6 September 2019 (Friday) - Rostered Day Off

The internet seemed to be broken as I attempted to peer into it as I scoffed my toast his morning. It does that from time to time. I pulled the plug on the router and re-started it. The internet was soon fixed, but there wasn’t much worth looking at this morning.

There were a couple of arguments kicking off on some of the Lego Facebook pages I follow. What is the collective term for more than one Lego brick? “Lego” or “Legos”? I would ask “who cares” but demonstrably quite a few people do judging by the row that was going on. And what are Lego sets worth? People have been posting photos of sets they wish to sell with a comment along the lines of “make me an offer”. And then taking umbrage at what they see as insultingly low offers. Someone else pointed out that it takes seconds to find out the going rate by looking on eBay, and a very nasty argument ensued.

(Lego?! – some people will squabble about anything).

I got my bits and pieces and dogs together and we drove out to Ripper’s Wood. I once had some geocaches in there. I archived them six months ago so if anyone else wanted to hide caches there, then they could. No one took the opportunity, so I’ve used the area for something of a geo-experiment.

I like writing Wherigos. They are little adventure games that you play on your phone. As you play the game you move from location to location; finding a geocache at the end. People either love them or pretend they haven’t got the technology to play them. But one thing is true – compared to finding the average film pot under a rock, they can be a bit of a faff. So I’ve created a Wherigo adventure which takes less than an hour to play, during the course of which you get to find six film pots under rocks. If this proves popular I shall use this idea again.

We eventually got to Ripper’s Wood; the roads round Ashford were very congested this morning. And once at the woods we had a really good walk. I got to hide my film pots and test my Wherigo; the dogs got to do their own thing. And we didn’t meet another soul as we walked.

As I walked I had a phone call from the local hospital’s complaints department. I’m waiting for a nasal re-bore to get rid of these annoying nasal polyps. I was due for surgery the very week I was starting my new job (in 2017). I said I couldn’t make that date; the nice lady on the phone said she’d re-schedule. Because that hospital seems to have a policy of not answering phone calls I wasn’t able to get through to them for months to chivvy them up. When I finally got through they told me (rather rudely) that since I hadn’t been in touch they had taken me off the waiting list and if I wanted the surgery I could start again at the bottom of the waiting list. It took ages to get back onto their lists; in the meantime I’ve had two appointments, but I don’t want appointments. I want my nose fixed so that I can breathe. I formally complained yesterday, and today someone phoned to see what my problem was. I explained it all in great length and they said they’d look into it. I explained that when I had the camera up my bum all was fine, but the last time I had my nose re-bored, things only happened when I put in complaints. The nice lady on the phone said she was fed up with hearing that the ENT people don’t reply to phone calls.

That speaks volumes, doesn’t it?

We came home through traffic that was still very heavy. I made one or two trivial tweaks to the Wherigo cartridge, and sent the whole thing off to the geo-feds for their approval (or thumbs-down) and then set the washing machine going on some shirts and went up the road to get a sandwich from the corner shop.

As I scoffed dinner and then ironed I watched the last two episodes of “Black Mirror”. For a show which started so well and continued incredibly well, the last two episodes were rather rubbish.

With telly watched I set the washing machine loose on my pants, and took the dogs out. I had this idea that the traffic hold-ups in town would have cleared, we could go on a quick little geo-adventure and get petrol on the way home. We got petrol and had the little geo-adventure, but the traffic hadn’t cleared. What should have been a twenty minute outing took well over an hour.

Once home I started provisional programming on another Wherigo project. Two hours later "er indoors ^TM" came home. It was as she came home that Fudge started quivering and shaking. I’m hoping it was excitement at "er indoors ^TM" coming home; it didn’t last long but it was rather worrying at the time. He’s since charged round the garden shouting and has eaten his dinner so I’m going to assume all is well and keep an eye on him. But the slightest recurrence and he’s going to the vet. Mind you he is so scared of the vet that going there induced shaking and quivering.

I wonder if the vet does home visits?

5 September 2019 (Thursday) - Fixing the Timer

I lay awake for quite a lot of last night. It wasn’t having four dogs (we were dog-sitting for "Daddy’s Little Angel ^TM"). I was revisiting the squabbles of three years ago which made me feel I should leave the astro club. Having been a member from the start, for some years I’d been increasingly worried about the direction in which the club was going. On the one hand was me and pretty much everyone else who wanted a friendly “by-us-and-for-us” club. On the other hand was one very forceful and vociferous individual who was trying to turn it into some sort of corporate entity, and would tolerate no dissent. Any attempts to offer opinions were firmly stamped upon. The phrase “I disagree with you for the following reasons” was seen by this chap as a personal attack. He told me that I was “lacking ambition and direction”, that I was “embarrassingly irrelevant”, that I was “subversive, manipulative and a leader of negativity”, and went on to personally attack me in front of family and friends. Random family members (who were nothing to do with the astro club) would turn up and ask what I’d done to offend him.

