you? The new council has been in place for nearly two months; how long does this lot need to learn the job?

It was suggested that part of the delay about actually doing anything was that councilors were still waiting for enhanced criminal record (DBS) checks to be done. You’d think that individuals standing for public office would have all this stuff sorted before the election rather than finding out that they aren’t suitable for public office some two months later, wouldn’t you. And there was talk about the new cabinet member that the council has appointed to make efficiencies at Kent County Council. Apparently whoever it is can claim thirty seven thousand quid more than the usual allowances. Nice work if you can get it, eh?.

It has to be said that our new Reform UK county council isn’t getting off to a good start, is it? I’ve been criticizing our new MP about here quite a bit as well. I expect they will all be out on their arses at the next election… all it would take would be for someone else to promise the moon on a stick to a gullible electorate.

 

There wasn’t much else happening on-line so I munzed, set the dishwasher going and got ready for work.

I went to the co-op to get a sandwich. Oh, my idiot magnet was at full power today. I couldn't get anywhere near the fridges as some epically fat woman was standing in everyone's way, holding the fridge door open and squeezing everything inside that she could get hold of. I managed to snatch a chicken sandwich before she crushed it; she was clearly not pleased about that. And as I walked off so I crashed into some idiot with one of those surgical face masks that was tucked under his nose. The chap actually took it off when he came to pay so he could have a conversation with the woman on the till. What was that all about?

 

As I drove up the motorway  the pundits on the radio were interviewing Wes Streeting, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. They were talking about the government's planned reforms to the welfare payments. I say "reforms"... The Labour party has a problem that it is very clear about what it stands for all the time it isn't in a position to actually do anything about what it stands for. Now that it is in a position to stand up for those who need help, it would rather not. It's happened before and I expect it will happen again.

Needless to say, our local MP is toeing the party line.

And there was talk about the results of America's strike on Iran's nuclear facility last weekend

Trump says he's put the tin lid on the Iranians; the Iranians say he just damaged the front door. Both were shouting "fake news" at each other.

 

I got to work; I treated myself to a cheese scone and got on with the day. Yesterday had been a tad dull; today we had a Red Alert. I suppose that (without wishing to appear cynical) that's what blood bank work is like - hours of tedium interspersed with moments of stark terror.  On reflection today probably wasn't the best day to have a work experience lad about the place.

 

I came home to sad news. The son of the chap who used to run our od Boys Brigade had died. I still think of him as the young lieutenant in our BB sneaking cans of cheap beer to summer camp and sinking them in the military canal at Ruckinge… he would have been seventy-one in just over a month. Where have the years gone? I really should organize a get-together of the old faces before we all go.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a rather good dinner which we washed down with one of our better bottles of plonk. I’d get more wine from Pieroth if I didn’t have to be rude to the reps to stop them bothering me. They are a tad pushy…

24 June 2025 (Tuesday) - Late Shift

The pond’s level this morning was what it was last night so I think it fair to say there’s no leak. The plants that I moved into the pond looked a bit of a state though. I shall give them a day or so to sort themselves out before I hoik them out. Similarly the plants in the bucket look as though have had it. Maybe something will sprout from the roots?

 

I made toast and had my usual look at the Internet. It was still there. Our local MP was posting photos form a primary school which has recently benefited from the government’s free breakfast club initiative. Whilst it is a good idea, I don’t see why the breakfast club had to come with its brand new building. This would be utterly impractical in the rain and cold weather to say nothing of a complete waste of money. Doesn’t the school already have a canteen or dining hall?

And people were kicking off on one of the Hastings-related Facebook groups that I follow complaining about Hastings council (again). The boating lake has been bought out by the people who run the local amusement arcades and this was seen as council corruption by a load of people who openly admitted they were too apathetic to vote when they had the chance.

 

I took the dogs to Orlestone this morning. We had a good walk. We didn’t roll in anything and came back when called. We walked straight past the normal people when we saw them, and after two miles were back at the car.

It started raining as we got home. I gathered dog turds, made us both a cuppa and looked at the monthly accounts. They could be worse, but they could be a whole lot better. I wrote up some CPD (dull!), looked at some geo-puzzles (with varying successes) and got ready for work.

