26 April 2026 (Sunday) - Kingsdown

I slept well, but woke with the world’s worst hangover. What was that all about? I only had one bottle of Sainsbury’s own-brand ale and one bottle of “Old Speckled Hen” last night.

 

There was a bit of a performance when we got up – we wanted to wash the sheets (to take advantage of the decent weather to dry them) but persuading dogs to get off of the bed took some doing. Eventually I got them (the sheets, not the dogs) into the washing machine.

I made toast and had my usual peer into the Internet as I do. It was much the same as it ever is… or was it? A couple of years ago I was inundated with friend requests on Facebook ostensibly from scantily clad young ladies all keen to “do the dirty deed” with, on or at me. I’ve not had one of those for over a year now. These days I get suggestions of people I may know who I’ve never met and never will. This morning the “you might know” suggestion was some young chap who seems to spend a lot of time shooting things in the Norfolk countryside. Mind you when I say “some young chap”, pretty much everyone is young these days. As Albert once remarked, everything’s relative.

I Munzed and Wordled from “slept” through “clams” to get it on the third attempt with “gloss”.

 

My brother and nephew visited. The come over to Ashford every couple of months to go to the MacArther Glen outlet centre. I can see the place from my back bedroom and I go there maybe once a year. I can’t see the attraction of paying far too much for stuff you can get for a fraction of the price from Amazon, but what do I know?

 

I gathered yet more dog turds, hung out the washed sheets, and we drove down to Kingsdown where there was a geo-meet. Today several of us gathered and wandered up and down the beach picking up litter. There was a surprising amount to gather. As well as no end of various detritus I found two helium balloons, an old plastic canister (which was two feet tall!) and three quarters of an old pallet.

And with litter gathered we adjourned to the beer garden of the Zetland Arms where a dozen of us sat and put the world to rights over a could of pints of beer. The “Creekside” was rather good.

We came home, and spent an hour or so slobbing in the garden over more beer.

 

After a little sleep we had dinner and watched a couple more episodes of “The Orville”. Watching the credits it would seem that a lot of people who worked on Star Trek were involved in the production – including Jonathan Frakes as director. I didn’t know that.