8 February 2026 (Sunday) - Eastwell to Challock (and back)

Morgan’s snoring into my ear woke me this morning. I felt surprisingly chipper bearing in mind the amount of beer and port I put down my neck last night.

I got up, made toast and wrote up yesterday’s diary,,, eventually. My lap-top had a funny five minutes and wouldn’t highlight or copy any text, and wanted to open endless amounts of new word documents for absolutely no reason that I could fathom. Eventually I resorted to my universal fix – I pulled its plug and started again. Generally if pulling the plug doesn’t work then whatever the problem is, it is beyond fixing.

 

I had my usual rummage round the Internet; there were quite a few photos from the works outing yesterday. There had been some eighties music event in Maidstone yesterday. I’d been invited to go, but… I wasn’t keen and we had other plans. Going out is all very well, but as time goes on I’m going off of the idea. There isn’t a music event on the planet at which the volume is less than deafening. The event was heaving with the normal people. And I suspect the beer was about four times the price of the beer I had last night.

I Munzed, and got Wordle on the third attempt… there are only so many places that you can put an “m”.

 

We got the dogs organised and took them out. During the week someone had posted to the Ashford Area Country Walks Facebook page giving directions of a six-mile walk from Eastwell church. We had an idea that it might be a good route for a series of geocaches… 

It wasn’t.

With probably a third of it across wide-open fields, and a quarter of it along roads and lanes it wasn’t ideal for a trail of film pots under rocks. But it was a good walk through the countryside even if the local landowners did seem to have a bit of a thing for “Private – Keep Out” signs.

The dogs got to run off their leads for some of the way, but I watched Bailey “like a pork” (to coin a phrase) and the moment she showed any sign of getting the red mist up, she went straight back on the lead and we avoided any little episodes of standing at the edge of an impenetrable thicket waiting for her to get bored with snuffling after whichever mouse, rabbit, squirrel or figment of her imagination had set her off this time.

I took a few photos as we walked. We came home via Westwell where there was a geocache (it had to be done).

 

The dogs were filthy; they had a bath, and then we had a cuppa with Mr Kipling’s Easter mini-Battenbergs. Have you tried them? Supposedly raspberry flavour; they tasted of hubba-bubba bubblegum to me. They aren’t unpleasant, but they wouldn’t be my first choice of a cake.

 

I read more “Harry Potter” on my Kindle app and as I did, I felt a tad tired. I closed my eyes for a few minutes… and woke an hour and a half later. What a waste of an afternoon. I shall be wide awake in the small hours.

 

I wrote up a little CPD, then “er indoors ^TM” boiled up a chicken dinner which we scoffed whilst watching another episode of “The Floor”.

I shall read some more “Harry Potter” in a bit…  

I shall have a weigh-in tomorrow morning. What with a long walk today I’ve eaten two thousand calories less than I need to break even today. I bet my weight has gone up…

 

7 February 2026 (Saturday) - Working, Games Night

I fell asleep on the sofa yesterday evening which is always a bad thing. When I went to my pit I lay awake for over an hour, and when I finally did nod off I didn’t sleep for long. I eventually awoke in a cold sweat following a nightmare in which a friend I’ve not seen for years was accused of having done some petty crime fifty years ago and it was up to me to persuade Doctor Who to take me back to the late seventies to get evidence to prove his innocence.

 

I got up, made toast and watched an episode of “Harlots” in which the rich and powerful got richer and powerful-er whilst continuing to piss on the paupers who got more pauper-ish. As Oliver Hardy once remarked, “twas ever thus”.

I sparked up my lap-top and had a look at the internet. Very little (i.e.nothing) had happened overnight, so I Munzed, and got ready for work.

I didn’t want to go to work this morning. I would rather have done Dog Club but I’ve got quite a lot of weekend shifts at the moment and swapping had proved too tricky. The only consolation was that I wasn’t missing Steve on the radio; the local radio station has had a little hiatus because of a power outage which poggered the transmitter (so I am reliably informed).

 

I drove to work listening to Radio Four. This morning the pundits on there were talking about ex-Prime Minister Gordon Brown who is seemingly tiddling his knickers in terror over the entire Peter Mandelson - Jeffrey Epstein scandal. About twenty years ago Gordon Brown appointed Peter Mandelson to some government post or other, and he now regrets it. And he is taking a lot of trouble to make it clear that he regrets it; even though at the time all the evidence was that Peter Mandelson was the best man for the job, and there was no hint of any impropriety at all.

