6 June 2024 (Thursday) - Rather Busy

I slept like a log last night, but woke with serious aching. What was that all about? I made toast and had a look at the Internet.

There was an interesting post on one of the pond-related Facebook pages I follow. Most people who make raised ponds in their gardens use either bricks or thick heavy wooden sleepers to do so. Whatever you make a raised pond out of has to be substantial; there’s a lot of heavy water to hold in place. Some idiot had posted photos of his attempt. He’d nailed a few pallets together, nailed some chip board to the pallets, and wondered why everyone was being critical. He claimed he couldn’t afford expensive materials so he’d made so with what he could scavenge. It was quite clear that the weight of any water inside would make the thing burst open, but he wouldn’t be told.

I don’t want to be heartless, but if I’ve learned one thing from eighteen years of having a garden pond, it’s that if you want more than a huge puddle of stagnant water, it ain’t cheap.

 

I loaded the dogs into the car and we set off to the woods. As we drove there was a lot of talk on the radio about the D-Day anniversary events that are going on. However I was amazed by an interview with some German woman who was thankful for the D-Day landings as she felt that the whole point of D-Day was so that the allied forces could save Germany from the communists.

That’s not the history I was taught.

And there was talk about women athletes being most athletic during their “time of the month”. I say “talk”; there was a lot of “um – yeah – well – um”. Surely the time has come to pre-record all radio interviews and weed out those who simply cannot do an interview.

 

We got to the woods and had a mostly good walk. Mostly. As we came to the end of our walk so we turned a corner and found an elderly woman with two large Alsatian-type dogs who flew at my dogs. Treacle cowered behind me; Moorgan and Bailey ran off each being chased by one of her dogs. Bailey soon pulled away from the dog chasing her, but Morgan made the mistake of turning to come back to me. Just as he nearly got to me so the huge Alsatian-type dog chasing him pounced and pinned him down. I glared at the elderly woman who was just watching this happen. Seeing she clearly had no intention of doing anything I brandished our metal dog- water bottle like a club and turned to her dog. The woman then shrieked like a banshee, waddled over and tried to pull her dog off of Morgan. In all the commotion Morgan escaped and joined Treacle behind me.

As the old woman clung to one of her dogs with both hands (with a rather pathetic expression on her face) I looked up the path. There was a bit of a stand-off happening. Bailey was fifty yards up the path clearly wanting to come back to me, but the old woman’s other dog was blocking her way. Both dogs were looking at me. I glared at the old woman again, and bellowed up the path telling Bailey to come to me, and that if the other dog bothered her I would break it’s f…ing neck. Bailey came straight to me, and the other dog really did stand there looking sheepish.

The old woman then bustled off without any attempt at apology.

 

We got home just as the garden waste bin was being emptied by the bin men. I watched the bin go onto the bin lorry, it was lifted upside down, put back again, and the bin men put it back by our house.

When I went to put the bin away it was still half-full.

I hung out the washing and made a cuppa and phoned the council to tell them their bin-emptying device had a malfunction, then spent half an hour on the phone to the hospital. My nose is nowhere near as polyped-up as it used to be. Do I really need surgery? I don’t think so. But would anyone at the hospital answer the phone?

 

I left a message with the complaints people, and cracked on in the garden. Having cleared a space behind the pond for my new bog filter yesterday I spent a little while laying the slabs for it. As I lifted a heavy slab there was an awkward incident. I didn’t quite have my hand as far underneath as I might have done. I gave the thing far too much effort and my left middle finger gave a resounding crack and really hurt. I looked at it; it didn’t look right. On the spur of the moment I grabbed the end and gave it a yank. That really hurt as well, but afterwards it looked far more like a finger should look. Had I dislocated it and then got it back into place? I hesitate to say that I had, but it was certainly better after I’d yanked it than before.

 

Seeing my hand was working (after a fashion) I then re-potted my saxifrage which will be used to disguise the container the bog filter will go in. As I re-potted I caught Bailey in the planter she’d dug in yesterday. She was seriously digging again, and she got the worst telling-off she’s ever had (so far). She then spent much of the rest of the day in her basket sulking. Sulking so much that Treacle kept going to see if she was OK. Dogs really do sulk.

 

The hospital’s complaints people phoned, They gave me a number for the ENT secretary. I phoned the number and an automated system told me that the number had not been recognized.

