17 January 2024 (Wednesday) - Before the Night Shift

With no need to be up early I had the chance of a lie-in this morning. “er indoors ^TM” had got up without disturbing us. Sadly at eight o’clock Treacle decided I should get up and stomped to and fro over my head until I got up.

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was still there. Facebook invited me to follow the page of Ben Everitt. No? – I’d never heard of him either. Apparently he is the Conservative MP for Milton Kenyes north and his political stance is “Vote for me – I’m not as bad as the Labour lot”. Sadly this is pretty much the stance of many of our politicians both locally and nationally. They don’t have any policies of their own; just point out the failings of everyone else.

I had an email from the co-op. They are changing how their card works. Rather than building up loads of money in my account with them, I’ll now get money off whenever I wield my card when I buy stuff. Over the years I’ve built up just under four quid credit which I’ve got to redeem by the end of the year. That’s better than a poke up the bum with a sharp stick, isn’t it?

 

Not much else had happened on-line so I got ready for the morning’s walk. I took the dogs up to Kings Wood. We met quite a few people as we walked despite the car park being perhaps the emptiest I’ve ever seen it. We had a really good walk; I’d left the bathroom set up with towels and dog shampoo ready for seriously filthy dogs on our return, but we arrived to find all the mud was frozen and only starting to melt as we came back to the car. As we walked we met a horse and a land rover; the pups came straight back to me at the sound of the whistle.

 

We came home, and as clean dogs curled up and went to sleep I emptied the garden waste bin of the bottles and cans that passers-by had dropped into it. Why drop stuff in the garden waste bin? Why not pop it in the recycling bin? I then harvested a bumper crop of dog turds from the back garden, emptied ice from all the buckets laying round the garden (before it becomes smelly stagnant water in a month or so) and trod dog shit into the new doormat that “er indoors ^TM” bought when she went shopping yesterday.

I popped up the road to the corner shop to get some pastries and fed her one with a cup of coffee in a thinly veiled attempt to placate her. Bearing in mind if it was my new mat caked in dung I would have laid an egg, I think I got away with it rather well.

I have a theory that I might put a small fence and gate across the bottom of the garden restricting dogs to paved areas when they go out unsupervised. It would make harvesting dung easier in that I could see them; at the moment turds engage “stealth mode” on the lawn and in the shingle.

 

As I scoffed my croissant and coffee I wrote up some CPD; I seem to do that after a walk and before an afternoon in bed. And with CPD written up and coffee and croissant scoffed I took myself off to bed for the afternoon.

 

Hopefully “er indoors ^TM” will boil up dinner and then I will complete the rest of the ritual. Every day before the night shift follows a routine. Bit of a lie-in, extended dog walk, bit of gardening, write up CPD, afternoon in bed, early dinner, Sainsburys and work.

Just dinner, Sainsbury’s and work to do…

16 January 2024 (Tuesday) - Rather Cold

I woke at one o'clock again this morning, but rolled over and then slept through for a few more hours. I got up, made toast and watched another episode of "Peep Show" in which Olivia Coleman again kept her kit on. Mind you she was getting jiggy in the store room; something I've never done myself. Not that I'm claiming the moral high ground (much).

 

With telly watched I had a little look at Facebook. Several people were posting all sorts of things about it being far too cold for dogs to be outside. It *is* far too cold for dogs to be outside. I wish someone would tell Bailey. She is one of the smallest dogs I have ever seen and she spends most of the evenings whinging at the back door asking to go out, and once she's out she flatly refuses to come back in. The only way to get her back inside is to physically capture her and carry her in. And then she starts whinging to go out into the cold again.

There were also loads of people asking to join Dog Club this morning... when I say "join Dog Club" there were loads of requests from people wanting to join the Facebook page of Dog Club. For every one person who goes to Dog Club there are over a dozen followers of that Facebook page. I can't help but wonder why people want to follow Dog Club on-line. As Facebook pages go, it is rather dull. Pretty much all that happens is that I post a few photos every Saturday morning.

 

I got myself organised and set off to find where I'd left my car. Having totally forgotten where I'd parked last night I walked the streets pressing the "unlock" button on the car key until I saw the car's hazard lights flash in the distance.

