15 October 2026 (Thursday) - Rather Busy

With no alarm set I slept rather better. I got up at half past seven, made toast and had my usual look at the Internet as I do. It was much the same as it ever is. Today some crackpot from the future was telling the world what disaster awaits us. He seemed to gloss over how he made a time machine in a post-apocalyptic disaster area though.

And there was talk about a documentary which has exposed a lot of serious racism and racist hate in Reform UK politicians. Surely the only surprise here is that it is presented as news? Obviously as a county the UK can’t support unlimited immigration. However from my own experience of being unable to fill vacancies (not a single UK-based applicant for many posts over many years) the UK needs some immigration. The problem is human nature. Just because the scarf someone wears to a football match is a different colour to someone else’s is reason enough for many to go and inflict physical harm on someone else. As a lad in the Boys Brigade we hated the scouts as they were scouts and not Boys Brigade. We were the eighth Hastings company… there was also quite a bit of animosity against any of the other Boys Brigade companies. I for one have issues with the later group at Dog Club for the simple reason that I’m in the early group. It’s human nature to distrust anyone who is in any way different, and we look for differences, don’t we?.

Sadly rather than rising above our differences, Reform UK is gaining traction from exploiting them.

 

I took the dogs out. We walked up and down the road looking for my car. I eventually found it where I’d left it yesterday… right outside the house.

We drove off. As we went the pundits on the radio were interviewing the Scottish First Minister who was (quite frankly) talking out of his arse. On the one hand he was adamant that he wanted Scotland to be independent of the United Kingdom. On the other hand he was crystal clear that he wanted Scotland to be a part of the European Union. And he was utterly unable to see any contradiction in those two viewpoints.

 

We got to the woods where the idiots were out in force. We met one chap who was hysterically bellowing at his dog every time it moved more than two yards away from him. We met some woman with a dog the size of a cart horse. This dog was on a lead half a mile from the nearest road and was all but pulling the woman over. And we heard the sound of bells and shouts. Some people attach loud bells to their dogs so they don’t lose the dogs. One such dog had clearly got lost, and its walker was bellowing for the dog. After ten minutes of listening to her shouting, I shouted that if she were to shut up she’d be able to hear the dog’s bells. She shut up. As well she might. I go to the woods to walk the dogs, for exercise, but mostly for a bit of peace and quiet. I get so wound up by the gobby ones up there. We didn’t see any deer today… hardly surprising really. But we did see brown leaves. In the three days since we were last at Kings Wood autumn has suddenly arrived.

 

After four and a half miles or five miles (depending on whether you asked my phone or my watch) we were back at the car. As we drove out of the car park those presenting “Women’s Hour” were being rather nasty about Nigella Lawson’s appearances on “Bake Off”. Apparently shoving great lumps of cake into one’s gob isn’t ladylike, and she should daintily nibble on half a crumb.

I turned over to my audiobook and we drove home.

 

I sorted a cuppa, and the phone rang. I had a telephone appointment with the ENT chap this morning. He had the results of the hearing tests I had a few weeks ago.  I’ve got mild to moderate high frequency hearing loss in both ears. The ENT chap said this is a symptom of getting older (!) and is a common cause of tinnitus. He felt that all the time the tinnitus is just a mild inconvenience then I should just suck it up. If it becomes painful or keeps me awake then we could look at white noise generators and specific hearing aids. But for now sucking it up is the way forward. I’ve plenty of other health issues (nasal surgeries, carpal tunnel, arthritis, blood pressure) that I just suck up; what’s one more? If nothing less it will give me another malady to boast about when I next meet up with mates of my old age… more and more my conversations with my contemporaries are just discussions of our mutual physical infirmities.

