2 September 2026 (Wednesday) - Dull

I didn’t sleep well. I was cold and woke every half-hour. I really need to put the duvet back on the bed.

As I scoffed toast I watched the first episode of the re-make of “Upstairs Downstairs”. It was rather good.

I then had my usual rummage round the Internet as I do most mornings.

Two Facebook friends had birthdays today. Both people with whom I used to work. Both were a large part of my daily life for years, I’ve not seen either in over ten years now.

There wasn’t much else happening at half past six so I Munzed, Wordled from “duvet” to “ruler” in three goes, and got ready for work.

 

No one was walking their dogs in their jim-jams this morning as I headed to the motorway.  As I drove there was an interview with the head honcho of the UK's republicans - some bunch who want the monarchy abolished. They had the arse about the recent announcement that the government is spending a small fortune on the upkeep of the royal palaces. 

What's the alternative? Let them fall down? The interview was (quite frankly) a waste of air-time. The interviewer seemed reluctant to let this bloke speak, and when the bloke did manage to get a word in, he flatly refused to answer the questions being asked; preferring to shout his pre-planned script.

Meanwhile the Mayor of London's been scammed. He's been done for not paying road tax, but it turns out that the car in question is nothing to do with him, and letters from the DVLA letters addressed to him about the unpaid tax bill were sent to Gordon Ramsay's east London restaurant.

You have to wonder what all that was about, don't you?

 

I went to Sainsburys and got a sandwich, then went in to work. It was dull. It often is. I came home listening to my Adrian Mole MP3s and came home to an empty house. “er indoors ^TM” had taken the dogs out. I also came home to find my eBay bargain had arrived. Two sets of all of the Harry Potter books in MP3 format… one read by Jim Dale and one read by Stephen Fry. Change out of eighteen quid, and a rather good Ginny Weasley USB stick too.

It’s on eBay so it can’t be hooky… can it?

 

Today was dull…

1 September 2026 (Tuesday) - Nominated

I slept well. I got up at half past seven, made toast and had my usual peer into the Internet. It was much the same as ever. Today’s conspiracy theory was that space is fake. Moon, stars, planets, the whole lot… all fake according to some half-wit called Judith when replying to an article about the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which was launched over the weekend and is hoped to spend years looking at planets, dark matter, dark energy and all the other enormous questions humanity has been scratching its head over since somebody first looked up and thought, “What the f… is all that?” Well, Judith has given us the answer. And she seemed to be serious even though she was unable to string together a sentence, let alone a coherent argument.

People were posting to work-related Facebook groups. Some were discussing methods of compatibility testing of donor blood… methods which were obsolete and discontinued before I started in the field forty-five years ago. And others were asking advice on how to test for certain conditions and how to perform various tests that they’d heard about and wondered what they were. (People claiming to be lab managers…) The more I follow blood testing on Facebook the more convinced I am that whereas here in the UK we have national standards of how to do things, the rest of the world makes it up as it goes along.

I Munzed, Wordled from “thing” to “remix” on the fifth attempt. Wordle is hard work. Sometimes it is obvious how I should proceed, other times not so. Like today – “remix”? Seriously?

 

We went for our walk. As always Bailey was incredibly excited about going out, and did her usual thing of greeting the world with a huge bark as we walked out of the door. She always does that. I wish she wouldn’t.

As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how the new Prime Minister is to address Parliament for the first time today. First time !?!?! How long has he been Prime Minister… it turns out that Parliament shut up shop on July 17^th and only re-opened today.

We got to the woods where something odd was going on. The car park was all but deserted. We were the third car in there. But we met loads of people in the woods. Far more than we usually do. Have people found some obscure place to park to avoid the parking fees (even though they aren’t in force yet).

We had a good walk. We saw deer. The huge fungus that was at the half-way point last year has reappeared. We met the dog walkers we often meet; Bailey got a fuss from them.

We came home via the lower car park which also has signs up about car park charges coming.

As we drove I listened to more Adrian Mole MP3. He’s now got nits.

 

We got home. I made us a cuppa with a choco-break bar (far better than a kit-kat), then I had a two-hour pootle in the garden. I bionically burned the weeds that had taken advantage of the recent rain. I hacked back the plants which were pouring over the fence from next door. I organised a new pole for the lilac. And I have a theory about what did for the acers. Their pots were swimming with water so I drilled some holes in the bottom to drain out excess water.

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up some lunch, and with that scoffed I did the ironing. As I ironed I watched the last episode of “Stranger Things”. In keeping with the rest of the show the last episode was good, but went on for far too long.

I wondered what I might watch next… What with various stuff on catch-up to say nothing of Netflix, Paramount Plus, Disney, i-player and Prime video there’s no shortage of things to watch. Back in the day we had three channels. However did we cope then?

 

And in closing today I’ve been nominated for a geocaching award in the “Outstanding Community Contribution”. Someone (I have absolutely no idea who) has written about me “He is an amazing hider. His cache trails in KingsWood are brilliant – he always maintains them and refreshes the trails every couple of years so we get to explore different areas of the woods. His mystery caches are fantastic – some are really tricky (but he is always happy to give you a hint) and some are easier but fun (perfect for newbies). He is always happy to give advice and help in any way he can. He also organises lots of great events and always brings along his three famous geodogs. He is an all-round great guy and a credit to this wonderful game”.

I’ve very mixed feelings about this. On the one hand I am flattered and humbled to be nominated. On the other hand I feel a bit of a fraud.

I haven’t really done that much more than *lots* of other people have done.

 

I wonder if there’s a prize?