21 October 2024 (Monday) - Still Raining

One of this morning’s petty squabble on the internet was over a meme posted to Facebook about how medical care is given out free of charge in “Star Trek”. Non-Americans commenting pointed out that they don’t pay for healthcare (at the point of care). The Americans commenting fell into two groups. One group were saying what a wonderful idea free health care would be; seemingly oblivious to the fact that healthcare is given out free of charge in most of the world except America. The other group felt that free health care would be a terrible thing and that there was some merit in paying for it.

The other squabble was about a twee meme posted by some celebrity (from way back when) about how much nurses make. It was claimed that nurses make people better and make people smile, and you can’t put a price on that. I thought about pointing out the stupidity from the pandemic when everyone stood on the doorsteps and clapped the NHS. At the time I tried paying for my shopping (in Sainsburys) by clapping but they weren’t having that.

Perhaps if we in the UK adopted the American health care model then healthcare workers in te NHS might get better pay?

I also saw that ELO are going to play their last ever gig in Hyde Park next June. Do I want to go? I wouldn’t mind, but with tickets starting at about a hundred quid a go (or so the expert opinion reckons) it’s a lot of money to shell out.

 

Despite the rain I took the dogs to the woods. Sadly my idiot enthusiasm didn’t triumph over common sense today; the rain didn’t ease up until we were in the car on the way home. But the dogs seemed to like the walk. As we walked we saw a few other dog walkers braving the elements. I think a couple of them were professional dog walkers. They had a very random assortment of dogs, and we did see two vans in the car park bearing dog walker livery.

I wonder how lucrative professional dog walking is?

 

We came home where we saw not-so-nice-next-door taking a bag of rubbish to the public bin up the street. As she walked back she glared at me like I was the shit on her shoe. Treacle snarled at her; Treacle *really* doesn’t like her.

 

The dogs had a bath. No one had rolled in anything foul, but they were wet and muddy. A hot shower to warm up and shift mud was in order. And once showered, the dogs were all soon asleep.

I loaded up an assortment of old tat into the car and set off to the tip. The tip was quiet today – only two other cars were there. I unloaded, and got chatting with the chap at the tip about how much useful stuff gets dinged out. I mentioned the little shop at the tip in Hastings; the nice man said that pretty much every council-run tip in the country has little shops where they sell useable stuff… except those in Kent.

 

I came home to an email. The geo-feds had given me the thumbs-up for my adventure lab idea, and had scheduled it to go live tomorrow. So flushed with success I spent the afternoon preparing four more of the same sorts of thing.

And once “er indoors ^TM” had gone bowling I looked at four more for my old stomping ground in Hastings.

I’m really hoping this rain will stop soon.

20 October 2024 (Sunday) - Rainy Day

I slept for ten hours last night. I sleep so much better when I have no alarm set. I made toast and had a look at the Internet as I do every morning. It was there. Again no one really had seemed to have done very much. Some days it seems that either no one does anything with their lives, or if they do they don’t plaster it all over the Internet, or if they do my lap-top chooses not to tell me. Which is a shame for a very nosey person.

I munzed, got Wordle eventually, and then the dogs came downstairs. After a night in my pit I am desperate for a wazz. But the dogs are different. They get up and pootle about. They have to be chased into the garden and even then they fiddle about before eventually doing anything. I wish I had the same lack of urgency first thing in the morning – I’d stay in my pit longer.

 

I got dressed, put some washing in to scrub… and sulked. The forecast rain had started. Mind you I was very pleased that the rain didn’t come yesterday. We were very lucky with the weather for the CITO event and the geo-meet.

I pootled on-line, wrote up some CPD, and pondered my next geocaching Adventure Lab cache series. I’ve been given another five ad-labs. The idea is you find somewhere of local interest with five specific locations. At each location you set up a question to answer – the name on a sign, the distance on a milestone, something along those lines. You take GPS co-ordinates, and set it all up on-line, and it makes a little adventure for someone else to do. I’ve set up five of these already. One up the main street in Great Chart finding points of interest, one sight-seeing around Singleton Lake…

I’ve got another series of five, but I was rather at a loose end for where I might set them, and what I might have as a theme. Wherever it is needs Internet connection. I did have a plan for Kings Wood, but the mobile data up there is patchy at best.

… and then I had a stroke of genius. But I didn’t have time for it…

 

Despite the rain we took the dogs to the garden centre. We couldn’t spend all day stuck indoors; I’d go stir crazy. So we went to the pet section at Bybrook Barn garden centre to see if we could get Treacle a new lead. We lost hers yesterday whilst having a litter pick-up. Sadly we couldn’t find anything but we got a decent fruit cake.

We thought we might come home via Pets At Home to see if they had any decent leads. They didn’t, but we got some dog treats.

And we took a minor diversion on the way home to implement stage I of my stroke of genius.

 

One home we had a cuppa, and I carried out stages II and III my stroke of genius. Starting from up the road near the station you can walk down Beaver Road, along Denmark Road and into Torrington Road. A fifteen-minute walk passing the sites of five now-closed-and gone pubs; at each of which you answer a simple question.

That was stage II.

Having answered those simple questions at each stage you get given the location of a bonus geocache… that you’ve just walked past.

That was Stage III (Hiding it earlier was stage I)

Writing the cache page and ad-lab pages kept me quiet for a couple of hours. It’s now down to the geo-feds.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching tonight’s episode of “Lego Masters: Australia”. Both were rather good…

 

Hope this rain lets up soon…

19 October 2024 (Saturday) - Dog Club, CITO, Geo-Meet, Dinner

The dogs took up an amazing amount of bed space last night. Eventually I got some space when they all followed “er indoors ^TM” to the loo in the small hours, but when they came back there was an altercation about why Bailey was so smelly. For a very small cute dog she can be quite disgusting sometimes.

I got a little more kip, but not much.

