24 December 2025 (Wednesday) - Christmas Eve

I managed a bit more sleep last night but was still wide awake at three o’clock. I gave it an hour before giving up, getting up and watching a bit of telly over an early brekkie.

I watched an episode of “The Young Ones”, then with a bit of time on my hands I had a look at the monthly accounts. They could be a whole lot better… but they could also be a whole lot worse. Perhaps I worry too much about money? After all, what is it for if not to squander foolishly?

 

It was very dark as I left home this morning. Not so nice next door had parked her car ridiculously close to mine, which made me chuckle. Bearing in mind  the obvious difficulty she has when moving her car about you'd have thought she'd have left a decent amount of space, wouldn't you?

I didn't fancy the scrum at Sainsbury's this morning so I  popped in to the co-op where I got pretty much the same lunch as Sainsbury's do, but twenty pence cheaper. It pays to shop about. I had hoped to get a coronation chicken sandwich as earlier in the year the chap behind the counter had adamantly assured me that they only do those at Christmas, but either they had sold out or he was talking rubbish. Either way I roughed it with a cheese and ham sandwich. It wasn't the same.

As I paid, the co op staff were loudly discussing the price of pouches of tobacco. Apparently the cheapest place to get the stuff locally is from Deliveroo. I always thought they just delivered the stuff; I didn't think they sourced it. Perhaps the delivery driver is flogging hooky stuff as a sideline?

 

As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the radio were talking about how the King has recorded his fourth Christmas speech. Four... the late Queen died the day after my father died, so this will be my fourth Christmas as an orphan. For all that the drive to Hastings is something of a pain in the glass, I'd like to go see my mum and dad for Christmas again.

 

And so to work. A colleague had made some cookies and cakes for today, and one of the bosses had brought in some sweeties too. It was good to get fed. Back in the day there used to be loads of stuff brought in over the festive period, and this was the first I'd seen this year (not that I show up much these days). When I was manager I used to bring in a tub of sweeties every day in December. I've often said that in retrospect I think I did being a manager wrongly.

Mind you I probably overdid the sweeties; I had something of a bellyache for most of the day today. And it was a surprisingly busy day. 

 

I can distinctly remember the first ever Christmas Eve I worked… forty-four years ago in 1981. Things were very different back then. The old Royal East Sussex Hospital probably had about a hundred and fifty beds, and back in the day the hospital effectively closed for Christmas with pretty much every patient that could possibly be sent home going home for Christmas. Maybe a dozen remained over the holiday. No outpatients or GP patients had blood samples taken. And consequently our day’s work was done by eleven o’clock. We all set off to the pub at quarter to twelve (leaving the boss running the show) and we drank ourselves silly until the boss came down the pub at about two o’clock having been relieved by the night shift (who had come in shortly after two o’clock). The boss got more beers in, and after a few more drinks we all suddenly felt sorry for the poor night shift person on their own so we all went back to help them. I say “help them”; there was nothing to help them with, so having made our offer of help we all sat in the reception area drinking whiskey until none was left. We then all staggered to the bus station; a five minute walk which took us half an hour, and we then all made our various ways home on the bus. Happy days.

 

I can remember Christmas Eves in the mid-nineties. Back then we got the day off after a night shift… not that there was much to do at night back then. With a dedicated bedroom for us in the nurses home we’d be asleep by one o’clock and be called out if needed. We weren’t needed much back then, and call-outs lasted half an hour at most. Getting up more than twice was pretty much unheard of. Consequently we wouldn’t be needing to spend the day after a night shift fast asleep like we do these days.

I used to do the night of December 23^rd so that I would be off on Christmas Eve. “er indoors ^TM”,  “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” and “My Boy ^TM” would already be at my mum’s house in Hastings. I’d get the mid-morning train on Christmas Eve and my brother would meet me as the train pulled into Hastings. We’d stage an epic booze-up, then go to Sainsbury’s for the last ten minutes that they were opened to snap up bargains. I say “bargains”; we’d just buy reduced tat. The store staff would announce random reductions and the masses would fight for stuff they would never otherwise buy.

My mum never seemed to want the bargains we took home for her…

Fast forward to today… Which was just like any other day at work…

And I’ve got to work tomorrow as well… 

23 December 2025 (Tuesday) - Early Shift

I had an early(ish) night last night, but with an alarm set the insomnia returned with a vengeance. I woke feeling full of energy and raring to go at two minutes past midnight then lay awake for hours. I eventually gave up trying to sleep as I watched the clock pass four.

I got up, made toast (properly this morning) and watched an episode of “This is England 90”, then sparked up the lap-top and as I peered into Facebook this morning I despaired. I don’t remember Apollo 11 and the first Moon landing, but I do remember the disaster hitting Apollo 13. I remember the next four Moon landings, and Skylab going up. I remember the Apollo and Soyuz docking in orbit. I remember the Channel Tunnel being dug, the introduction of mobile phones…When I was younger there were some momentous things going on. The future looked so bright and was full of possibilities. But look how it turned out. The world is full of half-wits. So many people really do still think the world is flat. Add to that the half-witted vaccine deniers, crackpot religions… this isn’t the future I was expecting.

 

Two Facebook friends were having birthdays today so I sent birthday wishes. One was an old mate I’ve known for over fifty years, the other… I think I might have worked with him at some point. To be honest I have no idea who he is. I suppose I should find out if I actually know him. Periodically I have a look through my Facebook friends list. There’s several people on there who I have no idea who they are. There’s one chap on there who often comments on what I post as though he is my best mate… I must have known the chap at some point. But I’m hopeless with people like that. It wasn’t that long ago that I met some chap in the town centre who said he remembered me as I was the scout leader with the snakes… I clearly made an impression on him as it’s fifteen years since I was a scout leader and twenty years since I had a snake. I wonder who he was.