 

I Munzed. I Wordled. Starting with “noisy” it took me three more tries to end up with “dunce”. I wrote up some CPD, and as part of that I got Microsoft Copilot to generate a fun piccie of me at work in the blood bank. In order to personalise it somewhat I asked it to include a poster featuring the two rules I always tell the trainees (which it did). When I thanked Microsoft Copilot for this picture it commented: “I have to say, the final blood bank version with the "Two Rules. Don't balls it up. Don't kill no one" poster made me laugh. It feels exactly like the sort of unofficial quality-management statement that every transfusion laboratory secretly operates under, despite hundreds of pages of SOPs saying the same thing in a much more complicated way”.

Seeing it has this level of understanding of reality is why I always thank it for anything I ask it to do.

 

We had a ham roll for lunch then I went on a little shopping mission. We’re going to have a register sheet at Dog Club and we’re going to leave sheets on a clip board in a plastic box at the paddock. So I went to Home Bargains to get a plastic box.

Home Bargains is always interesting. For all that there’s talk of people having no money, Home Bargains were selling huge eight-feet-tall inflatable Hallowe’en garden decorations and they were selling fast.

I thought there was a surprising amount of children of school age in the shop at two o’clock on a Thursday afternoon, but what do I know?

From there I went to Dobbies and had a look at the plants, then got a couple of mottled goldfish for the little pond.

 

I came home, put the bag of fish into the pond to equilibrate, and pretended to pootle whilst Treacle watched me like a hawk. She was waiting for the magic words. So (to keep her happy) I said it was time to “FEED THE FISH” and she flew up the garden squealing like a thing possessed.

I gave out the fish food to fish and dogs alike, then made us both a cuppa. I read my Kindle for a bit… and woke up an hour later. I had a quick Meowdoku then had a look on Google. Sadly our acers have had it, so I need to find some sort of shrub which is relatively bomb-proof. Amazon had several ideas, but much as I like Amazon I have to question the practicality of having a shrub delivered.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a decent bit of dinner which we washed down with a bottle of the red stuff and followed up with port and cheesy biccies (which the dogs loved). As we scoffed we watched more “Lego Masters” and then the latest episode of “Traitors” in which the foxy one got the heave-ho.

I saw that as something of a disappointment, but then that’s the kind of guy I am.

 

14 October 2026 (Wednesday) - Another Early Shift

I had another bad night’s sleep… not that much sleeping happened. I gave up at half past four, got up and watched another episode of “Lost in Space”, then had a little rummage round the Internet as I do. It was as well that we’d watched last night’s “Bake Off” yesterday as spoilers abounded, but for once there wasn’t a lot else going on. Perhaps that was because it was too early?

 

I Munzed. Every day the Munzee app gives us a daily challenge. Today's challenge was to go get one of the Munzees which only appear once every three days. Yesterday was one of the days when they appear, and they will be back on Friday. But not today.  So why did I get that challenge today? I wonder what the app was thinking about. Still, our Guild has reached the first of this month's targets and we all got credited with all sorts of in-game credits. That was a result if sticking bar codes to lamp posts is your thing.

I Wordled. Starting with "space" I had the "c" in the correct place, and the "s" and "p" in the wrong places. Is there any possible word other than "psych" which would have fitted? Not that "psych" is a word (is it?)

 

I set off to work through a dark morning. My piss boiled as I listened to the radio. There's about ten thousand children in the country who need foster care. There was a five-minute preamble about how neglected these children are... I started screaming swear words at the radio as I know one child in foster care who *certainly* wasn't neglected.  There was then a lot of talk about an initiative to recruit more foster carers... and how various measures are coming which will make it easier for people to foster children.

Perhaps the criteria for rejecting foster carers might be formally reviewed, and the insurmountable obstacles that we faced (such as having dogs, stairs or a garden pond) might not be considered reasons for summarily and rudely rejecting potential foster carers. Perhaps having competent social workers who don't rip small girls from their mothers on the basis of unsubstantiated hearsay, and sacking those who get caught out in their bare-faced lies might be an idea as well... but what do I know? Not that I'm in any way bitter... it's only been eighteen months.

And there was talk about the Pope who's had surgery to remove half of his right lung. So much for the power of prayer, eh?