 

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was still there, and much the same as ever. More and more I’m seeing utter drivel of no interest to me on my Facebook feed, and less and less of that which is actually interesting.

I munzed, and have now done all that I need to for this month’s Munzee Clan War – it is now down to everyone else. There was a little consternation on one of the other clans in that someone who needs to Munz daily hasn’t been on-line in ten days. But as long as it isn’t out clan, all is well.

And I got Wordle on the fifth attempt when I finally realized to use the American spelling. 

 

Being Saturday we set off to Dog Cub. Yesterday when working the weather was glorious. This morning we had rain. Not as heavy as it might have been, but heavier than I would have liked. We arrived at Dog Club where I’d decided that we’d open up and if the weather was that bad we’d come home. But having arrived expecting the worst we had a rather good session. Despite the rain we had a dozen dogs along. Morgan played nicely to begin with. He did get rather excited so we popped his muzzle on as a precaution and all was well. The dog we thought he’d been trying to nip came up to him several times and (with play-bows) invited him to play.

 

As we came home we listened to Steve on the radio. The mystery year was easy – Enya’s “Orinoco Flow” was in 1981… or so I was convinced. It was actually 1988… It is strange how your memory plays tricks on you; I can distinctly remember listening to this when still living at my mum’s. Another reason why it is worth my while writing a diary. Clearly I remember wrong.

We got home and dried off. I put on dry trousers and looked out my waterproof leggings, then scared up a couple of prizes for later.

 

With the rain finally looking as though it was clearing up we drove up to Badlesmere where I was staging today’s geo-meet. We started off on a litter-pick around Badlesmere Village Green. There wasn’t a lot of litter to be had, but what there was we had. Prizes were awarded for most litter collected (quite a bit) and most unusual litter (perfectly useable garden fork).

Mind you it has to be said that for all we collected some litter, we left some. Treacle’s lead went missing whilst we were there.

And with litter gathered we retreated to the Red Lion for a pint and a chat.

Bearing in mind the frankly dreadful weather forecast I was very pleased with the amount of people who came – there must have been twenty people along to the event today. Some people were old hands at the geo-meet game; others had their first meet-up today. As always the event passed off rather well. And just as it began to get a tad nippy so people went their various ways, and together with Karl and Tracy we came inside and had a rather good bit of dinner.

 

I took a few photos of our day. We came home, and we both had a little sleep. But not as much as the dogs did. It’s three hours past dog-dinner-time and they are still snoring.

18 October 2024 (Friday) - Early Shift

I was wide awake and raring to go far too early this morning. I got up and as I scoffed my brekkie I watched some utter drivel on Netflix about some West Indian family living in London in the 1980s. I doubt I shall watch any more.

 

I got dressed in the dark and went off to find my car. Having no idea where I'd left it yesterday I was rather pleased to find it right outside the house. I set off, and immediately did the first of the many emergency stops I did this morning.

Back in the day when I cycled to work (which I did for about fifteen years) I had lights on the front and back of my bike, and I wore a bright yellow hi-vis vest. An hour before dawn this morning I lost count of the amount of half-wits on bikes that I nearly ran over. Not one had any lights on their bikes, all were clad entirely in black, and all had those stupid ear buds in preventing them from hearing anything; least of all me shouting at them.

 

As I drove the pundits on the radio were interviewing one of the head honchos at Netflix who was talking about the popularity of one of their subscription packages. If you take this deal you don't get bombarded with adverts. Apparently they've done research and found that the general public doesn't like adverts and tend to fast-forward through them. If the public can’t fast-forward through them then they go to toilet during the adverts or make a cup of tea, and it turns out that if the public are forced to watch an advert for a particular product then they are more likely to buy whatever it is from a competing company.

How long had it taken them to realise this?

And there was news from the Middle East. The Israelis have killed the boss of Hamas but intend to continue the war anyway. I can remember an interview on the radio about the situation in Gaza about five years ago. People from all sides of the conflict were harping on about grievances that happened twenty years before any of them were born. All admitted that no one was prepared to give an inch, and all admitted the fighting would continue indefinitely. The people being interviewed at the time all but admitted the hatred they had for each other was so strong that they really would rather have war than peace. And (as always) it is the little people that suffer.

I would say that five years later nothing has changed, but today's interview on the matter was with someone whose accent was so think I couldn't make out a word he was saying. I wish Radio Four would sort out their phone interviews. They always go one of three ways.

The phone line keeps dropping out.

The interviewee mumbles and stutters.

The interviewee barely speaks English.

 

I got to work and did my bit. Today was rather busy. I don’t dislike work, but it is seriously getting in my way. I spent much of today looking out the window at rather good weather thinking about what I might be doing in my garden.

But an early start meant for an early finish. I came home, and saw my screws and drill bits and new wellies had arrived. I was rather pleased about that. I then took the dogs out to the garden to do the “feed the fish” ceremony. Treacle particularly likes “feed the fish”; she gets very over-excited about it. As I feed the fish I give the dogs some fish food. Are a few dried rice flakes really that good? The dogs certainly seem to think so.

Mind you, Treacle was limping a bit… perhaps she needs to take it easy? She’s getting rather old. And grey.

 

“er indoors ^TM” sorted some ribs for dinner which we scoffed whilst watching The Completely Made Up Adventures of Dick Turpin on Apple TV. It was rather good; yet another show which seems to have slipped past most people. But what with Sky and Amazon Prime and Apple TV there’s far too many channels to watch.

“er indoors ^TM” said I could scoff a box of choccies she had for her birthday. Last year. Their best before date was a year ago, but I scoffed them anyway.

I feel rather sick now.

