Seventeen Years Of ‘Hurt’

I bike to work. It was a touch warm and only likely to get warmer for my ride back.

Our Great Leader keeps shouting at everyone to go back to work but I’m not sure many people are listening. There's little evidence of it here on Pride Park and the traffic is wonderfully light. The thing is most of us have been wanting to work from home for years and generally haven’t been trusted to do so. Now finally we’ve got our wish and our companies seem quite happy about it. I have settled into a routine now of going in every Friday, weather permitting e.g. so that I can cycle.

L cricks her back doing yoga to add to the problem of her not-quite-fractured elbow. Yet she plans to take the dogs for a yomp around the park later which probably isn’t going to help much.

Nottingham’s 40^th Anniversary Robin Hood Half Marathon is cancelled.

Derby’s bad run continues on Saturday with defeat to already promoted Leeds which has ended seventeen years of ‘hurt’ for them since they were relegated from the Premier League back in 2003. I hope they don’t find it too painful being back up there. Although I might not mean that.

We spend Sunday night in a very chilled out Borlase, I do really like this table service idea.

(Sunday 19^th July)

Some People Think It’s All Over

The weather gets even more impressive, if you like it hot. I run with the Lad on Monday but it’s far too hot for him (and me) on Wednesday so I take both dogs for a walk instead.

Our great leader tells us we are now into ‘phase two’ of easing the Lockdown. Some people think it’s all over... and if you look at how many people were on the beaches this week... it is now.

There’s been couples entwined on the park for a few weeks now who I’m sure would tell you that they live together if you’d asked them. While some folk have been driving over 200 miles from London to Durham.

Although it turns out that that particular excursion was before even ‘phase one’ of easing the Lockdown never mind ‘phase two’ at a time when the rest of us were feeling like a criminal for nipping the 200 metres to the local Co-Op for a loaf of bread.

On Thursday, things seem a little better at Asda but I think that’s probably because everyone’s still at the beach.

Soon you’ll be able to put an app on your phone that will tell you which one of your fellow beach bums has given you the virus as we hurtle into the second wave on our surfboards.

Some people are worried about the privacy of the new app. Clearly not realising that you are already being tracked simply by carrying a mobile phone and forgetting about all those loyalty cards they have that allow the shops to track them while publicly documenting everything else on their Facebook accounts.

L has always wanted me to take her to the Hay Festival, so this year I spoil her and take her without even leaving the house. The Festival goes online and she can attend as many book events as she likes. I even attend a few myself.

On Sunday we are treated to a film quiz from Broadway. Which you instinctively know is going to be almost impossible and we’re not wrong. 

(Sunday 24^th May)

As Is Tradition

I drive to my parent’s place and run the 5.2 miles into work and then the same
5.2 miles back again after work. It’s not quite the long run I wanted but it gets the distance in, albeit with an eight hour break in the middle.

L still has no email at work so she's taken things into her own hands and gone onto hotmail, proving she’s clearly more technologically savvy than the company who manages her works' email. It’s good to have her back.

As is tradition, Derby exit the league cup at the first round stage to a lower league team, again. Apparently this is something like seven times out of the last ten seasons. This year it’s to Shrewsbury who storm in to a 3-0 half time lead whilst Derby are playing tappy tappy keep ball on their own half way line. It's all very pretty but totally ineffective, particularly once the opposition get bored watching it, take the ball off you and tuck in it into your own net. Three times.

Our great leader seems to give up at this point and disappears. Rumours that he’s gone home are apparently unfounded and he’s simply sulking in the dugout. I don’t know if it’s related or not but once he stopped barking instructions from the touchline, the team suddenly perked up, abandoned the ineffective passing game and started hoofing it forward instead. This yields two goals which means we still lose but by the much more respectable score line of 3-2.

After a brief drink with my folks, I hot foot it home to see if L needs any more Will Young downloads or any artiste downloads for that matter. Well any that might amass favours in kind. Things get a bit distracted though when I arrive in Nottingham to find that there are a groups of eleven-year-olds trying to riot just down the road. The fire bomb attack on Canning Circus police station even makes national news.



Of course tonight is the night Son chooses to head into town for a night out, only to find it closed and heads east of the city instead to a friend’s home neatly nestled between the riot hotspots of St Anns and Sneinton. Can we pick him up at midnight he asks? No.

(Tuesday 9th August)