New Year Round Up

I’m also at work on the Thursday and in the evening we have the annual squash club meal, which is again held at Chakh Le India on Trent Bridge. For some reason the menu doesn’t seem adventurous as it did last year. Well, I assume they’ve changed it. The food is again good but because of the unexciting menu, not spectacular.

Then on Friday we head up to the Lakes. We have a cottage booked in Staveley, somewhere we’ve always wanted to stay, on a late deal. Finding it is the first problem. It’s dark, the directions aren’t great and there’s an inch of snow on the ground. After trying to break in to several properties we finally find the right one.

We have a great first night in the Hawkshead Brewery, where we’ve never been able to manage a session before due to having to drive, with the dogs at our feet. Things start to go a bit wrong on the Saturday. First we head up to Keswick parkrun which goes ok until I badly twist my ankle on a rock and have to hobble over half the distance much to MD’s frustration. He was running with me.

Then Doggo has a funny turn and passes out on the pavement outside the cottage, I have to carry him inside thinking that this is surely the end. Then to add to our woes MD starts vomiting everywhere.

Doggo then seems to quickly recover but we don’t know whether this is just temporary and this, along with MD’s illness, somewhat ruins our Saturday night out.

We had booked a table at the Eagle & Child, which is always hard to get into and they also have Snecklifter on the bar but we are so worried about both dogs that we end up driving the very short distance there so that we can have the unwell pair close to us in the car.

The stress destroys my appetite but enhances L’s. Must be a girl thing. To be honest we also realise that the menu isn’t that great at Eagle & Child anyway, not sure we’ll be back. It does mean there are some leftovers to tempt the dogs to eat and that does work.

Sunday is New Year’s Eve and both dogs have recovered a bit more. We take them on the park in Kendal and go buy L a new walking jacket from Ambleside. I even manage to eat a full meal when we have Sunday lunch in the Watermill at Ings, then we go back to the Hawkshead Brewery for the evening.

It’s £3 to get in which is reasonable, this I assume pays for the disco which we escape from by going upstairs. We have been brave enough to leave the dogs back at the cottage, in the car parked outside, although this is still only a short stroll away.

It’s still a slightly subdued evening and we don’t stay until midnight but I’m not sure we would have done anyway. As is tradition we spend it with Jools Holland on the TV and with the dogs.

Monday we head back down the M6 as I want to be back for the New Year’s Day match but first we stop off near Wigan so that L can do a parkrun and which has a convenient 10:30 start. Sadly after my mishap in Keswick I’m unable to join her.

(Monday 1^st January)

At What Age Does That Happen?

It’s a lively bike ride this morning. A bit windy and a bit wet but still very good.

It was just mulling to L the other day that apparently the average ratio of job interviews to actually job offers is 12:1. Then Daughter rings to say she's got the job she went for in Nottingham yesterday which I think was interview number 12. So there you go, some statistics might actually be right.

I don’t know if she took my advice in not dissing students as that’s rather key component of the job because they offer essays to students which isn’t cheating, obviously. I also told her to say how much she loves Centre Parcs even though she probably doesn’t as they have a get together there every summer. Either way, clearly something clicked.

L says she’ll now be able to straighten her finances out. Really? At what age does that happen? I’m still waiting.

L has her second session out of three at physio. She has already been banned from running and is only allowed to do gentle stuff. Although she protests that everything she does is gentle especially the running.

Instead she keeps her mileage up by taking MD on a long hike. Even though there is no squash we go anyway and I meet up with them at the end of her hike for a few pints in the Dispensary on Trent Bridge which is right next to the squash courts.

(Thursday 2^nd February)

The Living Dead

Well that’s it, the Christmas break is over and we’re both back at work today. Connor meanwhile has wreaked a bit of havoc and iced everywhere over, so I don’t manage to get on the bike but with most people still off work I get to work by car in super quick time in about 15 minutes. Taking the bus would have been nice but they’re running a Saturday service which is hopeless for commuting.

Blimey Connor, it's a bit nippy in my office. Even I’ve got the heating on.

There’s not a lot of ‘real’ work to be done and what bits there are still allows enough time to complete my Tax Return. I also fill in L’s gargantuan pension transfer form. Is there any reason for this to be a huge booklet rather than a one page form?

