15 September 2024 (Sunday) - Road Trip

I slept well. Over brekkie I had my usual rummage round the Internet. On the Facebook page for my old school people were asking what happened to an old friend of mine. The chap is now a Baptist minister in the West Country; I learned that to some at school he was known as “Captain Caveman”? I don’t remember that…

There was quite the spat kicking off on an American Facebook friend’s page. She was bemoaning the amount oof shootings in America and some friend of hers was getting incredibly aggressive about the right to bear arms and the need to defend himself and his family. Admittedly it is over twenty years since I went to America but is the place really so lawless that people need at least one gun each?

And some half-wit on one of the groups I follow was getting rather aggressive about the revelation that the UK imports electricity from France. Apparently that was all supposed to have stopped with Brexit (!)

Sometimes reading what is posted on social media is more informative about the world we live in than the morning news.

 

We got ourselves organized, loaded up the car and went on a little road trip. Munzing like a thing possessed as “er indoors ^TM” drove we went up to Enfield where “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” and “Darcie WaaWaa ^TM” are currently living. We’ve not seen them for a while, and when we met the reaction of my favourite lady spoke volumes. “Nanny!!!” she shouted. Then “BABY!!!”. Then “TREACLE-CHUG!!”. Then “MORGAN!!”. A few minutes passed as she fussed the dogs, then as an afterthought “oh, granddad”.

We went for a little walk to the playpark, then onto the round-and-round playpark where me and littlun played chase for a while before having our picnic.

We then walked on to monkey playpark. I’d not been to Enfield before. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t what I saw. The place was lovely. Well-kept estates, beautiful grassed areas, excellent playparks. It was a shame that a bunch of travellers had set up a caravan encampment on one of the greens and were abandoning all their rubbish.

 

It was so good to see two of my favourite ladies, but time was pushing on. We came home via Epping Forest where there was (and still is) a virtual geocache. We stopped and selfie-ed before getting on the motorway and heading to Sittingbourne.

We had a very good afternoon with Karl, Tracey, Jess and Charlotte. We put the world to rights, we had a very good dinner, I had three pints and a couple of G&Ts.

But again time was pushing on. Treacle seemed settled which was good. She’s staying with Karl, Tracey, Jess and Charlotte whilst we go on holiday. We said our goodbyes, and it wasn’t long before we were in the traffic jam on the M20 which was closed (for no apparent reason) for much of the way from Maidstone to Ashford… not that I noticed as I slept most of the way.

 

Morgan and Bailey are worn out from today. And so am I…

14 September 2024 (Saturday) - FTF, Dog Club, Games Night

As I peered into Facebook as I scoffed toast this morning I saw that a chap I know had posted something. His son was starting work as a trainee paramedic. I thought about commenting but it wouldn’t have gone down well.

Today marks forty-three years since I started working in blood testing. And as I start the longest holiday from work that I’ve had for years I’m wondering… Apart from one hiccup thirteen years ago it’s not been a bad old game. But it certainly wasn’t what it might have been or what I had hoped. When I packed up my previous job of general dogsbody at the Harbour Restaurant (having worked up from being a corporal dogsbody) the boss had one thing to say about going to work for the NHS. He said that I would be comfortable, and that would be the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone. Looking back he was right.

Perhaps I’ll feel differently after two weeks off. Perhaps having gone part time I’m finding work is getting in the way. But after all these years I’m rather bored with it.

I sparked up Wordle and in a novel break with tradition I got it in three goes. I always start with “table” and more often than not that is a rather silly first move in that it rarely gives me anything. But today was different.

 

Just as I was rather bored and waiting to get out to Dog Club so my phone beeped. A new geocache. Did we have time to chase it? Well we were nearly ready to go out. A little diversion to our planned drive, a handy parking space, a quick rummage in a hedge and the thing was soon in my hand. First to Find too… Result.

We then drove on to Dog Club listening to Steve on the radio. And I got a “First to Get It Right” on the “Guess the Lyrics” competition as well. “I was walking down the street concentrating on trucking right”. No? Click here for the answer.

 

We got to Dog Club where we had a little experiment. The first time Morgan played up we put his muzzle on him. It stayed on for a couple of minutes and he *really* didn’t like it. For the rest of the session he was rather better behaved than he might have been. He still ran about and played, but there was none of the forceful dominance with which he so often pisses on his chips.

 

We came home. Well, me and the dogs did. “er indoors ^TM” set off to craft club. Being left “home alone” we did what we always do when left home alone. The dogs went to sleep and I cracked on with the ironing.

 

Ironing didn’t take long, and “er indoors ^TM” returned from craft club. We thought we’d spend a few seconds taking the garden table down. It took half an hour to work out how to collapse the thing, and there was quite a bit of blood from where it bit my finger. I then spent another half an hour rearranging the rubbish behind the shed to put the table in there. I don’t want to leave it constantly up as it has left bare patches on the lawn.

I then spent much of the rest of the afternoon fast asleep underneath a pile of dogs.

 

Steve, Sarah and Chris came round for the evening and we had a rather good session on the Infinity Table. I came second at “Game of Life”, last at “Sorry” and I amazed myself by winning “Ticket to Ride”.

 

My finger is rather sore where a lump got chopped out when we were fighting with the table earlier…

13 September 2024 (Friday) - Dog Tablets

I had another restless night. I'm getting fed up with them. I got up rather earlier than I might have done, made toast and scoffed it whilst watching an episode of "Brassic" in which Grumio was again running round in the nip. He seems to do that a lot.

 

It was rather cold as I walked out to find my car. For once I didn't have far to go to find it. I drove round to Sainsbury's petrol station to refuel. The miserable old bat was on the till again, and she was gossiping with her mate. The two of them were managing to do the tills and take the money without interacting with the customers at all as they carried on their conversation. It would seem her mate has some sort of dietary intolerance. The miserable old bat would name a food, and her mate would say how it affected her. As I listened it appeared there wasn't a single thing that didn't either bung her up solid or have her squitting through the eye of a needle (as she so eloquently put it). I'm no consultant enterologist but it strikes me that the obvious thing to do here is to take two foods with completely opposite effects and eat them together. Surely one would counteract the other?

