13 April 2026 (Monday) - Bad Dog (!)

I suppose I slept better than I often do, but I still wasn’t on top form when I woke. A mild headache and general aching… pretty much like I feel all the time these days.

I got up, made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was much the same as it always is. But there was an interesting advert…

 

Being up early and with rain forecast for the morning I took the dogs out early. As we drove to the woods the pundits on the radio were interviewing someone or other from Reform UK who was spouting on about all the failures of the current political system. But when it was suggested that pretty much everything he was banging on about was the legacy of years and years of Conservative governments, and that the vast majority of Reform politicians are ex-Conservatives he had absolutely no answer whatsoever. Reform UK are riding high on the public’s discontent, the public’s general ignorance of the political progress, and the Prime Minister being one of the dullest we’ve ever had.

The country’s political system definitely needs to be reformed, but Reform UK is the same old piss in a different shaped bottle. Sadly what choices have we got?

A relatively new Labour government that the public regretted voting in the moment that it was voted in.

What’s left of the old Conservative government that got voted out.

The old Conservative government that got voted out now posturing under two new names.

Well meaning incompetence that had its chance and blew it sixteen years ago

And tree-huggers.

None of which seem to be particularly appealing.

 

We got to the woods and had a good walk… mostly. As we walked there was a minor episode when some German tourists started shouting “Bad Dog!!” at little Bailey. They were rather indignant as they told me that Bailey "is bad dog. She has eating the animal in her mouth”. I told them that it wasn't the first dead mouse she'd had, and I very much doubted if it would be the last. And better a dead mouse than a live squirrel or rabbit like we've had before.

It was as well that the nice German tourists didn't see what Bailey had been rolling in.

 

We walked our usual route. The ground had really dried up; we walked the same route as we usually walk and did it fifteen minutes quicker than what we took in January. The bluebells were in full bloom; they will be gone in a couple of weeks.

As we came back to the car we met another dog walker who we know by sight. We walked back to the car park together and shared a whinge about the people who only take their dogs for walks during holidays. The woods are full of them at the moment. They go mental when any other dog goes anywhere near them. Morgan sniffed another dog’s arse last week and was accused of attacking it.

 

Once home the girls got a wash. Morgan was clean(ish) but Treacle and Bailey had been rolling in muck. I made us both a cuppa, Munzed, and Wordled from “feral” (which was a surprisingly good start) through “lifes” to “elfin” (as it couldn’t be anything else that I could see) to get it on the third go.

 

With cuppa guzzled and the forecast rain not having appeared I went into the garden for a little pootle. I gathered up dog dung, then picked the larger sticks and twigs before going round with the garden vacuum. I weeded, gathered up more dog dung, then went at the patio and the gravelled areas with the bionic burner. I then strimmed the slabs that go up the lawn. I started going round the edges with garden scissors, but the strimmer did a much quicker job. I went round with the watering can, and then read my Kindle for a bit.

 

“Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” needed a lift home, so I ran her to Folkestone. Whilst I was there I wasted twenty minutes in a bush. A new geocache had gone live in Cheriton yesterday with the hint “bushes”. I personally would have given more of a hint than that, but gave it a good effort before I walked away.

The thing has since been found by someone claiming it as their first find ever… I’m calling shenanigans on that.

I came home via Wickes. Screwfix Direct, Thanet Tool Hire and B&Q. None of which sold the fence repair gizmo I’ve been after. I shall try the garden centres before I give up and go to Amazon.

 

I came home, and spent an hour or so marking trainee’s work, then stood up and loudly announced that I was going to “FEED THE FISH”. Treacle leapt up and we went out to find that the drizzle that has started as I’d come home had been rather heavy. Maybe I hadn’t needed to water the plants at all?

And once we’d fed the fish so the rain returned… torrential, and then turned to hail.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a rather good curry which we washed down with a bottle of the red stuff whilst watching the first episode of the new series of “Taskmaster” out of five contestants I’d heard of one.

And then we watched the SUTC Bake Off and cracked open the Disaronno… 

12 April 2026 (Sunday) - Opening the Container

I woke at seven o’clock to the sound of loud barking… only to find all dogs fast asleep. That was some really vivid dream. I went back to sleep for another couple of hours.

I put a load of washing in to scrub, told Treacle off for trying to bully Bailey off of her brekkie, made toast and had a little look at the Internet. It was still there, and much the same as ever. I scoffed toast whilst I watched another episode of “The Man In The High Castle” which has seriously got me thinking recently. Set in America some fifteen years after it (in another plane of reality) lost the second world war, so many of the protagonists are fiercely patriotic about their home country, be it America, Japan or Germany. We see this locally with flags being hung from lamp posts…

Am I wrong in not having this patriotic fervour at all?

 

With telly watched I hung out the washing and set the dishwasher going, then Munzed and Wordled. “Sound” gave me nothing so I started again with “heavy” from where I went through “matey” and “abbey” to “alley”.

We then took the dogs out. The weather forecast wasn’t great so we wanted a short walk. We parked up in Kennington and walked across the fields to where there was supposedly a geocache. We eventually found it… and I squealed it up for needing some maintenance. The given co-ordinates were quite a bit out, and the thing was a glass jar with a rusty lid. We then continued on a (sort-of) circular walk home.

It was a shame that Bailey had to be so wilful as we walked. She is fine when we go to Kings Wood or Longbeech or somewhere that we know, but she can be a nightmare in places that are new to her. She didn’t get *that* deep into the brambles, and there wasn’t really *that* much blood from my hand when I finally got her out.

 

We came home. I harvested an epic crop of dog dung from the garden, and looked at the bird feeder. Despite the Royal Society for the Prevention of Birds (!) saying we shouldn’t feed them, the sparrows do like a scoff. I topped it up…  We had a cuppa, I wrote up some CPD.

