Brushing Up On Our French

L has lost some forms she filled in for Daughter's school jolly to London. Daughter naturally is spitting fire. I get out of the house quick before it really flares up. I drive to work through Ilkeston, still avoiding the A52. At work, what do I find in my bag but the forms, oops, how did that happen.

At lunch I nip into town to get the new Maximo Park album. I’ve heard that it isn’t very good but we’re off to see them next week and I need to gen up. Then I watch the highlights of the Ipswich debacle on the internet. I have to concede that L was right after all, Chelsea Dagger is a football chant, for some unknown reason the Ipswich fans keep singing it.

L’s been trawling around town for weeks trying to get a nub for Son’s PSP but no one knows what she’s talking about. Decide to assist and soon find it on the internet. Its real name is an ‘analogue stick thumb control’. It’s a shame our computer games wiz of a Son isn’t internet savvy.

Drive home and decide to risk the road works. No hold-ups at all. Reason being they’ve taken the roundabout out; the road now goes straight through, you can still turn left but not right at Bardill’s. Makes a hell of a difference. They don’t have to do any work on it; just leave the cones there, it works as it is.

Pick up Doggo and back over to Derby for dog class. There’s a new surface on the horse arena that looks as if someone has emptied dozens of hoover bags across the floor. Training goes well. Could it be a good season? I’m sure Doggo will prove my optimism is unfounded.

Get home and we indulge in Madame Bovary part two. The story goes like this; Emma Bovary marries a staid and conventional country doctor. Although he adores her, she is unwilling to accept the dull confines of her marriage. She quickly gets bored and longs for a more passionate life. First, she flirts with a law student in town. Next she takes a lover. When he refuses to run away with her, the selfishly unprincipled Emma gets her kit off for the law clerk instead. Through all this she is spending money like it's going out of fashion; the debts mount and this, together with her self-deluding love affairs lead her to tragedy.

Her motivation for all this is sometimes unfathomable. She has it made at home really and at the start she didn’t even appear to enjoy sex at all. She certainly didn’t like the rough variety churned out originally by her husband but then demanded it from her two lovers.



All in all though it was very enjoyable but for a story based in France it was very English with an Australian lead actress.

In one scene, Madame Bovary's lover strips her naked against a tree, which is a prelude to her getting a good al-fresco stuffing. Not sure the original book was so racy but it's a nice, if slightly odd, touch that makes we want to pause the DVD and jump on top of L there and then. Except that her broken rib might object!

L confides that she liked the tree scene too. We briefly consider the apple tree in the garden but in the end retire to the bedroom to brush up on our French.

Building A Small Wall?

Lie-in. Coffee. Juice. The Sunday Times. Sex. Dog Licking My Feet.

Get up and take doggo on park with his ball. He deserves a ball game after his exertions yesterday and my legs need a rest from running. As we are walking back, Doggo stops and sniffs the air. I know this routine, that’s what happens seconds before he bolts away from me on the orienteering courses. He has L’s scent in his nostrils. I try sniffing the air too, but it doesn’t work for me. Despite that I do see L running across the bottom of the field, Doggo with his appalling eyesight does not.

We get back home and collapse. L gets back home and then does another turbo session and then another run. She’s done that many bricks in the last few days she’ll soon be able to build a small wall.

It seems that Nottingham's already legendary water feature has broken again or to give it it's correct name the 'water terrace'. They obviously underestimated the number of paddlers. Its reflecting pool has a problem with water building up behind its granite cladding. In other words, it's not waterproof.



Picture pinched from Factory Girl's blog. Sorry.

In the evening we go for a swim, at Clifton, not one of our favourite place. Despite it being an 'adults only' session; there are several children there, only problem is that they are over eighteen so I suppose they have to let them in. We manage to do thirty lengths and get out quick.

L has been reading Gustave Flaubert's book about the adulterous Madame Bovary. Tonight we watch part one of the BBC's adaptation of it on DVD.

Team Sports

Up at 5.15 and in the car by 6.00. Doggo and I are at a club agility competition in Preston. Our club are the defending champions and hosts for this latest event. Yes we are based in Derby and Preston is 110 miles away but apparently this is a home match. The competition is for teams in the North West of which we are allegedly part and the venue is central to the area, allegedly. The next one is in October and is in Carlisle, a mere 190 miles away, very central. Somebody, somewhere, needs to learn some geography.

