22 April 2026 (Wednesday) - Planful

I slept well… until half past two. I gave up trying to sleep at half past four, got up and watched an episode of “The Man in the High Castle” with something of a sense of “WTF is going on” then sparked up my lap-top. Pretty much nothing at all was happening on-line early this morning so (trying not to wake anyone) I got ready for work.

 

As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the radio were talking to the head honcho at McDonalds about allegations of bullying in various branches of the chain. She didn't want to get involved with what had gone before, but instead wanted to talk about the company's future. It was a shame that she couldn't have spoken in English but instead chose to speak in strange meaningless management catchphrases, one of which was that McDonalds was a very "planful" company. Whatever that meant...But more and more people do this sort of thing, don't they. Just read anything at all which has ever been posted on LinkedIn.

There was a classic example of this yesterday as I'd been sitting in the hospital's waiting area. The woman next to me had come in with her father and was waiting for him to have his appointment. As we waited so her phone rang. Rather than doing the decent thing and going elsewhere to take the call she stood up and walked to the centre of the waiting area where she answered the call with something of a flourish. She loudly thanked the caller for getting in touch and (equally loudly) announced that she was going to put him on speaker. There was then a frankly bizarre few minutes when she so obviously put on a show for the public. She ranted at her caller in an almost theatrical way about team efforts and targets and goals and opportunities and client expectations. It was very apparent that she was a London-based estate agent, and that the chap calling her was one of her underlings. She wanted him to sell or let a rather expensive apartment in the Putney area. 

She sounded very impressive (to the sort of people who are impressed by that sort of thing); it was a shame that her performance was utterly undermined by her minion being on the loudspeaker and so everyone could hear that the chap was actually phoning in sick because he'd been up all night with “f...ing diarrhoea”. 

 

I went to get petrol before I went in to work. The filling station in Aylesford was six pence per litre cheaper than Ashford, and so I saved two quid. Maybe only a minor result, but a result nonetheless.

I got a sandwich and went in to the early shift. I did what I had to, but an early start meant I got out early.

 

I did think about going to the woods this evening, but I wasn’t feeling on top form, and once we’d done “FEED THE FISH” the dogs all went back to sleep anyway.

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up pie and chips which we scoffed whilst watching an episode of “McDonald and Dodds” in which him who was the monocled mutineer and the eight Doctor Who played a villain.

 

Compared to yesterday, today was rather quiet… so why do I feel worn out?

21 April 2026 (Tuesday) - A Day's Leave

Again all the lights were on next door when I went to the loo at four o’clock.

I slept through till eight o’clock this morning, got up and made toast. As I peered into the Internet I saw that the chap who seems to be trying to visit every pub in the country (I’ve mentioned him before) has been making a lot of noise about his having been elected to the ruling committee of the Campaign for Real Ale. Bearing in mind how he’s on Facebook every day making great show of his favourite pub in every town, I can’t help but wonder if there’s going to be some conflict of interest here. Are disgruntled publicans going to have the arse with CAMRA about losing a competition they didn’t know they were in? A competition that is nothing to do with CAMRA.

I Munzed, and Wordled from “light” through “close” to (in a total bit of pot luck) get “clump” on the third attempt, taking maybe twenty seconds to do the lot. I rather impressed myself. Wordle usually takes me ages..

 

Despite the roads being incredibly busy I drove over to B&M Bargains to have a look at their garden section. Their wooden plant boxes were half the price of the ones in Longacres. And they were knocking out tennis balls at four for one pound fifty. Sainsburys do three for two quid. I shall be going to B&M Bargains for tennis balls from here on.

I went on to Dobbies where some huge black dog stopped and pissed up the lawn food. I’m not saying my dogs are blameless, but it was as though someone had emptied a bucket.

And I had a quick look round Longacres too.

 

Having found nowhere sold the fence supports I wanted, it was over to the hospital for a check up. Two years ago I had my fourth nasal re-bore. The first three failed as the surgeon had gone up the nostril, but on the fourth attempt the chap said he wanted to drill through the bone and come in from behind.

He had a look up my conk with an endoscope and says that (unlike the last three times) the polys haven’t come back. Here’s hoping they stays away.

Whilst I was in with the ENT specialist I mentioned about my seemingly continual tinnitus. He said that it comes with age, but had a look in my lugholes and said there was more wax in there than at Madame Tussauds. He got me to lie down and cleared out both earholes whilst I waited. He seemed quite proud of the size of some of the lumps of gunge he got out of my ears, and wasn’t at all disheartened that at the end of some seriously intense scraping the tinnitus was just the same as it was at the start.

