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)

Opt In

I opt in to a wet bike ride, I daren’t miss another one but I do end up soaked. It wasn’t raining as I was getting ready but it started lobbing it down the moment I got out the door. Was fun though.

Mo Farah has entered the World Half Marathon Championships in Cardiff. Looks like we have competition but he’s probably just after the t-shirt.

L says this is her. 

Only you can't see if the lass is sat on a gym ball or not, trying to stay awake, as L is. I suggest that perhaps she should just give into it. Sleep at work, then she’ll be wide away for book reading and other stuff at home.

She does complain that she’s simply not cracking on with her books. What she needs is a good long winded dog show to start catching up. Oh look. I have two of those coming up in quick succession.

(Friday 22^nd January)

Opt Out

I opt out of a -3 bike ride this morning, yes it was a cold one. I head for the bus instead. L says she feels sorry for the boys with their cold paws. I think she is forgetting that MD’s paws are rarely on the floor long enough to get cold.

I manage to find the bus despite having blurred vision. Once on the bus I take my contact lenses out, swap them over and I can now see again. I must stop doing that.

Squash is cancelled again this week, my opponent’s back is still playing him up.

So with no cycling and no squash I have to make up for things with five minutes on the Watt Bike after work. I’m ready for him, if he’s there. I won’t let him beat me. 

(Thursday 21^st January)

Terms And Conditions

I get detained before I'm even out of bed this morning but the perpetrator is full of remorse afterwards for making me miss a training session. Well, a bike ride. To be fair, I was deliberating whether to cycle today or tomorrow anyway and sometimes it helps to have your mind made up for up. Some people are more persuasive than others

I think I have just bought some tickets for the World Track Cycling Championships in Paris. It's hard to tell exactly as my French isn't great and the tickets, if that’s what they are, come with eight pages of terms and conditions, if that’s what they are, all in French.

L asks if she can come as it’ll be so romantic, just the two of us and several hundred sweaty Lycra clad bodies. I have two tickets and I’m open to offers.

Squash. I win my game and lose 4-1.

(Thursday 4^th December)

Sort Of Works

Another bike ride today and then tennis. For which they won’t hire us a court unless we book the floodlights as well... health and safety....

Sadly we get thrown off at 8pm by the next people on but we try to complete our match on another court which doesn’t have lights. Instead we use the glow from the ones on the next court. It sort of works but not that well.

L runs to meet us and the boys, who are enjoying their weekly pub trip, at the Victoria. Last week’s tram works nightmare is not repeated and it doesn’t take us half an hour to travel the two miles this time.

(Thursday 11^th September)

Lost In Shipley Park

Today I do the Cycle 4 Life Bike Ride from Nottingham University, this is in aid of Children's Brain Tumour Research. There’s a reasonable entry and we are released in blocks of twenty from 9.30 onwards. The roads are very busy by then, clearly the garden centres are already open and it’s a bit of a trawl before we break out of the city boundaries.

The first excitement arrives when they take us through Shipley Park because either their signage is poor or someone has nicked all the signs. Everyone gets lost and there are huge groups of cyclists riding round in circles looking for the way out of the park.

Eventually we follow a group of people carrying their bikes up a bank and see a bit of yellow sign just visible through some bushes. Sorted.

After the feed station at Belper, where there are some nice snack biscuits, we’re onto quieter country roads and some fairly serious hills.

After missing one right turn and back tracking, the signage really isn’t great, I miss another one after the second feed station at Stanley where they have done us sandwiches for lunch. I’m in Kirk Hallam before I realise I’ve missed it and by now I’m on autopilot, on one of my regular routes home. So I keep going and rejoin the route further down in Wollaton Vale. That hacked about two miles off the route I reckon.

I complete the 50 miles in 3:13. L meets me with the dogs after doing a brick session. We both have a Brakspear beer from the Arts Centre. Nice and local, not.

Back home, Daughter does her bucket challenge having been nominated by L. Daughter as expected nominates me. Good luck with that one. 

(Sunday 31^st August)

Unfulfilled Promise

L still seems enamoured by Sunday’s bike ride and is even suggesting books about cyclists now.

Tonight at 5pm its England v Costa Rica in the World Cup. Some would say a bit of a meaningless fixture because it is and subsequent hardly anybody is bothering to watch it except me. It’s a 0-0 draw but not as bad as everyone says. I think England show promise but then I’m used to watching unfulfilled promise at Derby County.

(Tuesday 24^th June)