31 January 2025 (Friday) - Traffic Jam

I slept better last night, but was still awake far too early. Rather than laying awake waiting for the alarm to go off I got up, made toast and watched an episode of “Poldark”. It was rather good; a shame that Netflix say they are pulling the series from their schedule in a month’s time.

I then had my usual morning’s rummage round the internet.

Our local MP was posting to Facebook about plans to totally abandon the entire concept of “Operation Brock”. Whilst that would be a good idea in principle, an “ambitious new alternative to the hated 50mph contraflow” and “the government has agreed to push forward with work on a long-term solution” doesn’t actually say anything, does it?

 

I got ready for work and set off through a rather damp morning. Pausing only briefly to get a coronation chicken sandwich from the co-op I was soon off up the motorway.

As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the government’s “Land Use Framework”; in which the government has announced that about nine per cent of the country’s farming land will need to be converted into forest and wild habitats by 2050 to meet the government's net zero and nature targets. As various experts and windbags pontificated, a couple of interesting points came out. I didn’t realise that a third of the UK’s electricity comes from wind power. And I had no idea that more people are members of the green movement than are members of political parties.

This was followed by an interview with the police minister who seemed to admit that police budgets were being cut whilst at the same time claiming that more money was being spent on policing than ever before.

 

I got to work and had a rather good day, but even so I was glad when it was home time. Just after I’d got home I heard a commotion outside. There is always congestion outside the house; the road is narrow and there’s always people coming and going at the little shop over the road. This evening two buses had met head-on. Each was followed by a queue of traffic and there was quite a bit of shouting going on.

 

And then “er indoors ^TM” arrived with “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” and Darcie WaaWaa ^TM” who are up for the weekend.

KFC, silly animal videos on YouTube, and dog mayhem. I’m worn out.

30 January 2025 (Thursday) - Esher Common

I had another terrible night’s sleep. I had an early night last night and woke after a couple of hours. I then lay half awake and half asleep until half past four when I gave up trying to sleep and got up.

I made toast, watched more “Poldark” in which Master Drake was besotted with Mistress Morwenna. As happens to the best of us.

 

And then I set off. First of all to the petrol station where the miserable old bat on the till was remarkably cheerful for once.

And then up the motorway. As I drove there was all sorts of talk on the radio about how water bills are going through the roof. Having sold off the water companies (years ago) the amazing revelation has been made that rather than giving it all to shareholders as dividends, the money people have paid as water bills should have been spent on maintaining and replacing the existing infrastructure. And so after years of neglect the water companies are leaping into action. And having leapt they’ve all realized they pissed away all their income.

And tere was all sorts of talk about the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and also an interview with her. She made some speech yesterday about how she plans to make Britain great again; such a shame that no one really seemed to believe her.

 

The traffic wasn’t that bad today. Google had told me that it would take between an hour and a half and two and a half hours to get to Esher Common; it took two hours.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote  “Having done some serious brain-straining with Gordon over the last week we’ve got the final locations of a series of geocaches… but they are all a long way up various trees. To get at them we need ten-metre poles”. Geocaches rarely go up trees, so chasing after these ones was a must-do.

Equipped with the co-ordinates of the trees up which these geocaches were put, and with poles to get at them, I met up with Gordon and Ralph and we had a very good wander round Esher Common. Despite being up trees, the geocaches we were hunting weren’t as obvious as you might think. I had suggested waiting until the mud had dried; Gordon had pointed out that by then the leaves would be out. I struggled to see the caches on bare trees; with leaves the caches would have been all but invisible. And for all that reaching ten metres up a tree to get a cache down was tricky, putting them back took some doing.

 

Despite it being a rather cold day, the sun shone and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky all day. And I caught the sun too. I took a few photos as we walked about today. We had a good day covering…  well… Gordon’s step count was fourteen thousand; mine was twenty thousand. And my GPS said we’d done nearly eight miles whereas Ralph’s said just over six.

 

I got home about twelve hours after I’d set off. “er indoors ^TM” boiled up lemon meringue pie for dinner. Maybe not as “diet dinner” as it might be, but to keep the calories down that was all we had.

And we started watching “Celebrity Hunted”. A shame I’ve never heard of any of these so-called celebrities.

29 January 2025 (Wednesday) - This n That

Again I was awake shortly after one o’clock and then spent the rest of the night dozing fitfully. I gave up trying to sleep at five o’clock, got up and made toast. One small mercy of getting up really early is that the dogs don’t and I get to scoff the toast whilst it is still warm.

I watched an episode of “Poldark” in which our hero went to revolutionary France seemingly because he could, and then I had a little look at the internet

Three people on my Facebook friends list were having birthdays today. I sent out birthday wishes to two of them. I didn’t bother with the third on account of him being a hamster that died ten years ago.

 

I checked my emails. I have permission for my new series of geocaches in Kings Wood. I was pleased about that after the amount of time and effort I’ve already put in to this project.

And I had an email from the county councilor. I’d sent him an email about the flooding at the Asda underpass. I naively thought the council could do a bit of dredging, build a wall and all would be heigh ho pip and dandy. But it turns out that:

Ashford Borough Council are responsible for the maintenance of the path

Kent County Council are responsible for maintenance of the accessibility of a Public Right of Way

The Environment Agency are responsible for the maintenance of waterways and flood management

And Network Rail are involved as they own the land 

The councilor chap says that no one wants to actually do anything as doing so sets a precedent for future expenses. He says he is trying to get all parties talking, but matters aren’t helped by Network Rail refusing to talk to anyone about the matter. He’s of the opinion that at the end of the day the Environment Agency are the ones who should be getting it sorted, so he’s chivvying the local MP to chivvy them.

