7 September 2025 (Sunday) - Not In Edenbridge

I slept well, made toast and had my usual rummage round the Internet. Again people were up in arms about the state of the boating lake on Hastings sea front. The thing is a bit of a mess, but sadly it is in private ownership and the owners don’t seem to be able to make money from it. As always there was no end of people willing to find fault, and no one willing to actually help or do anything about it.

I then did a little research. Yesterday I was a bit dubious about where we chose to park for our walk… and then I saw the Village Post Office in Challock had been converted into a house. Apparently they closed for the last time three years ago. It’s amazing what you miss if you don’t pay attention.

 

I checked the weather forecast. The plan for today had been a big walk round Edenbridge, but we cancelled than because the weather forecast up until Friday gave heavy rain all day today at Edenbridge. Today the weather forecast was sun with no chance of rain all day, Ho hum…

I Munzed, Wordled, and got on with painting the gnome platform… then remembered that the first thing I should have done this morning was to put washing on. Woops…

 

We took the dogs out for a little Munzing round the local roads. We went up through Bowens Field where I used to walk Fudge all the time. The place had changed beyond recognition – an entire boardwalk had gone. We went up into the town and along Godinton road to the Godinton estate and home via Singleton Lake. When we went out I thought it might have been maybe three miles; it was six and a half. As we went we Munzed like things possessed, capping over seventy Greenies (which was quite a result if you go round scanning bar codes stuck to lamp posts). And I archived half a dozen of my Munzees – since I put them out the life belt holders, lamp posts and road signs to which I’d stuck them had been taken away.

As we walked we didn’t find two geocaches. One was particularly overgrown with brambles, and someone had been taken short and had done a crap very close to where the other one was supposedly hidden.

How delightful.

 

We came home. I hung out the washing then ran round with the lawn mower and the garden vacuum cleaner. I then sat by the pond thinking about cracking on with the gnome platform… but only thinking about it.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up some toad in the hole which we scoffed whilst watching this week’s episode of “Lego Masters; Australia”. There’s a fine line between unreasoning national pride and xenophobia; sadly one of the contestants is seemingly continually on the wrong side.

Hopefully she will get thrown out in the next episode…

 

And it is now three years since my dad died.

6 September 2025 (Saturday) - Hic !

I had a plan to paint the underside of the gnome platform this morning but I ached too much when I got up. I made toast and had a look at the Internet instead.

Several people were being rather disparaging about Angela Rayner. Three days ago the news mentioned that the deputy Prime Minister was in all sorts of trouble because of irregularities in the stamp duty she did or didn’t pay when buying or selling a house. A couple of days ago she claimed she paid the amount that her solicitors advised her. Two days ago her solicitors claimed they hadn’t advised anything and claimed they were being scapegoated. And yesterday it would seem she resigned.

To get on in politics you’ve either got to be utterly squeaky-clean or not give a sh*t about what the public think of you.

But what amazed me most was that (in broad terms) she’s not really done anything that any other disgraced politician hasn’t, but the people on my Facebook list who were ripping into her were totally denying that anyone in their favourite political party had ever done anything wrong in the history of politics. I’ve always thought that you should make a political decision on the strength of policies offered, but so many people I know chose a favourite political party in their youth (at the same time that they chose a favourite football team) and have stuck with that party through thick and thin regardless of what the party stands for or their own personal beliefs.

I was reminded of the most left-wing woman I ever met who always voted Conservative (and even distributed election leaflets for the Tories), always have a “Vote Conservative” poster up at election time even though she was constantly spouting what was actually pure Labour party propaganda. Apparently her father once commented that she was a “True Blue”, and she supported the party ever since even though she disagreed with everything they stood for.

And then I sniggered as I checked my emails. I’ve an alert set up on the geocaches we visited when in Uzbekistan last year; I’m nosey and I like seeing where people are coming from for their Uzbek holiday. When you sign up for a geocaching account you get to choose an alias. Someone had chosen the sobriquet “Shart”.

 

Morgan came down obviously wanting something. He didn’t want to go outside, he went back upstairs, then came back to me. Twice. I followed him upstairs to see that he wanted to jump on the bed, but Treacle was on the bed guarding it and wouldn’t let him come up. Treacle can be quite mean to the little ones.

