31 August 2026 (Monday) - Bank Holiday

I slept well; eventually getting out of my pit at half past eight. I put a load of washing in to scrub, made toast and had a look at the internet as I do. It hadn’t changed much.

I looked out the window and saw the glorious morning and found myself thinking. Many years ago I used to be a general dogsbody at the Harbour restaurant in Hastings. Over the summer we used to make an average of two hundred and fifty dinners a day. Four hundred dinners was super-busy, and when we did four hundred we knew about it.

August Bank Holiday was always good for over six hundred.

Relatively more recently my August Bank Holiday Monday would regularly be spent taking down tents and clearing away camping gear. Many August Bank Holidays used to be spent camping at a friend’s farm. A great time was had by all, but the August Bank Holiday ones were different to many of the kite festivals we used to visit. At many of our long camping weekends everyone was free for the fun parts, but so many people had burning reasons to go home promptly on the Monday morning. People used to stay to clear up at the August camps.

Camping was fun but it was hard work.

Eleven years ago today we had thunderstorms. In a break in that day’s rain we went to a garden centre where we got my monkey puzzle tree. It’s grown rather impressively.

More recently August Bank Holidays have been a tad dull… no matter where you go is heaving with the normal people so we generally don’t go anywhere.

 

The dogs came down and wanted to go out. I went with them and followed them round with a bucket and trowel. When we first got her, Bailey had a habit of eating the other dogs’ turds. We hoped she’d grow out of it, but four years have passed and she is as coprophagic as she ever was (yuk!) so collecting the dung before she does is always a good idea.

I Munzed,  Wordled from “clear” to “mound” in five goes, and got ready for the day. Some new geocaches had gone live down the road, but the local FTF-hound had been out and had logged the First to Find on one of them within twenty minutes, and then had gone on to do all the others. I must admit these days if I’d got there first I’d do the same. Back in the day I would find one and leave the rest for others. But I’m in the minority with this attitude…

So instead I hung out the washing, and “er indoors ^TM” sorted out some pots to replace her missing geocaches. I then thought I’d prove a point. I cleaned out the filters of both ponds and tided away in less than twenty minutes. The filters I use are *so* much easier and quicker to clean out.

 

We then drove down to the Hamstreet area. It took a few minutes to get out of Ashford; the roads near the outlet centre were heaving. For all the talk of credit crunches and costs of living, there’s never any shortage of people (quite literally) queueing up at the outlet centre to pay way over the odds for massively overpriced tat.

We relocated a geocache with which the geo-feds had found fault, and had a look at two which had been reported as missing. We replaced the missing one, and found the other one exactly where it was supposed to be. We went on intending to replace a third one, but the area was swarming with normal people so we gave that a miss.

We then went on to Snargate church where we wandered round the graveyard getting information for the geo-puzzle based there. We found that puzzle’s geocache just outside the church then went for a little walk. It was a shame that the bridge forming the public footpath was not only impassable with brambles but also blocked with an electric fence. I reported it to the council – let’s see what they do.

The plan was then a pint in the nearby Red Lion but it was closed. Apparently they are closed every Monday. You’d think they’d open for a Bank Holiday, wouldn’t you? Oh well… their loss.

 

We came home. We’d been out for four hours and the queues at the outlet centre were still just as bad.

I popped over the road to the shop and got a couple of bottles of rather good ale (for less than the price of one rather average ale in a pub), and we sat in the garden for a bit scoffing a late lunch of nachos and dip until I nodded off.

 

We had a lazy rest-of-afternoon.  “er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good pasta bake for dinner.

It’s been a rather good (if rather lazy) bank holiday.

30 August 2026 (Sunday) - Early Shift

With an alarm set I was awake far too early. I made toast and put on a new episode of “Stranger Things”. This one played for over two hours; I got bored with it after twenty minutes so I turned it off at what I felt was a sensible place to have ended an episode.

I sparked up the lap-top and had a little look at the Internet. Some conspiracy theory half-wit was ranting on about why we don’t hear anything about the hole in the ozone layer any more. The simple fact is that science found the issue with the ozone layer some years ago, the world’s governments banned the chemicals that caused the damage, and now is ozone layer is on the mend. Sadly the conspiracy theory half-wits weren’t happy to hear this. And they weren’t at all happy to be told that acid rain went much the same way.

I Munzed, Wordled from “twonk” to “intel” in five goes, and got ready for the early shift.

