Everywhere You Turn

After our dog show finished in the rain we decided to leave all the tents up to dry. This of course meant someone had to go back today to take them down. I offer to go after work but enough people volunteer before then to get them down before I even leave work.

So the Lad is over the moon with joy as he can go to his Monday evening training, to hopefully build on the good performances he put in over the weekend. L has the the less exciting prospect of going round to her parents’ to do some gardening. At least she can count it as a workout.

Our local Waitrose is to become a Lidl. Which doesn't seem to make much sense. I really can’t see them doing much good in Wollaton but then what do I know. I assume I won’t be able to get my Shrimp Paste there?

Along with Aldi, Lidl seems to be taking over. They are already building a new supermarket on the Beechdale Baths site and Aldi have just built a new one in Stapleford where I thought they were supposed to be building houses. It do comes with the requirement of a mere 10 houses and Aldi even tried to get that requirement removed.

After a day off the rain starts again and I get the bus into work on Tuesday but then I can’t get out of Derby Bus Station as they’ve closed half the bays and are digging something up. At the moment in Derby there are roadworks everywhere you turn.

L says the Lad must be growing up because he scooted up the garden with her trainer, rather than the apple she left on the worktop. That’s growing up?

The rain eventually stops briefly on Thursday and I get to cycle to work, with repaired cleats and I manage not to fall off.

My tennis is back after a two week hiatus. The only problem is the rain has started again. We go ahead and play but get an additional workout drying out the court. Well, our squeegee muscles do.

(Thursday 1^st August)

The Kale Muffin Diet

The weather has turned very mild and its hot work on the bike this morning. Largely because I have too much kit on.

L meanwhile goes out with not enough kit and forgets her swimming goggles. So, that would have been a breaststroke laden session then. She said she did feel a bit poncy but breaststroke is actually a pretty tough workout.

It’s a rare game of squash tonight and my opponent has been preparing hard with his kale muffin diet. Apparently, this will make his constant colds a thing of the past although probably to be replaced by malnutrition.

Before the game, I jokingly ask if he has picked up this week’s injury yet. It turns out he has and has now pulled a calf muscle. He hobbles around the court but still wins. However, it looks like we’re headed for a few more weeks off.

In our first trip to the Navigation for ages, they have three dark ales on the bar as it’s the Stout and Porter Trail. Quite a mouth-watering selection.

(Thursday 9^th March)

B-Day?

Day 25

L contemplates yoga this morning but in the end decides that chucking balls on the park with MD is the better workout. She’s probably right. I mean yoga? Not that I’ve ever done it.

Typically of our awkward dog, on what is theoretically his last day in the front bedroom, he trotted merrily off into the room and sat in the wardrobe. Clearly he is worried I will reclaim that wardrobe.

Rather bizarrely when I turn up at work today it is to find that the cleaner, presumably a new one, has washed up everyone’s mugs and then put them back at their desks. That’s twenty or so mugs back at their owner’s desks exactly where they left them last night but clean. It's almost Twilight Zone. 

It must also have been an amazing feat of memory to recall which mug went where or did they do each one individually or perhaps they photographed the location of each one first? Fascinating.

I text the builder with a list of bathroom related issues. He doesn’t reply. However I am prepared for this and have come in the car today. So I go over at lunchtime to see if there’s any life.

He was actually there and fitting a plastic strip around the toilet. He agreed with me about the unfinished bits but I really can’t see them being sorted today particularly as he says he’s going to try to unblock our drains with his pressure hose this afternoon.

Naturally I have ball session with the dogs while I’m there. MD was out of the bedroom and into the garden as soon as I opened the door, long before Doggo even realised I was there.

The bathroom shop calls again. Is it finished? No.

Then just as I’ve put the phone down to them, our builder calls. Is it finished? Yes. 

Really?

I rush home and apparently he is right. It is finally finished, one day short of the fourth week. The pyramids were constructed in about the same time frame I believe but you probably can't get a hot shower in them. Sadly though he hasn’t managed to clear the drains which means we can't get a hot shower in ours either, yet. He says he'll pop back later to show me where they are blocked.

Squash is cancelled. Half the lights were out on the court last week and apparently they have now failed completely so they have cancelled our booking for tonight. Also the one remaining court is already booked up for next week, so we’ll be having at least two weeks off.

This disrupts L’s plans to run there and meet us in the pub. So I selflessly offer to go and sit in the pub anyway because obviously a run is not really a run without a pub at the end of it. Rather than the Navigation and I go to wait in the Dispensary where they have beer number 102 Castle Rock’s Most Haunted.

(Thursday 3^rd November)

Back In The Old Routine

Back at work today and back in the old routine. I’m on the bike and the boys are on their usual walk but sadly L doesn’t get her swim.

Doggo is now getting very slow, so we decide to start talking the dogs out separately. It’ll be the two old men together so that L and MD can go bonding on the park. MD will therefore get a good workout and L will then be in good time to get hers. 

(Wednesday 31^st August)

A False Sense Of Security

Dogging is ‘surprisingly’ off so after work I head to John Carroll for a swim. Where I am lulled into a false sense of security as I jump into lane 2 where the only occupant is a girl with immaculate hair piled up on top of her head, bone dry, who is chatting away to someone in the next lane and not doing any swimming.

Eventually she finishes chatting and starts swimming only after I've took the edges off myself with 20 lengths of the pool. Then she wipes the floor with me.

I crawl home to see if I can resist ball chucking for a fourth day in a row.

L has headed to Harvey Hadden for a workout blitz. I’m not exactly sure what a ‘workout blitz’ involves but in this case I’m told in involves Pump and Pilates.

I do the househusband thing and promise to have something hot on the table ready for when she gets home.

(Monday 4^th January)