9 June 2026 (Tuesday) - Rushbrooke

The dogs were asleep, but the sun was rather bright through the curtains. Being wide awake I got up and did the geo-admin for the last two days until the cottage’s wi-fi died unexpectedly at seven o’clock. Hurrah for my mobile and its mobile hotspot facility, eh?

As I logged our thirty-odd geo-finds I looked out at a glorious morning which sadly wasn’t forecast to last much past brekkie time

 

After brekkie we looked at the weather forecast for the ten thousandth time and decided to take a chance. We drove up to the Rushbrooke Arms where I banged on the door and had a word with the nice man. He said that my plan of using their car park, going for a walk and coming back to his pub for lunch was a good one, so that’s what we did.

As always our walk was laid out for us by a series of geocaches. Perhaps spread out a little too much for my liking, and perhaps a little too much on roads, but all things considered it was a very good walk. Geocaching-wise far better than the frankly impossible hides we’d struggled with earlier in the week.

And apart from a minor shower the weather held for us too.

 

After four miles we were back at the pub where we had a very good bit of dinner. Bang Bang Cauliflower – no, I’d never heard of it before either, but I would certainly have it again.

 

We drove back to base where we jigsaw-ed. I say “we”; I had a kip. As the afternoon wore on the weather alternated between glorious sunshine and thunderstorms and hailstorms.

We had a few pints, and a very good dinner of bread and oils and halloumi and olives, and the 3-D Blokus came out too.

 

I took a few photos today. And I had a bit of an early night… A rather lazy day had been rather tiring…

8 June 2026 (Monday) - Long Melford

The dogs stayed asleep until half past seven this morning which was something of a result. When at home they spend so much of the day asleep; they are constantly on the go here. Little Bailey is particularly showing the strain of it all.

 

We got up and played silly beggars charging round a damp garden, and as brekkie was prepared so the rain stopped and started. Brekkie was particularly good, and with that scoffed we thought about going out. But the rain had come back. We (I) had a little doze in the conservatory, and eventually the rain held off long enough for us to decide to take a chance.

 

We drove down to nearby Long Melford where we had a little walk along a very long village. There were two geocaching adventure lab series there which gave us a good walk. The first one took us to the top end of the village . We then tried a puzzle geocache at the church. It was a huge church; almost cathedral sized, but with a very strong smell of cannabis. What was that all about? The puzzle geocache was rather rubbish; we had to find five bits of information from the church and the graves. We found two, Googled two, and guessed one.

But we found what we were looking for, and had an ice cream to celebrate.

 

From there we walked the bottom end of the village; it was rather pretty. And with walk walked it was only a five minute drive to the Nethergate brewery where we went on Friday. We needed supplies, and while we were there we had a little drinkie. A pint of mild, and a pint of lager-coloured stout. It was odd!!

 

We then came back to base for a bit of a rest and a very good late dinner. And a couple of games of 3-D blokus…

 

I took a few photos as we went round today

7 June 2026 (Sunday) - Shimpling

 

I had somewhat naively hoped that the dogs would have slept better last night. This early morning’s bout of silly beggars took place at five o’clock; half an hour earlier than it did yesterday. Having given the impression that they needed a widdle I opened the bedroom door… and then had to chase all three round the cottage to herd them into the garden. I saw two raking out, and can only hope the third did too.

We got back to bed eventually…

 

After a bit of brekkie we got going. We went down to nearby Shimpling where we had a bit of a walk following a series of geocaches as we do. There was a minor incident as the dogs chased off after a huge rabbit… it might have been a hare: I really should find out what the difference is.

We found an archaeology site. No one was digging though which was probably for the best as we could have made serious nuisances of ourselves. We had a picnic in the graveyard…

Geocaching-wise I can’t recommend the route. When you hide a geocache you rate the difficulty, state the size of the thing, and give a little clue. The difficulties were all left at the default setting, the sizes given (when given at all) were misleading, and the clues were meaningless at best. Sadly many of the caches had been seemingly just drop-kicked into the hedge. Which was very strange as the chap had clearly put a lot of effort into creating quite a few very well made hand-crafted caches.

one.

 

After six and a half miles we were back at the car. We came home for a little drinkie. And another. And another. And the evening got progressively more and more vague.

I took a few photos (until I fell asleep).

6 June 2026 (Saturday) - Whelnetham

 

I meant to bring a clock… I always feel rather confused and disorientated if I don’t know what the time is… it turned out that it was five o’clock when the dogs wanted to go for a tiddle this morning. Mind you when I say “go for a tiddle” I actually mean “go play silly beggars in the great new garden we’ve got”. But they’ve learned their lesson and stayed away from the swamp which was masquerading as a pond.

After five minutes the novelty of “silly beggars” wore off. I dried their bellies and we all went back to bed. But I was wide awake.

I plumbed the lap-top into the cottage wi-fi and posted up yesterday’s photos. It’s the sort of thing I want to see when others post them.

