The Canine Five A Day

The weekend ends with my first velodrome session for some time and boy does it hurt afterwards. It shames me into a massive two rides to work this week.

The BBC says three quarters of women never cycle. Which I am surprised at but not because that’s a high amount of non-cyclists as the BBC implies but because I thought it would be higher than that and also about the same for men. I work for a pretty fit company and only 2 out of 25 are cycling. That’s 8%. So 92% don’t cycle.

There are other forms of exercise. Just ask the boys, well ask MD. The Lad mostly spends their morning park sessions hanging onto his ball, poncing merrily around with it in his mouth, while MD at least puts his all in to it and actually chases the balls. 

MD crawls back from the park while the Lad comes home still up for running off with a several pairs of shoes and chewing on a few of his beloved clothes pegs or... fruit. He does like his five a day, running off with L’s breakfast apple and her lunchtime banana. Well, if she will leave them on the kitchen worktop.

We assume this also goes on while we’re at work, to a lesser extent as we’ve hidden all the shoes\clothes pegs, while MD goes to bed and lets chaos do its own thing. Which one day turns out to be nibbling on L’s sunglasses.

Monday I have a committee meeting and Thursday the car goes in for it’s MOT. Apparently the hand brake has failed, I’ve no idea why... L may have been hoping they would condemn the whole car but they’ve fixed the handbrake, installed a new indicator stalk so now we can turn right as well as left, even the clanking suspension has been fixed. So, as good as new now. If only I could get the same treatment for myself.

Friday brings the Hairy Helmet. L is a bag of nerves. So am, given how quickly the bar ran out last year. I’m nervous about how long it will last this year.

Daughter joins the team this time and the dress code is black, like we’re all in mourning but hey, we were 211th last year out of 222. The only way is up. No pressure.

We have to move up a category though. From last year’s Ultravets (combined age of more than 240) to Supervets (combined age of more than 200) due to Daughter’s youthfulness.

We finish 218^th, oh... but out of 239. So I think that’s an improvement.

The beer doesn’t run out as no one can get one. There are massive queues, so we give up and adjourn to the Furnace.

Oh and on Tuesday, I had a blast seeing The Psychedelic Furs at the Academy Leicester.

(Friday 15^th June)

Feeding Time

The weekend finishes with a leg sapping session at Derby's Velodrome followed by a reviving few pints and a takeaway curry. Which the boys enjoy too.

So it's probably no great surprise that Doggo doesn’t want his breakfast in the morning, having eaten late and having, as I recall, sausage rolls and crisps as well as his naan bread. Not healthy but we’re beyond that. There is already chicken roasting in the oven for his tea and hopefully there might even be some for the rest of us as well.

Monday evening is my post-show Committee Meeting and then Tuesday, we’re puppy hunting. Looking after Doggo has sorted of grounded our holiday plans, so we might as well be disrupted by a puppy at the same time.

It had started out as spaniel shopping but after being knocked out by the price they ask for them we’ve reverted to looking at collie puppies. Even they are getting expensive but we’re happy with cheap as chips, if we can find one. All there seems to be in the paper are Chuahapoos, whatever they are.

L heads off to Mickleover visiting, leaving Salmon cooking in the oven for Doggo.

Wednesday and Doggo is now turning down most food that isn’t salmon, chicken, best steak or today, cheese and crackers. The solution may be to order him a take away every night, as he seems to like them. Problem is we’d all be the size of a house, MD is already heading that way as he is getting all Doggo’s leftovers.

 

I’m on the bike, dodging the weather. The wind blows me to work but luckily the horrendous hailstorm happens at lunchtime, leaving relatively benign conditions for the ride home.

Thursday I’m in the car with my track bike in the back. I take it in to the bike shop to have my new super cog, a Christmas present from L, installed. I tried to do it myself but the chain was too short, so thought I best leave it to the experts.

Doggo moves on to sausages and boiled eggs, now one small step away from a Full English. That dog is better fed than me and despite his cranky eating, his dodgy legs and dodgy bladder he still seems to enjoying his morning walks with me.

Squash is on, sadly, because L had tended a better offer. So instead L and MD walk power walk there before joining us and Doggo in the pub.

On Friday I have another day in London but I'm home in time to accept the deferred better offer from L. 

(Friday 2^nd February)

Easy Isn’t Really An Option

I’m at the velodrome tonight but L decides to stay in Nottingham. She hopes to do Tennis Centre gym and then go in the sauna but she aborts the sauna idea. She says she can hear the testosterone in there from the changing room.

She should be here. The cycle track is positively swimming in testosterone and that’s just the girls. L tells me to take it easy but easy isn’t really an option. Even the GB Team are here with their fancy ipads giving out lap times to their riders. There's been a full turn out with all 28 places taken tonight for what is the last Sunday night session of the year before the pantomime season starts. It’s so wrong that the pantomime stops play in the velodrome.

My Dad and I go for a pint afterwards in the Exeter while L gets home to find that Doggo has eaten the new mop. 

(Sunday 26^th November)

Crumbs

I walk the boys this morning so that L can get a good long swim. The boys and I have quite a long walk, over half an hour anyway, and they both ate a hearty breakfast afterwards. Even Doggo who we suspect may be finding his munchies a bit too hard on his old worn down teeth, so we’ve started softening them with water.

In the afternoon I receive an email from Seetickets offering me a ticket for Frank Turner’s 2000th show at Rock City next Thursday and I have two hours to claim it. So I claim it!

I was in the original ballot for tickets and if you didn’t get one you went on the waiting list in case there were any returns or extra ones made available. So my name must have come up. That never usually happens. They were about 10 times oversubscribed.

With the pantomime now in full swing and us track cyclists generally ousted for the duration we have to grab what crumbs of track time we can. Oddly one of those crumbs is tonight from 5pm to 7pm as there is no pantomime performance tonight. As it’s a Friday night this seems rather odd but then the fact they’re holding a pantomime in a velodrome is pretty odd in the first place.

I leave work a little early for what is supposed to be a gentler session than the Sunday one. Not so, particularly when the same coach as the other Sunday turns up and starts doing his six day sixes again (or whatever it is). The overall standard tonight is lower but the pace isn’t which just means there are more bodies to be resuscitated afterwards.

(Friday 9^th December)