Old Fuddy Duddies

Monday is a bank holiday, the first of three in May, so there is no cycling which is good for knee recovery but L goes out for a bank holiday run, feeling like a womble but pleased with herself and a superstar. So says he who can’t run.

Obviously nothing happens over the long weekend as regards my Dad’s car so it has spent the bank holiday at the pub. When I finally get through to his insurance company on Tuesday they quickly arrange collection and I head over to supervise. They then take it to Pentagon garage with everyone apart from my Dad having their fingers crossed that it's a write off.

L tells me the gym was really good on Wednesday morning but by the time I get there its turned evil. Such is life. It’s also seriously hot in there.

Thursday is local election day. I always vote but skip the razzmatazz of going down to our local community centre to do it 20^th Century style but L does and sends me a photo of herself with coffee and cake. They should advertise this perk. It would get many more people to vote. If they accepted dogs I’d pop in myself after our walk even though they’ve already had my piece of paper.

At lunch time I go for a run and the Lad knows it from the pissed off look he gives me. I manage 2.6k. Ta da. That is basically the shortest loop of the park possible e.g. in our nearest gate then out the second nearest gate. My knee was sore at first but seemed to go numb after a while which was good as it didn’t do that last time at Christmas. 

L says that I was very sensible. I think she means just doing 2.6k and not going straight into a half marathon. I did consider go round again but I thought she’d shout at me.

Enthused I do the same route again the next day. L says that wasn’t very sensible of me. She was right. I can barely walk now.

L’s boss has recommended a film although he isn’t the most reliable source for recommendations. He says we must watch ‘The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry’ so we go down to Broadway to see it because as  L says we need a night out because we're becoming a right pair of Old Fuddy Duddies. Which is true but we’ll be out way past cocoa and slippers time. Given that the food and drink options at Broadway are still the same, e.g. not very good, cocoa does have some appeal.

As it happens Jim Broadbent plays an Old Fuddy Duddie in the film and he might be one himself but I couldn’t possibly comment.

The film is pleasant and well-intended affair but it takes plausibility to new heights but then I suppose we were pre-warned by the word ‘unlikely’ in the title.

Harold (Jim Broadbent) and Maureen (Penelope Wilton) are a retired pair of OFDs living a life of boredom down in Devon. When, out of the blue, Harold receives a letter from an old colleague called Queenie to say that she is now having palliative care in a hospice in Berwick-upon-Tweed.

He pops out to post a sympathetic note to Queenie but doesn’t return as he suddenly decides to deliver it by hand. He starts to walk all the way to Berwick, some 500 odd miles. So we are asked to believe that this ill equipped elderly man can do that without any kind of map or other form of navigation. He just wings it but never seems to get lost and because he’s posted his wallet home he is also sleeping rough.

Along the way the sad reason why Harold has effectively run away from his life is revealed as is the reason he thinks he owes this pilgrimage to Queenie.

Then there are all the hangers-on and media who just appear as they would but then they disappear just as quickly as they wouldn’t. You’d expect them to have staked out the hospice but when he arrives it’s just him.

Us OFDs are out raving again on Friday with some friends for a meal at Mowgli in Nottingham. Which has been a place we’ve fancied for a while but couldn’t get in as they only used to allow walks up but now you can book in advance. Something Covid brought up on them and they’ve stuck with it. It is a decent meal and then afterwards L and I also go to Brewdog where they have a Mars Bar flavoured beer. Who needs cocoa eh?

Saturday is Parkrun at Wollaton Hall and then it’s Charlie’s Coronation which I watch but L is out in Derby with her Mum and on the Coronation Chicken Sandwiches instead.

On Sunday we go to the Sinfin 5 race which is now back home in Sinfin starting from Sinfin Moor Park after what seemed a very long residency at Elvaston Castle. L runs it and my Dad has a great time joining us to support L in what she says is her last ever race. There’s a coffee shop on site with a great view for us spectators, so if L does another last one can it be this one again.

It’s also the last match of the season for Derby at Sheffield Wednesday, so we head back to my Dad’s to watch it although L escapes home obviously. Derby need to win to make the play offs. They don’t. Not that they would have won the play offs anyway but another losing trip to Wembley would have been a nice day out for my Dad. 

(Sunday 7^th May)