5 February 2020 (Wednesday) - After the Night Shift

It was with something of a sense of relief that I drove home this morning. The night shift had kept me busy, my sore throat had got worse, and the blister on my left heel was particularly painful.

Poor me (!)

As I drove home the ex-Prime Minister David Cameron was in the news. Apparently he’s turned down the job of running the show when the UK hosts the big climate change meet-up later this year. He says he’s got other stuff to do (which he might well have) and he says he feels that someone currently active in politics should really be in the hot seat. He’s probably right, but I can understand the current Prime Minister’s thinking. With the world leaders assembling the UK needs to be represented by someone who isn’t seen as a joke. Like him or loathe him, as a Prime Minister, like Margaret Thatcher (who I personally loathed) he commanded respect. Which is more than our two most recent Prime Ministers have done.

Mind you Mr Cameron must have gone down in the estimation of many people when one of his security detail left their gun in a toilet. Whoops.

I came home and collected the dogs, and we went out to Kings Wood for a little walk. But only a little one. The dogs can run off the leads more easily in Kings Wood, and there are generally less “episodes”. We had a good walk, if a short one. I found my dodgy heel was far less painful in wellies than it had been in trainers.

With walk walked we came home. The dogs weren’t that grubby that they needed a bath, so I just scrubbed myself and went to bed. We had a little ruckus as Treacle and Pogo wouldn’t settle, They wanted to be on opposite sides of me; pinning me down. Eventually I persuaded them that I wasn’t having any of it, and we all got a few hours sleep.

I woke to see that perhaps bathing the dogs might have been a good idea, and I wrestled the bedspread into the washing machine. It took some wrestling but I eventually got it in there.

With that scrubbed I put more washing in, and did the ironing whilst watching more episodes of “Schitt’s Creek”. Half way through the domestic drudgery Fudge got out of his basket and was sick. I wonder what that was all about. He then went into the garden, ate a load of grass, then went back to sleep. As did I once the ironing was done – once I’d chased all three dogs out of my chair.

"er indoors ^TM" is boiling up dinner which we will scoff whilst watching telly. I expect I shall fall asleep. Again.

And my sore throat and iffy heel haven’t improved as the day has gone on either…

On the plus side I think I got the bedspread back in place before "er indoors ^TM" realised what had happened…

4 February 2020 (Tuesday) - Before the Night Shift

As I came home on the train yesterday I could feel my throat becoming rather tender. I woke this morning with a sore throat and something of a headache. I picked up a bug at yesterday’s funeral. I wonder how many other people have also gone down with it?

As I scoffed toast this morning I saw that the few photos I took at yesterday’s funeral had received reactions and comments from all sorts of people. I often get stick from using my phone to photograph everything, but sometimes it is well worth doing.

I also saw that I had been selected to get a Gerry Anderson 2020 calendar at a specially discounted rate… Of course they are knocking them out at a discounted rate; it is now February and they clearly printed too many.

And talking of throwing money away there was a lot of talk on some of Facebook’s fishing pages. When going for a weekend’s fishing you can take a “bivvy”. “Bivvies” are popular among carp fishermen for the simple reason that not many who go fishing can spell or pronounce the word “bivouac”. The latest bivvy to hit the market retails for nine hundred pounds.

It takes less than twenty seconds to find a comparable tent for a tenth of the price, but the “proper” carp fishermen posting on the Internet this morning seemed to think there was some merit in spending ten times too much money.

I loaded the dogs into the car and we drove up to Kings Wood. A couple of weeks ago we’d walked round the top end, and I thought I might try that walk again. There’s no denying that the walk had been easier a couple of weeks ago when the mud had still been frozen, but we had a good stroll. We climbed trees, we ate horse poo, we had a warning from the Met Office, we played piggy-back (!) with other dogs; we had a good stroll.

I took a few photos as we walked purely because I could.

Once home the dogs had a bath and were soon all snoring. Despite having been thoroughly scrubbed, Pogo retained quite a bit of dried mud up his legs, but by the time I’d seen it he was fast asleep, and I didn’t fancy the rigmarole of scrubbing him again.

I popped up the road to get a sandwich, watched a little telly then went to bed for the afternoon. I slept surprisingly well; Treacle slept with me; Pogo and Fudge remained downstairs and held off having any utterly unnecessary barking fits for three hours.

"er indoors ^TM" has taken Treacle to the vet for her MOT in a minute (Treacle’s MOT; not "er indoors ^TM"’s) and I’m off to the night shift.

I still feel a bit iffy…

3 February 2020 (Monday) - Goodbye Mr Mills

The dogs were relatively settled last night, but my CPAP machine managed to make my nose very sore. I took the thing off at four o’clock and lay awake for three hours.

Over brekkie I had a look at Facebook; quite a few horror tales of rampant racism since Friday’s Brexit were being bandied about. Some were probably true, some were probably exaggerations, and some were probably blatant lies, but some of the rants I read did make me cross. A friend of a friend seemed to be rather confused in that now Great Britain had left the European Union he was wondering where the British Empire had gone. Another friend of another friend seemed utterly oblivious of the difference between the concepts of “Great Britain” and “England”. And one woman who had been born in Germany but had lived in the UK for over forty years was being deported.

I couldn’t help but wonder if the blatant idiocy being flaunted on Facebook this morning was in any way connected with the invitation I received to follow the official Facebook page of the government of Japan.

It seems odd that having had a weekend in which to do pretty much whatever you want to do, no one other than me appeared to have done anything worth posting on social media.

I didn’t have any emails worthy of note, so I got dressed and walked down the road to the dentist. My cake-muncher passed its MOT and I came home, put on a suit and set off to the train station and Hastings for something of a reunion…

The eighth Hastings Boys Brigade company was a very large part of my life during my formative years. Weekends away in all sorts of places. Taking part in all sorts of competitions from chess to marching bands. We learned so much; first aid, map reading, table tennis, cooking. I made friendships that have lasted over forty years.

The chap who ran it did so with very little help. Sometimes he would have an assistant; more often he would dragoon someone or other from the church if he needed anyone. Quite often he would be running the show single-handed. As well as running the Boys Brigade he grew prize-winning fuchsias, was a leading light in his local church, played in local table-tennis and football teams, and painted the most intricate and beautiful patterns on eggs… can you believe he painted eggs because he would get bored.

Today was his funeral.

The church was packed; and so many people were playing the rather embarrassing game of saying “you look familiar but it’s been forty years…” I soon found some friends from way back when, and we sat together and remembered the old days as you do with people you’ve not seen for over half a lifetime.

The service of remembrance was excellently done. We remembered our old leader and mentor and friend fondly and without tears. There was a particularly good eulogy given by the Reverend McCabe…(!) The Reverend Paul McCabe is (not counting family) the person I’ve known for longer than anyone else in my life. Me and Paul started together in the same class at primary school in 1969. At the point in Paul’s speech when he read out “The Object of the Boys Brigade” we all joined in and we all remembered it word-perfect even though it has been forty years since any of us have recited it.

There had been talk of going for a drink after the service, but there were so many people to see, and so many people to talk to. And it was at this point that I realised just how much my shoes had rubbed. A contemporary of my brother gave me a lift to the station, and once back in Ashford I got a taxi from the station to home.

Once home I spent a few minutes putting plasters on blisters, and putting best shoes in the bin. I walk for miles with no problems most of the time, but my best shoes did my feet in (to the limit and beyond) today.

We must have another get-together soon… before another of us passes away.