I suppose he’s having a go, but he did mention that there was a similar division of responsibilities in a local railway underpass where it took six months to change a lightbulb.

Will anything actually happen at the Asda underpass? It was flooding twenty-five years ago, and I suspect it will still be flooding in twenty-five years’ time.

And I had an email from the RSPB. The great birdwatch was last weekend. I’d forgotten all about it.

 

Taking care not to wake anyone I got ready for work and set off. Yesterday I got a chicken fajita wrap from the works M&S which was crap. Today I went to the co-op and got a similar wrap, a bag of crisps and a drink for a quid less than what I paid in M&S for just the wrap.

 

As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the radio were talking about the Doomsday clock. Some bunch of international scientists reckon that Russian nuclear threats, the invasion of Ukraine (to say nothing of other wars), military applications of artificial intelligence and the climate crisis means that global catastrophe is closer than ever. Is it? Probably.

There were allegations that the bishop of Liverpool has been misbehaving.  Am I being cynical in thinking he's heard about the Doomsday Clock and is making hay whilst the sun shines? Not that bishops should do that sort of thing. If a bishop isn't going to take a moral stance, who will?

And the BBC is making cuts to its World Service. By axing a hundred and thirty jobs it plans to save six million quid. So the average person getting the heave-ho earns over forty-five thousand a year. That’s ten thousand a year more than the average UK worker gets. And it is the average UK worker that pays the TV licence fee that funds the BBC. A gravy train which is long overdue to be de-railed.

 

I got to work. I did my bit. And at lunchtime I scoffed that co-op chicken fajita wrap. It was far better than the one I got from M&S yesterday.

 

Over dinner this evening we watched the final of “Junior Bake Off”. Now we’ve seen all of that and all of “The Traitors” we’ve got to find something else to watch.

I wonder what.

28 January 2025 (Tuesday) - Before The Late Shift

Having been sleeping well for over a week I woke at five past one this morning and then dozed fitfully for the rest of the night. What sleep I did get was plagued by nightmares about taking scouts on a motorbike tour of Japan; each scout being accompanied by a diarrhea-ridden pug of their own.

 

I made toast and just as it was ready so the dogs came trotting downstairs. I’m convinced they hear the toast pop out, come down and ask to go out just so I get cold toast. It happens every morning.

I peered into the Internet as I do. It was still there. There wasn’t much happening on Facebook really. Yesterday I found a Facebook group supposedly about the underpass by the railway bridge which keeps flooding. I mentioned on it that I’d emailed the local councilor who hadn’t replied. The local councilor replied there to say that his official council email wasn’t working. Apparently officialdom has known about the flooding at the Asda underpass for years, but there is petty squabbling about which office is responsible for dealing with the issue.

I was then in trouble. “er indoors ^TM” had eventually realized that I had added hairy bollox and big tits to her Alexa shopping list.

 

I munzed, got Wordle at the third attempt, and looked at the rain. Not having that long this morning, Kings Wood was out anyway. Kings Wood was muddy yesterday so Orlestone would have been a swamp. I had planned a little walk up to the park, but it was raining hard and the dogs were asleep anyway.

So I sat on the sofa and carried on with my geo-plans for my new Kings Wood series.

After an hour I realized that the very first thing I’d done this morning was a mistake, so as “er indoors ^TM” made us both a cuppa I started again from the beginning.

After a while I had plotted the locations for icons on the geo-map for about half of what I’ve got in mind for Kings Wood. There’s so much more to hiding a geocache than simply sticking a film pot under a rock.

 

I drove off to work through a rather dismal morning. I should really have stopped at the co-op to get some lunch. Instead I thought I'd treat myself to something special from the works M&S. I got to work and got a frankly disappointing chicken fajita roll. The co-op do something far better for a fraction of the price.

And with lunch bought I cracked on with work. Having had a couple of days off last week I'd not been there for a while. In the past I've dreaded going back to work after a long time off; I don't do that these days.

 

Mind you, like any other late shift, the day was pretty much done by mid day.

27 January 2025 (Monday) - Treacle's Trek

I slept like a log last night. I’ve been sleeping rather better lately. I got up at about eight o’clock and stepped on the scales. I’ve lost four pounds over this last week. I don’t think I’ve made a lot of mention on social media about this current diet, but as I scoffed toast so my Facebook feed was filled with adverts for weight loss medication.

 

“er indoors ^TM” set off to work. Seeing the forecast rain hadn’t happened I took a chance and took the dogs to the woods. We went to the lower car park and walked the third of the series of geocaches I’ve got planned. “Treacle’s Trek” took us along the southern edge of Kings Wood and was quite muddy in parts. As we walked along the edge of the woods there were pheasants everywhere, which stressed the dogs quite a bit. As we walked we met a few other dog walkers. One chap was having troubles. Having jogged past with his dog, two minutes later we caught up with him with his dog on a lead being marched out of a thicket. He commented on how my three managed off the lead. Apparently when his dog is off the lead it finds a dead animal every hundred yards.

Ironically five minutes later I pulled a small bone out of Morgan’s mouth.

 

The other two series of geocaches I’m planning came in at almost exactly six miles. Today’s did too, but for some reason it seemed less.

We came home for a serious go in the shower. All three dogs were filthy, and Morgan in particular was covered in fox poo. What is the attraction of that stuff?

 

I warmed up a couple of leftover sausages from last night and scoffed them with a bag of crisps for dinner. As I scoffed I watched the new “Star Trek: Section 31” film. It was crap. It had been made by someone who had looked up Star Trek on Wikipedia so that they could bung in a few of the things that have appeared in the past. But rather than looking it up on Wikipedia, they should have actually watched the show. The attraction of Star Trek is likeable characters. I didn’t warm to any of the characters in the film, and I was counting the minutes until it finally ended.