 

It was dark as I left home - over an hour before sunrise, but still the birds were singing like things possessed.

I drove off up the motorway; I was glad to see that the "Operation Brock" stupidity had been taken down, but having been in place it had cost the taxpayer (i.e. me) a quarter of a million quid. 

The motorway was quiet this morning at quarter past six; quieter than it often is. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how the American Navy is kitting itself out with a new type of battleship which will be called "Trump class".

I know he's not my president, but it bothers me that someone who has been elected to the most powerful position in the world doesn't seem to realise just how much the rest of the world is laughing at him.

 

I got some petrol - again my Nectar voucher thing got turned down. They always seem to get turned down. And from getting petrol I went into the Aylesford Sainsburys. Usually at half past six there may be two or three other customers. It was rammed this morning. The pre-Christmas panic had set it. But clearly this was why the motorway had been so quiet; everyone was in Sainsbury's.

 

I went in to work and did my bit. At lunchtime a colleague told me about the Komoot app. It took a while to download, but it might be good for finding some dog walks.

 

And with my bit done I came home. “er indoors ^TM” went off delivering Christmas pressies. I put laundry in to scrub and more “This is England 90” on the telly and cracked on with the ironing until “er indoors ^TM” came home with KFC.

 

I’ve got another early start tomorrow… hopefully not *quite* so early…

22 December 2025 (Monday) - Not At Work

I was asleep for nine hours last night. That was something of a result.

I made toast as I do… and somehow stuck both slices in the same slot of the toaster so I ended up with two bits of toast each with one burnt side and one uncooked bread side. I scoffed it anyway.

As I scoffed I peered into the Internet. More and more people are now off work for the holidays. Quite a few have compulsory holiday at this time of year as their firms shut down. Quite a few were rather resentful about it, and understandably so. With only about eight hours of daylight and that being cold (at best) it is a rather crap time of year to have a holiday.

I checked my emails. Someone had been round my geocaches in Kings Wood and had reported two of them to be missing, so that immediately planned our morning walk.

I had a quick Munz, and as “er indoors ^TM” did Dog Brekkie I got ready for out walk.

 

As we drove there was some utter drivel on the radio about poetry. Apparently you could get all sorts of insights into the writer’s mind from the poems… I was reminded of our old English teacher who spouted the same sort of tosh and made amazing leaps of (so-called) logic. I can remember him being adamant that it was far better to call a peacock a “blue umbrella” rather than a peacock, and I can remember him being incredibly angry when he’d waxed loquacious about the mother and baby bond forged from their blood mixing only to be told about what the placenta does.

 

We got to the woods and went for a little stroll. It started well or badly (depending on your personal perspective) as a young lady jogged by. With leggings two sizes to small and a bra that almost (but not quite) covered her jubblies, she might as well have run round in the nip.

Our route followed the southern edge of the woods today (as that’s where the supposedly missing geocaches were). Along that edge of the woods is a tall fence that has little spaces underneath that dogs could get through, and about half a mile the other side of that fence was continuous squawking of pheasants and continuous gunshots. There was clearly a hunting party going on, and the dogs were going mad trying to get to the pheasants. I was glad when our route turned away from the fence.

We saw a deer (just one). Being the start of the holidays we saw quite a few people taking their dogs out because it was holidays. Holiday dog walkers are a pain in the glass. They are utterly oblivious to the world around them until I get to within five yards of them. By then their dog is quite happy sniffing and playing with my pack, but they still go absolutely berserk and demand all dogs go on to the leads but are utterly unable to explain why. We had this twice today.

We’d had reports that two geocaches were missing; I couldn’t find them so I put new ones out.

It was only a shame that I didn’t realise that my “Map My Walk” app had stopped about ten yards after I’d started it…

 

We came home where seriously muddy bellies were hosed in the bath. This time of year the dogs get a bath after pretty much every walk. I know several people who say their dogs hardly ever get a bath. They must be ripe.

I made up both a cuppa, put the first load of washing in to scrub, opened the Advent Calendar, then looked at Wordle. Starting with “bloke” I then went through “round” and “conic” to get “conch” on the fourth attempt.

I had a go at chess dot com and didn’t do very well.

I wrote up some CPD, and made a start on next year’s birthday video before hanging out the first load of laundry and starting on the next..

 

I spent the afternoon slobbing on the sofa watching episodes of “Four In A Bed”. The first place visited was a rather average B&B. The second was a massively overpriced place which catered to people who like paying over the odds. The third place was a grim pub up north run by a chap who delighted in telling everyone else how bad they were, and took great offence whenever anyone found fault with his place (and there was a lot of fault to find), and the fourth place was a rather grubby cottage with bedrooms run as a bit of a hobby by a pair of retired teachers. As is always the case the first place to go on won as being first none of the contestants had had time to fall out.

 

I followed this with The Two Ronnies Christmas Special from yonks ago, the Carry On Christmas special and Top of the Pops 1978. All were sadly rather lame; none had stood the test of time.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up bacon and egg rolls which we scoffed whilst watching the final of “Game of Wool”. I could do knitting…

I’ve got to go to work tomorrow…

21 December 2025 (Sunday) - Family Meal

It was something of a late night last night. I got four hours sleep then woke for a tiddle in the small hours… and that was it for sleep for the night. I then lay awake from four more hours before finally giving up and getting up.

