30 April 2026 (Thursday) - Busy

I spent much of the night trying to get comfortable. Whilst either carrying the pallet half a mile up the beach at Sunday’s litter pick or doing Monday’s gardening I somehow pulled a muscle. My left hand has been numb and my left shoulder has been hurting all week.

 

I interrupted my morning shave to go outside. There was a loud crashing above me. Were there rats in the ceiling space? I went out to see a huge seagull flying away. Better a seagull than a rat. I had a quick look at the little pond – the predator deterrent seemed to be doing the trick.

 

I scoffed toast whilst peering at a dull internet, then once we’d got the tick-repelling collars onto the dogs I took them up to the woods.

We had a good walk. The swamps have all dried up, we found no fox poo. But at several points we saw several people lurking maybe ten to fifteen yards from the paths. Just standing in the undergrowth. It’s too early in the year for mushrooms – what were they all up to?

And there was a minor incident as we came back to the car park. Some elderly chap had taken a tumble. I helped him back up and he was fine… he’d just gone arse over tit and couldn’t get back up again, and his elderly wife wasn’t up to the task of heaving him up. Mind you when I say “elderly” they probably weren’t that much older than me… I wonder how long it will be before I couldn’t get up if I was to cark over? After all I did cark over in the mud just a month or so ago.

 

I stopped off at the post box in Chart Road on the way home to post a turd to the NHS. As part of the bowel cancer screening programme everyone of a certain age gets to post the NHS a turd every couple of years.

When I first started in pathology many years ago things were very different… These days you choose your specialty *before* you apply for a job. Back in the day you were taken on as a generic trainee and you spent two years going round the various departments to see what you liked best, and what liked you best. It didn’t take me long to opt for a specialty that doesn’t involve testing turds. Back in the day I tested quite a few of them and decided that it wasn’t for me…

 

We came home to an empty house. “er indoors ^TM” was having meetings today. That was nice for her. I made myself a cuppa and scoffed the last of the Bakewell tarts, Munzed, and Wordled from “watch” to “clock” to get “crock” on the third attempt. Then despite my aching shoulder and hand I went into the garden.

 

I gathered turds, I strimmed, I mowed, I cleaned out the big pond’s filter. It has to be said that clearing the turds of a dozen fish is far easier than clearing those of three small dogs.

I then fiddled about having a bit of a tidy-up inside. I then put some washing in to scrub, and as it scrubbed I marked some trainee work and wrote up some CPD.

I did the ironing whilst watching episodes of “The Man in the High Castle” which would seem to have developed a cheapskate version of Project Tic-Toc (for those old enough to remember it). I Hoovered. I got the hair trimmers out and gave Bailey a little tidy-up. Not that she was in any way grateful.

I filled up the bird feeder, I did “FEED THE FISH”, and just as I settled to have a little doze by the pond so “er indoors ^TM” returned with a load of shopping that needed carrying in.

 

We had pie and chips for dinner and watched a couple of episodes of “The Orville” as we scoffed. They were rather good (the episodes and the pie and chips).

I’ve got an early start tomorrow so I should really have an early night. But I’m looking forward to having a rest tomorrow. People think I’m joking when I ay I go to work for a rest, but yesterday was a work day and I covered just over four thousand steps. I did over four times that amount today…

And my hand and shoulder still hurt.

29 April 2026 (Wednesday) - Bookish ?

I was up far too early this morning. My heart sank as I watched an episode of “The Man in the High Castle” as two of the main protagonists became rather lesbidaceous, and another flopped the jubblies out. Not that I’m taking any moral high ground here, but when this happened in “Game of Thrones” it coincided with the writer obviously running out of ideas. Let’s hope this isn’t the beginning of the end for what has been a rather good show so far.

 

As I peered into Facebook I saw that our MP had posted last night explaining why he had voted in favour of the Prime Minister not being investigated. He wasn’t fooling anyone though. Leaving aside the total waste of time it would be to investigate the Prime Minister, the real reason our MP voted the way he did was because he’d been told to do so. Back in the day in the run-up to the last general election he was claiming that black was white and shit was sugar, but in retrospect he was just saying anything which would endear him to the electorate. And have endeared himself and got elected the chap now talks a good fight but has no opinions of his own. He simply parrots that which the Labour party whips tell him to say, regardless of anything he might have said in the past. As a life-long-leftie it bothers me that actually having a Labour MP has turned out to be something of a disappointment.

And I had an email thanking me. Regular readers of this drivel may recall that last year I made a financial investment. I lent someone called Edgar fifteen quid to help him finance a pig farm in the Philippines. Edgar has now made a success of his pig farm and has fully repaid his loans… and he’s repaid me thirteen pounds and eighty-one pence. Now I’m no financial wizard, but I rather thought that when I invested fifteen quid I would get more than fifteen quid back… I always thought that was how “an investment” worked.

However rather than cashing in my profit, last night I decided to speculate to accumulate and I’ve lent it to another pig farm; this one in Ecuador. I put up a post on Facebook last night suggesting people might like to also invest in struggling third world businesses. This morning I got a little thank you because someone had clicked on the link I’d put up and had signed up themselves. If anyone else fancies having a go, here’s the link.

And it would seem that Munzee aren’t doing Clan War any more. That’s a shame – it has been something which has kept me out of mischief for some time. However nil desperandum… Munzee are launching “Gauntlet Games” which to my untutored eye looks to be exactly the same as Clan War in all but name.

 

I set the dishwasher going, and got ready for the early shift.

 

I went down the road to my car taking care not to trip over the same cable that I saw charging the electric car yesterday.  It had been over the pavement for over twelve hours... According to Sections 162 and 178 of the Highways Act 1980, it is illegal to place a wire or apparatus over, along, or across a public highway...

I was tempted to pretend I'd gone arse over tit over it and see if I might get some compensation. After all, if I don't someone else will. 

