14 June 2024 (Friday) - A Bit Dull

I slept like a log. When we have three dogs on the bed there’s no space for anyone. Pogo is a very large lump, but he doesn’t seem to take up any space at night. How does that work?

I made toast and watched an episode of “Catastrophe” then quickly sparked up my lap-top to see what I’d missed overnight. I hadn’t missed much.

I got ready for work.

 

As I drove up the motorway the pundits on the radio were talking politics. There was some big debate on the telly last night in which loads of senior politicians tried to persuade the masses that their party were sugar and everyone else's was shit. I didn't watch it; I did watch the Prime Minister in a debate against the Leader of the Opposition on the telly on Monday. I'm not sure that these televised debates are actually any good. All they do is play to those who are good at entertaining the masses (Boris Johnson and Donald Trump immediately spring to mind). Just because someone can stand up and entertain doesn't make them a good leader. However the masses don't seem to understand that, do they?

Meanwhile the American President has promised ten years of aid to Ukraine for their ongoing war against the Russian invaders. The Russian premier isn’t keen on this development, and has offered terms under which he will end the war… terms which no one but him think are any good.

 

I got to work and cracked on. As the day wore on I had some sad news. A friend of a friend didn't turn up for work yesterday. After a while a couple of her friends went round to her house to find her unresponsive. She'd had a stroke. She was only thirty-four. My dad was in his mid eighties when he had one. Makes you think, doesn’t it?

 

I came home to find Pogo had gone back to Folkestone where he lives. “er indoors ^TM” boiled up fish and chips and we watched more “Race Across the World”.

Days when I’m working are rather dull…

13 June 2024 (Thursday) - Rostered Day Off

As I scoffed toast this morning a post on Facebook caught my eye. The famous occultist Aleister Crowley lived in my home town of Hastings… I say “home town”; I moved out in 1984. Apparently Aleister Crowley put a curse on the place. It is claimed that if you have lived in Hastings you can never leave and if you try you will always come back. The only way to truly leave is to take with you a stone with a hole from the beach.

Leaving aside that all curses are bollox, it would explain why so many people I know from the old days have never left it, and now as we are all coming up to retirement why so many are moving back.

This morning’s squabble on the Facebook garden pond forums was about topping up ponds with tap water. There are those who insist that tap water burns fish (because of the chlorine) and rain water is even worse (for no clear reason). If you must top up you pond with either it was being advocated that you should then chuck in loads of chemicals to sort out this manky water, and then loads of other chemicals to offset the first ones. Amazingly the chemicals to make tap water safe come with a hazard warning that it is irritant to eyes and skin.

And my church is having something of a re-launch and they send me an updated certificate of ordination. Did you know I have a church? I’m actually an accredited minister of the Universal Church Triumphant of the Apathetic Agnostic. We believe that there might or might not be a god, but either way we don’t really care. As religious standpoints go, it’s not a bad one.

 

I put the washing into the machine and took the dogs up to the woods. As we walked we saw a herd of deer run across the path in front of us… or I did. The dogs missed it entirely. We walked for three and a half miles without seeing anyone, and then had a “near miss episode” as we walked toward the car park. As we came to the last turning so a red setter came round the corner and said hello to the pups as dogs do. Some woman then came after the dog, shrieked “oh my god oh my god oh my god”, pounced on the dog and dragged it round the corner. As we walked round the corner this woman was standing there shrieking at my dogs to keep their distance if they knew what was good for them. Her mate was desperately clinging to her dog and shrieking “they’re not on leads they’re not on leads they’re not on leads”. My dogs stared at the stupid women as they walked past.

I can’t help but wonder what that was all about.

 

The plan had been to drive to Folkestone to take Pogo home, but “Stormageddon – Bringer of Destruction ^TM” had developed tonsilitis so Pogey got to stay with us for another day.

So we came home, and whilst the dogs slept I gathered turds, hung out the washing, mowed the lawn, did the ironing and had a healthy lunch of Bombay mix washed down with some Tizer followed by an almond Magnum.

