10 September 2026 (Thursday) - Insomnia, Walk, Meeting, Ironing

 

I couldn’t sleep so I got up silly-early, made toast and watched an episode of “Upstairs Downstairs” in which Alex Kingston got rather lesbidaceous. I then had a little look at the Internet. It was rather depressing; the aftermath of the weekend’s hateful protests in Dover and Portsmouth were still continuing with members and supporters of the RNLI getting abuse (both verbal and in some cases physical) from the neo-Nazis. We live in strange times… there’s one part of the nation running round shouting about patriotism and tying flags to lamp posts and painting the cross of St George on roads and pavements. And there’s another part who have never been so ashamed to be British.

Meanwhile that idiot Donal Trump is offering every American five thousand dollars if they vote for his party at the upcoming elections.

I eventually felt a bit tired so I went back to bed at half past four where I didn’t really sleep. I dozed on and off until I finally got up for second breakfast at eight o’clock. As I scoffed it the bin men came for the garden waste bin. In a novel break with tradition not only did they actually empty it, they put the thing back in the general vicinity of our house.

As the dogs got up (at half past eight) so I gathered their dung, Munzed and Wordled from “nasty” to “dryly” in six moves. “Dryly” – what a stupid word.

 

I took the dogs up to Kings Wood where we had a good walk. Pogo screamed at the normal people, but that’s what he does. As we went I took a few photos and used the Map My Walk app… and my phone locked up. Twice. It’s a few years old; maybe it is time to think about getting a new one?

We came back to the car park to find several cars parked on the lane outside. Now that the RingGo parking thingy is up and running, more and more people are begrudging paying a couple of quid a week.

As we drove there and back I listened to more Brideshead Revisited MP3. I’m not impressed with it; so much of the original book has been missed out. I’m now about half-way through the three-hour audiobook. The TV adaptation was twelve hours long.

 

We came home where I sorted a cuppa. I wrote up some CPD then went round to a coffee shop in Repton where I had a meeting with the leading lights of the later session of Dog Club. There’s no denying that I was expecting the worst. I went fully expecting a fight, but we had a really productive session. There was talk of increasing the subs and changing the logistics of payments. There was talk of a working party to tidy up the paddock… 

It was all very positive. The only negative was having to pay the thick end of eight quid for a rather mediocre cup of coffee and three bite-sized pastry things (which were on the burned side). I don’t usually frequent coffee shops…

 

I came home and put a load of washing in, then did the ironing whilst watching an episode of “Upstairs Downstairs”. We did “FEED THE FISH” then I had a little kip.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a rather good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching this week’s episode of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds”. It was rather good.

9 September 2026 (Wednesday) - Late Shift

I went to the loo in the small hours and Bailey wanted to go downstairs with me. I thought she wanted a widdle; she just wanted to play silly beggars in the dark garden. I eventually rounded her up but by the time I got back to my pit most of the bed space had been commandeered by other dogs. Conspiracy? Possibly.

I then dozed as best I could on the six inches of the edge of the bed.

 

I made toast and had a look at the Internet as I do. There was a lot of talk about the gangs of masked thugs who blockaded Dover and Portsmouth last weekend. The various fascist political parties are claiming that this was a legitimate protest against illegal immigrants in small boats… So why blockade the ferries? Why not go to the beaches (Pett Level for one) where they regularly come ashore?

And there was quite a bit of flat Earth bollox being posted. Some people really do believe that the Earth is flat.

 

I took the dogs out. Being limited for time we went to Orlestone where there was some odd bloke sitting in his car in the car park. He’s often there… you have to wonder what the attraction of sitting in the car park is.

Morgan rolled in something disgusting, Treacle and Pogo went in a swamp, Bailey went rogue in the undergrowth and at the three-quarters point Pogo ran in terror from a small spaniel.

Some of our walks are more eventful than others.

We came home. Over a cuppa I Munzed, and Wordled from “swamp” through “frisk” to “burst” on the third attempt, and then I got ready for work.

I can’t say I was keen on going to work today. The carpal tunnel nonsense was sending tingling up my left forearm. Monday’s gardening had done for my right elbow, and there was a constant ringing of tinnitus in my ears. There are those who pull a sickie if they so much as fart twice, but I’ve never been one for pulling a sickie.

