2 January 2017 (Monday) - Visting Mum

I slept well last night. "er indoors ^TM" thinks it is because I had caffeine-free coffee last night. I’m not convinced; I rarely drink coffee in the evenings anyway, but it is a theory worth trying.

Over brekkie I had a look-see on the Internet. Not a lot had changed overnight, which was probably for the best. Other than Amazon trying to sell me that which I’d already bought there were no emails in my inbox. Several people were posting about the new year on social media. Some were hopeful for the future, some pessimistic. Much the same as ever really.

I was quite impressed with the fish tank this morning; spending fifty quid doing it up seems to have paid off (if you like that sort of thing). I quite like the plastic plants; I think I shall get some more, and maybe a few more little goldfish. "Furry Face ^TM" seems fascinated by the fish; he’s never shown any interest in the telly but an aquarium seems to be a whole different ball game.

"Daddy’s Little Angel ^TM" arrived with some KFC for her dad, and with KFC devoured we collected "My Boy ^TM" and set off to Hastings. We were all rather concerned having heard that my mum had had a stroke, and were rather pleasantly surprised to find she didn’t seem to have suffered any ill effects. I was expecting her to be in an armchair and looking incredibly frail; she was up and about having made a ton of sandwiches in readiness for our visit. We were expecting to make a flying visit as we weren’t expecting her to be strong enough for much; we stayed for a couple of hours. I told her off; we’d cancelled all of our plans as she was supposed to be on death’s door…

Mind you whilst there we did get news that my step father-in-law has been admitted to hospital as he could not breathe…

We came home and having dropped off the fruits of our loins to their various homes we popped in to Pets at Home. I got a few more plastic plants for the aquarium and "er indoors ^TM" wanted a coat for "Furry Shark ^TM". The poor little puppy does whine when we are on walks; I have a theory that she might be cold.

I got my new plastic plants into the aquarium, and then had a little fiddle about with the Wherigo writer. I’ve not made any Wherigos lately and I have a plan to make a GPS-SmartPhone adventure game based on the TV show “The Crystal Maze”. All I need is some ideas for games that are in keeping with the TV show that would work on a SmartPhone.

We settled the dogs and drove to the cinema where we met Jose and Maria. Jose had suggested watching the sci-fi film “Passengers”. I must admit I’m not a great fan of the cinema; the adverts are endless and you are lumped in with the burping, farting Great Unwashed. But sometimes it makes a change. It was quite fun tonight; I actually rather enjoyed the film but….

There is always a “but” isn’t there? The trouble with sci-fi (and all fiction really) is that there are no truly original ideas. I won’t give spoilers, but certain aspects of the film had been done better (years ago) by Allen Steele, Arthur C Clarke, Isaac Asimov and the crew of the Red Dwarf.

Also for a sci-fi film to be plausible, the “sci” aspect has to be plausible. A spaceship travelling at half the speed of light for only thirty years cannot cover thirty-six light-years. And even if it could, a sling-shot manoeuvre round Arcturus would take more than thirty seconds.

And why do the leading ladies in films these days have to breast quite so boobily? The costumes in which this film’s leading lady titted about left little to the imagination.

And having made great show of sustaining a severe physical injury, one would expect such trauma to leave a scar…

But as I said, I really did like the film…

I’m having an early night tonight. Can you believe it – I’ve got to go to work tomorrow.

1 January 2017 (Sunday) - Goldfish

Yesterday I was wondering what the future held… in my blackest moments I have said that the reason I haven’t jumped off of Ashford’s multi-story car park is that I’m intrigued to see what happens next in this life. And this year kicked off with surprise.

Usually I have a few beers at the New Year’s Eve party. This year I didn’t. A good friend had had some terrible news (I won’t go into details) but she found herself needing to get to Oklahoma (the place in America) at incredibly short notice. With taxis charging over two hundred pounds to drive to Heathrow I kept off the beer and left last night’s party as soon after the chimes of Big Ben as was practical.

I’ve dropped people off at Gatwick airport before and it has been heaving. On New Year’s Day at 2am, the drop-off zone at Terminal 3 of Heathrow was deserted. Apart from an empty police car there was absolutely no one or nothing there. It was rather spooky. As was Cobham services at 2.45am.

I got home at 4.30am and had a minor run-in with some rather drunk children as I walked home from parking my car. One child was screaming and shouting, utterly distraught that he’s lost his friend Kieron. He would not stop bothering me to help me find Kieron. Kieron then appeared having been sick in someone’s garden and became obsessed with trying to set me on fire even though his friend didn’t want to “arjue” (?) with me.

If any of my loyal readers know Kieron’s mummy they might like to have a word with her; I’m sure she would be utterly ashamed of the behaviour of her little soldier.

I thought about posting something about the incident onto one of the local Facebook groups but decided against it; it would only descend into squabbles.

I got home and checked my phone. For some odd reason the thing doesn’t make a noise when I get a message (despite having done all the settings so it should). I’d had a message that my mother had been admitted to hospital following a suspected stroke.

I got to bed at 4.40am. Perhaps it was the Starbucks coffee at Cobham, perhaps it was the news I’d had. But I didn’t sleep at all. I gave up trying to sleep at 8am and phoned Eastbourne hospital. Good news - mum had had a good night and was expected to be going home later.

The plan for today had been a geo-walk, but a combination of no sleep, ill mother and rain put paid to that idea. Instead I struggled with solving geo-puzzles for an hour this morning. Today’s walk had been one needing puzzle-solving. Those walking today would be given the heads-up. The rest of us would have to solve the puzzles the way God intended. So whilst I waited about for "er indoors ^TM" to leap into action I struggled (and failed) to solve geo-puzzles.

