Fainting In The Gym

I don't bike today as heavy rain has been forecast, so it’s the bus again.

They do turn out to right about the rain and I don’t even manage to get out for a sandwich at lunchtime. I’ll be fainting in the gym if I can get there without drowning because, after slowing to mere heavy drizzle, another downpour arrives at dead on 5pm. I get drenched and its only five minutes away. I have to spin my legs extra fast on the Watt Bike to dry my shoes out.

By the time I’ve done my 15km it’s fine again. So L walks to meet my bus with the boys. Then it's a bonus Friday night, a couple of beers and L cooks.

Meanwhile I’m still trying to digest the phone call I got earlier in the day to say they’ve pulled a body out of the River Trent. Not good news at all.

(Thursday 19^th October)

Drowning Practice

I need to do a gym or a swim before Sunday otherwise I won’t get my cash back come year end. I also need to do a swim because, well, I need to do a swim. So it looks like it’s a swim tonight then. I drive to work, then afterwards to the pool. No bike today because we’re due in Sheffield later.

At the pool I embark on a bit of drowning practice. The idea being that if I hold myself underwater until I’m gasping for air then that is effectively emulating the situation I found myself in at Lake Windermere. The aim then it to get my breath back whilst swimming. I have some limited success with this.

I also experiment with something the experts called ‘sighting’, this is actually ‘looking where you’re going’ and isn’t as easy as it sounds. Again I have some limited success with this.

L is in the gym and meets me for a mocha afterwards. Then we head home to collect the dogs before we head north. First though I try on wetsuit number three which has arrived. It’s better than the first two, certainly more arm room. Still strangles me though but I’ll give it a go...

Daughter has advised, well insisted actually, that moving her to her new accommodation tonight will be easier without the dogs... but what's life without a bit of difficulty? So we take the dogs and they’re pleased to see her. I think she’s pleased to see them.

Oddly we get all the stuff Daughter wants to move into the car along with both dogs and the three of us in it as well. I was expecting this to take two loads, if not three. In fact I’d considered hiring a van. So just what has she done with all her stuff? Actually, who cares. I’m all for the very easy moving operation that it was.

At her new place I can see what the previous occupants have done with the stuff their parents couldn’t fit in the car. It’s all in the cellar. A very large rather gruesome cellar, which would have been renovated into two more bedrooms had I been the landlord.

Then we take Daughter for a birthday meal, well we get a Chinese takeaway, which enables the dogs to share some well earned prawn crackers.

(Wednesday 26^th June)

The Cycling Gauntlet

I’m hurt, mentally. I’ve been at work for two hours and L’s not asked yet if I’m alive, having ridden the cycling gauntlet again... I could be in a ditch somewhere. She’s apologetic when I point out her lack of concern.

It's probably the pain of being back at work, which is also making her consider drowning her stresses in Waterstones because she’s not allowing herself booze or chocolate this week. AF and CF, well she ought to be BF as well. That mountainous book pile alongside her side of the bed can’t really take another addition. It’s already doubtful whether those at the bottom will see daylight again in myhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif lifetime. AF, BF and CF, L's ABC of being ‘free from’.

The local press are up in arms that they’ve changed the recipe of HP sauce, which was conceived in Nottingham. What they don’t mention is that the once great ‘British’ sauce is now made in Holland. I've been boycotting it ever since. Although Wikipedia says the sachets are made in Telford, so perhaps I’ll nick a few of them the next time I’m out.

I pedal home as fast as I can following an SOS from Daughter. Typically a few days before she goes off to Uni her computer has decided to break down. The prognosis does not look good, as I have a quick look before heading off to dog class.

Meanwhile Daughter heads off out for yet another round of tearful goodbyes before she becomes a Yorkshireite (be careful how you say that) or perhaps the term's a Yorkie? I thought all the goodbye-ing would be done through Facebook these days but apparently not. Although a lack of a computer wouldn’t help...

Christmas is going to be manic for her if during her fortnight off she has to fit in a week of tearful hellos and another week of tearful goodbyes, somehow slotting Christmas in the middle of it.

(Wednesday 14th September)