 

I'd calmed down a bit by the time I got to work, which was probably for the best. I went in to the early shift and did my bit. I quite enjoy doing my bit but having been part time for a couple of years, I do find doing two consecutive days to be harder than it ever used to be.

But there was cake at tea-time. And more than just cake – home-made baklava. It went down rather well with a cuppa.

 

With my bit done I came home. I was on another early but today I avoided the road works in Chart Road and came home through the town centre. I got home fifteen minutes quicker than I did yesterday. I sparked up Meowdoku on my phone… and woke up an hour later.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a rather good dinner of sausages, chips and baking paper which we scoffed whilst watching more “Lego Masters”. Mind you when I say “watching more Lego Masters”, there was a not insignificant amount of watching the frankly epic chest of half of the Canadian team. I did have a theory that the more she brandishes her chest, the better her team does, but this evening her jubblies were at full power, and they ended up getting the heave-ho. So much for my theory.

 

And in closing, did you know that today is the nine hundred and sixtieth anniversary of the battle of Hastings?

13 October 2026 (Tuesday) - Early Shift

Treacle woke me at half past four. She’d got off the bed and was whinging that she wanted to get back on. I got up and helped her up, and then Bailey wanted a tiddle. By the time she’d played silly beggars in the garden I was wide awake.

I made toast and watched the last episode of the first season of the re-make of “Lost In Space”. Like the original series it is entertaining enough provided you don’t actually think about it. If you do you realise that the premise is nonsense. It’s somewhat akin to ending up in the Amazonian rain forest whilst taking a wrong turn on your way from the back door to the shed.

I then had a little look at the Internet. It was much the same as ever. No one had done anything of note, but plenty of people were posting poorly written misinformation.

I Munzed, and got ready for work.

 

It was very dark and rather wet as I drove off to work. I completely forgot the road works in Chart Road, but they didn't delay me (much). I drove up the motorway listening to the pundits on the radio who were broadcasting from an oil rig in the North Sea for no reason that I could fathom, but the interviews with the workers there were interesting. They do two weeks of twelve hour shifts, and then have three weeks off. But when off shift there's nowhere to go (as they are on an oil rig in the middle of the North Sea).

There was then a lot of talk about the government's early release scheme. Prisoners are being released early as there's not enough prison spaces. People who were in the previous government that didn't build enough prisons were queuing up to find fault with the current government who is trying to deal with the mess they have been left. The Conservatives being interviewed felt it unacceptable for prisoners to be released early, and felt it was unacceptable for there not to be enough prison spaces (even though that was their fault). What did they want.. The next ten thousand people who are convicted and given a prison sentence should get executed? Regardless of what they've done, just execute them? That *would* relieve the pressure on an overcrowded prison service.

Or maybe we might just release prisoners early and give them community service or set them to breaking rocks... 

It is so easy to find fault with anything, but coming up with a workable solution... that takes some doing.

Pausing only briefly to avoid getting tail-ended by a French minibus I popped into Sainsburys where I boiled the piss of the pinch-faced harridan who guards the self-service tills. I always empty my loose change into those machines; she really doesn't like it.

I went into work where I was incredibly hungry. I have the same brekkie every day. When not at work it does me fine, and I usually have a four-mile trek round the woods as well. When at work I'm ravenous a couple of hours after brekkie.

Work was work; I skived off mid-morning to get my flu jab. I get it every year. There's those who bang on about how bad vaccinations are; it boils my piss that these people can be so stupid and still be allowed to vote and do jury service, but there it is. A sore arm for a day, and I don't die of influenza. I see that as a result.

Less of a result was that of one of my colleagues who had a phone call during the day to say that her cat had peed on her coat, and had to slip off early to get a new one. Coat that is, not cat.

 

An early start made for an early finish. I checked Google Maps to see what the traffic was like on the way home. Google reckoned that there was less traffic down Chart Road than in the town centre, so I believed it.

There was a *lot* of traffic down Chart Road. I shall try coming through the town centre tomorrow.

