Keep Washing Your Hands

They tell us to keep thoroughly washing our hands to avoid contracting the Coronavirus, now given the name COVID-19 by the WHO, which is all good advice and what we should be doing anyway. They also tell us not to touch our faces which isn’t so easy. I mean, have you tried putting in contact lenses without touching your face. Suddenly it takes far longer to get ready for work in the mornings.

Sainsbury's are late sending out my new visa card and have blocked my old card before the new one has arrived meaning I have to pay for today’s shopping on a different card. This loses me about 90 Nectar points or meagre 45p. I ring them up more to ask where the new card is rather than to complain about the lost points, although I do have a small whinge, and they credit my account with 18,000 points. That's about £90. So, it does pay to complain...massively.

I manage to cycle on Tuesday and it was hard work in the still strong winds but then I am so unfit at the moment.

L skips running club saying that she doesn’t want to be faffing around with doing intervals at the club now she’s a proper athlete and running from home will give her more hoover time even when it turns out to be 10k in the rain. I’ve never known anyone get so excited about a new hoover.

She's looking forward to a night on her own with her new gadget while the boys and I are at dog training. She's never this keen to get alone with me...

On Wednesday she is London for work, which is another icy morning. A day in London with her boss probably means another day of crap eating. He’s the one who bought her four crème eggs and a bar of dairy milk for lunch the other day. There’s none of your five a day in there and most of it makes its way home to me where it goes in my not-so-secret secret drawer. 

In the evening I meet up with a friend of mine after work. Instead of going to the pub, we meet at the Derby Winter Beer Festival at the Roundhouse.

On Thursday L does go to her club while I run from 14 miles from work. 

(Thursday 20^th February)

Pushy Parent

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)

Not Terribly Festive

The roads are very quiet this morning; it seems a lot of folk have already finished for Christmas.

As requested by the people across the road the sandwich van parks right outside their office today to save them having to walk 50 metres to it, thereby increasing my already 50 metre+ walk by another 50 metres. I wouldn’t mind but they need the walk more than me and also only one of them is in the office today.

As a treat at work they are handing out Crème Eggs. Not terribly festive but equally I thought declining would be a very unfestive thing to do.

You can tell the Christmas shopping is over because L and her credit card have parted company. She says it’s over between them but I’m sure they’ll make up; they always seem to get back together. Her card always forgives her and takes her back.

After always releasing us at lunchtime on the last day of work before Christmas this year my company keep us in like naughty schoolboys. Bah Humbug. We finally get released at 4pm and I head off to meet L in Derby. Where she’s been cruising the wool shops...

Then together we cruise the Flowerpot, the Royal Standard, where we also eat, and the Silk Mill, where several people are clearly hoping to take a young elf home with them but she leaves them all disappointed. L seems to cope with the ale despite her taste buds still reeling after last night’s curry.

We get the bus home at 7.50! We’d make such crap teenagers but it’s been a cheap and productive evening. Off home to post-drink.

(Friday 23rd December)