12 September 2024 (Thursday) - Arguing with the Geo-Feds

Another restless night. Usually I sleep like a log for several nights after a night shift. I wonder what was different this time?

I got up, made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was still there. I saw I had an email… and my piss boiled. On Tuesday I tried to organize the monthly geocaching meet-up for October. The Red Lion in Badlesmere are up for it so I tried to set up the meet. Bearing in mind the pub is usually busy until mid-afternoon I thought we might stage a little litter picking as a formal geo-activity on the village green before.

The usual geo-fed with whom I deal is on holiday. His stand in was being rather difficult. *If* there was to be a litter picking session then that had to be the main event, and the write-up I’d provided for the session in the pub should reflect that.

I went to one of these litter-picks followed by a meet up in Deal in April this year,  and something seemingly identical took place less than two weeks ago in Seaford, Both passed off with no such squabbles whatsoever.

If there was one word to describe the geo-feds it would be inconsistent. They pick on “er indoors ^TM” about her caches needing maintenance when two people have logged that they can’t find the things, but let other people’s ones go for over a year with the DNF logs piling up. A friend who lives ten miles away has the geo-feds finding trivial issue after trivial issue with his proposed hides, but when his wife tries to put out *exactly* the same thing there are no problems at all. It says quite clearly in the rules that a geo-meet is not to be a rallying point for people then going off geocaching but a friend who lives twenty miles west does exactly that without problems.

Bearing in mind that so few people are creating geo-events these days you’d think they’d be a tad more encouraging…

I sent a terse reply, and pointed out that the geo-litter-pick was wishful thinking at best. I pointed out that I’d sent an email to who I thought was the relevant parish clerk on Tuesday, but with a postal address in Scotland I wasn’t expecting a reply. I also pointed out that I’d tried to organize a similar litter-pick in Kings Wood over the winter, but I gave up after six months of procrastination from Forestry England.

Just as I finished typing this rant so the stand-in geo-fed published my geo-meet for October. Clearly my terse email had worked.

 

After a rather wet few days today was glorious so I took the dogs up to the woods. We took a rather shorter route than usual as I didn’t want to over-exert Treacle’s leg. But she seemed fine. As we walked we met three other dogs. Two encounters were fine; one wasn’t. If Morgan meets another dog and they aren’t scared of him then all is heigh-ho, pip and dandy. But if they show any fear he gets rather aggressive.

I wish he wouldn’t.

 

We came home. Amazingly the dogs weren’t filthy and didn’t need a bath. So I popped to the corner shop and got us some pastries. You can’t go wrong with an almond croissant.

With that scoffed I went into the garden. I harvested a bumper crop of dog turds, and then mowed the lawn and found more. The whole idea of keeping the lawn short is that you can see the dog turds at harvest time, but the lawn had shot up over the last week’s rain.

I then started a timer, ran out the big hose pipe, cleaned the pond’s pressure filter, put the big hose pipe away and stopped the timer. Before I got the pressure filter, cleaning the pond filter was a back-breaking smelly job that took over an hour. Today it took just under ten minutes from start to finish and I didn’t end up smelling of fish poo.

I got out the bionic burner and had a zap at the weeds growing in the cracks in the front garden. Back in the day I would get on my hands and knees and pull the weeds. Now I go out and zap round with the burner in a fraction of the time and don’t end up with backache.

The trick to gardening is finding easy ways to do it. Having said that I can hear my mother telling me off about it. She used to see any sort of labour-saving device or activity as cheating. My grandmother was also insistent that there was merit in doing any job the most difficult and labourious way possible.

 

Just as I put the bionic burner away my phone pinged. I had an email from the parish clerk who I’d emailed on Tuesday giving full permission for the geo-litter-pick. I *really* hadn’t expected a reply; let alone one so soon.

I spent a little while creating the web page for the geo-litter-picking and sent a grovelling email to the geo-Fed to whom I’d been rather terse earlier. How embarrassing.

Mind you I’m wondering if I shouldn’t send a message to the head honcho of Forestry England. I spent over six months last winter emailing to and fro to their local office offering the services of a bunch of volunteers to do some litter picking for them. After endless procrastination from them I eventually gave up. A local parish council were only too happy to have us turn up and pick litter and all was sorted in less than two days in one email.

