22 August 2026 (Saturday) - Dog Club, Chartham, Ticket to Ride

 

I slept reasonably well… better than the night before. I got up, made toast and had my usual rummage round the Internet. I found myself laughing at a posting on one of the crackpot sites that Facebook thinks might interest me. Some religious nutter was banging on about the power of prayer. Someone else had pointed out that praying for something means that the one doing the praying had found a problem with God’s plan for the universe. And went on to say that if the prayers had been answered the God had admitted his plan was flawed in the first place. I stirred the pot a little by pointing out that the whole squabble was dependent on two unproven assumptions. Firstly that there actually is a God, and secondly that it listens to anything that we mere mortals might have to say. I know I shouldn’t engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent but the righteous wind me up sometimes.

 

I Munzed, and Wordled from “slate” through “drain” to “prawn”. As I did, Steve was on the radio doing the “Guess the Lyrics” competition. “Those were the times we had. Sharing the joy that we thought would last”. I had no idea at all. It was Forget Me Nots by Patrice Rushen. No? Me neither. Sometime I feel that my musical education is sadly lacking.

 

We drove round to Repton and Dog Club. Everyone seemed to have a good time. Treats were shared, chases chased, and mayhem generally ensued.

As we drove away so Steve was doing the Mystery Year competition on the radio. When did Paul McCartney leave the Beatles? ! thought it was 1969, but I was a year too early.

We drove out to Chartham. Earlier in the year we’d had a rather good little walk around Chartham and we went back today. We parked up, walked through the village, over the hill, and back to the car via country lanes and fields. As we walked we found a geocache… well we would, wouldn’t we?

 

With walk walked we took a circuitous route home. There’s a Forestry England wood not that far from Chartham. Would it be any good for hiding a series of geocaches? Well… Yes, it would. *If* hidden by someone else. For all that those woods aren’t *that* far away it isn’t an easy drive to get there.

 

We got home where we had a cuppa and a cold cross bun for lunch. I counted up the Dog Club takings. In a novel break with tradition the money in the pot came to a multiple of one pound fifty. It rarely does. With money counted I added enough to the total to cover our three and transferred that amount to the bank. That’s over a hundred quid in the last month, and a lot of people choose to pay directly by text message from their phones. The people who own the field we use do OK out of the Dog Club…

 

I spent an hour or so fighting with geo-puzzles, then after another hot (cold) cross bun I sat in the garden with “er indoors ^TM”. She did her crafting; I read my Kindle.

I then had a stroke of genius… What with there being a geo-meet tomorrow afternoon I thought we might have a small walk before the meet. I perused the map and after a little brain-straining I came up with a little walk. In theory it should be on a par with today’s walk. In practice we will find out tomorrow.

 

“er indoors ^TM” sorted a couple of plates of chicken and chips and we scoffed them whilst having a few rounds of “Ticket To Ride” on the Infinity Table. Can you believe I won – three games to two.

21 August 2026 (Friday) - Feeling Worn Out

I couldn’t sleep last night. Having laid awake for seemingly ages I gave up and got up at four o’clock. I made toast and watched the last part of the episode of “Stranger Things” that I started watching yesterday.

This was the last episode of the fourth season of the show and sadly we’ve got to the stage that so many shows reach. It happened with the “Aliens” franchise and “Game of Thrones” and “The Last Ship”. The writers have effectively ran out of ideas and so five minutes of plot was padded out with an hour’s gratuitous violence and seemingly endless tedious fight scenes.

There’s one more season to go; it might perk up. I shall keep going with it; if only to see where Kate Bush made her money.

 

I had a quick look at the Internet and was rather amazed. A Reform UK councillor has had the heave-ho from Reform UK HQ for the simple reason that he’s not actually a member of Reform UK. Not only was councillor Robert Hanson elected under the Reform banner in May, he was the Reform spokesperson for Adult Health and Social Care in Sheffield council.

He’s now carrying on, but as an independent.

I would have thought that actually being a member of said party was a pre-requisite for standing as a candidate for that political party. You can’t make this up, can you?

 

And then it was time to set off for work. Yesterday was supposedly a day off. We walked over five miles round the woods I, got loads done in the garden, did ironing, had a serious fight with my old lap-top, took the dogs out again, watched Star Trek… by the time I went to bed last night I’d covered seventeen thousand steps. And then I had maybe two hours sleep at most.

I went off to work hoping for a bit of a rest. As I left Ashford there was a surprising amount of people walking dogs who were themselves only wearing their pyjamas.

 

As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the radio were all a-twitter about Prince Harry who is leaving America and coming back to live in the UK. There was also talk about how he lost his court case against Associated Newspapers (when he claimed they hacked his phone). Did they? During the court case some of his allegations were just abandoned “without any apology or even acknowledgment”. 

The claims of Prince Harry and his co-defendants were thrown out of court in their entirety several weeks ago, and together with six of his mates (including Elton John) he's got to stump up about ten million quid in court costs. And to add insult to injury the payments are due and it would seem their insurance won't cover it. That speaks volumes, doesn't it? If Prince Harry can't afford a court of law, what hope for the rest of us?

 

I stopped off in Sainsburys to get a sandwich. that place is always good for attitude. Some spotty oik who was employed to fill the shelves was making no secret of what he thought about the paying customers which he clearly felt were getting in his way. I just laughed; others would have had ample opportunity to make a formal complaint. I wonder if anyone did?

 

I went in to the early shift, did what I had to, and came home. “er indoors ^TM” had suggested an evening’s walk so we went to Orlestone. The walk passed off rather uneventfully, but I did think that the smaller two (Bailey in particular) were rather more wilful than usual. They know who panders to them whereas I will just keep going.

