30 October 2024 (Wednesday) - Something for Nothing

I had another restless night. I woke feeling refreshed and raring to go at quarter past two, and then lay awake for the rest of the night.

Over brekkie I watched another episode of “Everyone Else Burns”. Again on the one hand it was very funny and entertaining, and on the other hand I recognized a lot of characters from my past. I wonder whatever happened to the religious crackpots of Hastings of the late 1970s. Have they all (like me) seen the darkness?

 

With telly watched I sparked up my lap-top. The Munzee world was amazed at Munzee HQ’s announcement last night that you can now only buy their stuff from the USA now. Or that is those in the parts of the Munzee world outside the USA were amazed. Those in the USA were seemingly amazed that there were parts of the world outside the USA.

I got Wordle on my last attempt and got ready for work. Again taking care not to wake or squish anyone.

 

It was again dark as I set off to work, and again after a couple of minutes driving through a dark morning I remembered I'd not brought lunch. I stopped off at the co-op to get some and I met Martin who was having a bit of a disaster. His milk had gone off and he needed more, and so had gone shopping.

Back in the day we'd have milk delivered by a milkman. The bloke who used to live next door a few years ago had a milkman and paid a lot more for his milk than I did. I had a little look at the Internet this morning and saw that the local dairies would seem to have got cheaper since I last compared prices but when do they deliver? I can remember my gran's milkman never showed up until mid-morning, and on the summer mornings the milk had already turned before he'd delivered it. On the winter mornings the stuff used to arrive frozen.

 

I got my sandwich, told Martin he should get a co-op card, and set off to work. As always I listened to the pundits on the radio who today were in a speculative mood today. Who was going to win next week's presidential elections in America? What would be announced in the budget later today? Loads of guesswork this morning but absolutely no news at all.

 

Work was work. At lunch time one of the trainees came round with a load of Starbucks mugs that had been donated to us. A free mug can’t be bad... and hot on her heels was the works' well-being team with a free packet of vitamin tablets for anyone who wanted one. I had a mug and a packet of tablets - something for nothing is always worth having even if both will just sit in my locker never to see the light of day again.

It was a shame no one was giving out cake...

29 October 2024 (Tuesday) - Munzee R.I.P.

I didn't sleep very well last night; with an alarm set I was waking every twenty minutes or so. I eventually gave up trying to sleep and got up. I made toast and watched more of "Everyone Else Burns". It's a very good show. Most people would see it as a rather funny comedy about religious crackpots; I see the show as a documentary about my teenage years. In the late 1970s some bunch of religious nuts decided that Hastings was a den of iniquity and was ripe for missionaries. And like many of my mates at the time I fell for their hype.

Looking back, the religious fervour I had at their rallies was much the same feeling that you get at a pop concert or a football match, but I was young and didn't know.

And again looking back, "Everyone Else Burns" has got it spot on.

 

I got dressed in the dark taking care not to wake “er indoors ^TM” or the dogs. A tricky thing to do; if I turn the light on I wake everyone; if I leave the light off I might squish a dog as I put my socks on. Bailey particularly would be very easily squished.

I set off to work, and realising I'd forgotten lunch I popped in to the co-op. Isn't it daft that what with their meal deal, adding a bottle of pop to my lunch took twenty pence off the total price, and brandishing my co-op car gave me fifty pence off of a four-quid bill. But a small cheapo flimsy biodegradable carrier bag set me back sixty pence?

 

I drove up the dark motorway through pouring rain as the pundits on the radio wittered on about occasional passing showers. They also wittered on about more pub closures. They were interviewing the head honcho of the pub chain Greene King about the upcoming budget about which there are rumours of increases to taxes and to the minimum wage. The chap being interviewed made the observation that the cost to a pub of increases in staff wages and taxes can only be paid for out of pub takings (which is true - where else can they come from?). He went on to say that the profit margin on some pubs is so low that the rumoured tax and wage increases will turn them from making a profit into making a loss, and so they will close.  There was a lot of bleeding heart whinging from other people being interviewed, but the observation was made (correctly) that pubs are businesses, not charities. Sad, but true. I like a pint from time to time, but with a pint costing the thick end of a fiver the writing is on the wall for most, if not all, pubs.

The motorway was rather busy this morning. Traffic was moving very slowly for the two miles between junctions seven and six on the motorway, and the Running Horse Roundabout was horrendous. Quite a few people were bellowing road rage at the more timid drivers, and in all honesty I can't say I wasn't tempted to join in.