It looks likely that the current Prime Minister is going to be out on his arse for much the same reason.

How on Earth can we run a country terrified that decisions made in good faith will be held against us twenty years later when something we didn't know comes to light? 

 

I got to work earlier than I needed to, and treated myself to an almond croissant from the works M&S. Have you ever been to the food hall at M&S? In years gone by it was *the* place to go for a special treat. These days they seem to be relying on their reputation rather than living up to it. Their meal deals are over a pound more than those in Sainsburys and are rather basic. I spent a tenner on one of their meals when “er indoors ^TM” was out gallivanting a while back; jam on toast would have been better. This morning I paid double what the local corner shop charges for an almond croissant, and what I got was far inferior to that which I could have got from that local corner shop.

 

I went into work and did my thing. I try not to dwell on what goes on at work... ten years ago when working "somewhere else" I got a formal written disciplinary warning for saying that night shifts made me tired. But I will repeat what our works' chief executive said in his daily update which I read this morning: the day before yesterday we had over four hundred patients turn up at the A&E department. That's about one patient every three and a half minutes, all day and night.

 

I came home and spent much of the afternoon dozing underneath a pile of  dogs.

 

Karl and Tracey came round for the evening and we had a rather good evening playing all sorts of games on the Infinity Table. We had a particularly good evening,,, even if the evening did get rather more vague as it wore on,,,

Must do it again…

6 February 2026 (Friday) - Light's Fixed

It was hossing down when I got up this morning. I made toast and had a look at a rather dull Internet. Nothing much was kicking off for once. There was a new series of geocaches near Edenbridge; I thought they might be puzzles which would give me something to do until the rain stopped. But they weren’t.

 

After half an hour I saw the rain was easing off. If I was to believe weather forecasts I’d never leave the house, so I took a chance and took the dogs out. As we drove Professor Michele Dougherty was on Desert Island Discs. She’s been the lead investigator on several of NASA’s planetary probes and she was rather interesting. Her choice of music was eclectic to say the least, ranging from classical music to operatic dirges, Christmas carols and Abba.

We got to the woods and had a good walk. Like yesterday we stayed away from the muddiest parts. I ran the birdsong app; it detected quite a few more birds than it has done recently, and for the first time it detected an owl.

 

We came home where “er indoors ^TM” was playing music from The Wombles on the Alexa. I scrubbed the dogs, made us both a cuppa, wrote up some CPD, and then had my daily go at Wordle. Starting with “daily” was a better move than many of my first choices. “Latte” took me one letter closer, and “pales” told me where the “e” and the “l” went. “Camel” took me no further, but “bagel” gave me the clue I needed to come up with “gavel” on the last attempt.

 

We cleared the space by the fuse box, and soon there was a tap on the door. Two weeks ago the light switch in the loo broke, and the nice man came to replace it with a new one today. I had looked at the job myself, but I’m a great believer in getting in someone who knows what they are doing. The nice man took out the broken switch, put in a new one, and was on his way in twenty minutes. I would have been at it all day.

 

I then spent a little while geo-plotting. Do I want to put out a new series of geocaches… I quite like setting the things up, and planning them gives me something to do.

I then spent much of the afternoon snuggled on the sofa with Morgan reading “Harry Potter” on my Kindle app.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up pizza and chips which we scoffed whilst watching episodes of “The Floor”.

Today has been rather lazy; I’m really going to have an early night tonight… but first I’m going to the toilet because I can see what I’m doing in there now… I’ve been saving it for the works chodbin for the last fortnight…

5 February 2026 (Thursday) - Rather Busy

I intended to have an early night last night: I eventually went to my pit shortly before one o’clock. But the dogs were tired and soon settled, and with them quiet I slept well.

 

I got up at eight o’clock, made toast and had my usual look at the Internet. Reform UK featured quite prominently in my Facebook feed this morning. Two of its latest recruits have ballsed up and mistakenly voted against party policy in the House of Commons. And having got voted into power in the local county council after promising endless savings, the Reform UK councillor in charge of making them has resigned because they’ve had a year and not actually made any savings.

However on a more local level things are different. Our Reform UK councillor is working wonders in highlighting the issues with the pot holes in the local roads. And sadly our local (Labour) MP is full of hot air, and has turned out to be something of a disappointment..

I sent out birthday wishes, Munzed, and starting with “Tired” I eventually Wordled my way to “swoop” on the last attempt.