 

As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the radio were talking about the ongoing crisis in dentistry where there is spiralling tooth decay in children.

This is strange... my teeth are crap; as a child and teenager I had filling after filling. But the fruits of my loin had much better fangs as did their generation. When they were younger there was talk of children and teenagers having no fillings at all. I can remember cubs at days out having the most healthy packed lunches. It would seem that now they've grown up they are rebelling and giving their children sugar to sprinkle on their sweets.

And there was talk about how President Putin has seriously got the arse with the Western world for giving the Ukrainians weapons. He's threatening dire repercussions if the weapons given by Western countries supposedly for use on Ukrainian soil are fired into Russia.

It just amazes me that whoever is that is handing out missiles didn't see this coming.

 

I got to work; I did my bit. As I worked I phoned the bank to tell them about next week's holiday, and to tell them not to put a stop on my credit card when they see it is being used overseas. They said they wouldn't. I told them that they said that to several friends only to go on and stop theirs.

And I phoned the vet to organise flea and worming treatments for the dogs. Flea treatments is easy enough; you just rub some jollop on the back of their necks. But getting a worming pill down a canine neck takes some doing. As I found out this evening.

 

I came home via the vets where I picked up the treatments. I popped Bailey’s tablet into a lump of cheese and she yummed it up. Morgan was also easily tricked into having his. But Treacle has seen it all before. I hid her tablet in a piece of cheese. She took the cheese, gave it one bite, spat it all out and quickly ate all the cheese leaving the tablet. I tried again and we had a repeat performance. I pinned her down and poked the tablet down her throat. She glared at me and spat it out. Eventually I tricked her by putting the tablet into a lump of cheese about the size of a golf ball which she immediately devoured before the other two could get any.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching another episode of “Race Across the World”. Our heroes were heading out of Brazil into Argentina. Maybe we might go there one day… if only it wasn’t so far away.

 

And in closing today spare a thought for Moonbase Alpha. When I was a lad there was a wonderful sci-fi show on the telly. It was set on a fictional Moonbase Alpha, and they had various adventures as the Moon travelled through space. The Moon was off on its travels having been blasted out of Earth orbit on 13 September 1999.

When I watched that show this all seemed so far into the future... it's now twenty-five years ago. I think it fair to say that the future didn't pan out quite how Gerry Anderson would have had us believe.

12 September 2024 (Thursday) - Arguing with the Geo-Feds

Another restless night. Usually I sleep like a log for several nights after a night shift. I wonder what was different this time?

I got up, made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was still there. I saw I had an email… and my piss boiled. On Tuesday I tried to organize the monthly geocaching meet-up for October. The Red Lion in Badlesmere are up for it so I tried to set up the meet. Bearing in mind the pub is usually busy until mid-afternoon I thought we might stage a little litter picking as a formal geo-activity on the village green before.

The usual geo-fed with whom I deal is on holiday. His stand in was being rather difficult. *If* there was to be a litter picking session then that had to be the main event, and the write-up I’d provided for the session in the pub should reflect that.

I went to one of these litter-picks followed by a meet up in Deal in April this year,  and something seemingly identical took place less than two weeks ago in Seaford, Both passed off with no such squabbles whatsoever.

If there was one word to describe the geo-feds it would be inconsistent. They pick on “er indoors ^TM” about her caches needing maintenance when two people have logged that they can’t find the things, but let other people’s ones go for over a year with the DNF logs piling up. A friend who lives ten miles away has the geo-feds finding trivial issue after trivial issue with his proposed hides, but when his wife tries to put out *exactly* the same thing there are no problems at all. It says quite clearly in the rules that a geo-meet is not to be a rallying point for people then going off geocaching but a friend who lives twenty miles west does exactly that without problems.

Bearing in mind that so few people are creating geo-events these days you’d think they’d be a tad more encouraging…

I sent a terse reply, and pointed out that the geo-litter-pick was wishful thinking at best. I pointed out that I’d sent an email to who I thought was the relevant parish clerk on Tuesday, but with a postal address in Scotland I wasn’t expecting a reply. I also pointed out that I’d tried to organize a similar litter-pick in Kings Wood over the winter, but I gave up after six months of procrastination from Forestry England.

Just as I finished typing this rant so the stand-in geo-fed published my geo-meet for October. Clearly my terse email had worked.

 

After a rather wet few days today was glorious so I took the dogs up to the woods. We took a rather shorter route than usual as I didn’t want to over-exert Treacle’s leg. But she seemed fine. As we walked we met three other dogs. Two encounters were fine; one wasn’t. If Morgan meets another dog and they aren’t scared of him then all is heigh-ho, pip and dandy. But if they show any fear he gets rather aggressive.

I wish he wouldn’t.

 

We came home. Amazingly the dogs weren’t filthy and didn’t need a bath. So I popped to the corner shop and got us some pastries. You can’t go wrong with an almond croissant.

With that scoffed I went into the garden. I harvested a bumper crop of dog turds, and then mowed the lawn and found more. The whole idea of keeping the lawn short is that you can see the dog turds at harvest time, but the lawn had shot up over the last week’s rain.

I then started a timer, ran out the big hose pipe, cleaned the pond’s pressure filter, put the big hose pipe away and stopped the timer. Before I got the pressure filter, cleaning the pond filter was a back-breaking smelly job that took over an hour. Today it took just under ten minutes from start to finish and I didn’t end up smelling of fish poo.

I got out the bionic burner and had a zap at the weeds growing in the cracks in the front garden. Back in the day I would get on my hands and knees and pull the weeds. Now I go out and zap round with the burner in a fraction of the time and don’t end up with backache.