At lunch time I go out for a few bits of shopping which is slightly traumatic as Sainsbury’s is akin to a scene from the Living Dead with folk wandering round like zombies not knowing what to do with themselves now Christmas is over.

No cycling of course means penance at the gym and a 15k Watt Bike session after work. L does her gym at the Tennis Centre as most of Nottingham’s centres are closing at 4pm all week. I pick her up from there on my way home.

This evening we have the delayed Squash Club Annual Meal. We try out a brand new Indian restaurant on Trent Bridge called Chakh Le India. We park on the Embankment and walk across. The management seem very keen to make an impression and even offer us free drinks. It’s a decent meal and even my squash colleague finds very little to complain about.

(Wednesday 28^th December)

Tearful Goodbyes

D-Day arrives but first the Notts 5. I can see the anguish on L’s face as she wrestles with the fact that her injury has flared up again and she’s going to have to give this one a miss.

In a rare show of family unity and on her last day in Nottingham for a while, Daughter comes along to support. Which is really nice, I’m not actually sure she’s been to support me before.

The Notts 5 is usually run on a midweek evening in July but this year it was cancelled because the usual course could not be used due to the flood defence works on the Embankment. Yet to keep the race alive they belatedly and hurriedly arranged this Sunday morning version on a new course which starts just shy of the Embankment at The Ferry Inn in Wilford.

The route heads over Wilford Toll Bridge then turns right along the Embankment before crossing the suspension bridge and heading back along the other side of the river path past The Emmanuel School back to the start. Well that’s the route you should do, if you’re the chap ahead of me you carry straight on under the suspension bridge heading for Trent Bridge. Somebody clearly hasn’t listened to the briefing. Although to the fair (well fairer) there should have been a marshal there. All the marshals seemed to be in the wrong places.

I shout him back. I didn’t have to do that but I’m a nice person generally. It still enables me to overtake him, which is more a curse than a blessing as I now have him wheezing along just behind me which is immensely irritating. Eventually he wheezes past me and wheezes a breathless ‘thank you’ in my ear. You’re welcome.

So that’s lap one. Then we do it all again, only this time we do head up onto Trent Bridge rather than crossing over at suspension bridge. I’ve no idea whether Mr Wheezer gets it right this time or not because I’m back ahead of him by now and pulling away from his wheezing but I assume he simply followed me.

This all means that lap two is slightly longer than the first but course wise that is basically that. Hardly an exciting route, mainly flat and straight bar a couple of sharp turns on and off the bridges but not too horrible either. Unless you have a blister on the bottom of your foot of course, which I have. Something I acquired yesterday but it’s amazing how easily you forget about these things once the red mist of competition comes down or you have someone wheezing loudly behind you.

Talking of which, as we approach the finish he is catching me again but I hold on.

I had my mind set on a sub-33 which meant 6:30 miles but my legs were set on a different agenda. Perhaps one influenced by a couple of drinks last night and a Chinese. So although the first two miles are on target, the last three aren’t, but 33:53 isn’t bad.

Only 59 runners is a fairly poor turnout for the race, although it was short notice and there are a lot of races on this weekend. The t-shirt was disappointing too, the same as when I last did this race four years ago.

Then it’s time to load up the car with all of Daughter's worldly possessions (although leaving far too much junk behind for my liking) and Daughter, to head north, as she flees the nest. It’s nice sunshine in Nottingham as we leave but it starts raining as we cross the Yorkshire border. It’s grim up north as they say.

When we find her accommodation, Daughter doesn’t seem overly impressed. I think she was expecting something nicer. A bit like the Ritz and in a posh area. We think it’s actually very nice, very studenty, in a very studenty area. Very appropriate.

I setup her computer, well our computer, as hers expired last week or rather I would if I had the power cable and didn’t have a PS2 mouse and no PS2 sockets. Hmmm. Problem. We off head into Sheffield city centre and find a Tandy to buy replacements. An annoying extra expense but still cheaper and quicker than fetching the bits from Nottingham.

Then just as I’m trying to sort the internet out we get evicted, thrown out, Daughter is off down the off licence with her new flatmates. The very same flatmates she swore she’d have nothing in common with. Alcohol, as ever, is a great common ground. So little chance for a tearful goodbye then or to cartwheel down the street.

(Sunday 18th September)