7 December 2025 (Sunday) - Road Trip in the Rain

Yesterday afternoon was a blur, and yesterday evening was something of a blank. I felt rather fragile when I got up this morning.

I made toast and had a little look at the Internet to see if I’d missed much. There was quite a bit of chat on the family Whatsapp group following on from yesterday’s party.

The local newspaper was trying to stir it all up about an anti-immigration protest that happened yesterday. A couple of dozen protestors showed up to shout hatred, and about twice that number showed up to shout at those doing the shouting. If anything, the winner here was apathy.

I Munzed, and had a go at Wordle. “Doing” gave me nothing. “Truce” was a bit better, and through utter pot luck I got it on the third go with “flute”.

As we fiddled about so we had Radio Ashford playing on the Alexa. The Sunday chap isn’t a patch on the chap who does it on a Saturday…

 

We had planned some small walks across the Romney Marsh hunting out Origami Animals (it’s a geo-thing) for today, but the weather was against that. So instead we had a little road trip up to Ramsgate and back hunting out Origami Animals up there.

We started off hunting out a geocache that according to the map was on the side of a road… It was. But sadly it was on the other side of the dual carriageway we were on. Fortunately we found a lay-by and I managed to nip over the road during a lull in the traffic.

The second one was by an ancient Celtic cross monument and took quite a bit of finding.

The third one was missing. The hint explained exactly what we were looking for, and exactly where it was. The last person to find it has only ever found one geocache – I suspect they’ve taken it home to show their mum.

The fourth one was called “Canapes on the Beach” and with a name like that you’d expect it to be actually on the beach, wouldn’t you? Not on the promenade overlooking the beach?

It was raining when I was just about to pick up the fifth cache. As I reached for it so a loud voice demanded to know “What the hell are you doing!!!” There was some aggressive-looking woman walking past. I told her I was looking for something. She wanted to know if it was an important something. I told her it wasn’t. She said that if it was important she would have helped me. I remarked that it was as well that it wasn’t important. She then wanted to know what I was doing looking for something unimportant in the rain. I explained that I was minding my own business. It was at this point that “delightful individual” shoved off and left me alone.

The sixth involved parking up and going for another little walk.

And the seventh was just by a bridge overlooking the M2.

 

I thought we’d only be out for a couple of hours; we were out for over four hours. But the dogs got some little walks, and I took a few photos as we went here and there. We had targeted seven geocaches for today. We found six, and so got six origami animals – an elephant, a frog, a moose, a fox, a pig and a crab.

There’s still six more origami animal Treasures for us to get.

 

We came home for a rather late lunch. I sat on the sofa and had a little doze. “er indoors ^TM” boiled up some sausages for tea then went off to the cinema. I ironed some shirts whilst watching more episodes of “Danger UXB”. Although it is a rather old show it is quite believable in that (just like actually happened in real life) many of the characters in it die. In so many TV shows the characters seem immortal, and that simply wouldn’t work in a show like this.

 

The dogs have been really quiet this evening…

6 December 2025 (Saturday) - Pre Christmas Party

We had a rather late night last night. We’ve taken to watching “Tipping Point”; a game show in which particularly thick contestants play on a huge “penny falls” machine.

It was gone one o’clock before I got into my pit last night, but I didn’t sleep that well.

 

I gave up trying to sleep, made toast and had a look at the Internet. People were complaining about the price of a ticket to see Sparks performing in London next year. At less than a hundred quid each I felt that was rather cheap, but what do I know. Someone was whinging that this was double the price of tickets for when they were in Bexhill a couple of years ago. I was reminded of the ELO tribute band we saw several years ago whose ticket prices varied massively according to where they were playing.

And someone else on another site was asking where he could get top quality Infinity tables at rock bottom prices as he was fed up with hearing about how cheap others had got one and handing over his money only to get scammed. Generally if something seems to be too cheap to be true, it is.

 

I had someone post a comment on this blog. Someone claiming to be called “Satta King” said that last Monday’s entry was “nice post”, and then tried to post half a dozen links to gambling sites. Nice try Satta…

I had an email from the nice people at MoVember. Having raised over three hundred quid for them, they’ve sent me a pair of socks. That’s kind of them.

