27 June 2020 (Saturday) - Visitors

I slept well. Over brekkie I peered into the depths of the Internet and saw a question had been asked on the “Geocaching in Kent” page. I answered, and was immediately told that I was wrong. A short but civil correspondence followed with me eventually giving up. Effectively I said “my experience was X” to which someone else said “that was impossible”. Short of asking if he was calling me a liar there wasn’t really anywhere further to go. Amazingly the chap who was looking for a squabble lives five hundred miles away in Lanarkshire. What is he doing posting on a Kent-based “local group for local people” Facebook page?

I also saw the update from my old church… back in the day I was rather religious, but despite “having seen the darkness” I still keep up to date with what the old gang are doing. The church itself closed down four years ago but the congregation now meet in a community hall. There are not many people left (about twenty), but they seem to keep going. Reading this morning’s little missive made me think. Was I really that much of a religious nut back in the day? Today’s update gave thanks to God for everything that was brill in the world, and blamed themselves for all that was crappy. It really was along the lines of “Well done God for putting so much money in the collection plate, and I’m sorry I made it rain this morning”.

I saw that our Munzee clan had achieved our monthly goal. Nowhere near as much as other clans, but in the six months that I’ve been doing the Munzee clan thing I think I’ve found a level that (for me) allows the thing to keep being fun without turning it into a chore. I saw I’d been awarded a Trojan Unicorn which had been immediately deployed for me in the vicinity of San Antonio International Airport.

With "er indoors ^TM" still in pyjamas I took the dogs down to Orlestone Woods for a walk. We did our usual circuit of the wood; as we went we met a few other dog walkers. And as is the case with dog owners who *do* know the first thing about dogs we got on famously. A little woofing, a little bum-sniffing, and some playing.

Once home I had a cuppa, then with "er indoors ^TM" off to collect "Daddy’s Little Angel ^TM" and "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction ^TM" I spent a little while straining my brain on geo-puzzles. I managed three all on my own but needed a little hint for the fourth, and then fell asleep.

I slept for a couple of hours.

Once awake I spent a little while pootling in the garden until "er indoors ^TM" arrived with "Daddy’s Little Angel ^TM" and "Stormageddon - Bringer of Destruction ^TM". SBOD helped me with some of the weeding, then we went and played Lego for a while before taking the dogs to the park to meet up with Auntie Cheryl and Rolo. As is always t he way when Rolo and Pogo meet up there was disaster; Rolo picked a fight with a dog the size of a carthorse.

We came home and had a rather good chicken dinner. You can tell when it is a good dinner – there is more than one dishwasher load to be scrubbed. SBOD had a bath, then played “I’m A Naughty Goose” on the I-pad.

As I write this, he’s having a squabble with his mother and grandmother. They say it is bed time; he says it isn’t. I’m not getting involved….

26 June 2020 (Friday) - Very Hot !!! (Woof!)

I was woken by the torrential rain rather early this morning, and lay awake listening to it for some time. Two minutes after I gave up trying to sleep and got up, so the noisy downpour stopped. I came downstairs to where Fudge was asking to go out. I thought he needed a tiddle so I let him out only to find that he thought he needed to run round the garden shouting. I'm sure the neighbours loved that at half past five this morning.

I got him in and got him settled and then the thunderstorm started. Now there was something that *did* need a small dog to shout at it.

Over a bowl of granola I watched another episode of "F Is For Family" then had a quick look at the Internet. There are some people I keep on my Facebook friends list just for their comic value and one of them was kicking off this morning.

He was ranting on Facebook about the sacking of Rebecca Long-Bailey. The leader of the Labour party has sacked Ms Long-Bailey for her supposed anti-Semitic activities. This chap I know was ranting that the leader of the Labour party had sacked her on a whim with no evidence or hearing or trial.  This chap's political opinions amaze me, and sum up all that is wrong with British (so-called) democracy. The fact that political leaders of all parties change their ministers and shadow ministers regularly and for no reason was neither here nor there; the Labour leader had done something he felt was questionable and so he was going to blow it out of all proportion. This chap shouts from the rooftops whenever the Labour party are anything less than squeaky-clean, but never says anything when the Conservatives do the exact same thing. He always has an excuse for whatever failings the Conservatives might have, and his fall-back position is that no matter how much of a cock-up that the Conservatives make of anything, it is a self-evident truth (not needing any evidence or proof) that the Labour party would do worse.

To him a political party is like a football team. You pick one (seemingly at random) and then sing their praises and vilify all others for evermore; regardless of anything that any of them actually do. He also rants about rugby in the same way; after the regular defeat of his favoured team (they are all the same to me) he maintains that had his team scored more and the opposition scored less, then his team would have won, and he somehow sees this as a victory.

I got ready for work; I put on one of the new shirts that I got in Matalan last night. It is OK I suppose, but it is billed as "slim fit". Really? How can any shirt in XXL size be a "slim fit"? XXL is way beyond "slim". The sooner Matalan start catering for the more rotund physique the better.

