6 March 2018 (Tuesday) - Rostered Day Off

I slept like a log last night. I’ve been sleeping well for a few days now. I wonder why? I was woken by "er indoors ^TM"’s alarm which went off at half past seven. I got up, made my toast and as I started to scoff it "er indoors ^TM" went out to move her car (you can only park round the corner till eight o’clock). When she went out, both dogs jumped onto the back of the sofa, frantically worried about where she’d gone. I tried to console them both; they flatly ignored me.

As I scoffed brekkie I had a look at the Internet. I had a few emails. I was told about job opportunities in Croydon and Brighton. Netflix had told me about their latest offerings, and I had several messages about new geocaches. There had been issues with a nearby series and so someone replaced a third of their caches on that series with new ones. But only a third. Why not replace the lot and give us all a new walk? And as I scoffed an email came in about another solitary cache that had been added into the middle of an existing route quite a long way from the road to Canterbury.

I suppose these might make for something to do before a late shift but I’d rather have a decent dog walk.

​

Talking of which I popped the leads onto the dogs and walked round to find "Daddy’s Little Angel ^TM", Sid and Pogo. With "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction ^TM" at nursery (or “brat club” as it is known) we walked the wolf-pack out to McDonalds for a toffee latte. I shared a sausage and egg McMuffin with the dogs. It didn’t go very far.

We came home, and I spent a little while in the garden. Together with "My Boy ^TM", I fixed the fence just before Christmas. Today I made a start at fixing the fixing. With the soil now settled I was able to put the anti-weed membranes back in place and put the edging stones back. However I didn’t re-gravel as I had been planning to. I needed more brindle chippings. I was sure I had loads of spare brindle chippings. I could remember putting them into the red garden bin and I could remember having spare bags of the things. But the red garden bin was empty and there were no bags of chippings to be found.. I shall have to get some on the way to work tomorrow.

I did put the new fluorescent tube into the pond filter. I was going to clean the filter out; it looks like I cleaned it out when I turned it off in the autumn. That saved a smelly job. So with some time spare I mowed the lawn and then came inside.

I hoovered whilst the dogs barked at shadows, then over lunch I watched a film on Netflix. “10 Cloverfield Lane” was odd. It started well; the first hour and a half were one of the best psychological thrillers I’ve ever seen. Without wishing to give the plot away, the last quarter of an hour was rather lame. It was as though the writers didn’t really know how to end the film, so they just played the end of another (utterly unrelated) film and hoped no one would notice what they had done.

​I then spent a while farting around with Google documents. I made something vaguely C.P.D.- related. You can see it here (not that I would bother looking), and then had a little shock. The USB cable I use to charge my phone and watch had been chewed. I hadn’t chomped on it. That leaves three suspects in the house and judging by the look of angelic innocence on the faces of my fur-babies, "er indoors ^TM" is the prime suspect. I suppose I should go shopping for a new cable; I’ll do it tomorrow when getting those chippings.

I woke the dogs, and we went round the park for a little walk. They like going out, and it is all good exercise. We hadn’t been home long when "er indoors ^TM" came home. We had a good bit off scoff then, being Tuesday, it was round to Chris’s for the gathering. Rather a good turn-out tonight. It was good to catch up and put the world to rights.

As we drove home it was hard to believe that only a week ago the snow had me stranded in Pembury…

5 March 2018 (Monday) - Another Late Shift

A good night’s sleep; it would have been better had Fudge not made himself *quite* so comfortable.

I had something of a sense of relief as I had my morning scrub; last night the water had been off for much of the county. With our only water reserve being the garden pond, I was rather pleased to find the taps were still working.

Over brekkie I sparked up my lap-top whilst the dogs had a scrap. They do like their play-fighting. This morning I didn’t have a single notification on Facebook. Not one. I had no emails worth mentioning either. I spent a little while on Google trying to find pond shops on my route to work, then took the dogs out.

As we walked up the road there was a rather large dog tethered outside the newsagents. Treacle gave him some serious attitude form the safety of the other side of the road. If she’d met him face to face she would have run in terror.

We wandered through Bowen’s Field and on to the park. We met some woman we’d not met before on a dog walk. She had six dogs with her ranging in size from something slightly smaller than a gerbil to one which would have won a fight with a bear. She seemed rather stressed. I find having two dogs to be difficult enough.

We came home. Whilst Fudge (finally) ate his breakfast, Treacle searched the house and garden for "er indoors ^TM" who had clearly gone to work. Being unable to find her, the silly puppy then started to cry. Both dogs make no secret of who their favourite human in the family is.

I spent a couple of minutes getting the fluorescent tube out of the fish pond filter (so I would know what one to get from the shop), settled the dogs and set off. I'd planned to get a new fluorescent tube for the garden pond on my way to work this morning. So (to brighten what might otherwise be a dull morning) I'd planned my journey to work via several geocaches which were (vaguely) on the way to the pond shop.