 

I Munzed (making a balls-up of magnetizing the tree house) and Wordled from “cause” through “harsh”, “sassy” to get “waist” on the fourth attempt. As I strained my brain at Wordle so Steve was on the radio doing the “Guess The Lyrics” competition. “Better stop dreaming of the quiet life cause it’s the one we’ll never know”? No – it was from some time ago - The Jam – “A Town Called Malice”.

 

We drove round to Repton and Dog Club. It was ten degrees warmer this morning compared to what it had been yesterday. Perhaps an icy morning might have been better; it would have frozen the mud, but it didn’t rain today which was a result. I suspect the forecast rain put a lot of people off, which was a shame. But nine dogs had a whale of a time. There was a minor disaster when we realized that Bailey was missing. The little horror had sneaked under a gap in the fence, but soon came back when I brandished the treat bag.

We drove home to Steve doing the Mystery Year competition on the radio. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix came out in this year. I thought 2002 – I was a year too early.

 

Once home the dogs had a bath. They’d got filthy at Dog Club. We had a cuppa and a chocolate éclair. I posted up today’s installment of the Advent story, did some chess puzzles, then went for a little drive.

 

After a couple of diversions for geo reasons (and an origami bear) we were soon at the family Christmas party. A few drinks, a rather good spread, bingo and a raffle. The dogs were a hit and were taken here, there and thither by their distant relatives.

It all got rather vague…

5 December 2025 (Friday) - A Day At Work

I slept well. As I scoffed toast I started something new on the telly. I say new… I tried watching Rik Mayall’s “The New Statesman”. I’ve always liked Rik Mayal in “The Young Ones”, “Bottom”, “Filthy Rich and Catflap” and the like, but sadly “The New Statesman” was utter tripe. I turned it off after ten minutes. I can definitely remember it being much better…

I had a quick look at the Internet instead. It was a tad dull this morning. I sent out birthday wishes, had a quick Munz, opened the Advent Calendar and got ready for work.

 

The weather forecast for overnight claimed the temperature would stay above freezing, so the thick ice on the car came as something of a shock this morning.

It didn’t take *that* long to shift.

 

As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how OFCOM (the people in charge of internet security) are trying to cut down on the abundance of free porn on the Internet. It’s all very well fining a company a million quid for dishing out free porn, but it’s something of an embarrassment when you have absolutely no idea where this company actually is and they don’t reply to emails.

The joy of the Internet is that anyone can be absolutely anywhere and it all still works. You’d think the nice people at OFCOM would know that, wouldn’t you?

And there was talk about how countries are boycotting the Eurovision Song Contest as Israel isn’t getting chucked out. The people who run it say that they won’t chuck Israel out as the contest is strictly non-political… clearly the people who run it have never watched the voting.

 

I stopped off at Sainsbury’s to get a sandwich and some dog treats. As I paid so I was telling (ranting at) the nice lady on the till about what a load of crap their Nectar vouchers are. She smiled sweetly and gave me a Nectar voucher for money off of any pet insurance policy I might take out with them. Like I haven’t had pet insurance policies for years.

 

Work was work. I had something of a “reactive lymphocytes and malaria” sort of a day really. I would say “like we all do from time to time” but I suspect some have them more than others.

I did my bit, and was pleased to find the road home was a lot less busy than often it is.

 

“er indoors ^TM” went off out with her mates. I boiled myself up a pizza and started watching “Danger UXB” on DVD. I’ve not watched that for years… the first two episodes were rather good…

And then I remembered that for all that I’d opened my Advent Calendar some fifteen hours previously, I’d not told the world about it…

4 December 2025 (Thursday) - Home Alone

I had a good night’s sleep, but again woke with a very painful right hip. Am I overdoing the walking? Let’s hope not.

I got up, did the usual morning things, and peered into the Internet as I scoffed toast as I do. I rolled my eyes as I looked at some of the work-related Facebook pages. People post up photos of blood films taken from people with various conditions, and I’m probably not far off in thinking that no matter what the condition, over ninety per cent of people looking at the pictures say “malaria” regardless. I can only hope these people aren’t in positions where their opinions are taken seriously.