 

I set off for work. As I drove to junction nine of the motorway I was again amazed at how many people were out in their pyjamas walking their dogs. On Friday I mentioned that this would seem to be the way to walk your dog in South Ashford at quarter past six in the morning. Perhaps it is some fashion statement?

 

I drove up the motorway listening to the pundits on the radio. Being Sunday there was some religious drivel being spouted. There was an interview with someone who was supposedly a big cheese in the "Revivalist Movement". Unlike previous "Revivalist Movements" this one is a frankly laughable idea that no religion is completely correct, but as they'd all been going for so long they couldn't all be wrong. So the people pushing this one have cooked up a theory that people might look at the mainstream religions, pick and choose the bits they like from each and ignore the bits they don't like. And if they wanted to make up their own little extras to add on, then that was fine with the idiot being interviewed. Everyone was entitled to their own opinions, and because each person's idea was "their religion" it was somehow both valid and right.

They let these people vote, you know.

 This was followed by an interview with a farmer who was working on National Trust land as part of the "Countryside Stewardship" scheme. From what I could work out this seemed to be a government initiative (from 1991) to keep paying for farms which clearly were losing money hand over fist.

I switched to my Adrian Mole MP3 and carried on up the motorway listening to his antics.

 

I got to work and went in to the early shift where I did my bit. I always say I don't mind working at the weekend when the weather is bad. The forecast for the day had been grim, but (as is so often the way) reality was at odds with forecast.  Or so it started that way, but as the day wore on the glorious sunshine gave way to grey skies and I stopped sulking (a bit). Mind you,  having now worked at some point on eight of the last ten weekends there's no denying I'm going off of the idea.

 

I came home and once we’d done “FEED THE FISH” I geo-puzzled for a bit until my head hurt. “er indoors ^TM” boiled up a rather good curry which we washed down with one of those cheap bottles of plonk.

As we did we watched the last episodes of “Celebrity Hunted”.

I’ve got a theory about that show – it’s all staged. If you were really on the run you really wouldn’t appear heading the bill on stage at live festivals, or live on national television, would you? It makes for good viewing, but if you were really on the run, you’d hunker down somewhere and keep quiet.

But now that the show is over we’ve got to find something else to watch.

29 August 2026 (Saturday) - Busy, Busy

I saw some sad news on-line as I scoffed my toast this morning. Back in the day I was a god-botherer. I eventually realised that the whole church thing was based on wishful thinking and gave up with it. But it bothers me that so any people still go along with the drivel it spouts. And it is drivel. Look at this morning’s news. There’s been an accident at a big happy-clappy Christian festival in West Sussex. A large sign collapsed killing one person and injuring several others.

This immediately begs the question of why did this bunch’s god allow the accident to happen? Did it not see the sign was unsafe or did it not care? And (bearing in mind what this lot preach) why are they seeing death as being a bad thing?

One of the people bemoaning the tragedy was someone who claimed to be a regular attendee at the festival. He and his boyfriend would go every year. As I have said so many times before, Christianity is fundamentally against the gay community. It says so in the bible.

I decided not to comment…

I also saw consternation on the Sparks-related Facebook pages. They are touring at the moment, and fans weren’t happy that they’d travelled miles and paid a small fortune only to hear twelve songs. I can’t help but think that with the band in their late seventies / early eighties, what do the fans expect?

 

I Munzed and Wordled. “Tired” gave me the “d”. With the letters I had left I could only think of one other word that ended in “d” and I got it on the second go with “blood”. Go me !!

Steve was on the radio. He said that the weather forecast for the day wasn’t good. It hadn’t been good when I looked last night and for all that it had improved overnight it was still on the grim side. He did the “Guess the Lyrics” competition too. “All she saw was a silhouette of a gun”. Usually I struggle with these, and today’s was no different. It was “Moonlight Shadow” by Mike Oldfield.

 

We drove round to Dog Club where (despite the weather) we had a rather good time. We had seventeen dogs along, and general mayhem ensued. When I describe Dog Club it doesn’t sound very much. We just stand around in a field for forty minutes whilst the dogs generally swarm about. But it is one of the highlights of the week.

Sadly the rain got worse as time wore on. We were rather damp when it was home time. As we drove Steve was doing the Mystery Year on the radio. I have no idea what the song was that he was playing but it immediately gave me flashbacks from my time at Bromley College. I could remember my old mates who went on to the post-graduate course in blood banking (at the time I went on to the one in haematology) so that immediately narrowed it down to my early years there. Some time between 1983 – 85. And I had flashbacks of the refectory… after the first month or so we spent most of our free time in the Five Bells up the road. It had to be 1983.

