31 August 2024 (Saturday) - Quiet Day

I had a pitched battle with Treacle at 3am which ended with her being forcibly hoiked off the bed. And then Bailey started a coughing fit.

 

I gave up trying to sleep, got up and looked out of the kitchen window at the rain. The Met Office and the BBC both assured me it wasn’t raining. So it wasn’t. I have it on good authority that, like the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the BBC weather forecast is definitive. In cases of discrepancy, reality has it wrong.

I had a few emails. Someone had found some of my geocaches in Kings Wood… another name to add to the list of people who cheat at Wherigos. When you do the series of Wherigo geocaches that I’ve made you only get the location of the first one. You get the other locations sequentially as you do them one at a time. Unless you use a cheat program. You can tell when someone does that when they randomly log “found it” on one of the random Wherigos which happen to be in line with the other ones they are logging.

And these people openly complain that the trouble with finding the things the way they do (i.e.by cheating) means they don’t get the hint that people get when not cheating.

There’s a list of those who’ve found the most geocaches in the UK here. Not only have these people not hidden that many of their own, several of them are Wherigo cheats.

I suppose it is an utterly trivial point. They are only cheating themselves… But it boils my piss that I put so much effort into creating a fun little game for these people to play and all they want is to find a film pot.

 

I took a deep breath and we set off for Dog Club. Then we came back home to pick up the money pot I’d forgotten. Last week we had a poor turn-out, heavy rain, and a newbie with attitude. Today it was dry, over twenty dogs along and everyone had a good time. There were one or two spats, but there’s over twenty dogs there. What else could anyone expect? Fortunately everyone there knew what dogs were like. The spats were over as quick as they started. And serious serial offenders had enforced time-out on their leads. There were three such miscreants today. Morgan, Pogo and Bailey. Bailey has been rather odd just lately; with Pogo staying with us for a couple of weeks Bailey has been rather cocky. She knows that she can bother bigger dogs and if it all kicks off Pogo will come in on her side. And so she terrorized a larger (but oh-so-timid) dog called Milo.

We’ve two Milos at Dog Club. Also two Lilys, two Diesels two Baileys… I have no idea of the names of the people who come along, but I know all the dogs.

I took a few photos of the mayhem.

 

We came home via the co-op for buns. I then spent the morning farting about with the Dog Club’s Facebook group page. Updating the “about” info and information on how to pay took a little while. The information has always been there, but so many people keep asking the same questions. Hopefully it will all be a little more obvious now. Mind you out of every dozen that enquire maybe one turns up.

 

“er indoors ^TM” set off to see family. Bearing in mind nephew has a big dog I thought it best not to take our lot along. And also bearing in mind that Treacle screams when left for any length of time I stayed home with the dogs.

I got the lawnmower out and mowed the lawn. Then rolled out the pond hose and cleaned out the pond’s pressure filter. Then pruned some of the pond’s water cress.

By then I was worn out so I sat on the sofa under a pile of dogs and alternately watched episodes of “Brassic” and had a little sleep.

 

I’ve not really done that much today. But I’ve had a good day.

30 August 2024 (Friday) - Before the Late Shift

I slept reasonably well. Apparently “er indoors ^TM” didn’t. The pleasant fragrance of Pogo’s farting woke her at three o’clock and she spent quite a bit of the rest of the night letting him out to the garden.

 

Over brekkie I had my usual root around the Internet. Here’s a sign of our times; the future of Littlehampton’s annual bonfire parade is looking shaky. Thousands of people flock there every year for the fun, but not enough people are volunteering to help out.

And people wanting to go to nearby Camber Sands are facing four hour traffic jams to get there. Personally I can’t see the attraction of sitting on the beach, but what do I know? Someone else was posting that Camber Sands was a dog friendly beach. Seriously? With all those people about? The phrase “dog friendly” is one which needs a lot of qualification. When Camber Sands is billed as a “dog friendly” beach that means dogs are allowed on there. However “friendly” implies they are welcome and wanted. I’m pretty sure most of the holidaymakers swarming there don’t want dogs in their way. In the same vein there’s a pub in the Medway Towns which is billed as “dog friendly”. It has a petting zoo in the garden the smells of which send dogs crazy.

 

I got the dogs organized and we went out to the car. As I drove I was hoping “Desert Island Discs” would be on the radio; it often is shortly after nine o’clock on a Friday. But it wasn’t. There was coverage of the Paralympics instead. I turned the radio off. For me sport is something that is done. Watching someone else doing sport is rather dull for me, and listening to someone shrieking about the sport he is watching isn’t riveting.

 

We soon got to the woods. Following the success we had at Orlestone a little while ago I thought we’d try there again. The dogs came when called, and we didn’t see anyone else at all. There was one other car in the car park, but we saw no one as we went round. Morgan chased a squirrel the size of a fox, and Bailey rolled in something foul; a good walk was had by all. We will go back.

For all that Kings Wood is good for a long walk, it is a twenty minute drive away. And Longbeech is ten minutes further on. We can go from putting leads on at home to letting the dogs out of the boot at Orlestone in nine minutes.

As we walked I experimented with my phone in airplane mode. Where we are going on holiday in a few weeks’ time is classified as “rest of the word” by my mobile provider. Mobile data is charged at four quid per megabyte and I dread to think what receiving the spamming texts and phone calls will cost. But I want to use the phone as a camera. Airplane mode worked for that, and as an added bonus the GPS and geocache app seemed to work too.

 

With walk walked we came home. I washed the fox poo from Bailey then popped up to the corner shop where I got an almond croissant. I got one for “er indoors ^TM” as well; I’m kind like that. I sparked up the lap-top and as I so often do before the late shift I wrote up some CPD.

As I sorted out a simulated blood transfusion complicated by the vagaries of the Duffy blood group system there was a knock at the door. The postman had a parcel. Or to be precise, postwoman. I could see she was a postwoman from what she wasn’t wearing. To be honest she would have appeared more demure had she delivered the parcel stark naked.