He says he will arrange for some hearing tests.

 

I came home where I made us both a cuppa which we had with a Whitby bun, and then I took the dogs out. We got to the car park at the woods about three hours later than usual and the normal people were out in force. But once away from the car park we only saw three other groups. Perhaps it was the time of day, but the birds were very quiet; we heard hardly any of them squawking. Morgan rolled in one dead mouse and Bailey ate another. The girls found a bone and Bailey smothered herself in fox poo.

As we walked I stopped and watched two deer not fifty yards from us. The dogs didn’t notice them at all.

 

We came home. This morning we’d seen a rat going into the garden storage box. I stripped it out… There were a few rat turds and something (presumably a rat) had been chewing at one of the old tents. That can go to the tip. I also cleared up the area where I keep spare decorative garden stones as Bailey often sniffs round there, but there didn’t seem to be any rat evidence. I popped out a couple of the rat-repellent smelly things just in case.

We did “FEED THE FISH”. Yesterday one of the older fish looked a tad iffy. In the meantime it had croaked. I hoiked out the corpse. I watered the plants, I cleared up the dog dung.

 

The plan had originally been to then do the ironing, but by then I thought I’d done a full day on what was actually a planned day’s annual leave (booked for the hospital appointment) so I made up both a cuppa and looked at booking a tip run to get shot of the old chewed tent. Ashford’s tip is still closed. We can go to any other tip in Kent, but they are all quite a drive away. The obvious ones would be the ones in Maidstone… I had a stroke of genius that I might pop in there before next Tuesday’s late shift. I’ve booked an appointment at the Allington tip. I wonder where it is.

So I wrote up some CPD and sorted the undercrackers I’d tumble-dried last night…

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching some really odd celebrity quiz show. Hosted by what I can only describe as a portion of bread and butter pudding on legs it featured has-beens and never-weres who faced puzzles which were either on a par with “frozen water  I – space – E” or Einstein-level mathematics with nothing in between. However I did have a fit of the giggles on the anagram round… “Asrworp”?

 

I’m going to work tomorrow – for a rest.

20 April 2026 (Monday) - Hitler Croaked

I got up and went straight out to the little pond. The water level was fine. So how had it emptied itself on Saturday?

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. There wasn’t a lot going on, so I took the dogs out a tad earlier than we night usually go. As we drove up there the pundits on the radio were talking about how it has been discovered that every time President Trump makes some announcement that will affect the world’s financial markets, a few minutes before he does someone makes investments and then makes a killing… almost as though they knew what he was going to say. Not that anyone was suggesting that people were being tipped off as that would be very illegal…

We got to the woods where there were only half a dozen cars in the car park. Rather different to last week. We walked our usual walk. We didn’t see anyone else, we didn’t roll in anything or wallow in anything. We chased a few squirrels, but they all got away. Perhaps if the dogs were a tad more stealthy they might have more luck?

 

After four and a bit miles we were back at the car. The “bit” was arguable depending on whether you believe my watch or my phone.

We came home via Riversdale Road where there were reports of missing geocaches. One was missing; one wasn’t. I replaced the missing one, but might archive it soon. It’s a Wherigo I wrote. The idea is that you play a little game on your phone and as you go through the game you read the words and it tells you where the final geocache is found. But if you don’t read the words but just keep pressing the buttons as fast as you possibly can you miss the information you need and you end up in the wrong place. Basically it is an exercise in following instructions… but pretty much no one reads the instructions, everyone ends up in the wrong place and then they keep sending me messages that the thing is missing when it isn’t. Today, though, it was..  

It seemed like a good idea at the time but I shall probably archive it soon and replace it with a simple film pot under a rock… either when the local hunter of First To Finds is on holiday, or I shall prime someone else to go get it first.

 

We came home where it took me a little while to park. There’s some chap who lives locally who doesn’t like cars parked anywhere near his car, so given a space big enough for two and a half cars he makes a point of parking right in the middle so no one can park near his car. I saw red and spent a few minutes shoehorning my car into the tiny space he’d left. I *might* have bumped his car a couple of times as I squeezed into the space, but that’s his problem. The parking bay outside our house has space for seven cars, and too many times there’s only four cars there because of the frankly stupid parking that goes on.

 

Once home I voomed round the garden gathering turds. It’s an endless job. And with turds gathered I had a cuppa. I did think about tidying up the garden storage box; after all it has been a little while since the door closed on the thing. But my back was aching a bit. I’ll do that tomorrow, eh?

