27 April 2026 (Monday) - Lost Lead, Eaten Fish

I woke in the small hours needing a tiddle, and I had this stroke of genius that if I put a load of washing in to scrub I could then go back to kip, and hang it out when I woke up. I put the load of washing in, went back to bed, and lay awake for a few hours wondering if the washing machine had done its thing.

I eventually gave up laying awake and got up at half past seven, hung out that washing and made toast.

 

I had my usual look at the Internet. It was still there… Interestingly there was very little mention of St George’s Day on Facebook. What with it having been St George’s Day last Friday, in years gone by there would have been parades and processions about it. There was a church service in Rye that a friend had been to, but that was about it. No one even seemed to have been round replacing the tatty flags that went up a year or so ago.

There was precious little about the London Marathon to be seen either. Usually there’s a few of my friends posting photos of themselves looking worn out at the end of it.

I Munzed, Wordled my way from “hours” through “trade” to “libre” which was a mistake. When I realised that, I was rather stuck. Eventually I came up with “eeire”.

 

I took the dogs up to the woods. Last week I found a good little hidey-hole for the bird geocache that Chris gave me. I’ve written a Wherigo cartridge for it – people will play a silly little game on their phone in the comfort of their own home, and then go out and find the geocache

Today we put the thing out while on our walk.

We took a different route to usual. We met four groups of other dogs, and each meeting passed off nicely and without episode. I’m absolutely convinced that the lead is the problem. We’ve never had an issue when our dogs meet other dogs when everyone is off the lead.

And talking of leads, at the three mile point I realised that Bailey’s lead wasn’t round my neck…

I had a vague idea where I might have dropped it so we sort-of backtracked. We met a nice lady who pointed out the lead just down the track from where we met her. She said that the problem with picking up lost property is where do you leave it to be found? She said better to leave it where it was dropped and the loser could re-trace their steps to find it. She’s probably got a point.

The nice lady’s friend said “hello Dave” and asked me about working at Maidstone and clearly knew me. I smiled politely. Half a mile later I suddenly realised who she was. Fortunately we met again at the car park and I was able to apologize for my rubbish memory. We both had a good laugh… but it bothers me that I am so hopeless at recognising people. I must come over as very rude, but I have a terrible memory for faces.

 

I dropped the dogs home then went running errands. I sent to the vet’s to get the tick-repelling collars. Having pulled one off of Treacle we’d realised that it was that time again.

And I went to Dobbies where I got a couple of grass carp for the little pond. The plan was that they should sort out the algae. And I got us an apple turnover each for lunch.

 

I came home. The apple turnovers were (in all honesty) something of a disappointment. A little more apple, a little more turnover, and a lot less sugar would have been nice.

I then went into the garden. I spent a little while building a little frame to put over the little pond. A wooden frame with a mesh of fishing line to keep any predators out. It took a couple of hours to build and get in place.

“er indoors ^TM” then commented that the bog filter on the big pond was running slow so I turned the pumps off, got out a screwdriver, took the pumps apart and pulled fistfuls of fish turds out of the pumps. As I fiddled about so Morgan came past munching one of the little grass carp that I’d bought earlier. So much for that protective predator-deterring frame, eh?

Morgan got a severe bollocking, and once I’d sorted the big pond I went back to the little one and added a lot more fishing line to the mesh cover. Here’s hoping.

In the meantime I need another little fish. I shall pop into the garden centre at some point this week and hope someone different is on duty. Explaining that I need a replacement fish because my dog ate the last one would be a tad embarrassing.

 

I loaded the car for tomorrow’s tip run, and tehn spent a little while finishing all the web pages for the new Wherigo, and I’ve sent it to the geo-Feds to see if they approve. If all is OK I shall get it to actually go live on Friday – that way I get an e-souvenir as there’s one for everyone who makes the effort to hide a geocache in May this year. There’s also one for August too, but I shall worry about that later.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up some burgers and went bowling. As the dogs snored I washed the undercrackers and watched a couple of episodes of “The Man In The High Castle”.

Again on a so-called day off I haven’t stopped. Today’s step count is a shade under seventeen thousand… I’m going to work for a rest tomorrow…

26 April 2026 (Sunday) - Kingsdown

I slept well, but woke with the world’s worst hangover. What was that all about? I only had one bottle of Sainsbury’s own-brand ale and one bottle of “Old Speckled Hen” last night.

