3 November 2018 (Saturday) - Stormageddon's Visit

I woke with something of a headache and a sore arm. Was that the after-effect of yesterday’s flu jab?

I got up and had a quick look at the Internet. It hadn’t changed *that* much since yesterday. This morning people were grumbling about how Christmas decorations are appearing in shops and Christmas adverts are on the telly. Personally I think they are probably right to grumble. Every year I start off in early November all keen and enthusiastic about the festivities, but by the time they arrive (two months later) I’m thoroughly sick of hearing about it. Starting all the Christmas stuff now spoils it for me.

Talking of Christmas I also read that there are no plans for a Christmas Day episode of Doctor Who as the people who make it have run out of ideas. I think they reached that point some time ago. I’ve not seen last week’s episode yet and am in no rush to see it. Which (as a life-long Doctor Who fan) is something of a shame.

"er indoors ^TM" and "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction ^TM" came downstairs; we got ourselves together and drove out to the Beefeater on Eureka park where we’d planned to meet "My Boy ^TM" and his branch of the tribe for brekkie.

Have you ever been to the Beefeater on Eureka park for brekkie? I can’t recommend the place. Having been told there was a half-hour wait to be seated we sat for forty minutes looking at empty tables and watching people (who’d arrived after us) being seated and served. Eventually we got a table. After half an hour of being pointedly ignored by the staff "My Boy ^TM" fetched over a waitress who took the food orders. After another half an hour they brought up various plates of food; not one actually corresponding to what we’d ordered. But bearing in mind how long we’d waited already, and also bearing in mind that the McDonalds over the way had stopped doing breakfast by then, we decided to just eat it. I ate what I could. The black pudding was red where it was still raw. I don’t mind a runny fried egg, but it is the yolk which should be runny, not the white.

As I looked at my inedible leftovers I tried not to laugh out loud at the waitress who was clearing tables. What I worked in a restaurant I would carry away more than two pieces of crockery at a time when clearing a table. I also would pick up the cutlery that I dropped; not leave it for twenty minutes.

We’d read that if there were any problems we should bring them up with the duty manager. However when the duty manager came over to us we didn’t have chance to bring anything up. He marched up, announced that we should get a move on because breakfast was finishing in five minutes, and he marched off.

When I paid, the waitress was apologising profusely; she knew what a poor service they’d offered. Realistically they should have half the tables or double the staff. I told her so. She agreed but said that this had been pointed out to the management already.

Bearing in mind that the duty manager had had his chance, I slated the place on Google and TripAdvisor.

We then drove round to Bybrook Barn garden centre to have a look at the fish stuff and the toys, and then "er indoors ^TM" set off to a girls’ lunch in Folkestone. So we went home to collect the dogs, and took "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction ^TM"  and the family wolf-pack round the park for a walk. As we walked I recorded some of our antic which I made into a little video.

"My Boy ^TM" and Cheryl went home; "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction ^TM"  and I settled in front of the telly and watched “The Annoying Orange” videos on You-Tube until he got bored. We then had something of a fight which his mother tried to referee by phone from thirty miles away.

I suggested we might take to dogs up the park again to amuse him; he readily agreed but dawdled so slowly that it was dark by the time we got there.

We came home to find "er indoors ^TM" had returned. She boiled up pizzas for tea. "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction ^TM" has settled in front of the telly watching walk-throughs of video games (that he doesn’t understand) on You-Tube. "er indoors ^TM" has told him it is bath time several times. he has pointedly ignored her on each occasion. He seems to be rather proficient at doing that…

2 November 2018 (Friday) - Late Shift

I slept well, but did have a night plagued with rather vivid dreams in which the departmental health and safety officer was walking round work clouting everyone over the head (rather vigorously) with a clipboard and shouting “HAZARD!!” at the most ridiculous things.

Waking came as something of a blessed relief.

Over brekkie Facebook reminded my that two years ago I went for a job interview. Reading my diary from two years ago it didn’t look like that interview went that well but looking back I’d say that was something of a turning point in my life. I quite like working in an environment where I’m *not* under pressure to look for my colleagues’ mistakes so that either they get in trouble for making them, or I get in trouble for not finding them. Mind you, looking back at where I used to work you have to admire the genius of the administration. Having implemented a “no bullying” policy the management can bully to their heart’s content secure in the knowledge that no allegations of bullying will be investigated as the place has a policy of not having bullying in the first place.

