Think Of A Number

Back at work today rather than strolling along some soggy valley or other, dogs ambling at our feet. L can't wait to be a pensioner but from what I could see they seem to spend more time partaking of coffee shops than ambling. Just like us I suppose, perhaps we'll make good OAPs.

That said L did agree, over the weekend, to walk the Coast to Coast with me. All we need is a decent off-road wheelbarrow to transport Doggo in.

It’s think of a number time as another one has fallen off the book pile. If this rate of attrition can be continued we’ll have a free spare room in no time at all. I go for number 19 which apparently turns out to be about King Alfred the Great. L seems thrilled with that. I just hope she isn’t rigging the list but then as she says they are all, in theory anyway, books she’s bought that she wants to read.

Back at dog training tonight followed by a pint of Wainwrights in the Masons which I missed out on in the Lakes at the weekend. Deliberately of course.

(Tuesday 17^th January)

Short Skirt Weather

We are off for a short break in the Lakes this evening. L has the whole day off and uses the time to get a haircut, which is always a sad occasion, before finishing packing the car which I had started earlier.

Then after checking whether I have any last requests on the packing front, I do but apparently it’s not short skirt weather, she heads off to pick me up from work. She may not have packed for the eventuality of  short skirt weather but I think she’s covered every other possible eventuality as the car is practically listing to one side. I joke, of course. It's just the book pile.

We are staying in a cottage in Chapel Stile for the first time in quite a while. Yes, we not camping.Quite a few people are struggling to get their heads round this such is our reputation.

We get there in enough time to have a few beers in the Wainwrights Inn and I finally get to add Jennings' Sneck Lifter to my list.

(Friday 13^th January)

Number 71

L’s unread book pile is now ‘down’ to 127 and I get the honour of picking the next one to be read. They have all been catalogued and numbered (very OCD). I go number 71. Which is apparently chic lit but then a lot of them probably are. 

Then I hear there is secret undocumented number 128, ‘British Politics’, which has been removed from the list in case it got selected. Russian hackers are rumoured to be behind it.

I go to the gym and put in 15k on the Watt Bike. Then its home to not chuck balls, that is unless they are very gentle ball rolls, as MD is injured. MD of course disagrees with this and to be fair his hobble does seem to be rapidly decreasing, so hopefully he will be fit for Saturday.

(Thursday 5^th January)

Secret Book Sender

Doggo has been eating his breakfast recently but then spitting out his Bonio biscuit. Which is great news for MD who tends to mop up. Perhaps Doggo does have a painful mouth but we can’t really soften his Bonio with water. If this persists he might have to go onto porridge.

L’s boss gives her a whooping great voucher for Christmas. Oh yes. For Waterstones. Oh no. The book pile never endeth. Does he know how much trouble that will get her in to? We already have random books arriving through the post that L claims to have no knowledge of.

Tonight is our company's night out at the Roundhouse in Derby for the fifth time in six years. Yawn. Beforehand four of us go down the pub with £30 from petty cash. That won't go far.

The Roundhouse event isn’t great in my opinion but then it’s never really been my thing. The meal has been exactly the same every year and that’s chicken not turkey, in fact there’s nothing festive about it all. Not even Christmas Pud for dessert. Everything else seems to get cheaper every year except presumably the ticket price. It’s also so loud ion there that you can’t talk to anybody which makes the post-works drinks the best party of the night because you can at least socialise properly.

L picks me up just after eleven by which time I have finished digging the escape tunnel. Over half the guests seem to have already gone by then anyway. 

(Friday 16^th December)

I Don’t Know How That Happened

I’m at an indoor dog show today and the morning goes pretty much as you’d expect e.g. MD gets eliminated and Doggo nonchalantly clocks a perfect clear. So everything normal.

Meanwhile L is at home sorting out her life aka her books. She reports that she has 120 unread books with one box still to go through and 44 on her Kindle. I don’t know how that happened she says. I do. The firing squad is booked for later. No blindfold.