It was as I was about to walk out the door that I remembered my plan was to put a load of washing in earlier. I left “er indoors ^TM” with instructions and set off.

 

...  and that was effectively it for today. I drove round to the petrol station then set off up the motorway to work and the late shift. The late shift wasn't bad really.

It was still daylight as I drove home. That won’t last long…

23 June 2025 (Monday) - Another Busy Day

I slept well despite the heat. I got up and checked the pond. The water level was holding; I’m pretty sure that by bypassing the bog filter and the water level being OK I’ve established where the issue is.

As I checked the pond I had a chuckle. I heard the sound of a door opening. Not-so-nice-next-door came out into her back garden, stopped, closed and locked the door. When I go into the back garden I leave the back door open. She never does. The door is open just long enough for her to slip through, then it is closed and locked. I’ve never seen that door left open. What’s that all about?

 

I made toast and had a look at a dull internet. I saw our new MP had made a mistake. He’d made great show of writing a letter to the head honcho of the local hospital complaining about the parking charges, and pointed out that other hospitals in Kent don’t charge patients and visitors for parking. It was a shame that he was wrong, and the other hospitals *do* charge for parking. It’s a silly mistake that he could have avoided by a couple of seconds on Google. As a life-long leftie I must admit that finally having a Labour MP has been something of a disappointment.

I munzed, and got Wordle (oddly) on the last attempt. And once the dogs were breakfasted we went for a little walk.

As we drove the pundits on the radio were interviewing the Foreign Secretary. The Foreign Secretary was asked a straight question – had the Americans acted in accordance with international law or illegally in their recent attack on Iran. A straight question – yes or no. The chap flatly refused to answer.

 

Pogo was with us today – he is funny. As we drove into the car park at the woods so he started squealing in excitement. And as we walked round the woods so Pogo was shouting at the bigger dogs… until he realized that the bigger dogs were friends with our three dogs that he thought he was protecting. You could see his embarrassment when he realized that we were all friends, and he would then join in the sniffing and general saying hello.

As we walked we rolled in fox poo and ate dead mice. There were quite a few dead mice today – had the recent heatwave done for them? And we saw two deer as well. Two together, which was unusual. We either see deer on their own or in a herd. Just seeing two was strange.

We walked a different route to our usual one; with reports of two of my geocaches being missing I went and had a look. One was missing; one was still there.

We walked more than usual today – fourteen thousand steps over six and a half miles

 

I came home, Bailey had a bath, and I ran “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” and Pogo home, then took Bailey to the Doggy Dentist. She didn’t like it; we had quite the fight. Her back teeth are good – her front ones not so good. Crunching the chicken’s feet is working for the back teeth; I need to be better at brushing her front teeth myself.

We went on to the garden centre to get a big pond plant pot. There was a minor incident at the checkout; the woman on the till thought one of the pots someone was buying was overpriced. And on finding that it was priced correctly she then had quite the rant about how expensive the pot was.

.

Once home again I had another look at the pond. I stripped out about two thirds of the plants in the bog filter. Some went straight into the green waste bin. Some sort-of survived and I’ve transplanted some of those into the main pond and some into a big bucket. They might survive; they might not. The water in the bog filter is flowing much better now, but there’s not the depth in there that there might be. Perhaps over the winter I might add another layer of sleepers just to allow for root growth.

Mind you I’m still hoping that it was massive root overgrowth causing the thing to overflow which was the issue and not a leak. We shall see.

 

I had a text from the doctor. She said “Your average home blood pressure readings are in an optimum range.  So, no further action is required at this stage. Please continue to keep an eye on your blood pressure at home”. I’m seeing that as a result.

 

We had pizza for dinner, then went bowling. I watched an episode of “Orange is the New Black” then had a look at more geo-puzzles.

Some people simply don’t want them solved…

22 June 2025 (Sunday) - Lazy Day

I slept well despite the heat, and woke to the sound of distant thunder at six o’clock. I then lay awake for a couple of hours before finally conceding that I wasn’t going to get back to kip.

I got up and had a look at the pond. The water lever was fine, but it had rained overnight. The event shelter I’d put up yesterday was wet, and I saw that I’d left the shed door open overnight. Woops. Oh well… it would soon dry out.

