31 March 2018 (Saturday) - Ranting Before the Night Shift

I slept right through till half past seven this morning. I would have slept longer had Fudge not had a woofing fit for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

Over brekkie I looked at Facebook as I do. One post wound me up. Seeing how it is Easter, several people had posted a picture supposedly of Jesus struggling under the weight of the cross he was carrying. The picture bore the caption “Worst Kite Ever”. Amusing? Possibly, but in rather bad taste. What annoyed me though was that the people posting the meme were all self-proclaimed Catholics. They boil my piss. *Some* Catholics of my experience have looked into what their church teaches, but most have absolutely no idea what their supposed faith is all about, and spout absolutely ridiculous claptrap “because they are Catholic”. For example did you know that Catholics aren’t allowed to read the Harry Potter books or watch the Harry Potter films? No? Neither did I, but several so-called Catholics of my acquaintance have got rather irate on the matter.

And did you know that you *don’t* have to follow the Bible’s teachings and try to be a decent person to be a good Catholic? Apparently you can do what the f… you like, and have the entire lot forgiven by rolling up at a confession service every so often. Or so I’ve been told.

This business of “Worst Kite Ever” really sums up the fake Catholics. It rips the piss out of the most fundamental part of their religion, and it is not that they don’t care so much as they don’t even realise.

I also saw a few people had posted about a schoolteacher demanding a child remove a “Help for Heroes” band in case it offended Muslims. I was asked to re-post if I felt it was an outrage, I’m sorry but I think it is an outrage that this sort of hate-promoting stuff gets posted and that people lap it up. Who was the teacher? Where did it happen?

It has been my experience that pretty much all of these hate-mongering posts have absolutely no truth behind them whatsoever. All they do is serve to stir up hatred.  When those who spread this rubbish have chased all the non-British out of the UK, who will run the hospitals and social services and generate the money to pay the dole for the British who demonstrably aren’t doing these jobs?

If my blood pressure wasn’t high enough, I then found out that a chap working where I used to work had been whinging to the world about what a rubbish shift system they operate. Looking back I’m wondering if I would have had grounds for constructive dismissal. Over the last year I’ve seen public postings on Facebook from people working there complaining about the out of hours system, the failures of the automation, and even managers boasting about the petty squabbles they have had with the medical staff. In every case senior staff have been clicking the “like” button.

And I got a formal warning for bringing the place into disrepute when I posted a selfie at 6am and said I was tired.

I always say I like reading what people post on Facebook...

Two hours later "er indoors ^TM" got up. Once the rain had slackened off a bit we took the dogs for a walk round the park where we met up with "My Boy ^TM" and Cheryl. We wandered round the park as the dogs did their own things. Little Rolo found an Alsatian with which to pick a fight, the dogs all ran themselves ragged. A rather good walk.

I came home to find I’d received a few messages about the astro club. I left it a year ago; having spent ages building up something rather good, I then spent a couple of years trying to keep the committee’s focus on the club rather than a commercial observatory which was clearly never going to happen. After being on the receiving end of several rather nasty bitter personal attacks on the matter, I eventually gave up the battle.

This morning someone of whom I would really have expected better was apparently publicly ranting about the club’s lacking talent and direction, and the committee being in disarray. Bearing in mind it was this person’s bitter personal attacks that made me feel I should step down from the committee, I felt it rather sad that he is still doing his best to destroy the club he worked so hard to help set up.

Still, I’ve been out of it for a year now. Not my circus; not my monkeys (as they say).

I had an afternoon asleep, and I’m off to the night shift now. Today has all been rather negative, hasn’t it?

30 March 2018 (Good Friday) - S V F X

Over brekkie as I checked my emails I was amazed to see the people with whom I do my diet stuff (myfitnesspal.com) had sent me an urgent email. They have been the victims of a cyber-attack; all my data is at risk, and they urged me to change my password immediately.

Really?

Does anyone care what I’ve been eating over the last few weeks? Is my weight *such* a secret? Bearing in mind there are far riper targets like banks and building societies, who on Earth would launch an attack on a dieting website?

We looked at the weather forecast, and looked out of the window, and decided to take a chance. We got ourselves and the dogs organised and drove out to Doddington where we met up with Noelle, Ian, Sarah and Dick. We got boots and gaiters on, and set off on the newly published SVFX (say it out loud) series of geocaches. We were beaten to the first two, but at the third cache we met a new friend. Our new pal Trevor thought there were other geocachers doing the walk, and he thought he’d wait for us to catch up and walk with us. I think he was glad he did; is hunting Tupperware *such* a well-kept secret?