 

Rather than cracking on and doing something else, I had a rather lazy afternoon staring at the telly until “er indoors ^TM” came home. She boiled up sausages and chips and we watched two more episodes of “Race Across the World”. I wonder if Saga do escorted trips across Canada?

12 June 2024 (Wednesday) - An Afternoon Off

I woke from a nightmare involving leaking tents only to find it was half past four. But didn’t get back off to sleep after that.

I got up, made toast and watched an episode of “Catastrophe”. The miserable sour-faced headmistress character seemed vaguely familiar; it was something about her voice. It turned out I remembered her from being the foxy one in the Hale and Pace show thirty-five years ago, and from being Rowan Atkinson’s girlfriend in “The Thin Blue Line”.

                                                                                                             

I set off to work. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the computing marvel “Raspberry Pi” which yesterday was launched on the stock exchange. It has made a fortune for those who invest in that sort of thing. But interestingly it was the business editor, not the news people who were talking about it. The thing hasn’t made loads of money because of its demonstrable track record; it has made loads of money because those in the financial world think it will. When I listen to the business and finance news I get so wound up. There’s no room for facts or information in there. They way to make money is to persuade those with money that the thing you are trying to sell is worth money. Get them to invest. The value of your shares then increases as a buying frenzy takes off, and then you sell your shares at vast profit before anyone realizes that it is all mass hysteria utterly unrelated to whether or not what is up for sale is actually any good or not.

And there was more talk of the upcoming election. It would seem there’s pretty much no public confidence in the UK’s political system at the moment. It was claimed that the public are still sulking that all isn’t heigh-ho pip and dandy like the pro-Brexit campaign promised, and this is compounded by all of Boris Johnson’s lies. I would have thought that things had moved on since then; we can’t keep harping back to what happened years ago.

 

I got to work for the early, did half a day’s work, and came home again. With “Daddy’s Little Angel ^TM” bridesmaiding at her mate’s wedding we were looking after “Darcie Waa Waa ^TM”. We had perhaps one of the best sessions we’ve ever had with her; no tantrums, no carrying on. She bimbled about the place quite happily checking the cupboards for monsters and telling the dogs stories.

“er indoors ^TM” has now taken “Darcie Waa Waa ^TM” to collect “Stormageddon – Bringer of Destruction ^TM” from school and they are all off to the evening reception. I’m on dog duty; there’s four as Pogo is with us for the evening. The dogs are all fast asleep; having littlun round has worn them out. Mind you, I say “fast asleep”; one will burp or fart in their sleep and the other three leap up and all hell is unleashed until I settle them again. This has happened a few times now and is getting a td tiresome.

 

In between settling dogs I spent the evening staring at the telly. I did consider doing the ironing, but I couldn’t be arsed.

And in closing today, it is three years since Sid died…

 

11 June 2024 (Tuesday) - Little Bit of Politics

I read something which made me think on my old school’s Facebook page this morning as I scoffed toast. Someone from my year at secondary school went to bed on April 29^th and didn’t wake up the next morning. An ambulance was called, he was taken to hospital where he died a week later never having regained consciousness. A tragic loss for the family, but for the chap himself? My mother went downhill for some time before being taken to the hospice where she dragged on for two more weeks. When my father had his stroke he then lay in a hospital bed clearly confused and frightened for a fortnight before finally passing away. When my time comes I’d rather have no notice at all; just go to bed as usual one night and let that be it.

On a lighter note I had a friend request from “Mars Mary” who like so many made a total mockery of Facebook’s Community Standards.

 

As I drove to work the pundits on the radio were talking about the upcoming general election. All the parties are promising the undeliverable. But I spent much of the day when I should have been working thinking about who will get my vote.

Nominations for the upcoming general election have now closed, and with a few minutes spare I did a little research. I’ve got the choice of six candidates at next month’s general election. Taking the candidates in alphabetical order:

There’s our current MP. I follow him on Facebook where he regularly appears trying to take the credit for other people’s efforts. Having been my MP for the last twenty-seven years the only really memorable thing I can recall him doing is to have got caught looking at filth on his works computer.