 

I then spent a little while working on the notes I’d made whilst going our little walk this morning. Updating co-ordinates and location descriptions and glaring errors in the Wherigo I tested. And as the dogs continued to snore I munzed and got Wordle on the fourth attempt.

And as I’d been sitting still for a while I checked my blood pressure. Noticeable down on a week ago, but still far too high.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up bacon, eggs and hash browns which had far fewer calories than you might imagine. She then went bowling, and I watched an episode of “Poldark”. We’re into season three and there are far fewer bosoms heaving than I remember their being.

I shall write more Wherigo until “er indoors ^TM” comes home.

 

26 January 2025 (Sunday) - Raining Hard

I was rather late to bed last night. Yesterday evening just as I was about to go to kip I realized we had the heating on continuous because littlun was staying. So that would have been an ideal opportunity to dry wet washing. We didn’t actually have any wet washing so I put a load through the machine and by the time I’d hung that over the radiators it was well past midnight.

I woke before seven o’clock, and had the same idea again, so I put another load in to wash, gathered up the dry, and went back to bed where I lay wide awake for an hour before giving up trying to sleep and getting up.

 

I made brekkie and had my usual root around the Internet to see if I’d missed much. Last night was Burns Night and the world and his wife were suddenly claiming to be fiercely proud of their Scottish heritage… a heritage about which many keep very quiet for most of the year presumably because they don’t have one.

I get rather annoyed about Scottish patriotism. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in any way being disrespectful to Scotland or the Scottish, but what winds me up is those who live and work within a few miles of my house who claim to be Scottish and to be proud of it. If Scotland is as brilliant as these people (very occasionally) claim, why are they living as far away from Scotland as it is possible to be whilst remaining on the same island?

Interestingly none of my actually Scottish friends had anything to say about Burns Night.

 

The washing machine bleeped to tell me it had done its worst at the laundry, so I hung that out, and I then cracked on re-writing Wherigos for my Kings Wood project. After an hour I heard a sound. Bailey had been asleep in her bed in the living room the whole time. Presumably more peace and quiet there than up in the attic room with littlun.

 

As littlun wreaked havoc I heard a noise outside. Some chap was putting out road cones outside. Apparently he was planning on fixing a pot hole some time tomorrow and was rather angry that cars were parked in the parking bay. He pointed out my car and said it shouldn’t be there because he’d just put out a road cone. He claimed that his putting out a road cone immediately made that place a no parking zone.

However when I told him that there was no cone there when I’d parked the car on the previous day he changed his tune and said that he was only putting cones out and they didn’t take effect until the following evening. But he was adamant that it was within his power to declare anywhere he liked a no parking zone.

I suggested that rather than going out on a Sunday morning and trying to cordon off swathes of residential parking, he might be better advised to have his office people put leaflets through the doors of local residents to let them know of upcoming road works. This chap was adamant that contacting locals was a waste of time as nobody takes any notice of such notifications.

The chap clearly had the arse that he had to work on a Sunday morning… I’ve written to my Kent County Councilor to suggest that if KCC want my car moved, someone might pop a note through my letterbox rather than letting me find out randomly from some irate workman… Mind you he didn’t reply the last time I wrote to him.

 

Littlun continued to wreak havoc. In between wreaking she was squealing me up to her grandmother for pretty much everything she thought she might be able to blame me for. She then fed the cheese of her Dairylea lunchable to Morgan and immediately told Nanny that Grandad had given her dinner to the dogs.

“My Boy ^TM” and ”Auntie Chel ^TM” came to visit, and she was as good as gold with them.

 

The plan had been to take littlun and the dogs for a short walk in Dymchurch before taking her home, but the rain was against that. So we just took her home, and on our return had a cuppa. I then sparked up the lap-top again and got busy with writing Wherigos

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up scran which we scoffed whilst watching “Junior Bake Off” which was rather good, and “The Traitors Uncloaked” which wasn’t. I’d rather hoped for better.

 

And in closing, today would have been my dad’s eighty-nineth birthday.

25 January 2025 (Saturday) - A Sleepover

I slept like a log last night finally waking ten minutes before the alarm was due to go off. I made toast and wondered if I’d missed much on-line overnight. I hadn’t really. This morning’s petty squabbles were odd.

Someone in a hospital in America had posted a photograph of something rather huge that had been pulled out someone else’s bum. The squabble was about the ethics of posting photos of work-related things on-line. I post work related things from time to time on another blog, but make sure everything is anonymous. The object pulled from someone’s bum was utterly anonymous. It couldn’t be traced to anyone at all, but still people wanted to argue.

And someone else commented on the old Russian submarine currently rotting in the river Medway calling it a “nice saw”. Others immediately showed this person the error of his ways by pointing out he meant “eye saw”. Personally I thought the submarine was an eyesore, but what do I know?

I munzed and wordled, and we got ready for the off.

 

We drove round to Repton. As we drove Steve was on the radio doing the “Guess the Lyrics” competition. Some lyrics I’d never heard of came from the Yazoo song “Don’t Go” which I thought I knew rather well.

Dog club was fun; if a tad cold. We had several new dogs along. One didn’t last very long though. The dog was getting on famously when one of the long-standing members arrived. New woman announced that her dog doesn’t get on with the established member, and after five minutes of her dog and its supposed enemy utterly ignoring each other, the new woman went home. Oh well…

Everyone else seemed to have a whale of a time though.

 

As we drove home I got the “Mystery Year” competition on the radio wrong. Michael Fagin sitting on the Queen’s bed? I thought it was 1983. I was one year out.