As I was upstairs anyway I got dressed, and once dressed I went into the garden. Aching or not that gnome platform needed another coat of paint.

 

As Treacle glared out of the window growling at every passer-by, Steve was on the radio. The guess the lyrics competition today was “Well you’re built like a car”. No? – it was T. Rex – Get It On (Bang a Gong). No – I’d never heard of it either. I was only eight at the time…

 

We drove round to Dog Club where we had a rather good session. I lost count of the amount of dogs that were along today. All was going fine until the very end when two new dogs arrived… and then things got “rather frisky”… there’s not a lot you can do when the urge is on dogs to start humping each other.

As we drove off we caught the end of Steve’s mystery year competition on the radio. Yazoo – The Only Way Is Up… I was eight years out.

 

We drove up to Challock listening to the Ying Tong Song on the “Junior Choice” part of the radio show, then went on a rather good little walk. Back in the day I had a series of geocaches around North Challock. Last year someone put out a new series up there. It was a good little walk; only a shame that the caches clearly need a little maintenance. Some were old and tired, some were quite a bit off of the given co-ordinates.

 

And with walk walked in a novel break with tradition we didn’t go to out usual pub in Badlesmere. Instead we tried the Wagon and Horses in Charing. I’m glad we did. They had some rather good beer and some very good food. We were at table twenty-five… if you can find a sign with “25” on it and take a selfie you can log this year’s locationless geocache.  Those things are rather obscure – this is only the third I’ve ever found.

We were only at the pub for four hours. I slept most of the way home…

I took a few photos of our adventure today. It was as well that I painted my gnome platform this morning; it would have been a tad ambitious this afternoon…

5 September 2025 (Friday) - Stopped Raining

Sometimes I worry about what goes on in my head – I woke in a cold sweat at four o’clock this morning following a very vivid dream in which I’d been sent to rescue the Baptist minister of Minehead (who is in reality an old school friend of mine) from a very camp policeman who wanted to take him on an Open University Summer School.

What was that all about?

 

I completely forgot to put the washing machine on, made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was dull but I had several emails exhorting me to buy the latest Harry Potter Lego sets. Have you seen the price of them?

 

I took the dogs out. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how it is becoming more and more likely that the odious Nigel Farage will be the next Prime Minister. Not because of any of his policies, but because the average voter feels that they know what he stands for whether or not they agree with him. Apparently people would rather vote for someone with whom they totally disagree rather than for someone with no clear agenda. Democracy, eh?

And there was an interview with Tottenham Hotspur football club’s director of football. Apparently some head honcho there has left or got the sack or something. This director of football bloke wasn’t happy because everyone seems to judge Tottenham Hotspur football club on the results of the football team (or lack of results). This bloke seemed to be rather miffed that no one takes any notice of how profitable the Tottenham Hotspur football club business is. From the way he was speaking he was of the impression that professional football clubs are money-making businesses (what with all the merchandising and season tickets and stuff) and should be rated like any other business. Clearly hoofing a ball round a field was very low down the list of his priorities.

 

We got to the woods and had a good dry walk. Treacle found a big puddle to paddle in. Morgan and Bailey found a herd of deer to chase. We saw a cyclist; we rarely see those in Kings Wood. Morgan didn’t get run over but it was close.

We met a fellow dog walker we see from time to time. We exchanged pleasantries and as we walked away I overheard her saying to her mate that she loves my three dogs as they are such an unlikely combination.

I suppose they are.

 

We came home and I put the washing in to scrub. After a quick cuppa I cracked on in the garden. It was good to get into the garden; what with all the rain I’ve been going stir-crazy this week. I had a look at that planter that “My Boy ^TM” gave me. I sawed some off-cuts to shape and built an internal shelf for the thing then got a first coat of paint onto it, hung out the washing then had a bit of peanut butter and marmalade on toast for lunch.

I got another coat of paint onto the planter, then realized that my plan to use white cobbles in it wouldn’t work. The colours just wouldn’t contrast, so I popped over to the garden centre to see what they had. As always they were doing three bags of aggregates for the price of two… I only need one and a half bags so if anyone wants some plum slate…

Whilst I was at it I got another pond plant. It was only a couple of quid and its picture looked pretty.