 

Feeling rather worn out I sat on the sofa and spent time watching episodes of “Four In a Bed” in the hope that the contestants would get nasty with each other. In the first place visited some bloke (who acted like a precious princess) pretended there were jizz stains in his bed and insisted that the sheets be changed. Sadly in his establishment there really were turd stains on the bog brush and matted hair in the plug hole. The losers were rather disappointed to lose but didn’t seem to realise that a cabin in a houseboat couldn’t command three times the price of a proper bedroom in a proper house, and the winners squeaked through by not rattling anyone’s cages.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a very good curry which we washed down with a bottle of Liebfraumilch whilst watching the last episode of “The Traitors US” which to my annoyance was won by the very first contestant to whom I’d taken an instant dislike.

This was followed by some program in which the contestants of that show all came back together to talk about how the show went. There wasn’t one woman who hadn’t had her face surgically re-built and her tits pumped up like barrage balloons. I can’t help but wonder why they had all spent so much money to look so odd.

 

For a rostered day off I’ve been rather busy. And just as I was about to post today’s diary entry the geo-feds published my geo-litter-pick. Result!!

11 September 2024 (Wednesday) - Dentist, Sunset, Kebab

“er indoors ^TM” and Treacle had some sort of altercation at three o'clock, and I didn't really get back to sleep after that. I eventually gave up laying in my pit, got up and as I scoffed toast I watched another episode of "Brassic" in which our heroes went camping. Him who played "Grumio" in "Plebs" was all for the Great Outdoors, gave himself dodgy guts from eating iffy berries and earned himself the sobriquet "Shitticus Maximus" which left me giggling all day. Meanwhile the ladies stayed at home and went thieving.

Much as I like the show it seems to have run out of steam. Why would all the lads go camping when not one of them actually wants to go camping? And having been the voice of reason and decency for four seasons, why does the leading lady take all the others thieving when she's been so outspoken about it previously.

And there was another major issue... one of the characters claimed to have been thrown out of the cubs. As a cub leader of thirteen years, take it from me. No one in the history of scouting has *ever* been thrown out of cubs. The leaders love the problem children and bend over backwards for them.

 

Leaving “er indoors ^TM” and the dogs snoring I set off for work. As I drove there was talk on the radio about last night's televised debate between the candidates for the upcoming American presidential election. Apparently Donald Trump made an idiot of himself (again), but the pundits seemed to feel that was expected. In the end the most important thing to emerge about the election didn't come from the debate at all though. Apparently Taylor Swift has announced that she is going to vote for Kamala Harris, and because she is voting that way, so will millions of her followers as well. Democracy eh, Can't beat it...

 

I got to work and cracked on as I do. It wasn't a bad day really; there was cake. I'm a great fan of the stuff. But cake notwithstanding I was out the door like a shot at the stroke of going home time.

I came home, brushed my teeth and went to the dentist for a check-up. The chap rooted about in my gob, gave me the thumbs-up and told me to see the hygienist in a couple of weeks’ time. He said I should come back in six months’ time for X-rays when he would think about replacing fillings.

 

We then drove down to Folkestone for our mid-week walk along the lees. The channel was the clearest I’ve ever seen it. We had a little walk, but only a little one; it was rather cold. And it got dark ridiculously early. We drove home into the sunset.

 

Being a bit late home we had kebab for dinner. It was rather good. We scoffed it whilst watching the penultimate episode of “The Traitors US”. For all that it is supposedly reality TV, the contestants were getting rather nasty with each other…

10 September 2024 (Tuesday) - Rather Tired

Despite Sunday’s night shift I slept for two hours last night and was wide awake at one o’clock. I lay there for half an hour before nodding off, and woke again at half past five feeling like death warmed up.

I made toast and peered into a rather dull internet. Other than a public outpouring of grief for the actor James Earl Jones who died yesterday not a lot was happening on Facebook. However I did have seemingly endless posts about two 1960s TV series – Captain Scarlet and The Time Tunnel. I wonder why?

I had a quick Munz, struggled with Wordle, then got ready for work.