I took a few minutes to scrape the ice from the windscreen this morning; there was quite a lot to shift.

As I drove up the motorway I chuckled at the pundits on the radio. Yesterday I mentioned that it had been claimed on the radio that the Labour party look set for a massive landslide victory with a majority of over one hundred seats. This morning the same pundits said that Labour would need the biggest swing in election history to get in.

And there was a lot of talk about Donald Trump who is powering ahead in his attempt to secure nomination for the upcoming Presidential election. Just in case you've forgotten about him, here's eighty-two blunders he's made. But despite being a twit, the public love him. Like that idiot Boris Johnson, the public love a showman...

 

The journey  to work was easier this morning; far less lorry drivers were playing silly beggars this morning. If I was a lorry driver I would just stay in the slow lane and keep going. Why do so many of them constantly take the best part of a mile to overtake the lorry in front, just to have that lorry then take just as long and as far to overtake back again?

 

I got to work; there was cake. As I worked I listened to two colleagues talking about the weekend "they" had just had. "We" did better than "you" as "you" lost... it soon became apparent that they were talking about their preferred football teams, but talking as though they had both been actually on the pitch playing with the teams. People take football so much to heart and so personally, don't they?

 

With work done and cake scoffed I came home. It was a full eight degrees warmer as I drove home compared to my journey to work this morning, but it was still far too cold.

“er indoors ^TM” set off to take “Daddy’s Little Angel ^TM” shopping. They wanted to go to The Range. I certainly didn’t so I stayed home.

I am reliably informed they found a packed of dog poo bags which came with instructions. Doesn’t it speak volumes about today’s society that people need to be told how to bag a dog turd?

As they shopped I did more ironing whilst watching something off of Netflix. “Human Traffic” was… I won’t say “crap”, but after an hour nothing was happening so I turned it off, and dozed underneath a pile of dogs until “er indoors ^TM” came home. I seem to do that quite a bit these days. It’s all about shared warmth.

 

15 January 2024 (Monday) - A Friend Request

I woke feeling raring to go and full of energy... and saw it wasn't even one o'clock. I went to the loo, and tried to get back to sleep. I then saw every hour of the night, not sleeping for more than twenty minutes at a time.

I gave up with trying to sleep, got up and had a shave. The bathroom sink was draining better than it had been, which was a minor result. I made toast and watched an episode of "Peep Show" in which (unlike the previous two episodes) Olivia Coleman wasn't in the nip.  Absolutely nothing had happened on Facebook overnight (which was another result), so I set off for work.

 

It took a few minutes to scrape the ice from the car's windscreen, and it was good to be going up the motorway to Maidstone rather than along the A-roads to Pembury this morning. There were loads of lorries on the motorway playing silly beggars (as they do), but there wasn't anyone coming head-on at me with headlights on full beam as happens on the A-roads. And the journey to Maidstone whilst only eight miles shorter took a full forty minutes less to travel than last week's journeys.

 

As I drove the pundits on the radio were interviewing some aide to France's ambassador to the UK about the most recent deaths of migrants in small boats trying to cross  the channel. Why were these people leaving a perfectly safe country? What are the French doing to stop this sort of thing happening? I have no idea; a combination of poor radio reception and a thick French accent meant I couldn't understand a word the chap was saying.

Similarly there was some woman from Gaza being interviewed who was also incomprehensible.

Why do they bring these people on to the radio when they can't be understood? You'd think they'd vet them first, wouldn't you? There must be plenty of people who can talk on whatever might be the burning issue of the day who can be understood? Or am I just being mean (again)?

There was also a lot of talk about how in the upcoming elections the Labour party look set for a massive landslide victory with a majority of over one hundred seats.

Closer to home the constituencies in Kent are changing quite massively. The map of the new constituency in which I shall be is rather interesting. The old Ashford constituency has been divvied up into rural and urban ones and the old Ashford MP who so publicly tried to get selected for the rural bit didn't get his way, and has been selected for the urban one instead. The sensible money seems to think that he won't get elected. Partly because of there being more Labour votes in urban areas, and partly because he was caught with pictures of nudey ladies on the computer that tax-payers bought for him.