I came home and heaved the bags of stone into the back garden, and got a third coat of paint on to the planter… I must stop calling it a planter. It is going to be a gnome platform. By the time I’d got the washing in I was worn out. But I felt so much happier that I was able to actually do something today.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up fish and chips which we scoffed whilst watching drivel on telly as we do.

I might have overdone the gnome platform… I ache.

4 September 2025 (Thursday) - And the Rain Keeps Coming

I slept reasonably well, despite rather vivid dreams about two fish ponds that had appeared in what was once my Dad’s back garden. Why would anyone think I’d go over thirty miles out of my way (and quite a bit of expense) to create ponds? My subconscious certainly thought I might…

 

Rain was again forecast for all day, but seeing it was dry I bolted my toast and took the dogs out. As we drove to the woods the pundits on the radio were talking about the deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner who is facing all sorts of accusations about the stamp duty that was or wasn’t paid on a house she either bought or sold. From what I can work out she was wrongly advised, and has referred the matter to the official investigator herself. I can’t see what more she can do.

And there was all sorts of talk about “Martha’s Rule”. In theory it is a good idea and will give patient and families an automatic right to a second opinion should they want one. In practice a worrying number of patients and families feel that over twenty years of medical training and experience is worth nothing when compared to five minutes misunderstanding of a You-Tube video which had been posted by a half-witted conspiracy theorist.

 

We took an age to get to the woods. With the holidays over and the schools back, the idiots at Kent Highways department thought that today would be the ideal day to cone off half the roads in Ashford.

Once at the woods we walked our usual route. Rain had been forecast, and it came when we were about half a mile in. We kept going, and by the two mile point we were completely soaked. Ironically the sun came out when we had half a mile to go.

My “Map My Walk” app had another funny little episode. At four miles the screen showed that we’d been walking for one hour and eighteen minutes. But at that point it loudly announced that my average speed had been twenty minutes and fifteen seconds per hour… which would have meant that we should have been walking for two minutes longer than we had (I’ve got a degree in maths, you know!) A trivial point, but if my phone is getting that wrong, what else is it ballsing up?

 

We came home where the dogs had a hot shower to shift the mud and warm them up, and I put all my wet clothes in the washing machine. I had a cuppa, and looked at the glorious sunshine outside.

The glorious sunshine lasted for half an hour then it started hossing down again.

 

I did the ironing whit watching an episode of “Black Mirror”; if someone hacks your lap-top and videos you having a crafty joddrell and then blackmails you, would you go along with their demands? The episode was rather good, starring him from “The End Of The Fxxxing World” and him from “Soldier Soldier” who’s been in everything.

 

The rain eventually stopped so we went into the garden and did the “Feed The Fish” ritual, then I had a little think. “My Boy ^TM” gave me a box which would be ideal as a planter, but there’s nowhere suitable for it to be. I had a few plants where the thing is at the moment, and they baked in the constant sunshine.

And then I had a stroke of absolute genius (I have those from time to time!)

I could paint it up,  use off-cuts of wood and leftover trellis to make a shelf high up inside it, and I could put some spare cobblestones on it. The whole lot could then go against the fence and I could put garden gnomes on it; you can never have too many garden gnomes, can you?

I’m keen to do this project on the cheap… not because I’m mean (which I am) but because I’ve saved so many odds and sods from other garden projects that they are taking up too much space and need using up.

 

“er indoors ^TM” came home from work and boiled up a very good couple of platefuls of tacos which we washed down with a bottle of Sainsbury’s Malbec. And we scoffed and guzzled we watched the latest episode of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” which was very good… even if it was an total rip-off of something from forty-five years ago.

Once dinner was scoffed I cracked out the port and cheesy biccies. Both me and the dogs are fans of cheesy biccies….

3 September 2025 (Wednesday) - Still Raining

I chuckled as I peered into the Internet this morning. Last night there had been talk of aurora visible in Ashford, but last night there was heavy cloud covering the entire sky. A chap I know (who is a notorious wind-up merchant) posted photos of the aurora from last time and claimed he’d seen it in Viccie Park last night. And dozens of other people believed him.

