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.

23 June 2026 (Tuesday) - Via Lucem Continens

I thought I saw flashes of lighting as I shaved this morning. And I heard rumbles of thunder. And then the torrential rain hit.

I watched another episode of "The Handmaid's Tale" as I scoffed toast. This morning's episode was an improvement on the one I watched last night; perhaps I won't give up on it just yet. The trouble is that one of the major characters is utterly inconsistent in his behaviour. One minute he is an utter git; the next minute he's the hero of the day. Sometimes that sort of thing works... but not with Commander Lawrence. He really does come over as two different characters played by the same actor.

I rather thought that the flashes of lighting and booms of thunder would have bothered the dogs, but they slept right through it.  And slept through my getting ready for work too. 

 

I set off to work; a young lady jogger came past as I walked to my car. She'd got caught in a downpour and her white jogging kit had gone transparent. She might as well have been in the nip for all that she was keeping secret.

My car's thermometer said it was twenty degrees as I set off to work. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how the border processing area for car passengers going to Europe through Dover won't be ready in time for the summer holidays.

Why on Earth not? Bearing in mind it is ten years (to the day) since the Brexit vote when we as a country decided that this sort of thing was *exactly* what we wanted, how much longer is this going to take?

And there was endless talk about the Prime Minster; both the one that is going and the one that is coming. It seems to me that the recent spate of very short terms of premiership that we've been having lately can't be good for the country. 

 

I went to Sainsbury's to get a sandwich. The old bat who supervises the self-service tills was on duty, and wasn't at all happy as I emptied all of my loose change into the machine.

And so to work. I'd not been there for three weeks, but it didn't take long to get back into the swing of things.

 

I did my bit and came home. Once I’d run round the garden with a watering can “er indoors ^TM” boiled me up a pizza and I went up to the woods.

I’d organised a geo-meet in the woods at “Via lucem continens” (light walk). This is one of three remaining exhibits of the “Stour Valley Arts” project in Kings Wood. The brainchild of ­­Łukasz Skąpski (artist, professor, and head of the Department of Photography at the School of Painting and New Media of the Academy of Fine Arts in Szczecin), it is two avenues of yew trees which line a clearing which is about a hundred metres long. Standing at the stone at the eastern end (the one on which I frequently get the dogs to pose for photos), the twin avenues of yew trees supposedly frame the setting sun on midsummer’s eve.

Or that was the plan when it was planted in 1999. I wanted to find out if it really did.

 

The original plan was that it would be an evening dog walk, but it was far too hot, which was a shame. My car’s thermometer said it was thirty-eight degrees as I set off.  Leaving “er indoors ^TM” and the dogs I went up to the woods. I had a little walk about, and shortly after eight o’clock I made my way to the clearing.

Nine of us turned out and chatted… and (would you believe it) the sun did set at the end of the twin column of yew trees. It would have looked a lot better if the trees had been pruned somewhat… but we had a good meet up. I took a few photos.

We left at the point when the sun had gone below the tree line. I understand some people arrived after we’d gone…

22 July 2026 (Monday) - Too Hot

Another hot and restless night, but I managed to stay in my pit until seven o’clock which was a minor result. I made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was still there.

This morning my Facebook feed was filled with adverts for pubs and beer festivals. Quite a few of them, but the closest being a hundred and twenty miles away. Getting adverts for shops and services half-way across the country is a regular occurrence on Facebook. Personally I’d never pay to advertise anything other than a mail-order business on there.

You’d think that the software would somehow be able to target the marketing a little better.

 

I Munzed; our guild had reached the second of our monthly targets. And we made an early start on our walk today. I had a plan to get out before it got too hot, but by the time we’d driven a mile the temperature on my car’s thermometer had gone up by two more degrees. We abandoned the idea of Kings Wood and went to Orlestone instead. We walked a shorter walk avoiding swamps and fox poo, but saw far more people than we usually do on our walks.

