Mucky Books

Alarm goes off at 6am. Another early start. Mum and Dad come over and together with L we head up to Harewood House for Otley Dog Show.

Bizarrely we have the first rain for months and seemingly only Yorkshire gets it. We get there for 8.30 so that I can check out my first course, but we don't compete until two hours later, such is the pace of these events. Dog Shows are always a long drawn out thing.

After all the anticipation Doggo back jumps a hurdle and we are eliminated. 12.30 and it's the lunch break. We have competed for approximately 40 seconds since we arrived at 8.30. L and I do a pleasant run around the grounds.

Dog shows are that dull that L has resulted to reading mucky books to keep herself amused. Today she's brought Ian McEwan's latest novel, On Chesil Beach. Its a thin book and she reads it all the way through.

L tells me that it tells the story of a wedding night in 1962 and the courtship leading up to it. It is when they are on the Dorset coast for their honeymoon, where their anxieties about the consummation of the marriage appear. L picks out some quite racy, but funny sex scenes for me. Just home my mum hasn't been peering over her shoulder.

We do much better in our second event, the snappily titled Large Dog Agility Grades 1-5 Combined, despite Doggo falling out with a German Shepherd in the queue and getting called 'Breedist'. We come 7th. I think we put in an even better run in our third and final event but the competition is stiffer and we are unplaced.

So at 5pm we leave. We've been here eight and half-hours and we've had two and half minutes of competing. It's all go at dog shows.

In the football, I never expected Birmingham to win at Wolves but of course they do. They go top; we slip to third.

Oddly the kids father's, who is always whinging he wants to spend more time with them, brings Daughter home early.

We go to the Fox and Crown for a few beers. I have one of my favourite dark beers - Nottingham Nog and I'm distressed to find that it is no longer dark. The Fox and Crown beers are always very odd, although in a nice way, everytime I have one, they're different. I move on from the Nog and have a Brush instead. Units for the week - 24. Not bad.

We get home and check the start list for the Skipton Tri on the internet; it confirms that our entries have been accepted. Bugger.

I talk L into a take-away curry, it's been ages since we've had one. Although L makes me promise to be good for the rest of the week. food wise that is. At least I think that's what she meant. I have Chicken Jalfrezi, L has Chicken Pathia.

The sleep survey is back for the next four nights, so I have my Horlicks. Which looks and tastes a bit like wallpaper paste. It makes me feel even fuller than my curry did. Although it doesn't seem to keep me awake. It's worked on L though, and she didn't even have any. So box unticked tonight. Mind you after curry and Horlicks perhaps that's no bad thing.