16 May 2025 (Friday) - Guacamole Dip

I woke at the sound of a dog jumping off the bed in the small hours. I assumed it was Morgan. He needs chasing in the night. He jumps off the bed and goes to the back garden to do that which dogs do *if* I open the door in time. But when he finds the back door is locked he then does the best he can in less than ideal circumstances and craps on the doormat. But it wasn't Morgan last night. Treacle had fallen off the bed and in my hurry to chase downstairs I tripped over her. She just wanted help to get back onto the bed. She's getting old. She can't get on the bed any more. She struggles to get into the car before our walks, and she needs lifting into the car after a walk.

 

I didn't get back to sleep after that. I got up earlier than I might have done, and as I scoffed toast I watched an episode of "Black Mirror" on Netflix. What would you do if the latest big TV show was seemingly based on every detail of your life - including that which you'd rather no one else knew about?

 

Taking care not to wake anyone I got ready for work and set off. As I drove up the motorway the pundits were talking about the assisted dying bill which is going through Parliament.

At the risk of simplifying a rather complex issue, you'd be prosecuted for allowing a dog to suffer, but you'd also be prosecuted for preventing a person suffering in the same way. Am I missing something here?

I drove to the Sainsbury's petrol station in Aylesford as their petrol is consistently cheaper than in Ashford. But I forgot that they don't get stocked up until mid-morning. So for all that I saved about a quid on the petrol I then had to make a separate journey into the supermarket to get lunch. I got myself a beef and horseradish sandwich and a little pot of guacamole and some nachos. The little pot and nachos were good for one hundred and sixty-eight calories. In the past I'd get a big bag of Doritos and a pot of the Pringles guac dip and scoff the lot for lunch; totally oblivious to the three thousand four hundred calories that was going down my neck.

 

I went in to work and had a cuppa, and had my morning's root around the Internet rather later than usual. Irene was posting piccies from Uzbekistan.  She's got to Khiva. I liked Khiva; I bought a rather sexy jacket there that I have still to wear.

And there was quite the argument in the Facebook group about big cat sightings in the UK. Someone had found what they claimed was a big cat's skull.  Others were claiming it was a dead badger. All were adamant that they were right.

Our Munzee clan has reached the second of our monthly goals.

I had loads of emails that needed to be deleted unread.

 

I cracked on with the early shift, and at lunchtime I scoffed my nachos and guac dip. In future I shall get the carrots and houmous dip - half the calories and it tastes better.

We had a sweepstake at work for tomorrow's Eurovision Song Contest. I got Luxembourg; I was told that was good. I had no idea, so I did some research. Apparently Luxembourg has a one in two hundred and fifty chance of winning. Even worse than the UK’s chance.

 

An early start made for an early finish. The journey home took fifty minutes. Seventeen miles down the motorway took twenty minutes; two miles from work to motorway, and two miles from motorway to home took a total of half an hour.

 

Once home I ran round gathering dog turds, then ran round with the watering can, and once “er indoors ^TM” had finished work we took the dogs to Orlestone for a short (two miles) walk.

As we drove down we saw two red kites. We saw two smaller hawks in the woods, and a buzzard sitting on the telegraph wires as we came home. Back in the day we rarely, if ever, saw a bird of prey. Now they are more and more common. Which got me thinking… If there’s more birds of prey, there’s got to be more food for them. Bearing in mind they scoff small animals there’s got to be more food and habitat for small birds and mice and the like. But the news keeps telling us about habitat destruction?

15 May 2025 (Thursday) - Biggin Hill

I suppose I slept better than I have been doing recently. It was a shame that I was plagued with rather vivid dreams, and waking up came as something of a relief.

I made toast and peered into the Internet. It was still there. One of the American work-based Facebook groups had a post about the dangers of mouth-pipetting. In my line of work you use a pipette to suck up a measured volume of body fluid to analyse it. The force to do the actual sucking comes from a hand-held device these days, but back in the day the pipette was a long glass tube. One end went in the body fluid, and the other end in your mouth. And you’d (quite literally) suck it up. And if your attention was distracted you’d get a mouthful of pee or blood.

But you could take away the taste by puffing on the cigarette that you’d rested in the ash tray beside your microscope…

And this was why when I first started as an apprentice blood tester in 1981 it was suggested that I seriously considered not being a part of the pension scheme on account of the average blood tester dying at age fifty-eight from something nasty they’d caught in the laboratory.

These days we have health and safety… at the moment.

Here in the UK we now have enforced national standards for health and safety, testing procedures and all sorts of professional conduct. But reading the work-based Facebook groups it is painfully clear that in other parts of the world they just have a go and hope for the best. Mouth pipetting is still a thing in some places… bear that in mind when there are calls to close the NHS and replace it with something cheaper.

 

I munzed, failed at Wordle, and got ready for the off. Over the last week I’ve been working a day on – day off sort of shift pattern. Bearing in mind I’m only supposed to do two and a half days a week, I’m not quite sure what is going on. But today was my second consecutive day off.

I drove round to the co-op where the normal people were all standing about outside grumbling about how all the shelves in the place were empty. They didn’t look that empty to me.

From there I drove up the motorway listening to the pundits on the radio talking about a new initiative to get more people speaking Welsh. Is this a good thing? I’m not convinced.

 

I drove up to Karl and Tracey’s. Tracey was busy today, but Karl and I drove up to Biggin Hill. Some time ago I solved a load of geo-puzzles in the area, and today we went to go find the caches. I’d deliberately not taken the dogs, and I was right not to have done so. The start of the walk was on busy roads, and some of the paths were a tad narrow. And there were several horses in fields on the way.

