Unlike Christmas, Easter sort of just appears almost out of nowhere. Christmas is a tidal wave that gathers momentum from the summer until it has engulfed everything in its path and brings the country to a standstill. Easter meanwhile, just happens. Crème eggs and hot cross buns are a 365 days a year thing anyway but they're easy to ignore because every aisle isn't draped in tinsel. Easter just happens, we get on with it and we get over it. I quite like Easter.
You can even get a table to eat out, so after a lazy morning:- coffee in bed etc, park, Chris Hoy, we head over to Leamington for lunch with Son and his squeeze. We even potentially land him a job interview at the pub we have lunch in. How good is that? All thanks to L being a pushy parent, Son would probably never have got around to applying for the job, even though were in the place at the time with a board outside saying 'job available here now'.
Back to Hoy, he wins the Keirin by squeezing through a gap that even the minuscule Laura Trott may have not have got through. Perhaps she’s been giving him lessons. Also on the final day there’s silver for Wendy Houvenaghel in the individual pursuit, silver for Ben Swift (again) and Geraint Thomas in the Madison and bronze for Jess Varnish in the 500 but still we’re slightly eclipsed by Australia.
(Sunday 8th April)
Showing posts with label Ben Swift. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ben Swift. Show all posts
Sunday, 8 April 2012
Saturday, 7 April 2012
Studently
Today I can be studently with L and lounge in bed. Meanwhile our Sheffield student has to go to work, ha ha, and much to her disgust, dressed in black.
Well actually, I get up at 10am and lounge studently in front of the live cycling. Omnium Gold for Laura Trott. Medals too for Jason Kenny and Chris Hoy in the Sprint but neither of them gold. Kenny’s beating of Hoy in the semi-finals looked decisive enough to me to deny Hoy getting the Olympics gig in the sprint but then what do I know. Then it was that man Ben Swift again with a hard-earned silver in the Points race.
Eventually I take the boys on the park and then head off to the match, which is a very typical end of season style 0-0 draw. Then I head straight up to Sheffield by train. It’s only 30 minutes by train from Derby, which is a lot quicker than driving. Yet the train takes almost an hour from Nottingham.
I meet L outside Sheffield station, where she is sat with Daughter’s huge bag, full mainly of books, wrapped around the middle with packing tape. Running repairs have clearly been required. Somehow L has managed to get it from home onto the train.
We embark on a joint baggage pull and wheel it the half a mile or so to Daughter’s flat. It doesn’t quite make it, one of the wheels collapses before we get there, but we drag it against its will the rest of the way.
Daughter has, by the time we get there, crawled home from work. Not that it's far, it’s only really across the road from her. She's had the ‘day from hell’. Apparently they’ve had her scrubbing walls. Ah good, I’ve always been in favour of hard labour for teenagers. She glosses over the good bits of her day. Bar work, waitressing etc.
As she sits in front of her TV, half asleep, in her PJs. Well actually L’s PJs, clearly recently half-hinched from home. It doesn’t look like she’ll be moving anywhere any time soon. What happened to her night out on the town with us?
So we set out on our Sheffield pub crawl without her. First stop the Devonshire Cat, which is very good. Plenty of real ales, their own extensive foreign beer menu and some decent food.
We could have stayed all night but we move on to nearby Henrys. The name didn't really inspire and despite a promising range of ale, we’re not that impressed with the place. Next, the Old House, which is a very nice place with again a good mix of British and Foreign beers. They refuse to serve L a Westmalle Belgian ale in anything but its correct glass, so we wait whilst they fetch fresh glassware from the storeroom. Nice touch. The wrong glass syndrome is something that does annoy us a lot in Nottingham.
Finally we move closer to the station to ensure we don’t miss our train home. There’s no chance of that with the Sheffield Tap being on the actual platform. It’s effectively a remote Brewery Tap for the Thornbridge Brewery. Enough said. Oddly L doesn’t have Jaipur but there are plenty of other beers of theirs (and from other breweries) to choose from.
(Saturday 7th April)
Well actually, I get up at 10am and lounge studently in front of the live cycling. Omnium Gold for Laura Trott. Medals too for Jason Kenny and Chris Hoy in the Sprint but neither of them gold. Kenny’s beating of Hoy in the semi-finals looked decisive enough to me to deny Hoy getting the Olympics gig in the sprint but then what do I know. Then it was that man Ben Swift again with a hard-earned silver in the Points race.
Eventually I take the boys on the park and then head off to the match, which is a very typical end of season style 0-0 draw. Then I head straight up to Sheffield by train. It’s only 30 minutes by train from Derby, which is a lot quicker than driving. Yet the train takes almost an hour from Nottingham.
I meet L outside Sheffield station, where she is sat with Daughter’s huge bag, full mainly of books, wrapped around the middle with packing tape. Running repairs have clearly been required. Somehow L has managed to get it from home onto the train.
We embark on a joint baggage pull and wheel it the half a mile or so to Daughter’s flat. It doesn’t quite make it, one of the wheels collapses before we get there, but we drag it against its will the rest of the way.
Daughter has, by the time we get there, crawled home from work. Not that it's far, it’s only really across the road from her. She's had the ‘day from hell’. Apparently they’ve had her scrubbing walls. Ah good, I’ve always been in favour of hard labour for teenagers. She glosses over the good bits of her day. Bar work, waitressing etc.
As she sits in front of her TV, half asleep, in her PJs. Well actually L’s PJs, clearly recently half-hinched from home. It doesn’t look like she’ll be moving anywhere any time soon. What happened to her night out on the town with us?
So we set out on our Sheffield pub crawl without her. First stop the Devonshire Cat, which is very good. Plenty of real ales, their own extensive foreign beer menu and some decent food.