The trick to gardening is finding easy ways to do it. Having said that I can hear my mother telling me off about it. She used to see any sort of labour-saving device or activity as cheating. My grandmother was also insistent that there was merit in doing any job the most difficult and labourious way possible.

 

Just as I put the bionic burner away my phone pinged. I had an email from the parish clerk who I’d emailed on Tuesday giving full permission for the geo-litter-pick. I *really* hadn’t expected a reply; let alone one so soon.

I spent a little while creating the web page for the geo-litter-picking and sent a grovelling email to the geo-Fed to whom I’d been rather terse earlier. How embarrassing.

Mind you I’m wondering if I shouldn’t send a message to the head honcho of Forestry England. I spent over six months last winter emailing to and fro to their local office offering the services of a bunch of volunteers to do some litter picking for them. After endless procrastination from them I eventually gave up. A local parish council were only too happy to have us turn up and pick litter and all was sorted in less than two days in one email.

 

Feeling rather worn out I sat on the sofa and spent time watching episodes of “Four In a Bed” in the hope that the contestants would get nasty with each other. In the first place visited some bloke (who acted like a precious princess) pretended there were jizz stains in his bed and insisted that the sheets be changed. Sadly in his establishment there really were turd stains on the bog brush and matted hair in the plug hole. The losers were rather disappointed to lose but didn’t seem to realise that a cabin in a houseboat couldn’t command three times the price of a proper bedroom in a proper house, and the winners squeaked through by not rattling anyone’s cages.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good curry which we washed down with a bottle of Liebfraumilch whilst watching the last episode of “The Traitors US” which to my annoyance was won by the very first contestant to whom I’d taken an instant dislike.

This was followed by some program in which the contestants of that show all came back together to talk about how the show went. There wasn’t one woman who hadn’t had her face surgically re-built and her tits pumped up like barrage balloons. I can’t help but wonder why they had all spent so much money to look so odd.

 

For a rostered day off I’ve been rather busy. And just as I was about to post today’s diary entry the geo-feds published my geo-litter-pick. Result!!

11 September 2024 (Wednesday) - Dentist, Sunset, Kebab

“er indoors ^TM” and Treacle had some sort of altercation at three o'clock, and I didn't really get back to sleep after that. I eventually gave up laying in my pit, got up and as I scoffed toast I watched another episode of "Brassic" in which our heroes went camping. Him who played "Grumio" in "Plebs" was all for the Great Outdoors, gave himself dodgy guts from eating iffy berries and earned himself the sobriquet "Shitticus Maximus" which left me giggling all day. Meanwhile the ladies stayed at home and went thieving.

Much as I like the show it seems to have run out of steam. Why would all the lads go camping when not one of them actually wants to go camping? And having been the voice of reason and decency for four seasons, why does the leading lady take all the others thieving when she's been so outspoken about it previously.

And there was another major issue... one of the characters claimed to have been thrown out of the cubs. As a cub leader of thirteen years, take it from me. No one in the history of scouting has *ever* been thrown out of cubs. The leaders love the problem children and bend over backwards for them.

 

Leaving “er indoors ^TM” and the dogs snoring I set off for work. As I drove there was talk on the radio about last night's televised debate between the candidates for the upcoming American presidential election. Apparently Donald Trump made an idiot of himself (again), but the pundits seemed to feel that was expected. In the end the most important thing to emerge about the election didn't come from the debate at all though. Apparently Taylor Swift has announced that she is going to vote for Kamala Harris, and because she is voting that way, so will millions of her followers as well. Democracy eh, Can't beat it...

 

I got to work and cracked on as I do. It wasn't a bad day really; there was cake. I'm a great fan of the stuff. But cake notwithstanding I was out the door like a shot at the stroke of going home time.

I came home, brushed my teeth and went to the dentist for a check-up. The chap rooted about in my gob, gave me the thumbs-up and told me to see the hygienist in a couple of weeks’ time. He said I should come back in six months’ time for X-rays when he would think about replacing fillings.

 

We then drove down to Folkestone for our mid-week walk along the lees. The channel was the clearest I’ve ever seen it. We had a little walk, but only a little one; it was rather cold. And it got dark ridiculously early. We drove home into the sunset.

 

Being a bit late home we had kebab for dinner. It was rather good. We scoffed it whilst watching the penultimate episode of “The Traitors US”. For all that it is supposedly reality TV, the contestants were getting rather nasty with each other…

10 September 2024 (Tuesday) - Rather Tired

Despite Sunday’s night shift I slept for two hours last night and was wide awake at one o’clock. I lay there for half an hour before nodding off, and woke again at half past five feeling like death warmed up.

I made toast and peered into a rather dull internet. Other than a public outpouring of grief for the actor James Earl Jones who died yesterday not a lot was happening on Facebook. However I did have seemingly endless posts about two 1960s TV series – Captain Scarlet and The Time Tunnel. I wonder why?

I had a quick Munz, struggled with Wordle, then got ready for work.

 

As I drove the pundits on the radio were also banging on about the death of James Earl Jones. Intending no disrespect to the chap I can't help but wonder why he and so many of his ilk are so newsworthy. Go to any local theatre and you will find dozens of actors who are every bit as good as the ones on the telly and in films. They do their acting for the fun of it, don't command ridiculous wages since they do it as a hobby, and no one cries crocodile tears when they croak. I'm sure Mr Jones gave some stunning performances, but I'm also sure that dozens if not hundreds of other actors could have done just as good a job for a fraction of the price. Why are celebrity actors held in such awe by the public?

Football players are the same.

There was also a lot of talk about the government's plans to cut the winter fuel allowance for pensioners. Apparently the pension is going up, so what the government takes with one hand it is giving back with the other.

 

I went up the motorway to the needlessly closed slip road at junction six where I turned off and drove through Aylesford. As I drove I was conscious of a white van being far too close behind me. It overtook me rather dangerously on a blind corner and then being unable to go any further carried on about ten yards in front of me tail-ending the car in front of it for the next mile or so until recklessly swerving into a building site. Pedestrians didn't actually dive out of its way...