 

And so to work… and as is so often the way on the late shifts, everything of note today had happened by mid day.

29 August 2024 (Thursday) - Walk, Telly, Laundry

I went to the loo at two o’clock, and in doing so evidently surrendered all rights to any bed space. After a pitched battle with the dogs I eventually secured a six inch wide strip along the edge of the bed to which I clung in terror of falling off for the rest of the night.

 

Over brekkie I peered into the Internet. There was a question on my old school’s Facebook page – who was your favourite teacher? Interestingly quite a few people were singing the praises of teachers who I felt were out-and-out bullies at the time. One of them who was being praised made the local newspapers when I was at school – for no adequately explained reason one day he randomly ran from his house and kicked a passing dog. I made the observation that many of the teachers were rather nasty, and that you can tell a lot about a person’s nature from the way they treat a fat child (which I was).

There was also a lot of arguments on an atheist group I follow (purely for the arguments) about gay Christians. As someone who was once incredibly religious (I was once a Steward in the Methodist church) I get a tad wound up over the matter. Personally I disagree, but the bible is crystal clear on its’s anti-gay stance. Anyone claiming to be a Christian therefore automatically has to be anti-gay. If they aren’t then they simply aren’t a Christian. You can’t pick and choose which bits of your religion you are going to go with and which bits you aren’t.

Can you?

 

With “er indoors ^TM” off to the office today I got the dogs onto their leads myself today. We had no issues at all. So often Morgan plays up at lead time; he obviously plays up for “er indoors ^TM”.

As we drove to the woods the pundits on the radio were interviewing some woman who was three months into a three year round-the-world cruise. Sadly for all that she was three months into the cruise, the ship still hadn’t left port. Heaven only knows how much a three year cruise would cost, and to be delayed for three months with still no sign of setting off…

 

Today we went to Kings Wood for a bit of a longer walk. We had a good walk. There was a minor episode when we saw a young couple with their dogs. On seeing us there was a frantic “oh my god – oh my god” from the bloke as he hurriedly put his dogs on their leads. I said not to bother. He insisted, and the moment his dogs’ leads were attached they went from being pleasant amiable creatures to slavering snarling beasts.

I whistled to my dogs; they immediately followed me.

I walked off feeling rather smug as I listened to the woman ranting at the bloke about how well behaved and well trained my dogs were, and why couldn’t he train his dogs not to be so horrible. I’m not claiming that my dogs are well behaved and well trained, but it is always rather good when they don’t utterly disgrace themselves.

 

And then as the day outside got too hot to really do anything I cracked on doing the ironing whilst watching more episodes of “Brassic”. Ironing, sorting undercrackers, watching telly, booking the car’s MOT and boiling up dinner. What a way to spend the afternoon.

 

“er indoors ^TM” came home and we cracked open a bottle of plonk with which we washed down dinner. Dinner wasn’t bad. It wasn’t good, but I never really like anything I’ve boiled up myself.

As we scoffed we watched the last episode of the current series of “Below Deck” in which the bosun porked the deckhand without removing his pants, and the second steward had the arse because the bodybuilding deckhand wouldn’t pork her. The crew below deck are an unmoral bunch.

And then we watched the most recent episode of “Race Across the World” in which one of the contestants revealed that his mother was celebrity Jade Goody. It didn’t make me warm to him though…

28 August 2024 (Wednesday) - Walks, Gardening, Tip Run

With no alarm set last night I slept like a log. When I eventually woke I made toast and peered into the Internet fearing the worst. Last night there had been quite a bitter argument on one of the Facebook groups I moderate. Early yesterday evening there had been a rather petty disagreement in which someone made a comment about going hanging yourself in the servant’s bedroom. Anyone who’d watched the show would realized that was a reference to the Upstairs Downstairs episode “I Dies from Love”. However some woman who clearly didn’t realise this had been intent on blowing it all out of proportion. I moderated, I told everyone to play nicely.

This morning it had all seemed to have blown over.

Another chap had posted on one of the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy pages so he “could defend the maligned BBC 1980s television adaptation”. I’m not sure what he was defending it from; he slagged it off more than anyone else had ever done. Occasionally HHG gets some stick, but the problem facing the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is that it was originally a radio program. In much the same way that Harry Potter and James Bond are series of books, the film and TV adaptations are made for people who can’t sit still and listen to the radio or read a book.

And there were photos of the Electric Light Orchestra’s tour. They are currently performing their farewell tour. It’s rather sad that they are calling it a day, but their frontman is in his mid-seventies and one of the other leading lights died last May.

 

I drove the dogs up to Longbeech Woods where there was a German camper can in the car park. I let the dogs run into the woods and after a minute they dashed ahead and started barking. I hurried to find them woofing at a young couple cowering in the hedge. They were looking at the dogs in much the same way that I would look at a pack of hungry tigers. I firmly said “Straight Past!” to the dogs and they stopped woofing and carried on. That’s another work in progress of ours. It’s rather impressive when it works.

As we walked I picked up the last two geocaches in those woods that I hadn’t found. I saw a squirrel; the dogs didn’t. Bailey did try to eat a fox turd but dropped it when I shouted at her.

After an hour and a quarter we got back to the car. My watch said we’d walked a shade over three miles. In that time other than the terrified Germans we’d only seen one other person, and they were in the distance and we avoided them anyway.

 

We came home and I made a cuppa. Yesterday “er indoors ^TM” had got us Belgian buns from Aldi. They were OK, but the best ones are from the co-op.

I hung out the washing, loaded up a load of rubbish into the car, then whilst I was waiting for my allocated tip time I went into the garden and trimmed back all the stuff hanging over the fence from not-so-nice-next-door. As always it took some trimming.

