4 December 2025 (Thursday) - Home Alone

I had a good night’s sleep, but again woke with a very painful right hip. Am I overdoing the walking? Let’s hope not.

I got up, did the usual morning things, and peered into the Internet as I scoffed toast as I do. I rolled my eyes as I looked at some of the work-related Facebook pages. People post up photos of blood films taken from people with various conditions, and I’m probably not far off in thinking that no matter what the condition, over ninety per cent of people looking at the pictures say “malaria” regardless. I can only hope these people aren’t in positions where their opinions are taken seriously.

And this morning’s petty argument was on a telly-related page on which people were arguing about why the fictional character Richard Bucket (pronounced Boo-quet) ever married the equally fictional Hyacinth (out of “Keeping up Appearances).

 

Despite the drizzle I took the dogs up to the woods for a walk. As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how President Putin of Russia is off visiting India today. Pretty much everyone seems worried that India is seemingly chumming up to the Russians, but after President Trump’s sticking tariffs on everyone and everything can anyone really be surprised about this.

We got to the woods where we barked at the normal people, chased a herd of deer, chewed on the squirrel carcass we found yesterday, rolled in fox poo and ate a dead mouse. All of which whilst it hossed down with rain. Some days our walk in the woods is more eventful than others.

 

We came home for a warm bath and a cuppa. I Munzed, and Wordled through “other”, “taint” and “tiddy” to get “tulip” on the fourth attempt.

And then the postman came. And my piss boiled.

If anyone ever comments that the country is hard up, or that there is a financial crisis, just laugh in their face. The country clearly is in an incredibly amazingly very good financial position. It must be; how and why else would the government be able to afford to waste money writing to me to tell me that I will react State Pension age in 2031, and that they will write to me to tell me how to claim some time in October 2030.

 

I got the ironing board out and set about the ironing. As I did my plan was to watch a DVD… We bought a new DVD player the other day which would be able to play the multi-region DVDs we’d bought off of eBay over the years… Sadly it couldn’t play any of our standard DVDs that we bought from shops.

Fortunately we still had the old DVD player, and it didn’t take that long to plumb it back in again.

Hopefully “er indoors ^TM” kept the receipt.

 

As I ironed I started watching “The Charmer”; a rather good TV series based on the books of Patrick Hamilton. And with ironing ironed I carried on watching the DVDs from under a pile of dogs. I watched the entire lot this afternoon.

 

“er indoors ^TM” came home from work and boiled up a rather good steak dinner which we scoffed whilst watching more “Game of Wool”.

 

I’ve got a stomach ache to go with the iffy hip… and here’s today’s Advent Adventure.

3 December 2025 (Wednesday) - This n That

With no alarm set we didn’t get up until after eight o’clock this morning. I had a shave, made toast and had a look at the Internet. I saw that the Geocaching Association of Great Britain had elected a new committee. This might possibly be a good thing… depending on who got elected.

A few years ago I was nominated to their committee but I chose not to get involved. When I asked what (exactly and specifically) they did, I was told it depended on who they had on their committee. If they had people who liked to travel then they would stage events all over the place. If they had people who were IT-savvy then they would do IT things. At that time they appointed a fourteen year old child (who lived a couple of hours drive away) who made the announcement that he was “in charge of geocaching in the South” and seemingly did very little else that I could see.

 

With not a lot else happening and the rain seeming to be easing off I got the dogs onto their leads and we went up to the woods. I wore a coat as rain showers had been forecast; it stayed dry for our entire walk.

We did our “winter walk” avoiding the worst of the mud. Sadly avoiding the worst of the mud also means avoiding  where we are most likely to see deer. But there it is.

As we walked we found a toilet roll that had been unwound and left in the rain about a mile and a half from the car park. And we found a squirrel that had been dead for some time. Pretty much an average walk, really. But there’s no denying that with the silly beard gone, my face certainly felt the cold.

 

We came home where paws and bellies got a wash, and I made us both a cuppa. I then phoned the local hospital. It’s been some time since I had my annual endoscope up the nose and I wanted to be sure that I will get an annual check-up. They managed to drop me off of the system after my first nasal re-bore. I phoned the out-patients department and the automated system told me that I was in position twenty-one in the queue. I wrote up some CPD for half an hour while I waited to get through. Eventually a nice lady said that I had been due for a review last September and that she would put me through to the ENT department. And then she said she couldn’t as the phones just went through to an answering machine… which had always been my experience of the ENT department.

I’m assured someone will be in touch about an appointment.

I Munzed. Being the first day of the Munzee Clan War I put out some Christmas cards. And I Wordled through “about”, “trace” and “plate” to “haste”.

 

I thought about going into the garden to pootle. Over the summer I spent an inordinate amount of time pootling in the garden. But not today. In much the same way that the morning’s forecast rain showers didn’t happen, the forecast dry afternoon didn’t happen either.

Instead I had a look at something that the nice man from Infinity Table dot com had sent me about how I could get into the workings of the Sky hub to allow it to accept game requests from Chris. It all looked rather technical and with the potential to turn the Sky hub into a rather expensive brick. We can send out game requests, and that’s good enough to be getting on with for now.

 

I sorted out the undercrackers that I’d washed and tumble-dried on Monday (I always take an age to do that job), fixed the bathroom light cord, and tuned in to chess dot com. The nice people there gave me a free lesson in how to sacrifice bits to get a victory, challenged me to my daily three free puzzles, and comprehensively handed me my arse on a plate in a dozen games in which I was totally thrashed.

 

I posted up today’s installment of the advent story, and “er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we washed down with a bottle of plonk and then the dogs amazed me. Usually right after dinner they go sit on the sofa with “er indoors ^TM”. This evening they all sat around me looking hopeful. Usually when we have a bottle of plonk I crack open some cheese biscuits to share with them. They’d clearly seen the bottle of plonk and knew what that usually meant.

So I opened some cheesy biccies.