 

There was a bit of a performance when we got up – we wanted to wash the sheets (to take advantage of the decent weather to dry them) but persuading dogs to get off of the bed took some doing. Eventually I got them (the sheets, not the dogs) into the washing machine.

I made toast and had my usual peer into the Internet as I do. It was much the same as it ever is… or was it? A couple of years ago I was inundated with friend requests on Facebook ostensibly from scantily clad young ladies all keen to “do the dirty deed” with, on or at me. I’ve not had one of those for over a year now. These days I get suggestions of people I may know who I’ve never met and never will. This morning the “you might know” suggestion was some young chap who seems to spend a lot of time shooting things in the Norfolk countryside. Mind you when I say “some young chap”, pretty much everyone is young these days. As Albert once remarked, everything’s relative.

I Munzed and Wordled from “slept” through “clams” to get it on the third attempt with “gloss”.

 

My brother and nephew visited. The come over to Ashford every couple of months to go to the MacArther Glen outlet centre. I can see the place from my back bedroom and I go there maybe once a year. I can’t see the attraction of paying far too much for stuff you can get for a fraction of the price from Amazon, but what do I know?

 

I gathered yet more dog turds, hung out the washed sheets, and we drove down to Kingsdown where there was a geo-meet. Today several of us gathered and wandered up and down the beach picking up litter. There was a surprising amount to gather. As well as no end of various detritus I found two helium balloons, an old plastic canister (which was two feet tall!) and three quarters of an old pallet.

And with litter gathered we adjourned to the beer garden of the Zetland Arms where a dozen of us sat and put the world to rights over a could of pints of beer. The “Creekside” was rather good.

We came home, and spent an hour or so slobbing in the garden over more beer.

 

After a little sleep we had dinner and watched a couple more episodes of “The Orville”. Watching the credits it would seem that a lot of people who worked on Star Trek were involved in the production – including Jonathan Frakes as director. I didn’t know that.

25 April 2026 (Saturday) - Early Shift

I came downstairs (far too early) to find Morgan pacing. I let him out and once he’d done his bit he went upstairs where I could hear him pacing again. Once I’d lifted him past Treacle (who was already on the bed) he soon settled. He’s funny like that; he’s absolutely terrified of Treacle all the time she is higher than he is.

I made toast and watched another episode of “The Man in the High Castle”. I quite like that show… and it has been making me think. I realise it is a make-believe show, but the characters in the fictional Japanese Empire and the characters in the equally fictional Greater German Reich and the characters in the supposedly defeated America are all fiercely patriotic about their way of life. From what I can see this is for no other reason that they were born into that faction so it is inherently the right one and everyone else’s is wrong. This isn’t a philosophy to which I can relate… sometimes it bothers me that I am not at all patriotic. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t dislike my home country but I *really* don’t seem to have the unswerving loyalty to it which so many others seem to have.

I wish I knew why, and what I was missing.

 

I had a little look at the Internet as I do most mornings. The Facebook page of a shop in Hastings Old Town commented that the shop has been sold… The chap who runs that Facebook page has been incredibly opinionated on social media over the last few months and year. I can’t help wonder just how many of his potential customers he has alienated. I can remember the chap who ran a little shop where I used to live where I used to get rabbit food. I would listen to him chatting with customers supporting the government of the day, and then five minutes later running them down with another customer… The trouble with customers is that no two agree and you have to keep them all sweet. Going on social media forces you to take a stance… and in doing so alienate half your customers.

I saw an ex-colleague was having his birthday today. Once someone with whom I spent a large part of every day, our children were born about the same time, we’d go to the pub after work, we used to go to the same social clubs… and now we no longer work together I’ve not seen the chap for over fifteen years.

 

As I drove to work so the "Farming Today" program was on the radio. There was a lot of talk about how the UK spends a fortune importing expensive fertilisers from around the world, but no one being interviewed had any sensible reason why no one goes round the UK's fields and farms gathering up more of the cow shit which (so it was claimed) would do every bit as good a job as the imported stuff for a fraction of the price. 

Someone's already wised up to this though - you can get the stuff in B&Q...

But from my personal experience there's quite a lot more cow turds still to be had.