 

I set off to work listening to the news.  The King is still in America... I originally wondered if he mightn't have done better by staying away, but he seems to be impressing President Trump. Maybe his going there was for the best?

 

I got to work and realised I'd forgotten to pop in at Sainsburys for a sandwich. I had a look at the works branch of M&S instead and wished I hadn't. You can get a decent sandwich snack and drink and change out of four quid from Sainsburys. M&S wanted six quid for a rather manky looking sandwich, a rather miniscule bag of crisps and a tiny bottle of water. 

I went to the hospital's league of friends shop instead...  It was still more expensive than Sainsbury's, but nowhere near as grim as what M&S were offering.

Work was work... could you believe that none of my colleagues had heard of Mrs McCave?

And as I scoffed my sandwich from the hospital's league of friends shop my Kindle app told me it had given me an award for being “bookish”.

 

Being on an early I got out early and came home to find that electric car down the road was still being charged. How long does it take to charge an electric car from a living room socket?

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up some rather good fajitas which we washed down with a rather grim bottle of plonk. If ever you feel tempted to get outside of a bottle of “Drop Anchor” personally I wouldn’t bother.  If you ever find yourself in possession of a bottle of the stuff… I’ve had worse.

We followed it up with half a bottle of amaretto as we watched three episodes of “The Orville”… I’ve heard the show described as the best series of Star Trek that we never had, and that’s probably not an unfair description.

28 April 2026 (Tuesday) - A Day At Work

Once I’d forcibly shoved Treacle over, I had a reasonable night’s sleep right up to the point where I was having a nightmare in which I was trying to panic-buy antique eighteenth century trousers so that I could join the eighteenth century militia. I woke in a cold sweat and was suddenly wide awake. What was that all about?

I got up, made toast and watched an episode of “The Man In The High Castle” which is slowly but surely turning into a rather better version of “Quantum Leap”.

 

I then had my usual rummage round the Internet  A friend was trying to help raise money to send a child suffering with seizures to Mexico for a revolutionary new treatment which is not available on the NHS… I was reminded of the chap who was my best man. He had an incurable eye disease and fifty years ago there was a massive fundraising campaign to send him to Switzerland for a revolutionary new treatment which was not available on the NHS. The reason why that treatment was not available on the NHS was because it was a scam. I wonder if this is the same?

I sent out birthday wishes to the four friends having a birthday today, and got ready for work.

 

As I drove to work so the pundits on the radio were talking about the growing concern over the rise of artificial intelligence...  Those with any sense at all have realised that leaving the development of AI to those who are making a profit from it is somewhat foolhardy. But isn't this the whole idea of the American dream and of Thatcher's Britain though?  For years we were told that government control of anything was a bad thing and absolutely everything is better left to those who do it for a profit.  Even though it's rather obvious to anyone with any sense that giving unfettered access to potentially world-dominating technology to those who make money out of it is silly. Personally I would suggest that it is a tad late to be discovering the concept of "vested interests", but (as I so often say) what do I know?

And there were reports of the King's visit to America where he is sucking up to Donald Trump. I must admit that when he came to the throne I thought he'd make a complete arse of it, but the King's done far better than I thought he would... up till today.

He really should have phoned in sick rather than trying to appease a nutter.

 

I did my bit at work. At lunch time I slipped out. I'd got a carful of rubbish to go to the tip. With Ashford's tip closed I'd arranged to go to the tip near work before the late shift today, but yesterday I was asked if I could swap shifts... I'd much rather do a core shift and spend my lunch break doing a tip run than do a late shift, so that's what I did. And the tip run was all done and dusted in less than half an hour.

I went back to work where we had a Red Alert. I've mentioned before that they aren't as exciting as you might think... those who do my job have on occasion described it as hours of the mundane interspersed with split seconds of OMG. 

 

Getting home was a bit of a palaver this evening… someone in Francis Road was moving house and had parked the removal van right in the middle of the road completely blocking it in all directions.

And as I walked home from where I’d parked I nearly tripped over the charging cable coming out of someone’s window, going across the pavement and into the electric car parked in the street. I’ve always said that I’d like an electric car but charging it would be an issue… Perhaps this is the way forward… all the time no one actually trips over it, all would be peachy.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a rather good chili which we scoffed whilst watching a couple of episodes of “The Orville”. And as I type this we are watching some documentary about The Beatles on the Disney channel…

I know it is tantamount to heresy, but am I alone in thinking that The Beatles were (and are) just a tad over-rated?

27 April 2026 (Monday) - Lost Lead, Eaten Fish

I woke in the small hours needing a tiddle, and I had this stroke of genius that if I put a load of washing in to scrub I could then go back to kip, and hang it out when I woke up. I put the load of washing in, went back to bed, and lay awake for a few hours wondering if the washing machine had done its thing.

I eventually gave up laying awake and got up at half past seven, hung out that washing and made toast.

 

I had my usual look at the Internet. It was still there… Interestingly there was very little mention of St George’s Day on Facebook. What with it having been St George’s Day last Friday, in years gone by there would have been parades and processions about it. There was a church service in Rye that a friend had been to, but that was about it. No one even seemed to have been round replacing the tatty flags that went up a year or so ago.

There was precious little about the London Marathon to be seen either. Usually there’s a few of my friends posting photos of themselves looking worn out at the end of it.

I Munzed, Wordled my way from “hours” through “trade” to “libre” which was a mistake. When I realised that, I was rather stuck. Eventually I came up with “eeire”.

 

I took the dogs up to the woods. Last week I found a good little hidey-hole for the bird geocache that Chris gave me. I’ve written a Wherigo cartridge for it – people will play a silly little game on their phone in the comfort of their own home, and then go out and find the geocache

Today we put the thing out while on our walk.

We took a different route to usual. We met four groups of other dogs, and each meeting passed off nicely and without episode. I’m absolutely convinced that the lead is the problem. We’ve never had an issue when our dogs meet other dogs when everyone is off the lead.