Is the thought of being out on his arse the reason why this chap has recently been all over local social media getting his face seen in all sorts of places in a shallow attempt to suck up to the electorate? Sadly much of the electorate aren't bright enough to see through this.

 

I got to work where there wasn't any cake. During a lull in proceedings I had a little look at the ordnance survey maps. “er indoors ^TM” has been talking about creating a new geo-walk, so I sussed out some possible routes. All I have to do is to persuade her that the routes are good... maybe a preliminary investigation might be something we might do this weekend?

 

Being on the early meant I got out nearly two hours earlier than I might have done. Just as I got home so my phone beeped. Someone wanted to be my friend on Facebook. This one told he (according to its Facebook profile, it is a “he”) is getting into the swing of his slave's intensive training. Apparently day eight included a decent dose of corporal punishment. If training slaves is anything like training dogs, I’d suggest a packet of treats from the pet shop, though I suppose it depends on what the slave is being trained to do.  I know I’ve asked before, but is this “sexy”? It’s been a while but I’m sure that “sexy” never used to be quite like that.

 

Once “er indoors ^TM” finished work she boiled up a decent bit of scran and set off bowling. I ironed some shirts whilst watching a Netflix Film. “The Midnight Sky” was (like most films) probably about half an hour too long. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. But once the ironing was done it gave me an excuse to sit on the sofa doing nothing underneath a pile of dogs.

I wonder if I will sleep tonight?

14 January 2024 (Sunday) - A Day Off

Apart from a trip to the loo at five o’clock and letting the dogs out at half past six I had a good night’s sleep, finally emerging from my pit just after nine o’clock.

 

I made toast and had a look at the Internet. The squabble on the Dog Club’s Facebook page was continuing. I say “squabble”… I’d been asked to post saying that if the government declares any breed of dog to be banned, then they aren’t covered by the insurance we have, and consequently we can’t accept them. It’s patently obvious but in this day and age it has to be pointed out. A bit like bottles of bleach having to be labelled “don’t drink this”. Two people took exception to this. Neither have ever showed up at Dog Club.

As is always the way the squabble was instigated and fuelled by people who have no intention of ever meeting the people with whom they are trying to quarrel.

 

We loaded ourselves and the dogs into the “er indoors ^TM”-mobile and set off to Hastings. Having missed the last post we needed to deliver my nephew’s birthday card.

As we drove we went past Orlestone Woods and Treacle recognized the place and stared squeaking. The squeaking of excitement about going somewhere stops when we arrive, but because we weren’t going to the woods, she kept squeaking and worked herself into quite a frenzy which didn’t stop until we got to Hastings.

Sadly nephew (and entire family) were out, but we met some passing relives and spent a few minutes catching up.

 

From Hastings we went on to Tenterden. We could tell when we’d left Kent and entered Sussex on the way down, and we could tell when we left Sussex and came back to Kent on the way back. People moan about pot holes, but go drive round East Sussex. In most of the UK we drive on the left; in Sussex they drive on what’s left. We saw a few pot holes with road cones in them; two thirds of the road cones being below surface level (the pot holes really were that deep). It wasn’t so much driving as playing a game of real-life Mario Kart.

We got to Tenterden and had a little wander about. As we walked we went past an “Artisan Baker’s Stall”. Have you ever seen an “Artisan Baker’s Stall”? There’s one at Bybrook Barn garden centre, but that one is like a boot fair compared to the one at Tenterden. The place sold ridiculously overpriced pastry stuff… I say “sold”; we walked past at two o’clock and it really didn’t look as though they’d sold a single thing. The stall was still as full as any bakery when it first opens. If they were to halve (or quarter) their prices they would make so much more money as they might actually sell something.

As we walked we saw quite a few dogs on leads also going for walks, and one cat on a lead as well. I wondered if the cat identified as a dog, but I thought better of saying anything.

Our wander had been guided by a Geocaching Adventure Lab series. We walked past the museum and the train station, up to the church and on to the village sign. It was a rather good wander about.

