Curling

On Friday L gets up really early to trial something called Battle Box which is not a computer game but is something really evil that they do at the gym at 7am outdoors in a howling gale.

Later she tells me how brilliant it was which I’m sure has nothing to do with the fact they gave them all bacon cobs and coffee afterwards. Bacon cobs don’t really sound like much of a fitness plan to me.

It appears I have completely misjudged the council as they have already removed the fallen tree.

Wordle is getting slightly annoying.

We all have one eye on the Friday’s Women’s Curling Semi Final between GB and Sweden, of course one of us only has one eye. It’s so tense, all square with three to play. Then we’re three up with one to play. As you can tell I was working hard that day. Then it’s back to all square again and into sudden death but we secure victory in the end.

Meanwhile the Men had already won their Semi on Thursday and are into Saturday’s Final which sadly they lose as Sweden’s Men get revenge for their Women’s defeat but that is still a silver medal. I have to break off briefly from watching it to do Parkrun at Wollaton.

Our women go one better as they land a gold medal by beating Japan in Sunday’s final.

I have another run on Sunday which is just a 10k at Victoria Embankment. There’s also a 5k which L was tempted with but £20 for that, the same price as the 10k, isn’t cheap. So she decides to run there instead.

My 10k is pretty dull but it’s a necessary training run.

(Sunday 20^th February)

Echo And The Bunnymen

I have seen Echo & The Bunnymen many times over the years and over a career that goes way back and beyond the release of their first album ‘Crocodiles’ in 1980. It was a few years after that I started seeing them live and they were some of the first gigs I ever went to.

However looking at the diary I have not seen them since 1999, which is very remiss of me. I saw them a few times after they reformed with the excellent ‘Evergreen’ album back in 1997 but not in the last 23 years. Blimey. So in my quest to get reacquainted with all my old favourites again at least one more time, before one of us is no longer capable, I am back at the scene of that last gig in 1999. Although no surprise it’s Rock City and it looks like a sell out.

As they come on the stage something strikes me as odd. Ian McCulloch is up there but not chain smoking and presumably hasn’t in many a year. The stage is still smoking heavily, so no change there, but now it’s clearly all dry ice as since I last saw them the smoking ban has come in. This must have changed his act somewhat and hopefully his health too in a positive way. Yet it’s odd to see Mac stood up there without a fag in his hand adding to the smog. 

Little else has changed though. The long coat, the sunglasses, even the haircut is broadly the same. Yes he still has hair even at 62. Will Sergeant looks in pretty good shape too.

Talking of ‘Crocodiles’, that’s how we start and how the album starts too with ‘Going Up’ which is followed by ‘Show Of Strength’ from its follow-up ‘Heaven Up Here’ and then back to ‘Crocodiles’ for ‘All That Jazz’. So we’re starting really old school.

‘Flowers’ is a newbie, from 2001! but ‘Rescue’, ‘Bring On the Dancing Horses’ and ‘Over the Wall’ clearly are not.

But it’s all good and not just because it's a real throwback. Maybe Mac’s voice isn’t quite what it was but no one’s particularly caring.

There’s a brand new newbie ‘Brussels Is Haunted’ before a great finale of a brutal ‘Villiers Terrace’ and three particular faves of mine ‘Nothing Lasts Forever’ from that comeback album ‘Evergeen’ and then the very wonderful duo of ‘Never Stop’ and ‘Lips Like Sugar’.

Another thing that’s not changed is that Mac still rambles off into other people’s songs in the middle of his own. This has always irked me but I guess he’s not going to stop now.

They come back and hit us with ‘The Cutter’ and ‘The Killing Moon’ before doing another very old school thing – a second encore.

They come out one last time to close with the achingly pretty ‘Ocean Rain’. I best not leave it another 23 years.

One-Eyed Wonder

The Lad wakes up this morning with a swollen face. One wonders who he’s been picking a fight with. One of the local felines perhaps.

I have to walk him without his halti which wasn’t good on my knees because he certainly isn’t pulling any less. I book him into the vets and send them a photo of his (no longer quite so) handsome features. At the appointment they give us some anti-biotics although no one really has a clue what he’s done to himself.

By Tuesday the one-eyed wonder seems very buoyant, so I leave him to it and pedal off to the office. Which wasn't the best of bike rides. It started raining the moment I left home. It rained too on L who was swimming in the outdoor pool, she said that was lovely. Can’t say that being rained on while cycling was lovely but then L would say that there's not much about cycling that is lovely. I decide against also going in the gym and opt to save my knees for what I think could well be an equally un-lovely ride home.

The one-eyed wonder is still very buoyant when I get home, rampant actually and looking a bit less one-eyed so I take him to dog training.

Wordle starts to throw up increasing odd words such as Wednesday’s which was ‘Caulk’. I couldn’t see what else it could be so I was busy googling to see if Caulk was really a word and found people complaining about it being the Wordle answer.

