Intimidation

The week starts very misty on the park which makes it far harder to spot the deer when they’re sneaking up to mug you. 

Once again L goes into work then comes home again. Her boss has phoned in deaf. Somehow. In the evening L swims while I cycle and then go to the Alexandra because the Exeter is closed due to its cellar being flooded. I hope to show my Dad the floods near the Alex but they have already receded.

On Tuesday there’s the excitement of a boiler service then in the evening L is at a talk by Phillipa Gregory at Broadway which obviously I’d love to have gone to but there’s a match.

On Wednesday L does a morning run on the park and intimidates us on our walk. Then I have physio which was as evil as usual. L goes to work and stays there as she has a boss. Then she swims again while I dog train.

Thursday’s walk brings us into contact with a sweet 14 week old collie pup. Although the Lad wasn’t as impressed with it as I was. It could be an agility champion in the making and I did offer a swap but they didn’t seem keen.

I manage a quick faff around in the gym over lunch. It was really busy and people were queuing up behind me for the leg curl conversing with me in the secret gym language asking how many sets. One girl stakes out the joint, sitting on the nearby broken leg press machine waiting and reading a book. The leg curl is so popular, no wonder it’s L’s favourite.

In the evening Comoran Strike on audio continues. It’s taking a while to get through it and I’m sure L would have preferred to have simply read the book but she’s intellectual. I have to have books read to me.

On Friday L swims then goes to Leamington by train to meet a very dapper looking Son who has had a beard trim, a haircut and a new jumper for a job interview. The Lad and I pick her up at 5pm from Derby for a perfect Friday night in, a keema that I cook, a dark Leffe and another episode of Jimmy Savile.

I run Wollaton parkrun on Saturday, again in 28 minutes, while L tail walks. Then I give L lift to Derby and join her later with my Dad for lunch in a very overcrowded M&S and then for coffee in Cafe Rosa. It’s traumatic not just because of M&S but because the parking is terrible. The basement car park is shut again and there are roadworks near the bus station. I have to park with my Dad on the surface car park at Siddals Road which isn’t ideal. I feel we’re earnt another night in the Plough.

The clocks go back giving an extended and fruitful lie on Sunday as well as an extended run, we’re now up to 7.8k, ending up again at Wollaton for coffee and breakfast. I have a sausage cob but L has Granola with yoghurt which looks really nice.

In the afternoon we do the gym but I’m alone for most of it as L is stuck outside after taking a phone call from our talkative friend who was the owner of Doggo’s brother. She is filling L in on the latest location that her nomadic wanders have taken her to which is, erm, Blackpool. We vow to visit. There's bound to be a parkrun.

Then later I play squash with Daughter who, unprovoked, hits me in the face with the ball. At least it wasn't the racquet. Despite that it’s a fun game which is unconnected to me getting the whiskey out later.

(Sunday 29th October)

Babet

L is back at David Lloyd’s on Friday at 7am on a guest pass. I don’t think she’s missing it much though. Abandoned at such an early hour the Lad gets an early and extended walk. In the evening we do a ‘joint but not joint’ gym session. L doesn’t like doing leg exercises on a Friday because of parkrun on Saturday and I only really do leg exercises. So we do our own things.

In the end most parkruns are flooded off by Babet but Forest Rec is on. So we go there. I support because we weren’t sure where to park now that the Park and Ride car park is strictly only for tram users but it turns out there is still loads of parking.

As I give L a lift into Derby we discover that most of Derby is flooded and the A52 is closed at Pentagon Island. I manage to drop L off on Pride Park so that she can wade the rest of the way but I then abort the plan to take my Dad into town. Instead I take him to Asda in West Bridgford to do his shopping although Wilford is also flooded. Amazingly we are passed by a tram sloshing its way through the water.

Then we collect the Lad and do the Admiral Rodney for lunch where our sensitive dog is upset by the horse racing on the TV and we have to slip him some chips to soothe his demeanour. L brings her Derbion headache to meet us back at Aston.

In the evening we can’t do our usual night out at the Wollaton pub as it’s packed due to the England v South Africa Rugby Semi Final. So we visit the Plough instead for the first time in ages. It is quiet despite also having the rugby on, has some decent guest beers and a new landlord. England lose in the last few minutes.

