30 June 2026 (Tuesday) - Cheap Plonk

I woke feeling full of beans and raring to go... at half past one. I then lay awake for much of the rest of the night before giving up and getting up just before five o'clock.

I made toast and watched an episode of "The Handmaid's Tale" in which I got scouting flashbacks. Rather than talking, the lead character of the show was doing this arty-acting-thing where she was supposedly communicating her feelings by pouting and smiling and looking wistfully at the camera. Back in the day when I was a Cub Scout leader one of “My Boy ^TM”'s contemporaries used the same technique to communicate. Rather than speaking, he would go up to someone and grimace. He seriously expected people to know what he wanted simply by pulling strange faces at them, and his success at communication was on a par with her in the TV show this morning.

And with telly watched I got another coat of woodstain onto the wood which I sawed yesterday, then set off for work.

 

It was a shame that I'd forgotten that there were traffic works in Chart Road, but they only delayed me by ten minutes. I was soon on my way up the motorway listening to the pundits on the radio who were spouting their usual brand of drivel as they do. There was so much talk about Andy Burnham. At the moment he really can do no wrong... it will only be a matter of time before he is out on his arse like all the rest.

And there was a lot of talk about a national review of midwifery. Some woman from some pressure group or other was being interviewed. She really boiled my piss when she referred to babies that had been "killed by the NHS". Was she seriously saying that health care professionals were going out of their way to cause harm? That was the message that I got. Admittedly the NHS isn't perfect, but giving air-time to this sort of ranting does absolutely nothing for staff morale, does it?

 

I popped in to Sainsburys to get lunch , then went into work. Earlier than I might have done. I spent quite a bit of time teaching one of the trainees the mysteries of blood film morphology, but as the day wore on the bad night's sleep did weigh on me. 

 

I walked out of work past the hospital’s league of fiends (!) shop who were again knocking out fruit. I got a punnet of strawberries from them, and took a diversion to Aldi to get some cream.

Coming home was hard work. The motorway was seemingly full of idiots trying to constantly tail-end everyone. I remembered not to drive down Chart Road, but not doing so took me through the town centre… I was only twenty minutes late home.

 

I got another coat of woodstain onto my sawn wood, and we watched the last episodes of “Canal Boat Diaries” as we scoffed dinner. We washed it down with a bottle of plonk; we got a job lot of cheap plonk. At three quid a bottle it wasn’t at all bad. We’ve paid far more for far worse…

And those strawberries were rather good too.

29 June 2026 (Monday) - A Walk, More Tyres, Aching

I slept through till seven o’clock this morning which was something of a result. I made toast and had a look at the Internet as I do. It was rather quiet this morning… someone had posted on Facebook that they’d seen a large black cat (non-moggy) near Tunbridge Wells. I wonder what it was. I once saw a very large black cat walking across a field near Hawkhurst, but that was twenty years ago. Photos of panthers look very like what I saw – I’m not saying it was a panther but it certainly wasn't someone's moggy.

 

I took the dogs up to Kings Wood. As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the immediate ascension of Andy Burnham. There was precious little fact, but endless speculation.

We got to the woods to find some woman washing her smalls in the car park. I smiled at her and asked if she’d camped overnight. She said she had, and that it was a lovely place to camp.

We walked our usual walk. Treacle found four swamps. Bailey rolled in something foul. After four miles we came back to the car park to find the campers were cooking their breakfast. They seemed happy enough. I can’t help but wonder how Forestry England are going to enforce the proposed parking charges on people only stopping for an hour or so when other people are camping overnight with impunity.

 

We came home. The girls had a bath. I made a cuppa for me and “er indoors ^TM”, Wordled from “slept” to “crude” in four goes, Munzed, then went out again.

I needed a Stanley knife. Against my better judgement I went to B&Q where (for once) I got what I needed with no fuss. From there I drove round to the Repton centre. Over the weekend we’d heard third-hand rumours that there had been complaints about the Dog Club. It turned out that there hadn’t been, and all was fine. Or as fine as could be expected for Saturday mayhem.

