As If It's 2019

From Friday face coverings become compulsory in all the shops which all comes too late to help the first cat to catch the virus.

I bike to work and while I’m out Hermes sneak round and actually deliver a parcel rather than their usual tactic of just pretending they’ve delivered it. They send me a photo of it hanging half in half out of our letterbox which is slightly worrying but, hopefully, it’ll still be there when I get home. The thing is, it was definitely our letterbox which is significant progress for them and, in another twist for the better, when I get home it turns out the driver had actually pushed the parcel through the letterbox once they’d photographed it. So good Hermes drivers do exist.

Saturday was the day that probably no one was begging for, the day you could finally get back on the treadmill at your local gym.

In the evening we have our first Saturday night out since March in the Organ Grinder and on Sunday we take my Parents out for lunch in the Dog and Duck at Shardlow. The Dog and Duck is the first place we’re been where they aren’t doing table service and they ask you to queue at the bar old style as if it's 2019. The difference being that this now has to be at two metres distance, which stretches half way around the pub. To me they seem to be applying the shopping rules and not the pub rules but no one appears to be checking.

Meanwhile Daughter reveals the exciting news that she’s been for a Covid test. It was negative.

(Sunday 26^th July)

Five Miles Naked

I run on Sunday but my watch chucks in the towel before I do. It just won’t charge up over 25% at the moment and I will attempt to get Garmin to replace it.

We take our first post Lockdown trip to the pub after they reopened on Saturday. We go to the Scribblers and the Organ Grinder after walk past Rock City's new car park garden. Blue Monkey were really on the money at the Organ Grinder where we have our temperature checked on entry and the staff were in full PPE. It was a bit more relaxed at the Scribblers but both could do with taking arrival\departure times and party size to be more helpful to Track and Trace.

   

On Tuesday I attempt to put another foot into the new normal with a game of tennis but this, just like in the old normal, is cancelled by the weather. We will try again next week.

On Wednesday after wins against a load of mid table teams who had nothing to play for, Derby come unstuck when they play second placed West Bromwich Albion and lose 2-0. Unfortunately, they now have to play quite a few of the top sides before the end of the season.

On Thursday L goes for an x-ray on her fractured elbow at her GP's insistence which is almost as exciting as being locked down but it comes up negative. The good news is she won’t be put in plaster but the bad news is there’s no cure other than rest and self physio.

We have the painters in this week, painting the hall and an upstairs bedroom, which curtails our movements around the house somewhat but the dogs seem to have adapted quite well to kipping in their baskets which are now my home office.

The Lad is up for run after spending all day stuck in an office with me and we go out on Thursday to run five miles naked, as in without my Garmin which has gone back to be replaced.

(Thursday 9^th July)

Send For The Military

On Saturday we parkrun at Alvaston, which may be boring but it’s about the best surface (all tarmac) if it's wet and it’s been exceedingly wet recently.

It is Daughter’s 80^th Parkrun. It would have been my 86^th if I hadn’t forgotten my barcode or even my 87^th if they hadn't done me out of my first ever one at Conkers for reasons I was never made aware of.
 

Afterwards I am at the match while my two fellow parkrunners get the train down to L’s sisters where they will both be running the Standalone 10k tomorrow. I’m not going as I’m on Glastonbury ticket duty. Having seen a sneak preview of the Standalone t-shirt, which is bright pink, perhaps it's a good one to miss. 

Then the boys and I have a night on our own. We order out for pizza.

The next day we’re all up early to apply for Glastonbury tickets or rather to just look at the holding screen for half an hour.

My colleague from work gets in (again) but then he’s part of a large syndicate who all apply for each other every year. Consequently they have been for the last nine years. This is what it’s come to. You need either huge luck or a military operation to get tickets. As L says I’ve blocked off my entire weekend for nothing. Apparently there will be a ballot for 50 pairs of tickets but I’m not holding my breath.

After that my day consists of mainly ball throwing and cutting the lawn, which bizarrely it’s dry enough to do.

Later we’re all by the gate waiting to welcome L home in our own individual ways but I'm the only one she invites to the pub later. I drown my Glastonbury sorrows in the Organ Grinder and the Borlase.while she celebrates her run.

(Sunday 6^th October)

A Weekend Without

Friday apart, it is a weekend without running or cycling. So no parkrunning, no races and no velodrome sessions.

The most exercise we get is pub crawling Arnold. It takes us two buses to get to a place that only really has two decent pubs but you have to try these things. One from is from Blue Monkey (called the Organ Grinder, obviously) which is a bit loud with a band on but crucially has no Gorilla and nothing you would say was a decent substitute. The other is from Lincoln Green (called the Robin Hood & Little John) which has both Tuck and Leffe, so that is obviously where we spend most of the evening.