 

And then we had a go on the Infinity table… The thing accepts incoming friend requests, so why doesn’t it accept incoming game requests? 

2 December 2025 (Tuesday) - Late Shift

I had something of a lie-in this morning, finally getting up at about half past eight. I opened the second window of my Lego Advent Calendar. A bulldozer. What was I supposed to do with that? The early ones in the Advent Calendar set the course of the story, so the pressure is always on at the start of the month.

I had a shave. Oh, how I’ve missed that. I made toast and had a look at the internet as I do most mornings. It was still there.

This morning’s squabble was over a conspiracy theory about how what is considered to be a “normal” blood pressure reading has got lower over time; presumably in order to sell more anti-hypertensive drugs. The fact of the matter is that over time more and more blood pressure readings have been taken on more and more reliable devices which have given more reliable normal ranges, But as is usually the way, the most stupid and uneducated a person, the more vehemently they were advocating utter bollox. As Neil Innes once said, how sweet to be an idiot.

 

Ideally we would have gone for a walk in the woods this morning. Usually when time is pressing we go to Orlestone, but as I found yesterday the place is a swamp. So with no time to go to Kings Wood we just walked round the local streets. I don’t really like any walk when Morgan is on the lead – he becomes an idiot. He always tries to pick fights with dogs with which he would play or ignore when off the lead.

It only took quarter of an hour to walk round the block.

 

We came home for the monthly flea treatments. I can’t pretend the dogs like their flea treatments, but they don’t run and hide like Treacle used to. And then I had a minor fight with Bailey. Last week the Doggy Dentist found her gums were rather sore. Yesterday the special dental ointment arrived, and applying the stuff was something of a game. Fortunately she is small enough that I can manage on my own. She wasn’t at all keen… until she tasted it. Maybe the next time might be easier?

 

I Munzed, and Wordled through maybe, tails, ratio and faith before getting cacti on the fifth attempt. I posted up today’s Advent adventure and wrote up some CPD.

As I pootled on-line so there was a knock on the door. The Royal Mail postie had our Amazon delivery. Quite a bit of stuff from Amazon comes via Royal Mail. I suspect that the Amazon deliveries go a long way to keeping Royal Mail in business.

I struggled with a puzzle on chess dot com, then got ready for work.

 

It was rather bright and sunny as I drove off to work.  With nothing of note on the radio I sang along to my MP3s. 

I considered a little geo-adventure, but thought better of it. Instead I went to the Sainsbury's petrol station at Aylesford where I topped up, and got a tad miffed. Last week when I went to Sainsbury's I got given a voucher for double nectar points when I next got petrol with them. So I got the voucher out... and it wasn't valid. Pretty much every time I shop at Sainsburys I get these vouchers which are either worth money off of stuff I never buy, or they don't actually work.

 

I then drove on to work... very conscious that the car behind was incredibly close. As I drove I realised that the chap driving the car was shouting. Every time I slowed or stopped (and there are a lot of reasons to slow and stop along Hermitage Lane) so the chap got more and more worked up, waving his fists and making obscene gestures.

He followed me as I drove into the hospital, and followed me to the staff car park where he couldn't get through the barrier. Which was probably for the best. I was in the mood for a good argument. And looking at the state of the chap I think I could probably have laid him out with a swift one up the bracket (which I would have claimed was self-defence).

 

I went in to work and did my bit; for all that we had a busy day today, it was a rather good one. But it is always good to see the relief arrive.

I drove home tuned to Radio 4 Extra on which Russell Tovey was playing the Admirable Crichton. It was probably as well that the DAB signal failed completely after ten minutes; it wasn’t very good…

1 December 2025 (Monday) - The Advent Calendar Starts (Again)

I’m a very superstitious person (for all that superstitions are total bollox). Many years ago my mother told me that the first thing I should say on the first day of every month was “White Rabbits, White Rabbits, White Rabbits”. And so I have done for years. Consequently I was rather miffed that my first words this morning were “fuksake” as I knocked the bedside clock flying.

 

I opened the first window of my Lego Advent Calendar… and for the sixteenth year wished I’d opened it months ago, then went to the bathroom where I rather enjoyed having a shave. I signed up for the Movember thing a month ago after we came home from a geo-meet on the evening of the last day of October. After a few beers it seemed like a good idea. In the cold light of the next day it didn’t, but by the morning of the first day of November I’d already had fifty quid of donations so I rather felt I had to go ahead with it.

In the end the mutton chops didn’t look quite as bad as they might have been. I think that being grey they looked far better than they had the last time I did it in 2012. I’m told they made me look very distinguished but they’ve gone now, and I’m also told I now look fifteen years younger..

They might come back at some stage… who knows.

 

I made toast and had a look at the internet. There was a minor episode on one of the Facebook groups I moderate, The group is about an obscure series of books from many years ago. Just recently some chap has been posting AI generated pictures of the various characters. Personally I didn’t think that he’d got any of them remotely right, but he was contributing to the group which is more than most people do. Someone else took exception to all the AI pictures last night and had posted a rather nasty comment which (as a moderator) I deleted. The chap who’d posted the AI pictures apologized when he had nothing to apologize for, and the chap who’d made the nasty comment couldn’t understand how he could disagree without being disagreeable, left the group in a sulk and everyone else was happy… which was probably for the best.

And I had a suggestion for a possible Facebook friend. Facebook periodically prompts me to send friend requests to people I might know. Generally I don’t know the people in question but this morning it came up with a rather interesting choice. I have no idea who the chap it suggested is; I’ve never met him. But I and this fellow have four mutual Facebook friends. Two geocachers, someone I met through astronomy, and someone with whom I took scouts to Canada all those years ago. Sometimes it is quite amazing just who knows who.

 

It was drizzling this morning, but I took the dogs out anyway. With time being short this morning we went to Orlestone woods for which really should be the last time this winter. The trouble with Orlestone woods is that there are two really muddy parts which really can’t be avoided. So no matter what route you take, you get filthy.

