3 July 2023 (Monday) - So Dull

I went to bed last night feeling all in having spent much of the afternoon and evening falling asleep. I was wide awake at four o’clock this morning. After laying awake for an hour I got up and had a go on our all-new totally functional toilet seat. There is something strangely satisfying about sitting on a toilet seat that stays put rather than spending ten minutes playing what I can only describe as “chodbin buckaroo”.

I made toast, watched an episode of “Shameless” then had a look at the internet. I was probably far too early; not a lot was happening, so I got dressed and set off to work.

 

I stopped off at Cuckoo Lane. With today being the start of the Munzee Clan War I needed a Qrate or two, and whilst I was at it I deployed a carrot and capped a Qrewzee. There's never a dull moment in the Munzee world, but to the uninitiated it might well have looked just like scanning bar code stickers on lamp posts.

 

As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the radio were interviewing Miriam Cates (MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge) who is now a leading light in the recently formed "New Conservatives"; a bunch of Tory MPs who have realised that unless they sort themselves out, the Conservatives will be out on their arses at the next election. Trying to win back lost ground they are jumping on the "send them all back where they come from" bandwagon (which is sadly usually a vote-winner), and as part of this they want to stop all visas to anyone coming to work in the care sector in the UK. This woman recognised that there is a chronic shortage of workers in the care sector, but said a combination of raising the wages for care workers and making it less easy for five million people to carry on taking benefits would ease the recruitment issue.

Interestingly she flatly refused to discuss just how much the wages of the care sector might be increased, or how she might get five million people back into the workforce, and didn't come over anywhere near as well as she might have liked to have done on live national radio. Mind you I take my hat off to her. If I was the representative for Penistone (or "Penis Town" as I'm sure it is known) I wouldn't go anywhere near a live microphone.

 

I got to work and did my bit on what was a rather busy day, then drove home through the rain. And with “er indoors ^TM” off bowling I spent a couple of hours catching up on the ironing. Some days in my life are rather fun. Some are rather tedious…

2 July 2023 (Sunday) - Gardening

Bearing in mind the gallon of ale I’d sunk yesterday (and an amaretto chaser) I woke feeling surprisingly chipper this morning. “er indoors ^TM” seemed to be faintly miffed that I wasn’t suffering, but as I told her, hangovers are for wimps.

I recorded yesterday’s installment of history then had a look at the Internet. I was quite intrigued to read about the fire in Hastings yesterday. As my brother and I had been pub crawling round the old town, one of the buildings near the station had gone up in flames. We’d had several messages from concerned family as we’d been drinking, but as we’d walked to the station so nothing seemed untoward. It would seem the last bit of tidying up by the fire brigade had been done two minutes before we’d walked past.

 

I had an email from the antivirus company with whom I had a set-to the other night. They “wanted more information” about my request for a refund and gave me a web link which just led me through a circle of web pages. So I phoned them and this time I got through to someone whose phone seemed to be working. However her spoken English left a lot to be desired and she was clearly reading from a script. Obviously she didn’t want to give me a refund, but after a little to-ing and fro-ing I got my money back.

 

With nothing better to do with my time today I did some gardening. First of all in the front garden. Having had a few blasts round with the Bionic Burner I must admit I’m not impressed with the thing. Three weeks ago I had my first blast around the front garden with the Bionic Burner. And I’ve had a couple of goes in the meantime. There’s still as many weeds and grass growing between the cracks in the paving slabs as ever there was, and despite having bionically burned them, I’ve still got to get on my hands and knees and pull the things out, After all is said and done, the Bionic Burner was forty quid down the pan.

After an hour’s burning and weeding and sweeping, the front garden looked much the same as it ever did, and I moved into the back garden. I ran out the power cable, got out the strimmer, and within a second of having turned it on, Morgan appeared from nowhere, attacked it and had a full-on fight with it. He got marched inside for the duration of lawn mowing. I then hung out washing, trimmed back the overgrowth from not-so-nice-next-door’s various plants, cleaned out the pond filter, and had a look at a non-functioning water feature. I took the thing apart, cleaned it all out… and then realized that it worked fine *if* I actually plugged it in. Ho hum…

Pausing only briefly to install the new toilet seat I then got the washing in, ran round with the watering can and had a look at my Monkey Puzzle tree. I’m quite pleased with my Monkey Puzzle tree; “er indoors ^TM” got it for me one wet bank holiday eight years ago. I set it up with a Facebook page and apart from occasional re-pottings left it pretty much to its own devices. It is now about five feet tall.

