7 January 2025 (Tuesday) - The Next Problem...

I went to bed shortly before eleven o’clock last night and made a point of turning off my phone’s connection to the Internet. But it too must have been rather excited at the prospect of having broadband again, and as I nodded off it told me of several trivial things that could have waited until the morning. I got back to sleep only to have it continue. I wish it wouldn’t. What with that nonsense and the usual insomnia that goes with having an alarm set I had a rather restless night.

 

I got up early and in a novel break with tradition had a bowl of granola for brekkie. Much as I like granola, at two pound fifty per packet I’d expect more than three servings from a packet.

I watched an episode of “Victoria” because I could. Today’s episode featured the cholera outbreak in Soho in 1854. I consider myself something of an expert on the matter as there is a virtual geocache which features the water pump responsible for the outbreak.

I then had a look at the internet – because I could. The Internet told me that two friends from way back were having a birthday today. My old next door neighbour who I’ve not seen in person for over forty years. And someone I knew from my religious days who (like me) went on to see the darkness. I since met her again through the now defunct snake club, and the last I heard she was running a petting zoo in Norfolk with her girlfriend.

 

I munzed; our clan has got to Level One. I struggled and gave up with Wordle, then got ready for work.

I went out to the car... and came straight back in again. When I'd got up I'd looked out of the bedroom window and the car was fine. In the meantime a heavy frost had formed on the car so I got a bottle of cold water to shift the ice.

It took some shifting.

 

I drove to work through a very dark morning. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about a police investigation into the death rate at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton.

This sort of thing pisses me off. The media are only too quick to highlight any failing in healthcare. Have you ever noticed that when reporting on medical mishaps, those reporting never use the term "honest mistake"? Terms such as "incompetence" and "bungling" are freely bandied about, and the implication is made that people actively go to work in hospitals to deliberately harm the unwell. And having done their level best to dissuade anyone from working in healthcare, the media is then rubbing its hands in glee. It can then run stories about the growing waiting lists which it is actively helping to grow.

There was then a lot of talk about the "McDonalds Claim".  Apparently quite a few McDonalds employees have suffered sexual discrimination and harassment. Perhaps they have. Perhaps they haven't. I don't know, but some bunch of lawyers are organising those with a grievance into a body which can sue the McDonalds corporation.

Is this *really* the right way to address this? Personally if I had any evidence that I'd ever worked for McDonalds this is a bandwagon I onto which would be jumping right away, as should anyone who has ever worked for McDonalds. Just claim someone touched your arse and/or called you a puff, and it is money for old rope. Isn't it? 

Surely there is something wrong with a system in which companies get others to make allegations which they then investigate for financial gain? Surely a better system would be to have all such compensation claims brought by an impartial ombudsman who gets the same rate of pay regardless of the outcome? Or am I missing something?

 

I got to work for the early shift and cracked on. As I worked so “er indoors ^TM” sent a message. She’d spotted a rat in the garden. I thought Bailey had been getting twitchy recently.

So… a rat… I don’t want any lethal traps or poison in the garden with the dogs about. After a lot of phoning around and being told no one had anything, eventually the local branch of B&Q said they had a lot of humane rat traps. So I called in on the way home from work. I couldn’t see any humane rat traps so I asked at the counter. Again the staff were disinterested in the extreme, but eventually I got someone to come and have a look. After a few minutes the chap admitted he couldn’t see any either. He admitted that when I’d phoned and been told they had lots, what they should actually have said was that they didn’t have any.

And people whinge that Amazon is killing local shops… Hopefully the humane rat trap arrives tomorrow. In the meantime I’ve set a humane mouse trap.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good chili which we scoffed whilst watching more of the current season of “The Traitors” in which the really annoying one got chucked out. I don’t think that’s giving away any spoilers; all the contestants get on my tits really.

6 January 2025 (Monday) - Broadband Restored

I slept well, but I did hear a thump as Morgan got off the bed at five o’clock. I hurried downstairs after him to see him anxiously circling by the back door. I wish he’d nudge me if he wants to go out; otherwise we’d just find a little pile by the back door.
I had a little look at the Internet (on my phone) as I scoffed brekkie. There were quite a few squabbles on the early retirement Facebook page I’ve started following. I thought the page would be all about what sorts of things people might do when retired, but it isn’t. Today people were boasting about who’s got the most money in their pension pots, and others were asking how you actually go about getting a pension having found themselves in their late fifties and made no pension provision whatsoever.
And a friend was off on yet another foreign holiday. Some people seem to have a lot of those. Would it be wrong of me to start keeping a tally?
 