And talking of leads, at the three mile point I realised that Bailey’s lead wasn’t round my neck…

I had a vague idea where I might have dropped it so we sort-of backtracked. We met a nice lady who pointed out the lead just down the track from where we met her. She said that the problem with picking up lost property is where do you leave it to be found? She said better to leave it where it was dropped and the loser could re-trace their steps to find it. She’s probably got a point.

The nice lady’s friend said “hello Dave” and asked me about working at Maidstone and clearly knew me. I smiled politely. Half a mile later I suddenly realised who she was. Fortunately we met again at the car park and I was able to apologize for my rubbish memory. We both had a good laugh… but it bothers me that I am so hopeless at recognising people. I must come over as very rude, but I have a terrible memory for faces.

 

I dropped the dogs home then went running errands. I sent to the vet’s to get the tick-repelling collars. Having pulled one off of Treacle we’d realised that it was that time again.

And I went to Dobbies where I got a couple of grass carp for the little pond. The plan was that they should sort out the algae. And I got us an apple turnover each for lunch.

 

I came home. The apple turnovers were (in all honesty) something of a disappointment. A little more apple, a little more turnover, and a lot less sugar would have been nice.

I then went into the garden. I spent a little while building a little frame to put over the little pond. A wooden frame with a mesh of fishing line to keep any predators out. It took a couple of hours to build and get in place.

“er indoors ^TM” then commented that the bog filter on the big pond was running slow so I turned the pumps off, got out a screwdriver, took the pumps apart and pulled fistfuls of fish turds out of the pumps. As I fiddled about so Morgan came past munching one of the little grass carp that I’d bought earlier. So much for that protective predator-deterring frame, eh?

Morgan got a severe bollocking, and once I’d sorted the big pond I went back to the little one and added a lot more fishing line to the mesh cover. Here’s hoping.

In the meantime I need another little fish. I shall pop into the garden centre at some point this week and hope someone different is on duty. Explaining that I need a replacement fish because my dog ate the last one would be a tad embarrassing.

 

I loaded the car for tomorrow’s tip run, and tehn spent a little while finishing all the web pages for the new Wherigo, and I’ve sent it to the geo-Feds to see if they approve. If all is OK I shall get it to actually go live on Friday – that way I get an e-souvenir as there’s one for everyone who makes the effort to hide a geocache in May this year. There’s also one for August too, but I shall worry about that later.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up some burgers and went bowling. As the dogs snored I washed the undercrackers and watched a couple of episodes of “The Man In The High Castle”.

Again on a so-called day off I haven’t stopped. Today’s step count is a shade under seventeen thousand… I’m going to work for a rest tomorrow…

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.

25 April 2026 (Saturday) - Early Shift

I came downstairs (far too early) to find Morgan pacing. I let him out and once he’d done his bit he went upstairs where I could hear him pacing again. Once I’d lifted him past Treacle (who was already on the bed) he soon settled. He’s funny like that; he’s absolutely terrified of Treacle all the time she is higher than he is.

I made toast and watched another episode of “The Man in the High Castle”. I quite like that show… and it has been making me think. I realise it is a make-believe show, but the characters in the fictional Japanese Empire and the characters in the equally fictional Greater German Reich and the characters in the supposedly defeated America are all fiercely patriotic about their way of life. From what I can see this is for no other reason that they were born into that faction so it is inherently the right one and everyone else’s is wrong. This isn’t a philosophy to which I can relate… sometimes it bothers me that I am not at all patriotic. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t dislike my home country but I *really* don’t seem to have the unswerving loyalty to it which so many others seem to have.

I wish I knew why, and what I was missing.

 

I had a little look at the Internet as I do most mornings. The Facebook page of a shop in Hastings Old Town commented that the shop has been sold… The chap who runs that Facebook page has been incredibly opinionated on social media over the last few months and year. I can’t help wonder just how many of his potential customers he has alienated. I can remember the chap who ran a little shop where I used to live where I used to get rabbit food. I would listen to him chatting with customers supporting the government of the day, and then five minutes later running them down with another customer… The trouble with customers is that no two agree and you have to keep them all sweet. Going on social media forces you to take a stance… and in doing so alienate half your customers.

I saw an ex-colleague was having his birthday today. Once someone with whom I spent a large part of every day, our children were born about the same time, we’d go to the pub after work, we used to go to the same social clubs… and now we no longer work together I’ve not seen the chap for over fifteen years.

 

As I drove to work so the "Farming Today" program was on the radio. There was a lot of talk about how the UK spends a fortune importing expensive fertilisers from around the world, but no one being interviewed had any sensible reason why no one goes round the UK's fields and farms gathering up more of the cow shit which (so it was claimed) would do every bit as good a job as the imported stuff for a fraction of the price. 

Someone's already wised up to this though - you can get the stuff in B&Q...

But from my personal experience there's quite a lot more cow turds still to be had.

And then there was talk about how the Argentines want the Falklands back and are agitating about it. It would seem that President Trump has told them he would support them in the matter as he's sulking about the UK not joining in with the war he's started in the Middle East. Not that it's got anything to do with him. I can't see the UK giving up the Falklands easily though. The UK invaded and re-took them not that long ago (and I don’t remember the US helping that much then). The islanders want to remain as part of the UK. And (the crucial bit) there's loads of oil round them to be had.

 

I got to work, sent the night shift home, Munzed and Wordled, then cracked on with the early shift. I tuned in to Steve on the radio and mis-heard the "Guess the Lyrics" competition. It sounded like "love just like a diction now I'm hooked on you", but I had no idea what that was. Sadly the the internet signal was rather squafty and work got in the way of me listening. Work does that. I missed the Mystery Year competition, to say nothing of missing Dog Club as well. 

Being the weekend I treated myself to dinner in the works canteen. The works canteen is rather good - two pieces of barbecue chicken with chips and cherry pie with custard for a fiver. Can’t be bad.

