Rather Good

First problem, breakfast. The landlady usually does it for 9am but I need to be at the show for 8.15 and it’s half an hours drive away. I request breakfast at 8am, which is still too late but I don’t want to push my luck too much. I’m happy to arrive late at the show if it gets me a full English. I’ve only got one early course, for MD, and we’ll just have to ‘wing and a prayer’ that without walking it beforehand.

We arrive at the show about an hour late but with a cooked breakfast inside us, well, just toast for the boys. They are competing after all. It’s hot outside and like a sauna inside the equestrian centre. I don’t think I’ve ever been here when it’s not been cold and raining, or snowing but it’s good to see some things don’t change and there’s still muddy puddles here even mid heatwave.

Things start well. 2 runs, 2 clears. One for each of the boys, including the one with MD that I didn’t arrive in time to walk. It all slides a bit downhill from there.

If that’s the old man’s last G6 before he hangs up his collar then it wasn’t the best. He missed his dog walk contact. We don’t want any of that in the team event tomorrow. Meanwhile MD has poles down in all three of his remaining runs.

The thing is though, MD’s first run, the one I didn’t recce beforehand because I valued by full English more, was rather good. A cracking run in fact. If we hadn’t done a rather unnecessary pirouette in front of the weaves because he really didn’t see them and I had to pull him round in a circle to launch him at them a second time, I’m sure we would have won. That must have cost us at least .6 of a second if not more. I mention .6 of a second because that is how much the winner beat us by. We came third.

And our prize is... one of the much derided glass paperweights that we keep getting from running races, only this one has an agility tunnel inside it.

Meanwhile L checks out Fleetwood, crowd free but an hour away by bus, although only 7 miles, so it would have been quicker to run, which she’s doing tomorrow by the way. She also hits the swimming pool, it's not long until her next open water swim, if it’s on.... Then she manages to find some room on the prom where she waits for us. This must be the lull before the evening rush, although it’s still heavily congested with orange shirts, mainly XXL, with Wonga on the front. Blackpool FC are clearly at home and doing far better today, a 5-0 win, than Derby, a 4-0 loss.


We don’t even attempt to do the sights tonight and head inland instead and find a decent pub about a mile in, with a good choice of beers and half decent food. Still a few orange shirts around but less tourists and no karaoke.



(Saturday 1st October)

Almost Romantic

I’m having trouble turning over in bed this morning, thanks to the re-broken/bruised ribs. Not good. Luckily I have no race this weekend. Things aren’t so bad once I'm upright just as long as I don’t cough, sneeze or laugh and keep breathing to a minimum. Other than that they're fine.

Later L picks me up from work and we head north. I’ve found some fool of a B&B owner who will take us and the boys in Blackpool. Which is roughly where we have two dog shows and a run this weekend. It’s a quaint little place, almost romantic, if we hadn't brought the dogs. A weekend without them would be nice but I’d look a bit daft at the dog shows.

Well, we try to head north. We join the M6 at Stoke and then queue from there all the way to Blackpool. Curse the good weather. 4 hours is a new personal worst.

When we finally get there and Blackpool is horrendous. Full of people. Families, drunks, Scots, the lot. We wander round looking for somewhere to buy fish and chips, there's plenty of those and then somewhere nice to eat them, there's none of them. The seafront would be a nice location if it’s wasn’t fully booked and there wasn’t a massive traffic jam, known as the illuminations traffic blocking the way to it.

There’s absolutely no chance of finding a bar that sells anything you’d want to drink or in fact one that isn’t offering karaoke. We head back to the hotel and enjoy some wine from the bar there, sitting on the front veranda. Quite pleasant actually. Then some more contraband wine in the room, as alcohol is not allowed in the rooms.

(Friday 30th September)

Book Review: One Day - David Nicholls

Now as promised, a book review. Every so often I like to read a spot of popular fiction, I even read a Sophie Kinsella once you know but I’m not proud of the fact. So I’ve just finished ‘One Day’ by David Nicholls and I sort of liked it.