“er indoors ^TM” set off to work. I put some washing in to scrub, then took the dogs out. Bearing in mind the heavy rain we’d had overnight and the fact that I was feeling a tad iffy we didn’t go to the woods today. Thinking that would be one big swamp we walked round the local paths and found local floods instead.
The path underneath the railway by the outlet centre was again flooded. I can remember that flooding when I used to cycle along there to work thirty years ago. I emailed my local councilor about that a year ago. She wasn’t interested.
From there we walked through the Outlet Centre and home along the river which was nearly bursting its banks. Just as we crossed the bridge over the river so the rain started. We got rather wet on the relatively short walk from there to home.
 
I hung the washing round the radiators and put more in, then Munzed and wordled for a bit. Not feeling on top form I thought I might watch telly… and put on a DVD as with no broadband Netflix was out.
At eleven o’clock the broadband light on the router came on. It was yellow which meant it wasn’t working, but a light had come on which was more than had happened all weekend.
I watched an episode of The Monocled Mutineer whilst my shirts washed, and then ironed them watching the second episode.
There was a knock on the door. On Saturday we’d advertised our old office chair on Facebook Marketplace. Someone wanted it. I saw that as a result all round. We had no use for it. And if someone else wanted it they’d got something for nothing and I’d been saved the arse-ache of a trip to the tip.
As I sorted tumble-dried undercrackers at three o’clock during the third episode of The Monocled Mutineer so I had a text to say the broadband was all fixed. The light on the router was yellow still, so I pulled the router’s plug, counted to ten and after a few minutes all was working fine.
And seeing how the working day had nearly gone (for those working today) I phoned the home emergency people to chase up the report that I need to send to the insurance people. It’s been a week… how much longer do they need?
 
“er indoors ^TM” came home, boiled up some dinner and went bowling. I watched Netflix because I could, and I shall play some on-line chess in a bit because I can.
We were without broadband for exactly three days; it seemed an eternity.

5 January 2025 (Sunday) - Early Shift, Rain, No Internet

I had an alarm set; I was awake far too early. It was a shame the internet was still down. I must admit the thing has worked without issue for years, but when it is not working it is an issue. How can I get my regular fix of nonsense from Netflix if I can’t connect? I used my mobile to have a little look-see on-line. It had snowed overnight in several places here and there within fifty miles of home, and as always in the UK panic ensued.

I munzed, and deployed some cards. And getting nowhere with Wordle I gave up and got ready for work. I try not to disturb “er indoors ^TM” and the dogs when I get ready in the mornings but it is tricky in the winter purely because it is so dark. Trying to find an errant sock in pitch darkness takes some doing.

 

I drove to work through a very dark morning. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about pig farming. It sounded interesting even if I did only catch the last few minutes of the farming program.

The weather forecast came on. There were warnings of heavy snow up north, and being slightly warmer in the south we should be having heavy rain. We certainly were.

And then they broadcast what I can only describe as "The Religious Tripe Show". The trouble with religious tripe is that we are all supposed to respect religious tripe even though it doesn't stand up to any thought whatsoever. Take this morning's episode of "The Religious Tripe Show" for example. There was a lot of talk about President Jimmy Carter (who died last week) and about how much effort he'd put in to organising peace talks between religious factions. Everyone involved in the talks claimed to be from peace-loving religions even though they'd all been fighting for years and for all that President Carter had temporarily secured a cease fire, they’d all kicked off again at the slightest provocation. All these religious claim brotherly love… and can’t pick a fight quick enough.

 

And then there was then talk about a former lawyer who has translated the Bible into an obscure Scottish dialect and been given an MBE for doing so.

I’m sorry – this boils my piss to the limit and beyond. I’ve just given up my Christmas morning to keep the hospital going. I got paid at the princely sum of time and a third, and no one knows or cares. Some chap translates a book that very few people read into a language that even fewer people speak, and he gets an MBE.

I’m sorry I bothered.

 

As I drove into Maidstone I could see where there had been snow overnight, but the rain had washed away most of it. I got to work and did my bit. As I did I kept an eye on the rain outside. It didn’t let up all day.

I slipped off twenty minutes before sunset, but by the time I’d gone to get petrol it was dark by the time I was driving down the motorway.

 

I came home. Martin had called round whilst I was put and left Christmas pressies. That was good of him. Seeing the broadband was still down I phoned the nice people at Sky again. They were aware of the issue, but the issue wasn’t with them. They get their broadband from someone else and sell it on to me. That someone else is on the case fixing it (or so I am told). I had a thought about getting my broadband directly from the “someone else”, but I’m sure that if I did so, Sky would just put up the price of their telly channels.

