Helpful Like That

I have Friday afternoon off work to help set up my club’s Winter Dog Show ahead of the event itself on Saturday. We have the venue just for a strict two hours from 5pm until 7pm, then I rush back home because we have guests.

Daughter and her +1 are coming around for dinner and in my absence L has cooked cottage pie. The main concern is whether we have enough wine after what happened last time...

We manage to not run out of wine but no one has room for Christmas Pudding. We really must stop doing all those races where they give these away to all the runners because we're not big Christmas Pudding eaters ourselves and clearly we can't give them away either.

I attend the show on Saturday without the dogs as it’s a more of a specialist type event with nothing for oldies like MD and not much for youngsters like the Lad. There was one event that the Lad could have had a go at but it seemed a bit unfair to drag him over for just the one run.

Not that they’re happy about me going without them and L gets barked up nice and early. They’re helpful like that. Then they get dumped again as L, Daughter and her +1 all go to Parkrun to run off their hangovers.

I don’t know why L has a hangover as I’m sure we only had one bottle between the two of us. Our guests must have accounted for the other four empty bottles. Then L and the boys spend the afternoon asleep, so perhaps it was only me who was restrained...

Meanwhile the Dog Show runs late due to a rather fastidious judge.

With no race again on Sunday, we reprise our run from Elvaston Castle with a few revisions to last weekend’s route to avoid traipsing through all the puddles that we encountered down the river path last time. We again do an extra lap with MD and then go visit my folks. 

(Sunday 26^th January)

Rave Reviews

While we were in Portsmouth, Daughter and her +1 dog sat for us. To compensate for putting up with the boys, L made them a cottage pie and I made them a lasagne which got rave reviews. I'm sure L's cottage pie was divine too.

I return from Portsmouth with a bad throat which I blame on the hotel room being too warm and which I seem now to have passed on to L. She’ll probably give it me back in due course. Although in the meantime I take it to a meeting with me and give it four chaps to take back down to Taunton with them.

I swap my dogging night to Tuesday as there’s a match on Wednesday which Derby win 1-0 with a goal in stoppage time.

The Lad adds to L's woes by catching her fingers with his rather sharp teeth. Talking of the little brute, it's fascinating to watch him on Dog TV. Today he’s snuck a ball into his bed (you never know when you might need a ball) but now he can't lie in his bed because of it. He does eventually move it. No disrespect to MD but I’m not sure he’d have thought of that.

By Friday L must be much better. She says she can taste her tea, that’s always the acid test, and we both make it to the gym. Yes even me.

On Saturday I skip Parkrun to watch England impressively beat New Zealand in the Rugby World Cup Semi Final.

Then in the evening we’re at Derby Book Festival. We go see a talk by Nicci French which intrigues me because Nicci French is\are two people. I loved their ‘Beneath The Skin’ but then their Frieda Klein eight book marathon defeated us both and we didn’t get to the end. Although I got further than L.

Before that we see Kamal Ahmed who gives a fascinating insight into his life. Ahmed is a journalist who worked for both The Observer and The Sunday Telegraph but is now Editorial Director of BBC News. His mother was from Rotherham and his father from Sudan. He tells us what it was like growing up a mixed-race Brit in Ealing in the 70s and 80s.

While we’re there we go do a touristy bit by seeing the Knife Angel that is on display in the city centre.

  (Saturday 26^th October)

A Puncture Waiting To Happen

Back on the bike and on my best bike. This is because when I accidentally ran over some glass on Friday on my not-so-best bike and stopped to check that nothing was lurking in my tyre, I saw how bald the front tyre was. A puncture waiting to happen, with or without glass. So I needed to change the tyre, which I haven’t done yet.

The update on breakfast-watch is that Doggo loved his ‘cottage pie’ and licked his bowl clean. 

L emails to say she’s been for a swim, so presumably she got in and out of the pool ok as she now appears to be in work. So limbs seems to be healing ok there.

L and Daughter head over to visit L’s Dad as it’s his birthday today while I stay at home churning out paperwork for this weekend’s dog show, while chucking balls.

(Tuesday 25^th July)

Dangerous Things Beds

Doggo refuses his breakfast this morning; I imagine he’s protesting that there is no leftover cottage pie in his dish. This is because there was no leftover cottage pie.

I have an extra day in the car today because my new computer has arrived at work and it’s probably best not to try to cycle it home. Obviously, this means I have gym penance to do first.

Last year the Jane Tomlinson charity ‘Run For All’ brought a 10k into Nottingham city centre. It was the first time that I can remember the City Council allowing a race to start or finish in the city centre and very successful it was too. I think we all hoped that this would be the first of many but sadly no. It appears now that this was perhaps an administrative lapse on the council’s part and the organisers have been told that no routes in the city centre would be considered for this year. Instead, I worry that they’ll end up going to the ‘go to’ venue for everything... Holme Pierrepoint.

Squash is cancelled again; my opponent says he’s injured himself getting out of bed. Dangerous things beds. So it’s the gym again and then the pub again, MD will be pleased.

(Thursday 16^th February)

Dispensing Pleasantries

I bike and then run at lunchtime, a 5.5k trot today. Kilometre number two took 10 minutes as I bumped into somebody from the dog club who also happens to work on Pride Park and I had to dispense pleasantries. It also meant I had to cut a kilometre off my route to make up for lost time or else my lunch hour would have gone on forever.

L hogs the cooker to make her Mum and Dad a cottage pie and an apple crumble as they are traipsing up and down the motorway visiting L’s brother in hospital. The only question is where’s my apple crumble?

I am now told that L’s rather late birthday present is now out of stock and it’ll be another week at least (if the stars align correctly). I cancel and offer her something else instead.

(Thursday 14^th May)