 

I made toast and had my usual rummage round the Internet. There was some seriously nasty bickering about the Operation Brock debacle between supporters of the Labour and Reform UK parties, and this was attracting comments from people who clearly didn’t understand what was going on. All were delighting in showing their complete ignorance. The local Labour MP said that he was trying to come to a long-term answer to the entire Operation Brock thing. The local Reform UK county councillor claimed that the Labour chap was blaming the county council (he wasn’t), and so the squabble gathered momentum rather akin to children in a playground shouting “fight, fight, fight”.

I seriously despair for the future – we have a political system which elects leaders on the whim of a majority who simply don’t understand what they’ve voted in. I’m not saying that the county council are good or bad, just that they have been elected by a load of people who have absolutely no understanding of what the policies and issues are.

In this instance Operation Brock is activated and shut down by the Kent Resilience Forum. This is a rather large group consisting of pretty much anyone who wants to get involved. But the main protagonists are Kent County Council, Kent Police and Kent and Medway Fire and Rescue service… and who is it that appoints the head honchos of Kent Police and Kent and Medway Fire and Rescue service? Kent County Council.

No one seemed to know this, or care about this piddling detail.

 

I took the dogs round the block for a walk. Time was pressing and we didn’t have long enough for a long walk and the subsequent bath. Half a mile round the block was enough to remind me why I’d rather not take them any distance on the leads. Perhaps I should do more lead practice?

I Munzed and Wordled as I do, and wrote up a little CPD, and had a go at chess dot com.

 

“My Boy ^TM” and ”Auntie Chel ^TM” came round, and we all walked round to the Riverside Inn where my brother was waiting for us. We had a good dinner there… but it wasn’t cheap. We all skipped the dessert course and came home (through the rain) to have puddings at home. We scoffed far too much puddings, shifted a lot more beer, and played on the Infinity Table for a couple of hours until everyone had to go.

And then as it was out, we played a few games on it, and played a couple of games across the Internet with Chris. It was a shame that the thing kept stopping, but that’s the Internet for you…

 

And today is the solstice. The shortest day. The days start getting longer now. I see that as a good thing…

20 December 2025 (Saturday) - Dog Club, Camber Castle, Games Night

Yesterday I mentioned about the bad night I’d had previously, and so it was hardly surprising that I spent three hours fast asleep on the sofa yesterday evening. And so having had some sleep I lay awake for most of the night (again). 

I eventually gave up trying to sleep, got up, made toast and watched an episode of “The Young Ones” then had a little look at the Internet. It was still there, and was the same as ever. For the last few weeks my Facebook feed has been filled with geometric puzzles based on Pythagoras’s theorem, and idiotically simplistic questions being posted to work-related groups. Yesterday I made a pointed reply to one such question suggesting that acute leukaemia *wasn’t* best treated with ointment, and followed it with” FFS”. That comment had garnered quite a few “likes” overnight.

Steve was on the radio – he’d got a new jingle with goats singing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” – it was rather good. I Munzed, and Wordled my way from “ghost” to “white” via “thank” and “chute”. The “Guess the Lyrics” competition came on the radio – “It’s an occupation, we’re a dancing nation, we keep the pressure on every night”. No? – I had no idea either. It was “Respectable” by Mel and Kim.

 

Being Saturday we drove round to Repton where we had a rather chilly Dog Club. But despite it being the last weekend before Christmas we had a dozen dogs along, and a great time was had by all.

From Dog Club we drove off towards Winchelsea Beach. As we drove Steve was doing the Mystery Year competition on the radio. Jockey Harvey Smith giving the judges the V-sign and Spaghetti Junction opening. It wasn’t 1973 like I thought it was. It was 1971, and Benny Hill had the Christmas No 1.

 

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been collecting Origami Animals by finding particular geocaches, and having found thirteen out of fourteen we had only one left to find. There was a qualifying geocache at Camber Castle so parking up at Winchelsea Beach would give us a nice dog walk out to it.

We parked up at a layby on the coast road and had a rather good little (three or so miles) walk along quiet lanes and footpaths across the Rye Harbour nature reserve. It was a shame there was quite so much cow dung everywhere, but you can’t have everything.

We soon found the geocache we were looking for – it was near a memorial stone for a young lad who’d died during the war. And finding it have us an origami crane and an e-souvenir for finding a geocache over the winter solstice.

I took a few photos as we walked.

 

We came home via the farm shop where we got some sausage rolls for lunch and some stout for later, then came home. The dogs got scrubbed, as did our trousers. And half a dozen tennis balls. There’s quite a collection of filthy tennis balls at the Dog Club field. More and more of the dogs are turning their noses up at the grubby ones and are squabbling over the one clean one I bring along. So I harvested some grubby tennis balls, brought them home and chucked them in the washing machine with our trousers.

We scoffed the sausage rolls then I had a little think about today’s Advent story, hung out the washing and fell asleep.

 

I woke to the sound of someone at the door. Martin had called round. We had a cuppa and put the world to rights, then I got out the hoover and voomed round with it. You’d be amazed how much muck it generated. I blame the dogs.

 

Chris arrived with the big Infinity table, and Steve and Sarah soon followed. We had a rather good evening and I won some of the games. Result !!

19 December 2025 (Friday) - A Day At Work

I had a relatively early night last night and got an hour’s sleep before “er indoors ^TM” and the dogs came up. There was a minor squabble with the dogs, then just as everyone was getting settled someone trod on Bailey.

I then saw every twenty minutes from then on. I gave up trying to sleep at half past four, got up, made toast and watched an episode of “This is England”. It was a Christmas one, and was thoroughly depressing.

 

I had a little look at the Internet. It was still there. Nothing much had happened overnight… or by six o’clock anyway. But I was slightly surprised. Usually every time I look up anything on the Internet I am then inundated with adverts for whatever it was. Infinity tables, Lego, DVD boxed sets… I was expecting endless adverts for fish tank plants and snails, but nothing.

