3 January 2021 (Sunday) - Pouring Hard

I slept for ten hours last night. That was rather impressive. It was with something of a shock when I saw the clock as I woke. I leapt up to see to Sid, but too late… there were turds on the lino. I chivvied him into the garden where he did a rather impressive tiddle though.

 

As I scoffed toast I had a look-see at the Internet. This morning I seemed to be bombarded with loads of adverts for an app which would set me walking targets for weight-loss purposes. I told them all to get knotted. I take the dogs on very regular walks. A small walk is over a mile. A circuit of the park or of the woods is two miles. Weekend walks are five to seven miles. And still the weight piles on.

Every morning has a petty squabble; today’s was on the Facebook group “Dad Jokes England”. Usually it is the home of rather corny jokes, but this morning a row was kicking off for the most trivial of reasons. It never fails to amaze me how there are some people who will argue over whether the sky is blue or whether grass is green.

I also saw I had a message from “Ermenegilda Irene” who was trying to direct me to dubious websites. I was having none of it.

And needless to say there was absolutely nothing from the power company or from Limakshi despite her assurances of sending me an email yesterday.

 

We did have one or two plans for the day… all of them had gone west for various reasons. So with "er indoors ^TM" having her brekkie I went up to the attic room and spent a little while in Lego World. The far end of my Lego town was always supposed to be a park, but it was something of a shambles so today I took it all apart and had a major re-vamp. I’ve retained the Bill & Ted statue from San Demus, Darth Vader’s riding school and Viz Magazine’s Drunken Bakers, but having re-arranged and having put in some flower beds the area seems to have a tad more structure to it now. I made a little video too.

 

According to the weather forecast there was supposed to be a break in the weather between one and three o’clock, so that was when we took the dogs out. We went up to the railway station where "er indoors ^TM" caught a bouncer (it’s a Munzee thing) and we went on to the park. The dogs were (mostly) well-behaved; on the two occasions when they were being bothersome to the normal people, a quick blast on the whistle had them quickly at my side Even though I say it myself, when the whistle training trick works it is quite impressive to behold. Mind you when it doesn’t, it can be something of an embarrassment.

When we were at the part of the walk that had us furthest from home the heavens opened. We hurried homewards, but with the best will in the world it takes a while to walk a mile. And when the rain had soaked through to my pants was when the hailstorm hit.

 

We got home, and with pants wrung out we watched a few episodes of “Four in a Bed” in which four different Bed and Breakfast establishments tried to out-do each other. I was particularly interested to watch this batch of episodes as one of the contestants was “The Ship” in Dymchurch. I’ve driven past the place several times but have never been in there. Once lockdown is over maybe we shall visit…

I was also rather amazed to see that two of the four contestants in this afternoon’s Bed and Breakfast competition didn’t actually offer breakfast. One had a “cook it yourself” arrangement, and one sent customers down the road to the nearby café. What was that all about?

 

We had a rather good bit of dinner as we watched last week’s episode of “Star Trek: Discovery”. I suppose the show is just like “Doctor Who” in that having been watching it for as long as I can remember I feel obliged to carry on watching it. I suppose tonight’s episode wasn’t *that* bad. It certainly wasn’t as bad as Friday’s episode of “Doctor Who”.

I suppose (also as is the case with “Doctor Who”) it doesn’t help that I can’t stand the lead character…

 

I’m not feeling on top form… I might have an early night…

2 January 2021 (Saturday) - Pluckley (Again)

Ideally a lay in would have been a good idea but realising that I had yet another messaging session with the idiots at the power company I found myself wide awake far too early. I watched another episode of “Motherland” as I scoffed toast, then on the stroke of opening time I activated the Live Chat and found myself this time connected to Limakshi. I copied and pasted the rather epic document I am compiling about the ongoing issues with my non-functioning SmartMeter. Limakshi asked for a couple of minutes to check my account. After ten minutes she told me she had decided to lodge a formal complaint on my behalf. My heart sank at his point. I know this mentality. A formal complaint means endless paperwork, and there are those that love paperwork. To be fair to her, Limakshi said she would personally follow up the matter and said she would ”keep following up with you regarding the matter every 3 days ensuring I update you on every actions that I am taking in order to resolve the issue”, but I’m not convinced.

The issue I have with the power company is straightforward – the SmartMeter is broken and needs repair or replacement, but so far nine of their operatives have been unable to arrange this. I do hope Limakshi doesn’t become the tenth.

 

I then had a little look at the rest of the Internet. There was quite a lot being said about last night’s episode of “Doctor Who”; very little of it being positive. I watch the new shows purely because I’ve watched it from the start and I consider myself a fan, but it isn’t what it once was.  Doctor Who worked back in the day because it *didn’t* have good special effects. The scenery did wobble, and the monster really was a bloke in a rubber suit. And so with that in mind the writers created a good plot with plausible characters and the show worked well.

Today the special effects have enough of a “wow factor” that the writers feel they don’t need to work on the plot and the characters are two-dimensional and unconvincing.

I want to like Doctor Who but it disappoints. Time and again.

I caught a jellyfish in our tree house (as you do) and immediately got a notification that the nice people at Munzee had given me an award for having captured a Munzee every day for the last year.

 

We took the dogs for a walk. Having had a little look at the geo-map I’d worked out a little walk for today. A circular walk of five miles going past six geocaches that we hadn’t previously found (and seventeen that we had). It was a good walk, if a tad muddy. It was a shame that we nearly got run over by a pair of half-wits driving their motorbikes up one of the footpaths, but I expect they will have broken their necks slipping in the mud by now.