 

And so to the tip… Oh dear.

Once I’d unloaded I saw something new there. There were a couple of banners saying “re-use” and behind the banners were all sorts of things that looked used but still useful. Furniture, ornaments, and an electric keyboard. I asked one of the tip staff what that lot was all about. The chap replied with a grunt. I asked if they were for sale or free for people to take. The chap’s reply was “no” but his tone was “f… off fatso”. I explained how many tips offer a service where the higher quality unwanted stuff is sold. He snarled that they didn’t do that, turned his back and made a point of ignoring me.

I’ve put in a formal complaint; I doubt anything will happen though.

 

I came home, and pootled about in the garden until I realized I was hurting. So I stopped pootling, came inside and wrote up a little CPD. As I wrote so Terry phoned from the Three Network. Or so he claimed. He was no more Terry from the Three Network than I was Rashid from the Three Network. I wasted quite a bit of his time listening to his offer, then offered him my special deal. I told him that for no more than he was already paying me, he could piss off or get knotted. This confused him, so I repeated the offer. On my third repetition he realized I was wasting his time and he hung up.

Here’s a heads-up. If a Scottish phone number calls you trying to offer a deal from the Three Network, it’s a scam.

 

Once she’d finished work “er indoors ^TM” and I took the dogs down to the coast for our midweek evening walk. For a change we tried the beach at Sandgate; I had this naïve idea that the place might be quiet and good for the dogs. It was heaving and dogs were banned until the end of September.

But we had a good walk along the prom.

 

Being rather later home than we might have been we had KFC for dinner which we scoffed whilst watching more “Below Deck” in which stewards and deck hands were porking each other. It is commonly said that “worse things happen at sea”; they certainly seem to.

27 August 2024 (Tuesday) - Early Shift

I woke feeling full of life and raring to go only to find it wasn’t quite two o’clock. I lay awake for a few hours, then got up and watched an episode of “Brassic” over brekkie. Our heroes were raiding a cannabis farm in an ice cream van.

 

Taking care not to disturb “er indoors ^TM” and the dogs I got ready for work. As I left the house I was a tad miffed to see an empty parking space outside the house big enough for two cars. When we came home from the woods last night I'd had to park three streets away. We really should move somewhere with off-street parking.

As I drove to work there was a lot of talk about the new Prime Minister making a speech today, and of the ex-Prime Minister bad-mouthing him. Also there was a lot of talk about the upcoming televised debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump who are supposedly having an on-screen squabble in a couple of weeks' time. Doesn't this sum up politics these days? It's not about what the politicians actually do. It's all about what they say and how they say it.

I was reminded of the Junior Debating Society from my days at secondary school when one of the teachers taught us the noble art of debate. He really did teach us how to say that shit was sugar in such a way that everyone believed it. But more importantly how to say it in such a way to make the person with who we were debating look stupid; even though they were completely right and we were totally wrong.

 

I got to work and made a cuppa before I started. As I swilled it down I had a look on Facebook. A friend had got engaged over the weekend. He'd already bought a house with his girlfriend having been living with her for quite some time... Isn't this a sign of our times. Engagement and wedding aren't a thing any more. I know so many people wo have bought houses with their partners and raised families, but have no intention of getting married or engaged.

 

Work was a tad dull today. As I mentioned yesterday for a seaside restaurant this is the busiest time of the year, Not so for a hospital where the workload noticeably goes down during school holidays. It always has. During a lull in a rather dull day I spent a little time peering at the goldfinches bathing in the puddles in the flat roof outside our window. There's a colony of goldfinches which lives in the tree outside our window, and when no-one's watching me, I watch them intently.

 

An early start made for an early finish. I did have a vague plan to take the dogs to the woods when I got home, but it was rather warm. The dogs leapt up to see me, we fed the fish, and they all went back to sleep. They weren’t up for a walk. Instead we fed the fish and I gathered dog turds.

 

“er indoors ^TM” went off to blood donors. There’s a little thing that boils my piss. Blood donors my piss. Blood donors donate blood or give blood. No one “dones” blood, but I get wound up by how so many people think that “doning” blood is a thing.

As it happened the donation session was cancelled.

We scoffed a rather good bit of dinner whilst watching more “Below Deck”. I found the yacht’s web site and did some sums… the average charter is for three days and is for six people. If four of my loyal readers fancy joining me and “er indoors ^TM” it would only cost us twenty thousand quid each…

26 August 2026 (Monday) - Bank Holiday

I had a good night's sleep, but did wake far too early. I got up, made toast and watched an episode of "Brassic" in which the fat one got caught in a deep-sea diver suit nicking golf balls and in which him who played Grumio was kidnapped. Grumio was later rescued whilst in only his undercrackers. Whether or not he'd been kidnapped whilst only in his undercrackers was never clarified.

In today's episode our heroes were stealing Koi for financial gain. Good luck to them - it's been my experience that for all that Koi cost a small fortune when in the aquatic shop, once they've left the shop they've got no resale value whatsoever.

 

I got dressed and set off for work. Having worked every bank holiday weekend last year, this year I only had the one bank holiday shift – today. Despite what the weather forecast had predicted, overnight we'd had heavy rain.

I found myself thinking about the August Bank holidays of ten to fifteen years ago. August Bank Holiday always used to be Batcamp when a dozen or so of us would spend the weekend camping at a friend's farm. We didn't want rain when camping, but unlike many of our camping trips from back then we didn't mind having wet tents on the last day. Being on a friend's farm we could leave the tents for a couple of days until they dried out. But wet or dry, my August Bank Holiday was always hard physical labour putting camping gear away. And like most of our camping trips it was never helped by most of the campers having pressing reasons why they had to get away promptly on Monday morning. Everyone was always so apologetic about why they couldn't help with the putting away, but every year the putting away was done by the one whose farm it was, and those dependent on me and “er indoors ^TM” for a lift home.

