End Of The Plough

L and Daughter get in three of runs together of around 3k each this week - Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. They don’t run on Wednesday but Daughter does the morning walk with us instead. L also has her usual assortment of fitness classes. 

On Monday I have my cycling. Tuesday L is out with friends in Derby during the day and I’m at the match on my own in the evening where Derby fluke a 1-0 win over Norwich. 

On Wednesday L does her first Reformer Pilates class and we hear that the Plough Inn has closed. Where do we go on Saturdays now? 

In order to drown my sorrows, I order a keg from the Lenton Lane Brewery which arrives a mere two hours later. Now that’s impressive service. I start it the same evening as I watch the track cycling. 

Saturday’s Parkrun is at Forest Rec but we swerve the long wait at Homemade and come home for coffee. Then I’m at the match with my Dad but the club bar is closed afterwards for some VIP’s party so we have to sit in the traffic rather than go for a drink. We don’t get away any quicker and are home later than usual, which tells you just how useful the bar is for traffic management. 

For the first Saturday post-Plough closure, we get the bus to Stapleford with Lad despite L’s stress about it. 

On Sunday we get an extra hour in bed as the clocks change. We don’t kill all the extra hour in bed and end up at the Colwick Swim earlier than usual before having bacon and egg cobs back at home. 

(Sunday 26^th October) 

Baby Shower

After yet another tough cycling session on Monday, with the derny in use again, L has replicated at home the Exeter’s mega chip cob for me without ever seeing one. She’s a legend. 

Tuesday sees L running early with Daughter while I have dog training later with the Lad, who is not at his best. That's nothing usual obviously. 

On Wednesday I am out in Derby, in the Alexandra and then having a dodgy curry at Viceroy for £22 for three courses. On Thursday night we continue our re-watching of Strike with the Silkworm Part 2. 

Saturday’s Parkrun is at Clifton and then I am treated to my first ever baby shower hosted by Son and his wife. We head over to Coventry where there are sandwiches, pizza and plenty of cake but no coffee. These youngsters prefer fizzy drinks instead. It’s a very informal occasion with baby themed tasks and Jenga but no speeches or anything old fashioned like that. We are back in time for a night in the Plough, gazing into four gorgeous pints of Titanic Plum Porter as well as into the eyes of my beloved twosome, L and the Lad. 

On Sunday morning, it appears L had the stop watch on me and I don’t think she was impressed. She thinks that at my age I should be getting in with it but that’s the advantage of a relaxed weekend morning over a rushed weekday morning. We’re still at Colwick for the Sunday swim in plenty of time where we meet Daughter. Then I visit my Dad and take him to the New Inn as usual.

 (Sunday 19^th October)

Get Down Tonight

I think they’re trying to kill me at cycling. There’s 12 of us at the session on Monday and the derny is out again. The pace is blistering as I think are my knees.  

We’re at Colwick lake for the Harvest Moon swim on Tuesday while the Lad is fit enough to return to his training on Wednesday. 

Just as he has returned to fitness, we abandon him with Daughter as we hop on a train to London (First Class). We are in London so that we can get down tonight with KC And The Sunshine Band and L can relive her teenage years. 

First though we scout out something equally important, the location of Saturday’s Parkrun. The one we are targeting is in Battersea Park which we walk to across Vauxhall bridge and then come back via a different route across Chelsea Bridge. This takes us to our Holiday Inn which L remembers that we have stayed in before but I don’t. This was in 2018 when I ran the London Landmarks Half Marathon. 

 

We check in and then do a bit of tourism by heading to Denmark Street, the home of Cormoran Strike, where we take many photos. Before heading to another Strike location, the Tottenham pub which is now called the Flying Horse. We don’t drink there though, instead we head to the Lamb and Flag. This is a Fullers pub that sells both ESB and their Vintage ale at 8.4%. This along with a Jamaican meal from a eat-in takeaway fortifies us for KC. 

Get Down Tonight is a musical that is being hosted at the Charing Cross Theatre and it tells the story of Harry Wayne Casey. Although to be honest it doesn’t really tell us much we didn’t already know about a chap who notoriously keeps his cards close to his chest. 

The plot, such that it is, is that Casey decides to put on a musical featuring his songs but the actual story becomes an ongoing discussion amongst the characters on stage. What we do get is two deaths, a love triangle and twenty great songs across its eighty-minute runtime but not a huge amount of character development. 

Still, the cast are good, the music is pumping and the nostalgia is dripping off the walls as well as off L. She is in her element which is what counts the most. 

After a quick breakfast on Saturday, it’s Battersea parkrun which pulls 900 runners on what turns out to be their 1st birthday. It’s a two-lap course on flat tarmac that we then follow with a rather posh breakfast at the park cafe. After which we get the tube back to St Pancras and then the train home. 

We are back in time for a rather strange night out in the Plough. All the time we were there was a girl sleeping across the seats in the lounge and then they chucked us out at 9pm because it was so quiet. They blame the Beer Festival for this and not their visitor occupying the lounge. 

On Sunday we’re at Colwick for the swim and with Daughter. It’s cold and foggy with the water temperature actually being higher than the outdoor temperature, 14 degrees to 8 degrees but I’m still not tempted.

(Sunday 12^th October) 

Major Bathroom Crisis

The Lad is limping. I may have overdone it with the running with him but then I am also practically limping myself after another evil cycling session behind some maniac on the derny. 

We have a major space crisis in our bathroom. Having returned from the supermarket with a new bottle of shampoo. I discover we are out of space on the bathroom shelf. There is simply no room to cram my new bottle in alongside my one other bottle, L’s one bottle and Daughter’s eleven. 

L likes to go heavy on her fitness on a Tuesday. Today it’s an early morning run, followed by the gym, then Pilates and then another run later with Daughter. I go to watch Derby’s match with Charlton while my Dad watches from home with my brother. 

The Lad’s limp isn’t getting any better and by Wednesday it seems much worse. We shorten his walks and I cancel his dog training. 

On Thursday we go to Colwick for the evening swim although it is horrific getting there as not only are Forest playing at home, and we have to pass their ground, but there’s also a race meeting on at the Racecourse. 

The Lad is a bit better but I still keep his walk short. Just as L is telling him that he is definitely not running the Leaf Kick 10k with me on Sunday, we get a message that they have cancelled it due to the expected arrival of Storm Amy at the weekend. That’s a lucky call for the Lad. 

We have a Friday night with a bottle of Leffe while trying to get our head around the details of The Hack, a new TV series about the News International phone hacking scandal starring David Tennant. We probably need a second bottle but we don’t have one. 

Come Saturday, all three of us are hobbling of which I am marginally the best. Storm Amy has, perhaps luckily, not only seen off the Leaf Kick bit has now caused all our local Parkruns to be cancelled as well. As the wind rattles our bedroom windows we stay in bed while attempting to get it on like a couple of OAPs while moaning about all our aches and pains. 

Unsurprisingly it turns out that Storm Amy has shut the park as well, so the Lad has to go for a walk/limp around the University instead alongside his limping owners. The match is on though and I take my Dad. 

In the evening L takes me for a romantic night out in Derby on one of the new Red Arrows because she wants to show me the sights of the city - the betting shops, the pawnbrokers, the nail bars etc. We have a few beers in the Brunswick and one in the Alexandra. 

On Sunday, instead of the Leaf Kick we set up a Bleep Test training track in the garden. It needs to be 15m long and it just fits in. The Lad loves it when we start running up and down, and he suddenly forgets his limp. Then we do the usual Sunday swim and walk at Colwick. 

(Sunday 5^th October)