I Munzed. I wordled from “short” through “hairy” to getting it with “myrrh” on the third go. But, to be honest, what other words have a y in them but not at the end?

I opened my Advent Calendar and got ready for work.

 

I got into my car and sat and waited for the bin lorry to get out of the way so that I could drive off... and the very second it moved a few yards up the road, some idiot drove his car to where the bin lorry had been. He then sat and glared at me as though it was my fault that the bin lorry was blocking the road. I smiled sweetly as I watched this chap's blood pressure go through the roof. He clearly wasn't happy about having to wait for the bin lorry to get out of the way.

 

I drove up the motorway through the Operation Brock stupidity. There's talking of moving Operation Brock to the bit of the motorway between Ashford and Folkestone.  That would suit me just fine... all the time I am going to work and not going to Folkestone.

 

As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how the EU is going to lend the Ukrainian government ninety billion Euros. I say "lend" - apparently no money will be repaid until the Ukrainian government gets reparations from the invading Russians... that ain't going to happen, is it? Apparently the Europeans weren't brave enough to give the Ukrainians the two hundred billion Euros of Russian assets that they've frozen. I can't say I blame them.  I must admit that if I were Mr. Putin I'd be seeing this European funding of the war against him as tantamount to a declaration of war in itself.  

 

I drove up to Sainsburys to get some lunch and some supplies. I was rather surprised to smell "funny fags" as I got out of the car. For all that it is supposedly still illegal, I'm smelling the stuff pretty much everywhere I go.

 

I got to work. I did my bit. Bearing in mind how wet it had been for much of yesterday I looked out of the window and sulked. In between working I did my e-learning. I learned about CPR...  apparently if you are trying to resuscitate "a person with breasts" you are allowed to touch "the breasts" whilst performing chest compressions.  One lives and learns. I must admit that if someone was about to croak, allegations about goosing up the jubbllies would be rather lower down the list of concerns than having them croaking. Also I thought everyone had breasts; just some people's (women's) were a tad jubblier than others (men's), but what do I know. 

 

With work worked I came home through Operation Brock again. Once home as a special treat we had KFC for tea. Their Gravy Box was rather good, and only (!) eight hundred calories.

 

I’ve spent much of today thinking about an old friend. I first met Phil at primary school when I was five years old. We went through school together, we were in the Boys Brigade together. In my Advent Calendar today I had Frosty the Snowman. Whenever it snowed he would sing his song about Frosty the Snowman:

 

“Frosty the Snowman

Lost his left ball in a fight

Then by a strange coincidence

The same happened to the right

 

Frosty the Snowman

A happy little soul

Give the f…er any lip 

He’ll kick you up the a… hole”

 

He would sing this, barely pausing for breath, for three miles through the snow on our way to school, and for three miles through the snow on the way home after.

He moved to Sweden about forty years ago. There’s a lot of snow there, and presumably lots of snowmen.

18 December 2025 (Thursday) - Elhampark Woods

I woke up shivering in the small hours because an alliance of “er indoors ^TM” and the dogs had captured all of the duvet. As I was awake I headed to the loo and tripped over most of the bedding which was on the floor. Once I’d done my thing I reorganized the bed.

 

Over brekkie Morgan and Pogo had a minor quarrel. It sounded quite vicious, but stopped as quickly as it started. What was that all about?

As I scoffed toast I referee-ed a minor squabble on the Upstairs Downstairs. Someone wasn’t happy that someone else had posted something about what one of the characters had done in another show. It wasn’t offensive, or irrelevant, but some people really do want to argue about anything.

And there was talk about how the local Reform UK county council wants to appoint “political assistants” who will advise on party political matters and promote those policies to the public… for an annual salary of more than what I get. To be fair to Reform UK they’ve suggested that all the parties at the council get a bit of the pie, but bearing in mind that they got into power on the promise of cutting waste they seem to be quite good at generating waste.

 

Despite the drizzle I took the dogs out. As I drove “In Our Time” was on the radio and was talking about Charles Dickens. It was rather interesting; I found myself thinking back to my time at school when we read some of his books for English Literature “O” level when Mr Delaney seemed to do his level best to kill the books stone dead. I’m sure that wasn’t his intention…

We went to Elhampark Wood for our walk today. It wasn’t the best of places to walk in that, like Longbeech Woods (near Charing), most of the paths are straight lines going from the road, and so it is difficult to make a circular walk which allows the dogs to be off the leads the whole time. But we had a decent walk really. The dogs seemed to enjoy it, and no one ran off or got into mischief. Bailey rolled in fox muck, but that is a given, isn’t it?

Our main reason for trying somewhere new today was that a new geocache had gone live there three days ago. I mentioned that I’d solved the puzzle yesterday but had decided against chasing the FTF… This morning as I scoffed toast I’d seen that it was still not found but had three watchers. Had people had a go and not logged DNFs?

I spent ten minutes searching… and gave up.

We had our dog walk, and on the way back to the car as we were walking past I spent another ten minutes to no avail. As we walked away I saw the tree where I would have hidden a cache. And there it was… My phone made the co-ords fifty feet out, but to be honest my phone isn’t the most accurate.

I took co-ords and posted them to the chap who’d hidden the thing, but I was First One to Find It… and that’s always worth having. The trouble is I’ve now started another FTF streak. I wonder how long this one will last.

 

As we drove home “The Infinite Monkey Cage” was on the radio talking about the Dunbar Number; which is “a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships”. Or in English “the number of people you would not feel embarrassed about joining uninvited for a drink if you happened to bump into them in a bar”. It’s supposedly about a hundred and fifty, and apparently that is the average amount of Facebook friends that anyone has.