As we walked we met two groups of very polite teenagers doing Duke of Edinburgh hikes. We met them within ten minutes of each other, and they were going in completely opposite directions. At least one group was going the wrong way.

As we came to the end there was a strange little episode. We came to the final hide. Karl went to one side of the road and I went to the other. Karl found the geocache and two full canisters of petrol. I was on the other side of the road and I found a brand- new battery-operated drill with a full charge.

What was that all about?

Geocaching-wise the “Spitfire Saunter” is a walk I can wholeheartedly recommend. Well-marked footpaths and straightforward hides, we had a great day. We walked just over nine miles (twenty thousand steps), and I was rather glad to see the car at the end.

 

We came home. “er indoors ^TM” boiled up pizza and garlic bread which we scoffed whilst watching “Race Across the World”. They’ve got to India; it looked crowded…

14 May 2025 (Wednesday) - Two Walks and an Ad-Lab

I slept better last night. It helps when I get up and go to the loo right away rather than forever twisting and turning for hours trying to make more space inside for an over-full bladder which really needs emptying out.

 

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was still there. Irene was posting from Uzbekistan – she’s having a holiday over there. I rather enjoyed our little stay there last year. Someone with whom I worked many years ago was also on holiday – in Canada. It’s over twenty years since I went there… I suppose I enjoyed my time there, but looking back all I remember is it being constantly hard work chasing round after the cubs and scouts. One day I’d like to go back and have a proper holiday there.

 

I took the dogs out. As we drove the pundits on the radio were interviewing a member of the Israeli government about the situation in Gaza. The chap being interviewed took what seems to be the standard Israeli line in claiming that they are the victims and the rest of the world are a bunch of bastards who hate them. Today (among other things) they were claiming that every journalist in the world who wasn’t working for the Israeli press was a terrorist spy. The chap being interviewed did himself no favours.

There was also talk about Peter Sullivan who was released from prison yesterday after having had his conviction overturned. He went to prison in 1986 for a crime he didn’t commit. It turns out that the evidence proving his innocence came to light in 2015. So why did it take the legal system ten years to release him?

 

We got to the woods and had a good walk. On Monday we explored a new footpath. Today we followed a path from that one which went on for half a mile… then just fizzled out. So we turned round and came back. Mind you I was glad we’d gone along that path – I found what must be the biggest sink hole in Kings Wood. It was huge.

As we walked the dogs did their thing including chasing what looked like a black squirrel. Was it a one-off, or have they spread as far as Kent?

And the bluebells seem to be going to seed.

 

After five miles we got back to the car and came home. I made a cuppa, then went into the garden. I took apart that garden bench that collapsed the other day. The plan was to take it (and a load of other rubbish) to the tip but there weren’t any spaces available today. So instead I stripped the shed out and had a little tidy-up and re-organise. So easy to type; so much hard work to do.

 

“er indoors ^TM” popped up to the corner shop and came back with a croissant for lunch. I scoffed it as I wrote up some CPD, then I spent a little while doing my preparation for tomorrow’s planned outing. The plan is to walk a series of geocaches in the Biggin Hill area. Two of them were disabled for a week six weeks ago pending being replaced, so I sent a message asking if we might replace them tomorrow. As we will (hopefully) be walking straight past we can do the necessary maintenance in less than a minute whereas the poor bloke who in theory should do it would have to give up hours.

I beat the chess bots twice, then rudely woke the dogs when I announced I was going to “FEED THE FISH!!!” – that’s always rather amusing.

 

I updated the Facebook pond album – the thing has changed quite a bit since we first started digging in October 2006. I *really* need to replace the pebble-patterned vinyl, but I’ve left it too late for this summer. Oh well… it will give me a few months to find something.

 

Seeing I had a credit, I created a new geocaching Adventure Lab. Last October I spent a wet afternoon doing the preparation for loads of these only to find I can actually only create only one every three months. So having done all the preparation, creating the thing only took ten minutes. If you are at a loose end and in Ashford, download the Adventure Lab app, and take a walk round investigating places where there used to be pubs which were demolished for the building of the ring road.

 

I set the Adventure Lab live, and with “er indoors ^TM” having finished work we took the dogs to Orlestone Woods for a little wander. We had a good little walk; it was a shame that after two miles and only a stone’s throw from being back at the car park Treacle had to jump in a belly-deep swamp, but that’s the sort of dog she is.

 

Another day off work; another busy day…

 

13 May 2025 (Tuesday) - Where The Hobos Go

I had another restless night. I got up at five o'clock and had a little look at the Internet as I scoffed toast. There was the most ridiculous argument ever kicking off on one of the Doctor Who related Facebook groups. Someone was wondering how many full-sized Dalek models there are in the UK. Estimates ranged from a couple of dozen up to a couple of thousands. Some idiot was getting rather aggressive that no one knew, and felt there should be some official list of full-sized Dalek models on which all of them must be registered, with sanctions for those not complying. And he was serious.

 

I also saw that the geocache I mentioned on Sunday was still unfound. It wasn't *that* much of a diversion from my journey to work... As the crow flies it was seventeen miles from home.

As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the radio were interviewing some irate farmers who had the arse. Apparently there used to be some government scheme in which farmers could apply to be paid for using their land for not farming. Letting it grow wild for butterflies, or trees... it seemed like a nice little earner. It didn't take long for all the money the government had earmarked to go, and those who were too slow to put in their application weren't happy that they'd missed a seat on the gravy train.

And there was a lot of talk about how the Prime Minister's house had burned down.

And there was a lot of talk about how Donald Trump has been given a jumbo jet by the Qatar government. 

It was unclear as to whether it was to him personally or in his capacity as President, but it was alleged that when he was President last time he was given a lot of pressies in his official capacity which have long since disappeared. Have they? Who knows.

