3 December 2022 (Saturday) - Early Shift

As I stood in the garden (with tiddling puppies) at five o'clock this morning I had a little look around and was amazed to see there were more houses with lights on than houses in darkness. It's not just me who's up silly early then?

I made toast, planned my morning Munzee mission,  and then spent five minutes trying to get out of the house. The front door was jammed. Once I'd woken all the dogs in my fight with the door I eventually got out of the house and walked seemingly miles to where I'd parked the car last night. On the way to the car I deployed a gingerbounce house (it’s a Munzee thing); I've not deployed one of those before. As I walked I passed loads of people all walking about. All dressed in black in the pitch darkness.

 

I set off up the motorway. After five minutes I gave up listening to "Open Country" in which someone or other went for a walk in the countryside and intended wasting half an hour going "blah blah blah" about it on the radio. Walking for half an hour in the countryside is rather good... listening to someone going "blah blah blah" about it seemed a rather tedious option so I switched over to Ivor Biggun songs and spent the journey wondering about what I could say about what I'd got out of my Lego Advent Calendar this morning.

 

I drove to one of the roads near work and spent half an hour Munzing in the dark. As part of the Clan War (which started this morning) we have to Munz Munzees which haven't been Munzed for over a year. There's quite a cluster of Munzees near work that were put out over a year ago and hadn't ever been Munzed, so I got eight of the things and found two Qrates as well. Go me!

 

I toyed with the idea of having the cooked brekkie at work but thought better of it. Instead I cracked on with work and sulked. First because I was missing the Saturday Dog Club; Saturday Dog Club has fast become "a thing" in my world. The pups love it, and Treacle even tolerates it. And a little later in the day I had a sulk that I was missing the Christmas Geo-Meet. Mind you I'm not sure that I was missing much. In years gone by the Christmas Geo-Meet was one of the highlights of the year with dozens of hunters of Tupperware coming along for the event. When I looked this morning there were less than ten people signed up for it. Mind you as I've been saying for some time, geocaching is dying on its arse. Sadly when all the Karens who don't know the first thing about infection control demanded that the hobby close over lockdown, everyone who was seriously active in the game went to the dark side of Munzing (we certainly did) and didn't come back.

 

With work worked I went to Sainsburys for a few bottles for tomorrow and some fish food. And then the courtesy car told me that its tyres were under pressure (aren’t we all) so I drove over to their filling station and had a fight with the air machine. I managed to get the tyres pumped up; it cost me a quid, and I got a load of grease all over my hands as something of a freebie.

 

I came home to consternation. “er indoors ^TM” had the arse as someone had eaten the bathroom mat. No one was actually caught red-handed (paw-ed?) but the sensible money is suspecting Morgan.

 

Jose and Maria called, and we all drove round to the New Chimneys for a pre-Christmas dinner.

Sadly the New Chimneys might not have been the best venue though. The raw vegetables were bone dry, and a thimble of gravy didn’t go far between seven. Perhaps having had staff who’ve actually left school and weren’t just trying to earn some pocket money might have helped. And personally I’d rather not eat dinner whilst listening to the thug element screaming abuse at the sport on the telly. Someone on an adjacent table asked to speak to the manager and was told he’d gone home (!)

But we had a good catch up and we had a great get-together. Must do it again more often… Somewhere else, though…

2 December 2022 (Friday) - Cake, Telly

Being awake far too early (again) I got up, tiddled the puppies (in about a tenth of the time we took yesterday evening), and then set about brekkie. There was a particularly strange thing in this morning's episode of "Stranger Things"... Given that you are having a gun battle with your arch-nemesis (who has made no secret of the fact that he wants to kill you), and given that your arch-nemesis is laying unarmed and defeated at your feet do you either shoot him in the head, or shoot him continually in the bullet-proof vest until your gun is empty, and then act surprised and frustrated when he gets up, kicks you in the knackers, and runs away?

As I watched telly I listened to the bin men bellowing as they moved the bins about, and again twenty minutes later as they collected the bins.

They really can’t be expecting any Christmas tips this year, can they?

 

I set off to work listening to the pundits on the radio talking about yesterday’s by-election in somewhere-or-other up north. Labour have increased their majority by thousands. Everyone being interviewed was banging on about how well the Labour party are doing in the polls. But are they *really* doing well? I can't help but think that they are bimbling along in their usual well-intentioned-but-rather-crap way whilst the Conservatives are doing incredibly badly.

There was a lot of talk from the (football) World Cup from which some of the top tipped teams are now on their way home. Surprisingly (apparently) the Japanese team are doing really well. Those who were being interviewed on the matter made no secret  that this is because of all the European players that are in the Japanese team... but according to Wikipedia there's no Europeans in the team. Don't believe all that the vacuous windbags spout on the radio...

 

I got to work far earlier than I needed to be there and had a rather macrocytic day (!) However there was cake. It was a shame I was late getting out, but there’s hospital work, eh?

