Annual Sportswear Exchange

It’s Christmas Day so L and I exchange sports gear as is the custom. Running shoes and cycling shorts for him, cycling trousers and swimming goggles for her. I suppose the incredibly sexy ankle boots that I also got her were a bit of a departure as that relates to a physical sport of a different nature.

The customary Christmas Lunchtime pint takes place, as last year, in the Horse and Jockey at Stapleford, which is packed. Sadly also overrun with Christmas jumpers.

Then it’s back home for tapas and roast lamb with Daughter and the boys. Some folk are having Zebra apparently, so by comparison we are almost traditional.

(Friday 25^th December)

Laying Low

This morning we lay low for a while, hiding under the covers from the rain. Eventually it eases and we are one of the last to emerge from their tents to face the day but yet again we have a wet tent to dry out.

We head for a light pub tapas style lunch at the Hawkshead Brewery in Staveley and a few drinks too of course before heading back down the M6 once more accompanied by Rachel Abbott’s Sleep Tight.

The light lunch means we can pig out on a takeaway curry from the Park Tandoori later.

(Sunday 8^th November)

Christmas Tapas

L considers a Christmas morning parkrun but I think in the end my company proves more appealing. It means I have to take the dogs on the park though.

At noon, we head off to meet my parents at the Horse and Jockey. We check their live online beer list but it does not seem to have been updated for Christmas Day. Slackers.

We leave Daughter at home to look after the duck. We get a little concerned at my parents lateness but they struggle to park. There isn’t any basically.

Back at our place we again have Spanish meats for starter tapas style, then our roast duck and Christmas pud. Then we watch our one bit of Christmas TV with Arthur Christmas.

(Thursday 25^th December)

Just Like Paddington Made

Back to work after the bank holiday and its now just five days to go. Still time for some last minute training on bike in the wet. Oh the joy. In the end it’s not too bad and I am merely lightly drizzled upon.

Despite the play off final defeat the Forest fan at work is still very pliant. You just have to whisper 5-0 under your breath and he shuts up.

We head up to Sheffield in the evening to meet Daughter for a post course meal. We go to a place called Mud Crab Industries. It’s an odd menu, a mix of tapas, pizza, burgers, Mexican, Asian, Jamaican, Spanish... My paella is pretty good.

They also have Baked Alaska, which I have always wanted to try since Paddington Bear cooked it when I was about 10 years old but I’ve never ever seen it on a menu before. Paddington, by the way, misread the recipe and thought it said elastic. An easy mistake to make. We try it and its... ok. Nothing too exciting.

(Tuesday 27^th May)

In The Dungeon

It’s my birthday today and it turns out to be just about perfect. It helps that the Birthday Gods schedule it on a Saturday this year. It's always good when you don’t have to spend the majority of your big day behind a desk.

There’s no football match and I don’t schedule a dog show, so I get to spend it all in the company of an attractive young woman. She even skips this morning’s Park Run, although this is more due to a nagging ankle injury than out of devotion to my birthday.

The dogs still insist on doing the park, but you can’t have everything, and they do let us have a long lie-in first. Then we do a very un-celebratory gym session because I need to get one in before the end of the month if I’m going to get my cash back at year end.

I mainly do the treadmill, 5 whole k without getting injured, so that’s promising and I also do some leg weights.

Back home L makes me a cake amid cries of ‘cake, you can't not have cake, can you?’

In the evening we head into Nottingham and hang out in Brewdog for a while. The beer range is a little down on what it usually is but one of the barmaids makes up for this by, clearly catching my birthday vibes, coming to our table to refill our glasses. So we don't even have to get up to go to the bar.

Then we head to Iberico Tapas for a meal in the dungeon below the Galleries of Justice. We were going to go there for a friend’s birthday last year until he found out it was underground which didn’t go well with his aversion of anything subterranean. It sounded great to us though and we’re vowed to go there ever since.

We are sat at a pillar in the bar as the restaurant is fully booked. It’s a popular place. It’s also in the Michelin Guide and there are no prices on their website... e.g. it’s not going to be cheap. Apparently not only is it in the Michelin Guide, it’s one of only 137 restaurants nationwide with a Bib Gourmand, whatever that is, and the only one in Nottinghamshire... e.g. it’s going to be really expensive.

Apparently the bib denotes ‘good cuisine at a reasonable price’ but yes, it's still pretty expensive.

Although that may be because we pigged out a touch. After a starter, we had five tapas dishes to share between the two of us. Then three more for dessert because we didn’t fancy anything sweet. Then there was the rather nice 6.4% Alhambra 1925 Reserva beer, basically San Miguel with balls and the fact L was hitting the Spanish Sherry.

All rather nice though. We’ll be back.

(Saturday 27^th April)