17 October 2024 (Thursday) - Home Alone

This morning’s petty squabble on Facebook was about the national Town Criers’ Championship which took place recently in Rye. No? – it passed off pretty much unnoticed, didn’t it? Traditionally it has been held in Hastings but over the last couple of years it has moved to Rye as Hastings Town Council say they can’t afford it any more. Those who like town crier competitions are up in arms about this. Those who don’t were pointing out that council-funded town crier competitions attract dozens of people whereas self-funding events (like the bonfire parade and Jack in the Green) attract tens of thousands. Time for a change in the way the thing is funded, perhaps? It strikes me that town crier competitions are the Radio Three of public entertainment; only there because someone else is paying for it. I wonder how long Rye town council will carry on shelling out for this event?

 

“er indoors ^TM” was having an office day today so she set off leaving me with the dogs. Yesterday Treacle had a dodgy leg, but this morning it seemed better. We went to the woods and I thought that if her leg was playing up we might cut the walk short and come home. We walked four miles; she seemed fine.

Sadly as we walked we had an “episode”. Some child was toddling along with its father, and on seeing Bailey went absolutely hysterical. I could understand it if Bailey was the size of other dogs, but she is XS of the dog world.

With walk walked we came home; I was expecting the dogs to be filthy; their bellies needed hosing off but they weren’t that grubby at all considering the overnight rain. And seeing how their backs were dry I did the monthly flea treatments. In a novel break with tradition Treacle didn’t run away. All three were as good as gold for a drop on the back of the neck.

 

My plan for today was to screw together all the wooden sleepers of the bog filter. I had a look in the shed and saw I didn’t have quite enough screws. And (to be honest) my drill bit isn’t what it once was. So I ordered up some more from Amazon, and whilst I was at it I ordered some new wellies too. My ones sprung a leak a week or so ago, and they let quite a bit of water in whilst we were up the woods earlier.

 

With plans poggered I cracked on with the ironing whilst watching a DVD. “Quadrophenia” was nowhere near as good as I remembered it. Once it had finished I got up. Treacle leapt up thinking she was missing something and she hobbled after me. Having seemingly been fine whilst in the woods she was certainly struggling this afternoon. I sat on the sofa rubbing her leg for much of the afternoon.

As I massaged I watched more episodes of “Four in a Bed” in which the proprietors of four bed and breakfast establishments competed to see who was best. The loser had the right arse about losing; amazingly he didn’t seem to realise that his establishment’s gimmick (they didn’t actually do a breakfast) would count against him.

 

“er indoors ^TM” came home. I fed her Plov Mk II. It was an improvement on what I’d boiled up a week ago. Having said that, it has still got a way to go. Mk III won’t have carrots, and korma might be a better flavour than tikka was.

As we scoffed we watched the most recent episode of “Lego Masters: Australia”. I won’t give the game away, but I will say that in this episode the weakest team were eliminated, and I smiled.

 

Oh – and Pigsy died today. He was an absolute hero back in the day. Sandy died from heart issues four years ago, and Tripitaka died of leukaemia nearly forty years ago. When you bear in mind that him who played the horse died seven years ago, there’s only Monkey left.

They don’t make TV shows like that any more.

16 October 2024 (Wednesday) - This n That

As I do on the morning after most vaccinations, I woke feeling vaguely cheated. So many people claim to have such terrible after-effects from injections. I’m sure it’s all in the mind. I blame the people giving the jab. If they were to say that this was a new vaccine and you might just possibly come out in a bright red rash then quite a few people would be reaching for the felt-tipped pens just to be sure they didn’t miss out. I can remember our BCG vaccines at school. We were told that our arms might be sore for a day or so and half our class were supposedly in agony for a week. One lad in particular would go hysterical screaming “mind my BCG!!!” if anyone came within two yards of him for the rest of the year.

 

I made toast and scoffed it whilst peering into the Internet. It was still there. Nothing much had changed really. People were squabbling over trivia as people do. But I had a pang of guilt.

Many years ago (forty-nine) I took a friend along to Boys Brigade. This chap’s father had died when he was very young, and he latched onto every man who came into his life; obviously craving a father figure. Through me, my old mate met the Boys Brigade leader who was a religious nut. And because of that my old mate became a religious nut himself. He’s now the pastor of a big Baptist church in the west country and his church regularly posts up videos of him preaching. One of his videos was on Facebook this morning.

In these videos he spouts stark staring nonsense and has a bible quote for absolutely every single thing that happens. Going to McDonalds, having a pee, watching “Bake Off”, taking the dogs out… he has a verse for everything. All of which seems perfectly sensible to him and all of which are clearly ridiculous and don’t stand up to any reasoned thought whatsoever. Sometimes when watching his videos I fear for his sanity…and it’s all my fault that he got religion.

 

I Munzed, then got ready for the day. I put washing in to scrub then took the dogs up to Kings Wood. I had “did not find” logs on two of my geocaches. One was there, one wasn’t. I replaced the missing one. As we walked we met other dog walkers; every meeting passed off without incident. It usually does when there is no one to see the dogs behaving themselves.

 

We came home. I had a cuppa then cracked on with the current pond project. I (sort of) levelled up the area at the top of the pond which I had dug out over the weekend, lined the sleeper at the top of the pond, got weed-proof membranes in place and put the sleepers for the bog filter roughly in place. Thirty seconds to type; over three hours to do. As I worked I spirit-levelled every bit individually, but with it all (sort of) together it looked more pissed than a pissed thing. Oh well… if all goes to plan it will all be hidden by rocks and plants anyway.

The plan is that tomorrow I shall attach all the bits of wood together. I wonder if I will.

 

I came in, had a cuppa and realized I could hardly move. I had a look at my bank account, did some CPD, and suddenly remembered that I’d put some washing on the line earlier. I got that lot in, then slobbed about on the telly sleeping through some utter twaddle on the “Blaze” channel about how the Americans stole atom bombs form aliens during the second world war.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a rather good dinner which we scoffed whilst watching more “Lego Masters: Australia” as a thunderstorm started. It was as well we’ve no end of stuff recorded on the Sky-Q box as the rain was so heavy it poggered the TV satellite signal.