I’ve got over six hundred…

 

We got home just as the rain started with a vengeance. The drizzle that was drizzling as we left home had soon stopped. We’d had a dry walk, and had been lucky with the timing

The dogs had a bath. Muddy bellies and poo-ey backs all got sorted. The dogs were soon asleep and I made us both a cuppa.

I did a little more marking of trainee work, I Munzed and Wordled, fixed the hole in my pocket, read my Kindle for a bit and had a little sleep.

 

I put some laundry in, wrote a reference for a colleague with whom I used to work, and thought about water snails. The fish seem to have stopped eating the plants; maybe some snails will clear up the algae.

I’ve got to go to work tomorrow…

17 December 2025 (Wednesday) - Munzee, Deer Leg, Plants

Judging by the postings on Facebook this morning it would seem that Operation Brock has been brought back into operation. What a waste of time and money. Our local MP was whinging on-line about it saying “I understand that Operation Brock is a huge frustration for so many of my constituents. I will continue to work to find a long-term alternative”. Bearing in mind he’s found nothing in over a year I’m not hopeful.

Our local MP has turned out to be something of a disappointment. From what I can see the only difference between him and the one he replaced is the colour of the rosette he wears. Like his predecessor he’s all over social media trying to share the limelight of other people’s efforts.

Our county councillor was quiet on the matter. I wrote to him over the summer about Operation Brock. Bearing in mind it’s a county council thing, if he can’t sort it, no one can. To be fair to the chap he does seem to do quite a bit of work with the homeless though.

 

I sent out birthday wishes… One of my ex-trainees had a birthday today. I can remember him starting work with me all those years ago. The steps to his getting qualified, his getting married, his promotion to supervisor grade, his daughter being born. His getting divorced. When I had my little “episode” fourteen years ago he was one of a small number of people who wrote a letter in my defence… I’ve spoken to him maybe once in the last ten years; it is too easy to lose touch with people.

I had a message. It would seem that the people who make Infinity Tables have been taken over by another company and aren’t going out of business just yet. That’s a result.

And I read that Gil “Buck Rogers” Gerard died yesterday.

I Munzed – there was a bouncing Munzee garden right outside the house. I started Wordle with “right” and got the r and the g, but in the wrong places. ”Grabs” then gave me everything but the b, and on the third try I had success with “grass”

 

“er indoors ^TM” helped me get the dogs on to their leads and I took all four of them up to the woods. As we drove “More or Less” was on the radio. It’s a rather good show which investigates the hyperbole and outrageous claims that appear in the news. Today’s program investigated the claims about the ongoing unprecedented super-flu epidemic and showed that it was neither unprecedented nor super.

We got to the woods and Morgan and Bailey were immediately lippy with the first group that we met. They do that whenever Pogo is along as they know he’s got their backs. Most people realise what dogs are like and smile… though we met one idiot who didn’t.

We saw some woman walking along the path toward us. When she saw us she grabbed her dog and roughly dragged it into the brambles. As we walked past so Morgan looked at her dog. She immediately got her dog into a half-nelson strangle hold and shouted that her dog is sometimes funny with other dogs. I know I should have just smiled and kept going, but I remarked that I wasn’t surprised that her dog is bad with other dogs if he gets put in a strangle hold every time he sees one.

It was shortly after this that Treacle found a deer leg (complete with hoof) and carried it for over three miles all the way back to the car.

 

We came home where (amazingly) the dogs didn’t need baths. I’d checked them when they got into the car at the end of our walk and they seemed clean. They’d then licked off whatever mud there was on the drive home.

So rather than cleaning dogs I cleaned the fish tank. It gets grubby; algae grows on the plastic plants.

I solved a geo-puzzle. I could have been First to Find on that one but a twenty-five mile round trip? I wrote up some CPD, and then marked a trainee’s work. I’ve offered to help out my assessing the scripts of people going for the IBMS specialist portfolio in haematology. It’s something I can do…

 

And then I had another little think about the fish tank. Introducing real plants worked wonders with the pond… Would real plants help?

I drove round to Bybrook Barn where there was some bloke trying to buy plants for his aquarium. The assistant chap announced which aquatic plants were worth having, and which would be dead in a week as they were really house plants. After ten minutes waiting, the chap in the queue in front of me was done and the assistant immediately turned to the young lady who had just walked in. With legs all the way up to her bum I suppose I would turn to her rather than me… as I walked out I remarked to the manager-type (who had watched the entire performance) that I would take my money to Dobbies. He asked if he could help; I told him that he could have done ten minutes previously.

I went to Dobbies where a really helpful chap sold me three bunches of elodea densa. I asked him about water snails – all the ones they had were tropical ones.

 

I came home, put the plants into the tank and made us both a cuppa. I had a look on Amazon. Had I looked there earlier I could have got my tank plants for a third of the price. I could get some snails delivered tomorrow – if only I know which ones I should get.

I posted up today’s instalment of the Advent adventure, and tuned in to chess dot com which gave me a lesson on hidden attacks (which meant absolutely nothing to me at all), then I had a go at chess puzzles.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a particularly good cauliflower cheese for dinner and we scoffed it whilst watching all sorts of stuff on the telly… and watching the fish tank too. The goldfish seem to be eating the new live plants…

16 December 2025 (Tuesday) - A Walk, Ironing, Telly

I might have had a decent night (for once) had the dogs settled. But they didn’t, and so I didn’t.

I made toast and peered into the Internet. Quite a few people were commenting about how they’ve now packed up work for Christmas. One friend had posted “One more sleep”, and another said that he wasn’t back at work for three more weeks. Is it too late to question my career choices? Not that I’m really feeling at all Christmassy this year.

