7 August 2014 (Thursday) - Gasometer

The original plan foor today was to be taking a day's holiday which would be spent loading the car in readiness for a weekend camping at Teston kite festival. But this time I couldn't get the holiday either before or after the weekend. It was suggested I went up Saturday morning and came back Sunday evening, but it would have been a lot of effort for just one night away.

I suppose I could have taken a lot less gear, but there is a difference between "camping" and "roughing it in a tent"; I've done minimalist camping a couple of times and it's simply no fun. Especially in the rain; and we've had several wet days at Teston over the years.

So like any other day I was up and about far earlier than most people would be. Even "Furry Face ^TM" was still asleep as I scoffed my toast whilst watching new episodes of "Family Guy".

And so to work on a bright morning. Or bright for me. It's not so bright for those in Africa where the ebola epidemic is rampaging unchecked. My piss boiled when the radio wheeled on some academic twit who was bleating on about the need for "ethically controlled evidence" when an experimental drug has been shown to help ebola sufferers. These people are dying (horribly) and people in ivory towers want to mess around with silly experiments. Give the drug. Now.

And I couldn't quite work out what was going on as the announcement was made that far from being affected by the international sanctions, the average Russian seems blissfully unaware of any of their effects. In order to punish them for their alleged involvement in Ukrainian wars the western governments are trying to make things difficult financially for Russia. However it's not working. In response Russia has enforced its own sanctions against those who would take up sanction against them. And it is the rest of the world which seems to be suffering from Russia's tit-for-tat reprisal sanctions. One of the big-wigs at the construction machinery manufacturer JCB said they may well end up going out of business through Russia's actions against the west.

As Fergal once said; the greatest risk of striking out is the risk of being hurt.

I did work, I came home again. Finding that "er indoors ^TM" was home we all went for a walk round the park together. We played "seagull skittles" in the co-op filed when "Furry Face ^TM" set them all flying. We scared a small Scottie, and I even spotted Ashford's elusive gasometer...

6 August 2014 (Wednesday) - This n That

Over brekkie I watched Steve Coogan in "Saxondale"; it's a new series to me; I quite like it. After that I caught the end of an episode of "Smallville". It looked quite interesting. It's a series I've meant to watch, but this one was episode seventeen of season nine, so it's hardly surprising I had no idea what was going on.

Yesterday was a lovely morning; this morning was grey, overcast and raining. As I drove to work I listened to the radio. The news was full of doom and gloom. The war in the Middle East drags on; a truce has been called, but for how long will it last?

The big televised debate about Scottish independence apparently descended into something of a squabble with neither side being particularly outstanding in its presentation. Mind you the take-home message from the televised debate has to be that you couldn't follow it on-line; apparently the Scottish IT servers weren't up to the demand.Prophetic, perhaps?

Leading medics are suggesting that well people in their fifties (ahem!) should take aspirin regularly "just in case" as a preventative measure.

Personally I'd rather take as few medications as possible.

Work was rather traumatic today; we had the inspectors in. This was a bad day for one of the trainees to announce that she suffered from peladophobia - the fear of bald people. Surprisingly enough she wasn't scared of me - she hadn't realised I was bald. In fact the only slap-head in the place. She hadn't realised that.

I did my bit, an early start made for an early finish, and me and "Furry Face ^TM" were soon round the park. We met a new dog on the park's dog circuit; a three month old springer spaniel named Winston. Winston was being walked by a small girl (aged about eight) who apologised to me when Winston tried to hump Fudge. "He does that all the time" she told me. Without really thinking I commented that it was a boy dog thing. As quick as a flash she asked why was it that only boy dogs did that. Seeing that there was no hole to swallow me up I smiled sweetly, made some excuse, and hurried off as quickly as I could.

Once home I took the top box off of my car; it won't go through a barrier I'm going to drive through on Saturday. I've always said that the car's top box isn't so much heavy as awkward; it was heavy enough to make me wish I'd got some help to put it away. I think I might have pulled something...

5 August 2014 (Tuesday) - Stuff

I had a terrible night's sleep. I say "sleep"; when Suzy-pup wasn't barking she was alternately growling or whimpering. I gave up any attempt at sleep at 5am and watched telly whilst she continued to bark, whimper and growl. In between various noises I watched the latest episode of the documentary about trainee Royal Marine Commandoes. I wonder if things had been different could I have been a career soldier? I don't think so somehow.