I phoned the complaints people again, then put the bog filter’s container in place and put in the four bags of cobblestones I’d got yesterday. Each stone got washed before going in; they were rather dusty and the whole point of a bog filter is to clean the water. Starting off with a whole load of muck would be rather counterproductive.

 

After a couple of hours the hospital’s complaints people phoned me back and gave me another phone number to try. I left a message on that number, came in and spent a couple of hours ironing before going back into the garden. Once it is established the bog filter will look fine (I hope) but at the moment it looks a bit iffy. I fiddled about landscaping… “Landscaping” is posh for lugging heavy boulders about the garden until they all look pretty.

I’m now at the stage where all I need is the plants for the filter and I can plumb it in. I thought about going to the garden centre to get some, but decided against it. My plan for today had been just to lay the slabs and re-pot the saxifrage. I got far more than that done. Just lately I’ve been doing too much in the garden in one go and suffering afterwards so I stopped.

 

“er indoors ^TM” came home with kebab and we scoffed it whilst watching the telly. Some days in my life are rather dull. Others not so. I’m going to work tomorrow for a rest.

My finger really hurts, and Bailey still has the hump with me…

 

5 June 2024 (Wednesday) - A Fruity German

Last night’s night shift was rather busy… I say “busy”; perhaps “constant” would be a better description. When I first started night work we would work a full shift before the night, and from five o’clock in the afternoon until nine the next morning we would be called in from home as and when needed. And then do a full shift afterwards.

The first night I ever did was in August 1985 when I was called in five times during the evening, finishing the last call at twenty past midnight. Last night I was on the go all the time. As soon as I finished one task so another was waiting for me. I only got a break by walking out and leaving things for as long as it took to have a cuppa. I was rather glad to see the early shift arrive.

My watch has told me that I should aim to walk six thousand steps every day. From when I go round the woods I’ve worked out that this is about two and a half miles. Having zero-ed itself at midnight, the step counter reached six thousand steps as I walked out to my car this morning at eight o’clock.

 

As I drove home the pundits on the radio were talking about last night’s televised debate between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. There were interviews with leading Conservative and Labour politicians. I didn’t see the debate but from what I heard this morning it was little more than a petty squabble in which the Prime Minister appeared slightly more eloquent than his opponent.

These televised debates really are another example of why democracy is a total farce. The televised debate isn’t about coming up with who’s got the best plan for running the country. It’s all about who can appear the most smarmy. I’m reminded of the Junior Debating Society at my old secondary school where we were taught that you really can fool all of the people all of the time provided you talk loudly and confidently.

 

I came off the motorway five minutes before the garden centre opened, so I took a quick detour to go there. I needed some large cobblestones for the next stage of the pond’s revamp. Last night on the way to work I went to B&M Bargains, Wickes, Poundstretcher and Homebase to find that none of them had what I needed. Fortunately Bybrook Barn did. Sadly at twice the price I thought they would be.

 

Equipped with cobbles (and some compost) I came home. As I had a shower and shave there was a minor commotion in the garden. Morgan really did squeal on Bailey who was then caught red-handed (pawed?) digging in the planter I built a couple of months ago.

It didn’t take *that* long to put the soil back, and the plants didn’t seem overly trashed, so here’s hoping.

I then went to bed for the morning. Morgan and Bailey came with me, and used the bed as a battleground.

 

“er indoors ^TM” sorted a cup of soup, and then I took the dogs round the roads for a walk. And with walk walked I pootled in the garden for a bit. As I topped up the pond I mowed the lawn, then made a start shifting the heavy stuff behind the bog filter in readiness for the ground work I’m planning for tomorrow.

 

I then boiled up dinner. I wasn’t overly impressed with how it turned out to be honest, and I must admit that the bottle of piesporter I got from Sainsburys last night wasn’t all that. I thought I couldn’t go wrong with a fruity German… I was wrong.

As we scoffed we watched the last two episodes of “Doctor Who”. We’re now up to date with the recent episodes. Having been watching the show for as long as I can remember I’ve been rather disparaging about much of the last ten years’ worth, but these last two episodes were rather good.