 

I got home about half an hour later than I might have done. We did “FEED THE FISH” (to Treacle’s delight), and “er indoors ^TM” sorted pork chops which we scoffed whilst watching more “Lego Masters” and then this week’s “Bake Off”.

 

I’m feeling all in. Was it the early start or the flu jab?

12 October 2026 (Monday) - This n That

I’ve come to hate night time. I can’t get comfortable. I’m forever shifting from one position in which I have constant back ache to one in which my left hand is throbbing. And add to that I’m either roasting under the covers or shivering on top of them… Last night was just like this, with what little sleep I did get plagued with nightmares about how it was up to me to finance the visitor’s centre at Adnam’s brewery.

I gave up and got up at seven o’clock, made toast and had a look at the Internet which was much the same as ever. There were a few pictures of what friends had been up to at the weekend, which was good. One chap had been to the re-enactment of the Battle of Hastings, others had carried on their walk along the Thames.

One chap (on a vintage toy site I follow) was sulking that he’d been outbid on an eBay auction. He’d been bidding on a Lego wooden duck (back in the day they made more than building bricks) which eventually sold for over five thousand dollars. Five thousand dollars for a wooden duck. Seriously.

 

I Munzed, and with dog breakfast done I took the dogs out. We went up to the woods and walked a bit further than we usually do. Mainly because we had to divert at the start of the walk to avoid horses. Horses in the woods boil my piss. It’s clearly laid out where they can and can’t go. When we walk along the horse-friendly tracks we very occasionally see a horse or a horse turd. When we walk along the supposed no-horses paths we often meet horses and invariably find horse turds.

And there were quite a few normal people out and about today; even though we’d started our walk early to avoid them.

We saw a stag. He was fifty yards down the path from us, and stood still long enough for me to get a half-way decent photo (which I tided up when we got home). The dogs totally missed seeing him. A little later we heard something huge crashing in the undergrowth. We often hear things, but whatever this was, it bothered Morgan. He ran to me and growled at it from the safety of my side, and he stayed by me for the next fifty yards or so.

As we walked I saw something that looked familiar. A few years ago I put out a rather large box as a geocache. It lasted a year or so before going missing so I replaced it with one of my standard pots. This morning I found the thing laying on the path. A path along which we’ve walked at least once a month for the last few years. I wonder where that had been? I brought it home. I can tidy it up and use it again.

 

We came home. I made us a cuppa, tidied up the photo of the stag, then had a pootle in the garden. I harvested dog dung, cleaned out both pond filters and hacked back more of the overgrowth coming over the fence until it got too drizzly and too cold to carry on.

I had a late Wordle. Starting with “horse” I got to “yodel” in three goes whilst “er indoors ^TM” popped off on an errand. She came back with Belgian buns, and with those scoffed I set about the ironing whilst watching more “Lost In Space” on Netflix.

Despite the rain we did “FEED THE FISH”, then I put some undercrackers in to scrub and wrote up some CPD. Dull, but it needs doing.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up pie and chips then went bowling. I tumble-dried the undercrackers (never a dull moment) as I watched more “Lost in Space”.

I’ve got to go to work tomorrow.

11 October 2026 (Sunday) - Bonnington

I had another iffy night. When I finally got to sleep so Morgan trampled over me, then with his head an inch from mine had a vigorous head-shake so his ears whipped mine very forcefully.

He does that from time to time; it really wakes you up.

I dozed on and off, and finally got up at half past seven feeling rather grim.

I put a load of washing in, and had a look at the Internet as I do. It was still there. Some friends had been walking along the Thames yesterday. Others had taken photos of last night’s auroras. It was good to see their photos; that’s what I want to see.

I Munzed, and Wordled from “along” to “uncap” in four goes.

Nice-next-door sent a message – could she straddle the fence with a ladder so’s she could muck about on her conservatory roof? I helped her set the ladder up, then left her to it.