Realising I was getting rather bitter and twisted again I took a deep breath and pausing only briefly to get jam into my phone’s charging socket I took the dogs round the park.

Yesterday it rained hard all day. Today was a beautiful morning. We had a really good walk right up to the point where we met OrangeHead and her gang of cronies. Fudge decided to have a transfer of allegiance and walked off with her bunch. He does this *every* time; the only way to get him to come away is to put his lead on and drag him. He knows this and runs away whenever I get close. I very nearly walked off and left him there. I actually did walk off with Treacle on the lead. After a few minutes he followed rather sheepishly.

He knew he was in trouble…

We got home; I settled the pups and set off to work. As I drove there was some utter drivel on the radio in which someone was being interviewed about their skill in writing graphic novels. Have you ever read a graphic novel? They boil my piss. They aren't novels at all. They are comic books. I like a comic book (I subscribe to Viz magazine) but a comic is a comic. Calling it a "novel" is just wrong. A "novel" has words; a comic book has pictures. In my more unkind moments I describe graphic novels as being for those who can't be bothered to read the words so look at the pictures instead. Something of a subtle difference perhaps?... I turned the radio off.

I'd planned myself a little geo-mission for this morning. There were two geocaches along the A249 neither of which had been found in over a year. I thought I might try for a resuscitation or two, but (to be honest) I wasn't particularly hopeful about resuscitating either.

I knew my first target was going to be problematical. Previous finders had mentioned (in their written logs) the lack of footpaths from the roadside to the cache. The chap who'd hidden it claimed that according to the ordnance survey maps it was smack-bang on a footpath. I'm no expert but from the maps I could find, it looked as though the specified location was smack-bang on some sort of parish boundary. Still, climbing a broken fence and marching through a planted field soon had me at the World War II pill box in which the cache was supposedly hidden.

I couldn't find it.

To be honest the cache was part of a series very few of which have been found in the last couple of years.  That could be because they are clever hides, or because they aren't there any more....

I marched back through the planted field and across the broken fence back to my car.

My second target was also not going to be easy. It was originally hidden by someone at Kent County Council who wanted to attract tourists to their country parks. The cache's name was "Ouch" and the description suggested "going in backwards" and not going in from the main road. Clearly it was going to be in the jungle of undergrowth.

Approaching from the country park my GPS led me to a thicket and said the cache was some eighty yards inside it. Like the idiot that I am, I followed the arrow through hawthorn and bramble. After twenty minutes I found my quarry. I was the first finder in over a year. Another resuscitation to my name. Happy dance.

Mind you I think it quite fair to say that the person who'd first hidden it had drop-kicked the thing into a rather thick hedge a few years ago and had left it to rot. Perhaps I should put "Needs Archiving" on it?

Pausing only briefly for a church micro (as one does) I drove on to work.

I'd planned to get to work early because there was a flu jab clinic today. Normally I'm not keen on injections, but after the fun I'd just had in the thickets and brambles, the flu jab was plain sailing. And I got a sweetie too.

The works canteen was offering cauliflower cheese for lunch. Not too shabby at all.

And so into work. I did my bit and came home to mayhem. "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction ^TM"  has come to stay for the weekend. We watched “Paw Patrol” until far too late.

1 November 2018 (Thursday) - It Rained

I slept for over eight hours last night. It is odd that I can’t sleep much during the day time after a night shift, but I am out like a light during the night. I was eventually woken by the sound of the torrential rain on the window this morning.

There was so much I might have done today. There was talk of fishing. I might have taken the dogs on a rather long walk. The garden really needs a bit of attention. Everything was abandoned because of the awful weather. Perhaps it is time for a review of my lifestyle and find things to do which don’t involve being outside.

Mind you I’m glad we’ve got the rain this week and not last week when we were away on holiday. We had a *really* good break in the New Forest. Was it only a week ago?

