A Trip To The Scales

Boris Johnson launches an anti-obesity drive the week before his 'Eat Out To Help Out' offer kicks into life. Advance planning does not seem to be this Government’s forte.

Fortunately Lockdown has treated my waistline well or at least I thought it had. L decides to weigh me and quickly trashes that theory. I’m now 12 stone and I’ve never been that heavy before. I can't honestly say it's Lockdown's fault as it's probably two years since I went anywhere near any scales. 

Lockdown has been good for my general health though as I’m certainly not getting coughs, sore throats, or headaches (apart from the occasional hangover) as much as I was. I reckon these things were down to exposure to bugs etc at work or on the bus.

I cycle to work on Friday, in what are hot and steamy conditions. I was well ready for my bacon roll when I arrived at work. Not that Boris or the scales would approve.

We wander up to Beeston on Saturday night and spend the evening in the newly reopened Crown. Then on Sunday L and I go for Sunday Lunch at the Nurseryman, which was the last place we ate in before Lockdown.

Daughter, meanwhile, heads to Manchester just as they put the city into a local Lockdown.

(Sunday 2^nd August)

Bonio Crisis

Monday lunchtime is when I do our weekly shop and this week it acquires extra significance as I head off to panic buy. The only problem is I can’t think of anything I want to panic buy.

Afterwards I report back from the Front Line (Sainsburys) to L. We won't be eating chicken this week as they had none at all but oddly they had plentiful supplies of all other meats and fish. There was no rice or pasta, rather annoyingly as we’re very short on rice. So already it's looking terminal for a chicken curry and that's before I failed to get hold of any cumin seeds... although I'm not saying that's virus related, just as the lack of water chestnuts probably isn't. There was no loo roll obviously and no Bonios.

So I got most things. It’s just the Bonios that are critical really.

Later on Monday Boris Johnson holds the first of what will now be daily press briefings as the UK’s death toll tops 50. In it he urges everybody to work from home and to avoid pubs and restaurants. So yes, Saturday was our last night out.

The roads are definitely a lot quieter as I drive into work on Tuesday to be told that most of us will be working from home from Wednesday. We are staying open with a skeleton staff of four people, all in different rooms.

One of the guys at work is told that his Cousin potentially has the virus, so he goes home to self-isolate. As I understand it that doesn’t mean that I have to self-isolating just because I work in the same office. No one’s too sure of the rules but I think you only need to isolate if you have come into direct contact with someone who has it. That’s the UK rule but not the China one.

Frank Turner cancels the rest of his tour. Meaning that L’s not getting a night off from me on Saturday now. The perils of Lockdown.

Broadway Cinema announces it is closing as is Derby Quad.

L wonders whether she should go see her folks. I tell her to go as it might be her last chance for a while, so she does.

(Tuesday 17^th March)

Nice Bones

MD starts the week not very well, curled up in his bed and not eating his normal food. We put him on the Lad’s food which he seems happier with but by the end of the week he’s fully recovered and back on his own food.

L has her GP appointment on Monday morning where they tell her that her injury is not a fracture but book her in for an X-ray anyway.

I top my mileage up with a five miler from work on Tuesday while, enthused by not having a fracture, L does her own short run after I get home. Then she’s in the gym with Daughter straight from work on Wednesday. So she's not exactly taking it easy. I warn her not to pull anything. 

She has her X-ray on Thursday where they confirm it’s not stress fracture. So the injury must be a pull or a tear. They also tell her that she has excellent bones, which cheers her up a bit. Although I’ve been telling her that for 20 years. Nicest bones I’ve ever jumped.

I do my long run, 9.5 miles to Long Eaton, splashing through puddles in places before jumping on the Indigo. It used to be 9 miles until they knocked down the Meadow Lane bridge at Pride Park but I suppose I should be grateful to them for the extra training. L meanwhile reports that her and the dogs are at home wallowing in the mud like a trio of pigs. Will it ever stop raining?

Thursday is also the General Election, which I pull an all-nighter for as I have done for every election since 1992. Unfortunately we all suspect what is going to happen and we’re not wrong.

L goes for an early swim on Friday and leaves the boys food on the worktop ready for them while we’re out on our morning walk. Unfortunately the Lad thinks this means it’s self-service but I manage to rescue the situation before he's had chance to pull his bowl off the worktop and smash it over his own head. They’re then a bit shocked when I quickly dump them and head off to work but looking at Dog TV later they seem to have quickly got over it (e.g. they’re asleep).

L is getting panicking messages from her sister, saying that entering a marathon was a dumb idea. Funny that, I'm getting exactly the messages from L. Everyone just needs to calm down. As I keep saying Brighton is years away. 

Of course entering a marathon is a dumb idea, if it wasn’t everybody would be doing one but L and I have been doing dumb stuff for years. Her sister has only just started playing catch-up.

Friday is also Black Friday, a day I’ve never really got the hang of because I’ve never been able to find anything I want that is cheaper than at any other time of the year. I think the point of it all is to buy stuff you don’t want but to do so cheaply.

