Brexit Boston

On Monday L does a little WFH as she has a bit of work which is a rarity. Then she actually goes into the office on Wednesday but, predictably, her boss doesn’t turn up. So she comes home very pissed off. 

Later I cycle and on Wednesday we do double dog training. On both days I drop in to see my Dad. 

On Tuesday it is the first race in the annual Grand Prix running series which I again take part in. Race One is at Rushcliffe and is 4 miles. I find it hard and I’m slower than last year, appearing on page 6 of 7 in the results. I come in just one minute ahead of my key rival. 

Thursday is the second race, the notorious 10k at Holme Pierrepont. That minute gap ahead of my key rival evaporates and I come in just one place ahead of him after a ding dong battle. Time wise, I am slightly quicker than last year which is his fault obviously. L and I then go to the Navigation pub on Meadow Lane for a recovery drink and then pick up a Chinese takeaway. 

L has a busy Friday. She runs 3k early, walks with the Lad and I, walks with her friend, does her second session with her new PT (he’s not quit yet) and then meets Daughter for lunch. 

Then at 5pm we leave for a weekend away in arguably the capital of Brexit Britain, glorious Boston, where we are staying at the White Hart Hotel. As it’s late we eat and drink there on the first night. 

Naturally we are also here for Parkrun for which it is incredibly hot. There are a few grumbles about me running with a dog but the Lad has two long dips in the river as we amble round in 31 minutes. Then it’s back to hotel for breakfast and a rest between the sheets. 

When we re-emerge, it is for a very hot stroll through rundown Brexit Boston. Boston has lots of lovely old buildings and narrow streets but it’s all a bit neglected like an unwealthy York. Sadly, they all voted for the wrong solution. Far from being overrun by immigrants it’s one of the whitest places we’ve been and our lack of tattoos make us feel a bit out of place. 

We have to abort our stroll as it’s now too hot for the Lad and for us. So we dive into the Carpenters Arms, a Batemans pub that sadly doesn’t have any XXXB so I'm on the lesser XB. Then we move onto the Eagle which is Castle Rock pub and I have a Screech Owl. Then it’s back to hotel for an hour before a meal in hotel and another beer. 

After breakfast at the hotel on Sunday we visit more of the sights, the Maud Foster Windmill and Drain!, which is really a canal. We then drive to Fishtoft and the Pilgrims Fathers memorial which is disappointingly small and down a dreadfully potholed road. Then before heading home we visit another Batemans pub that doesn’t have XXXB, the Red Lion at Fishtoft. I vow to get L a bottle so that she can see what I’m talking about.

(Sunday 29^th June) 

Earlier And Earlier

On Monday L leaves at 6am to get the bus over to Derby to take her Mum to hospital for some tests while on the park we have to change the route of our walk to avoid the currently very aggressive deer. 

At cycling everyone is very impressed with my tan and asks me where I’ve been on holiday. They don’t believe me when I say I’ve only been to a dog show in Bilsthorpe. 

L runs 6k on Tuesday and we dog train, trying somehow to find a way of improving on Sunday’s 4 Es. 

L is in work on Wednesday but home just after lunch saying she’s finally been given her notice and will finish in August. If she could do handstands she’d be doing them in the front room. 

Later L and Daughter go to a local owl talk. I’m tempted to join them but stay home to dog sit and do preparation for the Dog Club’s upcoming show. 

L runs early on Thursday, slipping out of my clutches at some unearthly hour before I can start anything romantic. Then she’s in Derby for the usual political debate with her mother. I have a committee meeting in the evening, which only lasts for an hour because we are so organised these days. 

The mornings seem to get earlier and earlier because on Saturday there is a Summer Solstice swim at Colwick at 3.45am. This is obviously not my idea but the idea of L and Daughter but the Lad and I tag along. The Lad is well confused going out before his breakfast and is relieved to be back home by 5:30am when he gets fed. Then it’s Clifton parkrun for L and I while the youngster in the family, Daughter, goes back to bed. 

I then visit my Dad and burn him a pizza again. I really must stop trying to do pizza. We then visit the New Inn to wash the burnt taste away. Later we are back in the Plough. 

In Sunday L swims as usual at Colwick while I am booked onto the NOC Orienteering that is also taking place there. I do Course A with the Lad which is 3k long with ten controls. Then L joins us for Course B which is also 3k but with eight controls. L has forgotten her compass, her dibber and her sports bra. I could have supplied two of those but not the third. Which is why we walk the course as the forgotten third item is in the car and we don’t have time to fetch it. We end up being only four minutes slower than when the Lad and I ran Course A as it took me a whole ten minutes to find one control. Perhaps slower and more focussed is the way to go. 

Back home I cut the hedge and the front lawn. After which we’re all creased. We get a takeaway and start to watch Outrageous, the story of the Mitford Sisters.

(Sunday 22^nd June) 

Jinxed?

I cycle on Monday, L runs on Tuesday and is then in Derby on Wednesday rather than Thursday because she has book club in Wollaton on Thursday. I dog train on Wednesday. 

Thursday is busy for L because she runs before our walk, then has book club and in the evening there’s a swim at Colwick. The Lad and I go to support as usual where a group of girls are all over him, telling him how gorgeous he is. I’d get thumped if I said that to them. 

Then it’s Friday the 13^th, the day L starts her new PT. Who says her PTs are jinxed? The poor chap doesn’t yet know he’s probably going to be moving on. She then swims at Harvey Hidden. Later we get a Friday night in. 

Saturday’s Parkrun is at Watermead. As with last week at Beacon Hill it’s my first run there as I spectated last time. I then finish the lawns I started at my Dad’s last week. This is again followed by a pint in New Inn but this time to celebrate Father’s Day. 

