15 June 2025 (Sunday) - Father's Day

I had something of a lie-in this morning; By the time “er indoors ^TM” got home from her Margate adventure last night it was getting on for one o’clock.

I didn’t do toast this morning. Instead I sat and had a go at some geo-puzzles. There’s one near where we had yesterday’s meet. Ostensibly about cabbages, it has had me struggling for over a year. I got a little pointer yesterday and this morning I finally got the thumbs-up from the checker.

I munzed, got wordle on the fourth attempt, and had another look at the geo-puzzle that went live for yesterday’s meet. There had been a minor cock-up with the publication of that puzzle. When it was sent in to the geo-feds it read “All you have to do to find the cache is to solve this puzzle N51 15.ABC   E001 15.DEF” and this was followed by pictures of pigs labelled A to F. However the pictures of pigs never appeared in the published puzzle. I got to the meet early yesterday and started looking for six-digit strings of numbers. I found them on the date the pub was built, on the fire alarm… Had I pressed the “refresh” button on my app I would have seen that the error had been spotted and corrected. Eventually once I was pointed at the right website I figured out what I was supposed to be doing to solve it.

 

“My Boy ^TM” called round and we went to McDonalds for a Father’s Day McMuffin. The local cafes were crowded out for Father's Day brekkies, but McDonalds was all but empty.

We came home for a cuppa and looked into the pond. “My Boy ^TM” pointed out that the biggest Koi was looking rather thin and ill. I suppose seeing him every day I’d not noticed, but he don’t look well.

 

We then went out for a little walk. We wanted somewhere shaded as the forecast was for a hot day, and somewhere with a series of geocaches that met the specific requirements for the new “Event Mementoes” series of Treasures. The “Another Crockham Wood Trek” series looked as though it would fit the bill.

It did.

We had a rather good walk. The paths were a bit vague (non-existent) in parts. The geocaches weren’t that easy to find. Treacle wallowed in a stagnant ditch, and we took no chances and kept Morgan and Bailey on their leads. But we walked a rather good (if hilly) three miles over two hours.

As I walked I had my birdsong app running. It didn’t detect any ducks today, and it detected ten more species of bird at the western edge of the wood compared to the eastern edge. Birds can be very locallised things.

I took some photos as we walked.

 

We came home via a frankly stupid route at the end of which we decided that the sat-nav in “er indoors ^TM”’s car has had its chance and blown it. But once home we had a rather good hour or so sitting in the garden. I put so much time and effort into the garden it would be a shame not to enjoy it from time to time.

 

“er indoors ^TM” went and had a little lie down. I spent a while struggling with more geo-puzzles.

We had a rather good dinner of pork chops whilst watching “Taskmaster”. I’m feeling washed out; a late night last night, possibly too much sun this weekend… The forecast is for a little less sun tomorrow. We shall see.

 

It still seems odd not going to see my dad…

14 June 2025 (Saturday) - Dog Club, Geo-Meet

I slept through until my alarm went off at seven o’clock this morning. I saw that as a result. I made toast and peered into a Facebook which was rather polarized (isn’t it always?) There were those posting photos of last night’s lightning, and there were those who were pretending to be utterly disinterested. I suppose it is the same with photos of anything. Everything is interesting on first sight, but after the five hundredth photo, the interest tends to wane.

I had an email about a new geocache this morning. I have alerts set up to tell me about new geocaches within thirty miles of home. Back in the day it was rare for there not to have been at least one new one every day. It’s been two weeks since the last one went live.

And I had a text from the doctor. They want another week’s worth of twice-daily blood pressure measurements.

 

We drove round to Dog Club. As we drove Steve was doing the “Guess the Lyrics” competition on the radio. “Father forgive me, I tried not to do it” ? No? – Pet Shop Boys; It’s A Sin.

Attendance was down at Dog Club, but we had a great time. Charging about; getting into mischief, more treats than sense…A great time was had by all.

As we drove away Steve was doing the Mystery Year competition on the radio. When was the siege of the Iranian Embassy in London? 1980.