 

According to my geo-app the geocache I was hunting this morning was seventeen miles from home as the crow flies. But as the car drives it was a shade over thirty miles. The cache was called "Where the Hobos Go" and the instructions said it was under a bridge, so I knew what I was doing. It really was where the hobos go - I scrambled down a bank and hopped over a stream. And as I searched I found a smashed vodka bottle, and I thought I got whiffs of human shit a couple of times.

The instructions said the cache was attached to a wire... I searched every wire time and time again except the right one. I won't give spoilers, but I'll say it was rather well hidden and took me half an hour to locate. But I did find it. And I was first too. Happy dance.

 

From there I went to Sainsburys where (as I shopped) someone greeted me with a cheerful "Hello Dave". A portly red-haired chap with a beard. I had no idea who they were, but they clearly knew me.

 

And the excitement of the day was all over and done with by half past seven. The rest of the day was rather dull.

12 May 2025 (Monday) - Rather Busy

I had another restless night, but not as restless as some have been recently. I gave up trying to sleep, made toast and peered into the internet.

I foresee problems at Dog Club… Some woman wants to bring her huge Alsatian to the small dog session because she feels he would be terrified by the bigger dogs at the bigger dog sessions. She wasn’t impressed when I told her that the small dogs at the small dog session would be terrified of her huge Alsatian, and was even less impressed when I told her that we can’t cater for every single dog. She then tried the line that she came to Dog Club years ago when it first started and somehow seemed to think that that gave her seniority over everyone who currently goes, but after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing she says she will come to the later session, but walk round outside the paddock during the earlier sessions (presumably trying to justify why she and her dog should come in).

I’ve tried to be polite with this woman, but much as I like and enjoy Dog Club, sometimes it can be a pain. I’m reminded of the snake club and the Kent-wide sci-fi club and the snake club and the astro club. All of those started so well and ended up as one big argument. I suppose Dog Club is different in that I never asked to take it on; there have never been any elections. I volunteered to open the gate once, and suddenly I’m running the show as a (mostly) benign dictatorship.

 

With the dogs having had their brekkie we went out. As I drove there was an interview with Ruth Jones (Nessa out of Gavin and Stacey) on the radio. She was very interesting, and didn’t sound at all like her Nessa character.

This was followed by live footage from the Prime Minister’s speech in which he plans to put a stop to the uncontrolled immigration. This speech was then discussed with one of the head honchos of Reform UK who, like everyone connected with Reform UK, spoke a lot of what sounded like sense until you actually gave it any thought. For example what do you do if you advertise a job and not a single UK resident applies for it? This is something I had when I used to advertise jobs, and something that care home manager in Cornwall were asking about this morning. Sadly the chap being interviewed refused to answer this point.

 

We got to the woods and had a good walk. We mostly walked what has become our usual circuit, but we did walk a path that went up over one of the hills. We’ve seen this path from the bottom of the hill, but never walked up it before. It was rather pretty up the top.

We walked nearly four and a half miles, and as we went we only saw two other dog walkers.

 

Once home I made us both a cuppa, then cracked on in the garden. Last weekend the garden table had crunched, so I took it down and moved it out of the way. Hopefully the nice man from the council will come take it away soon. I mowed the lawn, cleaned out the little pond’s filter then ran out the hose. Whilst the ponds got topped up I went round with the small pressure-washer and hosed the bird poo of the garden gnomes. You’d be amazed how much dung the local birds generate. I suppose I’ve only myself to blame for feeding them.

 

And then I went on Amazon and ordered up more armpit squirt. The stuff is easier to order from Amazon than it is to fart about going to the shops to get. And I renewed our membership of The Friends of Kings Wood. I’m not sure what I get from being a member, but I’d rather be a member than not. And I booked vaccination appointments for Bailey and Morgan. They won’t like that, but they’d like it a lot less if they went down with some completely avoidable disease.

I wrote up some CPD, then geo-puzzled a little.

 

“er indoors ^TM” went bowling; I sparked up the telly. Two episodes of Doctor Who from the early 1970s were rather good. Back then the special effects weren’t that good, so the show’s makers had a plot instead. Something the makers of today’s episodes might try.

And then an episode of “Black Mirror” which was good, but not as good as the ones I watched last week.

 

I’m worn out; I really could do with a decent night’s sleep.

11 May 2025 (Sunday) - Early Shift

I had an early night and woke feeling full of energy and raring to go – at ten to midnight. I then dozed on and off for much of the night, finally giving up and getting up at half past five. I made toast and peered into the Internet. A colleague was off on international holidays – she’d posted selfies from the airport. I wish more people would do that – I’m very nosey and like seeing what friends are up to.

There was a minor row kicking off on Facebook. Apparently games companies have updated their consoles so that if they detect the use of pirated games, the console automatically permanently deactivates itself.  I can see this being an issue for those using pirated games… perhaps if the things weren’t so expensive in the first place?

 

I Munzed, had a go at Wordle and gave up, and got ready for work.

As I drove to work the radio was playing the farming program. There was a prolonged (twenty minutes) interview with two sisters who farm sheep in the Peak District. Their lives sounded rather interesting, but the farming program is always much the same. They interview someone who runs a farm in the arse end of nowhere who seems to enjoy working every hour of every day come rain or shine whilst barely making ends meet, and what could be said in five minutes is dragged out over twenty. And (without wishing to sound cynical) if you hear one of these interviews you really have heard them all.

Bearing in mind the roads would probably be quiet so early in the morning I turned on the cruise control and drove at a steady seventy miles per hour the entire way from Ashford to Maidstone.  The motorway part of the journey (seventeen miles) took as long as the two non-motorway parts put together (two stretches of two miles each).