Let’s hope it comes back.

15 October 2024 (Tuesday) - Late Shift

I slept well. Apparently “er indoors ^TM” didn’t. She was in and out with Treacle several times during the night.

I made toast and had my usual rummage round the Internet. There was a major rant happening on one of the local Facebook groups about a local GP surgery. They open their phone lines at eight o’clock for an hour, but say they might close them early if all the appointments go. Apparently this morning the phone lines closed at five past eight.

Thinking back to yesterday’s rant it is quite clear that the GPs can’t cope, so why on Earth does Lord Darzi want to burden them with more work…?

 

I munzed, I failed at Wordle, and took the dogs for a walk. Not having as long as we usually have, we just walked to the park and back. As we walked we saw “OrangeHead” whose head today was a vivid russet. Back in the day when I used to take Fudge to the park we would regularly meet “OrangeHead” and a gang of her mates. I laughingly called the mates “OrangeHead’s posse” and the membership of the posse would ebb and flow. From time to time I’d see her going in one direction and some of her posse going in another. Chatting with them they would all be falling out with each other all the time. It would seem that in the years since we regularly walked round the park she’s still got a posse. I wonder if they still quarrel.

 

I also saw something that boiled my piss. There’s some relatively new houses that have been built near the park overlooking the river, It would take over six years wages of the average UK citizen to buy one of them. Alternatively you could get one by taking out a mortgage over twenty-five years and paying back over a thousand quid a month. Sitting on the other side of the river from these houses is a tent in which some poor homeless sod had set up.

This isn’t the future I was promised…

 

We came home. Because we’ve got a home to come to. The dogs had brekkie, and on seeing a new geocache had gone live not a million miles from work I set off early in the hope of getting a First to Find.

I didn’t get it.

I went on to work where as well as having a rather busy afternoon I also had both my COVID and flu injections, and came home through the rain.

 

Mind you not getting to be First to Find, being busy and having injections pales into insignificance compared to that poor sod in his tent in Viccie Park in the rain.

14 October 2024 (Monday) - A Wet and Rainy Day

Amongst other things outside I had planned a walk round the woods this morning and then I wanted to get slabs into the bottom of the area I was digging out yesterday. I was a bit miffed to wake to find heavy rain. Ho hum…

 

I contended myself with making toast and my usual look at the Internet. It was still there, and there wasn’t a lot happening in there. Mind you I did learn something today. The monkey from the 1960s TV show “Lost In Space” apparently had its teeth removed as it kept biting people. There’s a sign of the times, eh? Could you imagine that happening today? Biting people would be the monkey’s inalienable right, wouldn’t it?

 

I munzed, got Wordle at the fourth attempt, and seeing the rain was showing no sign of letting up I put some washing in, and cracked on with CPD. As I did so my piss boiled. Lord Darzi has reviewed the NHS and found quite a bit of fault, and my professional body have published their response to his review.

Is the NHS going to have radical change? Is my professional lot going to change massively?

Short answer – I doubt it.

Long answer… I’m reminded of my grandmother listening to a cousin jabbering on at great length loudly and noisily about the equally pretentious proclamations of the committee of the local fishing club, whilst actually doing nothing himself other than sitting on his bum and finding fault. Gran listened patiently to his ranting then announced “fine words butter no parsnips”.

And this is true of both what Lord Darzi has found and the IBMS’s response.

 

Lord Darzi’s report highlights the rising number of people living with multiple long-term conditions and the strain this places on hospitals. To address these challenges he says that immediate action and a strengthened diagnostic infrastructure are needed to ensure early detection, continuous monitoring, and better management of chronic diseases.

Can’t disagree there.

He goes on to say that a shift in the NHS’s focus from hospitals to community-based care is essential, and claims that expanding the reach of diagnostics into community settings will enable earlier interventions and reduce pressure on hospitals.

We can’t argue with that in theory, can we?

But in practice? Lord Darzi has done reviews of the NHS before. He feels (probably rightly) that the NHS is too big and would work better in smaller units. However at the time of his last review of the NHS pathology services were reviewed by Lord Carter of Coles and he said “big is better”, and successive governments spent twenty years working along those lines. I’m breaching no confidences by saying this; it is a matter of public record. Just read the newspapers or watch the news.

 

If Lord Darzi wants diagnostic testing out in the community with a massive increase in point of care testing he needs to staff it. So he can either de-skill the workforce, and we all saw how that went (on national TV!), or he can recruit a *lot* more biomedical scientists. And he can only do that by making the job more attractive. And that will cost.

And that’s just the part of the NHS about which I’ve got more than a passing acquaintance. The same is probably true everywhere in healthcare.

 

On reflection I can’t help but wonder if Lord Darzi has missed the point. The whole point of a hospital is that it is a centre of excellence. If you’re a tad poorly you go ask the pharmacist for some jollop. If his jollop don’t work you go see your GP. If whatever is wrong with you is beyond him, you go to the hospital. And if your ailment is particularly out of the ordinary your local hospital will send you to a tertiary referral centre. The whole point here is that health care ain’t cheap, and there are massive economies of scale by centralising. It is far more cost effective (and practical) to have a single team of surgeons and the entire operating theatre kit and kaboodle at one central location rather than having one at each of a dozen (or more) GP surgeries in every town.

 

Having said (ranted) that, personally I’m taking whatever Lord Darzi has to say with a pinch of salt. Whatever he says simply won’t happen. At the risk of appearing to be an old reactionary, I really have seen it all before. Many times.

There will be all sorts of meetings at the Department of Health. Meetings, meetings about meetings that have happened. Meetings about meetings that are to happen. Eventually NHS Trusts will get orders from these meetings… and at the very point where something might actually happen, Lord Darzi’s ideas will be superceded by the next great NHS shake-up.