 

With work done I came home. We had kebabs for dinner and had a go on the Infinity Table. You can’t beat a bit of “Ticket to Ride”… I won two out of eight games, and one was a draw so it wasn’t the utter rout it has been in the past.

24 April 2026 (Friday) - Stuff

 I got up earlier than I might have done and watched another episode of “The Man in the High Castle” before sparking up my lap-top and having a look at the Internet as I do every morning. It was still there, and much the same as ever…

Someone I know was bemoaning their lot on Facebook… following a messy divorce the fellow has lost his house and half his pension to his ex-wife… but still gets to keep his two holiday homes and two flashy cars. From what I can work out from Google that’s an estimated value in the millions… I sometimes (all the time) whinge about being a pauper, but I have far more than some. The trouble with money is that everyone is inherently greedy; you can never have enough money, can you?

Google asked me to review the Duke of Cumberland. Again. Since we called in there last Saturday Google has asked me to review the place every day. I reviewed it last Sunday, but still I keep getting asked.

I Munzed. Our Clan has reached the last of our monthly targets.

 

I tiptoed through the rubbish the bin men had strewn up the road as I made my way to my car. Just recently the bin men have been rather better; sadly today there was something of a reversion to their previous "couldn't give a sh*t" attitude.

I set off up the motorway to work .  As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how the Assisted Dying Bill has now failed to become law. Not because of any legal or moral reasons, but purely because there's no more time to talk about it. Only so much parliamentary time has been allocated to the matter (or any matter come to that), and if those opposed to any particular bill just keep waffling on then the thing automatically fails for lack of time, It's called "filibustering" and has been going on for years.

 

I went to work via Aylesford's Sainsburys.  I parked my car, and immediately the chap in the van next to me started blasting on his hooter claiming I should park away from his van. As is always the way in life, it wasn't so much what he said as how he said it. Once I'd parked elsewhere the chap jumped from his van in a rather sprightly way...

If he truly needs space to get in and out of his van then he needs to use the disabled bays which were not ten yards from where he was parked.

If he was not in any way disabled, then maybe he needs to reconsider how he acts when in a van bearing his company’s logo and details. Perhaps his company's HR department will discuss it with him?

  

I got in to work. I wasn't supposed to be in today, but I'd been asked to help with the new IT system. I must admit I wasn't keen on the idea, but the overtime is nice. I spent the morning reviewing the written instructions that staff will be using, but there was a minor issue when I rather confused the people in the blood bank when their label printer started printing out HLAB27 blood test results for Kermit The Frog (can’t imagine how that happened but it’s a good name for a dummy patient, isn’t it!)

 

I came home at mid-day and took the dogs to the woods. The woods were again incredibly busy, and chatting with all of the bluebell-watchers it would seem that most of them were having their annual pilgrimage to Kings Wood to see the bluebells. I explained to several that we are up there a few times each week; no one seemed to think that you would ever go to Kings Wood more than once a year.

Most everyone was within a hundred yards of the car park, but as we came back to the car after our walk we found a young couple who’d ventured half a mile into the wood… and got lost. They intimated that I might rescue them… I pointed at Morgan and said that I was following the dachshund as he seemed to know where he was going. They both accepted that without question and started following him too.

 

We came home where I made us both a cuppa, and I spent a few minutes cartoon-ising the photos I’d taken in the woods. I then spent an hour marking more trainee’s work… I’d expected to spend the entire day doing overtime today so I didn’t mind an extra hour after our walk.

I stood up and was watched by the dogs who quivered in excitement until I said that I was going to “FEED THE FISH” when they flew up the garden.

With fish fed the dogs went back to sleep and I had a look at the monthly accounts. They could be better… ideally I’d have a bank balance in the millions, but they could be a whole lot worse…

 

We had pizza, we watched yesterday’s episode of “Race Across the World” in which the contestants went from Turkey to Georgia. And another episode of “The Orville” .

I’ve got another early start tomorrow...

23 April 2026 (Thursday) - Rather Busy

Yesterday evening we had a dodgy five minutes when the Internet died. The same happened again as I scoffed my toast this morning which was a bit of a worry.

When it came back I saw there was a new series of geocaches near Tenterden – going right past the brewery that let us down a couple of months ago. I wasted no time in reminding people about that. Interestingly the new geocaches were hidden by people who’ve found fourteen thousand of the things but never been to a local meet-up. I must invite them personally to the midsummer event.

Not much else would seem to have happened overnight. I Munzed, Wordled from “broke” through “spend” and “cheat” and “fleet” to get it on the fifth go with “tweet”.

 

I took the dogs up to Kings Wood. As we drove there was a total half-wit being interviewed on the radio. I wish I knew who that person was; they were clearly someone in some position of authority to be on national radio at peak time. They were ranting that in China “they” have two weeks’ worth of food in reserve whereas in the UK the reserve is whatever is in the supermarkets right now. However when challenged about exactly who it was that holds two weeks’ worth of food in reserve, the chap got rather twitchy. Clearly in China “they” is the communist Chinese government. However the UK government doesn’t get involved in the trivia of what the free market is doing, let alone hold billions of pounds worth of food. Listening to the idiot showing his utter ignorance of basic international political theory was rather embarrassing.

 

We got to the woods and had a good walk. Shortly after we started Morgan was nearly run over by a jogger who wasn’t looking where he was going. Being rather shocked, Morgan barked and then growled a bit. In retrospect I probably didn't help by patiently explaining that Morgan is a small dachshund and not a ravenous sabretooth tiger, and it was rather embarrassing meeting the chap again two miles later.

At the three mile point we met a woman with two large dogs. I felt sorry for the dogs; each had a huge cow bell tied to their collars, and if either dog got more than a couple of yards from her she went hysterical. And she went absolutely bat-shit when her dogs tried to join in with our group. They seemed nice dogs, they got on fine with my three and would have been welcome to walk with us, but the odd woman wasn’t having it.

