14 September 2026 (Monday) - Rostered Day Off

I slept like a log last night. The road trip to the Midlands, Nepalese curry, family party and late shift over a very busy weekend had taken its toll.

 

I made toast and (being back to the usual routine) had a look at the Internet. Someone with whom I went to college many years ago was posting climate change denial propaganda. That winds me up. Climate change is real – you can see it happening. Where there used to be cod in the English Channel there’s now dolphins and tuna. When did we last have enough snow for a sledge? When did we last have a proper summer like we had when I was a lad when every day *wasn’t* ridiculously hot?

And I found out that the world is ending in a couple of months.

One lives and learns.

And (for once) I saw the sort of thing that I have Facebook for. A friend had been to Finland to take part in the Nordic Walking World Championship. That’s what I want to see as I scoff my toast.

I Munzed, Wordled and went to wake “er indoors ^TM” and the dogs. If I have a lie-in she has an alarm set. If I don’t, she doesn’t either.

 

I took the dogs up to the woods. Sadly it is now foraging season. For the next few weeks all of the thickets within a quarter of a mile will be heaving with all sorts of people desperately seeking chestnuts and mushrooms and whatever it is that people forage for.  What none of them realise is that by this afternoon everything forage-able would have been foraged, but that won’t stop them. If any of them would walk for more than five minutes they would find an entire forest full of stuff worth having, but hardly anyone seems to forage out of sight of the car park.

If nothing else it gives the dogs something to bark at.

We had a good walk. We did our usual circuit. We didn’t see any deer, but something big was crashing about at the far end of the woods, and we chased a few squirrels.

 

We came home. I made us both a cuppa and we had one of the cakes that “er indoors ^TM” had made, and then I had a look in the garden. There was a load of soil round the bottom of one of the planters and the conifer pot. That mess wasn’t there yesterday. I had hoped the conifer pot had rusted through. I hoped in vain. A rat had chewed its way into the back of the planter. I emptied it all out and tided up. As I did so the back of the planter fell apart. I shall fix that another time.

I put shirts in to wash. I harvested dog turds. And seeing the lawn was long enough to hide the turds I ran round with the lawn mower. And whilst I was at it I hacked back more of the brambles coming over the fence from not-so-nice-next-door. As I hacked I saw she’d had a go at the brambles on her side, so that has got to be a result. Hint taken, perhaps?

 

No day off work is complete without ironing. And with ironing done I tried to quietly sneak outside, but it was “that time” and I was being watched like a pork (to coin a phrase). So I made the announcement “I’M GOING TO FEED THE FISH” and the dogs flew to the pond, with Treacle squealing in excitement.

I then carried on solving geo-puzzles and I had a message. The Dog Club squabble seems to be over for now, and the later group have asked if we’d like to hang on later this weekend as they’ve got a photographer coming. It’s a kind thought but to my mind the days of a professional photographer are numbered. Trying to get a dog to pose takes some doing, and I can’t help but think that I get every bit as good a photo off of the camera on my phone as from a fancy camera. I’m not keen on shelling out a tenner (per dog) for photos of my three which I can get buckshee.

 

By late afternoon the undercrackers were washed and dried (never a dull moment!). I put another load of washing in to scrub and “er indoors ^TM” boiled up pizza and chips then went bowling.

I settled down and watched the last episode of “Upstairs Downstairs”. What can I watch next?

 

And in closing, today marks forty-five years since I first started work in blood testing. Let’s just say that I’ve been in my current place of work for nine and a half years and they’ve been the happiest nine and a half years of my working life. Being happy in your work is important – for a *very* long time I wasn’t.

13 September 2026 (Sunday) - Late Shift

I didn’t sleep as well as I’d hoped I would. Six pints of ale and far too much Nepalese curry hadn’t been sitting too well yesterday when I then dumped five more pints and a kebab on top.

I finally got settled when “er indoors ^TM” alarm went off (for no reason) at half past seven.

 

I got up, put a load of washing in, made toast, and had a look at the Internet to see if I’d missed much. There was a rather impressive squabble on the Dog Club WhatsApp group. No matter what the subject (Star Trek fandom, keeping reptiles, fishing, pub crawls, astronomy, 70s music, cookery garden ponds, astronomy, dachshunds, geocaching, Lego…) eventually it just dissolves into quarrelling.

 

I Munzed, Wordled and hung the washing out. Ideally I would have taken the dogs out, but it was raining and there were thunderstorms forecast. So I sat on the sofa (with Bailey cuddled up to me) and solved geo-puzzles. A new lot had gone live yesterday in the general vicinity of Edenbridge. As I solved them I saw that someone had got the First to Find on all of them this morning. That someone lives just up the road. With an hour and a quarter drive (according to Google and our previous experience) having logged the first one at quarter to seven he would have left home at half past five; an hour before dawn. He logged the last one at twenty to nine having covered twenty-four caches over a four-mile route. He must have run from cache to cache. In heavy rain.