 

Having left home in darkness I got to work in daylight. A colleague was poorly and I'd been offered the early shift. I like early shifts. Particularly at the moment. If you aren't past the Running Horse roundabout by half past seven in the morning you are looking at sitting in a traffic jam for over an hour. And then getting to work to find everyone else has beaten you there and the car park is full to overflowing.  So on the days when I am working I get there silly early so as to avoid that nonsense. Earlies suit me!!

And having done my bit at work there was more road nonsense on my way home. There’s been notices up about Bond Road being closed overnight for some time now. And today when the closures are planned to start, some idiot has decided to close Christchurch Road. For those who don’t know the area this is akin to planning to deliberately close both the M2 and M20 at the same time.

Kent Highways have done some stupid things recently… Personally I don’t blame whoever made the decision to do this. I blame whoever put that person into a position or authority where they could do this.

 

And as I was typing this drivel so I’m (quite possibly) finding myself in need of a new hobby. Munzee HQ in America has announced that they are ending their reseller program. Up until now if I wanted to buy any bar codes to stick onto lamp posts I could buy them from a company in Lancashire who would send them on to me at second class post rates. From now on I can print my own (tried that – didn’t work) or have them posted from America at silly prices.

So I can Munz until supplies run out… and then I shall need another hobby.

28 October 2024 (Monday) - Gardening, Lego, Frog

Other than “er indoors ^TM” having a fight with Morgan in the small hours I slept well.  From time to time he licks his paws for no reason, and was doing so quite noisily last night. Apparently. I slept through any noise he might have been making. It was someone else that woke me.

 

I made toast, and had my usual root around the Internet. Today there was an argument on the Kent Geocachers page. Someone was whinging about why an ex-hunter of Tupperware wasn’t doing cache maintenance any more. And that whinge summed up all that is wrong with the noble and ancient art of hunting Tupperware. So many people want to go looking for film pots under rocks. But so few are prepared to put the things out themselves. It’s the old, old argument. It speaks volumes that I for one really don’t want to put them out, and I’m the county’s second most active hider.

If people would like to put out a series there’s plenty of space in the county. I’ve got cache locations of series I’ve archived in Bethersden, Great Chart, Sevington and Witchling that I’m willing to share. People wouldn’t have to work out routes to walk; all they’d have to do would be to stick a film pot under a rock and tell the geo-feds they’ve done it. I made the offer on-line.

So far no one has taken me up on it.

 

I took the dogs out. As we drove there was some dire drivel on the radio about some woman who was once queen of France but jacked it all in to become queen of Scotland. I suppose it could have been interesting, but the presenter was determined to kill the subject stone dead. I listened for a while; wondering why something so dull would be on national radio. I eventually gave up and sang along to Ivor Biggun as we drove up to the woods.

The woods were rather busy today. We met nine other groups with dogs, and every encounter passed off without episode. There was one dog who I thought Morgan was playing rather aggressively with but that dog wanted to walk with us and followed us as the rest of his group walked off..

One group we met was a young mother with two small children on bikes. And they were like every other group of young mothers with two small children on bikes that I’ve ever seen. Young mothers always demand that the children cycle at walking pace. It isn’t possible to cycle that slowly, and the children constantly wobble all over the place and fall off. If you are going to take small children out on bikes you either need to run or have a bike yourself. It ain’t rocket science.

 

We came home. I had a cuppa and cracked on in the garden. I trimmed back more of not-so-nice-next-door’s brambles, then cleaned out the pond’s filter and with that done had a general tidy-up.

And then we had a delivery. On Saturday I said “What I needed was some of those strips of stones glued to some sort of backing material”. I ordered some off of Amazon and they arrived today. It only took me a few minutes to realise they were shite (and that’s being generous). I opened the packaging to see that quite a few stones had already fallen off of the backing. And the backing material was so flimsy that it couldn’t hold its own weight, and whilst trying to put it into place it stretched and bent itself entirely out of shape.

Thankfully “er indoors ^TM” came up with an idea to sort out what those strips of stones would be covering. I ordered something else from Amazon, and hopefully I’ll get the current pond project finished in a few days.

 

I sat down with another cuppa and wrote up some CPD, then opened up my Lego plum blosson set and spent an hour or so building it. What with the rain starting and then hossing down it wasn’t as though I could do much else.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up her version of plov, and we scoffed it whilst watching “Lego Masters: Australia”.

 With that watched Bailey asked to go into the garden. I went with her – she tends to play silly beggars in the dark. As I waved the torch around I saw movement. We’ve got a frog in our small pond. 

