24 September 2026 (Thursday) - Siphoning

I found myself feeling somewhat prophetic as I peered into the Internet this morning. The other day I whinged about how easy it is to lose touch with people. One of the people on my Facebook list had a birthday today. I first met this chap about thirty years ago. We did so much together, so many pubs and beer festivals. So many weekends away and shared holidays. I’ve seen the chap twice since lockdown…

And  two weeks ago I was in a local coffee shop about which I said “The only negative was having to pay the thick end of eight quid for a rather mediocre cup of coffee and three bite-sized pastry things (which were on the burned side)”. This morning I saw that they are closing down this weekend. It’s not just pubs that can’t attract customers.

I Munzed; opening a qrate then Wordled from “found” to “messy” in five goes..

I spent a little while downloading bank statements. Again the bank has been fiddling with the way the app works. I *really* don’t see why they can’t just leave the thing alone rather than continually messing about with it.

 

I got the dogs onto their leads and we drove up to Kings Wood Despite the charges the car park was heaving. The bit around the car park was full of foragers swarming, and there was an organised group of normal people having a guided tour found the field by the car park too. But once we were away from them we had a good walk. I thought the pups might like a drink from the dew pond. They did, but Pogo charged with so much enthusiasm he couldn’t stop and skidded straight in. I didn’t laugh much. Bailey went rogue about a mile later, and we had a near-miss with some woman who was far too small to have quite such a big dog in a lead. Her dog only wanted to play; I hate to think what would have happened if her dog turned wilful.

 

We came home listening to more “Triffids”. I made us a cuppa, then had another look at the fish tank. On Monday I’d made a serious start on it. I continued today by hoiking out all of the live plants. On Monday I’d dinged out a lot of the stuff that had gone wild and had bunched up the remaining stuff. It seemed I’d missed a *lot* so I sorted that again, then siphoned out muck and topped up the water. I let it settle and siphoned again. And again.

The mucky water went onto the plants. Having been emptying the muck from the pond filter onto the Monkey Puzzle tree for a couple of years it has only just occurred to me that I’ve been chucking fishy goodness down the toilet (literally). Maybe it will do the plants some good; the Monkey Puzzle tree is doing well with the koi poop I’ve been pumping onto it.

As I siphoned I found a surprising number of dead snails. For all that the things have bred impressively they don’t seem to have much of a lifespan.

As the water settled between siphonings I looked at the monthly accounts. They were the same as ever. They could be a whole lot worse. I really shouldn’t grumble, but I can’t help but think that they could be a whole lot better.

With accounts accounted I also did some CPD in between siphoning. It was at that point that I remembered that I’d intended to put a load of shirts in to wash before I started so that they would be ready to iron when I was done with the fish tank. Woops. I put them in, and Meowdoku-ed until the washing machine was done.

 

As I ironed shirts I watched something on Netflix. “Cranford” was rather good. It was not unlike “Pride and Prejudice”; a gentle period drama in which several old biddies blew every trivial incident out of all proportion. I found myself thinking of my old mum…

 

I set about washing and tumble-drying the undercrackers whilst “er indoors ^TM” boiled up burgers. We scoffed them whilst watching this week’s episode of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” which was rather good with several nods to that which had gone before.. not that hose who will be finding fault on the Internet tomorrow would realise that.

23 September 2026 (Wednesday) - Before Another Late Shift

I slept reasonably well… bearing in mind backache from sleeping on my back, carpel tunnel pain, tinnitus ringing in my ears and the CPAP machine blowing up my nose…Perhaps the biggest issue was lack of bed space though. At night some dogs curl up tightly and some sprawl out. During the day Bailey is the smallest dog in the world. At night she is huge.

As I got up I saw that Prime Human had plenty of bed space, it was only Spare Human that was being pushed off the edge…

 

I made toast and had my usual look at the Internet. Someone or other had posted up a link to a work-related text book in e-format. These appear from time to time. These things aren’t cheap so when the opportunity arises I not only have it, but share it on the works WhatsApp group. I probably won’t ever read the thing, but being seen to share this sort of thing gives a good impression with my colleagues. Otherwise they would think my life is an endless round of dog walking and beer drinking. They would be right in thinking that, but I’d rather they had a good impression rather than the right one.