 

I spent much of the day giggling. When I first started this line of work many years ago one of the very first things I learned that people who collect blood samples are called "phlebotomists". They are known to all and sundry in the hospital as "fleabows". The very first time I heard this I had a mental image of one of the Banana Splits communicating via a honking horn whilst wielding a needle and syringe, and that set me off. 

This morning, years later, there was talk of "fleabows" and that mental image came straight back.

 

Work was work. I took a little diversion on the way home and popped into the Red Lion in Badlesmere where I confirmed that all was good for next month’s geo-meet.

It was.

The plan was to then come home and take the dogs out, but when I as home so the heavens opened. We did the “Feeding The Fish” ritual and I wrote the web page for the October geo-meet I’d just arranged.

 

Dinner was rather good… it was just a shame I could hardly stay awake.

9 September 2024 (Monday) - After the Night Shift

The first night shift I ever did was in early 1985. I was phoned and asked to do my thing on five separate occasions. I finished the last one at half past midnight.

Last night’s shift was five hours shorter than that one of all those years ago. Far from getting a phone call every time I was needed I just stayed in work and dealt with stuff as it arrived, and stuff arrived constantly all night long. Including a red alert during the hour before midnight.

I was rather pleased to see the early shift arrive this morning.

 

As I came home I listened to the radio. There was talk about what our new Prime Minister was getting up to. Something about public finances… From what I could work out it is being claimed that the previous government cooked the books and it has now come to light that he country is massively in debt; far more so that was ever thought. The obvious answer (so some shrieking harridan claimed) was to tax the extremely rich. I had hoped the Labour party had given up on such divisive ways years ago. Taxing the rich is all very well all the time the country has got rich people to tax. But were I massively rich and was told that I would have to pay far more tax purely because I could, I would up sticks and piss off to another country where it wouldn’t cost me quite so much.

 

I got home just as “er indoors ^TM” was walking down the road with the dogs. She’d taken her car for its MOT, and walking the dogs back gave them an outing. I stood and waited for them. Treacle saw me but the other two were too busy sniffling about and didn’t see me. Which is why when we are in the woods they walk straight past squirrels and don’t see deer only twenty yards away.

I had a shave and shower and went to bed. Morgan and Bailey followed me. Morgan jumped on the bed and curled up. Being too small to jump up Bailey just looked at me rather pathetically. So, falling for her ruse, I lifted her up and she flew at her brother and a rather vigorous play-fight kicked off.

They eventually settled.

 

Over a mid-day brekkie I peered into the Internet. Facebook randomly decided I might like crochet and presented me with a post from a crochet group in which various people were having a really nasty, spiteful and personal argument about the difference between tortoises and turtles. On a crochet group.

Some people will argue about anything.

And I then realised something. Up until the last election our local MP was all over Facebook like a rash. Since he got the heave-ho he’s been quiet (well he would be, wouldn’t he?) But I’ve not heard a single thing from our new chap. Does he not do social media or am I looking in the wrong place?

 

I got the ironing board out and spent some time this afternoon ironing. As I sorted shirts I watched episodes of “Four In A Bed”. This afternoon’s episodes were rather good in that not a lot of love was last between the contestants. That show is always best when those taking part hate each other.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up sausages and chips and went bowling. As she walked out the door she announced that as she’d picked up her coat she’d destroyed my ironing board. That wasn’t *our* ironing board. That was *my* ironing board…

Ho hum…

 

8 September 2024 (Sunday) - Before the Night Shift

I slept right through till half past eight this morning. As I scoffed my toast so I got an email. A new geocache only a mile away. I sped off in the desperate hope of being first and got to where it was supposed to be only to find a geo-pal was already there hunting.

From the hint the thing should have been obvious. It wasn’t. After a few minutes my pal sent a message to the chap who’d hidden it. Or to be precise, the chap who had told Geocaching HQ that he had hidden it. Apparently he’d not got round to hiding the thing… even though when you go through creating a new one on-line you actually tick a box saying that you’ve hidden it and it is in place.

I sighed and came home.

 

As “er indoors ^TM” pootled about I had a look at the internet. I rolled my eyes on our Munzee Clans Facebook page. There was a photo of something pretty central to Munzee Clans and someone had commented “What is this?” This would be like going onto a football page and asking what a goal was, or going on a cricket page and claiming you had no idea what a wicket was.

And then a notification came through that the chap who’d not hidden the geocache had gone out and done so.

 

The weather forecast for this morning was thunderstorms and a ninety per cent chance of rain. As we sat and looked at the glorious sunshine we thought we’d go out. So we went out and despite the glorious sunshine there were showers. Very odd showers. There would be torrential rain, then a hundred yards up the road the pavements were completely dry. And there was a glorious blue sky all the time.

We drove up to Eastwell where “er indoors ^TM” had been told that some of her geocaches were missing. Replacing them made a short dog walk.

 

We came home and I spent a little while farting about on Amazon ordering bits and bobs. And after half an hour I went outside to pump up the car tyre. It had told me it had low pressure as we’d driven home. It had very low pressure. I’ve never seen it so low. By the time I’d driven it to Kwik Fit it was completely flat.

The nice man at Kwik Fit said he might be able to do something with it today, but they were busy and short-handed and I should leave it with them. He specifically said it wasn’t worth my while waiting.

As I walked home so the torrential rain started. I was soaked by the time I got home, and I’d developed a blister that bad burst and was profusely bleeding too. Just as I was taking off wet undercrackers so my phone rang. It was the nice man at Kwik Fit asking if I’d hit a pot hole today. “er indoors ^TM” said I had as we’d driven back from Eastwell. The nice man at Kwik Fit said that would wreck a tyre… I wouldn’t mind quite so much if the tyre had been more than six weeks old; I’d only had the thing replaced on 26 July.

To add insult to injury he said I might like to go collect the car…  

 

And then my phone told me that the payment had been declined on all the stuff I’d bought from Amazon earlier. When the bank wrote to me a month ago and said they’d updated everything when they sent out my new credit card they lied.