Some people love it.

I paid my road tax. Twenty quid for the year. That can’t be bad. But there is now this nonsensical thing that if I sell the car, the road tax is non-transferrable. I would have to claim a refund, and the buyer then shell out the tax again.

And then it was time for work.

 

I drove up the motorway listening to a new audiobook. This time "All Quiet on the Western Front". It's a book that (fifty years ago) English teachers did their level best to ruin for me, but is actually rather good. Sadly the audiobook is read in a very dull Canadian accent, but it's better than the pompous voice of Sir John Gielgud was in "Brideshead Revisited".

I got to work and went into the works canteen to get lunch. I quite like the hospital dinners; I usually get myself one when on at a weekend.

There was a "delightful lady" doing her best to confuse the till staff in a very poorly disguised attempt to a rather cheap meal even cheaper. I didn’t get involved…

 

I cracked on with work. Back in the day weekends at a hospital were emergencies only; these days there are clinics running and with a reduced staff weekends are far busier than they ever used to be. Back in the day we would be called in for one specific named patient, and would then wait for two or three hours to be called again. Today my workload was constant and really didn’t stop. I only got a break by walking out for five minutes.

But it was raining for much of today. I don’t mind working when it is raining.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a late dinner of chicken nuggets and chips which we scoffed whilst watching “Tipping Point”. I love TV game shows - many of the contestants have no hesitation in showing their ignorance.

Has anyone honestly never heard of Pepe Le Pew?

 

12 September 2026 (Saturday) - Family Party

My cousin’s house is right next to a church. As well as ringing the hour the chimes went off every quarter of an hour all night long. I think I heard the lot. I got up at seven o’clock, put the en-suite through its paces and went downstairs to make myself a cuppa. I eventually found the kitchen… seriously. It took some finding. Each room in the house has a floor space bigger than the entire downstairs of my house. And having found the kitchen, finding the fridge took some doing.

The was blood on the kitchen tiles. The cat had had a mouse overnight. The fourth in twenty-four hours.

You don’t get that with dogs… Rather than playing with them, Treacle just swallows mice whole

 

It wasn’t long before we were all up. My cousin Karen asked if we had time for brekkie and got out the makings of a fry-up.

We had time.

We had a very good brekkie. As we scoffed so a red kite flew over. And some seagulls. Seagulls? We must stop calling them that. We were about as far from the sea as it is possible to get in the UK, with the closest beaches being pretty much equidistant at Southend and Weston Super Mare, and still gulls were flying about.

 

With brekkie scoffed we said our goodbyes. Ideally we would have stayed longer, but in my world everything happens at once.

The sat-nav which had done so will getting up to the Midlands did just as good getting us home (once we were on the M1 it was rather straightforward). There’s no denying that I’m not keen on driving, but it was far quicker and cheaper than the train. Trains are all very well for getting from A to B very fast. However both A and B are very rarely in a convenient place to get to or from.

 

We got home. The dogs went mad about the smell of cat. We did “FEED THE FISH”, “er indoors ^TM” had made cakes. We had them with a cuppa then set off to Icklesham for a family birthday party.

We had a rather good afternoon in the sunshine. My plan had been to stay for a drink or two… we stayed for five as the littluns bossed the dogs about.

 

We came home where “er indoors ^TM” got a kebab and we played a few rounds of “Ticket To Ride”, but I was wilting.

I gave up and did that which I always threaten but rarely do. I had an early night.

11 September 2026 (Friday) - Off to Bletchley

I slept well, which was a result. I woke shortly after six o’clock to the sound of rain on the window. The sound of rain is one of the most depressing sounds there is. There are those that like rain; those that sit inside and look out at it. I wanted to go out.

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. There was endless support for lifeboats, and the right wing thugs that have been running them down have gone strangely quiet. Last night’s episode of Star Trek got mediocre reviews. For all that it was a good episode it was (very obviously) a remake of what had gone before in the genre, and those that were determined to dislike the show were very quick to point it out. And American blood bankers were discussing techniques that have been redundant in the UK for at least fifty years.

And there was a lot of talk about some local café closing and how we should all support these small businesses. Why? Yesterday I paid the thick end of eight quid for a rather mediocre cup of coffee and three bite-sized pastry things (which were on the burned side) from a local coffee shop. Why should I spend out on massively over-priced things I don’t want just because someone’s decided to make their living from selling massively over-priced things I don’t want?

 

I Munzed, and Wordled from “sound” to “aster” in five goes. Aster… it’s a sort of flower. I then took the dogs to the woods. With time short we went to Orlestone where there was only one other car in the car park (and that one left as we arrived). We walked a short walk; the first park of the wood was muddy enough and the lower part soon becomes a swamp.

As we drove I listened to more of my Brideshead Revisited MP3 audiobook… and decided to give up with it. It’s left out major plot segments and major characters. I’ll try something else.

 

We came home for a bath. You’d be amazed how much muck sticks to the belly of a small dog.