And then there was talk about how the Argentines want the Falklands back and are agitating about it. It would seem that President Trump has told them he would support them in the matter as he's sulking about the UK not joining in with the war he's started in the Middle East. Not that it's got anything to do with him. I can't see the UK giving up the Falklands easily though. The UK invaded and re-took them not that long ago (and I don’t remember the US helping that much then). The islanders want to remain as part of the UK. And (the crucial bit) there's loads of oil round them to be had.

 

I got to work, sent the night shift home, Munzed and Wordled, then cracked on with the early shift. I tuned in to Steve on the radio and mis-heard the "Guess the Lyrics" competition. It sounded like "love just like a diction now I'm hooked on you", but I had no idea what that was. Sadly the the internet signal was rather squafty and work got in the way of me listening. Work does that. I missed the Mystery Year competition, to say nothing of missing Dog Club as well. 

Being the weekend I treated myself to dinner in the works canteen. The works canteen is rather good - two pieces of barbecue chicken with chips and cherry pie with custard for a fiver. Can’t be bad.

 

With work done I came home. We had kebabs for dinner and had a go on the Infinity Table. You can’t beat a bit of “Ticket to Ride”… I won two out of eight games, and one was a draw so it wasn’t the utter rout it has been in the past.

24 April 2026 (Friday) - Stuff

 I got up earlier than I might have done and watched another episode of “The Man in the High Castle” before sparking up my lap-top and having a look at the Internet as I do every morning. It was still there, and much the same as ever…

Someone I know was bemoaning their lot on Facebook… following a messy divorce the fellow has lost his house and half his pension to his ex-wife… but still gets to keep his two holiday homes and two flashy cars. From what I can work out from Google that’s an estimated value in the millions… I sometimes (all the time) whinge about being a pauper, but I have far more than some. The trouble with money is that everyone is inherently greedy; you can never have enough money, can you?

Google asked me to review the Duke of Cumberland. Again. Since we called in there last Saturday Google has asked me to review the place every day. I reviewed it last Sunday, but still I keep getting asked.

I Munzed. Our Clan has reached the last of our monthly targets.

 

I tiptoed through the rubbish the bin men had strewn up the road as I made my way to my car. Just recently the bin men have been rather better; sadly today there was something of a reversion to their previous "couldn't give a sh*t" attitude.

I set off up the motorway to work .  As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how the Assisted Dying Bill has now failed to become law. Not because of any legal or moral reasons, but purely because there's no more time to talk about it. Only so much parliamentary time has been allocated to the matter (or any matter come to that), and if those opposed to any particular bill just keep waffling on then the thing automatically fails for lack of time, It's called "filibustering" and has been going on for years.

 

I went to work via Aylesford's Sainsburys.  I parked my car, and immediately the chap in the van next to me started blasting on his hooter claiming I should park away from his van. As is always the way in life, it wasn't so much what he said as how he said it. Once I'd parked elsewhere the chap jumped from his van in a rather sprightly way...

If he truly needs space to get in and out of his van then he needs to use the disabled bays which were not ten yards from where he was parked.

If he was not in any way disabled, then maybe he needs to reconsider how he acts when in a van bearing his company’s logo and details. Perhaps his company's HR department will discuss it with him?

  

I got in to work. I wasn't supposed to be in today, but I'd been asked to help with the new IT system. I must admit I wasn't keen on the idea, but the overtime is nice. I spent the morning reviewing the written instructions that staff will be using, but there was a minor issue when I rather confused the people in the blood bank when their label printer started printing out HLAB27 blood test results for Kermit The Frog (can’t imagine how that happened but it’s a good name for a dummy patient, isn’t it!)

 

I came home at mid-day and took the dogs to the woods. The woods were again incredibly busy, and chatting with all of the bluebell-watchers it would seem that most of them were having their annual pilgrimage to Kings Wood to see the bluebells. I explained to several that we are up there a few times each week; no one seemed to think that you would ever go to Kings Wood more than once a year.

Most everyone was within a hundred yards of the car park, but as we came back to the car after our walk we found a young couple who’d ventured half a mile into the wood… and got lost. They intimated that I might rescue them… I pointed at Morgan and said that I was following the dachshund as he seemed to know where he was going. They both accepted that without question and started following him too.