 

I came home and with the heatwave gone I cracked on in the garden. I got on with my wishing well project. Toady’s plan was to get the uprights into place. That involved cutting some holes in the tyres I painted the other day, and sticking the uprights through those holes.

Have you ever tried to cut a hole in a tyre?

Whenever you hear mention of someone having had their tyres slashed, I’d seriously question it. It took all of my effort to force a brand new Stanley knife into the tyre, and it took sustained effort to get the knife to actually go through. And as for any actual cutting… I eventually got six holes cut, sawed the uprights to size, and got them in place.

Flushed with success I then started sawing the wood for the roof into shape… and I had a minor hiccup. Somehow I’d lost a bit of wood. A bit that was two and a half metres long. I wonder where that had gone?

It didn’t take *that* long to nip over to Wickes to get another.

And equipped with all the timber I need (I think), I sawed it all to size and gave the new stuff a coat of wood stain.

We did “FEED THE FISH” , I voomed round with the watering can and suddenly it was four o’clock and my step count for half the day was double what it had been for Saturday and Sunday combined.

 

I made a cuppa for “er indoors ^TM” and myself, and realised just how much pain I was getting from my right elbow. I’d certainly overdone it with the cutting of the tyres.

The wishing well is nearly together. It just needs the roof to be built … I’ll do that later in the week when I can take my time over it.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a rather good bit of dinner then went off bowling. I turned on the telly and it suggested a film I might like. “Downton Abbey; The Grand Finale” was rather good but I got the impression that the writers had forgotten what had gone before in that show. The plot was all about the great scandal of Lady Mary having got divorced… this was the same Lady Mary who in the third episode of the show porked the Turkish attaché to death. I would have thought that after porking the Turkish attaché to death, getting a divorce would have been rather trivial, but what do I know – times were different back then.

28 June 2026 (Sunday) - Working, Crosswords, Stuff

I woke feeling full of energy and raring to go… at twenty to two. I didn’t get back to sleep after that as it was a hot and sultry night. I eventually gave up trying to sleep and got up. I watched another episode of “The Handmaid’s Tale” … bearing in mind premise of this show is an uncaring state forcefully taking children from their mothers (sound familiar!?) I’m finding this rather hard going at times.

 

I set off to work. As I drove the talk on the radio was of a religious nature this morning (what with it being a Sunday). There was an interesting article about religious freedoms in America in which it was suggested that the biggest threat to religious freedom was the exponents of those advocating a competing religion to your own one. Two senior bishops of different churches came on, and there was an embarrassing five minutes in which both bishops flatly refused to let the other say a word. Both claimed that they were being shut down (which they were) and both claimed that they were tolerant of others (which they weren’t).

As I drove there was an inordinate amount of groups of cyclists; both pedal ones and motor ones. I always thought that pedal bikes were banned from having organised road races, but they seem to do them with annoying regularity.

I drove through Pembury this morning as I had a few minutes before work. I spent a few minutes looking for a geocache along the main road. I eventually found it. I hesitate to say that it was buried in someone’s front garden, but it was buried in someone’s front garden.

And I got petrol. In the past the petrol in Pembury has been about eight pence per litre more expensive than that in Ashford. Today it was five pence per litre cheaper. One thing which puzzles me is how petrol prices go up and down so regularly and vary so much within such short distances. The sweetie bars, sandwiches and chocolate that the petrol stations sell are all the same price everywhere, so why does the price of petrol go up and down?

 

I went in to work where I had a rather hard time of it. Such is life. But I was only working a half day today and so was soon on the way home. As I drove home I tuned to Radio Four Extra as they were playing a dramatization of the Secret Diary of Adrian Mole. What I heard of it was rather entertaining. It was a shame that for most f the time I was listening to silence as the signal kept cutting out.

