13 March 2026 (Friday) - A Day's Leave

I slept far better than I thought I might; Pogo was quiet last night and didn’t starfish across the bed. He’s quite a lump and can take up space.

 

I smiled as I scoffed toast. The geo-feds have looked at my plans for the midsummer’s eve event and given it the thumbs-up. Because of the rules they can’t make the thing live for a week or so; apparently events can only be published three months or less in advance. Oh well… at least all is in order.

There was someone on one of the local Facebook groups asking for recommendations for a decent vet. This question comes up all the time, and every vet within twenty miles get praise and criticism. When looking for a vet people seem to forget two important points. Firstly vets are regularly inspected by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and the government and any which aren’t any good are closed down. And secondly vets aren’t the NHS which is free. They are businesses which aren’t. Sadly (like going to the pub) having a pet is fast becoming the province of those who can afford it.

Meanwhile a lost episode of Doctor Who has been found.

 

I Munzed – our Munzee Clan has reached the second of our monthly goals. I Wordled from “found” through “knave” and “renal” to “eaten” then had a minor sulk. I’d had the offer to go on a geocaching outing to London today. Originally I couldn’t get the day off but I asked on Tuesday and got the day off… but had forgotten about the geo-outing. By the time I remembered everyone else would have been on the train.

Ho hum…

 

I took the dogs out. As we drove to the woods Jessie Buckley was on Desert Island Discs. She sounded to be an interesting person… even though I’d never heard of her before.

We got to the woods and walked four miles. We saw some horses, but the dogs came back when called, and other than that the walk was completely uneventful. But it was a *lot* muddier than it had been yesterday; the overnight rain had seen to that.

We came home via the petrol station… bearing in mind all the doom and gloom on the news about petrol prices the stuff has only gone up by three pence per litre in the last week. Having said that, it will probably go through the roof now.

 

We came home for baths. Pogo had been good as gold up the woods, and whilst he was no trouble at bath time, the bath was definitely crowded with four dogs in it.

I made us both a cuppa and then spent a little while playing with ChatGPT again. It made a good cartoon of the dogs in the wood and of them playing in mud, but when it came to making pictures of them in the bath it duplicated the Morgan dog. I asked it to remove one of them and it removed both. It got it right on the third attempt, but with only getting five free pictures a day there’s very little scope for cock-up.

 

I spent a few minutes solving geo-puzzles, then had a little doze on the sofa and woke with a neck ache. I spent the afternoon (as I so often do) watching episodes of “Four In A Bed” in which (as so often happens) the most confident contestants ran an utter shambles of a place and came last.

I then announced that it was time to “FEED THE FISH”. The dogs always like that. Sadly when I came to top up the fish food I managed to spill bird seed everywhere, but it didn’t take that long to clear up.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up fish and chips which we scoffed whilst watching the latest episode of Danny Dyer’s Caravan Park. This week he organised the caravan park’s entertainment by wheeling on some showbiz pals of his. Any doubts I might have had about not wanting a caravan on Sheppey were firmly killed by watching his eighties night…

I’ve always fancied the idea of a caravan or a camper van… but it’s not practical and if the TV show is anything to go by I’m fast changing my mind.

12 March 2026 (Thursday) - Home Alone

With no alarm set I had a decent night. I slept through till nearly seven o’clock. I got up, made toast and had a look at the Internet. Last night I’d been looking at bottles of stout on Amazon; this morning my Facebook feed was filled with adverts for beer and posts from pub-related Facebook pages. It would seem that a pint of stout is over ten quid in some of the pubs in London. More and more, a pub is a luxury beyond the pockets of most people.

 

I took the dogs out. As we drove the pundits on the radio were interviewing some politician or other. The person and the topic of the interview were irrelevant as it just went the same way of every political interview. Something scandalous had happened, and some government minister agreed to go on national radio to be interviewed about the matter only to evade every question asked of them. Why go on the radio at all if all you are going to do is effectively make yourself and your chosen party look bad?