We did have a dodgy five minutes when Pogo yelped and started limping; he has definitely done something to his back left leg. After hobbling about for a bit he seemed to be fine, but I shall keep an eye on him. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt him to lose some weight, but then again the same could be said about me.

I took quite a few photos as we walked – Pluckley is a rather pretty place.

 

Once home the dogs got thoroughly scrubbed, and I spent a little while playing Lego. First of all putting together the 1970s hospital that "er indoors ^TM" got me for Christmas, then incorporating it into my Lego World. Playing with Lego only took three hours.

 

As we scoffed a very good curry we watched the David Walliams program in which he farted around watching a school production of “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” whilst some poor sod was under orders to make a full-sized version of the car that actually flew.

Is it giving any spoilers to say that they succeeded?

1 January 2021 (Friday) - New Year's Day

Spanish New Year’s Eve is usually one of the highlights of my year and its forced cancellation did have me thinking that last night was going to be something of a disappointment. But a rather good bit of dinner followed by a family Whatsapp quiz all leading up to a virtual Zoom-ed Spanish New Year turned out to be a rather acceptable substitute. I suppose it isn’t surprising that I slept through till half past nine this morning.

 

I made some toast and scoffed it whilst "er indoors ^TM" and four dogs continued to snore. I had my usual root around Facebook and sent out a few birthday wishes. Some friends really did have a birthday today; others just claim that their birthday is today for cyber-security reasons. Personally I don’t use my birthday as my password, but that’s just me…

There wasn’t much happening on Facebook this morning; presumably (like me) everyone was still recovering from the excesses of a night on the razzle. It isn’t until you’ve staged a lager-frenzy at home that you appreciate the health-giving benefits of having to walk (stagger) home after a night on the razzle.

There was a minor squabble kicking off on the fans of Radio Four Facebook page. You’d be surprised how much argument such a dull-sounding Facebook page generates. This morning’s argument was a religious one; apparently one of the radio’s programs gave a rather simplistic view of religion and various people were claiming to be outraged. When I was a steward in the Methodist church (equivalent of a Deacon in the Church of England) it was my experience that the vast majority of so-called Christians (especially the churchgoers) believed all sorts of stuff; very little of which had any bearing or connection to what the church taught or what was written in the Bible. Very few of the active churchgoers seemed to have any understanding of what they professed to believe, and even fewer had actually read the Bible.

 

As I waited for "er indoors ^TM" and the dogs to emerge from their pits I got onto EE’s Live Chat and swapped text messages with Harsimranjeet in the hope of reclaiming money which was outstanding on the accounts I had with them which I closed when I realised that Sky did the same thing as EE but far cheaper. Harsimranjeet was very helpful (bearing in mind I’d packed up with them) and after a little fiddling about he asked if I could give him two minutes. After three minutes he said I’d be getting a refund soon. That will be something to look forward to.

Flushed with success at having got a result from a Live Chat thingy I contacted the power company about my still-not-repaired SmartMeter. I got through to Arjit B and told him the entre sorry tale in that the gas meter thinks I should be paying nearly thirty thousand pounds each month, and that I am continually being told that someone will be in touch in two days’ time but no one ever gets back to me. Arjit B asked me to stay connected, and I did. After twenty minutes he told me to try again tomorrow as the SmartMeter department was closed today, and he didn’t have the ability to leave a message for them. He typed “I have tried on my end but it is not letting me” so I suppose he tried…

 

One of the highlights of the geocaching year has always been the New Year’s Day walk in which up to fifty of us go on an organized walk. However this year that wasn’t possible. A much smaller and scaled down geo-walk was the order of the day for everyone, and a few months ago I’d seen a multi-cache in Charing which looked as though it would be ideal for a lonely walk today.

We got the dogs organised (Fudge seemed surprisingly quiet) and drove off up the A20. We were soon in the car park and our starting point was easily located. My phone’s geo-app felt the given co-ords were out, but I’ve always felt that this particular app isn’t the best for location. We soon got the required information, did the sums (such as they were) and plotted a plausible location where the plastic tub had been concealed. I won’t say where the thing was hidden, but I will say that the walk was ideal for today. Just far enough for a cold day. No mud, and things to nosey at as we walked, One good dog-walk later and we had the cache in hand.

I took a few photos as we walked. We came back to the car park where we let the dogs have a run round the nearby field. As we left I noticed quite a few people approaching from several directions. There was an open-air picnic being staged there. That was a little bit cheeky… So much for Tier 4 rules, eh?

 

We came home where Fudge was sick. Rather impressively sick. Fudge seems to have something of a TARDIS-stomach; when he “blows” he manages to bring up impressive volumes of vom.

Having mopped up dog-sick I then spent far too long working on my Atlas of Haematology. It’s a project I’ve been working at (on and off) for years. I intended to spend maybe half an hour on it; I was working on it for the duration of the David Walliams TV pantomime and Gene Wilder’s “Willy Wonka”.

 

I had a quick dunk in the shower, then tuned in to the New Year’s Day virtual geo-meet. We couldn’t meet up in person, but it was good to chat with friends on-line this evening.

"er indoors ^TM" then popped to the KFC to get dinner which we scoffed whilst watching the New Year’s episode of “Doctor Who” – an excellent story totally spoiled by some rather dreadful characters. I’ve often said that sci-fi only works if you can relate to the people in the story, and it speaks volumes when you find yourself rooting for the daleks rather than the hero’s sidekick. Fortunately two of the leading four characters left the show this evening which has got to be a good thing…