14 April 2014 (Monday) - Sleep Clinic

After yesterday's walk I was rather tired. I could have done with a decent sleep; it was something of a shame that "Furry Face ^TM" decided to have a barking fit shortly before 2am. I didn't really get any decent sleep after I'd settled him down.

I got up shortly before 6am, pootled with general tidying for a bit and then watched "Extras" over brekkie. In today's episode Daniel Raddecliffe and Warwick Davies were parodying themselves. I can't understand how I've missed this series in the past; it's really good.

As I came out to my car I saw that over the weekend a bird had pooped all over it. I am no ornithological expert, but judging by the quantity of bird dung I would estimate that the guilty avian was either a pterodactyl or an ostrich; nothing smaller could generate so much dung.

And so to work. Until recently people have been parking rather randomly in the car park; since I've started sax practice at lunch time there has been a noticeable shift in people's parking habits. A lot of people like to have their lunch in their cars and clearly want a bit of peace and quiet at lunch time. Today everyone had parked at one end away from my usual parking space. It was rather obvious that no one wanted to park near where I practice.

As for today's sax practice... I made a start on a new tune "When the Saints Go Marching In". I think its fair to say the Saints weren't going marching anywhere today. Despite my having (mostly) figured out the B-flat I still have a lot of work to do on that tune before any saints could be described as "marching" rather than "mincing".

I left work early to go to the sleep clinic. Bearing in mind I've been hoping to go to a sleep clinic for years it is just possible was expecting too much from the place. I arrived to find (arguably) the fattest man on the planet asking the assembled throng if he looked fat. He'd been told that his insomnia was due to the fact that he was as fat as twenty-eight other people put together, but he was adamant that he could not possibly possibly be overweight because in his youth he had once played a game of squash.

Much of this assembled throng was the entourage of a village idiot (I never did work out which village he was from); all of whom wanted to see a specialist. They didn't seem to be bothered which specialist; they asked after several.

And overseeing the entire clinic was a small vaguely oriental-looking elderly woman in a nurse's costume (I hesitate to say "uniform") who quite frankly didn't speak English.

I slept until I was called (only ten minute later than planned) to be given the standard old spiel about not drinking coffeee before bedtime, losing weight, drinking Horlicks, blah-de-blah. I told the so-called expert that I had had all this drivel till the cows came home, and we were several years past the basics. I expounded my two theories; sleep apnoea or nasal polyps. One requires medical equipment; the other surgery. The specialist suddenly realised that he wan't dealing with the usual kind of person his clinic attracted; and intimated that if he told people to b*gger off and have a glass of warm milk, then he never sees nintey per cent of them again.

He then tried to fob me off with a "blood test for thyroid"; but when I told him what I do for a living (blood tests for thyroid) he sat up and started to take notice.

I asked what last week's sleep tests had shown; regular readers of this drivel may recall I had two very uncomfortable nights last week strapped up to an oximeter all night long. The specialist told me that the results of those tests will make a very good starting point for a diagnosis and a possible cure for the insomnia, and that he will write to me when he gets the results of those tests in six weeks time.

I politely asked why there had been a delay with the results of the oximeter tests. The specialist gave an embarrassed cough. Can you beleive it; there had been no delay. These tests take a couple of months to come back. So I took a deep breath and resisted the temptation to suggest that maybe it was not the best use of limited NHS resources for me to be having this appointment if we all knew that the test results would not be ready for some weeks.

The specialist is going to write to me when the test results are through. I shall wait patiently; after all I've been waiting for years; what's another couple of months of sleepless nights...

13 April 2014 (Sunday)- Marsh Mosh

In a novel break with tradition I was woken by the alarm today. It had been set earlier than I suspect most people would set their alarms on a Sunday morning, but regular readers of this drivel would know that I'm not like most people.

A couple of weeks ago a rather large series of geocaches went live on the Romney Marsh. Two days later was the county meet-up of hunters of tuppeware. It came up in conversation that several of us were interested in doing the series, and today was the day. We colllected Gordon Tracy and Suzy and then, dragging Lisa out of retirement, we set off to Old Romney where we met up with everyone else.

My phone did give me some gyp to begin with, buut before long eleven of us (accompanied by two small dogs) set off on a rather god walk across the Marsh.

Romney Marsh is somewhere I've been to countless times, but it was only today that I realised that I've always driven past, across or through it. I've never really taken the time to have a good walk about the place. I was glad we did so today. The route led us thought some wonderful scenery; we saw butterflies, caterpillars and even a little lizard. We saw a pair of nesting swans, and saw their eggs as they changed over on the nest. We saw newborn lambs taking their first tottering and faltering steps. And I did feel sorry when my silly dog shoved his nose through an electric fence and got far too many volts through it. He did yelp.