When we got home I couldn’t park. I couldn’t reverse into the space as the idiot driver from Clearabee was only inches from the back end of my car. I drove forward so he could pass… only he wouldn’t. He remained inches behind my car. And when I pulled up at the side of the road he too pulled up. I just sat and waited. Eventually he reversed and passed, whilst the chap in the passenger seat glared at me.

 

Once home I made us both a cuppa and heard the news that the Prime Minister has resigned. I can’t pretend to be a fan of the chap, but he’d achieved quite a bit in his short time in office. Sadly what he hadn’t done was to entertain and amuse the masses. As we’d driven to the woods this morning the pundits on the radio had been talking about how Prime Ministers don’t seem to last any length of time these days. The blame was put on the fickle electorate who want to be amused. Look at the success of that idiot Donald Trump who says black is white and good is bad, and when he can never deliver that which he’s promised he immediately finds a scapegoat to blame. Or consider the antics of Boris Johnson…

 

I Wordled from “guild” to “ovate” in five goes. “Ovate” means egg-shaped, and I got it randomly as it was the only word that fitted given the letters I had left.

I marked trainee’s work, I wrote up some CPD (not done that over the last two weeks’ holiday), and then went to have a look at just how hot it was in the garden.

 

It was hot. Too hot to be farting about putting the wishing well together. I didn’t want to be heaving and sawing in the heat, so I just contented myself by gently trimming back the jungles coming over the fences from next door. And with those trimmed I had a little doze, then played some more Meowdoku.

I then announced that it was time to “FEED THE FISH”, not that this came as any surprise to Treacle. She has a built-in timer when it comes to food. She knows that half past three is fish feeding time, and is rarely more than a minute or two off at dinner time and chicken foot time either.

 

I voomed round with the watering can, and then got the hair trimmer out and gave myself a haircut. Speaking with various people over the weekend it would seem that you pay over sixteen quid for a short back and slap at the barber’s these days. Stuff that !!

 

“er indoors ^TM” went bowling. I cracked on with the ironing whilst watching another episode of “The Handmaid’s Tale”. Like so many other shows it started very well, but now that it’s got to the fourth season it is fast running out of steam.

 

I’ve got to go to work tomorrow. That will come as something of a shock…

21 July 2026 (Sunday) - Rather Dull

It was a hot night, not helped by the dogs all laying in a straight line only allowing me about eight inches along the edge of the bed. They all looked most indignant when I hoiked them over (several times).

I eventually gave in and got up at eight o’clock. I had a plan for an early dog walk, but it was already too hot.

I made toast and peered into the Internet. This morning’s petty squabble was on one of the pond-related Facebook groups in which quite a few people were bending over backwards to show they didn’t have the faintest idea about how to tell the difference between a tench and a goldfish.

And a friend got married yesterday. I say “a friend”; she’s on my Facebook friends list, but I don’t recognise the name or the face. I wonder who she is?

I Munzed, Wordled from “eight” to “alibi” via “spiny” and “flick”, and got dressed.

 

Last Sunday we went for a short walk round Frittenden following a geocaching Adventure Lab. I did have a vague plan to do one of those today – a little half-hour walk. Yesterday we met friends at a geo-meet; there was one of those in Sussex today. Yesterday we’d also had a great time at Dog Club and with friends round in the evening. But by the time I’d scoffed toast it was two degrees hotter than that in which I’d have been happy to take the dogs out. Being far too hot to do anything much we sat in the garden (under an umbrella) and had a rather dull day. I got a couple more coats of paint onto my tyres, and in between painting I alternated between crossword puzzles and my latest waste of time – “Meowduko” which is actually rather harder than you might think.

And “er indoors ^TM” boiled up a rather good ploughman’s lunch so the day wasn’t a total write-off.. 

 

In between “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” sent messages and “My Boy ^TM” visited, both in honour of today being Father’s Day. Back in the day Father’s Day used to be a big thing…

I miss my dad…