 

“er indoors ^TM” drove me out to get the car, and once home I went to bed for the afternoon. I’m hoping for an early dinner and then off to the night shift. I’m hoping to get up the motorway before it closes.

I wish the highways people would stop messing about.

7 September 2024 (Saturday) - Dog Club, Geo Meet, Family Get-Together

I slept rather well for a change. That was nice.

I made brekkie and peered into the internet. Not a lot was going on really. I did chuckle as I saw I’d been told off – yesterday someone asked for recommendations for local aquatic shops. I recommended some local ones and gave my honest experiences of the aquatic shop closest to work. Over the last seven years I’ve called in many times and found them rude, unhelpful and rather expensive. Over the last couple of years I’ve only been in when I’ve forgotten how bad the shop was only to be reminded why I rarely go in there. Some young girl thought it wrong of me to say so.  

What did she want of me? To lie and say the place was fine, or to keep quiet and let others experience the rudeness for themselves?

The last time I went in there I stood and waited for over ten minutes whist the staff all stood around listening to one of their number talking about the amount of blood spilled in a fist fight that someone or other had been involved in the previous day.

 

I Munzed and Wordled, and then being Saturday we set off to Dog Club. As we drove I got Steve’s “Guess the Lyrics” contest on the radio right away. “I can dim the lights and sing you songs full of sad things”. No? Click here for the video.

We got to Dog Club where Morgan disgraced himself. He’s fine with other dogs until the other dog shows fear. Then he just gets aggressive and has to have a time out

 

We came home and had a cuppa and a bun. Whilst we’d been at dog club a new puzzle geocache had gone live. I spent a little while struggling with the puzzle. Perhaps too long. By the time I’d solved it time was running out. Bearing in mind it was a short diversion from our afternoon drive we left it for later. And drove out to Wye where the monthly geo-meet was happening.

As geo-meets go it wasn’t the most well attended, but ten of us sat in the pub garden and put the world to rights. And it was something of a milestone for me; geo-find 15151.

 

From Wye we drove to Hastings. We took a little diversion to find that geocache the puzzle of which I’d solved earlier. Sadly having not gone straight there but having gone to the meet-up we missed being First to Find. But to be honest I’d rather meet up with friends.

We carried on to Hastings  where family gathered for a get-together for a couple of birthdays. We had a rather good get-together which got progressively more vague as the afternoon wore on, and I slept most (all) of the way home.

 

Today has been rather busy… I took a few photos.

And (where has the time gone?) today marks two years since my Dad died…

6 September 2024 (Friday) - Swizzed

I slept like a log and woke feeling raring to go… at half past midnight. And then I just dozed on and off. This happens annoyingly often.

Eventually I gave up, got up and watched an episode of “Brassic” in which him who was “Grumio” turned up in a camper van which he’d converted into a mobile sex dungeon despite having no road tax, MOT or driving licence.

 

I then did my usual peer into the Internet. There wasn’t a lot happening so I had a quick Munz, then struggled with Wordle. I’ve been playing that for the last few weeks; I’m not very good at it.

I set off to work and immediately spent a few seconds retrieving the recycling bin and the food waste bin from where the bin men had abandoned them. Having heard them bellowing as I'd been watching the telly I rather thought I'd have to do that job before someone whose bin they'd lost came and nicked ours.

 

As I drove out of Ashford so I noticed a motorbike in my rear view mirror. It had its headlight on full beam, flew past me rather dangerously at the traffic lights by Matalan and sped round the roundabout where it caused no end of chaos by conking out right in everyone's way.

I remembered my old motorbike; a Suzuki GSX 250 which went for scrap about forty years ago. It too used to conk out without warning whenever it rained.

 

There was an interview on the radio with Dwayne Fields (no - I'd never heard of him either) who has become the Chief Scout taking over from Bear Grylls. From what the chap said he seems to be ideal for the position. Mind you I did sit up and take notice when he said that half a million youngsters were members. I thought it was far more than that - and membership has grown in the last year.

I was in the cubs as a child. I lasted one week as a scout, finding it rather scary. I was dragooned to assist our local group when “My Boy ^TM” was eight, and I stayed as a leader for thirteen years. It was fun at the time, but it did insidiously rather take over my life.

 

I got to work where I was swizzed. Yesterday I was asked if I could do some extra hours to help out. Bearing in mind the thirty-third Rule of Acquisition "it never hurts to suck up to the boss" I agreed to work the morning .After all a colleague whose birthday it was said she would be bringing in cakes today. However I didn't consider the two hundred and eighty fifth Rule of Acquisition "no good deed goes unpunished"; my colleague has gone down with COVID, phoned in sick and there were no cakes. And to add insult to injury I’d been asked to come in because she was not coming in.

 

I worked for the morning, then came home at mid-day. Once home I loaded the dogs int the car and we drove up to Kings Wood. As I’d driven down the motorway the weather had gone from bright to torrential rain and back again a few times. Going to the woods was taking a chance.

As we parked so my phone beeped with the news that the Met Office had cancelled the extreme weather warning for heavy rain and we had a good walk. Having had a report that another of my geocaches had gone missing I went to check. It was where it was supposed to be, but since I hid it nearly two years ago the ferns have grown rather thickly around it.

We had a shorter-than-usual walk today. Treacle seemed better when we left home and wasn’t limping. But after half a mile she was walking rather awkwardly so we cut our walk short. I didn’t want her over-exerting herself. Despite walking awkwardly she was still running round like a thing possessed when she saw a shadow that offended her.

We came home and I spent a couple of hours fast asleep on the sofa

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up fish and chips which we scoffed watching more of “The Traitors US” in which those who weren’t in the clique watched those in the clique whilst making no secret of their jealousy. Whilst totally not realizing they weren’t actually missing anything…  

5 September 2024 (Thursday) - It Rained

The sound of heavy rain against the window woke me at four o’clock. Judging by the snoring it didn’t seem to wake anyone else though.

