5 January 2017 (Thursday) - Bad Day

I woke up shortly before the alarm was about to go off and looked out of the bedroom window. I was pleased to see the cars outside weren't iced up. I got up and tiddled the dogs. Because going straight from warm baskets to a cold garden is something of a shock I always go out with them. I didn't think it was that cold at 5.30am; certainly not as cold as it has been recently.

The dogs then shot upstairs to lay on my bed, and over some toast I watched a rather sad episode of "Dad's Army" in which Captain Mainwaring fell in love. I then got dressed, said goodbye to the three who were snoring on (and in) my bed and went out to find that during the previous hour my car had iced up quite impressively.

As I scraped the ice from my car I saw something quite remarkable. A cyclist. On the road (where he should be) and not on the pavement. And with hi-vis clothing and lights on his bike.

I set off to work and it wasn't long before I very nearly ran over some twit cycling dressed all in black with no lights. He came seemingly from nowhere; this near miss shook me up somewhat. I opened the window and shouted that he should be more visible. He shouted "F... off" and kept going - almost directly into another car; seemingly oblivious to the mayhem he was causing.

The pundits on the radio commented that today had been the coldest night of the winter so far. Admittedly it had got cold over brekkie but the coldest night?

I must admit to having had a wry smile over the next bit of news.  The government's All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on social integration has recommended that all immigrants to the UK should be able to speak English before trying to come to the UK, or should learn the language as a matter of urgency once having arrived.

Really? Who would *ever* have thought that this might be a good idea?

What really boils my piss about this is that this *isn't* news. This has been an issue for years. Regular readers of this drivel may recall my previous rants on this subject. On 30 January 2013 I complained about the recent census which showed that at that time there were one hundred and thirty eight thousand people in the UK who couldn't speak English. And that wasn't "spoke English badly" - that was "couldn't speak English at all". The number that spoke English badly was over seven hundred thousand back then. And on 12 February 2007 I mentioned that forty thousand long term UK residents stood to lose their unemployment benefit due to proposed government legislation in which the government was planning to cut benefits for anyone who was unemployed because they could not speak English and refused to take (free) English lessons.

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for immigration. After all, the countries hospitals would close tomorrow if not for immigrant labour.  But surely the ability to speak English is a pre-requisite for coming to the UK?

(And for those who *are* against immigration I have a question from my own personal experience... You advertise a vacancy for a vital job in a hospital several times in various nationwide job markets. You don't get a single application from any UK nationals. Not one. How would you proceed?)

I stopped off at Morrisons petrol station on the way to work. Again the petrol in Canterbury is five pence per litre cheaper there than in Ashford. And then I went to work for my last early shift. And I also did far more than my bit. Because it needed to be done..

As I worked I found myself looking out of the window. Yesterday I took a day off and it rained for much of the time. Today the sunshine was glorious.

An early start made for an early finish. In all honesty I would rather have stayed at work this evening. I got home and took my dog for a short walk. The puppy stayed in her cage as she makes the walk too much of a misery. Once the walk was over I let the puppy out. Both dogs got *very* jealous of each other as I tried to fuss both.

I came out of the shower to find the puppy chewing my watch. It took an age to load the washing machine as the puppy kept running off with the clothes. It was fun at the start; the novelty of having a puppy has worn off…

Yesterday I had a really good day. Today was rather crappy…

4 January 2017 (Wednesday) - A Day's Fishing

The alarm woke me this morning; that was a result. I got up and chased the puppy into the garden where she did what was expected of her. She then charged upstairs to terrorise "er indoors ^TM" and "Furry Face ^TM" whilst I watched another episode of Dad’s Army.

I’d loaded my fishing gear into my car last night, and there hadn’t been any frost overnight so I was able to make a quick getaway this morning. I picked up "My Boy ^TM" shortly before 7am, and we drove round to Rocky’s café for brekkie. Suitably stuffed we then set off to Shirkoak for a day’s angling. Bearing in mind the debacle last time we tried to fish there (no one was there to open up) "My Boy ^TM" had phoned them last night to prompt them to open the gates. We arrived about forty minutes after the official gate-opening time and only had to wait ten minutes to get in.

We got parked up and soon found a spot which was out of the wind and we set up our tackle. My plan was to do some quiver-tipping (it’s a fishing thing) and have my new fishing rod (what I got from Christmas) on the hunt for the occasional something big. Things turned out to be the complete opposite. The quiver-tip did hardly anything all day; the new rod was all action… eventually.

We started off with a minor disaster; we both set up our first rods and cast out. There was a crunch as our lead weights went through the ice, and then our end tackle was stuck fast. The ice wasn’t that thick, just thick enough to hold the fishing kit and not let us reel it back in.