 

We tuned in to Radio Ashford for Steve’s “Guess The Lyrics” competition. “I thought i could have my cake and eat it too”… no? I had no idea either. It was The Four Seasons.

Karl boiled up a particularly good full English brekkie. Oh, it was good. I contributed by loading the dishwasher afterwards. The plan was to go for a walk, but it was raining, so we sat in the conservatory and I fell asleep…

 

I woke to excitement. The rain had stopped and we were forecast four hours of dry. We hurried off to nearby Whelnetham and had a little walk guided as ever by a series of geocaches. A rather good series of geocaches as it happened. I’ve never found one magnetised to a road drain before. As we walked we saw a rather spectacular red kite. The dogs chased rabbits and came back incredibly quickly (for them). The walk was only marred by some local thug getting incredibly aggressive because Morgan and Bailey dared to run within fifteen yards of his dog. For someone who never wanted dogs I do tend to get rather protective of them… but to be fair the dogs just ran in his general direction, and came back when called. The local by-laws said that dogs had to be under control which mine were. For all that Thugbert was ranting about dogs being on leads, those who insist on dogs being on leads generally know very little about dogs.

 

We came back to base. We had a pint and sat in the garden with it… for about five minutes until the rain hit. Then we adjourned to the conservatory for crisps and another pint. And a game of chess. Not all of the bits were there, but they rarely are.

 

It was soon tea time. Karl boiled up a rather good pasta and chicken sausages and I offered sage advice, and Jess and Charlotte soon arrived.

The dogs got very excited again…

 

I took a few photos today.

5 June 2026 (Friday) - Off On Holiday

I couldn’t sleep last night. I gave up and got up at three o’clock and watched an episode of “The Handmaid’s Tale” before going and waking “er indoors ^TM” and the dogs.

They weren’t keen on it.

 

We got on our way shortly after half past six and made really good time right up to junction twenty-eight of the motorway where Google told us we’d found a one-hour tailback. That was an inconvenience. But good old Google told us of a diversion we might take along Wiggly Bottom Lane and pausing only briefly to tiddle in a lay-by we arrived at Duxford McDonalds about thirty seconds before Kark and Tracey.

 

We chuckled at the row the staff were having; we scoffed sausage and egg McMuffins, and drove down to Rede where we went for a little walk. As always our walk was guided by several geocaches…

We started with a puzzle at the church and couldn’t find the information we needed.

We couldn’t find the second one…

Once we’d found the third one we realised what was going on… geocaches all have difficulty ratings scoring them from one to five. These had all been rated at one and a half (really easy to find) They should really all have been rated at three and a half or higher… But we eventually found twelve out of fourteen, and the dogs were rather good off the leads which was a result.

 

From there we went to dinner at the White Horse in Rede. The people were friendly, the food excellent. The dogs all got a treat of biccies and cream. But it was odd that they had no ale on hand pumps. They were getting some in a couple of weeks’ time. Presumably no demand for the stuff?

 

We then divided our forces. Some went to get food shopping. We went to the Nethergate brewery to get beer and cider. An interesting place – it’s got its own bar. Might go back there in a day or so…

 

And then on to the holiday cottage. There’s a pin for the place on Google maps. You’d think the pin would correspond with the actual location, wouldn’t you? But we found it, and once unpacked we had a little look around.

The place has three ponds. As a pond-keeper I rather thought that the smaller two might need a little maintenance. The third looked to be in a very sorry state. Behind a gate and with very thick weed and much all over its surface. So thick that you might mistake it for solid ground if you were as silly as Morgan and Bailey who went charging up… There was a look of total horror on their faces as the ground on which they were running just collapsed underneath them.

They aren’t keen on swimming at the best of times.

Fortunately there was a hose in the cottage garden. They weren’t keen on the hose either but there it was. It was as well we’d brought a lot of dog shampoo along, and it didn’t take *that* long to scrub them.

 

We had some rather good pizzas for tea which we scoffed in a conservatory. Have you ever scoffed in a conservatory? I’d not convinced about them.

The beer gave way to port, and it all got rather vague…

 

I took a few photos of the day… sadly nowhere near as many as I usually do.

4 June 2026 (Thursday) - Rain, Puzzles, Packing

I slept for nine hours last night; that was a result. Mind you I did spend all of yesterday feeling like death warmed up. That’s night shifts…

I got up and made toast. I scoffed it peering into a dull Internet. Not a lot was kicking off really. Some left wing crackpots were posting to Facebook ranting about people canvassing for the Restore UK party who were wearing some sort of uniform. Some were saying it was a good thing, some were saying it was illegal, some were likening it to the Brownies… I’ll just say that nothing has divided the country quite as much as the recent rise of the nationalists.

As I stared into the Internet so not-so-nice-next-door came and took our garden waste bin. I popped out to see what was going on. The bin men had swapped our bins over. We swapped them back; I remarked about how the bin men never put the bins back properly and she smiled. That’s a step in the right direction.

 

Despite the weather forecast I took the dogs out. We delivered cards then went up to Kings Wood. We got about a quarter of a mile when the heavens opened. We got about a couple of hundred yards more and I was soaked to the skin, and the dogs all looked miserable.