I then broke one of my resolutions and spent half an hour (or so) squabbling about trivia on social media, and then took both dogs for a walk. We didn't go as far as I had planned; both pups were trying to pick seperate fights with other dogs (in different directions) so we came home again.

As we walked through the park we encountered a rather fat chap doing sit-ups on a park bench with a ghetto-blaster playing Bollywood tunes at full blast. We've not seen him before. And as we came home along Christchurch Road we saw the police hammering on the door of the house out of which a lot of shouting and swearing was coming last night. I had a sly smile about that noise on yesterday's walk; after a torrent of "F- this F-that" another voice bellowed "OK now shut it" and there was silence.

This morning the 'bules are out. I wonder what is going on there?

I left a little early for work; we'd run out of Koi food and yesterday I drove straight past the Koi shop having forgotten all about getting some scoff. I made a point of stopping there today; I looked at the expensive food and laughed. I then looked at the medium priced fish-scran and thought about it, and finally settled for a bag which was five times the weight of the second cheapest stuff for just over half the price. Let's hope they eat it; in the past they've turned their noses up at the cheap scoff. But in these days of austerity it is that or nothing; my dog has the crusts off of my toast now.

I then drove on past work and kept going. Whilst I'd been out with the dogs earlier I'd had an email to say that a new geocache had gone live a few miles past Canterbury. I like doing something in the morning before work, and chasing an FTF is always fun (if you like that sort of thing). I chased it; I got it. Happy dance.

From where I was the way back to work took me through Sturry where a few weeks ago I'd failed to find a cache hidden there. I failed again on this one today. I shall cheat - a geo-buddy found it recently. I shall send her an email.

I then stopped off in the sub Post Office in Sturry to get some sweeties (diet, pah!) and was harangued by a pikey. She'd had a note through her door to tell her to collect a parcel from the Post Office, and so there she was. If I had been brave enough I would have said she was at the wrong Post Office, but I didn't like to tell her that.

She was incensed that she couldn't just turn up at any old Post Office; she thought it was utterly unreasonable that she had to go to a specific Post Office. I would have thought it would have made sense to have gone to the Post Office where they had told her that her parcel actually was; but what do I know?

Work was much the same as ever, and I came home to find our emergency back-up dog had returned home and that the clans had gathered "chez nous". Being late I missed much of the insult-bandying, but sat with a dog on my lap for this week's installment of "The 100". I counted the deaths - it's slightly over ninety now...

4 August 2014 (Monday) - A House Guest

I had a lonely brekkie this morning; "Furry Face ^TM" looked at me and then carried on snoring in his basket. The recent hot weather has taken a lot out of him. As I had my toast I watched the latest episode of "The Mill"; I do like that show. Featuring the rise of the Trade Union movement it's really interesting to watch the rise of something which was once wonderful but now sadly seems to have had its day.

I hung my laundry on the line and set off to work; the news was full of doom and gloom; which was a shame on such a beautiful morning. As I drove I was thinking of Lacey who would be waking up in her tent in Bilsington. She'd spent the night with the Beavers at cub camp with my old cub pack in our old camp site. For a moment I had a pang of nostalgia; but on reflection would I want to go back to camping with the Cubs? I did it for thirteen years. That was quite enough.

I stopped off at Morrisons for a spot of shopping. I parked up my car, and as I got out so I saw a dog in another car. The dog saw me, threw himself at the car's window in an attempt to bite me, and in doing so set off that car's alarm. I did laugh.

Morrisons had no shower gel. What was that all about?

Once at work I did my bit. I was rather industrious (for a change). Lunchtime sax practice went well; I got a glare from a normal person who came up whilst I was tootling, sat in her car, ate her lunch and looked daggers at me for half an hour. Mind you I would probably do the same if all I wanted was a bit of peace and quiet and I had me making a god-awful racket on a saxophone.

There's no denying that my rendition of that tune that goes da-da-da-da-da-dee-dee-doo-doo-dah leaves a lot to be desired, but I do a half-way decent stab at the theme from the Great Escape.

I came home to find it had been raining; my laundry was soaking wet. I put it in to spin and took "Furry Face ^TM" round to the co-op field to play ball. We would have gone on to the park, but the rain put paid to that plan. Instead we came home to find that "er indoors ^TM" had come home with our house guest. One of our walking buddies is staying overnight. She was no trouble during the evening as I did the ironing. I wonder what she will be like overnight...