 

With the forecast rain having come to nothing I got the lawnmower out and trimmed the grass, watered the flowers, did “FEED THE FISH”, cleaned out the aerator head on the pond, and sat by the pond for a while until “er indoors ^TM” came out to upset the dogs. She said it was practice for her sponsored skipping thing, but the dogs (and Bailey in particular) *really* didn’t like her skipping with a rope.

 

It got cold so I came in. And we both spent over an hour on the next geo-project. Chris has got a 3-D printer and he’s printed us each a puzzle geocache. They are rather good; a smashing little pressie for which I for one am very grateful.

It’s a simple little idea. Open the blue cylinder and sign the piece of paper inside… Once you’ve figured out how to open the thing it is relatively straightforward, but it takes some figuring.

I’ll be honest – it is a really good present and I think it is too good to stuff under a rock as a geocache. But that is what Chris made it for. So if it is going to be a geocache I shall try to make something decent of it. In the first instance I will need a location which ideally has a seat so’s people can sit down with it, and is well away from where the normal people might come across it by chance. And while I’m trying to find a location I shall test the thing on a few people to see if anyone can open it quicker than I did (i.e. in less than an hour) so I can judge how to rate the thing’s difficulty.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up pork chops which we scoffed whilst watching an episode of “Taskmaster”. We’ve got the latest “Wallace and Gromit” film on now, but I might not stay the course… I’m not feeling on top form.

I wonder what that’s all about?

11 April 2026 (Saturday) - Games Night

It was after four o’clock when I woke this morning. But again once I was awake and that was it. I came down a little while later to find Morgan sitting by the back door…

Yesterday was another anniversary… a happier one than I ranted about yesterday. Yesterday marked four years since the puppies arrived in our house. Originally I only wanted Bailey. Morgan looked too much like my Fudge-dog and I felt it wouldn’t be fair on Morgan to take him on because I would always be comparing him to Fudge. As I typed the last paragraph I actually wrote… “to find Fudge sitting by the back door”.

But I took him on, even though I am continually calling Morgan by Fudge’s name which is really silly. The physical resemblance is superficial at best, and temperamentally they are poles apart. I miss Fudge, but I wouldn’t be without Morgan.

 

I made toast and watched another episode of “The Man In The High Castle”. I’m up to episode five and don’t really have much idea of what is going on.

I had a little look at the Internet. It was much the same as it ever was. This morning’s petty bickering on Facebook was on one of the geocaching pages I follow. Some “rather special” chap in America has formed his own breakaway Facebook group after taking offence that everyone else told him that “being special” was no excuse for being a twit. This morning one of his cronies had announced that he was going to make wheelchair-user-friendly geocaches and seemed to be amazed that this was already a thing and had been so for years.

There was also quite a lot of posting on Facebook about yesterday's elections in nearby Cliftonville. The incumbent Reform councillor had gone to jail, and yesterday the Greens had won the vote to replace him. I did chuckle when so many pro-Reform voters were talking about how a narrow a margin the Greens had won by. Nothing like as narrow a margin as the Brexit vote had been, but which the very same people still (ten years later) loudly claim as a resounding victory.

 

I Munzed, and got ready for work. I didn’t really want to work this morning but there it is. Over the last two years I’ve rather enjoyed being part time, but a month ago the boss asked if I could do four weeks of extra hours to help with the new computer system. I said I could… in retrospect I wish I hadn’t. The money is nice, and learning something new is good, but the trouble with work is you have to do work. I’d rather pootle and potter and if I want to sit by the pond and have a nap, then I’d rather sit by the pond and have a nap.

 

I made my way to my car. As I went I activated my Munzee map. As I'd Munzed earlier so a new temporary Munzee  had appeared just down the road. I thought I might get it as I walked to the car. In the time it had taken me to put on my shoes so “er indoors ^TM”  had woken up and Munzed it herself.

 

I drove off west-wards listening to the pundits on the radio. As I drove there was talk about the enquiry into the case of Valdo Calocane (who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia) who killed three people and seriously injured three other people in Nottingham city centre three years ago despite being well known to the local authorities. There was an interview with one of the families involved who said that one of the things that came out of the enquiry was how inexperienced some of the officials were, and generally how crap the system had been. 

Am I being cynical in thinking "been there, done that"?

And there was talk of the Artemis II which splashed down safely last night. As always as in the case with anything remotely scientific or not related to petty political squabbling, the matter was treated with mild condescension. It boils my piss that proper news is treated as a subject of disdain whilst that which will be forgotten by the end of the day and which will wrap tomorrow's chips is seen as being oh-so-important. 

 

On the stroke of eight o'clock I turned over to Radio Ashford to listen to Steve on the radio. He'd mentioned that there was a new DAB channel for radio Ashford. There was, but sadly (like the FM signal) it only reached as far as the hill at Goudhurst where I lost him.

I went in to work where I did my bit. As I worked I used the works Internet to tune back in to Steve on the radio. I got the mystery year pretty much right away - when did Rumbelows close down? I knew that - I bought my first home PC from them (for a small fortune) just before they went belly-up in 1995.

 

At tea break I had a Belgian bun. As I'd driven through Goudhurst I saw the little bakery there was open. I went in and joined the queue. There weren't many people waiting, but the staff were rather hopeless. It really doesn't take ten minutes to sell a couple of cakes, does it?  And sadly the bun wasn't worth the ten minutes that I spent queueing for it. It would be unfair to say that the thing was rock hard as it was certainly softer than a rock... well, most rocks.

But there's no denying that I won't be hurrying back to that little bakery. There's no convenient car parking spot in Goudhurst, and do I really want to give them another chance? I really don't want to have to go out of my way only to face another bun like todays. It was supposed to have been a little treat(!) I can get a bun which is better and cheaper (and with a far higher chance of being half-way decent) by going to Tesco or Sainsburys; I certainly will next time. And this is *exactly* the problem that so many little businesses face, isn't it? 

I had a little look on Google and saw that I called into the place four years ago and had a stale Belgian bun that time too...