 

I got to work and had another look at Wordle, and had another look at Facebook. A good friend had his wedding reception last night. He'd dropped our invitation off with the first fruit of my loins a month ago and (sadly) that's where the invitation had stayed.

Work was rather busy. Back in the day the wards had one hour in the morning to get us any work from in-patients, and the rest of the day was emergency stuff only. These days a Sunday is much like any other day. The blood bank was particularly busy. And I struggled somewhat. I've got a pain in my side - for a week or so it has felt as though someone has kicked me in the ribs. I can't remember doing anything than might have caused an injury - I wonder what that is all about.

 

I could have taken a little diversion on the way home. A new geocache had gone live. I could have chased the First to Find, but I didn’t fancy going ten miles up the A249 to Iwade, and then coming ten miles back down again.

Instead together with “er indoors ^TM” and the dogs I went for a tittle walk round Orlestone Woods. Orlestone is always the go-to place for a shorter walk; we covered two and a quarter miles in fifty minutes, and as we walked we only saw one other person. The dogs did disappear into a thicket for five minutes, but that’s what dogs do. Dogs also roll in fox poo and wallow in swamps. And dogs get baths when they come home too.

 

We watched the second episode of the new series of “Taskmaster” as we scoffed a rather good chili which we washed down with a very good bottle of plonk which apparently came from the bargain bucket of Aldi.

It pays to shop about.

10 May 2025 (Saturday) - Geo-Meet

I had a better night’s sleep, but was still up too early this morning. As I scoffed toast I spent a little while struggling with geo-puzzles in the general vicinity of where we were planning to go today. One particularly gave me grief. To solve the puzzle I need to identify someone who went to Tonbridge school a hundred (or so) years ago, who was married three times and whose father was a wood worker and timber merchant. I kept coming up with the name “Thomas Smythe” but when you then do the next stage of the puzzle this gives you a negative latitude.

I then turned my attention to another puzzle for which I’d convinced myself I needed to identify a road sign or milestone giving the distance to Godstone or Maidstone. After a lot of fighting with Google Street View I gave up and went and got ready for the day.

 

Once “er indoors ^TM” and the dogs were sorted we drove round to Dog Club. Attendance was down, but over a dozen dogs ran riot as only dogs can. We had a great time.

Rather than coming home, from Dog Club we headed to the motorway and tried not to point and laugh too much at the nice lady walking along the bypass. She clearly had an itchy back and had unceremoniously hoiked up her blouse so that her partner could give her back a good scratching.

As we drove up the motorway Steve was on the radio. I’d got the mystery year right. When did Helen Shaman (the British astronaut) go up? 1991. 

Sadly the radio signal gave out at Harrietsham.

 

We drove up to Seal where we stopped and got in the way of everyone who was preparing for some ballet thing at the village hall where we solved a little geo-puzzle, and from there we took a circuitous route to Sevenoaks Weald where the monthly geo-meet was taking place.

It really was just like old times.

There were several Adventure Lab caches set up across the village green, and as we walked about doing those so we met up with no end of old friends doing the same, and saw quite a few people we’d not seen before who looked like they were ad-labbing too.

We then adjourned to the pub for the meet itself and caught up with old friends and met new friends. Several pints, stilton ploughman’s, and pork scratchings went down very well. And after the fourth pint it was time for more geo-nonsense. We found a puzzle cache; then went up to the nearby church for more ad-labbing, then back to the village green for another ad-lab series we’d missed.

And then we got the news that the motorway was closed.

We came home cross-country and I didn’t sleep the entire way.

I took a few photos whilst we were out.

 

Having had a rather big pub dinner earlier “er indoors ^TM” only boiled up a small tea. We scoffed it whilst watching this evening’s episode of “Doctor Who”. The last few episodes have been rather good; this evening’s was sadly something of a disappointment.

 

I think I caught the sun whilst we were out earlier. And the fourth pint was arguably a mistake…

Bearing in mind I’ve got to be in work by half past seven in the morning maybe an early night might be a good idea.

9 May 2025 (Friday) - Before Work

I had an awful night and barely slept at all. I gave up trying to sleep, got up, made toast and was watching more "Black Mirror" on Netflix by five o'clock. Yesterday I watched some rather good episodes of "Black Mirror" on Netflix; this morning's was rather lame and predictable. Quite unlike yesterday's, which was a shame.

As I went to get dressed I tripped over Pogo who had found there was more space on the bedroom floor than on the bed.

 

With quite a bit of spare time this morning I thought I might go for a little geo-walk before work. As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the radio were talking about the trade agreement that the UK and US have struck. I don't pretend to understand it in depth, but some irate American car dealer was wheeled on who was saying that it is now cheaper for him to buy a car which was made in Britain and have it sailed across the Atlantic than it is for him to buy one and drive it down from Canada or up from Mexico. How does that make any sense?

Interestingly there was pretty much no talk at all about the new Pope.

I got to Aylesford and had a little walk. I found a geocache in a tree's bole. I found one on the back of a roadside green electrical box. I found one behind a sign. And I found one tied in a tree. There's a thought... Whenever I hide a geocache and go back to it, it is never where I left it. Someone has always moved it. Maybe only a few feet here or there, but still these things get moved. Perhaps if I cable-tie them in place? As I walked I lost my pen... it didn't take *that* long to back-track and find it where I'd dropped it.

 

From my little walk it was only a short hop to Sainsburys to get a sandwich. I've often said that I have an idiot magnet, and it attracted one when I was at the sandwich fridge. Some half-wit was picking up every sandwich packet and giving them all a good squeeze, and the assembled throng was just watching him. I barged up and loudly announced that I wanted one that the half-wit hadn't crushed. The half-wit looked at me in blank amazement as I snatched a packet of coronation chicken sandwiches out from under his nose. This was an approach which clearly hadn't occurred to the masses, and the sandwich crushing half-wit seemed quite upset when everyone who'd been watching him shoved him out the way to get the last few remaining unmolested sarnies.