I nodded off again and slept through for another four hours until backache forced me to stop laying there. I got up, took those dogs who wanted to go out outside, then made brekkie. There was a minor disaster as the milk had gone off. Milk seems to be going off quite a lot at the moment. Fortunately we found some powdered stuff in the cupboard. Unfortunately it was best before over two years ago. That went the way of the liquid stuff.

 

As I scoffed brekkie I peered into the Internet as I do. As it has been doing for the last few days my Facebook feed was filled with articles about the late Freddie Mercury. I don’t dislike the chap. I quite like some of his music. But what has possessed Facebook to bombard me with his stuff just lately?

There was a rant on one of the Facebook pages I follow. The tired old argument about how cash is king. Except it isn’t. I found myself thinking back over forty years to the Harbour restaurant before credit cards were quite such a thing. The boss would take thousands of pounds of cash to the bank twice a week. Two of us would go as bodyguards as he wasn't happy carrying such large amounts. And then all the banks in Hastings Old Town closed and what was a twenty minute job suddenly took an hour... at the time of day when restaurant staff should be doing restaurant things.

And because no one accepted cards back in those days boss always carried a wad of notes in his pocket to pay staff wages and suppliers’ bills. His wad was about half an inch thick. He lived in permanent fear of being mugged.

 

Despite the rain I took Morgan and Bailey for a walk. Treacle stayed behind; she was still limping this morning. We drove up to Kings Wood and as we arrived so the rain slackened off a little. I’d had reports that three of my geocaches were missing. One was and two weren’t. Sadly one that wasn’t missing was broken. Earlier in the year Gordon gave me a rather good geocache container – a little owl. It is tied to a tree about a mile from the car park in Kings Wood - you can find it by solving a little puzzle. But someone has got rather heavy handed with it and broken the lid. It is OK for the time being though.

We walked back to the car. As we walked Morgan and Bailey were as good as gold. It winds me up the no one ever sees them behaving themselves. Everyone sees them being pains in the glass though (to coin a phrase).

 

As we drove home we found ourselves in the middle of a queue of seemingly endless cyclists all the way from the woods back to Ashford. I was once told that cyclists aren’t allowed to have races along the roads, so instead they organize time trials in which they set off at thirty second intervals and the fastest one to complete whatever route they have chosen wins. Was that what was happening today?

I did my best to overtake the cyclists safely. Other drivers didn’t. The whole thing seemed rather dangerous.

Ironically as we drove home my MP3 player randomly chose to play ELO’s “Concerto For a Rainy Day”.

 

We got home where the pups had a bath. They’d not rolled in anything but being low down they’d got wet and muddy. A hot shower sorted them out. I popped up the road for pastries and milk, and made a cuppa for me and “er indoors ^TM”.

With the rain not letting up I spent a little while uploading photos that “er indoors ^TM” had found the other day. Piccies from our old school trip to Hindleap Warren in 1975 and Boys Brigade camp some time in the late 1970s. I’m still in touch with some of the people from the good old days. I say “in touch”; I see photos and updates from them periodically on Facebook, and occasionally we comment on what the other has been up to. But so many other people have fallen by the wayside. Take for example the old Open University gang. One of the albums of photos that has come to light was from my OU days. I didn’t put those piccies on-line. Clearly from the pictures I was having a whale of a time, but who were those people? As I perused the photos I had vague recollections. One might have been a policeman from Dartford, I think one did the same job as me somewhere in the London area, I think two were from Brighton, but as for the rest? Thirty years ago we were such a part of each others’ lives; now total strangers about whom I’d not given a thought in years.

 

I wrote up some CPD, then with the rain getting heavier and heavier turned on the telly and watched episodes of “Four in a Bed” in which (as is always the case) those with a massively over-inflated opinion of themselves were shocked to find some of their contestants doing a far better job than they were and for half the price.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching more of “The Traitors US”. In theory the contestants use wit and deduction to work out which of their number can’t be trusted. In practice the whole thing is little more than a popularity contest, and it is the bitching and jostling for position that makes it so entertaining.

 

And then I had a message from work. Could I go in for a few hours tomorrow? Go on then… what with the current and forecast rain it isn’t as though I could do much tomorrow anyway. And one should always bear in mind the thirty-third Rule of Acquistion.  

4 September 2024 (Wednesday) - Another Early Shift

I was woken by the sound of Treacle getting off the bed (with a bit of a thump) at half past four. She shouldn't be jumping with her iffy leg. And certainly shouldn't be going down the stairs. I hurried after her and found her at the top of the stairs looking rather pathetic. So I carried her down. She's quite a lump to carry; let alone downstairs. We got downstairs and I put her down and went and opened the back door. She stood by the foot of the stairs looking pathetic so I carried her outside. She hobbled about a bit for ten minutes showing absolutely no sign of doing that for which we'd come outside. After ten minutes she eventually squatted, and there was then the sound of something jumping on the fence (a cat maybe). Treacle shot up the garden like a bullet from a gun, barking like a thing possessed.

When I caught up with her whatever she'd chased had long gone, and she was looking very sorry for herself. She'd obviously again strained whatever she'd strained yesterday.

 

I carried her back to bed, but I was wide awake. I made brekkie and watched another episode of "Brassic" in which him who played "Grumio" in "Plebs" had acquired a life-like but faulty sex doll, and had the hump that no one would test it for him. He was keen to give it a go himself, but not until he'd found out what the fault was. Or, to be precise, until someone else had found out what the fault was.

 

I set off to work a tad earlier than I might have done. I used the time to go round town hunting down points of interest. Mind you these points were only of interest to Munzee players. Most people would find them rather dull.

I found fourteen before heading up the motorway to work.

The motorway was frankly dangerous this morning. With Operation Brock gone for this week there were two lanes of lorries all the way from Ashford to Maidstone. The slow lane had lorries moving at about forty-five miles per hour, and the middle lane was full of other lorries overtaking them... at about forty-six miles per hour.

