Administrative Marathon

This week I go to cycling for the first time in a month and for the first time in a long while without my Dad. Which means I’m also without a scotch egg and a pint of Dark Drake at the Exeter afterwards. Instead, I go round to visit him and to share a bottle of beer. 

On Tuesday I’m at the match on my own as evening games are just going to be too difficult to get my Dad to. However, as I’d already swapped seats into the wheelchair spots, and can’t swap back, I watch the match against Gary Rowett’s Oxford from there. It’s 0-0 draw. 

L does an administrative marathon in Derby on Wednesday – getting a death certificate, lunch and meeting the funeral celebrant. I do dog training via a visit to my Dad. 

Friday’s away match at QPR is on Sky so I go over and watch it with my Dad. It is the first match for John Eustace, the new manager who has only been in charge for a day, and they lose 4-0. Not a great start. 

We are on the parkrun tourist trail again on Saturday and we head to Black Rocks which is between Cromford and Wirksworth. Afterwards we get breakfast in Cromford. Then it’s the Plough in the evening, of course. 

We see a film at Broadway on Sunday after getting first in Pho. The film we see is September 5. 

This is the story of the hostages taken by the Black September group at the 1972 Munich Olympics and the subsequent massacre that happened. Yet it is shown from the viewpoint of ABC TV’s sports crew, who by chance found themselves in sole charge of broadcasting the event to the world. It is a great insight to not just what happened behind the scenes but also to the technology, or lack of it, available at the time in a film that is uninhibited by the politics of the occasion. 

 

 (Sunday 16^th February)

Finally, Bolsover

I have my car booked in to the local Middleton Garage on Monday to have some new tyres and the annoying rattle it's developed fixed. Then I skip cycling again to go see how my Dad is getting on with his carers. 

Wollaton Park is locked on Tuesday morning, we have no idea why. L is at PT then has lunch with her Mum before a meeting with Co-Op Funeral Service. I’m at dog training. 

I have lunch in the Brunswick with my ex-colleague on Wednesday. They have a new offering of Steak and Stilton pie which I wash down with Cherry Stout. Very nice. L is then at yoga with Daughter. 

L keeps up her Thursday's in Derby and has lunch with her Mum just without the trip to the care home, who seem to have misplaced her Dad’s false teeth. 

After three days of trying, I finally get through to my Dad’s GP in Alvaston who claim that he’s now no longer in their area despite being with them since they relocated there in the 1980s. They do reluctantly send a doctor out to see him while telling us we need to find a new GP. I drive over to meet the doctor. 

In the evening L and I run 6.5k with the Lad, managing to get part of the run on the park before it shuts. We are still in training for the Bolsover 10k because it hasn’t happened yet after being postponed in December. It is now this Sunday.

On Friday, Derby County sack Paul Warne after eight defeats in a row. Maybe they still have time to save themselves from relegation. 

We do a new Parkrun on Saturday at Vicar Water. It’s a ‘nice’ tough course. Then I’m over at my Dad’s as usual as Derby draw 1-1 at Norwich. 

We have a rare AF Saturday night in as Sunday is at long last the Bolsover 10k for which we leave Lad at home. It’s an ok run but it’s always been a dull course which is why we’ve only done it two or three times ever although I was 3rd Lady Vet once (long story). We celebrate finally getting it done in the Plough that evening. 

(Sunday 9^th February) 

Sad Times

We return home to our ageing and ailing families. L spends Tuesday afternoon with her Dad who isn't breathing very well and doesn't seem to know anybody is there.

She is back there on Wednesday while my brother and I are meeting a Care Coordinator to discuss my Dad's care. I take the Lad with me with his tea and his dog training gear just in case we don’t get home but it doesn’t take as long as we expect. I get time to head over to pick L up from the care home and take her home before doing the A50 again to dog training. 

L spends the rest of the week, off and on, at the care home. The prognosis for her Dad is grim. Things don't get any easier when on Friday we get my Dad back from my brother. He now has bad diarrhoea because he’s been on laxatives. That’s not pleasant to deal with. 

I do manage to get my Dad to the match in a wheelchair place as Derby lose their 7th game in a row. It is there that L calls me just before kick-off time, although I can barely hear her due to the crowd noise, to tell me that her Dad has sadly passed away. 

Later that evening the whole family toast the great man in their own homes with wine or Guinness and\or a dog if they have one. 

Daughter returns home elated from her skiing trip to be greeted by the sad news but we do finally get to meet her elusive mate. We have Chinese takeaway all round to go with the toasts. 

On Sunday I drive my Dad back home where carers will now start coming to look after him. L and I then go and get slaughtered in the Plough.

(Sunday 2^nd February)