 

Once home “er indoors ^TM” immediately set off shopping. I put a load of undercrackers in to wash, then set about the “focking plogol” in the bath. It has been running slower and slower. I blame all the dog hairs and mud that gets washed off of the dogs as they get bathed. They’d have quite a few baths over the last few months. Hopefully it’s now unbunged; getting at that that one’s U-bend wouldn’t be a practical proposition.

I then dozed on the sofa with the dogs.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled us all up a decent dinner. The dogs got kidney (as it is cheaper than dog treats) and we had a decent roast with a very decent bottle of plonk. And then I had the last of the stilton. The dogs were happy to sit with me and have the biscuits. I would have thought that after fresh kidney they would have turned their noses up at dry biscuits, but they didn’t.

Having worked six days on the trot, today was a good day off.

13 January 2024 (Saturday) - Late Shift

Just as I was about to go to bed last night I realised that after four hours soaking in dangerous chemicals yesterday evening the “focking plogol” remained blocked solid. After scattering the contents of the cupboard under the sink all over the floor and subsequently flooding the kitchen I found the problem. The U-bend was bunged up solidly with a huge amount of solidified fat. There must have been a mug-full of rock-solid thick white fat which vaguely smelled of roast lamb. Where did that all come from? It took some shifting.

I slept better knowing that the sink would now drain.

 

Over toast I had my usual look at the Internet. I had a friend request on Facebook from “Rose Marie”; an AI-generated person who sported both a rather impressive of norks though, and a moustache as well. Sadly the moustache wasn’t of the same standard as the norks, but given time it might grow… However I will never know as I deleted the request. I also had a suggestion from Facebook that I might like to follow the antics of Anthony Browne. No – I’d never heard of him either. Apparently he’s the MP for south Cambridgeshire.

There wasn’t much else going on on-line so we got ready for the off.

 

We drove round to Repton; as we turned into the road leading to the field so the dogs started squealing in excitement. Dog club went rather well this morning with the biggest turn-out we’ve had for a long time. I tried counting the dogs, but they wouldn’t stay still. I counted eighteen, but there may well have been more. We had some new people along who seemed to like what was going on, including one lady who lives over the road from the field and had been watching us for months. At first wondering what goes on, and then wondering if she and her dog might join in.

I wore wellies; I got cold feet. I need to get some woolly socks.

 

We must have been a tad late getting out of Dog Club; Steve was playing music from the mystery year but we missed hearing the clues giving what had happened in that year. After two records which I don’t think I’d ever heard before he announced that the year had been 1998.

 

We came home for a cuppa, I paid the money collected at Dog Club into the Repton Centre’s bank account.  Leaving “er indoors ^TM” to put all the stuff back into the kitchen cupboard (which had dried out) I set off to work in daylight, which made a change. As I drove I listened to Steve in the radio, but not for long. Sadly the signal gave out after a few miles (at Bethersden), so I turned over to Ivor Biggun CDs and sang along as I drove to Pembury.

 

I got to work and did what I had to do. I always say I don' t mind working at the weekends, but I think I do really. During a lull in proceedings I finished an e-book. If any of my loyal readers are at a loose end, "Calculating God" by Robert J Sawyer is well worth a read. Like all good fiction, the book poses a rather intriguing "what-if". What if aliens turn up and rather than wanting to meet all the politicians and leaders, they just want to visit the museums like any other tourists. And then it comes up in conversation that not only have the aliens got actual incontrovertible proof of the existence of God, but also all of Earth's religions have all been sucking up to the wrong God?

My Kindle gave me a third award for finishing that e-book. It is getting rather generous with those. I then started on another e-book; an old favourite of mine. More speculative fiction; this one was written years ago. "The Cloud Walker" by Edmond Cooper is an old favourite of mine. Set in a post-apocalyptic future where crackpot religion holds sway, a young lad wants to commit the heresy of flying a kite.

