About As Easy As A Nuclear War

It’s a traumatic park session this morning with MD forever taking the ball off in the wrong direction. Once up on a time, pre-MD, Doggo and I used to do a long walk down to the lake for a paddle (for Doggo) and we’d still be back within an hour. Since MD we don’t even make it a quarter of the way there. I tell MD we’re not coming tomorrow. I can see from the look on his face that he doesn’t believe me but I’m serious.

At the match in the afternoon, our first 3pm kick off against Leeds for years, Derby win 3-1 and the McClaren era is up and running.

Then as I’m having a Sunday off running we go for a Saturday night out.

First a Film. How I Live Now is based on a book by Meg Rosoff which has won several awards for Young Adult literature, so it’s a book for teenagers.

The film comes with a 15 certificate, plenty of bleakness and its own teenager, an American lass called Elizabeth (Saoirse Ronan) or rather it’s Daisy; she would rather be called Daisy. See, I told you she was troubled but then aren’t all teenagers.

Her father sends her to stay in the English countryside and she’s not impressed but if that wasn’t enough to piss her off, the fact World War III breaks out during her stay certainly was. 

She’s not impressed by much actually; in fact the only thing she is impressed with is Edmond (George Mackay). He sucks her finger after she’s cut herself and she swoons. Most likely because she is terrified of germs and infection and here is someone sucking her blood. Ewww, my hero.

Edmond is one of the young cousins she is staying with along with Isaac (Tom Holland) and Piper (Harley Bird). 

When their mother disappears off to Geneva to possibly help stop the coming war, in which she clearly fails as a nuclear bomb is dropped on London, the kids are left home alone. Martial law is declared and the kids decamp to the barn, where they Daisy and Edmond consummate their friendship.  

Then the military move in, seize them and evacuated them, splitting the boys and the girls up. Daisy and Edmond vow to escape and reunite back at the cottage. After awhile sorting potatoes, Daisy flees with Piper in tow. Steeled by the need to be strong for her younger cousin and also by her desire to be re-entangled with Edmund, Daisy deals admirably with the situations thrust at her and proves to be no mean shot with a pistol.

It’s a long journey home and they witness many things before they finally make it back where hopefully Edmond is waiting for her, along with another freshly ironed outfit for her to wear.

It’s an entertaining film and I enjoyed it but it has to be said it all seemed very unrealistic in parts. Right from the opening scene where 14 year old Isaac drives Daisy home from the airport through an unlikely land war amidst a nuclear fallout to the kindly eagle who ultimately guides them home.

It does clear up one thing though. If you want your own teenager to buck up their ideas, let go of their moods and remove that huge bag of chips off their shoulder, the quickest way to do it is to start a nuclear war. 

We are sat in the Peacock later, drinking the Old Peculiar when the emails start raining in on L’s phones. We’ve put the kids’ bikes and L’s old Peugeot up on Freecycle and the entries went live at 10pm. By five past we’ve had a dozen enquiries.

 
(Saturday 5^th October) 

Not A Snip At All

Today’s bike to work, feels far from easy. That’s what riding two days in a row does for you. At least it doesn’t rain on me, although we seem to have had plenty overnight.

A few weeks ago I purchased a new toaster from Sainsburys, from their Basics range, a snip at £4.95. Unfortunately the toaster hates me but then all toasters do. This one though, doesn’t much care for L either, as it won’t work for either of us. So it’s not been a snip at all really. Though I’m not sure I can be bothered to take it back.

Rather bizarrely, and in the interests of injury recovery, I have no events this weekend and just the football match on Saturday. So two lie-ins and we’ll even get a Saturday night out.

(Friday 4^th October)

The Dark Side Awaits

I cycle to work today, which feels amazingly easy. That’s what three days off does for you.

Lunchtime is spent in the pub, again battling to get them to serve us in under an hour, despite there being only one group in front of us. No wonder it’s never busy at lunchtime, lunch simply isn’t possible.

Tonight we play our first game of squash for months, after a summer flirtation with tennis. It doesn’t go well for me, not that that was unexpected. At least we both turned up with the correct racquet and balls.

Later we take a knife, a screwdriver and a pair of pliers to L’s brand new pretty blue cycling shoes. Well they were pretty blue until I skewered my finger with the screwdriver and dripped blood on them.

All this was necessary in order to install her cleats. No going back now, the dark side awaits.

(Thursday 3^rd October)

A Big Box And A New Set Of Wheels

I spend a third day in a row in the car due to various circumstances. Today’s are some pretty torrential rain, that makes my plan of getting the bus to work and then riding L’s new bike home not really viable. I don’t want to get soaked on the way to work and don’t really want to get her new set of wheels dirty either.

Around lunch time I’m told there’s a big box for me and no the receptionist isn’t going to be carrying it upstairs to my office for me. That must be L’s bike then.

It is rather nice, I hope she likes it. She’ll have to stick a thank you note on the drainpipe at work, where her old one was last seen.

We’ve even ordered it with clip-in pedals. L has been advised that they wouldn't have pinched her old bike if it had had stumps instead of pedals because they wouldn't have been able to ride away on it.

It goes home in the car where I put the pedals on it before heading off to dog training.

(Wednesday 2^nd October)

Magic Dust

For the first time in about three years I'm actually looking forward to the match tonight but what a letdown it is, at least at first. Caretaker Darren Wassall picks the team and picks a side that is very light in central midfield. Ipswich quickly exploit this and Derby’s well known deficiency in dealing with set pieces enabling them to storm in to a 4-1 half time lead. Not good. Not good at all.

However, the second half is totally different. The team put in a performance full of passion and enthusiasm that gets the crowd going to an extent I’ve not seen in years. Derby storm back to clinch a 4-4 draw with the best 45 minutes of football we’ve seen in a long long time. Although I actual left feeling slightly gutted as I was convinced we were going to win.

Afterwards everyone is full of praise for Wassall’s half time team talk and substitutions. The substitutions in particular shocked us because we hadn't made a tactical change before the 70th minute in the last five years.

However Wassall drops his halo in his post-match interview and rather sheepishly admits that well, actually, Steve McClaren came into the dressing room and sprinkled some magic dust. Now that does bode well for the future, which is also known as Leeds on Saturday.

(Tuesday 1^st October)