 

On my way I popped into Sainsburys to get a sandwich. As I queued the chap in front of me had a phone sim card in his shopping, and was explaining to another shopper what a phone sim card was. He wasn't making a very good job of explaining it, and a passing member of Sainsbury's staff came over to explain. This chap loudly announced that a sim card was a wonderful thing which gave your phone a different number to its usual one. He went on so (rather proudly) say that he had a second sim card which he used for making prank phone calls.

 

I went into work and did my bit. The carpal tunnel thingy which was giving me grief earlier played up for pretty much all of the shift. But at tea break I played some more Meowdoku… and got to level two thousand. Perhaps I should find something more constructive on which to waste my time?

 

As I’d driven in to work so I came to the end of my Adrian Mole MP3s. I've not got the last book in MP3 format; it is on my wish list. So I started listening to "Brideshead Revisited" read by Sir John Gielgud on the way home. Ideally I would have preferred Jeremy Irons, but I got this version for free, and something for nothing is never a bad thing, or so I thought…

The audiobook I’ve got isn’t so much “abridged” as “edited highlights”; there is so much that has been left out. I’m about half an hour into the audiobook I’ve got. Knowing the story almost off by heart I think that I would actually be over an hour in if listening to a complete version.

 

8 September 2026 (Tuesday) - At Work

I had a rather bad night. Just as I finally nodded off so “er indoors ^TM” started an argument with one of the dogs (possibly Bailey).

I got up at six o’clock, made toast and watched an episode of the remake of “Upstairs Downstairs”. Being made by the BBC each of the episodes are of the same length. This morning’s episode featured (in large part) the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1930s, and struck several chords with today’s political climate.

 

I set off to work through heavy rain. As I drove there was a lot of talk about Prince Harry and precisely what he will and won’t be doing. The King has announced that Harry will be a “non-working royal”. Some commentator being interviewed this morning was talking about how his role is incredibly vague and “lots of lines are being blurred”. It would seem that he’s left America and come back to the UK where it is somewhat easier to get on the gravy train, but what do I know?

And then the sports news came on. It dragged on and on. Surely there’s only so many times anyone can say “blah blah sport”? But only a few short weeks since the football world cup, the European football thing has started. I wouldn’t mind if football wasn’t so tedious, but can anyone seriously say that after watching ten minutes of a game of football you haven’t seen all that the game has to offer?

I went to Sainsbury’s to get a sandwich and had to queue up. I like to empty the change from Dog Club into the self-service machines, but there were *loads* of schoolkids queueing up to use those cash only self-service machines. I suppose they wouldn’t have cards, would they.

 

I’d left home half an hour later than usual when on a core shift. What with the schoolkids in Sainsburys and the really busy roads I’m going to go back to leaving silly-early for work. I’d rather have a far less stressful drive and no waiting about to pay for dinner. And I quite like a bit of peace and quiet before the aggro  of the day starts.

 

I got to work and cracked on with the aggro of the day. It was rather hard work today, my carpal tunnel syndrome was playing up all day long and the tinnitus meant that there was a constant buzzing sound too.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a rather good bit of Chinese which we washed down with a bottle of plonk whilst watching more “Young Sheldon”.

Today’s been a tad dull… my arm still hurts and my ears are still ringing.

 

And it is four years since the late Queen died…

7 September 2026 (Monday) - Rather Busy

I had something of a bad night last night. It was rather hot and I didn’t sleep well.

I made toast and had my usual rummage round the Internet. I had a message from the Facebook feds. Over the past week I reported racist postings and postings of cruelty to animals. Apparently neither went against their so-called “community standards”.

Meanwhile it would seem that the reason no one’s discovered aliens yet is that we’ve been tuning radio telescopes to the wrong frequencies. Astronomers have since turned their radio telescopes to the right frequencies and not found any aliens, but the astronomers aren’t in the slightest bit deterred by that.

 

I drove over to the hospital. As I drove ex Prime Minister Gordon Brown was on the radio. He was duller than a dull thing so after two minutes I turned over to my Adriam Mole MP3s.

I got to the hospital and parked right away. There were loads of spaces at the bottom of the car park, but everyone else was driving round and round the top bit desperate to park a few yards closer to the hospital and to have to walk fifty yards less.

I went in and had a hearing test as a first step to sorting out this ongoing tinnitus. I got sat in a soundproof booth with headphones and had to press a button whenever I heard a sound. I heard some but (it transpired) not as many as I might have done. It would seem that I’ve got high frequency hearing loss. The results will go to my ENT consultant, and he will decide how we proceed. There was talk of hearing aids. Hearing aids? Seriously? Oh well… we’ll see what the expert has to say.