Friends were posting photos from holiday in Greece and Poland, and from a coach trip. Yesterday a friend had organised a coach trip round the churches of the Romney Marsh. Admittedly you got a packed lunch thrown in, but fifty quid to go round the churches of the Romney Marsh? All the seats on the trip sold out. Each to their own …

And there was petty bickering on-line too. There usually is.

I Munzed, Wordled from “slept” to “forth” in five goes, and in doing so double my daily streak.

As I farted about so Pogo shouted at the world. I wish he wouldn’t.

 

I took the dogs out. We had quite a walk to where I’d parked last night. The major issue with the late shifts is the parking when I get home. We walked through the clouds of cannabis smoke. No matter where you go these days, the foul smell of that stuff pervades everywhere. Particularly around allotments, I’ve noticed.

As we drove to Orlestone the pundits on the radio were simply wasting the licence fee. They were talking about an obscure TV show which only features on Apple TV, and consequently no one had heard of. And to make matters worse they were interviewing of the stars who was quite incapable of stringing a coherent sentence together.

We got to the woods. There were some normal people in the car park so Pogo screamed at them. I really wish he wouldn’t. As we walked our usual circuit so we met one other person and her dog; that encounter passed off without incident which was probably for the best. We chased squirrels, rolled in the leaves, paddled in the puddles… A great time was seemingly had by all.

 

We came home and once I got a clean shirt I set off to work listening to more "Triffids". I like John Wyndham's books, but they are things of their time and oh-so-obviously written by someone "posh". 

I stopped off in Sainsburys to get lunch where a pair of half-wits were totally oblivious to the fact that they were inadvertently blockading the door. Some rather dumpy dopey looking woman was shouting "CHICKEN KIEV, CHICKEN KIEV" at a rather stupid looking chap whose jeans were three sizes too big for him and were only kept up by a pair of the sort of braces that my grandfather used to wear.  The more she shouted, the more confused he appeared to be. The poor chap clearly had less sense than teeth, and he didn't have many teeth. After a few minutes I loudly shouted "excuse me" and barged through. The pair of them suddenly realised where they were, and bustled off looking suitably embarrassed.

I wonder what that was all about.

 

I went in to work and did my bit.  Today included an anti-factor Xa assay. I'd not done one of those before; it turned out to be something of a disappointment. I don't know what I had been expecting, but I had been expecting more. 

Rather allegorical of life, really.

22 September 2026 (Tuesday) - Before the Late Shift

 As I scoffed toast I found myself thinking.  Facebook told me that three years ago we were in Bukhara having a feast with twenty-five other people on an expedition round Uzbekistan. For two weeks we had the adventure of a lifetime and (I thought) we all became firm friends. Since we came back we’ve heard from one of them. One.

Facebook also told me that today was a Facebook friend birthday.  Someone from the Southampton area we used to see very regularly through a mutual interest in kite flying. Kite flying was a big part of my life for over ten years. We went to kite festivals (involving weekend camping holidays) several times a year. We went to all sorts of events and activities; even to France and Germany.

We’ve only seen two of our kite-flying friends in the last ten years.

Back in the day we used to have twenty friends round on Tuesday evenings to watch Star Trek episodes. We’re still in touch with some of these people; we’ve seen half a dozen this year.

And then there was the people at the snake club, the Lego club, scouting, six years of college, years of Open University, no end of people with whom I worked (some for over twenty years)… It is *so* easy to lose touch with people.

 

I Munzed, then started another Wordle streak (one day so far) by getting from “feast” to “stoke” in four goes. All these apps have streaks which you maintain by doing them daily. Munzee, Wordle, Kindle, Meowdoku… why do I worry so much about maintaining these streaks?

 

I got four (!) dogs onto their leads, and with time pressing drove down to Orlestone. Bearing in mind the road works on the old A2070 I went cross country, and again Church Lane was awash with litter. There is a mile of that road which really does look as though people just empty bin bags full of rubbish as they drive along. I’d organise a geocaching litter-pick to sort it, but it would involve having people on the side of a road, and cars fly down that lane.