 

The weather forecast was light rain showers for the whole day, so I took a chance and took the dogs to the woods. As I drove “In Our Time” was on the radio; today talking about the plays of William Shakespeare. He died over four hundred years ago, and according to Wikipedia he “is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist”. So many people still rave about his works. We read his plays at school… I can remember them being tedious and dull. But (like with pretty much every bit of literature we ever read at school), the teachers did their level best to kill it stone dead. Many years ago we also read “Fahrenheit 451”, “Lord of the Flies”, “2001”, “Animal Farm”, “1984”, “All Quiet on the Western Front” (among others). My English teachers over-analysed everything, made all sorts of tenuous nonsensical connections and extrapolations, and sucked all the pleasure and enjoyment out of every book we ever come close to. Years later I went back to these books (and others) to find that they are actually rather good.

Why do English teachers make a point of putting students off of reading?

I really should try Shakespeare again…

 

We got to the woods to find the light rain had subsided to little more than drizzle. We kept (mostly) to the more well-trodden tracks and once we were away from the car park the woods weren’t as muddy as they might have been. But sticking to these tracks meant our walk was about a mile shorter than usual.

 

We came home where the dogs had their paws and bellies washed. I made us both a cuppa and sparked up my lap-top. A friend had seen the Prime Minister in Hastings. He was talking about the ongoing Mendelson scandal… He won’t last. The trouble he faces is that he average voter doesn’t understand politics and just wants to be entertained.

I marked more trainee work, wrote up some CPD, did a lesson and some puzzles on chess dot com, put washing in to scrub and then had a minor pootle in the garden. The seed in the bird feeder had got damp and had sprouted into grass, so I eventually managed to get the thing apart, I got the grass out and scrubbed it up. I put the bits on the radiator to dry.

 

By then my shirts were washed so I ironed them. Shirts are far easier to iron when still damp. And then I cracked on with the rest of the ironing. As I did I watched some episodes of “Four In a Bed” in which like was certainly *not* compared with like. There was a rather fancy hotel (which pulled out after the second episode), a Blackpool seaside B&B, a rather rough and ready pub, and a glamping campsite. It really wasn’t a fair contest, but it rarely is.

 

I put the bird feeder back together again, filled it, and put it back into place just as it was getting dark.

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up pork chops which we scoffed whilst watching this week’s episode of “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy” which was perhaps the best one so far. I won’t give any spoilers, but having been a Trekkie for over fifty years did help…

 

Oh – and as the rain continues to fall, the hosepipe ban has been lifted.

4 February 2026 (Wednesday) - Early Shift

I woke in a cold sweat at half past four this morning following a rather vivid dream in which I was unable to unblock my tent's drain which was bunged up with a variety of geocaches. 

I wasn't going to get back to sleep after that so I got up, made toast and watched an episode of "Harlots" in which the main protagonists were getting rather lesbidaceous (which was rather entertaining). But one thing in the show made me wonder. Were there really gentlemen's clubs in which members would get together to kill prostitutes two hundred years ago? No one ever told me about them; if true, that would have made Mr. Fletcher's frankly dull history lessons far more interesting.

 

I got dressed, and set off to work.  The road works on Chart Road that delayed me for an hour last night were still there this morning. One of the busiest roads in the town bunged up with traffic lights and reduced to single file traffic whilst absolutely no work was taking place. There were quite impressive queues at six o'clock this morning; it would have been mayhem at rush hour. I really don't see why road works on a major thoroughfare can't be worked on round the clock until the job is done.

Going up the motorway wasn't good either. With the slow lane filled with lorries going at fifty miles per hour and the middle lane filled with lorries overtaking them at fifty-one miles per hour I was again forced into the fast lane and was constantly tail-ended by those anxious to fly past at breakneck speeds.

As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about all the government's latest initiative for cancer screening... Am I being cynical in thinking that this will be dead in the water before it even starts? What the current (and every) government needs to do is to leave the NHS alone and stop re-organising. The NHS spends too much time having re-organisations at the expense of doing what it is supposed to do.

 

I stopped off in Sainsbury to get a sandwich and another bottle of the Malbec that I got yesterday. Getting the sandwich took some doing; there was some bloke blundering about in front of the fridge who was utterly oblivious to the world around him. The chap was genuinely surprised and shocked when he crashed into the woman standing next to him and suddenly realised he wasn't alone. He clearly had no idea there was anyone else in the shop with him.

Again the self-service machine wanted verification that I was old enough to buy a bottle of plonk, and again the woman doing the verification refused to acknowledge me in any way. Would saying "hello" or "good morning" have caused her physical pain?