We came home. I spent a little while struggling on the on-line shops. I got the seventh Adrian Mole book on CD for about a fifth of the price I paid for the sixth. But I just can’t find the eight (and final) book on either MP3 or something that I could convert to MP3. But I did find a website offering all the Harry Potter books on MP3 for less than twenty quid the lot. Just like my seventh Adrian Mole CDs this is a rather good bargain *if* it arrives.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching more episodes of “Celebrity Hunted”. It’s a rather good show, but realistically it’s just “Hunted” when you’ve only ever heard of one of the twelve so-called celebrities.

 

I’m rather worn out… and it’s hossing down outside.

 

20 August 2026 (Thursday) - A Busy Day Off

I slept well. I got up to see there had been more rain overnight. That was something of a result. I made toast and had a look at Facebook as I do. It was still there and much the same as ever. Lies, disinformation and blather persisted as it always does. When you think that I’ve got over seven hundred people on my Facebook list I see posts from maybe twenty of them. Pretty much everything I see is either “you might be interested in” (which I never am) or adverts for small businesses hundreds of miles away.

But it keeps me occupied in the mornings.

I had an email. My car insurance was due. Thirty quid less than it was last year. I saw that as a result and snapped it up. Last year it went up and I wasted a morning shopping about only to find I couldn’t get it cheaper anywhere else.

 

I took the dogs out. Over the last few days with time pressing we’d been to Orlestone. We can put the leads on, go to Orlestone and be back home drinking our cuppa in just over an hour. Kings Wood is a shade under three hours if the traffic is good, but we had the time to spare today, so that’s where we went.

As we walked we met two other groups of dog walkers. One was chatty, one was not. We chased a few squirrels, we didn’t roll in anything… or anything that stained anyway.

 

We came home and had that cuppa two hours and fifty minutes after we’d set off. I Munzed, and Wordled. Google said the best starting word to use in Wordle was “slate”. It lied. It didn’t give me a single letter at all. So I tried again with “bruin” (as I couldn’t think of any other word). And then it was serious brain straining. “Rough” didn’t help me any more. “Furry” was a step in the right direction, and I got it on the fifth go with “murky”. As I’d Wordled so we had a torrential rain shower, but it went as quickly as it came so I decided to crack on in the garden.

 

Before I started I put a load of washing in to scrub. I then cleaned out the pond filter. I lined the two planters we got on Sunday, filled them with compost and potted the lilac and the thing we got from “My Boy ^TM” (must find out what that is). I weeded the pots. I planted the violas we bought on Sunday. I pootled and tidied. I voomed round with the bionic burner. The bionic burner is a rather good gadget. It’s not as good as the adverts claim: it doesn’t “permanently eliminate weed roots from the ground” but it certainly gets rid of the weeds for longer than just pulling them out by hand does.

 

“er indoors ^TM” returned from a shopping mission. Whilst out she got me a pressie – a bag of wild rocket. Ostensibly a salad condiment; I’ve chucked it into a floating pot in the pond. The water cress is doing famously, so the rocket might. Or might not. Time will tell; it always does.

 

I had some sausage rolls (with mustard – oh yus!) for lunch then set about ironing my shirts. They always iron better when still wet from the washing machine.

And then I tried to spark up my old lap-top. I’d spent an age trying to get the later Adrian Mole books on MP3. And failed. All I could find was audibles and spotifys and things which seem to depend on a decent internet connection, and my car doesn’t have one. So I got the sixth book on CD and thought I could copy them like I did the other week.

My old lap-top flatly refused to work. It spent two hours trying to do an update. Eventually I lost patience with it, and despite the warnings I pulled its plug. It then allowed me to log in… but that was as far as it would go. Oh, I got cross with it.

After a lot of stress I pulled its plug and we took the dogs to the marsh for a little outing then on our return I sparked up the old lap-top again. This time it worked fine and happily turned my new CDs into MP3s.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up fajitas and we scoffed them whilst watching this week’s episode of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds”. It was a rather good episode. One of the best, I expect most of the fans will hate it…

 

19 August 2026 (Wednesday) - Another Late Shift, Rain

“er indoors ^TM” ‘s alarm woke me at quarter past seven. It didn’t wake her, but such is life.

I got up, made toast and had my usual rummage round the Internet. My American friends were posting tornado warnings. That’s one thing we don’t have to worry about (yet).

There was a lot of political posting this morning following Reform UK’s announcement that they want to do away with a lot of the disability benefits. One of the Clacton Reform UK supporters had clearly scored an own goal whilst a Cornish Reform UK councillor has resigned saying “I cannot in good conscience support the Making Welfare Work policy. These changes will cost lives of people especially those who have suicidal ideation.”

 

The trouble with our political system is that any given party will have one policy which attracts support. And it is human nature that having announced that they like this policy and consequently support a particular party, a worrying amount of people will automatically hate anyone who supports a different party and will follow their chosen party through thick and thin regardless of what their policies actually are.

Having been taken in by the pledges to send them all back on the next banana boat, and to be a viable alternative to the old two-party system. many Reform UK supporters with whom I’ve spoken have been totally unaware that many of their politicians are from immigrant families and/or are ex-Conservative politicians. That *certainly* wasn’t what they wanted.

I’m reminded of a woman with who I worked for many years who was very active in the local Conservative party. She delivered leaflets for them at election time, she made the tea at party meetings… in conversation she spouted pure Labour party propaganda. She didn’t believe in a single Conservative policy. But she had no idea what Conservative policies were. Forty years previously her father had said that she was a “True Blue” and on the strength of that she became a life-long Conservative voter and activist (even though she disagreed with everything the party stood for).

 

I took the dogs out for our walk. As we drove toward Orlestone the pundits on the radio were talking about the use of drones in warfare. It would seem that they are being controlled by AI and/or children and consequently not very specific in their targeting. And as is always the case it is the innocent bystanders that suffer. As Oliver Hardy once remarked, “twas ever thus”.

 

We got to the woods. We were half an hour earlier than yesterday and the car park was much busier. There was one idiot sitting in his car with the window open who was shouting a running commentary of all that was happening. “The red car has driven off. Here’s the man with three dogs, there’s a squirrel…”.