And then I said goodbye to the household, drove up to the station and collected my brother for a little road trip. Off to Bletchley.

 

We made good time up the M20, but there was quite a hold-up at the Dartford crossing. There always is.

South Mimms services was something of a game – we had a Subway lunch which was massively overpriced. Fow all that it was rather good I wouldn’t use it again simply because of the self-service machines.

From there it was a straight run to my cousin’s house. I was impressed with the sat-nav.

 

We met up with cousin Karen, her husband Martin, and had a rather good afternoon with them and the cat. Another cousin and her husband joined us for the evening. We went to a Nepalese restaurant for dinner. I’d not had Nepalese before; I’d certainly have it again.

Things got progressively more vague as the evening wore on…

10 September 2026 (Thursday) - Insomnia, Walk, Meeting, Ironing

 

I couldn’t sleep so I got up silly-early, made toast and watched an episode of “Upstairs Downstairs” in which Alex Kingston got rather lesbidaceous. I then had a little look at the Internet. It was rather depressing; the aftermath of the weekend’s hateful protests in Dover and Portsmouth were still continuing with members and supporters of the RNLI getting abuse (both verbal and in some cases physical) from the neo-Nazis. We live in strange times… there’s one part of the nation running round shouting about patriotism and tying flags to lamp posts and painting the cross of St George on roads and pavements. And there’s another part who have never been so ashamed to be British.

Meanwhile that idiot Donal Trump is offering every American five thousand dollars if they vote for his party at the upcoming elections.

I eventually felt a bit tired so I went back to bed at half past four where I didn’t really sleep. I dozed on and off until I finally got up for second breakfast at eight o’clock. As I scoffed it the bin men came for the garden waste bin. In a novel break with tradition not only did they actually empty it, they put the thing back in the general vicinity of our house.

As the dogs got up (at half past eight) so I gathered their dung, Munzed and Wordled from “nasty” to “dryly” in six moves. “Dryly” – what a stupid word.

 

I took the dogs up to Kings Wood where we had a good walk. Pogo screamed at the normal people, but that’s what he does. As we went I took a few photos and used the Map My Walk app… and my phone locked up. Twice. It’s a few years old; maybe it is time to think about getting a new one?

We came back to the car park to find several cars parked on the lane outside. Now that the RingGo parking thingy is up and running, more and more people are begrudging paying a couple of quid a week.

As we drove there and back I listened to more Brideshead Revisited MP3. I’m not impressed with it; so much of the original book has been missed out. I’m now about half-way through the three-hour audiobook. The TV adaptation was twelve hours long.

 

We came home where I sorted a cuppa. I wrote up some CPD then went round to a coffee shop in Repton where I had a meeting with the leading lights of the later session of Dog Club. There’s no denying that I was expecting the worst. I went fully expecting a fight, but we had a really productive session. There was talk of increasing the subs and changing the logistics of payments. There was talk of a working party to tidy up the paddock… 

It was all very positive. The only negative was having to pay the thick end of eight quid for a rather mediocre cup of coffee and three bite-sized pastry things (which were on the burned side). I don’t usually frequent coffee shops…

 

I came home and put a load of washing in, then did the ironing whilst watching an episode of “Upstairs Downstairs”. We did “FEED THE FISH” then I had a little kip.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a rather good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching this week’s episode of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds”. It was rather good.

9 September 2026 (Wednesday) - Late Shift

I went to the loo in the small hours and Bailey wanted to go downstairs with me. I thought she wanted a widdle; she just wanted to play silly beggars in the dark garden. I eventually rounded her up but by the time I got back to my pit most of the bed space had been commandeered by other dogs. Conspiracy? Possibly.

I then dozed as best I could on the six inches of the edge of the bed.

 

I made toast and had a look at the Internet as I do. There was a lot of talk about the gangs of masked thugs who blockaded Dover and Portsmouth last weekend. The various fascist political parties are claiming that this was a legitimate protest against illegal immigrants in small boats… So why blockade the ferries? Why not go to the beaches (Pett Level for one) where they regularly come ashore?

And there was quite a bit of flat Earth bollox being posted. Some people really do believe that the Earth is flat.

 

I took the dogs out. Being limited for time we went to Orlestone where there was some odd bloke sitting in his car in the car park. He’s often there… you have to wonder what the attraction of sitting in the car park is.

Morgan rolled in something disgusting, Treacle and Pogo went in a swamp, Bailey went rogue in the undergrowth and at the three-quarters point Pogo ran in terror from a small spaniel.

Some of our walks are more eventful than others.

We came home. Over a cuppa I Munzed, and Wordled from “swamp” through “frisk” to “burst” on the third attempt, and then I got ready for work.

I can’t say I was keen on going to work today. The carpal tunnel nonsense was sending tingling up my left forearm. Monday’s gardening had done for my right elbow, and there was a constant ringing of tinnitus in my ears. There are those who pull a sickie if they so much as fart twice, but I’ve never been one for pulling a sickie.