Our walk took us past a derelict cottage. What was once a charming little house in beautiful surroundings is now a collapsing tumbledown wreck. It amazes me that anyone would ever have let the thing fall into such disrepair.

We also walked through the array of wind turbines. I had no idea how big those windmills are; they are huge. And we also discovered acres of solar panels that I never knew were there.

We started walking at 9am; we finished walking shortly after 6pm having found over fifty caches along a route of more than sixteen miles. It was a really good day out with friends. Some of our number were new to this silly hobby and today found their one hundredth cache. I found my three thousandth, and having done so sat down in a clump oof stinging nettles.

And on the way home we stopped off to collect a puzzle cache I'd solved months ago.

I took a few photos whilst we were out and put them on-line when I got home. Once home I washed the mud and fox poo off of "Furry Face ^TM" who promptly went to sleep.

We then had a rather good bit of tea. It was at that point that my face started glowing and my back started aching. It is just possible that I overdid the walking today. Again.

12 April 2014 (Saturday) - According To Plan...

To bed at midnight; I was wide awake and watching telly at 3am. I felt tired after an hour or so and went back to bed and then slept util 8am. Not bad really, I suppose. Roll on Monday's appointment at the sleep clinic.

Hot cross buns for brekkie, and then on with the business of the day. I had a plan. The plan was to mow the lawn and tidy the garden. Then to tidy my back room. Sax practice. Dog walk and geo-maintenance in Sevington. Then ten shirts to be ironed whilst watching telly.

(I wrote this list over brekkie just to see how my plans would pan out)

I was rather amazed to find that this was how things actually happened. I got the lawn mowed. It was something of a jungle, but I got it under control. Having put the clippings into the compost bin I now have a full compost bin; but I can take that to the tip another time.

I then ripped out the bigger of the brambles and left the garden mostly presentable. There is still some work to be done out there, but there's no denying that I don't have any interest in gardening whatsoever.

I then went through my shelves like a dose of salts, and have all sorts of rubbish to take to the skip, including quite a few books I am never going to read. There are those who say its wrong to throw books away. If any of those people would like the biography of Alan Titchmarsh or other equally lame volumes they have one week untiil tip run. I found spare computer keyboards (five), broken PC base units (three), blown motherboards (two) and endless cables, modems and mice which are never ever going to be used again. All are on the way to the tip.

Sax practice went well. My teacher is impressed; apparently I am one of a very small minority of saxophonists who don't blow bubbles of spit out of their sax. Today I learned about sharps and flats. Did you know the are three ways to get a B-sharp out of an alto sax? I didn't either. I now have to choose which way will work for me. I suspect I am going to use the laziest way, two of them seem to be needlessly convoluted whilst the third only needs one finger.

With next week being Easter I have two weeks until my next lesson. I have to learn "When the Saints Go Marching In" and assorted Egyptian and Eastern European dances by then.

Home to find both fruits of my loin were visiting. "My Boy ^TM" was pleased to announce that their hamster was still alive after yesterday's episode.

"Daddies Little Angel ^TM" was awaiting the arrival of Skinhead who has recently bought a new car. I say "new"; it was the car that Noah drove off of the Ark, it cost the grand total of two hundred and seventy fiive pounds. It was bought on the understanding that anything that was likely to go wrong would have already gone wrong by now, and so the car should be rather reliable by now.

I can't say it's a theory I'd go along with. Despite the alledged reliability of the car the girls walked to the park. There was talk of their taking a flask of tea with them as apparently flasks of tea are cool. But in the end making the tea was too much like hard work, and so the flask remained unmade.

Leaving the girls behind "er indoors ^TM" and I went off on a geo-maintenance mission. Last week at the monthly cachers meeting I was told that several of my caches needed mainenance or were missing. Today I found that one did indeed need replacing, one had been replaced for me, and the supposedly missing one was fine and had been there all along.

I then got the ten shirts ironed. All the day's planned chores done by 7pm. I was impressed.

11 April 2014 (Friday) - Justice

I was woken at 4am by "er indoors ^TM" having some sort of fracas with "Furry Face ^TM" . I'm not sure what the problem was, and she claims she can't remember anything going on, but whatever it was, it woke me, and I lay wide awake afterwards until getting up to watch "Family Guy" at 5.30am.

After watching telly I checked out the Internet. Regular readers of this drivel may recall the fun I had with the frankly appalling on-line ordering service offered by Argos a couple of weeks ago. Earlier in the week the people at Argos asked me to write a review of my experience. It came as no surprise this morning to find that my review had been rejected.