 

We came home where I made us both a cuppa, and I spent a few minutes cartoon-ising the photos I’d taken in the woods. I then spent an hour marking more trainee’s work… I’d expected to spend the entire day doing overtime today so I didn’t mind an extra hour after our walk.

I stood up and was watched by the dogs who quivered in excitement until I said that I was going to “FEED THE FISH” when they flew up the garden.

With fish fed the dogs went back to sleep and I had a look at the monthly accounts. They could be better… ideally I’d have a bank balance in the millions, but they could be a whole lot worse…

 

We had pizza, we watched yesterday’s episode of “Race Across the World” in which the contestants went from Turkey to Georgia. And another episode of “The Orville” .

I’ve got another early start tomorrow...

23 April 2026 (Thursday) - Rather Busy

Yesterday evening we had a dodgy five minutes when the Internet died. The same happened again as I scoffed my toast this morning which was a bit of a worry.

When it came back I saw there was a new series of geocaches near Tenterden – going right past the brewery that let us down a couple of months ago. I wasted no time in reminding people about that. Interestingly the new geocaches were hidden by people who’ve found fourteen thousand of the things but never been to a local meet-up. I must invite them personally to the midsummer event.

Not much else would seem to have happened overnight. I Munzed, Wordled from “broke” through “spend” and “cheat” and “fleet” to get it on the fifth go with “tweet”.

 

I took the dogs up to Kings Wood. As we drove there was a total half-wit being interviewed on the radio. I wish I knew who that person was; they were clearly someone in some position of authority to be on national radio at peak time. They were ranting that in China “they” have two weeks’ worth of food in reserve whereas in the UK the reserve is whatever is in the supermarkets right now. However when challenged about exactly who it was that holds two weeks’ worth of food in reserve, the chap got rather twitchy. Clearly in China “they” is the communist Chinese government. However the UK government doesn’t get involved in the trivia of what the free market is doing, let alone hold billions of pounds worth of food. Listening to the idiot showing his utter ignorance of basic international political theory was rather embarrassing.

 

We got to the woods and had a good walk. Shortly after we started Morgan was nearly run over by a jogger who wasn’t looking where he was going. Being rather shocked, Morgan barked and then growled a bit. In retrospect I probably didn't help by patiently explaining that Morgan is a small dachshund and not a ravenous sabretooth tiger, and it was rather embarrassing meeting the chap again two miles later.

At the three mile point we met a woman with two large dogs. I felt sorry for the dogs; each had a huge cow bell tied to their collars, and if either dog got more than a couple of yards from her she went hysterical. And she went absolutely bat-shit when her dogs tried to join in with our group. They seemed nice dogs, they got on fine with my three and would have been welcome to walk with us, but the odd woman wasn’t having it.

We met some chap who was walking with those silly Nordic poles; he really did look like he’d lost his skis.

 

We got back to the car park to find it was heaving. Several people were standing at the start of the wooded area looking at the bluebells. Two old dears got chatting with us. I pointed out the far end of the field and said that the bluebells fizzled out there, but they were really pretty some two miles into the woods. The old dears (and the others listening to our conversation) looked at the far end of the field in much the same way that I might stand at the base of Mount Everest and look at the peak. It would seem that when people go to Kings Wood to see the bluebells, a *lot* don’t go much further than the car park.

 

 We came home. The dogs went straight to their water bowl. I must take water for them next time we go there. I put a load of washing in to scrub, made us both a cuppa then had a look in the garden. A couple of days ago we’d seen a rat going into the garden storage box. I had a look inside; there were no rat turds or any evidence of rat. Now that I’ve dinged out a load of tat, we can close the box. A simple thing, but one which should keep the rat out. I spotted a likely hole in the fence from not-so-nice-next-door where the rat probably came through, so I bunged it up. It needed bunging; with a little effort Bailey could have forced herself through the hole and I *really* don’t want that. The obvious answer would be to replace the fence. I’ve offered to pay for that, but not-so-nice-next-door just started shrieking. Perhaps I’m being racist but she seems to take offence at the slightest provocation.

I had a little pootle round the garden, topped up the bird feeder, hung out the washing and cracked on with the ironing, giving the new ironing board its first session. As ironing boards go it did the trick.

