16 May 2025 (Friday) - Guacamole Dip

I woke at the sound of a dog jumping off the bed in the small hours. I assumed it was Morgan. He needs chasing in the night. He jumps off the bed and goes to the back garden to do that which dogs do *if* I open the door in time. But when he finds the back door is locked he then does the best he can in less than ideal circumstances and craps on the doormat. But it wasn't Morgan last night. Treacle had fallen off the bed and in my hurry to chase downstairs I tripped over her. She just wanted help to get back onto the bed. She's getting old. She can't get on the bed any more. She struggles to get into the car before our walks, and she needs lifting into the car after a walk.

 

I didn't get back to sleep after that. I got up earlier than I might have done, and as I scoffed toast I watched an episode of "Black Mirror" on Netflix. What would you do if the latest big TV show was seemingly based on every detail of your life - including that which you'd rather no one else knew about?

 

Taking care not to wake anyone I got ready for work and set off. As I drove up the motorway the pundits were talking about the assisted dying bill which is going through Parliament.

At the risk of simplifying a rather complex issue, you'd be prosecuted for allowing a dog to suffer, but you'd also be prosecuted for preventing a person suffering in the same way. Am I missing something here?

I drove to the Sainsbury's petrol station in Aylesford as their petrol is consistently cheaper than in Ashford. But I forgot that they don't get stocked up until mid-morning. So for all that I saved about a quid on the petrol I then had to make a separate journey into the supermarket to get lunch. I got myself a beef and horseradish sandwich and a little pot of guacamole and some nachos. The little pot and nachos were good for one hundred and sixty-eight calories. In the past I'd get a big bag of Doritos and a pot of the Pringles guac dip and scoff the lot for lunch; totally oblivious to the three thousand four hundred calories that was going down my neck.

 

I went in to work and had a cuppa, and had my morning's root around the Internet rather later than usual. Irene was posting piccies from Uzbekistan.  She's got to Khiva. I liked Khiva; I bought a rather sexy jacket there that I have still to wear.

And there was quite the argument in the Facebook group about big cat sightings in the UK. Someone had found what they claimed was a big cat's skull.  Others were claiming it was a dead badger. All were adamant that they were right.

Our Munzee clan has reached the second of our monthly goals.

I had loads of emails that needed to be deleted unread.

 

I cracked on with the early shift, and at lunchtime I scoffed my nachos and guac dip. In future I shall get the carrots and houmous dip - half the calories and it tastes better.

We had a sweepstake at work for tomorrow's Eurovision Song Contest. I got Luxembourg; I was told that was good. I had no idea, so I did some research. Apparently Luxembourg has a one in two hundred and fifty chance of winning. Even worse than the UK’s chance.

 

An early start made for an early finish. The journey home took fifty minutes. Seventeen miles down the motorway took twenty minutes; two miles from work to motorway, and two miles from motorway to home took a total of half an hour.

 

Once home I ran round gathering dog turds, then ran round with the watering can, and once “er indoors ^TM” had finished work we took the dogs to Orlestone for a short (two miles) walk.

As we drove down we saw two red kites. We saw two smaller hawks in the woods, and a buzzard sitting on the telegraph wires as we came home. Back in the day we rarely, if ever, saw a bird of prey. Now they are more and more common. Which got me thinking… If there’s more birds of prey, there’s got to be more food for them. Bearing in mind they scoff small animals there’s got to be more food and habitat for small birds and mice and the like. But the news keeps telling us about habitat destruction?

15 May 2025 (Thursday) - Biggin Hill

I suppose I slept better than I have been doing recently. It was a shame that I was plagued with rather vivid dreams, and waking up came as something of a relief.

I made toast and peered into the Internet. It was still there. One of the American work-based Facebook groups had a post about the dangers of mouth-pipetting. In my line of work you use a pipette to suck up a measured volume of body fluid to analyse it. The force to do the actual sucking comes from a hand-held device these days, but back in the day the pipette was a long glass tube. One end went in the body fluid, and the other end in your mouth. And you’d (quite literally) suck it up. And if your attention was distracted you’d get a mouthful of pee or blood.