I came home and eventually parked quite some distance from home, and walked through the rain to be greeted by some rather excited dogs who couldn’t decide whether to say hello to me or to have a fight amongst themselves. It’s a dog thing…

 

“er indoors ^TM” sorted a rather good bit of dinner which we devoured whilst watching the last episode of the current series of “Taskmaster”. With that watched we can now make a start on the rest of the crap we’ve recorded, to say nothing of all the movies we’ve now got through Sky Cinema and the stuff I’ve added to my Netflix list.

I could do with retiring if only to find time to watch all the telly I’ve stored up…

1 December 2022 (Thursday) - The Advent Calendar Begins...

Many years ago (forty-six to be precise) my best mate of the time learned a new word. For a few months absolutely everything in his world was described as "monotonous". Regular readers of this drivel will know that this best describes my mornings. I lay awake for far too long, take puppies into a cold dark morning then take them upstairs where they snore on top of “er indoors ^TM”  as I scoff toast whilst watching whatever drivel that Netflix has to offer.

On some mornings the monotony is broken by my forgetting where I'd parked the car and spending twenty minutes roaming the streets trying to find it, but there was no such excitement this morning.

 

As I drove to work the pundits of the radio  were banging on about how long ambulances wait outside hospitals before they can unload their patients and about various enquiries into quite tragic NHS failings. There has been a very noticeable change in the  BBC's attitude toward the NHS over the last few weeks. The BBC clearly doesn't like the idea of strikes in the NHS, and is sticking in the knife. What the BBC tends to ignore is that the NHS is massively overworked, and who on Earth is going to choose a career in the NHS when you can get far more money for far less training and far less responsibility by doing no end of other jobs. For example standing on a train platform swearing at the passengers (as I have experienced) pays ten grand a year more than the average nurse gets.

And then there was the sad tale of Ngozi Fulani (chief executive of Sistah Space) and  Lady Susan Hussey (who has resigned as an honorary Lady of the Household, at Buckingham Palace). Ms Fulani was attending some reception at Buckingham Palace where Lady Hussey made the mistake of asking Ms Fulani "Where are you from" even though Ms Fulani is as British as Lady Hussey. But having declared that she found  the encounter as a “violation” and said the experience will “never leave me”, Ms Fulani then went on the radio this morning and said that "in her culture" people had respect for the elderly (like Lady Hussey)... Am I being an old reactionary in wondering exactly what Ms Fulani meant by "in her culture"?

In the meantime after sixty years of (unpaid) service to the Royal Family, Lady Hussey has been thrown under the bus.

 

I went to Sainsburys this morning as I needed some biccie bars for lunch. I got a few bottles of plonk and Baileys and amaretto too. Here's a tip - amaretto is cheaper in Lidl than in Sainsburys. I know that as the nice lady filling the shelves in Sainsbury told me so.

And then when I went to pay... there was no one on the tills so I had to use the self-service checkouts. Because I was scanning bottles of wine they had to be approved. As I scanned the first bottle so the red light above the checkout lit up. At that point the sour-faced old bat (in Sainsburys uniform) who had been watching my every move (like a hawk) made a point of walking away and turning her back so she could pretend she hadn't seen the red light.

Eventually she did what she had to, but it was clearly very much under protest. I suggested that if they had staff operating the proper tills she wouldn't have had to put herself out. She didn't actually say "F*** you, you big fat f***er", but she did sarcastically ask me which of the staff I thought might have gone to the till to open it up. She looked like she was going to explode when I suggested any one of the four people that she'd just been gossiping with.

 

As I was peering down my microscope so my phone rang. It was the nice lady at Sky TV. Did I have five minutes to spend with her looking at my account to see if there were any savings to be had? We spent five minutes, and she offered to cut my monthly payment by a fiver. That was kind of her. She then said that as I'd been with them for twenty-two years (!) they had a deal with the Sky Cinema package that I might like. I must admit that I wasn't overly keen on the movies, but “er indoors ^TM” likes them, and the Paramount Plus channel comes free with the Sky Cinema package. And in this brave new world you need the Paramount Plus channel to be able to watch Star Trek. So after the fiver she'd taken off and my loyalty bonus I ended up getting eighteen quid a month's stuff for only four quid extra. I saw that as something of a result.

But I found myself wondering... Twenty-two years? Is it really that long since we got Sky TV? I can remember the first time I ever saw Sky TV. It was at Chris's house and I was absolutely amazed that it had the same adverts as ITV and Channel Four.

 

With work done I came home and refereed the dogs. With Treacle on one side of me and the puppies on the other I formally declared myself to be a demilitarized zone, but they weren’t having it and insisted on fighting a pitched battle in my lap.

I wish they wouldn’t do that.

 

Meanwhile the Lego Advent Calendar has kicked off… I’m toying with the idea of having a plot this year. I just need to get one.