 

As I worked I chuckled. We had two lab assistants with us today. One's been with us for several months and knows me fairly well, the other is quite new. The new one was civil enough, but was treating me in much the way I would politely treat a mate's grandmother. At tea break I took off my lab coat and went to the rest room (we can't eat or drink in a laboratory with blood samples about!). As I went I was conscious that new girl was staring at me. As I walked round the corner I heard the other girl saying "He's covered in tattoos; he'll show you them if you like. And he's got loads of Lego". New girl was much more friendly after that...

 

I got home rather late; “er indoors ^TM” had boiled up stilton soup. That was rather good.

 

12 January 2024 (Friday) - Remembering Boss

Once I'd made my toast I watched some more "Peep Show" which again featured a nudey Olivia Coleman, which was something of a result for those who like that sort of thing (the beasts!).

As I watched telly and got dressed and walked off to find my car I was amazed by the bin men. They were being quiet today. No bellowing up the street. No hurling bins around. What was that all about?

 

I found my car and drove off to work. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the air strikes that the Americans had launched at the Houthi rebels in Yemen overnight. Having been terrorising international shipping for weeks, the Americans have given them a bit of a slap. The Americans mainly, with a bit of help from a gaggle of allies including the United Kingdom. Was this a good idea? There were no end of windbags lining up to be interviewed on the matter, and as many opinions were aired as there were windbags to air them.

One thing became very clear though; the Houthi rebels who got bombed were just pawns in some international power struggle in which those with weapons far too powerful to be unleased get the little people to fight their squabbles for them.

And there was talk about the state of the UK footpath network. Fed up with the likes of me going for walks in the countryside, landowners aren't keeping the rights of way as clear as they might be. This was something with which I was very familiar as a lad when going hiking with the Boys Brigade nearly fifty years ago; why has this only become news now?

 

I got to work and found myself embroiled in a squabble on Facebook. Someone who openly admitted he'd never been to Dog Club had taken exception to the insurers not wanting banned breeds along, and seemed to think I should be taking a stand against the insurers. Someone who runs a local dog training business (who'd also never been along) then joined in with him and got rather personal and abusive (then had the good grace to delete what she'd posted). Neither seemed to realise they were trying to fight with the wrong people.

 

In between squabbling on Facebook I spent much of today thinking about the summers of 1980 and 1981. Early on one May bank holiday morning in 1980 I marched into the Harbour restaurant on Hastings sea front and asked to speak to the manager. A chubby little Italian fellow waddled up from the kitchen and I asked him if he had any vacancies. He said (in a very thick almost incomprehensible Italian accent) that bank holidays were always busy and he would give me a day’s work. I worked for him for every day that I wasn’t in school from then until October of that year, and again from the next Easter through till when I took up professional blood testing.

That chubby little Italian fellow introduced himself as “Boss”; and that is how he was known to everyone.

He drove a brand new car which (parked on Hastings sea front) was covered in seagull poo.

He had a wad of bank notes in his pocket which was never less than an inch thick from which he paid everyone’s wages and every bill.

He insisted the kitchen staff sang the meow mix song (*very* loudly) every time a customer ordered gateau (as “gatto” is Italian for “cat”)

He would have the kitchen staff compete to see who could shout the phrase “F…ing Hell!” loudest and with most passion up the lift shaft which sent food from the kitchen to the restaurant.

He taught all us young lads to cook because (as he said) “boys are focking useless and if I don’t teach you, you will starve to death”. He used the work “focking” a lot (spelt with an "o" and in a very thick Italian accent) and was the first adult I ever knew to swear regularly.

When we were quiet at work he would send me to his house to do gardening where I learned to use a chain saw.

He was incredibly well-read and very wise. He would often offer advice and wisdom at which I and all the other lads would laugh. I wish I’d listened to him; I would have learned so much.

He would regularly go to concerts of classical music with one of the orthopaedic surgeons from the local hospital.

He was devoted to his wife - an equally chubby Italian woman known to all as "Missus".

When I got the job as a trainee professional blood tester he was the only person who advised against it. When I told him what the job entailed and the pay he told me that I would neither be rich or poor. He told me I would be comfortable, and that being comfortable was the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone.

 

He died late last year; despite being a chubby fellow he lived to be ninety. Today was his funeral. I considered asking for the day off and going along, but the funeral was in the church where my father-in-law had had his funeral. The priest there was clearly just reading a script and got so many personal and family details wrong. I couldn't take that priest seriously again.