4 June 2024 (Tuesday) - Before the Night Shift

I slept well. Over brekkie I had my usual root around the Internet. It was still there and much the same as ever. People were asking the questions on Facebook pond-related pages and getting the same rude answers. Having been following these for some time it would seem that many people think that it is quite acceptable to chuck any and all chemicals into your pond *except* tap water. Apparently that burns the fish? Odd – I’ve been drinking the stuff for years.

I had a message from someone who’d done my geocaches in Kings Wood; openly admitting to having been cheating on the Wherigos. Others have openly admitted to cheating too… over the years there’s been logs on my geocaches from six of the country’s top twenty finders all of which I’ve caught out cheating in one way or another. Mind you I say “caught out”; they are quite open about it. I know they are only cheating themselves, but why do they do this?

 

I took the dogs up to Kings Wood where we had a very good wander round. The dogs were all good, stayed close and didn’t need to be called or told off. They really are little angels when no one else is watching.

Sadly when we came back to the car we had an episode. I opened the boot of the car; they all jumped in. This is what we always do. I then do a whistle and give them a treat… some passing idiot saw me get the treat bag out of my pocket and brought his dog over on the off-chance there was a treat going. Had we been out and walking there certainly would have been. But another dog coming into my dogs’ territory (the car’s boot) was a recipe for disaster.

Once it was all settled the passing idiot maintained that he had done nothing wrong…

 

We came home to another episode. I drove down the road straight into a parking space. The DHL lorry that had been following me far too close had also driven into the parking space behind me. As he watched me get out, the driver got quite angry that I’d somehow wasted his time. He reversed and flew off cursing.

Had he been a few yards further back he would have seen what was going on…

 

I popped to the corner shop for pastries, made a cuppa for us both to go with them, and sparked up the lap-top. I pootled about a bit, wrote up a little CPD, and thought about doing some work in the garden. But only thought about it; I couldn’t be arsed.

 

I took myself off to bed for the afternoon where I found myself fighting with the dogs for bed space, And when we finally all got sorted so the girls wanted to go back downstairs.

I didn’t really sleep that well; it was too hot. I gave up after a couple of hours and solved geo-puzzles for a bit.

 

Hopefully “er indoors ^TM” will feed me in a bit, then I’m off to the night shift. Can’t say I’m keen on it. Today, like any day before a night shift, has been spent thinking that I’ve got to go to work later.

But there it is…  

 

3 June 2024 (Monday) - A Day at Work

I woke in the middle of the night as I do, set a load of washing going and went back to bed where I dozed on and off until the washing was done. I got up properly, hung it out, put more in, made toast, and watched the first episode of “Tires”; a new series on Netflix which shows some promise.

I then sparked up my lap-top. I had a message from Facebook. A couple of days ago I’d reported an advert. One click on that advert went straight to PornHub, and even that didn’t breach Facebook’s advertising standards.

I sent out a birthday video to “Daddy’s Little Angel ^TM” and leaving instructions for “er indoors ^TM” to hang out the washing I set off.

 

I took a little diversion into the town centre for some Munzee Points of Interest, then set off up the motorway to work. I say "motorway"; Operation Brock was again in force for no explicable reason.

As I drove the pundits on the radio were spouting their usual drivel. I'd not heard the news for a week or so and it hadn't changed much in that time. The war in Gaza continues; it seems both sides are keen on the war continuing. For all there is talk of cease fire, there is talk and talk, and the poor people on the ground continue to suffer.

There was also a lot of opinion spouted about the upcoming General Election. The Conservatives are keen to sort out the entire trans issue by revamping the Equality Act in a shallow plan to stop Conservative voters turning to the Reform party. Mind you I use the term "sort out" in its loosest way. Effectively what they propose is that anyone can declare they are whatever gender they like and that is all heigh-ho pip and dandy until such time as they try to interact with anyone else at all. At that point gender would legally become the same as biological sex, and biological females go to ladies toilets and compete in female sporting events and get banged up in ladies prisons (and the same for males) blah-de-blah just like it always used to be. Personally I see this as a fight waiting to happen; things have moved on since the bad old days.

However I'll (again) make the observation that whilst there are genuine trans people (of that I have no doubt), for many (especially the young) it is the craze of the moment. When my father was young there were Teddy Boys, when I was a lad there was punk rockers and when my children were younger everyone dressed in Burberry.

In my oldest granddaughter's last year at school there were twenty children claiming to be trans in a class of thirty. 

I wonder what the craze will be when “Darcie Waa Waa ^TM” is of an age to join in?