Wednesday night is really windy and the next morning we have to detour on our walk to avoid a tree that has been felled by the wind. To be fair to the tree although it had ripped all the curb stones up it had ended up nicely resting against the house. It didn’t appear to have damaged it but it can’t be doing it much good. Not sure how easily they’re going to be able to shift that.

Meanwhile the council will probably come along to close the road for Health and Safety reasons before felling all the other trees on the road.

(Wednesday 16^th February)

Valentine No Mates

The Winter Olympics is now in full swing. It was bizarre to give it Beijing in the first place but now it’s looking even more bizarre as they’ve decided to not invite anyone to it either.

Also bizarre is that if you’re curler you potentially get to play almost every single day so that’s the sport to take up rather than something like snowboarding where you just get a minute or two of competition every four years.

This does make the curling a gripping long running saga. On Monday our Mixed Doubles pairing lose a nail biting Semi Final to Norway. The Lad finds it so stressful he has to sit on my knee throughout which doesn’t make my pretending to work easy. MD vents his frustration by going out in the garden and having a damn good bark at nothing.

Defeat means they play Sweden for bronze on Tuesday. Sadly they lose that too but now the Men’s and Women’s competition will begin. I spend the rest of the day on a training course learning the world’s dullest software. The bright spot of the day is when Derby beat Hull 3-1 later.

On Wednesday I bike into work which was hard. I can’t blame the weather or anything, it was the old man doing the pedalling who wasn’t up to scratch. On Thursday I’m at work again and in the gym, pretending to train. L does an actual real live run. 

On Sunday though I have a real live run of my own. Back in February 2020 when I was training for the Brighton Marathon, as I am now because it is two years late, I was down to run the Stamford Striders St Valentine’s 30k along with my (then) fellow Brighton trainees L and her sister. L was to be my 'Valentine Pair' as they have such a thing but now it's just me, 'Valentine No Mates'.

That race in 2020 was cancelled but not due to Covid which hadn't yet reached crisis point but down to Storm Dennis who was throwing a strop with 40mph winds. In the end they ran it a week later, which meant we couldn't make it. Instead I dragged the Lad around a 15 mile tour of Nottingham in the not quite gale force winds. 

Now I'm back at Stamford and wishing this year’s was being cancelled as well because the weather is possibly going to be worse than in 2020 just without the gale force winds which means it’s going ahead.

In the morning the temperature is just about above freezing with a brisk cooling breeze and the prospect of heavy rain later. Nice. I come equipped in long trousers, long sleeves and with a rain jacket that in the end I don't use and it stays wrapped around my waist throughout.

The race starts at 11am (a really civilised time) in the dry but the rain does come, although it’s not as heavy as promised, and the 'breeze' makes for a challenging last few miles.

I maintain my ideal 9 minute marathon pace for just the first seven miles before slipping to 10s and then 11s after 14 miles.

It is one of those races that makes you do one last humiliating stagger around a sports field to reach the finish line and as I do so I am shocked to realise that 30k isn’t ‘just’ 18 miles as I thought but it’s actually almost 19 but I should have known that.

 

My time is 3:05 which is apparently a mere fraction quicker than L ran ‘back in the day’. If I carried on crawling long at 11s pace it would turn out to be about a 4:25 marathon. Which I’d probably take. That’s if I could continue to crawl that fast. 

(Sunday 13^th February)

Yoga Stretches

On Monday while L is doing eclectic things such Yoga and Tai Chi, I am out on another training run of 23k through Ilkeston, Trowell and Stapleford.

This is followed up by biking into work the next day, into a headwind which leaves me replying to my morning emails while lying on the floor recovering. L suggests I do a few yoga stretches while I’m down there.

On Wednesday I again go into work but have a bit of a bus nightmare. The driver drove the way I cycle, so took ages and I was late for work. I assume something must have happened on the A52 and he didn’t just fancy the scenic route. It’s enough to make you want to work from home. 

Which is very quiet. Having left the dogs in charge they don’t seem to be taking their guard duties very seriously at all or, I suppose, keeping an eye on things from their beds.

I do the gym at lunch time and then meet my friend in Derby later for drinks and food.

I’m back working from home on Thursday and having a day off fitness. Which means I can already feel it slipping away. Although we did break our own record for the slowest dog walk ever thanks mainly to MD but they’re almost as bad as each other. Anything green they have to shove their nose in it.

Our toaster has finally died. RIP. 

By Friday my fitness is slipping away even quicker when I don’t find the time to get out for my planned lunch time run and then by the evening it’s raining.

On Saturday we parkrun at Wollaton and L makes her comeback. In the evening we have a very expensive but hugely enjoyable meal out at the Miller & Carter Steakhouse near us. L’s Mum pays as she said she would treat us to a meal or two as a Christmas present. I’m not sure she expected us to blow it in one go. It’s been on my bucket list to have a Chateaubriand, which we share, and it’s gorgeous.