I started my little adventure with a double failure at Horsmonden church. There were supposedly two caches in the vicinity. I solved the puzzle for one to find it was three hundred yards away across a quagmire, and the other looked to have gone with a landslide.

Yesterday I'd been to Horsmonden village to get the information to solve three puzzle geocaches there. I say "there" - the information for the puzzles was there. One of the caches wasn't too far away so I went for that one. As I acted suspiciously by a fence I was being watched by a chap who was driving past at slower than walking speed. I gave him the sickliest of smiles, and he soon pissed off. I thought about hunting out the other two puzzles I'd solved yesterday but the final locations for them were some distances away in woodlands. I didn't fancy stomping through the mud today so I gave those a miss.

Mind you I did get another cache there which I found whilst visiting the municipal toilets. You don't see municipal toilets very often these days, do you?

I carried on up the road to my next port of call where I met with mixed results. I found one cache (in sad need of maintenance) on a post box, but couldn't solve the puzzle near the church as there were builders doing builder things right where I needed to be. Similarly a mile up the road I was thwarted by a cyclist. The given clue for the geocache at this place was "take a seat"; I got to the bench to find a cyclist disassembling his bike on that very bench. It was near there that I also couldn't get the clues for a puzzle based on an Oast house as I couldn't find anywhere to park.

It was with a sense of relief that I solved a puzzle in Matfield church and found a film pot not far away.

Four finds and seven fails; that's a piss-poor success rate.

Mind you from Matfield church it was only half a mile to Pelagic Aquatics. I went in to find a rather pleasant young lady cleaning out the snakes. She let me help; it was such fun playing with the royal pythons. And there was a rather huge Burmese python too. I got rather gooey-eyed with one pastel-shaded royal python. Do I want snakes again... maybe.

I spent so long in there that I nearly forgot to get the new bit for the fish pond filter.

I went on to work via the Notcutts garden centre. Overpriced and pretentious; I didn't hang around for long.

For the last year when on the late shift I would have McLunch, but with no McDonalds anywhere nearby I've taken to using the hospital canteen for dinner. It is reasonably priced, the good is good, and it is served quickly. Today's cauliflower, broccoli and tomato in cheese sauce was rather good. And I didn't have any chips either.

After my little adventure, the late shift was something of an anticlimax…

4 March 2018 (Sunday) - Early Shift

I woke just before five o'clock with a pounding headache. It was as well I had to get up at that time anyway. Over brekkie I watched an episode of "F is for family", the latest thing I've taken to watching on Netflix. It is rather good... if you like that sort of thing. As I watched telly my Fudge snored in his basket. When I went to go upstairs he heaved himself out of his bed and looked at me as if to ask to be carried upstairs. I carried him to my bed where he settled whilst making strange squeaking noises. He does that when he's tired.

I set off to work shortly after six o'clock. In contrast to the week that has just gone, this morning wasn't cold or icy. I liked that. I stopped briefly for geo-purposes in High Halden just as dawn was breaking. The view was rather pretty.

I then made good time to work. As I drove the pundits on the radio were wittering about iambic pentameter in historical verse and its connection to the human heartbeat. This was followed with some utter drivel about all the breeds of snowdrops that the Victorians bred only to have them all die of fungus infections. (Yes - I thought it was a waste of the licence fee too).

I turned the radio off and listened to my rather strange choice of music for half an hour. When I turned back to the radio there was a documentary about how it is disrespectful to chuck away worn and damaged copies of the Bible and the Koran. Rather than risking religious ire, a couple of rich nutters have obtained several miles of caves in the Middle East. and have made it their lives' work to respectfully entomb damaged holy tomes in said caves.

I wish I had enough money to go round the world gathering up old books and sticking them into my huge cave. If I had enough money to do that, actually doing that would be the last thing I would do with my money though.

Having far too much money is wasted on some people.

I got to work with twenty minutes to spare. I considered having a fry-up in the canteen, but this is becoming something of a habit and bearing in mind I'd been promised a carvery after work I gave it a miss. You can probably imagine my disappointment when I got a message shortly after I'd started work telling me the carvery trip was cancelled.

I sulked a little as I got on with work. But not that much. I had a rather busy day, and as I worked I felt rather worn out. I wasn’t feeling quite one hundred per cent today. I was glad when home time came.

Since we weren’t eating out (and there was no rush to get home) I took a little diversion into a village which was (sort of) on my way home. There are a few geo-puzzles in Horsmonden which require you to wander round the village to find out things. I *could* have found things out and then gone on to find the secreted Tupperware, but instead I just got the answers to the clues I needed and then came home. It was raining; farting about has some limits.

Once home I geo-puzzled a little. I say a little; a few hours is more accurate. I’m puzzled out now. I shall watch the telly for a bit. It don’t watch itself, you know…