The Canine Five A Day

The weekend ends with my first velodrome session for some time and boy does it hurt afterwards. It shames me into a massive two rides to work this week.

The BBC says three quarters of women never cycle. Which I am surprised at but not because that’s a high amount of non-cyclists as the BBC implies but because I thought it would be higher than that and also about the same for men. I work for a pretty fit company and only 2 out of 25 are cycling. That’s 8%. So 92% don’t cycle.

There are other forms of exercise. Just ask the boys, well ask MD. The Lad mostly spends their morning park sessions hanging onto his ball, poncing merrily around with it in his mouth, while MD at least puts his all in to it and actually chases the balls. 

MD crawls back from the park while the Lad comes home still up for running off with a several pairs of shoes and chewing on a few of his beloved clothes pegs or... fruit. He does like his five a day, running off with L’s breakfast apple and her lunchtime banana. Well, if she will leave them on the kitchen worktop.

We assume this also goes on while we’re at work, to a lesser extent as we’ve hidden all the shoes\clothes pegs, while MD goes to bed and lets chaos do its own thing. Which one day turns out to be nibbling on L’s sunglasses.

Monday I have a committee meeting and Thursday the car goes in for it’s MOT. Apparently the hand brake has failed, I’ve no idea why... L may have been hoping they would condemn the whole car but they’ve fixed the handbrake, installed a new indicator stalk so now we can turn right as well as left, even the clanking suspension has been fixed. So, as good as new now. If only I could get the same treatment for myself.

Friday brings the Hairy Helmet. L is a bag of nerves. So am, given how quickly the bar ran out last year. I’m nervous about how long it will last this year.

Daughter joins the team this time and the dress code is black, like we’re all in mourning but hey, we were 211th last year out of 222. The only way is up. No pressure.

We have to move up a category though. From last year’s Ultravets (combined age of more than 240) to Supervets (combined age of more than 200) due to Daughter’s youthfulness.

We finish 218^th, oh... but out of 239. So I think that’s an improvement.

The beer doesn’t run out as no one can get one. There are massive queues, so we give up and adjourn to the Furnace.

Oh and on Tuesday, I had a blast seeing The Psychedelic Furs at the Academy Leicester.

(Friday 15^th June)

Even Puppies Need A Powernap

When the plumber said they'll be back tomorrow, I expected them to be around at the usual time but clearly whatever they were trying to finish us for has detained them this morning.

This delays the boys' park session although L reports that the puppy is curled up in his basket not looking too bothered. She had just removed a Brillo pad from his mouth. That is after the slippers, trainers, some polystyrene and a snail. He sounds like he’s been a busy boy, no wonder he needs a powernap.

They turn up eventually to finish off their work while L sits in the garden until it rains, which it didn't do for me when I was supervising. I head over later to check all is done to our satisfaction, which it is. They have been very efficient.

No sooner am I back at work than an email from them pops into my inbox. They are also very efficient with their bill.

(Friday 8^th June)

A Bounce Around The Perimeter

L takes over supervising the plumbers and I head to work on my best bike. I really must sort out my commuter bike but at the moment the weather is so good there's no rush to do this as I’m happy to ride my posh steed.

In the evening it’s tennis because the Tennis Centre is surprisingly. It is closed from Friday onwards for the Nottingham Open tournament. L has physio book at the Tennis Centre at the same time which is convenient. My opponent’s partner dog sits the Lad and he takes her for a bounce around the perimeter.

I am late arriving and consequently we are late starting our game because the plumbers seem to be trying to finish. I have to kick them out of the house and tell them to come back tomorrow. I am half an hour late for tennis, then my opponents calf goes 30 minutes later. So not a great game.

(Thursday 7^th June)

Supervision Duties

We have plumbers in this week finally converting our antiquated one pipe plumbing system into something that can work with a modern boiler. Sadly this means losing our wonderfully retro radiators.

They were due on Monday but have now deferred to Tuesday due to overrunning on a previous job which isn’t a promising start. L and I have split the supervision duties between us. I will do the first two days having been given permission to work from home.

What supervision duties turns out to mean is repeatedly shifting our ‘too much’ stuff from room to room to enable them to work.

The dogs love it. They have two extra people to kick balls for them and the Lad has all manner of new toys that he can run off with. He finds the material they use for pipe lagging particularly to his liking but he is also not adverse to running around with a screwdriver in his mouth.

Meanwhile I enjoy joining the ranks of WFH and actually get quite a lot of work done. The weather is nice enough to sit in garden on my laptop and I can take the boys on the park in the middle of the day.