His wife gave me an embarrassed smile as we walked past.

As we walked we met a young family making a shelter in the woods. It was the sort of thing I used to do with the cubs back in the day. Sadly at four years old the kids were a bit too small and a bit disinterested, but Dad was getting stuck in.

And then we met a chap (about ten years older than me) with his dog, quite openly puffing on a spliff. He was friendly enough (he would be; puffing on that), but the stink of cannabis was overpowering. That stuff stinks.

And we walked the entire two miles in the rain. Light rain, but rain nonetheless. Not counting the sprinkling in the small hours of Sunday night that was the first rain I’ve seen since we got soaked when on holiday over two months ago.

 

We came home. I made us a cuppa. I tried to Munz, but the servers were down. I Wordled from “drove” to “grill”; getting it on the sixth and final go. I wrote up more CPD. Dull, but it has to be done

 

The earlier drizzle had seriously picked up and it was hossing down as I set off to work. The motorway was rather busy, and rather dangerous. Are the European lorries indestructible? They certainly drive as though they are.

 

Again I stopped off in Sainsburys to get lunch and saw a sign of the times. Today Sainsburys was awash with mothers taking their children shopping, many of which were clearly well into their teens; much taller than their mothers. All of them either looking bored to tears or arguing with their mothers

I found myself remembering some of the cubs' mothers who used to say that cubs was a two-hour break for them. Apart from school and cubs, the children were never let out of their mothers' sight. When I suggested letting them have some freedom the mothers looked at me as though I was mad.

When I was a lad, once I got to about eight years old I would spend the summer holidays out and about with my mates. Fishing, swimming, roaming the woods... wherever we wanted to go and doing whatever we wanted to do. And the fruits of my loin used to do their own thing too.

I would have gone stir-crazy if I had been constantly saddled with my mum when I was younger...

 

Work was work. It was certainly easier than yesterday's late shift had been, but I was still glad to see the night shift arrive.

I drove home listening to more Adrian Mole on the MP3. His mother was doing the dirty deed with Pandora’s father. The beasts…

18 August 2026 (Tuesday) - Late Shift

I slept for six hours until the pain in my shoulder got too much. I got up and fiddled about until the pain eased off when I went back to bed for another couple of hours.

There was a minor episode over brekkie – the margarine looked as though something had blown up in it. “er indoors ^TM” said it wasn’t her (it was!), and as I scoffed toast so she staged an impromptu dog ear cleaning session. The dogs weren’t happy about having their lugs scrubbed, and sulked as I peered into the Internet. It was much the same as ever. Petty bickering and open displays of ignorance abounded. I really shouldn’t look at it every morning, but if nothing else it reminds me of just how stupid some people are. For example, do people *seriously* expect change out of a hundred quid when calling out an emergency plumber at midnight?

 

I Munzed, and Wordled from “minor” to “strip” in four goes whilst “er indoors ^TM” tried to get Bailey to eat her brekkie. She’s a fussy little dog, and things aren’t helped by Treacle trying to bully her off of every bit of food she’s given.

And then we went to the woods.

 

As we drove the pundits on the radio were a bit twitching about the Russian embassy in London’s announcement that “UK 'will pay' for supplying drones to Ukraine”. I can’t see how anyone can be surprised about that. If a country has no weapons to fight a war, giving them weapons is pretty much the same as fighting the war for them. Isn’t it?

Not having as much time as I’d like we went to Orlestone today. We can go there, walk round and be home all in an hour. Kings Wood takes about two and a half hours. We got to the woods to find only one other car in the car park. Apart from chasing a couple of squirrels the walk was rather uneventful. We saw no-one else, no one rolled in nothing. All rather tranquil for once.

 

We came home. I made us both a cuppa and had a go on the blood transfusion simulator. I got the exercise wrong in that you have to remember how the simulator works, and not how blood transfusions work. A subtle difference…

I then went onto the haemostasis on-lie academy and did one of the little courses on there. I passed that one.

I then phoned the local hospital. When I saw the ENT chap in April he said he would arrange some hearing tests to sort out this ongoing tinnitus. Four months have passed… I phoned three different numbers and just went round in circles. After half an hour I gave up and emailed a formal complaint. In the past I’ve only ever got anywhere by making formal complaints. The ENT chap is really good… *if* you can get an appointment to see him.

 

And then it was time to go to work. I drove up the motorway. The motorway. Not the dual carriageway it has been for weeks.  The "Operation Brock" stupidity has been cancelled (and the motorway re-opened) earlier than planned. Bearing in mind that this has been done a couple of weeks before the busy bank holiday, you really have to ask why the thing was activated in the first place, don't you?

The trouble with "Operation Brock" is that it is brought into play (and shut down) by the Kent Resilience Forum.

The official position of the Kent Resilience Forum is that "it is an operationally independent multi-agency partnership functioning under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, where individual member organizations remain accountable to their own governing bodies, chief officers, and respective central government department". Which means that it wasn't really thought out in the first place, and now it exists, it effectively answers to no one.  Nice work if you can get it.

 

I got some petrol. Today it was six pence per litre cheaper than Ashford. And then went into Sainsburys to get a sandwich. Oh, my piss boiled. Why can't people see that there's dozens of other people in the shop with them? So many of them were just blundering about; totally oblivious of their surroundings and with no care or consideration for anyone else.

I got my sandwich and went to work. It wasn't a bad late shift really.

 

As I did my bit I got a text message. there were reports of a gang of teenagers in Viccie Park, armed with catapults. No one seemed to know what (if anything) they were catapulting at, but the police had been informed. I really can't help but think that a judicious slap and having the brat watch its catapult being destroyed would go a long way to curing the problem. If indeed there is one. 

 

It was dark as I came home... I suppose it should be really. The longest day was two months ago.