The Sunday run is extended to 7k this week ending up again at the Wollaton for bacon rolls and coffee. Then in the afternoon we do a joint gym workout and I get to take photos of my gym buddy looking hot and sweaty which is a nice prelude to an afternoon in bed.

In the evening we go to the cinema in Beeston which is called the Arc and we see The Great Escaper.

The Great Escaper is based on the true story of Bernard Jordan, a 89-year-old British World War II veteran, who ‘escapes’ from his care home to attend the 70th anniversary D-Day commemorations in France in June 2014 after the care home failed to arrange for him to go.

It stars Michael Caine as Bernard in his last film before retirement and Glenda Jackson as his wife Rene in her last film before her sad death in June this year. The premise seems tailor-made for a comedy offering but thankfully that isn't the case. Instead what we get is a fairly melancholy film about a man belatedly confronting his guilt at surviving the war and realising that psychological battle scars never really heal.

It's a pleasant evening which we round off in the White Lion.

(Sunday 22^nd October)

Little Man Tate

Kicking off the evening are the Shambolics from Glasgow sporting three guitars, a bass player and a drummer. A proper old school set up even if the third guitarist does dabble on the keyboards from time to time. Unfortunately this energetic group of lads were only entertaining 29 people. I know the crowd was that small because I actually counted them. It does get gradually busier and I hope the band is pulling them in as they are decent.

 

It is much busier for tonight's main band, Little Man Tate, who come on to the Pearl and Dean music, you know 'bah bah bah', which is in fact called 'Asteroid', and then Carter USM's 'Sheriff Fatman'.

I have never actually seen Little Man Tate live before. I followed them loosely in their early days but after releasing two albums in two years they caught me by surprise when they broke up the following year. That was in 2009. I vowed to right that wrong when after an eleven year break they announced their re-formation in early 2020 but then of course Covid intervened.

Now here they are in Nottingham on a UK Tour and that wrong has finally be righted.

They get off to a flying start with three tracks from their debut album 'About What You Know' namely 'Man I Hate Your Band', 'European Lover' and 'What? What You Got' before they do that we’re going to play songs from our new album thing. Which would have been fine had that first album in over fifteen years 'Welcome To The Rest Of Your Life' been out but it isn’t until next month.  

 

So to play no less than six songs that are unfamiliar to the crowd is pushing your luck a bit but if anyone’s going to pull it off its frontman Jon Windle who isn't a man who lacks for confidence as he tells us that the first of these newbies called ‘Cheap Stolen Kisses’ is about his now ex-wife having an affair with her boss.

It’s all very entertaining stuff and of course they do intersperse the new material with more familiar crowd pleasers. This though, as they play non-album singles 'The Agent' from their early days and 'Boy in the Anorak' that came between albums as a download, brings us to another problem.

They have always been a band with a liking for one off singles, B-sides, bonus tracks and downloads before they were as fashionable as they are now. Which was one of the things that drew me to them. The problem is after such a long time away, for a fair weather fan like me, getting hold of such tracks is now rather difficult as I found prior to this gig. It has to be said that most of the crowd, who know everything, don’t have this problem and clearly grabbed all this stuff at the time. 

'This Must Be Love' from their debut is a show stopper towards the end but the actual set closers are two newbies '23' and 'Beautiful, Deadly & Mine'.

Initially Windle returns alone for the encore to play a couple of songs on my own because, in his own words, he's ‘an egotistical fucking wanker’.

Of course 'Half Empty Glass' was a B-side albeit a brilliant one and 'You and Me Might Be Alright You Know' was available only on the iTunes version of their debut album. I think us fair weather fans need a rarities album.

A fan, clearly not a fair weather one, is invited up on stage to do ‘You and Me’ with Windle and does it some style. Then the whole band return for 'Sexy in Latin' and 'House Party at Boothys' to finish things off.

A Fictitious Dog Show

This week L is stressed about her job as she thinks her boss is about to pack it all in but then only last week she was so looking forward to early retirement. So I’m a bit confused but she comes home from work without her P45 as he says he wants to continue working. I’m not sure whether to breathe a sigh of relief or not.