We got to the woods and had a good walk. We saw some woman and a Labrador, but nor before they’d seen us and gone the other way. And about three quarters of the way round we met a “very nice man” mincing through the woods with two bundles of fluff on leads. I loudly ordered “Straight Past” and my lot just went straight past without bothering his dogs. “Straight Past” is a new trick which we are working on. It has varying levels of success, but over time the success rate is getting better. When it works (like today) it does look impressive; especially to those who don’t dare let their own dogs off of the lead.

 

We came home. I didn’t have a cuppa. When I have a cuppa before work I then drive to work desperate for a tiddle. Instead I used some of that amount of energy having Microsoft Copilot cooking up today’s picture. And having Microsoft Copilot make it rather than me, someone else paid for the electricity used. Result !!

And then I spent a few minutes checking my figures… yesterday I said “the whole process of creating an A.I. image … used less electricity than running an electric kettle to make a cuppa”. It turns out that making an A.I. caricature actually takes about one seventh of the leccie needed to boil a kettle, and I can make over fifty such piccies for the energy needed to tumble-dry my undercrackers. And you don’t see any tree-hugging hippies complaining about my undercrackers, do you?

 

I set off to work. I stopped off at the Repton centre. There's a new chap running the show and I've been getting loads of mixed third-hand messages about just what the Repton people want from the Dog Club, so I thought it best to talk to them directly. It turns out they are very happy with the Dog Club, but there's some confusion about how they recognise payments form us. People can pay their subs in three ways. They can pay directly by BACS or they can put cash into the pot which I collect then send a payment by BACS. BACS has a reference on it, and if people put "Dog Club" as the reference then all is heigh ho, pip and dandy.  However the Repton people have set up a system by which you pay them by texting a certain number on your mobile. The trouble with that is that when they get a payment by text they have no idea who has sent it. Table tennis, Karate, Pilates... it could be from anyone. I've suggested that they have a dedicated text number for Dog Club payments. They are looking into it.

 

From there I went up the motorway to work listening to more of  my "Day of the Triffids" audiobook. It's streets ahead of "All Quiet on the Western Front" as the bloke reading it is putting effort and feeling into his narration and doesn't some over as being utterly morose.

 

Work was work. I did my bit and came home listening to more "Triffids". I got home to find the new Hoover has arrived and is sucking like a thing possessed. Which is a result if you like that sort of thing. Personally I'm not averse...

21 September 2026 (Monday) - Busy, Busy...

I slept well… or as well as I could. My carpal tunnel nonsense *really* hurts if I sleep on my side, and my back *really* hurts if I sleep on my back. But the pain kicks in over different timescales. I get an hour on my back before that pain kicks off,  whereas my arm gives me (at most) two minutes on my side.

 

I got up at half past six, made toast and had my usual look at the Internet. Again it was one big squabble with people posting rants based on factually incorrect premises.

I posted a few more A.I. piccies to Facebook last night… and that had caused offence. It is common knowledge that the data centres that house the A.I. systems are massively energy-intensive and are going to cause irreversible environmental damage…

The trouble with “common knowledge” is that for all that everyone knows these things, it is usually factually incorrect. I did a little finding out… the whole process of creating an A.I. image like the ones I posted up last night used less electricity than running an electric kettle to make a cuppa. On the other hand moving data around the internet (like when reading this blog) has a much larger environmental impact than generating a few images. Creating a few caricatures of me and my dogs has a tiny fraction of the carbon footprint of the phone or computer people are viewing them on. But is it about the (totally exaggerated) energy costs? I found myself thinking back to when I used to do oil painting in the style of Bob Ross. At the time there were several people finding fault and criticising. Most of whom were established artists who felt that the entire problem with the Bob Ross style of painting is that with a little practise anyone can make a half-decent painting. A.I. generated pictures are much the same.