I liked the premise of the book. Following two people over twenty years through a glimpse into their lives on the same day every year, July 15th, St Swithin’s Day, sounded like a good idea. Although the book does cheat at times and sometimes summarises the whole year through that one day but then at other times Nicholls leaves you wondering what has happened in between by glossing over some vital developments because they didn't happen on that day.

The book starts with Emma and Dexter, thereafter simply Em and Dex, in bed together just after their graduation from Edinburgh University in 1988. The fact that nothing sexual happens in that bed that night is so unlikely that, for me anyway, it underlines the whole credibility of everything that follows. They both clearly want to get it together, yet not only do they pass up on the opportunity that night but they also fail to follow up on it in the weeks and months that follow as well. This, particularly as Dex is painted as such a womaniser, is just so implausible that it makes 1989 to about 1992 whizz by in a fog of disbelief.

Once I’d got over that gargantuan plot hole and what with being an un-romantic at heart, I decided I didn’t want them to get together anyway. Although I knew this was perhaps a vain hope having consumed some of the promo material for the film which billed it as a great romance. Instead I started to enjoy the book and its slice of real (ish) life.

I found the book very, very amusing but what really made it for me is that we start with their graduation in 1988, this being the same year I graduated and the book is full of anecdotes from that period. Then as we move on through the years, Nicholls drops in reference after cleverly observant reference about the culture of the 1990’s and what was happening in the world at that time. So it was quite a nostalgia fest for me, as I could live fully the time line of the book. With all the quotes in the book it surprises me that Dex never quoted from ‘When Harry Met Sally’ (released conveniently in 1989) that 'men and women can't be friends', before using it as an excuse to manoeuvre Em on to her back. Sadly he didn’t.

The two lead characters fit the old ‘different side of the tracks’ story line, Dex being rich and public school educated, whereas Em is a mere working class Yorkshire lass. They have different aspirations too.

Dex merely scrapes through his degree and after graduation his lofty ambitions are to attain a job which will sound impressive but won’t be too taxing, as well as to engage in a threesome. This he hopes to achieve using nothing more than his apparent good looks and the arrogance of youth. In a way he achieves this, drinking and shagging his way through life and somehow becoming a minor television star. He is the flag bearer for the ‘laddish’ culture of the nineties and is immensely unlikeable.

Em, on the other hand, gets a first class degree and has grand plans but is utterly clueless as to how to achieve them, so she ends up waiting tables in a Mexican restaurant. She dabbles at being a teacher but really wants to be a writer. Lost and directionless, she decides no man is good enough for her and stumbles through life. She too is pretty unlikeable.

As the years go by they grow further apart rather than closer together and while Dex continually goes off the rails, Em never really gets on them. Although I nearly cheered when she had a totally out of character fling with the headmaster of her school.

Throughout the book Nicholls is constantly hinting that Dex needs a good woman (e.g. Em) to keep him on the straight and narrow. Although what both of them really need is a good hard slap around the face and a kick up the arse.

As a ‘will they or won't they’ story it’s either going to end in success or failure. Planning ahead my preferred ending was that they'd confess undying love to each other on Dex’s deathbed after he'd drunk and/or smoked himself to near extinction or maybe after someone had taken a sledgehammer to him.

But what actually happened is that in a bombshell moment in Paris, Em, again out of character again I felt, dumps her French lover for him. Then it all goes a bit normal with them breaking their promises not to live together, get married etc etc. To his credit Nicholls quickly seems to realise his mistake and rewrites the ending.

Having chosen to end it all with Em's demise, I didn’t see the point of him carrying on with the story. He should have wound it up with a short epilogue and the message ‘that’s what you get if you fanny around for 20 years’. I mean he has been on about ‘seize the day’, Carpe diem and all that malarkey, throughout the whole book and nobody ever did.

