Eying Up The Competition

This morning the wind is romantically howling away outside the bedroom window. Shame we have to get up but Doggo would have a wobbly if we didn’t.

With the wind and rain both predicted to increase in ferocity throughout the day I get the bus and leave the bike at home.

After work I go for a brief pedal on the Watt Bikes. It is mayhem as the gym gets ever popular and particularly the bikes. I manage to get the last of the six before a queue starts to form. I get into my session and eye up the competition. There are two speedy girls, one speedy chap and two guys just heading off down the shops for a pint of milk.

One of the girls is shipping more sweat that even me. At one point she briefly takes her hands off the drops to pull her shirt over her head and chuck it on the floor. I don’t want to appear sexist but I think a bloke would have been thrown out for doing that.

When I’ve done my session, I get the bus home. L and the boys meet me off it.

(Tuesday 26^th January)

It’s All Relative

Well first we lose an hour in bed due to the clocks going forward and then we head to Stafford for their half marathon. Though again, due to my injury, only L will be competing.

That said, I leave the dogs to howl in the car while I watch the start.

Then as the course does a loop away from the town centre before returning, I wait for L and join in. I’m not sure exactly how far I run but it was over a mile, maybe one and a half and it goes ok. No reaction in my calf. It’s at a slower pace than I usually run at but it’s a pace that actually doesn’t feel too bad at all.

L did tell me to take it gently. Unfortunately, I was doing my sort of gentle when it went in the first place. She quotes me, that I was ‘on for a good pace’. It’s all relative. Good = Gentle. I was about to wind it up when my leg fell off.

Then I leave L to it and run the same distance back to the start, extract the howling twosome from the car. We go to watch the winners finish and then the rest of the race from the pleasant surroundings of Victoria Park.

I’m not sure how L felt about me running with her. I either paced her or annoyed her. I’m not sure which. Her time though is eleven minutes up on last week and her second best of the year but then such wild swings in her performance are not uncommon.

Today I don’t have to request a t-shirt as they were handing them out before the start, along with the race medal. This is of course a cardinal sin of the highest order by the organisers and a massive tempting of fate by anyone who takes one. It also causes unnecessary congestion in the race village. That said it’s a brilliant t-shirt, which I shall wear with unearned pride and a little embarrassment.

Back home, we hit the pubs for the first time since Switzerland, covering pubs supporting Nottingham’s Stout And Porter Trail. We visit the Borlase Warren, the Gooseberry Bush and the Lincolnshire Poacher before at L's suggestion we finish at our favourite cheap and cheerful Indian, the Noor Jahan.

(Sunday 25th March)

The Room At The Top

Our room is on the top floor and not only can we hear the wind howling outside the window but we can hear the rain being thrown against it as well. Time for another hour in bed I think.

Daughter emails to say that she and her friends are having pizza for breakfast. We are appalled at the decadence of Daughter but not too appalled to tuck into our full English, courtesy of our friends who we gave the 'lesser' bedroom to. We’re really riding our luck this holiday.

Some sheep brave the weather and sit outside our window. Neither dog notices, well not yet but the whole village will know when they do. Ah, now MD has.

Eventually we go out for a walk in the elements. Leaving our base in Chapel Stile to head out along the edge of Rydal Water to Rydal itself before taking the Coffin Route to Grasmere. The Coffin Route was originally used to transport the dead from Grasmere to Ambleside for burial. Though apparently not since 1821. Then it’s around Grasmere Lake, through Grasmere itself before heading up Red Bank and back to Chapel Stile. A distance of around fourteen soggy kilometres. The rain did stop briefly on a couple of occasions but only very briefly.



At one point MD fell into a lake. Not that the lake should have been there. We were theoretically on a path and the edge of Rydal Water should have been about 20 metres away but the weather had built a huge watery extension to the lake. This caused us to shin up a rocky outcrop in order to circumnavigate it. MD lost his footing and... splash. We had to fish him out.

We head back to the cottage and attempt to dry and de-mud two very dirty canines. I consider hanging MD on the washing line to dry but the RSPCA might not approve. So a good towelling down has to do instead.

Did I mention we also have the better of the two bathrooms? So we make use of the only bath in the cottage to warm ourselves up after our soaking.

The evening follows a similar pattern to the previous night. The pub has another dark ale on the bar, from Ulverston, although the Snecklifter is still better but these things have to be tried. Then its home for another dose of bottled reindeer from the selection pack.

(Saturday 15th January)