Steve didn’t give the answer until later this morning; I was pleased about that. It gives me more of a chance.

 

“er indoors ^TM” came home to get ready for her adventure. I took the dogs out for ours. We drove to Staple where the monthly geo-meet was happening at the Black Pig. This was the fourth time we’ve met there, and it has always been an excellent meet-up.

Today we had a rather good game of Bat and Trap in which I scored three points; tripling my previous best score. The dogs had dog biscuits from the bar, and also had chicken skins. Chicken skins are new to us – they are basically the chicken version of pork scratchings. They had salami sticks too.

 

After nearly three hours the dogs got a tad fractious, so I brought them home. We said hello and goodbye to “er indoors ^TM” who was off to Margate for some 80s music evening thingy at Dreamland.

I put a load of washing in to scrub. I dishwashered and ironed and watched episodes of “Orange is the New Black” as the dogs all snored.

I decided against taking them out this evening; they’ve had a rather busy day today…

As have I.

13 June 2025 (Friday) - Bonus Late Shift

As I peered into Facebook this morning people were singing the praises of “The Kenny Everett TV show”. I watched an episode of that the other day. I can remember it having been incredibly popular back in the day… but funny? It was one of those shows where whenever a joke was made, the one making the joke would grimace at the camera and canned laughter would be played so that you knew it was funny. Much the same strategy was used in the show “Friends” and many others. My mother couldn’t watch a TV comedy that didn’t tell you when to laugh; she felt that comedies without canned laughter and people grimacing at the camera were just odd.

 

I munzed, wordled, and went upstairs to wake the dogs. Pogo was with us today, and four of us drove down to Orlestone. As we got to the turn-off for the woods we saw “Larry” walking up the main road. We often see him – I think of him as “Larry” as he looks like Larry Fine of the Three Stooges. This chap walks up the main road from Ham Street to South Ashford most mornings, and walks back again most evenings. Sadly he always seems to be going in the opposite direction to us; I’d offer him a lift if I could.

 

We got to the woods. Again I didn’t wear my walking boots; again my birdsong app didn’t detect any ducks. But it did detect coal tits on the three times I ran it. The Merlin birdsong app seems to have an issue with coal tits – how common are they? When I detect them at the bottom of Orlestone Woods the app tells me that they are uncommon. When I detect them anywhere else they aren’t uncommon.

We walked the same walk we did yesterday evening. With “er indoors ^TM” not along the dogs didn’t disappear into any thickets, didn’t run off, and didn’t need to be called at all. Mind you Treacle did wallow in a swamp and the smallest two did roll in fox poo; you can’t have everything.

 

We came home. Being Friday morning “Desert Island Discs” was on the radio. This morning’s castaway was someone of whom I’d never heard of; some professor who specialized in emergency planning. I once knew a chap who worked in emergency planning. He told me he loved it – apparently whenever there had been an emergency for which there had been no plan, the local press would crucify whoever had had the emergency. This chap said he spent all day playing “what if” thinking up the most obscure disaster scenarios and making contingency plans for them.

As we drove home we saw that “Larry” had got to Park Farm – that was a shade over four miles from where we’d seen him earlier. If I was walking that route every day I wouldn’t go up the main road. There’s loads of back lanes that are far prettier (and safer)

 

I wrote up some CPD, and got ready for work. I wasn’t supposed to be at work today, but the boss had asked me if I could help out by doing a late shift. Bearing in mind that I’m on the skint side, and that only a few short years ago I wasn’t trusted to do anything unsupervised, I’m only too happy to help. Even on a black Friday. Not that I’m overly superstitious, but many years ago I worked with a senior manager who took every Friday the thirteenth off work. He said he would take no chances.

 

I set off to work... via Folkestone to drop off those who'd stayed overnight. I then had this idea to set the car’s cruise control and drive at a steady seventy miles per hour for the thirty-five miles from Folkestone to work thereby taking half an hour. A genius idea in theory; utterly impractical in practice.  The trouble with cruise control is that no one else uses it, and so you are constantly either driving up other people's rear ends, or having people driving up your rear end. And it didn't help that a ferry or the Eurostar had just chucked out giving two lanes of lorries overtaking each other at one mile per hour difference in speed.