That apart the main draw of the weekend and indeed the week has been the Women’s Football World Cup which has been excellent. Some would say the standard isn’t as high as in the men’s game but I’d certainly take several of these players into Derby’s team. You also don’t get the negative defending or the cynical diving that you get in the men’s game so the entertainment level has possibly been higher. Although I’m sure that will all come in time.

(Saturday 22^nd June)

Music Wi' Nowt Taken Out

I bike in today and arrive at work to be greeted by a rather shocking email saying that TFN (Total Fitness Nottingham) have closed down. Blimey, with triathlon being so popular now I didn’t expect TFN to close.

L does her prescribed 2k run BUT on the treadmill. Hmmm. She was told to run on the grass and she was even offered a run by Daughter. Oh how the tables have turned.

Tonight I'm at Rock City where the support band are the incredibly misspelt Restavrant and on the evidence of the last 30 seconds of their set I would have quite liked the sound of them, had I not arrived so damn late. 

Then in the gap between bands the entertainment and the intrigue is presented by Rock City’s forthcoming gigs board. Just who are Arse Full Of Chips and am I missing out on something?

Then it’s time for BMRC and I’m in my element. This is how I like my music. Simple. Guitar, bass and drums. Music wi' Nowt Taken Out and nothing added either. What else do you need? And for good measure Black Rebel play it loud.

They also play it dark and smoky, and its therefore pretty dire for photography. The band seemingly disappear completely several times and we can only take their word for it that Leah Shapiro was back there on the drums at all.

Tonight they test the water with a lot of new material from their forthcoming album ‘Wrong Creatures’ although this isn’t due out until January but half a dozen tracks are featured, and they are all met with due respect, including tonight’s opener the current single ‘Little Thing Gone Wild’.

Where as ‘Bandung Hum’ is new but less so (it was also played last year) but isn’t on the album or anywhere that I can see.

Naturally the old favourites go down the best. ‘Berlin’ is as gorgeous as ever but not less impressive are the really old oldies ‘Love Burns’, ‘Stop’, ‘Six Barrel Shotgun’, ‘Spread Your Love’ etc. If there is a criticism it is that, like a lot of bands, they don’t vary the oldies enough. There is a nice outing tonight for ‘U.S. Government’ which doesn’t always feature. 

‘Howl’ is heavily featured with four songs and one does wonder whether Peter Hayes can do anything other than ‘Devil's Waitin'’ on an acoustic. Go on Pete, confuse us next time.

Sadly this traditional mid-set acoustic break which also saw Robert Levon Been perform ‘Sympathetic Noose’ wasn’t treated with the respect it deserved. Too many boozed up folk, who clearly only came to ‘rock’, talked over the top of it which is a huge shame. These people were also most likely responsible for the frequent rainstorms of lager. Something you don’t, thankfully, see much of these days. 

After ending with ‘Whatever Happened...’ and Been inevitably down the front with the crowd, they returned for a brave encore playing ‘Ninth Configuration’ off the new album. A track that is sure to become another brooding BMRC classic.

Twenty three songs and two hours from probably the finest rock three piece around.

I had offered L the choice of meeting me for a post gig beer (or three) or putting her feet up at home with the bottle of Old Norway, that I’ve carefully shepherded home on my bike in my backpack, and MD’s football. The football may have swung it or it could have been that there is only one bottle of Old Norway but L is loitering on the street corner by the old fancy dress shop when I reach Canning Circus. We have a few drinks in the Organ Grinder.

(Friday 3^rd November)

Giving Up The Ghost

A text from L arrives 

'OMG, that was so good' 

Sex? Can't be, I'm not there. Nope, she’s been doing Parkrun tail runner duties at Forest Rec. She’s an odd one sometimes then she’s off to Pilates.

The boys are I are in the centre of Nottingham for the start of Stage 5 of the Women’s Tour. We have a great time. First we barked at ITV4 presenters Ned Boulting and Helen Wyman who were recording their TV intros. Although I think they had to do four takes due to crowd noise... Then we barked at Robin Hood, the police motorbikes, race leader Lizzie Armistead and many more. MD does love his cycling.

Then we head over to my Mum and Dad’s to see the race go through there and to wish my Dad Happy Father’s Day. I’m a little horrified to see that my Dad has let his garden revert to nature due to it being too much for him to look after. This won't be popular with my brother.

Talking of gardening, I head to B&Q and buy some new hedge cutters. Then I finish the hedge which I started cutting last week before the (not so) old cutters gave up the ghost.

Tonight we head to Cineworld to see a film which is most definitely of L’s choice. 