Last week after Dog Club we had almond croissants with a cuppa. For all that the almonds are good for blood pressure, the croissant bit is a tad high in calories. Rather than an almond croissant I had a biccie at five hundred calories less.

As Steve played on the radio I cracked on with my Kings Wood geo-project. I re-wrote the two multi-wherigos that I’m planning to put out. That took a while.

 

“er indoors ^TM” went off shopping and returned with "Darcie WaaWaa ^TM” who was having a sleepover. We had a great afternoon in which she played with the Lego and the toy cars and the plastic dinosaurs and all the other toys, and told me I wasn’t allowed to play with anything.

And she marched into the kitchen and squealed me up to “er indoors ^TM” when I put her phone onto charge.

 

After dinner she nodded off, and as she slept so we watched the final of “The Traitors”. It was a rather good show. I won’t say who won, but I will say that the people I didn’t like got chucked out a long time ago.

“er indoors ^TM” and littlun are both in the attic room together with Bailey and Treacle. Me and Morgan are staying downstairs where it is quiet… for now.  

24 January 2025 (Friday) - Morgan's Meander

I was sleeping rather well, but Bailey woke me in the small hours with the sounds of her having a nightmare. She was having serious night terrors. I managed to wake her and she seemed very confused and disorientated. She went straight back to sleep. I eventually nodded off, and then slept through till half past eight.

 

I made toast and had a little look at the Internet as I do. Just recently Facebook has been making suggestions to me about who I might add to my friends list. It has been suggesting some seriously obscure people who I really don’t know from Adam. Today it suggested a caravan park in St. Leonards.

There was a minor squabble on one of the Star Trek Facebook pages about whether or not there’s beer in the Star Trek universe. Sadly no one on either side of the argument made reference of the episode in which Chief O’Brien has a pint of ale. I doubt any of those arguing had ever seen that episode… or many others.

 

I munzed and Wordled, and seeing the rain outside decided against going out. Instead I went through the bank statements. Some call me mean, but every month I go through and account for every penny; it is amazing what you might forget that you’ve bought, or how many cancelled direct debits keep on paying out. What with one thing and another I’ve had a rather expensive month, but what is money for if not to squander foolishly.

And then the rain stopped.

 

I got the dogs organized and we drove up to the woods. Yesterday I had a preliminary recce on the planned “Bailey’s Bimble” series of geocaches. Today I checked out the route for the “Morgan’s Meander”. If the geo-feds are in agreement this will be twenty-nine geocaches over a walk of six miles.

As we walked I heard a crashing in the bushes and another herd of deer came running past. The dogs set off in hot pursuit, but all three immediately stopped and came back when I whistled. Those dogs wind me up. When I take them out on my own they are as good as gold. Whenever anyone else is about to watch, they play up big-time.

 

As we walked we only met one other dog walker. She and her dog were at the furthest point of our walk from the car park, and her dog ran up to say hello before she noticed us. All the dogs were quite happily sniffing when she saw us. She then panicked, ran up, put her dog on the lead and dragged him away whilst studiously ignoring me.

What was that all about?

 

After six miles we were back at the car. We came home for serious bath time (with soap!). The woods had been very muddy and the dogs were filthy. Once scrubbed they were all soon snoring and I sorted out all the co-ordinate and notes I’d made. There was a lot to sort. And then I went through my Wherigo archive to see what I might fit in the gaps between the three geo-series I’ve got in mind. There’s a lot more still to sort.

And then Chris offered me the hide he had in Kings Wood.

And then I realized it was dark outside. So much for what I had planned in the shed.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up pizza and chips and went off to the pantomime with Steve and Sarah. I settled down underneath a pile of dogs and watched a couple of episodes of “Poldark”.

Yesterday I said I was worn out after a dog walk, ironing, and watching telly. Today I didn’t do the ironing and I’m still worn out…

 

23 January 2025 (Thursday) - Bailey's Bimble

I woke just before six o’clock to the sound of a dog heaving. I bunged Morgan out of bed and hurried him to he back door. I gave him as long as it took me to have a wazz then called him back in again. We all went back to bed, then just as I was nodding off so he started heaving again. Fortunately “er indoors ^TM” leapt up to deal with him this time. Unfortunately she came bad to bed with graphic descriptions of what he had thrown up.

She later worked out that he’s been eating off-cuts of electrical cables presumably left over from Monday’s episode. I thought I’d cleared all of that up. I wonder where he found those?

 

I then lay awake until “er indoors ^TM” slept through her alarm for the second time, then made myself some toast and had a look at the Internet to see if I’d missed much overnight.

Facebook presented me with a memory. Eight years ago I started my current job, and I posted a piccie of the hospital with the caption “Right.... let's see how this pans out...”. It panned out rather well, all things considered. These days I don’t have a rather petty manager ensuring absolutely everything I do is double checked. If I am a few minutes late (not that I am) there’s not a queue of people waiting to squeal me up to the feds. If I am too ill to cover a night or weekend shift I now have management that will organize cover; I don’t have to arrange my own stunt double.

There wasn’t much else going on on-line, but I had a message from “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” whose mate is getting a new pet. A marmoset which is apparently named “Marge”. I suspect having a marmoset as a pet will be all very well until it is poorly, and then finding a vet will be tricky, and finding one that doesn’t charge the Earth will be even trickier. I remember many years ago a new girl at work nervously asking me if it was true that I kept snakes. I said it was. She then (even more nervously) asked if her boyfriend might come round to see them. As the chap held a royal python he told me that he was a qualified and practicing vet, and he lived in terror of anyone bringing him a sick snake. His reptile studies at veterinary college had consisted of one afternoon lecture,  and he told me that the python he was holding was the first snake he’d ever touched.

