Free Tea

With no race this weekend there’s a Sunday lie-in and then a park session with the boys.

Later, L and I pop into Rough Trade so that I can pick up the new Twilight Sad album which comes with free tickets to see them tomorrow night. We have tea and coffee in their café bar which is nice and cheap because we only get charged for my coffee. They say this is because they don’t have the right mug for the tea. I didn’t really understand why that mattered but at least it was a cheap round.

In the evening I get to do another Velodrome session.

(Sunday 20^th January)

In The Yard

After a king sized lie-in we eventually emerge and head to the Gym at Derby Arena.

L did have grand plans to treat me to a showing of Elf at Broadway but sadly (perhaps) it’s sold out.

After the gym, we try out Derby County’s new bar/restaurant which is called The Yard. The name comes from the train yards which originally stood on that spot before the stadium was built.

It is basically yet another glorified burger joint but they do have a few other dishes and we have what turns out to be a very average Sunday lunch.

To be fair they serve us beatifically cooked ‘pink’ roast beef but then leave it loitering on a wooden board to go cold before serving it to us. It is accompanied by vegetables which are wonderfully fresh but potatoes that are so hard I fear they’ve been hanging around all day.

Sadly the beer choice is out of the last century. No real ales, no craft ales. Of their two keg beers, the pale ale is off which leaves just keg Marston’s Pedigree which is a pale imitation of the cask version which itself is pale imitation of its former self.

Glad we’ve tried it but doubt we’ll be back.

(Sunday 17^th December)

The Final Cut

It’s nice having a break from running, it means we get a lie in until lunch time. Then Doggo and I fetch the Sunday paper along with the ingredients for a Full English, while MD and L are on park.

In the afternoon I check out the Yorkshire Marathon on TV, sizing it up for next year. It looks ok but I think they’re better marathon fish to fry.

Then amazingly the weather lets me give the lawn one final cut before garden waste collections are abandoned for the winter this Wednesday. They of course assume everyone stops cutting their grass when they do, which I believe is August going by the length of the grass on Wollaton Park. I’ve started to now lose MD in the long grass rather than just his ball.

A break from running also means I can make a return to the velodrome and I go this evening. If the rest of the group were pleased to see me back they didn’t show and they certainly didn’t go easy on me.

L goes in the gym, seeing as it's now free due to the little know Notts-Derby Metro Partnership. Then afterwards it’s a couple of pints in Stapleford. 

(Sunday 22^nd October)

A Small Hollow Victory Of Sorts

I have booked another dog show today but my schedule permits me a late start and a lie in of sorts.

The event is over in Solihull and when I arrive I get to walk two courses but don’t get to do a run before lunch. When we do run them our run of bad form, Crufts qualification aside, continues. Neither of them are clear then it rains, hard. Our final course takes place in a paddy field and because everyone else bottles out of running it we come 3^rd. A small hollow victory of sorts, then we head home to dry out.

(Monday 29^th May)

An Embarrassment Of Riches

We get a lie in until noon then we head to the Homemade Café on Forest Rec for ball chucks and Sunday lunch. Lunch is ok although slightly minuscule and a bit overcooked. Whether this will be enough to get me through an intense two hour track session remains to be seen.

In the afternoon L heads off for a session at Puregym in Beeston before I pick her up on the way to the track. The cycling is as intense as usual and really busy tonight.

I survive and we head afterwards to the Horse and Jockey where they have an embarrassment of riches on the dark beer front with no less than three new ones although I only mange two of them. These are Ferry Stout from Lincoln and Law Man’s Onyx from Glasgow. We can pop in for one of those when we pass next weekend.

Back at home later, we’re just snuggling up in bed for a bit of late night romance when Doggo decides to have the most intense and prolonged coughing and choking fit. He keeps us all up most of the night and just when I thought I’d pulled. 

(Sunday 12^th February)

Ready And Focussed

So no parkrun but an extended lie in and an afternoon where Derby hit four for the second game in a row as they beat Bolton 4-1. Not a bad day so far unless you're from Bolton, who are relegated.

The evening means staying in to get ready and focussed for Sheffield tomorrow. So big plates of pasta all round although it looks increasingly likely this will be to keep L’s strength up for supporting not competing.

(Saturday 9^th April)

Up The Rams

Another lie-in, this time to midday. L wanted to give her ankle a break (of the unbroken kind) and this is clearly the best way of giving it a rest, doing something not load bearing.

I tentatively suggest that this is perhaps also a good chance to stretch the wheels of her bike (puts on tin hat). So later L cycles to Harvey Hadden, does the bike track there and then the gym.

I walk the boys on the park, again and again without balls. They are seriously starting to wonder if something is up.

In the evening we head to Broadway for our second film in two days.

Now here's a quirky one. Rams is a snapshot of life in a remote Icelandic valley, an environment so harsh that seemingly only sheep and stubborn bearded old men can survive there.

The stubborn bearded old men are two brothers, Gummi (Sigurður Sigurjónsson) and Kiddi (Theodór Júlíusson). They live in neighbouring farmhouses but have not talked for forty years. Their only form of communication is the occasional written note which is delivered by border collie.

The film starts with them going head to head in the competition for the most highly-prized ram.

Kiddi wins with Gummi coming second. Kiddi’s celebrations are brief though when it turns out that the winning ram has scrapie. The outcome being that all the sheep in the valley will have to be slaughtered.

Kiddi refuses to comply with the slaughter. So he is arrested, his flock is forcibly destroyed and he goes on multiple drunken benders. Twice we see Gummi reluctantly forced to save his brother when he finds him lying motionless in the snow, drunk and about to freeze to death. On one occasion he scoops him up in his tractor's front loader and deposits him in front of the nearest hospital.

Gummi meanwhile kills his sheep himself against regulations, so that he can secrete a few ewes and his prize ram in his basement. At first he gets away with this but eventually they are discovered by the authorities.

When Kiddi learns what his brother has done, they start to become reconciled. Kiddi helps Gummi re-hide them and then when that doesn’t work, the two of them combine to drive them off into the mountains during a blizzard. A plan which doesn’t go too well due to the inclement weather, this time leaving Kiddi trying to return the lifesaving favour and attempt to save Gummi.

Quirky but excellent. Well worth seeing.


Afterwards we go for a few pints (rather appropriately maintaining the sheep theme) in the Golden Fleece on Mansfield Road, which has recently become Flipside’s second pub. Then it’s the traditional Sunday Indian.

(Sunday 28^th February)