 

I came home. “er indoors ^TM” went shopping, and I settled in front of the telly under a pile of dogs and watched another episode of “The Man In The High Castle” whilst Treacle alternately snored and farted. I don’t know what she’s eaten recently but I do know she’s not going to eat it again. Oh, her arse was rank.

I cleaned out the fish tank’s filter and “er indoors ^TM” returned with Whitby buns. Very nice.

 

Chris, Steve and Sarah came round and we had a rather good games night. I won Game of Life, came second in Sorry and second in Ticket to Ride. But (to be honest) I could have come last in everything and still have had a very good evening with friends.

I do like our game nights…

10 April 2026 (Friday) - More Dull

Yesterday I woke at quarter past two… it was something of a relief when I woke and saw the clock this morning - ten to four. Still far too early, but a minor result. I lay awake for an hour before giving up and getting up.

I made toast and watched another episode of “The Man In The High Castle”, then had my usual rummage round the Internet. This morning it was on the dull side. I sent out one birthday wish, Munzed, and got ready for work.

 

I made my way to my car, picking my way through the bins that the bin men had strewn across the pavement. They've stopped hollering swear words up the streets at half past six on a Friday morning, but they still won't put the bins back where they find them.

As I drove off so Kyle's mum was walking the streets again.  Kyle was one of the stranger of my cub scouts many years ago (and that was up against some pretty stiff competition). He could speak, but for the most part chose not to. He used to communicate by pulling strange grimaces and he seriously expected everyone would know what he wanted and what he meant from the faces he pulled. After a few weeks of his nonsense I used to deal with him by replying to his strange gurning by pulling faces back at him. If what he wanted was important he would eventually communicate with words, and if he didn't speak I would assume that what he wanted was trivial and could be ignored. 

Was that harsh of me?

I often see his mother when I'm out and about. She lives just down the road, and for years has spent pretty much all of her life walking round Ashford. I've seen her in all parts of the town and at all times of day. This morning she was going past Pets at Home at half past six. Does she just like walking? Is she claustrophobic? Or is there maybe an issue at home and should I be saying something to someone in authority? If I had any confidence at all in social services I might just do so. But I haven't. And so I won't. 

 

I went round to the petrol station to fill up. Petrol ain't cheap these days. I also got a sandwich for lunch. Again being there before the morning's shelf-filling I had to choose from yesterday's leftovers, and again there was precious little that didn't have bacon in them.

I then headed west-wards through the -hursts and the -dens.  It can be a rather pretty drive when I'm not having to worry about idiots tail-ending me. There were none today. I stopped off in Goudhurst on my way. I've got a geocache there which went missing and which I replaced a couple of months ago. It had gone missing again. I've put out another, but if this one goes I shall archive it.

I then spent a few minutes admiring the view. For all that I love my walks round the woods there's no panoramic views to be had there so I made the most of the opportunity this morning. Several people in cars slowed down to see what I was doing. 

And then it was on to work.

 

As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about bird feeders. I always thought that we were doing a good thing by topping up the bird feeder, but apparently this contributes to the spread of trichomonosis.

Maybe cleaning out the bird feeder might help? Or giving them a bowl of seed rather than a feeder which harbours germs and scatters the food all over the place?

And there was more talk about the current war in the Middle East. Mind you when I say "current war" I really mean "ongoing and perpetual war". This morning there was discussion on the radio about Lebanon's involvement in the war.  Some Lebanese government official was being interviewed who pretty much admitted that the Lebanese government have no control over what the Hezbollah rebels are doing (at the moment they would seem to be the biggest problem in that part of the world). And then the chap went on to show why there will never be peace in the Middle East. He started banging on about some grievances concerning some incident that happened in 1949, and then moved on to another incident from the early seventies...  It was quite clear that griping about historical episodes was far more important to him than dealing with tangible current issues.

 

I got to Pembury where I should have filled up with petrol. Normally eight pence per litre more expensive, this morning the petrol in Pembury was seven pence per litre cheaper than what I'd paid in Ashford. If I'd topped up there I'd have saved nearly three quid, and when you are as mean as me, that's not to be sniffed at. It's the price of a bottle of decent beer from the corner shop.

 

Work was work. I came home and we had a rather good dinner of scampi and chips which we scoffed whilst watching the first two episodes of “Race Across The World” which was streets ahead of “The Hunt” that we watched recently for the simple reason that I didn’t actively despise all of the contestants.

 

I’ve got another early start tomorrow – I wonder just how early…

 

And it’s a year since I’ve seen my granddaughter. It’s her fourth birthday today. If I’m lucky I might see her again in fourteen years.

The country’s judicial system leaves a lot to be desired…

 

9 April 2026 (Thursday) - Dull

I woke feeling full of energy and raring to go… at quarter past two. As I so often do when I’ve got an alarm set. I gave up trying to sleep at five o’clock, got up and watched an episode of “The Man in the High Castle” then had my usual look at the Internet as I do every morning. There was an interesting post from a friend from long ago. The chap is a lawyer specialising in intellectual property, and he’s started his own firm. Billed as a UK and European patent attorney he’s operating out of Sydney Australia. I must admit that the words mean pretty much nothing at all to me, but I wish him well. You never know – one day I might go out and visit him.

I sent out birthday wishes to the three friends having birthdays today.  I Munzed, and got ready for work.

 

I walked up the road for some more Munzing before I drove off. There was a Celtic salmon and a Celtic cat in Christchurch Road. You'd never know, would you?  As I went back to my car I noticed that it was just before seven o'clock and there were a couple of pensioners standing by the corner shop waiting for it to open. There's o #ne of the local pensioners who is often litter-picking along the road at six o'clock. You'd think they'd not be up quite so early, wouldn't you? Perhaps it's not just me who can't sleep?