And this morning’s petty argument was on a telly-related page on which people were arguing about why the fictional character Richard Bucket (pronounced Boo-quet) ever married the equally fictional Hyacinth (out of “Keeping up Appearances).

 

Despite the drizzle I took the dogs up to the woods for a walk. As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about how President Putin of Russia is off visiting India today. Pretty much everyone seems worried that India is seemingly chumming up to the Russians, but after President Trump’s sticking tariffs on everyone and everything can anyone really be surprised about this.

We got to the woods where we barked at the normal people, chased a herd of deer, chewed on the squirrel carcass we found yesterday, rolled in fox poo and ate a dead mouse. All of which whilst it hossed down with rain. Some days our walk in the woods is more eventful than others.

 

We came home for a warm bath and a cuppa. I Munzed, and Wordled through “other”, “taint” and “tiddy” to get “tulip” on the fourth attempt.

And then the postman came. And my piss boiled.

If anyone ever comments that the country is hard up, or that there is a financial crisis, just laugh in their face. The country clearly is in an incredibly amazingly very good financial position. It must be; how and why else would the government be able to afford to waste money writing to me to tell me that I will react State Pension age in 2031, and that they will write to me to tell me how to claim some time in October 2030.

 

I got the ironing board out and set about the ironing. As I did my plan was to watch a DVD… We bought a new DVD player the other day which would be able to play the multi-region DVDs we’d bought off of eBay over the years… Sadly it couldn’t play any of our standard DVDs that we bought from shops.

Fortunately we still had the old DVD player, and it didn’t take that long to plumb it back in again.

Hopefully “er indoors ^TM” kept the receipt.

 

As I ironed I started watching “The Charmer”; a rather good TV series based on the books of Patrick Hamilton. And with ironing ironed I carried on watching the DVDs from under a pile of dogs. I watched the entire lot this afternoon.

 

“er indoors ^TM” came home from work and boiled up a rather good steak dinner which we scoffed whilst watching more “Game of Wool”.

 

I’ve got a stomach ache to go with the iffy hip… and here’s today’s Advent Adventure.

3 December 2025 (Wednesday) - This n That

With no alarm set we didn’t get up until after eight o’clock this morning. I had a shave, made toast and had a look at the Internet. I saw that the Geocaching Association of Great Britain had elected a new committee. This might possibly be a good thing… depending on who got elected.

A few years ago I was nominated to their committee but I chose not to get involved. When I asked what (exactly and specifically) they did, I was told it depended on who they had on their committee. If they had people who liked to travel then they would stage events all over the place. If they had people who were IT-savvy then they would do IT things. At that time they appointed a fourteen year old child (who lived a couple of hours drive away) who made the announcement that he was “in charge of geocaching in the South” and seemingly did very little else that I could see.

 

With not a lot else happening and the rain seeming to be easing off I got the dogs onto their leads and we went up to the woods. I wore a coat as rain showers had been forecast; it stayed dry for our entire walk.

We did our “winter walk” avoiding the worst of the mud. Sadly avoiding the worst of the mud also means avoiding  where we are most likely to see deer. But there it is.

As we walked we found a toilet roll that had been unwound and left in the rain about a mile and a half from the car park. And we found a squirrel that had been dead for some time. Pretty much an average walk, really. But there’s no denying that with the silly beard gone, my face certainly felt the cold.

 

We came home where paws and bellies got a wash, and I made us both a cuppa. I then phoned the local hospital. It’s been some time since I had my annual endoscope up the nose and I wanted to be sure that I will get an annual check-up. They managed to drop me off of the system after my first nasal re-bore. I phoned the out-patients department and the automated system told me that I was in position twenty-one in the queue. I wrote up some CPD for half an hour while I waited to get through. Eventually a nice lady said that I had been due for a review last September and that she would put me through to the ENT department. And then she said she couldn’t as the phones just went through to an answering machine… which had always been my experience of the ENT department.

I’m assured someone will be in touch about an appointment.

I Munzed. Being the first day of the Munzee Clan War I put out some Christmas cards. And I Wordled through “about”, “trace” and “plate” to “haste”.

 

I thought about going into the garden to pootle. Over the summer I spent an inordinate amount of time pootling in the garden. But not today. In much the same way that the morning’s forecast rain showers didn’t happen, the forecast dry afternoon didn’t happen either.