I played around with Microsoft CoPilot, I Munzed, I Wordled from “walks” through “wharf” to “weave” on the third go… eventually. How many five-letter words are there that start with “w” and have “a” in the middle, but don’t have an “h” in them?

 

I got myself a bit of lunch and settled in front of the telly underneath a pile of dogs and watched more episodes of “The Man In The High Castle” in which Colonel Tigh from BattleStar Galactica turned up as a rogue vicar.

“My Boy ^TM” popped in. Would I look after his scooter whilst he went for a haircut? He’s got one of these electric scooters – the sort of thing he swears about when anyone else is scooting about on one. Apparently it has a top speed of sixteen miles an hour and he can get from his house to ours in seven minutes which is probably faster than I could drive it.

I pootled in the garden, I wrote up some CPD, we did “FEED THE FISH” and watered the plants.

 

“er indoors ^TM” came home from work with a job lot of shopping, boiled up scran and then went bowling. I again settled in front of the telly underneath a pile of dogs and watched more episodes of “The Man In The High Castle”. The plot has taken a rather exciting turn – Hitler has croaked.

19 April 2026 (Sunday) - Lazy Day

I went to the loo at four o’clock this morning when I noticed that next door’s lights were all on. She does get up early.

I went back to bed where I slept through till half past eight, despite various snorings and squeakings.

 

I made toast and had my usual peer into the Internet…

I had messages about the Dog Club. Having finally found someone to act as a contact in the late group, there’s indignation about how dare I suggest that the poo bag had been left (even though it was), and complaints that the lock doesn’t close properly (even though I found it closed yesterday), and how I might like to arrange for a new lock… I took a deep breath. I never asked to take on running Dog Club…

I saw quite a few people had been walking round Kings Wood yesterday looking at the bluebells and for the geocaches I’d hidden. One or two people (who have found thousands and hidden none) commented on how some of the paper logs were wet. I took another deep breath. Would it cause these people physical pain to spend a fiver and buy a ream of paper? They could cut up the sheets and take some every time they went out geocaching and replace the wet paper in less time than it takes them to complain about it.

One thing which winds me up so much is when there is anything which might not be perfect about which pretty much everyone indignantly announces that ”they should do something about it” but are completely oblivious to the sad fact that there is no “they” who go round doing things. So often the problems in life are because of the old maxim “if you want a job done, do it yourself” and so few people are prepared to do anything themselves.

I Munzed and then Wordled from “leaks” through “shart” (which it accepted!) “Spain”, then back to “scant” as I’d forgotten the “T” was in there, and got it on the fifth go with “stand”.

 

And then it was into the garden. I had a look at the leak in the little pond and couldn’t really see why the thing had emptied yesterday. I mowed the lawn, cleaned the filter of the other pond, potted two small trees, cleaned out the drains and (almost) stopped Morgan peeing up everything I was using.

I've got a pedestal I need to do something with... I'll do that later. Three hours effort and the garden looks the same as when I started.

Have I ever mentioned that I am not a fan of gardening...

 

There were reports of issues with “er indoors ^TM”’s geocaches in Rolvenden, but someone else messaged her asking if she minded if they sorted the issues for her as they walked round today. Yes please !!!

And with our faith in humanity restored (and no need to go to Rolvenden) we declared Emergency Plan B. I popped over the road to the corner shop and got a few bottles of beer which had rather interesting labels.

We spent a rather good afternoon in the garden drinking beers and ciders whilst reading stuff on the Kindle app. There was a dodgy episode when Treacle sprang up for a cuddle and destroyed everything, but we soon cleared the wreckage.

 

Over a rather good bit of dinner we watched the latest episode of “Taskmaster”.

I’ve not left the house today…

18 April 2026 (Saturday) - Dog Club, Harry Potter

I slept better than I often do, but was still wide awake at five o’clock. Rather than laying in bed I got up and watched another episode of “The Man In The High Castle”. I realise that they were quite up on rocketry, but if the Axis powers really had won the second world war, would they have had Concord-style supersonic planes in the early 1960s?

I then had my usual peer into the Internet. It was still there. The usual drivel and squabbles abounded. I saw I’d been awarded a “Top Fan” badge for having clicked Facebook’s “like” button on a few photos on a dachshund page I follow. On a more serious note someone had posted the results of their blood test to one of the work-related Facebook groups I follow… This happens quite a bit. In some parts of the world it seems you can pay to get blood tests done and then go around asking what the results mean, and asking for quotes to sort out whatever the blood test had shown… I suppose that it isn’t entirely unlike what happened when Fudge was diagnosed with chronic kidney failure several years ago.