3 August 2014 (Sunday) - Feeling a Bit Rough

It has to be said that yesterday was something of a blur. I woke this morning in front of the television fully clothed at 2.20am.

I had a shower, went to bed, and slept as best as I could until waking shortly before 7am. It was hot, and someting didn't feel right. As I pulled off my CPAP machine so blood flooded from my nose. I'd developed a nose bleed overnight and the CPAP device had been blowing the blood back up my conk. I came downstairs to find our house guests were all up and about and tidying up. I watched them doing my housework for me whilst I waited for my nose to stop bleeding. It was a rather serious bleed; lasting for over half an hour. I found that standing in the cool garden helped it stop.

As we tidied outside I was very conscious of our "delighttful" neighbour glaring at us from her upstairs window. I smiled sweetly at her and she hurriedly looked away.

A concerted effort had much of the mess sorted by 9am. We had a bite of brekke, and as "er indoors ^TM" sorted the last of the tidying I took the Folkestonians home. I returned to find "My Boy ^TM" and Lacey had come round, and they helped me with the gazebos.

We cooked up some of the barbecue stuff and scoffed it for a spot of lunch. Kim and Andy arrived, and we set off to collect Suzy and her associate. After all today was Sunday; walk day.

Today's geo-walk was deliberately low-key. I thought some of us might be under the weather after yesterday's booze-up, so today I planned a mission to collect geo-souvenirs. Periodically Geo-HQ issue e-souvenirs for if and when you do something geocachical. There are seven souvenirs to be had this month for finding certain types of geo-wotsits. Today we got our planned five. (We'll get the others next Saturday) And we had a gentle stroll too. We had a minor hiccup when we took our lives in our hands crossing the world's most ricketty stile only to find we were going the wrong way, but we soon recovered.

Just recently our Sunday walks have been ten hours and sixteen miles; today was a couple of hours and a couple of miles. It made a gentle change.

"er indoors ^TM" went off bowling and I fell asleep in front of the telly, ending the day much as it started...

2 August 2014 (Saturday) - A Party

I actually managed something of a lie-in this morning havving discovered sommething overnight. I have elucidated the cause of "Furry Face ^TM" 's nocturnal woofing fits. When I went for a 2am tiddle my dog was laying on the front door mat. Clearly he guards the door and being on a main road there are noises; and any one will set him off. I moved him into his basket and we had a quiet night.

I collected "Daddies Little Angel ^TM" and came home to find "My Boy ^TM" setting up for the afternoon's party. Family and friends gathered together to celebrate "er indoors ^TM" 's birthday. It was a really good booze up which became progressiively more vague as the afternoon went on....

1 August 2014 Friday) - Weight Loss

Part of being on a diet is a weekly weigh-in to see how (or if) the weight loss is progressing. In this new diet I've decided to have the weekly weigh-in on a Friday morning. That way I can pig out at the weekends and diet during the week. In this first week my weight's dropped from a shade over sixteen stone to just over fifteen and a half stone. That's seven pounds off thanks to calorie counting and being constantly hungry.

I'm a quarter of the way to my target weight of what I was after the last diet. The first week's weight loss is always the most impressive; let's see how it continues.

I had my usual breakfast of jam on toast. "MyFitnessPal" (dot com) doesn't make allowances for your dog having the crusts; buut they can't be more than fifty calories at most. And with toast scoffed I set off to work. The morning's news really came as no surprise; those who have whistleblown in the public sector have generally not received the legal protection they should have. Instead they have been the victims of "shocking bullying and harrassment"... The sad take-home message here is that one should keep one's trap shut. Too late for many of us now though...

I stopped off at Morrisons for some loo rolls and diet sugar (yes- it exists), and then did a day's work before coming home again. The evening's news was depressing. War and plague. This is the twenty-first century and history is just repeating itself. We may have instantaneous communication, high speed travel, wonderful technology, but as a race we are just the same as we ever were.

I came home via "My Boy ^TM" where I emptied my car and collected the gas-barby, aand once I'd walked "Furry Face ^TM" round the co-op field I had a rather dull evening of domestic drudgery. Household accounts, ironinng, assoorted dull until "er indoors ^TM" came home with fish and chips.

So much for the diet...