Top Secret Gym Membership

I reschedule my week due to the two remaining GP runs which I should be able to make. I bike today and save doing the shopping until tomorrow.

The only problem is I’m not used to cycling on a Monday after an SQT Session and I’m slightly surprised that the legs allowed me to do it.

After plans for a ‘North Midlands’ region collapsed, Derby and Nottingham vowed to still work together on some of things that would have been united under that plan. Folk have apparently demanded integrated travel and leisure services between the two cities or that might just have been me submitting dozens of forms.

Anyhow, they have now launched their ‘Metro’ partnership, as they call it, which will now enable anyone with a Derby Leisure Card to use Nottingham’s Leisure Centres and vice versa. This was however buried half way down an obscure council email full of stuff that no one really wants to know about, so no one ever reads down that far in their emails except me obviously. So they may not have wanted anyone to know about it but I’ve told everyone.

I print off a couple of forms and we attack the situation from both angles. L takes her form into John Carroll in Nottingham, I take mine in to Derby Arena.

At John Carroll, it’s the first they've had and it flummoxes them. They’ll let L know when they’ve got it sorted.

I have a similar situation at the Arena but they were a bit more helpful and were fighting over me to see who got to do their first one. They think its sorted and they have now cancelled my gym membership in Derby, as its now unnecessary and Nottingham is not only much cheaper but includes swimming as well. So I probably won’t get in next time I try to use the gym.

In theory though, now for less money, I can swim in Derby too. If they had any pools of course. I think they still have one somewhere.

Dogging tonight up in Codnor.

(Monday 3^rd July)

Mr Badger

I have received a rather generous £36 of free bus tickets in the post. This is an offer being run by Derby City Council and Sustrans. It’s all very odd, as Derby City Council are always pleading poverty and shutting things, yet here they are giving away money. Whereas I thought Sustrans main focus was encouraging cycling but here they are handing out bus tickets.

As it happens I probably won’t be on the bus at all this week as I’ll be cycling most days, so the £16 for the Arriva Derby buses which is only valid this week will go to waste but the £20 on a Trent Barton Mango card can be used any time and will most certainly get used. Again though it is the already converted, like me, who are mopping up these generous offers.

Cycling was a bit interesting today as three sets of traffic lights were out in Sandiacre and Stapleford, meaning the traffic was utter chaos but thankfully they are fixed by the time I cycle home.

Back home I set about building some badger barricades to stop Mr Badger digging holes in the lawn. I have enough problems with Mr Dog and his associate digging holes in the lawn without them having outside help. The back fence has now been repaired and I have put a big redundant fence post under the side gate in case he tries to squeeze under there. 

(Tuesday 24^th May)

Sudden Upsurge

Both Nottingham and Derby councils seem to have gone mad with the gritters last night. Apparently a dusting of snow was forecast last night, although I’m not sure by whom. I didn’t see any snow on the forecast; I’d have got all excited if I had. If it snows now we’re stuffed as they’ll be out of grit.



We really struggled to get a squash court for tonight. There appears to have been a sudden upsurge in playing, which will annoy the council, who I'm sure are trying to phase it out. My opponent's theory is that perhaps everybody is trying to lose weight like him.

So we end up playing at 6.15, which means I have to be radical and use the car to get to work.

As I said opponent is on a diet and bemoans that one unfortunate side effect of reducing his calorie intake is that he now have the drinking capacity of a 12 year old girl. I can’t say much, having had the fainting threshold of a 12 year old girl whilst watching 127 Hours the other night.

Anyway he shouldn’t dismiss lightly the drinking capacity of 12 year old girls. Some pre-teens are very experienced drinkers these days, so he shouldn't consider entering into a drinking contest with one, not in his current state.

I play better tonight and lose a close match 3-1. Then a quick, early, one in the pub. Him on diet coke of course.

(Thursday 27th January)