A Skilled Job

L attends a tennis taster session at the Tennis Centre and likes it, so she signs up to regular Thursday evening sessions. She’s really taken to her tennis. Who’d have thought? She has also taken to emojis on her new phone. Who’d have thought?

There is no dog training this week, not for the almost retired MD nor his young protégé, as I have a committee meeting on Monday and Derby have a home match against Blackburn on Tuesday. Both are largely uneventful and the latter a 0-0 draw.

On Wednesday I manage to cycle and then, while L heads off to visit her folks, I spend the evening emptying out the back room ready for the plasterer who is coming next week. This is quite a skilled job. No, not the plastering, the emptying. You try moving wardrobes while chucking balls for two dogs without managing to squash one of them in the process.

To be fair to the Lad, he tries to helpful and brings in the washing off the line even though it isn’t raining. L says he did that in the morning as well but probably more as a distraction so that he could ransack her bag and pinch her apple. 

I get in early to book our accommodation for next year’s Great North Run. Sleeperz have put their prices up so I have dumped them and booked with Motel One. Which was just down from the Please To Meet You pub where we ate.

Thursday is tennis in the greenhouse again and on Friday we repeat the 6am dog run. Although we were either a bit slower running or slower getting out of bed as I missed my bus but, as it's blowing a gale, cycling wouldn’t have been much fun.

On Friday evening we celebrate my Dad's 90^th Birthday at the Golden Dragon in Shardlow. Then on Saturday we do Forest Rec parkrun and  afterwards L does her 1-to-1 tennis training.

(Saturday 22^nd September)

All Hail The FA Cup

So the FA Cup is dead is it? Not in our office, we’ve been discussing it all this morning. Football is generally so boring these days and the FA Cup is a breath of free air.

The best two weekends of this season have been the 3rd and 4th rounds of the cup and I have been enthralled throughout both. Mostly I couldn’t care less what happens in the Premier League, a lot of the time I don’t even look for other results in our own division.

My friend who supports Leeds is incandescent this morning because their manager is an idiot, puts out the youth team and therefore loses to non-league Sutton United.

It is odd that managers seem to want to lose and I’ve really no idea why. Of course they make up excuses but no one believes them. Liverpool are now out, beaten by Wolves, but could have won the FA Cup. They are seriously dreaming if they think they can win the Premier League.

The supporters clearly don’t want to lose. Wolves took 8000 supporters to the game at Liverpool. They even put the commentary of Lincoln’s win over Brighton on at the dog show I was at on Saturday as there were a lot of Lincoln supporters there and of course us neutrals were interested too.

Talking of the club, I have a committee meeting tonight which is the first with our new committee. It goes well, lots gets done but it does go on rather too long. It is also the first one back at our old home of the Navigation in Shardlow, we just need to make sure we avoid the first Monday of each month which is open mic night and the second Monday of each month which is quiz night.

 (Monday 30^th January)

The Blot On The Landscape

Hell may be about to freeze over, again. Yes, the Blot on the Landscape is here.

I drag L kicking and screaming down to Pride Park from where the second running of the re-launched Derby Ramathon will take place. Last year the start and finish were held at Elvaston Castle when the race returned after an 18 year gap. This year it moves closer to the city by starting and finishing in the shadow of Derby County’s stadium. Sadly not inside it due to ongoing closed season pitch renovations. It’s too hot for the dogs, so they are left at home.

The route is similar to last year's, in that it again takes in Shardlow, Ambaston, Elvaston and the Castle grounds but there’s a bit more purpose to route this year, less jiggery pokery to get the distance in.

After escorting L to her start pen and making sure she is wedged in enough to avoid escape, I head to my own pent where I promptly bump into a fellow dog club member. It’s not often you see a dog club person running for more than the 40 seconds it takes to get around an agility course so here we have a clear exception. It’s also clear, we have a race on.

I start and almost immediately see my parents supporting. They don’t see me, so I do a wildly unpopular about turn and swim against the tide of 2,700 runners to get back to greet them. Then having wasted valuable seconds, I’m back on it.

The aim is steady eight minute miles all the way round and therefore a finish time of around 1:45. It probably won’t happen but it’ll be fun failing.

It’s a very flat course straight down the A6 (or whatever it’s called now it’s been bypassed) from Wilmorton to Shardlow, so pace management goes well. It helps that there are plenty of supporters out on the course cheering us along and there are plentiful supplies of iPro to swig on. Scrub that last bit, iPro may contain more natural ingredients that your standard sports drinks but it really does taste disgusting.

It all goes swimmingly well and on pace until at the seven mile point when my knee seems go. This is it, game over, time to walk home. Unlike at last week's Outlaw Half there's been no soft grass to run on and the pounding on the tarmac has taken its toll.

However after hopping on one leg for a quarter of a mile or so, the knee seems to go beyond pain and I continue... and continue. All the way through Elvaston Castle and back along the surprisingly well supported river path to the finish.

I finish in 1:46, a missed target for sure but one I’ll put down as just outside the wire of the bullseye rather than one that sailed wide and landed in the next field. Job done and a better t-shirt than last year.

Then I sit down and settle in to wait for L, target time 4 hours. I didn’t believe her and she didn’t believe herself either. She comes in, in over 90 minutes under that. Bravo but she still isn’t happy.

We briefly meet up with my Mum and Dad at their place afterwards before heading home to placate the dogs enough so that we can leave them again later to go to the Hand and Heart for Sunday lunch. Then the Blue Monkey for a Chocolate Gorilla or two and finally a Tuck in the Borlase.

(Sunday 7^th June)