Look at what Lord Darzi is suggesting… he feels that (effectively) those in community-based care will call the shots in the NHS. That’s been done before (at least twice) and abandoned both times because of political ideology rather than any tangible evidence.

 

What the NHS needs is a load more money to recruit and train staff. And having recruited and trained staff it needs to be left alone for whatever is the current review and shake-up to take effect. Realistically this will take a few years.

Then this current review and shake-up needs to be formally reviewed and assessed, and fine-tuned on the strength of verifiable objective data, not the whim of whatever politician is in vogue at the time. As happens all the time.

The Prime Minister claims to have a ten-year plan. Perhaps he has. Perhaps he will review and reform the NHS properly. Personally I hope he does and I wish him every success. But a ten-year vision from a politician is a brave thing.

 

I try not to blog about work, but sometimes…

13 October 2024 (Sunday) - A Walk, More Pond

I slept for nine hours last night. Something of a result. I got up, and as I do most mornings, made toast and peered into the Internet. Apparently last night was Hastings Bonfire Parade. I should have known that, and we wouldn’t have gone anyway, but I felt rather miffed that I’d missed it.

Glossing over endless adverts for lengthy holidays in far-away places there wasn’t much else happening on-line, so I went and fetched the car from where I’d parked it after Dog Club yesterday. It started bleating about low tyre pressures; it claimed all four tyres needed a bit of air. So I got the pump out. They all did.

This has left me wondering – I’ve never had a car that tells me about tyre pressures before. Had I been driving round with low tyre pressures for years? I’ll never know.

And with tyres pumped I went into the garden and spent half an hour shifting shingle for the current ongoing pond project.

 

After half an hour we got the dogs onto their leads and drove down to Ham Street. I’d suggested a little walk to “er indoors ^TM”, and “My Boy ^TM”, Cheryl and Ro-Ro wanted to come along too.

As always when looking for a little walk I’d looked at the geocache map and spotted a multi-cache near Ham Street garden centre. This involved going to the given location and solving a little puzzle to find the final location of the geocache. Looking at the map it was pretty obvious that the cache would be on the footpath along the military canal, and whichever way we went would put us near a second geocache… so there was our walk laid out for us.

 

We all met up in a lay-by near Ham Street; I solved the puzzle and sure enough we had a final location a quarter of a mile down the canal. After a quick(ish) find we carried on to a notice board about the construction of the canal. The second cache was a puzzle based on this notice board. We got the information we needed and we carried on walking as I solved the puzzle. It didn’t take me long to realise we’d walked past the cache. So we carried along the canal as far as the railway line then turned back. The second cache was soon found. It was… I won’t give spoilers, but the non-hunters-of-Tupperware in our group were rather impressed.

I was impressed too. Again a silly little hobby had given us a rather good walk along a rather pretty canal where we wouldn’t otherwise have gone. As we came along the canal we saw herons and egrets, swans and cygnets, and even a hawk. We saw some people fishing, and one other group of walkers, but other than that we had the world to ourselves. Geocaching takes us to some rather good places.

 

With walk walked we drove up the road to Ham Street garden centre. The place has rebuilt its car park. We had a nosey round, then on seeing the café was dog-friendly we had a cuppa. I suspect that when they said “dog friendly” they weren’t expecting us to bring in four, but they were amazingly well behaved. A cuppa and a slice of lemon drizzle cake went down very well.

 

We said our goodbyes and came home. I went out to the garden and cracked on shifting shingle, then lifted the weed-proof membranes and dug out the basic shape for my new bog filter. As I dug I realized that two of the garden slabs which had been underneath the old garden tub were exactly the right size to line the hole I’d dug. But getting them level would take some doing. That can be tomorrow’s project…

I came in for coffee and cake (oh yus!) and sent an email to AllPondSolutions – I need a new input thingy for the pressure filter. The existing one seems to have a crack and is dripping.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a rather good curry which we scoffed whilst watching the first episode of the fifth season of “Lego Masters: Australia”. In this season they’ve brought back winners and runners-up from the first four seasons to have a “Grand Masters” contest.

It’s a shame they’ve brought back the opinionated and arrogant idiot from the first season; hope he loses.

(is that wrong of me?)

12 October 2024 (Saturday) - Dog Club, Pond, Games Night

I woke, put a load of washing in to scrub, made toast and had a fight with my lap-top. It didn’t want to look at the Internet this morning. I turned it off and on again, and all was fine. I can remember years ago having similar issues with a video recorder. We called out the nice man who’d only the day before put up an arial on the roof for us. He pulled out the plug, counted to ten and plugged it back in again and all was fine. He didn’t charge us as we’d already spent a lot of money with him that week, but he said that about a quarter of his call-outs involved pulling the plug, counting to ten, and charging twenty quid. And back then twenty quid was a lot more money than it is now. Mind you, back then people would come out to your house to fix your video recorder. These days Sky just sent out a new box and throw the old one away.

I eventually got at the Internet and found it much the same as it ever is. I munzed as I do, and amazed myself by getting Wordle right on only the second attempt.

 

Being Saturday we set off to Dog Club. Even though it was raining. I must admit I wasn’t keen on going; there’s one dog who started recently who Morgan seriously doesn’t like and has taken to nipping. Last weekend we got him a muzzle, and he wore it today. Together with his coat. All three wore coats today.

With the muzzle on, Dog Club passed off rather well. Several people felt sorry for poor Morgan, and whilst the muzzle stopped him nipping, it certainly didn’t stop him getting treats.  

 

“er indoors ^TM” went off to craft club. I took the dogs home. As we drove I caught the end of Steve doing the Mystery Year on the radio. I thought it was 1974, and I sent in my answer. And then “Annie’s Song” came over the airwaves which told me I was right. I can remember it coming out. In 1974.