Over brekkie I had a look-see at Facebook. A friend’s granddaughter was very ill, and she was asking for prayers for the little one. How does that work? Presumably the prayers are directed to some god who could cure the child? Surely this begs the question of why the god allowed the child to get ill in the first place, and why does the god have to be begged for help. Is this god the capricious sort that allows bad things to happen (or causes them) just so we beg for assistance? Or does it just have no idea what is going on until we prompt it with a prayer? I’m not sure I want anything to do with a deity like that. I wish I understood religion.

Another friend was ranting on-line about what a bitch his ex-girlfriend was and was listing her many and varied failings to the world whilst wondering why the courts were siding with her in his ongoing custody battle.

I had the obligatory email from Amazon suggesting I buy that which I’d already bought, and an email from the Internet provider telling me all the wonderful deals they were offering on the phone line that I cancelled last month.

The bank had sent me an email. They’ve started providing an e-newsletter. Someone’s obviously being paid a lot of money to produce the thing. I wonder how many readers it will get? I for one have no interest in reading a load of corporate nonsense.

Despite the rain I took the dogs round the park. Hardly anyone else had ventured out, but we did meet a rather bedraggled chap and his equally bedraggled red setter which Fudge tried to hump. When we were nearly home we met OrangeHead; her dog was wearing a coat. Fudge flatly refuses to wear a coat but I might try one on Treacle.

We got home just as the dishwasher was finishing. As we left I’d set both it and the washing machine on a one-hour cycle. The dishwasher was done but the washing machine still had half an hour to go. What was that all about?

I dried the dogs and settled them, gathered the dry washing from the radiators and went up into town. With pretty much all of the day’s possibilities being washed out I thought I might go to the library. Having done the Snowdog trail there were some freebies to be collected.

I drove into town, got to the car park and watched some old git push to the front of the queue for the car park tickets, then once at the library I watched some old bat elbow her way in front of me. When she’d finished giving the librarian serious abuse about the state of the local bus services (?) I got to collect my free badges and pens. The nice lady at the library told me about the upcoming Snowdog event and the auction at which they will all be sold off. Whilst there is no telling what price they will fetch, those “in the know” feel each Snowdog will sell for between three and five thousand pounds.

I wish I could afford one.

With time still left on the car park ticket I thought I might have a little look round town. Again the elderly showed their complete disregard for queuing in WH Smiths and Waterstones.

I came home and found that Treacle had knocked over all the washing I’d collected from the radiators. I knew it was her and not Fudge; I’d put it on the chair that she uses as a jump-off point to get on to the table. She knew she’d done wrong, but she got told off anyway. She then spent much of the afternoon sulking at me.

Over a spot of lunch I watched another episode of “Prison Break”. It is OK, but (like all fiction) *really* would benefit from a bit of research by the writers. For example if you want to visit a prisoner, you can’t just turn up. It’s not that simple. Before you can even consider going to visit, the prisoner himself has to add you to their list of visitors. Then the prisoner will send you a form which you fill out and return to the prison saying exactly who is coming (only those on the prisoner’s list are allowed) and what date you would like; the date being about a fortnight or so into the future. *If* you are lucky you’ll have your request approved.

Along the same lines was an e-book I’ve been reading. Billed as “hard SF” the author prides himself on writing fiction, but with “proper” science. He was banging on about preventing iron overloading by use of a reduced iron diet. For reasons I could go on about (for literally hours on end) the human body don’t work that way.

I spent a little time writing up CPD. I’ve been rather lax with that lately. I then did a week’ worth of archeoastronomy with the nice people at Coursera; but I couldn’t concentrate on it.  All I heard was “blah blah Greek temple”. 

After another episode of “Prison Break” "My Boy ^TM" came to visit. He was having his mother’s wireless phone charger. It struck me it would be more efficient to take the plug of the wireless charger and stick it into the phone, but what do I know?

With "er indoors ^TM" off out tonight I fed the dogs then foraged for my own dinner. I foraged in the general direction of KFC and foraged rather successfully. I scoffed KFC whilst watching my DVD of “The Moonbase”; a Doctor Who story first broadcast in 1966. Treacle seemed rather bemused as I sang the theme tune to her.

I shall watch another episode of “Prison Break”, maybe some more archeoastronomy, and then bed. It’s been something of a rubbish day today… I could have done so much more if it hadn’t rained.

Mind you some people spend all day doing nothing like this. What a waste of a day off.