But you could take away the taste by puffing on the cigarette that you’d rested in the ash tray beside your microscope…

And this was why when I first started as an apprentice blood tester in 1981 it was suggested that I seriously considered not being a part of the pension scheme on account of the average blood tester dying at age fifty-eight from something nasty they’d caught in the laboratory.

These days we have health and safety… at the moment.

Here in the UK we now have enforced national standards for health and safety, testing procedures and all sorts of professional conduct. But reading the work-based Facebook groups it is painfully clear that in other parts of the world they just have a go and hope for the best. Mouth pipetting is still a thing in some places… bear that in mind when there are calls to close the NHS and replace it with something cheaper.

 

I munzed, failed at Wordle, and got ready for the off. Over the last week I’ve been working a day on – day off sort of shift pattern. Bearing in mind I’m only supposed to do two and a half days a week, I’m not quite sure what is going on. But today was my second consecutive day off.

I drove round to the co-op where the normal people were all standing about outside grumbling about how all the shelves in the place were empty. They didn’t look that empty to me.

From there I drove up the motorway listening to the pundits on the radio talking about a new initiative to get more people speaking Welsh. Is this a good thing? I’m not convinced.

 

I drove up to Karl and Tracey’s. Tracey was busy today, but Karl and I drove up to Biggin Hill. Some time ago I solved a load of geo-puzzles in the area, and today we went to go find the caches. I’d deliberately not taken the dogs, and I was right not to have done so. The start of the walk was on busy roads, and some of the paths were a tad narrow. And there were several horses in fields on the way.

As we walked we met two groups of very polite teenagers doing Duke of Edinburgh hikes. We met them within ten minutes of each other, and they were going in completely opposite directions. At least one group was going the wrong way.

As we came to the end there was a strange little episode. We came to the final hide. Karl went to one side of the road and I went to the other. Karl found the geocache and two full canisters of petrol. I was on the other side of the road and I found a brand- new battery-operated drill with a full charge.

What was that all about?

Geocaching-wise the “Spitfire Saunter” is a walk I can wholeheartedly recommend. Well-marked footpaths and straightforward hides, we had a great day. We walked just over nine miles (twenty thousand steps), and I was rather glad to see the car at the end.

 

We came home. “er indoors ^TM” boiled up pizza and garlic bread which we scoffed whilst watching “Race Across the World”. They’ve got to India; it looked crowded…

14 May 2025 (Wednesday) - Two Walks and an Ad-Lab

I slept better last night. It helps when I get up and go to the loo right away rather than forever twisting and turning for hours trying to make more space inside for an over-full bladder which really needs emptying out.

 

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was still there. Irene was posting from Uzbekistan – she’s having a holiday over there. I rather enjoyed our little stay there last year. Someone with whom I worked many years ago was also on holiday – in Canada. It’s over twenty years since I went there… I suppose I enjoyed my time there, but looking back all I remember is it being constantly hard work chasing round after the cubs and scouts. One day I’d like to go back and have a proper holiday there.

 

I took the dogs out. As we drove the pundits on the radio were interviewing a member of the Israeli government about the situation in Gaza. The chap being interviewed took what seems to be the standard Israeli line in claiming that they are the victims and the rest of the world are a bunch of bastards who hate them. Today (among other things) they were claiming that every journalist in the world who wasn’t working for the Israeli press was a terrorist spy. The chap being interviewed did himself no favours.

There was also talk about Peter Sullivan who was released from prison yesterday after having had his conviction overturned. He went to prison in 1986 for a crime he didn’t commit. It turns out that the evidence proving his innocence came to light in 2015. So why did it take the legal system ten years to release him?

 

We got to the woods and had a good walk. On Monday we explored a new footpath. Today we followed a path from that one which went on for half a mile… then just fizzled out. So we turned round and came back. Mind you I was glad we’d gone along that path – I found what must be the biggest sink hole in Kings Wood. It was huge.

As we walked the dogs did their thing including chasing what looked like a black squirrel. Was it a one-off, or have they spread as far as Kent?

And the bluebells seem to be going to seed.

 

After five miles we got back to the car and came home. I made a cuppa, then went into the garden. I took apart that garden bench that collapsed the other day. The plan was to take it (and a load of other rubbish) to the tip but there weren’t any spaces available today. So instead I stripped the shed out and had a little tidy-up and re-organise. So easy to type; so much hard work to do.