 

As I drove the pundits on the radio were also banging on about the death of James Earl Jones. Intending no disrespect to the chap I can't help but wonder why he and so many of his ilk are so newsworthy. Go to any local theatre and you will find dozens of actors who are every bit as good as the ones on the telly and in films. They do their acting for the fun of it, don't command ridiculous wages since they do it as a hobby, and no one cries crocodile tears when they croak. I'm sure Mr Jones gave some stunning performances, but I'm also sure that dozens if not hundreds of other actors could have done just as good a job for a fraction of the price. Why are celebrity actors held in such awe by the public?

Football players are the same.

There was also a lot of talk about the government's plans to cut the winter fuel allowance for pensioners. Apparently the pension is going up, so what the government takes with one hand it is giving back with the other.

 

I went up the motorway to the needlessly closed slip road at junction six where I turned off and drove through Aylesford. As I drove I was conscious of a white van being far too close behind me. It overtook me rather dangerously on a blind corner and then being unable to go any further carried on about ten yards in front of me tail-ending the car in front of it for the next mile or so until recklessly swerving into a building site. Pedestrians didn't actually dive out of its way...

 

I spent much of the day giggling. When I first started this line of work many years ago one of the very first things I learned that people who collect blood samples are called "phlebotomists". They are known to all and sundry in the hospital as "fleabows". The very first time I heard this I had a mental image of one of the Banana Splits communicating via a honking horn whilst wielding a needle and syringe, and that set me off. 

This morning, years later, there was talk of "fleabows" and that mental image came straight back.

 

Work was work. I took a little diversion on the way home and popped into the Red Lion in Badlesmere where I confirmed that all was good for next month’s geo-meet.

It was.

The plan was to then come home and take the dogs out, but when I as home so the heavens opened. We did the “Feeding The Fish” ritual and I wrote the web page for the October geo-meet I’d just arranged.

 

Dinner was rather good… it was just a shame I could hardly stay awake.

9 September 2024 (Monday) - After the Night Shift

The first night shift I ever did was in early 1985. I was phoned and asked to do my thing on five separate occasions. I finished the last one at half past midnight.

Last night’s shift was five hours shorter than that one of all those years ago. Far from getting a phone call every time I was needed I just stayed in work and dealt with stuff as it arrived, and stuff arrived constantly all night long. Including a red alert during the hour before midnight.

I was rather pleased to see the early shift arrive this morning.

 

As I came home I listened to the radio. There was talk about what our new Prime Minister was getting up to. Something about public finances… From what I could work out it is being claimed that the previous government cooked the books and it has now come to light that he country is massively in debt; far more so that was ever thought. The obvious answer (so some shrieking harridan claimed) was to tax the extremely rich. I had hoped the Labour party had given up on such divisive ways years ago. Taxing the rich is all very well all the time the country has got rich people to tax. But were I massively rich and was told that I would have to pay far more tax purely because I could, I would up sticks and piss off to another country where it wouldn’t cost me quite so much.

 

I got home just as “er indoors ^TM” was walking down the road with the dogs. She’d taken her car for its MOT, and walking the dogs back gave them an outing. I stood and waited for them. Treacle saw me but the other two were too busy sniffling about and didn’t see me. Which is why when we are in the woods they walk straight past squirrels and don’t see deer only twenty yards away.

I had a shave and shower and went to bed. Morgan and Bailey followed me. Morgan jumped on the bed and curled up. Being too small to jump up Bailey just looked at me rather pathetically. So, falling for her ruse, I lifted her up and she flew at her brother and a rather vigorous play-fight kicked off.

They eventually settled.

 

Over a mid-day brekkie I peered into the Internet. Facebook randomly decided I might like crochet and presented me with a post from a crochet group in which various people were having a really nasty, spiteful and personal argument about the difference between tortoises and turtles. On a crochet group.

Some people will argue about anything.

And I then realised something. Up until the last election our local MP was all over Facebook like a rash. Since he got the heave-ho he’s been quiet (well he would be, wouldn’t he?) But I’ve not heard a single thing from our new chap. Does he not do social media or am I looking in the wrong place?

 

I got the ironing board out and spent some time this afternoon ironing. As I sorted shirts I watched episodes of “Four In A Bed”. This afternoon’s episodes were rather good in that not a lot of love was last between the contestants. That show is always best when those taking part hate each other.