 

We got to the woods an hour earlier than usual and the car park was a lot busier than it is at nine o’clock. We set off on our walk and soon met two normal people having an argument. Their dogs were playing, but clearly these people didn’t know what dog play looked like, and both were shouting at the other to call their dog away. Morgan and Bailey joining in probably didn’t help matters at all, but they came away when I called them. We walked off leaving the normal people arguing and the dogs playing.

Apart from that, the walk was rather uneventful. We went round four and a bit miles and came back to the car when I noticed the fox poo smeared all up Bailey’s back. Up to that point I’d hoped we might not have needed a bath when we got home.

 

We came home and had that bath. I put a load of washing in to scrub, made myself a cuppa and Munzed. Then I had a little look at Wordle. Bearing in mind the state Bailey had been in earlier I started with “turds” which gave me an “s” in the wrong place. Following on from that I tried “shite” which was a mistake as I already knew the “t” wasn’t there, but it told me where the “s” went. “Spell” got me almost there, and “smell” did the trick.

We then had a minor commotion as “My Boy ^TM” came to visit. He returned the pressure-washer he’d borrowed at the weekend and helped me take the shingle-patterned liner off of the pond’s bog filter. The stuff never looked right. I really want to get some sort of waterproof lino-type stuff with a dark rock pattern, but I just can’t find any.

 

I played with ChatGPT some more, and wrote up some CPD until the washing machine finished. I ironed shirts, then voomed round with the Hoover, dinged out the recycling, sorted out the event page for my planned midsummer’s eve picnic and generally tidied up. As I fiddled around I watched “Vladimir” on Netflix. It was a rather good show about a couple of aging university professors who had an “open marriage” in which they both carried on porking whoever they fancied. I found myself reminded of a chap with whom I used to work who could never keep it inside his trousers.

 

With the dogs snoring I loudly announced that I was going to “FEED THE FISH”. That caused some minor mayhem.

“er indoors ^TM” came home from a day at the office. Pogo came with her – he’s having a little holiday with us. We had a pasta bake for tea whilst watching the last episode of the current season of “Starfleet Academy”. There’s going to be another season next year; it’s got another chance…

As long as there’s been spin-offs of Star Trek (since the animated series in 1973) I’ve been whinging about those who don’t like the spin-offs… and here I am now one of those I used to whinge about.

11 March 2026 (Wednesday) - Another Early Shift

Again with an alarm set I had a rather bad night and was again up far too early. I made toast and started something new on Netflix. I’ve only seen the first episode, but “Vladimir” seems to be entertaining enough. Unlike many other shows the episodes are only half an hour long which stops my attention wandering.

I then had a little look at the Internet. There was consternation on one of the geocaching pages as the people at geo-HQ have finally realised that there is software you can use to make your phone think you are half-way across the world and so allows you to cheat at a location-based game. And having realised this they are making moves to stop people cheating. Moves than an IT-proficient company would have made year ago. It never fails to amaze me just how IT-illiterate geocaching is when you bear in mind just how high-tech the hobby would seem to be.

 

As I'd watched telly I'd heard the rain on the window. The rain had pretty much stopped by the time I left home. I'd made a point of remembering where I'd parked last night and so knew where my car was. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the ongoing war in the Middle East. HMS Dragon has finally been dispatched but won't get there for a week. Apparently its role is to defend an RAF base which has already been bombed.

There was also talk about how the Iranians have closed the Strait of Hormuz even though Donald Trump says they can't, and if they try to he will kick ass.

Meanwhile the annual world watercress eating competition has been won for the seventeenth time by someone who can't stand the stuff.

 

I stopped off at Sainsburys to get a sandwich. In a novel break with tradition I got beef and horseradish rather than coronation chicken because the sign on the shelf said it was forty pence cheaper. It was a shame that the sign hadn't told the till. I thought about kicking off, but the staff there are troublesome at the best of times so I thought it best not to cause a fuss. On the plus side I got some tennis balls for Dog Club.

 

I went in to work and did my bit. During tea break I had a message from home; apparently Morgan had been caught chewing on a contact lens. We're not sure where he got it from; I find it best not to ask in those situations.

 

Another early start made for another early finish, and this evening I got home far faster than I did yesterday.