I munzed; crowbar-ing two qrates as one does, and Wordled my way from ”tired” to “fetch” in four goes.

 

With heavy rain forecast for mid-morning I took the dogs out. “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” and Pogo had been up for a sleepover, so Pogo joined us for our morning walk. We only had a short one today; less than half of yesterday’s. As we went Pogo screamed at the normal people, and I screamed at Pogo. He simply wouldn’t stop screaming at another dog no matter what I said or did, and when I finally lost my temper and bellowed at him he looked at me as though he really was saying “keep your hair on”.

Sadly the rain started when we were at about the furthest point from the car so I cut the walk short (a bit). I had this idea that the dogs behave better when Pogo is with us so I left them off the lead right up to the point where they jump in the car boot. It was then when I realized I was missing one dog. Morgan was standing about twenty yards away with a recalcitrant expression. He refuses to go back to the car if we’ve walked less than three miles, and he wasn’t keen to end the walk today; even if it was raining.

As we drove home so the pundits on the radio were talking about secret societies and things hidden in plain sight that no one ever notices. Bearing in mind that’s what I do with the whole geocaching silliness I had a little smile.

And then the rain turned torrential. We’d got a tad damp in our walk. We got thoroughly soaked in the ten yards from the car to the house.

 

We towelled the dogs off, I made us both a cuppa and I looked at my emails. My Credit Karma score has gone down; my Experian score has gone up. How does that work?

I then ran “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” and Pogo back home and went on a little shopping mission… or tried to. I needed a new light switch. As I was in Folkestone I went to their branch of B&Q… only to find it had closed in 2017. So I tried Homebase… which had closed last year.

I gave up with Folkestone and drove through the rain up to Ashford where I went to Wickes. They didn’t have the light switches I wanted, and their buckets were fifteen quid more expensive than B&Q. So against my better judgement I went to B&Q. They only had bog-standard light switches, but by that time I was past caring. I got a light switch and a bucket.

I came home as it was only round the corner.

 

After a bit of dinner I saw that the torrential rain had gone and bright sunshine had taken its place so I popped over to Bybrook Barn to get the one pond plant I needed. We had a spare planter in the pond. I got a pretty blue plant; it might survive, it might not.

I got the thing in the pond and the fish fed just before the rain started again. Not being able to continue outside I made us both a cuppa and did a little CPD and sulked about this rain.

With little else to do I sat on the sofa and had my arse handed to me on a plate by the bots at chess dot com.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching the first episode of the new series of Bake Off. It was on last night, but by watching the recording we were able to fast-forward through half an hour’s worth of adverts. I’ve taken a serious dislike to one of the contestants, but judging by his performance I can’t see him lasting very long.

 

Oh and my Lego Advent Calendar has arrived. I ordered it from Amazon yesterday as then it was four quid cheaper than the official Lego store. Today they are the same price (!)

This will be the sixteenth year that I’ve done my little Advent story. I wonder what this year’s will be about? I really should open the thing now and give myself a few months to plan something, but I never do. I open it on the morning of the given day and spend the day desperately wondering what I might say about it…

 

I’m getting rather hacked off with this seemingly constant rain…

2 September 2025 (Tuesday) - Chestnuts

I slept through till half past seven this morning. I got out of bed this morning later than I took the dogs out yesterday.

I made toast and had a look at the Internet as I do most mornings. I moderate a Facebook group about a rather obscure series of books, and on that group someone has taken to putting up pictures of what he thinks the major characters look like. It’s good that he’s making an effort; it’s a shame that his pictures look nothing like how I imagine the characters to look.

And there was some interesting postings on the Hastings Old Town Facebook group. When I was a lad “Hastings Old Town” was a small area a few hundred yards across. These days it is *the* place to be and more and more people and businesses are claiming to be a part of the old town even though they are at least a mile from the place.

And I had a notification about a new Wherigo… in Boulogne.

 

I Munzed and Wordled (might) and looked at the glorious sunshine outside. The weather forecast for today was for rain showers. If I cowered inside every time a drop of rain was forecast I’d never go anywhere so I hoped for the best and got myself and the dogs ready.

