It Wasn’t A Scam

The week kicks for our abandoned dog (just for Sunday’s marathon) with a lively morning walk. This was mostly because one of the fields we walk through on the park had a deer party going on. Then having skirted that we had to dodge the evil terrier but at least there were plenty of fresh puddles for the Lad to bathe in. Once home he’s soon wrong way up in his bed.

Talking of evil, I have my evil cycling session in the evening.

On Wednesday I make the gym which is ridiculously packed and then Thursday is my birthday. Yay. For which I skip the gym and have two meals out. First I get to hear more about life in blissful retirement as I meet my ex-colleague for lunch in the Brunswick then I go out in the evening with my Dad and L for a meal at the New Inn in Shardlow.

The evening is liven up further by the fact I’d already intercepted an email to my Dad from his car insurers about a claim he’s made and when we arrive there is no car on the drive. Confirming it wasn’t a scam.

He confesses he had a ‘small incident’ in his car on Tuesday but not to worry as they’ve offered him a hire car which I promptly cancel. At 94 I don’t want to run the risk of any incidents in a brand new hire car. His old car is currently abandoned in a pub car park in Swarkestone.

Friday would have been MD’s 15^th Birthday. A glass is raised in his memory.

On Saturday we do another trailblazing Parkrun. As we do love a bit of trailblazing even those who are incapable of running at the moment. We go to Dishley near Loughborough which quickly becomes one of my favourites, for spectating at least.

My Dad gets a visit from the police who want to know why his car is currently abandoned in the pub car park in Swarkestone. They accept his explanation and he doesn’t get arrested.

So he is still a free man for the last home match of season which ends in a 1-1 draw with Portsmouth, pretty much ending Derby’s play off hopes. My Mum’s name comes up on the big screen as they remember who we lost this year.

The real excitement though is at Derby’s Derbion centre where L and her Mum are evacuated due to the place being full of smoke. Hopefully someone’s tried to burn the horrible place down.

Then on Sunday Daughter treats me to a birthday Sunday Lunch at Wollaton.

(Sunday 30^th April)

A Good Spread Of Biscuits

Monday is another leg shredding, lung bursting session at the velodrome. Apparently this is fun, I enjoy it and it’s good for me. I will keep telling myself this.

On Wednesday the Lad has his MOT and his jabs at the vets. Before which he got his morning walk around the local student area near the vets where there were plenty of discarded pizza, kebabs and chips to hoover up while we waited for his time slot. 

The vets now have separate waiting rooms for dogs and cats. Which makes you wonder if there’s been an incident and also where you wait if you have a rabbit or some other animal. L reckons the Lad would love a rabbit. I’m not sure the rabbit would feel the same.

His pre-appointment snack didn’t calm his nerves much. He didn’t like the jab and then liked the Kennel Cough vaccine squirted up his nose even less but now he’s fully vaccinated with everything should he need another kennels stay and he won’t have to return for a year.

On Thursday I do the 'bloody' gym again and on Friday I take my Dad to Derby County’s ‘Golden Rams’ Coffee Afternoon. This is an event exclusively for the over 85 so it’s not surprising that, as a gate crasher, I’m the youngest one there.

They open with a warm up DJ playing 50s swing then there’s a quiz, bingo and a Q&A with stars of the 70s and 80s. There is also a very good spread of biscuits. 

On Saturday we do a different Parkrun or L does, the Lad and I just support. We are in Uttoxeter for the one catchingly known as ‘Bramshall Road’. So that's another one off the list. Naturally L would like to do every single UK parkrun but as there are now almost 800 of the buggers in UK alone I think time might be running out.

On Sunday we head down to London to support L’s sister in the London Marathon but I tell you she had the easy job.

There are engineering work happening on the trains adding an hour to our journey which was already rubbish due to it being a Sunday. So in order to get there before she’d finished we drove down to Luton Parkway and got the train in from there. There was then another long delay while we downloaded and set up the required App for parking there.

When we get finally arrive I realise that supporting has got more popular since I cheered L through her two Londons. It is very busy at all tube stations but we do manage to give her a shout at miles 7, 18 and 21. 

It is so busy that we don’t go to see her at the finish but then get stuck on M1 for two hours after it is closed due to a horse box overturning. There is also the sad news that a runner later collapsed and died after finishing in under three hours. He was an experienced runner from Nottingham and ran for Holme Pierrepont.

(Sunday 23^rd April)

Artisan

Monday is Easter Monday and a home game with Milton Keynes Dons which also means I get a break from being tortured on the velodrome.

L then joins me in working from home for the rest of the week as her boss is away. So it’s a case of up the milk order as the kettle is always on and ration the grapes or else they won’t make it past Wednesday.

When I do the weekly shop at Sainsbury’s they hand me 100 Nectar points to collect on my birthday in a few weeks time. That’s a whole 50p. Whoop Whoop. At the same time they handed me a voucher for over 50s life insurance. They really know how to look after their customers.