We met some chap who was walking with those silly Nordic poles; he really did look like he’d lost his skis.

 

We got back to the car park to find it was heaving. Several people were standing at the start of the wooded area looking at the bluebells. Two old dears got chatting with us. I pointed out the far end of the field and said that the bluebells fizzled out there, but they were really pretty some two miles into the woods. The old dears (and the others listening to our conversation) looked at the far end of the field in much the same way that I might stand at the base of Mount Everest and look at the peak. It would seem that when people go to Kings Wood to see the bluebells, a *lot* don’t go much further than the car park.

 

 We came home. The dogs went straight to their water bowl. I must take water for them next time we go there. I put a load of washing in to scrub, made us both a cuppa then had a look in the garden. A couple of days ago we’d seen a rat going into the garden storage box. I had a look inside; there were no rat turds or any evidence of rat. Now that I’ve dinged out a load of tat, we can close the box. A simple thing, but one which should keep the rat out. I spotted a likely hole in the fence from not-so-nice-next-door where the rat probably came through, so I bunged it up. It needed bunging; with a little effort Bailey could have forced herself through the hole and I *really* don’t want that. The obvious answer would be to replace the fence. I’ve offered to pay for that, but not-so-nice-next-door just started shrieking. Perhaps I’m being racist but she seems to take offence at the slightest provocation.

I had a little pootle round the garden, topped up the bird feeder, hung out the washing and cracked on with the ironing, giving the new ironing board its first session. As ironing boards go it did the trick.

 

As I ironed I watched a couple of episodes of “The Man In The High Castle”… I suspect that some of the names and places would mean more if I were more up on mid-twentieth century history. Again I found myself wondering if I did the right thing by dropping history in my fourth year at secondary school… but the history teacher we had wasn’t the best… I hesitate to say that he was crap, but there must be better ways to teach history than by over the course of the year reading out the entire history text book and having the class write down what you are reading out. 

 

And with telly watched I stood up. Treacle jumped up and looked at me expectantly. We have this little ritual… she knows what is coming. She knows it is time to throw handfuls of fish food into the pond. But she stands and waits, quivering with excitement, for me to say that I’m going to “FEED THE FISH” at which point she charges down the garden in excitement. She won’t go until I make the announcement.

 

I ran the hair trimmers over my head… and again realised that I’ve turned into my grandfather. Before he won a fortune on the football pools (it’s all gone now) he used to live two doors down the road from us. I can remember going to visit so many times only to be told that grandad had popped to the barbers. I always wondered why; he too was as bald as a coot. He used to go to the barbers at least once a week… which is about the rate at which I run the hair trimmers over my head.

 

I then started writing a new Wherigo. The other day Chris gave me a rather good 3-D printed pressie which would make a very good themed geocache. While we were out earlier I found somewhere to hide it. So all that remains is to write the Wherigo… this one will feature my latest anti-cheating software in the cartridge, so those that go cheating (one day I will publish a list of them!) will have to do the thing properly.

 

Over dinner we sparked up the Disney app (we get it free with our Sky subscription now) and started re-watching “The Orville”. When the third season came out it moved to the Disney channel, but that was so long ago we’d forgotten all that had happened so we started again.

It’s rather good, but just a shame that every time the captain speaks we hear the dog from “Family Guy”.

 

Today was a day off. I’ve not really stopped, and I’ve walked three times yesterday’s step count…

22 April 2026 (Wednesday) - Planful

I slept well… until half past two. I gave up trying to sleep at half past four, got up and watched an episode of “The Man in the High Castle” with something of a sense of “WTF is going on” then sparked up my lap-top. Pretty much nothing at all was happening on-line early this morning so (trying not to wake anyone) I got ready for work.

 

As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the radio were talking to the head honcho at McDonalds about allegations of bullying in various branches of the chain. She didn't want to get involved with what had gone before, but instead wanted to talk about the company's future. It was a shame that she couldn't have spoken in English but instead chose to speak in strange meaningless management catchphrases, one of which was that McDonalds was a very "planful" company. Whatever that meant...But more and more people do this sort of thing, don't they. Just read anything at all which has ever been posted on LinkedIn.

There was a classic example of this yesterday as I'd been sitting in the hospital's waiting area. The woman next to me had come in with her father and was waiting for him to have his appointment. As we waited so her phone rang. Rather than doing the decent thing and going elsewhere to take the call she stood up and walked to the centre of the waiting area where she answered the call with something of a flourish. She loudly thanked the caller for getting in touch and (equally loudly) announced that she was going to put him on speaker. There was then a frankly bizarre few minutes when she so obviously put on a show for the public. She ranted at her caller in an almost theatrical way about team efforts and targets and goals and opportunities and client expectations. It was very apparent that she was a London-based estate agent, and that the chap calling her was one of her underlings. She wanted him to sell or let a rather expensive apartment in the Putney area. 

She sounded very impressive (to the sort of people who are impressed by that sort of thing); it was a shame that her performance was utterly undermined by her minion being on the loudspeaker and so everyone could hear that the chap was actually phoning in sick because he'd been up all night with “f...ing diarrhoea”. 

 

I went to get petrol before I went in to work. The filling station in Aylesford was six pence per litre cheaper than Ashford, and so I saved two quid. Maybe only a minor result, but a result nonetheless.

I got a sandwich and went in to the early shift. I did what I had to, but an early start meant I got out early.

 

I did think about going to the woods this evening, but I wasn’t feeling on top form, and once we’d done “FEED THE FISH” the dogs all went back to sleep anyway.

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up pie and chips which we scoffed whilst watching an episode of “McDonald and Dodds” in which him who was the monocled mutineer and the eight Doctor Who played a villain.

 

Compared to yesterday, today was rather quiet… so why do I feel worn out?

