Woken as usual by the pocket panther of the house wandering in to my room to say hello; as it happened, today, he was one dripping wet pocket panther as he's obviously been out harassing the local rodent population in the rain overnight. He seemed most dischuffed when I ejected him from the bedroom; but I've got clean sheets on, I know he's going to want to crash out on the bed, soaking it and ditching black hair all over it. For once in my life my bedroom doesn't look like an utter shitepit and just for one day I really wanted to keep it that way.

Brekkie down the neck and into work at gentleman's hours as we call them; that's normal office hours to the rest of you, as I've got a course to go on. It's my official "things wot go bang" course, just a one day basic that all folks wot do my job have to have so that they can indeed identify, erm, things wot go bang. Of course, it's not the department's fault that I've been mucking about with things wot go bang for over sixteen years as a hobbyist; nor indeed that I knew a damned sight more than one of the two trainers (submarine pens at Peenamunde, my arse), and have been used for years as a resource by the full time "bang" officers every time something erm, bangable turns up. Depressing how many times they passed an exhibit around the room and my comment was "used to have one of those, yep used to have one of those too". Of course, it IS the departments fault that I didn't get this course five years ago when I first went onto border work, but hey, they can't be expected to polish their investors in people plaques AND be any bloody good at management, can they. Anyway, a bit of a busman's holiday for me to be honest. Easy enjoyable day. Was due a day like that. I was going to volunteer for the five day course at the army college to be a specialist officer for dealing with things wot go bang, but as it turns out, I've already been volunteered for it at the last team meeting, four months ago that I missed through being in Slovenia. Nice of them to tell me. I refer the jury to my earlier comment about government management styles...

Rest of the day, less successful. Haven't managed to get a damned wink of sleep before night shift kicks off in an hours time, which by the way gives a time between shifts that's extremely not entirely legal, but hey ho, if I can't take a joke, I could always push paper for a living. NOT that I mean to be derogatory to those that do, but I've done it enough for the moment. Anyways up, in a few hours I'm going to be at work and utterly knackered. Quack's tomorrow for the "you've got six months to live" interview; quack wants me to get to the hozzy to get a blood test done, but you've got to starve for twelve hours before hand, I'll give it a go but I don't think it's that smart an idea to be honest. Anyway, he's not going to be impressed with my levels of caffeine that'll be accumulated before tonight's over.