 

By the time I’d had a shave and emptied the dishwasher and made toast it was nine o’clock. The time at which we’d originally planned to meet up for the start of a rather epic geocaching walk seventy miles away in Essex. We’d been planning this walk for some time, but the forecasted heatwave had me worried. A few days ago I messaged the event’s group chat and said that it was too hot for the dogs and we’d be pulling out. Within a few hours pretty much everyone else pulled out too.

We’re looking to try again in September.

There wasn’t much happening on-line, but I saw a new series of geocaches had gone live in the Edenbridge area, so I spent a little while solving those puzzles I could from home. Some are ones for which you can’t get the required information from Google Street View, which was a nuisance.

 

I munzed and got Wordle on the fourth attempt. Thrum. What a stupid word. I wrote up some CPD, then swapped a few messages with Gordon who was running on free electricity. We have the same leccie company - apparently if you go in their app and tell it that you are using leccie at non-peak times, then it gives you free leccie on a Sunday morning. The trouble is that you need to go on the app… I already have far too many apps which I never use. I wonder how many other bargains there are to which I am totally oblivious.

 

I pootled in the garden a little… but it was too hot. I played the bots at chess, and it wasn’t long before friends arrived, and we had a rather good afternoon sitting in the garden drinking beer, feeding crisps to the dogs and putting the world to rights.

 

Sometimes a lazy day is what I need…

21 June 2025 (Saturday) - Busy Day

I slept reasonably well, but again woke on my back and found it rather painful to try to roll over. That seems to be happening more and more these days.

I got up and had another look at the pond today; the water level is pretty much what it was on Thursday evening. This tells me that it was losing water from the bog filter. Either the bog filter has a leak, or it needs a *lot* of the plants hoiking out. Bering in mind that pond plants aren’t cheap I’m not keen on binning the plants…

I have a plan for building a water feature which will incorporate the plants… I need a pump though. Or if any of my loyal readers would like some pond plants…

 

I made toast and had my usual rummage round the Internet. Some friends were having a birthday today. One was having his thirtieth birthday… Thirty. I can remember going to see him only a few hours after he was born.

There was a photo of a local traffic warden on one of the local Facebook pages, and a lot of hatred being spewed about the chap. It’s been my experience that it takes a certain sort of person to be a traffic warden…

I Munzed – our clan has reached the second of our monthly targets. I wordled and got it on the fourth attempt.

 

Having submitted a blood pressure reading every morning and evening this last week it seemed odd not doing so this morning. In January I did a week’s worth of measurements, and now six months later and two stone lighter I’ve just completed another weeks’ worth. Like my weight the blood pressure is down… it’s eighty per cent of what it was. It’s still probably a tad high, but if I keep up the weight loss hopefully I won’t need to take the tablets. I’ll see what the quack says.

 

We got ourselves organized for Dog Club, As we drove Steve was doing the “Guess the Lyrics” competition on the radio. “You seem so far away though you are standing near”. No? – Abba – SOS.

We didn’t think there would be much of a turn-out for Dog Club what with it being so warm, but I counted fifteen dogs. And counting them takes some doing – they all keep moving about. We had a couple of new dogs along; a good time was had by all. It was a shame Treacle got a tad grumpy, but that’s the sort of dog she is.

As we came home Steve was doing the Mystery Year competition on the radio. Several vaguely familiar tunes, and when was the Grand National declared void? It was either 1982 or 1993… I guessed the later one and got it right.

 

We came home for a cuppa and to count up the Dog Club takings. Takings at Dog Club is definitely down on what it once was, but attendance doesn’t seem * that* down. I can only assume people are paying by text message.

And with cuppa drunk we set off out again. This time to Lydd where there was a little geo-meet on the Rype. It was really good. A dozen of us sat under the shade of one of the bigger trees and had a picnic and just chatted for a couple of hours.

 

We came home again. I had a little tidy-up in the garden and put up the smaller event shelter and had a look at the pond. The water level was fine, but there was a big problem. Our biggest fish has been losing weight for some time. He didn’t look that good last weekend, and this afternoon he was just floating on the surface of the pond. I pulled him out, gave him a serious clout just to be sure (the same clout that it is illegal to give a human in the same position) and disposed of the carcass.