L enters the Lad in a fictitious dog show that her friend the author is putting together. He should be a shoe in for the waggiest tail, that is if he’s not disqualified for not having one.  She tells the author that "he is beautiful but also pretty useless and is well used to being last at everything". Then she says that was actually a quote from me. If he can't even win a fictitious dog show then there really is no hope.

I’m so busy at work that I’m struggling to get away to make my cycling. Not only that it’s my Dad’s tea, his social night and his pint that's at stake. I make it in the end and we go to the Exeter afterwards.

L works from home on Tuesday and then is in work briefly on Wednesday but then soon home again when no one else turns up least of all her boss, whose TV is on the blink.

Wednesday is apparently World Menopause Day which I only know about because my company is celebrating it but then it celebrates everything. It's also the day of Storm Babet. No connection I'm sure.

I’m supposed to be out in the evening but my friend cancels, then un-cancels. I think he’s worried about Babet. Whereas I always assume these things are largely a figment of the media’s fervent imagination. 

We meet in the Alexandra where there’s a rather nice pistachio stout and then we eat in Pepitos, which was slightly disappointing because I know that the Indian Porter is currently on in the Exeter and for once I’m not driving.

L picks me up afterwards and saves me from being ravished by Babet which largely seems to pass us by or, as I say, she was largely a figment of the media’s fervent imagination. 

On Thursday I have another gig at the Rescue Rooms.

(Thursday 19^nd October)

The Derbion Headache

On Monday after my cycling this week’s pub rotation takes us to visit the Silk mill.

On Tuesday L takes my Dad to physio as I am stuck at work. He gets almost a full hour with the physio despite, at 95, not having a lot to complain about. Then he comes home with L as we’re off to an away match at Notts County in the EFL Trophy. I’m hoping it’s quiet as this is a Cup no one is bothered about. Yet the works traffic is bad for the early 7pm kick off and there’s still nowhere to park. Then I see a space in the street and we’re parked.

I have us seats on the second row which means hardly anyone is likely to stand up in front of us. Then the group of lads who are in front of us, who want to stand, let us swap seats with them.

Derby win 2-1 and then afterwards we have a beer in the Mist Rolling Inn as I couldn’t park close to any of the better pubs on Caning Circus.

L is in Cromford with friends on Wednesday which I believe involves bookshops and cafes, maybe even a bookshop with a cafe. Then she’s at her Mum’s, so it’s a long day for her. I have my physio which I’m persevering with but I’m now moving him to fortnightly.

Our evening walk is one of those where you put trainers on because the park is wet and you intend to stay on the paths. Then the deer force you to do otherwise and therefore you are forced to embrace wet feet.

On Thursday I’m tempted to drag L to the Robin Hood Beer Festival even though she’d hate it but it’s so difficult to get to now it’s at Trent Bridge. Then I realise that the lodger is at work so we can embrace Thursday as if it’s a Friday and we also share large Leffe. Then, just to add to the romance, we watch the first part of ‘The Reckoning’ about Jimmy Saville on TV.

L is at home all week, so she joins us on our morning walk when she can and she even joins me in the gym on Friday lunchtime where they have had some new treadmills delivered but what they need is new bikes.

In the evening we’re out in Derby for a curry with friends at the Spice Lounge after first having a beer in Suds and Soda. In the restaurant L orders Butter Chicken because she’s never had it and then gets accused of having baby food by the waiter. This seems an odd tactic if you want to encourage your customers to come back and I don’t think it’s going to work on this occasion.

I make my return to parkrunning on Saturday at Alvaston in a fairly tardy 28 minutes. Then I take my Dad for his flu jab in Littleover, which he whinges about because it’s not his usual surgery. Personally I’m delighted to go somewhere different and we get to go to the Alphabet cafe in Mickleover for lunch. Meanwhile L is in Derby acquiring what she calls the 'Intu headache' but is really the 'Derbion headache' as Intu are long gone in Derby.

In the evening L and I are in the Wollaton pub where I’m not sure I should have agreed to L’s request for a third Prosecco as I’m not sure this will ease said Derbion headache.

On Sunday we do a 6k run round the main Uni campus with the Lad, half a dozen cats and about a thousand rabbits. Amazingly my knees survive. In the afternoon we do a gym session together.