We took the dogs down to Bonnington. We parked up at the church and once we were going the right way along the canal we followed a set of geocaching ad-labs. It was a lovely walk along the canal and back. Treacle went in. Bailey chased a heron and then rolled in something foul. We came back to the car to see an organised bunch of walkers coming down the road. They stopped at the church, and as were having lunch as we drove past. It was probably The Ramblers. I sometimes think about joining them. But I follow the local group on Facebook and their average walks are about twelve miles. Perhaps a tad too long?

 

We came home where “er indoors ^TM” warmed up the leftover Chinese (from last night), and with the oven on she roasted some chestnuts she’d gathered when we were up at Kings Wood the other day. We knew when dinner was ready as the chestnuts started exploding.

With lunch scoffed I cracked on in the garden. There was a definite sense of “work”; Nice-next-door’s boyfriend was up on our bathroom roof painting the back of their house. The roofer was cracking on with the roofing. I was impressed that he was out on a Sunday, but we’ve agreed a flat payment rather than an hourly rate so I suppose it’s to his advantage to get on with it. And perhaps (like I used to when I was full time) perhaps he has a day off in the week. Or perhaps he doesn’t have a day off. Many don’t.

I pulled rubbish out of the gravel, mowed the lawn, and had a little tidy-up of the tat down the side of the shed. I thought about cleaning the pond filters, but that will keep until tomorrow.

I came in and sat on the sofa… and woke up a couple of hours later.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up fajitas (oh yus!!) which we scoffed whilst watching another episode of “Lego Masters”. Her with the chest finally managed to get it under control.

 

I woke feeling rather grim; I’ve felt rough all day. Perhaps I’ll sleep it off?

10 October 2026 (Saturday) - Monthly Geo-Meet

I didn’t sleep very well. I got up, made toast and had a look to see what had happened overnight. That idiot President Trump had made a deal with the Russians to buy loads of Russian oil as his war in the Middle East isn’t going as well as he’d hoped. Only a few weeks ago he was threatening sanctions against anyone who was buying Russian oil. The Ukrainians have got the right arse over the deal, but are their days numbered? Remember when the Russians were accused of blowing up that oil pipeline in the Baltic? Now it would seem that the Ukrainians did it. Did they? Who knows.

A friend of mine was banging the drum of boycotting expensive large music venues and supporting small local bands. An admirable sentiment *if* you can find a small local band that isn’t totally dreadful. Most are.

There wasn’t much else happening on social media.

 

Steve wasn’t on the radio this morning; he was having a little holiday. Quite often his stand-in isn’t the same. Today there was no stand in. There wasn’t even music playing. There was just silence on the radio, the Alexa and via the Internet.

So I listened to Radio Four instead who were interviewing some civil servant about some promise that a politician had made (the details of the promise are irrelevant). The civil servant spoke volumes when he said “I do wish politicians wouldn’t say that sort of thing, it just raises expectations that simply can’t be delivered”.

That speaks volumes about our political system, doesn’t it?

And there was some supporter of Liverpool FC on the radio who was whinging about some financial irregularity of the Manchester City football team. It struck me that he wasn’t whinging out of any sense of fair play or legal rightness. Like all football fans he had *his* team and all others were just wrong and evil for the simple reason that they weren’t his team.

 

I Munzed, capping a Widdlz workshop (as you do), and Wordled. This morning I started with “radio” which gave me absolutely nothing so I started again. Eventually. Can you think of a word that doesn’t have any of the letters of “radio” in it? Eventually I hit on “blush”. From there I went to “bugle” (as I used to play one) and I got it on the fourth attempt with “bumpy”.

 

We drove round to Repton and Dog Club. There’s been a lot of petty bickering behind the scenes about Dog Club. Basically two of the people at the later group have had a squabble and one has gone running off to the people who own the paddock full of petty tales. Quite frankly I’m sick of hearing about their issues. But we had a rather good session even if Morgan did disgrace himself (as he does).

 

From Dog Club we drove out to Badlesmeere where we met Karl and Tracey. They’d had a “sort it out” email from geocaching HQ qbout one of their geocaches which had had a spate of “did not find” logs. We walked out and found the thing was exactly where it was supposed to be.

