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…

3 September 2026 (Thursday) - Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

I put the duvet back on the bed last night and was far too hot. Ho hum.

I made toast and had a look at the internet as I do. Several friends were posting about the latest pontifications of that odious Nigel Farage. No one had a good word for the bloke. The general consensus was that he's an odious little shit who has figured out that by saying any controversial old bollox he can stay on the gravy train for life. He was on Radio Four yesterday whinging that the five million quid bung he was given was to pay for personal security as he needs it. He probably does… however it is strange that he didn’t use any of that bung to pay for security at the hustings of his most recent election which he avoided for “security reasons”.

 

I sorted the Munzee Guild for the month’s “Gauntlet Games” which were starting today, then got ready for the off. I drove round to Halfords where the car was up for a service. Having come up trumps when I needed a new battery a few weeks ago I’m now a member of the Halfords club and I’m quids in.

 

I left the car with them and took a little (three miles) walk. Today was a Qrewzee day. It’s a Munzee thing where Munzees that haven’t been Munzed for over a year are worth a lot more points. It’s actually even more sad than it sounds, but it scanning bar codes stuck to lamp posts is your thing, it can’t be bettered. As well as load of normal Munzees I got loads that hadn’t been done for a year, or two, and quite a few that hadn’t been done for three years.

I Munzed my way to the doctor’s. Being a patient of Ashford Medical Partnership my GP can be anywhere in town. Today it was in Willesborough (three miles away). I went up to the counter and was rudely directed to the self-service machine. I self-served, and sat and listened to the receptionists telling an endless stream of patients that no matter what their question, it wasn’t their problem. As loads of patients tried to help each other struggle to book medical services on their phones the receptionists chattered among themselves about holidays in Ibiza and Turkey, about how Tom owes them all a hundred pounds, about which local schools are the best and (ironically) how easy it was to get a dental appointment.

I eventually got in to see the quack. Some time ago I mentioned that my arm had been giving me gip. It would seem I’ve got carpal tunnel syndrome.

 

I Munzed my way back to the garage (two miles). As I went I had a look at the used cars in the various showrooms on the way. I noticed something odd – apart from the Skoda garage none of the used cars had a price displayed. They all had signs about asking for finance deals.

I got my car. A big service, new windscreen wiper blades, new sparkplugs, various mechanical words that meant nothing to me and the thick end of seven hundred quid. Still, as the nice Halfords man said, being a member of the Halfords club meant I saved fifty quid. And it was cheaper than what I’ve paid at where I used to go.

 

I came home, made myself some toast, and took the dogs to the woods about four hours later than usual.

The woods were rather busy with people, but the car park wasn’t busy at all. I got chatting with someone I see from time to time who said that since the talk of car parking charges started, more and more people have taken to parking up in Challock village rather than joining Forestry England (at two pounds per week).

We walked our usual four and a half miles; given the choice I’d rather stick to our early to mid-morning time slot. The woods were full of the sort of people whose dogs are on the lead all day every day and even in the house. They invariably initially look on my unleaded dogs with terror, and as my wolf-pack walk past and keep going, the looks of terror turn to looks on envy. Dogs take some training, but you’ve got to make a start.

 

We came home. We did “FEED THE FISH”, I gathered dog turds. I made us a cuppa which we had with a Puffin bar. Have you ever had a Puffin bar? It’s like a really good Penguin bar but at a third of the price. An actual third (I worked it out!)

I then got frustrated. This morning the quack told me to go on to https://www.carpal-tunnel.net and use the website to refer myself to the relevant clinic as they don’t like GPs referring. The GP had tried to show me the website, but her PC said it was a dodgy website and we shouldn’t go there. My lap-top agreed, but I told it to suck it up and go there anyway. After a lot of farting about I eventually got a reply from the carpal tunnel clinic which told me that they don’t do self-referrals, and that I should get the GP to refer me.

Oh, how I laughed.