 

I got to work and did my bit.  As I did I had a phone call. Jane from "Later Living Help Line" was keen to tell me that if I needed to go into residential care the fees could be as much as six thousand quid per month. Did I want an initial free consultation with one of their experts. This expert would then advise me on which sort of specialist expert I would need to pay to tell me pretty much what I already knew.

If I need residential care it won't come cheap. I've decided I don't want it and if I get to the stage of needing it, then would rather have my plug pulled.

I told her that I wasn't interested, but she seemed reluctant to be told to buzz off. To be honest I found her telephone manner rather off-putting; she spoke to me as though I was already senile. I suppose that's her target audience though, isn't it.

Also as I worked I saw something rather nasty. Loa loa is a parasitic worm; about a tenth of a centimetre long it swims around in your blood and can live for over fifteen years. As parasites go they are rather good at it as (for the most part) they are innocuous and you don't realise they are there. I'm told that "they make good lodgers" (!), and also that if you've got an infestation I'm told you can sometimes see them swimming in your field of vision as they can get into your eyes. 

Fortunately today's case was a quality control one; a sample sent to us from the London School of Tropical Medicine to check we know what we are doing. But it's still something rather nasty... 

And if that hasn't turned your stomach enough, bear in mind that it could be worse. I can remember deciding that I didn't want to be a medical microbiologist one summer's day in 1982 when I watched the head of the microbiology department holding up a bottle of diarrhoea, and several senior colleagues were all delighted that they could see things swimming in it.

I don't often mention what I do at work. Much of it is rather confidential, and much of it turns people's stomachs... being a blood tester isn't for the faint-hearted... 

 

Being on the early shift meant I left work whilst it was still light, and with the road works in Chart Road finished I got home a lot quicker than I did yesterday. And with the road works in Chart Road finished it was quite clear that had they cracked on with it last night, this morning’s delays would have been avoided.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up chicken escallops which we scoffed whilst watching more of “The Traitors: Ireland” in which the contestants again spent much of the time bitterly bickering with each other.

 

Having been up since half past four I might have an early night…

3 February 2026 (Tuesday) - A Bottle of Plonk

I managed a couple of hours sleep until “er indoors ^TM” and the dogs quietly came to bed last night. The minor riot didn't last *that* long, but it was some time before they all stopped fidgetting. I dozed on and off; eventually giving up and getting up at five o'clock. 

I watched another episode of "Harlots"; the plot is getting rather good. And then I had a quick look at the Internet. A friend was asking if anyone remembered The Grumbleweeds. I used to listen to them all the time when I was a lad. They were perhaps the funniest thing that had ever been on the radio. “Wilf "Gas Mask" Grimshaw” always had me in hysterics. And then they moved to being on the telly. What a disappointment. Full of confidence on the radio, they would make half-hearted attempts at jokes when on screen, and then nervously smile at the camera in the desperate hope that someone might chuckle. Hilarious on the radio, just pitiful on the telly. Such a shame.

And I saw adverts for the Folkestone Shoreline development. On Saturday I mentioned the flats on Folkestone seafront; this morning my Facebook feed was crawling with adverts for the place.

 

Taking care not to disturb anyone I got ready for work. It was rather amazing how a gang which could be so noisy and restless in the small hours could be so peaceful at seven o'clock.

I got to my car and eventually set off. Some idiot had wedged his mini into the space in front of my car leaving me maybe eight inches of space. There certainly wasn't enough space to walk between my car and that mini.

Once on my way I listened to the pundits on the radio talking about (soon to be ex-) Lord Mandelson who (when in government) apparently passed on no end of confidential information to disgraced Jeffrey Epstein quite possibly giving him the heads-up for all sorts of dodgy dealings.

 

I went in to Sainsburys where I got a sandwich and a bottle of plonk. As I scanned the bottle through the self-service machine it said it needed clearance for me to be allowed the bottle of plonk. The delightful assistant (who hates me filling the self-service machine with all the copper and silver coins I cash up from the Dog Club takings) stomped over, scanned her card into the machine, and stomped off again. At no stage did she actually speak or even grunt to me. She then stood and glared as I emptied all the copper and silver coins from last Saturday's Dog Club into the self-service machine. When I was done I proudly told her that I'd put over nine quid's worth of small change in and that my pocket felt a lot lighter.  She turned a rather bright shade of red. I don't know why this bothers her... but it is rather amusing that it does.