I got some petrol and went in to work for the late shift. Work was much the same as ever. Unlike Tuesday we didn't have any red alerts, and we had cake; I was grateful for small mercies. 

It was a shame there was a thunderstorm on the way home, but I got in before the torrential rain started.

 

And in closing today I seem to have formed a blister on my right thumb. I have no idea how that got there – possibly from all the fence painting?

12 June 2025 (Thursday) - The Duck Theory

I slept rather well last night which wasn’t really surprising, but I must admit I had been expecting a bit more of a headache. In retrospect polishing off an entire bottle of amaretto was a tad keen.

I made toast and peered into the Internet as I do. It was still there. Today’s petty squabble on Facebook was about who pays the vet bills. Do you pay the vet and claim from the insurance company, or does the insurance company pay the vet directly? Obviously it depends on the insurance policy that you’ve got, but people were getting amazingly confrontational about the matter.

And I was presented with adverts for a three-week cruise taking in Antarctica, South Georgia and the Falkland Islands. I’ve been getting these for some time now. I can’t say I’m overly keen on the idea of a cruise anyway, and at twenty thousand quid each it’s a tad expensive.

 

I munzed, and got Wordle on the fifth attempt. Any word with an “X” in it takes some doing. I put some washing in, and rather than going to the woods I cracked on in the garden. I got the lawn mowed and a panel of fence painting before we were due at the vet for the annual check-up and jabs. The vet seemed happy with Morgan and Bailey; sadly I don’t think the feeling was mutual.

 

We came home, collected Treacle, and went up the woods about three hours later than usual. We walked our usual walk and saw slow worms and fox poo as we went. We left the slow worm alone, but the dogs ate the fox poo that they didn’t smear over their ears and backs. Dogs is foul creatures.

Again I ran my birdsong app, and I think I’ve discovered a hiccup with it. Periodically it detects ducks that aren’t there… I *think* it is hearing my creaking boots.

As we walked back to the car a passing normal person took a shine to the pups. I told her not to stroke them as they were covered in fox poo. She smiled politely at me with a “WTF are you talking about” expression, stroked them both, and then realized that they were both covered in fox poo.

I did tell her…

We came home for a bath.

 

With dogs scrubbed we had a cheese sandwich, then I cracked on with fence painting. I got another panel painted, but the next one was in a bit of a state, so I put the paint away and spent an hour or so sorting out poggered fence panels. The panels really need replacing, but they will do for another year.

I didn’t feel like any more painting; by the time I’d run round with the watering can and done the “Feed The Fish” ritual the afternoon was pretty much all gone.

 

“er indoors ^TM” finished work and we took the dogs down to Orlestone for an evening walk. Bearing in mind my duck theory I wore trainers. As we walked round the woods I did three separate ten-minute recordings and didn’t detect a single duck.

We came home and had a rather good ploughman’s lunch for tea.

I’ve walked over twenty-one thousand steps today… I’m worn out.

 

11 June 2025 (Wednesday) - Walks, Gardening, Stuff, Hic !!!

I woke feeling full of energy and raring to go at quarter to midnight, and dozed fitfully for the rest of the night. I got up feeling rather grim just before seven o’clock.
I made toast and had a look at the Internet. It was still there. There was consternation on one of the Doctor Who Facebook pages as the deal about the show between the BBC and Disney has packed up. One major change with being a Doctor Who fan these days (as opposed to back when the show was good in the 1970s) is that all the gossip is about the behind-the-scenes stuff and the production of the show.
Someone moving to Ashford was asking for recommendations for a decent doctor’s surgery. Every surgery for miles around was brought up; every one had good and bad reports and some people were getting quite confrontational when everyone else slighted their personal choice. Much the same often happens with people asking about vet surgeries and take-out food. And football teams and political parties… people randomly pick a favourite and stay with it regardless of how good or bad it actually is.
I munzed and wordled, and got ready for the day.
 