L is in Mickleover and is late back so she doesn’t make the gym before our trip to the Plough where they have a surprisingly good range of strong 5% beers for what is a hot June day. 

On Sunday, the Lad and I have a dog show so we miss out on the trip to Colwick where they are swimming in the other lake due to algae in the main lake. 

At our show the Lad’s first run wasn’t horrific and in fact it was my error that got us the Elimination but then he did mess up his weaves. Then he did completely lose the plot on the next run after spectating for a while really wound him up. We were slightly better after that but we still came home with our usual four Es and a spot of sun burn.

(Sunday 15^th June) 

Motor Show

L steps her fitness campaign up. She runs 4.5k on Monday morning and then 5.5k on Wednesday. She has also signed up to some Personal Training sessions with her former Physio. She says she'll have to live on bread and water because of the cost of it. The problem with that is she can’t live on bread and water unless she actually starts drinking water. Toast and tea is probably more appropriate. 

It is exciting that she is starting with yet another different personal trainer. I plan to fund our retirement on the proceeds of the book I plan to write about her experiences with various personal trainers. Most of them have left their jobs once she started with them although that is obviously just coincidence. 

I have a mad rush to get to cycling after working late but make it. Then visit my Dad afterwards. 

The Red Arrow breaks down on L on Tuesday on her way back from Derby where’s she’s been meeting a friend for coffee. She is briefly in work to meet her boss on Wednesday afternoon but doesn’t have any work so she is soon home again. 

We do a ‘joint but not joint (e.g. not actually together) gym session later. L is back in Derby on Thursday hopefully with a working Red Arrow while I am also over there for a Brunswick lunch with my retired ex-colleague. 

We are thwarted on Friday morning’s dog walk because the park gate is being repaired so we can’t get on the park and have to walk the streets instead. It's perhaps no bad thing as the deer are getting really aggressive on park at the moment. L then heads off to do a triathlon of gym, swim and a haircut before coming home for a nap with her head in her book. 

Saturday’s parkrun is at Beacon Hill. It's my first run there and L’s second. Then I head to my Dad’s where I manage to get half of the lawns cut dodging the rain as I go. Then we nip to the New Inn for swift pint. 

In the evening, we leave the Lad at home and go to Organ Grinder where a rowdy group are in but they eventually leave for the Hand & Heart. We’re not following so instead we go to L’s least favourite pub the Borlase. 

On Sunday after our usual trip to Colwick, the Lad I go for a sniff and a wee up a few vintage cars at the Motor Show on Wollaton Park. The show pretty much ends almost as soon as we arrive as the site is deluged by heavy rain. We shelter for a while under the trees before giving up and heading home. 

(Sunday 8^th June) 

A Shitty Night

We had thought we were going to need a new washing machine because it isn’t spinning but L fixes it herself, by cleaning out the filter. Maybe she has a new career there. Not that her boss is letting her go just yet and he has her in work all day on Wednesday. 

The Lad is at the Vets later for his annual booster. I had scheduled this for Tuesday night but they’d moved it because they had a power cut on Tuesday. That’s fair enough but I had tried to avoid one vet who I don’t particularly see eye to eye with and now we get him. My opinion of him isn’t enhanced when he completely forgets about us and leaves us in the waiting room. We have to remind the receptionist that we are still waiting. He apologises but this has now made the whole night a rush. We dash home, feed the Lad who doesn’t get a walk then I need to grab some shopping for my Dad, quickly visit him and then head off to dog training where I am now too late to see my brother. 

Thursday night is mad in a different way. We are at the Curve Theatre in Leicester where I have willingly volunteered for another musical. We are here to see ‘Six’. 

Now I’m not against musicals. I thought the Jersey Boys was good, historical and an obvious musical. The Everley Brothers one wasn’t so good but still an obvious choice for a musical. However, the tale of Henry VIII’s wives is not an obvious musical to me so you have to give credit for the sheer nerve of the people who wrote it. This turns out to be a bunch of students from Cambridge University who devised it for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2017. 

The concept is great. All six wives of Henry VIII are brought back to life to compare their experiences and argue about who had the worst time with him. Which they do in turn and in song. It is also very short at just eighty minutes long and comprises of just eight songs. 

We have a recovery drink afterwards in the Ale Wagon pub which was acquired by Hoskins & Oldfield as their first pub in 1999. The interior features photos of the former Queens Hotel which was across the road and was also the old Hoskins Brewery. 

I drunk a lot of Hoskins ales when I visited Leicester as a student back in the day. However brewing at Hoskins & Oldfield ceased in 2002 but the beers have continued to be brewed at other local breweries, currently that is the Tower Brewery in Burton. 

On Saturday we parkrun at Vicar Water, our second time there on what is a really tough course. This is then followed by a really slow coffee and breakfast at park cafe. We won’t go there again, we went to a much quicker local one on the main road last time. 

L then goes over to Mickleover and I go to Aston. She then meets me later in Derby at the just reopened Market Hall which is great, stays open late and has a bar that sells Jaipur. 

We then continue our cultural week at Quad for a talk on Shitty Cities or rather ‘Shitty Breaks: A Celebration of Unsung Cities’ which is a book written by Ben Aitken which he is talking about as part of the Derby Book Festival. His list includes many cities we’ve done and certainly ones we will do. Derby hasn’t made his list yet but he’s clearly been doing his research while he’s been here. 

Then we head back to the Market Hall for a Biryani, and where they now have a singer on, then to the Smithfield for another beer. 

Sunday is the Colwick swim\walk and then in the afternoon, after cutting half our lawn until the battery dies, we head up to visit Daughter’s allotment or rather her partner’s allotment. I think she's taken ownership of it.

(Sunday 1^st June)