27 October 2024 (Sunday) - Late Shift

I had a rather good night’s sleep I suppose, but I did wake in a cold sweat in the small hours. My poor brain had concocted a nightmare in which Mark Lenard (the Star Trek actor) had sponsored one of my ex-cubs on a sponsored walk and hadn’t paid the two quid that was owed. For some reason it was up to me to reclaim the money, and the facts that he’d lived in America and had died nearly thirty years ago were utterly irrelevant. If I didn’t get the money I would go to prison.

 

I got up and zoomed round the house putting the clocks to the right time. Last night we had the stupidity of the clocks going back an hour. I’ve heard all sorts of reasons why this happens… It is claimed that it safer for schoolchildren to walk to school, and that it saves energy. Seriously? We have the same amount of daylight. Moving when we call midday changes nothing. Children walking to school in daylight walk home in the dark. Light bulbs not turned on in the mornings just get turned on in the evening.

Most of the world doesn’t bother with changing the clocks twice a year.

 

I made toast and had my usual rummage round the Internet. I sent out birthday wishes, reported spamming adverts and rolled my eyes at the inspirational memes. People who tell you that when life hands you lemons you should make lemonade boil my piss. They have clearly never been handed a lemon by life.

There was an interesting rant on The Original Hastings Nightlife Facebook group bemoaning the loss of all the night clubs in the area, and asking what young people do on Saturday nights. No end of people were chipping in about how there’s nowhere for the young to go out on the beer in Hastings; all of whom were ignoring the posts from doormen and taxi drivers who were saying that there are loads of places open until two or three o’clock in the morning and the town centre is as busy at night as it ever was. Some people just want to moan.

Bit like me, really.

There was a post on Facebook about people up our road moaning. It would seem that someone’s children are practicing musical instruments at all hours. Not-so-nice-next-door clangs her piano periodically, but it’s not really an issue. A noisy neighbour can be a two-edged sword in that having one means you can make as much noise as you like and they can’t complain.

The biggest issue we ever had with noise was the bloke next door over twenty years ago who regularly came home drunk and noisy at two o’clock in the morning. Eventually I banged on his door at five o’clock and told him that if he wakes me in the small hours I would wake him a couple of hours later. He swore and ranted, and when he was finished I told him that what he had to say was irrelevant – every time from then on if he came home making noise in the small hours he would be woken a couple of hours later.

We never heard anything more from him…

 

I did have a vague plan to take the dogs out this morning, but unless it’s a quick once round the park there’s never enough time before work. And being the weekend the normal people would have been out in force. And once dog brekkie was scoffed all three were soon snoring.

I had a little pootle in the garden. I gathered dog turds, voomed round with the Bionic Burner, and then got out the lawn feeding jollop. The yellow patches on the lawn where dog tiddle killed the grass seem to have cleared up.

 

I sulked as I set off to work. It's been rather wet recently. Yesterday was a bit dull and overcast, and I cut short farting about in the garden to avoid the rain.  This morning I drove off to work through glorious sunshine, and I spent much of the afternoon staring out the window at a rather good day. I've often said that I don't mind working at the weekend when it is dismal and raining. But I do mind working at the weekend when it is sunny and bright.

Work was work; I did my bit.  But as always when on a late shift the best part of the day is over and done with by mid-morning. And apart from capping six bouncers in one of my works tree houses (I have two!) today was on the dull side.

 

I again spent quite a while thinking about buying that house over the back of ours. It's a shame that “er indoors ^TM” isn't keen... I know it isn't really practical, but I might just have a look when it goes on the market. I knew having two puppies wasn't practical when I saw Morgan and Bailey's pictures on the Internet two and a half years ago, and I went to have a look at them...

26 October 2024 (Saturday) - Dog Club, Shopping, Gardening

No geocaches went live as I scoffed my toast this morning, so I didn’t go charging out on another wasted journey. But I had a message via the messaging service on geocaching dot com. Someone had specifically created a geocaching account to send me a message. The message was “I'd like to know more about your work on the river stour especially if you have any wildlife survey data in the fields behind Kingsnorth Surgery or flow data at the riverside Inn location. It’s a bit urgent as we have to respond to the EA regarding Kingsnorth Green WWTW discharge permit application.” This was deliberately intended for me as it came with one or two little snippets about me so that the sender could be sure he was messaging the right person.

What was that all about?

