30 December 2018 (Sunday) - Pett Level

Fudge spent the night curled up with me. I say “curled up”; “sprawled out” might be a better description of how he was lying.

Eventually I got up; if I spend too long with the CPAP machine blowing air up my nose I get a sore beak.

Over brekkie I saw I’d got a taker for one of the records I was trying to flog. That’s two quid I wasn’t expecting. To be honest I’m not fussed for the two quid. Having priced the lot up (from seeing the same things on Amazon and eBay) I was actually rather hoping that someone would offer me fifty quid for the lot. No such luck.

I spent a few minutes playing “Candy Crush” then had a look round the rest of Facebook. I was absolutely amazed to see that fox hunting (with hounds) had been going on over Christmas. If a fox is a nuisance there are *far* better ways to deal with it than to charge round the countryside with horses and dog and ripping the thing to shreds. Aren’t there?

We settled the dogs and drove down to Hastings. The journey is a bit far for Pogo just yet. We went to see mum – it was her birthday two days ago. We had an interesting chat about Brexit which she started by saying she didn’t understand it and that she had loads of questions. She went on to demonstrate she didn’t have the faintest idea of anything remotely related to the subject. I did suggest that she might have asked these questions *before* casting her vote rather than two years after. For some inexplicable reason she had an unshakable conviction that once Brexit is implemented, she will be able to buy New Zealand cheese in her local supermarket, and that was her only consideration when voting.

Did I ever mention that I don’t believe in democracy?

My brother soon arrived; today was his birthday. We exchanged insults. They were all going off for lunch, so we left them to it and slowly headed homewards. Firstly via a geocache in Fairlight which hadn’t been found for over a year. We found it. Happy dance.

We then stopped in Pett Level for a little wander about finding a couple of geocaches as we went. As we approached our quarry we met a couple of young children who proudly announced they were geocaching, and showed us what they had found.

We made our way back along the beach to the car and drove off. We were feeling peckish so thought we might hunt out some lunch. We hadn’t been driving long when we found The Red Pig. The Red Pig is rather unique; it is a small rather ramshackle caravan in a lay-by serving home-made food. We sat inside with several other people. It was a tad cosy, but everyone was friendly. We had the eight-inch sausages; they were really good. But we want to go back to try some of the other dishes that people were having.

I took a few photos of our walk and our lunch.

We came home and took the dogs round the park. As we went Pogo didn’t fight with any other dogs which was something of a result. We met OrangeHead who was out with her Chunky Little Friend. They’ve not been together for months. C.L.F. had her little dog along. I knew he’d been ill; it was good to see he was on the mend.

I did intend getting our old living room table out of the shed in readiness for “Project Lego” but by the time we’d finished doing this and that it was getting dark. I thought I could do that at some other time,

Having had a rather substantial lunch neither of us felt very hungry, so "er indoors ^TM" suggested she made mushroom soup for tea. She boils up a rather good bit of soup. Usually. However this evening she was subject to food blender malfunction. Fortunately the dogs were ale to clear up that which went all over the floor. I swabbed up the worktop a little while later, and I kept well out of the way as she wiped it off the walls not too long after that.

The soup she did make was very tasty, but I am led to believe that we’ll be getting a new food blender soon.

Matt came round for one of the records I was flogging (I didn’t take his money), then with "er indoors ^TM" off bowling I spent the evening watching a docu-drama about the life of Hattie Jacques whilst ironing some shirts. They don’t iron themselves, you know…

29 December 2018 (Saturday) - Flogging Stuff

Yesterday evening I unearthed my old astronomical web-cam. Sometime in February 2011 I spent a hundred and thirty quid buying a web-cam that would fit into a telescope so’s I could fart around taking photographs of things in space. It only took one frustrating night shivering in the darkness for me to realise what hard work doing so could be. And I only had to type “astronomical photograph” into Google to get far better photos that I or anyone on Earth could ever get (because you can get them direct from the Hubble space telescope). That web-cam has since been lurking behind my sofa gathering dust for seven years. I dug it out and dusted it off and had this naïve idea that I might sell it. Comparable things are on eBay for over two hundred quid. Last night I put it on several local selling pages, and this morning I woke to find it had garnered absolutely no interest whatsoever.

Mind you I did manage to shift it later. I shall squander the profit on a 1970s Lego café that I have had my eye on for some time.

Over brekkie I read something on one of the local Facebook community pages. Apparently a bunch of teenagers are causing havoc round the town. As usual the police aren’t interested (one can’t help but wonder why we have a police force); everyone is whinging and a couple of people were advocating being vigilantes. I wonder if it will come to that?