 

I came home and collected the dogs (and Pogo who’s having a little holiday with us) and we went up to Kings Wood. We saw some normal people near the car park, including one who seemed incredibly embarrassed to be seen feeding apples to her dog. She was rather shame-faced as she explained how her dog likes apples, and was clearly very surprised what I told her that dogs like fruit and vegetables. She had some strange idea that they only ate meat, and apple was particularly bad for them, and fellow dog walkers would look down on her.

But once we were more than a few hundred yards from the car park we didn’t see anyone else.

 

We walked a different route to our usual one, and after four and a half miles we were back at the car park. We met someone who recognised the dogs; she was about to go geocaching. I wished her luck – for all that the woods are full of geocaches (I put most of them there) we rarely see anyone playing that game.

We came home.

 

We spent a little while pondering over a geo-puzzle. Yesterday when at Newington church we had to go round the graveyard gathering information to solve a puzzle… We tried and tried but couldn’t come up with a plausible location yesterday so we gave up. We tried again today from the living room, but still couldn’t come up with a sensible answer.

I went into the garden to have a little pootle. I mowed the lawn for the first time in months. You know it needs mowing when it is long enough to hide the dog turds. The roses and creepers from not-so-nice-next-door needed hacking back, so I spent a while hacking it back. I ran round with the watering can, and then realising that Treacle was watching me like a pork (to coin a phrase) I announced that it was time to “FEED THE FISH”. All the dogs ran to the pond, with Treacle leading the charge and squealing in excitement.

 

I made us a cuppa, and saw I had a message from the GP. After last week’s debacle with the carpal tunnel clinic I had a message from the GP saying they’d sent in a referral so I should get an appointment at the clinic soon. How soon remains to be seen.

But what with high frequency hearing loss, carpal tunnel syndrome, nasal polyps, aching arthritic joints… this old body is slowly wearing out.

I wrote up some CPD, and by then the afternoon was all but done.

 

As the washing machine chewed on the undercrackers “er indoors ^TM” boiled up pizza and chips, then she went bowling. I sparked up the telly and watched more episodes of the (relatively) recent remake of “Upstairs Downstairs”. It is rather good.

The undercrackers will be out of the tumble drier in a bit and I shall have to sort them. There’s never a dull moment in my world, it there?

 

Oh, and today marks four years since my dad died…

 

6 September 2026 (Sunday) - Bobbing

I put that wrist brace thingy on last night and had a far better night’s sleep. Mind you the previous night shift probably helped. I got up at eight o’clock, put some washing in, had a shave, made toast and peered into the Internet. It was the same as ever. No matter what the subject (this morning it included amongst many others pond fish, pythons, the history of Folkestone, garden birds, cafes in Hastings and the late Kenneth Williams) people were bickering and squabbling.

 

I Munzed, and Wordled from “brace” through “binge” and “bulge” to “beige” and then the dogs came downstairs. The two smallest went out for a widdle, and Treacle grabbed the first thing that she shouldn’t have and proudly marched round showing off what she had taken. She’s always done that. She doesn’t chew or damage anything; just walks round showing off what she’s got. I retrieved that which she shouldn’t have, and she then jumped onto the sofa and started a fight with me.

I won the fight (eventually) then voomed round the garden harvesting turds. Some of the potted shrubs looked thirsty so I gave them a slosh with the watering can. The plants would arguably do better being planted directly into the ground, but they are far tidier in pots.

 

We set off for the day’s adventure. We went to Aldi where the beer selection was frankly disappointing. So we drove round to Sainsbury’s where the place wasn’t full of ill-behaved brats running riot.

From there we drove up to Bobbing where we met up with Karl and Tracey.

Pausing only briefly for Morgan to roll in hedgehog poo we went for a little walk across to Newington and back. It was a rather good walk which had the advantage of being rather flat and was only marred by “er indoors ^TM” coming off second best in an altercation with a wasp.

We came back to Karl and Tracey’s and spent the afternoon sitting in the sunshine… right up to the point where the rain started. It was then that things became rather vague. I took a few photos today – It’s amazing what happens when you don’t pay attention…

5 September 2026 (Saturday) - After the Night Shift

Last night wasn’t a bad night shift but was a tad busier than I would have liked. With nearly a hundred blood samples it was a far cry from how night shifts used to be. I was rather pleased when the day shift showed up.