 

I got to work. A few years ago I used to feel sick at the thought of going to work. Now I quite like it. I did my bit, and spent half an hour showing an A-level student the wonders of what blood looks like down a microscope. She seemed quite impressed; I didn't have the heart to tell her not to follow a scientific career.

 

I came home… once I eventually found somewhere to park. “er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner and went bowling. I settled on the sofa with the dogs and watched a film on Netflix. “Brian and Charles” was rather good, but like most films went on a tad too long.

2 June 2024 (Sunday) - FTF, Folkestone

I slept like a log last night but woke with rather bad backache. I got up, put some washing in, had a shave… and went back to bed. I got up a couple of hours later and the back wasn’t quite so bad. I hung out a load of washing on a glorious morning, put another in, made toast and had my usual root around the Internet.

Back to the old routine, eh?

Yesterday I’d bitten the bullet and posted a picture of my pond plant to one of the pond-related Facebook pages. What was it? Lesser spearwort, meadow buttercup, brass buttons, creeping jenny… there were as many opinions as there were people to give them. For once everyone was offering opinions nicely. However this wasn’t the case for the “Upstairs Downstairs” page I moderate; someone had “called bullshit” on someone else’s comment. I deleted it, and set the one who’d called so that their posts need to be approved by an admin for a month. You have to worry about the mentality of someone who “calls bullshit” on Upstairs Downstairs though, don’t you?

I saw a rather lengthy article from someone who until recently was pleading poverty. Today he was singing the praises of his Tesla car; something which cost him many times what my car cost me. Other people are very strange with their money, aren’t they? Someone who defriended me a few years ago and lived in a half-million pound house similarly regularly claimed not to have a pot to piss in whilst her daughter went to private school (with a five-figure bill each year). And the one who recently crowd-funded a family member’s funeral is often all over Facebook with holidays and heavy drinking sessions.

On the positive side the Universal Church Triumphant of the Apathetic Agnostic has re-launched itself. I’m actually an ordained minister of that church, and it once granted me an honorary degree -  A Master of Ignorance. Its central tenet is there may or may not be a god, but we aren’t really bothered either way. “We don’t know and we don’t care” always struck me as a rather sensible religious standpoint.

 

With a second load of washing hung out and “er indoors ^TM” and the dogs up and about we went for a little walk. On the Friday before we went on holiday a series of Adventure Lab geocaches and a bonus geocache went live in Viccie Park. We didn’t have time to go find them then, but today (nine days later!) no one had yet claimed the First to Find.

Surely someone had been out in the week but was playing silly beggars?

Some people really do delight in going to new geocaches, doing all the secret rituals, and not logging it on-line until someone else has been out chasing the First to Find and has found they are too late. Some people really do get a strange satisfaction in wasting other people’s time in this way. I’m told it’s called “keeping it open”.

We fully expected someone else to have been out during the week; after all, new geocaches round here are usually found within a couple of hours of going live. But we did all the Adventure Lab stuff, got the location of the final stage, and we found we really were First to Find. Nine days after publication. That’s unheard of.

 

We came home, I got the dry washing in, we loaded ourselves and the dogs into the car and set off to Folkestone. I got a job lot of Taco Bell and took it all round to “Daddy’s Little Angel ^TM”. The nice lady in Taco Bell did a custom-made burrito for “Darcie Waa Waa ^TM”; she’s not up for a volcano burrito (yet).

We had a good bit of scoff, we had the obligatory dog-snogging and Bimmy-Boo. For some inexplicable reason Bimmy-Boo was done sitting in a bucket. And then we went to the Leas for a little walk. We had hoped to catch the dog event that was on today, but we were too late. But we saw the stalls that were there for it. Littlun had a go on the trampolines, and on the hook-a-duck and won a bouncy ball. And after an ice-cream all round it was time to come home.

 

I put more washing in, watered the plants, and spent quite a while picking all the grass out of the gravelled area where the bird feeder used to be until I saw all the grass. I think I shall put some weed killer there, and bird feeders over the lawn.

There had been talk of a roast dinner this evening, but what with a bellyful of burrito we weren’t that hungry.

There’s talk of pizza… but so far, only talk…

The day’s fourth wash load is going through the poor machine.