I had a look at the household accounts. Could be better; could be worse. Either way flogging that web-cam would be a bonus.

We drove round to collect "My Boy ^TM" and together we all went to “Go Outdoors”. Over the summer when I was looking for a trolley for my fishing gear no one was selling them for under two hundred quid. But when he wants one, “Go Outdoors” are knocking them out at sixty quid if you have a “Go Outdoors” loyalty card. He doesn’t have one, but his dad does.

We also had a look at B&M bargains as we were nearby. When I worked in Canterbury I was in that shop several times each week. I quite miss the place; it is sort-of a budget version of Aldi but with far more cheap tat that will end up in the dustbin.

The plan was to then drive on to Margate to see "Daddy’s Little Angel ^TM" and "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction ^TM", but with the most recent fruit of my loin being poorly we came back to Ashford. First of all to Angling Direct where I squandered some of my Christmas money on a rather good reel (for fishing). And then on to Brookfield café for a very tasty bit of dinner. Mine was rather good. A mixed grill of all sorts of meat… did I want chips or salad with it? Let me think…

I think the nice lady in the café made a mistake – she only charged twenty quid for the three of us. Something of a bargain.

We came home and took the dogs round the park. We met several other dogs. There was sniffing and playing but not a single fight (if you don’t count squirrels), which was something of a bonus.

There were several children trying out their Christmas bikes and scooters with varying degrees of success, the most entertaining of which was a four-year old screaming “how do I get off this stupid thing!”

With dogs walked I fell asleep in front of the telly for an hour or so, then watched the classic film “Escape to Victory” which I seem to watch at about his time every year. And with telly watched I spent a little while going through a box of records that "er indoors ^TM" had found whilst tidying up. Bearing in mind we’ve not had a record player for years they must all be rather old. But back when we did have a record player I would play an LP once to record it on to tape cassette and then never play it again, so they must be in good condition. I went onto Amazon and eBay to price them up. It was rather odd – the ones I thought were crap were going for over a tenner. The ones I rather liked weren’t selling at all. I’ve made an album of albums. You never know – some might sell…

I’ve done some geo-sums for a short stomp through the mud tomorrow… I wonder what’s on telly?

28 December 2018 (Friday) - Radio, Telly

I slept reasonably well I suppose. Over brekkie I watched another episode of “Bottom” in which out heroes enjoyed “Sprouts Mexicaine” and found that little Dave Hedgehog’s daughter Doreen wasn’t actually Satan.

I sparked up my lap-top to see what (if anything) had been going on in cyberspace overnight. Yesterday evening I’d read an advert on Facebook on one of the local selling pages. Would I like to lose ten kilogrammes in a month? I asked how much it would cost and had received a private message of a whole load of corporate-speak. I again asked how much, and this morning was told it would be a shade under two hundred quid. Two hundred quid? I can lose weight by counting the calories and going hungry, and spend the savings on Lego.

With nothing else of note going on I got dressed and set off to work. As I drove through a rather dark morning I listened to the radio. Today's guest editor was Angelina Jolie who started the show off with a denial of an article run by yesterday's guest editor. Yesterday the pundits had been talking about the plight of some Arabian princess who was supposedly in fear for her life. Today they wheeled on this princess's solicitor who denied everything that had been broadcast yesterday (even though this chap admitted to never having seen her). There were several other articles which didn't grip my attention at all, and there was a rather harrowing expose on female genital mutilation in the Democratic Republic of Congo which I thought was rather graphic for ten past eight in the morning.

"Thought for the Day" was given by the world-famous archbishop Desmond Tutu who was a grave disappointment. He droned on and on, and he might as well have repeated the phrase "blah, blah, platitude" for five minutes for all the sense he made.

I wonder if the BBC might be better off re-thinking the idea of having guest editors; so far they haven't made for very interesting radio.

 I stopped off at Aldi for jam and went in to work. During a tea break I phoned my mum - it is her birthday today. She seemed well, which was a result.

Work was rather busy, and with my bit done I came home to find "er indoors ^TM" had made a rather good bubble & squeak which we scoffed with cold meats and stout. As we scoffed we watched the Christmas episode of “Trollied” which is apparently the last one which will be made. On the one hand it’s a shame they are calling time on such a good show. On the other hand it is good that the thing ends on a high.

We then watched “Alice in Wonderland”; a rather good film which I have watched before (on Thursday 17 January 2013) but apart from it featuring Matt Lucas as Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum I didn’t remember it at all. It was rather good…