Seventeen Years Of ‘Hurt’

I bike to work. It was a touch warm and only likely to get warmer for my ride back.

Our Great Leader keeps shouting at everyone to go back to work but I’m not sure many people are listening. There's little evidence of it here on Pride Park and the traffic is wonderfully light. The thing is most of us have been wanting to work from home for years and generally haven’t been trusted to do so. Now finally we’ve got our wish and our companies seem quite happy about it. I have settled into a routine now of going in every Friday, weather permitting e.g. so that I can cycle.

L cricks her back doing yoga to add to the problem of her not-quite-fractured elbow. Yet she plans to take the dogs for a yomp around the park later which probably isn’t going to help much.

Nottingham’s 40^th Anniversary Robin Hood Half Marathon is cancelled.

Derby’s bad run continues on Saturday with defeat to already promoted Leeds which has ended seventeen years of ‘hurt’ for them since they were relegated from the Premier League back in 2003. I hope they don’t find it too painful being back up there. Although I might not mean that.

We spend Sunday night in a very chilled out Borlase, I do really like this table service idea.

(Sunday 19^th July)

The Obsolete Elizabeth Fry

L keeps asking if I would mind if she went to Thursday morning yoga and if I would take on dog duties if she did. The answer is always yes but this yoga happens at the unearthly time of 7.30am, so she’s hasn’t been yet. Her willpower is not great once she’s tucked up in bed. I would like to think it’s me she can’t be parted from but I fear it's the bed. So she heads off for her usual swim instead while I’m on the bike.

This week is the last week to spend your ‘old’ fivers and oddly, not having seen one for ages, I’ve had several this week as they have suddenly come out of the woodwork or out from down the back of sofas.

My colleague and I have lunch in the Brunswick where he pays for the drinks with a couple of almost obsolete Elizabeth Frys. Then I pay for the food and get one of them back in my change. FFS. The barmaid has a bit of a laugh at that and quotes the words ‘legal tender’. Yes for one more day.

At squash tonight I haul myself back from 2-0 down to level at 2-2 by which point my opponent is dead on his feet and the deciding game is played as slow as a test match in India. He grinds out the win and oddly, unlike last week, no one knocks on the door to stop him.

Afterwards we head to the Dispensary for drinks and L runs there, as she attempts to re-engage with her training.

We are embarking on the tennis season next week, apparently. Oh no, I hate playing tennis.

(Thursday 4^th May)

A Brief Gap In The Weather

It’s warmer today, so I take the chance to cycle. It may only be a brief gap in the weather as Thursday is looking icy again.

We go for a pub lunch and the landlord of the Brunswick tells us to expect a forty minute wait for food. We might have to look at Thursdays again as our lunch day because Wednesdays are becoming very busy.

Then the landlord changes his mind, queue jumps the food queue for us and we have it in ten minutes instead. Might still move to Thursdays though.

I bike home amid tumbling temperatures with the prospect of an icy dogging session to come. Yes we have a double header this week but no pub as no L.

L has her own plans, which don’t go that well. Her yoga class is cancelled which isn’t very conducive to everyone’s New Year’s resolutions. She has to power it at the gym instead.

MD comes back from dogging with quite a limp. So bad that he can only just get on to our bed. I offer to foam roll it for him but he doesn’t look keen. 

(Wednesday 4^th January)

B-Day?

Day 25

L contemplates yoga this morning but in the end decides that chucking balls on the park with MD is the better workout. She’s probably right. I mean yoga? Not that I’ve ever done it.

Typically of our awkward dog, on what is theoretically his last day in the front bedroom, he trotted merrily off into the room and sat in the wardrobe. Clearly he is worried I will reclaim that wardrobe.

Rather bizarrely when I turn up at work today it is to find that the cleaner, presumably a new one, has washed up everyone’s mugs and then put them back at their desks. That’s twenty or so mugs back at their owner’s desks exactly where they left them last night but clean. It's almost Twilight Zone. 

It must also have been an amazing feat of memory to recall which mug went where or did they do each one individually or perhaps they photographed the location of each one first? Fascinating.

I text the builder with a list of bathroom related issues. He doesn’t reply. However I am prepared for this and have come in the car today. So I go over at lunchtime to see if there’s any life.

He was actually there and fitting a plastic strip around the toilet. He agreed with me about the unfinished bits but I really can’t see them being sorted today particularly as he says he’s going to try to unblock our drains with his pressure hose this afternoon.

Naturally I have ball session with the dogs while I’m there. MD was out of the bedroom and into the garden as soon as I opened the door, long before Doggo even realised I was there.

The bathroom shop calls again. Is it finished? No.

Then just as I’ve put the phone down to them, our builder calls. Is it finished? Yes. 

Really?

I rush home and apparently he is right. It is finally finished, one day short of the fourth week. The pyramids were constructed in about the same time frame I believe but you probably can't get a hot shower in them. Sadly though he hasn’t managed to clear the drains which means we can't get a hot shower in ours either, yet. He says he'll pop back later to show me where they are blocked.

Squash is cancelled. Half the lights were out on the court last week and apparently they have now failed completely so they have cancelled our booking for tonight. Also the one remaining court is already booked up for next week, so we’ll be having at least two weeks off.

This disrupts L’s plans to run there and meet us in the pub. So I selflessly offer to go and sit in the pub anyway because obviously a run is not really a run without a pub at the end of it. Rather than the Navigation and I go to wait in the Dispensary where they have beer number 102 Castle Rock’s Most Haunted.

(Thursday 3^rd November)

Tippy Tappy

I'm on the bike today while L is at Pilates and bemoaning the ‘old codgers’ who were doing Yoga followed by Pilates before changing leisure centres and doing Aquarobics followed by Pump. She wants to be as fit a pensioner. Yes but are they all doing the Thunder Run this weekend? No? I thought not. They’re probably not that daft.

Back to the Fuddle preparations, the veggie pasta sauce is now ready and the meat sauce is on its way while volleyball is organised for tomorrow afternoon. Somehow, by actually focussing on the run bit, I feel we’re not quite getting in to the spirit of this. L has bought some wet wipes though, if that counts.

Later it’s tennis. Not my favourite sport but I do like to indulge my regular squash partner in his quest for some summer fresh air and a bit of tippy tappy over a net. The Tennis Centre is actually open, which is a rarity during the tennis season as it’s usually being used for competitions.

Afterwards we go to the Victoria where the Titanic Plum Porter is rather nice but I get the last pint in the barrel and everyone spends all evening looking at me disapprovingly while trying not to drool.

(Thursday 21^st July)

Government Guidelines

It’s already becoming a big year for deaths. Today Alan Rickman, another one gone.

Derby’s cup game with Manchester United has been moved to the Friday evening for screening on the BBC which means I still can’t make it as we’re setting up for our dog show then. It does get me out of paying the outrageous price of £35 a ticket and that’s with a Season Ticket holder’s discount. If that’s a taste of the Premier League then I’m on a diet.

Additionally the home league game that was on that Saturday has now been shifted to the following Tuesday, which I also can’t go to as I have tickets to see Bloc Party.

I’m on the bike again today while L does a double header of Pump and Yoga. She’ll sleep well again after that lot and she already seems to be regretting stating that she intended to be conform to the new government guidelines tonight but , of course, she’s allowed to change her mind.

Squash is off due to my opponent’s ongoing back problems, so I might as well make up my own entertainment. A Friday night Thai with extra chillies and wine for those willing to flaunt the guidelines.

(Thursday 14^th January)