I got myself a croissant whilst I was at it. I felt I deserved one after my little walk.

 

I went in to work and made myself a cuppa to have with the croissant, and had a look at the myfitnesspal app. It announced that my croissant was two hundred and thirty calories, but my walk had only used up eighty-two. Ho hum.

I scoffed it anyway.

I then had my morning's look at the Internet. Facebook was rather dull, and I rolled my eyes when I looked at my emails. On Tuesday when in the woods I'd checked up on a geocache of mine which had been reported as missing. Someone had been unable to locate it on three separate occasions recently. This happens periodically... I get messages saying "I can't find it therefore it is missing" to which I can only answer "no one else is having problems finding it". The person who'd failed three times eventually found it yesterday... by going to the right place. I'm not sure what she'd done wrong - if you put the wrong answer into the checker it rejects the wrong answer.... unless you don't actually use the checker.

 

Work was work. I spent time peering down the microscope and saw all sorts of things. My (unmauled) Coronation chicken sandwich was rather good.

I came home via Matalan where I’d hoped to get some new shirts… they didn’t have anything I liked the look of.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up burger and chips which we scoffed whilst watching the first episode of the new series of “Taskmaster”. In a novel break with tradition there’s more contestants that I’ve heard of than I haven’t.

 

Today wasn’t bad… until I got to work.

8 May 2025 (Thursday) - Another Day Off

I rolled my eyes as I read Facebook this morning. The sci-fi pages were all a-twitter about Craig Cherles’ announcement that he’s read the scripts for the proposed new episodes of “Red Dwarf” and says they are “stunning”. I hope they are, but surely the show has been done to death. The last few “Red Dwarf” specials were flops. John Cleese was right to stop “Fawlty Towers” after twelve episodes. With sixty episodes of “Red Dwarf” is it time to stop?

I didn’t have any emails of note today. I did wonder if the nice people from the geocaching “London Calling” event might have got back to me by now. It’s now ten days since I gave up a bit of time to re-write some Wherigos for them, but the messages they were sending just stopped.

I munzed, got Wordle on the fifth attempt (balmy), put a load of laundry into the washing machine, and got myself and the dogs ready for our walk.

 

As we drove to the woods there was a lot of talk on the radio about today being VE Day. There had been quite a bit on Facebook earlier, and it would seem that various national leaders are going to each other’s celebrations as signs of current political alliances rather than out of any memory about what happened at the time eighty years ago.

Whilst in no way wishing to belittle the occasion, it might have been better if it had all been done in a way to remember the past rather than to create jingoistic nostalgia for an era that never existed. I know several people who still harbour hatred for Germany and the German people because of a war that had been over twenty-five years before they were born. And look at all the refugees that came to Britain during the Second World War. They certainly wouldn’t be welcomed today.

 

We got to the woods and walked straight into “an episode”. As we walked into the woods, so one of the normal people’s dogs ran up to us. Treacle wasn’t interested (she never is) but the little two played with the other dog. And as he does Morgan was growling and grumbling, but it was all part of the play. Nothing that he doesn’t do at Dog Club every week. But the normal person wasn’t happy, and called his dog away. In retrospect I blame the other dog for not coming when called, but carrying on playing as the bloke shouted and shouted. I could see this chap wasn’t happy, so I called my two. And their immediately coming when called did nothing for his mood. Perhaps I should have kept quiet, but when he started glaring at me and mouthing off about “out of control dogs” I politely pointed out whose dogs came when called, and whose didn’t.

The other passing dog walkers gave me sympathetic smiles.

Apart from Bailey rolling in something disgusting and eating a dead bird, the next four miles were relatively uneventful.

 

We came home. Bailey had a scrub in the tub with soap. Back in the day the cubs would say “with soap” whenever they had been on the receiving end of a serious wash. I hung out the washing, and made us both a cuppa. And with “er indoors ^TM” off to the office I cracked on with the ironing. As I ironed I watched some episodes of “Black Mirror”. Have you seen it? It’s rather good.

 

Seeing the garden waste bin had been emptied I then got the little pressure washer out and scrubbed the bin out. It was on the smelly side. I watered the plants, gave myself a haircut, and then did the “Feed The Fish” ritual with the dogs. Treacle particularly likes doing that.

 

“er indoors ^TM” returned with Pogo (who was having a sleepover). She boiled up a rather good dinner which we scoffed whilst watching last night’s episode of “Race Across the World”. Last night’s episode saw the team in last place getting the heave-ho. Sadly it wasn’t the team I would have heaved.

 

Oh – and the word is that we’ve got a new Pope. I say “we”…

 

7 May 2025 (Wednesday) - Dull

This morning as I went about my ablutions I had a minor shock. Banana flavoured toothpaste? The Aquafresh tube didn’t say anything about bananas. Was it banana flavoured? Had it gone off?

I scoffed toast whist watching Netflix drivel, then had a look at the Internet. This morning there was a minor squabble about the wildlife reserve at Dungeness. Are you allowed to take photographs there? There’s rules about filming, but do they only apply to professional operations? Opinions were seriously divided.

 

I set off to work via the petrol station which was surprisingly quiet, then went up the motorway to work listening to the radio as I went. There was something of a theme this morning. There was an interview with (ex) President Biden about how Badly Donald Trump is doing. And there was an interview with someone in the Indian government about their conflict with Pakistan. However I couldn’t understand a word either was saying. One was laid back and incomprehensibly slurring. The other was jabbering rants at two hundred words per minute. Neither should have been allowed to waste prime-time national radio.