The format of the event is that the best four dogs from each club with the best-combined score from the Agility and Jumping events count for the team. The trick to winning it is to get four dogs to go clear in both events, known in the trade as double-clears. There are also two ‘fun’ events (obviously taken deadly seriously) as well.

Because my club is organising and I’m helping out this means I can basically do my four runs whenever and in what order I like whereas normally you have to follow a running order.

A big hairy thing (canine) craps on the A-Frame and gets a big round of applause. Doggo would have been livid, had he seen it, he hates big hairy things. Another dog jumps the four-foot high wire netting surrounding the ring and continues onto the course in the next ring.

Back at home, L says she is already up; it is only 9am and she about to go out bricking it again. Good job I'm not at home, I'd have interfered with her training. I've chucked up the chance of a sex-filled lie-in until noon to be in Preston surrounded by dogs! Hmmm.

I opt to lob Doggo in at the deep end and do the Jumping event first rather than warm him up by doing a ‘fun’ event. It works we go clear. We then do the ‘fun’ Jump and Go and cock it up. He brings a pole down but it’s partly my fault for trying an ambitious move. We then go clear in the second ‘fun’ event Helter Skelter. I decide to give Doggo a rest and run the Agility after lunch.

As a helper I get a free lunch and it's a world first, a healthy meal is served up at a dog show. Well not all healthy but I saved the pork pie for Doggo and even then I didn’t give the pastry.

L texts to say that she is now lying in the garden and nobody is shagging her towel or lobbing a ball at her. She’s referring to Doggo not me. I promise that we'll be home as soon as we can to put that right. Doggo can have the towel, I'll take care of L.

In the afternoon with the pressure on we do the Agility and go clear. Well I’ve done my bit for the cause.

In the football, Derby are at Ipswich. Oakley scores a cracker (again). 1-0 to Derby.

I am informed by mission control that I am our third double-clear but we only have one more dog that could make up the fourth. It appears that some our more illustrious partnerships, some with Crufts appearances under their belt, have cocked it up big time.

Everyone is trying not to let the poor chap know that the title depends on his last run. He’s busy working and takes an age to get around to doing his run. When he finally does run he puts in a very ragged run but its clear, so jubilation, err no, wrong dog. He’s has two dogs and this one had faults in the Jumping. Well at least he's had a useful practice run. He runs the second dog and it’s going to be a very generous judge who lets him get away with alighting from the seesaw when it's that far off the ground. I’ve seen plenty of judges let that go but not this one. Bugger, time to hand over the trophy.

In the football, Derby too are having problems with the judge (aka the referee). Goalkeeper Bywater is dismissed along with an Ipswich player. Luckily we have a substitute goalie on the bench. As the two traipse off, a mass melee explodes at the edge of the pitch. Any right of appeal disappears down the proverbial tunnel.

Billy Davies is on the pitch making a request to the ref to use his common sense. It is the same ref, a Mr Williamson, who refused to use common sense in the game at Southend three months ago and that day he sent Billy Davies to the stands. The result is predictable, bye bye Billy.

Mr Williamson averages a red card every four games. Today he sends off three and books ten. A table topping performance from the ref, at least.

Up in Preston we finish a credible but trophy-less 5th (out of 12). Doggo and I come home with rosettes for individual finishes of 5th (Jumping) and 6th (Agility). A very pleasing start to the season.

Back at Ipswich things are getting even worse. In the game against Coventry, Mears lost the ball, caught ball watching, seconds later its in the back of our net. Against Ipswich, ditto. 1-1. McEverly gifts a late penalty 2-1. Null points. Birmingham and Sunderland both win. A depressing drive down the M6.

In the evening we been invited to the evening function of the wedding of a work colleague of mine but it's getting late, I'm tired and after four hours in the car, all I want to do is have a few pints of beers. Decent beer that is, life's too short to drink crap beer at a wedding reception. Also before that I've got some lustful urges that I'd like L to help me deal with.

Lust taken care of, we head into town, Pitch Black and Landlord at the Borlase, then across the road, where for once they have a guest beer on at the Ropewalk. As is tradition we finish at Scruffys with a couple of Leffe’s. Then home for a Keema, that L had prepared earlier.