I peered into Facebook as I do. Yet another person had asked for recommendations for a good vet in the area. This question comes up at least once a week, and every surgery for miles around gets an equal amount of praise and criticism. There wasn’t much else on Facebook this morning… other than a myriad of adverts about things in which I had no interest whatsoever. I reported half a dozen as spam, and clicked the box to find out why I was being sent utter drivel. Apparently advertisers only need to specify a target audience that uses English and is over eighteen before being able to harass the masses.. I suppose that if only one person in a hundred thousand buys the rubbish they are peddling then they’ve made their money back.

 

Being Saturday we went to Dog Club. There was a rather good turn-out today – about fifteen dogs. It was difficult to count as they kept moving about. Morgan was surprisingly well behaved. He did get a little over-excited, but no need for any time-out and no need for his muzzle at all.

Again we were rather late out of Dog Club; as we drove off so Steve was on the radio announcing what the Mystery Year had been.

 

We came home and had a cuppa, then I set off on a little mission. The pond liner covering the bit of the sleeper near the waterfall doesn’t look quite what it might. What I needed was some of those strips of stones glued to some sort of backing material.

I went to Bybrook Barn garden centre who didn’t have any. The nice lady in Wickes said I might try Amazon. I tried B&M Bargains as I remembered seeing them in there (when I didn’t need them). There was no-one to ask. The only staff they had were on the tills looking harassed with queues seemingly half a mile long and growing. In desperation I tried B&Q. They’ve been difficult in the past, and today summed up what I’ve come to expect from them. As I walked in there was some chap strutting about the entrance as though he owned the place. I started to ask him … and he shut me up and said that if I wanted anything I should go ask one of the staff. I stared at his staff badge on the lanyard round his neck. He stared at me as though I was the shit on his shoe. I asked if he worked there. That confused him… he said he did. I told him I’d take my money elsewhere.

 

I came home and seeing the forecast rain hadn’t happened I cracked on in the garden. I rearranged rocks, pressure-washered our Neptune statue and pressure-washered paving slabs until both the pressure-washer’s batteries went flat.

As I fiddled about in the garden I kept looking over the back to the house at the end of the drive at the end of our garden. I’d got chatting to the bloke who lives there and he says he’s selling up. Do we want to move there? The house looks nice enough, but I’ve put so much time and effort into our back garden. I don’t want to start again from scratch. The bloke was asking if he could have some of my spare topsoil to bung up the holes in his garden through which the foxes get in. If foxes can get in, dogs could get out.

Moving would be a major upheaval… maybe I’ll pass on this one?

 

I came inside for a cuppa just as the rain started… and woke up two hours later and found I could hardly move. And after dinner and having put two loads into the washing machine it still hurts to move about.

“er indoors ^TM” is watching “Celebrity Weakest Link” in which several actors from TV soaps are bending over backwards to show how proud they are of their ignorance. Why do they do that?

25 October 2024 (Friday) - Another Busy Day

As I scoffed my toast I saw a new geocache had gone live near Lydd. Set by someone who sets fiendish puzzles I thought I’d just have a look. I immediately saw what this puzzle was all about, solved it, scoffed my toast, and leaving “er indoors ^TM” and the dogs in their pits I flew off in the hopes of a First to Find.

I didn’t get it.

I had a serious sulk…

 

As I drove home “Desert Island Discs” was on the radio. Today’s castaway was someone I’d never heard of. Shirley Collins is a folk singer who was a significant contributor to the British Folk Revival of the 1960s and 1970s (or so it says on Wikipedia). It turned out she was born in Hastings (where my mother was born) six months after my mother was born. Her early life sounded just like mum and dad described theirs - dodging bombs and being evacuated. But then this woman chose her music.

Oh dear…

I collected the dogs and carried on to the woods still listening to “Desert Island Discs”. This woman’s choice of music was so bad I felt I had to keep listening to hear what came next. You’ve never heard such a dreadful collection of caterwauled dirges.

 

We got to the woods; we walked our four miles. Once away from the car park we didn’t see anyone at all. It was only a shame that Bailey had to roll in quite so much fox poo.

As we drove home I saw the 666 bus from Ashford to Faversham come past. I always chuckle at the number – and there’s a picture of a devil on the back of the bus. Mind you the bus is rarely busy. The local bus company runs an hourly service. This morning’s one didn’t have anyone at all on it as it came past us.

Give it a year of so and the locals will be up in arms when the service gets cancelled because no one uses it. Like what happened with the Eurostar.

