Race Free Sunday

It’s a race free Sunday, it’s a very long time since we’ve had one of those.

I fail miserably, again, to get Glastonbury tickets. I feel I am probably hampered by our poor internet connection and the fact I am having to use WiFi since the Lad severed the cabled connection. This prompts me to instigate an upgrade to fibre.

That aside, today we do ‘normal people’ things. We go to Decathlon to get L a tennis racquet and make a trip to the rubbish tip. Hopefully we’ll be back racing next week!

There is some excitement though and the Lad doesn’t mind missing his training for it, L and Daughter are finally cashing in last year's Christmas present, thoughtfully bought be me, and are going on the velodrome.

L did suggest they could go over on the bus, arguing that I didn’t have to come and I could have took the Lad training instead... What? and miss them on the velodrome? Not a chance! It’s the highlight of the month.

We drive over, L looks petrified but Daughter is bouncing. We are a little early, so I hand the car keys to Daughter and she practices her parking while I walk the Lad around the car park. MD looks on from inside the car, probably wondering how he can get out.

Then they’re both heading for the track and handing me their phones as they go, urging me to take lots of photos. After some instruction they start doing laps, L looks petrified but Daughter is bouncing and each time she passes me she mouths something that looks like ‘please take more photos’ or it might have been ‘if you take any more photos I’ll kill you’ but its hard to tell due to the speed she’s going. She does seem to be really taking to this.

Then, oops, she’s fallen off and I zoom in for a close up. Now I can definitely hear the words ‘stop’ and ‘kill’. I'm sure she doesn’t mean it.

Afterwards, L still looks petrified but Daughter is bouncing and the ‘crash’ video goes viral. I at least know what to buy one of them for next Christmas. 

(Sunday 7^th October)

National Spoil Your Dog Day

Supposedly today is National Spoil Your Dog Day, although I thought every day was spoil your dog day, and it is also Doggo’s birthday. How appropriate. He is sweet sixteen today.

I make a rare voyage onto Facebook and post a picture of his custom made birthday card with him in a cowboy hat. He promptly goes viral.

I bike today and then later it’s tennis, followed by a beer afterwards at the Crown in Beeston.

L runs to us from the other side of town after a pump class at Djanogly.

(Thursday 10^th August)

Let The Complaining Begin

My battered body isn’t feeling too battered this morning, thankfully. The aches are aching but not too badly. Yet, despite a curry last night, we are both starving which may have something to do with the triathlon organisers making us go about twelve hours without food yesterday. 

A few people ask me about the event, saying how good it looked on TV and not having seen it from our angle. Some of them had even looked up my time, so it seems at least the timing system worked as planned.

There is already deluge of complaints on Facebook about the organisational issues from many many unhappy competitors and a few jokey ones querying how the Brownlees got through transition so quick with their bags. It’s hard to keep up with all the comments as more and more are being added all the time. My own comment has so many likes it must have gone viral.

I drag myself away from reading about ‘Baggate’ to scour Sainsbury's for real thick bread but decide it doesn't exist and if it does, it only comes in white.

The other big topic at the moment is the M1 closure. The motorway was closed yesterday and today by someone trying to jump off one of the gantries.

I skip dog training to go visit L's brother with L, although training is later cancelled anyway.

(Monday 13^th June)

#BloodyCyclists

Daughter is on her way to the passport office in Liverpool, chauffeured by her father who is perhaps over worried that they won’t let her back in the country when she goes to France with him next week because her passport has only six months to run on it. Why worry, extra holiday isn’t it?

It’s all over the internet about some young girl who seemingly got away with knocking a cyclist off his bike because he wasn’t going to tell anyone in case his girlfriend found out. Sensible chap.

That was until the girl tweeted about it, which was a really bright thing to do wasn’t it. She’s clearly far too intelligent to be working at the accountancy firm where she’s a trainee... or was, as she’s now been suspended.

That tweet went viral on the internet and even though she subsequently cancelled her Twitter account it was too late because people had already screenshoted it complete with her name and photo, found her Facebook account, where she works etc etc. With the internet there is no escape and of course not stopping at the scene of an accident is a serious offence. Oh dear #InTheSh*t as they say on Twitter.

She’s also clearly far too intelligent to know that there’s no such thing as Road Tax, which was her excuse for knocking him off because he didn’t pay any. Yet of course, like most cyclists, he also owns a car for which he pays his Vehicle Excise Duty (not Road Tax) which is based on his vehicle’s level of exhaust emissions. It’s there to encourage people to drive smaller cars or bikes even. I’m sure he’d happily pay it for his bike too, with its emission level of zero.

Hope she doesn’t end up doing anyone’s accounts in the near future.

I’m not on my bike today, instead I put in a training run and a rather slow nine miles but nine mines is nine miles. Job done.

(Tuesday 21^st May)