It was all a bit sad really. We paid a hundred and fifty quid for him in early January 2008 from a man from Devizes that at we met at a bus stop somewhere near junction 16 of the M4. I like to think that we bought him from *the* man from Devizes. but we will never know.

 

Steve, Sarah and Chris came round for the evening and we had a rather good few hours playing on the infinity table. Game of Life; Sorry, Ticket to Ride… a good way to spend the evening.

 

Today was a rather busy day. Today was the longest day of the year.  From here on the days get shorter.

20 June 2025 (Friday) - Going to Work (For A Rest)

Yesterday had been the hottest day of the year, and so the night was rather warm. I didn’t sleep very well, and was in the garden looking at the pond shortly after five o’clock. With the bog filter bypassed the water level didn’t look as though it had dropped much overnight (if at all) which was something of a result.

However as I walked up the garden so a seagull flew away from the side of the pond – what was that one up to?

 

I made toast and watched an episode of “Orange is the New Black”. As I watched I did my blood pressure, and then had a little look at the Internet. Today’s petty squabble was about which company to use to get your take-away delivered. As if a take-away isn’t expensive enough already, there’s now a range of companies you can pay to go get it for you. It would seem that many are getting the order wrong, and on delivering the wrong stuff the delivery chap then pretends not to speak English and it can take up to three days for the company to process the complaint.

I had some emails… Some people went looking for some of my geocaches in Kings Wood earlier in the week. I walked within a few yards of where there was a possible issue yesterday and the day before. Such a shame they couldn’t have told me about the problem right away…

 

I set off to work... and then spent a few minutes picking up the rubbish strewn across the pavement outside the house. The bin men had been out today, and if someone's black bin bursts open then the rubbish goes everywhere except with the bin men. It didn't take that long to clear up that for which I pay close on two hundred quid a month in council tax for someone else to shift. Perhaps I'm being a tad unfair to the bin men... Perhaps it's not up to them to clear up the bags that they burst open? It's just that I think it is...   

 

I drove off to work listening to the pundits on the radio who were talking about how the Assisted Dying Bill is reaching a tricky stage in Parliament today. Apparently this afternoon's vote would make or break the chances of me being able to have my plug pulled when I become totally knackered. It seemed as though it was going to be passed into law when it was first proposed but things looked far from certain this morning...

In the end the vote was in favour of allowing people to choose when they'd had enough, but the vote was close. A *lot* of MPs who were originally all for it voted against it today

 

The Assisted Dying Bill illustrates exactly how our political system works... Something was suggested that the majority thought was a good idea and that the majority wanted (in this case being able to decide when to end your own life when you become very ill). A small minority disliked the idea and knew exactly which MPs to canvass and where to bring pressure to bear, and the minority viewpoint very nearly won the day because the minority is vocal and organised whereas the majority is rather apathetic. 

I'm reminded of the woman who was the landlady of our little flat in Folkestone forty years ago.  She ran one of the first vegan restaurants in the UK, she was very pro-animal rights, she was very anti-Greenham Common, she wanted to save the whales. In 1984 she was seen as a joke. She knew she was laughed at from all sides, but her and her mates were passionate about what everyone else thought was silly and they persevered... and today what was once seen as crackpot and laughable opinions are now mainstream.

 

I went to work via Sainsburys where I got a sandwich and a few tins of beer for the weekend. The weather forecast looks as though it will be too hot to do much other than sit in the garden and drink beer this weekend so (like all scouts everywhere) I thought I might be prepared.

I went in to work; there was cake.

I was glad of the air conditioning. I was glad of sitting at a microscope. Yesterday I commented that I was going to work today for a rest; compared to the effort of the last couple of days I certainly did.

Today’s step count didn’t get over six thousand…

19 June 2025 (Thursday) - Another Day Off ?

Finding myself wide awake at dawn I popped out to check the pond and sighed. It had lost water overnight. I’d left the hose out so I set it filling the pond again. I also stuck my hand into the bog filter and found it very full of rooty stuff. This happened in the old splash pool so I scraped some out, and there was quite a flood of water coming out. I had a naïve hope that had fixed the problem and went back to bed where Treacle had moved in to my spot. She wasn’t going to shift without an argument. I then lay there for a while pondering the pond.

