30 April 2021 (Friday) - Two Weeks Later

I finally got fed up with shivering at four o’clock, got up , and heaved the duvet back in my direction. Pogo gave a rather unimpressed grunt, but Treacle and er indoors TM” slept through it. I then got a couple of hours of non-shivering sleep until the bin men woke me as they crashed the bins about just before six o’clock.

I made toast, watched another episode of “Superstore”, and then had my little look at the Internet. I hadn’t missed much. I had a message that there has been some ground work done along the Greensand way, and so some of my geocaches there have probably been destroyed. I shall have to fix those.

And with no emails worth the electricity to send them, I got ready for work.

 

As I drove to work the pundits on the radio were interviewing some sports personality or other who was banging on about all the hatred she'd had through social media, and was singing the praises of this weekend's planned boycott of social media by the sporting world.

Listening to her was quite strange. Her feelings had been hurt by posts on social media and she wouldn't shut up about how she was a real person. However she was equally insistent that those posting the hurtful stuff *weren't* real people. I'm sure she made sense to herself.

 

There was also a lot of talk about ex Auf Wiedersehn Pet and Doctor Who actor Noel Clarke who has been accused of groping, harassing and bullying women. Is he guilty? I don't know. With twenty women making these allegations it seems likely, but again we have someone who has been found guilty by the media before any formal trial (with evidence) is conducted. Mind you, I suppose that this case is different from many that have gone before in that seeing how Mr Clarke is still alive he can at least defend himself.

 

I got to work and did my bit. As I worked so my phone rang. It was the vet's. My Fudge's ashes were ready for collection, and that did for me. It is now two weeks since my dog passed away. I've deliberately not mentioned him as it has been a tad upsetting; After two weeks I can now go about half an hour without crying for him.

I don’t think anyone at work realised I was struggling today. I was fine collecting his remains at the vets until the receptionist said “I’ll go get Fudge”. Had she said “I’ll get his casket” or “I’ll get his ashes” I would have been fine…

 

29 April 2021 (Thursday) - Backache

I woke with backache at half past four, and couldn’t settle. After an hour or so I gave up trying to sleep, made brekkie and watched an episode of “Superstore”.

I did consider making a start on my planned garden project by getting a coat of ronseal onto the planks I bought yesterday, but my back was still playing up so I sparked up my lap-top instead.

 

The internet was much the same as ever. Some chap had posted to may of the local Facebook groups plugging his political party who seem to be promising to make the Romney Marsh a growth area. Others were slagging the chap off purely because he was supporting a different political party to their favourite one. No one was disagreeing with policy, everyone was disagreeing with the colour of the rosette being worn by the candidate.

More and more it seems that people are choosing political allegiances in much the same way that people pick football teams. With a football team you decide to follow them, and support them through thick and thin, and hate anyone who supports a different team for the simple reason that they are supporting a different team.

But political parties are different (aren’t they?) Political parties change their policies and their stances all the time. And what political parties stand for affects all of our day-to-day lives. It is a shame that people don’t seem to realise this.

I am reminded of an old workmate who wouldn’t hear a word against the Conservative party ever since her father once told her she was a “true blue”. I often cite her as a total failure of the democratic process. She didn’t agree with a single policy of the Conservative party, she regularly got *very* angry and insulted when she was told that what she thought were good ideas were actually Labour party policy (it was!), and she spent years bitterly complaining about the very government she voted in.

 

I also saw that I had an email to tell me that someone had edited what they’d written on a “Found it” log on a geocache of mine. Their original comment was written on Wednesday, 30 October 2019. They’d edited what they’d said overnight, but I’d archived the cache last June. What they’d written was rather noncommittal, and with the cache now archived no one will ever read it, so why did they bother?

 

As I drove to work the pundits on the radio were talking about some chap who has spent six years achieving his ambition of parking in each of the two hundred and eleven spaces of the car park at his local branch of Sainsbury's. Those long winter evenings must just fly by for that fellow.

Needless to say today was a rather quiet day on the news front…. Or I am assuming it was. After the news of the cark park chap was the sports news. I really did hear a repetitive drone of “blah blah sport, blah blah sport” and I didn’t pay any more attention to the radio for the rest of the drive.

 

Work was work; I came home and whilst er indoors TM” took Pogo and Treacle for a walk, I led Sid on a bimble round the block. We didn’t go far, and it tired him out. So much so that when we came home he went straight to his basket and flatly refused to come into the garden with me. I spent a few minutes getting that first coat of ronseal onto the planks I bought yesterday and gave myself another backache. And then my piss boiled when I came inside and saw that Sid had crapped all over the lino. Next time he is coming out with me whether he likes it or not. 

er indoors TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we washed down with a massively overpriced bottle of plonk whilst we watched the latest episode of Lego Masters USA. Not a bad way to spend the evening…

28 April 2021 (Wednesday) - Late Shift

er indoors TM” had a restless night, and consequently so did I. Just as I got up so Sid started shouting. He doesn’t like being confined to where there is no carpet overnight. He had a choice of two baskets and he could have been very comfortable, but he is just awkward.

