Culture Week

L is briefly in work on Monday but then comes home when she doesn’t have a boss. He is now in France for the rest of Easter.

L’s Tuesday night is with a vicar doing a book talk or something like that. I’m in Notsa with my deaf again Father. Notsa, which was so promising when it opened, is now going rapidly downhill with less beer, less food and less opening hours. Hopefully it’s not on its last legs.

Sadly the Derby Brewery which owns the pub is on its last legs or at least its pub management company is which means the Brewery Tap and the Greyhound are both being sold but apparently Notsa isn’t.

We are getting cultural this week. We are listening to James O'Brien reading (and ranting) his way through his own book ‘How They Broke Britain’ while watching on TV (yes, actual TV) the Covid-19 drama Breathtaking written by Dr Rachel Clarke.

We are both off on Friday which is Good Friday. L visits her Dad at the care home where there’s been a scabies outbreak so she has to wear PPE. Both her Dad and Mum have it, so her Mum is not allowed to visit at the moment.

Derby have a match and beat Blackpool 1-0. In the evening we stay in with a bottle of red and a homemade curry.

Saturday sees us going up to Graves Park in Sheffield for parkrun where we have post-run coffee and a bacon sandwich at the Rose Garden cafe. Where we also join their campaign to keep it open. It’s covered in scaffolding at the moment to stop it falling down.

Back home it's time to give the lawn its first cut of the year and for the first time in quite a while it’s actually not raining. Post-lawn recovery is of course in the Plough drinking their new 5.1% Bendigo.

On Sunday we do a family run. L, Daughter, the Lad and myself. We run 4k. Then I head over to my Dad’s to do his lawn. L joins us to wield the hoover. She has a PT session later at 7pm, so I join her in the gym which is nice and quiet as it’s a Sunday. 

(Sunday 31^st March)

Feeder (Nottingham)

I start the week at Rock City. 

Support comes from Cameron Hayes. Who are in fact two people but the singer informs us that she is actually Cameron and the other person on stage, a drummer, is not. Then what we get is, without trying to be too unkind, karaoke. We hear guitar, bass and keyboards emanating from the stage alongside the drums and vocals. Spooky. There’s even a backing singer hiding somewhere. It keeps costs down I suppose.

For the record the drumming is fine and Cameron Hayes is a very able singer but, sorry, this is just not my idea of live music. It’s quite irritating really. 

Feeder is my idea of live music and for my second gig of their tour I turned up well-rehearsed as regards their new material. Five of the six tracks they are playing from their as yet to be released new album ‘Black/Red’ have been made available on YouTube.

 

 

The band also seem better ‘rehearsed’, and should be this far into the tour, than they were at the Lincoln gig last week and hopefully free of the illness that’s dogged them. It certainly all seems to hang together a lot better tonight and the crowd were way more into it. 

I’m really liking ‘The Knock’ and ‘Playing With Fire’ to which Grant Nicholas tries to get a mosh pit together. He tried that at Lincoln as well and nothing happened but here Rock City obliges and it gets livelier still when ‘Come Back Around’ and ‘Insomnia’ follow it. 

Then comes a rare outing for their second ever single 1996’s ‘Tangerine’, resurrected and revived with extra umph. That makes my night. Then it’s the tried and trusted finale starting with ‘High’, followed by ‘Buck Rogers’ and ‘Just A Day’ with newbie ‘Soldiers Of Love’ in the middle after an encore break.

Feeder are loud and on fire tonight and Rock City explodes in appreciative ticker-tape at the end.

Deadlifting

This week at work it’s Neurodiversity Celebration Week which I’m sure is a worthy cause but it will be another excuse for a lot of departments going awol this week. 

It’s a usual Monday night. L at yoga, me at cycling and in the Exeter working my way through their range of scotch eggs.

The cycling must have been tough because the morning walk was hard work and not just because of my errant dog. My legs weren’t working very well. L meanwhile is at PT and bragging about deadlifting 50kg. She’s catching me up. Although I only lift 60kg and that’s not deadlifting just squats.

By Wednesday it's raining yet again and we trudge through the ever increasing mud on the morning walk. The Lad did at least miss out on an altercation with his nemesis who was hiding behind a parked car across the road from the entrance to the park.

L does the gym first thing but I do the gym at lunchtime once it’s got time to get busy. Very busy as it turns out and I got on very little of what I really wanted to go on.