We drove up to the woods. As we went there was something on the radio from the Edinburgh festival about Virgil’s Aeneid. I can remember reading that at school in the original Latin. I can vaguely remember the story being rather good, but far too much emphasis was put on my dubious translating ability rather than on the actual plot.

 

We got to the woods and had a good walk. As we went I gathered a few chestnuts; every year there’s a bumper crop of chestnuts to be had up there, and every year most of it is left on the ground. I suppose the squirrels scoff them. At about the two and a bit miles mark so the rain started. Just drizzle, but wetter than I would have liked.

 

We came home where I did the monthly dog flea treatments. I simply popped a drop of jollop on the back of their necks; the girls were fine but Morgan seemed terrified.

I did us both a cuppa, and looked out of the window. As we’d driven home so the drizzle had got heavier.

I piddled about with car insurance and sorting the hours I’ve worked on my rotas. Tedious and dull, but needs doing. And with the rain showing no sign of letting up I started vaguely planning another geo-project.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up beefburgers which we scoffed whilst watching the latest episode of “Lego Masters: Australia”. Tonight’s episode was an elimination and there were tears. The judge “BrickMan” was obviously wearing make-up – apparently he’d been in a serious accident before filming.

 

Those chestnuts are currently in the shed. I expect I will throw them out in a couple of weeks…

1 September 2025 (Monday) - Week Off Day One

I had a rather restless night. When I got up I stood on the scales as I do every Monday. My weight is holding constant at about the fifteen stone mark. Today it was under; tomorrow it will be over. Holding constant is OK I suppose; I just wish it would drop.

Being the first of the month I got out a fresh razor blade and had a scrape. As I scoffed toast I saw there was a new geocache not a mile north of home. I got the dogs onto their leads and we went out earlier than usual in the hopes of a First to Find. I couldn’t find anything; I’d been beaten to the First to Find by twenty minutes and the chap who got there first said “We are not sure how long this cache will survive and evade passing muggles as it is quite exposed”. As I hunted for the thing I lost count of the amount of people walking past. If it was exposed someone would probably have tidied it up.

 

We went up to the woods. Now the holidays are over the woods were back to normal. We only saw two other groups today; both within a few hundred yards of the car park. We walked to the far end of the woods and back in the hope of seeing deer. We saw two; for about five seconds as they ran across the path. If you blinked you would have missed them; they were certainly too fast for me to get the phone camera out.

As we walked I tried my birdsong app. It found six varieties of bird today which was a vast increase on just the pigeons it has been finding recently. We had a good walk; it was only a shame that Treacle had to wallow in a puddle, but there it is.

 

As we came home there was something on the radio that I immediately thought was drivel, but soon found myself hooked by the program. It was talking about how the average new building looks dreadful, and how seemingly anything gets through planning applications these days. The claim was made that for all that planning applications have to be advertised and made public, the advertising only ever reaches (at best) three per cent of its target audience. That could well be true; we found out about the removal of parking spaces up our road after they went; we never saw any of the notices about it happening.

 

I munzed; being the first of the month I kicked everyone out of the Munzee Clan with a view to all starting again in a couple of days (as we do every month) and then had a go at Wordle; getting it on the fourth attempt.

And I had a message about that geocache I couldn’t find. The thing was called “Lucky Mendip” and the hint was “touching wood” so I’d assumed it was on the “Mendip” road sign which had a wooden backing. Apparently it wasn’t. Apparently it was at the bottom of the hedge a couple of yards away. I went back and found it right away. Had the hint been “randomly chucked in hedge” I might have been more successful. From there I popped to the garden centre to have a look. Had I been thinking I would have taken a bucket or a bowl or something for transporting pond plants about in. But I wasn’t thinking.

 

The forecast for the afternoon was heavy rain, so with that in mind I started updating a little project I originally started a few years ago. A guide to how to do geocaching. It kept me quiet for a little bit, and then I wrote up some CPD. And I then claimed tax relief on my professional registration. I might get a bung, I might not.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up dinner then went bowling. I washed the undercrackers whilst watching an episode of “Black Mirror” - imagine a world in which every interaction you have with anyone else is rated and your social standing depends on your rating. And one bad day can wipe you out…

 

The first day of a week off work… Rather dull really. Let’s hope this rain stops.