 

I got up at half past seven, turned off the hose and made toast which I scoffed whilst peering into the Internet. It was much the same as ever. There was a post to the Dog Club’s Facebook page; someone had seen an adder on the field by the rugby club. Some people get rather paranoid about snakes. Personally I think they are lovely things but I know of people who won’t go to certain woods and fields because a snake was once seen in the general vicinity. They really do seem to think that a two foot long grass snake is going to attack them.

There were several people posting photos of domestic cats to the Big Cats Facebook pages claiming that Tiddles from next door was a wild puma, and a surprising amount of posts from the flat Earth brigade. Some people really do think the Earth is flat.

 

I did my blood pressure, munzed and wordled, and got the dogs onto their leads. As we drove up to the woods the pundits on the radio were talking about audio books. I say “audio books” – they aren’t books at all, are they? They are recordings of someone else reading a book which saves you the effort of actually reading it. Some woman was being interviewed who was singing the praises of listening to someone reading a book to you. Apparently it allows you to multi-task; multi-tasking being the process where you stuff up several things at the same time. If people like listening to recordings of someone else reading a book, then that’s fine. But don’t call it “reading a book”; it isn’t. Neither is reading a comic and calling it a “graphic novel”. (I’ve done this rant before, haven’t I?)

 

We got to the woods and had a good walk. I avoided the rancid thing we found yesterday; the dogs just found other putrid things in which to roll.

I wore my boots today; the birdsong app didn’t detect any ducks. Perhaps there are ducks in Kings Wood; perhaps it isn’t my squeaking boots?

 

We came home for another bath, and I then had another look at the pond. Was the water level lower again?

I started painting fence panels and got two done. I can remember many years ago reckoning that the bigger panels took an hour and a quarter each to paint, and that estimate still holds. I then painted up our Green Man garden ornament, finished up painting my mum’s old ornament which I started painting yesterday, and then painted a third fence panel. All the time looking at the pond.

That water level was definitely going down…

In the first instance I need to work out where the leak is, so I disconnected the bog filter so that the output from the pressure filter goes directly back into the main pond.

If the water level goes down then the leak is in the main pond, and that will be a major job for which I will need help (he smiled hopefully).

If the water level doesn’t go down then the issue is in the bog filter and there’s a couple of possibilities. Either the plant roots have gone mad and need a little pruning.

Or there’s an actual leak.

Both are relatively easy fixes compared to re-lining the main pond. We shall see what happens.

 

After five and a bit hours I decided that I’d done enough garden work. If you stand at the back door it looks just the same as it did when I started. If you look closer the pond looks a lot worse with water gushing out of a random hose.

 

“er indoors ^TM” finished work, and we took the dogs to Orlestone as the evening was cooling. We had a good walk; as we pootled I had my birdsong app running. A dozen different birds on the first ten minutes walking from the car. And only a blackbird and a robin on the ten minutes from the half-way point. I’ve noticed before that the birds are far noisier on the eastern side of Orlestone woods than they are on the western.

 

We came home; for a laugh I told the Alexa to play “Spasmo radio”. Have you ever tried doing that? He’s not bad…

I shall measure my blood pressure in a minute.

And on another non-working day I’ve covered over seventeen thousand steps. I’m going to work tomorrow for a bit of a rest. I really am.

18 June 2025 (Wednesday) - A Day Off ?

Today’s main task was to top up the water in the pond… I knew it needed doing, but last night the water lever was really low. Being wide awake far too early this morning as I had a shave I could hear noise outside. Not-so-nice-next-door was crashing about her garden at six o’clock. Seeing she was up and making noise I decided the sound of running out a hose was nothing in comparison to what she was doing so I ran out the hose and started the topping up.

 

I made toast, watched some telly, then peered into the internet. It was still there. There was upset from friends in Folkestone as apparently the harbour arm is to have housing built on it in addition to more businesses. Good luck with that – the beach is a bleak place for nine months of the year; let alone effectively being a hundred yards out at sea.