 

“er indoors ^TM” popped up to the corner shop and came back with a croissant for lunch. I scoffed it as I wrote up some CPD, then I spent a little while doing my preparation for tomorrow’s planned outing. The plan is to walk a series of geocaches in the Biggin Hill area. Two of them were disabled for a week six weeks ago pending being replaced, so I sent a message asking if we might replace them tomorrow. As we will (hopefully) be walking straight past we can do the necessary maintenance in less than a minute whereas the poor bloke who in theory should do it would have to give up hours.

I beat the chess bots twice, then rudely woke the dogs when I announced I was going to “FEED THE FISH!!!” – that’s always rather amusing.

 

I updated the Facebook pond album – the thing has changed quite a bit since we first started digging in October 2006. I *really* need to replace the pebble-patterned vinyl, but I’ve left it too late for this summer. Oh well… it will give me a few months to find something.

 

Seeing I had a credit, I created a new geocaching Adventure Lab. Last October I spent a wet afternoon doing the preparation for loads of these only to find I can actually only create only one every three months. So having done all the preparation, creating the thing only took ten minutes. If you are at a loose end and in Ashford, download the Adventure Lab app, and take a walk round investigating places where there used to be pubs which were demolished for the building of the ring road.

 

I set the Adventure Lab live, and with “er indoors ^TM” having finished work we took the dogs to Orlestone Woods for a little wander. We had a good little walk; it was a shame that after two miles and only a stone’s throw from being back at the car park Treacle had to jump in a belly-deep swamp, but that’s the sort of dog she is.

 

Another day off work; another busy day…

 

13 May 2025 (Tuesday) - Where The Hobos Go

I had another restless night. I got up at five o'clock and had a little look at the Internet as I scoffed toast. There was the most ridiculous argument ever kicking off on one of the Doctor Who related Facebook groups. Someone was wondering how many full-sized Dalek models there are in the UK. Estimates ranged from a couple of dozen up to a couple of thousands. Some idiot was getting rather aggressive that no one knew, and felt there should be some official list of full-sized Dalek models on which all of them must be registered, with sanctions for those not complying. And he was serious.

 

I also saw that the geocache I mentioned on Sunday was still unfound. It wasn't *that* much of a diversion from my journey to work... As the crow flies it was seventeen miles from home.

As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the radio were interviewing some irate farmers who had the arse. Apparently there used to be some government scheme in which farmers could apply to be paid for using their land for not farming. Letting it grow wild for butterflies, or trees... it seemed like a nice little earner. It didn't take long for all the money the government had earmarked to go, and those who were too slow to put in their application weren't happy that they'd missed a seat on the gravy train.

And there was a lot of talk about how the Prime Minister's house had burned down.

And there was a lot of talk about how Donald Trump has been given a jumbo jet by the Qatar government. 

It was unclear as to whether it was to him personally or in his capacity as President, but it was alleged that when he was President last time he was given a lot of pressies in his official capacity which have long since disappeared. Have they? Who knows.

 

According to my geo-app the geocache I was hunting this morning was seventeen miles from home as the crow flies. But as the car drives it was a shade over thirty miles. The cache was called "Where the Hobos Go" and the instructions said it was under a bridge, so I knew what I was doing. It really was where the hobos go - I scrambled down a bank and hopped over a stream. And as I searched I found a smashed vodka bottle, and I thought I got whiffs of human shit a couple of times.

The instructions said the cache was attached to a wire... I searched every wire time and time again except the right one. I won't give spoilers, but I'll say it was rather well hidden and took me half an hour to locate. But I did find it. And I was first too. Happy dance.

 

From there I went to Sainsburys where (as I shopped) someone greeted me with a cheerful "Hello Dave". A portly red-haired chap with a beard. I had no idea who they were, but they clearly knew me.

 

And the excitement of the day was all over and done with by half past seven. The rest of the day was rather dull.

12 May 2025 (Monday) - Rather Busy

I had another restless night, but not as restless as some have been recently. I gave up trying to sleep, made toast and peered into the internet.