 

I headed west-wards along roads which were quieter than usual, but I'd still rather go up the motorway. If the idiot in the car behind me thinks I'm not going fast enough up the motorway there is plenty of space for them to overtake. As you drive up the A-roads there's little opportunity for overtaking and so the idiot drivers just get closer and closer up my rear end. I'm not going to go at the breakneck speeds at which they want to drive, which sadly clearly winds them up. I let them pass where I can, and then send snarky emails to their bosses and write about them on rate-driver dot internet when I can (which is most of the time). As I have said before, driving like an idiot is best done in a car that doesn't have your company's logo emblazoned all over it.

 

As I drove I listened to the pundits on the radio who were talking about the increased sales of electric cars. Apparently those in the motor industry are surprised at just how well Chinese cars are selling in the UK. The implication was made that buying Chinese was somehow unpatriotic whereas buying from a European or Japanese company isn't... There's not many car manufacturing companies which are UK-owned, are there? 

And it would seem that the Middle East cease-fire that came into effect yesterday is already looking iffy as yet again the Israelis are going out of their way to alienate themselves.

 

I went in to Tesco to get a sandwich, and then went on to work where I did my bit. And with my bit done I came home again to find that not only had the delivery of fish food arrived, but “er indoors ^TM” had rescued the screwdriver I dropped in the pond a week or so ago.

We had pie and chips and watched the last episodes of “The Other Bennet Sister” which were rather good.

I’ve got another early start tomorrow and so I doubt I’ll be asleep much after two o’clock tomorrow morning. An early start might be a plan.

 

Days like today when I’m at work are often the dull ones.

8 April 2026 (Wednesday) - Rostered Day Off

I slept well, but woke aching at seven o’clock. I got up, made toast and saw the world was still there. There had been some uncertainty overnight as President Trump had been threatening to unleash hell on Iran.

He didn’t.

As I scoffed my toast I saw that the current Middle East war is having a cease fire and the Strait of Hormuz has opened. Well, a cease-fire and open strait for the next two weeks or until it all kicks off again. At the risk of appearing cynical it won’t be long.

And there was a lot of talk about yesterday evening’s fire. As I’d driven home last night there was a load of smoke coming from a recycling plant on the other side of town. Fire engines came from miles around to sort it.

I Munzed, and went to wake the dogs. They sleep so lightly during the day, and so deeply at night.

 

I put a load of washing in to scrub and took the dogs out. As we drove up Brookfield Road it was clear that the petrol station up there hadn’t heard the morning news; their petrol had gone up in price by two pence per litre overnight. And as I drove up Chart Road there was a definite haze in the air. From yesterday’s fire?

 

The roads up to the woods were a lot quieter than usual; the woods a lot busier. The car park was heaving, but as is always the way, once you get half a mile from the car park you get the woods to yourself. Mostly. We did have a minor issue with some idiot woman and her dog. We changed direction several times to avoid her, and in the end I just gave up. If her dog and mine had a set-to it wasn’t from my trying to keep away from her. Fortunately for us she took one of the paths that leads north out of the woods through a field with horses in it. And about twenty seconds after we lost sight of her we could hear a frantic neighing, a frantic barking, and lots of shouting. My three dogs looked at me as if to say “F.F.S.”, and ignored the commotion. I couldn’t have done anything to help without involving my three in whatever was going on so I thought I could best help by staying away. Not my circus, not my monkeys.

As we walked we saw the bluebells which are coming into full bloom, and my birdsong app detected sixteen different bird species.

We took a slightly different route to our usual one. Over the weekend we’d had reports that four of my geocaches in the woods were missing so I called in to each location and in a novel break with tradition all really were missing. I replaced them all, but did wonder where they’d gone. Had people done a litter-pick and tidied them up? Had people taken them home to show their mums? (that really does happen!)

 

After five miles we were back at the car. We came home where the washing machine had finished. I hung the wet stuff on the line (for the first time this year), and harvested a massive crop of dog turds. I’ve mentioned before that I can’t believe that three small dogs can generate so much dung.

I got all the rubbish that we’d been hoarding out the shed and loaded it into my car. Back in the day I could then have taken it straight to the tip, but these days you have to book a time, and there was an hour and a half to go until it was my turn.

 

I used the time to record the geo-maintenance that I’d done earlier, and I archived two geocaches I hid at Singleton lake a couple of years ago. Both were clearly missing and I’d been meaning to replace them for months and had never got round to it. Best to get shot of them before I get the geo-feds on my case.

I did a You-Gov survey, Wordled from “miles” through “illier” to “inlet”, wrote up some CPD, then went round to the tip.

It was rather busy.

 

I came home. No day not at work is complete without ironing. As I ironed I watched a film on the Disney Channel. “Starship Troopers” is an old favourite of mine, but more and more these days I’m finding I don’t have the attention span for films.

We did “FEED THE FISH”, I watered the plants. And had a little look in the small pond. At the weekend we got some goldfish for that pond. Either they are hiding or the seagulls have had them.

And I got the shears out and gave myself a quick haircut. That saved over a tenner.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up pizza and went out for the evening. I settled in front of the telly and sparked up Netflix. I’ve been meaning to watch “The Man In The High Castle” for over ten years, and finally made a start this evening. Set in an alternate version of America some fifteen years after the Allies were defeated in the Second World War, so far the program shows promise…

 

Today was a rostered day off. I’m going in to work for a rest tomorrow…

7 April 2026 (Tuesday) - More I.T.

For once I had a bit of an early night last night and managed seven hours asleep. I was still up before six o’clock though. I made toast and watched an episode of “Derek” then had my usual look at the Internet. It was rather dull this morning; nothing but adverts for stuff in which I had absolutely no interest.

I had a load of emails – people had been round Kings Wood hunting for the geocaches I’d hidden there. Several people couldn’t find certain ones; that’s tomorrow’s dog walk planned for me.

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

 

What with it effectively still being the Easter holidays the roads were rather quiet as I drove up the "Operation Brock" nonsense. I *really* can't see the point of it; there's the same amount of traffic there always is, just going twenty miles per hour slower. Perhaps that's the point? I did see four cars and a van going along the bit that cars and vans shouldn't be in; there's often cars and vans in that bit.