At first glance it seemed that today’s customer had both acute leukaemia and thalassaemia minor, but there were plenty of people queueing up to offer their sage advice and were suggesting everything from “piles” through to “died three weeks ago”.

Be very careful when asking for medical (or any) advice on-line. The less someone knows, the more confident and forceful they are with their opinion. Leaving aside the (rather major) point that a professional blood tester doesn’t offer diagnoses (that’s what doctors do), am I being hopelessly idealistic in preferring to have a “patient” rather than a “customer”? And am I being hopelessly idealistic in preferring that whoever used their professional judgement to ask for the blood test would deliver the bad news rather than having someone wonder if a blood test might tell them what was wrong with them (and then go onto Facebook to have random strangers explain the results to them)?

I Munzed. I Wordled from “drain” through “clade” to realise that “shady” was probably the only word which would fit… It wasn’t “shady”. I tried random gibberish until I got it right with “toady”. Is that even a word?

 

We got ourselves together. The plan was to go straight to today’s adventure from Dog Club, so there was quite a bit to get together. As I got bottles of cider in from the fridge in the shed I thought I could smell turds… suddenly gripped by panic I had a look down the drain. The water level was back where it should be… but there was quite a bit of “toilet things” floating there. It probably needs a few flushes.

As I fiddled about so Steve was doing the “Guess the Lyrics” competition on the radio. “I’m dancing on the white house lawn”?  I had no idea either. It was “Life is a Minestrone” by 10cc.

 

We drove round to Repton and Dog Club where we had a rather good session even if attendance was down somewhat. I blame the early drizzle.

 

From there we went out t Barham where we met Karl and Tracey. We went for a little geo-walk. Last year a series of puzzle geocaches went out all based on the “Harry Potter” books. The puzzles were fun, and the final geocache were all excellent; some involved well thought out field puzzles. In over sixteen thousand finds this series is probably the best series I’ve ever walked. The only criticism I could make would be that at nine miles it was a tad long; maybe two shorter loops might have been more manageable for an old git like me.

 

We walked nine miles over six hours, and with walk walked we retired to the Duke of Cumberland where we had a rather good bit of dinner washed down by a few pints of very good ale…

 

We came home to a minor disaster in the small fish pond. I shall deal with that in the morning.

In the meantime, here’s some photos of today.

17 April 2026 (Friday) - Early Shift, Drains

Well, last night was a case of the old, old story. With an alarm set I was wide awake from three o'clock which (in all honesty) wasn't bad for a night with an alarm set.

I got up, made toast and watched an episode of "The Man In The High Castle" which was rather good. I got ready for work and set off. I couldn't help but notice that the bins hadn't been strewn all over the pavements, the bin men weren't bellowing swear words up the street and the bin lorry had been parked in such a way that it wasn't deliberately blocking the road. Someone in authority must have had a word with them.

 

As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking the ongoing situation in the Middle East.

The Israeli and Lebanese governments are holding talks because (so it would seem) President Trump has ordered them to.

The British and French governments are organising an international armada to look after the strait of Hormuz; an international armada involving pretty much everyone except those currently at war over the place.

And the UK government is preparing for double figure inflation as the price of food looks set to go through the roof at the end of the year... or so it was claimed. The head of the Butcombe brewery was wheeled on who said that inflation of food prices might go through the roof; it is too early to tell.

It strikes me that whoever is wheeled on to the morning news is very firm about their opinions, and no two hold the same opinion.

 

Pausing only briefly to get a sandwich from Sainsburys I went in to the early shift. I spent much of the day whistling "Edelweiss" which is the theme tune to "The Man In The High Castle", and was a favourite song of my late grandmother. For some reason I have always been convinced that the song was also a firm favourite of Adolf Hitler's but it turned out the song was written fifteen years after he died.  One lives and learns.

 

And I got rather wound up as I chatted with the trainees. Being a professional blood-tester has always needed rather specialist post-graduate qualifications. Back in the day we would apply to be an apprentice blood tester. The ones who were successful (I got the thumbs-down on my first application) would spend four days a week in the workplace, and one day a week at a college. After four years of this we'd qualify with a degree, and those who wanted to go on to Masters level could do so over a further two years. 

A paid day off work each week to go to college, college fees paid, train fare to get there paid, the price of lunch and tea stumped up, and thirty quid to spend on text books… all the costs was part of our wages.  It might have taken longer to get a degree than the traditional full-time route would, but at the end of it all we had a qualification, professional registration and a job. And consequently it was attractive.  There was stiff competition to be an apprentice blood tester back then, and that's why I didn't get in on the first attempt.

