Fast Men And Women

I continue my training by swimming today, then I'll bike Thursday and Friday.

Daughter is in Manchester again, this time going direct. While L is in Leamington visiting son. Kate Bush meanwhile goes nowhere, embarking on her first concert tour since 1979 playing 22 dates without leaving the confines of the Hammersmith Apollo. Somebody needs to show that girl a map. At least she p****d a lot of people off with the setlist.

I pick L up at Derby station and we head to John Carroll together, her for a class, me to mix it up with the fast men and women in lane one. If they make me swim this fast in the Half Ironman, I’ll either win it or have a heart attack.

(Wednesday 27^th August)

Bad Coffee Day

Today the University UK Tour continues. Today London or more correctly Westminster, the university is on Regents Street. We get the train down, which is a pleasant-ish if expensive experience and the coffee is awful.

The main University building turns out to be an impressive affair but that appears to be their main selling point as they don’t push the boat out much as regards anything else. No free lunch and no coffee, certainly no biscuits. We’ve had free coffee at every university visit so far and lunch at two out of three. So get your act together Westminster, think of the parents. There's also no accommodation tour, not even a talk, until we join the queue waiting to collar the accommodation man. I bet he wished he’d done a talk now. And there's no free coffee. Did I mention that?

The girl who gives us the campus tour can’t be bothered to show us the library, saying it would take half an hour. Funnily enough we have acres of time as the whole open day is over in less than an hour. Then we walk to the library by ourselves in less than five minutes.

We tour some of the other university sites on foot but Daughter wants to see the London Eye, so we head there as well. She seems less bothered about the historic sites of Big Ben, Trafalgar Square etc, just the man made wagon wheel. Although the ship in the bottle, HMS Victory no less, which now adorns the fourth plinth does cause her to get her camera out.


At least after all those crackpots standing atop the plinth, they now have something appropriate up there.



However, the most popular part of the day with our prospective university student was easily the tube. Each to their own. It was about the most packed as I’ve seen it. Not pleasant. We need alcohol. We find a pub, get a pint and an excellent meal, almost worth the whole trip in itself. Just need to survive the coffee on the train back now.

(Wednesday 23rd March)

Land Of The Farmers

Today is part one of our UK tour visiting Daughter’s prospective universities. Well, UK is perhaps a bit over the top, it’s mainly Yorkshire or as Daughter now, not quite accurately, puts it ‘the land of the farmers’. Apparently I didn’t tell her three out of the five were in Yorkshire and of course they don’t do Geography at school these days.

First up, Sheffield Hallam, where it’s snowing. Which is nice but doesn’t help disperse the image of us being in the back of beyond. The university seems ok, although it’s not the main city campus but the course appears interesting. Well it does to me but I’m not the one studying. The accommodation is wonderful, certainly not back of beyond stuff and not a tractor in sight. Just the Leadmill (next door!), the Academy, the Plug, dozens of bars, the city centre... L and I are sorely tempted to take one of those cosy rooms and send Daughter elsewhere.

We stay in tonight, another bloody race tomorrow and I watch day two of the cycling. The highlight obviously is Chris Hoy’s convincing victory in the Keirin but the 'entertainment' comes in the carnage that unfolds behind him as the other five riders all fall.

A race to the line involving the walking wounded ensued, mainly on foot not bike, in an attempt to gain valuable Olympic qualification points.

Malaysian rider Azizulhasni Awang is helped back onto his bike by his coach and carries on to win bronze. Neither he, not his coach, noticed that his calf had been impaled on a 20cm ‘splinter’ of wood from the track. Ugh.

After crossing the line he was stretchered away and was unable to receive his bronze medal on the podium. Apparently the medics left it in all night, ugh again, and removed it the next morning.



(Saturday 19th February)