Having said that, I'd do it all again... Such a shame the farm's been flogged off.

 

I drove to work along very quiet roads. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about an amnesty over the next month in which the public can take zombie knives into police stations and hand them in without fear of prosecution. Zombie knives are quite vicious things apparently. However the knife crime expert being interviewed made the observation that the zombie knives which are being banned aren't used in most actual stabbings and slashings. Zombie knives are apparently very good for scaring people. However most actual knife-related stabbings and slashings are done with bog-standard kitchen knives. It seems odd that the law won't let me have the ceremonial katana I was bought as a Christmas pressie (which is blunter than my bum) but it has no worries about “er indoors ^TM” brandishing a razor-sharp carving knife.

 

I got to work and found myself thinking of previous August Bank Holidays again. This time of 1980 and 1981 when I was in a different line of work. The halcyon days of the Harbour restaurant. Back then for nine months of the year we used to serve up a couple of hundred dinners a day. An exceptionally busy day would be four hundred dinners. August Bank Holiday would be over six hundred. I can remember staggering out of that place at nine o'clock in the evening one Bank Holliday Monday knowing I'd earned the pound an hour I used to get paid back then.

As I pondered I got on with what I couldn't avoid. I did a couple of wet ones today (it's a blood transfusion thing!). Lunch from the works canteen was some spicy chicken thingy followed by apple pie and custard. It was rather good.

I also spent a bit of time today thinking about an old mate.  I spent much of the day with a song stuck in my head. "Born to Be Alive" was from the one-hit-wonder Patrick Hernandez in 1979, and was a firm favourite song of a good friend of mine from that time. My old mucker would sing that song continually. I wonder if he still does; I'm still in touch with him (after a fashion) - after a career in banking he is now the Baptist minister of Minehead.

 

With work done I came home. We did the feeding the fish ceremony in which the dogs go berserk to get some fish food. Feeling myself nodding off by the pond I suggested we took the dogs out so that I could say I’d done something on the Bank Holiday. “er indoors ^TM” had a missing geocache to replace, and with that sorted we drove on up to Longbeech Woods for a little walk. As always the place was quiet. Not a single other car in the car park. We only had a short walk, but it was good to get out. As we walked we found a beetle on its back, so we put him back the right way and he scuttled off. And then we found another upside down one. And another. We lost count of the amount of beetles that had been overturned. What was that all about?

 

We came home where “er indoors ^TM” boiled up burgers and chips which we scoffed whilst watching more “Below Deck” in which the bosun got jiggy again.

When I went to get a yogurt my hip had a funny five minutes. A shooting pain shot through it and I nearly collapsed. Sitting on the sofa with a hot Pogo up against it seemed to sort it out. Mind you a few years ago the other hip gave me similar aggro. That was arthritis. I seem to have it in both hips now… 

25 August 2024 (Sunday) - Charing

I woke with backache this morning – usually a sign of a good night’s sleep. Leaving “er indoors ^TM” and the dogs snoring I got up, made toast and had a look at the Internet. This morning’s petty squabbles on Facebook had the same theme; people were posting on the “Bottom” and “Viz” pages claiming to be offended by what was clearly a joke. What are the easily offended doing on such pages?

Some people really do go looking to take offence.

I also saw some friends were having a family weekend camping in Dorset… and had got very wet in yesterday’s rain. We used to camp a lot and it was great fun, but when it rains there’s very little you can do but suck it up.

And a colleague had posted photos of her walk in the countryside. They looked beautiful, but I didn’t recognize where she was. I thought I knew most of the local scenery. Then I realized she was on holiday in Wales.

 

With the weather having seriously chirped up from yesterday we took the dogs out. We drove up to the sports ground car park in Charing and took a little walk guided by five geocaches. The first one was rather good; rather unusual for these days – just like how field puzzles used to be. And the next four were in surprisingly good shape bearing in mind they’d been put out by a scout group and caches put out for geocaching badges can have something of a reputation. Having said that, this is the second lot we’ve done recently which were put out for geocaching badges, and both lots were rather well done.

I took a few photos as we walked.

 

After a couple of hours we came home. I hung out the washing I’d put in to scrub earlier, scoffed a bit of lunch and we sat in the garden for the afternoon where I alternately read my book and had a doze.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a Sunday roast which we scoffed whilst watching more episodes of “Below Deck” in which the bosun was talking his plonker for walkies. The deckhands he was porking weren’t at all happy about their not having exclusive access to his urges.

I’m sure it’s all staged, but it keeps me amused.

24 August 2024 (Saturday) - Rain Stopped Play

This morning I rolled my eyes as I peered into the Internet. There was a story on social media about a little shop in Cheriton closing after having been in business for twenty-five years. Apparently they couldn’t compete with the on-line market. It strikes me that if you can’t beat them, join them. Several little specialist shops that used to operate locally have closed up and gone to internet sales only; why don’t these people do the same?

And another Facebook friend was posting about how all the school leavers should try running their own business. I sighed. Running your own business is all very well all the time it is a success.  At the risk of sounding negative over half fail within three years. Ending up owing thousands of pounds or going bankrupt isn’t something to be taken on lightly.

Many years ago (forty-five) I had a couple of offers for businesses in which I might like to invest my time and money. Both were going concerns in Hastings Old Town. Both have long since gone bust.

During the week I listened to a radio interview with Bill Gates who was talking about how when he set up Microsoft a lot of other people were doing much the same sort of thing. Nowadays everyone knows of Bill Gates; no one knows of his competitors from the early days. He said that none of them did anything any different to what he was doing, but he was lucky and they were not.

 

Being Saturday we went round to Repton for Dog Club. Despite the rain. As expected the turn-out wasn’t what it might have been. Last week in the sunshine we had over twenty dogs along. Today in the rain we had eight. And one went home in a serious sulk.

