3 September 2016 (Saturday) - Blasts from the Past

Another restless night; I woke feeling rather lonely. With both "er indoors ^TM" and "Furry Face ^TM" at geo-camp the house seemed rather empty. I made some brekkie and was scoffing it whilst watching “Killjoys” before seven o’clock.

I then thought I might do some laundry. I’ve been unable to locate any tea towels recently. I found them all in the washing basket. So I set the washing machine loose on them and had a go at emptying my letter rack.

First of all was bank statements. I knew they wouldn’t be pretty, and they weren’t. The bank has also sent me a contactless credit card. I’ve not had one of these before. I wonder if I will ever use it.

I then had the 2016 Federation of Astronomical Societies handbook. A rather well-produced booklet. It doesn’t look as though it was cheap to make, I doubt anyone will ever actually read the thing, and it had the wrong contact details for our astro club.

Having heard the washing machine was done I hung out all the tea towels and ran out of pegs. I’d had this plan to mow the lawn, but heavy rain overnight meant the grass was soaking so I carried on sorting the contents of the letter rack.

Car insurance renewal documents, house insurance renewal documents, dog insurance renewal documents. And I found two dog insurance claim forms. I’d been waiting for those and having given up waiting in the end I’d downloaded one. The claim forms were partly filled in for me; they said Fudge’s birthday was 28 August 2010. I wonder if that is right?

I had an offer of insurance on the water pipes coming in and out of the house. I’m hoping that is covered on the house building insurance; it was last time. And I had a voucher for fifteen pounds off of the next car service. I could have used that last week (!)

I had a letter from the Halifax building society telling me of changes to an account that I don’t think I have.

And there were three Ordnance Survey maps in the letter rack. I wonder what they were doing there.

With the letter rack sorted and once again empty I then cracked on with the Bat-Camp archive. I must admit I’m finding it rather hard work. The more recent years will be easier as I’ve kept regular diaries since 2006, but so far I’ve done the first three camps. Admittedly they are now over sixteen years ago, but surely someone must remember something from way back when. It would be good if they did because I don’t. Which is why I started writing this diary.

Mind you I did find something of a treasure trove; loads of photos from the August 2000 camp, but all in .cam format. With a little fiddling about I turned them into .jpeg and then I posted the lot up to Facebook. I shall use some of those later. I then had a rummage and also found a hoard of piccies from 1998 and another from 1999.

"Daddy’s Little Angel ^TM" phoned. Did I want to drive her out to Headcorn to watch s friend doing a parachute jump? To be honest I didn’t. I’ve had this annoying cough and cold for a day or so and a morning spent slobbing about was what I had in mind.

My laptop then asked if I would mind if it had a little updating session. Bearing in mind that it was nice to be asked I said it would be fine. It was at this point that it told me the update might take an hour and a half, so I left it to get on with it, and despite the grass being damp I mowed the lawn and watched another episode of “Killjoys”. The show is somewhat like “Dark Matter” in that although I quite like it, I have no idea who is what, and what is happening.

I then spent the afternoon in bed. The original plan had been to go to geo-camp, and the backup plan had been the beer festival at the rugby club. But a colleague needed to swap his shifts so’s he could get married and so I felt I ought to oblige.

After three hours sleep I got the washing in, had some scoff, watched a documentary about the Kray twins, and now I’m off to work…

2 September 2016 (Friday) - Sevenoaks, Fishing

I was wide awake and breathless after only three hours sleep, and so was sitting up watching “South Park” ay 3am. After a couple of rather lame episodes I was able to breathe relatively easily so I went back to bed only to find my side of the bed had been hijacked by a small dog. I worked myself around him, and slept until 6am.

Over brekkie I watched this week’s episode of “Dark Matter”. For all that I like the show I have absolutely no idea of which character is what, and have no idea what is going on. Perhaps I need to watch the lot again from the beginning.

I then had a look on-line. There was something on Facebook which made me sigh. Apparently research has now found that smacking children when they are badly behaved actually makes them better people. This is something I’ve been saying for years; it has always been my experience that those who advocate against corporal punishment either have no experience of children or have the most ill-behaved brats.

I watched one such ill-behaved brat shove its small sister over in the park the other day. The father tried to reason with the brat and explained how the smaller one’s feelings had been hurt. The one that had done the shoving just did it again. A crack on the arse would have been far more effective; and would only need to be applied once.

I then spent a little while going through photos of myself which people had posted onto Facebook in which I was asleep. I’m sure my habit of nodding off at inopportune moments is really amusing to some; to me it is a matter of extreme frustration. I’ve untagged myself in all the photos I can find.

I then popped the lead onto "Furry Face ^TM" and we drove up to Sevenoaks Weald where seven of us (and two dogs) had a rather good walk round the beautiful Kentish countryside. Some rather wonderful views, pretty woodlands… it was only a shame that I had to finish off the rabbit that one of our pups didn’t quite kill cleanly. But that is survival of the fittest for you. And I even took a few photos as we walked. Today we wandered for about four hours. We covered a shade over five miles and made twenty five geo-finds; finishing just as the rain started.