It was.

 

We stopped off at the co-op for pastries which we scoffed once we got home. We played Meowdoku (“er indoors ^TM” has downloaded it) then we drove up to Oare for the geo-meet. A dozen of us met up at the Three Mariners where we had a rather good session. We had (arguably) one pint too many before we set about a very good dinner of assorted bar snacks, then then we had a go at the G & T the last one of which was definitely one too many (not that I would have done anything any different).  

I slept most (pretty much all) of the way home.

 

Steve and Sarah arrived, closely followed by Chris. We had a rather good evening on the Infinity Table. Game of Life, Trouble, Sorry, Ticket to Ride…

At the risk of gloating I won three of the four games. Go me (again) !!

It’s been a rather good day today.

28 August 2026 (Friday) - Early Shift

I didn’t sleep well. Waking every twenty minutes or so I was laying wide awake at four o’clock when “er indoors ^TM” announced that it was eclipse time. We went into the garden and spent half an hour watching the lunar eclipse until the moon set behind the houses.

“er indoors ^TM” carried on watching from the attic room window. I made toast and watched more “Stranger Things” which had seriously improved on yesterday’s episode, and the amount of explosions had rather tapered off.

 

I had a little look at the Internet as I do. It was still there. Again I found myself presented with a load of ranting about fish care on one of the fishing pages I follow. Everyone was getting really aggressive with everyone else about how best to care for the fish through whose mouth they’d just stuck a hook and then dragged out of the water.

Rather amazingly only two people had posted anything about the eclipse, and “er indoors ^TM” had been one of them.

 

I Wordled from “lunar” to “tween” in five goes, Munzed, and got ready for work. As I drove to junction nine of the motorway I was amazed at how many people were out in their pyjamas walking their dogs. It is certainly the way to walk your dog in South Ashford at quarter past six in the morning. We don't get that at Dog Club.

I drove up the motorway listening to the pundits on the radio spouting their usual drivel. There was an interview with someone or other talking about the American Federal Reserve (the US equivalent of the Bank of England). Apparently they want to put up interest rates but don't dare because that wound irritate President Trump and they simply can't face the arse-ache which that would generate. The chap being interviewed implied that it was difficult to run the Federal Reserve when they had a somewhat feeble-minded President with the attention span of a gnat. Though it was difficult to follow the conversation; the chap being interviewed had a very thick (almost incomprehensible) Scottish accent. It took me a while to realise that when he said "waar-ruck" (which he said several times) he actually meant "work".

I drove to the petrol station at Aylesford as the petrol there was four pence per litre cheaper than at home, then popped into Sainsburys to get lunch. As I shopped I followed a couple of assistants and listened to their conversation. Well, not so much "conversation" as "ranting". One had had a falling out with one of the managers, but I couldn't quite work out what her grievance actually was. There's only so much earwigging you can do before it becomes obvious.

 

I went in to the early shift and did my bit. Today was rather dull really, but in my line of work, dull is good.

I came home to find Treacle expectantly watching me… we did “FEED THE FISH”, and “er indoors ^TM” went off out with her craft club mates. I settled in front of the telly and watched more “Stranger Things”. Mind you I saw “watched”; “slept through” would be a more accurate summary.

 

It wasn’t just work. All of today was dull.

27 August 2026 (Thursday) - Never A Dull Moment

When I came back to bed from the loo in the small hours I found Treacle panting for air and burning up. I set the fan blowing air on her, and she eventually settled. She often does that in the night. I then lay awake listening to her breathing, and getting panic-stricken whenever she went quiet.

I eventually dozed off and woke just after half past seven to torrential rain.

 

I forgot to put the dishwasher on last night. Woops. I set that going, made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was the same as ever. A family member was posting some tripe about why Ant Middleton should become the Mayor of London. I took a deep breath. Everyone sees the “Jack The Lad” character on the telly… the telly he got sacked from. He was a COVID denier, he’s got convictions for assault, he’s got a history of being particularly nasty to women, he emigrated to Australia, he currently lives in Dubai and his tax history is dubious.

There’s no denying that the current mayor is a crap mayor, but this is entirely the problem with all wannabe politicians, isn’t it? They are so loud in pointing out the failures of their opponents that no one realizes their own inability. “Vote for us – we aren’t as crap as the others” is hardly a tenable political position (especially when you are), but most people don’t seem to look in to what they are voting for.