 

On my way I popped into Sainsburys to get a sandwich. As I queued the chap in front of me had a phone sim card in his shopping, and was explaining to another shopper what a phone sim card was. He wasn't making a very good job of explaining it, and a passing member of Sainsbury's staff came over to explain. This chap loudly announced that a sim card was a wonderful thing which gave your phone a different number to its usual one. He went on so (rather proudly) say that he had a second sim card which he used for making prank phone calls.

 

I went into work and did my bit. The carpal tunnel thingy which was giving me grief earlier played up for pretty much all of the shift. But at tea break I played some more Meowdoku… and got to level two thousand. Perhaps I should find something more constructive on which to waste my time?

 

As I’d driven in to work so I came to the end of my Adrian Mole MP3s. I've not got the last book in MP3 format; it is on my wish list. So I started listening to "Brideshead Revisited" read by Sir John Gielgud on the way home. Ideally I would have preferred Jeremy Irons, but I got this version for free, and something for nothing is never a bad thing, or so I thought…

The audiobook I’ve got isn’t so much “abridged” as “edited highlights”; there is so much that has been left out. I’m about half an hour into the audiobook I’ve got. Knowing the story almost off by heart I think that I would actually be over an hour in if listening to a complete version.

 

8 September 2026 (Tuesday) - At Work

I had a rather bad night. Just as I finally nodded off so “er indoors ^TM” started an argument with one of the dogs (possibly Bailey).

I got up at six o’clock, made toast and watched an episode of the remake of “Upstairs Downstairs”. Being made by the BBC each of the episodes are of the same length. This morning’s episode featured (in large part) the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1930s, and struck several chords with today’s political climate.

 

I set off to work through heavy rain. As I drove there was a lot of talk about Prince Harry and precisely what he will and won’t be doing. The King has announced that Harry will be a “non-working royal”. Some commentator being interviewed this morning was talking about how his role is incredibly vague and “lots of lines are being blurred”. It would seem that he’s left America and come back to the UK where it is somewhat easier to get on the gravy train, but what do I know?

And then the sports news came on. It dragged on and on. Surely there’s only so many times anyone can say “blah blah sport”? But only a few short weeks since the football world cup, the European football thing has started. I wouldn’t mind if football wasn’t so tedious, but can anyone seriously say that after watching ten minutes of a game of football you haven’t seen all that the game has to offer?

I went to Sainsbury’s to get a sandwich and had to queue up. I like to empty the change from Dog Club into the self-service machines, but there were *loads* of schoolkids queueing up to use those cash only self-service machines. I suppose they wouldn’t have cards, would they.

 

I’d left home half an hour later than usual when on a core shift. What with the schoolkids in Sainsburys and the really busy roads I’m going to go back to leaving silly-early for work. I’d rather have a far less stressful drive and no waiting about to pay for dinner. And I quite like a bit of peace and quiet before the aggro  of the day starts.

 

I got to work and cracked on with the aggro of the day. It was rather hard work today, my carpal tunnel syndrome was playing up all day long and the tinnitus meant that there was a constant buzzing sound too.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a rather good bit of Chinese which we washed down with a bottle of plonk whilst watching more “Young Sheldon”.

Today’s been a tad dull… my arm still hurts and my ears are still ringing.

 

And it is four years since the late Queen died…

7 September 2026 (Monday) - Rather Busy

I had something of a bad night last night. It was rather hot and I didn’t sleep well.

I made toast and had my usual rummage round the Internet. I had a message from the Facebook feds. Over the past week I reported racist postings and postings of cruelty to animals. Apparently neither went against their so-called “community standards”.

Meanwhile it would seem that the reason no one’s discovered aliens yet is that we’ve been tuning radio telescopes to the wrong frequencies. Astronomers have since turned their radio telescopes to the right frequencies and not found any aliens, but the astronomers aren’t in the slightest bit deterred by that.

 

I drove over to the hospital. As I drove ex Prime Minister Gordon Brown was on the radio. He was duller than a dull thing so after two minutes I turned over to my Adriam Mole MP3s.

I got to the hospital and parked right away. There were loads of spaces at the bottom of the car park, but everyone else was driving round and round the top bit desperate to park a few yards closer to the hospital and to have to walk fifty yards less.

I went in and had a hearing test as a first step to sorting out this ongoing tinnitus. I got sat in a soundproof booth with headphones and had to press a button whenever I heard a sound. I heard some but (it transpired) not as many as I might have done. It would seem that I’ve got high frequency hearing loss. The results will go to my ENT consultant, and he will decide how we proceed. There was talk of hearing aids. Hearing aids? Seriously? Oh well… we’ll see what the expert has to say.