Which goes something like this. I throw the ball for MD, MD gets the ball, MD drops the ball, the Lad picks up the ball, the Lad does laps of park with the ball, eventually I get the Lad to come to me, without the ball, pick up the Lad to stop him going back to the ball and walk to the ball, MD picks up the ball before I get there and moves it, I walk to the new location, I repeat this until MD stops moving the ball, then I pick up the ball, put down the Lad, throw the ball for MD. Repeat.

I surmise that there must be an easier way and find that having two balls is better because the Lad, despite trying, can't get both in his mouth at once. This worked fine until we lost one of the balls. At which point we went for strong coffee at Café 508. As I have my laptop with me, I can then also do some work while sitting outside the café. This is the life... sort of.

Back at home, both the boys fall asleep on the lawn, by their balls, and now I daren’t move. Problem is my laptop is almost flat and I need to put it on charge. Then the plumbers tell me that there will be no hot water tonight.

In the evening on Wednesday L is back at the Book Festival again, this time seeing Alison Weir and again I meet her afterwards in the Exeter.

(Wednesday 6^th June)

Books Books Books

I was nearly in quiz team for a book quiz today but now it’s not happening. L says she couldn’t raise a team or perhaps she just didn’t fancy carrying a passenger like me...

Instead she hits the Book Festival at Quad with a vengeance, seeing Roy Hattersley at 2pm and then Lionel Shriver at 7pm. I drive her over for the latter and then take boys on Darley Park before meeting her afterwards in Exeter. 

(Sunday 3^rd June)

My Favourite Author

This morning we parkrun first at Leicester Victoria then L and Daughter get the train back to Nottingham.

MD doesn’t get to run because we have an Agility Show at Market Bosworth Rugby Club and we drive there straight from parkrun. All my runs are scheduled late morning and we arrive just in time to do the first one.

We get E’d but it wasn’t too bad. Then our next run is in the Crufts Individual Qualifier. It was better and clear but seeing as we had an argument mid-course I don’t think we’ll be taking up a qualifying berth. We do all three of runs by lunchtime and then we head home. I do like these short dog shows.

In the evening, L has got tickets to see Terry Waite at Derby’s Book Festival at Quad. That’s at 5pm and then afterwards she heads over to Broadway where we meet for food and Ian McEwan.

Ian McEwan is my favourite author that I've never read but I do like the films based on his work, so his 'On Chesil Beach' intrigued me.

It is the story of Florence (Saoirse Ronan) and Edward (Billy Howle), two young university graduates from different cultures. She is a talented and ambitious violinist from a wealthy parents (Emily Watson and Samuel West) while he is the son of a schoolteacher (Adrian Scarborough) and an artist (Anne-Marie Duff). His mother is brain damaged following an horrendous incident with train door.

They meet when Edward, a little drunk after celebrating his exam results, gate crashes a CND meeting because he feels he badly need to share his success with someone, anyone. In Florence he feels he's hit pure gold and wants to share more than just his exam results with her.

Like other McEwan adaptations all this back story is revealed in flashbacks from where they are now which is their bedroom in a quaint seaside hotel on Chesil Beach in Dorset on honeymoon.

Edward is eagerly anticipating the big moment of consummating their marriage while Florence is absolutely dreading it. I think she’s too posh for that sort of stuff and despite the fact he’s positively gagging for it, he bottles it. This creates an uncomfortable situation and even the waiters who serve them dinner laugh at them. This is the 1960s but nothing is swinging here. Nothing is zipping either. Why did they never sort that zip out?

It is excruciating for them but especially for us and a bit of a surprise really considering how natural, normal and intimate the scenes of their courtship were. Then the thing that understandably finally kills off their attempts at sex is Edward’s premature ejaculation. Clearly this wasn’t covered in the sex manual Florence had been terrifying herself with but how he got himself that worked up when so little progress seemed to have been made on the seduction front I’m not sure. The film is so overwhelmed by its momentum impeding flashbacks that its enough to put anyone off their stroke.

Florence legs it on to the beach where they argue and eventually she offers a compromise deal, herself as a dutiful but sexless wife. He’s not buying that, he thought he'd signed up for the whole package, and I don’t blame him. So apparently that’s it. One crap shag and its all over. That’s a worry and if true how did anyone ever get born?

Given that the book is only a short novella, the film feels padded out and McEwan has indeed added some extra scenes. These include quite an eye-opening one thirteen years later, set in a record shop run by Edward. A child, Chloe, appears in his shop and she is clearly Florence’s daughter. She is aged about twelve.

So whatever Florence’s hang ups were she got over them pretty quickly didn't she and with a member of her string quartet, Charles. Whereas in the book she remained single and filled with regret, here that is clearly not the case. Perhaps her failure to consummate her marriage was actually down to unresolved feelings for another man?

In all a disappointing film, that never really exploded into life even when you think it ought to. Sorry Ian, I don't buy it.

(Saturday 2^nd June)