Of course on Sunday I’m back to pounding the streets as I repeat Monday’s 23k route. 

(Sunday 6^th February)

Oooh. Nice. Not.

L is going into work most days while I’m splitting my time between work and home as I await confirmation of my ‘working from home’ status. When at home I can amble the dogs up to meet her from work partly because anything to delay the Lad’s teatime is good.

On Tuesday, as has become the ritual and at her own request, I metaphorically shove L out of bed for her 7:30am gym class. It’s not really the done thing to kick a girl out of your bed but I like to be helpful.

I prefer to lounge in bed and then do my fitness bit later. Which is another training run, although it’s cold out, and I run 20km through Trowell and Stapleford. L meanwhile attempts to restart her running by having an injection in her sore heel. Oooh. Nice. Not.

On Wednesday I go into work and sit in my little office in Derby on my own. Which is a bit like being at home just without dogs. It does at least give me chance to do my fortnightly gym session.

On Wednesday it’s dog training and on Thursday I have a Committee Meeting. I also go into work again on the Thursday, this time by bike which was tough. When I got on my bike I realised that I didn’t get new brake blocks for Christmas. I must get some, just in case I have to stop for anything.

Word comes back from my assorted bosses that I can now, actually, work from home as much as I want. So I’ll definitely be taking that on board.

On Saturday we have a dog show, the Ogre and I, while L who is still not quite fit to run is marshalling at Wollaton Parkrun.

To be fair to the Ogre his first run wasn’t bad but it was still an E. His second run though was bad, a total horror show in fact. Afterwards I head off to the refreshments van to see if they have any whiskey. If they have I wonder whether I should be administering it to the Lad rather than me.

Our third run is also an E but our fourth, lo and behold, is a victory of sorts e.g. not an E but a mere 25 faults.

In the evening we go out for a meal to somewhere we haven’t been before and didn’t even knew existed, the Corinthian Restaurant on Goldsmith Street, and very nice it is too.

On Sunday Derby come back from 2-0 down to draw 2-2 with Birmingham as they endeavour to stay up despite the 21 point deduction. A draw doesn’t really help but it’s better than nothing.

They badly need a takeover to be completed but I think they’ll still be arguing about that come the end of the season. There was a protest and a march before the game to highlight this fact. Which actually made it easier for us to get there because I think everyone else marched to the match.

Funnily enough on the pitch this is the most enjoyable season we’re had in years. The players are totally committed, with the supporters totally behind them, and playing good football too.

Someone else who’s loving this season is my Dad. He loves the trip out to the match and also the post-match pint in The Yard. 

(Sunday 30^th January)

Sniff Sniff Bloody Sniff

Perhaps luckily, because it was icy, Monday morning’s dog walk was painfully slow. Sniff sniff bloody sniff. It’s not just MD either, I think the Lad was getting his revenge for me not taking him on my run yesterday.

If that was his tactic then it doesn’t work. On Tuesday I run without him again but only 8k around the University.

My gig on Wednesday, Blood Red Shoes at Rescue Rooms, is cancelled. I’m not doing terribly well with gigs at the moment.

While at work my old PC appears to be terminally broken but my new company laptop hasn't arrived yet. I’m not doing terribly well with computers at the moment.

Thankfully it does arrive on Thursday. So I make a flying visit to work, collect it and then bring it home to configure it.

L has a cough which everyone probably thinks is Covid but it’s not keeping her from her morning swim where the pool is often close to empty anyway. Of course that could be because they’ve heard her coming.

On Friday the legend that is (or now sadly was) Meatloaf dies. I knew he hadn’t been well for a while but it had, I thought, mainly been back problems and he was supposed to have a new album coming out.

Sadly also L’s Mother’s cat has gone but to be rehomed. So hopefully that will have a happy ending.

In the afternoon we head over to Rugby where we are holding our Winter Agility Show having been kicked out (sort of) of our old venue in Newark.

We had originally been told we could set up from 5pm but during the course of the day that morphs into 6:30pm. The show is actually at Onley and on the way I drop L off at the Holiday Inn close to the motorway where she intends to have a swim and a gym session probably followed by some reading with a glass of wine in her hand while I’m lugging agility equipment around.

I eventually make it back to her after completing setting up just before the hotel’s food curfew at 10pm.

The next day, the show itself goes well although it isn’t as popular with our own members as it’s further for them to go. The Lad has a wild time competing and even occasionally does something I ask him to.

On Sunday I run again, 10k around the University.

(Sunday 23^rd January)

Capricious Collie

On Monday I take a trip into work which doesn’t go well as the main purposes of my trip - to nick a monitor for home working and to bring home my beer don’t look likely to happen as neither are at work.