Once home I had a little kip until “er indoors ^TM” boiled up pie and chips which we scoffed whilst watching more “Motherland”. I’d forgotten that Debbie The Chosen One had played the “council mother”.

 

I’ve been on the go for eighteen hours… and I’ve done so little of note today.

10 March 2026 (Tuesday) - Early Shift

With an alarm set I didn’t sleep well. I woke before two o’clock and then dozed for fifteen minutes at a time at most. I gave up and got up at five o’clock and watched the last episode of “Everyone Else Burns” in which our heroes finally saw through the utter bollox that was the cult which had held them captive for years…

I suppose that show worked really well for me because I was once a religious crackpot; I wonder how everyone else related to it? I wonder what I might watch next?

I sparked up my lap-top and had a little look at the Internet. Not much had happened overnight so I got ready for work.

 

When we came home from the woods yesterday I'd managed to park outside the house, so I didn't have to walk the streets trying to find where I'd left the car this morning.

As I drove to work the pundits on the radio were talking about the ongoing war in the Middle East. Apparently Donald Trump made some speech yesterday which has calmed the markets and oil prices have dropped quite a bit from the prices they were at yesterday. Personally I find nothing that bloke says as being calming, but what do I know? The pundits on the radio were interviewing various windbags all of whom were predicting rising inflation and fuel prices... which is odd as yesterday's post brought a letter from the energy company saying my combined leccie and gas bill was going down by a tenner a month. And that was following me having had the heating on a lot more over the last few months because it was winter.

More and more I find myself utterly bemused by the world I'm in.

 

I stopped off in Sainsburys to get a sandwich. I eventually got one; some idiot was standing right in front of the fridge in everyone's way, and seemed to have gone into some sort of trance. He seemed to be genuinely surprised when he came to and saw half a dozen people waiting for him to get out of the way.

Again the tills were all closed. The miserable harridan who often glares at the people using the self-service tills wasn't there today, but there were a few members of staff (who could have been on the tills) laughing and joking with each other. Again I emptied a pocket full of loose change into the self-service machine, but it's not the same without the sour faced old bat so obviously taking offence at my doing so. It was only as I walked out that I remembered that I should have got some tennis balls for Dog Club.

I went into work where I had a rather busy day. Things started badly with a Red Alert (that's two this week and it is only Tuesday!), and the day just went on from there.

 

But an early start made for an early finish. “er indoors ^TM” boiled up a rather good chicken curry which we washed down with a bottle of cabernet sauvignon. A red bottle. I’ve had the white stuff before and not been impressed, but the red stuff was rather good. AS we scoffed and swilled we watched some episodes of “Motherland” which were rather good. We’re now watching episodes of “Clarkson’s Farm” which aren’t.

9 March 2026 (Monday) - Rostered Day Off

All the lights were on next door when I went to the loo just before five o’clock. I went back to bed, and got up at eight.

I made toast and sent out birthday wishes to the four Facebook friends having birthdays, then had a little look-see to find out if I’d missed much overnight. I hadn’t really. Someone who’d never once taken the trouble to hide a geocache of their own was on one of the Facebook geocaching pages moaning about how people only ever put out small hides these days. I wrote a reply… and deleted it. I couldn’t be bothered to argue. But this is the way of the world isn’t it. No matter what the hobby (geocaching, astronomy, keeping snakes, kite-flying, sci-fi fandom, scouting, dogs…) no one ever says “why don’t we…”. It is always “why don’t you…”

 

I took the dogs out. We walked down the road to the car… then I remembered that I’d parked it up the road.

We drove up to the woods where it was very foggy. As we walked Morgan marched off in front as he does. He stopped at a corner and started growling. I looked round the corner and saw some woman pinning a red setter to the ground. This woman was constantly asking “are they all right” whilst glancing at Morgan and Bailey. I assured her that they were, and she got up. Her dog gave me a look of total embarrassment and walked  past. What was that all about?

Our walk today was one that was spelled out by our recent emails. We’d had reports that four of the geocaches I’d hidden in the woods were missing, so I planned a walk which would visit each of them. One was missing; three were where they were supposed to be.

As we walked we saw some horses about a hundred yards in front of us. I was rather pleased that the dogs saw them and ignored them.

