Difficult Questions

I’m feeling a bit knackered, so I take the bus to work and I will do the gym later, by which point hopefully the rest of my body will have woken up.

L asks me the sort of difficult questions that all couples have to deal with a some point. Can you show me how to set up a Paypal account? and How do I charge my bike lights? I’m here for her.

While reading someone else’s blog and I find out about The Parkrun Alphabet Challenge. Which basically means you have to run 26 different parkruns that all start with a different letter. Well it’s actually only 25 as there is no ‘X’. Yet. Oh, and ‘Z’ is Zary in Poland which I assume L’s response of ‘Poland here we come!’ was all about but that’s Z. There’s plenty more to go at before we get there. I’m such a killjoy.

My friend’s funeral is announced with donations invited for 'Rethink'. ‘Rethink’ are a mental illness charity, which seems to tell us something we didn't know.

Squash is off again and will be for a few weeks as my opponent has had a bout of shingles.

(Thursday 26^th October)

Fast, Flat And Insomnia Curing

I’m on the bike today and L’s in the pool, even though I thought she was banned.

Then she’s emailing me running dates. Namely next year’s Hairy Helmet and a new Leicestershire Half Marathon that seems to be several laps of those runways near Prestwold Hall. Fast, flat and insomnia curing. I'm not sure I fancy it but then again there’s not much else in February, so I’ll pencil it very lightly in the diary.

Our dog trainer tonight is stuck in Cambridge, so we have reshuffle all the training sessions and cut the late class completely. L is delighted at this development as it means I can pick her up from her folks’ an hour earlier than normal. It also saves me from a pint of the usual at the Masons.

(Wednesday 25^th October)

Her Words

I bike into work in not too bad conditions but then it starts to deteriorate and gets very windy outside. However it’s not rained yet and I’m worried that it’s waiting for me to start the ride home. Somehow though, I seem to escape it.

Daughter turns down a meal at ours. She says she's staying at home to aggressively practice her maths ahead of her interview. Her words.

So we have a spot of Handmaid's Tale, which is proving to be a bit of a long winded drag despite its many accolades. I also feel I should watch this Gunpowder thing that everyone is complaining about. Apparently someone was hung drawn and quartered on it, which isn’t something you get everyday on the BBC. L's reaction... is there a book?

(Tuesday 24^th October)

Mrs Mop

L adds a mop and bucket to this morning’s shopping list and seems to get really excited by it when I get her one.

It’s still five months away but we book a practice session for Crufts. The session isn’t until January but there are very few venues with a carpet surface like they use at Crufts and you have to get in early. We’ll be going down to Daventry for this one. There is an indoor centre there with a carpet surface. L immediately starts check out the area for Parkruns.

No dog training tonight.

(Monday 23^rd October)

The Final Cut

It’s nice having a break from running, it means we get a lie in until lunch time. Then Doggo and I fetch the Sunday paper along with the ingredients for a Full English, while MD and L are on park.

In the afternoon I check out the Yorkshire Marathon on TV, sizing it up for next year. It looks ok but I think they’re better marathon fish to fry.

Then amazingly the weather lets me give the lawn one final cut before garden waste collections are abandoned for the winter this Wednesday. They of course assume everyone stops cutting their grass when they do, which I believe is August going by the length of the grass on Wollaton Park. I’ve started to now lose MD in the long grass rather than just his ball.

A break from running also means I can make a return to the velodrome and I go this evening. If the rest of the group were pleased to see me back they didn’t show and they certainly didn’t go easy on me.

L goes in the gym, seeing as it's now free due to the little know Notts-Derby Metro Partnership. Then afterwards it’s a couple of pints in Stapleford. 

(Sunday 22^nd October)

Running Embargo

Although L still proclaims that her back is much better, thankfully she doesn’t intend to test it out at Parkrun today. She’s put herself on a running embargo for the whole of October, which is nice and sensible.

In the afternoon Derby make incredibly hard work of beating a Sheffield Wednesday team who gift Derby a penalty and a one man advantage as early as the 5^th minute but they crawl home to a 2-0 win eventually.

In the evening Daughter joins us at Broadway to see a film. 

Jo Nesbø’s book ‘The Snowman’ made for a weirdly complicated read, so how will it transfer to the big screen? Unless they’re simplified it probably badly, if they’ve made it even more complicated then very badly.