 

I then sat on the sofa and fell asleep. Having had a rotten cough all over the holiday period I think I might be going down with something else now.

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching more “Bake Off”. And then my phone pinged. The Met Office had changed their overnight warning of heavy snow to one of heavy rain.

It’s been hossing down all day; how much more can it rain?

And the broadband is still down.

4 January 2025 (Saturday) - Still No Internet

I slept well again, and again no condensation in the CPAP hose. Result.

I made toast and once I’d connected my lap-top to the internet via my mobile I had a look-see on-line. There’s consternation in New Romney where someone who is mentally ill has been re-homed back to New Romney. I can’t work out whether this person is actually a menace or whether there’s just a witch hunt being staged by worried residents. Either way it highlights the ongoing issue in adult mental health care. The government claims to be on the case and is conducting a review… one that isn’t planning to come up with any suggestions for at least three years. I can’t pretend to have been a fan of the previous government, but this current one isn’t showing itself to be any improvement.

 

I munzed and wordled and as everyone else got up I got dressed and went to scrape the ice from the car. It scraped easier than it did yesterday. We got dogs into coats and onto leads and set off. As we drove Steve was on the radio doing the Guess the Lyrics competition. We had no idea, but it turned out it was from the song “January” by the group Pilot. That song always reminds me of a chap at primary school. I won’t name him, but looking back it was quite plain that even aged ten he was “good with colours” and “baked a moist sponge”. But despite being far from the most macho in our school he got into a scrap through an argument about the lyrics of that song.

We got to Dog Club. Despite it being so cold that the mud was frozen we had a dozen dogs show up. Everyone played nicely; we had no squabbles or spats. Toward the end Bailey was shivering so Sue was cuddling her; I popped her inside my coat. Bailey is a worry; she is so small she feels the cold. But late at night despite the temperature she wants to spend ages in the garden and never shivers then.

As it seems to do these days, Dog Club over-run somewhat. We got into the car to hear the final clue for the Mystery Year competition on the radio. A Marc Almond/Gene Pitney collaboration… surely that was *much* earlier than 1989? It wasn’t but it certainly seems it to me.

 

We came home and had a cuppa and a bun, and the phone rang. The broadband man had just had a cancellation. Could he come to us early? Yes please.

The nice man came and took one look at the socket into which the router plugs and announced that had to go. He put in a new socket then plugged our router into something or other and updated the software in our SkyQ box. And then he announced that everything was working fine, looked at his list of appointments for today and said it was odd that so many houses so close together were having the same issue.

He then phoned the Openreach people who said there was an issue at their end which was due to be fixed by ten o’clock on Monday evening.

We all sighed, and the nice Sky man went on his way just before mid-day… interestingly despite the email I’d had yesterday at no point did I need the My Sky app, my Sky ID login or password. That was a load of unnecessary arse-ache yesterday, wasn’t it?

 

The plan for today had been to have a bit of a tidy up in the back room, so that’s what I did. I got four bin bags of stuff I don’t want together for the tip and an old office chair (which must be over twenty years old) disassembled and ready to go as well.

I found some old photos too. A trip to a theme park somewhere, to the London Dungeon, to the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy exhibition at the Science Museum…

I was only sorting stuff for about three hours, but at the end I was worn out.

 

As I tidied I saw the broadband had come back on-line at about two o’clock. I sat and having found some old exam papers from the mid-eighties I wrote up some CPD.

“er indoors ^TM”  made some rather good soup and we scoffed it whilst watching the New Year’s episode of “Bake Off”. And then the internet dropped again. I phoned the Sky people again. The chap I spoke with was rather helpful but seemed to want to get me to change my password for no reason that I could fathom. Eventually I got him to look at the broadband issue. After a little fiddling about it turned out that the ongoing Openreach issue hadn’t been properly fixed. It will be fixed soon. Or so I’m told. In the meantime we’ve been offered full fibre internet to be installed at the end of the month.

3 January 2025 (Friday) - No Internet

I slept like a log. Despite a very cold night the hose of my CPAP machine didn’t fill with condensation which was a minor result. I woke after a nine-hour kip and made toast. For once pretty much nothing of note was happening on my Facebook feed.

Seeing the electrician’s report still hadn’t arrived I phoned the emergence people who assured me that the report was with their “work in progress team” who were rather busy. Having spent a lifetime working in an environment where everything really is immediate and right away, it amazes me how slowly some people work.