In the evening I meet my old pal from school. We drink in the Alexandra and then eat in Peppitos.

L spends both Thursday and Friday in Derby. First with her friend and then with her Mum. She still fits in a swim, a 5k with Daughter and a yoga workout upstairs with the Lad. This gets me out of the gym and I cook a curry instead.

We parkrun this week at Tamworth Castle where we also manage to get a bacon and egg sandwich and a coffee. Then I get to go to the New Inn with my Dad for lunch as well. Then it’s back to his to catch the match on the radio before going to the Plough in the evening with L.

On Sunday we go to see Nick Wallis, he of the Post Office Scandal, on stage at the Garrick Theatre in Lichfield. He is joined by one of the sub-postmasters Harjinder Butoy from Chesterfield. It is an excellent and fascinating evening. 

(Sunday 24^th March)

Together

On Friday we do a joint gym workout together and then on Saturday we do a joint parkrun at Ashbourne which isn’t very together. We are joined there by L’s friend from Ashbourne and Daughter who also runs.

Derby take a big step forwards towards promotion as a late goal gives them a vital 1-0 win over closest rivals Bolton. There's still plenty of time left for a few big steps backwards though. In the evening L does the gym and then we all go to the Plough.

On Sunday I have a squash game with Daughter at Chilwell Olympia. We are playing at Chilwell because everywhere else is booked up. Seems Sunday mornings are a thing in the squash world. L and the Lad walk there.

Later we go for a late Sunday lunch at the Admiral Rodney. Oddly they don’t seem to do starters so we both have dessert and Abbott Ale instead. We don’t take the Lad because we weren’t sure if the main bar was dog friendly but it turns out that the whole pub is very dog friendly.

Steve Harley sadly dies at the age of 73 after the battle with cancer but one that didn’t stop him touring until late last year.

(Sunday 17^th March)

The Backup Phone

L has the day off on Monday so does the Gym after walking with us. She seems to now really enjoy the morning walk after spending years moaning about them when had two dogs to walk which could, at times, be a bit challenging. It didn’t take much for MD to go off on one and when he did the Lad would have a crazy lead biting session before backing up MD in what ever imagined injustice he was suffering.

Now there’s two of us just walking the one dog, who can also be a bit challenging when he wants to be e.g. when he unilaterally goes off on one himself. Wait until we get that new puppy that L often dreams about.

L’s at yoga in the evening while I’m at cycling where there’s a huge crash which my Dad misses as he doesn’t hear it and he’s too busy fiddling with his ‘backup’ phone to see it. This phone is now his new ‘main’ phone after his previous one met a watery grave in a Scottish bathroom. Naturally we’re in the Exeter afterwards.

On Tuesday the Lad and I avoid the swamp on the park and do our reserve route. L comes home from work in the afternoon as there’s no wi-fi there and instead goes for a run with Daughter. Meanwhile I await a telephone appointment with my doctor which is scheduled for ‘after 2:30pm’ which actually arrives at 6pm. Then I’m back in Derby for a match as Derby beat Reading 2-1.

Wednesday sees me in the gym at lunchtime and for once it was actually fairly quiet allowing me to get reacquainted with the leg curl.

My once favourite online sports shop Wiggle appoint liquidators. They have been in administration since October. I say once favourite because they hardly stock anything worth buying these days.

 

On Thursday evening I head over to Lincoln to see Feeder.

(Thursday 14^th March)

Feeder (Lincoln)

Support tonight is from The Pearl Harts from East London. They are an all female two-piece in the style of Honeyblood or maybe Blood Red Shoes e.g. just guitar and drums. That's Kirsty Lowrey on guitar and Sara Shaw on drums. They have been around since 2014 with their DIY punk\grunge rock and have songs with great titles like the raucous ‘Pullin My Brains Out’. Which is as lively and as loud as it sounds, like most of their material. 

And so to Feeder. We know that they are due on when their own '20th Century Trip' comes across the PA although this is followed by Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir which is probably one of Grant Nicholas’s favourites and perhaps his latest inspiration.

This current tour is Feeder's longest for many a year and it also comes before their new album 'Black/Red' is released, it is due out in April. Personally I don’t think playing a new album before it’s out works terribly well as not even their most hardcore fans are very familiar with the tracks and therefore cannot carry the rest of crowd. I guess having invested the time and money in to what is a double album they are hoping this approach maximises sales. I'm not sure that'll work but what do I know. Maybe if they were touring after release as well but they'll be straight into festival shows after this tour where they won't be able to get away with playing much off it.