 

I came home and collected the dogs (and Pogo who’s having a little holiday with us) and we went up to Kings Wood. We saw some normal people near the car park, including one who seemed incredibly embarrassed to be seen feeding apples to her dog. She was rather shame-faced as she explained how her dog likes apples, and was clearly very surprised what I told her that dogs like fruit and vegetables. She had some strange idea that they only ate meat, and apple was particularly bad for them, and fellow dog walkers would look down on her.

But once we were more than a few hundred yards from the car park we didn’t see anyone else.

 

We walked a different route to our usual one, and after four and a half miles we were back at the car park. We met someone who recognised the dogs; she was about to go geocaching. I wished her luck – for all that the woods are full of geocaches (I put most of them there) we rarely see anyone playing that game.

We came home.

 

We spent a little while pondering over a geo-puzzle. Yesterday when at Newington church we had to go round the graveyard gathering information to solve a puzzle… We tried and tried but couldn’t come up with a plausible location yesterday so we gave up. We tried again today from the living room, but still couldn’t come up with a sensible answer.

I went into the garden to have a little pootle. I mowed the lawn for the first time in months. You know it needs mowing when it is long enough to hide the dog turds. The roses and creepers from not-so-nice-next-door needed hacking back, so I spent a while hacking it back. I ran round with the watering can, and then realising that Treacle was watching me like a pork (to coin a phrase) I announced that it was time to “FEED THE FISH”. All the dogs ran to the pond, with Treacle leading the charge and squealing in excitement.

 

I made us a cuppa, and saw I had a message from the GP. After last week’s debacle with the carpal tunnel clinic I had a message from the GP saying they’d sent in a referral so I should get an appointment at the clinic soon. How soon remains to be seen.

But what with high frequency hearing loss, carpal tunnel syndrome, nasal polyps, aching arthritic joints… this old body is slowly wearing out.

I wrote up some CPD, and by then the afternoon was all but done.

 

As the washing machine chewed on the undercrackers “er indoors ^TM” boiled up pizza and chips, then she went bowling. I sparked up the telly and watched more episodes of the (relatively) recent remake of “Upstairs Downstairs”. It is rather good.

The undercrackers will be out of the tumble drier in a bit and I shall have to sort them. There’s never a dull moment in my world, it there?

 

Oh, and today marks four years since my dad died…

 

6 September 2026 (Sunday) - Bobbing

I put that wrist brace thingy on last night and had a far better night’s sleep. Mind you the previous night shift probably helped. I got up at eight o’clock, put some washing in, had a shave, made toast and peered into the Internet. It was the same as ever. No matter what the subject (this morning it included amongst many others pond fish, pythons, the history of Folkestone, garden birds, cafes in Hastings and the late Kenneth Williams) people were bickering and squabbling.

 

I Munzed, and Wordled from “brace” through “binge” and “bulge” to “beige” and then the dogs came downstairs. The two smallest went out for a widdle, and Treacle grabbed the first thing that she shouldn’t have and proudly marched round showing off what she had taken. She’s always done that. She doesn’t chew or damage anything; just walks round showing off what she’s got. I retrieved that which she shouldn’t have, and she then jumped onto the sofa and started a fight with me.

I won the fight (eventually) then voomed round the garden harvesting turds. Some of the potted shrubs looked thirsty so I gave them a slosh with the watering can. The plants would arguably do better being planted directly into the ground, but they are far tidier in pots.

 

We set off for the day’s adventure. We went to Aldi where the beer selection was frankly disappointing. So we drove round to Sainsbury’s where the place wasn’t full of ill-behaved brats running riot.

From there we drove up to Bobbing where we met up with Karl and Tracey.

Pausing only briefly for Morgan to roll in hedgehog poo we went for a little walk across to Newington and back. It was a rather good walk which had the advantage of being rather flat and was only marred by “er indoors ^TM” coming off second best in an altercation with a wasp.

We came back to Karl and Tracey’s and spent the afternoon sitting in the sunshine… right up to the point where the rain started. It was then that things became rather vague. I took a few photos today – It’s amazing what happens when you don’t pay attention…

5 September 2026 (Saturday) - After the Night Shift

Last night wasn’t a bad night shift but was a tad busier than I would have liked. With nearly a hundred blood samples it was a far cry from how night shifts used to be. I was rather pleased when the day shift showed up.

 

I drove home listening to the antics of Adrian Mole until I got near to Leeds Castle. I switched over to Radio Ashford and the fizzy static slowly gave way to Steve doing the “Guess the Lyrics” competition. “So many nights I long to hold you. So many nights I looked and saw your face”. No? I had no idea either. It was “Human” by The Human League.

 

Rather than going home I went straight to the paddock at Repton and opened up for Dog Club. “er indoors ^TM” and the dogs soon arrived, and were followed by loads of other dogs. We had at least eighteen dogs along today. All were in high spirits, and all played nicely. Morgan did get a tad over-excited, but these days over-excited for him is an enthusiastic bout of dog-piggy-backs.

“er indoors ^TM” went off to craft club. I took the dogs home listening to Steve doing the mystery year competition on the radio – Kylie Minogue singing “On a Night Like This"? – 2000.