Luckily a few hours later things improve when my beer arrived. Only a week after I got the email saying it had been delivered. Hopefully a monitor will materialise next.

I did try to set up our old TV as an additional monitor at home, which worked well for a few days until it packed up completely.

The world’s most famous anti-vaxxer aka Novak Djokovic turns up for the Australian Tennis Open unvaccinated and to everyone amusement they lock him up in a detention centre.

On Tuesday I am back to working from home. After ‘work’ I go for a 16k to Stapleford and back. I even take an audiobook to keep me company. Slow Horses by Mick Herron. I pop the run on my running spreadsheet. As for the book... I don’t have a reading spreadsheet. Not that they’d be much on it if I did.

On Wednesday I have an online meeting with my new boss who is based in Huddersfield. He tells me that I could work from home as much as I wanted to. Yippee. He says he’s only been into the office, which granted is a long way south in Loughborough, once since he joined the company eight months ago.

By Friday the weather has turned really cold again and our morning walk is treacherous underfoot for those attached to a capricious collie.

On Saturday it’s Parkrun at Wollaton and then later Derby beat Sheffield United but with no progress on the takeover front several players are let go which will make picking up future wins more difficult.

I run again on Sunday extending my Stapleford route slightly to 18k.

(Sunday 16^th January)

Lights

Tuesday is the first day back at work after the New Year Bank Holiday. That is if I get there as I have been summoned to the dentist first thing. He had advised me that I needed a wisdom tooth removed not that I was even aware I had a problem with it.

Twenty minutes after my 8:30 appointment I’m back home and still have my tooth. He did an x-ray and decided the tooth was too difficult for him to remove. He therefore needed to refer me to get it done in hospital which will apparently take months. Then he asked me whether it is giving me any trouble, to which the answer is no. So he said if I wanted to I could leave it in, see how it goes and then we’ll review at my next check-up. So it was all a damp squid really.

L is back at proper work, in an office, where she says it’s cold as the heating has been off throughout the Christmas break. A bit like having the kitchen door open at home where ironically we have it shut.

Sadly the Christmas Lights at Wollaton Hall are about to come to an end. 

 

Not that we actually attended as such but it meant the park was open in the evenings and we could walk the dogs up there and see some of the lights anyway.

Talking of Christmas lights, my Dad finally gets his working just as Twelfth Night arrives.

Our milkman who has been coming at increasing weird times, anything from 11pm at night to 8am in the morning, now seems to have disappeared completely e.g. absconded with his Christmas tips. We currently have a different chap in a different van.

On Thursday is snows or something that could have been snow... but was more like sleet... that then turned to rain... Sadly I didn’t get to have a snowball fight with the boys. L got all excited and went for a lunchtime walk in it but just got wet. That’s probably our lot now for the year.

On Saturday I run Wollaton Parkrun which, with L not running at the moment, MD gets a damn good bark out of while the Lad gets a damn lead biting session. MD also gets a new food bowl after he somehow put his foot in his old one and snapped it in two.

Then on Sunday it’s the New Year 10k at Sherwood Pines that L and I ran when I was last marathon training two years ago, for the same race I’m now training for e.g. Brighton. Only last time she was training for it too but now she isn’t. She would have done this 10k though if she’d not had her foot injury.

It’s a two lap course which this time they seem to have measured properly as last time it was well short. This time it may actually be slightly long. It’s a two lap course and last time we did an extra training loop with the Lad but I was younger then. So I don’t do that this time. 

(Sunday 9^th January)

New Year

We are back at my parents’ again on Monday as the traditional Boxing Day football match arrives, as now appears to be the tradition, a day late. At least the game is on after the last one was covid-ed off.

For the first time we are asked to show Covid passports which necessitates the club providing extra staff, which they can barely afford, to check them. Not that they were really reading them, you could probably have flashed your library card and got in.

Anyhow Derby beat West Brom and my Dad enjoys his post-match pint as much as usual, if not more. Overall he’s having a really good Christmas.

On Tuesday I get out on a run and do 9k but on Wednesday I’m back at work, well WFH, and L has my cold/flu/dog allergy but is also testing negative on LFT.

This means that she is free to be coerced into going into Nottingham for New Year’s Eve where we have a few drinks around Canning Circus in the Good Fellow George and the Organ Grinder before I drag her down to the Market Square to see what’s happening there. No one is clear whether the council has banned New Year and cancelled the fireworks in the Market Square due to Covid or because they’ve got no money or just because that's the sort of thing councils do but plenty of people turn up to find out anyway.

There are still fireworks but no one seems to know where they came from or who was responsible for them.

On Saturday I do the New Year's Day Parkrun at Wollaton Park but L doesn't as she is once again struggling with an injury. Then the next day I put in a 14k run around my nice and boring old faithful of a route out to Stapleford.

(Saturday 1^st January)