Like A Novice

It is L’s birthday today and she should have been treating herself to the second part of the White Rose Double Header with the Leeds Half Marathon but sadly she hasn’t made either of the White Rose races. I too duck out of Leeds, deciding it’s too far to go if I’m more than likely to abort it anyway.

Hopefully I’ll be fit for next week’s inaugural Nottingham 10k and I have a physio session on Wednesday to hopefully make sure I am.

I am beginning to think my stop-start training doesn’t help and my calf needs constant exercising, resting doesn’t seem to help it. It’s the resting then running that seems to upset it. Perhaps I need to run every day if only for a km.

L blames my thighs, she says they are so powerful that they probably cause some imbalance on your calves. So perhaps I need fattier thighs.

Instead of running, I do a velodrome session instead and surprisingly get in at short notice. It is hard going after a few months off and I ride like a novice but it’s an excellent work out.

L’s sister doesn’t seem to think the velodrome is a very romantic location for a night out on L's birthday but we do pop into the Exeter Arms afterwards where we grab a candlelit table and two pints of something dark to go on the list - Back Sack & Quack and Dark Drake both from Dancing Duck.

We have the traditional Sunday Indian afterwards and a Baileys night cap, which was a present from my parents. 

(Sunday 8^th May)

Difficult Questions

I finish work at lunchtime, as we’re off for a weekend in the Lakes later but first I get sent into Derby to pick up some wool. Yes wool. The things I have to do. I have to face several difficult questions about what sort of wool, what it was for, etc etc. I thought wool was just wool although obviously in different colours. And what was it for... err knitting... it’s not much good for much else, such as tying people up, if that’s what they were thinking I might be up to. Luckily L had briefed me, a little.

We get home, pack and pay a tearful goodbye to Daughter. Well sort of, I figure that things are going to be going on once we’re gone that we are glad we won’t be a party to. The clues in the p-word.



We arrive at our cottage which is very pleasant and as we are there before our friends we blag the best room. We seem to get away with this, even taking into account the storage heaters in their room don’t seem to have been switched on and it’s a tad chilly. Theirs in fact appears to have once been the garage, though now a tastily converted one I hastened to add.

Our friends are happy though, we have wi-fi. Well we did have wi-fi until MD arrives and takes aim at the power sockets. He misses and wees up the living room wall. Oops. Hasty mop up job and no damage done. I think.

I had my doubts but, to be honest, the wi-fi does appear to be useful. We can keep in touch with Daughter via email as mobile reception isn’t readily available here. This is better than the previously tried and untrusted method of going to the local pub, standing on one of the tables outside and waving your phone in the air until a text goes. So at least I can look a bit saner this year.

It also means the pub can be used for the exclusive purpose of drinking and eating. I can report that the Cumberland ale was very good but the Snecklifter, well, simply superb.

All washed down each evening with a night cap from the reindeer selection pack from Milestone Brewery that our friends brought.



I think I had 'Dasher The Flasher' or something like that but it’s all a bit hazy after the Snecklifter.

(Friday 14th January)