I do like the mid-week walks. I find a geo-series that I haven’t done that looks as though it will fill a few hours, solve the nearby puzzles just in case we might be walking past them, then I just ask who fancies going for a walk. Sometimes no one is free, and other days (like today) there are several of us. Someone else has done the hard work in organising the route; all I do is ask who wants to go for a walk with me and my dog.

We made our way home, and arrived home just as "er indoors ^TM" was pulling up. I helped her load her car (she’s off to geo-camp with Fudge) and I loaded my fishing gear into my car and went round for "My Boy ^TM". We then had three hours tiddler-bashing at Singleton Lake. We soon lost count of the amount of fish we’d caught (but both agreed I’d had most) so we decided to have a competition based on who caught the most species of fish. I won – Dan didn’t catch any bream.

By seven o’clock the light was failing and we were both rather cold so we gave up. I dropped "My Boy ^TM" home, then I got myself a kebab and chips for dinner, and settled down in front of the telly. “Game of Thrones” doesn’t watch itself…

1 September 2016 (Thursday) - Late Shift

Another restless night. No matter how tired I get and despite the best efforts of my CPAP machine I simply cannot sleep for long enough because I cannot breathe. I lay awake for much of the night and when I should be up and about and doing things during the day time I find myself falling asleep. I *really* hate that. And everyone takes photos of me asleep and plasters them all over Facebook as though it is some great joke. Would people do the same if I was having an epileptic fit or a diabetic coma?

Hopefully more surgery up the nose will cure the problem; even if only temporarily. The appointment with the ENT specialist can’t come soon enough.

Over brekkie I had a look-see on-line. Lots of people were posting pictures of children in school uniforms getting ready to go back to school. I glossed over them as quickly as I could before I started experiencing “Swadelands flashbacks”; I had one or two letters of complaint about "My Boy ^TM" over the years (including one when he was snogging when he should have been doing lessons) and "Daddy’s Little Angel ^TM" was never the ideal pupil.

I had hoped for an email telling me of a new geocache on the way to work but my morning haul of emails was rather dull. So I checked out the news – The Crystal Maze is to come back to the telly; this time with David Tennant running the show. Personally I always liked Ed Tudor-Pole in that role, but doesn’t this just sum up what is wrong with TV at the moment? With Star Trek and Red Dwarf due for new series soon and Poldark coming back on Sunday (to say nothing of Are You Being Served), there are so many re-makes. Let the old stuff go. Make new programmes!

I took "Furry Face ^TM" for a quick walk round the park. He humped a small fluffy dog to the consternation of some silly old woman who wasn’t at all impressed by my telling her that he had been “done” three years ago. She could tell he hadn’t been “done” because of the expression on his face. I tried to show her his lack of “flowers and frolics” but she was having none of it. Apparently you can tell if a dog has been done because it has a chubbier happier expression. One lives and learns. I suppose my little dog has lost a lot of weight recently after his illness, but he still doesn’t have any “flowers and frolics”.

We also saw a very odd jogger. Her legs seemed to be outracing the rest of her, and were a good foot (if not two) in front of her top half. She didn’t look to be at all comfortable.

As I walked my phone beeped with an email from the pet insurance people. They weren’t happy that I hadn’t filled in their questionnaire which they claimed they’d emailed me last week. So once home I had a look on-line. I’d asked the insurance people to pay the money from my claim (after "Furry Face ^TM"’s stay in dog hospital) into my bank account. No payments had been made. I felt physically sick and, expecting the worst, I gave them a ring. I *need* that six hundred pounds.

I got through to a really helpful chap who looked up my details and said they’d only received the claim form yesterday. He went through the details and saw a lot of information (that the vets were supposed to supply) was missing. He said he’d need to contact the vet before he could even begin to look at the claim. And furthermore it usually takes twenty-five days between receiving the claim and paying up (or telling the client to get knotted).

The nice man was at a loss to explain why I’d been sent the questionnaire. I filled it in; entering “don’t know” for most of the answers.

I then spent a few minutes on my latest project. In September 1998 a gaggle of us spent a weekend camping at a certain farm in Smarden. Over the years we’ve camped there a few times and I for one took photos. I did have a website of memories of those camps, but when mankybadger dot com was wiped (cheers EE!) they all went west. However that website hadn’t been updated for years and so it’s prompted me to re-make that website. It is still all in the early stages; in fact so far I’ve only got the camp from 1988 done. If any of my loyal readers have any photos or memories from any of those camps please do email them to me. In the meantime I’m ransacking everyone’s Facebook photos. I’ve made the decision that any photo I can find on-line is fair game to use. From personal experience I’m pretty sure I have the legal right to do this, but if anyone objects… don’t make your photos public (dur!)

I’m off to work now. I’d rather not have done the late shift today; there is a session of watching bats at Singleton Lake this evening. I suppose I could have got myself organised and swapped my shifts, but I never got round to it…