 

Today was surprisingly quiet at work. Supposedly teaching a trainee today, we spent much of the time using the on-line simulator. Hospital work is odd; it really is quieter at bank holidays as people take the week off and go away.

 

Yesterday was a day off - rather full-on and busy. Today was on the dull side.

6 May 2025 (Tuesday) - A Day Off

I probably shouldn’t have had quite such a doze after yesterday’s little get-together in the garden; I was wide awake for much of last night.

The internet was dull this morning. Other than photos of the Mayor-Making ceremony at Rye, seemingly no one had done anything on yesterday’s Bank Holiday. However I was presented with an advert for the Leeds Building Society… out of interest I had a little look-see. I used to have an account with them. Now their nearest branch is nearly fifty miles away.

I made a list of the geo-maintenance that needed doing in Kings Wood, Munzed, got Wordle on the sixth attempt (“suite” but it accepted “shite” as a word), and went to wake everyone else up.

 

With the dogs fed I walked them seemingly miles to where I’d left the car after Sunday’s late shift and we then drove up to the woods. As we drove the pundits on the radio were interviewing Mike Amesbury. The chap was a Labour MP until he got into a fight with a constituent after a night on the sauce, and subsequently went to prison. The chap was quite open about now realizing that he has mental health issues. The interview was quite frank, and quite interesting. And quite sad. Going to prison puts the tin lid on any political career, and he was telling the interviewer how politics was his life; being both his hobby and his job. And now he is at something of a loose end.

 

We got to the woods and went for a little walk. I’d had reports of issues with four of my geocaches. I was reliably assured that two were missing. They weren’t. There were apparently two perfectly good pots at another cache location, and a fourth one was supposedly broken. And, sure enough, there were two pots at one location, and another cache about half a mile further on was broken. So I took the extra cache and put that where the broken one was. Sorted.

As we walked so Treacle was carrying a stick as she does. I thought nothing of it until she dropped it and it didn’t sound right as it hit the ground. I looked – she was carrying another deer bone.

 

We came home. Leaving the dogs with “er indoors ^TM” I drove down to Folkestone with the garden strimmer and sorted out “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM”’s front yard. I loaded the wreckage into the car and set off to the tip… and then realized that because of the stupidity that is booking appointments I had nearly two hours before my allotted time. So I went on a little geo-mission and found a virtual compass, matchbox jeep and sextant.

I was still an hour early at the tip, but the nice tip man wasn’t fussed. There was only one other punter there. And he said I didn’t have to pay. When I’d booked the appointment I’d been told in the confirmation email that I’d have to pay a tenner because the waste I was bringing did not originate from within the Kent administrative area. Even though it did (!)

 

I came home, and spent a few minutes putting away the chairs we’d got out in the garden yesterday. And I had a little look at the garden table. The thing had given a rather worrying wobble yesterday and we’d abandoned it in much the same way that a sailor would abandon a sinking ship. The welds had given up. There are those that are blaming Morgan for tiddling on it, but we only put it up last April. I would have expected more than one year out of it.

We did “Feed The Fish”, wrote up some CPD, and decided not to go out to Rolvenden. Last week “er indoors ^TM” put some geocaches out there, and she’d had reports of one already being missing. But someone went out today and found it. That saved us an outing.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching Celebrity Bake Off, and we followed this with Al Murray talking about the Raj… He’s not bald any more…

Like all supposed days off, today was full on. I’m going to work for a rest tomorrow.

5 May 2025 (Monday) - Bank Holiday

I slept reasonably well but was still awake far too early. I made toast and peered into a dull internet. There was pretty much nothing going on for once.

I sent out birthday wishes to the three friends having birthdays today, and registered an account with Kent County Council to use the tip. Something’s changed on their booking system and if you use the booking system as a guest they now charge you a tenner. That was kept quiet.

I had a flurry of emails – people had been up in Kings Wood yesterday hunting out the geocache I’d hidden there and found loads. Including the one that I had been firmly assured wasn’t there. Ho hum…

I saw our Munzee clan had reached our first monthly goal, which was a result. And I got Wordle on the fourth attempt (shush – what a stupid word).

 

I wrote up some CPD, then spent a little while looking for a USB camera that I could poke into a microscope and plug into my phone. I bought a very cheap one years ago… and lost it.

We took the dogs for a little outing, Munzing as we went. And we picked up a local geocache too and were awarded with a virtual map for our troubles.

 

Once home I had a hot cross bun and played (beat) a chess bot. To be fair it took some beating.

And then we got on with what had been the plan for the day. With the garden tidied the clans gathered and we had a rather good afternoon in the garden. To be honest I’d rather planned an afternoon in the garden with last week’s weather in mind, but we only had to retreat indoors from the rain once. It was a shame that the garden table collapsed under the weight of people sitting on it, but I never liked the thing anyway.

It was really good to catch up with friends, and we shall do so again before too much longer. Hopefully by then it will have warmed up a bit.

Eventually we said our goodbyes, came inside to warm up, and I then had a little sleep for a couple of hours.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a rather good dinner which we scoffed whilst watching the final episode of “Tempting Fortune” in which those who’d been abstemious and good went home with very little more than those who’d been squandering with reckless abandon.

 

It turned out that today was the Jack in the Green event in Hastings… Had I remembered that it was on I might have gone down to it. But probably wouldn’t have.