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up sausages and chips and went bowling. As she walked out the door she announced that as she’d picked up her coat she’d destroyed my ironing board. That wasn’t *our* ironing board. That was *my* ironing board…

Ho hum…

 

8 September 2024 (Sunday) - Before the Night Shift

I slept right through till half past eight this morning. As I scoffed my toast so I got an email. A new geocache only a mile away. I sped off in the desperate hope of being first and got to where it was supposed to be only to find a geo-pal was already there hunting.

From the hint the thing should have been obvious. It wasn’t. After a few minutes my pal sent a message to the chap who’d hidden it. Or to be precise, the chap who had told Geocaching HQ that he had hidden it. Apparently he’d not got round to hiding the thing… even though when you go through creating a new one on-line you actually tick a box saying that you’ve hidden it and it is in place.

I sighed and came home.

 

As “er indoors ^TM” pootled about I had a look at the internet. I rolled my eyes on our Munzee Clans Facebook page. There was a photo of something pretty central to Munzee Clans and someone had commented “What is this?” This would be like going onto a football page and asking what a goal was, or going on a cricket page and claiming you had no idea what a wicket was.

And then a notification came through that the chap who’d not hidden the geocache had gone out and done so.

 

The weather forecast for this morning was thunderstorms and a ninety per cent chance of rain. As we sat and looked at the glorious sunshine we thought we’d go out. So we went out and despite the glorious sunshine there were showers. Very odd showers. There would be torrential rain, then a hundred yards up the road the pavements were completely dry. And there was a glorious blue sky all the time.

We drove up to Eastwell where “er indoors ^TM” had been told that some of her geocaches were missing. Replacing them made a short dog walk.

 

We came home and I spent a little while farting about on Amazon ordering bits and bobs. And after half an hour I went outside to pump up the car tyre. It had told me it had low pressure as we’d driven home. It had very low pressure. I’ve never seen it so low. By the time I’d driven it to Kwik Fit it was completely flat.

The nice man at Kwik Fit said he might be able to do something with it today, but they were busy and short-handed and I should leave it with them. He specifically said it wasn’t worth my while waiting.

As I walked home so the torrential rain started. I was soaked by the time I got home, and I’d developed a blister that bad burst and was profusely bleeding too. Just as I was taking off wet undercrackers so my phone rang. It was the nice man at Kwik Fit asking if I’d hit a pot hole today. “er indoors ^TM” said I had as we’d driven back from Eastwell. The nice man at Kwik Fit said that would wreck a tyre… I wouldn’t mind quite so much if the tyre had been more than six weeks old; I’d only had the thing replaced on 26 July.

To add insult to injury he said I might like to go collect the car…  

 

And then my phone told me that the payment had been declined on all the stuff I’d bought from Amazon earlier. When the bank wrote to me a month ago and said they’d updated everything when they sent out my new credit card they lied.

 

“er indoors ^TM” drove me out to get the car, and once home I went to bed for the afternoon. I’m hoping for an early dinner and then off to the night shift. I’m hoping to get up the motorway before it closes.

I wish the highways people would stop messing about.

7 September 2024 (Saturday) - Dog Club, Geo Meet, Family Get-Together

I slept rather well for a change. That was nice.

I made brekkie and peered into the internet. Not a lot was going on really. I did chuckle as I saw I’d been told off – yesterday someone asked for recommendations for local aquatic shops. I recommended some local ones and gave my honest experiences of the aquatic shop closest to work. Over the last seven years I’ve called in many times and found them rude, unhelpful and rather expensive. Over the last couple of years I’ve only been in when I’ve forgotten how bad the shop was only to be reminded why I rarely go in there. Some young girl thought it wrong of me to say so.  

What did she want of me? To lie and say the place was fine, or to keep quiet and let others experience the rudeness for themselves?

The last time I went in there I stood and waited for over ten minutes whist the staff all stood around listening to one of their number talking about the amount of blood spilled in a fist fight that someone or other had been involved in the previous day.

 

I Munzed and Wordled, and then being Saturday we set off to Dog Club. As we drove I got Steve’s “Guess the Lyrics” contest on the radio right away. “I can dim the lights and sing you songs full of sad things”. No? Click here for the video.

