Yorkshire Yorkshire

This morning I drop the car into Halfords to get a new tyre, I thought this was best before heading up to Sheffield for a gig tonight.

The gig means I miss Derby’s rearranged game with Cardiff, which obviously they were always going to pick a date I couldn’t make, and my brother goes instead. Bizarrely Derby win. They thought it was all but it isn’t now. In many ways it would have been nice to have put ourselves out of our misery tonight but now we haven’t. 

Frank Turner has probably introduced me to more new bands than anyone else through his support slots and tonight he does it again. Arkells Touring Band from Hamilton, Canada. A band with big riffs and catchy choruses, the perfect warm up act. They remind me a little of the Hold Steady although I’m not too sure why. Their boundless energy and enthusiasm perhaps and the way they get the crowd going. They goad the Sheffield crowd to be better than Belfast and are totally bemused when everyone starts tribally screaming 'Yorkshire Yorkshire' back at them. After a long pause he says I’ll take that as a compliment. Yes please do.

It's show number 2158 for Frank and he kicks off with new tune ‘1933’. It's a bit of a political moment for him, comparing our modern world of Trump and Brexit with the political landscape of 1933, the year the Nazis took power in Germany.

It is taken from his forthcoming seventh album ‘Be More Kind’, an album he says urges people to be more kind to each other. Something that isn't really a problem inside Frank Turner World where his live shows really are as friendly as they come. More of a shared community experience for like minded souls.

The live show itself is again top draw with Frank and the Sleeping Souls consistently brilliant music wise and with their usual full on engagement with the crowd.

Aside from the opener, four other tracks are played from his new album and all appear to be future classics in the making.

However, if I may be a little controversial, I do now get the feeling that Frank's gigs are well into a formula and the base set doesn't vary very much which is a shame.

Of the four 'oldies' that appear tonight that didn't last time I saw him at gig 2000 only one is a 'wow' moment. A very rare outing for the excellent 'The Fisher King Blues ' from 'Tape Deck Heart'.

Yes, the playing of 'Love Ire And Song' in the encore is also incredibly welcome but there is so much of his back catalogue that simply never appears any more, not even occasionally. While I'm not a huge fan of the mass stomp around tracks he now tends to favour such as 'Out of Breath' and 'Four Simple Words' ahead of some of the more nuanced numbers that are really his forte.

Still though, can't grumble too much, it was still a terrific night.

(Tuesday 24^th April)

Puppy Shopping

We did have plans to run on Sunday but in the end we don’t, having both overdone it a bit yesterday.

Doggo is struggling with one of his legs and he doesn’t make it to the paper shop with me this morning. Which is a slightly distressing first. I have to take him back home and go back without him. He continues to struggle throughout the day and we both cancel our evening gym\velodrome plans to stay with him. Daughter comes over to stay with us, fearing the worst.

Then Doggo improves slightly overnight, manages his normal morning walk and his now usual breakfast of sausage and boiled egg. We all go to work as normal but L comes home at lunchtime to find that the old man is doing ok.

On Tuesday it snows, a little, and so I get the bus into work. Typically there is no snow at all in Derby when I get there. Naturally we’re all still very worried about Doggo although he does seem a bit perkier and he enjoys his snow eating on his morning walk but L again goes home after lunch.

MD needs training, for both his growing waist line and the fact we have Crufts in a month. So L stays at home with Doggo, who misses out on possibly his first ever night of dog training but it’s really too cold for him. He is waiting by the front door for us when we get home after having feasted on his Fray Bentos steak pie.

On Wednesday it's omelette for breakfast, for Doggo . I ask whether it was cheese and mushroom or cheese and ham? Neither apparently because he’s a dog. Who’d have known.

L again goes home in the afternoon, taking her work with her. All is well but the new mop is getting plenty of use and the problem with working from home in February is you have to do so in your coat as MD always wants the back door open, no matter what the weather.

I make an enquired about a puppy but it’s gone, there will be others I’m sure.In the evening I'm out with my friend from school.

By Thursday L is compiling a shopping list for the new addition, that we haven’t got yet. Then I get a message from a chap in Sheffield who has a eight week Tri-Colour Border Collie which we arrange to go see on Friday evening.

Back home, Doggo turns down the dog pate we bought him when he sees the word 'dog' on the label and probably the fact it was Lidl's own brand didn't help as he always has been a bit of a snob. Instead I serve him corned beef for tea so that he doesn’t just fill up on crisps in the pub after squash. L skips squash as she is out in Derby instead.