As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about Kanye West. Apparently he's some big music star who's seriously upset the Jewish community. At the risk of stirring up a hornet’s nest, it strikes me that the entire "Jewish community" is a subject no one dares to mention. It strikes me that cries of antisemitism are thrown up at the slightest provocation, and the world and his wife live in terror of such accusations. Meanwhile Israel demands that America join it in (from what I can see) an unprovoked war and no one says a word. I'd love to know just what I'm missing here.

And the astronauts are on their way back from the Moon. Not that they actually went to the Moon; just round it. For all that I'm a great fan of the space program, it does strike me that they went a long way to do not very much. Maybe going into a lunar orbit and then leaving it after a few orbits might have been something? Mind you their previously poggered toilet has now been fixed... you know you've got troubles when you are a week away from the nearest functional chodbin (or even tree to tiddle up).

 

I popped in to Sainsburys to get a sandwich as I do. They had quite a few plants; I thought about getting some, but I've done that in the past. They don't survive a day in the car.

And I went on to work. Originally I wasn't scheduled to be at work today, but I'd been asked if I might help with doing more testing on the new IT system.  I had a go... there's no denying I had quite a bit of "Operator Error". The thing would have worked far better had it done what I wanted it to do rather that what I'd been telling it to do but that's what completer systems are all about, isn't it? No? - well, that's the line I'm taking. 

I spent much of the day telling management that if I stuff it up in the testing scenarios then we can see how to avoid subsequent stuff-ups in the future. I'm not convinced that management subscribe to this school of thought, but management rarely does. I never used to when I was a manager.

 

As I drove home down the motorway so I saw a horse bolting across one of the bridges that crosses the M20…

 

We cracked open a bottle of plonk and then finished off the amaretto whilst watching the last episode of “The Hunt: Prey vs Predator”. It was a good show, but would have been better had any of the contestants been likeable.  We followed this with a couple of episodes of “The Other Bennett Sister” in which Mr Ryder turned out to be quite the beast. Men often are…

6 April 2026 (Easter Monday) - Working, Rolvenden

I felt rather rough when I woke this morning, but what could I do? Sulk or get on with it. I got on with it. “It” being laying wide awake far too early hoping and failing to get back to sleep.

I gave up, got up, put a load of washing in to scrub, made toast and watched an episode of “Derek” which was entertaining. I then had my usual peer into the Internet.

 

Our local MP had posted to his Facebook page (or a member of his staff had). Our local MP’s Facebook page has two sorts of posts. Either he’s trying to share in the limelight of that which someone local has achieved, or he’s making personal attacks on the opposition. Having spent years hoping for a Labour MP, this chap has turned out to be something of a disappointment. 

Other than that, hardly anything that wasn’t an advert was in my Facebook feed this morning. And of the adverts, pretty much none of them were of any interest to me.

I Munzed, and Wordled from “rough” to “story” and “score” to “sworn”.

 

With the washing hung out I set off up the motorway where the "Operation Brock" stupidity was still in place. But what with it being a rather quiet Bank Holiday morning I just set the cruise control and keep going. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the ongoing war in the Middle East. On the one hand is the American President who is ranting and raving, and on the other hand is the Iranian bunch who (from what I can see) haven't actually done much to warrant being attacked in the first place.

Trump is threatening dire retribution if the Strait of Hormuz isn't opened to shipping. However everyone knows T.A.C.O.  and consequently those he threatens are taking no notice. Meanwhile the rest of the world have realized that they can get oil out if they pay the Iranians not to shoot at them and so have started paying.  I suspect that when this all blows over (this time) the Iranians will carry on charging people not to shoot at their oil tankers and will have found themselves a nice little earner. Maybe the Prime Minister might learn from this and start threatening to take pot-shots at anything going through the strait of Dover unless they give the UK a bung.

 

I got to work. I popped into the canteen in the hope that they might have a hot cross bun. They did, and so I had one with a cuppa before I started. I'd rather not have been working today, but it was only for the morning, and unlike how it used to be when I worked elsewhere, I did what I did secure and content in the knowledge that every single thing I did today wouldn't be revisited and inspected tomorrow by a bullying manager determined to find fault everywhere he possibly could.  

And with my bit done I came home.

 

Having spent the entire Bank Holiday weekend so far maintaining geocaches we continued the theme. We drove out to Rolvenden where people who’ve found hundreds of other people’s geocaches but couldn’t be bothered to put out any of their own were finding fault with that which “er indoors ^TM” had done. As with pretty much everything in life it is not what is said but how it is said. “I’m sorry but the thing is rather damp” doesn’t give the offence that “yet another in desperate need of attention” does.

But we had a good walk. It was a shame that the dogs had to be on the leads for much of the way, but there were pheasants shouting seemingly constantly and the dogs seriously had the red mist.

I took a few photos as we went.

With walk walked we popped into the pub at the end of the route. I’ve not been in there for some time… eleven years.to be precise. We had a rather good (and well-deserved) pint, but… a pint of Harveys, half a cider shandy, two bags of crisps… nearly twelve quid. I know I’m getting mean in my old age but that’s about double what I’d pay in the shop over the road, and drinking it in my back garden means I wouldn’t have to put up with all the normal people shouting profanities at each other. Like they do.  

 

Seeing how it was the last day of the Easter holiday today “er indoors ^TM” sorted KFC which we scoffed whilst watching two more episodes of “The Hunt: Prey vs Predator”. Mind you when I say “watching”, I slept through much of the second one. I wonder if I missed much?

5 April 2026 (Sunday) - A Walk, Gardening...

Morgan had got off the bed in the night. When I came back from the loo at five o’clock he was looking hopeful so I lifted him up past Treacle’s glare.

Back in the day I would have got up at five o’clock on Easter Sunday. I would have gone to our local church (just down the road) and set up all the tables and chairs. Friends of the time would then have got the kitchen orgnised and I and others would walk up to North’s Seat; the highest point for miles around. We Methodists used to organise a “Son-Rise” outdoor church service where we would sing and pray. We’d be joined by the local C of E congregation, the local Catholics and the Baptists. The Jehovah’s Witnesses would always be invited to join with us. Every year they sent a little delegation who never joined in, but stood and watched from fifty yards away.