But we had a good walk. As we walked Treacle disappeared into a thicket. She eventually returned, and when she did she had a freshly killed pheasant in her mouth. Am I wrong in being rather proud that my old lady is still a dangerous wolf?

 

From Badlesmere we drove up to Oare where the monthly geo-meet was taking place. We got there early and had quite the feat before everyone else arrived. Some very good snacks, some rather decent pints of Late Red, and the chance to catch up with old friends and to meet new friends.

I slept for much of the way home, as I so often do after these monthly geo-meets.

 

We came home. Whilst we were out I took some photos. I do that. I AI-ed some of them. We got take-out from the Chinese down the road and spent the evening on the Infinity Table…

A rather good day.

9 October 2026 (Friday) - Staple

I had a restless night. I had my usual peer in to Facebook as I scoffed brekkie. Over the last few days I’m getting a lot of cartoons lambasting bad management techniques. This morning I saw one whinging about how some companies want to contact their employees at any time (day or night). It made me think… that’s how I’ve operated for the last forty years. That’s how hospitals work. What are you supposed to do if half-way through Saturday, the Sunday early shift gets mowed down by a bus?

I didn’t comment though. Life is too short.

And the Prime Minister had posted about how he was going to recognise health care workers after he’d seen first-hand how they looked after his father. I wonder what he means by “recognise”; I hope it’s not that insulting standing on the doorstep and clapping bollox we had during lockdown. I really did take some of that clapping and tried to use it to pay for my shopping. Would you believe that Sainsbury’s didn’t accept a clap as a payment? If the Prime Minister wants to “recognise” me he can do so with a hefty pay rise. I've been in healthcare for forty-five years. It took me six years to get professional qualifications, one mistake would see me out on my ear (and did), and someone I know earns more than I do by driving a fork-lift truck round. My boss's boss's boss earns less than a train driver... This isn't news

And there was a photo featuring a horse from a TV show from fifty-odd years ago. Was it “Black Beauty” or “Follyfoot”? Oh, the arguments that were going on…

 

I Munzed and Wordled. Starting with “royal” wasn’t a bad move, but “arose” took me no further. “Baron” was a step in the right direction, and I got it with “major” on the fourth go. We then cracked on with the business of the day. This weekend is international EarthCache Day(s), and again my closest unfound EarthCache was in Staple.

Pausing only briefly to pump up the tyres of the “er indoors ^TM”-mobile we were soon on our way. We got to the church, answered a few questions about the building, then went on a little walk. As always our route was laid out by geocaches. We found the first two, but the third gave us grief. To find it we had to solve a puzzle, but there was no checker. We came to somewhere which looked like the sort of place where you might stuff a film pot under a rock, but the hint mentioned a three trunked tree. The only three trunked tree we could see was fifty yards off of where we thought we were supposed to be. We gave up after ten minutes which was probably for the best. (I later established that we were in the wrong place; the right place being three quarter of a mile from where we were, and about a hundred yards from where we walked past later).

We went back to the car.. but via a circular(ish) route which took us past the Black Pig. The dogs could do with a drink, so we popped in for a bowl of water, a pint, some pork scratchings and a plate of cheesy chips, Very nice.

And the car was only half a mile down the road.

 

We came home to find the new Viz had arrived. I shall read that over the course of several “downloads” over the next couple of weeks. We did “FEED THE FISH”, we had a cuppa, and I had a message. I had an email with my shifts up until February. I made a note of them, and immediately started trying to swap some.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner. As we scoffed we watched more “Lego Masters” in which one half of the Canadian team really needs to put her chest away, and then we watched this evening’s episode of “The Traitors”. Some people are rather disparaging about the show; the trouble with it is that to play it properly you have to be quite clever. And most of the contestants are rather thick, but not thick enough to realise that to play it properly you have to be quite clever and so anyone who isn’t a doombrain gets the heave-ho fairly early on.