Again I was woken in the small hours by the sound of Morgan
jumping off the bed. I chased after him, let him out, did my own business, and
then lay awake for much of the rest of the night.
As I made brekkie so road works finally started over the
road. On the morning of Sunday 26 January I had an interesting conversation
with the driver of a KCC lorry registration BA23 FDV. The fellow was putting
out road cones along the parking area outside our house with a view to fixing a
rather small pot hole.
He seemed 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.
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, and was adamant that his deciding that somewhere was a
no-parking zone was all the authority he needed to cordon off a parking space.
He bustled off indignantly, and a few days later the cones
went. They came back with some barriers on Thursday 13 February. On Friday 14
February I phoned the highways department at Kent County Council who assured me
that whoever had put out the barriers had not followed proper procedure and
there was no record of any such parking restrictions. They told me someone
would investigate and get back to me, and gave me the reference 860893.
I chased them on Monday 17 February when they still had no
record of any planned road works.
Late yesterday afternoon I had a phone call telling me that
the barriers were so that traffic could pass as a pot hole might be fixed.
Work started shortly after 8am this morning, and even then
there was nothing on the 1-network website
I got the dogs onto their leads and we went out. I chatted
with the blokes working over the road. They were pleasant enough. I asked them
who decides what holes need fixing bearing in mind there’s dozens of bigger
ones locally. They both laughed and said that “the council” decide which
holes need fixing, but neither seemed to know the name of who exactly it is
that gives them their instructions.
We drove up to the woods. As we drove the pundits on the
radio were still talking about President Trump. Facebook was alive with talk of
him too. No one seems to have realized that he is the democratically elected
president. Perhaps people might like to redirect their anger and frustration at
a process which allows frankly laughable outcomes because the considered
opinion of an educated person is of no more worth than the whim of a half-wit.
We got to the woods where we had a good walk. Unlike the
previous three days we weren’t hiding geocaches and so we walked a shorter
walk. Only about three and a half miles. As we walked we saw something which
was frankly laughable… all the time it was someone else’s dog. A young couple
were desperately trying to untangle a twenty-five metre dog lead from a dozen
coppiced multi-trunked trees whilst a dog the size of a small horse was going
frantic at the end of the lead. As the couple struggled (one with the dog,
one with the untangling) some chap in a Hi-Viz jacket was loudly giving
instructions which everyone seemed to be ignoring. Morgan trotted up to the
tangled dog and barked. I whistled and he turned and trotted up to me. There
was a look of pure jealousy on the face of the young woman fighting with the
huge dog. It is always rather satisfying when my dogs do as they are told.
We drove home past many very large pot holes; so many I
lost count. We got home about two hours after we left to find the road works
had all been done.
The dogs had a bath, and I sorted us both a cuppa. I wrote
a letter to the county councilor. He seemed to try to do something about the
floods by Asda; maybe he can get involved with the workings of Kent Highways.
Either they might sort out their employees, or sort out their processes. Either
way, something needs sorting.
Something that definitely needed sorting was my fish tank.
I took out all the old plastic plants and ornaments and changed half of the
water. I scrubbed the plastic plants and ornaments and changed more water. Then
scrubbed the plastic plants and ornaments again and changed more water. Just as
I was on the verge of scrubbing everything for a squillionth time so there was
a knock at the door. The nice Amazon man had delivered the new fish tank filter
I’d ordered yesterday. New filter – how about new plastic plants and ornaments?
Leaving the fish tank in disarray I popped to the doctor’s.
I had an appointment for blood & urine tests and an ECG. The nice nurse
stuck a needle into me and took some blood… and pulled the needle out before
releasing the torniquet. Releasing the torniquet first is the first thing
phlebotomists are taught. Doing that makes sure you don’t get a bruise. The
nice nurse then did the ECG, and there was then an embarrassing twenty minutes
whilst she fought with the computer; re-booting it several times to no avail..
She had to send the ECG trace to the duty doctor who was in another surgery
several miles away. I did wonder why the doctor in the next room couldn’t have
had a look at it, but what do I know?
Eventually I was told I wasn’t on the verge of a heart
attack, and I set off to Bybrook Barn where I spent far too much on new plastic
plants and ornaments for the fish tank.
I came home and reassembled the fish tank. The gravel and
the fish are the same as was in there this morning but all else is new. The
water was taking a while to clear; I suspect the new filter has got its work
cut out for it. Mind you the filter aerates as well as filters and is so much
quieter than the old one.
Whilst I’d been ECG-ing and getting new tank stuff so the
geo-feds had published the caches we’d hidden yesterday. So I’ve now got
something of a sense of achievement. That’s one hundred and twelve new
geocaches I’ve put out this week. I’ve been working on this project for a few
months… I wonder what I can do next.
And just as the fish tank was getting clear so the fish
decided to dig in the gravel and clag it all up again…
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