Book Speak

This morning L and I run at Bestwood Parkrun, Daughter was out on the lash in Leicester last night and stays over in multi-starred accommodation. Bestwood is rather hilly and rather potholed, as I find out when I fall down one, turn my ankle and limp home in a rather pedestrian time.

The cafe at Bestwood doesn't open until 10am, so instead we try out a nice little cafe in Radford.

Then it’s the match, where Derby grind out a rather un-pretty 1-0 win against an obdurate Burton Albion.

In the evening we are meeting some friends in Derby, for an early meal at Pepitos. L heads over on the bus intending to get a stint of browsing in at Waterstones before I have walked over from the match. ‘Browsing’ is of course book speak for purchasing. She thinks with my freshly acquired dodgy ankle she’ll have plenty of time. She is wrong. I meet her off the Red Arrow and escort her personally to Waterstones, which is very thoughtful of me.

After a pleasant meal, our friends go home and we go for a few drinks in the Brunswick. Well I have a few drinks, L has a nap. Such is the level of my company.

(Saturday 2^nd December)

Back In The Angel

Today we all go to Forest Rec Parkrun including Daughter who brings a guest with her who’s down from Sheffield. He's training for one of the Tough Mudders, I’m not sure he’ll find Forest Rec that tough, it certainly won’t be muddy but he will get a good quality bacon butty.

I record a positively pedestrian 27 minutes mainly because my dog, MD, decides to become a pedestrian half way around. So either he really is struggling with injury or he’s struggling with old age.

Then we're at Broadway for the first time in ages, taking in a film for the first time in ages. Summer is a poor time for films of course...

Sofia Coppola's new film ‘The Beguiled’ is either a second adaptation of Thomas Cullinan’s novel or a remake of the 1971 Clint Eastwood film of the same name, which ever you prefer.

It’s the late 19^th Century in Virginia during the American Civil War. Waiting out the war in their girl’s school are the proprietor of this ‘Seminary for Young Ladies’, one teacher and five students. Everyone else has left.

One day while out in the woods, one of the students, comes across Corporal John McBurney (Colin Farrell) of the Union Army who has been wounded in action. She brings him back with her where they lock him in one of the rooms (for his own safety presumably) while the school’s proprietor Martha Farnsworth (Nicole Kidman) tends to his wounds.

Oddly Miss Martha decides, in the name of Christian charity, that they should let his injuries heal before they hand him over to the opposition. This, obviously, has nothing to do with the fact that Martha, along with the rest of the all female household, have become immediately smitten with by their hunky find.

The room is unlocked and McBurney's presence starts to disrupt the previous calm as they all compete for his attention, giving him presents, cook meals for him and generally dress to impress. 

He repays their affection with affection, although it is mainly focussed on Martha and the school’s only other ‘adult’ teacher Edwina Morrow (Kirsten Dunst). Being younger than Martha, Edwina clearly believes that she is the most appropriate recipient of the Corporal’s attention. Although she doesn’t take into account Alicia (Elle Fanning), the oldest pupil, who is also determined to be in the running. The school quickly descends into a mini civil war of its own.

When he is fit enough to leave, he tries to stay on as their gardener but Martha, evidently sensing she is losing the war, vetoes that idea. So instead he declares undying love for Edwina. That could have worked but didn’t, when she caught him in bed with Alicia. So she pushes him down the stairs, breaking his leg which Martha then swiftly amputates.

He doesn’t take this well, as you would expect, so they again lock him in one of the rooms (for their own safety presumably) but he sweet talks Alicia into letting him out. A seemingly repentant Edwina pursues him to his room where she throws herself at him.

Martha and the others are cleared hacked off at these developments and therefore decide to murder him with poisonous mushrooms.

It all sounds quite exciting on paper but believe me, it wasn’t. It’s such a slow burn, full of  pensive ambiguous scenes, there's absolutely no chance of anything catching fire. It is far too inoffensive for its own good. Airbrushing war and sex out of a film that should seemingly be about war and sex. Not to mention racism. A 19^th Century house without coloured staff?

Coppola won Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival for this. Really?

After the film we visit the Old Angel in Hockley which I haven’t been to for decades and that would probably have been to see a punk band. It’s a lot quieter these days but still sort of radical, just in a different way. Then we move onto spend the rest of the night in the Kean’s Head.

(Saturday 15^th July)

'Entertaining' New Cycle Path

The council have redone the pavement and the cycle path along our stretch of the ring road. Unfortunately they have seriously messed up. The new cycle path is not straight and the grass verges jump out at you at the side road junctions forcing you into the path of the pedestrians and down the curb because the dropped curbs are aligned for pedestrians but not for cyclists.