By the time I’d had a shower and a spot of brekkie it was after half past ten. If I went to bed that would be the entire day wasted. So I sat on the sofa with the dogs listening to the radio… and woke just in time to hear Steve saying goodbye.

 

I watched an episode of the (relatively) new “Upstairs Downstairs” then as “er indoors ^TM” returned I counted the Dog Club money. There wasn’t very much in the pot bearing on mind how busy the last couple of weeks have been. Perhaps people are paying on-line?

We had a vague idea to go out for a walk, but by the time we’d had a spot of lunch and I’d figured out how to wear my new carpal tunnel wrist splint thingy, the postman had arrived with two magazines. “Viz” will be read from cover to cover many times, and “Transfusion Medicine” is already in the bin. Not that I don’t read it; the thing is available in an on-line format to members of the British Blood Transfusion Society (bet you didn’t know that among the letters after my name are MBBTS, did you…). I suspect my membership fees would be less if I could opt out of getting a hard copy every month.

So rather than going out we sat in the garden and I sniggered at Viz magazine. It must be thirty years of more since I first discovered it, and it still makes me giggle.

Unlike this new carpal tunnel wrist splint thingy.

 

After a few rather uncomfortable hours I had a look on Google to find out about it. Apparently I should wear the thing at night, but only during the day *if* I’m doing anything which puts strain on my wrist. So I took it off.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a rather good curry which we scoffed whilst watching more episodes of “Young Sheldon”. I’m feeling tired – the night shift has taken its toll…

 

4 September 2026 (Friday) - Rain Before the Night Shift

I slept amazingly well last night. Now that I know the pain in my arm originates from an issue in my left wrist I spent the night holding that wrist and it was pretty much pain free for the first time in months. I slept through till eight o’clock.

 

I got up, made toast and peered into the Internet. There was a lot more talk about Nigel Farage this morning. One of his leading lackeys was apparently filmed telling someone with loads of money to give to Farage and Reform UK how best to do it in such a way to get a bung of half a million quid  round electoral law. You’d think that what with all the furore about the iffy five million Farage got given earlier in the year they wouldn’t be so silly. Wouldn’t you? The entire thing is on YouTube…

And last night’s episode of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” was loved by people who’ve been following Star Trek for years and was hated by those who found it recently.

 

I took the dogs up to the woods. Today the place seemed to be heaving with normal people but we eventually got away from them. We had a good walk up to the three-quarter-of-the-way-round point where the heavens opened. We got soaked, and we saw a couple of flashes of lightning too. But I’d rather have that than the bone dry and heat we had over the summer.

The rain stopped as we got within a couple of hundred yards of the car park; I dried the dogs off with a chamois leather I keep in the boot just in case.

 

We drove home listening to more Adrian Mole MP3 who today has stopped doing the dirty deed with Pamela Pigg and is now sniffing round the woman who runs the creche in Safeway.

We got home. I made us both a cuppa… then threw them away and made ones with milk that didn’t have lumps in it (call me fussy if you will). We had cream cakes with them. Very nice.

I wrote up CPD, I Wordled from “cream” to “wager”, getting it right on the last chance, and booked my MOT on the Halfords website. It took some mucking about but I eventually made the booking.

 

I had a shower and went to bed for the afternoon. Morgan and Bailey came with me, and I slept for three hours with my hand merely tingling at worst.

I’m hoping “er indoors ^TM” will boil up some dinner, and then I’m of to the night shift.

 

Today’s been rather dull. I don’t really dislike the night shifts. Generally I quite enjoy just being trusted to get on with the night shift on my own. But (as always) I have spent the day sulking and fretting that I’ve got to go to work later…

3 September 2026 (Thursday) - Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

I put the duvet back on the bed last night and was far too hot. Ho hum.

I made toast and had a look at the internet as I do. Several friends were posting about the latest pontifications of that odious Nigel Farage. No one had a good word for the bloke. The general consensus was that he's an odious little shit who has figured out that by saying any controversial old bollox he can stay on the gravy train for life. He was on Radio Four yesterday whinging that the five million quid bung he was given was to pay for personal security as he needs it. He probably does… however it is strange that he didn’t use any of that bung to pay for security at the hustings of his most recent election which he avoided for “security reasons”.

 

I sorted the Munzee Guild for the month’s “Gauntlet Games” which were starting today, then got ready for the off. I drove round to Halfords where the car was up for a service. Having come up trumps when I needed a new battery a few weeks ago I’m now a member of the Halfords club and I’m quids in.

 

I left the car with them and took a little (three miles) walk. Today was a Qrewzee day. It’s a Munzee thing where Munzees that haven’t been Munzed for over a year are worth a lot more points. It’s actually even more sad than it sounds, but it scanning bar codes stuck to lamp posts is your thing, it can’t be bettered. As well as load of normal Munzees I got loads that hadn’t been done for a year, or two, and quite a few that hadn’t been done for three years.