And having done a course with the OU last week my Facebook feed was inundated with adverts for the Open University.

 

I got Bailey’s lead on her whilst “er indoors ^TM” rounded up Treacle and Morgan. For all that they love their walks when we get there, they aren’t keen to get up in the mornings.

As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how President Trump is suing the BBC for five billion dollars because of their story in which they claimed he’d said various things by judiciously editing tapes of what he’d actually said. One of the so-called experts who’d been wheeled on said that Mr Trump would settle for an up-front payment of ten million quid, but if the case went to court it would cost probably five or ten times that amount even if the BBC won. So it would be cheaper all round just to pay up. Justice, eh? But this is nothing new, is it? Over a hundred and thirty years ago Jerome K Jerome once said that if someone came up to him and demanded his watch he’d fight them for it, but if they threatened to take him to court to get his watch he’d hand it over on the spot and think he’d got off lightly.

There was then talk about whether the country can afford the BBC. Another so-called expert was wheeled on to say that the BBC can’t begin to compete with the commercial stations because they have so much income… and then started banging on about how the BBC was having Jane Austen Day today, and you don’t see Netflix doing that. Presumably because there’s no money in doing so?

 

We got to the woods where we walked a different walk to our usual one. I’d been told that two of the geocaches I’d hidden there had gone missing so we went to have a look. One had gone; one was still there.

We had a good walk; it was muddy though.

After either four and three quarter miles or five and one quarter miles (depending on whether you listen to my phone or my watch) we were back at the car. We came home where once I’d bathed the dogs I had a little wipe round and clean up in the bathroom and loo. It’s amazing how the dust accumulates when you aren’t paying attention.

 

I put some washing in to scrub, got Wordle (segue?) on the last attempt and had a phone call from the optician to say that I was due an eye test. They seemed surprised that I’d had one a couple of months ago.

I had a spot of lunch, then cracked on with the ironing whilst watching some episodes of “This is England”.

I wrote up some CPD, then watched more episodes of “This is England” in which many of our heroes did the dirty deed without removing their trousers; let alone undercrackers.

 

“er indoors ^TM” came home with Pogo (who’s up for a little holiday). She’d had her works Christmas do and had brought me home a posh mince pie. Four hundred calories…

We had a rather good dinner which we scoffed whilst watching the semi-final of “Game of Wool”. When I was a lad my mum, grans and all my aunts used to be constantly knitting things. How times change…

15 December 2025 (Monday) - A Disappointment

In a novel break with tradition my alarm woke me this morning. Mind you I'd seen every twenty minutes of the night before that.

I got up, opened my Advent Calendar, made toast and watched some telly. Back in the day the Young Ones was *the* TV show to watch. It started some time in 1982 and was broadcast on a Thursday evening. I remember it being on a Thursday as that was the night I was always late home because Thursday was college day. I always missed the show, and everyone else would tell me how good it had been. There was no video recorders or catch-up TV back then... Eventually I got to see the program in re-runs and like everyone else I was enthralled by it.

Sadly it hasn't really stood the test of time... 

 

I set off to work via the petrol station.  There was a surprising amount of people getting petro at seven o'clock this morning. And once I'd got petrol I set off up the motorway. For all that the motorway was busy this morning, it was a far better journey that going cross-country to Pembury had been last week. 

As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the availability of diet drugs on the NHS. There was an interview with a chap who wasn't entirely unlike me in that the chap had been overweight for years and had used a CPAP machine for years. However unlike me, this chap seemed to be rather too keen on the pies. He was laying the blame for his obesity purely on the NHS which wasn't giving him the diet injections. Surely  I'm not the only one to have realised that your cake hole is bigger than your arse hole, and the feeling of hunger is what weight loss feels like?

 

I got to work and in a fit of recklessness got myself a cheese scone from the League of Friends' little shop. Nowadays I have one as a treat from time to time; a year ago I had one every day. I made myself a cuppa to have with the scone, and I had a little look at the Internet. I had an email. Yesterday I organised a geo-meet to take place at the micropub I found yesterday. The geo-Feds have approved my plan, and so if any of my loyal readers are at a loose end in mid-January...

 

I got on with work. I did several wet ones as one does (it's a blood compatibility testing thing). What with te vagaries of my work pattern this was my first Monday at work for months. It was rather busy; I was glad when home time came round. 

 

I came home. “er indoors ^TM” boiled up pizza and then went bowling. I wrapped Christmas pressies whilst watching episodes of “This is England 86”. I had planned to do the ironing… I’ll do that tomorrow, eh…

14 December 2025 (Sunday) - Hunting More Origami Animals

Apart from a trip to the loo in the small hours I stayed asleep until half past eight when my aching joints told me it was time to start moving about. It’s amazing the difference not setting an alarm makes.

 

I got up and opened the Advent Calendar. Finally I had something I felt I might do something with. I had a scrape, made toast and had a look at the Internet. Back in the day people used to post photos of all sorts of pre-Christmas parties and events. So far hardly anyone has posted photos of hardly anything to social media. Either no one’s posting anything, or nothing is happening.

I saw that the Kent geo-meet happened yesterday… I say “Kent” it was in south London. Back in the day the December geo-meet was the highlight of the geocaching calendar. From what I could see hardly anyone from Kent went. We didn’t as the place wasn’t dog-friendly.

Which reminded me that I was hoping to stage the February geo-meet at the McCann’s brewery. They haven’t replied to me email. I’d better chivvy them up.

 

The dogs came down. I chivvied them into the garden. Something has been digging in my flower boxes. A couple of days ago nice-next-door commented she thinks she’s got a rat in her roof. It would be a brave rat with Bailey about. Apparently coffee deters them.