As I drove to work my piss boiled as the Crown Prosecution Service announced that despite the fact that the Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons has been found not guilty of the allegations made against him, they felt they were still right to have made those allegations.

It strikes me that they are actually saying that they beleive the jury was wrong and that they feel the accused is guilty. Rather a worrying position to take; it is up to the courts and the juries to determine guilt; not the prosecutors.

There's been a lot of high profile people taken to court recently; TV stars such as Coronation Street's William Roach and Michael LeVeil; radio's Dave Lee Travis, comedian Jimmy Tarbuck. All have had their good names dragged through the mire by the Crown Prosecution Service, all have found not to be guilty of the crimes with which they have been charged. However thanks to the high profile of their cases the taint of scandal will remain with them.

And there are plenty of other celebrities who are still facing these allegations. I reserve the right to shout "I told you so" when they too are found not guilty.

It's amazing how standing up to these allegations proves that they are wrong. I wonder what would have happened if Jimmy Saville were still alive and had been taken to court and been given the chance to defend himself against the tales circulated about him

And still the Crown Prosecution Service continues to point the finger.

Once at work I did my bit despite one of the young ladies declaring that the laboratory apparatus was grubby and then announcing that she was going to "scrub her rack". It was as well that I was able to take a moral stance.

Lunchtime saw sax practice; I have now increased my repertoire to six tunes. Yesterday I saw that the music to "Annies Song" was in my book. Today I had a toot, and within half an hour I could perform a passable rendition of the tune.

This evening I took "Furry Face ^TM" on a walk right through the park, round Singleton Lake and on to the Butt Field Road Munzee. As we were in the area we popped in to see Lacey and her entourage. A minor disaster was in progress as her hamster had escaped and had set up camp behind the wall units in the kitchen.

It is all very entertaining all the time it is someone else's hamster...

10 April 2014 (Thursday) - Bad Boy !

Up at silly o'clock, and being Thursday morning I watched the latest episode of "The Tomorrow People". After weeks of inaction the story is now beginning to take off. It's taken long enough. I then had a mooch round cyber-space; nothing much seemed to be happening, other than that there was to be an astro club committee meeting tonight. I must have been told about it, but the news came as something of a surprise.

As I drove to work much of the talk on the radio was about the ongoing elections in India. For all that it is apparently the biggest election the world has ever seen, there's no denying that the thing is a matter of indifference to me. Is it arrogant to say that I felt it was a waste of air time to have devoted half the show to it?

Perhaps of slightly more interest was the news article prompted by the death of US wrestling star Ultimate Warrior. The pundits wheeled on a has-been of British wrestling who openly admitted what I've suspected for years; that professional wrestling is all pantomime and the matches are fixed. This chap specifically said this about my old favourite; the WWF (or WWE as it is now known), and was crystal-clear that this has been going on for years.

I wonder if the wrestling establishment will make a fuss about this announcement made on prime time British radio.

I was a little bit miffed about the revelations made about the anti-flu drug Tamiflu. Having felt bullied into having the injection last year, and then having been ill for several days afterwards, I was not impressed to hear today that there have been serious reservations expressed about the stuff; the evidence suggesting that it didn't actually work.

And so to work where to improve the public standing of the inestimable Soup Boy I spent some time coaching him on making a dramatic entrance every time he came into a room. the news That we had been working on his opening was deliberately misconstrued by several...

Lunchtime's saxophone practice was uneventful for once. I'm getting better, and can manage most of my five tunes without too many bum notes. I'm quite looking forward to Saturday's lesson to see what comes next.

Home, where "Furry Face ^TM" did not greet me with his usual enthusiasm. In fact when he saw me he ran to his basket where he cowered. He'd managed to get the wrappings from last night's gammon out of the bin, and in doing so he'd knocked the bin over. It was no real problem, but the little dog looked terrified. I can't help but wonder if he was beaten and mistreated before he came to us; he's rarely naughty around the house but whenever he is, he never needs to be told off as he always knows he's been bad and he is terrified.

To show him I wasn't angry I showed him his lead. Usually he would go ballistic on seeing his lead; this time he came to me slowly and sheepishly. Mind you once we were at the park he was back to his usual self.

And so home. The astro club committee meeting had been a false alarm so we had a bottle of plonk for tea...

9 April 2014 (Wednesday) - Poo (Horse and Fish)

The oximeter didn’t pinch quite so much last night, but it certainly wasn’t comfortable. And again I was up and about by silly o’clock. I watched some Family Guy and some South Park, and had a look-see on line. Not much was going on so for want of anything better to do I did a virus scan on my lap-top. It was as well that I did; I found loads of viruses. Woops.