We had a very good walk. Bearing in mind Fudge’s running off after pheasants last week, he stayed on the lead today. As we walked we net friendly horses, we found a flood, we had cakes and hot cross buns, and over twenty joint First to Finds too

The weather forecast gave a thirty per cent chance of rain for the morning; we got most of the way round before the drizzle started. But when it did, it was that fine rain; the sort of rain that you don’t think it’s worth putting a coat on for… and suddenly you realise you are soaked. I was rather sodden when we got to the pub for the Good Friday geo-meet.

The meet itself was excellent. We had a bar to ourselves; the resident normal people soon left, and the dogs were allowed off their leads. There was a minor incident when Treacle went off behind the bar in pursuit of the pub cat, but she was soon captured. There was a rather good stout on at the bar (I had four pints). "er indoors ^TM" had cheesy chips; I shared a pork pie with my dogs and then had a pickled egg to myself.

Talking Tupperware with like-minded friends is always good. I took several photos.

We came home via Pets at Home where we met the sweetest little puppy. Once home we all of us dozed in front of the telly. Fish and chips for tea (it *is* a Friday) and then the SU2C Bake Off on the telly.

As we watched the telly, Treacle was having rather vivid dreams. Hove you ever watched a dog dreaming? It can be rather sweet…

29 March 2018 (Thursday) - A Day Off

I slept like a log, but still woke feeling like death warmed up. An after-effect of the night working? Perhaps. Mind you I quite like the night work (for all that I whinge about it). Perhaps I might sleep better if I could sleep for longer and not wake utterly unable to breathe. I’ve often felt that I would be better having two sleeps a day of four hours rather than trying to do it all in one go.

I got up and saw a lovely day outside. I messaged "Daddy’s Little Angel ^TM" to see if she fancied taking the dogs for a walk, then made myself some toast. As I scoffed it I looked at the Internet and had a wry smile. Someone (I won’t say who) had posted one of those memes on Facebook about how stupid other people are. I felt this was rather ironic bearing in mind the frankly idiotic drivel this chap posts on a regular basis.

I then got a little cross with people posting rather nasty and hateful racist rubbish. So many times I read crap about how immigrant families live high on the hog at the expense of British families. Every single story posted about this on Facebook has been shown to be a malicious fabrication, but still people persist in propagating these lies.

I got the dogs organized and we went round to Newtown where we met up with "Daddy’s Little Angel ^TM" and "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction ^TM". We thought about all sorts of walks, but she had a dodgy neck, so we just had a short-ish walk to the play park in South Willesborough and back. As we walked I taught "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction ^TM" the “Granddad Song of Aeroplanes” and we sang it together several times. For those of my loyal readers who don’t know this song, it goes “AEROPLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANE” (shouted *very* loudly).

With walk (and song) done we came home, and I got the strimmer out and finished the lawn mowing which I started on Monday. Or that is I started strimming. I had to give up and harvest the dog turds before I could do the job properly. Bearing in mind I cleared the garden of dog dung on Monday and have walked my hounds twice daily on the intervening three days (when they both crapped like things possessed), how is it possible for there to be so many poops in the back garden? Are other dogs coming along for a dump? I can’t think of any other explanation.

I then loaded up a car full of rubbish and went on a little journey. Firstly to B&Q for a new bucket (how do I break so many buckets?) and some strimmer cable. Hopefully this stuff will be a bit stronger. Mind you, what is it with the car park at B&Q? How can a shop which has so few customers have so many cars in the car park?

I then went to the tip to empty the rubbish, and came back via Matalan. I got a pair of trousers and a shirt and spent fifteen minutes chatting with an ex cub’s mum. I stopped off at the co-op for lunch, and as the rain started I scoffed my scran and watched episodes of “The Mighty Boosh” on Netflix until I fell asleep.

I woke, and spent an hour or so doing dull CPD until the nice man from Everest arrived. Having spent a small fortune on a new front door a few years ago the letterbox flap fell off a couple of weeks ago. I wasn’t impressed, but being the sort of saddo who keeps a diary I was able to see exactly when we got the new front door. It was nearly nine years ago (5^th June 2009) so I suppose nine years isn’t bad. I wonder if the thing was overworked with all the junk mail we get? Perhaps I should put up a sign saying we don’t want any.

The nice man from Everest fitted a new letterbox for me; it was still under warranty. The nice man from Everest did fart quite a bit too, but with the front door wide open it probably wasn’t as bad as it might have been.

"er indoors ^TM" came home and we drove down to Folkestone. Seeing it was Jose’s birthday we had coffee and cake and we put the world to rights….