But we had a good half-hour walk.

As we drove home the pundits on the radio were talking about the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. Some people take the subject seriously; some don’t. And some people delight in showing their ignorance. The presenter really did ask one of the experts being interviewed just how important it was to look into space when searching for extra-terrestrial intelligence. Where did he think aliens hang put? Tesco?

 

We came home; the dogs had paws and bellies washed. After a quick cuppa I took Pogo to collect “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” from her appointment and took them both home on a circuitous route via Canterbury. On the way home I stopped off for a little geocache near Hythe, but sadly the hint was “small tree” and I got to where my sat-nav said I should be only to find the wreckage of a small tree which had been cut down. Ho hum…

Instead we had a little geo-mission near home over lunchtime which was successful and earned us an origami rabbit.

 

I made us another cuppa, did some CPD, then realized that I had neither Munzed nor Wordled. I put that right then had a go at the bots on chess dot com… and failed miserably.

 

“My Boy ^TM” and ”Auntie Chel ^TM” came round with a white chocolate advent calendar for me, and once we’d had dinner, “er indoors ^TM” went bowling. I settled on the sofa and watched the last episode of “Brideshead Revisited”. Six days to watch the lot… I wonder what I shall watch next?

30 Movember 2025 (Sunday) - End of the Mo(nth)

I had a bit of a lie-in and had my morning’s perusal of the Internet at half past nine. Over four and half hours previously my brother had got up to set off to Nottingham to watch the football. He must love it. A group of local (ish) geocachers were posting to Facebook from Gatwick airport – they were off to Dublin.

And there was on-line mention of the Museum of the Moving Image in London. I went there many years ago and had a really good day out… apparently it closed over twenty-five years ago.

I Munzed, It wasn’t money, it wasn’t mardy. Mucky was a bit closer. It was muggy.

 

We got the dogs on to their leads and took them out. Sadly I forgot that from now until Christmas I really need to avoid the roads by the MacArthur Glen outlet centre. It didn’t take *that* long to get out of the traffic jam, but it did take a while to take a circuitous route to get out of Ashford. We drove to Ham Street where we found a puzzle geocache that I’d solved a few weeks ago, and we got a virtual Chihuahua for our troubles.

We drove on to Rye where we had a little circular walk gathering more virtual dog figurines. We got a Yorkshire Terrier, a Papillon and a Pomeranian and completed the set. From there we drove up to Tenterden where there was a little al-fresco geo-meet going on. It was good to catch up with friends old and new. And it was rather sad to say goodbye to our new friend Billy who had organized the meet. He’s now off to Cornwall for three weeks, then he’s spending the winter in Portugal before going back home to Canada. Safe travels Billy…

 

We took advent calendars round to the first fruit of my loins, then came home for a cuppa. Having found all the virtual dog figurines and virtual film festival tickets, the next virtual geo-things to find are origami animals (there’s never a dull moment in geocaching!). However there are fourteen of these things to find, and they are rather few and far between. I spent a few minutes planning some little adventures to go find those ones.

 

“Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” and Pogo came for a little sleepover. We had a rather good Shepherd’s pie for dinner and followed it up with Tesco hot chocolate fudge cake. Have you ever had a Tesco hot chocolate fudge cake? It was possibly the worst dessert I have ever had…

Such a shame.

 

And it is the end of the month. The frankly dreadful mutton chop have raised three hundred and fifty-two quid. Having raised over three hundred quid I apparently get a free pair of socks from them. Personally I’d rather they spent the money on the charity, but they’ve clearly already bought the socks.

I think the fundraiser remains open for a few more days, but for one last time…

https://uk.movember.com/mospace/15453545

https://www.facebook.com/donate/1355423342735210/1355423366068541/

29 Movember 2025 (Saturday) - Lazy Day

I heard “er indoors ^TM” get up in the night. Presumably she didn’t discover any little accidents? I then slept through till seven o’clock when I got up, made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was still there, and remarkably quiet for once. No one seemed to be bickering over triviality, but my piss did boil over one of the twee memes being posted. As I have said before I have often been told that when life hands me lemons I should make lemonade. However I have rarely (if ever) been told that by anyone who has ever even seen a lemon, let alone been handed one.

 

I perused the geo-map, Munzed, and started Wordle with “lemon” which gave me no letters whatsoever. “Strap” gave me the R, but in the wrong place. “Brick” gave me the correct place for the R (but nothing else), and with precious few letters left I got it with “Gruff” on the fourth attempt.

As I Munzed and Wordled so Steve was on the radio. He said that the weather would chirp up by the evening, and then did the “Guess the Lyrics” competition. “And I was there and not dancing with anyone” No? – “Chain Reaction” by Diana Ross.

 

The earlier heavy rain had eased up somewhat by the time we set off to Dog Club, and stopped by the time we got there. Sadly it had been bad enough to put people off of going, and we had perhaps the lowest turn-out of the year. But nevertheless nine dogs had a great (if rather muddy) time.

As we drove home Steve was doing the “Mystery Year” competition on the radio, The release of the twenty pence piece and the Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands? 1982. I can remember getting my first ever twenty pence piece; it was in a little shop in Brighton. I’d no idea that a twenty pence piece was a thing, and only accepted it for the novelty value. I took it back to college, showed the rest of my class and was suddenly quite the centre of attention.

And I remember the Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands. I can remember that a lot of people had no idea where the Falkland Islands were (and still are), and a surprising number of people I knew thought they were somewhere off the coast of Scotland with the Orkneys and the Shetlands.

 

There was a serious dog bath session when we got home; the dogs were filthy. As were we. A load of clothes went into the washing machine, and with “er indoors ^TM” off to the cinema with Cheryl I settled in to doing the ironing. And with ironing ironed I cuddled with Bailey on the sofa watching more episodes of “Brideshead Revisited” until “er indoors ^TM” returned. There wasn’t much else I might have done – the rain had returned with a vengeance.