L has been eyeing up a fancy new swimsuit for Christmas and tells me about it now in case I can find a Black Friday deal on it. Which would need me to know what it normally costs which I don’t. In a way it would be helpful if they moved Christmas to Black Friday then it would all be over with much quicker.

I click on the swimsuit because I’ve always been happy to buy her any slinky new outfits for Christmas. She says it will help her stand out in the murky waters. Which sort of implies that she’ll be doing her open water swims without a wetsuit. Which I’m sure isn’t the case.

(Friday 29^th November)

An Embarrassing Moment

Checking this year’s Thunder Run results ‘our’ team of five seems to have gone ahead with only four of them and they did 14 laps. There was a big gap in the middle overnight where I assume no one went round. I think we were well out of that.

On Tuesday, L is working in London where there are so many police around. She seems quite pleased to have been searched by a very cute police dog. I assume they were checking she wasn’t off to bomb Boris.

It’s very hot and sweaty on the bike when I cycle in to work. It’s also very embarrassing on the way home when I couldn’t unclip my foot from my pedal at QMC Island and had to opt to topple sideways onto the grass verge. It seems one of the bolts securing the cleat to my shoe has come out meaning the cleat now just spins, leaving my shoe stuck on the pedal.

It was a right pain to prize it off the pedal when I get home but I manage it eventually without damaging anything.

I am then off work for the rest of the week and spend the whole of Wednesday at Locko Park, getting sunburnt and insect bitten, where we setting up for our dog show this weekend.

I manage to get away early evening because L and Daughter have talked me into doing

‘The Run’ with them. We have done this several times before. Four years in a row in fact from 2008 to 2011 but not since. It starts from the Navigation Inn in Breaston and is a 4 mile run.

We used to get a mug for doing it, in the first three years, and it still seems a rather retro venture by only having a postal entry form. Which they seem to have photocopied and uploaded upside down.

Unfortunately L can barely walk so doesn’t run and Daughter is injured too, so I end up doing a run I was only doing this because those two were but I enjoy it. At 29:32 I was only a minute slower than my 2011 time when I recall I was injured, although a full four minutes slower than my best in 2010.

(Wednesday 24^th July)

The Premonition Comes True

For saying its July it was incredibly nippy on the bike this morning and I don’t mean that I was fast, I mean cold.

L is in London for work where she is meeting, in her words, two cranky women or rather her boss is and her job is to protect him from them. 

They give us a start date for the bathroom - Monday 3rd October. No rush then, I hope the existing shower will last that long.

A pub lunch today and I finally add Brunswick Railway Porter to my list of dark ones. It's number 61.

Dog training tonight but it’s a Bass free one as L is too late back from London to head over to Mickleover to meet me.

As Theresa May reveals her new cabinet Daughter texts to say she is impressed as my premonition comes true and she names BJ as Foreign Secretary. Yay, let him shovel up his own mess. 

(Wednesday 13^th July)

Political Junkie

So first Cameron bailed, then BJ bailed, then Gove unintentionally bailed by stabbing everyone including himself in the back and now, Farage has bailed. Is nobody going to take any responsibly?

Farage said he ‘wanted his life back’ after trashing everyone else's but I suppose him going is at least one positive to come out of all this especially after his embarrassing ‘exit’ speech in the European Parliament last week. Perhaps that's why everyone really voted out, to get rid of Farage.

Perhaps if all this lot had gone two weeks ago we’d all now be in a much better place.

At least more people are getting ‘engaged’ now. I’m considering simply posting my Times password on the internet because so many people are asking to ‘borrow’ it. Daughter seems to be becoming quite a politics junkie.

L cancels her meal out at Le Bistrot Pierre tonight, this has nothing to do with Brexit and everything to with the fact her friend’s husband is ill and in hospital. Get well soon.

She still runs with her other friend while we dog train. Where we manage an hour before being rained off.

(Monday 4^th July)

It Just Gets Better...

It just gets better...

So David Cameron does a runner after his referendum goes impressively tits up and the country quickly anoints his successor PM Boris the Great or perhaps not. Today Boris Johnson does a runner too as he announces that he’s pulled out of the leadership race after his partner in crime Michael Gove announced he would stand against him. So just who is going to clear up this mess? Nobody in their right minds who vote for Gove surely?

As I keep telling L, it’s all just politics and probably nobody is really saying what they mean. What we all need is a book on it all. In fact Boris is probably saying exactly the same thing and will be off to Waterstones as we speak.

L picks me up from work, having apparently spent most of the day typing up her Brexit inspired memoirs, and we head off for a long weekend dogging in the Lakes.

The dog show is at the Westmoreland Showground near Milnthorpe and after quickly pitching the tent, whilst dodging the rain showers, we head off into Milnthorpe and have a few drinks in the Cross Keys. Sadly the six ales on their bar are all pale but with it being a Robinsons’ pub, L soon moves onto bottles of Old Tom. We take one of those and a nice dark Anchor Porter back with us to the tent.

(Thursday 30^th June)