Then there’s the Reform UK candidate. He came tenth out of eleven in the last election he stood for (in Lewisham) and from what I can see he has absolutely nothing to do with the local area. But he’s raised money for Paralympians so he can’t be all bad.

The Labour candidate is a local lad having moved to Ashford over twenty years ago and has worked for the NHS for years. He’s already a local councilor so he’s not entirely inexperienced. He’s promised all sorts of things if he gets elected, but talk is cheap.

The fourth candidate is also a local councilor. In the past he’s stood for election as a Conservative, but now he’s not. Because of the finances of standing as an independent candidate for a general election, he’s formed his own political party. There’s sod all on-line about his party other than that it is registered to an address in Bath. He’s got a twitter account which shows him posting leaflets in my road, and promises regular updates. The leaflets don’t say much, and the promise of regular updates was made in January.

The fifth candidate is also a local who is standing for the Green party. What she says on-line is at odds with the leaflet she has stuck through our letterbox the other day in which she claims that as a Green she can act independently which other political parties cannot do. Does she not toe the Green Party line?

And the last candidate is standing for the Liberal Democrats. He lives in the Folkestone area and stood for local elections last year when he came in eight place out of nine candidates. If you read his official statement I think it’s clear he isn’t taking it at all seriously.

 

So which of these am I going to vote for? The Tory chap is very good at taking the credit for what everyone else has done, so he’s out.

The Reform chap isn’t a local and doesn’t seem to know much about the area, so he too is out. Added to which Reform means Nigel Farage who has a proven track record of being a troublemaker; the last thing he wants is to be elected to anything he has to do properly.

The Liberal Democrat bloke can’t even be arsed to write a personal statement.

In theory my heart says Green, but in practice they have proved they aren’t up to the job. The Greens jointly control the local council… ask anyone about the debacle of bin collections in Ashford. If the Greens could do just one thing you’d think it would be recycling, wouldn’t you? My local councilor is a Green. I’ve contacted her a couple of times and she is rather good at telling me that everything is somebody else’s problem. And one of the local Green activists used to run the pub where we once had a family party. Having paid up quite a bit of dosh in advance I was then twice asked for more money as she’d undercharged.

 

So it’s between the Labour bloke (if only he didn’t bring all the half-wits of the national Labour Party with him), and the Consensus bloke… (if only I knew what he actually stood for - I have tweeted at him to ask).

If I had to vote right now, I’d be drawing a great big knob on the ballot paper (again).

10 June 2024 (Monday) - Hospital, Vet, Planning...

I woke to the sound of rain this morning; I always find the sound of rain rather depressing. It means that pretty much whatever I’ve got planned is cancelled.

I made toast and had a little look at the Internet as I scoffed it. It was pretty much the same as ever. Squabbles and willful misunderstanding abounded. Apparently quite a few “Vote Labour” signs that have been put up locally have been destroyed. That was good for a squabble.

 

I then drove over to the local hospital for a couple of appointments. First of all to the ENT out-patients department in a desperate hope to talk to someone about my upcoming surgery. No one there was able to talk to me, but they gave me the phone number of someone who could have helped had she not been on holiday.

I then went round to the X-ray department to have my dodgy knee looked at. I got to the X-ray department to see a large sign directing me to check in at the hospital’s main reception area where the chap with whom I’d had a minor run-in a couple of weeks ago was sitting with a rather self-important air. He asked loads of questions and then directed me to the X-ray department’s reception area where they asked the same questions again. They then seemed rather annoyed that I wasn’t wearing a kilt or shorts, and insisted I put on some rather embarrassing surgical gown and then sit in the waiting area for all to stare at me in said surgical gown.

As I sat and waited so the three women behind the reception desk shrieked about the antics of a colleague’s boyfriend who had got so drunk over the weekend that he’s lost his false teeth.

After a few minutes I was called in for the X-ray. This too was frankly embarrassing. The trainee would position me for the X-ray then the supervisor would come over, say “No!” and the poor trainee would start again. Personally if I was the supervisor I would have shown the trainee how she should have done it, but what do I know?