Instead of finishing though, the book went in to flashback just to annoy me, showing more of that first 15th July back in 1988. I have no idea why he held that back, withholding it added nothing and it should have been in its proper place in the first chapter. We also get Dexter reverting to type and going back off the rails, just to bang home the point about him needing his good woman as a guiding hand. It all spoilt what should have been a dramatic ending.

As soon as I finished the book I rushed to find a film review because surely they must have changed the ending into a happy one. I was very surprised to find that they hadn't. Hopefully after her death, they quickly roll the credits over shots of Dex tearfully going through twenty years of Em’s belongings, accompanied by some suitably sombre music. How good would that have been as an ending? But I bet they haven’t.

Just Part Of The Game

Another puncture. Clearly, something is askew in the heavens. Though it was my own fault really, I put a wheel down a hole I knew was there avoiding one I didn't know was there. Sigh.

None of which bodes bode well for this winter when they haven't got around to fixing last year’s pot holes yet and we're just about to head into this year’s pothole season.

L frogmarches the boys down to squash. To meet me, not to play. It's a good four miles, so it's brave of her considering she almost topped herself walking them down the shorter distance to meet us at the White Hart last week. I’m not sure walking them all that way would be good for her alcohol intake afterwards.

It’s a hard fought squash match tonight. He fires the ball into my back at pace, so he gets my racquet smashed down on his fingers, he retaliates with a blow into the ribs with his elbow, so I fire the ball into his eye socket. None of this is deliberate of course, just part of the game and it happens over the course of four games, not all in succession. So bruised but not blooded we complete another friendly squash game.

Unfortunately his blow to my ribs is exactly where I fractured/bruised them when I came off my bike. They were 95% recovered but now I'm set back to about 60%. I struggled through the rest of the game, you do don't you, as long as I don't start breathing heavy they're fine. Cue long breaks between points. I even win the last game.

Then we head off to the White Hart for the £5 curry, only to find it’s closed until further notice. Oh no. I hope it's not another pub biting the dust. We head home and have to cook our own curry.

(Thursday 29th September)

In The Dark

It’s not the best weather for cycling, in between weather. It’s too cold this morning for shorts but too hot for long trousers. Although by the time it comes to cycling it will almost certainly be shorts weather if this late heatwave continues.

Tesco Watch. We've found yet another one. They are springing up about every half mile or so now. Surely all these Tescos must take trade away from... well all the other Tescos. Perhaps they’ll all put each other out of business.

The plan tonight is to trim MD’s ears with the lawnmower. E.g. to cut the grass. This with the nights pulling in isn’t going to be easy and sure enough, I end up cutting the grass in the dark, which is probably as hard as you would think it would be.

Had to do something though, I need to start sorting the garden out. Over the last year of so, MD has been carefully, ok not carefully, sculpting a scale model of the Grand Canyon down the centre of our back lawn. Impressive though it is, it’s not very appropriate for a small garden such as ours and it’s actually downright dangerous as I keep falling into it.

So I want to try and reseed some of those bare patches... once I’ve had a lorry load of topsoil deliver to fill in the canyon.

(Wednesday 28th September)

Military Operation

I park at my parents place and run the five miles to work from there. I’ll do the same tonight in reverse prior to the football match.

The run wasn’t too bad, hard but not bad, ‘sobbing’ or rather grinding my teeth along to Em and Dex at the same time. Yep, I’ve decided to read (well listen) to a spot of popular fiction in the form of David Nicholls’ massively hyped ‘One Day’. I have 40 minutes left to listen to, so I will finish it tonight. I didn’t like the book at first but it’s grown on me. I may even review it when I’ve finished it.

At least parking the car five miles away and somewhere where it would take a military operation to get a bus to makes we summon up the enthusiasm to run back to it. Which means I don’t have the 'shall I, shan’t' I debate with myself that L is having tonight concerning her run.

The match, oddly, yields Derby’s best performance for at least eighteen months. They are all over Barnsley like a rash, although Barnsley themselves contribute to what is, for once, a quality game of football. Rather annoyingly this excellent performance yields only a 1-1 draw and that was only thanks to being awarded a slightly dubious penalty, whereas when we play just averagely, as on Saturday, we win 3-0. Football eh?