It was at this point that "My Boy ^TM" had a stroke of genius. Using his catapult he fired maggots and bait pellets and bits of his sandwich in the general direction of the ice. This attracted hungry ducks which followed where the food was being fired. And these ducks were heavy enough to break the ice. Carefully directed by "My Boy ^TM"’s catapult, the ducks acted as icebreakers so we could get our gear back.

We then looked about the lake and cast out into an area where the lake *wasn’t* frozen. Mind you we did have a lot of false-alarm-bites from icebergs drifting into our lines.

We got fishing and I was soon getting bites. I had several carp of about four pounds in weight. But after an hour or so the rain started. To be fair the rain was pretty much as forecast, and we’d gone expecting the rain. But it still takes a certain mind-set to sit in the rain in January. And the wind changed direction to blow the ice back in our direction. But it was warming up slightly and the rain had cleared by mid-day. In fact by early afternoon there was a blue sky. It really was four seasons in one day; it was a shame that I ended up effectively camped out in a swamp.

But what do you expect when you go fishing in the first week of January?

There was a minor mishap at 3pm. I cast out my line and put the rod on the rest. As I put the rod down I saw the line streaming off of the reel. A fish right away? That had already happened three time today. But this wasn’t a fish. As I’d cast out I’d managed to put the line right over a duck which was immediately tangled by the line. I reeled him in right away; the duck wasn’t hooked at all; just tangled. We soon got him free, and we were amazed at just how tame the duck seemed to be. He didn’t struggle at all, so we took a few photos of him. In fact I took several photos whilst we were out today.

By 3.30pm out was getting rather cold so we came home. For all that it was the middle of winter we’d had a good day’s fishing; I’d had about twenty carp all big enough to need a landing net; the largest of which being a shade under six pounds in weight. Serious carp anglers wouldn’t be impressed, but having spent a lifetime tiddler-bashing anything over half a pound in weight is big for me.

For some odd reason "My Boy ^TM" hadn’t been anywhere near so successful. It was odd; we’d both been doing pretty much the same thing all day. I had been lucky, he had not.

Once home I took "Furry Face ^TM" for a walk. Just him; not the puppy. Me and my dog had a good walk; far better than yesterday’s shambles when the puppy caused chaos.

Mind you "Furry Shark ^TM" didn’t miss out. "er indoors ^TM" took her for a walk. To the vet’s – she was up for injections.

Once "er indoors ^TM" returned we had a rather good bit of dinner. I think I might have an early night – I’m on the early shift tomorrow…

3 January 2017 (Tuesday) - This n That

I had a surprisingly good night - no caffeine perhaps? Mind you I was still awake before the alarm. I came down and chivvied the dogs into a cold garden to do their "business" then they both charged upstairs to my bed.

Over toast I watched an episode of Thunderbirds and with a little time on my hands I watched an episode of Dad's Army. It was during this that "Furry Face ^TM" came back downstairs, and we sat together for a few minutes whilst I combed him. He likes that.

I set off to work rather earlier than I might have done. There was a lot of ice to be scraped off of my car, and when I could finally see out of the windows the street was totally blocked by traffic. Coming up the street was a dustbin lorry, and trying to go down the street was a load of traffic which didn't have the sense to take a thirty-second detour down the side road.

As I drove to work the pundits on the radio had a new theory why dinosaurs became extinct - apparently their eggs took too long to incubate.

And there was lots of talk about the government's new initiative to provide cheap housing for first time buyers.

It struck me as very odd that a capitalistic party would be doing something quite so socialist, but what do I know?

I went to Morrisons for stuff; probably the last time I will be in there at 7.30am, and went on to work. I'd not been there for a while. Part of me was wondering if leaving was a good idea. Within eleven minutes I was convinced I should go.

I then spent much of the morning worrying about "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction ^TM". Today was his first morning at nursery. It turned out he had a good time; I’d been worrying over nothing.

As I came home this evening there was an article about the author C.S. Lewis on the radio. Some pompous windbags were trying to read all sorts of blather into the books he wrote about Narnia. Apparently the lion Aslan was allegorical for Jesus. I recognised these pompous windbags as being *exactly* the sort of people who bend over backwards to spoil literature.

My English teachers at school were just the same.

Once home I walked the dogs round the block. It was an utter disaster. The puppy had her coat on and didn’t cry, but she was swarming all over the place and made a misery of the entire walk. For the last fifty yards I was dragging her home.

I then got my fishing gear together and was rather disappointed to find that the seat-box that "er indoors ^TM" had got me for Christmas was actually far too small to be of any use to me.

Being Tuesday we had planned to gather the clans, but all sort of unforeseen eventualities prevented that so we had a lazy evening in. I sorted out a Facebook event for the astro club’s next meeting.

I could have done a lot more… but I just slobbed about.