Doggo (10/08/2001 - 05/03/2018)

Sadly I lost my best mate today.

With the decision made Doggo typically decides to rally, starts walking a bit better, has breakfast and then curls up in the hall waiting for us to go to work.

Instead Daughter comes over to join us and we all head to the vets where having expected to have to carry the old man, he walks in and starts charming the vet. Everyone is in floods of tears and typically Doggo prolongs the agony by not going easy as they struggle to find a vein in his old body. He is easily the calmest one there, I think he knows its time to go.

There’s plenty to reflect on concerning life with possibly the most travelled dog in Britain. From the Isle Of Wight to the Hebrides, from the Lakeland Fells to the Scottish Ski resorts he was there with us on all our trips.

He was a constant presence in our lives for all of his sixteen and a half years. He was our running partner and although he never got to parkrun, he was a parkrun veteran and attended loads. Sadly his last one, on Saturday, ended up with him being carried away from it.

Then there’s his Agility, which we learnt together and muddled our way through to Crufts on two occasions. Happy days.

We almost thought he could go on for ever and he was still enjoying his walks with me last week. We were also so glad that it snowed for him in his final week, he always loved the snow.

“If at some point we all succumb, for goodness sake, let us be young. 'Cause time gets harder to outrun, and I'm nobody, I'm not done. With a cool, cool breeze and dirty knees, I rest on childhood memories. We all got old at breakneck speed, slow it down, go easy on me.”

Sadly, my friend, we’re done. RIP

(Monday 5^th March)

Welcome Home

Welcome home... The boiler is playing up and has turned itself off while we were away, the car won’t start despite it being impeccably behaved throughout almost two weeks of constant use in Scotland and when I get to work my computer won’t boot up.

The only bright spot so far is that I don’t have my headphones with me so I can’t listen to the rest of Andrew Gross’s ridiculous book on the bus.

L suggests we go back to the Hebrides. It’s tempting despite the strict two hour window for food.

L then launches Project Goddess, her latest health and fitness campaign. Only two weeks to the Great North Run... I'm feeling so unexercised myself I’ll be starting my own project at this rate. However I think Project God, might be blasphemous. 

(Wednesday 30^th August)

A Week In The Caribbean

I bike, basically hoping that cycling will do something good to my calf.

L has recommended some calf exercises to me and has even sent me pictures/diagrams. They involved wedging a ball between your ankles and standing on a step. I’d need to get the ball back from the dogs but it also looks dangerous to me. I’m sure I would fall off the step and injure myself.

L is also fretting about her own injuries and is again pushing for a campervan and/or a week on a beach in the Caribbean, which was her boss’s original prescription. I best cancel the Hebrides then. 

(Friday 11^th August)

Only A Girl

I missed the deadline for advance entries for the Ashbourne Half Marathon, so we turn up nice and early to enter on the day. Which was a good thing really, as it seems they will reach the 300 race limit. L isn’t running the half but is instead meeting up with a friend who’s local to Ashbourne to do her daily 5k. Did I mention that her latest ‘challenge’ is 5k a day?

Meanwhile my latest challenge is upon me and starts with a one mile hill climb. This isn’t as bad as it sounds as at least we're all nice and fresh for this first test of the day. Then there’s a long downhill followed by a similar climb at around three miles as we go out to Thorpe village and past Thorpe Cloud before a descent to Ilam village.

The real test comes at about six and a half miles which involves a steep half mile climb up to Blore. Then after that, Wa-hey, it’s pretty much flat and downhill to the finish, with just the one minor uphill blemish on the landscape.

In fact, OMG, these last five or so miles are well fast. At least the group of seven I’m in are. A group I stay with until the last mile when the elastic keeping me with them snaps spectacularly.

In this group was a young lady with unfeasibly tight shorts who chats to everybody, tells them how hard it is and then drops them. She does this to me as well. Don’t you just hate people like that.

Perhaps she read my blog from the other day, which L said was rather sexist because I referred to the runner I met on the street as ‘only’ a girl. Well I’m sure this one thought ‘only a man, and an old one at that’ as she whizzed past us all. What goes around comes around.