Rodents

On the bike again today. Although my legs do their best to say no but the training schedule says yes. Mistakenly brought my shoes home last night so have to carry them back to work. Opt for a backpack.

L and Doggo go for a run. Although she didn’t look terribly keen. Nor did the dog for that matter.

At work and our internet is down. Apparently the hamster that drives the generator has pulled a muscle. Our support department is working all out to try and find another rodent and will tell us when it's back and running.

By mid morning our internet is back up. That was quick. Rodents everywhere seem to be once more happy in their work.

Take a detour on my way home and bike through the back of Chaddesden then into Oakwood and onto Smalley and back onto my usual route into Ilkeston. Some woman in a Ford Ka who has clearly never read the Highway Code attempts to wipe me out at a mini roundabout. Then I extend it a bit round the back of Bramcote Baths too. Seems a long way round but it only extends it by a massive 4km. That'll have them quaking in their boots at the Duathlon start line.

Daughter has cooked the perfect post bike snack, ciabatta pizza loaded with sausage and cheese.

L’s out bricking again with Doggo.

I need a beer after all this activity and I talk L and Doggo into a trip to the pub; it wasn't difficult. Two pints of Legend and one of Supreme. Being sensible because the alarm has been set for 5.15am in morning.

Out Bricked

Take the car and avoid the A52 road works by going through Ilkeston. The radio confirms that the road works are in place and say that there are even diversions preventing people going onto the A52 from the M1 junction to ease the load on Bardill’s roundabout. The radio people drove all the routes and through the road works at 7am this morning (during the Easter holidays) and announced it is all working well! If they try the same test at 8am on Monday they might get a different result.

L’s been for a swim which she describes as ok but her rib injury makes getting in and out of the pool, and in and out of her costume, painful. Well I’m always willing to help a girl in or out of her costume; she only have to ask.

Pub today and I was very healthy. Braised steak, mash, peas, carrots and broccoli. Local brew for refreshment from Deventio.

Odd situation at Luton. Mike Newell accuses people of making payments to agents. Newell sacked. His Chairman resigns. Chairman admits to giving making payments to agents!

Even odder, Mr Chairman is to appoint Kevin Blackwell as your parting gift. Hello relegation.

Get home and I’m not sure whether to redo my Tuesday night run with the dog tonight or not. He looks up at me in trepidation. I think perhaps he’d rather go with L. In the end the pair of us do a loop of the pond and then meet L by Wollaton Park lake. Only one of my legs appears to be working, which isn't a good sign. The three of us then loop the lake and return home. L, typically, has to out 'brick' us and does a turbo training session and then another run. We are not worthy. We are asleep.

Pain

Biking today and consequently I get a bonus sex session. Wasn't actually expecting that, L must be getting more superstitious than me.

The traffic was awful even though I took the back way through Sandiacre. On the day the A52 road works are scheduled to start they seem to have intensified the existing road works in Sandiacre and turned it into a contra flow. The result, naturally, is gridlock. Another piece of great planning by the powers that be.

The contra flow is so narrow that you can't get a bike down the side of the cars, so I have to hop on to the pavement.

After what Doggo put me through on our run last night my legs are too tired to go fast so I do genuinely take it slow but my bike computer malfunctions so I can’t confirm it. Of course my trusting partner doesn't believe me.

My mate, the Leeds fan, emails to say he's accidentally got tickets for THE game. He's referring to the Derby v Leeds promotion / relegation decider on the last day of the season. He was determined to give it a miss but his mate's girlfriend (a Derby supporter) has got them all tickets without telling anyone. What a nice surprise and how nice of her. He’s livid. Particularly as he's in the Derby end, which he says will be full of celebrating, salivating fans. The game’s a total sell out; so they'll be 30,000 of those celebrating Derby fans. Of course when Leeds were a decent team he was a salivating Leeds fan but he’s conveniently forgotten that now. Of course there won't be much celebrating if Leeds win and Birmingham pip us for 2nd place.

After work I cycle to the pool to meet L for a quick splash. L tells me to take it slow, as usual, so that I'm not so tired that I simply drown. She says she might do a gym session first, hope she doesn't workout too hard, I might need her to pull me out.

We’re not sure whether the pool will be heaving or quiet, seeing as half the country seem to be still off work. Of course, according to the city council nobody actually uses the centres during the holidays, which is their excuse for shutting them as often as possible. So it should just be L and me, if it’s open at all that is. Either that or they'll have some 'holiday' session on and there will be a bouncy castle floating in the water.

