30 April 2026 (Thursday) - Busy

I spent much of the night trying to get comfortable. Whilst either carrying the pallet half a mile up the beach at Sunday’s litter pick or doing Monday’s gardening I somehow pulled a muscle. My left hand has been numb and my left shoulder has been hurting all week.

 

I interrupted my morning shave to go outside. There was a loud crashing above me. Were there rats in the ceiling space? I went out to see a huge seagull flying away. Better a seagull than a rat. I had a quick look at the little pond – the predator deterrent seemed to be doing the trick.

 

I scoffed toast whilst peering at a dull internet, then once we’d got the tick-repelling collars onto the dogs I took them up to the woods.

We had a good walk. The swamps have all dried up, we found no fox poo. But at several points we saw several people lurking maybe ten to fifteen yards from the paths. Just standing in the undergrowth. It’s too early in the year for mushrooms – what were they all up to?

And there was a minor incident as we came back to the car park. Some elderly chap had taken a tumble. I helped him back up and he was fine… he’d just gone arse over tit and couldn’t get back up again, and his elderly wife wasn’t up to the task of heaving him up. Mind you when I say “elderly” they probably weren’t that much older than me… I wonder how long it will be before I couldn’t get up if I was to cark over? After all I did cark over in the mud just a month or so ago.

 

I stopped off at the post box in Chart Road on the way home to post a turd to the NHS. As part of the bowel cancer screening programme everyone of a certain age gets to post the NHS a turd every couple of years.

When I first started in pathology many years ago things were very different… These days you choose your specialty *before* you apply for a job. Back in the day you were taken on as a generic trainee and you spent two years going round the various departments to see what you liked best, and what liked you best. It didn’t take me long to opt for a specialty that doesn’t involve testing turds. Back in the day I tested quite a few of them and decided that it wasn’t for me…

 

We came home to an empty house. “er indoors ^TM” was having meetings today. That was nice for her. I made myself a cuppa and scoffed the last of the Bakewell tarts, Munzed, and Wordled from “watch” to “clock” to get “crock” on the third attempt. Then despite my aching shoulder and hand I went into the garden.

 

I gathered turds, I strimmed, I mowed, I cleaned out the big pond’s filter. It has to be said that clearing the turds of a dozen fish is far easier than clearing those of three small dogs.

I then fiddled about having a bit of a tidy-up inside. I then put some washing in to scrub, and as it scrubbed I marked some trainee work and wrote up some CPD.

I did the ironing whilst watching episodes of “The Man in the High Castle” which would seem to have developed a cheapskate version of Project Tic-Toc (for those old enough to remember it). I Hoovered. I got the hair trimmers out and gave Bailey a little tidy-up. Not that she was in any way grateful.

I filled up the bird feeder, I did “FEED THE FISH”, and just as I settled to have a little doze by the pond so “er indoors ^TM” returned with a load of shopping that needed carrying in.

 

We had pie and chips for dinner and watched a couple of episodes of “The Orville” as we scoffed. They were rather good (the episodes and the pie and chips).

I’ve got an early start tomorrow so I should really have an early night. But I’m looking forward to having a rest tomorrow. People think I’m joking when I ay I go to work for a rest, but yesterday was a work day and I covered just over four thousand steps. I did over four times that amount today…

And my hand and shoulder still hurt.

29 April 2026 (Wednesday) - Bookish ?

I was up far too early this morning. My heart sank as I watched an episode of “The Man in the High Castle” as two of the main protagonists became rather lesbidaceous, and another flopped the jubblies out. Not that I’m taking any moral high ground here, but when this happened in “Game of Thrones” it coincided with the writer obviously running out of ideas. Let’s hope this isn’t the beginning of the end for what has been a rather good show so far.

 

As I peered into Facebook I saw that our MP had posted last night explaining why he had voted in favour of the Prime Minister not being investigated. He wasn’t fooling anyone though. Leaving aside the total waste of time it would be to investigate the Prime Minister, the real reason our MP voted the way he did was because he’d been told to do so. Back in the day in the run-up to the last general election he was claiming that black was white and shit was sugar, but in retrospect he was just saying anything which would endear him to the electorate. And have endeared himself and got elected the chap now talks a good fight but has no opinions of his own. He simply parrots that which the Labour party whips tell him to say, regardless of anything he might have said in the past. As a life-long-leftie it bothers me that actually having a Labour MP has turned out to be something of a disappointment.

And I had an email thanking me. Regular readers of this drivel may recall that last year I made a financial investment. I lent someone called Edgar fifteen quid to help him finance a pig farm in the Philippines. Edgar has now made a success of his pig farm and has fully repaid his loans… and he’s repaid me thirteen pounds and eighty-one pence. Now I’m no financial wizard, but I rather thought that when I invested fifteen quid I would get more than fifteen quid back… I always thought that was how “an investment” worked.

However rather than cashing in my profit, last night I decided to speculate to accumulate and I’ve lent it to another pig farm; this one in Ecuador. I put up a post on Facebook last night suggesting people might like to also invest in struggling third world businesses. This morning I got a little thank you because someone had clicked on the link I’d put up and had signed up themselves. If anyone else fancies having a go, here’s the link.