And how many of Boss’s contemporaries would be left. Would anyone from the restaurant from 1980 or 1981 be along? Would I recognise them if they were? It would have been good to have caught up with his son and daughter, but I’ve not seen Marco or Gloria since 1981. And would they remember me after all these years? And would they want me crawling out of the woodwork after so long? 

Ironically one of my most vivid memories of Boss was of him unblocking one of the restaurant’s sinks. He was plunging away like a thing possessed whilst grumbling about the “focking plogol” (as he called plugholes). As the afternoon wore on “er indoors ^TM” messaged to say the kitchen sink’s plughole was bunged up.

I came home via Pembury’s B&Q. Our plughole has had the dangerous chemicals in it for a couple of hours now but not a lot seems to be happening. Perhaps I should have done what Boss used to do. He never unblocked a sink with proper sink unblocking chemicals; he always used “bilich” (as he would call “bleach”).

11 January 2024 (Thursday) - A Little Drinkie

I had another good night, but woke to another cold morning. I made toast and as I turned on the telly there was a very old episode of "Bullseye" featuring Jim "super, smashing, great" Bowen. As was always the way in this show he was faced with two rather frightened looking contestants who (in a display of wanton greed) gambled some rather crappy prizes in the forlorn hope of winning a caravan they neither needed nor wanted, and lost the lot. There is an urban myth in Ashford that somewhere on a disused railway yard near Matalan there is the remains of an old speedboat which was won by contestants on that show who abandoned it there as they had absolutely no use for it, and having abandoned it there, there it has stayed for forty years.

I watched an episode of "Peep Show" featuring a supposedly nudey Olivia Coleman, and as I turned Netflix off the TV was playing an infomercial for the latest model of the nutribullet which still features the grinning bimbo from the "Yes Car Credit" adverts. I blogged about her ten years ago; in the meantime she's got a family and would seem to feed them on stuff minced up in her all-new nutribullit. They’ve made a Mark II of the thing which she is now flogging.

 

I had a very quick look on-line and saw that Sainsburys had sent me an email. They had analysed the shopping for which I'd got savings on my Nectar card over the last year. Apparently in 2023 my top purchase from Sainsburys was small bottles of diet coke, with Shaken Udder salted caramel milk shake in second position and all-butter croissants in third.

I wouldn't have thought that. But their computer says so, so it must be true...

 

Unless their computer comes from the same place as the post office's computer. The pundits on the radio were talking of little else but the Horizon computer scandal this morning. A lot of what was said was speculation about what they didn't know or repetition of what little they did know. There was nothing new to be said, but they still talked and talked. The only thing of interest on the matter was in the "Yesterday in Parliament" section; with all the MPs banging on about the Horizon scandal, some MP from the Scottish Nationalist Party listed loads of other miscarriages of justice and asked when ITV would make a drama series about those so that Parliament might then take them seriously as well.

The chap had a point. A week ago there was nothing but Gaza in the news. It got a little mention today, but not much. And I've heard nothing from Ukraine for ages.

 

I stopped off at Ashford's Sainsbury's for petrol, and at Pembury's Tesco for cereal bars (I like those).

You'd have thought that petrol would have featured on my Nectar card purchase list, wouldn't you? I wonder if Tesco's clubcard keeps track on what I buy?

 

At tea break I had an email from the people in whose field we stage Dog Club. They'd had an email from the people who provide the insurance. Do we have any XL Bullies that come to Dog Club?

We don't.

I'd have thought that a banned breed of dog would automatically be excluded from any insurance policies anyway; I expect those providing the policies have had so many "episodes" that they need to point out the obvious. It's a sad old world in which the obvious needs to be pointed out, but there it is.

Once home I posted about this to the club’s Facebook page so’s people can’t say they haven’t been told.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a rather good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching a couple of episodes of “The Reluctant Landlord”. A show from six years go; it was rather good.

As we scoffed we had a bottle of plonk. I like a bottle of plonk… However at three quid a bottle this stuff lacked a certain je ne sais quoi…