And once the sun had risen we’d take everyone back to our Methodist church where we’d give everyone brekkie. Everyone except the Jehovah’s Witnesses who flatly refused to have anything to do with us.

I wonder if that still goes on in Hastings.

 

But I didn’t get up at five o’clock today. I went back to bed and stayed there until half past seven. I got up, made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was much the same as ever… but I chuckled at the adverts in my feed. Yesterday I mentioned the iffy fence panels and that we’d bought some bedding plants. This morning I was inundated with adverts for fence repair kits and plant seeds.

 

 #There wasn’t much we could really do today. Pretty much everything closes for Easter Sunday. Supposedly it is so the staff can have a rest. What a load of tosh. Let’s see how the public react when they turn up at the hospital and get told to shove off because the place is closed so that the staff can have a rest. Why don’t shops and supermarkets and the like open from six in the morning until midnight (or even operate continuously). They could do this by actively looking for people who want to start work very early in the morning, or want to work late into the evening. Or want to do night work. Rather than having the existing staff working more hours, just take on more staff. After all what’s the point of a shop being open when all its potential customers are at work themselves? 

 

I Wordled, and Munzed from “night” to “knave” and got it with “envoy” on the third attempt. I rather impressed myself with that.

I went into the garden for a bit. I cleared yet more dog turds, laid one of the stepping stones that the first fruit of my loin gave me yesterday, cleaned out the filter of the small pond, and gave up on the pansies I planted a few weeks ago. They’ve come to nothing so I dinged their compost into one of the planters, and by then “er indoors ^TM” was ready. Some of her geocaches along the Greensand Way needed attention. We’d sorted some on Friday; we sorted more today. And with caches sorted we had something of a failed experiment. The series of geocaches runs in a straight line. We thought we might add a return loop to make a circular walk… There is a footpath which goes parallel to the geo-series which would be an ideal route in theory…

In practice it was a disaster. The path had half a dozen stiles which were poggered and all but impassable. We got over them but it took some doing. I shall contact the rights of way people… it would be a good walk if you could actually get along it. A mile and a quarter took us over an hour.

 

We came home for a cuppa and the last of the lemon cake, and I went back into the garden. I planted out those bedding plants we got yesterday. I discovered that I’d got a dozen snapdragons rather than six – that was a result. I tested all the water features – the big one isn’t quite flowing like it might. I expect I’ll sort it eventually. Or I won’t. We got a load of rubbish ready for a tip run. And when I finished pootling I took a few photos of the garden.  

We had a cuppa by the pond. Now it’s getting warmer we can sit by the pond. But when I say “pond” I can’t help but feel I mean “big dog water bowl”; Treacle does love guzzling out of it.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up chicken and chips. Once that was scoffed we played the Infinity Table over the Internet against Chris. That thing’s internet connection is odd. “Game of Life”, “Sorry” and “Trouble” all work fine, but “Ticket to Ride” simply won’t play remotely.

 

I’ve got to go to work in the morning…

4 April 2026 (Saturday) - Rather Busy

I slept reasonably well… for the last year or so I seem to have been plagued with very vivid dreams of finding myself at Open University summer schools with no reason to be there… I wonder what that’s all about?

 

I made toast and had my usual look at the Internet. Yesterday I mentioned that a local councillor was using Facebook to launch personal attacks on another. I made the comment “It is such a shame that local government has sunk to the level of personal attacks on social media” and amazingly no one wanted to quibble with me, and several people had agreed. Another local councilor commented that she agreed with me, and went on to say what a thankless task local government can be. No matter what you do, there will be people (who’ve never actually got off their arses themselves) waiting to find fault.

It was the same back in the day with the county-wide Star Trek club, the snake club and the astro club. Everyone would say “why don’t you…” and never “why don’t we…”. Everything that was done was wrong, but there were never any ideas or suggestions for what might actually be done.

Maybe if the people who run local councils were appointed by lot (in much the same way that people get called up for jury service) then those finding fault would have some understanding of that with which they are finding fault.

And I found out that the actress who played Private Godfrey’s sister in Dad’s Army was in real life the wife of him who played Captain Mainwaring. One lives and learns.

 

I Munzed and Wordled from “hurts” through “scale”, “sappy” and “savvy” to get “sandy” on the fifth attempt.

Steve was doing the Guess The Lyrics competition on the radio as I pootled. “This is a song to all of my friends, they take the challenge to their hearts”. No? – I had no idea either. It was “New Song” by Howard Jones.

 

I drove round to Dog Club and got set up. “er indoors ^TM” followed with the dogs. Dog Club went rather well; we had quite a few new dogs along. The new dogs were a bit overwhelmed at first, but within a few minutes they were all running and playing and scoffing treats with all the other dogs. And the new dogs’ humans were also a bit overwhelmed at first, but within a few minutes were chatting with everyone else and enjoying the fun. We had (I think) twenty-three dogs along today, and we all had a great time.

If only more dog owners could see how dogs can get on so well.

 

All too soon it was time to go. “er indoors ^TM” was off to craft club. The dogs would just keep looking for her, so I took them home when she went.

As we drove Steve was on the radio doing the Mystery Year competition. When did Freddie Laker get knighted? When was Mr. Blue Sky in the charts? The embarrassingly named Cloppa Castle was on the telly… and there was some cricket match in which someone or other took eight wickets. Or “winnets” as Steve said. He got away with it but I did chuckle… It was 1978.

 

Once home the dogs soon settled. I made myself a cuppa and made some AI photos for the Dog Club’s Facebook page. Then I got busy… I did the dogs’ flea treatments then ran out the lawnmower… and after about five seconds turned it off to harvest more dog dung. I’d cleared it all before I started, but between getting shot of all the turds and getting the lawnmower out, one of them had added a late offering.