I got the leads on to the dogs and we went up to the woods. As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking about Elon Musk who has been making apologies on what was once Twitter. It seems he’s finally realized that as a businessman he’s got two sources of income. The American public who he has pissed off big-time by effectively calling them all bone-idle with his DOGE project. And the American government who he has pissed off big-time by squabbling with President Trump.
We got to the woods and walked our usual circuit. The birdsong app didn’t find any ducks today, but reckoned it identified a skylark. Did it? Who knows?
As we walked we wallowed in swamps, rolled in muck and found deer legs (two). One of the deer legs was rather dry and mummified. The other was rotten, rancid and stinking. I don’t mind the dried out ones; the dogs prefer the rancid ones. Dogs is foul creatures.
 
After four and a half miles we were back at the car. We came home; I made us a cuppa then played on-line chess against “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” who is surprisingly good at chess.
I then got the last of the fence between our garden and not-so-nice-next-door painted. And with painting painted I then fixed the poggered fence bits as best I could. The fence (probably) is good for a little while yet, but it is years old and needs to be replaced. There’s only so many bodges that can be applied. One of the bigger bodges I applied was to fix where my Fudge once tanked through it, and he’s been gone four years now.
I’ve offered to pay to have it all replaced with new fencing, but I suspect that not-so-nice-next-door realizes that I want the fence replaced and is being difficult.
 
“er indoors ^TM” boiled up a cheese sandwich and I spent a little while going through my diary checking that the hours I think I worked agreed with the hours that work thinks I worked (or at least turned up for). I found a few mistakes… all on my part. I wrote up some CPD… then announced that I was going to feed the fish. Dogs leapt up and sprinted out to the pond.
With fish fed I pruned back the watercress in the pond. It looks rather haggard. It might sprout again; if it don’t, another bag of the stuff is only a quid from Sainsbury’s.
 
Seeing a rather good evening, “er indoors ^TM” and I took the dogs down to Orlestone. They’d had four and a half miles round Kings Wood this morning; and got two more miles this evening. I was going to say that they were a tad more willful this evening, but at Orlestone the road runs near the footpaths and so I have to call them more. In Kings Wood I rarely need to call them. I’d rather not call them more than I need to; I’m convinced the more they get called the less notice they take.
 
With walk walked we came home. Having washed the bedding and got it dried, we then had to put it all back on the bed. That is always hard work.
We had a rather good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching last week’s “Bake Off; The Professionals” and the final episode of “Race Across the World”. I was a tad disappointed that the team I liked didn’t win, but I was pleased that the wet weekend didn’t win either.
As we scoffed and stared at the telly we cracked open a rather good bottle of red wine, and then opened a bottle of amaretto.
Neither bottle saw out the evening,,,

10 June 2025 (Tuesday) - Goldfinches

I had a rather bad night; I always do when I’ve got an alarm set. I got up about an hour before I might have done, made toast and watched another episode of “Orange is the New Black” before setting off to work.

 

As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about the planned new nuclear power station at Sizewell. The thing is now definitely going ahead… even though construction started eighteen months ago. There were those who welcomed it, and those who opposed it. For the most part those who welcomed it weren’t those with it on their doorstep, and those who opposed it were those who would be inconvenienced by the construction. Pretty much like absolutely everything else in life really.

There was also talk about humpback whales. They blow bubble rings when near humans, but drone footage of them all over the world shows this only happens when humans are about. They don’t do it when no one is looking. The implication is that they are trying to communicate… Are they? If so, what are they saying?  I’m jut hoping it’s not “so long, and thanks for all the fish”.

 

I popped in to Sainsburys to get a sandwich. They didn’t have the carrot & houmous dip that I like so I had to rough it with nachos and guacamole at three times the calories.

Being in the works car park earlier than I might have been, I went for a little walk, munzing as I went. I also had my bird app going and it detected a dozen different birds, including goldfinches. There’s loads of goldfinches at work; I spent a little while peering out of the blood bank window watching them having a bath in the puddle on the flat roof today.

 

In between watching goldfinches we had a rather busy day, including problematical apparatus and a red alert.