I made toast and peered into Facebook. The local Labour party candidate had paid for a “vote for me” advert in which he claimed that under his regime all would be better. “Better” is such a vague phrase, isn’t it? It sounds impressive whilst promising nothing tangible. But the chap’s post had got quite a lot of rather abusive comments which spoke volumes about the state of our country. Are Labour, the Lib Dems and all the others *really* so bad that we'd rather vote in a party lead by a Prime Minister who openly lies so much that the public expect nothing else of him, and with ministers brazenly awarding public contracts to their mates. Obviously they would seem to be...

 

My cousin had posted something interesting. The pub just down the road from my dad’s house is up for sale. It is closed now, but when open it was never anything special; very much a “local pub for local people”. Being a (ex) local I could go in with impunity, but it was the sort of place where strangers probably would have got eaten had they ventured inside. It had the lame to fame that during the 1970s the landlord was in the Guinness Book of Records for holding the world record for flipping the greatest number of ten-pence pieces from the back of his forearm into his palm. My cousin had posted the details of the place on-line. If I had a spare half a million pounds… I probably wouldn’t buy it. I suspect it will be knocked down and redeveloped as a block of flats. It would be a great shame – there’s only one other pub within a mile of the place, but (as I’ve ranted before) I can’t help but wonder if pubs have had their day.

 

We got the dogs leaded up and went for a quick walk round Orlestone Woods. It’s a lovely place to walk; just a shame that someone (wish I knew who!!) makes a point of getting McDonalds, drives at least five miles to those woods, and just dumps their rubbish in the car park. McDonalds really should print the number plate of all cars which use the drive-through onto the packaging of their take-away. We cleared the mess once we’d finished our walk.

Once home I spent a little while in the garden. Having dragged loads of stuff out of the way for the roof repairs and house painting, I dragged it all back, and then mowed the lawn. And this is exactly what I “bl**dy hate about gardening” (as I say from time to time). Having spent an hour’s really hard work, the garden now looks exactly the same as it always has done.

 

I came in to find that Pogo had eaten his brekkie. Being a greedy dog he never turns his nose up at food, and last night he didn’t eat his dinner. Instead he moped about with his stomach rumbling. Having lost one dog recently I was worrying myself sick about the silly pup. It would seem that whatever had upset him yesterday had now passed.

 

I popped round to B&Q to get some decking boards, decorative stones, screws a saw and drill bits for a little garden project I have in mind for the coming weekend. They didn't have the fancy decking I wanted, but plain decking planks will do just as well. Though I had something of a shock at the till. What I thought might cost forty quid set me back nearly eighty quid, but that's the cost of pretty much everything these days.

 

With utter drivel on the radio I turned it off and sang along to my odd choice in music as I drove up the motorway. I needed both lunch and petrol so I thought I might get them all at the Aylesford filling station. I got there so see that the door to the kiosk was closed and there was a queue of people waiting to pay at the window. When I paid for my petrol I asked if I might have a sandwich. The chap behind the counter said that they were only selling petrol, and flatly denied that the woman in front of me had bought a sandwich, even though I watched her do so, and we could both see her carrying it to her car. I asked why they weren't selling anything other than petrol. He said it was because his colleagues were filling the shelves with more stock. In retrospect I should have smiled and said nothing, but I didn't. I made the observation that his colleagues weren't filling the shelves with more stock. (They weren't). They were standing around gossiping and neither had moved in the five minutes that I'd been waiting in the queue. That didn't go down well and provoked a torrent of bluster from the chap behind the counter, but I regained the upper hand by pointing out his name was on his badge and demanding the name of his supervisor's boss. The chap behind the counter didn't actually crap himself, but he went from aggressive to smarmy at the drop of a hat.

I'm not going to write to the director-general of Sainsbury's (I can't be bothered) but he doesn't know that.

 

I then went into the main branch of Sainsbury's to get lunch there, and consequently rather than being fifteen minutes early for work I was five minutes late. Not that anyone noticed.

 

Work was work... and after the morning I'd had it was something of an anticlimax. it was only a shame that I spent the afternoon with backache having overdone the gardening. Having managed to get a parking spot outside the house when I got home this evening I unloaded all the stuff I’d got from B&Q.

My back really aches now…