I Munzed; earning ten Zeds. Zeds are a crypto-currency used in Munzee. Ten Zeds is somewhere between six and seven pence.

 

We got ourselves organised and went for a little outing. Certain geocaches give you an Origami Animal e-Treasure when you log them, and we targeted a few of them today to give us a little adventure.

First of all we went to Aldington to get one that I’d found twelve years ago, but “er indoors ^TM” hadn’t. That evened up my finding the one at Dungeness yesterday.

We then drove to Lympne castle where after a little walk we had the second one in hand. That cache was called “Marsh Views” and there was a particularly good view across the marsh from there.

It was only half a mile from there to the Shepway Cross monument where we soon found the third one.

From there we had a little drive up to Lydden Hill where the racing happens. The fourth cache was soon found.

As we’d driven there we’d seen signs to a micropub. And it was lunch time. So we had a little lunch break. The Blue Silo micropub was a rather good find. As “er indoors ^TM” parked the car I popped my head round the door and asked two questions. Could I bring the dogs in? Could I pay by card? Having been told yes to both, I told the nice lady that all else was details. We had a drinkie and a sausage roll each, and arranged to stage the next (January) monthly geo-meet there.

And then on to our fourth geo-target. The instructions for that one told us where the car park was, and said we simply walk a mile up the disused train line to the geocache and walk back again. And that’s what we did. Sadly walking there was a lot easier than walking back was. As always it was the smallest of our group that was the pain in the glass, but Bailey eventually reappeared after having been missing for fifteen minutes.

We could have then driven down to New Romney for one last geo-find, but time was against us.

I took a few photos as we went about. We can get that last origami animal next weekend.

 

We came home. “er indoors ^TM” set off shopping. I did the admin for the geo-meet we’d spoken about with the nice lady in the Blue Silo micropub.

“er indoors ^TM” came home from shopping and I put the telly on. We watched “Carry On Spying”. When I was a lad the Carry On films were the pinnacle of comedy. “Carry On Spying” was something of a disappointment.

 

We had dinner. Enchiladas went down rather well. As we scoffed we watched a celebrity Bake-Off episode which was entertaining enough, but (for me) would have been better had it featured celebrities I’d heard of.

Today’s been rather good…

13 December 2025 (Saturday) - Dog Club, Dungeness, Telly

Usually I have no issues getting to sleep. Staying asleep is generally the problem. But it was the opposite last night – I was still wide awake two hours after getting into my pit.

I got four hours kip last night which was better than some nights recently.

 

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. Last night “er indoors ^TM” went outside to see the aurora… not that there was much to be seen. A chap I used to know was posting photos of a rather spectacular display he’d seen from his new house in Scotland. Jacking it all in, turning your back on everyone and moving to Scotland seems to be happening more and more with people I know (or used to know).

There wasn’t a lot else happening on line. Steve was on the radio doing the “guess the lyrics” competition. “Do you hear what I’m saying? Got to say how I feel”. No? I had no idea either. It was “Dreams” by Gabrielle. 

 

Being Saturday we went round to Repton and Dog Club. Despite a cold day a dozen dogs turned out. We had a good time’ I must admit to a wry smile as Luna came out of a thicket covered in fox poo. It’s quite funny when it is someone else’s dog.

All too soon the bigger dogs started arriving for their session and so it was time to go. “er indoors ^TM” had craft club today so she went her way and I took the dogs with me on mine. As I drove Steve was doing the Mystery Year competition on the radio. When did the pound coin come out? I know this one. 1983.

I had this idea to go to Dungeness to get a geocache for the current origami animals set of Treasures. There’s not many geocaches which qualify for them. There’s one in Aldington which I have done which “er indoors ^TM” can go get at some stage. And there’s one near the power station in Dungeness which “er indoors ^TM” found when I was working one weekend twelve years ago. So I thought that the one in Dungeness might be something to do this morning. A dog walk and an origami animal too. And part of me wanted to see how the radio signal from Radio Ashford would hold out. Bearing in mind it goes west-wards almost as far as Folkestone and eastwards to Goudhurst, it doesn’t make five miles north to Challock. Heading south the signal started breaking up at Lydd.

We got to the old lighthouse at Dungeness where we started our little walk. The dogs stayed on the leads all the time we were within striking distance of the power station; I wasn’t having the littlest one getting on the other side of the fence. When we were safely away from it I let them off. We had a great time running and chasing about. I found my geocache (and got an origami rhinoceros) and then my heart sank as a rabbit ran by. The two little ones chased off in hot pursuit. I whistled; Morgan stopped dead and came straight back. Bailey (aka “Team Sod”) sauntered back in her own good time about quarter of an hour later.

 

We came home. The dogs seemed surprisingly clean so we skipped the bath and they were soon snoring. I made myself a cuppa, put a load of washing in to scrub, Munzed, and had a look at Wordle. “Snore” gave me s, r and e but all in the wrong places. “Fresh” did exactly the same. “Rests” told me where the s went. “Laser” told me where the e and r went. “Wiser” gave me the i. I got it with “miser” on the last go.

 

“er indoors ^TM” returned from craft club, and after a quick bit of cheese on toast all round she set off visiting family in Hastings. I stayed with the sleeping dogs and watched more “Danger UXB” in which our hero renewed his association with the mad professor’s daughter. The beast.

I did the dogs’ dinners then downloaded something on the SkyQ box. “This is England” is a rather grim film… and really reminded me of what things used to be like forty-odd years ago.