17 August 2026 (Monday) - After the Night Shift

Last Saturday when I went to bed my watch told me I’d walked three and a half thousand steps. This morning when I walked out of the night shift my watch told me I’d walked over five thousand steps since midnight. There’s no denying that I’d hoped a Sunday night would have been a quiet shift. Back in the day when I first started night work we’d rarely be called on more than half a dozen times. Last night I had over fifty samples to deal with.

 

As I drove home the pundits on the radio were talking about the new Prime Minister who (so it was claimed) had been taken in by a fraudster who had been pretending to be a senior member of the American government. Apparently only a couple of text messages were exchanged before he wised up to what was going on, but the fact that this was in the news was rather significant. A couple of weeks ago the new Prime Minister was being portrayed as the saviour of the universe. Now he’s fair game for digging the dirt.

The honeymoon period is clearly over.

I got bored with the news, and listened to my Adrian Mole MP3 audiobook instead. In the past I’ve been very scathing about audiobooks, but am I turning to the dark side?

 

I got home. For all that the temperature is down on what it has been over the last week, it was forecast to be warm later so I took the dogs out right away. It was only a short drive to Orlestone.

Just lately our walks have been “fox-poo-free”… well, to be precise, probably only seemingly “fox-poo-free”. I suspect that there had been some rolling going on, but what with everything having been so hot and bone dry all the fox turds had been baked dry. However last night there had been rain. Quite a bit of it. And that had rehydrated the fox turds, as evidenced by the frankly massive skid mark that Bailey got up her back within five minutes of getting to the woods.

We walked for two miles and saw two other groups. Morgan grumbled at them; I wish he wouldn’t.

 

We came home. Once Bailey had had a bath (with soap!) I had a shave and a shower and went to bed. Morgan and Bailey came with me. I rather suspected that they’d come up for a fight, but both settled and we slept for four hours. That’s not a bad sleep after a night shift.

 

Eventually the ongoing pain in my arm woke me. About a month ago I whinged about my arm. There’s an almost constant sensation of numbness/tingling/pins and needles in my left hand, and an intermittent sensation of pain in my upper left arm and shoulder. So I went onto the doctor’s website and filled in the on-line questionnaire in the hope that someone might get back to me about it.

Whilst I was at it I had a look at the Internet as I do. A Facebook friend was having a birthday today. The chap used to live just down the road from me when I was at primary school. We lost contact years ago but got in touch through Facebook. We actually met a few years ago when he wanted details of my father’s funeral which was a kind thought.

 

I Munzed (having Wordled at three o’clock this morning), and we did “FEED THE FISH”. Again little Treacle squealed in excitement when I made the announcement. I then voomed round the garden with the watering can, and then my phone beeped. The doctor wants to see me… well specifically wants to see my left arm. They sent me a link to book an appointment. I had the choice of one date (in two weeks’ time). I’m not sure why I had to mess about going through the website if I only had the choice of one date, but I’m now booked in for a fortnight on Thursday.

I wrote up some CPD. I thought about cleaning pond filters (Monday is usually pond filter day) but by then it was nearly five o’clock. The pond will keep for a day or so.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up pie and chips and went bowling. I settled in front of the telly and watched an episode of “Stranger Things”. At an hour and a half it was too long; the next episode plays for over two hours. Apparently the writers felt that movie-length episodes allowed them to tell a better story. Maybe it did, but I’m not sitting still for over two hours. I shall watch that next episode in (at least) three separate sittings.

16 August 2026 (Sunday) - Before the Night Shift

I slept reasonably well, but was awake a couple of hours earlier than I might have liked.

I got up and went straight round the garden gathering dung before Bailey could go out and gather it for herself. She worries me. She is such a fussy eater when it comes to dog food, but given half a chance she yums up all the turds in the garden. I had a theory that if she didn’t fill up on dung, she might eat her brekkie.

 

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. There have been several sightings of big cats. Some near Stonehenge, and some near Bexhill. Apparently sightings have increased this year; it was claimed that heatwaves have been the cause. There was also talk of black foxes which are more common than I thought (bearing in mind I’d never heard of them).

Despite pubs closing hand over fist, Shepherd Neame were advertising for people to take over tenancies in their pubs. Who would try to make a go of running a pub these days??

And those who (up till now) have advocated covering garden ponds with metal meshes were bemoaning about how many dragonflies are getting trapped by their metal meshes and then drowning.

 

I had an email. There was a new geocache not a mile and a half away. I’d already had two First to Finds this week. Usually I restrict myself to only having one First to Find a month so as to share the love. However it is painfully apparent that I’m in the minority in doing this, so I leapt into action.

I drove out to a whole new housing estate that I never knew existed, and it wasn’t long before I had the cache in hand. It was a rather good 3-D printed cache; it was a shame that it hadn’t so much been hidden as just put in the grass by a tree. But I was first to find (only thirty-seven minutes after publication) and that was a result. That’s two consecutive months with a First to Find… I wonder how long this streak will last? I once managed twenty-three months.

As I drove home I put the radio on. Being Sunday there was a church service, but rather than being inspiring and uplifting it was just some choir howling. I turned over to Adrian Mole on my MP3; he’s just met Jo-Jo.

 

Once I’d been home for a while the dogs eventually got up. I followed them into the garden and harvested what they dropped (as they dropped it) to be sure that Bailey wasn’t having any pre-brekkie snacks.

I Munzed. I Wordled from “first” to “aspic” in five goes. “Aspic” is basically a trifle but with meat where the cake and custard would be. I’d heard of the word before, but had no idea what it was. One lives and learns.

And then we tested my theory about Bailey, brekkie and turd-eating. She eventually scoffed her brekkie, but (as usual) it took a lot of encouragement and cajoling. So much for my turd theory.