And it would seem that Munzee aren’t doing Clan War any more. That’s a shame – it has been something which has kept me out of mischief for some time. However nil desperandum… Munzee are launching “Gauntlet Games” which to my untutored eye looks to be exactly the same as Clan War in all but name.

 

I set the dishwasher going, and got ready for the early shift.

 

I went down the road to my car taking care not to trip over the same cable that I saw charging the electric car yesterday.  It had been over the pavement for over twelve hours... According to Sections 162 and 178 of the Highways Act 1980, it is illegal to place a wire or apparatus over, along, or across a public highway...

I was tempted to pretend I'd gone arse over tit over it and see if I might get some compensation. After all, if I don't someone else will. 

 

I set off to work listening to the news.  The King is still in America... I originally wondered if he mightn't have done better by staying away, but he seems to be impressing President Trump. Maybe his going there was for the best?

 

I got to work and realised I'd forgotten to pop in at Sainsburys for a sandwich. I had a look at the works branch of M&S instead and wished I hadn't. You can get a decent sandwich snack and drink and change out of four quid from Sainsburys. M&S wanted six quid for a rather manky looking sandwich, a rather miniscule bag of crisps and a tiny bottle of water. 

I went to the hospital's league of friends shop instead...  It was still more expensive than Sainsbury's, but nowhere near as grim as what M&S were offering.

Work was work... could you believe that none of my colleagues had heard of Mrs McCave?

And as I scoffed my sandwich from the hospital's league of friends shop my Kindle app told me it had given me an award for being “bookish”.

 

Being on an early I got out early and came home to find that electric car down the road was still being charged. How long does it take to charge an electric car from a living room socket?

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up some rather good fajitas which we washed down with a rather grim bottle of plonk. If ever you feel tempted to get outside of a bottle of “Drop Anchor” personally I wouldn’t bother.  If you ever find yourself in possession of a bottle of the stuff… I’ve had worse.

We followed it up with half a bottle of amaretto as we watched three episodes of “The Orville”… I’ve heard the show described as the best series of Star Trek that we never had, and that’s probably not an unfair description.

28 April 2026 (Tuesday) - A Day At Work

Once I’d forcibly shoved Treacle over, I had a reasonable night’s sleep right up to the point where I was having a nightmare in which I was trying to panic-buy antique eighteenth century trousers so that I could join the eighteenth century militia. I woke in a cold sweat and was suddenly wide awake. What was that all about?

I got up, made toast and watched an episode of “The Man In The High Castle” which is slowly but surely turning into a rather better version of “Quantum Leap”.

 

I then had my usual rummage round the Internet  A friend was trying to help raise money to send a child suffering with seizures to Mexico for a revolutionary new treatment which is not available on the NHS… I was reminded of the chap who was my best man. He had an incurable eye disease and fifty years ago there was a massive fundraising campaign to send him to Switzerland for a revolutionary new treatment which was not available on the NHS. The reason why that treatment was not available on the NHS was because it was a scam. I wonder if this is the same?

I sent out birthday wishes to the four friends having a birthday today, and got ready for work.

 

As I drove to work so the pundits on the radio were talking about the growing concern over the rise of artificial intelligence...  Those with any sense at all have realised that leaving the development of AI to those who are making a profit from it is somewhat foolhardy. But isn't this the whole idea of the American dream and of Thatcher's Britain though?  For years we were told that government control of anything was a bad thing and absolutely everything is better left to those who do it for a profit.  Even though it's rather obvious to anyone with any sense that giving unfettered access to potentially world-dominating technology to those who make money out of it is silly. Personally I would suggest that it is a tad late to be discovering the concept of "vested interests", but (as I so often say) what do I know?

And there were reports of the King's visit to America where he is sucking up to Donald Trump. I must admit that when he came to the throne I thought he'd make a complete arse of it, but the King's done far better than I thought he would... up till today.

He really should have phoned in sick rather than trying to appease a nutter.

 

I did my bit at work. At lunch time I slipped out. I'd got a carful of rubbish to go to the tip. With Ashford's tip closed I'd arranged to go to the tip near work before the late shift today, but yesterday I was asked if I could swap shifts... I'd much rather do a core shift and spend my lunch break doing a tip run than do a late shift, so that's what I did. And the tip run was all done and dusted in less than half an hour.

I went back to work where we had a Red Alert. I've mentioned before that they aren't as exciting as you might think... those who do my job have on occasion described it as hours of the mundane interspersed with split seconds of OMG. 

 

Getting home was a bit of a palaver this evening… someone in Francis Road was moving house and had parked the removal van right in the middle of the road completely blocking it in all directions.

And as I walked home from where I’d parked I nearly tripped over the charging cable coming out of someone’s window, going across the pavement and into the electric car parked in the street. I’ve always said that I’d like an electric car but charging it would be an issue… Perhaps this is the way forward… all the time no one actually trips over it, all would be peachy.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a rather good chili which we scoffed whilst watching a couple of episodes of “The Orville”. And as I type this we are watching some documentary about The Beatles on the Disney channel…

I know it is tantamount to heresy, but am I alone in thinking that The Beatles were (and are) just a tad over-rated?

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...