Things get better slowly during the afternoon at the dog show. MD improves to a five faults and then we pull off a really really ugly clear round, which lands us a rosette for 7^th. Then he does the most amazing run in the Jumping Cup Qualifier, clear and pretty fast. I don’t know how that happened.

With Doggo slotting in another fab clear we’re all done by 3pm but now we’re hanging on for the results of the Jumping Cup. It was the Jumping Cup we qualified for last year and came 6^th in the final.

Clearly that particular event must agree with him because when all the dogs have run MD is top of the pile and we’ve won by half a second. I still don’t know how that happened. I guess we’ll be on speaking terms tonight, for once.

Unfortunately this still doesn’t promote us. He needs three jumping wins and that’s his second, two and half years after the first one.

Then it continues raining rosettes as Doggo gets one for 5^th in the Old Gits Agility. We head home, that is once I’ve managed to get MD’s head into the car.

Back home it’s time for Daughter to head back to Sheffield. I can’t believe she’s been home a week. All four of us accompany her to the station. Then we stay in, we’ve given the pubs enough trade this Christmas already.

(Saturday 28^th December)

Two Birds One Night

On the bike today in the fog. Although it wasn’t actually that bad and seemed worse around Nottingham, well I didn’t really notice any after that, perhaps I was too fast for it.

After all the ’12 of’ challenges L's first challenge of 2014 will be... ta da. She’s giving up chic lit for a year... is that all you cry! Actually no, she’s going to read her way around the world. Starting, I think, with Poland. Don’t they have chic lit in Poland? I bet they do.

I stupidly ask if she has a small wish list of books for Christmas and promptly get a list of five with promised access to around another thirty on her Amazon wish list. The five actually cover the word short admirably, so no need for more and we have to think of the already dangerously leaning book pile.

In the evening L goes visiting friends and family via bus. It’s a busy schedule, trying to kill two birds with one stone in one night. I pick her up later after dog class.

(Wednesday 11^th December)

Most Perceptive

It’s L’s birthday today and Son again wins the award for the most perceptive birthday card. L’s has a book pile joke on it. Very apt.

I’ve finished my Zoo Station audiobook this morning. It was an odd finish, it just stopped. Then I realised its book 1 in a series of 6. So that’s my listening sorted for the next year or so.

While the boys and I go training, L’s birthday treat to herself seems to be a ‘super’ pump class tonight and she’s nervous about how difficult it will be. Its council run, so how hard can it be?

Afterwards it appears she must have enjoyed its relentlessness because she’s rebooked for next week.

(Wednesday 8^th May)

Spritely Young Things

A dog show near Lincoln today. L originally wanted to be dropped off in Lincoln, to shop and to no doubt increase her book pile. In the end though, she decides to join us, which should have the effect of decreasing the book pile instead judging by how many books she has with her.

Things are certainly getting more reliable with MD. Two clears today. 20^th against Grades 4 and 5 in a class of 284. Then 6^th in his Grade 3 class of 202. He wasn’t too far away in the other two competitions either. In fact in one of them I have no idea why the judge gave us 5 faults. It wasn’t a very good run, granted, but I can’t see what we did wrong and they’re not supposed to fault you for purely being crap.

Doggo got 14^th and 17^th in some big Allsorts classes, there was no Veterans competition here. Allsorts classes include spritely young things as well as old gits.

We stop off for Sunday lunch on the way back. The first mass market eatery we stop at is closed and undergoing renovation, presumably into an even more mass market eatery. The next one gives dire warnings of long waits for food. We give it a go anyway. It takes long enough to get a drink despite the fact they have almost as many staff as customers, of which they have many but not enough to cause a food shortage.

When the food comes, it wasn’t memorable. In fact, I’ve already forgotten it and the beer as well, which came out of a pump with a clip proclaiming it was the once great Old Speckled Hen.

(Sunday 21^st April)