'Me Before You' is an adaptation of the book by Jojo Moyes and it is good to see Moyes also wrote the screenplay. This is so not my type of film and therefore I probably saw things very differently to how its target audience probably did. However, it has to be said that it turned out to be nowhere near as bad as I feared it would be. In fact I quite liked it.

Louisa Clark (Emilia Clarke) lives in a village where nothing ever happens and nothing ever happens to her but she is very happy with that level of dullness. She works in the local cafe which somehow enables her whole family to stay afloat financially, so when she loses that job she desperately has to find a new one pronto.

This is when she takes up the offer of a six month contract as nursemaid to a quadriplegic grown up rich kid Will Traynor (Sam Claflin) where she works alongside his personal nurse and therapist Nathan (Stephen Peacocke).

Prior to his life changing accident Will was once a rugged action man (you know skiing off cliffs into fiery pits, that sort of thing) as well as a successful executive who had everything to live for. Now he feels has everything to die for and has become bitter and reclusive, turning away his girlfriend (blonde naturally) who then leaves him for his best friend.

We don’t immediately find out the reason it’s only a six month contract but it’s soon revealed that he’s promised to give his parents that much longer of him before he’s off to Dignitas. His accident has ended the all action life style that defined him and he has no wish to live the rest of his life as someone he isn't. Therefore his parents had not really been looking for a nursemaid more a bit of crumpet who might give him something to live for and change his mind. Enter Louisa.

Unfortunately Louisa, a perpetually silly, perpetually happy girlie girl with an eclectic wardrobe and eyebrows that never sit still is the last thing Will thinks he needs and he’s probably right.

Still, she does her best to put up with him mainly because she needs the job. Eventually though they make a connection, not by Louisa piercing his hard shell but by him piercing hers by getting her to watch a subtitled film, something that was previously several million miles outside her comfort zone. 

Soon they are forming a close bond and she convinces his very rich parents to fund various trips she plans to make him think life is worth living after all. Putting aside the fact she picks things which are not in keeping with the all action life style he craves, either because they both know she can’t recreate it or in the misguided belief that something else might be as good, I’m not sure.

Many will call this a romance, it isn't, or perhaps all that malarkey just went right over my head because a pragmatic male like me can’t really see how she would fall for him in the first place and anyhow, when she did, he was having none of it. As he tells her near the end, if he could have done to her all that he wanted to then it might have been different but he can’t, so it isn’t. This upsets Louisa but she is off message from the start and doesn't realise that while she’s trying to teach him to enjoy life again what is really happening is he is teaching her to be more adventurous with her own life and when he is gone, he hopes his adventurous spirit will live on through her. They may have started out a world apart but both gradually realize that what one once possessed, the other now needs. 

 

A few other things don't add up particularly Louisa's fitness freak boyfriend Patrick (Matthew Lewis), who is portrayed as a bit of an idiot for wanting her support as a runner/triathlete and wanting to take her off to Norway with him for an event. It sounds like the famous Norseman to me, which sounds like exactly the sort of thing a fully mobile Will would have done and the immobile Will would have urged her to go and experience surely but, hey ho. I did end up feeling sorry for the poor guy.

I liked the film mainly because I could relate to Will and totally understood his stance on where he now was. He opted to die and I admired the film (and Jojo Moyes' book of course) for sticking to that and not engineering any miraculous recoveries or an uncharacteristic change of heart on Will’s part.

To quote the film (and Will) ‘You only get one life. It is actually your duty to live it as fully as possible’.

Trust me, it’s not as bad as you might think.

Afterwards we go to cry in our beer in the Room With a Brew although the Beyond Reasonable Stout is far too good to shed tears into. Then I chalk up another dark one up with a Guerrilla night cap in the Organ Grinder.

 

(Saturday 18^th June)

On A Saturday

This morning L utters words that have remained unuttered for some time. I think I might do a Parkrun. Yes, one of those things with an inhuman 9am start, on a Saturday.

I was going to have to be up early to exercise the dogs anyway, as Derby have an equally inhuman 12:15 kick off today, on a Saturday. Thanks Sky. So I might as will do the proverbial kill two birds with one stone and exercise two dogs with, well, two balls actually.

So I chauffeur L to a new parkrun in Beeston and lob a few balls as I watch. At one point Doggo threatens to join in the run, that is until his lumbago kicks in.

At the match, Derby hammer Wolves 5-0 and move back to the top of the table. Where they then stay as no one in the afternoon games pick up enough points to displace them. One pint for every goal as way of celebration I think tonight.

This is what I envisaged when I travelled to Wembley hoping (secretly) for play off defeat. Feels good now, well worth it.

We head into Nottingham later. The Borlase, the Falcon with no Tuck but another Porter instead, and then the Organ Grinder

(Saturday 8^th November)