 

We loaded the dogs into the car and went over to Bybrook Barn garden centre. Yesterday gave me a plant, and earlier in the year Karl gave me a lilac tree. I wanted some decent pots for them. I knew what I had in mind, and Bybrook Barn wanted far too much for them. They had some nice pots in the bargain section; I thought I’d get two if they were under a tenner. They were sixty quid each. Sixty quid!!!

I contented myself with a bargain tray of violas (three quid) and we went round to Home Bargains. They had some nice pots. I’d seen similar in Bybrook Barn for thirty quid; Home Bargains wanted seven quid. I got two planters at less than half the price of Bybrook Barn’s. It pays to shop around… not that people do. I found myself thinking back to someone with whom I used to work who loved spending money. He was absolutely adamant that if you had two items which were absolutely identical in every respect except the price, then the more expensive one was the better one. There was no reasoning with him on this – it stood to reason (apparently). His wife was a teacher at a local school and (so I was reliably informed) regularly won the pupils’ “Worst Dressed Teacher” competition.

We thought better of going into Dobbies – Morgan and Treacle have a habit of “unloading” in there.

 

We came home and I shifted plant pots and planters about to work out where to put our new ones. I think I’ve figured out what will go where. The new planters will need lining, but that will be a job for another day.

I had a dunk in the shower, and took myself off to bed for the afternoon where I slept surprisingly well for three hours.

 

I woke to find “er indoors ^TM” had been baking. We did “FEED THE FISH”, I voomed round with the watering can, and then made us both a cuppa to go with our cake slices.

They were rather good.

 

It will soon be dinner time, then I’m off to the night shift. I might grumble but I don’t really mind the night work. What I do mind is spending the entire day seemingly just waiting to go to work. I do much the same (albeit on a smaller scale) when I’m on the late shifts.

I need to shift this mindset of just fretting about “got to go to work later..”  It’s not as though I turn up at work that much these days, let alone do many late or night shifts.

15 August 2026 (Saturday) - Bit Dull Really

This morning’s petty bickering on the local Facebook pages was all about a pub near Deal. Some woman had gone there for dinner and either didn’t like her dinner or thought she was up for a freebie. Whichever it was, she made a fuss when it came to pay up and threatened bad reviews on Tripadvisor and Facebook. Fortunately the pub’s owners called this woman’s bluff, and (literally) hundreds of people have posted comments of support. In this age of reviews and social media it is so easy for people to try to pull a fast one. And people wonder why pubs are going out of business. This morning also brought the news that the Red Lion in Biddenden was closing. Not that I’ve been to that place for years…  

I Munzed, and Wordled from “about” to “loose”, getting it on the last attempt.

A new geocache went live. I solved it (well, ChatGPT did) but the final location was about an hour’s drive away. That will keep until we are next over at Staple and the Black Pig. Assuming that pub doesn’t go the way of so many others.

 

As I fiddled on the Internet so Steve was on the radio. The “Guess The Lyrics” competition today was “When the rain washes you clean, you’ll know”. I had absolutely no idea at all. It was “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac.

We drove round to Repton and Dog Club. (About) sixteen dogs had a rather good time charging about as dogs do.

From Dog Club we drove to Godinton. Once we’d done cat duty we had a little walk round the pond. There’s a geocache there that I’ve failed to find three times before. We tried a fourth time and finally found the thing. Probably just as well – there’s a souvenir for finding a geocache today what with it being International Geocaching Day.  Today is my fourteenth International Geocaching Day, and keeping a diary I can see that I’ve actually been at work at some point on eleven of them. There was actually a geo-meet-up this morning, but by the time we would have finished at Dog Club and driven there we would have missed it.

There’s another next weekend…

 

We then popped in to see “My Boy ^TM” and ”Auntie Chel ^TM” as it was her birthday. Sadly as we drove there so she drove past going off to the nail bar. But we left a card and stuff with the first fruit of my loin, and he gave me a plant. His plants have been going mad recently and I was very happy to take a surplus plant.

We came home via the co-op where we got chocolate croissants. I scoffed mine whilst writing up some CPD.

 

I read my Kindle, I played Meodoku, I had a little doze. “er indoors ^TM” set off to visit her mum, I sparked up Netflix and watched more “Stranger Things” but with each episode at the length of a film it was a tad hard going. After one episode I had a vague idea to take the dogs to Orlestone, but we’d been to Dog Club this morning and it was still rather warm outside. Much cooler than the last few days, but still warm. So I stayed in front of the telly watching “Stranger Things”.

Today was dull.

 

14 August 2026 (Friday) - Still Far Too Hot

The dogs didn’t settle in last night’s heat, and with them being restless I didn’t sleep well either.

I made toast and had my usual look at the Internet. That odious Nigel Farage won the by-election in Clacton last night. Having declared that he would let the public judge the actions which put him under investigation it would seem that the good people of Clacton are quite happy with convicted foreign criminals giving five million pounds in bungs to UK politicians.

Democracy, eh? Can’t beat it.

Some rich people of my acquaintance were flaunting their wealth. It must be nice to be able to afford a mansion, a fleet of cars and still be able to fund four children through a school that charges upward of sixty thousand quid a year per brat.

I know I’m not poor, but I’m nowhere near as loaded as I might be.

 

With another hot day forecast we made an early start on our walk today. We walked what I had thought would be a shorter walk round the woods, but it was only about half a mile less than what we usually walk. As we went I gathered litter. You can always tell when it is school holiday; the part of the woods within a couple of hundred yards of the car parks becomes strewn with rubbish. Frutella sweets would seem to be particularly popular at the moment judging by the amount of wrappers I picked up.

We didn’t see any deer, but Treacle found a deer bone, and I found two new sink holes.

And the camera to check people are paying their car parking fees is now in place.

We came home listening to Adrian Mole MP3s.