I foresee problems at Dog Club… Some woman wants to bring her huge Alsatian to the small dog session because she feels he would be terrified by the bigger dogs at the bigger dog sessions. She wasn’t impressed when I told her that the small dogs at the small dog session would be terrified of her huge Alsatian, and was even less impressed when I told her that we can’t cater for every single dog. She then tried the line that she came to Dog Club years ago when it first started and somehow seemed to think that that gave her seniority over everyone who currently goes, but after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing she says she will come to the later session, but walk round outside the paddock during the earlier sessions (presumably trying to justify why she and her dog should come in).

I’ve tried to be polite with this woman, but much as I like and enjoy Dog Club, sometimes it can be a pain. I’m reminded of the snake club and the Kent-wide sci-fi club and the snake club and the astro club. All of those started so well and ended up as one big argument. I suppose Dog Club is different in that I never asked to take it on; there have never been any elections. I volunteered to open the gate once, and suddenly I’m running the show as a (mostly) benign dictatorship.

 

With the dogs having had their brekkie we went out. As I drove there was an interview with Ruth Jones (Nessa out of Gavin and Stacey) on the radio. She was very interesting, and didn’t sound at all like her Nessa character.

This was followed by live footage from the Prime Minister’s speech in which he plans to put a stop to the uncontrolled immigration. This speech was then discussed with one of the head honchos of Reform UK who, like everyone connected with Reform UK, spoke a lot of what sounded like sense until you actually gave it any thought. For example what do you do if you advertise a job and not a single UK resident applies for it? This is something I had when I used to advertise jobs, and something that care home manager in Cornwall were asking about this morning. Sadly the chap being interviewed refused to answer this point.

 

We got to the woods and had a good walk. We mostly walked what has become our usual circuit, but we did walk a path that went up over one of the hills. We’ve seen this path from the bottom of the hill, but never walked up it before. It was rather pretty up the top.

We walked nearly four and a half miles, and as we went we only saw two other dog walkers.

 

Once home I made us both a cuppa, then cracked on in the garden. Last weekend the garden table had crunched, so I took it down and moved it out of the way. Hopefully the nice man from the council will come take it away soon. I mowed the lawn, cleaned out the little pond’s filter then ran out the hose. Whilst the ponds got topped up I went round with the small pressure-washer and hosed the bird poo of the garden gnomes. You’d be amazed how much dung the local birds generate. I suppose I’ve only myself to blame for feeding them.

 

And then I went on Amazon and ordered up more armpit squirt. The stuff is easier to order from Amazon than it is to fart about going to the shops to get. And I renewed our membership of The Friends of Kings Wood. I’m not sure what I get from being a member, but I’d rather be a member than not. And I booked vaccination appointments for Bailey and Morgan. They won’t like that, but they’d like it a lot less if they went down with some completely avoidable disease.

I wrote up some CPD, then geo-puzzled a little.

 

“er indoors ^TM” went bowling; I sparked up the telly. Two episodes of Doctor Who from the early 1970s were rather good. Back then the special effects weren’t that good, so the show’s makers had a plot instead. Something the makers of today’s episodes might try.

And then an episode of “Black Mirror” which was good, but not as good as the ones I watched last week.

 

I’m worn out; I really could do with a decent night’s sleep.

11 May 2025 (Sunday) - Early Shift

I had an early night and woke feeling full of energy and raring to go – at ten to midnight. I then dozed on and off for much of the night, finally giving up and getting up at half past five. I made toast and peered into the Internet. A colleague was off on international holidays – she’d posted selfies from the airport. I wish more people would do that – I’m very nosey and like seeing what friends are up to.

There was a minor row kicking off on Facebook. Apparently games companies have updated their consoles so that if they detect the use of pirated games, the console automatically permanently deactivates itself.  I can see this being an issue for those using pirated games… perhaps if the things weren’t so expensive in the first place?

 

I Munzed, had a go at Wordle and gave up, and got ready for work.

As I drove to work the radio was playing the farming program. There was a prolonged (twenty minutes) interview with two sisters who farm sheep in the Peak District. Their lives sounded rather interesting, but the farming program is always much the same. They interview someone who runs a farm in the arse end of nowhere who seems to enjoy working every hour of every day come rain or shine whilst barely making ends meet, and what could be said in five minutes is dragged out over twenty. And (without wishing to sound cynical) if you hear one of these interviews you really have heard them all.

