Geeky Spreadsheets

Both L and I have geeky spreadsheets of all the races we’ve done. L has been racing longer than me so she has done a lot more races than me. She has done a massive 542 races in total compared with my meagre 282 but it turns out that, out of my pitiful total, 91 of mine have been half marathons whereas L has only done 88.

She has done 8 marathons though to my 3.I'm still playing catch up there and her enthusiasm for number 9 seems to be waning. .She says her running Mojo appears to have up and left. I’ll have to hide her new hoover and only tell her where it is once she’s done her run or I could lend her our four legged Mojo He'd spur her on.

Instead Monday sees her out on the lash in Borrowash... and she’s out late. It’s almost eight o’clock when she gets on the bus home.

Tuesday turns out to be glorious day for cycling... but for reasons known only to me I don't. Well it was also a bit nippy.

Talking of nippy. L is still eyeing up outdoor swims. Brrr. The latest one to take her fancy is the Jubilee River Swim in Windsor. It’s 10km long with three weirs on the route, which I’m sure they’ll make the swimmers walk around and not go wa-hey over them. Even though L says ‘OMG I hope not!  Doesn't it look great?’ Erm. If she says so. I’ll hold her coat. She claims to have already been hardening herself to the prospect with cold showers at our local pool. 

Her latest PT session has her sprinting on a Watt bike. Now that’s more like it.

(Tuesday 25^th February)

Hallucinating

I have, perhaps, still a touch of cold and it’s pretty nippy out so I get the bus again. In fact, apparently it’s so nippy that L is reporting walking the boys in the snow. Personally, I think she is hallucinating as there is none here at all.

As Daughter prepares to start her new job, she asks what our starting salaries were. I recall starting on £3000 a year in 1986, which works out at about £57 a week but L reckons she can top that (or bottom it) as she started on just £22 a week.

Then we are both in the gym after work, warming up for the athletic-ness of a Friday night. Hopefully L has found somewhere to hang.

(Friday 10^th February)

The Living Dead

Well that’s it, the Christmas break is over and we’re both back at work today. Connor meanwhile has wreaked a bit of havoc and iced everywhere over, so I don’t manage to get on the bike but with most people still off work I get to work by car in super quick time in about 15 minutes. Taking the bus would have been nice but they’re running a Saturday service which is hopeless for commuting.

Blimey Connor, it's a bit nippy in my office. Even I’ve got the heating on.

There’s not a lot of ‘real’ work to be done and what bits there are still allows enough time to complete my Tax Return. I also fill in L’s gargantuan pension transfer form. Is there any reason for this to be a huge booklet rather than a one page form?

At lunch time I go out for a few bits of shopping which is slightly traumatic as Sainsbury’s is akin to a scene from the Living Dead with folk wandering round like zombies not knowing what to do with themselves now Christmas is over.

No cycling of course means penance at the gym and a 15k Watt Bike session after work. L does her gym at the Tennis Centre as most of Nottingham’s centres are closing at 4pm all week. I pick her up from there on my way home.

This evening we have the delayed Squash Club Annual Meal. We try out a brand new Indian restaurant on Trent Bridge called Chakh Le India. We park on the Embankment and walk across. The management seem very keen to make an impression and even offer us free drinks. It’s a decent meal and even my squash colleague finds very little to complain about.

(Wednesday 28^th December)

The Premonition Comes True

For saying its July it was incredibly nippy on the bike this morning and I don’t mean that I was fast, I mean cold.

L is in London for work where she is meeting, in her words, two cranky women or rather her boss is and her job is to protect him from them. 

They give us a start date for the bathroom - Monday 3rd October. No rush then, I hope the existing shower will last that long.

A pub lunch today and I finally add Brunswick Railway Porter to my list of dark ones. It's number 61.

Dog training tonight but it’s a Bass free one as L is too late back from London to head over to Mickleover to meet me.

As Theresa May reveals her new cabinet Daughter texts to say she is impressed as my premonition comes true and she names BJ as Foreign Secretary. Yay, let him shovel up his own mess. 

(Wednesday 13^th July)

Exceedingly Nippy

I bike to work, L swims where naturally it’s just her. Everyone else in Nottingham went last night when I was there.

She then runs later in Ockbrook while I go dog training. It is exceedingly nippy in the barn tonight and I will need seriously warming up when I get home.

(Tuesday 23^rd February)

Just For Effect

I bike again as my calf still twangs a bit when I walk, so I don’t feel it’s ready for another run just yet but I may have to try one tomorrow.

On the ride in, I get overtaken by one of those fast old gits. Who having overtaken me heads off in a different direction, only to overtake me again a few miles down the road. Clearly just for effect. Either he went the long way around or u-turned as soon as I was out of sight. I’d prefer it to be the latter but I suspect it was the former.

L reckons she could be detained at work until about midnight and asks me to chill some wine for drinking in the garden for when she gets home. What at midnight? It could be a bit nippy outdoors by then and it is a AF Wednesday.

I have my swimming kit with me just in case I was tempted to pedal straight to the pool after work but the boys had such a good time on the park last night, as did I, that I decide to repeat that instead. It will insure a more peaceful second part to the evening because they'll both crash asleep.

As it happens L escapes well before midnight and we again amble up towards her, this time in search of a pub in which to have that outdoor glass of beverage, despite it being a Wednesday. The problem is that they’ve closed practically every pub between our house and town, so really there isn’t anywhere palatable to drop in to. Not that any of the ones that have closed were any good in the first place. That’s a bit of a gap in the market, just asking to be filled, you would think.

We pop into the Three Wheatsheaves which has shown potential at times in the past, only to quickly cast such potential swiftly aside. Outside it advertises real ale and delivers, although Courage Best isn’t what I had in mind and would probably not be what anybody else had in mind either. This may account for part of the reason the place is so quiet. Still we do stop for another, two drinks for a fiver isn’t bad.

(Wednesday 28th March)