The Long Road North

It’s 5am Saturday morning. We are up and on the long road north e.g. the M6.

First stop Preston and a near underwater Parkrun. I drop L off and hope it’s on.

Second stop Bilsborrow and an equally underwater dog show, which is thankfully indoors but the access roads and the surrounding fields are well flooded. I make it there with two minutes to spare to walk our first course.

The rain is now incessant, I pity anyone parkrunning because the run does go ahead.

At the dog show, run one was very good but MD missed a contact. I thought he got it but the judge disagreed. We come 5^th even with those 5 faults, we would have won had he got that contact.

After I’ve walked my next course I head out into the monsoon to collect L from the bus. However I’m a bit late and she has already started swimming for it. I manage to rescue her before she gets too far out of her depth.

In the afternoon we record a decent 9^th place and then he leads the jumping for ages but our time is finally beaten. We finish 2^nd. Not a bad day all in all.

In the evening we head out for a few beers in the Blue Monkey and the Borlase.

(Saturday 5^th December)

Poppies

L is working in London today, so I do the dogs’ morning constitutional then take the car to work. So there’s no cycling today but the forecast is alright for the rest of the week so I should still get two more days cycling in. Perhaps I’ll do a swim tonight as I’m not scheduled to be at dog training but if I have another girlie nagging for a chat about becoming a member I might have to go down and do my duty.

L sends through a photo the poppies, the ones that are left anyway.

I make it to the pool to find that the old Wednesday lane swim has now officially become a general swim. In a way that’s better as it clarifies things. Half the pool is now being taken up by lessons and a lane swim with only three lanes doesn’t really count as lane swim.

Tonight though, for some reason, they have laned one lane in the middle of the pool with the lessons one side and a free for all the other. It was utter chaos as no one knew where to go. In the lane I join a woman swimming half-lengths underwater, another woman doing impossibly slow breaststroke and a chap backstroking half lengths before flipping around and going back, so that he doesn’t have to overtake anyone.

To cap it all the lessons were for the under-fives I think, most of which didn’t seem at all keen and spent most of the session screeching their displeasure. Somehow I make it to 34 lengths. Just six more and I’ll call it a day. I don’t get there and quit at 38 when the headache becomes too much. To cap it all the coffee machine isn’t working.

Apparently a general swim is now known as a 'Swim For All', unfortunately what I attended tonight was actually a Swim For Nobody as it suited no one. One to avoid I think.

(Wednesday 19^th November)

Underwater

Straight home and straight into an evening meeting to discuss our Dog Agility Show in three weeks time that is currently going to be held underwater unless either the weather improves (unlikely) or we move it to a drier field (if such a thing exists).

Seems we can move it to a drier field. Whether this will stay dry over the next few weeks is open to debate.

I also come home to the news that Derby County have sold our best defender for barely more than what we paid for him. Our other centre half is out all next season injured, so we’re really in a mess now.

Now the club have announced we're going to be playing on a Friday night next season, three times, not for TV, just for fun. Great. Is there anything else they'd like to do to alienate people? It’s going to be another long season.

(Monday 9th July)