I Munzed, Worded from “night” to “uncut” in four goes, then got dressed. Even if it was raining I couldn’t spend the day in jim-jams (could I?)

 

I emptied the dishwasher, put a load of washing in, and with the rain showing no sign of easing up I wrote up a little CPD. Dull, but one day I might be grateful that I’ve made the effort (I’ve been saying that for over fifteen years…).

And then the rain stopped. The Met Office weather forecast was for a dry day but had issued a yellow warning of thunderstorms. The BBC predicted rain al day. We took a chance, went to Kings Wood and walked our usual four (and a bit) miles in glorious sunshine.

As we walked we met a geocacher. She greeted us by saying she recognised the dogs from their pictures on the web pages of our geocaches in Kings Wood. We had a good chat. She was Belgian, but spoke incredibly good English.

 

We came home. I hung out the washing and I had a phone call from the ENT people at the local hospital. They seemed mildly miffed that I’d put in a complaint. The reason they hadn’t replied to my phone calls or emails was that I’d been ringing the wrong number and sending emails to the wrong address. I suggested that they might update their website, I was told that wasn’t in her remit. We sorted a hearing test (four months later than I had been led to believe it would be). She said she’s put the details into an email. I suggested that they use the NHS app. She said their system wasn’t compatible with the NHS app.

I suppose I expect too much of them. But that’s what I get when dealing with the fifty-second best hospital in the UK… Working at the fourth best has probably given me an over-exaggerated idea of what I should expect from a local hospital.

 

I made us a cuppa, and fiddled about on-line downloading a few more audiobooks (this week’s obsession). I got “Brave New World”, “Childhood’s End”, “Raffles”… but on the minus side the version of “Fahrenheit 451” I got was in German. Ho hum…

I ironed the wet shirts and bandannas. As I did I watched another episode of “Stranger Things”. The show started well in season one, but now I’m half-way through the last season I find that I’m pretty much watching it because it would be a shame to stop now. Today’s episode was an hour and a half in duration, was about forty-five minutes longer than it needed to be, and the story had been done far better thirty years ago in the Alexei Sayle classic “Things Exploding 2: Everything Explodes”.

 

As I watched telly so Treacle watched my every move; getting more and more twitchy and anxious. Once telly was done I stood up and she flew to the back door. Then came running back looking expectantly at me. I announced that I was going to “FEED THE FISH” and she ran to the fish-pond squealing all the way. She gets so over-excited over the prospect of a few bits of dried rice.

Whilst I was outside I ran the hair trimmer over my head – that saved sixteen quid. I voomed round the garden gathering dung too.

I then had a look at some geo-puzzles until my brain hurt too much.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a rather good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching this week’s episode of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds”. It wasn’t as good as last week’s episode, but was still very good.

However…

The trouble with any sort of prequel series is that you know what is going to happen a little way down the line (if you’ve watched the series to which it is a prequel). There are certain characters in the show with which putting them in danger doesn’t cause any suspense because we know that they are going to survive.

Or we do if you are a sad Trekkie like me…

 

And in closing I’ll make the observation that the BBC predicted heavy rain (and thunderstorms) all day… the rain finished at half past nine this morning.

26 August 2026 (Wednesday) - Messages, Late Shift

I had a decent night’s sleep really despite a nightmare in which my (late) father was tying kites to the sails of windmills because he could.

I made toast and had a look at the Internet as I do. As again it was the same as ever. There was a lot of talk on fishing-related pages about how cruel keep nets can be. The idea of a keep net is that it is a huge cylindrical net in which you retain everything you catch so that at the end of the day you can see all your fish in one go. This is supposedly a rather nasty thing to do… whereas sticking a hook through a fish’s mouth and pulling it out of the water isn’t? It’s some time since I’ve been fishing… I’ve rather gone off the idea of it.

I had another look at the internet archives and downloaded two Jeeves and Wooster audiobooks. In the past I’ve always been rather scathing of audiobooks, but they do fill the hour-long journey to and from work.

 

I Munzed, Wordled from “night” to “capon” in five goes, then had a text message. I had a code to use for NPERS PRD authentication. I wonder what that was all about. As I fiddled on my phone Bailey refused to eat her brekkie. For a dog that regularly scoffs turds, she can be rather picky about what she will and won’t eat.

 

I took the dogs out for a walk. As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the yesterday’s death of Dolly Parton. The nation seems to have taken her passing to heart.