That was a tune I once learned on the piano about twenty-five years ago when I was taking piano lessons.

 

We got home. I hung up wet coats and gave the dogs a once-over. They were dry and clean under their coats, and were soon fast asleep. I went into the garden and cleaned the small pond’s filter. I did want to do more outside. I had plans for what I wanted to do, but the rain was still persisting down. So instead as I listened to Steve on the radio I made a cuppa and counted up the Dog Club money instead. I count it every couple of weeks, pocket it and transfer the same amount from my account to the Repton Centre’s account… there’s not as much in the pot these days as there used to be. Either people are paying their money to the Repton people directly or people aren’t stumping up. Should I be worrying? I don’t see why I should… for all that we enjoy Dog Club I’m still not sure how I’ve ended up being the go-to chap for it? I suppose it’s a case of the old adage “if you want a job done, do it yourself”.

With money counted I then strained my brain on a geo-puzzle. Despite the name it isn’t actually about cabbages… or so I am reliably informed.

 

Once Steve’s radio show finished I still hadn’t solved the puzzle, but the rain had stopped. So I went into the garden and made a start on the next phase of the pond. A couple of months ago I sawed up sleepers in readiness for replacing the bog filter with a bigger one. The job is simple enough:

• Drag out the tub at the top (which I spent months finding and getting just right).
• Disassemble rockery and shift about twenty large rocks.
• Scoop up a couple of cubic metres of shingle.
• Empty the plants from the splash pool into temporary storage.
• Lift out the splash pool.
• Lift up the weed-proof membranes.
• Dig out a hole for the new bog filter.
• Re-lay membranes.
• Put (and screw) sleepers into place to make new filter area.
• Put pond liner into new filter area.
• Test it is all watertight and not overly splashing existing sleepers.
• Put plants back.
• Rebuild and landscape the rockery.
• Replace and landscape the couple of cubic metres of shingle.

I naively thought I might get it all done in a couple of days. After two hours I’d dragged out the top tub, shifted maybe half of the rockery and a quarter of the shingle. I stopped at that point. Rather than cracking on and physically knacking myself, this might be a project best done in smaller sittings.

 

I stopped and had a little rest. It wasn’t long before Chris arrived with the Infinity table, and very soon after Steve and Sarah were with us. We had a very good evening playing Game of Life, Sorry, and Ticket to Ride.

I do like our games evenings; must have another soon…

11 October 2024 (Friday) - Currency Conversions

I was rather later to bed last night than I might have been. There was talk all over social media last night about the Northern Lights being visible in the South East so I went out into the garden, and they were. I took a few photos.

This morning loads of people had posted photos of what they’d seen last night. At the risk of appearing to be an old misery-guts I don’t know what I was expecting from the Northern Lights, but I was expecting more than what I saw. Having often considered going on one of these trips specifically to see the aurora I’m glad I didn’t spend hundreds of pounds. Perhaps they are more impressive closer to the pole? I suppose having been waiting for over fifty years to see the lights, they were never going to live up to my expectations.

It would seem that no one had done much else other than look at the northern lights overnight as there was very little else on social media this morning. Mind you I still had seemingly endless adverts for escorted holidays on my Facebook feed. Since we went away a couple of weeks ago I’m being bombarded with adverts for holidays. One caught my eye; an overland tour round Africa. Pretty much all of Africa. Starting at the end of this month you can tour all round from Morocco to Egypt via Cape Town. It is billed as a “singles” holiday with a target age range of eighteen to eighty and is a tour lasting forty-seven weeks. It only costs ten thousand pounds. I would ask who could go on holiday for a year, but I suppose enough people must do that sort of thing to make it worth the company’s while running them.

 

I Munzed, got Wordle on the sixth attempt, and took the dogs to the woods. As we walked we met several dogs in the depths of the woods still on their leads. One chap commented that my dogs weren’t on leads. I replied that he was correct and that they weren’t. He then told me that my dogs were running loose. I pointed out that the reason for that was that they weren’t on their leads. As this bloke glared at me I whistled and walked off with all three dogs following me.

 

We came home. Surprisingly all three dogs were clean. No muck or mud. No need for a bath. So, leaving the dogs with “er indoors ^TM”, I set off to Canterbury. Having taken far too much money with us to Uzbekistan I had quite a few American dollars to change up. I could have changed it up in any one of several places but having changed it into pounds I wanted to put those pounds into my bank account. And seeing how forward-thinking and switched-on my bank is (!), I had to go to the Canterbury branch to do that. At first sight I was rather miffed at how much commission they were charging, but from what I could see on-line, pretty much everyone doing currency conversions was wanting a comparable bung.

With dollars converted and in my account I then asked about the Uzbek money I’ve got left over. The nice bank man asked his boss… it turns out that my bank doesn’t deal in Uzbek Soms, but they said that the bureau de change in the High Street might. I couldn’t get there though – the High Street was cordoned off. Apparently there had been a murder.

Instead, I went to the Post Office where (sadly) all the competent staff had gone for a break and left the village idiot in command. In a rather condescending tone she asked what I wanted. I explained that I wanted to exchange Uzbek soms for pounds sterling. She arrogantly announced that she could easily do that, and snatched my wad of soms with a flourish. She then looked at them. And looked again. And asked what they were supposed to be. I told her that, to the best of my knowledge, they were supposed to be Uzbek soms. She asked where they came from. I replied Uzbekistan (leaving off the “dur!”). She fiddled with her computer, and again asked where they came from.

We went through this four times, after which she told me (rather arrogantly) that she’d been through the “H” section on her computer four times, and there is no such country as Uzbekistan. I took my wad of soms back and told her that I would take my custom to somewhere that can spell “Uzbekistan”.

