Another Dead Hamster, Almost

As I cycle in this morning I am surprised to see a runner coming towards me down the road between Risley and Borrowash. He's in the cycle lane and strangely he seems to expect me to get out of his way. Now if I saw some mad cyclist powering up the hill towards me, I'd be the one getting out of the way.

I have my new thermal flask with a coffee in it; it's not bad but not terribly hot. It also requires a different method to drink successfully from it; I poured my first few mouthfuls down my front.

For some unknown reason, I've signed up to the Shepshed Seven race on Sunday, that's seven as in miles not kilometres, regrettably. Today I had a browse down the entry list and cross-reference it with my list of 'friends'. One name sends a shiver down my spine, ‘that women’, the who wiped the floor with me at Ticknall, the one in purple, is in it. I had considered using a relaxed approach to prepare for the race and even have a few shandys on Saturday night but obviously now I’ve got to take it seriously.

L seems thrilled when I tell her; she says she'll look forward to the head-to-head racing, the tooth and nail stuff. I feel weak at the thought. I’ll need some serious TLC on Sunday afternoon.

L promises that she won't let ‘that women’ pet Doggo. She shouldn't let anybody pet him until she's asked them what their PB for 10K is, if it’s better than mine is, then they can go pet some other dog.

You have to be very careful whose dog you pet. Only this morning L said that Doggo had, what she describes as, an unprecedented growling session at a Yorkshire terrier, just because she petted it. She reckons he was jealous because he wishes he was a lap dog. Well firstly, Doggo practically lives the life of a lap dog anyway, so I can't see that's what he was complaining about. Secondly, had she considered that perhaps the owner had beaten me in something and Doggo had remember, or maybe the terrier did agility and had more rosettes than Doggo.

Virgin Wines deliver our new case of wine to work, not exactly fast, not exactly Wiggle. I also have no idea how I'm going to get them home on my bike. It'll have to stay here until I next come in the car, which will be Monday. Hope L doesn't drink us dry in the meantime. L suggests that I could put some in my drinks bottle. Now that would be interesting.

On my ride home, and no there is no wine in my drinks bottle, I'm bombing along Derby road, with this other chap, in the bus lane. We're not racing but you know... well we catch up with this teenager riding one of those diddy mountain bikes that are only big enough for eight year olds. His legs are whirring away like a hamster on its wheel. He's in the bus lane too, without lights, and he's zigzagging all over the place, desperately trying to become one very dead hamster. To be fair he's probably all over the place because his bike is so small that his knees are smacking him in the face as he rides. As the other chap goes past him, with a sudden lurch to the right, hamster boy almost takes both of them into the traffic in the next lane. I back off; it's not worth the hassle, I'll leave them to die alone.

I'm on Derby Road because I've abandoned the Ilkeston route now that it's dark in the evenings, there's too much fast scary traffic appearing out of the gloom that way. Also I think heading to John Carroll might be easier via the QMC roundabout rather than the evil Crown Island. I'm right, QMC is a doddle, but then I make the mistake of cutting back through to Ilkeston Road. A mistake because the road is closed. There's an awful lot of blood over the road and a car with a person shaped dint in its windscreen. There was that many police there, that it would have been a good time to commit a crime elsewhere. I managed to squeeze through.

It's very quiet at the pool and I get a lane to myself. In fact we almost all do, eight of us chaps to share the six lanes, oddly no women in the pool at all. I had to watch five minutes of boxercise to compensate.

It's Halloween tonight, I'd almost forgotten. Daughter has gone to guides on her own and L is a bit worried about her. Hmmm, would be embarrassing for her if she got mugged by a load of eight years olds in Harry Potter hats. Halloween is just not the same these days. When I was a kid it was actually quite scary to be out and about. In those days people were out door knocking, chucking things at windows, playing pranks, and the like. Generally trying to spook you. In a way Halloween was for big kids but nowadays its big business, has gone all Americanised and the little kids have taken over. You get loads of them dressing up in lurid costumes out trick or treating, all with their mums in tow. Not exactly scary. I blame Steven Spielberg. I'm sure it was ET in 1982, where Elliot and co dressed up on Halloween, which first alerted us to this American tradition. Although that's probably not strictly true, we’d seen trick or treating before that in John Carpenter's film Halloween, where Michael Myers escapes from a Mental Institution and terrorises everyone. That film however had the opposite effect, making you want to stay in on Halloween night.

I'm starving when I get home and pig out on loads of bread and soup. Then I take Doggo to class, which goes well until he gets creased and bored, at which point he decides to down tools. Which means he ends up back in the car, although perhaps that's what he wanted.

Back home L is creased too, too much running, swimming and yoga. So I snuggle up with Rae Earl instead. Why would anyone want to call themselves Rae? It seems a common choice these days; does it mean they all wished they'd been born a man? What's wrong with being called Rachel, or Rach?