 

With rain forecast I made an early start and got the dogs into the car before half past eight. I’ve been threatening to replace my geocaches in Kings Wood for some time. Rather than one epically far-too-long route of nearly nine miles and several Wherigo series I’ve planned out three shorter walks of about five to six miles and several smaller Wherigo adventures. Today I had a preliminary recce on one of the shorter walks – if it all goes live it will be the “Bailey’s Bimble”; a series of simple geo-puzzles over six miles. It took us just over two hours to walk, so what with hunting for the caches and doing the secret geo-rituals and having a picnic along the way, this should take people about three or four hours to do.

Our walk went well. As I plotted and made note and recorded co-ordinates so Morgan chased shadows and Bailey rolled in fox poo and Treacle wallowed in swamps. We only had one episode – after six miles and only a hundred yards from the car park I lost Morgan. After five minutes of whistling and calling, a passing Normal Person asked if that was my dog standing on the path up by the car park. I got used to Fudge straggling behind that I just can’t get my head around Morgan being in front.

 

We came home just as the forecast rain started. I fiddled about with GSAK (it’s a geocachical thing) recording my morning’s efforts, then had a Slimfast bar for lunch. It wasn’t very good, but I suspect being six months past its best didn’t help.

 

I got out the ironing board and spent the afternoon ironing whilst watching episodes of “Four in a Bed”. For all that I rarely go to a B&B, I find this show captivating.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a pasta bake which we scoffed whilst watching the latest episodes of “The Traitors” and “Junior Bake Off”, and now I’m worn out. A dog walk, ironing, and watching telly. It’s a tough life.

22 January 2025 (Wednesday) - Rather Busy

Over brekkie I had a look at the Internet as I do. It was still there, and for once was relatively dull. I munzed and wordled and got dressed.

 

With the rain having stopped I took the dogs out for a walk. As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the Paedophile Information Exchange; a rather scary group of kiddy-fiddlers who operated quite openly about fifty years ago. They openly campaigned to abolish the age of consent and were generally not the sort of people you’d like to have anywhere near your family. Apparently there was a written list of the names and addresses of their members which was in the possession of the police in 1983, but nothing was done with it.

The show made for interesting listening. What do you do if you’ve got a list of paedos? Go and arrest someone because their name is on a list ;even though they might be completely innocent and just had their name written on that list by someone who hates them?

The people making the show tried to track down members of the police team that were investigating this. Apparently they weren’t easy to find. One was found who’d retired to Alaska in 2006. He said that the copper in charge of the team had died of cancer in the mid-eighties and claimed that when this chap died, all the investigating died with him.

 

We got to the woods. The pants we’d found last week were still hanging on the footpath sign where I’d hung them last week.

We walked our usual route. About two thirds of the way round I heard a rustling and a herd of about twenty small deer ran across the footpath; not ten yards in front of us. But they were fast. By the time I’d pulled my phone out of my pocket they were gone. And then I heard what had spooked them; two women shrieking at each other. A little while later we saw them. Riding side by side on horseback but bellowing as though they were a hundred yards apart. Why do people feel the need to be so loud?

 

Yesterday we walked a mile and a half round Orlestone and burned a hundred and forty calories. Today’s almost four miles round Kings Wood shifted six hundred.

We came home for a bath. Bailey had found some fox poo, and everyone had grubby paws and tummies.

 

I then went into the garden. Having done some serious brain-straining with Gordon over the last week we’ve got the final locations of a series of geocaches… but they are all a long way up various trees. To get at them we need ten-metre poles. I had this genius idea that the poles we used to use for banners at kite festivals might do, so I dug deep into the lock-up in the garden only to find the longest poles we had were only six metres long.

Not ten.

I sulked.

Whilst I sulked, now we’ve got leccie to the shed again I got the drill out and tightened up the bird feeder I built the other day. And then tidied the shed a bit and went on a tip run.

 

Once home I spent seemingly an age on Amazon and eBay looking at ten-metre poles. Hopefully one will arrive early next week.

And I had a phone call from the One You people. The occupational Health people at work suggested I contact One You about weight loss and blood pressure issues. Some woman who was obviously reading from a script suggested I might try to go on a diet to lose weight. I told her that over the years I’ve tried every diet there is. I told her that I was currently calorie counting and watching what I eat and have cut out all the sweeties. It was quite plain that I was already doing everything she could offer, and said I should contact my GP and ask for a tier three weight management program.

I’ll ask about that when I have my appointment in a week or so.

 

And as a load of washing got scrubbed, “er indoors ^TM” boiled up another good dinner which we scoffed whilst watching episodes of “Junior Bake Off”. Am I being sexist in being surprised at how few girls are in it?

21 January 2025 (Tuesday) - An Afternoon in Canterbury

There was actual news on Facebook this morning (as opposed to the usual drivel). There were reports of an escaped pig on the Romney Marsh. Apparently he’s been on the loose since the weekend and whilst amiable enough seems to be enjoying freedom. People seem happy enough to watch him; no one seems to want to try to catch him.

Someone claimed that the wild boar in the area (that have been there since an escape following the storm of 1987) have interbred with domestic pigs and now look like spotted pigs. I *think* I’ve seen boar in the distance at Orlestone before, but could be wrong.

People were squabbling on one of the Star Trek fan pages; a squabble easily settled by actually watching the TV show,

And then my piss boiled. Someone had been round Kings Wood at the weekend looking for the geocaches I’d hidden there. That someone wasn’t as complementary about my efforts as they might have been. But then I suppose they probably don’t realise how much effort goes in to creating a geocache as despite having found over twelve thousand of the things she’s not actually hidden a single one herself.