There wasn’t a lot else going on. I checked my blood pressure, munzed, got Wordle at the third attempt and went to have a look at how the pond was doing. I turned off the hose, put some washing in, and took the dogs out.

 

As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about last night’s vote in Parliament to de-criminalise abortion. And rightly so. Someone or other was brought on who commented how the UK’s attitude to abortion is completely at odds to that of the USA. Because here in the UK we consider the issue whereas in the USA the average punter goes with what their religious leaders tell them to think. The observation was made that Americans go big on religious freedoms which (for the most part) means to blindly do as they are told by those threatening them with eternal damnation if they don’t hand over lots of money.

This was followed by talk about Independent Bookshop Week. Again what could have been an interesting discussion was totally scuppered by the guest speaker constantly mumbling “Um – yeah – you know” rather than using coherent sentences. You’d think that the radio show’s producers might have recorded that little interview yesterday and thrown it away rather than wasting live air-time.

 

We got to the woods and walked a different route to our usual one. Joggers seemed to be out in force today. As we walked the dogs found something disgusting and rolled in it and ate it until I could chivvy them away from it.

We came home for a wash.

 

With dogs washed I finished off topping up the pond, then watered round as I had the hose out, and I got a couple of fence panels painted. I’m now on to the bigger panels which take longer to do. I got two done, then got the acrylic paints out and painted up a garden ornament. One which hung on the front of my mum’s house for years. It’s supposed to be birds on a branch, but because it had never been painted it could have been anything. I got the leaves and branches painted; I shall do the birds tomorrow.

I then sat down by the pond… and fell asleep.

 

“er indoors ^TM” finished work and we took the dogs down to Orlestone. The dogs were rather willful this evening. Treacle found a swamp, and Bailey vanished down a rabbit hole. Morgan was a good boy, but we were waiting for him to run amok.

We came home via Long Length where there was (and still is) a particular geocache finding which gives us one of the Planet Treasures that we’ve been hunting. The description for the series of caches said “This is not the average geocache route as you will not find any normal small container on its own, it either has something with it, it is an unusual container or you have to find a way to retrieve it”. The description for this particular cache said “Behind the log. Stay here all day every day to get inside”. We found an old toolbox behind a log. I wonder what all the hype was about.

 

We came home where Treacle had her second bath of the day, and I had a look at the pond. The water level has definitely gone down again. It has been hot recently… but not *that* hot? I do hope the pond hasn’t sprung a leak…

I shall top it up and have a look in the morning.

 

Today was a not-working-day. I haven’t stopped and I’ve walked over twenty thousand steps. There’s talk of opening a bottle of plonk in a bit.

I deserve one.

17 June 2025 (Tuesday) - Late Shift

There was consternation on the local Facebook pages this morning as I scoffed toast; someone had been flying a drone around the Repton estate (where we have Dog Club) and the locals weren’t happy. It was claimed that someone was using it to peer through windows, and others were claiming to have tried to shoot it down with catapults and air rifles.

And there was talk about a new Gerry Anderson TV show.

I did my blood pressure, Munzed, got wordle (prank) on the last go, and took the dogs out.

 

As we drove the pundits on the radio were interviewing the Archbishop of Liverpool (no – I didn’t know Liverpool had an Archbishop either) about how Liverpool Cathedral had been upgraded to a Grade One listed building. Personally I find this to be a matter of utter indifference, but bearing in mind that ten minutes of peak-time national radio was devoted to the matter, there must be plenty of people who are interested. Or perhaps the radio producer is a religious nut.

And then the sport news came on the radio and my mind wandered.

 

Not having that much time today we went to Orlestone. The car park was rather busy, but as we walked we only saw a couple of other dog walkers. Mind you, they were a worry. We see so many other dog walkers who on seeing another dog are immediately gripped by panic and start babbling about how friendly their dog is; their panic obviously upsetting all the dogs. We saw a couple of those today. We rolled in dust (thankfully missing the nearby fox poo). We totally missed seeing the squirrels, and the swamp score was one all; I made a point of not walking past the mucky filthy swamp, but I forgot the deep puddle by the car park which Treacle hadn’t forgotten about.