Some woman who was on their second week was along. Morgan and Pogo had been being boisterous so we took them off for a little walk. As we walked we saw Sue and Chris in the car park talking with the newbie who was going home. Apparently this woman claimed that “two black dogs” wouldn’t stop bothering her dog and she wasn’t coming back. Presumably the “two black dogs” were Morgan and Pogo. But as for bothering her dog…  I somehow got the distinct impression that this woman wanted to make a fuss. Ironically this woman’s smallest child had been rather preciously screaming in terror whenever her own dog came close, and flatly refusing the suggestions of her older sister to go and stand away from that dog. Clearly this child wanted a fuss rather than a solution. Was this woman in the same vein?

I suppose it takes a certain mindset to understand Dog Club. The whole idea is that dogs socialize. They do this by being left to get on with it, albeit under supervision. It’s not going to work if you keep making a fuss every time your dog finds itself within a mile of another.

 

We made the most of it, but the dogs were soaked by going home time. As we drove home Steve was doing the mystery year on the radio. Immediately I knew it was 1972… but after a few more clues I changed my mind. What gave it away for me was the TV series “Ripping Yarns” – 1976.

Once home. I popped to the corner shop. Almond croissant. Oh yus.

With the rain showing no sign of letting up I thought I might make the most of it being wet. If I were to pressure-wash the front yard the rain water would wash away the muck. In theory a brilliant idea; in practice the rain was too heavy and I was soaked within ten minutes.

 

I came in and with nothing much else I could do I did the monthly accounts. As always I am far better off than I once was, but as always I’d like to have far too much money.

I then looked at Ryobi power tools. The other day I whinged about how the things were misleading in that the price quoted didn’t include battery or charger. Did they hear me whinging? They’ve been advertising a new deal in which if you buy a battery and charger you get a free power tool. Sadly you can get pretty much any tool except the long-handled hedge trimmer I want.

And with the rain showing no signs of stopping I set about solving geo-puzzles which are where we’re going in holiday next month. There weren’t many, and quite a few of those that are there say you need a NATO ID card to be allowed anywhere near them.

 

We then turned the telly on and dozed through Catherine Tate in “The Nan Movie”, then I wrote up a little CPD. By late afternoon the weather had gone from continuous heavy rain through to bright sunshine which every fifteen minutes was interrupted by a torrential downpour lasting less than a minute.

Compare that to last Saturday afternoon when we sat in the sunshine drinking beer and scoffing ice cream.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up fish and chips which we scoffed whilst watching episodes of “Below Deck”. With everyone living and working on the same yacht I was rather reminded of somewhere I used to work in that hardly anyone working there had any friends who weren’t also work colleagues and so people lived seemingly constantly in each other’s pockets.

 

Hopefully this rain will stop soon.

23 August 2024 (Friday) - This n That

I woke in a sweat in the small hours last night following a nightmare in which I'd been press-ganged into NASA. Their top scientists had discovered that underneath their space suits all the female astronauts were actually nudey ladies without any clothes on. Bearing in mind my rejection of all the dubious women (and others) that regularly send me friend requests on Facebook, the head honcho at NASA had decided that I was the best person to take a moral stance should any of "that nonsense" kick off on the upcoming Artemis Moon missions.  Apparently he'd also had this idea that because I had experience of keeping snakes I'd be the ideal person to be in charge of space dinosaurs on the Moonbase.

 

I woke to find Morgan huddled up to me but on the outside of the bed. I'd gone to kip closer to the middle of the bed last night and the silly pup hadn't been able to get between me and “er indoors ^TM” and was in danger of falling off the edge. I moved him to safety and then hung off the edge of the bed myself for the rest of the night.

 

I made toast and started watching something new. "Brassic" seems relatively entertaining, but it played for rather longer than I'd thought it might and I didn't have time for my usual early morning mooch round the Internet.

 

I set off to find my car, slaloming round the recycling bins which had been randomly abandoned by the bin men. As I drove to work the pundits on the radio were interviewing some bloke who was something in the office of the energy watchdog. Apparently the government has announced that the price cap on household energy bills will be raised.

This means that the average family's power bill will go up by ten per cent this autumn. Leaving aside the fact that no one can afford this, it strikes me as odd that the government puts a limit on how much the companies can charge for gas and leccie. How can the companies possibly keep going if they have to pay so much to get the gas in the first place but the government will only allow them to put up the bills by half the amount they are having to fork out?

And there was a broadcast from the Green Gathering Festival where the organisers were getting rather shirty about all the other festivals. The woman being interviewed was ranting about the massive clean-up operations and the carbon footprints of all the other festivals. She was proud that her festivals didn't have a single diesel generator on site, and all the refreshment and drink stalls insisted you brought your own cups and pint pots along. Mind you she got even more shirty when it was suggested that the batteries her festival used were charged from rather mucky power stations. And she wasn't at all happy to be told that the people selling drinks at the stalls were actually secretly providing cups and pint pots as no one was bringing their own.

It struck me that she probably had rather high blood pressure for a supposedly hippy-type

 

I got to work and went to the League of Friends shop for a cheese scone. The League of Friends and the works canteen both sell exactly the same thing - a cheese scone and a pat of butter. But one charges thirty-five pence more than the other.

The League of Friends shop always sells out first. There really are those who wonder why.

 

Work was work. It usually is. At tea break I saw there were three new geocaches in Longbeech Woods. Had they gone live yesterday I could have had a cheeky First to Find. Oh well... they will give me something to do next week.

And during a dull moment I had a look at the Internet. Some crackpot has used data from India's Moon mission of a couple of years ago to find dinosaur skeletons there.

Or so he thinks.

 

I came home, and once she’d boiled up some scran “er indoors ^TM” set off out on the razz with her mates. Buried beneath a pile of dogs I watched more “Brassic” in which him who played Grumio in “Plebs” was having a conversation with his penis.