(Sunday 15^th October)

No Mercy

We don’t bother with an alarm in the mornings any more as 6am is, rightly or wrongly, hardwired into the Lad’s psyche as his breakfast time and he always gets us up. Well, he gets me up. Except that is when he doesn’t. For instance when he oversleeps after ‘tunnel night’.

Then we have to rely on L’s PT App which bings her at something like 6:27 every morning to do her daily check in. It has no mercy. Even when it’s not working properly as it isn’t at the moment. I seriously suspect it was written by the same people who wrote Trent Barton’s Mango App. Nothing goes wrong as often as that.

In the meantime she is having to do her workout from memory. Luckily the one exercise most emblazoned on her memory is the lying down hamstring curl which is her ‘favourite’. Some things you will never forget.

L is in work briefly on Monday and is then at home for the rest of the week as her boss is away. In the evening after my cycling, my Dad and I are in the Exeter.

L has her PT on Tuesday and I have my physio on Wednesday. Tuesday is also dog training where there are three tunnels in the ring. Three too many. Then I have a committee meeting on Thursday

L and I do a 5k run over lunch on Friday but we don’t do the gym as L is not feeling her best although she does still go for a swim. I had a sniffle earlier in the week but now L has inherited an upgraded version of it. To be fair she did try to fight off my amorous advances. Her version though oddly seems to include a nosebleed.

On Saturday we do our third tourist Parkrun in a row at Watermead Park, the home of the woolly mammoth that we can’t find. L is well enough to run but the Lad and I are again only supporting.

Afterwards I drop the Lad at home, L in Derby and then pick up my Dad. We then meet L and her Mum in Jamaica Blue for lunch where I have a full English but with healthy poached eggs before being called upon to finish my Dad’s pancakes. Shades of Scotland.

It is getting harder and harder to park in Derby since they closed the Riverside car park and then dug up half the roads in town. Today the Basement car park is shut because its full so we park on floor 4 above M&S which means a final coffee in BBs, as I believe those in the know call it. Then after dropping L’s Mum in Mickleover, we pick up the Lad up from home and then I cut my Dad’s grass.

We stay in as L is still not feeling her best and has another early PT session on Sunday. After which we repeat last week’s trip to Colwick where I run 5.4k with the Lad. After which we go to Beeston for coffee and a naughty bacon sandwich. I cut the hedge back at home before we then both head to bed exhausted but not too exhausted. We do manage a few drinks later in the Wollaton.

(Sunday 8^th October)

Joy Formidable

There is a very packed stage equipment wise for support act The People Versus and there are effects pedals everywhere. So many trip hazards. Do health and safety know? I hope the band are small in number but oh no. There are six of them and at the end of their set they do freely acknowledge that not many bands will take a six piece support.  

In Alice Edwards they have a strong singer but who seems a bit indifferent to the crowd or perhaps this is just self-deprecating humour. This does take the edge off what is bouncy and fun performance but they seem more genuine by the end.

From a packed stage to a very stripped back setup for the threesome that are The Joy Formidable on the last date of their UK tour. There is even more space on stage for lead vocalist\guitarist Rhiannon Bryan and bassist Rhydian Dafydd with their unconventional set up that sees drummer Matt Thomas positioned sideways on at the front corner of the stage rather than tucked away at the back. This was a nice dynamic but I think they've always done this. For me there’s no substitute for seeing a band up close and in full flow so this is ideal as you rarely get to see the drummer so close up.

I confess that it's been a while since I last saw them. Having followed them closely right from when they started in 2007, I haven't actually seen them live since 2010. I have missed out because they've always been, well, formidable live and, as I soon discover, they still are.

The Rescue Rooms isn't full but it's busy and it's quite an old crowd as well. Perhaps they've all been in from the start. Unfortunately things have never really taken off for the band. Despite regularly securing decent support slots and doing quite well in the States they've never been able to move on from relatively small venues in this country. Tonight that is to benefit of everyone who's here. 

After starting with 'Caught on a Breeze', 'Sevier' and 'Ostrich' they finally pause for breath and the first of many long rambling chats ensues. These are occasionally with the audience but mostly among themselves. One of these before playing 'Into The Blue' turns to how much Covid affected a touring band such them and then somehow in to a discussion about sheds. 