She didn’t return for long; she went out on a shopping trip, and I carried on slobbing on the sofa watching more “Brideshead Revisited”.

Have you ever watched it? I’ve seen it so many times I know what everyone is going to say, but it is such a good story I will probably carry on watching it time and time again. The original book is a firm favourite of mine too.

 

“er indoors ^TM” returned and spent a little while taking photos of the sunset. It was a very pretty one; just a shame it happened so early in the afternoon. Mind you it’s less than a month till the shortest day so this can’t really be a surprise.

 

I played the bots at chess dot com a few times, and seriously struggled. The level one thousand bot is rather good. “er indoors ^TM” left me home alone again going off to see her mum. I thought better of going; for all that I’d had something of a lazy day I felt like continuing. Either I’d been sitting awkwardly on the sofa earlier or I’ve been overdoing the walking. But whichever it was, my hips had been giving me gip I didn’t fancy exerting them any more than I needed to. Hips can be dodgy.

Instead I cuddled with Bailey on the sofa and watched more “Brideshead Revisited”…

28 Movember 2025 (Friday) - Hit The Target

We had a rather late night last night and so I didn’t wake for the loo trip until half past four. Although it was still dark I know the way from the bed to the toilet so I didn’t need the light. However had I turned the light on I wouldn’t have trodden barefoot in the pile of dog diarrhea on the lino in the lobby by the bathroom. Oh well… it didn’t take that long to clear up, and it was on the lino rather than a carpet.

I went back to bed and slept though till after eight o’clock. I got up and because it was light I could see the puddle of dog tiddle on the kitchen lino.

Oh well… they rarely have little accidents, and when they do you can see they’ve tried to get out.

 

I scoffed toast whilst the dogs scoffed their brekkie then we went to the woods for a walk. As we drove so Sir Salman Rushdie was on the radio on Desert Island Discs. Some of his music choices were rather good, some were awful.

We got to the woods. Being a bit later than usual there were loads of normal people there… but as always once we were a few hundred yards from the car park we didn’t see anyone. We walked our usual four and a half mile walk, and probably won’t be doing that for a little while – it was seriously muddy in places.

We got back to the car park to find something of a commotion going on. Cars were trying to get in and out of the car park, no one was moving and there were heated voices. A couple of other people hurried over to get involved, but it was neither my circus nor my monkeys, and whatever it was all about was sorted by the time I’d got the dogs into the car’s boot.

 

As we drove home there was a fascinating article on the radio. Some chap had been running a scam in which he was importing tea from Africa to Scotland and selling it claiming that it had actually been grown on his plantations in Scotland. One so-called expert said a kilo of top tea from Africa could be sold for a hundred times its cost if passed off as Scottish. Mind you I would take what these so-called experts have to say with a pinch of salt as is was them who were agreeing that the scam tea tasted different to other teas which were actually exactly the same, and who were giving it awards.

 

We got home where I made us a cuppa, then rather than settling down there was a little errand to be run. In Folkestone. But the errand didn’t take long, and it wasn’t *that* much of a diversion into Lyminge on the way home. There’s a geocache there (there’s geocaches everywhere if you look hard enough) which you find by answering some questions about the village sign. We’d originally answered those questions eight years ago but the actual cache was missing then. We tried again last year as well, but failed…

Today was third time lucky…  and we got a virtual Shih Tzu as well.

 

Once home we saw there was a temporary Munzee garden nearby, so that was good for a blast and ten thousand Munzee points. I got Wordle (colic) on the fourth attempt. And I looked at the post…

I’ve had a letter from the tax people. Apparently I owe them the thick end of sixteen hundred quid. Ho hum… if I’m not finding dog shit on the lino, I’m faced with a tax man with his hand out… Such is life.

 

We had a very good bit of dinner whilst watching “Celebrity Race Across The World” in which Team Useless stormed into the lead, and the idiots seem to be falling further and further behind. We then sparked up the Infinity table and spent a little while struggling with the challenging remote players function. We can challenge people over the Internet, but people don’t seem able to challenge us…

 

Meanwhile the mutton chops have got two days to go. Many thanks to everyone who’s donated. I’ve reached my extended goal of two hundred and fifty quid, and here’s the links (again)…

https://uk.movember.com/mospace/15453545

https://www.facebook.com/donate/1355423342735210/1355423366068541/

27 Movember 2025 (Thursday) - Walk, Funeral, Pizza

I woke in the small hours like I so often do, but I got up, had that tiddle, and went back to sleep for another three hours. I really should do that more often rather than laying there, shifting about and trying to pretend I don’t need the loo.

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was much the same as ever. People were complaining about yesterday’s budget, but what could the Chancellor of the Exchequer do? If she don’t get enough money to run the country, people won’t vote for her, and she can only get the money from people who potentially might vote for her. If there was an easy fix to financing the country it would have been done years ago, wouldn’t it? Half (ninety per cent) of the trouble she faces is that most people don’t understand how politics and government work. Rather than educating themselves and looking into the various issues, people tend to pick a political party and stick with it through thick and thin in much the same way that they would pick a football team. There’s an old maxim which says that you can fool all of the people all of the time as long as you talk loudly and confidently… which explains the popularity of the likes of Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage.

And I had a flurry of emails. A new series of geocaches overlooking the Channel Tunnel terminal. That will make for a walk at some point.

 

“er indoors ^TM” did dog breakfast whilst I got dressed, and I took the dogs up to the woods. As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about some AI invention that takes various pop songs and gives them a new twist. There was a hard rock version of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” and reggae versions of this and that. The inventors of this AI thing have got the hump because the people whose songs their AI thingy is tweaking want royalties.

Surely this can’t be a surprise?

 

We got to the woods and within a hundred yards I skidded in the mud and ricked my back. The woods were rather muddy today. We walked a shorter walk today; only three and a half miles, and we’ll probably be doing this walk for a few months now much of our usual walk is now a swamp.