We gave up and came home for a warming shower. I made a cuppa for “er indoors ^TM” and myself, and the sun came out.

I spent an hour trying to solve a series of geo-puzzles that were published this morning. I didn’t solve any.

I amazed myself by Munzing from “rainy” straight to “alloy” … I couldn’t think of any other word ending in “y” that had an “a” in it..

 

I had a look at packing for our holiday… You wouldn’t believe the amount of pairs of trousers that I found. I was rather twitchy about getting today’s trousers ready after their earlier soaking, but I’ve got three pairs packed that I didn’t know I had, and will be wearing a fourth pair that I had no idea that I had either. How is it possible to be so blissfully aware of how many pairs of trousers you’ve got

I ordered up some beer for tomorrow, and had another look at the geo-puzzles. I solved all of them. Well, Gordon told me the answer to one.

 

Seeing the rain had stopped I went into the garden. We did “FEED THE FISH” and I re-potted one of the pond plants which had got too big for the floating basket and was threatening to topple it.

And then it started raining again.

 

Once the rain stopped we got most of our luggage loaded into the car ready for tomorrow, and the holiday started with a KFC dinner which we scoffed whilst watching an episode of “The Orville”

I’ve (hopefully) figured out where we are going tomorrow…

I should have an early night as we’ve got an early start tomorrow. 

3 June 2026 (Wednesday) - Rather Tired

Last night was a typical night shift really (I suppose), but I did find myself reflecting on how night shifts have changed. The first one I ever did was some time in August 1985 when we were called in from home as needed. I did maybe half a dozen blood counts that night and was finished by half past midnight.

Last night I spent the entire shift in the department (when I wasn't on the loo). I cleared up the work that the day shifts couldn't complete and then had over sixty blood counts, a couple of dozen coagulation screens and was going (quite literally) all night long.

Some days I don't get to my daily step target of six thousand steps; I'd cleared that by half past six this morning.

 

The pain in my back eased a little overnight which was a result. I did something to my back over the weekend. On Monday  I thought I'd got a trapped nerve as the pain had moved to my right arse cheek, and yesterday it slowly moved its way down my thigh. I Googled my symptoms (which is never a good thing to do) and ended up wishing that I hadn't.

However the Bombay Bad Bot pot noodle I had for lunch yesterday had worked its way through, and I spent the last half of the night wishing I'd had toast and jam for lunch instead.

I was glad to see the early shift roll in, and I was even gladder to drive off homewards.

 

As I drove home the pundits on the radio were talking about the riots sparked by the death of Henry Nowak. Having been stabbed to death by some maniac, the chap’s family called for his death not to be made a political issue, and so no end of people have deliberately made it just that.

As I came up Brookfield Road I saw that petrol was five pence per litre more expensive than what I'd paid in Maidstone to top up last night, so that was something of a result. Mind you the pundits on the radio had said that petrol in America was four dollars per gallon... that's  two pounds and ninety six pence per gallon which is about sixty-two pence a litre as opposed to the one pound fifty-six pence per litre I paid last night. You have to wonder why the Americans get their petrol so cheaply, don't you?

 

I got home, went to bed and woke up five hours later feeling like death warmed up. I had a vague idea to take the dogs to Orlestone woods for a walk, but it was hossing down.

Whilst Morgan ate “er indoors ^TM” ‘s sock I phoned Sainsburys helpline to whinge. I went into the petrol station at Aylesford last night to get exactly the same experience that I had a couple of weeks ago when I wrote: “It turned out that despite every single food item being labelled as "meal deal", only certain items were actually in the meal deal. The woman behind the till felt that it was rather obvious what was and what wasn't in the deal, and seemed to think that the labelling was some sort of advertising or artwork”. 

I got through to someone whose first language obviously wasn’t English. I outlined the problem and he’s going to investigate it for me. That will be nice. I’ve whinged in the past… there’s a simple issue in that they simply need to make their signage clearer, but they seem to want to blow it out of all proportion.

 

I then spent quite a while making today’s blog piccie, doing CPD, and downloading geocaches for next week’s excursions. I downloaded about ten thousand – hopefully that should be enough. As I downloaded I watched the first episode of the third season of “The Handmaid’s Tale”. I can’t help but wonder if the writers have run out of steam; the characters have completely changed from what they were in the previous season. But I suppose it makes for dramatic telly all the time you don’t think too hard about it.

We did “FEED THE FISH” and I gave my new hair trimmers a first trial run. I might have been a bit vigorous with them.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a rather good bit of scoff which we washed down with a bottle of plonk. But not just any old bottle of plonk; the cheapest one I could find in Sainsburys last night.

It wasn’t too shabby at all… And with it scoffed the dogs amazed me. Rather than going over to the other sofa with “er indoors ^TM”, they all looked at me expectantly. It took me a minute to realise that they’ve realized that after our having a bottle of plonk I usually share a packet of cheesy biccies with them.

They are rather clever…