Mid-set Nicholas himself turns salesman and attempts a sales pitch by urge the audience to be really old skool and buy the actual physical product. That may of course be aimed at those with CD players in their brand new Jaguars, leather sets optional.

The length of the tour also seems to have resulted in shorter sets which got even shorter when Nicholas fell ill early on in the tour. Just maybe they have taken on a bit too much here. That said you can't fault the band's performance tonight even if it is only a bare thirteen song set with a two song encore.

The new material showcased is very early/late Feeder in that it's very rocky. Only perhaps 'Lost in the Wilderness' and 'Hey You' really had choruses the crowd could latch on to.

There are six tracks in total from 'Black/Red' alongside the usual batch of crowd pleasers from their 'mid' pop period when they had their hits but overall it's not the hits-laden night some casual fans may have been expecting. Thankfully for regulars like me their tours are now longer quite that predictable but there is still only room tonight for two more obscure tracks for us Feeder nerds both of which come from their last but one album 'Tallullah'. 'Kyoto' which grows on me a bit more each time I hear them play it live and the always brilliant 'Fear of Flying'.

The band are just a four-piece on this tour with no Dean Deavall their usual keyboard player in attendance. This aids their recent rockier approach, which is all good, yet means some segments are clearly on tape.

After an effervescent double of ‘Come Back Around’ and 'Insomnia', that finally got the room jumping, we nearly got an extra track which, according to the set list, would have seen either 'My Perfect Day' or 'Tangerine' played but after a debate they opted for neither. Early on in the tour they were playing both as a fabulous foursome from the band's début album 'Polythene' along with 'Polythene Girl' and the ever present 'High' which is what they skipped on to before ending the set with the obligatory finale of 'Buck Rogers' followed by 'Just A Day' in the encore after another 'Black/Red' track 'Soldiers of Love'.

The band are as ever excellent, performance wise, but tonight did feel a bit like one they wanted to get their lead singer through safely while not taking too many extra risks.

Scotland Winter Tour

The week opens with our 28th Anniversary, yet there is no time for any celebration as we’re off to Scotland. Unless that is the celebration even if we are taking my father with us. Once we have collected him things don’t get off to a promising start as we come to an instant stop on the A50 but thankfully it soon cleared.

We head up to our first stop, at a new place for us, Rhu on the east shore of the Gare Loch in Argyll and Bute. We are staying at the Ardencaple Hotel which is owned by Greene King and sells Greene King IPA which isn’t remotely Scottish.

 

Thankfully to L’s delight they also sell Sunday roasts and for once a place hasn’t run out by the time we get to them. The first whiskeys of the holiday are from Aberfeldy and Bowmore.

In the morning L runs while the Lad and I got for an amble. After breakfast at the hotel we drive into the Highlands finally arriving at Glencoe where we go for coffee at the ski centre. They are skiing at the top although there isn’t a vast amount of snow. It’s not worth strapping my snowblades, that I have brought with us, on.

The chaps running the chairlift are very persuasive in talking us into taking my Dad up. They stop the lift for him at top and bottom. He is thrilled to get a look around at the top before they then bring him down again.

We are, of course, staying once again at the Kingshouse where we will be for two nights. We check in and go for a walk during which we have to haul the Lad out of a stream. 

We eat at the hotel both nights accompanied by some local beers and whiskies. First Knockando then Loch Lomond.

It’s a good job my Dad got to go up the mountain at the Glencoe because it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen at Nevis Range. Just as it never happens at Nevis Range when we’re around. The gondola is closed due to high winds. Instead we do Fort William High Street, which has limited excitement potential, then later we do a 4k run from Kingshouse and L does a weights session. Not at the same time.

On Wednesday we drive to Boat of Garten and the Boat Inn. They have some local Inverness beers and tonight’s whiskey comes from Tomatin. After a successful effort so far in keeping my Dad off the fish and chips, we let him indulge tonight. Although obviously the Lad and I have to eat all his chips.

On Thursday we visit Cairngorm Mountain where they are also skiing at the top of the mountain but as the train is broken yet again you have a 30 minute walk to get to the bottom of the M1 Poma which is the nearest main lift with snow.

Later I run with the Lad on the Red Squirrel trail at Boat of Garten but L doesn’t join us. She runs on Friday morning instead. Thankfully we don’t see, and therefore don’t chase, any squirrels. Tonight’s whiskey is Craigellachie while L samples the Cairngorm gin.