I’ve mentioned before that either DAB radio is a disappointment, or the one in my car needs replacing.

 

I got home where it was too hot to take the dogs out. Nowhere near as hot as it has been recently, but still too hot. And all the normal people come swarming out at the weekend and I really didn’t fancy dealing with them today. So we sat in the garden and I struggled with a crossword puzzle. One clue really had me foxed. “Daunting, Formidable (8) A - - - - O – E”. I can’t *really* be “arsehole” (can it)?

We did “FEED THE FISH”, I ran round with the watering can, and Treacle was threatened with having her buzzer collar put on. When she barks the thing vibrates uncomfortably. The idea is that if she didn’t bark at absolutely everything then it wouldn’t vibrate.

Usually the threat of the thing is enough to shut her up, and the threat worked.

 

We had a rather good bit of dinner and watched more “Canal Boad Diaries” in which our hero was having aggro with sunken trees.

The more I watch this show, the more I’m getting the impression that canal boating is quite a bit of arse-ache. We’ll probably still have a go at some stage though…

27 June 2026 (Saturday) - Dog Club and Board Games

It was a hot night. Morgan was whimpering and crying in the small hours, and once he settled so the thunderstorm hit. After a while “er indoors ^TM” remembered she’d left the skylight in the attic room open. Woops.

I got up at seven o’clock, made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was still there. It usually is. Apparently there was a big public meeting in Hastings yesterday to discuss renovations and improvements to the amenities around the sea front. Sadly what none of those in the meeting seemed to realise is that all of the amenities aren’t in public ownership. If the owner of a putting green or a boating lake chooses not to spend a small fortune on doing it up (for no financial gain) then no amount of public rancour will change anything. Especially when those expressing the rancour don’t actually spend any of their money in the amenity they want doing up. I blame Margaret Thatcher. It was patently obvious that taking anything out of public ownership and making it a profit-making business is going to stop whatever it is having its primary purpose as whatever it was supposed to be. Look at the current mess of the country’s trains and water supply.

 

I Munzed,and Wordled. “While” was a silly word with which to start. So I tried “start” which gave me the first letter. “Scuff” gave me the first two letters, and I got it on the fourth attempt with “scoop” for the simple reason that I couldn’t think of any other word that might have fitted.

As I strained my brain Steve was doing the “Guess the Lyrics” competition on the radio. He gave the clue that it was from the seventies. “Let that feeling grab you deep inside and send you reeling where your love can’t hide”. I recognised it as being “Let Your Love Flow” but I had to look on the internet to find out who sang it. It was the Bellamy Brothers.

 

Being Saturday we drove round to Repton and Dog Club. Attendance was down; we only had a dozen dogs along. I blame the heat. But a good time was had by all; even if there was a lot of eating of grass going on.

As we drove home so Steve was doing the Mystery Year on the radio. There were several songs which gave me flashbacks of the Open University summer school. And “Something Good” by Utah Saints? 1992.

 

We came home. We had a cuppa and a doughnut and I counted up the Dog Club money, pocketed it and transferred that amount into the Repton’s people’s bank account. This time I made sure there was no foreign coins in there.

 

Chris came round and we sat in the garden playing on “the board” which is not entirely unlike the Infinity Table.

I took a few photos as we played. It was rather good…

26 June 2026 (Friday) - Still Far Too Hot

I had a better night than I might have had with this heat, and despite the bin men making their usual early morning racket I stayed in my pit until nearly eight o’clock.

I did have a vague idea to get up early and go chasing for First To Find on a puzzle geocache that went live yesterday which I solved yesterday but it was too hot to go out then. But someone else had had the same idea, and having got up at five o’clock they’d found the thing two hours before I got up.

 

I made toast and had a little look at the internet. Someone with whom I used to work was having a birthday today. I sent out birthday wishes. And I rolled my eyes.