We could have stayed all night but we move on to nearby Henrys. The name didn't really inspire and despite a promising range of ale, we’re not that impressed with the place. Next, the Old House, which is a very nice place with again a good mix of British and Foreign beers. They refuse to serve L a Westmalle Belgian ale in anything but its correct glass, so we wait whilst they fetch fresh glassware from the storeroom. Nice touch. The wrong glass syndrome is something that does annoy us a lot in Nottingham.
Finally we move closer to the station to ensure we don’t miss our train home. There’s no chance of that with the Sheffield Tap being on the actual platform. It’s effectively a remote Brewery Tap for the Thornbridge Brewery. Enough said. Oddly L doesn’t have Jaipur but there are plenty of other beers of theirs (and from other breweries) to choose from.
(Saturday 7th April)
Friday, 18 February 2011
Up The Blondes
L goes into work for a few hours whilst I take the dogs for a game of footie on the park. When I drive up to meet her later I notice that there is a lad on almost every road junction wearing a pizza box. There’s nothing unusual in that actually but they all seem to have scarves over faces and some even have balaclavas. Sinister.
We collect my parents and head up to Manchester for the Track Cycling. I’ve thought for some time that my father would enjoy a day out at the cycling, although it’ll be exhausting for me explaining all the various different competitions. What I didn’t expect was my mother to be so keen to join us. The more the merrier.
It’s an exciting days racing but a long one, especially for my parents, we don’t drop them back at home until 1.30am. It doesn’t help that they decide to close the velodrome between the day and evening sessions this year, evicting all the supporters into an area of Manchester where there is nothing to see or do except go to Asda for tea. Unfortunately Asda are yet again woefully unprepared for the deluge of hungry cycling fans. This event has been on the calendar for many a year now, so you’d have thought they’d have got the hang of it by now.
As for the cycling, the Women’s Pursuit Team go very close to the world record in winning Great Britain's first gold medal of the weekend.
Then Chris Hoy and Jason Kenny clash in an all-British semi-final in the sprint and Kenny impressively defeats Hoy. Unfortunately Frenchman Kevin Sireau has too much for Kenny in the final. Hoy recovers to take bronze.
Geraint Thomas gets the crowd going in the individual pursuit final, storms off into a huge lead over his opponent Australia’s Rohan Dennis and is on course for a world record... Unfortunately he’s gone off too fast, fades and Dennis overhauls him with only a few laps to go.
‘We’re still hungry 4 Vicky’ proclaims a banner, they’re referring to Victoria Pendleton of course, who with Shanaze Reade makes up our potential Olympic sprint team pairing. I’m not sure about Vicky myself, so let’s talk about two young blondes instead. Pendleton and Reade are surprisingly under par and only qualify eighth, and are soundly beaten by our other British pairing of Jess Varnish and Becky James, who qualify fourth quickest and get to race for bronze. Yay, up the blondes. Unfortunately they lose to France.
We nearly didn’t stay for the last event, the third part of the Omnium, cycling answer to athletics’ decathlon but with six events. In the elimination race, last place is knocked out every two laps and it was well worth staying for. It’s one thing trying to stay in the lead of a race, quite another to avoid being last. The whole idea was an accident waiting to happen, which thankfully didn’t happen, but was great to watch. With two left GB’s Ben Swift was still there before finally being beaten into second place on the last lap.
Now just for the long drive home.
(Friday 18th February)
We collect my parents and head up to Manchester for the Track Cycling. I’ve thought for some time that my father would enjoy a day out at the cycling, although it’ll be exhausting for me explaining all the various different competitions. What I didn’t expect was my mother to be so keen to join us. The more the merrier.
It’s an exciting days racing but a long one, especially for my parents, we don’t drop them back at home until 1.30am. It doesn’t help that they decide to close the velodrome between the day and evening sessions this year, evicting all the supporters into an area of Manchester where there is nothing to see or do except go to Asda for tea. Unfortunately Asda are yet again woefully unprepared for the deluge of hungry cycling fans. This event has been on the calendar for many a year now, so you’d have thought they’d have got the hang of it by now.
As for the cycling, the Women’s Pursuit Team go very close to the world record in winning Great Britain's first gold medal of the weekend.
Sarah Storey, Wendy Houvenaghel and Joanna Rowsell
Then Chris Hoy and Jason Kenny clash in an all-British semi-final in the sprint and Kenny impressively defeats Hoy. Unfortunately Frenchman Kevin Sireau has too much for Kenny in the final. Hoy recovers to take bronze.
Chris Hoy and Jason Kenny
Geraint Thomas gets the crowd going in the individual pursuit final, storms off into a huge lead over his opponent Australia’s Rohan Dennis and is on course for a world record... Unfortunately he’s gone off too fast, fades and Dennis overhauls him with only a few laps to go.
‘We’re still hungry 4 Vicky’ proclaims a banner, they’re referring to Victoria Pendleton of course, who with Shanaze Reade makes up our potential Olympic sprint team pairing. I’m not sure about Vicky myself, so let’s talk about two young blondes instead. Pendleton and Reade are surprisingly under par and only qualify eighth, and are soundly beaten by our other British pairing of Jess Varnish and Becky James, who qualify fourth quickest and get to race for bronze. Yay, up the blondes. Unfortunately they lose to France.
Jess Varnish
We nearly didn’t stay for the last event, the third part of the Omnium, cycling answer to athletics’ decathlon but with six events. In the elimination race, last place is knocked out every two laps and it was well worth staying for. It’s one thing trying to stay in the lead of a race, quite another to avoid being last. The whole idea was an accident waiting to happen, which thankfully didn’t happen, but was great to watch. With two left GB’s Ben Swift was still there before finally being beaten into second place on the last lap.
Now just for the long drive home.
(Friday 18th February)
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