All the cars were in the fast lane, and I found myself constantly having to dip in between the lorries of the middle lane to allow whoever was driving a couple of yards from my back bumper (and flashing their lights) to get past. You'd think the traffic police would get involved, wouldn't you?

 

As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how the police have arrested a fourteen year old child who has supposedly murdered an eighty-year old chap. Has he? I don't know. If he has, let's have a public televised execution. Seriously. When I was a lad if we messed about at school the headmaster caned us. One boy had a sore arse for a day and a thousand boys behaved themselves for a year. Publicly killing off one murderer would serve as an example.

Wouldn't it?

 

Work was much the same as ever. But an early start made for an early finish. Again road works meant I was rather later home than I might have been. I got home and the dogs came to see me as they do. Treacle had obviously just woken up and was stiff and her leg was still playing up. In all the excitement her leg must have twinged so she snarled at Bailey, and Bailey tiddled in terror.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching episodes of “The Traitors US”. I’ve taken to watching it in the hope that the contestants I dislike most get the heave-ho. And the contestants are all so bland and banal finding one to dislike more than the others takes some doing.

I’ve taken to judging them on the basis of who is wearing the most stupid hat…

 

Treacle’s leg still isn’t right.

3 September 2024 (Tuesday) - Hurt Our Leg

Facebook presented me with a memory today. Six years ago today I sailed out into the Thames estuary and did a couple of geocaches out at sea. To get to the geocache on the Red Sands seas fort you need to sail out with the official tour guide. I chartered the boat which cost me a small fortune, then sold tickets to recoup my losses. But I didn’t sell tickets to just anyone; it was to a select group of friends.

One thing which stuck in my mind about the trip was the amount of bad feeling it caused. On the lead up to the trip word got round about what was happening, and I lost count of the amount of strangers who contacted me to tell me they were coming, and who got rather aggressive when I told them they weren’t. There were also a lot of people I’d never met who told me how I should advertise future trips so that the likes of them wouldn’t miss out. I replied to all in the same way. I told them it was a private booking for a select group, and I sent them the details so that they could book their own trip. And in the intervening six years not one of them has done that. There was a group of Germans who booked the boat last year, but other than that, no one has made a group booking.

 

I got the leads on to the dogs and we set off for our morning adventure. Not having that much time today we drove down to Orlestone where we had our walk.

There wasn’t any other cars in the car park when we arrived, and we didn’t see anyone at all as we walked. As we posed for a photo so I could hear a crashing in the bushes behind me. Fortunately the bushes were higher than the dogs’ heads, but I *think* I saw deer running off.

As all the dogs ran off chasing shadows Treacle suddenly stopped. I caught up to her to find she was standing holding her front left paw up. I couldn’t see anything wrong with it, but she limped on and off all the way back to the car. She flatly refused to jump into the boot, and I had to lift her out when we got home. Has she strained it?

 

We came home where I washed the fox poo off of Morgan and Bailey. We had a cuppa and a rock cake, and I set off to the local hospital. I got there and eventually found a parking space. Sadly everyone else had parked rather stupidly, but I managed to wedge my car in to the last spot.

I went in, booked in, and I got in to see the surgeon ten minutes early. I rather like the chap; he is always cheerful and happy and inspires confidence. He asked how I was, and shoved an endoscope up my nose. Firstly up the left nostril to show me what that looked like. Then up the right nostril where we saw a gaping void where he’d carved out the papilloma. At the moment there is no sign of it, but I’ve had three follow-ups before where it seemed to be gone.

He’s suggested I go back in a year’s time for another look-see.

 

I came home via the petrol station where my idiot magnet did its trick. There was only one person on the till; the miserable cantankerous one with whom I’ve had run-ins previously. She was quite obviously getting more and more wound up by some dopey woman who wanted a packet of cigarettes for her husband. She didn’t want the cheapest or the most expensive and kept turning down whatever brand was suggested. She thought it was hilarious that she’d been sent to get cigarettes but had no idea what ones she wanted, and when someone else in the queue had a word the woman’s reaction was amazing. She turned round, saw the epic queue, and flatly refused to believe that the length of the queue was anything to do with her farting about.

 

Once home I had a fiddle with my blog archive - it had lost some of the piccies. And then I had a go at a puzzle geocache I’ve been struggling with for years. The puzzle is just random strings of numbers which meant absolutely nothing to me until I read the instructions. The instructions said I needed a particular ordnance survey map and a roamer. Had I read the instructions in the first place I might have got a First to Find on this six years ago.

I then spent much of the afternoon struggling with an on-line jigsaw puzzle for geo-reasons.

 

With thunderstorms forecast for tomorrow evening we had our seaside walk today. Even though the weather looked a tad iffy. We went down to Folkestone Leas, but didn’t go very far. Treacle was still limping.

She’s not crying or worrying her leg, but she’s not steady on it. If it doesn’t improve she’s going to the vet.

2 September 2024 (Monday) - Early Shift

I woke in a cold sweat at half past five this morning following a rather vivid nightmare. Something of a shame really; with Pogo off on a little holiday there was plenty of bed space for once.

 

I made toast and had a little look at the internet. There was an incredibly petty squabble kicking off about a factual inaccuracy on one of the on-screen graphics used in the TV series of “The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. You have to wonder who would freeze-frame and check what had been written on a TV show from the last century, don’t you?

There wasn’t much else happening quite so early in the morning.  I sent out a couple of birthday messages to friends and got ready for work.

 

As I drove to work I listened to the radio as I do. There was loads of talk about how the schools inspector OFSTED is dropping its one-word summary of schools. Apparently they aren’t changing anything else about how they inspect; just the one-word summary. I’m no expert but it strikes me that any inspector would be far better offering advice on helping improvement rather than finding fault.

Does OFSTED do that? I don’t know.