Get to the pool and it is busy but thankfully there’s nothing bouncy floating in the pool other than the Iceberg which is afloat in lane four. L bravely shares the lane with her. I go in lane one with the big boys.

It’s very painful swimming, both my arms and my legs protest loudly. I estimate a rough 30 lengths and crawl out. Both showers are occupied and there's a queue so yet again I don't get a shower, can't be bothered to wait. In the foyer they have a computer running a satisfaction survey, I fill in it, but there's no option to object about the lack of shower facilities.

Final activity of the night is to take Doggo to training. His first for two weeks. We need a good session as we have our first event on Saturday and it's a club match. We make a few mistakes but generally we're not bad, it'll be all right on the night, as they say.

L and Daughter 'treat' themselves to Mr Bean's Comic Relief film at the cinema. L has some solemn news when they get back. The former Busted member, Matt Willis, has covered The Primitives 1988 classic "Crash". No doubt his celebrity status, gained more on "I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here" rather than with Busted, will see that it is a big hit. In fairness it's not a bad record, but that's thanks to the material rather than any contribution Mr Willis has made to it. Mr Willis, who allegedly sees himself as a music writer, has obviously given up on his own material and has instead decided to drive home the point that that cover versions are never as good as the originals, this he achieves in spades.



This record will send a shudder down the spine of Primitives fans everywhere.

Go to bed quite early for some painful sex. Neither of us is capable of going on top, L because of her fractured rib and me because of my overused ageing limbs.

Cooking Oil

I realised I could not bike today like I usually do on a Tuesday because, what with being on holiday, I hadn’t left any clothes at work. Then I ended up being too late to catch the bus so I had to take the ski racks off the car and go the un-environmental way instead. L was still out time running with Doggo by the time I eventually left, they were clearly having a long one this morning.

Despite being late, it took me only twenty minutes to drive to work, no traffic at all. This will all change of course when the eighteen weeks of A52 road works start tomorrow.

Emailed L to find out if she'd got lost on her run. It took her ages to respond to my email. Says she’s been catching up, e.g. gossiping. Spooky goings on at her place though. Someone emptied a bottle of cooking oil over their front door and through the letterbox.

Cooking Oil? Why would anyone pour cooking oil over a door? Very odd. Disgruntled patient perhaps or just weirdoes? If they were trying to set fire to the place, they weren’t very clever. You have to get cooking oil very hot to ignite it. They’d need to use something like a blowtorch! Any respectable arsonist would have used petrol.

Then, in a separate incident, someone came back and pinched the letterbox. Was this the reason for the cooking oil?

I find out why they’d been on a long run. They got locked IN the park. She wasn’t the only one, there were several of them trying to get out of the side entrance - one of them legged it over the fence but she didn't think Doggo would go for that. I assume they were late opening the park rather than early closing it. Perhaps they just forgot.

Renewed my Derby County season ticket today. The scintillating football this season (not!) has obviously swayed me.

Get home and Doggo gets his second long run of the day. Full on Duathlon training now. We were out about 45 minutes at quite a good pace. Both of us knackered after that.

Unfortunately, because last night I felt so ill that I went straight to bed, some of my internet chess games timed out. So now, I’m knocked out of the tournament. Looking at the league table the winner has recorded 5 wins out of 5, all through time outs. Jammy git. I have one more to play against him; I’ll make sure I thrash him in that one.

Fat Overload

Got up at a reasonable time for saying it’s a bank holiday and went for a run round the pond with Doggo and L. Now that the holiday is over it’s time to start putting in some training for my birthday treat, The Heart Of England Duathlon. Therefore, with that in mind but also for the convenience of leaving L the car, I bike to my parents for the match. Took a roundabout route, to avoid going the way that I would normally bike to work. I tried to follow a cycle path through Beeston, which took me the wrong way down a one-way street, then ran out, and told me to dismount. Eventually I got back on it and it took me a nice route but then brought me back to the main road. What was worse was that I was now on the wrong side and with no crossing in sight, so I had to wait ages to cross the busy road. Overall though, a nice and relaxing ride.

Derby were they usual uninspiring selves and were lucky to get a 1-1 draw against Coventry 1. Matt Oakley scores an acrobatic equaliser that afterwards Billy Davies puts down to the yoga sessions the players have been having.