I lost the dogs in the fog a few times, but each time they came back when I whistled.

And we found a rather nice woolly hat. I put it on a waymarker post so hopefully the owner will see it. But if it is still there on our next walk, I’m having it.

After either six miles (according to my phone) or six and three quarter miles (according to my watch) we got back to the car.

 

We came home for a cuppa, and with that guzzled I voomed round the garden with the lawnmower. You forget just how fast a lawn can grow.

I wanted to crack in in the garden, but the bugs are still (mostly) hibernating and I didn’t want to disturb them. And I’d already done six miles round the woods and mowed the lawn. It’s rather easy to overdo it and end up aching for a week, so I settled in front of the telly and watched episode of “Four In A Bed” in which everyone started off being all buddy-buddy but fell out quite spectacularly at the end.

 

I spent a little while playing with ChatGPT… I’m only allowed a few photos each day (because I’m mean and have the free version). I’ve created a little album of the better photos I’ve made over the last few days and weeks. I’m quite pleased with what it can do.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up pizza and chips then went off bowling. I sparked up Netflix and started watching a film. “Stripes” was something of a disappointment… I’m sure I can remember it being much better. I turned it off half-way through. It hasn’t stood the test of time. 

8 March 2026 (Sunday) - Early Shift

I slept reasonably well up till half past four. After laying awake for a bit I got up and noticed that the lights were on in not-so-nice-next-door. I often wonder if she runs on Japanese time; over the winter I’ve often noticed downstairs in darkness and the bedroom light on in the early evening, and there’s always lights on at five o’clock in the morning.

I made toast and scoffed it whilst watching an episode of “Everyone Else Burns”, then had a little look at the Internet. Apart from having reached our first Munzee goal this month, not much had changed since last night. I got dressed and set off to work.

 

It was very foggy this morning. I felt it was far too foggy to drive through Bethersden like a lunatic with no regard for speed limits, safety, other road users or pedestrians, but one idiot from a local paving company obviously disagreed with me. As I have said before, driving like an idiot is best done in unmarked cars.

As I drove I listened to the pundits on the radio who were talking about pedestrianism which was very popular in the nineteenth century when those with too much money would pit their lackeys against those of their mates in long distance walking races. Some poor footmen would be expected to walk from London to York (and back) as quickly as they possibly could, with silly amounts of money being wagered on them. Apparently it became quite popular as a spectator sport with thousands of people turning out to watch. I expect it was all very entertaining all the time it is someone else doing the walking. It was claimed that the four hundred miles from London to York and back  was usually covered in about six days... four miles round the woods in an hour or so is quite enough for me.

This was followed by an interview with some chap who claimed to regularly run over a hundred miles in twenty-four hours. I thought that was a tad excessive, but that is apparently only half the world record distance in that time period.

After this was the farming program which featured a farm in the West Country which was run by a cheesemonger who had started up a charcuterie. No? - I had no idea what a charcuterie was either.  Apparently it's a posh butcher's shop.

From the way that they were speaking on the radio I got the impression that they felt everyone would know what a charcuterie was. Well, I didn't and I've learned something. And as I always say, a day when you learn nothing is a day wasted 

 

I took a slightly different journey to work this morning. I drove through Pembury in the hope of finding a shop that might be open from where I might get lunch. When I'm working at Maidstone at the weekends I always go to the works canteen, but when at Pembury... let's just say the canteen is not as good.

I found a corner shop that was open,  got a sandwich and drove on to the early shift and did my bit. It was a rather busy bit as well, involving a Red Alert. And from personal experience I can confidently assure my loyal readers that Red Alerts are nowhere near as much fun as Captain Kirk would have you believe.

 

During a lull in proceedings I Wordled. I'm testing the limits of Wordle at the moment... it wouldn't accept "farty", but it was quite happy with "farts"; presumably because "farts" didn't contain a single letter of today's word whereas "farty" did. And when the late shift rolled in I slipped off for lunch and scoffed my sandwich which wasn't bad... though I was surprised that it had a "best before" date of the twenty-fourth.  How can a sandwich be good for two weeks?

