12 May 2026 (Tuesday) - Before The Late Shift

 

There are several people who walk their dogs at five o’clock in the morning. There’s one dog which regularly comes up our road far too early barking like a thing possessed. It was that one which woke me this morning. I tried to get back to sleep, and dozed on and off until half past seven.

 

I made toast and had my usual look at the Internet. It was still there. The usual political arguing was completely missing from my Facebook feed this morning. Instead I had loads of postings for groups offering support to people with various bone marrow cancers, and quite a bit of “repent sinner!” bollox. As a lapsed Christian (I was once a Steward in the Methodist church), the entire Christian theology doesn’t stand up to any thought at all. *If* Jesus has already died in payment for my sins, why should I be up for eternal damnation? However I will make the observation that it is pointless to ask this question on a Facebook forum.

 

I Munzed, getting two Rover treats as I did, and took the dogs to the woods. Being pushed for time we went to Orlestone. There was a weird man in the car park. He seemed really creepy as he tried to stroke the dogs; I called them away.

We had a mostly good walk. It was a shame that Bailey ran amok, but she does that.

Yesterday we walked nearly seven miles; today it was just a shade over two.

 

We came home where “er indoors ^TM” was making herself a cuppa. She did me one, and then I cracked on in the garden. Yesterday I got three hypersonic rat deterrents (as they came in packs of three); overnight I had a stroke of genius as to where I might position one of them. And I got another coat of paint on my planks. I harvested a bumper crop of dog dung, and had a little look at the area round the plant pots vaguely planning for tomorrow.

I Wordled. Starting with “plank” I made rather hard work of it going through “cluck” and “click” before getting “clock” on the fourth attempt.

 

I set off to the late shift… and that was effectively it for the day. So often when on the late shift the day is done by the late morning.

11 May 2026 (Monday) - A Walk, An FTF, Some Shopping

I slept rather better than I have done recently, but was still awake earlier than I wanted to be. I got up. My back was hurting, but I got up easier than I did on the last couple of days.

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was still there. People were squabbling about last week’s elections… every squabble showed that the squabblers had no idea of the issues that they’d been voting about.

People were squabbling about religion.

People were squabbling about ponds, dogs, geocaching… pretty much everything about which it would be possible to squabble.

I sighed… I look at social media to see what colleagues, friends and family have been doing with their lives, not to watch people I’ve never met quarrelling with people they will never meet.

 

I Munzed, opening two qrates. I Wordled from “argue” through “event”, “coney” and “neddy” to come up with “newly” on the fifth attempt. And I took the dogs up to the woods. When the schools are open I need to leave home either before half past seven or after nine o’clock so I don’t get stuck in traffic. I got out of town easily enough this morning but the traffic coming into Ashford was backed up a mile or so up the A251 to the woods.

As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how the Prime Minister’s days might be numbered, and whether he goes will be entirely down to some speech he is going to make. Surely he should be judged on what he does rather than what he says? This is why that idiot Boris Johnson survived so long. No one noticed how crap he was at actually doing the job; he was entertaining to listen to, and for most people that is all that counts.

And there was an interview with the ex-chairman of the league of A&E doctors (or whatever their club is called) who was saying how nice it would be to have one NHS-wide computer… I remember the debacle when that was tried last time…

We got to the woods and had a frankly epic walk of either six and three quarter miles or seven and one quarter miles, depending on whether you listen to my phone or my watch. But apart from a mild altercation with a Dalmatian the walk passed off pretty much entirely without incident.

 

We came home to find that “er indoors ^TM” was off on an errand with “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM”. I told the Alexa to play “relaxing music for dogs” and I cracked on in the garden. I got another coat of paint on my planks, topped up the ponds and water features, bionically burned the weeds and topped up the bird feeder.

“er indoors ^TM” then came home and I made us a cuppa… then remembered I’d left the hose running topping up the big water feature… Woops.

I also saw a new geocache had gone live this morning near Lydd, and it hadn’t been found. I turned off the hose, and hopped into the car.

 

It didn’t take long to get to a lay-by on the road into Lydd, and after a quick search I spotted the geocache. I opened it up. The logsheet was blank… I was the first one to find it. Result ! That’s three hundred and one geocaches I’ve been first to find – I’ve got a list.

As I drove home so the rain started, so it was probably the best time to go shopping. I went to the garden centre at Hamstreet. Did they have anything that would get rid of rats in the garden? Yes. Did they have anything that would get rid of rats in the garden that *wouldn’t* kill the dogs? That got a blank stare… I got the impression that in the war against rats, killing the dogs would just be collateral damage.