And then I realized I’d been on the go for over four hours

 

As the dogs scrapped I sat down and read my Kindle for a bit, then nodded off underneath a pile of dogs (who had worn themselves out) whilst “er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching more “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds”.

I feel absolutely worn out… I shall just check out the new toilet seat, and provided I don’t have to take it all apart and start again I’m thinking of having an early night.

1 July 2023 (Saturday) - Crazy Golf Day

Bailey woke me by stomping on my chest in some agitation at seven o’clock this morning. Being a very small dog, she is too small to get on and off the bed without help. I lifted her down and she flew to the back garden where she did what dogs do in the garden. Objectively speaking it was a rather average dog turd, but bearing in mind how small she is, it would have been the equivalent of me doing one the size of a two-litre bottle of pop.

As Albert Einstein once remarked, “everything’s relative”.

 

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. I saw that today was Ashford’s food and drink festival. That had been a well-kept secret. Had I known about it with more than four hours’ notice I might have planned things differently for today.

 

We drove round to the co-op as I needed cash. We got there and my idiot magnet was on top form. There was some half-wit standing by the bakery telling the world that he was only looking and that he’d come all the way from Newtown. No one cared, but that didn’t stop him going on constantly like a stuck record.

From the co-op we went on to Dog Club. As we drove into the Repton estate so the dogs all started squeaking; they knew where they were going.

Dog club was great fun; the pups charged around and played. Treacle grumped at everyone. But for all that Treacle is a grump, she’s slowly improving. At one point I opened a bag of treats and half a dozen other dogs swarmed around me for a treat. A few months ago there would have been no way that Treacle would tolerate non-family dogs around me when I had treats (and she wouldn’t have been impressed at the family dogs either). Back then she would have aggressively chased them all away. Today she tolerated them, took her treat when it was her turn, and didn’t react at all when I shared treats with the other dogs.

An incredibly simple and trivial thing, but a giant leap forward for her.

 

As we drove home we listened to Steve on the radio. We got a mention, but I had a failure on the mystery year. I had announced it was *definitely* either 1992 or 1984. It was actually 1985. I wasn’t *that* far out.

Once home we had the obligatory Saturday morning Belgian bun. Today’s were from the co-op which (in my humble opinion!) does the best Belgian buns.

 

We settled the dogs (who were worn out after Dog Club) then made our way to Hastings Sea Front where the family was a gathering in what has become a family tradition. Crazy Golf Day. Once we’d had an ice cream a couple of dozen of us set off round the pirate golf course and had a great time. “Daddy’s Little Angel ^TM” got two holes in one through (so I am reliably informed) “really skillful golfing ^TM”. “er indoors ^TM” also got a hole in one. “Darcie Waa Waa ^TM” had been handed a golf ball to amuse her which she would randomly fling in all directions and she too got a hole in one.

I didn’t.

With golf golfed and prizes awarded we had fish and chips. The seagulls were incredibly brazen; snatching food from our hands. “Darcie Waa Waa ^TM” was rather impressed with them, shouting “Dog Dog Dog” at them.

 

We then went over to the Albion for a pint, then went our various ways. My way was (with my brother) up to the Anchor for a pint of Spitfire. Then on to the Pump House for a pint of Whitstable Bay. That pint was off, but the helpful staff soon changed it, and suitably refreshed we went up to the Hastings Arms for another pint of Spitfire. A pint of Hophead in the Dolphin was followed by a pint of London Pride in the Cinque Ports, and an amaretto chaser in the Stag. No trip to Hastings Old Town is complete without a pint in the FILO (Churches pale ale) and then back to the Hastings Arms for another Spitfire and some dinner.

Five hours after everyone else had headed home I got on the train where I fulfilled yet another tradition… I fell asleep on the train, got all the way home, and then went half-way back to Hastings before waking.

Oh, how I chuckled.

Mind you what annoyed me most was the train’s guard/ticket collector who admitted she’d seen me fast asleep at Ashford station and thought it would be a great joke to leave me sleeping. A friend who works on the railway often complains that he’s had irate customers spitting at him when on duty. With this attitude I can quite understand why…

But a quick phone call to “er indoors ^TM” saved the day. She didn’t mind driving out to get me at all (!)

 

I took a few photos of my day. It was a rather good one really.