 

“er indoors ^TM” came home with kebabs and we scoffed them whilst watching more “Canal Boat Diaries”. Whilst I like watching the show, the more I see of it, the less inclined I am to go on a boating holiday…

12 December 2025 (Friday) - Another Early Shift

I had an alarm set last night; I barely slept. I woke shortly after midnight and saw every quarter of an hour after that. Eventually I gave up (as I so often do), got up, made toast and scoffed it whilst watching telly. In today's instalment of "Danger UXB" our hero got given the heave-ho by the mad professor's daughter which was probably a triumph for morality but a bit of a smack in the kisser for our hero.

 

Having heard the bin men making a racket as I'd watched telly I was expecting problems getting out of the road, but the bin men were suddenly nowhere to be seen when I drove off. 

As I drove there was something on the radio about "farm-sitters"; people who come and look after farms whilst the farmers go off on holiday. I suppose it could have been quite interesting had the farm-sitter being interviewed not ermm... said ermmm...  between ermmm... everything ermmm...  he ermmm...  said.

I've mentioned before that those who bring people onto national radio really should vet the interviewees beforehand.

There was also an interview with the chap who runs the Magnum ice cream corporation. I mentioned the other day that they've not turned out to be quite as profitable as had been hoped. It turns out that some years ago the Magnum people bought out Ben and Jerries, and the people behind Ben and Jerries want it back. It turns out there's quite a lot of bitterness in the ice cream world.

 

I got three quarters of the way to work and suddenly found the A21 completely bunged up. Fortunately I know the roads reasonably well and managed a crafty diversion through Matfield, and went on to Tesco where I got some Christmas supplies in. Today they had people working the tills which was probably for the best bearing in mind Tuesday's debacle.

 

I started work seven minutes before sunrise.  Work was surprisingly hard work today. I was rather glad when home time came. Home time was seven minutes before sunset. Google Maps told me that whatever the hold-up had been this morning had cleared, and I believed it… right up to the point where I met the traffic jam five miles up the road from the hold-up.

I took another crafty diversion through Matfield.

 

Once home I plonked myself on the sofa and peered at the telly. Days at work can be dull…

Meanwhile “er indoors ^TM” has gone outside to take photos of the aurora. Not that there’s any there, and if there was the clouds are in the way…

11 December 2025 (Thursday) - M3617637

With no alarm set I slept through till four o’clock when I got up for a tiddle then went back to bed until just before eight o'clock. That was a result.

I opened the Lego Advent Calendar – a small cat. What was I supposed to say about that?

 

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was still there. Squabbles persisted; this morning there was some serious bickering on the religion and politics pages which the Facebook bots told me might be of interest to me. Sometimes it strikes me that if one person was to say “I disagree for the following reasons” and list their reasons, and the other person was to read them and think about them then the world might be a far less divided place. Sadly everyone treats their opinion like they treat their favourite football team; to be followed through thick and thin regardless.

I Munzed, opening a qrate (as I do every ten days or so) and Wordled. Today I started with “think” and didn’t get a single letter. So I tried “space” and got the c and e; but not in the right places. “Bless” gave me the last three letters in the right places. The only word I could then think of (with the available letters) was “dress” but that wasn’t right. And then I realised the answer was obvious. Guess.

 

I took the dogs out. As we drove to the woods “In Our Time” was on the radio. It’s a show which spends half an hour investigating pretty much everything and anything. Previous episodes have included Roman Emperors, quantum physics, medieval churches… todays was about a poet from two hundred years ago and was amazingly interesting for something that you’d think would be amazingly dull.

 

We got to the woods and had a slightly different walk to our usual one. As we went round there was a surprising amount of other people in the woods. We saw two on horseback. Riding along next to each other, everything they had to say was shouted, and so we had plenty of notice that they were coming. We found a glove which someone had dropped. I put it on a waymarker; hopefully the owner will find it.

We got back to the car; as always my watch felt we’d walked quarter of a mile further than my phone felt we’d done. I always snigger when people on the geocaching and hiking websites bang on about how accurate their GPS is and quibble about distances walked and accuracy of GPS… there’s no two devices which agree. I once stuck my GPS on the windowsill and left it whilst I went to work. It thought it had covered four miles during the day when it had never actually moved anywhere.

 

As we drove home Professor Brian Cox was on the radio. I generally don’t like listening to “The Infinite Monkey Cage” as the show seems to really over-simplify things. Today they were talking about clouds and it was really interesting. I suspect that they’d really over-simplified things but as I don’t know much about clouds I was none the wiser.

 

We came home for a wash. The dogs were surprisingly clean; they probably wash themselves on the drive home. I wish they would wait for bath time rather than licking the mud off.

I hung out the dog bedding I’d put in to wash earlier and put more in to scrub. I ordered up a Christmas pressie for grandson (which should be delivered tomorrow).

And realising that earlier I’d found out that I knew nothing about clouds I signed up with the Open University and started a free course on the subject. Supposedly taking ten hours, I completed it this afternoon and then had a look at what other courses they’ve got. There’s nearly nine hundred.

Having done my maths degree with the OU all those years ago it’s good to be back with them again. I still remember my old student number…

 

I hung out the second load of washed dog bedding, wrote up some CPD and then played chess, finally managing to beat the level 1000 bot. I finally had an idea what I might say about today’s instalment of the Advent Calendar,

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up dinner which we scoffed whilst watching a Christmas film. “Bad Tidings” was rather good, but in retrospect was something of a low-budget remake of “Home Alone”.

After that we watched the last episode of “Celebrity Race Across the World”. I won’t say who won, but I will say that I was pleased with the result.

 

And I’m now going to spark up the Infinity table and download as many games as I can… apparently the firm that makes them is going out of business tomorrow… oh well… as long as the table keeps working for now…