And it would seem that the trainees have absolutely no idea what the phrase “a poggered shit shop” means when describing a malfunctioning lavatory.

 

We had a rather good tea of pizza and garlic bread, and I then polished off the last of last week’s Vienetta and cream. The cream might have been in the fridge for a tad too long; it tasted OK but it’s not sitting well right now…

Apart from the goldfinches, today was dull…

9 June 2025 (Monday) - Complaining

 

The weekend had been rather dull. And as is so often the way, now it is all over it turned out there was a rather epic beer festival in Tenterden over the weekend that I missed. Back in the day the local branch of CAMRA used to organize a beer festival at the Rare Breeds centre. We went many times. A while ago it was moved from the Rare Breeds centre to the Kent and East Sussex railway in Tenterden… and yet again I found out about it after the event.

There had been an “Open Gardens” event in Challock yesterday when I could have gone and been nosey at people’s gardens, and something else I found out as I scoffed toast was that the chap who created cybermen (in “Doctor Who”) used to live just up the road in Doddington.

 

I got the dogs onto the leads (four – as Pogo had been with us overnight) and we set off for an adventure. As we drove the pundits on the radio were interviewing one of the head honchos of Reform UK. This chap had been the party’s chairman last week but had resigned saying that working for the party was not “a good use of my time”. He’s now come back and taken up another job with Reform UK; he was rather vague as to what it was but did say he’d had loads of messages from members of Reform UK urging him to remain. It was implied that being a Muslim himself he would have a moderating effect on the party. Hopefully he will…

As we drove we saw a car with the registration “G4 MNG”; I bet that wasn’t cheap.

 

We got to the woods and had a good walk. The ground wasn’t that wet bearing in mind the weekend’s overnight rain but there were puddles; some rather deep. Treacle had a wallow.

I tried the birdsong app; it detected two sorts of chiffchaff. I had thought there was only one sort; it turns out there’s four. It detected a spotted flycatcher, and claimed to have detected a common eider which ironically is rather rare in Kings Wood. Probably because I doubt there’s any actually there.

 

We came home, and I painted fence until “Daddies’ Little Angel ^TM” returned from her appointment. I drove her and Pogo back home and went shopping…

Oh dear.

The Cheriton branch of Tesco had renovations going on and pretty much every aisle I needed was closed. So I drove up the motorway to the one in Willesborough. I got what I needed and saw there was an offer on bottles of wine. If I were to buy three or more that were on offer I would get twenty-five per cent off. I picked up three bottles that were very clearly labelled as being in the deal – in front of each bottle was a sign saying the wine was in the deal. I got to the till and felt that the bill was a tad high.

It turned out that for a wine to be in the deal, the wine had to be labelled “Tesco’s Finest”. Sadly this wasn’t what the advertisement said; it clearly said that each of the wines I picked up were part of the deal.

And having taken my money, both the cashier and the customer service staff refused to give a refund.

I came home and sent Tesco’s head office a complaint. Or tried to. Eventually I found a Whatsapp number where after quite a bit of farting about I eventually got told that a real person would be in touch with me.

Someone claiming to be called Finlay Whatsapped me five minutes later wanting a photo of the receipt and my email address, and five minutes after that he emailed me a voucher for nearly nine quid.

It pays to complain.

 

Whilst I’d been in Tesco I’d got us a cream slice each for lunch (diet? – what diet!). I was rather amazed to find that there’s about fifty more calories in a croissant than there is in a cream slice. It’s like flapjack. I thought that stuff would be healthy. It pays to have a calorie-counting app.

 

I went into the garden and painted more fence. I’ve got to the panels near the house which are behind planters and lock-ups and are difficult to get to. And consequently I don’t get much done before it starts hurting. I got one panel done, did the “Feed The Fish” ritual, then made us both a cuppa.

 

After a rather good bit of scoff “er indoors ^TM” went bowling like she does most Mondays. I put “Orange is the New Black” on the telly and cracked on with the ironing.

The weekend was rather dull… today was rather busy. I’m worn out.