We get some of the 'hits' such as 'Whirring' and 'Cradle' then they play a Welsh language song called 'Y Garreg Ateb' (the Answering Stone), which was a total belter, and then an acoustic version of 'I Don’t Want To See You Like This' before they close with their new single 'Share My Heat'.

They return to play 'Little Blimp' and then the slow-burning 'Left Too Soon', which seems apt as a show closer.

They are still formidable and still deserve to be much better known than they are. 

Happiness At Work Week

This week is International Happiness at Work Week and naturally my company are throwing their all into it. Monday is Happiness Radio Day with a feel good music list that I almost gave up on after the first three were Steps, B*Witched and Taylor Swift but then we got Twisted Sister!

L gets sent home again when her boss doesn’t come in. He’s probably hungover from celebrating Wales massive 40-6 victory over Australia in the Rugby World Cup. In the evening it’s my cycling and afterwards a visit to the Alexandra.

Tuesday is Happiness in the Home Office Day. That is as in WFH not the Government department. Happiness today is dodging the rain which we manage to do on our walk but a work colleague of L’s isn’t so fortunate and is now walking around in L’s spare clothes. The storm is so intense the Lad hides under my desk.

I told L on Sunday that she was making the lying down hamstring curl look easy and lo and behold today her PT increases the weights on it.

In the evening we start the brand new Strike book the ‘Running Grave’ on audio. Everyone else we know is already half way through it. Daughter has of course finished it.

Wednesday is Smile While You Dial. I’m not really sure what that’s all about as I hate speaking to customers. L, who has another ‘day off’, goes for her regular-ish Wednesday morning run while I ‘save myself’ for the gym. Work is mad at the moment but I do manage to get to the gym briefly at lunch but couldn’t get on most things. I did get on the leg press where I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be concerned when other men compliment me on my calves. L swims with Daughter later while the Lad and I are at dog training.

‘Thankful Thursday’ starts as usual with our walk on the park. In the evening it’s the last tennis of the year because it’s now too dark to play on an unfloodlit court but the four floodlit courts are totally unbookable, there must be some secret society in charge of them, and the indoor ones are far too expensive.

‘Feel Good Friday’ is also wear yellow day but who would know what I’m wearing in my little home office and who would care. A feel good Friday morning rather than a feel good Friday night makes L late for her swim but hopefully it was worth it. We then run 4.4k together at lunch and are gym buddies again later.

There is another Golden Rams Coffee Afternoon for my Dad but I am off the hook for that as my Brother has offered to take him.

It’s another tourist Saturday and we’re Beacon Hill for Parkrun. This time I pre-empt the Lad’s histrionics and don’t even get him out of the car until everyone has started. There is again a nice café and then afterwards I drop L in Derby.

Derby’s match against Cambridge is rather dull 0-0 draw and is overshadowed anyway by the death of goalkeeper Josh Vickers' wife Laura. As a tribute the fans organised a standing ovation on the 31st minute, his shirt number. This sort of thing happens a lot, often for the most tenuous of reasons which are then quickly forgotten about. This however will live long in the memory. Never before have I seen both teams stop playing to stand and applaud, along with all the match officials as well as all the home and away fans. How Josh Vickers kept it together I have no idea but he was probably glad he was only on the bench today.

In the evening we attend our neighbour’s 80s Birthday party at the nearly Crown pub. We appear to be representing the whole street as none of our other neighbours make an appearance. Clearly it was just too wild a night for them with its warning signs about dealing drugs, it’s lack of real ale and an all brown buffet. 

Bizarrely they have Belhaven Stout on keg which I’ve just spent two weeks avoiding in Scotland. At an appropriate break in the proceeds we escape to the Wollaton.

Having missed a couple of sessions while we were away L has an extra PT session at 8am on Sunday morning. It was like getting up for one of those early starting triathlons I used to do. I pick her up afterwards and we head to Colwick for her swim and where I run with the Lad. This goes much better than I expected although choosing to start on the muddy path at the back of the car park was bad idea, grip wise. On the grounds of finding a secluded start place where no one would laugh at us, it was a success. There were also not 200 parkrunners to upset him and just one squirrel crossed our path. We’ve all earnt our afternoon in bed.

Then in the evening I have a gig.

(Sunday 1^st October)