We didn’t see any deer today; just as we approached the area where we are most likely to see them so I heard a couple of women we see from time to time… I usually hear them about five minutes before I see them. Despite walking about two yards apart, everything they have to say is bellowed. In the past they’ve mentioned to me that they’ve never seen deer in the woods. I wonder why.

 

We came home for a bath, and I harvested an epic crop of dog dung from the garden. I’d not been out there with a bucket since Monday… I really shouldn’t leave it so long. Amazingly I’ve met several people who say they’ve never been round their gardens harvesting. Either their dogs crap elsewhere, or it don’t bear thinking about.

I then chopped a bit of chip-board into shape to act as a dog gate, and then made us both a cuppa. I Munzed, unlocking a diamond qrate (as one does) and then bearing in mind what I’d just been sawing I stuck “board” into Wordle. From there I worked through “risky” and “runic” to get “remit” on the fourth attempt. I wrote up some CPD, and got my arse comprehensively handed to me on a plate by the bots at chess dot com.

 

Leaving the dogs settled in the kitchen (as a bit of an experiment) we drove down to Hastings.

Many years ago I joined the Boys Brigade. One of my mates from way back when lived next door to “er indoors ^TM”’s family. He and I were half of a group of four who went on to get the Boys Brigade’s top award. Over the years we’ve gone our separate ways, but still managed to keep in touch; managing it more over the last few years. His son died a month ago, and today was the funeral.

It passed off as well as any funeral might. There was a rather good turn-out, but it was a shame that others we knew from all those years ago didn’t show, including some who’ve since taken holy orders.

 

We came home to find the dogs seemed OK. Bailey had escaped the kitchen, and Morgan was incredibly over-excited to see us. We had a quick tidy-up then “er indoors ^TM” went off to meet Karl, Tracey Jess and Charlotte at the bowling alley. My back was still a tad twingy. But it wasn’t long before everyone was back home and we had a few pizzas and a few beers and a few goes on the Infinity table.

 

Today had been rather busy…

26 Movember 2025 (Wednesday) - Early Shift

There was a minor hiccup when I got up this morning… I spent a few minutes clearing up a pile of cold dog sick. Treacle did seem to be rather out of sorts yesterday evening.

I made toast and posted up yesterday’s diary entry; we were rather late to bed last night what with trying (and failing) to accept game requests on the Infinity table. I posted on one of the Infinity table Facebook groups to see if anyone had experienced this. Hopefully I’ll get an answer… though cynically I expect that I’ll have the same experience I’ve had with pond, fish tank and geocaching pages in that for every one sensible person in the group there will be half a dozen keyboard warriors.

There wasn’t much else happening at six o’clock this morning. I sent out birthday wishes to a colleague, then got ready for work.

 

Just as I was about to set off so Treacle came downstairs asking to go out. I went with her as she looked a little iffy. She did what dogs do in the garden, and went back to bed.

I went off to find my car. As I scraped the ice from my car so the unmistakable smell of wacky baccie came floating through the morning air. there wasn't anyone about; someone was clearly having a puff in their own house. I don't want to appear judgmental, if people want to smoke that stuff, that's up to them. After all I like a pint or two.  But my pint or two doesn't stink quite like the funny fags do.

 

I got the ice scraped from my car and drove off to work. The motorway was rather busy this morning. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the massive drop in Puffin numbers on Farne Island.

I'd hitherto never heard of Farne Island; let alone its puffins.

And there was loads of speculation about what the Chancellor of the Exchequer was going to announce in the afternoon's budget. The poor woman was on a hiding to nothing really. If she didn't sting people to raise money for the country's ailing economy she'd lose votes for poggering the country's economy. If she did sting people to raise money for the country's ailing economy she'd lose votes from people who didn't want to be stung for their money.

 

I went to Sainsbury's to get a sandwich. As I drove into the car park there were loads of cars in the car park which were thick with ice; obviously having been there all night. Do Sainsbury's have staff there all night? There's not many (i.e. none) houses within sensible walking distance.

I was in and out in minutes; I fed the self-service machine with all my change and it gave me a voucher for double nectar points on petrol. So I went to the petrol station to make the most of it.

 

As I worked “er indoors ^TM” messaged - Treacle had been sick again. Twice. I did my bit and then made my way home as best I could. Originally the plan for today had been to come home, collect Treacle and Bailey and take them to Doggy Dentist but I thought time might have been tight so I rescheduled their appointment for last Monday.

I was right to have done so – it was gone five o’clock before I got home. I wouldn’t have got the girls across town in twenty minutes with tonight’s traffic.

 

I got home to find that Treacle had perked up a bit. As I sat on the sofa so she climbed behind me and dabbed my head. She seriously tucked into her dinner, and scoffed it all.

“er indoors ^TM” went out to see her dad who was staying locally with friends. As the washing machine did its thing with my shirts I wrote up some CPD, then ironed the shirts. Shirts are best ironed whilst still wet.

As I ironed I watched the first episode of the TV adaptation of “Brideshead Revisited”; a favourite of mine. How can it be forty-four years old?

25 Movember 2025 (Tuesday) - Car Service and Stuff

I felt rather rough this morning when I got up, having again done that thing where I woke up full of energy and raring to go only to find it was twenty past one.

After laying awake for a while I got up, made toast and thought better about putting the telly on. I have no idea what was going on with “The Witcher” and couldn’t be arsed to start watching anything else, so I had a look at the Internet – it’s a standard fall-back position. I sent out birthday wishes to the one friend having a birthday today, and had my usual look at Facebook. There was a rather entertaining photo on one of the pages I follow. Seemingly taking the piss out of a religious band, it turned out the thing was made-up satire. So much on the internet is just made-up, isn’t it?

And our local councilor posted that there’s going to be a closure of a local footpath so that necessary work can be done. It’s a shame that the closure will come into effect a few days before Christmas, and then will probably stay closed but with nothing going on between Christmas and the New Year. This is the sort of silliness that the chap got voted in to stop, isn’t it?