 

The dogs had a bath – some got scrubbed more than others. I made a cuppa and had a look at the Internet later than I usually do. I sent out birthday wishes, Munzed, got Wordle on the fifth attempt, then got on with the bog filter project.

So simple to type…

I re-plumbed the pressure filter’s output. That took half an hour. I then put some of the plants from the old bog filter into the new one. But only some – they had rather grown over the summer. I then upended the water and shingle out of the old filter tub. That made a mess so I ran out the hose pipe to wash away the mess. That made more mess.

Eventually I managed to wash away the worst of the muck, I got the excess pond plants to the green recycle bin, pressure-washed the old filter tub and the old splash pool. I looked at the dustbin full of the top soil I’d dug out a week or so ago to make space for this new filter, and took a deep breath. I eventually managed to heave it to the other end of the garden.

As I fiddled about so a squirrel trotted down the fence and quite happily walked across the garden. So much for ever vigilant dogs, eh?

After a couple of hours of heavy lifting and garden effort I was all in. There’s still some topsoil to shift and the rockery to rearrange properly, but they will keep for another day.

 

I spent a few minutes looking at the monthly accounts. Eventually I got them to balance, and seeing I was unusually flush we got “My Boy ^TM” and Cheryl to come round for a games and kebab evening. Games aren’t too pricey, but kebab isn’t the cheap option it once was…

 

I *really* ache. The weather forecast for tomorrow is rain. A day not being able to do heavy lifting in the garden probably wouldn’t be a bad thing.

24 October 2024 (Thursday) - Making Progress

Every morning I make toast and scoff it as I peer into the Internet. Occasionally there might be something interesting or inspiring. But usually it is just people quarrelling. It seems there was a particularly vicious squabble in real life at a local angling lake last night. Last night the owners got into an argument with someone who was night fishing, and the chap had the hump and went home. Straight through the locked gate.

I then took a deep breath and asked for advice on the Skoda Fabia Facebook page. My phone connects to my car by Bluetooth. I can make hands-free calls fine, and see text messages on the car’s screen. But there’s a problem with my phone’s sat-nav in that when I use the phone’s sat-nav in the car, the spoken directions don’t happen. If I turn off Bluetooth then the phone tells me where to turn. With Bluetooth on – nothing.

Presumably the spoken instructions are going to the car somewhere.

 

I put a load of washing in to scrub then took the dogs up to the woods where we had a good walk. As we walked a deer ran across the path. By the time I realized I wanted to take a photo of it, it was gone. Treacle and Bailey didn’t see it, but Morgan did and gave chase. I wish he wouldn’t.

We walked round the woods in peace, but there was some parent and toddler event going on just past the bottom of the slope leading from the car park. And there were loads of people there, and walking down from the car park, all carrying cups of coffee. Unless they’d boiled it up in the car park it would have been stone cold by the time they’d driven it to the woods.

 

We came home. I hung out the washing then mowed the lawn. As I mowed I remembered the nutty chap who used to live next door. No matter what the time of year, the time of day, or the weather, he would always insist that I shouldn’t be mowing my lawn. He always had the most absurd and ridiculous reason why I should have mowed the lawn the day before, and from the way he used to speak it was as though he really did think I could go back a day to mow the lawn.

I often wonder what happened to him.

And with lawn mowed I voomed round with the garden vacuum cleaner.

 

“er indoors ^TM” stopped for lunch so I put her to use. Together we got the liner into the bog filter, cut it roughly to shape. Then in a rather extreme act of faith I turned the pumps on. The bog filter filled with water, and the waterfall thingy worked and the rest of it didn’t overflow. Flushed with success I then spent an hour shifting rocks about the rockery. But only an hour. I deliberately stopped because I knew that if I carried on I wouldn’t be able to move for several days.

I took a few photos and added them to the pond album. I’ve got to sort the liner where it meets the main pond, rearrange the rockery and sort the plants, but I can start on that tomorrow.

 

I made us both a cuppa and had a look at the internet. This morning I’d asked on Facebook about getting my phone’s sat-nav to talk through the car. Someone had given me instructions on how to do it. I went out to the car, called up the audio menu… and the menu screen the chap was talking about wasn’t there.

Ho hum…

I had a look on Google and that had some suggestions which didn’t work ether…

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled a decent bit of dinner which we watched the first episode of the latest series of “Taskmaster”. Unusually I’d heard of two of the five contestants.

 

I ache a bit… hope I chirp up overnight. There’s quite a bit of work to do in the garden tomorrow…