Unplaced And Underground

L heads to Beeston parkrun as Forest Rec is closed for the Goose Fair. I’m at a dog show at Catton Park.

MD goes clear first run and comes 3^rd. So it’ll be all downhill from here. Which is a pretty fair assessment as his paws don’t go anywhere near a contact are all day long but all his jumping runs have been good. We do get another clear in Jumping but we’re unplaced.

L is also ‘unplaced’ of sorts. She celebrates because she thinks she’s gone under 33 minutes, and she has, but the organisers disagree by three seconds. Clearly she was not on the front row at the start. e.g. when they start the timing. I keep telling her...

Tonight we are in the back room of the Nottingham Playhouse known as the Neville Studio for the

Underground Man. This is loosely based on the life of the Fifth Duke of Portland who lived locally at Welbeck Abbey.

It is, without doubt, an interesting tale about an eccentric recluse who has a mania for building elaborate tunnels under his house (hence the title). In the play he is followed around by an apparition of a floating boy and at one point tries to drill a hole in his own head before eventually being gunned down while roaming his estate naked on all fours.

It sounds quite a riot does it not? 

It is performed with by a cast of just two and you might figure from the synopsis that it would be a touch hard to follow and you'd be right.

Sadly a lot of it is taken up by the old man moaning about his largely imagined illnesses and the tunnels, which you would expect to be a major feature, are barely mentioned. The thing that baffles me the most though is that the reclusive Duke meets up with an impressive range of characters all played by his on stage colleague. He debates with his butler, goes caving with the vicar, has conversations with his driver and other servants, sees his local doctor and seeks out other experts for help with his ailments.All giving the impression of him being actually quite the socialite and leaving me a bit confused. 

It's all very well acted though.

(Saturday 8^th October)

Not Quite Rocket Enough

I get up early and scrape the ice off the car before heading to Shrewsbury. I leave L in bed, where I understand she stays for some considerable time. Which is very studently of her and very wise.

I’m at a dog show of course and once the ice has melted off the equipment we get our first run. I’m only half joking. It’s pretty cold here.

That first run is a clear round for the Pocket Rocket but just not quite rocket enough. He comes fifth, which is promising but it could all be downhill from here. Yep. We can’t buy a clear round after that although Doggo is eighth in Veterans but MD’s fifth is the only rosette of the day.

The club are running a ring here and I’m managing it. We are given a ridiculous amount of dogs to get through and consequently I’m here from 8am until 6.30pm. A very long day. At least I get a decent lunch, including apple crumble, which is one of the compensations of ring managing. So all is not lost. The downside is being home for about 8.30. I tell L to chill the wine, the beer, the brandy, everything.

She's been painting in the bedroom whilst we’ve been out. It looks good but means the dogs, most likely Doggo, could end up stuck to the wall by the morning if they’re not careful. It might stop him scratching though; an uninterrupted sleep would be nice.

Another good day at the cycling. Victoria Pendleton has a very flaky psychological state at the best of times so when she crashed, hitting the track hard, in her sprint semi-final against her nemesis Anna Meares, you feared the worst.

You didn’t expect Vic to pick herself up, defeat Meares and then clinch the gold as well. Superb stuff.

(Friday 6th April)