Glorious Telford

Tuesday sees L sent home with PT homework. She has to practice press-ups. Ouch. I can’t see that happening but if it does I’m sure the Lad will help her with it.

We have booked a ‘dodgy’ electrician to sort out our smoke alarms. ‘Dodgy’ because he’s quoting less than what the alarms he’s fitting sell for online and he wants paying in cash. What could possibly go wrong?

‘Dodgy’ or not, he appears to do a good job. Now we just need Daughter to test them. She has been warned what will happen if she leaves something sizzling under the grill for too long. The two alarms are linked, so if one goes off they both go off. It’ll sound like Armageddon and the batteries are built in, so there’s no quick way of disabling them if they go off.

As it turns out the first thing to set the alarm is not Daughter’s sausages but our shower. Perhaps that’s why the alarms were cheap... Meanwhile one of our old alarms, that hasn’t gone off in years, issues a parting salvo from its new home in the wheelie bin.

Wednesday night is spent with my Dad and the lad in the New Inn. While on Thursday I run with L and the Lad during which he snaps his bungee lead. L makes it to 5k but the leadless Lad and I only make it to 4.5k.

Tennis goes ahead at Cliton again and afterwards we try the Ruddington Arms which is much nicer than the Framebreakers.

On Friday after work, or in L’s case after gym and swim, we head for a weekend away in glorious Telford. It doesn’t start too well when we find that the only evening options near our Holiday Inn are the main shopping centre or an estate pub called the Randlay Farmhouse that has no real ale and no food. So after a few bottled beers it’s back to the hotel for a meal.

One thing that Telford does have is a decent park. It’s called the Town Park and it’s where they have Parkrun which obviously we run, me with the Lad.

We then head back to the hotel, which now has a Jehovahs Witness conference going on next door, for coffee and to discuss the strategy for the rest of the weekend. Telford it appears is just one big retail complex that is not designed to be avoided and we can’t find anywhere for breakfast. We attempt to walk around the outside of it and are constantly boxed in by dual carriageways.

Eventually we find a footpath called the Silkin Way and walk to somewhere called Oakengates, allegedly the Heart of Telford but even that has an industrial estate in the middle of it. Telford is doing its best to make Derby look glamorous. I do however have two excellent pints at the Crown pub but where we also have to make do with pasties for lunch/breakfast while the Lad gets a new halti having snapped his second lead of the week. We’re back at the hotel for 6pm and spend the evening in the sanctuary of the hotel bar.

Sunday is better. L goes in the hotel gym while I walk the Lad and then we get breakfast in the hotel’s dog friendly area. After that we drive out to Ironbridge, the nice bit of ‘Telford’ five miles outside of it. We have a pleasant walk around the area, go for a coffee, to a bookshop and then end up in the All Nations pub which we last visited as part of Camra’s 25th Anniversary Beer trail back in 1997. That was all the pubs nationwide that had been in their guidebook for the whole 25 years that I dragged L to. Not sure how many pubs it was now. Might have been 25, might have been less than that. 

(Sunday 28^th July)

Ideas Above Their Station

Cycling is lively on Monday probably because both the Men’s and Women’s GB Olympic Pursuit teams are up on track before us. Practising before heading off to Paris and showing us how it is done. This gives some people in our group ideas above their station. They think they can do as well. They can’t. 

L has her PT on Tuesday where she is impressively deadlifting 50kg. In the evening I’m out with my old school pal in the Alexandra and the Silk Mill. He turns up with no money having left it as the prison he delivers to as part of his job. Apparently you always have to hand over the contents of your pockets to prison security before you go in and he forgot to collect it all back afterwards. So I have to pay for everything and then just to top his day off he gets a parking ticket as he hadn’t got the means to pay for his parking.

On Wednesday, for the second time this week, L is in work without a boss because, for the second time this week, he has a puncture and is waiting for the AA.

Daughter tests positive for Covid after feeling slightly unwell and losing her sense of smell. L lost her sense of smell 20 years ago but doesn’t have Covid.

On Thursday I do a 7am run with L and the Lad and all the chaos that involves.

Tennis does start this week but as there are no courts available at the Tennis Centre I suggest Clifton where they have built five brand new courts. They have actually been there forever but were pretty much derelict until recently. We play at 6pm as that is the last booking slot and we have the courts to ourselves.

It’s a warm night and my very unfit opponent aborts, complaining of heat exhaustion, half-way through the second set. We go for a drink afterwards at the Framebreakers in Ruddington who have turned their car park into a beer garden which means there is nowhere to park nearby. They also don’t seem to have many staff and we wait ages to be served. Not sure we’ll go back.