I tried the new garden centre in the Home Bargains shop. It was closed; staff were turning customers away as the place had a power cut.

I tried Dobbies. They were helpful. As well as poisoning everything they had humane traps. The trouble with a humane trap is what do you do with what you’ve humanely captured? The nice lady suggested drowning the rats in a bucket of water (she really did!).

I went to Bybrook Barn where they had some ultrasonic rat deterrents. They were five times the price of the ones on Amazon, but had the advantage that you can plug them into a UK power socket. I’d rather scare the rats away than have to kill them.

Strangely the dogs don’t seen to deter them very much.

 

I came home. I plugged one of the ultrasonic thingies in the socket in the shed. I really need to figure out how to set one up in the garden. And I had a look at the gusher water feature. It is certainly running better now I’ve topped it up. I’ll wind the hose in tomorrow – the rain might have dried off of it by then. I’ll give the planks another coat of paint then as well – hopefully they will have dried too.

I made us both a cuppa and we had the last of the cake. Yesterday I said it was ginger cake. It wasn’t. It was golden syrup cake, and there’s no ginger in the ingredients. So why did I think it was ginger cake?

I wrote up some CPD and tried to get up quietly, but it was no good. Treacle was watching me like a hawk. She knew it was time to “FEED THE FISH”.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up dinner then went bowling. I settled on the sofa and started watching something new. “The Handmaid’s Tale” (on Amazon Prime). I’m two episodes in; so far, so good…

 

My back’s still giving me grief… I can sit still or I can walk about. It’s getting up and getting down that hurts…

10 May 2026 (Sunday) - A Quiet Day

As I peered into Facebook as I scoffed my toast I saw a posting from an old friend who is currently living in Australia. He was getting nostalgic and was hoping someone might organise a reunion of his old school-mates. It would be good, but the trouble with a reunion is that in the intervening years a *lot* of people have moved away and getting everyone back together would be problematical at best. Take our old gang from the Boys Brigade. The turn-out at our old leader’s funeral was a tad disappointing (frankly piss-poor) bearing in mind how many people I contacted, but I contacted people who’d since gone to live in Bournemouth, Minehead, Sweden, Scotland, Tonbridge...

Or take my old school class. A couple of months ago one of our number was back in Hastings (from Canada). Three of us met up. Others had since moved to St Albans, Colchester, Australia, USA…

 

I checked my emails… three new geocaches had gone live locally. It would have been nice to see if I could get First to Find on one of them… but the same chap who gets all the FTFs had flown round and done the lot in less than an hour after they went live. I would have gone out hoping to get one and to leave the other two for others. But that’s just me.

 

I sulked as I had a little look at the flower pots in the garden and had a measure-up, then Munzed. Our Guild (we’re not a Clan any more!) had reached the first of our monthly targets. I Wordled from “waste” through “paddy” and “parch” to “parka”. I don’t think it could have been anything else.

 

We then took the dogs out. “er indoors ^TM” had some maintenance to do on a couple of her geocaches, and with that done we carried on to Orlestone where we walked the dogs round. Being mid-day I hoped that the normal people would all be having their lunch, and for the most part they all were. We only saw one other person and that was almost at the car park.

I took a few photos as we walked.

 

We came home… and I remembered that I’d meant to go to Wickes whilst we were out. So leaving “er indoors ^TM” with the dogs I went shopping. A week or so ago we had a rat problem, and looking at the aftermath it would seem that they’d hollowed out the sleepers that I’d used to edge the garden. They’d gnawed in and chewed away the softer wood, and left the knots in place. I had intended to replace those sleepers, but it struck me that was just making a new home for them. So I got a couple of planks of decking which will stand on bricks. Being open means there will be nowhere for the poor rats to make nests. I do feel sorry for them… but they can go nest elsewhere.

Again this was one of those things that was far easier to type than to do.  Driving over to Wickes, getting what I needed, bringing it home and giving the planks a first coat of paint took two hours.

 

We did “FEED THE FISH”, we had a cuppa and some ginger cake. With my back giving me some serious grief I sat down and spent a little while updating my geocaching databases for Kings Wood. A few weeks ago I found another sink hole up there. That’s twenty-eight in those woods. And I included the Wherigo I created last week into the database as well.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching more episodes of “The Orville”.