Birmingham lose again, to Barnsley of all people but Sunderland win again and replace Derby at the top. Four games to go.

L drives over and we take my folks out for a meal to thank them for looking after Doggo. Not a terribly impressive meal but then it was just a Marston’s chain pub. I totally overloaded on the fat. The steak and stilton sounded good but it was a very fatty steak and it was served with very fatty chips. Felt ill after that. I know a cyclist should carbo load but there are limits. Two pints of Pedigree, which is about as average as you can get.

Got home and felt so ill that I went straight to bed

Getting Back Into The Swing Of Things

Getting back into the swing of things with a long lie-in until lunch time. Doggo easily slips back into this well tested routine. When we finally get up I take him out to reacquaint him with the park and his football.

L then cooks up a late English breakfast, healthy style.

In the afternoon I catch up with the rest of last weeks Cycling World Championships where Vicky Pendleton and Chris Hoy both won three medals.



Hoy took gold in the kilometre time trial after already winning keirin gold and a silver in the team sprint. Pendleton however topped that with three golds.



Adding the women's keirin to earlier wins in the individual and team sprints (with Shanaze Reade). Team GB easily topped the medals table with eleven in all, seven of them gold.

In the evening we took Doggo out for a long walk which meant we ended up at the Victoria Beer Festival where Funfair's 6.0% Cakewalk was in terribly good form.

Eventually headed home for chilli. Good to be back to decent food. The worst thing about Austrian food is the lack of any spice in anything. Their shops don't even seem to sell chilli.

Skiing And My Hit List

Here's a quick resume of my week which started with a 2.45am drive down to Heathrow. L, who's a nervous driver, offered to drive down so that I’d be fresher for the drive at the other end. It probably wasn't the best of ideas, she even admitted to be terrified as tried to find Purple Parking. Not a bad service from them but don’t tangle with one of their drivers. The one we had was a right obstreperous sod.

If he was first on my hit list, he was quickly followed by Lufthansa. Who charged us 20 Euros per set of skis. We had four sets of skis and two sets of snowblades between us. So you can work out how expensive that was. Wouldn’t mind if they’d told us in advance. It would almost have been cheaper to have hired the gear in the resort. We’d also cut back on other luggage so that the snowblades wouldn’t put us over the weight limit. So that was a waste a time.

A first was to get paged on the airport public address system. Well it wasn’t me personally but Son. Who had left his bag unattended!

Third onto the hit list was Alamo car rental at Munich who gave us a ‘toy car’ for the second year running. Last year a Renault Scenic, this year a Opel Meriva. Totally impractical for a skiing holiday.



We got a nice apartment though.

Skiing was good, skied first three days in Ischgl and I thought we were all skiing very well and keeping together quite well as a group. L however, as always, thought she was holding us up. In fact the one who was having a horrendous skiing time so far was me, I kept falling over. This is normally unheard of. Blamed my skis. I should have sharpened the edges before we left. I had practically no grip on the morning ice.



L fell on day three, which was her only fall, unlike me but at least she made it a good one. She managed to fall on a tube of sun block which seemed to bruise her ribs. So much so that after a while she had trouble bending over.

After that we skied in Galtur and in Kappl before ending up back in Ischgl. I would recommend all three for differing reasons.



There were even penguins in Ischgl.

The village we stayed in was nice despite the fact that the local shops didn't stock decent ingredients to cook with, such as fresh meet and veg. We survived on sausages. Doggo would have been so jealous. Loo roll also seemed to be bit of a rarity in the resort. We survived on tissues.

L even managed to get a run in on some mornings. I didn’t want to push my legs that much, ageing rapidly as they are.

L, who was ill on our Scottish trip in February, managed to top that by coming out in a rash one day and we couldn’t work out why. She must have been allergic to something but we couldn’t work out what. Sausages perhaps?

The Jagertee’s went down very well all week. It was also a good sex week considering my girl was covered in red spots and couldn't bend at the waist!

It was all over too quickly and we headed home, hoping that our collie had missed us and wasn't having as good a time as his text messages said he was. We nearly didn't make it though. The pilot tried to kill us on the way back and had a go at landing the plane on one wheel before thinking better of it, aborting the landing and doing better second time around.