We got to Dog Club where Morgan disgraced himself. He’s fine with other dogs until the other dog shows fear. Then he just gets aggressive and has to have a time out

 

We came home and had a cuppa and a bun. Whilst we’d been at dog club a new puzzle geocache had gone live. I spent a little while struggling with the puzzle. Perhaps too long. By the time I’d solved it time was running out. Bearing in mind it was a short diversion from our afternoon drive we left it for later. And drove out to Wye where the monthly geo-meet was happening.

As geo-meets go it wasn’t the most well attended, but ten of us sat in the pub garden and put the world to rights. And it was something of a milestone for me; geo-find 15151.

 

From Wye we drove to Hastings. We took a little diversion to find that geocache the puzzle of which I’d solved earlier. Sadly having not gone straight there but having gone to the meet-up we missed being First to Find. But to be honest I’d rather meet up with friends.

We carried on to Hastings  where family gathered for a get-together for a couple of birthdays. We had a rather good get-together which got progressively more vague as the afternoon wore on, and I slept most (all) of the way home.

 

Today has been rather busy… I took a few photos.

And (where has the time gone?) today marks two years since my Dad died…

6 September 2024 (Friday) - Swizzed

I slept like a log and woke feeling raring to go… at half past midnight. And then I just dozed on and off. This happens annoyingly often.

Eventually I gave up, got up and watched an episode of “Brassic” in which him who was “Grumio” turned up in a camper van which he’d converted into a mobile sex dungeon despite having no road tax, MOT or driving licence.

 

I then did my usual peer into the Internet. There wasn’t a lot happening so I had a quick Munz, then struggled with Wordle. I’ve been playing that for the last few weeks; I’m not very good at it.

I set off to work and immediately spent a few seconds retrieving the recycling bin and the food waste bin from where the bin men had abandoned them. Having heard them bellowing as I'd been watching the telly I rather thought I'd have to do that job before someone whose bin they'd lost came and nicked ours.

 

As I drove out of Ashford so I noticed a motorbike in my rear view mirror. It had its headlight on full beam, flew past me rather dangerously at the traffic lights by Matalan and sped round the roundabout where it caused no end of chaos by conking out right in everyone's way.

I remembered my old motorbike; a Suzuki GSX 250 which went for scrap about forty years ago. It too used to conk out without warning whenever it rained.

 

There was an interview on the radio with Dwayne Fields (no - I'd never heard of him either) who has become the Chief Scout taking over from Bear Grylls. From what the chap said he seems to be ideal for the position. Mind you I did sit up and take notice when he said that half a million youngsters were members. I thought it was far more than that - and membership has grown in the last year.

I was in the cubs as a child. I lasted one week as a scout, finding it rather scary. I was dragooned to assist our local group when “My Boy ^TM” was eight, and I stayed as a leader for thirteen years. It was fun at the time, but it did insidiously rather take over my life.

 

I got to work where I was swizzed. Yesterday I was asked if I could do some extra hours to help out. Bearing in mind the thirty-third Rule of Acquisition "it never hurts to suck up to the boss" I agreed to work the morning .After all a colleague whose birthday it was said she would be bringing in cakes today. However I didn't consider the two hundred and eighty fifth Rule of Acquisition "no good deed goes unpunished"; my colleague has gone down with COVID, phoned in sick and there were no cakes. And to add insult to injury I’d been asked to come in because she was not coming in.

 

I worked for the morning, then came home at mid-day. Once home I loaded the dogs int the car and we drove up to Kings Wood. As I’d driven down the motorway the weather had gone from bright to torrential rain and back again a few times. Going to the woods was taking a chance.

As we parked so my phone beeped with the news that the Met Office had cancelled the extreme weather warning for heavy rain and we had a good walk. Having had a report that another of my geocaches had gone missing I went to check. It was where it was supposed to be, but since I hid it nearly two years ago the ferns have grown rather thickly around it.

We had a shorter-than-usual walk today. Treacle seemed better when we left home and wasn’t limping. But after half a mile she was walking rather awkwardly so we cut our walk short. I didn’t want her over-exerting herself. Despite walking awkwardly she was still running round like a thing possessed when she saw a shadow that offended her.

We came home and I spent a couple of hours fast asleep on the sofa

 

“er indoors ^TM” boiled up fish and chips which we scoffed watching more of “The Traitors US” in which those who weren’t in the clique watched those in the clique whilst making no secret of their jealousy. Whilst totally not realizing they weren’t actually missing anything…