Again I didn’t wear my walking boots; again the birdsong app didn’t detect any ducks. But as I walked I found myself thinking. The birdsong app would have me believe there were at least a dozen different sorts of birds in Orlestone woods. As we walked I saw a crow and a pigeon, and some small birds flitting about which could have been anything. Going bird-spotting with a pair of binoculars is far less productive.

 

We came home. We had a cuppa and I did some more CPD, then got the hair trimmer out and gave myself a little haircut. Whilst I was at it I gave Bailey a trim too; she was getting a little wispy. She wasn’t keen on it, but made a lot less fuss than the last time I gave her a haircut. I think the finished result has left her looking a lot tidier; even if she did have a serious sulk.

I gathered dog dung, fed the fish, and got ready for work.

 

I set off to the late shift. I was going to get lunch in the co-op but the car park was heaving, so I drove up the motorway to Sainsburys at Aylesford where in a novel break with tradition they had staff working the tills. 

I got scoff, then went in to work where I did my bit. At tea break I saw that Facebook’s artificial intelligence was offering its sage advice on the post I’d made from the woods this morning. I’d commented that we’d bothered normal people and made a point of not going near the swamp on our morning walk; Facebook’s AI was having a go at explaining why. I suppose it’s good that the thing is having a go, but it needs a bit more practice.

 

Coming home was a game – Chart Road was closed. I wonder if that will be opened in the morning. I need that road to get to Kings Wood tomorrow.

I need to think about how I can wind up Facebook’s Meta AI while I’m there.

16 June 2025 (Monday) - More Treasures (Planets)

I stepped on the scales this morning. I was under fifteen stone for the first time in years. I did my blood pressure which also seems to be down on what it was six months ago. Something of a result, I suppose.

I scoffed toast and peered into the Internet. It was still there.

 

With “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” needing a lift mid-morning I took the dogs out early. As we drove to the woods the pundits on the radio were talking to some Israeli spokesman or other. And like most Israeli spokesmen, this woman was utterly unreasonable. She felt it was perfectly fine for the Israelis to have launched a massive and unprovoked attack on the Iranians on the pretext of they might possibly attack Israel at some point in the future. But this woman felt it was utterly wrong of the Iranians to retaliate.

 

We got to the woods and walked our usual circuit. I went in trainers today, and the birdsong app didn’t detect any ducks. We did see a slow worm, Treacle and Pogo found a wet ditch, Morgan and Bailey found fox poo, and Treacle found a deer bone. As we walked we heard several large things crashing in the trees. A few months ago we would have been able to see deer through the trees; now what with all the leaves we can’t.

We headed up the slope to the car park just as loads of normal people were walking down. Pausing only briefly to bark at them we were soon back at the car.

 

We came home, and I solved geo-puzzles until “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” was done. Her and Pogo then went home to disaster. The pavement was dug up outside her flat. Including the entrance to her flat. The nice men had to stop work to let her through.

We took a circuitous route home. Last week two new loads of geocaching treasures were launched. We got one series yesterday. Today it was time to look at “planets”. Only certain geocaches count for getting these souvenirs, and I’d planned a route home.

 

The first stop was at puzzle based on benches in a churchyard in Capel. That was simple enough. The second involved a rather epic word search and I don’t think it was actually there.

The third and fourth adventures were straightforward; if involving a little hike. The last was a pain. I managed to work out the eastings of where the thing was hidden, but the northings eluded me. So I looked at the map and plotted a straight line along which the eastings co-ordinates laid. There was only one point where a footpath crossed that line, so I went and had a look, and there was a tree stump at the vital point.

And inside that tree stump was what I was hunting…

 

Sadly it was too late to do any gardening when I got home, but there it is. Anyway the most recent fruit of my loins has the strimmer… With that in mind I decided to leave it with her and get myself a new one. I had a look on Amazon and saw one that claimed next day delivery. I pressed the buttons and once it had got my money it said I would have it by the beginning of next month… I get that a lot on Amazon.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a rather good bit of dinner then went bowling as she does most Mondays. I settled in front of the telly, did my evening blood pressure measurements and watched more “Orange is the New Black” as the dishwasher dishwashed.

 

I’m feeling rather worn out…