One thing which has boiled my piss about the current heatwave is that Facebook is filled with postings about how we should all keep dogs inside, and about how cruel it is to walk dogs in this heat. I suppose the underlying sentiment is admirable, but the posts are all very passive-aggressive, clearly from people who know absolutely nothing about dogs, and are pretty much all from people who post anonymously as they are too cowardly to put their names to what they are saying. I tried telling my three that they couldn’t have a walk this morning, and they weren’t having any of it. They all stood by the door and whined.

So we went to Orlestone rather earlier than we might have done. We walked about a quarter of the distance we usually cover, with pretty much no hills and pretty much all in the shade. Morgan and Bailey managed to find fresh fox poo, and Treacle found a water-filled ditch.

After half an hour and a mile and a half we got back to the car at about the sort of time we would usually start our walk.

 

We came home. Yesterday “er indoors ^TM” came home with a packet of croissants. We had one with jam and a cuppa. I Munzed; Our Munzee Guild has hit the last of our monthly targets, and we got all our rewards. I Wordled from “night” through “trace” to “acute”. I wrote up some CPD. I wrote to my MP about the hose pipe ban which is supposedly coming into effect next week. Ironically I wrote to him last year about the floods near Asda when he achieved nothing, so my hopes aren’t high.

I then spent a little while fighting with my lap-top. My email provider had upgraded their website recently, and like pretty much every IT upgrade I’ve ever seen, rather than improving matters, the upgrade left the thing utterly unable to function in any way at all. Eventually I managed to get it working… deleting browsing history and cookies did the trick… until I tried to log in again later.

 

Bearing in mind the heat was supposed to subside  a little tomorrow (and I’m working on Sunday) I popped over the road to get some beer for an afternoon in the garden. I wasn’t the only person to have that idea… why do so many people have to take the entire family whenever they go shopping? Does it really need six people to stand round watching one person actually buying stuff?

And then I popped up the road to the other shop to get ice cream. Each little corner shop has its specialty… I was reminded of my grandmother who would spend an entire day shopping getting supplies from a dozen different shops.

 

And then I ran round the garden. I cleared the dog turds, cleaned out the pond filter and voomed about with the watering can. The snapdragons are looking rather good.

We had a rather good curry for dinner which we devoured whilst watching more “Canal Boat Diaries”… we’ve found a canal boat hire company which takes up to three dogs… Personally I think taking the hounds on a boat is a recipe for disaster, but what do I know?

 

And when fetching the bins back earlier, “er indoors ^TM” found a tenner in the front garden. That was a result.

25 June 2026 (Thursday) - Still Too Hot

Apart from Bailey having a coughing fit in the small hours I had a good night, sleeping through until eight o’clock despite the heat.

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was still there, and much the same as ever. This morning my Facebook feed was seemingly filled with suggestions that I might follow the rantings of various Reform UK councillors. Most of the ones I was presented with had seemingly Polish or Asian names or were ex-Conservatives… Bearing in mind that many of the issues that Reform UK rant about can be traced back to the previous Conservative government and that they are making scapegoats of anyone who isn’t white British, what is it that I am missing here?

Not that the current government is a model of perfection. Nor are any of the other parties. More and more I find myself agreeing and disagreeing with all of the political parties in equal amounts. I’m reminded of an interview with David Steele (who was the leader of the Liberal party) in which he said that he only agreed with about twenty per cent of the Liberal party’s policies, but he agreed with more of their policies than those of any other party.

And I saw an advert for the London Craft Beer Festival. Apparently your ticket covers the cost of all the beer you can drink. At sixty-four quid a ticket that’s about twelve pints… I suppose they are talking London prices?

 

I took the dogs out before it got too hot. We went to Orlestone where we walked a rather short walk… the very same walk which used to be our standard walk when Fudge was with us. Oh that dog used to straggle behind. We took our time today, and even spending five minutes chatting with other dog walkers we were done in less than half an hour. Back in the day it used to take Fudge an hour to do that walk.