 

Seeing the sun coming out I decided that despite the heavy frost I’d take the dogs up to the woods. We got them into their coats, scraped the ice from the car and off we went.

The woods were busier than usual, but again most people we met seemed to be within half a mile of the car park. No one wants to go too far from the car. We had a good walk, and with coats on we weren’t shivering when we got back to the car.

 

We took a minor diversion as we came home. There had been a report of an issue with one of my geocaches. Despite a dozen other people finding the thing over the last two months I was told the co ordinates were out and the spoiler piccie was wrong. The co-ordinates weren’t as good as they might have been but the piccie was fine. The thing was exactly where it was supposed to be.

I came home and made a cuppa, and as I tried to update the problematical geocache’s web page so the internet connection died. You don’t realise how much you use an internet connection until it isn’t there. Rather like the house’s electricity.   

 

Being unable to work from home, “er indoors ^TM” drove in to work. I settled in front of the telly and watched episodes of “Four in a Bed” in which some particularly difficult woman running a guest house only five miles away from my brother’s house insisted all her guests be in bed by nine o’clock every night.

The internet came back on after an outage of two hours, then went back off again just as I got the text message saying it was fixed. I thought there might still be ongoing issues so I left it and watched the remastered Doctor Who episode “The War Games”. Originally broadcast in ten black and white episodes taking more than four hours to watch it’s been colourised and cut down to an hour and a half. It was rather good.

 

And then seeing the broadband was still down I phoned the helpline. A rather helpful chap asked a few questions and arranged for an engineer to come out tomorrow. I got an email confirming the visit. The email said “During your appointment, you may need to update your WiFi settings. This means you, or whoever is home, will need to have access to the My Sky app”. I downloaded it, and not having any idea what my Sky ID login or password was I phoned the people at Sky. The rather helpful chap had clearly gone on his tea break and had been replaced by Captain Useless. He wanted to know what my Sky ID was. I said I had no idea. He said he couldn’t tell me what it was as it was a secret. After a lot of arguing he suggested I might put in my email address and ask for a reset. I tried that (with him listening) about a dozen times and no reset email came through. Captain Useless wouldn’t do anything but keep repeating set phrases from his script. After a while he announced that I didn’t need my Sky ID login or password for an engineer visit even though it said that I did on the email they’d sent me.

After twenty minutes I gave up on him and eventually I found out what it was from pure guesswork just as “er indoors ^TM” came home.

I’ve managed to connect my lap-to to the internet through my mobile, but it is all rather slow.

 

We had a rather good steak dinner washed down with a bottle of plonk and followed up with cheese and biccies. And having had fish, steak and biccies (no cheese though) Treacle is now demanding more food…

2 January 2025 (Thursday) - Chess, A Walk, Traitors

I slept well last night – for over nine hours. I was woken by a strange gurgling bubbling sound. The hose of my CPAP machine has been getting condensation forming in it over the last week. I expect that’s to do with it being cold at night.

I made toast and looked at the Internet as I do. This morning my Facebook feed was again heaving with the posts about chess which filled it yesterday. The adverts for dog training were still there, but loads of people were commenting that they had paid good money and had nothing back from these courses. I also saw quite a few posts featuring the navy’s aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales too. I wonder why.

I had two messages from Facebook as well. The two porn adverts that I reported yesterday have been removed. Actually applying their community standards might be their New Year’s resolution.

I munzed, got Wordle on the third attempt, then seeing sunshine got dressed and got ready for the off.

 

Once I’d scraped the ice from the car I took the dogs up to the woods. It was a foggy day, but we had a good walk. Once we were away from the car park we walked for nearly four miles and only saw one other group. Mind you we did see a huge buzzard flying through the trees.

We walked for four miles and didn’t get *that* grubby. Mind you the little ones were shivering when I loaded them into the car. We came home for a quick shower of paws and tummies and then I had a rather frustrating half-hour on the phone to the insurance people. “Stewart” was more helpful than the other two people had been at Sainsburys insurance, and after he’d taken all my details he put me through to the underwriter. The underwriter said that he needed an electrician’s report. I said that one had been done on Monday and had been emailed through… I got on to the people who sent the electrician on Monday and they said they’d email me a copy of the report.

I’m still waiting.

I’m left pondering though. I have an insurance policy with one company. However when I come to claim, it turns out that the actual insuring is being done by another company. All the first lot are doing seems to be acting as a middleman. Next year I will go with the actual insurer and (as Oliver Hardy once said) “cut out the middleman”.

