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…

24 August 2026 (Monday) - Rostered Day Off

I slept like a log last night, which was something of a result. I got up, made toast and had my usual rummage round the internet as I do. It was much the same as ever with pettiness and trivia abounding as it does. One use of social media is that it is a good reminder of how stupid people are. An ex-soldier was posting to Facebook about the Fabian society are conspiring against him. American evangelists were asking for money for them to then had a word with the Almighty on your behalf. I see very little of what I actually want to see though, which is what friends are up to, which is a shame. But I did see that the archaeological dig at Bodiam Castle (which was open to the public) closed today. That was a shame - “er indoors ^TM” would have liked to have seen that.

 

We drove up to the woods. Over the weekend someone has been out and taken down all the tatty England flags around Kennington. They’ve replaced them with Union Jacks (which is an acceptable term!) but sadly half of them are one way up, and half the other. Still, two world cups and one world war!!! Ing-Ur-Lund!!!!, eh?

We got to the woods and walked a longer walk today. As we went we saw a few of the normal people, but none who had ventured more than half a mile from the car park. We saw a horse where it wasn’t supposed to be, and evidence (huge piles of it) of others too. The rules are quite clear where horses are and aren’t allowed. I didn’t say anything to the horse rider; life is too short.

 

I came home and made us both a cuppa. We had a choco-break biccie with it too. Have you ever had a choco-break? Aldi do them – they are basically a half-price kit-kat made with far better chocolate.

I organised a car service for next week, then had a look at the monthly accounts. As always they could be a whole lot worse.

I Munzed, and Wordled from “skint” to “runny” in three goes, then had a look at the little pond. I didn’t clean its filter last week; I did today. I then had a look at the big pond. Last week I put some rocket into a floating basket. It’s not done much, but I remain hopeful.

 

I had a sandwich as I wrote up some CPD. Some of it was about information governance and I found myself remembering someone I’d rather not remember. Back in the day one of the nastier people with whom I used to work regularly got her own way in pretty much every aspect of work. No matter what suggestions or ideas were being suggested, she would always demand that her way was the only way that would “obviate the obvious governance issues”. As no one was brave enough to challenge her (as no one was confident enough about what “governance” actually meant) she regularly got her way all the time. She was an evil old bat… sometimes I idly ponder on the possibility of driving round to where she lives with a catapult and a bucket of dog turds…

 

I got the ironing board out and ironed. As I did I watched the first episode of the fifth season of “Stranger Things”. We did “FEED THE FISH”, and once Treacle had calmed down I spent an hour struggling with geo-puzzles.

 

“er indoors ^TM” went bowling; I watched more “Stranger Things”. For a day off I’ve been quite busy.

I’ve got to go to work tomorrow.

23 August 2026 (Sunday) - Nonington, Geo-Meet

I had a bad night. My arm and shoulder were particularly painful. And when I went to the loo in the small hours I couldn’t find Bailey. She’s so small she tucks into the smallest of places.

I finally nodded off and was sparko when “er indoors ^TM” alarm went off at half past seven. I swore, and got up.

 

I put a load of washing in to scrub, made toast and fiddled about with my lap-top. I backed up a couple of weeks of photos (that I will never look at again). Back in the day photos were a big thing. We had to fart around buying film, and with only twenty-four shots on a reel of film we would be incredibly judicious about that which we would photograph. And then we had to take the film to the chemist and wait a few days to get the photos back.

Nowadays we have instant access to photos. Someone in America can see the picture of my dogs seconds after I took it. Sometimes we don’t realise just how amazing the technology is.

And sometimes the technology can be wanting. The blatant display of racial hatred that I reported to the Facebook feds the other day apparently didn’t breach their community standards. One lives and learns.

I had an email about a new virtual geocache – the one that “er indoors ^TM” set up at Bonnington on Thursday evening. I was rather cagey on here about what we’d been up to as some people have (in the past) tracked my movements following this diary just to get to be first on anything geocachical we might be creating.

The thing had gone live just after half past six this morning, and the first one to find it had been out at Bonnington at just about the time I was getting out of bed.

But for the most part this morning my Internet was crawling with adverts for goldfish bowls… ones that looked really pretty with a traditional Chinese diorama but on closer inspection were probably about a quarter of the size you would have thought they were.

 

I Munzed, Wordled from “place” to “olden” in three goes, and harvested an epic crop of dog turds from the garden. I’ve said it before, but you wouldn’t believe how much dung three small dogs can generate.

I hung out the washing, checked that I’d programmed “Hannah” properly (last time I didn’t – woops!), Meowdolku-ed, and we set off on today’s mission.

 

We drove down to Nonington where  we waked for three miles picking up half a dozen geocaches as we went. It was a shame that Bailey went rogue towards the end of our walk, but that’s what she does. And (in all honesty) wouldn’t we all given half a chance.

As we walked we found half a dozen geocaches. It was a rather good walk.

From there we drove out to Sollys who operate a bar and an ice-cream parlour. We passed on the ice-cream but had an elegant sufficiency of the beer in the company of some very good friends. There’s no denying that the afternoon got more and more vague as it wore on; it was as well that I took a few photos.

 

We came home. I slept most of the way. And most of the evening too…