Today has been a tad dull… and my back is still rather painful…

9 May 2026 (Saturday) - Early Shift

I had something of an early night but woke at ten to two and then just dozed on and off until finally giving up and trying to get up at half past four. “Trying” being the operative phrase… whatever damage I’d done doing the heavy lifting hadn’t got any better overnight.

 

I watched the last episode of “The Man In The High Castle” as I scoffed brekkie. It was a shame that having been a really good show I had to go onto the Internet to find out what the ending was all about. And whilst I was there I had a look at the Internet. Nothing was happening at half past five so I gingerly got up and took little while getting ready for work.

 

I hobbled out to the car and set off west-wards through the -hursts and the -dens. It was too early for the weekend news on the radio. Instead there was some utter tripe about the restoration of some heathland. What would have made rather good viewing on the telly made for rather rubbish listening on the radio. There's only so much description and being told to look at the pictures on the website that I can stand.

I switched over to my MP3 stick and sang along to Ivor Biggun.

 

I stopped off in Pembury's Tesco for lunch. Had I been at Maidstone today I would have tried the works canteen, but the Pembury one isn’t the same.

Tesco’s meal-deal looked good today - a barbecue chicken salad rather than a sandwich. When I came to pay, the self-service machine wanted the thick end of a tenner, and when I complained the poor little boy in the Tesco costume ran off to fetch his boss. There was quite the discussion amongst various members of staff as they tried to decide who it was that would have to tell me that what I wanted wasn't in the meal deal.

Am I that scary?

The chap who drew the short straw was adamant that the thing wasn't in the meal deal, and was not impressed when I pointed out the sign that said it was. He breathed an obvious sigh of relief when I said that I'd have the coronation chicken sandwich instead, but seemed utterly disinterested in removing the clearly wrong sign.

 

I went in to the early shift where I sulked. Saturday morning is usually Steve on the radio doing the "Guess the Lyrics" then Dog Club followed by Steve on the radio doing the Mystery Year. I missed all of that today.

But an early start made for an early finish. I came home to three dogs who were incredibly excited to see me. We did “FEED THE FISH” and they were then asleep within a couple of minutes.

 

I had a cuppa and counted the takings from Dog Club. We ask for a donation of one pound fifty per dog… there was twenty-seven quid and seventeen pence in the pot. What was that all about?

 

Chris arrived, and we spent a little while in the garden talking water features. Chris is keen to get one, but there’s more to them than just pretty splashy things. Ones at ground level look very nice but unearthing the pump for maintenance can be hard work. Splashy ones look pretty but soon empty the reservoir.

Steve and Sarah joined us, and we had a rather good evening on the Infinity Table. A game of “Game of Life” and a game of “Sorry” in both of which I didn’t quite come last.

And then a game of “Ticket to Ride” in which I had a plan, and I amazed myself at just how well that plan worked…

 

My back still hurts…

8 May 2026 (Friday) - Done My Back

With no reason to be up early I was awake far too early and lay wide awake for far too long. I eventually got up at half past seven with backache.

 

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. Bearing in mind there had been local elections pretty much everywhere in the country except in Kent yesterday, there wasn’t that much political talk on social media. That which was there rather showed the futility of democracy. With only four out of ten people having voted, Reform UK had done well. But sadly people cheering for them had been (and still were) cheering them on in much the same way that they would cheer on their favourite football team. And people were looking forward to Nigel Farage taking over as Prime Minister clearly utterly unaware of the difference between local and national governments.

Hundreds of new councilors who claimed that they will stop the boats are now supposedly going to sort out potholes, bins and adult social care.

I was rather amazed to hear the deputy leader of Reform UK on the radio claiming that the election was a “complete rejection of the Labour and Conservative parties” when so many Reform UK candidates were standing as Conservative last time. A good example of this was Robert Jenrick  who was being interviewed on the radio as I drove the dogs up to the woods. The fellow is currently a Reform UK MP and he spent quite a bit of time rubbishing the previous Conservative government… in which he was a cabinet member.

Democracy, eh?

 

We got to the woods and had a mostly good walk. There was a minor episode when Morgan got a tad over-excited when chasing a small spaniel. The bloke with the spaniel was all for the excitement and said his dog needed to be told off by other dogs. I said I’m all for other dogs chasing his dog, but not Morgan who needs to learn not to get so over-excited.

My bird identifying app detected a great crested flycatcher. I thought that was rather clever of it bearing in mind that you don’t get those in the UK.