 

Pausing only briefly to put back a fence panel that had blown out in yesterday’s winds I then cracked on with some CPD. For dull reasons that I explained over on that other blog I spent a few minutes Googling and I found an advert. You can see it here. It is offering blood film analysis (with a two-week turnaround time!) for three hundred and twenty-eight quid. Bearing in mind I can do fifty of those a day I think I’m missing a trick here…

Then finding myself underneath a pile of dogs I watched a couple of episodes of “Victoria”. They were rather good, but again finding myself woefully ignorant of nineteenth century history I turned to Wikipedia. And again found that what was being presented as a historical drama was actually factually incorrect. Chartists never stormed Buckingham Palace… and certainly not just as Princess Louisa was being born.

 

I had another look at Facebook; I found myself still being bombarded with adverts for chess-related pages. So I set myself up an account on chess.com. so far I’m kicking the ass of a both with difficulty rating “rather easy”.

 

“er indoors ^TM” came home from babysitting littlun, and boiled up fish and chips which we scoffed whilst watching the first two episodes of the new series of “The Traitors”. It’s a good show in which everyone turns on everyone with the least provocation and at the slightest excuse whilst the actual traitors pretend not to be at each other’s throats.

1 January 2025 (Wednesday) - Wet New Year

When I went to bed last night I’d left the landing light on in case littlun got up in the night. This morning I rolled over and saw the light was off. Panic immediately set in. “er indoors ^TM” had clearly got up in the night and turned it off. The bedside clock and my CPAP machine were both going, but I keep fretting about the leccie and after that shock I wasn’t going to get back to sleep. I got up. So did Morgan. He’d spent the night with me but on seeing I was going downstairs he went upstairs to join everyone else in the attic room.

It was only a shame I’d not woken in panic a couple of hours earlier ten I could have driven out to Ramsgate for the sunrise geocaching meet. We’d decided against going to this one as getting to Ramsgate for half past seven on New Year’s Day would have been a tad keen, but if I’ been up in time…

Back in the day there was always a geocaching event on New Year’s Day. I organised two of them myself. One in 2016 when thirty-six people and four dogs went for a walk round Great Chart, and another in 2022 when thirty people (and a few dogs) went over to Frogs Island to play Wherigo. Sadly other than a lady from New Zealand staging a meet outside her hotel just before her brekkie, no one organised anything for this year. Several people had asked it there was anything on the cards; no one had offered to do anything though…

 

As I made toast I peered into the internet. It might be a new year, but some things never change. I’ve taken to following a Facebook group all about people taking early retirement and sharing their experiences. It makes for interesting reading if nothing else. One chap in his early forties had saved up half a million quid and wondered if that was enough to retire on. How can you have saved up half a million quid by your early forties? And other people were asking where the best place to retire to would be? Several people on this group (and a few I know personally) have left everyone they know and moved hundreds (if not thousands) of miles away to lead their dream retirements. I suppose if your dream retirement is a lonely one then this is the way to go?

And my Facebook feed featured seemingly endless adverts for on-line dog training classes and chess-related groups.

 

I put washing in to scrub. I sorted the undercrackers I’d washed last night. I braved the elements and harvested the dog dung from the garden. Our plan for today had been a gentle walk before taking littlun home, but the wind and the rain weren’t good and were forecast to get worse by mid-day. So I spent a little while looking at the geo-map searching out a relatively easy geo-find that we might pick up on the way home from having dropped littlun off.

 

After slightly more than four hours “er indoors ^TM” and Darcie WaaWaa ^TM” got up. Littlun was in something of a bossy mood; poor grandad wasn’t allowed to play with the cars or the Lego. She then got the hump that the dogs wanted to eat her breakfast, and got even more stressy when she threw it at them and they ate it.

After a little while we persuaded her to allow Nanny to get dressed, and it was time to take her home… once we’d persuaded her that I was allowed to come along. We drove down to Folkestone where “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” and Pogo were pleased to have littlun back.

I’d planned a few possible geo-targets for our way home. Logging a geocache find today would give us a souvenir. Fortunately we found the first one and didn’t need to go on to any of the backups; the forecast wind and rain were getting worse.

 

We came home and settled ourselves in front of the telly where I slept through a re-run of the new Wallce and Gromit film, and then slept through Mary Poppins. Having been wide awake far too early this morning I slept through what I wanted to watch on the telly.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good curry which we washed down with a rather good bottle of plonk whilst watching the second part of the Christmas episode of “Lego Masters: Australia”.

According to the Internet the Northern Lights are visible tonight. Such a shame it is still hossing down.