(Tuesday 27th September)

Not A Soul

I walk boys this morning and hardly see a soul. Even the local cats were conspicuous by their absence. Both boys looked too knackered to be bothered anyway but maybe MD would have stirred himself, if necessary.

He’d certainly perked up by the time it came to training this evening, which was useful.

L seems to have perked up too. She says she’s hobbling less and feeling positive for the ten miler at the weekend... but do I believe her.

(Monday 26th September)

Up For It

It’s dull, windy and miserable here in Bakewell but still oddly picturesque with the hills behind us.

The old man seems really up for it today as if he knows the dreaded ‘r’ word is imminent. Retirement. He was so quick on his first course that he had a pole down, which is practically unheard of. It’s a shame but good to see him going for it. He’s clear on his second course but unfortunately he’s expelled most of his ‘up for it’ on the first run and we’re outside the places. He's done now, over to MD.

There are loads of moans from competitors about the difficulty of the G3 course that is MD’s first run of the day. We though like a challenge, although perhaps I was not cautious enough on this course and MD has five faults when he comes off his dog walk sideways, seemingly looking for a short cut. The course yields only three clear rounds from 79 entrants. We are 9th with 5 faults which gets us a rosette and a cash prize of £5. Blimey. £5 for 9th, what would a win have been worth?

Glossing quickly over run two, we queue up for run three and are near the front when they call a lunch break and we are told to go away and come back later. That’s appalling ring management, if I may say so, speaking as someone who has run many a ring.

When we return after lunch it is now throwing it down and Doggo looks a little smug that he got all his runs in before it rained. Still, my little trooper does a clear round in the rain and had it not been for a bit of a 'moment' before the weaves which cost us a few seconds and a few places we might have even won it. We are 9th again. Another rosette but no cash this time. Run four... we’ll skip over that one too.

L is running in Keyworth, the Crossdale 10k, and up against the U23 GB canoe team. Not sure if they’re any good at running though. She is three minutes down on last year. ‘Shoot me now’, she proclaims, as she heads off to make a donation at the charity cake stall. Does she mean for the run or the cake?

Her time isn’t too bad considering she did have two working legs last year and she was supposed to be taking it easy. Then she’s off to Broadway for an afternoon of dark brooding passion and romance or rather Jayne Eyre, which I have declined, still not having recovered from the TV adaptation a couple of years ago.

Back home and an empty nest of course. So we can have our own dark brooding passion and romance if we want, or a bottle of wine, or I can cook a slap up two course meal for the two of us without worrying about feeding the five thousand. Perhaps a combination of all three after of course the cycling...

A stunning performance from everyone in the Great Britain team for keeping the race together and teeing it up for Mark Cavendish to do his stuff. Cav sprinting home to bring home the world title for the first time since 1965.

(Sunday 25th September)

Don't Blink

Derby 3 Millwall 0. I don’t really understand this. Six wins out of eight and third in the league. It’s encouraging if nothing else and a sign that perhaps we should avoid relegation more easily this year but I’m not reading anything more into it. The more testing run of fixtures that we have coming up will be very interesting.

Now I remember the 1970’s BBC TV Series of John le Carre's 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy'. I vaguely recall it at the time but have re-watched it since, although even that would have been some time ago. I found the series fascinating but it also baffled the hell out of me and that was a seven part series that had over five hours to tame the meandering plot. The new film version however intends to do this in just over two hours...

So perhaps they’ll cut out those long pregnant pauses of unspoken dialogue and those lingering meaningful stares that didn’t convey very much... Nope.

Like the TV series the film nonchalantly tosses little bits of raw information or ‘hints’ at it’s largely unsuspecting audience and says make of that what you will. It is not big on explanations. In fact so little is made of the revelation of some vitally important points that you’re likely to miss them. So concentrate, don’t blink. Don’t even think about going to the toilet.