I’ve messaged my GP again… As I’ve mentioned before I’m dealing with the fifty-second best NHS Trust in the country, and I work at the fourth best… In the meantime I’ve ordered a wrist support from Amazon which should be here tomorrow.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up dinner which we shifted with a bottle of rather grim plonk whilst watching this week’s episode of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds”. Tomorrow morning the episode will be truly hated on all of the Star Trek related Facebook pages, but with nods to the original series, the films, The Next Generation and Voyager I thought it was brilliant…

 

I’m feeling worn out – I’ve walked over twenty-two thousand steps today. Now I’ve got carpal tunnel syndrome perhaps I should be taking it easier…

2 September 2026 (Wednesday) - Dull

I didn’t sleep well. I was cold and woke every half-hour. I really need to put the duvet back on the bed.

As I scoffed toast I watched the first episode of the re-make of “Upstairs Downstairs”. It was rather good.

I then had my usual rummage round the Internet as I do most mornings.

Two Facebook friends had birthdays today. Both people with whom I used to work. Both were a large part of my daily life for years, I’ve not seen either in over ten years now.

There wasn’t much else happening at half past six so I Munzed, Wordled from “duvet” to “ruler” in three goes, and got ready for work.

 

No one was walking their dogs in their jim-jams this morning as I headed to the motorway.  As I drove there was an interview with the head honcho of the UK's republicans - some bunch who want the monarchy abolished. They had the arse about the recent announcement that the government is spending a small fortune on the upkeep of the royal palaces. 

What's the alternative? Let them fall down? The interview was (quite frankly) a waste of air-time. The interviewer seemed reluctant to let this bloke speak, and when the bloke did manage to get a word in, he flatly refused to answer the questions being asked; preferring to shout his pre-planned script.

Meanwhile the Mayor of London's been scammed. He's been done for not paying road tax, but it turns out that the car in question is nothing to do with him, and letters from the DVLA letters addressed to him about the unpaid tax bill were sent to Gordon Ramsay's east London restaurant.

You have to wonder what all that was about, don't you?

 

I went to Sainsburys and got a sandwich, then went in to work. It was dull. It often is. I came home listening to my Adrian Mole MP3s and came home to an empty house. “er indoors ^TM” had taken the dogs out. I also came home to find my eBay bargain had arrived. Two sets of all of the Harry Potter books in MP3 format… one read by Jim Dale and one read by Stephen Fry. Change out of eighteen quid, and a rather good Ginny Weasley USB stick too.

It’s on eBay so it can’t be hooky… can it?

 

Today was dull…

1 September 2026 (Tuesday) - Nominated

I slept well. I got up at half past seven, made toast and had my usual peer into the Internet. It was much the same as ever. Today’s conspiracy theory was that space is fake. Moon, stars, planets, the whole lot… all fake according to some half-wit called Judith when replying to an article about the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which was launched over the weekend and is hoped to spend years looking at planets, dark matter, dark energy and all the other enormous questions humanity has been scratching its head over since somebody first looked up and thought, “What the f… is all that?” Well, Judith has given us the answer. And she seemed to be serious even though she was unable to string together a sentence, let alone a coherent argument.

People were posting to work-related Facebook groups. Some were discussing methods of compatibility testing of donor blood… methods which were obsolete and discontinued before I started in the field forty-five years ago. And others were asking advice on how to test for certain conditions and how to perform various tests that they’d heard about and wondered what they were. (People claiming to be lab managers…) The more I follow blood testing on Facebook the more convinced I am that whereas here in the UK we have national standards of how to do things, the rest of the world makes it up as it goes along.

I Munzed, Wordled from “thing” to “remix” on the fifth attempt. Wordle is hard work. Sometimes it is obvious how I should proceed, other times not so. Like today – “remix”? Seriously?

 

We went for our walk. As always Bailey was incredibly excited about going out, and did her usual thing of greeting the world with a huge bark as we walked out of the door. She always does that. I wish she wouldn’t.

As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how the new Prime Minister is to address Parliament for the first time today. First time !?!?! How long has he been Prime Minister… it turns out that Parliament shut up shop on July 17^th and only re-opened today.

We got to the woods where something odd was going on. The car park was all but deserted. We were the third car in there. But we met loads of people in the woods. Far more than we usually do. Have people found some obscure place to park to avoid the parking fees (even though they aren’t in force yet).

We had a good walk. We saw deer. The huge fungus that was at the half-way point last year has reappeared. We met the dog walkers we often meet; Bailey got a fuss from them.