With the lawn eventually mowed I had a preliminary zoom round with the garden vacuum. And then I ran out the pond hose and cleaned out the pond’s pressure filter. You really can see how the thing flows faster after a cleaning.

I had a look at the cordyline (it’s a plant). It don’t look too clever. I don’t think it’s dead though. Not yet anyway. I’ll see what a dose of plant food does for it. I had some in the shed and doshed some out to the potted plants which had survived the winter. There were also some weeds in the plant pots. They got chucked… though to be honest it was tricky to see what was wanted plant and what was unwanted weed.

I had a look at the fence panels. They look shabby. I keep talking about replacing them. Mind you when I say “replacing them” I really mean “paying someone to replace them for me”. The actual replacing isn’t an issue; it’s the having the new ones delivered and getting shot of the old ones that would be arse-ache.

 

“er indoors ^TM” came home from craft club and sorted us a cuppa and a hot cross bun. We had some Morrison’s hot cross buns… they aren’t very nice.

We then took the dogs out plant shopping. We went to Bybrook Barn where maybe one person in twenty realised that they were in a busy garden centre. Pretty much everyone was blundering about totally oblivious to everyone else around them. We got some bedding plants, but no polyanthus. Apparently they are now out of season. We went on to Dobbies where we got some polyanthus in the “reduced” section. And some little goldfish for the small pond.

 

“My Boy ^TM” and ”Auntie Chel ^TM” called round. They’d been tidying up their garden and had some statues that were surplus to requirement. Did I want them? Yes please!!!  We got them into the garden; I shall do something with them tomorrow.

 

And then, with the Infinity Table not having been put away since last night, “er indoors ^TM” and I had another go at various maps of “Ticket to Ride” which I eventually won (four games to three).

If any of my loyal readers fancy an evening of drinking beer whilst laying virtual train tracks round various maps of Europe, America and Asia, you’d be very welcome…

3 April 2026 (Friday) - Good Friday

I made the mistake of going to the loo in the small hours and came back to bed to find I’d got an eight-inch wide strip down the edge of the bed in which I could try to get back to sleep. I tried to push the dogs over, but there’s some strange feature of canine physiology by which a dog’s weight increases ten-fold when they are asleep.

I managed to get back to sleep, and despite the noise of the bin men I stayed in my pit until after eight o’clock.

 

I made toast and had my usual look at the Internet. What with it being Good Friday someone had gone onto one of the Lego-related Facebook pages and put up a picture of a Lego model of Jesus on the cross. That stirred up no end of arguments.

And there was (yet another) argument about… well to be honest on the one hand were “women born in the wrong bodies” and on the other hand were “men in dresses” depending on your personal perspective. Whatever you call a trans woman, should that person be allowed into women-only spaces? Various arguments were ranted on both sides, but as is always the way in life the ultimate decision will be made by the one who will make the effort to shout the loudest.

And on those lines a local councillor was on one of the local Facebook pages making a personal attack on another local councillor.

I had an email. PayPal have given Avast Software fifty quid for a lap-top tune-up package which I neither needed nor wanted. I asked for a refund… eventually. The PayPal website wasn’t the easiest to navigate through.

I also went through the Avast site where a bot offered to refund sixteen quid. I told it to get knotted and it offered twenty-seven quid. I told it to get knotted again and it eventually refunded the lot but would seem to have cancelled my antivirus package too.

 

I Munzed. The Munzee Clan War started today. I Wordled from “money” through “saner” and “sends” to “singe”, and we got ready for the off.

“er indoors ^TM” had reports of issues with her geocaches in Hamstreet woods, so we took the dogs there for a look-see. The dogs were mostly well behaved but there were a few issues with rolling in fox poo and eating horse poo. Geocaching-wise we sorted the issues, but as usual there wasn’t anything wrong that couldn’t have been put right in less time than it took to whinge that there was an issue.

We came home via the garden centre at Hamstreet. They didn’t have any polyanthuses. What was that all about?

 

We had a cuppa. “er indoors ^TM” wrote up the geo-admin stuff from the morning’s excursion. I wrote up some CPD, and looked at various options for antivirus software. Like with everything there were as many options as there were people to suggest them. But one bit of advice was useful – don’t go with the “auto-renew” option. Let the company prompt you at renewal time; threaten to go to a competitor and you’ll get a bargain. Like I’m hoping to get by not continuing with my current antivirus supplier.

We did “FEED THE FISH” and when I topped up the fish food tub I saw that I’d emptied our back-up supply. Good old Amazon will send some more in the week. Hopefully.

 

We got the infinity Table out and spent the evening playing “Ticket To Ride”. There was a minor hiatus for kebabs and dog dinner. At half past eleven the score was declared. Ten-nil. I lost…

 

“Good Friday”… it wasn’t bad really. Back in the day Good Friday would have been one big booze-up at the Chambers beer festival in Folkestone. Those were good days, but I would (quite literally) piss over a hundred quid up the wall every time. After a few years of doing this, Good Friday became a five mile geocaching walk with over forty friends followed by a few hours in the pub.

COVID and lockdowns put paid to the social side of geocaching (it is slowly recovering)

More recently Good Friday has been either working, a hike or gardening. The plan for today had been a hike, but with friends being unwell we postponed that plan. And it was too cold for gardening…  I might do some tomorrow.

2 April 2026 (Thursday) - Doing Overtime

Another bad night. I got to sleep quickly, but “er indoors ^TM” and the dogs came up shortly after. Treacle settled; sadly Morgan and Bailey decided to have a pitched battle. And once they finally shut up and I nodded off again I found myself in a nightmare in which I was trying to force-feed ham sandwiches to the American ambassador.

I got up at five o’clock, made toast, and once I’d watched an episode of “Derek” I sparked up my lap-top and peered into the Internet. The Artemis II took off last night and is now on its way. And not a lot had happened on Facebook overnight, which was probably for the best. I posted out birthday wishes to the two Facebook friends having birthdays and got ready for work.