 

I munzed, Wordled, and as the dogs scoffed brekkie I got ready for the off. I loaded the dogs into the car, and I brought along the humane mouse trap; we’d caught a mouse.

As we drove to the woods the pundits on the radio were talking about the recent murders in Stockport. From what I can work out, some crackpot ran amok. The Prime Minister was saying all sorts of things, but I can’t help but wonder if bringing back the noose would sort it out? Hang ‘em high and leave the corpse hanging where anyone else inclined to do the same can see it. Harsh? Perhaps. But I’ve mentioned before that as a lad at school lI lived in terror of the headmaster. If you went too far you got two strokes of the cane. One boy had a sore arse for a day, and seven hundred boys behaved themselves for a year.

 

With plans for later in the day I didn’t have that long for a dog walk, so we went to Orlestone. You never know – we might have seen another wild boar.

We didn’t.

But despite the mud (and there was a lot of it) we had a good walk round. We didn’t see anyone else at all while we walked, but forty minutes dog walking uses up one hundred and forty calories. And we released the mouse into the wild as well. There are those who say I should have smacked it, but as Darcie would say “he’s so cute”.

 

We came home, and after a cuppa I set off to Folkestone. I arrived at the abode of “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” and Darcie WaaWaa ^TM” immediately told me to go away. As we walked to the car so I tried to jolly littlun up. “Don’t talk to me!” she announced, and when we got out of the car at Canterbury she told me that I couldn’t come and I had to stay in the car. We went to Subway where I was told to sit at another table. She had the right hump with me for no reason that we could fathom.

But…

We’d gone to Canterbury so that “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” could take her driving theory test. As she went in to the test centre and I started babysitting duties, Darcie WaaWaa ^TM”’s attitude changed completely. We had a great time. We went to the Beaney Museum and looked at Bagpuss and the Clangers and stuffed birds. Littlun was particularly taken by a stuffed lion.

 

After far longer than I thought we would ever manage in the museum we wandered back to find the most recent fruit of my loin. And as we walked so I slowed right down to earwig on a rather interesting conversation between what I can only describe as “two scratters”. One was an incredibly fat young male scratter with a frankly ridiculous beard that came up to the underside of (but not past) his chin. The other was a rather scruffy looking woman who seemed almost but not quite old enough to be his mother. I wish I’d recorded the conversation (ranting) She was shrieking about their not going to McDonalds. They were never going to McDonalds. She’d only mentioned McDonalds as it was the only way she could get him out of her house. But now that he was out of her house, he didn’t live there anymore. His home was now (apparently) one of the benches in Canterbury High Street. She screeched that his calling her a slag whilst at the bus stop was crossing the line. I would have liked to ask his calling her a slag at the train station or chip shop was acceptable, but it was at that point that “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” returned and I was ordered away.

 

We went back to Folkestone. The most recent fruit of my loin had another errand to run, so I had more babysitting. But seeing that littlun was fast asleep I just drove her to Ramsgate and back whilst she slept to pass the time.

 

I came home, and after a little farting about I managed to connect the step counter on my watch to the MyFitnessPal app. Having done so it says that having walked twelve thousand steps today means I am allowed to scoff a thousand extra calories. In layman’s terms a thousand extra calories is about two thirds of the sub I scoffed for lunch.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a really good diet dinner which we devoured whilst watching more “Junior Bake Off”. And with that scoffed I loaded up the dishwasher. Because the thing now has a functional power supply.

It is so good to be able to walk round the house without stepping over power cables running all over the place.

20 January 2025 (Monday) - Windows and Leccie

I didn’t really sleep very well last night; fretting about having the windows done today. I got up at seven o’clock and cleared the area round the bedroom window in readiness, then made brekkie.

I sparked up the lap-top and had a look on-line. Yesterday I joined a Facebook aquarium group and there are as many pedants ranting about measuring chemicals on there as there ever are in the Facebook pond groups. Facebook groups can be pedantic, picky and nasty, but none so much as those related to fish; either in a tank or in a pond.

There weren’t any emails in my in-box. I munzed and Wordled… and then the window replacing people arrived about an hour earlier than expected, so I wolfed the last of brekkie down and as they cracked on upstairs so we shifted stuff round the living room ready for that window’s turn later later.

 

There’s no denying I had been expecting the worst. I had visions of the entire front of the house falling out, and the crashing and bashing from upstairs did worry me.

Before long there was another knock at the door. The chap who’d replaced our bathroom tap a few weeks ago had brought his mate round to give us a quote for sorting the electrical problem. And if we thought the house was in uproar with the windows being done, that was just peanuts to what followed. As lumps of old double glazing got bashed out and lumps of new double glazing got carried in, so Gary was in the fuse box and behind the fridge and disassembling this that and the other.

 

The chap who’d replaced our bathroom tap had to go to Eastbourne, so declining the offer of a cuppa he left the merry throng.

Mid-day came and passed. The bashing from the windows continued, and the power continued going off and on. Eventually Gary announced that the problem was that we didn’t have any neutral in the downstairs ring main, and to prove a point he borrowed some from the upstairs one. However he was at a loss to work out where it had gone. So he systematically disassembled every downstairs socket. I must admit I thought he was wasting his time when he took apart the one I use every day to power the lap-top on which I write this diary, but with most of the house’s electricals in pieces I didn’t dare say anything that might have upset him. Pausing only briefly to allow a huge window pane to be carried in, he got busy with his screwdriver and then gave a loud “Ah-ha”.

I’m no expert but it looked to me as though there were far too many wires hanging out of the socket, Not all were actually attached to anything, and Gary said that the inside of the socket looked iffy.