And there was whinging on one of the Hastings-related Facebook pages I follow. An arcade of shops had closed because no one shopped in them. Many people were blaming the council. Don’t people realise that it isn’t the local council that opens and closes shops; the shops are profit-making businesses, and all the time it is quicker and cheaper to have an Amazon van deliver things to your door the shops will carry on closing.

I Munzed and opened a gold qrate getting a mini-vendor cubimal. There’s never a dull moment in Munzee, is there? I got Wordle on the fourth attempt, and got ready for the off whilst the dogs ate their brekkie… eventually.

Bailey will only eat hers if she has a spoon of Treacle’s senior dog food mixed in.

 

I loaded the dogs into the car and we drove over to the garage where we left the car for a service.

We had a little episode as we walked home. Some idiot on a pedal bike got rather impatient because the pavement wasn’t wide enough for him to get past us and he expected us to step out if the way into the road for him. He got rather angry when I suggested that he should go on the road as cycling on the pavement was illegal. I probably didn’t help matters much when I corrected him. He said that cycling on the path wasn’t “f…ing illegal”; I agreed that it wasn’t “f…ing illegal”, it was just “illegal” (a subtle difference). Which it is.

I also noticed loads of dog turds on the pavements as we walked home. When I was a lad, dog turds everywhere was de rigeur. People started picking up the turds in the nineties, but just lately it would seem that us who gather the dung are in a minority.

 

I got home and made us both a cuppa. And then I had an email form the garage saying that my car was due for a service. And then I had another email from the garage with a video of the underside of my car. I played it a few times but sadly couldn’t understand a word that the chap on the video was saying.

I saw someone outside looking uncertain. Someone fiddling on their phone was looking at our garden… I went out – it was a fellow hunter of Tupperware looking for the huge geocache in our front garden. We had a little chat… that huge box in the front garden is broken and needs replacing. It’s needed replacing for some time, but the chap I spoke with this morning has given me a little idea of something that might work…

 

I got the message that the car was ready, so I walked the dogs back over to get it. The service went well; there were a couple of advisories, but the nice man said that nothing needed doing immediately. Which was probably just as well.

 

We came home where I plumbed in the new DVD player. Not that we watch that many DVDs, but quite of few of ours are American ones and the old DVD player can’t play them. The new one seemed to manage on the one I tested it with. It’s a shame that the battery compartment on the remote control doesn’t close, but you can’t have everything.

I did a little CPD, and then seeing a rather bright day outside I thought I might take the dogs for a decent walk.

 

Coming back from the garage and then going back to get the car had been a dull walk, but by mid-day the woods would have been heaving with normal people. I looked at the geo-map and wondered if a little walk along a track in Godmersham might give the pups a little run. We drove out there only to find what I’d hoped was a track was actually a tarmac-ed lane. But it wasn’t busy and we had a good walk, and found a couple of geocaches, and got a couple of virtual dog figurines whilst we were at it.

We came home via Chartham where we totally failed to find a geocache in a derelict barn, but did find one stuck to a gate.

 

Once home I made us a cuppa with a Seal bar for lunch, then I played the bots at chess dot com. You can set just how good the bots are on that website. I’ve slowly worked up to being able to occasionally beat a level seven hundred bot. I thought it might be time to ramp it up a tad more so I took on a level one thousand bot which comprehensively caned my arse. Several times.

 

After a rather good bit of dinner we sparked up the Infinity table and had a little experiment with it. One of the joys of the thing is that you can challenge people on other tables to play games remotely. We can challenge others, but we don’t seem to be able to accept requests from others to join in.

I expect we’ll sort it out…

24 Movember 2025 (Monday) - Walk, Dentist

We’ve taken to putting Gold Radio on the Alexa in the mornings (except for Saturdays) and this morning there were quite a few Christmas songs being played. There are those who go mad for Christmas; as I drove home last night there were several houses locally with their Christmas lights up (including nice next door). It was all rather festive, but as I’ve said before, for me the trouble with starting Christmas too early is that I’ve had enough of it by mid-December. After all, there’s still a week to go before the Advent Calendar opens.

Perhaps this year I might try something different, I might join in, do all the Christmas stuff in early December, and ignore the thing when it actually happens. It’s a thought…

 

I made toast and peered into the Internet to see what else I might moan about (I’m doing that too much). Several people were posting memes about it being Monday; roll on Friday… I quite like my current work pattern. What with no two weeks being the same I don’t get any Monday morning feelings.

I Munzed and then got stuck after my first attempt at Wordle so I got dressed and despite the weather forecast took the dogs out.

 

As we drove to the woods so the pundits on the radio were talking about palm reading. It was claimed that for all that it is a load of old tosh, loads of influential people have believed in it over the years including Sir Isaac Newton.

We got to the woods where the mud had melted. We had a good walk; if a tad muddy. As we walked so a deer crossed the path not ten yards away from me. It calmly looked at me, watched me got my phone out to try to take a photo, and just walked off as I tried to take the piccie.

We came back to the car park to see a pair of normal people shouting at their dog for no reason that I could fathom. Some people spend their entire walk shouting at their dogs; we walked four and a half miles and I didn’t have to tell mine off at all.

 

We came home for a bath… bellies were very grubby. I made us both a cuppa and had a look at the monthly accounts. They could be worse, but they could certainly do with being a whole lot better.

With the dogs settled we needed a little shopping. There was a particular nearby geocache on the way, finding which would give you the first of the next set of geocaching Treasures. I found it (or its temporary replacement) and got a virtual pug for my troubles.

The Tesco clubcard got me a reduction on some bottles of stout, and then it was home for a spot of lunch.

I then had a little look at the geo-map to plan getting more geo-Treasures. The current series is virtual dog figurines which look to be good fun. There’s a few near Winchelsea which might make for a little walk this weekend if the weather is up for it.