 

I came home to find Treacle was back to her old self. She’d had some raw turnip a day or so ago and during the day she’d sicked up several very hard lumps of undigested raw turnip. She’ll have it boiled from here on it.

With her on the mend and the fish ponds up and running again I commented that I was going to “FEED THE FISH!!” and there was quite a stampede to the pond. The dogs go mad for the rice flakes that the fish get.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up lamb chops which we scoffed whilst watching the final of “The Floor” then more episodes of “Motherland”. I’m thinking about an early night – I’m worn out.

7 March 2026 (Saturday) - Dog Club, Games Night

As I scoffed my toast I rolled my eyes as I saw a post on Facebook. Someone was complaining about how someone else (with learning disabilities) was getting loads of abuse on one of the geocaching pages.

I first saw this sort of behaviour forty years ago when Star Trek fandom was organised through fan-run magazines in which the cowardly would lash out at people to whom they wouldn’t even have the courage to look at if they met in person. And now the Internet has sadly given free rein to this sort of person. Geocaching, ponds, tropical fish, Sci-fi, local groups… some people really refuse to be civil if they feel they can get away with being nasty.

And there were several people on one of the local Facebook pages queuing up to demonstrate their ignorance. I don’t mean that quite as nastily as it sounds, but it bothers me that so many people go on-line and rant about the perceived failings of the local council, and then vote on its composition despite being obviously unaware of what the council does and what it is actually responsible for.

But that’s people though, isn’t it? I can remember outcry from my days as a god-botherer when some evangelical chap announced that communism was the closest political thing to Jesus’s teachings. After a *lot* of nastiness it turned out that maybe one church-goer in a hundred actually knew what communism was (in theory) all about.

 

I had some emails… there’s minor issues with some of my geocaches in Kings Wood. That’s Monday’s walk planned.

I Munzed, and started Wordle with “dicks” (which didn’t help me at all). “Pleat” gave me an “e” (in the wrong place), and “boner” gave me an “o”. “Gouge” helped quite a bit. “Vouge” gave the game away. The answer was “vogue” which I’d spelt wrong on the fifth attempt.

Steve was on the radio. This morning’s “Guess the Lyrics” competition was “The night is young and full of possibilities”. No? I had no idea either. It was Anita Ward – “Ring My Bell”. I can remember that song coming out; I quite liked it. Was it really forty-seven years ago in 1979?

 

We got ready for the morning. We’d hoped to leave a few minutes early as I’d parked miles away. We got to Dog Club and had a rather good time. We humped and wallowed in mud and chased about and shared treats and generally ran riot. For all that there were several regulars not along, I counted fourteen dogs.

 

As we drove home Steve was doing the Mystery Year competition on the radio. “Absolute Beginners” from David Bowie and “Touch Me” from Samantha Fox? 1986.

The dogs had a bath, we had a cuppa, then I went into the garden. Last week I got new ultra-violet bulbs for the pond filters. I got them into place and turned the pumps on. I then scraped the dead plants out of the floating baskets in the big pond. They took some scraping.

I wrote up some CPD, then had a brainwave and went out to that which I’d dinged out of the pond earlier and salvaged a couple of pond plant pots.

I drove over to Dobbies to get three pond plants to put into the floating baskets. I’d had an idea that if I bought a tub of three plants I could split the plants and use the plant pots I’d salvaged… it was actually ten quid cheaper to buy three individual plants (each of which came with its own pot) rather than to buy a tub of three and re-pot them.

 

I came home where I had a Belgian bun, then put my new plants into place and chucked some blanket weed treatment into the little pond.

We moved stuff around on the living room shelves and the mantlepiece and “er indoors ^TM” managed to destroy the Logo Bonsai tree so I spent the afternoon totally rebuilding it.

 

Chris came round with the big Infinity table, and Steve soon joined us. It was a shame that Sarah was poorly but four of us played “Game of Life” (I came third), “Trouble” (I won!!), “Sorry” (I came third) and “Ticket to Ride” (I came last). Hopefully there will be five of us for next time.

Treacle has been in an odd mood all evening… I shall keep an eye on her.

I’ve got to go to work in the morning…