 

I had so many things I could have done today. The shed needed cleaning out. I could probably have scared up enough rubbish for a tip run. But again it was too hot to do much so I slobbed about instead. I Munzed. I Wordled from “might” to “geode” in four goes. I updated my database of sink holes in Kings Wood. I fed various geo-puzzles into ChatGPT; it didn’t do very well with them. But I did solve a maximum difficulty puzzle. Trouble was I found that the cache was three hundred metres down a drainage tunnel. A few years ago I would have scrambled in to get that. These days… maybe not.

 

I felt tired… I woke up a couple of hours later. I had a cuppa and watched an episode of “Stranger Things”. At an hour and twenty minutes the episodes are a tad too long.

We did “FEED THE FISH”, and then I sat by the pond and read my Kindle for a bit.

 

“er indoors ^TM” went off on cat duty. I perused the geo-map to plan a small mission for tomorrow after Dog Club.

We had burgers and watched the first two episodes of “Celebrity Hunted”. Mind you when I say “celebrity” I’d only heard of one out of the twelve so-called celebrities. And again I couldn’t help but wonder if the contestants were either deliberately stupid, or were under orders to give the hunters some clues.

 

13 August 2026 (Thursday) - Far Too Hot

We stayed up late last night to see the meteor shower. Sadly, like all meteor showers, it was a bit crap. At its peak we were seeing maybe one or two a minute. That might sound a lot, but each shooting star lasted for about a second so you had to be looking in exactly the right direction to see it, and it wasn’t long before I got neckache.

 

I slept through till half past five. Bearing in mind we had a hot day forecast I made an early start. Dog brekkie was done and we were at the woods by eight o’clock.

We arrived at the car park at the same time as an odd woman with her two dogs. She saw us and quite obviously stood and waited for us to get out of the car. Morgan and Treacle started barking at her dogs; she didn’t care. She just stood blocking the way to the main path out of the car park. I smiled at her and told the dogs we were going a different way today, and the odd woman looked vaguely disappointed.

We went the different way and walked round the woods keeping out of the sun and in the shade as much as we could. Unlike yesterday we only saw one squirrel, but we did see deer.

 

We got back to the car at about half past nine and I checked the Internet. Yesterday a new geocache had gone live in Faversham. It hadn’t been found at brekkie time, and it still hadn’t been found. Bearing in mind that we were already half-way to Faversham my phone said that the cache was a twelve minute drive away, So we took a twelve minute drive, and it wasn’t long before I had the thing in my hand. And another First to Find as well. Result.

 

By then it was ten o’clock and things were warming up. We drove home where my parcel was waiting for me. About six years ago I spent twenty quid on a pair of trainers which lasted six months so I spent a hundred quid on a pair of walking shoes that looked the same. These lasted five and a half years. Last night (about ten o’clock) I ordered a new pair from Amazon. They were waiting for me when we got home. Delivery had taken about twelve hours. They arrived quicker than I could have gone to the shops, and were cheaper too.

We also arrived home to see the window cleaner had been. We don’t ask him to come; he just turns up unannounced, hoses down the front of the house and sends us a bill for a fiver. The front garden was awash. So much for drought orders and hose pipe bans, eh?

 

I made myself a cuppa and put a load of washing in to scrub. I Munzed, and Wordled from “night” to “crash” in three goes. Bearing in mind how hot it was getting I stayed inside with the curtains pulled and watched a film. I tried to find our DVD of “Quadrophenia” a few weeks ago but couldn’t. It was on Film Four the other day so I recorded it, and then found the DVD the next day.

As I watched I ironed shirts, then put the undercrackers in to scrub.

I’d hoped it might have cooled down by the time the film finished, but the Alexa said it was thirty-six degrees. I treated myself to a tub of ice cream from the shop over the road and watched a couple of episodes of “Stranger Things”.

 

By the time I’d watched telly, scoffed the ice cream, loaded (and run) the dishwasher and sorted the undercrackers three hours had passed and the temperature had dropped… to thirty-five degrees. It was two hours past “FEED THE FISH” time and Treacle was getting twitchy so despite the heat we fed the fish. And then the dogs went back to sleep. I would have done too if it wasn’t so hot.

I did a YouGov survey instead.

 

“er indoors ^TM” came home from a day in the office. She’d been to the shops on the way home and had a bag of watercress for me. That went into the pond’s new floating pots.

And then I turned on the telly. An old friend was on BBC1 this evening. I first met him in 1975. I have a vague recollection of him at a Boys Brigade camp in Tunbridge Wells going by the sobriquet of “Fast Goose”. In the years after that we walked to and from secondary school. Over the years I rather lost touch with him, but through the wonders of Facebook we got back in touch, and this evening he was playing a prison governor on Eastenders.

I’d not seen EastEnders for years – I won’t be watching it again.

 

Being Thursday we watched this week’s episode of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds”. It wasn’t the best but certainly wasn’t bad.

12 August 2026 (Wednesday) - Solar Eclipse

 I slept through till nearly five o’clock this morning, and then lay dozing with Bailey for a while before giving up and getting up. I made toast and had a look at the Internet.

On the one hand I should stay up to date with current affairs, on the other hand it boils my piss. This morning people were ranting about the early release of prisoners, the ongoing drought… People were ranting about the current sad state of affairs and blaming the government for everything. A lot of the furore was being stirred up by the opposition politicians whose policies led to the current state of affairs and who did nothing about it when they were in a position to do so.

I Munzed, and hearing the dogs getting up I turned off the lap-top and got ready for the off.

 

We drove up to the woods listening to the pundits on the radio spouting their usual drivel. Once parked we set off in the general direction of the geocache of mine that had been reported as missing.

It was.

It had probably been trashed during the recent coppicing so I popped out a new one. The people who reported it as missing could have done the same in less time than it took them to report it missing, but there it is.

We carried on round the woods. For some reason the squirrels were active today. Certainly more so than usual. The dogs chased several. But for all that we saw squirrels we didn’t see much else. No deer, and once out of the car park no one else at all. We did hear someone a hundred yards from the car park shrieking at her dog, but that was all.