And there was talk about the problem of antibiotic resistance. Basically doctors have been giving out antibiotics like sweeties for years, and farmers have been feeding them to animals for years. For the most part the bacterial that antibiotics kill have long since been killed, and so with them gone their space is being taken by bacteria that laugh at antibiotics. And before long we’ll be back to the middle ages when an infected cut will go septic and kill you.

I was told all about this when I started in hospital laboratories in 1981, and it was common knowledge back then. Every few years this story does the rounds and everyone acts surprised.

 

I drove to work up the motorway today which had none of that “Operation Brock” stupidity going on. I got to junction six in seemingly record time, and then the delays started. The slip road from junction six to junction five has road works, as does the Coldharbour roundabout off of junction five. Mind you when I say “road works” I mean miles of road cones and dug-up roads, but no one actually doing anything.

 

Work was work. As I did my bit I had flashbacks from my time in the Harbour Restaurant. Over the summer of 1981 the Italian boss had friends staying with him. He asked the youngsters who worked for him if we would take his friend’s teenage children out with us in the evenings. We were a tad reluctant as they didn’t speak English and we didn’t speak Italian. Boss gave us the price of an evening out… and we all got on famously. Despite not speaking a word of Italian I soon found myself able to understand it. I couldn’t speak it, but I could understand it. Similarly the Italians couldn’t speak English but hey understood us.

I wonder what happened to them?

Today some of my colleagues were chattering in Italian. I recognized the sound, but sadly I’ve forgotten all that I picked up over that summer holiday.

 

And then at one o’clock a colleague had a text from her daughter’s school. They had unilaterally decided that with effect from today children could only be collected by parents unless a form was filled in allowing someone else to collect the child.

My colleague told the school that she needs more than two hours notice of such a change of policy, and that if her sister couldn’t be trusted, then she herself would collect her daughter after work… at six o’clock.

The school never replied.

But isn’t this a sign of our times? Ten year olds needing to be collected from school. I used to walk home by myself when I was seven.

 

Being on an early shift I got out early. The journey home took me twice as long as it used to. It took half an hour to drive the mile and a half from work to the motorway. I did have a plan to take the dogs to the woods after work, but I spent all of that time in a traffic jam.

 

I came home to find the postman had been. I subscribe to three magazines. The postman brought the September edition of two of them today.

I will read one from cover to cover several times. The other will go for recycling unopened...

1 September 2024 (Sunday) - Boxley

When I was a lad I had some toy robots called “Zeroids”. Not the Gerry Anderson ones; you can see pictures of these ones here. This morning as I scoffed my toast people were posting to Facebook about how these things now sell on eBay for over a thousand quid each. I wish I’d kept mine.

Facebook had sent me a message. I like Facebook. It allows me to be incredibly nosey and see what other people are doing and gives me seemingly unlimited photo storage. However it has some rather strange ideas about what it thinks is acceptable in polite society. It’s no secret that peddling websites of porn don’t breach its Community Standards – I regularly post up photos of those doing so.

The other day it randomly presented me with a video of some woman wearing next to nothing running round trying to shoot a large iguana with a bow and arrow. After a lot of gratuitous close-ups of her arse and chest she shot the iguana which was clearly in pain.

I won’t re-post the video. But it is still on Facebook as it apparently doesn’t breach their community standards…

I totally failed at Wordle and with a little time to spare went round the garden harvesting dog dung. It’s amazing how quickly that stuff accumulates.

 

“er indoors ^TM” and the dogs came downstairs. Morgan sat with me for a bit, He had hiccups. Whilst he hic-ed we got ourselves organized and set off to Boxley. Karl and Tracy were doing a maintenance run (walk) on a series of their geocaches and we came along for the walk. Six of us (and four dogs) set off on a rather serious uphill slog. We’d arranged the walk so the serious uphill bit was first. Once at the top of the hill the going was much easier, but I was amazed at how many off-road bikers we had to avoid. Especially when you consider how difficult that place was to get to. Longbeech Wood and Kings Wood are far more accessible; why don’t the cyclists go there?

 

In an amazing show of self-control we walked past the pub… mind you a country pub on a Sunday lunchtime? Heaving with the normal people. We would have spent close on a hundred quid, and we’d got a picnic with us anyway.

About two thirds of the way round we stopped for that picnic. Over the last few months we’ve rather got out of the habit of picnics. I miss them. It was rather good to sit in a field and watch the world go by. It was a shame that Bailey had to roll in quite so much poo, but there it is.

I took a few photos as we walked. I do that.

 

We got back to the cars; we said our goodbyes. They took a little longer than usual. Pogo is going off with Karl and Tracy for a little holiday. Much as we love him, four dogs is a tad too much. Especially as when he’s with us Pogo feels he has to be guardian of the pack. When he’s on his own he can be much more rested and doesn’t feel he has to prove himself.

 

Once home “er indoors ^TM” and the dogs had a little sleep. I strained my brain with a geo puzzle. You can see the thing by clicking here. There’s a load of talk about how good desserts are, some pictures of various puddings and a formula from which you can calculate the longitude and latitude of where there’s a little film pot under a rock. Or, as I suspect, inside a metal gate. I’ve identified all the puddings, but how I get numbers from them eludes me.

Bearing in mind that the rules of geocaching say that the thing has to be somewhere on the Romney Marsh, if any of my loyal readers know how I might add strawberry cheesecake to oatmeal biscuits and get five, please let me know.

I’m reminded of my old maths teacher who once told me that I couldn’t add apples to oranges… he’d have a fit if he tried puzzle geocaching.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a rather good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching the first episode of the second season of the American version of “Traitors”. An odd show. Most of the women contestants have had rather bad plastic surgery and look as though they have just had a smack in the chops. One who hasn’t has one tit three times the size of the other. Most of the men contestants have over-inflated views of their own importance apart from the one who seems to have failed the job interview for the role of village idiot. And ex-politician John Bercow was in there as well for on apparent reason. All of the contestants seemed to know all of the other contestants from other reality TV shows, and none seemed to like anyone else.

It's rather entertaining…