Sadly it turns out that there isn’t anywhere that I can really take my custom (and soms). I’ve found a couple of places that will change them to pounds, but they want ridiculous amounts of commission. I’ve got about twenty quid’s worth of soms; if any of my loyal readers are going on holiday, let me know…

 

From Canterbury I drove out to Staple. This weekend sees international EarthCache Day. Anyone logging an Earthcache gets a special souvenir.

To the uninitiated, an Earthcache is effectively an unholy combination of a geocache and your geology homework, and having found over a hundred of the things, there’s not many unfound ones left within spitting distance. In fact when I checked the geo-map there was only one within twenty miles of home. Fortunately that one was in the general direction of Canterbury. Now that I’ve logged that one, my closest unfound EarthCache is in the general vicinity of “er indoors ^TM” grandmother’s old house near Bexhill.

 

With EarthCaching done I got out the pressure washer again and had another blat at the area just outside the back door. Really I should do it more often than I do. Little and often, rather than waiting till it gets amazingly filthy and then having to seriously scrub. After all, that pressure washer does generate quite a lot of really dirty water, and I always make the schoolboy error of using the pressure washer to unblock the drain… which sprays muck everywhere.

I then bionically burned the garden path. I must admit I’m quite pleased with that bionic burner. Provided I remember to wave it round once every few weeks it is making a far better job of controlling the weeds than getting on my hands and knees and pulling ever did.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up fish and chips and we scoffed it whilst watching the final of “Bake Off: The Professionals”. That series was rather good, but I was rather distracted by one of the presenters whose skull appeared to be one size too big for her head.

I wonder what we’ll watch next…

10 October 2024 (Thursday) - Rather Busy

With no alarm set I slept through until the dogs woke me when then started a rather vigorous play-fight at about half-past seven. To be sure that their play-fighting had woken me they all then set about licking my head, and once they were confident that I was awake they all went back to sleep.

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. There was quite a bit of talk about how the BBC’s weather app has gone dinlo overnight and was forecasting wind speeds of over fifteen thousand miles per hour. Apparently the BBC were well aware there was an issue with their forecasts, but some idiot was posting to local Facebook groups claiming it was all a cyber-attack by the Russians. Oh dear…

 

“er indoors ^TM” set off to the office; I took the dogs up to the woods. As we drove the pundits on the radio were interviewing Terry Deary, the author of the children’s books “Horrible Histories”. He’s apparently writing adult history books now.

We got to the woods and had a rather uneventful walk, which was probably for the best. We walked three and a half miles; we saw one or two other dog walkers. All the encounters passed off without episode. They usually do when it is just me and the dogs.

It was a shame that all three dogs rolled in something foul as we walked, but that’s what dogs do.

 

We came home. The dogs had a bath, and I mowed the lawn. The lawn was probably too wet to have been mowed, but it was so long it wasn’t going to dry out any time soon. And with lawn mowed I got out the pressure washer and had a go at the area just outside the back door. It had got rather grubby over the last few months.

 

I popped over the road to the Polish shop to get some ingredients, and spent the afternoon alternately watching episodes of “Brideshead Revisited” and making plov Mk I. Plov is an Usbek dish which we had when on holiday a couple of weeks ago. We had it a couple of times, and it was rather good. Mind you in Uzbekistan it wasn’t up against much competition. Over there raw whole tomatoes and raw whole cucumbers count as haute cuisine.

 

“er indoors ^TM” came home and I dished up scran. I’m rather pleased with how it came out. MkII will include peppers.

I’ve had a rather busy day today… I had hoped to get the ironing done as well…

And the BBC weather forecast is still wrong.

9 October 2024 (Wednesday) - Bit Dull

Again I found myself wide awake far too early in the morning so I got up, made toast and watched more telly. You can't beat a bit of "Brideshead Revisited”.  I do like that show. What with this and my love for Upstairs Downstairs and Downton Abbey I suspect I have nostalgia for an era that never actually happened.

As I watched telly so “er indoors ^TM” came downstairs and went to the loo. And as always when she gets up in the night she was accompanied by the entire pack of dogs. When I get up in the night they just roll over into the warm space that I've left.

 

With telly watched I set off tough another dark morning to work. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how eBay is banning sales of e-bikes and their batteries. Apparently there are several brands on the market which are just as likely to explode as to do what you might expect of them, and so sensibly sales are being halted until assurances can be given that people won't be paying good money just to get an explosion.

And today Twitter returns to Brazil. Apparently Twitter (or "X" as it is now known) has been banned there for the last month since it turned out that the social media there was a hotbed of fake news and misinformation. It would seem the Brazilian authorities are allowing tweeting to return now that the lies have stopped.

Heaven forbid social media should be held accountable for the nonsense it spews, eh?

 

I got to work, and had a surprisingly busy morning and a dull afternoon. But starting early meant that I finished early. Leaving me with a pizza, “er indoors ^TM” went off out with her mates. I watched more "Brideshead Revisited” from underneath a pile of dogs.

I’ve done two days at work and I’m worn out. With no alarm set for tomorrow I wonder if I’ll get a better night’s sleep tonight?

8 October 2024 (Tuesday) - Back to Work

I had another restless night. I gave up trying to sleep, got up and watched more "Brideshead Revisited". Yesterday I mentioned that the actor who had been Marvin in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy had played cousin Jasper. This morning I was reminded that the actor who'd played Lord Brideshead had also been in The Guide - he'd played Arthur Dent. I watched every actor like a hawk in the hope of spotting more crossovers.

 

As “er indoors ^TM” and the dogs staged a rather impressive snoring contest I got ready for work and set off through a rather dark morning. It was over three weeks since I'd last shown my face there, and in the meantime the mornings have got noticeably darker. As I drove the pundits on the radio were spouting what they spout. Wars still raged, politicians still pontificated... all paled into insignificance given the revelation that some poor chap had had a tug with such ferocity that he'd ripped his aorta open.

It strikes me that you'd have to have quite a serious joddrell to give yourself an aortic dissection.  I suppose that, if nothing else, here's another reason for having a cold shower.