 

As I worked “er indoors ^TM” sent a message. The nice boiler mad had been and done the annual service. Apparently we needed a new gasket, and he sorted that for us.

 

Coming home was a nightmare. What with hold-ups at junctions seven and eight on the motorway and unattended traffic lights on Chart Road the journey home from Maidstone (which usually takes forty-five minutes) took just over two hours.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up some very good burritos which we washed down with the bottle of plonk I’d bought earlier. Sainsbury’s “House Malbec” is rather good stuff, and you get change out of a fiver as well. I shall get another bottle of that tomorrow.

As we scoffed we watched the latest episode of “The Traitors: Ireland”. This lot of contestants are rather argumentative…

2 February 2026 (Monday) - A Day Off (?)

I had a relatively good night. However if I’m in my pit for more than six hours I usually start aching and my hips were particularly painful this morning. I got up, and did my usual morning routine.

The Internet was much the same as it ever is. The river had burst its banks near Asda again. And again people were queueing up to whinge, but no one was prepared to whinge at the councillors and MPs and agencies that could do something about it. The local Green councillor has said that there’s been a study done and the issue is that the river needs dredging downstream. However he says that’s someone else’s department. If only people would tell the Environment Agency about the floods rather than posting on Facebook… if only people understood how the world works.

And there was a lot of complaining about cyclists vooming about in the dark, all clad in black with no lights on their bikes. I’ve seen several of these lately along the A28. Do they really want to get flattened; you don’t see them until they are nearly under the front wheels of your car.

I Munzed, and with the dogs having had their brekkie I took them to the woods.

 

As we drove the pundits on the radio were having a “discussion” about genetically modified foods in which a university professor explained exactly what genetically modified stuff is all about, and a clueless half-wit spouted complete rubbish. It bothers me that the BBC treat considered expert opinion and deranged ranting as being of equal value.

We got to the woods and Morgan immediately downloaded. I sighed, bagged it and left it by my car’s front wheel; I wasn’t going to carry that round the woods. It wasn’t long before we met another dog, The dog came and said hello; Bailey screamed in terror and bolted, and Treacle and Morgan both leapt forward to stick up for her by shouting at the other dog...

It was all soon sorted; a total over-reaction by Bailey, but the poor woman with the other dog was distraught with worry about poor Bailey (who can be a real drama queen at times). I eventually persuaded the poor woman that no harm had been done and all was fine, and we continued our walk. We took a slightly different walk to our usual one to avoid the worst of the mud. After Bailey’s scare the rest of the walk was rather dull. But we had a minor result; when we got back to the car someone had tidied up the bad of dog dung I’d left.

 

We came home. I washed the mud (and fox poo) off of the dogs. I set the washing machine going, made us both a cuppa, and we had it with a lemon curd bun. I then did geo-paperwork.

First of all I got on to English Heritage (again). Back in December I contacted them about getting permission to set up an EarthCache at Camber Castle. They said to give them ten days… thirty-five have passed.

And then I looked at the geocaching Adventure Lab I’d set up at Lenham church. It’s a simple thing; you call it up in the geocaching Adventure Lab app and it takes you to five locations round the church and asks you a question. One of the locations is the War Memorial. You go there where you can see the names of lots of people on the memorial and their occupations. The question is “What is the occupation of M E Gale?” So you look at the War Memorial, find where it says “M E Gale – nurse”, and type “nurse” into the app. One hundred and twenty people have managed to do this so far, but this morning as we’d walked round the woods I’d had a message that someone had logged that the question wasn’t clear. How much clearer can I make it?

I sent out no end of invites to this month’s geo-meet.

 

By then the washing machine was done so I hung the washing on the clothes horse, put more washing in, wrote up some CPD, marked more trainee portfolio work, and then feeling as though I hadn’t stopped I turned on the telly and did my usual thing of spending the afternoon getting cross at the contestants in “Four In A Bed”.

Here’s a tip for anyone going on that show – if someone says something insulting or upsetting about your establishment, you will be the second one to find out. The first will be absolutely everyone else because they actually show the problem on the telly. Just saying “I don’t believe you” makes you look to be a twit when they’ve already shown the issue to the rest of the world.

During the adverts I hung out washing and put the undercrackers into scrub.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up pizza and then went off bowling. I settled on the sofa and watched more episodes of “Harlots” which is a surprisingly good show. It’s now got to the point that the plot is so good that they don’t need to keep brandishing the jubblies. And they aren’t. Which is probably for the best…