 

And then leaving Morgan with “er indoors ^TM”, I loaded Treacle and Bailey into the car and we went to Doggy Dentist. Morgan’s gob seems OK, but the girls’ teeth aren’t what they might be, so every three months they go to the dentist for a scale and polish… much like humans do. Both were as good as gold during their treatments, but both had the thumbs-down in different ways. Bailey has a sore gum and needs cream applying, and Treacle is chomping her daily chicken’s foot on only one side of her mouth and its teeth scraping goodness is only working on that side of her mouth.

We shall work on those two issues, and hopefully there will be some improvement before their next appointment in late February.

 

“er indoors ^TM” went off bowling and I watched an episode of “The Witcher”. I’m now into season three, and I have to admit I’m watching it with something of a sense of “WTF is going on”. There’s some meaty hunk who’s a dab hand with a sword (both metal and pork) and a rather foxy sorceress-woman both of whom are protecting some princess or other. But why they are protecting her, and why the baddies want to capture her is anyone’s guess. Perhaps a little more plot and a little less swordfighting (both metal and pork) wouldn’t go amiss?

 

Meanwhile the mutton chops are now into their last week,  and here’s the links (again)…

https://uk.movember.com/mospace/15453545

https://www.facebook.com/donate/1355423342735210/1355423366068541/

 

23 Movember 2025 (Sunday) - Late Shift

I slept through till nine o’clock this morning. We were up rather late last night what with the novelty of the new Infinity table. I found myself thinking back to one night in the mid-eighties when we got a state of the art games console (Atari 2600) and sat up until six o’clock in the morning playing “Centipede”

As I scoffed toast I saw my aunt had commented on something I’d posted on Facebook yesterday evening. I’ taken a photo of the Infinity table’s version of “Frustration” and mentioned that I used to beat her all the time at that game fifty years ago. And all my cousins had pressed the “like” button and commented. Looking back it would seem that my poor aunt had been playing “Frustration” every single day for years with a succession of nephews and nieces.

 

I Munzed, got Wordle (bunny) on the third attempt which was rather impressive, and then looked out of the window. I’ve complained about the weather forecasts recently… it would seem that they are relatively good at forecasting when it comes to predicting rain. I had hoped to go out for a little walk before the late shift but it was hossing down.

I went into the garden quickly to harvest the dog dung. That’s a job which is best done before the turds get too wet. Have you ever tried harvesting saturated dog turds? Take it from me – you’d rather not.

I wrote up some CPD, did a YouGov survey, did some puzzles on chess dot com, and as the rain stopped and the sun came out so I set off to the late shift.

 

With nothing but tripe on the radio I sang along to the music on my MP3 player as I drove to work. Last week I treated myself to Queen's Greatest Hits Volumes I, II and III so I had something different to howl along to. I stopped off at Sainsburys to get some cash. I was planning to get some tennis balls for Dog Club as well, but the place was heaving, so I didn't.

I got to work, had a spot of lunch, then cracked on. As I started I saw there was a little parcel waiting for me. A few days ago  a colleague was a little bit late for her shift and I'd covered for her. She felt guilty about getting caught in a traffic jam and had got me a little pressie. That will go down nicely. 

 

I got on with work. As I've said before, back in the day weekends really were emergency work only. Now weekends are pretty much like any other day with clinics and all sorts going ahead. As well they should.

As I worked I had a phone call from “er indoors ^TM” to say that Bailey had escaped and had been returned by a passer-by.

And then I had a phone call from nice-next-door. “er indoors ^TM” was using her phone to tell me she'd locked herself out. I'm not quite sure how she managed to do that, but I was detailed to phone “My Boy ^TM” and have him go round with some keys. I did that whilst having all sorts of nightmare visions of what was going on at home. Eventually I got a message that they had they sent for a locksmith... who charged close on two hundred quid for five minutes work.

Also whilst I was out Chris popped round with something that plugs into the router so that the Infinity table can see the Internet.

 

Today’s been rather stressful…

 

Meanwhile the mutton chops are now into their last week,  and here’s the links (again)…

https://uk.movember.com/mospace/15453545

https://www.facebook.com/donate/1355423342735210/1355423366068541/

22 Movember 2025 (Saturday) - Dog Club, Infinity Table

It wasn’t as cold as it has been recently when I got up this morning. It never used to be cold before we had the loft conversion done. For all that the extra space is useful, the loft conversion was something of a disaster. The chap who did it walked away half-way through the job, and it turned out that he walked away from many other jobs too. From what I can work out he only ever finished one, and that was the loft of the friend who recommended him. I looked him up on the Internet this morning… he’s still in business. Can you believe it? He’s spent years talking people’s money, having himself declared bankrupt, then starting up again and it’s all perfectly legal. I suppose I could go poke a dog turd through his letter box…

There wasn’t an awful lot else happening on the Internet this morning really. There was some whinging about the poor quality of careers advice at schools. This is hardly news though, is it? I can remember the careers advice at the Hastings Academy for Budding Geniuses from back in the day. The official position was that if you didn’t intend going to university then you had no business being in that school. The failures who didn’t go to university (and they were clearly seen as failures) were pointed to jobs in banking or as army officers.

 

As I fiddled about, Steve was on the radio. The “Guess the Lyrics” competition “I got a funny feeling when she walked in the room”. No? – “Oh What A Night” by the Four Seasons.

Steve’s weather forecast was interesting. He read out that the morning would be good, then commented about how grim it looked out the window. He did say it would be dry this morning, and if I can’t trust him, who can I trust?

 

With “er indoors ^TM” off to craft club I took the dogs round to Repton and Dog Club. It was cold, but Stave had said it would be dry, and he was right. We started off with a minor issue – there was three quarters of a dead hawk on the field… if we’d left it there the dogs would have had it, so with no better suggestions being forthcoming I suggested we chucked it on the toolshed roof. It’s probably still there.