21 April 2026 (Tuesday) - A Day's Leave

Again all the lights were on next door when I went to the loo at four o’clock.

I slept through till eight o’clock this morning, got up and made toast. As I peered into the Internet I saw that the chap who seems to be trying to visit every pub in the country (I’ve mentioned him before) has been making a lot of noise about his having been elected to the ruling committee of the Campaign for Real Ale. Bearing in mind how he’s on Facebook every day making great show of his favourite pub in every town, I can’t help but wonder if there’s going to be some conflict of interest here. Are disgruntled publicans going to have the arse with CAMRA about losing a competition they didn’t know they were in? A competition that is nothing to do with CAMRA.

I Munzed, and Wordled from “light” through “close” to (in a total bit of pot luck) get “clump” on the third attempt, taking maybe twenty seconds to do the lot. I rather impressed myself. Wordle usually takes me ages..

 

Despite the roads being incredibly busy I drove over to B&M Bargains to have a look at their garden section. Their wooden plant boxes were half the price of the ones in Longacres. And they were knocking out tennis balls at four for one pound fifty. Sainsburys do three for two quid. I shall be going to B&M Bargains for tennis balls from here on.

I went on to Dobbies where some huge black dog stopped and pissed up the lawn food. I’m not saying my dogs are blameless, but it was as though someone had emptied a bucket.

And I had a quick look round Longacres too.

 

Having found nowhere sold the fence supports I wanted, it was over to the hospital for a check up. Two years ago I had my fourth nasal re-bore. The first three failed as the surgeon had gone up the nostril, but on the fourth attempt the chap said he wanted to drill through the bone and come in from behind.

He had a look up my conk with an endoscope and says that (unlike the last three times) the polys haven’t come back. Here’s hoping they stays away.

Whilst I was in with the ENT specialist I mentioned about my seemingly continual tinnitus. He said that it comes with age, but had a look in my lugholes and said there was more wax in there than at Madame Tussauds. He got me to lie down and cleared out both earholes whilst I waited. He seemed quite proud of the size of some of the lumps of gunge he got out of my ears, and wasn’t at all disheartened that at the end of some seriously intense scraping the tinnitus was just the same as it was at the start.

He says he will arrange for some hearing tests.

 

I came home where I made us both a cuppa which we had with a Whitby bun, and then I took the dogs out. We got to the car park at the woods about three hours later than usual and the normal people were out in force. But once away from the car park we only saw three other groups. Perhaps it was the time of day, but the birds were very quiet; we heard hardly any of them squawking. Morgan rolled in one dead mouse and Bailey ate another. The girls found a bone and Bailey smothered herself in fox poo.

As we walked I stopped and watched two deer not fifty yards from us. The dogs didn’t notice them at all.

 

We came home. This morning we’d seen a rat going into the garden storage box. I stripped it out… There were a few rat turds and something (presumably a rat) had been chewing at one of the old tents. That can go to the tip. I also cleared up the area where I keep spare decorative garden stones as Bailey often sniffs round there, but there didn’t seem to be any rat evidence. I popped out a couple of the rat-repellent smelly things just in case.

We did “FEED THE FISH”. Yesterday one of the older fish looked a tad iffy. In the meantime it had croaked. I hoiked out the corpse. I watered the plants, I cleared up the dog dung.

 

The plan had originally been to then do the ironing, but by then I thought I’d done a full day on what was actually a planned day’s annual leave (booked for the hospital appointment) so I made up both a cuppa and looked at booking a tip run to get shot of the old chewed tent. Ashford’s tip is still closed. We can go to any other tip in Kent, but they are all quite a drive away. The obvious ones would be the ones in Maidstone… I had a stroke of genius that I might pop in there before next Tuesday’s late shift. I’ve booked an appointment at the Allington tip. I wonder where it is.

So I wrote up some CPD and sorted the undercrackers I’d tumble-dried last night…

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching some really odd celebrity quiz show. Hosted by what I can only describe as a portion of bread and butter pudding on legs it featured has-beens and never-weres who faced puzzles which were either on a par with “frozen water  I – space – E” or Einstein-level mathematics with nothing in between. However I did have a fit of the giggles on the anagram round… “Asrworp”?

 

I’m going to work tomorrow – for a rest.

20 April 2026 (Monday) - Hitler Croaked

I got up and went straight out to the little pond. The water level was fine. So how had it emptied itself on Saturday?

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. There wasn’t a lot going on, so I took the dogs out a tad earlier than we night usually go. As we drove up there the pundits on the radio were talking about how it has been discovered that every time President Trump makes some announcement that will affect the world’s financial markets, a few minutes before he does someone makes investments and then makes a killing… almost as though they knew what he was going to say. Not that anyone was suggesting that people were being tipped off as that would be very illegal…

We got to the woods where there were only half a dozen cars in the car park. Rather different to last week. We walked our usual walk. We didn’t see anyone else, we didn’t roll in anything or wallow in anything. We chased a few squirrels, but they all got away. Perhaps if the dogs were a tad more stealthy they might have more luck?

 

After four and a bit miles we were back at the car. The “bit” was arguable depending on whether you believe my watch or my phone.

We came home via Riversdale Road where there were reports of missing geocaches. One was missing; one wasn’t. I replaced the missing one, but might archive it soon. It’s a Wherigo I wrote. The idea is that you play a little game on your phone and as you go through the game you read the words and it tells you where the final geocache is found. But if you don’t read the words but just keep pressing the buttons as fast as you possibly can you miss the information you need and you end up in the wrong place. Basically it is an exercise in following instructions… but pretty much no one reads the instructions, everyone ends up in the wrong place and then they keep sending me messages that the thing is missing when it isn’t. Today, though, it was..  

It seemed like a good idea at the time but I shall probably archive it soon and replace it with a simple film pot under a rock… either when the local hunter of First To Finds is on holiday, or I shall prime someone else to go get it first.