Harry Hole (Michael Fassbender) is the man chasing the Snowman, a serial killer who has the time to make an actual snowman at the scene of all his crimes. As a detective, Hole is a loose-cannon and an alcoholic who probably wouldn’t have had a hope of detecting anything had the killer not chosen to send clues personally addressed to him.

The Snowman has issues from childhood when his mother drove intentionally into a frozen lake and drowned while he escaped. Hole has issues too, his drunken behaviour has broken up his relationship with Rakel (Charlotte Gainsbourg) but they remain 'friends' largely because Harry gets on so well with her teenage son Oleg (Michael Yates) not that effective childcare seems to be a particular forte of his either.

Hole’s newbie detective partner Katrine (Rebecca Ferguson) has issues too (of course) centring around her father, another unconventional boozed up cop (Val Kilmer), who we see in flashbacks.

Her big moment is springing a honey trap for publishing mogul editor Arve Støp (JK Simmons). A man who has a disturbing habit of photographing women he’s only just met. Yet while the film contains the contractual obligation of a full frontal Michael Fassbender topless scene, the female topless scene photographed by Støp seems to have been cut during the editing. Which is disgracefully unPC. 

Needless to say the crime eventually gets solved, only after considerably bloodshed and with no great thanks to a fascinating piece of police kit known as the EviSync, which seems to do everything for the police bar actually solve the case. The only problem is it's about as portable as a tumble drier.

It’s a watchable thriller, if a largely nonsensical one where it’s difficult to keep track of who’s chasing who and why. To be fair to Fassbender, he makes a good drunk but the real stars of the film are the wintery landscapes of Oslo and Bergen.

There is more crime later when we charged £5.90 in the Lord Roberts for a bottle Leffe Blonde. These things usually sell for around £3. We are so disgusted we move on to the Peacock and the OP.

(Saturday 21^st October)

Too Many Fridays

The weather hasn’t improved much and the murky damp start entices me onto the bus again, although it does fine up a bit later, but the legs are still telling me they’d appreciate more rest.

Meanwhile people are warned not to pose with their head between the antlers of the Wollaton Park stags when they take selfies. Who’s have thought that could be dangerous?

Today is apparently Friday... and I thought yesterday was Friday... still, you can never have too many Fridays. 

(Friday 20^th October)

Fainting In The Gym

I don't bike today as heavy rain has been forecast, so it’s the bus again.

They do turn out to right about the rain and I don’t even manage to get out for a sandwich at lunchtime. I’ll be fainting in the gym if I can get there without drowning because, after slowing to mere heavy drizzle, another downpour arrives at dead on 5pm. I get drenched and its only five minutes away. I have to spin my legs extra fast on the Watt Bike to dry my shoes out.

By the time I’ve done my 15km it’s fine again. So L walks to meet my bus with the boys. Then it's a bonus Friday night, a couple of beers and L cooks.

Meanwhile I’m still trying to digest the phone call I got earlier in the day to say they’ve pulled a body out of the River Trent. Not good news at all.

(Thursday 19^th October)

Guaranteed Arrival Time

The old legs are probably not quite fully recovered but it’s time to get back on the bike as this at least guarantees my arrival time at work, punctures permitting of course.

The police email me about my missing friend, asking if I know anything. Sadly, I don’t. I suppose it’s good news if they think there’s a possibility he’s voluntarily disappeared but I’m not sure that’s very likely.

It's looking very dark and wintry by the time I come to cycle home, I certainly won’t need my shades. Daughter is waiting for me when I get home and we go out to run 5k. My legs manage it quite well although the fact MD joins us does slow things down somewhat.

(Wednesday 18^th October)

GP Fraud

I'm on the bus this morning as my legs are still not working properly after Sunday. There is an accident on the A52 so the driver takes the scenic route, meaning I’m late for work and arrive at 9.30

L reckons her back is starting to feel better and surreptitiously cancels her GP appointment. She says she couldn't go, she would feel such a fraud. That's honourable but it doesn’t stop everyone else. She goes for a ‘gentle’ gym session instead and then goes to her old book club for the first time in ages as it’s the Booker Prize tonight and they always make a big thing of it.

The dogs and I are dog training but, as L isn’t with us, without the pint afterwards. 

(Tuesday 17^th October)