I Munzed my way to the doctor’s. Being a patient of Ashford Medical Partnership my GP can be anywhere in town. Today it was in Willesborough (three miles away). I went up to the counter and was rudely directed to the self-service machine. I self-served, and sat and listened to the receptionists telling an endless stream of patients that no matter what their question, it wasn’t their problem. As loads of patients tried to help each other struggle to book medical services on their phones the receptionists chattered among themselves about holidays in Ibiza and Turkey, about how Tom owes them all a hundred pounds, about which local schools are the best and (ironically) how easy it was to get a dental appointment.

I eventually got in to see the quack. Some time ago I mentioned that my arm had been giving me gip. It would seem I’ve got carpal tunnel syndrome.

 

I Munzed my way back to the garage (two miles). As I went I had a look at the used cars in the various showrooms on the way. I noticed something odd – apart from the Skoda garage none of the used cars had a price displayed. They all had signs about asking for finance deals.

I got my car. A big service, new windscreen wiper blades, new sparkplugs, various mechanical words that meant nothing to me and the thick end of seven hundred quid. Still, as the nice Halfords man said, being a member of the Halfords club meant I saved fifty quid. And it was cheaper than what I’ve paid at where I used to go.

 

I came home, made myself some toast, and took the dogs to the woods about four hours later than usual.

The woods were rather busy with people, but the car park wasn’t busy at all. I got chatting with someone I see from time to time who said that since the talk of car parking charges started, more and more people have taken to parking up in Challock village rather than joining Forestry England (at two pounds per week).

We walked our usual four and a half miles; given the choice I’d rather stick to our early to mid-morning time slot. The woods were full of the sort of people whose dogs are on the lead all day every day and even in the house. They invariably initially look on my unleaded dogs with terror, and as my wolf-pack walk past and keep going, the looks of terror turn to looks on envy. Dogs take some training, but you’ve got to make a start.

 

We came home. We did “FEED THE FISH”, I gathered dog turds. I made us a cuppa which we had with a Puffin bar. Have you ever had a Puffin bar? It’s like a really good Penguin bar but at a third of the price. An actual third (I worked it out!)

I then got frustrated. This morning the quack told me to go on to https://www.carpal-tunnel.net and use the website to refer myself to the relevant clinic as they don’t like GPs referring. The GP had tried to show me the website, but her PC said it was a dodgy website and we shouldn’t go there. My lap-top agreed, but I told it to suck it up and go there anyway. After a lot of farting about I eventually got a reply from the carpal tunnel clinic which told me that they don’t do self-referrals, and that I should get the GP to refer me.

Oh, how I laughed.

I’ve messaged my GP again… As I’ve mentioned before I’m dealing with the fifty-second best NHS Trust in the country, and I work at the fourth best… In the meantime I’ve ordered a wrist support from Amazon which should be here tomorrow.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up dinner which we shifted with a bottle of rather grim plonk whilst watching this week’s episode of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds”. Tomorrow morning the episode will be truly hated on all of the Star Trek related Facebook pages, but with nods to the original series, the films, The Next Generation and Voyager I thought it was brilliant…

 

I’m feeling worn out – I’ve walked over twenty-two thousand steps today. Now I’ve got carpal tunnel syndrome perhaps I should be taking it easier…

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?

31 August 2026 (Monday) - Bank Holiday

I slept well; eventually getting out of my pit at half past eight. I put a load of washing in to scrub, made toast and had a look at the internet as I do. It hadn’t changed much.

I looked out the window and saw the glorious morning and found myself thinking. Many years ago I used to be a general dogsbody at the Harbour restaurant in Hastings. Over the summer we used to make an average of two hundred and fifty dinners a day. Four hundred dinners was super-busy, and when we did four hundred we knew about it.

August Bank Holiday was always good for over six hundred.

Relatively more recently my August Bank Holiday Monday would regularly be spent taking down tents and clearing away camping gear. Many August Bank Holidays used to be spent camping at a friend’s farm. A great time was had by all, but the August Bank Holiday ones were different to many of the kite festivals we used to visit. At many of our long camping weekends everyone was free for the fun parts, but so many people had burning reasons to go home promptly on the Monday morning. People used to stay to clear up at the August camps.

Camping was fun but it was hard work.

Eleven years ago today we had thunderstorms. In a break in that day’s rain we went to a garden centre where we got my monkey puzzle tree. It’s grown rather impressively.

More recently August Bank Holidays have been a tad dull… no matter where you go is heaving with the normal people so we generally don’t go anywhere.

 

The dogs came down and wanted to go out. I went with them and followed them round with a bucket and trowel. When we first got her, Bailey had a habit of eating the other dogs’ turds. We hoped she’d grow out of it, but four years have passed and she is as coprophagic as she ever was (yuk!) so collecting the dung before she does is always a good idea.