 

We came home where it took me a little while to park. There’s some chap who lives locally who doesn’t like cars parked anywhere near his car, so given a space big enough for two and a half cars he makes a point of parking right in the middle so no one can park near his car. I saw red and spent a few minutes shoehorning my car into the tiny space he’d left. I *might* have bumped his car a couple of times as I squeezed into the space, but that’s his problem. The parking bay outside our house has space for seven cars, and too many times there’s only four cars there because of the frankly stupid parking that goes on.

 

Once home I voomed round the garden gathering turds. It’s an endless job. And with turds gathered I had a cuppa. I did think about tidying up the garden storage box; after all it has been a little while since the door closed on the thing. But my back was aching a bit. I’ll do that tomorrow, eh?

I played around with Microsoft CoPilot, I Munzed, I Wordled from “walks” through “wharf” to “weave” on the third go… eventually. How many five-letter words are there that start with “w” and have “a” in the middle, but don’t have an “h” in them?

 

I got myself a bit of lunch and settled in front of the telly underneath a pile of dogs and watched more episodes of “The Man In The High Castle” in which Colonel Tigh from BattleStar Galactica turned up as a rogue vicar.

“My Boy ^TM” popped in. Would I look after his scooter whilst he went for a haircut? He’s got one of these electric scooters – the sort of thing he swears about when anyone else is scooting about on one. Apparently it has a top speed of sixteen miles an hour and he can get from his house to ours in seven minutes which is probably faster than I could drive it.

I pootled in the garden, I wrote up some CPD, we did “FEED THE FISH” and watered the plants.

 

“er indoors ^TM” came home from work with a job lot of shopping, boiled up scran and then went bowling. I again settled in front of the telly underneath a pile of dogs and watched more episodes of “The Man In The High Castle”. The plot has taken a rather exciting turn – Hitler has croaked.

19 April 2026 (Sunday) - Lazy Day

I went to the loo at four o’clock this morning when I noticed that next door’s lights were all on. She does get up early.

I went back to bed where I slept through till half past eight, despite various snorings and squeakings.

 

I made toast and had my usual peer into the Internet…

I had messages about the Dog Club. Having finally found someone to act as a contact in the late group, there’s indignation about how dare I suggest that the poo bag had been left (even though it was), and complaints that the lock doesn’t close properly (even though I found it closed yesterday), and how I might like to arrange for a new lock… I took a deep breath. I never asked to take on running Dog Club…

I saw quite a few people had been walking round Kings Wood yesterday looking at the bluebells and for the geocaches I’d hidden. One or two people (who have found thousands and hidden none) commented on how some of the paper logs were wet. I took another deep breath. Would it cause these people physical pain to spend a fiver and buy a ream of paper? They could cut up the sheets and take some every time they went out geocaching and replace the wet paper in less time than it takes them to complain about it.

One thing which winds me up so much is when there is anything which might not be perfect about which pretty much everyone indignantly announces that ”they should do something about it” but are completely oblivious to the sad fact that there is no “they” who go round doing things. So often the problems in life are because of the old maxim “if you want a job done, do it yourself” and so few people are prepared to do anything themselves.

I Munzed and then Wordled from “leaks” through “shart” (which it accepted!) “Spain”, then back to “scant” as I’d forgotten the “T” was in there, and got it on the fifth go with “stand”.

 

And then it was into the garden. I had a look at the leak in the little pond and couldn’t really see why the thing had emptied yesterday. I mowed the lawn, cleaned the filter of the other pond, potted two small trees, cleaned out the drains and (almost) stopped Morgan peeing up everything I was using.

I've got a pedestal I need to do something with... I'll do that later. Three hours effort and the garden looks the same as when I started.

Have I ever mentioned that I am not a fan of gardening...

 

There were reports of issues with “er indoors ^TM”’s geocaches in Rolvenden, but someone else messaged her asking if she minded if they sorted the issues for her as they walked round today. Yes please !!!

And with our faith in humanity restored (and no need to go to Rolvenden) we declared Emergency Plan B. I popped over the road to the corner shop and got a few bottles of beer which had rather interesting labels.

We spent a rather good afternoon in the garden drinking beers and ciders whilst reading stuff on the Kindle app. There was a dodgy episode when Treacle sprang up for a cuddle and destroyed everything, but we soon cleared the wreckage.

 

Over a rather good bit of dinner we watched the latest episode of “Taskmaster”.

I’ve not left the house today…

18 April 2026 (Saturday) - Dog Club, Harry Potter

I slept better than I often do, but was still wide awake at five o’clock. Rather than laying in bed I got up and watched another episode of “The Man In The High Castle”. I realise that they were quite up on rocketry, but if the Axis powers really had won the second world war, would they have had Concord-style supersonic planes in the early 1960s?

I then had my usual peer into the Internet. It was still there. The usual drivel and squabbles abounded. I saw I’d been awarded a “Top Fan” badge for having clicked Facebook’s “like” button on a few photos on a dachshund page I follow. On a more serious note someone had posted the results of their blood test to one of the work-related Facebook groups I follow… This happens quite a bit. In some parts of the world it seems you can pay to get blood tests done and then go around asking what the results mean, and asking for quotes to sort out whatever the blood test had shown… I suppose that it isn’t entirely unlike what happened when Fudge was diagnosed with chronic kidney failure several years ago.

At first glance it seemed that today’s customer had both acute leukaemia and thalassaemia minor, but there were plenty of people queueing up to offer their sage advice and were suggesting everything from “piles” through to “died three weeks ago”.

Be very careful when asking for medical (or any) advice on-line. The less someone knows, the more confident and forceful they are with their opinion. Leaving aside the (rather major) point that a professional blood tester doesn’t offer diagnoses (that’s what doctors do), am I being hopelessly idealistic in preferring to have a “patient” rather than a “customer”? And am I being hopelessly idealistic in preferring that whoever used their professional judgement to ask for the blood test would deliver the bad news rather than having someone wonder if a blood test might tell them what was wrong with them (and then go onto Facebook to have random strangers explain the results to them)?