Wednesday’s excitement is a trip to the optician’s where I am not handed any vouchers for being old. Thankfully.

Meanwhile there are Chihuahua puppies on our street. I warn L about stealing one of buying one for that matter as they are £1300 each.

On Saturday, L does her first proper run for a while at Alvaston Parkrun.

I take my Dad to Notsa for lunch which proves a bit too artisan for him and for me too really. They do him an off-menu un-artisan fish and chips which he is thrilled with.

Then L comes over to Aston to join us, so we put the football on for her.

(Sunday 16^th April)

Ploughing Bones

L has her last physio session on Monday. She is pummelled and then discharged for good behaviour. My pummelling comes later on the velodrome. 

The rest of week is fairly quiet, dog training etc oh and some work for both of us. L is on a day off on Thursday and out with her friends for a walk. She is the only one on the Red Arrow. That’s what you get when you don’t allow pensioners on for free. All other buses do but not the Red Arrow. It is also exempt from the current £2 fare scheme.

Friday is Good Friday, so a day off work and a match away at Forest Green Rovers. It is streamed on Rams TV so I go round to my Dad’s to watch it with him.

I take the Lad with me and L hits the gym which she says is very quiet but I bet someone still hogged the leg press.

On Saturday L makes her comeback at parkrun although it’s a gradual comeback as she does tail-walking duties at Wollaton.

In the evening we’re ploughing bones at Nottingham Playhouse or rather ‘Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead’ is what the play is called.

Where to start. It's a very odd affair set somewhere remote in Poland where a series of grisly murders are occurring to members of the local hunting club. The main character, an eccentric elderly lady, is pushing the theory that the murders are being carried out by other animals in an act of revenge on behalf of their comrades. So this is no normal murder mystery. Highly improbable would be an underestimation.

As she dictates most of the play it becomes a bit of a rant and what could have been a voice of reason for saving the animals is generally dismissed by everyone concerned as the ranting of the local mad lady as she goes on about not just animal cruelty but also astrology, her many ailments and the poet William Blake while also seeming to exist in her own personal legal system.

In her defence she is she is far from the only wacky character on show here and she does a good job of exposing the right wing politics of most of the locals but her own views remain mostly unchallenged. A saner lead character may have offered more a credible message or perhaps I'm missing the point.

However it is good to be back at the theatre after a very long break from it.

(Sunday 9^th April)

Better In The 1970s

I have to laugh when L says that her boss has turned up to work without his hearing aids. It’s a good job that she mastered a technique to get round that with my Dad on Sunday. 

My Dad was supposed to have an appointment to have them cleaned out this week but when my brother takes him they tell them that they’ve had to cancel it because their ‘ears’ machine is broken. They had been ringing my Dad to tell him... which obviously he didn’t hear!

We manage to get a private appointment for him instead with a freelancing nurse who comes round the next night to his house and sorts him out. He says his ears are now like new. New knees, new ears, what next? He’s mentioned that he’s joining me on the velodrome next week.

I risk the gym on Tuesday lunchtime. As does L but I think we just miss each other. Which is a shame, I could have done with some expert tuition. Thankfully it wasn’t too busy. I think the rain put a lot of the students off but I still had to queue for the leg press.

I get back home just as Daughter is heading out back to her old flat to finishing emptying it. She has my electric saw under her arm and is muttering something about a coffee table. This may not end well.

I head out into Derby later to meet my friend for drinks in the Alexandra and then food in the Exeter hoping I don’t get a call from A&E.

L is all excited about her yoga session on Wednesday evening with her fingers crossed it doesn’t get cancelled. She'll be having a wilder time even than the Lad and he's got tunnel night. She says it was supposed to be gentle but she actually found it quite tough. That’s exactly what they say about my cycling sessions.

The weather is finally getting better and warmer. So much so that when I do my second gym session of the week, get me, I have to go without the Lad because I thought it was too sunny for him to wait in the car.

While I’m there they have a really weird power cut. They have this ‘Fitness Got Serious’ neon sign and I watched the lights gradually go out letter by letter on it. Then everything went off and we were in darkness. Cue lots of unladylike language from the ladies on treadmills but as I was on the 70s unelectric stuff I could just carry on regardless. Somethings were better in the 1970s then. Then the power came back on a few minutes later.

In the evening I have a committee meeting. Then on Saturday there’s a home game against league leaders Ipswich Town which we lose.

On Sunday L and I go to the Wollaton, our local, for the first time in ages for a romantic Sunday Lunch. The food is good as always and the beers not too disastrous. They actually have four local ales on from four different local breweries Castle Rock, Nottingham, Lincoln Green and Shipstones. Noting too exciting but it’s a start.

(Sunday 2^nd April)