On Friday Microsoft messes us the whole world as a software outage leaves lots of business and all the airports in chaos. Luckily the Brunswick is fine where I have lunch with my ex-colleague.

Saturday’s Parkrun is at Wollaton, then I head over to my Dad’s and later we’re in the Plough.

On Sunday we visit, for the first time, Wollaton Park’s secret garden which is amazing. It’s a shame it’s not open more often. Later I do a rare gym trip with L. 

(Sunday 21^st July)

The Wrong Roof

It’s a Morose Monday for L as she's in work and not shopping with me at Sainsbury’s... Cycling is also rather morose with only seven of us there. L is quickly back FH on Tuesday with her boss away in London. 

Tuesday was also supposed to be the first tennis game of the year but predictably it’s rained off.

Wednesday is the start of five days at our own dog show. The first two days are purely setting up and I take the Lad on day one and he gets plenty of ball as we wait for the marquee to be erected. It takes them from 10am to 6pm to put it up because they came with the wrong roof. I am home in time to see England beat Netherlands 2-1 to reach Euros Final.

L runs on Thursday morning before joining us on the morning walk and then heading off to Derby while I head back to continue setting up the show. The lad stays home this time. It drizzles all day as yet again a catering van pulls out on us. Amazingly we quickly manage to find someone else after an appeal on social media which perhaps has a use after all.

The show starts for real on Friday and with a catering van as I celebrate my Wellbeing Day Off work. By Saturday our new catering is not enjoying our show as he says he’s not selling enough. He doesn’t return on Sunday. On the plus side one of our trade stands makes a key ring of the Lad. It is great, so I get them to make extra ones for L, my Dad and Daughter. I also buy him a new lead to make up for not inviting him. I de-stress after the show with L in the Plough.

Sunday is the last day of the show and it’s also the Euros Final which England lose 2-1 to Spain. 

(Sunday 14^th July)

Please Let Me Be Sacked Today

Tuesday is race three of the Grand Prix series which is the Colwick 5 Miler. I again start quite near the back and quickly notice that I am so far back that one of my long time rivals is ahead of me. I already feel I am going faster than I should (and can) but I try to reel him in. Then just before the end of lap one he disappears into the bushes. Perhaps it’s for a comfort break or perhaps he’s trying to hide from me, then drop back in the race behind me and outsmart me. 

I assume the latter and that he’s now right behind me so I keep my pace suicidally high. It isn’t until about 1km to go that the course allows me to get a good look behind and he isn’t there. I ease up and complete the race in 41 minutes. He eventually comes in 5 minutes behind me.

On Wednesday L goes into work for the first time this week. She asks if I think she was the only person walking to work muttering "please let me be sacked today... please let me be sacked today ..." to herself. Yes, probably. She doesn’t get sacked.

In the evening she’s at yet another new yoga class and I’m at dog training which is our last one until September as we are now on summer break. At the Tour de France Mark Cavendish breaks Eddy Merckx’s record with his 35th win.

On Thursday L is swimming at Lenton where they are trying to raise £100,000 to keep the pool open. Notts TV are there filming and conducting a few interviews afterwards. 

In the evening it’s the grand finale of the Grand Prix series which is the Embankment 5k. My time is a very decent 26:03. We head off to collect my race T-shirt from the boat club. Sadly it's a red t-shirt. We head off to celebrate with a couple of pints and a chicken flatbread at the Dispensary.

Then it’s Election night and I settle in with the imaginary popcorn. L makes it to midnight and see the first two results come in which is a huge achievement for her. The Lad and I sit it out to 5am, just in time to savour Jacob Rees Mogg’s loss but sadly even we’re in bed for Liz Truss losing her seat.

I only get four hours sleep but I’ve taken the day off work so it doesn’t really matter. In the evening we’re at Iberico with Daughter as late birthday treat.

Saturday is Parkrun at Wollaton where L parkwalks. Then I take my Dad up to the White Peak Distillery in Ambergate for a Whiskey Tour that my brother bought us for Christmas. L comes along but goes book shopping in Belper. After the tour they give us tastings of four whiskeys and we both leave with a bottle but of different whiskeys. Then we head to my brother’s new place in Kirk Langley for his housewarming which is slightly upstaged by the England’s Quarter-Final of the Euros against Switzerland.

My Cousins are there, along with most of the old five a side team and my best mate from school. England eventually win on penalties after a 1-1 draw but we are back at my Dad’s house by then.

Sunday sees the Lad and I at a Dog Show in Bilsthorpe. This is mainly because he isn’t allowed at our own show next week as he gets too excited by it all. He starts off very well with just one error on his first course which is an extra jump but that makes a change from an extra tunnel. That is his best run of the day and ultimately it’s another 4 E’s. 

(Sunday 7^th July)