Keep Washing Your Hands

They tell us to keep thoroughly washing our hands to avoid contracting the Coronavirus, now given the name COVID-19 by the WHO, which is all good advice and what we should be doing anyway. They also tell us not to touch our faces which isn’t so easy. I mean, have you tried putting in contact lenses without touching your face. Suddenly it takes far longer to get ready for work in the mornings.

Sainsbury's are late sending out my new visa card and have blocked my old card before the new one has arrived meaning I have to pay for today’s shopping on a different card. This loses me about 90 Nectar points or meagre 45p. I ring them up more to ask where the new card is rather than to complain about the lost points, although I do have a small whinge, and they credit my account with 18,000 points. That's about £90. So, it does pay to complain...massively.

I manage to cycle on Tuesday and it was hard work in the still strong winds but then I am so unfit at the moment.

L skips running club saying that she doesn’t want to be faffing around with doing intervals at the club now she’s a proper athlete and running from home will give her more hoover time even when it turns out to be 10k in the rain. I’ve never known anyone get so excited about a new hoover.

She's looking forward to a night on her own with her new gadget while the boys and I are at dog training. She's never this keen to get alone with me...

On Wednesday she is London for work, which is another icy morning. A day in London with her boss probably means another day of crap eating. He’s the one who bought her four crème eggs and a bar of dairy milk for lunch the other day. There’s none of your five a day in there and most of it makes its way home to me where it goes in my not-so-secret secret drawer. 

In the evening I meet up with a friend of mine after work. Instead of going to the pub, we meet at the Derby Winter Beer Festival at the Roundhouse.

On Thursday L does go to her club while I run from 14 miles from work. 

(Thursday 20^th February)

The Thrill Of The Chase

We do the separate dog walking again this morning and I am pleased to find that my legs are still working.  I am enthused and clearly L is too as she lets me enter us both in the Calke Abbey 10k which is in two weeks’ time.

Daughter rings and I think pays us a compliment by lamenting her father for not, among other things, being as affectionate with own partner as L and I are with each other. She points to the fact that we are always licking each other’s faces. Erm, I think she’s gets us confused with the dogs there.

I spend £90.39 in Sainsbury's. Get in. After not shopping for two weeks the chance of hitting the magic £90 target for triple Nectar points was on but obviously the trick is to not go too far over and save some of your firepower for future offers.

Although as triple points is worth a mere 90p it’s not really about the money it’s all about the thrill of the chase.

Dogging is surprisingly on. Which gives L chance to nip home for a secret liaison with the hoover while the dogs and I are out of the way. No doubt the pair of them will be cavorting in the bedroom again. 

(Monday 5^th September)

Traffic Hell Monday

L has a boozy Christmas lunch while I’m sat in traffic hell trying to get to Sainsbury’s to do the Christmas shop. Once I get there it is to find the supermarket itself blissfully quiet, I assume because everyone is in their cars. The £140 bill, due to far too much alcohol and dead animal parts, is lightened by the £25 in loose change from the piggy bank and £45 in Nectar points that I put towards it. Not bad.

After work I go to John Carroll for a swim where I get both lanes to myself and do 50 lengths. L is there too and I take her incredibly heavy kit bag off her so that she can run home. 

(Monday 21^st December)

Supermarket Wars

Supermarket Wars. I’ve been handed several slips of paper at Sainsburys since they launched their ‘Brand Match’ a month or more ago. Usually it’s a voucher to use next time but confusingly sometimes it’s an identical slip showing how much you’ve saved instead. Although this has only happened to me once.

They say they ‘compare the price of brands against what Asda or Tesco are charging for them that day’ and then ‘work out any difference in price. If the same branded shop could have been bought for less at Asda or Tesco, we’ll give you a coupon for the difference when you checkout’.

It’s all a con of course. Rather than admitting it's a 'fair cop, you should have gone to Asda' and deducting the difference from your bill or converting it to Nectar points they give you a voucher which has to be used within two weeks. So it’s now in their interests to be the most expensive so that they can give you a whopping big voucher, in my case often a fiver or so, which makes you come back smartest to spend it. When of course you’ll be given another voucher... etc etc.



Today’s voucher is for £4.14 on a basket of goods worth £52 of which the majority of stuff was fruit, veg and meat products which are not ‘branded’ and therefore don’t count for their ‘promotion’. Baffling.

L’s Christmas list arrives by email, breaking the house rule of no mention of Christmas before the 1st December. Tut tut.

I have a quick look at it. Asics Gel DS Trainers! Those are serious running shoes and obviously what I wear. Welcome to the club. Ah, what’s this, they have to be in fuchsia. Hmmm, I’ll take back, you can’t run quick in fuchsia, surely.

I train MD tonight and even the old man gets a run around. He was whining so much, like a puppy, when I took him in to say hello to a few people that I let him have a little play. He loved it, stuffed up his weaves up though.

(Monday 28th November)