As we walked I saw a herd of a dozen deer. Amazingly the dogs didn’t see them, even though they were only about thirty yards from us.

 

We came home. I made us both a cuppa which we had with a bit of Swiss roll. I then Wordled from “early” through “ramin”, “charm” and “smart” to get “umbra” (stupid word) on the fifth attempt. I then cracked on in the garden. I cleaned out the pump in the small pond, then had a look at the pumps in the big pond that supply the pressure filter. I had an idea that their nozzles might be full of fish turds. They weren’t but one of them had a loose fitting. I sorted that, cleaned out the pressure filter and reassembled. The water flow has definitely improved.

I then shifted the pedestal that “My Boy ^TM” gave me a couple of weeks ago. I moved it maybe twenty yards and put one of the Easter Island heads on it. So easy to type: I nearly knacked myself doing it. It felt as though I might have pulled something in my hip and leg.

 

I put a load of washing in to scrub, read my Kindle for a bit, then set about the ironing as I watched two more episodes of “The Man In The High Castle” in which the plot has taken a very unexpected twist.

We did “FEED THE FISH”, I wrote up some CPD, I stood up and immediately collapsed; I’d definitely pulled something in my hip and leg. I stood up a tad more carefully and I got up. My trouble is that I don’t “stand up”; I leap up as though I was a child. I should carefully get up slowly as though I was the pensioner that I actually am. Getting old is sad.

 

We listened to Heart Radio for a bit – “er indoors ^TM” had entered their prize draw. I was all for turning it off when she didn’t win the seven hundred thousand pounds prize. But we listened to the excitement of the girl who’d won it, and I remembered Joyce. Joyce was one of the waitresses who worked with me at the Harbour Restaurant in Hastings in 1980. She won the Sun (newspaper) bingo and immediately and publicly told the boss just how far he could stick the waitressing job up his chuff. She bought a new house, and a new car, and took the family on holiday… and was back at the Harbour Restaurant in less than a month grovelling for her old job back. It didn’t take her long to spend far more than she’d won.

Blowing money is easy, no matter how much money you have.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching another couple of episodes of “The Orville”.

I’m going to have an early night… I’ve got an early start tomorrow so I will be wide awake from two o’clock. Maybe going to bed early means I might get more shut-eye before I wake…

7 May 2026 (Thursday) - Rather Busy

“er indoors ^TM” went to the loo at four o’clock and Morgan followed her. He came back to bed and obviously was terrified of Treacle being already on the bed so came round to my side and did an amazing leap on to the bed, but stuffed up the landing. I managed to grab him as he slowly slid off the bed despite his frantic scrambling.

I didn’t really get back to sleep after that.

 

I got up and Munzed like a thing possessed. Overnight a garden of temporary Munzees has appeared, centred on our house. They’d arrived just as I’d gone to bed and would be going shortly after brekkie so I didn’t have long to Munz them.

And having Munzed I had a look at the Internet. There was consternation about the Victorian fountain in Viccie Park being expressed on the local Facebook pages. The thing needs some work doing but everyone posting were so quick to find fault and be negative. I really should stop following the local pages; they really wind me up. People who’ve lived their entire lives not fifty yards from where they were born put in so much time and effort running the town down. Maybe one in a thousand of them is prepared to actually do anything for the town, or for anyone else come to that.

And the local hospital had published an obituary for someone who used to work there. Someone with whom I used to work (for many years) died last week. Reading the gushing praise for a sterling and well-regarded fellow I found myself wondering if I actually knew him at all. I don’t really want to speak ill of the dead, but the dozens of tributes certainly didn’t mesh with my memories of the fellow.

 

I put a load of washing in to scrub, then took the dogs up to the woods. We walked half a mile more than we did yesterday and took two hours and a thousand steps less. How does that work? As we walked we met a couple of friends who were out geocaching. We had a good chat; I managed to stop them stroking Bailey. If she wants to be stroked she really shouldn’t roll in the fox poo, should she?

 

We came home where Bailey had a scrub… you wouldn’t believe just how much fox poo could be caked onto such a small dog. I hung out the washing, put the undercrackers in to tumble-dry and mowed the lawn before making myself a cuppa.

By then it was mid-day. Where does the time go? I watched an episode of “The Man In The High Castle” then went out to the garden. A couple of days ago I saw that the big pond’s aerator pump wasn’t running as well as it might. My initial thought was to get a new one, but a new one would be the thick end of a hundred quid so I pulled it out of the pond and as well as cleaning out the pump bit I cleaned out the tube that takes the water up to the splashy bit. That was ninety per cent blocked with muck. After ten minutes work it was all going far better than it had been, and that saved quite a bit of money too.