Instead I had a look at something that the nice man from Infinity Table dot com had sent me about how I could get into the workings of the Sky hub to allow it to accept game requests from Chris. It all looked rather technical and with the potential to turn the Sky hub into a rather expensive brick. We can send out game requests, and that’s good enough to be getting on with for now.

 

I sorted out the undercrackers that I’d washed and tumble-dried on Monday (I always take an age to do that job), fixed the bathroom light cord, and tuned in to chess dot com. The nice people there gave me a free lesson in how to sacrifice bits to get a victory, challenged me to my daily three free puzzles, and comprehensively handed me my arse on a plate in a dozen games in which I was totally thrashed.

 

I posted up today’s installment of the advent story, and “er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we washed down with a bottle of plonk and then the dogs amazed me. Usually right after dinner they go sit on the sofa with “er indoors ^TM”. This evening they all sat around me looking hopeful. Usually when we have a bottle of plonk I crack open some cheese biscuits to share with them. They’d clearly seen the bottle of plonk and knew what that usually meant.

So I opened some cheesy biccies.

 

And then we had a go on the Infinity table… The thing accepts incoming friend requests, so why doesn’t it accept incoming game requests? 

2 December 2025 (Tuesday) - Late Shift

I had something of a lie-in this morning, finally getting up at about half past eight. I opened the second window of my Lego Advent Calendar. A bulldozer. What was I supposed to do with that? The early ones in the Advent Calendar set the course of the story, so the pressure is always on at the start of the month.

I had a shave. Oh, how I’ve missed that. I made toast and had a look at the internet as I do most mornings. It was still there.

This morning’s squabble was over a conspiracy theory about how what is considered to be a “normal” blood pressure reading has got lower over time; presumably in order to sell more anti-hypertensive drugs. The fact of the matter is that over time more and more blood pressure readings have been taken on more and more reliable devices which have given more reliable normal ranges, But as is usually the way, the most stupid and uneducated a person, the more vehemently they were advocating utter bollox. As Neil Innes once said, how sweet to be an idiot.

 

Ideally we would have gone for a walk in the woods this morning. Usually when time is pressing we go to Orlestone, but as I found yesterday the place is a swamp. So with no time to go to Kings Wood we just walked round the local streets. I don’t really like any walk when Morgan is on the lead – he becomes an idiot. He always tries to pick fights with dogs with which he would play or ignore when off the lead.

It only took quarter of an hour to walk round the block.

 

We came home for the monthly flea treatments. I can’t pretend the dogs like their flea treatments, but they don’t run and hide like Treacle used to. And then I had a minor fight with Bailey. Last week the Doggy Dentist found her gums were rather sore. Yesterday the special dental ointment arrived, and applying the stuff was something of a game. Fortunately she is small enough that I can manage on my own. She wasn’t at all keen… until she tasted it. Maybe the next time might be easier?

 

I Munzed, and Wordled through maybe, tails, ratio and faith before getting cacti on the fifth attempt. I posted up today’s Advent adventure and wrote up some CPD.

As I pootled on-line so there was a knock on the door. The Royal Mail postie had our Amazon delivery. Quite a bit of stuff from Amazon comes via Royal Mail. I suspect that the Amazon deliveries go a long way to keeping Royal Mail in business.

I struggled with a puzzle on chess dot com, then got ready for work.

 

It was rather bright and sunny as I drove off to work.  With nothing of note on the radio I sang along to my MP3s. 

I considered a little geo-adventure, but thought better of it. Instead I went to the Sainsbury's petrol station at Aylesford where I topped up, and got a tad miffed. Last week when I went to Sainsbury's I got given a voucher for double nectar points when I next got petrol with them. So I got the voucher out... and it wasn't valid. Pretty much every time I shop at Sainsburys I get these vouchers which are either worth money off of stuff I never buy, or they don't actually work.

 

I then drove on to work... very conscious that the car behind was incredibly close. As I drove I realised that the chap driving the car was shouting. Every time I slowed or stopped (and there are a lot of reasons to slow and stop along Hermitage Lane) so the chap got more and more worked up, waving his fists and making obscene gestures.