I then went along the corridor for the pre-assessment for my upcoming surgery. Having been told my appointment was at ten o’clock I’d booked the X-ray an hour earlier so’s I could go from one appointment to the other. The nurse at the pre-assessment clinic saw I was early, and asked me “what I’d got up my arse” as people are usually late. She went through my notes and demanded to know why I’d had blood tests done at my last pre-assessment, talked about an ECG but didn’t do one, and took my blood pressure which at 148/98 I thought was rather high, but nurse didn’t.

 

I came home. Seeing the rain had eased off I loudly announced that I was going to the woods for a walk. Three sleeping dogs leapt up.

We went up to Kings Wood and had a good walk. Once we were away from the car park we went for over three miles and didn’t see anyone. And despite the rain it wasn’t *that* muddy. As I walked I found myself thinking about revamping the geocaches I’ve got up there into smaller walks.

 

We came home, and I spent a few minutes stalking “er indoors ^TM” bird feeder. There’s a little blue tit which has taken to coming for a feed… whenever there’s no cameras about. I gave up trying to photograph the elusive bird, and had a little clean-out of the boot of my car instead. It was rather grubby, and the dog bedding was rather whiffy; I set the washing machine loose on it.

Before long it was time for the vets. Today had something of a medical theme; Bailey and Morgan were due for their boosters at the dog-doctor. The vet seemed impressed with both of them, but Bailey does need her teeth brushing.

 

I then cracked out GSAK (it’s a geocaching thing) and looked at a map of all my geocaches in Kings Wood. They are good for this year, but come the winter they need revamping. The long route of over eight miles is too long, and pretty much everyone who likes Wherigo has done them all now. I’ve plans for three walking routes of about five miles each, and some smaller Wherigo series. But it’s all in the formative stages at the moment.…

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up some scran, then went off bowling as she does on Mondays. I settled in front of the telly with the dogs… and fell asleep.

I’ve had a rather busy day today…

9 June 2024 (Sunday) - Another Busy Day

I slept rather well. At about three o’clock I heard Morgan jumping off the bed. I hurried after him as he doesn’t wait very long to be let out if “it’s in the bomb bay”. I couldn’t find him anywhere, so I went back to bed and found him fast asleep in the warm spot I’d left.

I went back to kip and got up just after eight o’clock. I went straight to the pond. The small leak was still intermittently dripping, but there weren’t any major issues so pausing only briefly to tread in dog turd I went back inside. “er indoors ^TM” topped up the bird feeder; as well as pigeons and sparrows we’ve now got a blue tit coming for food.

 

I peered into the Internet as I do. I had a friend request on Facebook – not from a dubious pornmonger but from an ex-trainee. I’d not heard from him for years…

I saw I’d missed some big open-air carnival/festival event at Woodchurch yesterday. That had been a rather well-kept secret. There wasn’t much else going on in cyber-space really. There was talk of the formation of a new garden pond related Facebook page in which people weren’t allowed to be vindictive and nasty in their comments, but only talk.

And then the dogs went frantic as a leaflet came through the door advocating that we might vote for the Consensus party. Consensus? No – I’d not heard of it either. Basically it’s some chap standing as an independent candidate but it turns out that the financial rules concerning campaigning are such that it is more advantageous to be in a political party than to be independent. So this bloke has made his own political party. He talks a lot of sense but, if elected, he’ll be in a minority of one and consequently pissing in the wind.

 

With “er indoors ^TM” off out for brekkie I put some washing in to scrub, loaded the dogs into the car and drove down to World of Water at Rolvenden. Yesterday I’d phoned them and they’d told me they’d got the aquarium sealant I needed to sort out the drip in the new bog filter. As I pulled up at the place’s car park it suddenly struck me that I might have tried Bybrook Barn first if only because that would have saved a thirty-mile round trip..

The nice people at World of Water had what I needed, and I had a little look round the display ponds too.