1 June 2024 (Saturday) - Back to Reality

Needing to be up promptly I’d told the Alexa to sound an alarm at seven o’clock. It made a rather strange noise. Personally I prefer the sound of my phone telling me (quite literally) to get my arse out of its pit.

I got up, did my packing, generally got in the way of everyone else trying to do their packing, and it wasn’t long before we were saying our goodbyes and heading homewards.

 

As we set off I looked at the clock. Usually at that time on a Saturday morning we would have been finishing up at Dog Club and trying to work out what the year was on Steve’s mystery year competition on the radio. It was a shame that Radio Ashford doesn’t broadcast as far as Cambridgeshire; we tried to get the on-line version but the internet signal was patchy at best.

As we drove southwards down the motorways we looked at amazement at the miles of stationary traffic trying to head northwards; we were right to have made an early start last week.

 

We got home and were soon unloaded (if not unpacked), and it wasn’t long before we worked out that “er indoors ^TM” had left a bag of shoes at the holiday cottage. Woops! Mind you I was very pleased to hear her saying that it was her fault and she should have checked; I did check the utility room where she’d left them and clearly I didn’t check the right cupboards.

I had a little look in the garden. “My Boy ^TM” and the rain had seen that the plants were OK. Most of the pond plants had gone berserk though. The big pond was amazingly clear; I’m convinced that my theory about plants in a pond is a good one. Sadly the filter in the little pond had blocked up. It does that with annoying regularity. A couple of days I’d seen a photo of the thing on one of the pond-related Facebook groups asking if it was any good. The general consensus is that it makes for a good fountain, but as a filter it needs too much cleaning.

But it didn’t take that long to clean out, and once I’d run round with the lawn mower I cleaned the filter of the big pond too. For all that the plants in the big pond had gone berserk, the punnet of watercress I’d chucked in a couple of weeks ago hadn’t really taken off, so as “er indoors ^TM” went shopping I asked her to get another bag of the stuff.

 

I put a week’s worth of undercrackers into the washing machine. It had had a week off; back to the grind for it. And then I had a little pootle in the garden planning the extension to the bog filter. I’ve got a length of drainpipe to protect my inlet (oo-er!) and probably enough shingle to make a base. All I need are some large cobblestones and the plants. If any of my loyal readers have any spare large cobblestones they don’t want, I’m your man. And if anyone could identify the plant with yellow flowers in the piccie above I’d be very grateful. The obvious place to ask would be one of the Facebook pond-related pages; my post I awaiting approval but I suspect that just asking what a plant is will be enough to kick off several rather bitter arguments.

 

As I type this, all three dogs are snoring. We’ve had a good week away but it has been very full-on for them. They are worn out, poor things. As am I…

31 May 2024 (Friday) - Reach

Another wet morning, but with a forecast looking better for later in the day. As we planned where we might go we were suddenly plunged into darkness as the power failed. A quick fiddle with the trip switch sorted it all out, but what was that all about?

With power restored we decided to go for a walk round the village of Reach, but as we decided that so the heavens opened. But we went anyway. Between seeing the downpour and putting on our shoes the rain stopped.

 

Reach was ten miles from base along some of the bumpiest roads we’ve ever travelled along. We got there and had a good walk about. The ground was nowhere near as muddy as other walks have been this week. As always our route was set by a series of geocaches. Sadly like most we went for this week they were rather old caches and things have changed since the things were hidden eight years ago. What was once “base of post” is now “under six feet of thicket”. What was once “base of tree” is now “in the hedge”.

 

After a good walk we came back to base, had a light late lunch, and I had a kip on the sofa. A little later as dinner was being prepared I smelled something. The chicken I’d got from the local shop a couple of days ago was rancid.

With nothing else in the cupboard to scoff I took the chicken back to the shop. I explained what had happened to the chap behind the counter and showed him the offending chicken. He had a look and a sniff and called his manager over. I overheard the chap say “this man bought some chicken here. Christ, it stinks!”. The manager was happy to refund or replace. I went for a refund; as I said to her the chicken in their chiller cabinet (with five days left on its best by date) was a strange blue-grey colour. Perhaps they need a proper fridge with a door that closes?

 

We went up to the co-op and got some non-rancid chicken, and once that was cooked up we had a rather good dinner. And with dinner scoffed we played a couple of games of “Sorry”, of which I won one.

I took a few photos of the day.

We’re going home tomorrow…