Bearing in mind the roads would probably be quiet so early in the morning I turned on the cruise control and drove at a steady seventy miles per hour the entire way from Ashford to Maidstone.  The motorway part of the journey (seventeen miles) took as long as the two non-motorway parts put together (two stretches of two miles each).

 

I got to work and had another look at Wordle, and had another look at Facebook. A good friend had his wedding reception last night. He'd dropped our invitation off with the first fruit of my loins a month ago and (sadly) that's where the invitation had stayed.

Work was rather busy. Back in the day the wards had one hour in the morning to get us any work from in-patients, and the rest of the day was emergency stuff only. These days a Sunday is much like any other day. The blood bank was particularly busy. And I struggled somewhat. I've got a pain in my side - for a week or so it has felt as though someone has kicked me in the ribs. I can't remember doing anything than might have caused an injury - I wonder what that is all about.

 

I could have taken a little diversion on the way home. A new geocache had gone live. I could have chased the First to Find, but I didn’t fancy going ten miles up the A249 to Iwade, and then coming ten miles back down again.

Instead together with “er indoors ^TM” and the dogs I went for a tittle walk round Orlestone Woods. Orlestone is always the go-to place for a shorter walk; we covered two and a quarter miles in fifty minutes, and as we walked we only saw one other person. The dogs did disappear into a thicket for five minutes, but that’s what dogs do. Dogs also roll in fox poo and wallow in swamps. And dogs get baths when they come home too.

 

We watched the second episode of the new series of “Taskmaster” as we scoffed a rather good chili which we washed down with a very good bottle of plonk which apparently came from the bargain bucket of Aldi.

It pays to shop about.

10 May 2025 (Saturday) - Geo-Meet

I had a better night’s sleep, but was still up too early this morning. As I scoffed toast I spent a little while struggling with geo-puzzles in the general vicinity of where we were planning to go today. One particularly gave me grief. To solve the puzzle I need to identify someone who went to Tonbridge school a hundred (or so) years ago, who was married three times and whose father was a wood worker and timber merchant. I kept coming up with the name “Thomas Smythe” but when you then do the next stage of the puzzle this gives you a negative latitude.

I then turned my attention to another puzzle for which I’d convinced myself I needed to identify a road sign or milestone giving the distance to Godstone or Maidstone. After a lot of fighting with Google Street View I gave up and went and got ready for the day.

 

Once “er indoors ^TM” and the dogs were sorted we drove round to Dog Club. Attendance was down, but over a dozen dogs ran riot as only dogs can. We had a great time.

Rather than coming home, from Dog Club we headed to the motorway and tried not to point and laugh too much at the nice lady walking along the bypass. She clearly had an itchy back and had unceremoniously hoiked up her blouse so that her partner could give her back a good scratching.

As we drove up the motorway Steve was on the radio. I’d got the mystery year right. When did Helen Shaman (the British astronaut) go up? 1991. 

Sadly the radio signal gave out at Harrietsham.

 

We drove up to Seal where we stopped and got in the way of everyone who was preparing for some ballet thing at the village hall where we solved a little geo-puzzle, and from there we took a circuitous route to Sevenoaks Weald where the monthly geo-meet was taking place.

It really was just like old times.

There were several Adventure Lab caches set up across the village green, and as we walked about doing those so we met up with no end of old friends doing the same, and saw quite a few people we’d not seen before who looked like they were ad-labbing too.

We then adjourned to the pub for the meet itself and caught up with old friends and met new friends. Several pints, stilton ploughman’s, and pork scratchings went down very well. And after the fourth pint it was time for more geo-nonsense. We found a puzzle cache; then went up to the nearby church for more ad-labbing, then back to the village green for another ad-lab series we’d missed.

And then we got the news that the motorway was closed.

We came home cross-country and I didn’t sleep the entire way.

I took a few photos whilst we were out.

 

Having had a rather big pub dinner earlier “er indoors ^TM” only boiled up a small tea. We scoffed it whilst watching this evening’s episode of “Doctor Who”. The last few episodes have been rather good; this evening’s was sadly something of a disappointment.

 

I think I caught the sun whilst we were out earlier. And the fourth pint was arguably a mistake…

Bearing in mind I’ve got to be in work by half past seven in the morning maybe an early night might be a good idea.