As we head back south we visit both Lecht and Glenshee ski centres. Both of which are skiing on very limited mostly man made snow just on the bottom slopes. We stay at the Airlie Arms in Kirriemuir where we get my Dad on Fajitas, without chips and with an Expresso Martini on the side. The whiskey comes from Dalwhinnie. 

You can’t really get any better preparation than that for Parkrun which is a lap round Forfar Loch starting from Strathmore Rugby Club. Afterwards we head back to the hotel for breakfast. After which we do a local walk out of Kirriemuir while my Dad stays in. He’s having an afternoon nap when we get back so we might as well retire to bed ourselves.

We head back home the next day but there’s time for a bit of drama as we lose my Dad’s phone. When I call it I can hear it ringing from the bottom of the toilet in his bathroom. At first inspection it appears to have survived the experience but later it stops working as water gets into the screen.

It’s a long drive home taking us nine hours including a few stops on the east side as we head back via a more scenic route taking in Edinburgh and the A1. With hindsight we should have scheduled in another overnight stop somewhere in Northumberland. That would have been nice.

 (Sunday 10^th March)

The Last Physio

You know the gym is getting really bad i.e. busy, when even L is saying she doesn't fancy battling for the machines and this is at 8am but she heroically drags herself there anyway. Then does Lenton gym in evening too.

I cycle and take my Dad as usual. He enjoys having his tea at the velodrome and often muses about having a go in the gym while he’s there but this week he was asking me about how to do the plank... This is something he’s been reading in his newspaper. Which is a worry as should he attempt it might not be able to get back up off the floor.

It looks like there is some snow on the forecast for the weekend up in Scotland but I’m sure it’ll all be gone by the time we get there.

On Tuesday L has PT and then crawls into work afterwards despite it being an ‘arms session’. So crawling shouldn’t be strictly necessary? Then she describes a couple of sets of 20 squats, lunges across the room, 30 seconds wall squat, then lunge back. I would have needed an ambulance after that. Yet L still manages to run with Daughter later.

I have my last physio session on Wednesday which he makes the hardest one yet. Not that it was on the level of ‘couple of sets of 20 squats, lunges across the room, 30 seconds wall squat, then lunge back’.

I’m in the gym on Thursday where I have a bit of an argument with one chap who is using three pieces of equipment at once. The gym is really busy, so he’s lucky he hasn’t got a separate queue for each piece.

On Friday L gets the train over to Leamington to see Son and of course has the usual travel problems that you associate with the train service in this country. Her first train terminates at Birmingham and she has to move onto another one where eight of them share a doorway. While her return one is completely cancelled. While she’s there they do Warwick and he tells her he’s resigned his job and is looking for a new one.

Somehow she makes it back in time for me to meet her in Derby for a fascinating talk by Simon MacDonald, a former Diplomat in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, at Quad as part of the latest Derby Book Festival. He’s talking about his latest book ‘Beyond Britannia: Reshaping UK Foreign Policy and Leadership’. They have Indian Porter on afterwards in the Exeter which helps with our debrief.

Saturday starts with heavy rain showers, so we hide under the duvet and for once skip Parkrun.

After losing 2-1 to Charlton in midweek, after leading but then giving away stupid goals again, Derby do better on Saturday and beat Port Vale 3-0. We’re at the Plough again in the evening.

(Saturday 2^nd March)

Popup Lake

The week opens with a trip to the Octagon in Sheffield to see the Vaccines rather than my usual cycling. A gentle introduction to the week by comparison.

So on Tuesday, for some exercise (drumroll...), I risk a trip to the gym. I say that because it’s been so busy recently it’s become unpleasant. Even L’s trainer has jumped ship and has been trying out a new gym in Derby because ours is too busy. They have an ice bath apparently but I’m not sure that's a selling point.

It wasn’t too bad today though and I even got reacquainted with the leg curl machine. We’ve missed each other. L had already been in there and warmed it up for me. There’s now a video nasty of her work out on Instagram filmed by her trainer. I assumed he had to edit out her swearing.

Dog training goes well, which is a rarity. I suspect somebody may has swapped my dog as this one seemed to listen to me. L says she hopes it’s a Doodle.

My GP surgery tells me that everything has checked out ok after my urine and blood tests.