4 May 2025 (Sunday) - Late Shift

Social media wasn’t happy as I scoffed toast this morning. It was as well that I didn’t go to the geocaching extravaganza in London yesterday; it would seem that geocaching dot com was poggered for much of yesterday. There was also a giga-event in Prague with an estimated five thousand people along which was also stuffed by their IT failure. We realised there were issues with it yesterday when we tried to tell it that we’d replaced film pots in Boxley. Not being able to do so was an inconvenience, but nothing from which we couldn’t perk up after a few drinkies. But this morning all the geo-Facebook pages were alive with ranting from people who’d travelled hundreds of miles and spent thousands of pounds effectively to no avail.

There was still a lot of political ranting on local Facebook pages. Those who’d voted Reform were gloating; those who hadn’t were sulking. Personally I look at what Nigel Farage has done and see that over the years he’s been little more than a trouble-maker. Bearing in mind that so many of his supporters were voted in without any actual stated policies, anything might happen. In the meantime the country is ever more divided.

 

With a little time on my hands I cleaned the pond filters. This time I ran the hose from the bigger pond into a watering can. I was surprised at how little water the cleaning process used.

I then mowed the lawn, bionically burned the weeds and generally had a little tidy-up. After an hour or so the garden was looking pretty much the same as it always looks; gardening is such a frustrating pastime.

 

I had a cuppa, then set off. As I drove to work I didn’t bother with the radio. I’d checked before I’d left home. Radio Four had the compilation of all the week’s episodes of “The Archers”, and Radio Four Extra was playing an episode of “Desert Island Discs” from a few years ago featuring David Beckham. Instead I sang along to “Ivor Biggun” songs as I went up the motorway.

The plan for today didn’t have me working, but two people had been taken ill earlier in the week. As I’ve said so many times before, if I had my time again I’d take a job in a place which periodically puts up a “closed” sign.

 

I did my bit; back in the day Sundays were rather quiet days at work. These days the hospital is open for clinics all week long, and I didn’t stop.

Today was rather busy. Dull, but busy.

3 May 2025 (Saturday) - Dog Club and Boxley

In a novel break with tradition I was having a rather good night’s sleep right up to the point where Bailey woke me when she had a nightmare. The poor little thing was having serious night terrors. Eventually she settled but I didn’t really get back to sleep after that.

 

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. Oh, there was gloating and consternation on the local Facebook pages. The election results are in and it has been a landslide victory for Reform UK… Or has it? For all that they came out on top in elections all over the country, did they actually win? Look at the result of our local election. The given figures are rather misleading. The winning candidate *didn’t* win with forty-two per cent of the vote. He won with the support of forty-two per cent of those who could be arsed to go and vote. When you consider those who couldn’t be bothered he actually won with fourteen per cent of the vote.

To be fair, this isn’t news. I ranted much the same piss-poor turnout at the last county council election four years ago.

I must admit that the chap who won locally wasn’t my choice… mainly because he was rather vague about his policies (i.e. didn’t actually say anything about having any). As he said “A promise made is a promise kept” and by promising nothing he was not setting himself up to fail, was he? Mind you it is easy to be sceptical, isn’t it? I shall give him a week or so to settle in and then see where he stands on getting the river Stour dredged.

And as for the new Reform UK county council… who knows. Presumably they will put a stop to the “Operation Brock” stupidity. I shall bide my time and see what they do before condemning them out of hand.

However one thing has occurred to me. A new county council will presumably have its own new agenda and presumably this will come with a budget… one which was set when the council tax bills came through a couple of months ago. Will council tax bills be changing any time soon?

 

The plan for today had vaguely been a trip to London for the big geo-event that was taking place there. But it was only a vague plan, and I soon knocked that on the head when I realized that it would have been a long way to go and a lot of expense. Back in the day I would have organized a mass outing to something like that and a dozen or so of us would have gone along. These days… sadly I really can’t be bothered.

And I must admit to a slight sense of being a tad miffed that I spent so much time on Monday afternoon hurriedly re-writing Wherigos for the organisers of today’s event only to have them not get back to me at all.

 

Instead we went to Dog Club where we had a great time watching the dogs charging round with all of their friends. It is rather difficult to keep track of attendance as the dogs won’t sit still, but I’m sure I counted twenty dogs.

From Dog Club we drove up the motorway. Steve was on the radio; I got the mystery year (1976) and we drove up to Boxley where we met Karl and Tracey. They were doing maintenance on a series of their geocaches and we went along for the walk. Geo-maintenance is a sad necessary evil of geocaching. More and more it is becoming painfully apparent that there are two sorts of people who go geocaching… those who actually hide the things and those who don’t. Those who don’t find it easier to press the “Needs Maintenance” button rather than to sort out broken or missing film pots, and those who hide them spend their time replacing the missing or broken caches up to the point where they say “sod it”. And then those who don’t hide the things get all stressy when they have to drive over an hour to find any new caches because no one can be bothered to put out any new caches.

But this is a rant I’ve done to death.

In any case we had a rather good walk, and a very good three hours in the pub. It was somewhat ironic that after the third pint and just before the second gin & tonic a “Found It” log came in on one of the supposedly missing caches that we were about to replace.

 

I took a few photos whilst we were out, and slept most of the way home.

Once home we scoffed omelets and watched this evening’s episodes of “Doctor Who” which was rather good. This entire season has been rather good.

 

2 May 2025 (Friday) - Blue Switch Day

I woke in some pain at half past five this morning. My jaw was rather painful, and my hip was hurting too. But what could I do? I sucked it up and got on with my life. I made toast and peered into a dull Internet. The Wherigo I'd created yesterday went live late last night, but no one had gone near it overnight.

Bearing in mind that today was Blue Switch Day (the twenty-fifty anniversary of GPS being made available to the public) I planned  a little geo-mission to do before work, then set off a tad earlier than usual.

