26 June 2023 (Monday) - Before the Late Shift

I slept reasonably well I suppose. It was a tad hot at night though. I got up, had brekkie and had my usual root around the Internet. In amongst the petty bickering and name calling several people seemed to be rather impressed with Elton John’s appearance at Glastonbury last night, and I read the rave reviews with something of a sense of jealousy. Not jealous that I’d missed it, but jealous that I had (and realistically still have) absolutely no interest in wanting to see it.
Live music, football, Love Island… there is so much that so many other people find so amazingly wonderful that are of the utmost indifference to me.
Sometimes I get fed up being in the minority.
 
I got the leads onto the dogs and we set off to the woods. As we drove there was a lot of talk on the radio about the ongoing war in Ukraine. It would seem that the Russians are beginning to rebel against their leader who has got them into a war that no one wants.
We got to the woods and walked our latest “usual walk” round. I would say it passed off without episode but when we got back to the car Morgan was covered in some strange sticky yukky substance. When we got home he got a bath and the water ran brown.
Dogs is foul creatures.
 
I phoned Saga to cancel the house insurance on Dad’s house; that was painless. I then phoned Hastings council to tell them of the sale of the house. The automated system told me there was a waiting time of over an hour and that I should set up an on-line account to do it all quicker. Setting up an on-line account took some doing, and I couldn’t find any way of telling them we’d sold a house. Fortunately I’d kept the phone ringing and eventually someone answered, took all the details and said they’d send me the refund…
Refund? When I asked last year I was told there wasn’t any refund due.
 
I set off to work earlier than I might have done... but I was on a mission.
As I drove up the motorway I had a phone call claiming to be from the "3" mobile phone company. Did I want a new mobile phone? Bearing in mind that the scammers have been active recently I thought I'd have a laugh. I asked what were they offering. They asked what phone I currently had. I answered honestly - a very basic phone which was two and a half years old for which I pay twenty quid a month. The bloke made a great show of fussing about and eventually offered me a state-of-the-art top-model Samsung phone with unlimited calls and data for only fifteen quid a month. Fifteen quid for what I'd expect to pay fifty? That sounded like a very good deal... too good to be true.  So I asked him just how silly did he think I was. Clearly not speaking English very well he offered to throw in a free tablet too. I laughed and said that no matter what he offered, he wouldn't get access to my bank account. He offered it cheaper. I told him that by wasting fifteen minutes of his time I thought that I had done a public service by stopping him from scamming other people, and I hung up.
These scammers boil my piss. They sound so plausible and decent people lose a lot of money to them. These scammers are thieves; there's no other word for it. Clearly the police aren't doing anything to stop them so (yet again) I'm finding myself not being at all surprised that vigilante groups start up, and wanting to join them.
 
Rather than going straight to work I came in to Maidstone from the south. I parked up on an obscure little lane and went for a stroll here and there along the course of which I found two geocaches. Yesterday afternoon as it became too hot to sit in the garden I'd gone indoors and puzzled. I solved two geo-puzzles and this morning I went to get them. One was a straightforward find, the other not quite so easy but it was in the general area of where I thought it might be, and a helpful hint meant I soon found what I was looking for.
Go me!
 
And then on with the main business of the day. I'd come into Maidstone from the south to go to Morrisons as they sell good pants. Or... they always used to. I got lunch and some T shirts... but no pants. They had sold out. Regular readers of this drivel may recall I drew a blank with pants in Matalan last week, and I can't pretend to be over-impressed with what Sainsbury's had to offer. All else has failed. I shall have to check Amazon.
Mind you shopping on-line must be a step up from Morrisons. Hundreds of people blundering about the place; not one in fifty actually aware there was anyone else in the shop, let alone looking where they were going.
 
And so to work for the late shift, which was rather hard work.

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