Sadly about ten years after I started, someone in an office realised just how much it cost and decided that we would appoint staff at the point at which they qualified, and apprentice blood testers could pay for their own education... Some of the trainees now have over eighty thousand quid's worth of debt...

This is nothing new... but it came as something of a revelation to me...

 

As the day wore on so I had some messages from “er indoors ^TM”. The nice drains man had arrived. Regular readers of this drivel may recall our turd outlet hasn't been flowing as well as it might. The nice drain man opened the manhole cover over the communal sewer to find it was only a few inches from the top, and there wasn't just turds floating in it. It would seem the nice people a few doors up have been chucking "women's things" down their chodbin. I can't say that was the problem, but it certainly couldn't have helped. Still, I'm glad he found them. He can have that conversation with the neighbours. 

I got the message that he was sending some submarine camera down the drain, and then my shift was over. There's no denying that I drove down the motorway with something of a sense of trepidation.

 

I came home to find the nice man had gone. Apparently he’d seen nothing untoward with his sub-aqua camera so he just gave it all a particularly vigorous rodding and hoped for the best, and that cleared it. I saw that as a result. Seven years ago the nice people from the water company sent a camera-equipped submarine down there and told us that something had collapsed in the drain and there was a load of rats and shingle down there (in with the turds). Either today’s nice man’s camera had a turd on the lens or he wasn’t looking hard enough, or the last bloke was mistaken.

Here’s hoping the drain is good for another seven years…

 

I had intended to take the dogs to the woods this evening, but I’d had to park three streets away, and the current plan is that they should get a decent walk tomorrow. So we just did “FEED THE FISH” instead, and prepared my sat-nav “Hannah” for tomorrow.

We had fish and chips and watched “Race Across the World” in which the contestants were racing across Turkey. Some of the contestants went across the turtle rescue centre at Iztuzu beach where we visited when on holiday seven years ago.

I’d like to go back there at some point…

16 April 2026 (Thursday) - Still Tired

I slept well last night – that’s what night shifts do. But for some odd reason I was far warmer in bed last night than I had been on Tuesday afternoon or yesterday morning. How did that work?

 

I made toast and had my usual look at the Internet. Having finally sorted my antivirus yesterday my Facebook feed was full of adverts for antivirus products. The marketing algorithms haven’t quite got it right, have they? Now that I’ve bought something it is too late to get adverts for whatever it is. Last week I bought a year’s worth of razor blades and for two days job lots of razor blades was all I saw on social media.

 

I got the dogs onto their leads and we went to the woods. The upper car park has been heaving for the last two weeks, filled with people who very rarely go to the woods so today I tried the lower car park which was empty. No one knows it is there. We walked a different walk to usual, and every time we took a turn that isn’t on our usual walk so Morgan would give me a look as if to ask if I was sure.

The dogs waded in the pond that I told them not to wade in. They rolled in the muck I told them to leave alone… an average walk really.

 

We came home for a cuppa, and I farted around with the lap-top and my phone tweaking the McAfee antivirus that I’d got yesterday.

I really needed a new package – what I had was with AVG, The antivirus seemed to work, but although I thought I’d paid for the tuneup software, it kept telling me that I might like to buy it. The final straw was when they took money for it (again), but again told me the advantages of getting something that they’d sold me but hadn’t given me.

There was a minor hiccup when I thought I didn’t have an antivirus… The AVG antivirus that I’d got rid of was called “AVG antivirus” (so you knew what you were getting). McAfee don’t do antivirus. They do “livesafe” which is their antivirus package but with a frankly meaningless name. Eventually I figured this out.

You’d think it would have a sensible name, wouldn’t you? Their “McAfee PC Optimiser” tells you what you are getting, doesn’t it?

After quite a bit of farting about I was as confident that I could be that my lap-top was free of viruses and malware, and I had a protection score of six hundred and forty-nine out of a possible thousand which I was told was good. Was it? I have absolutely no idea.

 

I Munzed, and Wordled from “virus” (it seemed appropriate) through “fluid” and “untie” to “cubit” which was rather a stupid word, wasn’t it?

And then I pootled in the garden for a bit. Trimming and pruning and stuff. I sat by the pond with the dogs and read my Kindle for a bit…  and woke up an hour or so later. It was getting cold so I came in and watched a couple of episodes of “The Man In The High Castle”.

 

“er indoors ^TM” finished her day’s work and bearing in mind she’d destroyed the ironing board she went shopping for a new ironing board for me. I say “for me” … it really was for me. And whilst she was out she got a couple of acers too.

We’ve had acers in the past which have always died. Let’s see what I can do with these ones…