Herd Mentality

On our way back home from the Lakes we drop in on the parents. First L’s Mum who has been ill since Thursday and hasn’t been in to Derby for five days, which is unprecedented. Then we move on to visit my Dad. Both seem well. 

On Tuesday I start an entire week of Training on AI which is far more interesting than I expected. L is back in Derby for lunch with a friend while the Lad and I do a double dog training session. L’s Mum is well enough to restart their Thursday meet ups. 

On Friday, while I am completing my AI Training, Daughter steals ‘my’ guest pass at David Lloyds and uses it to do a gym, swim and sauna with L. I suppose she’s getting better value from it than I do. 

I’m at the match later without my Dad, as Derby nearly beat West Brom but they get a last-minute equaliser. 

On Saturday we Parkrun at Alvaston. After which I visit my dad and take him to New Inn for lunch. 

In the evening we are at the latest house warming of some friends of ours who we only see when they move house and therefore have a house warming. Although they have had an extraordinary amount of house moves, this is their first for a few years. They have become quite local and are now in Burton Joyce which means we can go on the bus although it’s the very slow Number 26 to Southwell. 

Oddly we are required to play party games. First something called Herd Mentality which is the opposite of our favourite TV quiz Pointless in that you need to choose the most common answer. Then we play an even more bizarre game called Pass the Pigs which involved not passing but chucking the pigs. No one quite understood why. 

L runs on Sunday morning and then we walk on Wollaton Park. We’re not at Colwick today because L has chosen instead to swim in the afternoon at Hoveringham Lake which is a new venue for us. First though she has to do an online cold water swimming course, that is despite her being a winter veteran at Colwick. The process of taking the course takes an hour. 

Eventually we make it there, which is just beyond where we were the previous night in Burton Joyce, in a car park that is muddier and more potholed than the one at Colwick. Which is saying something but I think the swim goes well. 

Later we go to the Cornerhouse cinema to see The Housemaid which is a semi-erotic-psychological-thriller come film-noir staring Sydney Sweeney as the live in housemaid for the odd couple that is Amanda Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar. It’s sort of Saw with domestic duties. It’s strangely entertaining despite being badly acted and pretty much telegraphing that the husband is the psycho from the start. 

We go in Boo Burger before the film, which isn’t great with awful service, and in a busy Langtrys afterwards.

 (Sunday 25^th January)