We came home via the lower car park which also has signs up about car park charges coming.

As we drove I listened to more Adrian Mole MP3. He’s now got nits.

 

We got home. I made us a cuppa with a choco-break bar (far better than a kit-kat), then I had a two-hour pootle in the garden. I bionically burned the weeds that had taken advantage of the recent rain. I hacked back the plants which were pouring over the fence from next door. I organised a new pole for the lilac. And I have a theory about what did for the acers. Their pots were swimming with water so I drilled some holes in the bottom to drain out excess water.

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up some lunch, and with that scoffed I did the ironing. As I ironed I watched the last episode of “Stranger Things”. In keeping with the rest of the show the last episode was good, but went on for far too long.

I wondered what I might watch next… What with various stuff on catch-up to say nothing of Netflix, Paramount Plus, Disney, i-player and Prime video there’s no shortage of things to watch. Back in the day we had three channels. However did we cope then?

 

And in closing today I’ve been nominated for a geocaching award in the “Outstanding Community Contribution”. Someone (I have absolutely no idea who) has written about me “He is an amazing hider. His cache trails in KingsWood are brilliant – he always maintains them and refreshes the trails every couple of years so we get to explore different areas of the woods. His mystery caches are fantastic – some are really tricky (but he is always happy to give you a hint) and some are easier but fun (perfect for newbies). He is always happy to give advice and help in any way he can. He also organises lots of great events and always brings along his three famous geodogs. He is an all-round great guy and a credit to this wonderful game”.

I’ve very mixed feelings about this. On the one hand I am flattered and humbled to be nominated. On the other hand I feel a bit of a fraud.

I haven’t really done that much more than *lots* of other people have done.

 

I wonder if there’s a prize?

31 August 2026 (Monday) - Bank Holiday

I slept well; eventually getting out of my pit at half past eight. I put a load of washing in to scrub, made toast and had a look at the internet as I do. It hadn’t changed much.

I looked out the window and saw the glorious morning and found myself thinking. Many years ago I used to be a general dogsbody at the Harbour restaurant in Hastings. Over the summer we used to make an average of two hundred and fifty dinners a day. Four hundred dinners was super-busy, and when we did four hundred we knew about it.

August Bank Holiday was always good for over six hundred.

Relatively more recently my August Bank Holiday Monday would regularly be spent taking down tents and clearing away camping gear. Many August Bank Holidays used to be spent camping at a friend’s farm. A great time was had by all, but the August Bank Holiday ones were different to many of the kite festivals we used to visit. At many of our long camping weekends everyone was free for the fun parts, but so many people had burning reasons to go home promptly on the Monday morning. People used to stay to clear up at the August camps.

Camping was fun but it was hard work.

Eleven years ago today we had thunderstorms. In a break in that day’s rain we went to a garden centre where we got my monkey puzzle tree. It’s grown rather impressively.

More recently August Bank Holidays have been a tad dull… no matter where you go is heaving with the normal people so we generally don’t go anywhere.

 

The dogs came down and wanted to go out. I went with them and followed them round with a bucket and trowel. When we first got her, Bailey had a habit of eating the other dogs’ turds. We hoped she’d grow out of it, but four years have passed and she is as coprophagic as she ever was (yuk!) so collecting the dung before she does is always a good idea.

I Munzed,  Wordled from “clear” to “mound” in five goes, and got ready for the day. Some new geocaches had gone live down the road, but the local FTF-hound had been out and had logged the First to Find on one of them within twenty minutes, and then had gone on to do all the others. I must admit these days if I’d got there first I’d do the same. Back in the day I would find one and leave the rest for others. But I’m in the minority with this attitude…

So instead I hung out the washing, and “er indoors ^TM” sorted out some pots to replace her missing geocaches. I then thought I’d prove a point. I cleaned out the filters of both ponds and tided away in less than twenty minutes. The filters I use are *so* much easier and quicker to clean out.

 

We then drove down to the Hamstreet area. It took a few minutes to get out of Ashford; the roads near the outlet centre were heaving. For all the talk of credit crunches and costs of living, there’s never any shortage of people (quite literally) queueing up at the outlet centre to pay way over the odds for massively overpriced tat.

