I slept reasonably well, but woke in a cold sweat at
five o’clock after a nightmare in which I’d been sent to sort out an alien
invasion in which the local buses had been taken over by buck-toothed androids
which had doubled the bus fares overnight.
My pleas that I’d not been on a bus for years were
totally ignored…
I got up, made toast and had a look at the Internet.
It was still there. The local newspaper was pretending to act surprised on the
local Facebook pages; following the closure of the local shopping centre the
nearby café is looking set to go out of business. Whilst I feel for them, this
can’t be a surprise, can it?
I saw our county councillor is no longer part of
Reform UK; he’s packed up with them and joined the newly formed Restore Britain party. He posted on
his Facebook page this morning “Every speech I gave had to be vetted and re
scripted, every vote I gave was whipped and forced on me. To be given to
respect to now vote and speak on behalf of my constituents means so much to me”.
Perhaps we might now find out exactly why he's been sitting as a back bencher
after leaving
his deputy cabinet role (environment portfolio) at Kent County
Council three months ago.
I suppose it is a step in the right direction; if only
because Restore Britain is a political party whereas Reform UK is actually a
company pretending to be a political party. There are those who see Restore
Britain as a bad thing because of what they stand for. There are those who see
Restore Britain as a bad thing because it divides the far-right vote. I don’t
know what to think. can’t say I like either of the parties the bloke’s
associated with, but from what I’ve seen of the chap he actually does far more
for the local community than many other local councillors do. And he’s streets
ahead of the Labour MP for whom I actually voted.
I sent out birthday wishes to the two friends who were
having a birthday today, Munzed, and amazed myself by Wordling from “right”
to “mogul” in only three goes. I suppose there’s only so many five
letter words with “G” in the middle.
I spent an hour
assessing more trainee’s work. I wrote up some
CPD, and took Treacle to the vets for her annual
once-over. Her eight is down from last year (by nearly a kilogram) and
her teeth are good (that’s a result for Doggy
Dentals). She’s still covered in fatty lumps though. The vet
suggested biopsy, but when I pointed out that in order to be sure they weren’t
malignant we’d have to biopsy every one the vet agreed that wasn’t practical.
Treacle’s still got a heart murmur, but it is no worse than last year. The vet
pulled all her legs about and said there was no flexibility or mobility issues.
All things considered the vet said that Treacle was in
very good shape for a (nearly) ten year old dog and that we should
continue the long walks round the woods all the time she’s obviously not
struggling with them.
The plan was then to go for a long walk round the
woods… but as it says in the Bible (Proverbs 16 v 9) God laughs when we
make plans. The boss phoned and said that due to sickness we were short at work
and asked if I could cover the late shift.
I could.
It is rather pathetic really, but it is good to feel
needed so once I’d made up both a cuppa I got ready for the off. As I got ready
to go to work so Bailey wanted to come with me again. Having disappointed
her earlier when I took Treacle to the vets I disappointed her again.
I drove round to the co-op where I immediately slammed
on the brakes as some idiot woman clearly wasn't watching the cars around her
and nearly rammed my car. And then she tried to do it again. Having had to
twice stop suddenly because of her seemingly being oblivious to the world
around her, I eventually parked despite her best efforts. As I walked to the
co-op so she got out of her car. I commented to her that she needed to keep an
eye out as she'd nearly crashed into me twice. She smiled and said I
was talking to the wrong person because she doesn't drive. What was
that all about?
I got a sandwich and went to work up the A20
where I stopped off to do the secret ritual with a rather good geocache that “er
indoors TM” had hidden there last
year. And with that done (together with yesterday's little mission)
I've now completed the "Toy Dinosaurs" geo-Treasures.
I carried on to work... and again had to slam on the
brakes as I drove up the motorway because the lorry in front hadn't
noticed the broken-down car in the slow lane, and had left emergency braking
far too late. As I pushed on the brake for all I was worth, the lorry in the
rear view mirror looked awfully close as well...
When my previous car packed up on the motorway
I'd had the sense to freewheel onto the hard shoulder rather than
abandoning it in the slow lane, but what do I know?
Work was much the same as ever. I can't pretend I
actually wanted to go in this afternoon, but the boss had asked me to, and
according to the thirty-third
Rule of Acquisition, it never hurts to suck up to the boss.
I was glad to see the night shift turn up. As I drove
home the pundits on the radio were repeating the same program I'd listened to
yesterday morning about the hacker who'd tried to blackmail thousands of
people. Much as I like Radio Four, there's an awful lot of repeats on there. I
suppose they've done their homework and I suppose they try to schedule repeats
so that different people hear them at different times... It's just a shame that
I seem not to hear them all. I turned the radio off and sang along to the
strange tunes in my MP3 collection
I’m feeling rather worn out – I’ve worked three of the
last four days. So much for being semi-retired…
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