The idea is, I think, is that pedestrians and cyclists share (never a good idea) the same crossing points over the side roads but if they’re sharing the crossing points then there’s not really any point have a dedicated cycle lane on the rest of the path. They might as well make that shared as well.

The other problem is that the crossing points are set so far back from the ring road that motorists cannot see down the cycle path without driving on to it. Nor can they see down the ring road for other cars without doing the same. As I said, a total mess and frankly dangerous too.

I’ve been avoiding it and riding on the actual ring road but it would be much better to have a usable cycle path.

My other problem this morning is the wind but a least it's stopped raining. I just hope its going my way this evening.

My opponent has another cold for squash tonight, not that this seems to slow him down at all and I don’t win a game tonight.

L runs to the pub and meets us there.

(Thursday 17^th November)

The Comeback

So, the comeback. The weather dawns a touch on the chilly side for it. Well, -3 to be precise. At least that’s what it was on the drive up to Sheffield for the charmingly named (if you’re drunk) Percy Pud 10k. At least it’s sunny, very sunny, so it doesn’t feel that cold.

First problem is getting there, the directions are vague and Sheffield seems to have A61s, the road we have to follow, going off in all directions. After a complete lap of the ring road we decide we’re on the wrong A61.

The second problem, when we find the right road, is parking, basically because there isn’t any. People are parking up on the road a good mile from the start and, with only 20 minutes to go to start time, that’s tantamount to a course extension. You would have thought the police would have something to say about so much haphazard street parking but they seem to be ok with it and are directing more traffic onto already full streets.

Eventually we manage to cram the car into some gap fairly close to the start, abandon the already howling dogs and leg it down to the start, which means a more vigorous than we had planned warm up.

As we line up at an equally overcrowded start line with around 1700 others I tug L forward as she is way too far back. Then once we start I realise that I’m still too far back myself. There are so many people walking from the off that it takes me 5:40 for the first km. Terrible but there’s just no room. It takes almost 2k to finally get some space. It’s the 20th running of the race and this is the biggest one ever, the race appears to fill very quickly every year no matter what the limit, but I fear it’s now too big.

The route itself, once I get going, is very pleasant. We run along the Loxley Valley on closed roads and across what is a more or less flat course. There’s a wonderful view as we approach and then run alongside a damn. It would have been nice to have gone all the way around but I guess that isn’t feasible or else we’d have done it, instead it’s an out and back.

As we approach the turnaround point I have no idea how the returning runners are going to get past us because we’re still covering both sides of the road. In fact what they do is squash us up by driving a car down the other side of the road. Then just in case that doesn’t create enough room, they send Santa down as reinforcements. He tries to run us down in his classic car but it seemed to do the trick.

As runners start coming back the other way I can see just how many people are ahead of me, a lot, including a man who may be dressed as a reindeer or perhaps it’s Scooby Doo, it’s hard to tell, his suit has seen better days.

Then I reach the turn myself. Now somewhere coming towards me will be L but the sun is low and I’m squinting into it so I don’t see her.

Then the finish is in sight. 48 minutes FFS. Well, 47:49 on my watch but naturally I mentally rounded it up. Even at that pedestrian pace I still feel the need to faint but there’s nowhere to do it as I queue endlessly for chip removal, Christmas pudding and t-shirt with the reviving water handed out last.

L in contrast has a relative stormer. Although she was only supposed to be setting a baseline time as something to improve on. Doing 1:01 is setting a pretty high base.

In short, it’s a very pleasant race over a nice route but slightly spoil by too many entrants.

Afterwards I try and bend down enough to chuck a few balls for the dogs. I can’t believe I ache this much after a mere 10k. Then after coffee we head off to Daughter’s and subsequently Wetherspoons (for speed) for lunch. I have exactly the same Sunday lunch as last week at Wetherspoons in Leamington. In fact not only is it the same right down to the choice of vegetables, I’m sure they’re positioned in exactly the same place on my plate. Yes I know the menus were going to be identical but you’d think they’d allow the chefs some room for creativity. The beer, a local one from Bradfield, is excellent though, if practically bright red in colour.

Then I have to abandon the girls early to head back to Derby for the dog club AGM which goes as well as can be expected. L gets the train back from Sheffield and I meet her later in... Wetherspoons... another one, this time Nottingham’s Roebuck. The beer selection in the Sheffield one was so good we had hoped the Nottingham one could replicate it in perfect detail, like with the Sunday lunch. No joy but not too shifty and we stay there all night, although L does move to wine.

(Sunday 2nd December)