Oink. Oink. Flap. Flap.

Day 11

I’m on the bike again. L gives up waiting for our slacker of a builder and leaves the key in a pre-arranged hiding place for him.

Doggo is now going straight into the front bedroom each morning without being prompted. There is after all plenty to chew on in there. I can see we’re going to have to leave the wardrobe as it is, he clearly likes it in there as well.

The plumber quips that the shop always tells their customers its only 4-5 days work for a new bathroom but it never is. Hmmm. He could have done the job in a week, easily, and if we were paying him directly, he would have done.

Certainly no one mentioned that eleven days in we’d have nothing new fitted and just the one wall tiled. Yes, just the one and that isn’t even finished. He concedes that he will need a full day on Monday to put in the new toilet and sink but will work until 6 or 7pm on Monday if need be. Oink. Oink. Flap. Flap.

At lunchtime I go for a shower at the velodrome because obviously we don’t have one.

It's squash tonight and then a beer at the Navigation.

(Thursday 20^th October)

And Then There Were Two

And then there were two, only two teams left who can still win it.

I’m taking about our Fantasy Football league of course. I actually topped the league when our regular season finished a fortnight ago and the top four went into play offs. Now I’ve won my semi-final and I’m one step away from winning the double. No problem.

I'll have to keep my eye on the scores because I’m at a dog show today over in Birmingham. Where I arrive late and don’t get chance to walk two of MD’s three courses. Doggo has to watch today because there’s nothing here for veterans.

Bizarrely by 10:45 we’re all done and dusted. All three runs done and all pretty much rubbish. I suppose I might eat my lunch before I leave for home. I text L to tell her, who says she’s still in bed. Slacker. I’m jealous.

In the end, I stay a bit longer. My father has come with me and he's enjoying the day out even if it’s not gone terribly well for us. He’s also videoed everything, unfortunately. Why does he not come when we do well?

Actually, once I view them, perhaps we didn’t do too badly after all. Just not well enough. Next week’s another week.

Our first run was alright. A bit of hesitation on the tunnel but then we had a pole down as I attempted to get MD to do a tight turn despite not being in the right position. The second run would have been alright as well, if my dog didn’t have some sort of tunnel phobia and there were five of them on this course. In fact neither of the two dogs have ever been keen on tunnels, so it must be me. Most people’s dogs are tunnel mad and they can’t kept them out of the things, which presents its own set of problems. The good bits on those courses were actually rather good indeed.

Yes, the third run wasn’t great. For a start MD started before I was ready, then in a attempt to redeem himself he ducked under the tunnel, which just got us faults. So we had words. It didn’t get much better after that.

We depart, I drop my father off, then grab a lump of beef on the way home, so that L and I can have a late Sunday roast.

As for that double? It's mine. We uncork, sorry I mean unscrew, the Blue Nun in celebration. We're in a bit of a retro-wine phase. It'll pass.

(Sunday 13th May)