 

I set off up the motorway only to find the "Operation Brock" stupidity was back. Here's a thought. Last year our Reform UK councillor said that Reform UK would be putting a stop to Operation Brock. I wrote to him and in his reply he was crystal clear that Operation Brock was a thing of the past. Hasn't happened, has it? And they put the council tax up when they said they wouldn't, but that's another rant.

As I drove (at about forty-three miles per hour) the pundits on the radio were talking about the Artemis II launch. For all that I'm excited about it, the rocket went up, and that was it (for the moment). It could be announced in about fifteen seconds; they did go on about it at length without actually saying anything.

I think there was some talk about how the world is lunging into economic disaster; the so-called expert brought on to talk about it couldn't speak very good English and so the five minute interview was frankly incomprehensible. 

And there was talk about ex-Prince Andrew who's still in trouble and is going to be interviewed by the rozzers again.

 

I stopped off in Sainsburys for a sandwich. I got a couple of bottles of beer whilst I was at it. The self-service till said I had to be age-checked. You'd think the machine's camera which films the entire process would be able to tell I was old enough to buy a bottle of beer, wouldn't you? The moody old bat who had to get off her arse and come over to press the "he's old enough" button made no secret of her displeasure at having to get off of her arse. I've mentioned her before. She really shouldn't work in any customer-facing role. She clearly hates the general public and never speaks, though occasionally there's a bad-tempered grunt *if* she's in a particularly good mood.

I went on to work. Today was an extra day - I'd offered to help out with the new IT system.  In order to test the thing we need to have created various dummy patients on the system. Personally I use "KIRK - Captain" as my test patient. Others use "FROG - Kermit The" or "POTTER - Harry"... Occasionally someone will use "PATIENT – Test”, but I don’t hold with such normality There's probably something that a good psychologist might make of this.

 

For all that I whinge about Operation Brock, my journey home today was easier than yesterday’s. Yesterday I had to emergency stop to avoid the cars reversing (without looking) out of farm tracks, the cars coming head-on at me on the wrong side of the A262, and the cyclists randomly blundering all over the A28. Today I just set the cruise control and kept going in a (more or less) straight line.

 

One home I gathered up the dogs and took them down to Orlestone where we had a good walk. We didn’t roll in anything, or wallow in anything. We did find a dead squirrel, but it was that rank that no one wanted to carry it.

And with walk walked we came back home where we did “FEED THE FISH”. I harvested another bumper crop of dog dung, and had a fight with Microsoft Copilot. I asked it to make a picture of Captain Kirk, Kermit the Frog and Harry Potter sitting in a hospital waiting room. It refused because that would be a breach of copyright. So I asked it to make a picture of a man in a Star Trek uniform, a frog and a boy with glasses sitting in a hospital waiting room and it produced the picture above. Go figure.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching more episodes of “The Hunt: Prey vs Predator” which has taken a novel twist. For all that it is effectively a game of chase, there’s only one in the chasing team capable of speeds in advance of a brisk walk.

I’ve got a day off tomorrow (it’s a Bank Holiday). I’m not liking working these extra days…

1 April 2026 (Wednesday) - Early Shift

I was sleeping like a log when my phone went absolutely mental in the small hours with no end of notifications despite its internet connections being switched off. Just as I was nodding off again so “er indoors ^TM” took Treacle for a “quiet” tiddle. I wasn’t getting back to sleep after that.

I got up, made toast and had watched an episode of “Derek” before having a look at the Internet. Nothing much had changed overnight. I had some emails… people had been out in Kings Wood looking for my geocaches. I’d replaced a missing one a couple of weeks ago – these people had found the original.

There wasn’t much else happening on-line at half past five this morning so I got ready for work and set off.

 

I drove west-wards through the -hursts and the -dens. It was rather dark and rather foggy this morning. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the war in the Middle East which Donald Trump now claims will be over in a couple of weeks. That bloke says a lot of things… sadly much of which turns out not to be the truth.  Is he bending the truth to suit his agenda? Is he deliberately lying? I realised that my experience of the bloke is purely that which I see of him in the news, but he reminds me of the more feeble-minded cub scouts with which I dealt with as a scout leader many years ago. The rather simple children would just spout the first things that came into their heads. It can be rather endearing in an immature eight year old, but it is rather worrying in a world leader.

I suppose (if nothing else) it is yet another example of the ultimate futility of democracy.

There was also talk about the Artemis II which is supposedly going up later. I hope it does. There was someone on the radio from the Open University being interviewed on the radio this morning who echoed what I said yesterday; the Americans are running scared that the Chinese will get to the Moon first (this time).

 

I stopped off at Tesco where I got a sandwich and filled the self-service machine with all the change from Saturday’s Dog Club. The staff didn’t care today, but the old biddy in the queue behind me wasn’t happy about it. She was giving a running commentary to anyone who would listen about how much change I was putting in the machine and how long she’d been waiting to use the machine herself. For no reason that I could work out it was (apparently) vital that she had to use the machine I was using; the other seven just weren’t good enough for her.

 

I got to work and had a very busy day. I’ve mentioned before that I wouldn’t recommend working anywhere that regularly has “Red Alert” declared. Unlike Captain Kirk’s our Red Alerts don’t involve coming under phaser fire from irate Klingons, but I’d still rather not have them.

I was glad when it was home time. And being on the early meant I got home much earlier than usual.

 

I had a vague idea of taking the dogs to the woods, bit once we’d done “FEED THE FISH” they all went back to sleep, so I didn’t bother.

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up Katsu chicken which we scoffed whilst watching “The Hunt: Prey vs Predator”. It’s a rather good show not entirely unlike the wide games I used to play with my mates in the sand quarry at Fairlight with my mates fifty years ago. And the kit they wear puts me in mind of the seventies sci-fi show “Logan’s Run”.

 

I’d like to stay up to watch the Artemis II launch, but I’m falling asleep and it don’t go up till nearly half past eleven…