 

We came home listening to Adrian Mole’s diaries on my MP3 stick. He’s now moved to London and is in love with Bianca. I know how that is going to end… I realise Adrian Mole is a made-up fictional character who doesn’t exist, but I do think that Sue Townsend (his creator) was rather mean to him in all of the books.

 

Once home I made us both a cuppa and sorted a slice of that walnut cake we’d got at the weekend. My mother and aunt used to make walnut cake all the time when I was small. I can remember never being that fussed about the stuff then. It’s my favourite now.

I Wordled. “Round” gave me nothing, and neither did my second go (table). “Picky” was a step in the right direction and I got it with “wimpy” on the fourth attempt.

 

I went out to the garden. Yesterday I mentioned that we’d been given some pond plants in floating baskets. Late last night I’d hoiked the biggest one out as “er indoors ^TM” had spotted that it was top-heavy and had capsized. This morning that big one got re-potted into the bog filter, and I secured its now empty floating pot to the other floating pots. I then sat for a while alternately reading my Kindle and watching the fish eating the new plants which were overhanging the floating baskets.

 

I came in as it was rather hot outside. I wrote up some CPD. I spent a little while running some puzzle geocaches through Chat GPT to see if it could solve them. It solved maybe a third of the ones I tried.

We did “FEED THE FISH”, I watched an episode of “Stranger Things” and we then loaded the dogs into the car for the evening’s adventure.

 

Once we’d done the evening’s cat feeding we drove down to an obscure lane on the Romney Marsh. This evening was (probably) the last solar eclipse that I would be able to see (the next one will be in 2081). Looking on-line it seemed that the masses were descending on Lydd and Wye downs to get a good view. I suspected no one had considered Ham Mill Lane, and I was right. With no one else around for miles (and we could see around for miles) we had a good view of the western horizon. We cracked out the pinhole camera and had a look.

As we fiddled about so my phone was beeping. The works WhatsApp group was going mad; we had quite the virtual eclipse party swapping photos. It had to be said that the best photo was from a colleague who was on holiday in La Coruña (in Spain) where the eclipse was total.

 

It was gone eight o’clock by the time we got home. Too late to cook – we had KFC for tea…

11 August 2026 (Tuesday) - Early Shift

I woke as I so often do feeling full of energy and raring to go… at quarter to one. I dozed on and off for the rest of the night before giving up and getting up at five o’clock.

I made toast and watched another episode of “Stranger Things” then had my usual root around the Internet.

This morning’s petty bickering was on one of the CPAP-related Facebook pages. Someone asked whether using a CPAP machine made you eligible for a Personal Independence Payment. My piss immediately boiled. A *lot* of people get these PIP payments and rely on them. But just for using a CPAP machine? I can see a reason for getting a benefit payment for having sleep apnea, but the CPAP machine alleviates the effects of sleep apnea. The squabble had seriously polarized the CPAP-using community. One half was saying to suck it up and get on with life. The other had clearly seen what they thought was a potential gravy train and was trying to jump on it with talk of campaigns to get sleep apnea and CPAP use added to the list of things for which you get a hand-out.

I then laughed out loud at a Nigerian vicar who seriously  had the hump, He was bemoaning how the Western world welcomes Nigerian doctors and engineers and skilled people, but there’s no openings for Nigerian happy-clappy vicars.

And I had an email telling me that one of my caches in Kings Wood was missing. Oh well… that’s tomorrow’s walk planned for us.

I loaded the dishwasher and set off for work.

 

As I drove up what used to be a motorway so the pundits on the radio were talking about local high streets. The head honcho of one of the nation’s leading chain stores was whinging that little independent shops all look shabby and should close up so that his chain stores could take their place and (with their corporate money) would make high streets look better.

There was then a lot of talk about the state of high streets. The chap being interviewed wouldn’t say where he was talking about (as he was frightened to) but he spoke of one high street which was nothing but vape shops, barbers and nail bars. Newsagents, grocers and “proper shops” kept going bankrupt, but vape shops, barbers and nail bars do a roaring trade. Or they are a front for organised crime, or so it was claimed.

 

I got to work and did what I couldn’t avoid. I took a little detour on the way home. A fellow member of Dog Club had something for me. Many years ago her husband had built a rather impressive garden pond, but he passed on a while ago. And our friend had found just how much hard work a garden pond can be. A small goldfish pond is enough work. My pond in the garden keeps me occupied. But a large Koi pond takes a *lot* of looking after. Her triple-filtration system had taken to blocking up recently. I’ve seen the mess when a box filter blocks up, and ours was a fraction of the size of hers. She’s mentioned the blockages a few times over the last few weeks. And after the latest blockage her pump gave up the ghost (those aren’t cheap). There comes a time when enough is enough.

She wondered if I’d like anything from the pond. I’ve probably got too many fish in my pond, but I was very grateful for floating plant pots (complete with pots), some fish food and various accessories.

It was good to meet up and chat… one thing she said made me think. Her house is in the better part of town and she was talking about getting a builder to professionally fill in the pond and remove the walls (it’s not a job for an amateur). She said that most builders double the price for any job up her road as there’s this preconception that if you live in the better part of town then you are loaded. She’s probably right… I know of people who live up that road who inherited the house who would never otherwise be able to afford to live there.

 

I came home where we fed our fish and popped the new pond plants into the pond. I shall sort them properly tomorrow. 

“er indoors ^TM” went off on cat duty. I had a shower and a little doze. It’s all very well only having an hour’s sleep, but it does leave you tired.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up some sausages which we scoffed whilst watching the final of “Bake Off: The Professionals”, and then a couple more episodes of “Ann Droid” which is slowly growing on me…

Treacle is currently having a serious tantrum in the kitchen. She wants her supper, and when she wants her supper she makes no secret of it…

10 August 2026 (Monday) - A Walk, Ponds, Ironing, Folkestone

I woke in the small hours following a rather vivid dream in which I was at an Open University Summer School doing some subject about which I knew absolutely nothing at all. This is something of a recurrent dream which I seem to have with annoying regularity. I wonder what that is all about.