 

I drove round to the co-op which was rather hard work this morning. There were half a dozen builders in the place. One was buying his sandwich; the rest were just blundering about seemingly deliberately getting in everyone else's way. And there was a minor episode when I got to the till. I got my usual lunch for three pounds fifty, and a packet of extra strong mints for eighty-five pence. The woman at the till wanted five quid. I explained to her that three pounds fifty plus eighty-five pence was four pounds thirty-five pence. She said it wasn't. She said it was five pounds because the till said so.  She admitted that it didn't sound right, but who was she to dare to argue with the till?

Eventually her manager got involved. It turns out that you have to buy the meal deal on its own, and buy anything else as a separate transaction as the till isn't up to it. It would seem that it was well known and accepted in co-op circles that buying more than one item at a time was a recipe for disaster.

 

I set off to work. The pundits on the radio were interviewing the head honcho of the British Veterinary Association who had got the arse with a BBC investigation into their fees. Most vet surgeries are ultimately run by big businesses who set the prices, and she felt it unfair that the BBC should be holding the vets responsible for prices that were set by their managers. She implied that if you go to an independent vet you will get it cheaper, but wished the public good luck in finding one of those. It turns out that these days the vets would rather crack on with dealing with sick animals and leave the administration of running the show to someone else. I've had a go at running the show in the past myself; it's not easy and is best left to anyone daft enough to take it on.

 

There was also talk about yesterday's elections in which what were once minority parties would seem to have done rather well. Bearing in mind last year's landslide Labour victory at the General Election it strikes me that all the time the government of the day is struggling, the masses will vote for anyone who tells you they can do better. Actually doing better is easier said than done though. 

 

I stopped off at Lenham and walked up to the chalk cross. There's a virtual geocache there. I took a few photos, got the answers to the questions I needed to find, and got a souvenir for Blue Switch Day and a virtual easter egg too.

And so to work where there wasn't any cake, but there was chocolate pizza. At close on three hundred calories a slice I only had a small bit.

 

Being at work, today was rather dull. Effectively all the excitement was done when I got back to the car after my little walk up to the Lenham cross… at that was at seven o’clock this morning.

1 May 2025 (Thursday) - Perry Wood to Albox Wood

I woke at three o’clock and put a load of washing in to scrub. Some might think that a strange thing to do in the small hours, but with that in to scrub it was ready to go out on the line when I got up at seven o’clock. Seven o’clock – something of a lie-in these days.

I hung out the washing, then being the first of the month I had a shave with a new razor blade. The things seem to last a month without problems. And then I did my usual scoffing toast whilst peering into the Internet. It was dull; not a lot was happening.

 

The dogs had brekkie, and we set off. First of all to the polling station to put our X for democracy. Voting is hard work. I spend an absolute age trying to determine who will be the best person for the job… take for example the local Green party. The local councillor is hopeless; nothing is her responsibility, everything is somebody else’s problem. But the Green county councillor is brilliant; hard working, and if something isn’t in his remit he will contact the person who can help. So it’s not just voting for a party, it’s knowing which person to vote for.

Reading the literature they put through the door wasn’t much help. The Green party’s fliers said that the current chap has a proven track record but didn’t actually say what he’d done. Reform UK said that we should vote for them as everyone else was crap and wouldn’t send anyone back on the next banana boat. And the Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats didn’t even bother putting a flier through the door.

In the end I decided against Reform UK because their chap said he would stop the boats full of immigrants even though the county council being elected has absolutely no control over the matter.

I decided against the Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats because they didn’t even bother putting a flier through the door.

I went for the Greens as the local chap had answered my emails about trying to sort the floods by Asda.

Will he win? We shall see,

 

We then drove up to Perry Woods. As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how the Ukrainians have struck a deal with America in which they give the Americans all sorts of mineral rights in return for military aid. As the expert being interviewed pointed out, the Ukrainians have pulled a fast one; most of the minerals are in the bits that the Russians have captured so the Americans will be forced to hoik the Russians out before they can actually get anything.

 

We got to Perry Wood and went on a little wander guided by three nearby geocaches. We found two, but not the third. The dogs were a tad wilful, but to be fair to them the place was thick with pheasants which is something of a distraction. There was a minor bit of excitement; someone had put a squirrel box at ground level. The dogs chased a squirrel, and as the poor thing shot int the box so Bailey grabbed it by the back leg. I got her off, but the red mist was up.

We had a good walk though. I took a few photos, but not of the poor squirrel.

 

We came home via Kings Wood. I wanted to see what was going on for the car park to be closed. It looked like the Forestry England people were filling in the pot holes in the car park. And clearly the message about the car park being closed hadn’t got out – there were about a dozen cars parked along the narrow lane outside the car park.

Once home I did the dogs’ monthly flea treatments, and then put the final touches to a Wherigo. Tomorrow marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first ever geocache going live. It’s known as “Blue Switch Day” and I’ve created a Wherigo in honour of the event. I wonder if it will get past the reviewer?

 

I put some shirts in to wash, then popped over the road for a spot of lunch, and with that scoffed I put “Interview with the Vampire” on Netflix and settled in for over an hour’s ironing.

With ironing ironed I then had a pootle in the garden. Generally fiddling about took over an hour, then I wrote up a little CPD, had a cuppa, and went back into the garden where I pootled some more.

 

“er indoors ^TM” came home from work, cast her vote for democracy, and boiled up some pizza which we scoffed whilst watching “Race Across the World” in which people struggled to make their way through the arse end of China. Much as I loved our Uzbek holiday last year, I’d never dream of doing something like that without a native guide.

 

And as is so often the way on a so-called day off I’ve not stopped, I’ve walked about ten thousand more steps than on a working day, and I’m worn out.