My club shirt gets some comments, so much so that I may not wear it again. Not that is gets out much anyway, this is only its second outing ever and the other one was on the Hebrides. I’m only wearing it today because the club I’m in (and I use the phrase loosely) has this race as part of its club championship. People in similar vests keep welcoming me to the club because they haven’t seen me before. I feel like the new boy and I think I’d like to go back to being anonymous.

It’s all very well marshalled and there are plenty of drink stations, although the water is in cups, which probably costs me a minute overall, as I stop five times for a drink. I simply cannot drink from cups on the move. They also have sponges and I love a good sponge, I take three. Not at the same time though.

There were a lot of spectators, although the majority of these were tourists, who were more bemused rather than supportive. My time 1:41:20 is twenty seconds quicker than Wolverhampton the other week, so I must be doing something right.

We stop for a beer on the way back, at a pub in Brailsford, along with my father who has turned up to support.

In the evening we go to the, sort of local but not quite, Hemlock Stone and Dragon for a Thai meal, beer and red wine combo. Very nice.

(Sunday 16th September)

A Fine Psychological Balance

I’m heading down to help setup our dog show today but don’t intend going before 10am, so I get chance to take the dogs on the park first, where it throws it down again. A day setting up equipment in a field is not going to be much fun, in the wet.

Having managed to prevent MD upsetting the fine psychological balance of the local deer population and the local deer population from upsetting his equally unbalanced psyche, I drive over to Catton Park in pouring rain, which gradually eases and then stops. When I get there they all say ‘rain? What rain?’.

It is true there’s no sign of there having been any rain here today. Must be another pocket of good weather, like the Hebrides.

Typically, having taken a day off work to help out, there’s not much to do. I setup the equipment in one ring, put up a tent and park a few caravans before heading home for our usual sleazy Friday night in... Top Of The Pops, cycling highlights, cooking tea for Son.

(Friday 20th July)

In Need Of Better Kit

It’s the middle of June, nine days from midsummer’s day and it’s positively chilly on the bike this morning. I employ arm warmers and make a mental note to put the fingerless gloves back in the drawer as my fingers are positively freezing.

Meanwhile, L reads the clock wrong, gets up too early and manages a massive 50 lengths in the pool. Just shows what you can do.

In the news, wind extinguishes the Olympic flame on the Hebrides... not surprised but it didn’t blow our camping stove out, so they obviously need better kit.

Tonight, as the weather looks like it’s going to be dry, although not exactly sunny, we try and book tennis. That is if I can get anyone to answer the phone at the tennis centre. Which I can’t.

So we simply turn up and attempt to play. This confuses them a bit. Partly because they have a tennis tournament on... the Aegon Trophy I think, no that was last week, this week’s it’s the Aegon Challenge. Not to be confused with the Aegon Classic that’s going on in Birmingham and in London or the Aegon International that's coming up in Eastbourne. Don’t you love ‘brand’ awareness, making you aware of the brand but totally unaware of what is actually going on. We used to have the Nottingham Open, that we understood.

Anyhow, that’s all on the grass, so we should be able to get a hard court but apparently these have all been booked for practice by the players, who haven’t turned up... Hope they’ve paid. They make us pay for non attendance.

We get a court and it’s relatively pleasant, for saying its tennis. I’m not a huge fan, not since they made the courts smaller or so it appears since my childhood. 6-4 6-2. I think. I ran out of legs a bit in second set, what with the cycling today.



(Tuesday 12th June)

Not The Place To Go Looking For It

I run home again tonight, stretching it out to nearly 16km. All good training for the world famous Benbecula Half Marathon that we have coming up. If anyone hasn't entered, I’d get in soon if you want to be assured of a place. We’ve just had our numbers through. I’m number 15, L is 14... so it's popular. Perhaps we just entered early. At least I could finish top 20.

L is running home too or ‘bloody running’ as she calls it. She loves it really.

Later we resurrect the TOTP night, which has now been joined by ‘Sounds of the 70’s’ both of which clearly demonstrate that if you wanted decent music in 1977, these were not the places to go looking for it.

(Friday 18th May)