Essentially there is a double agent, a mole, amongst the heads of British intelligence, known here as the ‘Circus’. At the time all this was very current affairs, now it’s a 1970’s cold war history lesson. Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) is sent to Budapest by boss man ‘Control’ (John Hurt), to bring in a Hungarian General who wants to defect to the west and will reveal the mole's identity but the meeting is a set-up.

The meeting at a Budapest cafe ends with Prideaux shot and taken away to endure months of vicious interrogation, cue a particularly shocking scene, before he is eventually returned to Britain where he is ‘retired’ to live in a tatty caravan and to teach at a public school. Which is very 1970’s, these days even public schools don’t employ shady men who invite young boys into their caravans.

Back at the Circus, Control has died and his deputy George Smiley (Gary Oldman) has been forced to retire in shame at the botched operation. Yet the investigation is reopened when agent Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy), a loose cannon if ever there was one, turns up with pillow talk corroboration of the mole theory gleaned from a love affair with the wife of a Russian intelligence officer he was tracking. Smiley is subsequently drawn out retirement to track down the mole.

Tarr promises to help Smiley, if he can reunite him with his Russian blonde, a promise he cannot possibly keep. Smiley’s suspicions fall on four men:- Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), who is now head of the Circus and three other top ranking officials, Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), Roy Bland (Ciaran Hinds) and Toby Esterhase (David Dencik).

I’m giving a more linear version here, which the film does not, instead relying on the dreaded flashback. You soon lose count of how many times we end up back at that Lenin themed staff Christmas party.

Assisted by Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch), Smiley investigates. Talking to the increasingly bitter Prideaux and the sacked head of research Connie Sachs (Kathy Burke) who suspects that the Soviet Cultural Attaché in London is really a spy. Smiley discovers that pages have been removed from the duty officer's log book for the night Jim Prideaux was shot. So he speaks to the duty officer himself, who tells him who was the man in charge that night...

The Circus's Russian intelligence source ‘Merlin’ is looking increasingly dodgy as indeed is the entire operation coded name ‘Witchcraft’. Now who was the man responsible for that, and could the same man simply be shagging Smiley's wife to make any accusations levelled at him by Smiley look like sour grapes.

Having gleaned enough, Smiley set a trap and catches the traitor. If you’ve not blinked the mole’s identity is no great shock and perhaps that’s part of the problem with the film. I think perhaps the film makers knew it too and jazzed up what happened next.

Some say this is a masterpiece. So you're supposed to describe it as compelling, tense, absorbing, involving etc etc and in some ways it was. Some would say dull. In reality, it's probably somewhere in between. It’s well made with strong performances all round. Gary Oldman's portrayal of Alec Guinness, sorry Smiley is excellent. Just gen up big time before you see it.

(Saturday 24th September)

Falling To Earth

I walk the boys this morning. Doggo, ever the cautious one, looks worried at this development, not that it’s that unusual. Perhaps he's keeping an eye on the sky for that falling satellite which Nasa says could crash to earth ‘anywhere’. Reassuringly there’s only a 1 in 3,200 chance of it killing someone which is probably about the same probability of me breaking my half marathon PB this year. So we feel safe.

L has a physio appointment this morning. I just hope she doesn’t throttle the guy when he tells her to take a break from running.

In fact, she probably kissed him as he’s told her not to stop running. The prognosis is a ‘yanked’ muscle between hip and knee. Time for some MEAT - movement, exercise, attenuation (massage I think) and treatment.

Running is encouraged although no sudden bursts of speed, no sprinting for the finish line, rushing downhill to make up time or overtake anyone. She’s also been told to take lots of hot baths. A ‘take it easy’ strategy that could have been written by herself.

In the evening I am taken out by work to ‘Thai Dusit’ in Derby. Dusit apparently means paradise and the food was rather good. Beforehand a few of us, stranded in Derby for a few hours, had to kill time in the Alexandra but we managed.

(Friday 23rd September)