I then had a stroke of genius (I have those from time to time). The water coming back from the bog filter wasn’t going as fast as it might. I cleaned the pumps to that a while ago, but I didn’t scrape out the outlet…

I’ll do that another time.

 

I came in as it was getting cold. I marked more trainee’s work, wrote up CPD, then watched another episode of “The Man In The High Castle”. Our hero has effectively walked into Project Tic-Toc. It didn’t end well for Tony and Doug so why did he think he’d fare any better? As I watched telly I sorted the tumble-dried undercrackers. There’s never a dull moment in my world.

We then did “FEED THE FISH”; Treacle gets *so* excited about that.

 

“er indoors ^TM” came home from a day at the office and boiled up a particularly good bit of dinner. We washed it down with a bottle of plonk whilst watching this week’s episode of “Race Across The World” in which the contestants went through Tashkent. One pair of them worked at the huge food market that we visited when we were there, and another pair went through Amir Timur Square which we also visited and is not five minutes’ walk from one of the hotels in which we stayed.

6 May 2026 (Wednesday) - Wilmington

 

I slept well… but woke in a panic following a nightmare in which I’d built a sunken water feature in my deceased father’s shed and the house’s new owner wasn’t at all happy that the thing kept flooding.

What was that all about?

 

I got up and made toast. Yesterday I was a tad scathing about Reform UK’s ability to form a local council… However I would like to think that opinion was formed from the evidence of what they’ve actually done.

This morning Facebook suggested that I might like to follow the “We Loathe Reform UK” page and had presented me with a posting from some woman claiming to be an activist of the Roma community who was basically exhorting people to clout Reform UK supporters with crowbars. I was also presented with the Facebook page of an independent councillor who was claiming that another councillor in his ward had poured a milkshake over himself and then posted photos of himself claiming he’d been attacked in order to get the sympathy vote.

Is this *really* where UK politics had ended up?

 

I Munzed, and typed “panic” into Wordle. That got me two letters. “Ninny” told me where those two letters went, and I proved that with “bison”. “Widen” got me a little closer, “given” had me marking time, and I got it on the last go with “liken”.

I checked the geo-map, got my sat-nav “Hannah” set up, and we got ready for the day.

 

We set off on today’s adventure and made the mistake of following Google’s instructions to get to our destination. Google took us seemingly through every narrow lane in Kent and Sussex to eventually get us to Wilmington. Some time ago I’d seen there was a geo-meet at the top of the iconic Long Man planned for this afternoon so we drove down for that, We arrived early and had a rather good hour walking thought the village finding geocaches and solving field puzzles before lunch.

Lunch was in the aptly-named Long Man Inn which I can heartily recommend. “er indoors ^TM” had the chicken burger. I had the Sussex Cheeses ploughman’s which was very good. Blue cheese from Brighton, and goat’s cheese brie from Horam… And I had a couple of pints of decent ale too.

From there the plan was to walk in a pretty much straight line up to the meet at the top of the hill. But as we walked through the village we met Gordon and Ralph who said that there was a new geocaching Adventure Lab series that went (on a circuitous route) from the village up to the Long Man. We then met the chap who was running the geo-meet and he was up for a little diversion too. And as we climbed the hill we were joined by Carl who’d set the new Ad-Lab series.

We climbed the hill. There’s no denying that it was rather hard work, but the views from the top were spectacular. As geo-meets go the attendance was low, but today was just what this silly hobby is all about. A great walk with amazing views in the company of some very good people.

I took quite a few photos as we walked today. Amazingly we only covered five miles. About the same as one of our longer walks round Kings Wood. But it seemed a whole lot longer.

 

We came home following the roads we knew rather than the ones that we didn’t. We stopped off in Jempson’s in Rye to get pizzas. Having had a good lunch we didn’t want too much for dinner.

 

Once home I saw that ultrasonic rat repelling device I’d ordered had arrived. I opened the box to see that they’d sent six… and sadly all six didn’t have the fittings to go into a UK plug socket. So I got onto Amazon who refunded my money and said to chuck the things in the bin.

Whilst I’m pleased to have a refund, this is a tad wasteful, isn’t it?

 

We scoffed the Jempson’s pizzas whilst watching more episode of “The Orville”. Both were rather good.

Today’s been rather good…