He followed me as I drove into the hospital, and followed me to the staff car park where he couldn't get through the barrier. Which was probably for the best. I was in the mood for a good argument. And looking at the state of the chap I think I could probably have laid him out with a swift one up the bracket (which I would have claimed was self-defence).

 

I went in to work and did my bit; for all that we had a busy day today, it was a rather good one. But it is always good to see the relief arrive.

I drove home tuned to Radio 4 Extra on which Russell Tovey was playing the Admirable Crichton. It was probably as well that the DAB signal failed completely after ten minutes; it wasn’t very good…

1 December 2025 (Monday) - The Advent Calendar Starts (Again)

I’m a very superstitious person (for all that superstitions are total bollox). Many years ago my mother told me that the first thing I should say on the first day of every month was “White Rabbits, White Rabbits, White Rabbits”. And so I have done for years. Consequently I was rather miffed that my first words this morning were “fuksake” as I knocked the bedside clock flying.

 

I opened the first window of my Lego Advent Calendar… and for the sixteenth year wished I’d opened it months ago, then went to the bathroom where I rather enjoyed having a shave. I signed up for the Movember thing a month ago after we came home from a geo-meet on the evening of the last day of October. After a few beers it seemed like a good idea. In the cold light of the next day it didn’t, but by the morning of the first day of November I’d already had fifty quid of donations so I rather felt I had to go ahead with it.

In the end the mutton chops didn’t look quite as bad as they might have been. I think that being grey they looked far better than they had the last time I did it in 2012. I’m told they made me look very distinguished but they’ve gone now, and I’m also told I now look fifteen years younger..

They might come back at some stage… who knows.

 

I made toast and had a look at the internet. There was a minor episode on one of the Facebook groups I moderate, The group is about an obscure series of books from many years ago. Just recently some chap has been posting AI generated pictures of the various characters. Personally I didn’t think that he’d got any of them remotely right, but he was contributing to the group which is more than most people do. Someone else took exception to all the AI pictures last night and had posted a rather nasty comment which (as a moderator) I deleted. The chap who’d posted the AI pictures apologized when he had nothing to apologize for, and the chap who’d made the nasty comment couldn’t understand how he could disagree without being disagreeable, left the group in a sulk and everyone else was happy… which was probably for the best.

And I had a suggestion for a possible Facebook friend. Facebook periodically prompts me to send friend requests to people I might know. Generally I don’t know the people in question but this morning it came up with a rather interesting choice. I have no idea who the chap it suggested is; I’ve never met him. But I and this fellow have four mutual Facebook friends. Two geocachers, someone I met through astronomy, and someone with whom I took scouts to Canada all those years ago. Sometimes it is quite amazing just who knows who.

 

It was drizzling this morning, but I took the dogs out anyway. With time being short this morning we went to Orlestone woods for which really should be the last time this winter. The trouble with Orlestone woods is that there are two really muddy parts which really can’t be avoided. So no matter what route you take, you get filthy.

But we had a good half-hour walk.

As we drove home the pundits on the radio were talking about the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. Some people take the subject seriously; some don’t. And some people delight in showing their ignorance. The presenter really did ask one of the experts being interviewed just how important it was to look into space when searching for extra-terrestrial intelligence. Where did he think aliens hang put? Tesco?

 

We came home; the dogs had paws and bellies washed. After a quick cuppa I took Pogo to collect “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” from her appointment and took them both home on a circuitous route via Canterbury. On the way home I stopped off for a little geocache near Hythe, but sadly the hint was “small tree” and I got to where my sat-nav said I should be only to find the wreckage of a small tree which had been cut down. Ho hum…

Instead we had a little geo-mission near home over lunchtime which was successful and earned us an origami rabbit.

 

I made us another cuppa, did some CPD, then realized that I had neither Munzed nor Wordled. I put that right then had a go at the bots on chess dot com… and failed miserably.

 

“My Boy ^TM” and ”Auntie Chel ^TM” came round with a white chocolate advent calendar for me, and once we’d had dinner, “er indoors ^TM” went bowling. I settled on the sofa and watched the last episode of “Brideshead Revisited”. Six days to watch the lot… I wonder what I shall watch next?