We relocated a geocache with which the geo-feds had found fault, and had a look at two which had been reported as missing. We replaced the missing one, and found the other one exactly where it was supposed to be. We went on intending to replace a third one, but the area was swarming with normal people so we gave that a miss.

We then went on to Snargate church where we wandered round the graveyard getting information for the geo-puzzle based there. We found that puzzle’s geocache just outside the church then went for a little walk. It was a shame that the bridge forming the public footpath was not only impassable with brambles but also blocked with an electric fence. I reported it to the council – let’s see what they do.

The plan was then a pint in the nearby Red Lion but it was closed. Apparently they are closed every Monday. You’d think they’d open for a Bank Holiday, wouldn’t you? Oh well… their loss.

 

We came home. We’d been out for four hours and the queues at the outlet centre were still just as bad.

I popped over the road to the shop and got a couple of bottles of rather good ale (for less than the price of one rather average ale in a pub), and we sat in the garden for a bit scoffing a late lunch of nachos and dip until I nodded off.

 

We had a lazy rest-of-afternoon.  “er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good pasta bake for dinner.

It’s been a rather good (if rather lazy) bank holiday.

30 August 2026 (Sunday) - Early Shift

With an alarm set I was awake far too early. I made toast and put on a new episode of “Stranger Things”. This one played for over two hours; I got bored with it after twenty minutes so I turned it off at what I felt was a sensible place to have ended an episode.

I sparked up the lap-top and had a little look at the Internet. Some conspiracy theory half-wit was ranting on about why we don’t hear anything about the hole in the ozone layer any more. The simple fact is that science found the issue with the ozone layer some years ago, the world’s governments banned the chemicals that caused the damage, and now is ozone layer is on the mend. Sadly the conspiracy theory half-wits weren’t happy to hear this. And they weren’t at all happy to be told that acid rain went much the same way.

I Munzed, Wordled from “twonk” to “intel” in five goes, and got ready for the early shift.

 

I set off for work. As I drove to junction nine of the motorway I was again amazed at how many people were out in their pyjamas walking their dogs. On Friday I mentioned that this would seem to be the way to walk your dog in South Ashford at quarter past six in the morning. Perhaps it is some fashion statement?

 

I drove up the motorway listening to the pundits on the radio. Being Sunday there was some religious drivel being spouted. There was an interview with someone who was supposedly a big cheese in the "Revivalist Movement". Unlike previous "Revivalist Movements" this one is a frankly laughable idea that no religion is completely correct, but as they'd all been going for so long they couldn't all be wrong. So the people pushing this one have cooked up a theory that people might look at the mainstream religions, pick and choose the bits they like from each and ignore the bits they don't like. And if they wanted to make up their own little extras to add on, then that was fine with the idiot being interviewed. Everyone was entitled to their own opinions, and because each person's idea was "their religion" it was somehow both valid and right.

They let these people vote, you know.

 This was followed by an interview with a farmer who was working on National Trust land as part of the "Countryside Stewardship" scheme. From what I could work out this seemed to be a government initiative (from 1991) to keep paying for farms which clearly were losing money hand over fist.

I switched to my Adrian Mole MP3 and carried on up the motorway listening to his antics.

 

I got to work and went in to the early shift where I did my bit. I always say I don't mind working at the weekend when the weather is bad. The forecast for the day had been grim, but (as is so often the way) reality was at odds with forecast.  Or so it started that way, but as the day wore on the glorious sunshine gave way to grey skies and I stopped sulking (a bit). Mind you,  having now worked at some point on eight of the last ten weekends there's no denying I'm going off of the idea.

 

I came home and once we’d done “FEED THE FISH” I geo-puzzled for a bit until my head hurt. “er indoors ^TM” boiled up a rather good curry which we washed down with one of those cheap bottles of plonk.

As we did we watched the last episodes of “Celebrity Hunted”.

I’ve got a theory about that show – it’s all staged. If you were really on the run you really wouldn’t appear heading the bill on stage at live festivals, or live on national television, would you? It makes for good viewing, but if you were really on the run, you’d hunker down somewhere and keep quiet.

But now that the show is over we’ve got to find something else to watch.