And people were banging on about “Saint Princess Diana”… her brother has released a book which is very critical of the King, and everyone was posting fond memories of the “Queen of Hearts” (which bore little relationship to reality)… Anyone who’s familiar with Alice in Wonderland would know that the Queen of Hearts wasn’t a particularly likable character. Personally I don’t know very much about the late Princess Diana but it’s a matter of public record that when she died in a car crash she’d not seen her children in the preceding six weeks.

 

I Munzed. I Wordled. Starting with “could” I didn’t actually get to “pager”. That’s a three-month streak down the toilet.

I then loudly asked who wanted to go to the woods. Bailey was there like a shot. She loves her walks in the woods. As we drove the pundits on the radio were broadcasting from the annual conference of the Liberal Democrat party. The Dribbling Democraps apparently are rather concerned that despite having over seventy MPs, no one seems to know what their policies are, or what they stand for. Historically this was always their position – to be non-committal on everything. Like them or loathe them, the other parties tell you where they stand.

 

We got to the woods. The areas near the car park were thick with foragers all shouting at each other. Once we were past them we had a near miss with the idiot with the boxer dogs. We’ve met them before. The dogs are fine, but the idiot demands on a hundred metres exclusion zone round his dogs and gets arsey when no one gives him that. He shouted at Morgan, then nearly shat himself in terror as I came round the corner asking if there was a problem. I’m told I can do a good impression of a scary tattoo-ed skinhead…

A hundred yards later we met the dogs with bells tied to their collars (poor things), but with them behind us we then had a good walk. Squirrels abounded (which the dogs chased) and the deer were out (which the dogs completely missed).

As we walked I ran my birdsong app. Being up the woods an hour and a half earlier than usual the birds were making a lot more noise than they have recently. My app said it had heard a red-eyed vireo. Had it? Somehow I doubt it.

 

We came home to an empty house. With “er indoors ^TM” having a day in the office we’d been left home alone. I made myself a cuppa, put a load of washing in then cracked on in the garden.

I harvested quite a bit of dog dung. I mowed the lawn. I cleaned out both ponds’ filters. And whilst I was having a filtration session I put the new filter into the fish tank.  

I had a spot of lunch and watched an episode of “Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story” whilst looking at the fish tank. A few months ago I put live plants in there. A few days ago I pruned those plants. But that was nowhere near enough pruning; I gave them a serious trimming, and syphoned out a lot of the muck which was across the bottom of the tank. Once I’d topped up the water it didn’t take more than a minute or so for the muck to settle again. So I syphoned another load of muck and topped up again… and did this four more times.

 

And then I wasn’t so much worn out as in serious arm pain, so I made myself a cuppa and had a little sit down. I wrote up some CPD,  watched more “Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story” and then it was five o’clock.

 

I loaded the dogs into the car and we drove up to Wye Downs where we joined in with a particularly good meet-up of the local geocaching community. A mini kitchen was set up. Hot chocolate and hot dogs all round (and sausages for the dogs), and we chatted until sunset. As we chatted “er indoors ^TM” and Pogo joined us. Pogey is staying with us whilst “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM”‘s landlord has the mortgage advisors in. (No, I can’t see why Pogo needs to go on a little holiday either).

 

We came home. “er indoors ^TM” fed us all then went bowling. I scoffed second dinner whilst watching the last episodes of “Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story”. The show started well, but had clearly been dragged out for about three more episodes than it needed to have been.

 

I’ve had a rather busy day today…

20 September 2026 (Sunday) - Early Shift

There’s no denying that I scoffed far too much of the Chinese take-away we had last night. It would probably have fed four people, but that didn’t stop me getting stuck in. The stuff didn’t sit well overnight.

I got up at five o’clock and wondered if some toast might settle my innards. It didn’t.

 

I watched another episode of “Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story” on Netflix which was rather interesting. The practicalities of killing someone with an axe probably isn’t something that many have considered, but if you are going to do for someone with an axe you might want to think it through before going bat-shit-psycho.