I Munzed. I Wordled from “drain” through “clade” to realise that “shady” was probably the only word which would fit… It wasn’t “shady”. I tried random gibberish until I got it right with “toady”. Is that even a word?

 

We got ourselves together. The plan was to go straight to today’s adventure from Dog Club, so there was quite a bit to get together. As I got bottles of cider in from the fridge in the shed I thought I could smell turds… suddenly gripped by panic I had a look down the drain. The water level was back where it should be… but there was quite a bit of “toilet things” floating there. It probably needs a few flushes.

As I fiddled about so Steve was doing the “Guess the Lyrics” competition on the radio. “I’m dancing on the white house lawn”?  I had no idea either. It was “Life is a Minestrone” by 10cc.

 

We drove round to Repton and Dog Club where we had a rather good session even if attendance was down somewhat. I blame the early drizzle.

 

From there we went out t Barham where we met Karl and Tracey. We went for a little geo-walk. Last year a series of puzzle geocaches went out all based on the “Harry Potter” books. The puzzles were fun, and the final geocache were all excellent; some involved well thought out field puzzles. In over sixteen thousand finds this series is probably the best series I’ve ever walked. The only criticism I could make would be that at nine miles it was a tad long; maybe two shorter loops might have been more manageable for an old git like me.

 

We walked nine miles over six hours, and with walk walked we retired to the Duke of Cumberland where we had a rather good bit of dinner washed down by a few pints of very good ale…

 

We came home to a minor disaster in the small fish pond. I shall deal with that in the morning.

In the meantime, here’s some photos of today.

17 April 2026 (Friday) - Early Shift, Drains

Well, last night was a case of the old, old story. With an alarm set I was wide awake from three o'clock which (in all honesty) wasn't bad for a night with an alarm set.

I got up, made toast and watched an episode of "The Man In The High Castle" which was rather good. I got ready for work and set off. I couldn't help but notice that the bins hadn't been strewn all over the pavements, the bin men weren't bellowing swear words up the street and the bin lorry had been parked in such a way that it wasn't deliberately blocking the road. Someone in authority must have had a word with them.

 

As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking the ongoing situation in the Middle East.

The Israeli and Lebanese governments are holding talks because (so it would seem) President Trump has ordered them to.

The British and French governments are organising an international armada to look after the strait of Hormuz; an international armada involving pretty much everyone except those currently at war over the place.

And the UK government is preparing for double figure inflation as the price of food looks set to go through the roof at the end of the year... or so it was claimed. The head of the Butcombe brewery was wheeled on who said that inflation of food prices might go through the roof; it is too early to tell.

It strikes me that whoever is wheeled on to the morning news is very firm about their opinions, and no two hold the same opinion.

 

Pausing only briefly to get a sandwich from Sainsburys I went in to the early shift. I spent much of the day whistling "Edelweiss" which is the theme tune to "The Man In The High Castle", and was a favourite song of my late grandmother. For some reason I have always been convinced that the song was also a firm favourite of Adolf Hitler's but it turned out the song was written fifteen years after he died.  One lives and learns.

 

And I got rather wound up as I chatted with the trainees. Being a professional blood-tester has always needed rather specialist post-graduate qualifications. Back in the day we would apply to be an apprentice blood tester. The ones who were successful (I got the thumbs-down on my first application) would spend four days a week in the workplace, and one day a week at a college. After four years of this we'd qualify with a degree, and those who wanted to go on to Masters level could do so over a further two years. 

A paid day off work each week to go to college, college fees paid, train fare to get there paid, the price of lunch and tea stumped up, and thirty quid to spend on text books… all the costs was part of our wages.  It might have taken longer to get a degree than the traditional full-time route would, but at the end of it all we had a qualification, professional registration and a job. And consequently it was attractive.  There was stiff competition to be an apprentice blood tester back then, and that's why I didn't get in on the first attempt.

Sadly about ten years after I started, someone in an office realised just how much it cost and decided that we would appoint staff at the point at which they qualified, and apprentice blood testers could pay for their own education... Some of the trainees now have over eighty thousand quid's worth of debt...

This is nothing new... but it came as something of a revelation to me...

 

As the day wore on so I had some messages from “er indoors ^TM”. The nice drains man had arrived. Regular readers of this drivel may recall our turd outlet hasn't been flowing as well as it might. The nice drain man opened the manhole cover over the communal sewer to find it was only a few inches from the top, and there wasn't just turds floating in it. It would seem the nice people a few doors up have been chucking "women's things" down their chodbin. I can't say that was the problem, but it certainly couldn't have helped. Still, I'm glad he found them. He can have that conversation with the neighbours. 

I got the message that he was sending some submarine camera down the drain, and then my shift was over. There's no denying that I drove down the motorway with something of a sense of trepidation.

 

I came home to find the nice man had gone. Apparently he’d seen nothing untoward with his sub-aqua camera so he just gave it all a particularly vigorous rodding and hoped for the best, and that cleared it. I saw that as a result. Seven years ago the nice people from the water company sent a camera-equipped submarine down there and told us that something had collapsed in the drain and there was a load of rats and shingle down there (in with the turds). Either today’s nice man’s camera had a turd on the lens or he wasn’t looking hard enough, or the last bloke was mistaken.

Here’s hoping the drain is good for another seven years…

 

I had intended to take the dogs to the woods this evening, but I’d had to park three streets away, and the current plan is that they should get a decent walk tomorrow. So we just did “FEED THE FISH” instead, and prepared my sat-nav “Hannah” for tomorrow.

We had fish and chips and watched “Race Across the World” in which the contestants were racing across Turkey. Some of the contestants went across the turtle rescue centre at Iztuzu beach where we visited when on holiday seven years ago.

I’d like to go back there at some point…