A Touch Of Normality

It’s a bit of a relief then to get back to work on Thursday and a touch of normality. It’s also great to bike in with very little traffic on the road. However I didn’t expect the normality to amount to so many calls from customers. I usually get my tax return done at work over Christmas because it’s not that busy.

Our office itself is also busy with around half the staff in which is far more than usual. Seems my views on Christmas are more widely shared than I thought.

Normality doesn’t stretch to me being able to play squash or L to play tennis, so we don’t really know what to do with ourselves on Thursday evening.

I bike in again on Friday, so at least it has been a very active Christmas fitness wise.

This continues on Saturday with parkrun. We go to Colwick for a change and I do my third one with the Lad. He is now starting to get the hang of it and I’m starting to get the hang of him. Unlike with MD it’s advisable to start on the front row with the Lad.

We are in the top six from the off and although we slip back, we come 20^th overall. My best result for quite a while and the time... the time is 21:54   which is not only a PB for the Lad but a PB for me and there’s still more to come I’m sure. I was holding him back because it wasn’t an ideal course and was very slippery in places.

(Saturday 29^th December)

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)

Who Would Do A Thing Like That?

It’s still very windy, although I think Frankie is calming down a bit now, so I drive to work. Such is the lack of traffic that I delay my departure for work and have half an hour of ball chucking with boys. After a while I got the feeling I was just in their way and they were waiting for me to sod off to work. So I do.

L swims 28 lengths then runs out of time but because she is obsessive about such things she explains the situation to the chaps on lifeguard duty and they let her get back in so that she could round it up to 30.

It is quiet at work, so I complete the tax return.

I go to the gym after work having not even tried to talk myself out of it, much to L’s surprise. Who would do a thing like that?

L is at a pump class and loses the use of her arms as a consequence.

(Wednesday 30^th December)

Year-End Figures

Christmas is over and I’m back at work today. It’s a bit too cold and icy to bike, so I take the car to work. This takes a mere fifteen minutes rather than the usual one hour plus.

It’s nicely quiet at work, around half a dozen of us in but it’s well cold after being empty for four days. Even I turn my heat on.

L’s in work too, on her own. Her boss was put off joining her the moment she cough, cough, splutter, spluttered down the phone to him.

It’s so quiet at work I can take an extended lunch break to sort out my tax return. L also does her year-end figures e.g. weight, overdraft, alcohol units, books read...

My jaw hit the table at one of the numbers she quoted at me. 54 books! That’s more than one a week and more than I’ve probably read in my entire lifetime (slight exaggeration perhaps).

I swim after work, although I’m half convinced the pool won’t be open. L points out that I should have took my gym stuff, just in case but I haven’t. Unless they’ll let me workout in my speedos.

However the pool is open and it's so quiet. Even my Russian rival isn't there. If it was this quiet all the time I’d go every day. I meet L afterwards, whose been in the gym and I let her scrounge a lift home.

(Monday 29^th December)