 

I drove home listening to the antics of Adrian Mole until I got near to Leeds Castle. I switched over to Radio Ashford and the fizzy static slowly gave way to Steve doing the “Guess the Lyrics” competition. “So many nights I long to hold you. So many nights I looked and saw your face”. No? I had no idea either. It was “Human” by The Human League.

 

Rather than going home I went straight to the paddock at Repton and opened up for Dog Club. “er indoors ^TM” and the dogs soon arrived, and were followed by loads of other dogs. We had at least eighteen dogs along today. All were in high spirits, and all played nicely. Morgan did get a tad over-excited, but these days over-excited for him is an enthusiastic bout of dog-piggy-backs.

“er indoors ^TM” went off to craft club. I took the dogs home listening to Steve doing the mystery year competition on the radio – Kylie Minogue singing “On a Night Like This"? – 2000.

By the time I’d had a shower and a spot of brekkie it was after half past ten. If I went to bed that would be the entire day wasted. So I sat on the sofa with the dogs listening to the radio… and woke just in time to hear Steve saying goodbye.

 

I watched an episode of the (relatively) new “Upstairs Downstairs” then as “er indoors ^TM” returned I counted the Dog Club money. There wasn’t very much in the pot bearing on mind how busy the last couple of weeks have been. Perhaps people are paying on-line?

We had a vague idea to go out for a walk, but by the time we’d had a spot of lunch and I’d figured out how to wear my new carpal tunnel wrist splint thingy, the postman had arrived with two magazines. “Viz” will be read from cover to cover many times, and “Transfusion Medicine” is already in the bin. Not that I don’t read it; the thing is available in an on-line format to members of the British Blood Transfusion Society (bet you didn’t know that among the letters after my name are MBBTS, did you…). I suspect my membership fees would be less if I could opt out of getting a hard copy every month.

So rather than going out we sat in the garden and I sniggered at Viz magazine. It must be thirty years of more since I first discovered it, and it still makes me giggle.

Unlike this new carpal tunnel wrist splint thingy.

 

After a few rather uncomfortable hours I had a look on Google to find out about it. Apparently I should wear the thing at night, but only during the day *if* I’m doing anything which puts strain on my wrist. So I took it off.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a rather good curry which we scoffed whilst watching more episodes of “Young Sheldon”. I’m feeling tired – the night shift has taken its toll…

 

4 September 2026 (Friday) - Rain Before the Night Shift

I slept amazingly well last night. Now that I know the pain in my arm originates from an issue in my left wrist I spent the night holding that wrist and it was pretty much pain free for the first time in months. I slept through till eight o’clock.

 

I got up, made toast and peered into the Internet. There was a lot more talk about Nigel Farage this morning. One of his leading lackeys was apparently filmed telling someone with loads of money to give to Farage and Reform UK how best to do it in such a way to get a bung of half a million quid  round electoral law. You’d think that what with all the furore about the iffy five million Farage got given earlier in the year they wouldn’t be so silly. Wouldn’t you? The entire thing is on YouTube…

And last night’s episode of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” was loved by people who’ve been following Star Trek for years and was hated by those who found it recently.

 

I took the dogs up to the woods. Today the place seemed to be heaving with normal people but we eventually got away from them. We had a good walk up to the three-quarter-of-the-way-round point where the heavens opened. We got soaked, and we saw a couple of flashes of lightning too. But I’d rather have that than the bone dry and heat we had over the summer.

The rain stopped as we got within a couple of hundred yards of the car park; I dried the dogs off with a chamois leather I keep in the boot just in case.

 

We drove home listening to more Adrian Mole MP3 who today has stopped doing the dirty deed with Pamela Pigg and is now sniffing round the woman who runs the creche in Safeway.

We got home. I made us both a cuppa… then threw them away and made ones with milk that didn’t have lumps in it (call me fussy if you will). We had cream cakes with them. Very nice.

I wrote up CPD, I Wordled from “cream” to “wager”, getting it right on the last chance, and booked my MOT on the Halfords website. It took some mucking about but I eventually made the booking.

 

I had a shower and went to bed for the afternoon. Morgan and Bailey came with me, and I slept for three hours with my hand merely tingling at worst.

I’m hoping “er indoors ^TM” will boil up some dinner, and then I’m of to the night shift.

 

Today’s been rather dull. I don’t really dislike the night shifts. Generally I quite enjoy just being trusted to get on with the night shift on my own. But (as always) I have spent the day sulking and fretting that I’ve got to go to work later…