 

I got up, put a load of washing in to scrub, and watched an episode of “Stranger Things” (in which strange things happened), then sparked up my lap-top. The Internet was much the same as ever. Today’s whinge was about bonfires. People were complaining about the smell. They’ve probably got a point. There’s a family a few doors up who barbecue constantly. And by “constantly” I mean every single day from April through to October. At least they give us the morning to get the laundry dry.

My cousin had posted a video of seagulls tearing her black rubbish sacks apart. Our seagulls are noisy, buut they don’t do that (yet).

I Munzed, Wordled from “scrub” to “snipe” via “shale”, “spoke” and “stipe”, then hung the washing out.

 

Once the dogs had scoffed brekkie we went for our walk. We went earlier than usual as it was going to be a hot day. As we drove the pundits on the radio were saying that we in the South East were having our fifth heatwave of the year whilst parts of Scotland had had a month’s worth of rain over the weekend.

Am I alone in seeing the obvious answer here. Having local water companies is such a silly idea. Surely it would make far more sense to have a national water company with the ability to pipe water from where there are floods (Scotland) to where there is a drought (my house). After all that’s how I get the gas to heat my water, isn’t it?

 

We got to the woods and walked our usual route. No one rolled in anything, we didn’t squabble with anyone. It was all rather dull which was probably for the best.

We came home listening to more Adrian Mole MP3s, and once home no one needed a bath. I unloaded the dishwasher and put bedding and towels in to wash. Once I’d had a cuppa I went into the garden. Monday has become pond filter cleaning day, and it has to be said that having a pressure filter means it’s a far faster job these days, and there’s a lot less smelling of fish poo at the end of it all.

I hung out the bedding and towels and sat by the pond for a while watching the pigeons drinking from the bog filter. They do that quite a bit.

 

“er indoors ^TM” sorted some lunch, and with that scoffed I spent a couple of hours doing the ironing. As I ironed I watched a couple more episodes of “Stranger Things”. As I ironed I was very conscious of Treacle watching me “like a pork” (to coin a phrase). I put the ironing board away and she flew up the garden. I stayed inside. After five seconds she came running back and looked at me expectantly. I said the magic words “I’M GOING TO FEED THE FISH!”, and she flew up the garden squealing in excitement. We fed the fish. And the dogs. Last week I mentioned the economies of buying fish food in bulk,,, a lot of that saving goes straight down the dogs’ necks.

 

“er indoors ^TM” finished work and we drove down to Folkestone Harbour. We had a little wander about then went to the old Folkestone Harbour railway station where there was a geo-meet happening.

It’s always good to catch up with friends… I didn’t get the chips. Four pounds for a portion of chips.

Seriously !?!?!

9 August 2026 (Sunday) - FTF, Working, Hot

I woke far earlier than I needed to and lay awake for too long. I eventually got up, made toast and had a stroke of genius (I do that from time to time). Last night a new puzzle geocache had gone live not *that* far from work but I had no idea how to solve the puzzle. But this morning I had an idea. Going on-line to blag a copy of the second Harry Potter book gave me the numbers I wanted and the geo-checker said my answer was correct.  And it was on the way to work (sort-of).

 

As I drove off to find this cache there was some right old tripe on the radio. There was a lot of talk about some Russian bishop who was supposedly getting backhanders from Vladimir Putin. There were two theories as to why this might be. Either the bishop had some gossip on Vlad, or Vlad was sucking up to the Almighty.

And there was an interview with one of the head honchos at the Mother's Union  which is a sort of religious version of the Women's Institute. The woman being interviewed seemed to be rather jealous of the W.I. for no reason that I could fathom. I gave up listening to the drivel on the radio. Sunday morning radio is usually on the rubbish side (at best).  I listened to Adrian Mole on MP3 instead. This morning he was squabbling with the love of his life. Some things are universal...

It wasn't long before I was in some obscure back street near Sevenoaks. There was no one about, I rummaged on a street sign and soon had the geocache I was hunting. And no one else had got there before me. I was First to Find. Result. Go me.

As I drove on to work there were a few spots of rain on the windscreen. A tiny shower. Not much, but some rain. And then I noticed the roads were awash. That wasn't rain. That was leaking pipes. You'd think that what with all this talk of drought and water shortages the water companies would be on the case wouldn't you? The trouble is that they are on the case. Their case being making money for foreign investors. Sadly the days when a UK water company had actually providing water as its main raison d'etre are long gone.

 

I got to work. I thought better of the cooked brekkie as it gave me belly-ache last time. Instead I popped into the works M&S and got myself a croissant then got on with the morning.

The original plan for today had been a little wander round Eastling doing a few geocaches to finish off the current set of geocaching Treasures. But on Friday the boss had phoned. There had been a minor staffing disaster at work and she’d had to ask people to swap shifts about. And having solved her immediate staffing issue she would need someone to step into the breach this morning. Could I help?

Oh, go on then. I didn’t mind really. If I did I wouldn’t have spent a life in hospital work, would I? And the weather forecast was against doing much today. It had been rather warm yesterday and the forecast was for thirty degrees from mid-day onwards.

According to my car’s thermometer it was thirty-three degrees when I finished and came home.

 

I drove slowly through the “Operation Brock” stupidity, and once home we had a cheese roll for lunch. You can’t go wrong with a cheese roll.

We spent the afternoon sitting in the garden (in the shade) until “er indoors ^TM” set off on cat duty. I had a shower, put some washing in, and wrote up some CPD.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching more “Bake Off: The Professionals”. And then we started watching “Ann Droid”. Bearing in mind the writers and the cast, the first episode was a tad disappointing.

It might perk up though. Here’s hoping.