 

As I ironed I watched a couple of episodes of “The Man In The High Castle”… I suspect that some of the names and places would mean more if I were more up on mid-twentieth century history. Again I found myself wondering if I did the right thing by dropping history in my fourth year at secondary school… but the history teacher we had wasn’t the best… I hesitate to say that he was crap, but there must be better ways to teach history than by over the course of the year reading out the entire history text book and having the class write down what you are reading out. 

 

And with telly watched I stood up. Treacle jumped up and looked at me expectantly. We have this little ritual… she knows what is coming. She knows it is time to throw handfuls of fish food into the pond. But she stands and waits, quivering with excitement, for me to say that I’m going to “FEED THE FISH” at which point she charges down the garden in excitement. She won’t go until I make the announcement.

 

I ran the hair trimmers over my head… and again realised that I’ve turned into my grandfather. Before he won a fortune on the football pools (it’s all gone now) he used to live two doors down the road from us. I can remember going to visit so many times only to be told that grandad had popped to the barbers. I always wondered why; he too was as bald as a coot. He used to go to the barbers at least once a week… which is about the rate at which I run the hair trimmers over my head.

 

I then started writing a new Wherigo. The other day Chris gave me a rather good 3-D printed pressie which would make a very good themed geocache. While we were out earlier I found somewhere to hide it. So all that remains is to write the Wherigo… this one will feature my latest anti-cheating software in the cartridge, so those that go cheating (one day I will publish a list of them!) will have to do the thing properly.

 

Over dinner we sparked up the Disney app (we get it free with our Sky subscription now) and started re-watching “The Orville”. When the third season came out it moved to the Disney channel, but that was so long ago we’d forgotten all that had happened so we started again.

It’s rather good, but just a shame that every time the captain speaks we hear the dog from “Family Guy”.

 

Today was a day off. I’ve not really stopped, and I’ve walked three times yesterday’s step count…

22 April 2026 (Wednesday) - Planful

I slept well… until half past two. I gave up trying to sleep at half past four, got up and watched an episode of “The Man in the High Castle” with something of a sense of “WTF is going on” then sparked up my lap-top. Pretty much nothing at all was happening on-line early this morning so (trying not to wake anyone) I got ready for work.

 

As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the radio were talking to the head honcho at McDonalds about allegations of bullying in various branches of the chain. She didn't want to get involved with what had gone before, but instead wanted to talk about the company's future. It was a shame that she couldn't have spoken in English but instead chose to speak in strange meaningless management catchphrases, one of which was that McDonalds was a very "planful" company. Whatever that meant...But more and more people do this sort of thing, don't they. Just read anything at all which has ever been posted on LinkedIn.

There was a classic example of this yesterday as I'd been sitting in the hospital's waiting area. The woman next to me had come in with her father and was waiting for him to have his appointment. As we waited so her phone rang. Rather than doing the decent thing and going elsewhere to take the call she stood up and walked to the centre of the waiting area where she answered the call with something of a flourish. She loudly thanked the caller for getting in touch and (equally loudly) announced that she was going to put him on speaker. There was then a frankly bizarre few minutes when she so obviously put on a show for the public. She ranted at her caller in an almost theatrical way about team efforts and targets and goals and opportunities and client expectations. It was very apparent that she was a London-based estate agent, and that the chap calling her was one of her underlings. She wanted him to sell or let a rather expensive apartment in the Putney area. 

She sounded very impressive (to the sort of people who are impressed by that sort of thing); it was a shame that her performance was utterly undermined by her minion being on the loudspeaker and so everyone could hear that the chap was actually phoning in sick because he'd been up all night with “f...ing diarrhoea”. 

 

I went to get petrol before I went in to work. The filling station in Aylesford was six pence per litre cheaper than Ashford, and so I saved two quid. Maybe only a minor result, but a result nonetheless.

I got a sandwich and went in to the early shift. I did what I had to, but an early start meant I got out early.

 

I did think about going to the woods this evening, but I wasn’t feeling on top form, and once we’d done “FEED THE FISH” the dogs all went back to sleep anyway.

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up pie and chips which we scoffed whilst watching an episode of “McDonald and Dodds” in which him who was the monocled mutineer and the eight Doctor Who played a villain.

 

Compared to yesterday, today was rather quiet… so why do I feel worn out?