The dogs had a great time; despite the cold there were about fifteen dogs along. There was a minor issue when little Bailey got trampled by the bigger dogs; she found herself in their way as they played chase. She did scream rather loudly, and the screaming continued long after the bigger dogs had charged off. I was rather worried that she’d been hurt, but she soon calmed. There didn’t seem to be any obvious harm done; I think she was frightened rather than hurt.

As we drove home I got the Mystery Year competition on the radio right… When did Princess Anne get divorced and Frankie Howerd die? 1992.

 

Once home I put my trousers into wash. Trousers get very filthy at Dog Club. I counted up the Dog Club takings, and had a look at the geo-map before making myself a cuppa and watching a couple of episodes of “The Witcher” until my delivery arrived.

It wasn’t cheap, but I’d been putting a bit aside over the last month or so and waiting for the Black Friday deals. On Thursday seeing the price was reduced by over a hundred quid, I ordered us a small Infinity table. I sparked it up, and it immediately wanted to update its software. It wouldn’t (couldn’t) do anything until it had got that done, so I spent a couple of hours trying to connect it to the Internet until “er indoors ^TM” came home. She spent an hour trying as well. Bearing in mind Chris had managed it with his I begged help.

Chris was a star – he popped round and after a couple of hours fiddling about he established that our Sky router appears on the networks as the Sky router, but is actually transmitting internet things at two different frequencies. We got round this by connecting it via a mobile hot-spot from my phone. The thing still can only connect to the Internet via my phone, but we’ve got a fix for now. We can sort it properly later – we can’t be the only people with an Infinity table who use Sky.

 

We had a quick bit of dinner, then spent the evening playing with the new Infinity table. We’ve downloaded quite a few games. Old favourites like “Game of Life”, “Sorry” and “Trivial Pursuit”, and we’ve tried some new ones. “Trouble” is basically the old 70s favourite “Frustration” and “Tilez” is “Blokus”.

As we played we had a bag of pretzels that went out of date a month ago… or that is we opened the bag. Treacle had far too many of them, and is now farting.

21 Movember 2025 (Friday) - The Last Snow Globe

Last night I did that thing that I do oh-so-often. I woke full of energy and raring to go only to find it was ten past two.

I dozed on and off and eventually nodded off just as the bin men came crashing up the road. I gave up and got up at seven o’clock, made toast and rolled my eyes at the Internet. Apparently calling someone bald can be construed as sexual harassment, and all those looking to argue on-line were arguing about it. Not many of those getting hot under the collar realized that this wasn’t news; the court ruling on this happened three years ago.

And there was a lot of talk about the by-election in Hastings. There were a lot of people banging the Reform UK drum… not because of anything that might have been good about Reform UK but because of how bad the opposition was. “Vote for us – we’re not as bad as they are” is only a valid political stance all the time “us” isn’t as bad as “them”. Bearing in mind the platform on which Reform UK stood at the last county council elections, it is rather ironic that they’ve awarded the contract to maintain all of Kent's roads for the next twenty-one years to a French owned company.

 

I Munzed, got Wordle (vowel) on the fourth attempt, and looked out of the window.

I had planned to take the dogs out… but for all that the weather forecast said it would be sunny with a seven per cent chance of rain, it was snowing. So I put the radio on where the pundits on said radio were talking about the COVID enquiry which has released its findings…  It’s no surprise that it was critical of the government of the time. To be fair to Boris Johnson (and that takes some doing) whatever he did would have been wrong. Had he brought in lockdowns earlier then the enquiry would have whinged about how much money that might have cost the country.

 

And then Sir Tim Berners Lee (inventor of the Internet) was wheeled on to be the castaway on Desert Island Discs. He was rather interesting, but his choices of music were… let’s just say they wouldn’t have been my choices.

By the time he’d finished the heavy snow was but a memory, and the rain which followed it had stopped. It was rather bright outside. By then it was time to collect “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” and drive her about. I loaded the dogs into the car and took them with me. We got to where we needed to be a few minutes early and I thought I might walk them for a little while… Suddenly they started barking. I got out of the car to find a half-wit grimacing through the boot window at them. The half-wit commented on how noisy they were. I told her that the dogs were barking at her. She carried on grimacing through the back window. In the end I had to tell her (in no uncertain terms) to go away so that I could get them out. She wasn’t happy about that.

 

“Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” soon arrived. I drove her home, then as we were in the area and it had stopped raining we went to Radnor Park for a little walk. The place has been seriously expanded. Forty years ago we lived just round the corner and the park was just one big field by the railway station. There’s now a rather pretty area down the bottom. I didn’t like to let the dogs off the leads as we walked, and the squirrels knew it. The squirrels didn’t run off up the trees like they do in the woods. They really did sit on the edge of the paths taunting the dogs.

As we were passing it, I hunted out a geocache which qualified for the current virtual snow globes series of Treasures. That’s all the snow globes now found. It’s Dog Figurines and Origami Animals next.

 

We came home where the dogs were soon fast asleep. I emptied the dishwasher, watched an episode of “The Witcher”, then remembered that I’d intended to put a load of washing in. Woops. So I put the washing on, and watched another episode.

As I watched “My Boy ^TM” came to use the shower. His boiler is still poggered. The council sent someone to fix it the other day… the fix-it man arrived at ten to six in the evening and brought the wrong parts with him. There’s talk of the fix-it man coming back on Monday, but we aren’t holding our breath…

 

I had a little doze underneath the dogs. “er indoors ^TM” then boiled up some pizza which we scoffed whilst watching David Jason’s Secret Service in which Sir David Jason presented a documentary about the history of spying. There was (apparently) a *lot* of secret service activity in Folkestone during the First World War.

The show was surprisingly good…

 

Meanwhile the lifetime mutton chops are now over two thirds done,  and here’s the links (again)…

https://uk.movember.com/mospace/15453545

https://www.facebook.com/donate/1355423342735210/1355423366068541/