 

As the nice window man stared clouting the new window frame with a glass hammer, I drove Gary over to The Electrical Counter. I had no idea this place existed; it is *the* go-to place for anything electrical from now on. They’ve got pretty much everything you might ever need, and the helpful staff will order in anything they don’t have.

We got some new sockets, cable, cable fixings, strange mysterious things, and a myriad of light bulbs.

 

We came home, and as the nice window men were getting jiggy with the mastic, Gary replaced the poggered socket, removed the cable that was borrowing neutral from upstairs, and announced all was done.

He then went round the house replacing pretty much all the light bulbs. I had no idea just how inefficient our lighting was. We replaced no end of fifty-watt light bulbs with five watt ones and they are every bit as bright, if not brighter.

 

I then ran Gary home just as it was getting dark. It was only as I thanked him profusely that I realized that he’d only come to give us a quote and had actually fixed the issue for us. But to be fair he couldn’t really give a quote until he’d identified the problem, and fixing the problem only took about a quarter of the time identifying it had taken.

I came home to find the nice window men had gone. Having been worrying about getting the windows done, that part of today passed off amazingly without worry. Having said that I shall now be watching the windows like a pork (to coin a phrase) just in case.

And shall also be waiting for the electricity to pop as well…

 

“er indoors ^TM” sorted dinner then went bowling. I settled on the sofa underneath a pile of dogs watching an episode of “Poldark” in which Ross was being a very silly boy. As I watched I listened to the washing machine having a go at my undercrackers. It is doing so without the use of an extension cable for the first time in three weeks. If it manages I shall try the tumble-dry setting as an encore.

I’m hoping for the best.

19 January 2025 (Sunday) - Peanut Butter

With “er indoors ^TM” and the dogs up in the attic room with littlun last night I slept rather well. I woke at seven o’clock this morning and thought I might have a little peace before they all got up. I made toast and got as far as the title credits rolling on an episode of “Poldark” before they all came stomping downstairs.

Darcie made off with a piece of my toast and scoffed it all. She’s notoriously difficult to feed; like her mother was at her age she doesn’t like much and only eats tiny amounts of what she does like. She seems to like peanut butter and marmalade on toast though, but I’m not going to push it. I can remember my dear old mother force-feeding me, my brother and both the fruits of my loin, and going hysterical if we didn’t eat enough to feed a family of four for a week.

I posted a photo of her scoffing her toast and my cousin posted a photo of her peanut butter and marmalade on toast. In the past no one I’ve ever met has heard of having peanut butter and marmalade on toast, let alone tried it. If my cousin is scoffing it then presumably it is a family thing?

 

Whilst Darcie WaaWaa ^TM” played Dig-Dug and watched strange videos on “toobs” (You-Tube) I stood on the scales. I’ve lost two pounds since last week, which is a step in the right direction. And my blood pressure was noticeably down on yesterday. This morning it was 143/82 compared to 161/89 last night.

Littlun’s “toobs” moved on to a rather annoying song about a frog’s grandmother’s wig, and I reactivated my account on MyFitnessPal. In the past I’ve found that two things work for weight loss for me. Calorie counting and being constantly hungry. So here we go. Again.

As I solved geo-puzzles so littlun’s “toobs” started playing a rather annoying song about why you shouldn’t drink water from the toilet.

And then I had an email from the power company. You really would think that whoever it is that runs EDF would realise that it is warmer in the summer and colder in the winter. Consequently my spending more money on heating in the winter and less in the summer shouldn’t come as a surprise to them. Should it?

 

At mid-day we took littun home. She sang “Jingle Bells” all the way home which was rather sweet really. And with her deposited back with her mother we took a rather circuitous route home across the Romney Marsh picking up solved but unfound (by us) puzzle geocaches.

Once home we had a cuppa and a hot cross bun (two hundred calories!) and with no end of other more important stuff I might be doing I slobbed in front of the telly watching episodes of “Four In A Bed”. There was a glamping site, two rather good pubs which offered accommodation, and a rather shabby hotel charging over double the price of everyone else. Annoyingly they all remained friendly and no one fell out with anyone else.

 

I did my evening blood pressure measurement, and when I entered the result onto the doctor’s website rather than its generic “thank you – same again tomorrow” message it told me that the conversation about a week’s monitoring was over and that over the week my blood pressure had averaged 153/91 which isn’t that good really.

I suspect the doc will be on the phone tomorrow. I hope so.

 

“er indoors ^TM” sorted a rather good dinner using up the last of the Christmas parsnips. Parsnips lower blood pressure apparently.

 

And in closing today I’ve spent quite a bit of today thinking about my brother. He left home at half past four this morning to get to Brighton for a six o’clock pickup. The coach then took him to Old Trafford for the football where he watched Brighton and Hove Albion beat Man City. He’s now on the way back and expects to be home shortly after midnight.

18 January 2025 (Saturday) - Dog Club, A Sleepover

I had a relatively good night asleep up until about five o’clock when I had the most vivid nightmare in which someone with whom I worked (over forty years ago) claimed that we’d both done the dirty deed at each other in a dream, and they had the right hump that I was utterly indifferent about it.

I’m blaming blood pressure.

 

I got up and had a bit of brekkie whilst peering at the Internet. This morning a flat-earther was kicking off. Mind you I say “a flat-earther”; more often than not these people are deliberately winding others up. If you stand on the beach and look at the horizon you can see the world is round. Mind you, people thought it was flat for hundreds of years even though they could see it was round.