21 April 2026 (Tuesday) - A Day's Leave

Again all the lights were on next door when I went to the loo at four o’clock.

I slept through till eight o’clock this morning, got up and made toast. As I peered into the Internet I saw that the chap who seems to be trying to visit every pub in the country (I’ve mentioned him before) has been making a lot of noise about his having been elected to the ruling committee of the Campaign for Real Ale. Bearing in mind how he’s on Facebook every day making great show of his favourite pub in every town, I can’t help but wonder if there’s going to be some conflict of interest here. Are disgruntled publicans going to have the arse with CAMRA about losing a competition they didn’t know they were in? A competition that is nothing to do with CAMRA.

I Munzed, and Wordled from “light” through “close” to (in a total bit of pot luck) get “clump” on the third attempt, taking maybe twenty seconds to do the lot. I rather impressed myself. Wordle usually takes me ages..

 

Despite the roads being incredibly busy I drove over to B&M Bargains to have a look at their garden section. Their wooden plant boxes were half the price of the ones in Longacres. And they were knocking out tennis balls at four for one pound fifty. Sainsburys do three for two quid. I shall be going to B&M Bargains for tennis balls from here on.

I went on to Dobbies where some huge black dog stopped and pissed up the lawn food. I’m not saying my dogs are blameless, but it was as though someone had emptied a bucket.

And I had a quick look round Longacres too.

 

Having found nowhere sold the fence supports I wanted, it was over to the hospital for a check up. Two years ago I had my fourth nasal re-bore. The first three failed as the surgeon had gone up the nostril, but on the fourth attempt the chap said he wanted to drill through the bone and come in from behind.

He had a look up my conk with an endoscope and says that (unlike the last three times) the polys haven’t come back. Here’s hoping they stays away.

Whilst I was in with the ENT specialist I mentioned about my seemingly continual tinnitus. He said that it comes with age, but had a look in my lugholes and said there was more wax in there than at Madame Tussauds. He got me to lie down and cleared out both earholes whilst I waited. He seemed quite proud of the size of some of the lumps of gunge he got out of my ears, and wasn’t at all disheartened that at the end of some seriously intense scraping the tinnitus was just the same as it was at the start.

He says he will arrange for some hearing tests.

 

I came home where I made us both a cuppa which we had with a Whitby bun, and then I took the dogs out. We got to the car park at the woods about three hours later than usual and the normal people were out in force. But once away from the car park we only saw three other groups. Perhaps it was the time of day, but the birds were very quiet; we heard hardly any of them squawking. Morgan rolled in one dead mouse and Bailey ate another. The girls found a bone and Bailey smothered herself in fox poo.

As we walked I stopped and watched two deer not fifty yards from us. The dogs didn’t notice them at all.

 

We came home. This morning we’d seen a rat going into the garden storage box. I stripped it out… There were a few rat turds and something (presumably a rat) had been chewing at one of the old tents. That can go to the tip. I also cleared up the area where I keep spare decorative garden stones as Bailey often sniffs round there, but there didn’t seem to be any rat evidence. I popped out a couple of the rat-repellent smelly things just in case.

We did “FEED THE FISH”. Yesterday one of the older fish looked a tad iffy. In the meantime it had croaked. I hoiked out the corpse. I watered the plants, I cleared up the dog dung.

 

The plan had originally been to then do the ironing, but by then I thought I’d done a full day on what was actually a planned day’s annual leave (booked for the hospital appointment) so I made up both a cuppa and looked at booking a tip run to get shot of the old chewed tent. Ashford’s tip is still closed. We can go to any other tip in Kent, but they are all quite a drive away. The obvious ones would be the ones in Maidstone… I had a stroke of genius that I might pop in there before next Tuesday’s late shift. I’ve booked an appointment at the Allington tip. I wonder where it is.

So I wrote up some CPD and sorted the undercrackers I’d tumble-dried last night…

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching some really odd celebrity quiz show. Hosted by what I can only describe as a portion of bread and butter pudding on legs it featured has-beens and never-weres who faced puzzles which were either on a par with “frozen water  I – space – E” or Einstein-level mathematics with nothing in between. However I did have a fit of the giggles on the anagram round… “Asrworp”?

 

I’m going to work tomorrow – for a rest.