 

As I drove off to work I tried listening to the radio. Early Sunday morning radio is usually dire, and today's was dire in the extreme.  I caught the end of some utter drivel about the religious convictions of some amateur poets,  and this was followed by a potted biography of some farmer. After ten minutes I gave up and listened to more "All Quiet on the Western Front" in which our hero had ended up in a rather dire field hospital, got better, and got shot right at the end of the war. I’ve got to the end of that audiobook now. I probably won’t listen to it again. The story is depressing enough, and it was read in the most miserable tone of voice. I’m now on “Day of the Triffids” which (so far) is much better.

 

I got to work. Back in the day I would have started a weekend early shift with the cooked breakfast. Back in the day I was three stones heavier. 

I sent the night shift home and made a start on the day's work.  When I first started this job Sunday was for dire emergencies and in-patients only. Today things are different. 

I did my bit; today contending with the E and the Kidd blood groups and was glad when home time came.

 

I came home to an empty house. Following an epic battle with the Hoover “er indoors ^TM” had claimed a victory and had taken the dogs for a walk. However every epic battle has a loser, and the Hoover has gone the way of the hero of "All Quiet on the Western Front".

I rather thought that washing the innards of the Hoover was a mistake, but nil desperandum (as the dead Romans say). The new Hoover arrives is a few days’ time.

I’m just glad it wasn’t me that poggered it.

 

I put a load of washing in to scrub, then fell asleep on the sofa underneath a pile of dogs. “er indoors ^TM” boiled up dinner which we scoffed whilst watching more “Young Sheldon”.

Today has been dull, and I’m feeling rather worn out… 

19 September 2026 (Saturday) - Dog Club, Litter Picking

I woke far too early, so I got up and turned the telly on. Last night I started watching “Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story” on Netflix. I’ve watched two episodes so far, and so far it’s not bad.

I hoofed “er indoors ^TM” and the dogs out of bed, and as they pootled I had a look at the Internet as I do. That carpal tunnel Facebook group featured more recipes. Last night I posted on there asking what all the recipes were about, and quite a few people had echoed the sentiment.

Friends were on holiday in Greece and Estonia.

Friends had been to Dover Castle.

Friends had been to dog agility competitions.

Facebook was showing me that people had been doing things; not the usual tripe it comes up with. That was a result.

 

As I fiddled on-line so Steve was on the radio doing the Guess The Lyrics competition. “One of those nights when you feel the world stop turning”. No? E.L.O. – Last Train to London. I got it right away, and was unbearably smug about it.

We got ourselves organised and went round to Repton and Dog Club where we had a rather good morning. I counted sixteen dogs, and all played and chased and had treats and got “fruity”. One of our number returned after a few months away; she’d had a baby. Littlun was cute, and enjoyed watching the antics of the dogs.

 

From Dog Club we headed westwards.  As we drove Steve was doing the Mystery Year competition on the radio. V.A.T. was introduced and Sweet sang about the Ballroom Blitz. No? 1973.

The radio signal gave out at Bethersden which was odd. In the past it’s been good for another ten miles out as far as Goudhurst, but it wasn’t having it today.

We got to Frittenden where the eastern part of the Kent geocaching community was helping with the village’s litter picking. Me and “er indoors ^TM” were assigned the local playpark. We started gathering litter and found there wasn’t much. And then a local busybody bustled over and told us that we were wasting our time as he picks the litter every day… and then he started a rant about two black sacks of litter which have been laying by the fence for months. We took the black sacks… and the credit too.

We then wandered the local roads seeing what litter we might find. There wasn’t much, but it was good to wander about doing something useful. This was only my twelfth C.I.T.O (geo-speak for litter picking) event. I could and should do more.

We found our way back to the control point which was outside the local pub where we met up with the other geocachers and had quite a good catch-up… right until the pub opened. It would have been nice to have had a pint there, but everyone had places to be and people to see. And (quite frankly) we could (and did) have had two rounds of rather decent beer at home and change out of what one round of rather mediocre stuff would have cost us in the pub.

 

We came home and had a rather good few hours in the garden. Freshly baked bread with decent stout, and “er indoors ^TM” played with her resin modelling. It got cold perhaps a couple of hours earlier than it might have done, but there it is.