Quality telly.

22 August 2024 (Thursday) - Money

Last night I was looking at quotes for car insurance. This morning my Facebook feed was full of adverts for insurance companies. There’s a sign of our times.

With nothing happening on-line I took the dogs for a walk. We went up to Longbeech Woods again. The road to the car park is the narrowest you ever did see, and in the car park was a humungous camper van and a smaller one too. There wasn’t a lot of space left. Apparently that car park is on some web site used by camper van people who are too mean to pay campsite fees which using a proper campsite incurs.

As I said a few days ago, for the most part these campers aren’t doing much harm and if I had one I’d want to save on campsite fees too. But having one van taking up half the car park is taking the piss, isn’t it?

 

Yesterday I mentioned that a new geocache had gone live in the woods. It gave us a target for today’s walk. We walked a mile and a half to where it was and I spent far too long hunting for something which wasn’t really that hard to find. And then the rain started. And all the dogs tried to roll in something foul. Fortunately they all missed, but Bailey then ate whatever it was. For all that she is smallest she is certainly the most disgusting.

There was then an entertaining few seconds as we passed the half-way point. Bailey launched a play-attack on Morgan, and they had a play fight. They do this from time to time and to anyone listening it sounds as though they are trying to murder each other. Pogo heard it and came running up shouting… and then was completely stumped. Which one should he tell off? Which one should he protect? He barked loudly at both and then found himself having to fend off a play-attack from Treacle.

We walked for three and a bit miles and in that time didn’t see anyone else at all. And the rain soon stopped.

 

We came home. I made a cuppa and phoned the insurance people. The last time I phoned them I was on hold for over an hour before I got to speak to someone. Today the phone was answered in about twenty seconds. That was an improvement. I told the nice lady that I’d been sent the details for the policy renewal details for my car’s insurance. I told her that her company was planning on putting the cost of the insurance up by over two hundred and fifty quid. I told her that was too much, and that I’d been on Go Compare and had quotes for two hundred quid less than they were proposing. She asked all sorts of questions and blathered on… after a while I stopped her. I told her she was blathering meaningless words. The bottom line was that I wanted a serious reduction in their price or I was going elsewhere. She said she needed three minutes to review my data (oo-er!)

After two minutes she offered me their top-of-the-range policy which included pretty much everything her company had to offer for less than a tenner more than I was currently paying. Not two hundred and fifty quid more. Ten quid more. I’ve mentioned car insurance renewals before; both on here and in conversation with friends and colleagues. I’ve met so many people who don’t look at the price of the insurance when it comes up for renewal but just pay it. A ten-minute phone call saved me two hundred and fifty quid this morning.

And here’s another saving… Leave yourself short of money for one year and put as much as you can aside. Then in the next year pay for your insurance policy in one go rather than paying it monthly. You effectively save two months’ money if you can get the cash together to pay in one go. Having left myself skint a few years ago I now pay car and house insurance in one yearly amount and save quite a bit.

I’m very mean…

 

I then drove into town. Yesterday our holiday money arrived. Where we’re going next month is a tad off-grid. The locals will want American dollars for anything we might want to buy and aren’t going to be overly keen on giving out much change. Consequently low denomination notes is what we want. The hundred dollar bills the bank sent yesterday are of no use to us.

I went to the bank. The chap there said that maybe their branch in Maidstone might be able to change them. I pointed out that I was in Ashford, not Maidstone. He suggested the bureau de change in the shopping centre. I went there, and after the silly old bat at the front of the queue stopped showing off to her mates I explained my story to the woman behind the counter. She immediately knew which bank I was with. She said that bank’s foreign currency people always send out high denomination notes and their local branch always send people to her. She said she’s not supposed to change notes from one denomination to another, but said she’d change up half of them.

I then went to Santander and NatWest; neither of whom dealt in foreign currency. One of them suggested two other places I might try. Other than saying that both involved a car trip I won’t say where. One place wasn’t interested at all. The other was brilliant. They too weren’t supposed to change notes from one denomination to another, but when I suggested I sold the dollars to them, then bought back low denomination notes they realized I wasn’t trying to pull a fast one, and they swapped the money for me.

 

By the time I’d been all over the place and finally got back home the day was half gone. We had a cuppa and scoffed the cakes I’d brought home for lunch, then I set about solving a geo-puzzle which looked as though we would be walking past it later (we did). You can see the puzzle here; in theory the solution is obvious. In practice it took some farting about. But after half an hour (or so) I had the thumbs-up from the checker.

 

“er indoors ^TM” eventually finished work. Despite a rather windy evening we took the dogs down to the Leas at Folkestone for a little walk. And with walk walked we came home. I fed the dogs, “er indoors ^TM” went to the kebab shop. We scoffed kebabs whilst watching the second episode of “Celebrity Race Across the World”.

I took a rather strong dislike to some chap being a prissy princess refusing to take a night bus.

21 August 2024 (Wednesday) - Late Shift

Last night, as always, I went to bed first. I settled myself in the middle of the bed and went to kip. A couple of hours later I woke to find myself hanging off the edge with an alliance of “er indoors ^TM” and several dogs having captured pretty much all the available space.

I made toast and had my usual root around the Internet; this morning it was dull. I sent out birthday wishes, had a quick Munz and got Wordle on the fourth attempt.

 

Not having quite so much time on my hands this morning I thought I’d take a chance. I leaded up the dogs and in a novel break with tradition we set off south.

As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the consternation caused by the recent cancellation of a cycling/running double marathon event. The event has been cancelled following cyclists practicing for the event running down and killing an old woman. The woman’s son was being interviewed; he complained about how the cyclist practice in London’s parks and challenged listeners to go watch how single-minded they are. He claimed that the attention of most of them is on their cycling apps and they expect pedestrians to be the ones responsible for avoiding collisions. He also made the observation that speed limits on UK roads and routes only apply to motor vehicles. Apparently speed limits don’t apply to bikes.

