Festivities

Tuesday is Christmas Eve. L has her PT as normal and then we have lunch at the Clock Warehouse in Shardlow with the parents. We all have Turkey, even me, which was nothing special. In the evening it’s just L, the Lad and me in the Plough for Chocolate Porter and Christmas Carols. Though we don’t join in. 

We do Christmas Day Parkrun at Alvaston and then head to the Care Home with L’s Mum to see her Dad. We drop in at the Peacock on Old Nottingham Road for a pint on our way home. Poor old Daughter is at work from 3pm, so it’s just the three of us for a romantic Christmas evening with Wallace & Gromit and some roast lamb. 

Boxing Day is the Furnace 5k-ish run which has a new organiser and a new course. My Brother and his family meet us in the pub afterwards as we hand over my Dad who has spent Christmas Day with them. He comes back with us before he and I take in the Boxing Day match at home to West Brom which kicks off at 5:30pm. Derby win 2-1. 

My Dad stays over and then on Friday we all head to the Aston Walk. The Lad and I do the 3.1-mile medium walk while L and my Dad have coffee. My Dad is delighted when someone he knows, the dad of one of my school friends shows up. We also meet a neighbour that I don’t know and another one that I do know but barely recognise. 

Then we drive down the M1 to Stevenage to meet up with L’s sister. The traffic is horrible and we don’t make it to her sister’s but then they are also stuck in same traffic on their own way home from Derby. Instead, we head straight to our hotel. We are glad we didn’t bring L’s Mum with us, as was planned at one stage. 

Having sent my Dad to his room for a nap, L and I find an excellent pub called the Chequers. Even though it was a Greene King pub it had three stouts and porters on. After a few, we head back to the hotel for pizza with my Dad because pizza was all they had. 

It’s probably stating the obvious to say that we are down here for Parkrun, L’s sister’s local Parkrun on Fairlands Valley Park. L’s sister and her son run it while the rest of the family watch. 

It’s two laps and I hobble round the second lap after pulling a muscle, my gluteal muscle I think. We have egg and bacon cobs at the park cafe and then head back to their house for Christmas cake. Thankfully the traffic is much quieter for our drive home. 

In the evening, we go see The Substance at Broadway. Demi Moore plays a celebrity fitness instructor who is unceremoniously fired due to her age. To get her job back she decides to take a chance on a mysterious medical procedure called The Substance which promises ‘a better version of yourself’. She injects herself with The Substance and her better version ‘Sue’ slithers forth from a large incision in her back. From there it goes about as well as you’d expect in what becomes an increasingly gory and absurd but strangely enjoyable tale. 

We eat at Broadway and later have a 6.8% Rocky Road at Brewdog. 

On Sunday we have breakfast at the Wollaton after our morning stroll on the park. Then there’s another late match (at 5:45pm) where Derby lose to late goal 1-0 to Leeds. Son was supposed to be there but had flat tyre and doesn’t make it. So, we can’t blame his curse on this occasion. 

(Sunday 29^th December)