 

“er indoors ^TM” popped down the road to the new Chinese take-away and took away the set meal for two. It was rather good. We scoffed it whilst playing “Ticket To Ride”… I won all three games; That’s completely unheard of.

18 September 2026 (Friday) - Another Day Off

I slept well. I got up just after eight o’clock with a sore hand (as well as the carpal tunnel nonsense) and found a rather large splinter in my thumb. It must have been in there snice I did the gardening yesterday afternoon.

I made toast and had a look at the internet. It was still there. This morning’s squabble was about a video of someone rescuing a cuttlefish stranded on a rock and putting it back into the sea. Some (like me) felt it was a kind thing to do. Others were ranting about the thing being generated by A.I. and were being rather nasty about it… as if there wasn’t enough else to bicker about.

And last night’s episode of Star Trek got quite a lot of hate too.

 

In a novel break with tradition Bailey ate all of her brekkie this morning. And with that scoffed we drove up to the woods. The woods was rather busy today. Horses and cars. Normal people with nervous dogs. Treacle had a wallow in a swamp. And the skin-tight lycra-clad young mothers' running club were there too.

We found an injured little bird, but it hopped off into the undergrowth before I could capture it. I expect a fox had it fairly promptly.

We took a bit of a different route today. I took several turns to try to avoid everyone else, and every turn added to our journey. We’d covered over five miles by the time we got back to the car, and once I’d got some petrol on the way back it was after mid-day before I made our cuppa.

 

I sparked up the lap-top and told the geocaching community about tomorrow’s geo-events. There’s a litter pick in nearby Frittenden tomorrow morning, and a meet-up in a pub in Edenbridge at lunchtime. Back in the day I would have showed up for both.

I Munzed, and Wordled. Starting from “eight” (which didn’t help at all) I started again with “found”. This didn’t help as much as I’d like in that the “o” was in the wrong place. Can you think of a five letter word with “o” anywhere but in the second position? Eventually I came up with “brook” which showed me where the “o” was, but didn’t have the “n” which I knew (from my second go) was in there somewhere. In desperation I tried “sloan” (is that even a word?) and that left “snowy” as the only word I could think of.

Wordle strains my poor brain.

I wrote up some CPD, then had a little pootle in the garden. I cut back more of the overgrowth from not-so-nice-next-door’s trees. It comes to something when after torrential rain my flower pots are bone dry as their bushes are that far over the fence. Then I took the back off of the planter I was having issues with a few days ago.

And then I pulled out some of the plants in the living room fish tank. Earlier in the year I was having issues with how mucky the fish tank was. A combination of live plants and snails have worked wonders, but the plants had gone mad. Whilst I was at it I cleaned out the filter… which seems to have had it. I’ve ordered a new one from Amazon. I had various options for delivery. I could have it delivered tomorrow for free, or I could have it delivered tomorrow for one pound ninety-nine.

I used to work with a chap who really would have paid that one pound ninety-nine.

 

By then my carpal tunnel nonsense was too painful to continue. It’s odd – my arm has got incredibly worse ever since I got told that I’ve got carpal tunnel syndrome. Is that some psychological thing?

I sat on the sofa with Bailey and put the finishing touches to the register sheet I’ve drawn up for Dog Club. Personally I’d rather we didn’t bother, but the paddock owners feel we should have one, and they’ve probably got a point. Take the money for example – last week the cash payments were what we would expect for twelve point seven dogs. And at the end of the last session are we completely sure that everyone is out before the gate gets locked? We once got locked in at Old Wardour Castle… I defy anyone to jump over the fence at Dog Club.

And then I looked at joining some carpal tunnel Facebook groups. I found three, and the one with most members seemed to be little more than a repository for baking recipes all posted by the admin, so my hopes aren’t high. Bearing in mind my previous experience I suspect it will be one big argument, but hope springs eternal.

 

“er indoors ^TM” went off out with her mates. I sprked up the telly and watched a film. ”East of Ipswich” was something I can distinctly remember watching some years ago. Written by Michael Palin I can remember it starred Miranda Richardson and it was rather good. I have no idea what I saw all those years ago, but it wasn’t what I watched this evening…