As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the radio were spouting their drivel. They were talking about how the health minister is threatening to bring back lock-down if there is a second wave of COVID-19. Photographs and TV footage of tens of thousands of people flocking to the beaches is making him (and many other people) worry. Will this cause a second wave of the virus? Possibly. Do we avoid this second wave by cowering inside our houses, too terrified to set foot outside ever again... That is the big question, isn't it?

There was some chap being interviewed on the radio; his job is to make vaccines. He claimed that the average vaccine takes about eight years to go from the "let's make a vaccine" stage to the "here it is" stage. So far those working on a vaccine for COVID-19 have had about four months. The chap went on to point out that some viruses seem to be particularly difficult to vaccinate against (take the common cold for example), and he intimated that there might never be a vaccine against COVID-19.

Are we *really* going to cower in our houses desperately hoping that science might come up with a vaccine some time in the next decade? Or are we just going to carry on with life and take our chances?

I don't know...

I got to work, I deployed a Munzee, and then got on with it. As I got on with it a colleague was playing with a new app on his phone. What would I look like as a woman? Pretty damn sexy as it turned out. The photo generated was rather well received, and inflamed more than one hot blooded male's passion. I saw that as something of a result. Or would have done had it been "passion" that had been inflamed rather than "un-natural desires". As the afternoon wore on I received several rather un-moral propositions.

Being on an early shift meant for an early finish. I had planned to take the dogs to Orlestone Woods after work, but it was too hot. Whilst the pavement wasn’t burning my hand, it was too hot to have my hand on it for any length of time. I came home, and after the initial excitement the dogs were all soon fast asleep. They didn’t like the hot day either.

I ran out the hose pipe and started re-filling the fish pond. A *lot* of water had evaporated from it over the last few days. Whilst it filled I played “Cookie Jam” on Facebook.

I’m playing that quite a lot at the moment…

25 June 2020 (Thursday) - Hot

I slept like a log - night shifts are good for that. Apart from having to shove Treacle over at some point in the small hours I was out for eight hours. Result!

Over a bowl of granola I watched an episode of "F is for Family"  which is becoming more of a soap-opera than a comedy, then (taking great care to let three sleeping dogs lie) I got myself ready for work.

Narrowly avoiding being run off the road by a van from RSR Drainage of Bethersden I again found myself wondering why people don't take a little more care when driving their company vans about. If these idiots can't be seen to drive safely down a road...

As I drove to work the pundits on the radio were talking about how the post-Brexit trade deal with America is about to go down the pan. It transpires that the British food industry has standards, and it was implied that the American food industry does not. Chlorinated chicken was the least of the worries of the people who were talking of acceptable levels of maggots, mice and other such vermin in the food they are looking to import. I almost laughed out loud when some pompous windbag claimed that no one said this would happen when he voted for Brexit.

I stopped off in Pembury to deploy a Munzee (as one does). One of the houses nearby had the window open (it was a rather warm morning), and I faffed around for quite a while as I listened to the family drama which was being broadcast from those open windows. There is never anything as interesting as other people's business.

I got to work; I did my bit. At tea break I finished my e-book with something of a sense of disappointment. It was the fourth in a series. The first three had been rather good, but this last one didn't live up to my expectations. I must admit I was put off by the factually inaccurate medical science in the early part, but I can't help but feel that the book's proof readers have let it down. I spotted several spelling and grammatical mistakes. The world described in this fourth book wasn't consistent with that described in the previous three, and with characters who are double-hard one minute and pussies the next, the book could have been so much better.  Still, e-books are far cheaper than physical ones.

I also heard that Apple TV are in the throes of making a TV series based on Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" series. Everyone has heard of it; not that many people have actually read it. The three books in Asimov's (original) series were comprised of what was actually eight short stories written for magazines in the 1940s; the eight short stories telling a tale over some three hundred years. I'm not sure if that will translate to telly very well, but I'm hoping for the best. Annoyingly it is going to be on Apple TV; that's another TV subscription I shall have to take up.

With work done I went back to my car, opened the doors and waited for a few minutes for it to cool down; I’d worked in the air-conditioned lab all afternoon. Outside was rather warm.

I came home via Matalan where the “special people” were out in full force. One pair of half-wits made me chuckle. Both were wearing rubber gloves which were far too big for them and were full of holes. Mother was constantly shrieking at the child not to touch anything for fear of death. The child was constantly shrieking that it was not touching anything despite clearly mauling everything within reach, and chewing on at least half of that which it had mauled.

I got myself a couple of shirts and a new pair of slippers… and some t shirts… and socks… and some trousers whilst I was at it… and a set of sexy jim-jams. My NHS bargain voucher gave me a tenner off, but I still spent over ninety quid. It was a shame that the chap on the till demanded I used the self-service thingy. Don’t they realise that’s how they end up out of a job?

I came home and fought to get the door open; it had swollen in the heat. Once in I contended with canine excitement as "er indoors ^TM" was engrossed in the weekly in-line geo-meet.

We had a very good bit of scoff whilst watching a couple of episodes of “What We Do in The Shadows” then "er indoors ^TM" took the dogs out. I’m thinking about another early night…