On Friday we head up to Sheffield to meet our potential new puppy although nobody is under any illusions. I’m assuming he'll be coming home with us no matter what given the amount of stuff that has already been bought in his honour. L’s even bought the tonic for the very large G and T she has a feeling she'll be needing later.

Daughter is full of cold but still insists on coming with us. I hope she’s not going to infect the puppy, if that is even possible which I’m sure it isn’t.

As expected the little Yorkshire lad with no tail, well a bob tail, comes home with us.

(Friday 9^th February)

Blinding

As MD is in such blinding form at the moment I have booked a show today in far off Richmond. That’s the Yorkshire Richmond. Well, he’s blinding when it goes right less so when it doesn’t. We have six runs today so hopefully one of them might be blinding.

First though, of course, a parkrun. I drop L at the nearest which is in Northallerton, it’s about a ten mile detour but I have a girl on a mission. It means an early start but leaving home at 5.45am is adequate.

MD goes clear in his first agility run and comes 5^th, so not a bad start. His second run was even better until... he leapt off the dog walk as if it was on fire, thereby missing the vital contact point. L asks if the judge spotted it. I think so, as it was probably visible from Mars. Then I hauled him back to do it properly which got us eliminated. Sadly it was our sort of course and a top placing was clearly possible.

After her run, L gets the bus to Richmond itself and then attempts to run to us at the Equestrian Centre. She gets lost, so we drive off to pick her up and get lost as well. What a pair... Eventually we find each other.

In MD’s other runs, minor errors cost us in three of them but on the fourth we get beautiful clear round on a difficult course. We win this by half a second. Hurrah. Win number one of three required to go up to Grade 6. The Champ and I will be on cordial terms this evening.

We head home for a night in. Leicester Half tomorrow.

(Saturday 24^th October)

Smothered In Dog Oil

It’s the morning of  the Nottingham ‘Piddly Little’ Tri and we’re at Parkrun. Obsessive? Well, L's not actually getting a crafty Parkrun in first, she scanning bar codes for them. Her event doesn't start until a leisurely 12.30.

Unlike the rather wet outlook for my race tomorrow, today is glorious sunshine for hers. We arrive and I head off for my briefing at 11am whilst she gets herself ready for her actual event. Their briefing will be on the start line.

L is probably still proclaiming that she can’t see further than next weekend’s Hellathon as awaits the start covered in her race tattoos. They’re very fetching, she can keep those on for later.

The event is also known as the Sprint Distance which is a 750m swim, 20k bike and a 5k run. It’s also a qualifier for ITU Sprint Distance World Championships and ETU Sprint Distance European Championships. Gulp.

The dogs and I put on our 'we are supporting...' stickers and settle in to watch.

My girl has a solid swim and a great run. It’s on the run that she’s rapidly reeling people in and even the commentator comments on that. We just need to work a tad on the bike leg... but that's not going to be an easy subject to broach to a cycle-phobic.

I grab a pre-event massage and a young girlie lathers me up with dog oil. 

Slightly appalled at what she smothering me in I double check that it is not (a) a product designed for using on dogs nor (b) a product made from dogs. She assures me it’s neither and it’s from Yorkshire, which explains everything. Then she digs her thumb in my calf to shut me up.

Actually she’s very gentle, which may or may not be what I need but it’s not what I’m used to with Dancing Boy, my usual torturer. When she’s finished with my calves she also asks if there’s anything else I’d like massaging as we have five minutes. All this customer service for a tenner but I decline her kind offer. I mean what’s five minutes.

I am sharing the massage tent with a chap with a very swollen ankle who is getting it professionally taped up. Apparently he injured himself at one of those dangerous parkrun things but he’s hopeful of completing the swim and the bike, then ‘seeing how it goes’ on the run. Badly I would guess.

L then leads me astray and takes me for two very welcome and calming pints in Stapleford before pasta back home.

(Saturday 30^th May)

The Daughter Effect

After yesterday's run L is suddenly keen on her running again. Is this the Manchester effect? The 10k effect? Nope, it's the Daughter effect. Running with Daughter seems to have enthused her. Weird or what?

Meanwhile I keep getting countdown emails from the Nottingham Half people about their new course which will be launched soon. Two days to go now apparently, then we can all see whether it’s worth entering or not.

I take my best bike in for repair. The one that the Yorkshire hills trashed. Not only have I snapped the chain but the chain has defaced all the fancy gears bits. It’ll be a week apparently, they need to get some parts.

Dog class tonight and MD is again on good form.

(Monday 11^th May)