Wednesday is my Physio and lots of core stuff that was mostly unrepeatably evil including the almost malicious sideways plank and then normal plank into a press ups back into the plank. Lots of fun.

In the evening I take my Dad to the New Inn in Shardlow where the Lad gets a full meal courtesy of leftovers from the next table.

On Thursday L impressively runs first thing in torrential rain, then does the morning walk with us before going out for lunch with her friends.

On Friday L swims and the Lad briefly considers doing the same thing in the latest popup lake on Wollaton Park but in the end settles for simply lying down in it.

 The week is out of kilter because we have our Saturday night in the Plough on a Friday after having had our Friday night on a Thursday sharing a nice bottle of Soave white wine. L says her Friday night should have really been in the gym but then they do have Honey Porter and the gym doesn’t. Not that she goes for the Porter...

On Saturday L Parkruns at Alvaston while I continue to nurse my injured calf and placate the Lad. Afterwards we try the Unity cafe in Alvaston for a bacon roll and coffee. We have to wait for them to open at 10am and then they tell us they don’t take dogs. What’s wrong with these people?

I take my Dad to pick up his cost of living payment of £140 from the Government and as he needs a new kettle I take him straight to Asda with his new wad of cash. However being a ‘savvy’ pensioner he won’t blow any more than about 5% of it on the kettle.

We are out with friends later. First in the now reopened Crafty Crow and then in Mem Saab for a curry. They serve me a rather evil Jalfrezi.

On Sunday we walk off the curry in Sherwood Forest and visit the Major Oak. Lots have changed since we last visited which was admittedly ages ago. They have a new visitor centre, a new car park and some rather pushy salespeople trying to sell memberships.

(Sunday 25th February)

The Vaccines

Tonight I am seeing the Vaccines and for the first time in many a year I am at the Sheffield Octagon. This is because I was too slow in getting tickets for Rock City which sold out very quickly.

Outside the Octagon it seems to have changed somewhat. For starters there’s a big multi-storey car park right next to it. I’m sure that wasn’t there before. It’s convenient but will no doubt be a nightmare to get out of later. All the same I give it a go.

Inside it is pretty much how I remember it. A big airy venue with a high stage and now with the added bonus of decent local beer e.g. Thornbridge. I should come here more often.

I just catch the end of Divorce, who are from Nottingham, but sadly I didn’t see much of them.

  

After only a fifteen minute break we then have Teen Jesus & the Jean Teasers. Who have a great name and give a very energetic performance. They are four girls with 400 tattoos. Not judging just saying... They are also from Australia and are possibly just the type of raucous warm-up we need for the Vaccines. Who are, as ever, pretty lively themselves.

 

This tour is to promote their new album, which is their sixth, ‘Pick Up Full Of Pink Carnations’. The stage is dutifully adorned with carnations although not many of them seem to be pink.

They open with ‘Love To Walk Away’ off the new record before going straight into a run of favourites. From the lively ‘Wreckin’ Bar (Ra Ra Ra)’ into the even more lively ‘I Can’t Quit’ with the guitar of Timothy Lanham hogging centre stage and singer Justin Hayward-Young ‘dancing’ madly.

 

Then we get ‘Post Break-Up Sex’ before the classic and anthemic ‘Wetsuit’ stops the show. As it always does with its poignant reminder of the unstoppable passage of time. This gives everyone a breather.

There were plenty from the new record, as you’d expect. Six tracks in total including the excellent ‘Discount de Kooning (Last One Standing)’ and these were well received, no doubt thanks to its very familiar formula. There was also the same number from their debut. Again largely as expected.

 

I think we will have to agree to disagree on what they should have picked from the rest of their albums but then few bands agree with me on this point.

The end of the set was peppered with favourites as they wound things up with 'I Always Knew', ‘If You Wanna’ and, as always, ‘All In White’.

 

For the encore there were two more tracks from the new album ‘Sometimes, I Swear’ and ‘Lunar Eclipse’ before ‘All My Friends Are Falling In Love’ closes an excellent performance or so we thought.

But there was one more track as the band struck up ‘Nørgaard’ but Justin didn’t offer any vocals and let the crowd sing it by themselves. A few seconds later he simply walks off stage and leaves the crowd to it as the band play the full track.

It’s a track that has somewhat dropped off their setlist in the last few years. It has some problematic lyrics and perhaps the 37 year old Hayward-Young, who admits his homage to the Danish model now seems a bit creepy, would rather not sing it anymore. This may or may not be the solution.