As I wracked my poor brain my brother and "Daddy’s Little Angel ^TM" both phoned and told me elaborations of what the hospital had told me two hours previously. We had thought about going to visit mum in hospital today, but as the morning wore on it became apparent she was going to be sent home, and that she hadn’t had much sleep, so we didn’t drive down.

Instead we spent the morning excavating the area surrounding the living room’s fish tank and resurrecting the tank. We then went to Bybrook Barn for some bits and bobs for the tank. But Bybrook Barn was closed, as was Dobbies, Tenterden Garden Centre and World of Water. We ended up buying what we needed from Pets at Home which is by far the closest pet shop to home. Why didn’t we go there first?

Once home we put the bits and pieces together only to find the fluorescent tube was still iffy. The new starter motor wasn’t the problem; it was the tube itself. So we had a rather late lunch then (thinking the rain had finally abated) walked the dogs back to the pet shop for a new tube. The dogs needed walking – the puppy was getting fractious. She’d had a bit of a run-in with Fudge earlier in the day and Fudge had definitely put her in her place. And "er indoors ^TM" had resorted to time-outs and naughty-step to no avail.

We thought the rain had stopped; the moment we started walking it started again. We got the new fish tank tube but we also got soaked into the process. I say “we”; "er indoors ^TM" had the sense to wear a coat and the dogs didn’t care about the rain.

Once home I got the fish tank finally sorted. It looks quite good; for thirty years I’ve kept tropical fish; I’m trying cold-water goldfish variants for a change. I’ve always fancied having some blackmoors.

I then had a message confirming my theory about the geo-puzzles I had been struggling with earlier, and with my theory confirmed I checked my sums and realised that seven minus four is *not* four. I had been right all along; I just can’t do arithmetic.

Within an hour I had plotted out thirty-odd puzzles all of which now look to be in plausible positions on the map.

"er indoors ^TM" put the washing machine on to scrub some coats. Whilst I plotted the washshing machine did its thing. Mind you I think it’s had a little mishap – I’ve never seen so much foam. "er indoors ^TM" is insistent she put in the right amount of soap. Perhaps the washing machine is on the way out?

That would be handy… !

31 December 2016 (Saturday) - New Year's Eve

I slept really well last night – eight hours – can you believe it? It was nearly 8am by the time I hauled my carcass out of my pit. In fact "er indoors ^TM" had got up first and that *never* happens.

Over brekkie I had a look-see on-line. Several people were moaning on one of the local Facebook groups about the waiting times in the local hospitals A&E departments. The gist of the moaners arguments was that they were *really* ill and everyone else was time-wasting and should piss off. I suppose it was good that they were squabbling amongst themselves and not having nasty digs at the hospital staff.

We got the leads on the dogs and made our way to Faversham. We’d arranged to meet Aleta and have a little geo-wander round the town. It was a good idea in theory… in practice we rather wandered further afield than we might have done. All of us went expecting to be “urban” and the muddy fields rather caught us by surprise.

Cache-wise the walk wasn’t quite the success we were hoping for. We found eight of the ten we went for, and pretty much all of the eight we found were in dire need of maintenance. Of the two we didn’t find one was clearly missing, and the other had had a fence go up between it and the edge of the field some time ago. And then the fence had been smothered in anti-climb paint (much to my disgust).

Having scraped off most of the mud (and anti-climb paint) we drove into Tenyham to the Dover Castle where the hunters of Tupperware were gathering for a New Year’s Eve convocation. A rather good bit of dinner and a couple of pints slipped down in very good company.

We came home, and I took myself off to bed for a couple of hours in readiness for later.

Steve and Sarah came round and we set off to the Hosey’s in a minute for the traditional New Year thing… “Name that film” and “Name that advert” games, far too much to eat…

Happy New Year !!!

And with that in mind I suppose I should really take stock of the year that has just ended. For me it has not been a bad year really. What a difference a few years make… For all that I’ve not done any beer festivals or camped out at any kite festivals, I’ve had holidays in Cornwall and Oxfordshire and a weekend at BatCamp too.

I’ve been to the theatre twice (Spamalot and Joseph) and seen the new Star Trek film at the cinema.

I’ve had excellent days on the Western Heights, canoeing, at the Imperial War Museum, and at PugFest.

I went to the wedding of my mate that I’ve known for over thirty years.

I’ve had countless midweek walks with "Daddy’s Little Angel ^TM" and "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction ^TM".

In addition to excellent geo-walks most weekends I’ve been on two caching trips to London, had fun in rivers, rescued a bat and been on a twenty-four hour geo-rally.

I’ve had a new phone and a new lap-top, and become a published author.

I’ve spent a fortune on sorting the garden pond filter and on re-vamping the back garden.

I’ve taken over as secretary of the astro club and the club’s been to Downe House twice, got rained off in Shadoxhurst and I’ve sorted a program for the club for the next year.

I’ve had a rather good birthday meal at the New Chimneys; my mum’s recovered from heart surgery and my dad’s recovered from a hip replacement.

I’ve formally studied astrophysics and canine psychology.

I’ve got a new puppy.

I’ve discovered the fun to transmitting to the world with Facebook Live, and set up mankybadger.co.uk

I’ve taken up fishing again and been loads of times with "My Boy ^TM".

And I’ve resigned from my employer of thirty-odd years.

I wonder what the future holds…