As we drove we found the road was closed. We took a diversion through Shadoxhurst. One of the lanes was something of an eye-opener; the place must act as the local tip’s stunt double. There was rubbish strewn along the roadside for at least half a mile. Including several discarded kitchen appliances.

Why can’t people ding their tat properly?

We got to Orlestone where we walked a slightly different route to usual. Bailey went off on her own little missions a couple of times, and Treacle straggled a bit, but generally a good time would seem to have been had by all. Mind you we had a minor incident half-way round. Something stank to high heaven. A dead deer? I chivvied the dogs on before they found it and rolled in it.

 

We came home where I had another odd message. Was I available to be interviewed on the radio this Sunday? Someone wanted to talk about geocaching. I’m not free, so they asked me to prime a friend that they told me they were going to ask.

 

I left for work a tad earlier than I might. A week or so a new geocache went live in the Marden area which involved solving a puzzle. That gave you a location to visit, but the instructions were rather cryptic about what you did next. So I drove out to Marden  where I found out what you did next... I won't say what I did, but if rummaging under rocks looking for film pots floats your boat, then if you drive out to Marden you won't be disappointed (and there's a film pot involved).

I drove on to Pembury where I stopped off at Tesco to get a sandwich. I went to Tesco as I had a couple of money off vouchers totalling a bargain reduction of five quid off of my shopping. It paid for dinner, which was a result.

 

I went in to work and did my bit. It could have been a whole lot worse; many shifts are.

I 'd driven in to work listening to Adrian Mole on my MP3 player, and went home doing the same. For all that I've got hundreds of songs on my MP3 stick, over the years I've heard them all so many times. The antics of Adrian Mole made a nice change. Even if (as I've said before) Sue Townsend (the writer) was particularly nasty to him. Having finally got a break, did she *really* have to saddle him with a psycho who burned his house down?

25 August 2026 (Tuesday) - Rather Dull

I woke in a cold sweat in which I’d been drafted back into the scouts to instruct the “Delivering Beer” badge. Crucial to the award of the badge was the ability to use a shotgun, ride a horse and perform various feats with a top hat. Sometimes I wonder just what is going through my head.

 

I got up, made toast and watched more “Stranger Things”. It was a shame that the continuity people didn’t do a better job. Some of our heroes were up to mischief in the middle of the night. Others (supposedly simultaneously) were in broad daylight.

I then had a little look at the Internet as I do. It was the same as it ever was. A friend had posted dashcam footage of children playing “Chicken” (deliberately running in front of cars) on the ring road. Rather than sorting the issue, people were asking for the footage to be taken down. And the local newspaper was trying to imply that picking blackberries is illegal (it isn’t).

I Munzed and Wordled and got ready to go to work.

 

As I drove west-wards the pundits on the radio were getting a tad twitchy about Russia's veiled threat to the UK. If the UK is going to supply Ukraine with weapons, then the UK shouldn't be surprised if "someone" attacks the factories making those weapons. I would. I for one am surprised that this hasn't happened already.

And there was talk about "affordable housing" to be built across the country; the implication quite rightly being that much of the housing being built is unaffordable. Which it is.  Apparently the Prime Minister wants local councils to go back to building council houses like they used to in the fifties and sixties. When I was a lad much of where I lived in Hastings was estates of council houses, pretty much all of which were then bought (at rock-bottom bargain prices) by the sitting tenants when Margaret Thatcher decided to sell them all off. 

Building council houses, nationalizing the water companies... why has it taken so long for anyone to realize that capitalising on naked greed was no way to run a country in the long term?

 

Pausing only briefly to get a sandwich from Tesco I went in to work. As I worked my phone pinged with a message from Amazon. Based on my recent purchases, the bots at Amazon thought I might be interested in buying electrolyte drinks. My recent purchases on Amazon have been audio CDs, e-books, fish food, walking shoes and tins of deodorant. How did they get electrolyte drinks from that?

I did my bit. I came home listening to more Adrian Mole on my MP3 stick.

 

I got home to an empty house. “er indoors ^TM” had taken the dogs round to the park. Back in the day I used to walk the dogs there a lot, but the place heaves with normal people, and these days it is more than my nerves can stand. It might be a little drive to the wood, but it is much less traumatic.

While I waited for them to come home I found an internet archive of audiobooks that are so old that they are out of copyright and so I could get them as free MP3 downloads. I got “Brideshead Revisited” and “Day of the Triffids”. I shall get some more after dinner…

 

Today was dull…