Granny Cycling

Our local park is shut for four days this week and for four days next. We suspect this is for target practice on the deer but we're not 100% sure. Perhaps venison is in vogue this Christmas. I’m not sure how MD will cope without his park nor how L will cope for that matter.

I’m on the bus today with the intention of going to the gym tonight but I start feeling ill around lunchtime. I make it to the gym but my legs are feeling so weak that I only manage 5k of granny cycling (with all due respect to cycling grannies everywhere) and even that is a struggle. I have the same heartburn that I had last Christmas but at least I know that it goes just as quickly as it comes after a quick vomit.

First though I have to get home on the bus and hope it doesn’t happen there. It doesn’t. I make it home and crawl into bed to await the inevitable. Takes a few hours but then I feel much better again.

(Tuesday 6^th December)

Our Friend By The Gate

In a rare moment of warmth towards the deer, L excludes our ‘friend by the gate’ from the list of potential occupants of our dinner plates come the 4th Sunday in December. I think she feels sorry for him being hassled by bloody collies every day. Although I assume he must like being hassled by bloody collies or at least laughing at them otherwise he’d go loiter somewhere else.

According to the BBC ‘Swimming participation in England falls by nearly 24%’ but then as our local pool at John Carroll closes most mornings before L can get there and they never open Nottingham’s 50m pool at a time when I can get there it’s hardly surprising.  

Dogging tonight and a change of beer in the Masons... Directors. Not exciting but at least it’s a change.

(Wednesday 30^th November)

Something Wild And Exciting

L asks that if ‘trusty’ Runners World publish a doable half marathon training programme, will I let her know. Naturally I email her one straight back. Like this one?

The presence of the word ‘Intermediate’ shocks her, she feels she’s never surpassed the dizzy heights of ‘beginner’ despite doing at least 103 half marathons and a few marathons over the years. I promise her she won’t need a glass of red before she reads it.

The opening line of the plan is ‘Once you’ve done your first half...’ so it’s definitely for her.

I nearly considered the next one up but that opens with ‘you’re going to have to feel the burn to get results...’, so I'll perhaps save that for next time.

The gasman, who is booked in for tomorrow, rings to ask if he could come ‘now’. Errm, no.

Park  Bike Works ring me, now there’s a first. It’s ready! Ta da. My next day job is finally ready after eight days. Now that’s service. I’ll pick it up tomorrow.

Squash is cancelled as my opponent’s back hasn’t recovered yet so I go for a run instead. That is if my stomach lets me and doesn’t swing around too much after the venison casserole I put in at lunchtime.

L says let's do something wild and exciting tonight. Ooooh. I’m all hers, once I get this run out of the way.

I run from work to Spondon, get the bus, and then run home from Stapleford. Not sure how far that is in total, 5 or 6 miles I would guess.

I get home but no L. So I have to be wild and exciting on my own until she arrives. 

(Thursday 22^nd October)

Another Mention Of Christmas And It's Still Only Mid November.

My training regime hasn’t been good recently. No training at all from Friday to Monday and only a swim on Tuesday. So it’s a relief to be on the bike today. Particularly as an unannounced closure to Coventry Lane causes chaos. Glad I’m not sat in that in the car.

Its perfect conditions for cycling. Slightly cold but dry and sunny.

It’s around this time of year that L starts requesting venison for Christmas lunch on the basis that one less of the brutes on Wollaton Park has got to be a good thing and one less for MD to bark at.

Although there is an alternative offer on the table from L’s boss in the shape of a couple of freshly shot pheasants. Apparently he's even offered to have his stable girl pluck them for us. 

I’m impressed. More so by the fact that he has a stable girl than by the pheasant offer. How cool. Maybe we should get one?

Although perhaps to have a stable girl one needs a stable. We do have a shed, although that's not quite got the same ring to it.

(Wednesday 13^th November)

Behind Closed Doors

L has started a new gym based fitness programme known as the Twelve Days of Fitmas. This involves adding a new activity each day. Day one sounds easy and is called ‘Sign up’ but day two is harder ‘30 Press Ups’ and day three requires a google ‘Burpees’.

L suggests that she might do the Burpees on her own, behind closed doors, as they might be embarrassing. Well the name is embarrassing, so if the exercises themselves aren’t it will be a huge disappointment.

I head to Sainsbury’s looking for Christmas meats, a whole leg of lamb for this Saturday and Reindeer (aka venison) for Sunday, with not much expectation that they’ll have either. So I am pleasantly surprised when I find both. Clearly the extra culling on Wollaton Park has been beneficial somewhere.

‘Nope, not doing Burpees in the gym. No way José.’ She must have googled them.

I shall leave her to it; I’ve got some wet outdoor dogging to go to.

(Monday 17th December)

St Andrews Day

L persuasively talks me out of cycling, with the help of a -3 temperature on the thermometer. I don't really want any more cracked ribs at this stage of my recovery from injury.

Today is St Andrews Day.

So we ought to do something Scottish tonight, perhaps I’ll get my kilt out and open the whisky or perhaps not. We do actually have a haggis in the fridge, although it was intended as a gift for Son and it’s now also out of date.

We must be able to come up with something else that’s Scottish. L suggests venison but she’s just desperate for a piece of the local deer, who aren't, I don't think, Scottish. Scotch broth? Scotch egg? Scotch pancakes?

In the end L suggests a Celtic Thai Curry which is a good compromise. I cook it using actual Scottish salmon. L herself does ‘Scottish Mist’ for dessert but apologises in advance for having to use Moroccan fruit and West Country cream but she's hopefully that she can add some whisky to it that is actually Scottish. Actually, I think it’s a choice of Jameson or Brandy...

We watch TOTP as usual, although we probably shouldn’t unless the Krankies are on it or the Bay City Rollers I suppose, but I think one of them is under investigation, so they’re probably banned.

(Friday 30th November)

Deer Psychology

We have the plumber in this morning, fitting new bath taps and new trim. He's also on hand to offer his views to L on deer psychology... the ones on Wollaton Park are all psychos, but we already knew that. MD knows that and has been trying to out-psycho them for the last few years.

All of which has made one difficult decision easy, we're having venison for Christmas lunch this year. We know the one we want, his card is marked. MD and I will sort it, in the dead of night.

I’m not sure tennis is going to happen but my opponent is convinced that the rain will cease at 6pm. I'm not so sure...

BBC forecast says

"The more persistent rain will clear north by this afternoon, a few brighter intervals possible but with further heavy, slow-moving, thundery downpours likely.

Further rain across the region this evening and overnight, perhaps heavy and thundery at times."

There are no squash courts free, so we don't have that as a backup option. If it is on, I can see I’m going to be busy with the court squeegee.

They look at us oddly, again, when we book in but we do actually get a full match in with only a brief shower. We even get a few extra games in as we wait for L to finish her ‘pump’.

Then it’s a pint in a rather crowded White Hart where the pool match seems to have pulled a bigger crowd than Cristiano Ronaldo's one man show against the Czech Republic.

(Thursday 21st June)