2 April 2026 (Thursday) - Doing Overtime

Another bad night. I got to sleep quickly, but “er indoors ^TM” and the dogs came up shortly after. Treacle settled; sadly Morgan and Bailey decided to have a pitched battle. And once they finally shut up and I nodded off again I found myself in a nightmare in which I was trying to force-feed ham sandwiches to the American ambassador.

I got up at five o’clock, made toast, and once I’d watched an episode of “Derek” I sparked up my lap-top and peered into the Internet. The Artemis II took off last night and is now on its way. And not a lot had happened on Facebook overnight, which was probably for the best. I posted out birthday wishes to the two Facebook friends having birthdays and got ready for work.

 

I set off up the motorway only to find the "Operation Brock" stupidity was back. Here's a thought. Last year our Reform UK councillor said that Reform UK would be putting a stop to Operation Brock. I wrote to him and in his reply he was crystal clear that Operation Brock was a thing of the past. Hasn't happened, has it? And they put the council tax up when they said they wouldn't, but that's another rant.

As I drove (at about forty-three miles per hour) the pundits on the radio were talking about the Artemis II launch. For all that I'm excited about it, the rocket went up, and that was it (for the moment). It could be announced in about fifteen seconds; they did go on about it at length without actually saying anything.

I think there was some talk about how the world is lunging into economic disaster; the so-called expert brought on to talk about it couldn't speak very good English and so the five minute interview was frankly incomprehensible. 

And there was talk about ex-Prince Andrew who's still in trouble and is going to be interviewed by the rozzers again.

 

I stopped off in Sainsburys for a sandwich. I got a couple of bottles of beer whilst I was at it. The self-service till said I had to be age-checked. You'd think the machine's camera which films the entire process would be able to tell I was old enough to buy a bottle of beer, wouldn't you? The moody old bat who had to get off her arse and come over to press the "he's old enough" button made no secret of her displeasure at having to get off of her arse. I've mentioned her before. She really shouldn't work in any customer-facing role. She clearly hates the general public and never speaks, though occasionally there's a bad-tempered grunt *if* she's in a particularly good mood.

I went on to work. Today was an extra day - I'd offered to help out with the new IT system.  In order to test the thing we need to have created various dummy patients on the system. Personally I use "KIRK - Captain" as my test patient. Others use "FROG - Kermit The" or "POTTER - Harry"... Occasionally someone will use "PATIENT – Test”, but I don’t hold with such normality There's probably something that a good psychologist might make of this.

 

For all that I whinge about Operation Brock, my journey home today was easier than yesterday’s. Yesterday I had to emergency stop to avoid the cars reversing (without looking) out of farm tracks, the cars coming head-on at me on the wrong side of the A262, and the cyclists randomly blundering all over the A28. Today I just set the cruise control and kept going in a (more or less) straight line.

 

One home I gathered up the dogs and took them down to Orlestone where we had a good walk. We didn’t roll in anything, or wallow in anything. We did find a dead squirrel, but it was that rank that no one wanted to carry it.

And with walk walked we came back home where we did “FEED THE FISH”. I harvested another bumper crop of dog dung, and had a fight with Microsoft Copilot. I asked it to make a picture of Captain Kirk, Kermit the Frog and Harry Potter sitting in a hospital waiting room. It refused because that would be a breach of copyright. So I asked it to make a picture of a man in a Star Trek uniform, a frog and a boy with glasses sitting in a hospital waiting room and it produced the picture above. Go figure.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching more episodes of “The Hunt: Prey vs Predator” which has taken a novel twist. For all that it is effectively a game of chase, there’s only one in the chasing team capable of speeds in advance of a brisk walk.

I’ve got a day off tomorrow (it’s a Bank Holiday). I’m not liking working these extra days…

1 April 2026 (Wednesday) - Early Shift

I was sleeping like a log when my phone went absolutely mental in the small hours with no end of notifications despite its internet connections being switched off. Just as I was nodding off again so “er indoors ^TM” took Treacle for a “quiet” tiddle. I wasn’t getting back to sleep after that.

I got up, made toast and had watched an episode of “Derek” before having a look at the Internet. Nothing much had changed overnight. I had some emails… people had been out in Kings Wood looking for my geocaches. I’d replaced a missing one a couple of weeks ago – these people had found the original.

There wasn’t much else happening on-line at half past five this morning so I got ready for work and set off.

 

I drove west-wards through the -hursts and the -dens. It was rather dark and rather foggy this morning. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the war in the Middle East which Donald Trump now claims will be over in a couple of weeks. That bloke says a lot of things… sadly much of which turns out not to be the truth.  Is he bending the truth to suit his agenda? Is he deliberately lying? I realised that my experience of the bloke is purely that which I see of him in the news, but he reminds me of the more feeble-minded cub scouts with which I dealt with as a scout leader many years ago. The rather simple children would just spout the first things that came into their heads. It can be rather endearing in an immature eight year old, but it is rather worrying in a world leader.

I suppose (if nothing else) it is yet another example of the ultimate futility of democracy.

There was also talk about the Artemis II which is supposedly going up later. I hope it does. There was someone on the radio from the Open University being interviewed on the radio this morning who echoed what I said yesterday; the Americans are running scared that the Chinese will get to the Moon first (this time).

 

I stopped off at Tesco where I got a sandwich and filled the self-service machine with all the change from Saturday’s Dog Club. The staff didn’t care today, but the old biddy in the queue behind me wasn’t happy about it. She was giving a running commentary to anyone who would listen about how much change I was putting in the machine and how long she’d been waiting to use the machine herself. For no reason that I could work out it was (apparently) vital that she had to use the machine I was using; the other seven just weren’t good enough for her.

 

I got to work and had a very busy day. I’ve mentioned before that I wouldn’t recommend working anywhere that regularly has “Red Alert” declared. Unlike Captain Kirk’s our Red Alerts don’t involve coming under phaser fire from irate Klingons, but I’d still rather not have them.

I was glad when it was home time. And being on the early meant I got home much earlier than usual.

 

I had a vague idea of taking the dogs to the woods, bit once we’d done “FEED THE FISH” they all went back to sleep, so I didn’t bother.

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up Katsu chicken which we scoffed whilst watching “The Hunt: Prey vs Predator”. It’s a rather good show not entirely unlike the wide games I used to play with my mates in the sand quarry at Fairlight with my mates fifty years ago. And the kit they wear puts me in mind of the seventies sci-fi show “Logan’s Run”.

 

I’d like to stay up to watch the Artemis II launch, but I’m falling asleep and it don’t go up till nearly half past eleven…