 

I thought we might try Orlestone Woods for our walk today. Kings Wood and Longbeech Wood are a bit further away and are bigger. Our average walk round those woods is at least three and a bit miles and by the time we’ve driven there and driven home we’ve taken over two hours. I’ve always said that from home to Orlestone woods car park is a drive of nine minutes, and our two mile walk round there takes us thirty-five minutes. I used to go there all the time with my Fudge, but I’d been put off of the place after a couple of episodes with Morgan. However just recently I’ve been telling everyone how his recall has improved, so I thought I’d take a chance. I let them all off the leads before they got out of the car, and we walked and ran for two miles. We had a minor episode with some silly woman in the depths of the woods… but she had her dog on the lead and that *always* causes issues. Having spoken to so many people over so many years about dogs on leads in woods, the general consensus is that dogs can be off lead in woods a mile from the car park. And if a dog can’t be trusted off lead so far into the woods then don’t take it into what is seen by most as lead-free territory.

We waked for two miles, and were home just over an hour after we left. I was very pleased with how the walk went. All dogs came back when called… even when having a contretemps with passing normal people. Maybe it is still early days, and maybe the dogs still have time to piss on their chips, but with Orlestone being a viable place for a walk again, walks before late shifts and after early shifts has become a possibility again.

 

We came home to see another geocache had gone live in Longbeech Woods. Oh well – we wouldn’t have had time to go there today. I solved the puzzle and found the thing was very deep in the woods; we certainly wouldn’t have had time this morning.

But there’s tomorrow’s walk planned.

I did a little CPD and got it wrong. In theory the blood compatibility simulator is a brilliant idea. In practice it is a work in progress which sadly still has a lot more progress to be made.

 

Leaving “er indoors ^TM” working and the dogs snoring I set off to work. As I drove up the motorway I counted thirty-two cars in the "HGVs only" section of the motorway. Needing petrol I stopped off at the Aylesford branch of Sainsbury's. There weren't that many cars waiting compared to how is sometimes gets there, but the queue to pay was out of the door; there were a couple of idiots at the counter who'd clearly come for a chat rather than to pay for their petrol.

I eventually got away, and as I drove up Hermitage Lane I realised my car was making an odd noise. I opened and closed the windows and thumped the dashboard. The nose went away. That'll do me.

And then I spent five minutes emptying all the rubbish out of my car. There was a surprising amount of rubbish to empty. Hopefully that will improve the fuel economy.

 

Work was the same as ever. I came home to find the dollars I ordered from the bank yesterday had arrived… in hundred dollar bills. Absolutely no use to me whatsoever. I shall go up the bank tomorrow and ask how they intend to resolve their balls up. If I don’t like what I hear I will change banks. I’ve had enough of the current one.

20 August 2024 (Tuesday) - Cheeky FTF

I slept well. I was rather miffed to see rain when I got up though. I made toast and scoffed it whilst perusing the Internet. There was talk on one of the local Facebook pages about Elwick Place. Apparently millions of pounds have been spent on building a cinema and shops and community areas just up the road, but now most of the businesses involved have shut up shop. As always those posting opinions on social media were showing their complete ignorance of what is done by local council, county council, central government and private businesses. So many people were ranting about what they should be doing; “they” being generic unspecified individuals, officials and public bodies.

But sadly many of these people’s ignorance actually illustrated a point. Many of the issues facing Elwick Place could only be solved by a coming together of local council, county council, central government and private business. A coming together which is never going to happen.

And in the meantime much of Elwick Place is closed and will remain so.

 

And then my lap-top beeped. A new geocache in Longbeech Woods. Well, we were going there for our dog walk anyway, so that would be a bonus.

In order to find where the thing was hidden I needed to solve an on-line jigsaw puzzle. And with that solved I got the leads on to the dogs. That took some doing. For all that they clearly love their walks, they can sometimes be incredibly reluctant to get their collars and leads on.

Eventually we got going. As I stopped and started as we drove through the slow-moving traffic there was a rather interesting interview on the radio with Bill Gates. The chap is only nine years older than me, and as I listened to him I got the distinct impression that he’d not done anything that countless others haven’t done, but he was just very lucky.

He was talking about his charitable foundation and how he’s spending a fortune on delivering vaccinations to poor children in Africa. I wish I could remember his exact words, but he made some comment in which he said that it came as a surprise that market forces only benefit a vanishingly small proportion of humanity.

 

We got to the woods. We parked up in an empty car park. We could have parked closer to the geocache but bearing in mind how long we’d taken to get there I’d all but given up on being first to find. We walked down the lane to the location of our prize, and I was amazed to see no one had parked in the single parking space I might have used. I let the dogs of the leads and we walked into the woods all the time expecting to see familiar faces walking back with a smug air. But we saw no one, we got to where we were supposed to be, and after a very short search I had the cache in hand. And we were first.

At this point I looked at my watch. It had only been three quarters of an hour between getting the notification and finding the thing. It seemed a lot longer.

We then carried on with our walk. We explored the tracks and footpaths. We met a nice lady with three dogs and played chase (and shared treats). We found a Letterbox Hybrid. Pogo rolled in fox poo.

 

We came home where Pogo had a bath. And with Pogo scrubbed I popped up the road to the corner shop to get pastries. I scoffed mine whilst doing the geo-admin, then wrote up some CPD. I do that. And I ordered up cash for next month’s holiday. Where we’re going they want American dollars… which is odd.

And I ordered a money belt in which to stash the money.