 

We came home where Treacle had a bath. She found a swamp and a water-filled ditch whist we were out. I hung out the laundry I’d put in to scrub, ironed a couple of shirts whilst they were still wet, and had a look at the monthly accounts. Every month I count up and account for every penny I’ve spent, and every month I end up mildly depressed about it. I’m far from skint, but could be a whole lot better off.

I Munzed, and Wordled from “until” through “unite” to “unity”. I made a rather good first choice there. I wrote up some CPD.

 

“er indoors ^TM” went off visiting relatives. I settled in front of the telly and watched a film. I first saw “Breaking Glass” one afternoon in 1980 when I should have being doing games at school, but I bunked off and saw it with a friend (who now has a PhD). I can remember seeing it about twelve years ago when it prompted me to get a saxophone.

I then watched a fan-made Star Trek episode. Clearly a lot of time, effort and money had gone into the show. I hesitate to say it was tripe… but it wasn’t good.

 

We did “FEED THE FISH” and got the washing in, and those five minutes in the sun were quite enough. Yesterday had been the hottest June day in the UK, but today was hotter.

I played more Meowdoku until “er indoors ^TM” came home. Being rather late in the day she got some KFC which we scoffed whilst watching more “Canal Boat Diaries”. I can’t help but think that living on a canal boat right now would be ideal – I could just jump in. It’s gone nine o’clock and it is still ridiculously hot…

24 June 2026 (Wednesday) - The Heatwave Continues

It was a hot night; I didn’t sleep very well. I was awake for much of the night. I gave up trying to sleep, got up and watched a rather dull episode of “The Handmaid’s Tale” in which pretty much nothing happened.

I Wordled from “early” to “queer” in four goes then had a little look at the Internet. It was still there. There wasn’t much kicking off; I was probably too early for any nonsense. I Munzed, got ready for work and set off wondering where I’d left my car last night.

I eventually found it in Christchurch Road.

 

As I drove off the car's thermometer was two and a half degrees up on what it had said at the same time yesterday.  I went up the motorway listening to the pundits on the radio talking about how the Met Office had released a red warning about the heat. It was claimed that this was only the second red warning about heat that  the Met Office have ever issued. 

There was also talk about when (not if) Andy Burnham becomes Prime Minister and how he’s planning to chuck the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves out on her arse. Is that unreasonable? A new Prime Minister really should choose his own team rather than take the team over from someone who has himself been hoiked out on his arse (shouldn't he?). 

Personally I can't help but think that a Prime Minister should be called "Andrew" rather than "Andy", but when you consider that (judging on recent performances) he too will be out on his arse in a year or so, does it really matter?

 

I stopped off at Sainsburys to get a sandwich. I had a minor episode with the self-service machine. As I filled it with loose change the machine rejected all the foreign coins that I'd fed into it. I didn't realise that I had quite so many foreign coins. They must come from the Dog Club pot. I count up the money in that pot, pocket it and pay that amount into the field owner's bank account. So once I've transferred the money and then found a foreign coin, it's me that's been swizzed. I shall look at the coins a bit more carefully this weekend.

 

I spent some time this morning doing training on the new blood transfusion computer system today. The chap doing the training knew I used to keep snakes... I wonder who told him that? And I spent much of the afternoon being trained on the latest developments in rivaroxiban and apixiban assays.

Back in the day the reps doing these training sessions used to bring cakes.

And an ex-trainee was visiting... it was odd. I can distinctly remember this chap being rather shorter than me; now he towers over me. In the fifteen years since I last saw him he has grown about nine inches... Or I’ve shrunk.

 

It was ridiculously hot as I came home. We did “FEED THE FISH” and I played Meowdoku until “er indoors ^TM” boiled up sausages and chips which we scoffed whilst watching the latest season of “Canal Boat Diaries”. And we had a decent bit of pudding too. As I came home the League of Fiends (!) shop at the hospital was selling punnets of raspberries.

I feel rather washed out – I blame the heat. Apparently today was the UK’s hottest ever June day.