With it still being far too early to go to work I disassembled the fish pond filter and put the stinking components into soak for the day.

I finally set off to work at 7.30am feeling that I’d already done a day’s exertions. As I drove the talk on the radio was all about the Culture Secretary who had resigned overnight. Despite having been cleared of wrong-doing by the investigatory panel she’d clearly made enemies of the media and a witch-hunt had ensued.

She was right in saying that all the fuss was distracting people from running the country; it’s wrong that unappointed newspaper journalists can decide who has political office in this country.

And so to work where I had a rather good day. On the way home I stopped off at Chilham Koi shop to get new filter medium for the pond filter. They wanted over forty quid for something which I thought would be over-priced at a tenner. Needless to say I didn’t get the stuff.

Once home I took “Furry Face ^TM “ for a walk. As we walked my piss boiled just a little. If my dog does a turd and I don’t clear it up I am liable for a fine of a thousand pounds. Horse riders have taken to using the footpaths and cyclepaths of South Ashford and I can clearly see that no such fines apply to horses. It’s beyond a joke – every horse turd is bigger than my little dog. And there are a *lot* of horse turds.

I then put the fish pond filter back together and turned the pond on for the summer. Seven years ago when we dug the pond I was full of enthusiasm for it. Now I am seriously considering filling it in. I can’t afford to keep upgrading the filter to keep the water clear; the filter stinks. Fish poo reeks so bad I nearly throw up when cleaning it out. And I don’t have time or inclination to do anything pond-related any more.

I’ll give it a few months and maybe shut the thing down for good in the autumn…

And this evening I did the final exam for my on-line course “Internet History, Technology, and Security”. I got eighty-two per cent. I was pleased about that. It’s been a very interesting course – I can thoroughly recommend it…

8 April 2014 (Tuesday) - On The Other Peg

Last night I put on my oximeter and went to sleep. It wasn't especially comfortable. The thing got more uncomfortable as the night went on; by 3am it felt like my finger was in a vice. I spent the last hour or so in serious pain before finally pulling it off shortly before 6am.

Family Guy and South Park kept me entertained over brekkie, then I set off to work where the radio was less entertaining and more annoying. There was concern expressed about how nothing is really being done to combat global warming, and how by the end of the century the planet will be (on average) four degrees warmer than it is now. That being an average figure it means there will be whole swathes left uninhabitable.

No one really seemed bothered.

Mind you everyone seemed to be incensed at the Culture Secretary. From what I could work out she's made the most of a rather vague system of claiming expenses; and having been told she'd arguably taken the piss, she apologised about any offence caused and paid back what others said she'd overclaimed. Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, was on the radio refusing to condemn her as she'd not actually done wrong.

The Communities Secretary Eric Pickles was launching a scathing attack on active atheists; claiming and insisting that religious intolerence is purely something open to Christians.

Nero fiddles whilst Rome burns...

At work I faced something of a mystery. One of the apprentices asked me if my banana-guard had suffered any damage. The thing looked fine, and when I asked him why he should be wondering, he started giggling. As did others. I suspect my banana-guard has been used for nefarious purposes.

And the inestimable Soup-Boy announced that from now on he was going to hang his coat on the other peg. I assumed this can only be tantamount to "getting on the other bus", and I have warned him that should he be "good with colours" or found to be "baking a moist sponge" I would have no choice but to take him in hand (!) before he "bowls from the pavilion end".

The rest of the working day was rather dull after this revelation.

Once home I took "Furry Face ^TM" round to Frog's Island to replace a missing geocache. On the way we terrorised a bus, made friends with several toddlers, chased a Yorkie, played with a stick, and upset two skinhead thugs (complete with hand drawn mis-spelt tattoos). "Thugbert" and "Pratfred" had some sort of banned and illegal dog on a length of rope. As we came close we were warned to "keep that F*!* rat away"; the implication being that their macho dog would attack. Before I could do anything "Furry Face ^TM" started sniffing the murder-hound's bum. The supposedly vicious and dangerous dog started whimpering and crying and pulling to get away. I don't think they saw me laughing.

And so to Folkestone for the Tuesday conglomeration. After insults were bandied we watched Doctor Who. Or, to be more precise, Doctor Who was the show that was on the telly, but I for one was watching Nicola Bryant's epic chest. Anyone who says they don't like classic Doctor Who clearly hangs their coat on the other peg.

Let's hope that oximeter is more comfortable tonight...