 

We came home, hung out the washing, and smeared sealant over where I thought the leak was coming out. I also managed to smear it all over the place whilst I was at it. I got most of it off of my hand, but some remains. The filter seemed to have stopped dripping, so I left well alone, and sat by the pond admiring how clear the water was. Compare it to a year ago when it was running a thick green colour.

“er indoors ^TM” soon came home, and we went for a little outing. First of all to Wittersham where “er indoors ^TM” had an errand to run, then we went for a little walk round Tenterden. Over the winter we did a couple of sets of Adventure Lab geocaches and got the final locations of some other geocaches. We went and found those caches today. And on the way back to the car we walked past the Old Dairy Brewery’s taproom. So we sat in the garden and had a pint of “No Mikey, No” whilst the dogs scoffed some home-made dog treats.

 

We came home and I went straight out to the pond. The fix to the bog filter seems to have worked; if only for now.

Hopefully “er indoors ^TM” will boil up some dinner soon… What with pond shops and smearing sealants and walking dogs and brewery tap rooms I forgot to scoff anything at lunch time. I’m a tad peckish now…

8 June 2024 (Saturday) - Busy Day

As I scoffed toast I saw I had a friend request on Facebook. Sherrill had also asked me if I like sex. That was a tad forward of her, wasn’t it? She went on to tell me that she has created a WhatsApp group for people who are keen on doing the dirty deed. Anyone can join it (even me, apparently) if they are old enough (so that’s one good thing I suppose), and she claimed that there were many beautiful girls and widows in that group who are gagging for it. Fortunately for decency the Facebook Feds deleted her account within minutes of my getting the friend request.

 

With “er indoors ^TM” off to some Craft Club extravaganza I took the dogs to Dog Club single-handed. Dog club went rather well; we all had a great time scoffing everyone else’s dog treats, playing fetch, rolling in mud and generally doing what dogs do.

One woman was rather sweet; I overheard her nervously asking who was in charge and she was directed to me. She explained to me how much she liked dog club, and she knew she hadn’t been coming long, but her friend would like to come along. Was that OK? Of course it was… she bustled up to the gate and came back with her mate. Her mate’s dog was immediately mobbed by all (as all new dogs are). It was rather daunting, but within five minutes her dog was in the thick of it. It was a shame that the biggest dog there (a newbie about the size of a large cart horse) was terrified of Bailey, but I’d rather he was scared of Bailey than the other way round.

 

All too soon Dog Club was over. I took a little diversion to the garden centre for pond plants and jubilee clips. I must admit I’d not been keen on taking the dogs to the garden centre; I had memories of Bailey winning the “not shitting in the garden centre” contest. But it all passed off well. I got all that I needed, and some cake as well.

 

We came home, and after a quick cuppa and a slice of that cake I cracked on in the garden. I cleaned out the pond filter. Water goes through at its fastest rate when it’s clean, so if the new bog filter could cope with that it could cope with anything. Or that was the plan. So I plumbed in the new bog filter, and as it filled I potted the new plants for it.

I then put the plants into the bog filter and that’s when I saw the major hiccup. The thing fills under pressure and empties by gravity. With that in mind I’d made the outlet wider than the inlet. But it was filling just the teensiest bit too fast.

We all went back to the garden centre to get a T-junction and a tap so’s I could divert some of the water flow directly into the existing smaller bog filter.

We came home again and I fiddled about diverting some of the water flow directly into the existing smaller bog filter. And I ripped open a blister on my thumb and stabbed my finger whilst doing it. I hadn’t diverted very much water, but enough to do the trick. There’s a teeny little drip from the new filter from where I put the drain in, but that isn’t entirely unexpected. I have a plan for how I might fix that… tomorrow. There was too much blood all over the place this afternoon.

Today I went to the garden centre twice, did a bit of plumbing and potted a few pond plants. Seconds to type; seven hours to do.

 

“er indoors ^TM” came home from Craft-a-rama with cake. We scoffed those, I had a quick shower, and it wasn’t long before Chris, Sarah and Steve came round. We had a rather good evening playing on the Infinity Table. Hungry Hippos, Chicken Wrangler, Sorry, Simon, Ticket to Ride, Game of Life…

We had a rather good evening.