1 January 2026 (Thursday) - New Year's Day

I was so tired yesterday evening. I spent much of our Zoom meeting dozing off, and went off to bed almost at the stroke of midnight…
 
We had a rather auspicious start to the year; I woke at five o’clock to find “er indoors TM clearing dog sick from the bed. I took the dog sick downstairs to flush away only to find the kitchen mat was soaking in the bath. One of the dogs (probably Treacle judging by the quantity) had had a little (frankly epic) accident.
Having been up for half an hour dealing with dog issues, “er indoors TM went back to that bit of the bedding which wasn’t in the washing machine. I gave up, made toast and watched a couple of episodes of “The Young Ones” before sparking up my lap-top.
Back in the day New Year’s Eve saw a flurry of text messages wishing all the best for the New Year. This morning I had a flurry of WhatsApp messages wishing all the best. I suppose that’s a sign of the times. Who sends texts any more?
There wasn’t much happening on-line at half past six. Presumably everyone was sleeping off the excesses of last night. I’d had a rather good evening playing “Ticket to Ride” until half past ten, then nodding off during our Zoom meeting. I’d rather have stayed awake, but you can’t have everything.
 
In years gone past, the morning of New Year’s Day would feature an early start for a major get-together of the local geocaching community. Someone would put out a series of geocaches and organise for them to go live on New Year’s Day. They’d also organise for everyone to meet up and walk round this series together. I organised one such event ten years ago when we had over thirty people along, and took part in several.  
Sadly we’ve only had one of these New Year’s Day events in the last five years… it’s such a shame that so few people seem to be prepared to organise anything these days. Had there been anything planned I would have gone along. But there wasn’t so I volunteered to work.
 
It was cold and dark as I set off for work. But it was a tad easier scraping the ice off the car this morning than it had been yesterday. As I drove the pundits on the radio were having a special programming about the problems facing parents of small children. I turned that straight off and instead sang along to Ivor Biggun songs. It might be a New Year, but some things stay the same.
As I drove up the motorway I could see the most glorious sunrise in my rear view mirror, but by the time I got to somewhere where I could stop and take a photo so the colours had dulled down. 
 
I got to work and went into the canteen. I thought I might have a cheese scone for brekkie. As today was a Bank Holiday the works canteen weren't doing cheese scones. Instead I had the cooked breakfast. I had exactly the same as I had a week ago on Christmas day for over a pound cheaper. I mentioned the price difference to the woman on the till, but she wasn't overly interested; she didn't want to be working on a Bank Holiday either.
And just like a week ago, the brekkie wasn't all that good and didn't sit well either.
 
I did what I couldn’t avoid on a rather busy morning, but I was only on for the morning. I headed home, collected “er indoors TM and the dogs and we drove down to Broomhill Sands (near Camber) and had a rather good (if rather cold) walk along the beach. A little way along the beach was a geocache which needed a little puzzle to be solved before we could find it. We found the notice board to which we had been directed, found the information we needed, did the sums, and taking care to keep the dogs away from the dead fox we soon had the geocache in hand. And got an e-souvenir too.
It was a shame that Morgan had to tiddle up the sandcastles on the way back down the beach, but there it is.
There was a very nasty crunch as I drove put of the rough car park and didn’t see a pot hole. I’m hoping no damage was done…
 
We came home for a cuppa. I spent a couple of hours alternately reading the first Harry Potter book and falling asleep until “er indoors TM boiled up a very good dinner.
We watched the first episode of the new series of “The Traitors”. Who is a traitor, who is not? Realistically the thing has to be a popularity competition. But like with all the previous series I found myself fascinated with the hostess’s haircut and makeup. Presumably she’s been professionally done up… Someone chose that look.