I Munzed,  Wordled from “clear” to “mound” in five goes, and got ready for the day. Some new geocaches had gone live down the road, but the local FTF-hound had been out and had logged the First to Find on one of them within twenty minutes, and then had gone on to do all the others. I must admit these days if I’d got there first I’d do the same. Back in the day I would find one and leave the rest for others. But I’m in the minority with this attitude…

So instead I hung out the washing, and “er indoors ^TM” sorted out some pots to replace her missing geocaches. I then thought I’d prove a point. I cleaned out the filters of both ponds and tided away in less than twenty minutes. The filters I use are *so* much easier and quicker to clean out.

 

We then drove down to the Hamstreet area. It took a few minutes to get out of Ashford; the roads near the outlet centre were heaving. For all the talk of credit crunches and costs of living, there’s never any shortage of people (quite literally) queueing up at the outlet centre to pay way over the odds for massively overpriced tat.

We relocated a geocache with which the geo-feds had found fault, and had a look at two which had been reported as missing. We replaced the missing one, and found the other one exactly where it was supposed to be. We went on intending to replace a third one, but the area was swarming with normal people so we gave that a miss.

We then went on to Snargate church where we wandered round the graveyard getting information for the geo-puzzle based there. We found that puzzle’s geocache just outside the church then went for a little walk. It was a shame that the bridge forming the public footpath was not only impassable with brambles but also blocked with an electric fence. I reported it to the council – let’s see what they do.

The plan was then a pint in the nearby Red Lion but it was closed. Apparently they are closed every Monday. You’d think they’d open for a Bank Holiday, wouldn’t you? Oh well… their loss.

 

We came home. We’d been out for four hours and the queues at the outlet centre were still just as bad.

I popped over the road to the shop and got a couple of bottles of rather good ale (for less than the price of one rather average ale in a pub), and we sat in the garden for a bit scoffing a late lunch of nachos and dip until I nodded off.

 

We had a lazy rest-of-afternoon.  “er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good pasta bake for dinner.

It’s been a rather good (if rather lazy) bank holiday.

30 August 2026 (Sunday) - Early Shift

With an alarm set I was awake far too early. I made toast and put on a new episode of “Stranger Things”. This one played for over two hours; I got bored with it after twenty minutes so I turned it off at what I felt was a sensible place to have ended an episode.

I sparked up the lap-top and had a little look at the Internet. Some conspiracy theory half-wit was ranting on about why we don’t hear anything about the hole in the ozone layer any more. The simple fact is that science found the issue with the ozone layer some years ago, the world’s governments banned the chemicals that caused the damage, and now is ozone layer is on the mend. Sadly the conspiracy theory half-wits weren’t happy to hear this. And they weren’t at all happy to be told that acid rain went much the same way.

I Munzed, Wordled from “twonk” to “intel” in five goes, and got ready for the early shift.

 

I set off for work. As I drove to junction nine of the motorway I was again amazed at how many people were out in their pyjamas walking their dogs. On Friday I mentioned that this would seem to be the way to walk your dog in South Ashford at quarter past six in the morning. Perhaps it is some fashion statement?

 

I drove up the motorway listening to the pundits on the radio. Being Sunday there was some religious drivel being spouted. There was an interview with someone who was supposedly a big cheese in the "Revivalist Movement". Unlike previous "Revivalist Movements" this one is a frankly laughable idea that no religion is completely correct, but as they'd all been going for so long they couldn't all be wrong. So the people pushing this one have cooked up a theory that people might look at the mainstream religions, pick and choose the bits they like from each and ignore the bits they don't like. And if they wanted to make up their own little extras to add on, then that was fine with the idiot being interviewed. Everyone was entitled to their own opinions, and because each person's idea was "their religion" it was somehow both valid and right.

They let these people vote, you know.

 This was followed by an interview with a farmer who was working on National Trust land as part of the "Countryside Stewardship" scheme. From what I could work out this seemed to be a government initiative (from 1991) to keep paying for farms which clearly were losing money hand over fist.

I switched to my Adrian Mole MP3 and carried on up the motorway listening to his antics.

 

I got to work and went in to the early shift where I did my bit. I always say I don't mind working at the weekend when the weather is bad. The forecast for the day had been grim, but (as is so often the way) reality was at odds with forecast.  Or so it started that way, but as the day wore on the glorious sunshine gave way to grey skies and I stopped sulking (a bit). Mind you,  having now worked at some point on eight of the last ten weekends there's no denying I'm going off of the idea.

 

I came home and once we’d done “FEED THE FISH” I geo-puzzled for a bit until my head hurt. “er indoors ^TM” boiled up a rather good curry which we washed down with one of those cheap bottles of plonk.

As we did we watched the last episodes of “Celebrity Hunted”.

I’ve got a theory about that show – it’s all staged. If you were really on the run you really wouldn’t appear heading the bill on stage at live festivals, or live on national television, would you? It makes for good viewing, but if you were really on the run, you’d hunker down somewhere and keep quiet.

But now that the show is over we’ve got to find something else to watch.