 

Being rather unimpressed with the sweetie selection we'd had in Uzbekistan I thought I'd take some sweeties into work from Sainsbury's. So I went to the Aylesford branch where yet again there wasn't a single manned checkout. Instead members of staff stood glaring at the people struggling with the self-service tills, and occasionally making pointed comments. One of my fellow shoppers was challenged by the supermarket staff; they wanted to check the contents of his shopping bag against his receipt. He told them to get knotted; if they didn't trust him then they shouldn't have forced him to use a self-service checkout.

I thought about applauding.

 

I got to work. Apparently yesterday we'd had a visitor. One of my trainees from twenty years ago had come for an interview for a senior position. Fortunately he didn't get it.

I spent much of the day thinking about the chap. I can always remember him going from argument to argument. His grandfather died and left him a legacy which at the time he was squandering by moving house at least once every year seemingly constantly falling out with neighbours. There was one episode where he had a fist fight with a neighbour over who was allowed to park where on the local streets.

I can remember being his manager and having my manager wanting to know what the problem at work was; this chap had approached my manager in tears because everyone hated him and everyone was picking on him. Neither I nor any of my staff knew anything about what the issue was, nor did we ever find out. When he left he organised his own leaving party to which he made a point of inviting secretaries and people from adjoining departments, but none of the people with whom he actually worked.

He came off Facebook years ago - I'd often wondered what happened to him. Apparently he's spent the last few years moving across the country... still going from squabble to squabble.

 

When I got home I spent a few minutes looking at my LinkedIn account.  I don’t know why really. Of all the various social media, LinkedIn is far and away the most lame. Social media is supposed to be fun… LinkedIn is for people who really don’t have anything in their lives but work. Sadly there’s a lot of people like that.

It speaks volumes that I’ve formally verified my LinkedIn account for free, but Facebook wants a tenner a month…

7 October 2024 (Monday) - On the Mend (?)

I slept well, which was a result. I made toast and had a look at the Internet. Facebook wondered if I might like to subscribe to the “Thunderbirds” page. From what I could see, clicking the “subscribe” button wouldn’t get me anything that clicking the “like” button would achieve other than that I’d have to pay money.

I decided against it.

There wasn’t much else happening on social media so I had a look at my emails. Several new geocaches had gone live near work; all needing a canoe to get at them. And I had a load of “DNF” logs on my geocaches. “DNF” means “did not find” and obviously this is what you log if you can’t find a specific film pot under a log. However more and more people are using this sort of log because they couldn’t solve the puzzle, or because they ran out of time, or because their mum had phoned and said their tea was ready.  Sadly “DNF” logs trigger the geo-feds who then disable my caches for my attention (and sometimes even archive them) when there’s not actually anything wrong with the caches.

And I had one or two (quite a few) whinging emails about soggy log sheets and full log sheets on some of my caches as well.

 

I popped down the road to the dentist as I had an appointment with the hygienist today. As I sat and waited so half a dozen people all swarmed in together. Mum, dad and several assorted teenagers. They went to the counter, signed in, and sat down. The receptionist then called and asked them who was next. This request was greeted with blank stares. The receptionist asked again. Again blank stares. The receptionist then told it like it was. Six had walked in; only one had registered for their appointment. It turned out that only one had an appointment, but the entire tribe had to come along. Even though the one that was having the appointment was nineteen years old. It transpired that in their world no one ever did anything on their own.

I got called in. The hygienist rummaged round inside my gob. There was a lot of hosing and vibrating. I have no idea whether my cake hole was good or bad. I’m presuming good as the only thing she said to me was to make another appointment for next March.

 

I came home, collected the dogs and took them to the woods. As we walked down the field from the car park so there was a woman standing by a hedge. With make-up trowelled on, she was clearly dressed more for the catwalk than the woods. Morgan and Bailey ran past her into the hedge and started barking. Another immaculately dressed woman came running out of the hedge… well, to be precise she came waddling out of the hedge in some disarray, but was immaculately dressed once she’d pulled up the skin-tight designer jeans. It has to be said that the undercrackers she was sporting were far more suited to nudey-sauce-romps than they were to a walk round the woods. But I suppose that when you consider that the only other pair of undercrackers we’ve ever seen in the woods had been shitted, everything is relative. The two glamour-pusses then minced off in the direction of the car park. We went the other way.

We walked perhaps further than we might have done today. Having had emails whinging about my geocaches having full logs and wet logs I checked up on a few only to find that the supposedly wet logs weren’t wet, and the supposedly full logs weren’t full. And to add insult to injury, the supposedly missing ones were exactly where they were supposed to be.

 

We came home. My plan had been to crack on in the garden. But whilst we’d been walking round the woods with blue skies and glorious sunshine, “er indoors ^TM” told me that we’d had torrential rain at home. Massively different weather in places only five miles apart.

Determined to do something in the garden I cleaned out the pond filter. Back in the days of the gravity-fed green box, cleaning the pond filter was a messy smelly back-breaking job that took over an hour. These days with the pressure filter it is all done in less than quarter of an hour.

 

The drizzle then started, so like I do far too often I settled in front of the telly and watched episodes of “Four in a Bed” in which the people running a B&B for tradesmen in the Midlands paid what they considered to be their going rate to upmarket hotels in prime tourist areas. And in doing so brought out the worst in an already rather vindictive harridan.

I do like that show when they all get nasty with each other.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up dinner then went bowling. Finding myself home alone with a working DVD player I put on the first episode of the box set of “Brideshead Revisited”, and having seen this so many times over the last forty years, tonight for the first time I realized that the chap who played the part of cousin Jasper was the same chap who played Marvin the Paranoid Android in the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

A day when you learn nothing is a day wasted…

 

I think I might finally be on the mend… I hope so. I’m off to work tomorrow.