I then saw an avert for “Bark Free Masterclass” which claimed to be a free way of stopping your dog barking. Treacle does get a bit woofy in the evenings when she wants biscuits so I thought I’d give it a go. It was a scam. After a five-minute video about what a pain it is having you dog bite the postman, they then asked for a hundred dollars. You’d think that someone would report these misleading scams, wouldn’t you?

I did.

 

I Munzed, got Wordle on the second attempt, harvested a bumper crop of dog turds and got ready for the morning. It was a tad cold so the dogs all got their coats on. It has to be said that they are far better with coats than my Fudge ever was. And once coated we set off to Repton.

As we drove Steve was on the radio doing the “Guess the Lyrics” competition. I had no idea what that was, and we got to the paddock at Repton before he told us what it was.

 

Dog Club went rather well. For all that he loves chasing other dogs, Morgan seems to have stopped nipping. There was quite a bit of chasing going on today, as well as wallowing in the muddy puddles, and scrounging for dog treats. Together with one of the smaller children I tried counting dogs. The trouble with trying to get a dog count is that they all keep moving about. We both counted a few times, and our estimates of attendance ranged from seventeen to twenty-two.

As we got into the car to come home Steve gave the last clue for the Mystery Year competition. Blockbuster by Sweet. 1973.

 

We came home. As “er indoors ^TM” looked for somewhere to park I popped to the corner shop where I got us almond croissants. Almonds are good for lowering blood pressure, so that was a result. There are those that say that croissants aren’t so good, but you can’t have everything. I suspect that after I see the doc next week I won’t be able to have anything, but time will tell.

We had a cuppa with those almond croissants and I counted up the Dog Club money. Some people pay their Dog Club subs directly to the Repton people via text message. Others prefer to pay cash so I pop a pot out and every couple of weeks I count up the takings and transfer that amount (plus nine quid for our three) to the Repton people’s bank account. I won’t say how much I transfer every couple of weeks, but I’ll make the observation that it is some months since I’ve had to get any cash out of a cashpoint machine.

 

“er indoors ^TM” went shopping and I watched an episode of “Poldark”. Much as I’m liking the show I can remember Demelza’s bosom heaving a lot more when I watched it last time. From an entirely beastly point of view I can remember her having a far more impressive chest than the one she isn’t brandishing at the moment. And with “er indoors ^TM” returned from shopping I fell asleep in front of the telly and slept for most of the afternoon.

 

The evening wasn’t quite so restful though. Darcie WaaWaa ^TM” has come for a sleepover. After a rather intense session of dog-snogging and then refusing to eat our pizza we then created a new game which involves shouting “CATCH !” and then flinging various assorted objects around the kitchen.

I’m worn out… And my blood pressure is noticeably up on this morning.

 

17 January 2025 (Friday) - Early Shift

With an alarm set I woke about three hours earlier today than I did yesterday. I lay awake for a while, then gave up and got up. This morning’s average blood pressure was 152/89 which is about average. Average for me; far from good for anyone else.

I watched “Poldark” in which it would seem that Verity’s estrangement was at an end, but Elizabeth was up for a portion and made no secret to Ross about it.

 

I had a quick look at the Internet. It was still there. Unlike yesterday (which was a tad dull) there were a few squabbles kicking off this morning. Antibiotics for a fungal infection… anyone with the slightest medical knowledge would understand why that wouldn’t work, but those who actually knew nothing about it wouldn’t be told, and made great show of demonstrating that they knew nothing. And pension provision… the Facebook Retirement UK page is always good for bitterness. This morning some very silly fellow (in his late fifties) was asking how much his pension would be each week. He was rather dismayed to find that his future pension bore no relation to his current mammoth salary and everything to do with how little (i.e. nothing) he’d paid in to a pension fund.

 

It was very dark as I set off to work, but not foggy as it had been on Wednesday. I popped to the Sainsbury's petrol station on the way. As well as having petrol, they have sandwiches early in the morning. For some reason the Aylesford filling station never has sandwiches before mid-morning. The miserable old bat I've met before was on duty, but she was happy and cheerful for once. That made a change.

 

I drove off up the motor way listening to the pundits on the radio. Global warming is getting worse with carbon dioxide levels going through the roof. The world will (probably) see me out, but I despair for what Lacey, Jake and Darcie will have to contend with.

And there's been a cease-fire declared in the ongoing conflict in Gaza... But some of the head honchos of the Israeli government have resigned in disgust, openly saying they want the war to continue.

Apparently making any concessions at all to the other side is a bad thing, and these resigning ministers feel that any concessions should be made by their opponents and certainly not by them. However they've agreed not to try to bring the Israeli government down *if* war resumes at the end of the cease-fire in six weeks time. They really want the war to continue.

I can vividly remember an interview with people on both sides of a previous iteration of this conflict a few years ago when neither side were prepared to budge an inch and both sides were harping back to perceived insults from over fifty years ago.

I've said before that the war in the Middle East will run and run, and it is the poor innocents on the ground who suffer.

 

I got to work and cracked on with the early shift. As I did my bit the boss confirmed that I won't be doing night shifts until my blood pressure is sorted. A minor result I suppose. I've only got one night in the next couple of months but being a Friday night it would have made for a tricky time getting to Dog Club.

 

With my bit done I came home. This evening’s blood pressure was exactly the same as this morning’s; 152/89. And with that done we scoffed dinner whilst watching more of “The Traitors” and “Junior Bake Off”.

 

Today has been… rather frustrating really. We’ve got the windows being done next week. Once that’s done we can look to getting the electrical issue sorted. I’ve still got a couple more days of blood pressure monitoring to do before the doc tells me about a lifetime on tablets and the need to diet. So much to get done, but nothing I can do right now.

There’s an awful lot in my life that’s pending at the moment; I just wish we could get on with it.