 

I went into the garden where I topped up the water in the little pond, pulled out the blanket weed… and poggered my back. So I spent the afternoon having a rest whilst watching episodes of “Four in a Bed” in which a rather grim little B&B in Blackpool beat some rather good places where you would go for a country break. Why did this grotty place win? For the simple reason that it is far easier to underpay someone charging two hundred quid a night than it is someone charging forty.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up lamb chops which we washed down with a decent bottle of plonk whilst watching more episodes of “Below Decks”. Those of the crew that weren’t busy porking each other had the hump with a colleague who would be best described as a rather obnoxious bone idle shirker. Personally I’m of the opinion that every place of work needs one rather obnoxious bone idle shirker. It gives everyone else someone to hate and stops them squabbling amongst themselves.

 

And I’ve had yet another dubious friend request on Facebook.

19 August 2024 (Monday) - At Work Again

Some nights the dogs arrange themselves sensibly on the beds. Other nights not so. Treacle was sleeping up near the top of the bed last night and Bailey was too frightened to get to her usual space between the pillows. Eventually I sorted them all out, and then lay there wide awake as they all snored contentedly.

 

I made toast and watched the last episode of “Piglets” which didn’t so much end as fizzled out, then had my usual look at the internet. It was still there. There was mild consternation in the Munzee world in that Flat Lou stopped scattering things yesterday. Having known this was coming I gathered up all the scatters I needed last week, but others didn’t. We’re OK, but others won’t hit their clan targets for the month.

If you go round scanning bar codes stuck to lamp posts, this is rather serious…

 

I set off to work listening to the news as I do. As I watched nine cars coming down the “HGV only” part of “Operation Brock” the pundits on the radio were interviewing the Children’s Commissioner who was ranting about how many times the police have conducted strip-searches on children with inadequate chaperoning. A lot of fuss was made about the indignities the children faced. But no mention was made about how many of these searches turned up illicit contraband. You’d think that if nothing had been found this would be a major strike against the police, and it would have been shouted to the rooftops wouldn’t you?

This was followed by an interview with the leading light of one of the nation’s coffee shops who was talking about his company’s policy on allergen information on their products. Recently a teenager died from a massive allergic reaction to a cup of hot chocolate she’d bought form Costa. But was that Costa’s fault? Admittedly they had no idea the girl had allergies… but the girl had.

I’m reminded of an old schoolfriend who was diabetic but kept eating Mars bars right up to the point where they killed him.

Perhaps I should stop listening to the news – it only winds me up.

 

I got to work… and at tea break saw a sign of our times. Colleagues were discussing the phrase “Not all those who wander are lost”. It was originally from Tolkien’s “The Fellowship of the Ring”. One chap (a third of my age) kicked off because he had never seen any of the Lord of the Rings films. He had no idea they were based on books.

Shortly after this my phone beeped with another dubious friend request from someone who apparently comes from Birmingham.

 

Work was work; today’s earworm was from fifty years ago. Everyone remembers Willy Fogg… no one remembers the cartoon version of Phineas from twenty years earlier. I had this theme tune in my head all day long… and it is still there now.

18 August 2024 (Sunday) - Eggs Florentine

I didn't have the best of nights - I never do with an alarm set. I gave up trying to sleep, got up and made toast. I turned on the telly and it told me there was no internet connection (again), but that didn't stop me watching an episode of "Piglets" which was sadly let down by the props department. A major part of the storyline is that there are two police superintendents competing for the job of chief superintendent. The rank insignia on the uniforms of both of these characters alternate between superintendent and chief superintendent from one scene to the next. A trivial point but you'd think that someone in the production team would have noticed something so vital to the plot? Wouldn't you? Well, I did.

 

Leaving “er indoors ^TM” and the dogs fast asleep I set off to work listening to the radio as I do. This morning there was some program about psychotherapy and religion in which it was claimed that the two were mutually contradictory, and several psychotherapists with varying degrees of religious conviction were wheeled on. They each disagreed with pretty much everything the others said and didn't seem to convince anyone of anything.

This was followed by an interview with some Kentish raspberry farmer. I say "Kentish"; the chap originally came to the UK from Bulgaria over twenty years ago. It was interesting listening to him speak. He said that as time has gone on it has become more and more difficult for immigrant workers to get working visas, but apparently despite the difficulty is is far easier to ship someone half-way across Europe to pick fruit than it is to get anyone born in the UK to pick the stuff. He claimed that every year he has to ship in two thousand staff.

As I drove up the M20 I counted nine cars driving down the "HGVs only" bit of Operation Brock.

 

I got to work. I did my bit. I'd rather not work at the weekends. Quite honestly I think I'd rather not work at all. It is becoming something of an inconvenience. To be honest working has been an inconvenience ever since I started my first paper round in 1978, but there it is. 

At lunchtime I popped to the works canteen. They had eggs Florentine. I'd not had that before - poached eggs in some sauce or other served with spinach. Bung in a decent helping of chips, chocolate pudding, custard and change out of a fiver you really can't go wrong.

As I scoffed I had a look at the Internet. The Facebook page about Lost in Space was hosting another argument today. Yesterday there had been squabbles about the height of the robot. Today someone was talking about having met one of the characters as he'd walked down Main Street yesterday.  This chap flatly refused to be drawn on where "Main Street" was, and wouldn't be told that the actor he claimed to have met actually died over twenty years ago.

And I saw there’s another new geocache in Longbeech Woods. There’s something to do on Tuesday.

 

As I drove home “er indoors ^TM” sent a message. There were a couple of issues with her series of geocaches at Badlesmere. Being a rather beautiful evening I suggested we might go for a little walk to sort the problems.

Badelesmere is a rather good place to walk about… but there are a *lot* of pheasants in the area. The dogs did get rather over-excited and had to be on the leads for much of the way. As we walked we were thinking of a crafty half at our old favourite the Red Lion at the end of the walk… such a shame that they close at six o clock on a Sunday evening.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we washed down with a bottle of half-way decent white wine. As we scoffed and drank we watched more episodes of “Below Deck” in which the crew started porking each other.

Beasts…