Consequently I walked away from the astro club two years ago.

Occasionally over the last two years I would hear that the club was still having troubles from this chap’s attitude. I had heard that the club has a new chairman. He is someone else with whom I have disagreed with in the past, but during those differences this chap seemed to understand the difference between “I disagree with you for the following reasons” and a personal attack. Now he’s on the committee the new boss has been able to see all the previous astro club committee’s on-line “discussions”.

He messaged me last night on behalf of the club offering a full apology for how I’d been treated, assured me that the problem had been dealt with, and asked if I would consider re-joining the club.

I shall have to think about that.

I made myself some toast and had a look at Facebook as everyone else snored. There were a lot of “back to school” photos this morning. There have been all week. I quite like them; it brings back memories of trying to herd "Daddy’s Little Angel ^TM" to school even if it was rather frustrating at the time. One chap had posted up some meme about how ugly the schoolchildren all looked. I thought that was rather nasty, but refrained from saying so. I’ve seen that sort of thing before; those being hateful to the “back to school” photos are invariably those who’ve never taken any.

My piss boiled somewhat when I read about the Woodchurch Wagon. Apparently Ashford council has spent a small fortune buying a minibus for the people of Woodchurch. Apparently people get very lonely when living in the back of beyond and a minibus will help counteract social isolation. Bearing in mind that those people living in the back of beyond in the Woodchurch area are living in houses worth hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of pounds, why don’t they sell up and move to somewhere less isolated?

I do get cross when my council tax money is used to subsidise someone who is demonstrably better off than I am.

As I looked at the Internet so Treacle sat with me on the sofa, alternately chewing my shirt and chewing my hand, all the time looking at her brother Pogo. I’m sure she was showing off that she felt that she was allowed to chew my shirt and to chew my hand whilst he was not. But it wasn’t long before "Daddy’s Little Angel ^TM" arrived to collect Pogo and Sid.

They all set off to the station, and I sat myself in front of the telly and watched “Black Mirror” until the nice plumber arrived. The dogs woofed a bit, the nice man did his thing, and ten minutes later we had a new timer for the central heating and the hot water.

I set off to work. It was a rather bright morning. I did consider having a little geo-adventure on the way, but the bosses had been good enough to let me take a couple of hours off at very short notice (to get the plumbing sorted) so I thought it best not to. As I drove to work the pundits on the radio were talking about the utter shambles that is British politics. 

As I understand it Boris Johnson has effectively sacked twenty Conservative MPs to get rid of what he sees as a load of troublemakers. He has then tried to call for a general election in order to get a whole load of new MPs into parliament who will do what he tells them to do. However in order to call a general election he needs the consent of two thirds of the House of Commons to agree to this, and they have said no. Effectively this leaves the Prime Minister comprehensively poggered.

And to think he wanted the job.

I got to work. The boss was glad to see me, and thanked me for coming in. I smiled graciously; it was clear that he thought that I'd done him a great favour by coming in late. I was of the opinion that he had done me a favour by letting me come in late. 

But if he wants to think of me as being the one who's put himself out, I'm happy to oblige.

I did my bit; I even spotted a Mott cell, and with my bit done, I came home.

Once home "er indoors ^TM" boiled up a rather good bit of dinner which we washed don with some of the red wine out of that box we got. As we scoffed we watched the documentary about women by Kathy Burke. Have you seen it? It is well worth watching. It certainly made us think.

4 September 2019 (Wednesday) - So Dull

Treacle was very restless last night. When she eventually settled down and stopped stomping about, she then (very noisily) sucked the duvet cover for an hour or so. I finally got some quiet about five o’clock.

Over brekkie I had a look at the Internet. Again Amazon were offering me the Kindle edition of “Brave New World” for a quid, but on clicking the link they wanted a fiver. I’ve asked them what’s going on; I bet I don’t get a reply.

With no emails not getting immediately deleted I got dressed and took the dogs out. We got about fifty yards from home when the drizzle started. By the time we got to the park the rain was rather heavy. As we walked we didn’t see any other dogs at all; no one else was daft enough to be out. We were soaked by the time we got home.

Once home I towelled off the dog using a warm towel. Warm? The radiator was on. What was that all about? It turned out that the timer which controls the hot water and the radiators has gone west. I’ve messaged the plumber.

Usually when on a late shift I would go on a little adventure before work, but the rain had put paid to that. So I put the kettle on, and watched an episode of “Black Mirror” before setting off to work.

Having got soaked a couple of hours previously as I'd been out with the dogs I was rather miffed to drive through glorious sunshine.

As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the rise of slavery in present-day UK society. Rather worrying...

I got to work and had a rather busy late shift... and that was it for today. Yesterday was a rather good day. Today the highlight was finding that fixing my water heating is going to cost me a small fortune.

Still it's days like today that make me appreciate the other days that much more...