The Great Escape

Cycling is very quiet on Monday, only 8 of us. Perhaps everyone’s still in Paris. Afterwards my Dad and I give the refurbished Royal Standard a go but it’s nothing very exciting. We do end up in the Exeter on Tuesday after Derby's League Cup match with Chesterfield which they win 2-1. 

L has an exciting yoga night on Wednesday as they get locked in the park cutting across to get to the Rodney for their post-yoga Pironis. They have to climb the gate to get out, showing that all that yoga and gym work has paid off.

While they're playing at the Great Escape, I'm in Beeston with my old school friend cashing in a free night out after I paid for everything last time we went out. I meet his train and he’s on time for once, as is the train. We visit the Star, the White Lion and then the Victoria for food.

Thursday’s tennis is a lively game as it’s a touch windy but at least my opponent doesn’t overheat this time. It even starts raining just before we play but the new rubber courts at Clifton seem to have excellent drainage and once it stops we have no issues.

I lose a close match 6-3 6-4 which is as good as a win in my book. My opponent sees it as a crushing defeat for him. L runs there which is about 7k and joins us afterwards in the Ruddington Arms.

On Friday I do a joint gym with L who’s only doing fun things. This confuses me. Are we not doing the gym then? and going to the pub instead? Apparently not.

On Saturday we do our first parkrun in three weeks. We run at Clifton and I run it with the Lad which is becoming a habit again. Perhaps a bad habit. I’m slowing getting the hang of running with his on a handheld lead as is now required.

Derby then have a 12:30 kick off and grind out a 1-0 win over Middlesbrough for their first win back in the Championship. Then we’re in the Plough for another pale ale frenzy but I can’t be bothered to walk anyway more exciting.

Sunday starts with a full English at the Wollaton which is very good. Then we walk it off on the park. In the evening we’re at the gym again. It’s not clear whether this is supposed to be fun as well. 

(Sunday 18^th August)

Olympics

Monday’s cycling is extra exciting as they put up a big screen so that we can watch the GB Women win the Team Sprint. 

Wednesday is by now almost my usual night with my Dad in the New Inn before heading back home to watch the Team Pursuit Finals where we get a silver and a bronze.

On Thursday, after walking the Lad, we dump him with Daughter and get the train down to London and then onto Paris. Yes, we’re at the Olympics. After a minor hitch when we check into the wrong Ibis we get settled in before heading off on the Metro to find a Frog pub. Sadly FrogXVI is closed for volunteer party. We have a double Leffe at another bar instead. Then we go to our first event which is a late night Beach Volleyball match underneath a lit up Eiffel Tower. 

 

It’s very impressive. As is the Grimbergen Ambree back at hotel. 

The next day, naturally, involves a trip to a bookshop, the Shakespeare bookshop by Notre Dame. Then we get the RER train out to Le Golf. Sadly all the beer at the venues is 1664 0% lager, so we’ll be well ready for those Grimbergen Ambrees later. 

Then we move from the golf to the track cycling where Elinor Barker and Neah Evans win silver in Women’s Madison while Jack Carlin takes bronze in the Men’s sprint. Our front rows seats are very good apart from being sandwiched between two Dutch supporters. Their man Harrie Lavreysen takes the Sprint gold obviously. 

On Saturday sadly we’re not at Parkrun as all French parkruns remain suspended. Instead we head down to the Champs Elysee which has been pedestrianised for the Olympics. Then we’re at the Weightlifting which is far more tactical that you could possibly have imagined. 

Afterwards we go t-shirt and dog toy shopping. 

On the Metro, on our way back to Trocadero for more Leffe, we notice people on the way to the Marathon Pour Vous which is a public marathon starting at 9pm, there’s a 10k as well. We have a takeaway on the way back to the hotel.

That’s our last day and on Sunday we’re on the Eurostar back home which we share with both hockey teams and numerous other Team GB members. 

(Sunday 11^th August)

Australia Visits

I am not at cycling on Monday as we head off to see Clive Myrie in conversation with James Rodgers at Derby Theatre. Myrie is interesting to listen to but for me Rodgers is even more fascinating. Rodgers was the BBC’s Foreign Correspondent in Moscow until he was chucked out along with most western journalists and his tales of Russia and Ukraine are fascinating. He reminisces on how cheap it was to get out there around 2019/2020 which is very true because we ourselves were planning a trip to Chernobyl via Kyiv before Covid intervened and then of course Putin’s invasion. 

After a day in work on Monday, L now has no boss for the next five weeks so will be WFH for sometime. The Olympics are now on and our first golds arrive from Tom Pidcock in the Cross-Country cycling and from the Equestrian Eventing Team.

On Tuesday my Dad manages to take himself to a special Pre-Season Golden Rams Coffee Morning by taxi and apparently has a great time as they unveil a new 50th Anniversary shirt. It being the anniversary of the 1974/75 league title. I’m in the New Inn with him and the Lad the next evening and I thought L was at yoga until I get a photo of her and her friend in the Wollaton pub on the Peroni. After yoga apparently.  

On Thursday morning I run 5k run with L and the Lad but there’s no tennis in the evening.

I have the day off on Friday as we pick up L’s Australian penpal and her hubby from the train station. We take them for lunch on Wollaton Park and then to Miller & Carter for a meal in the evening. We give up our bedroom for them and camp out in the office. L glares at me when I suggest we pretend we’re teenagers in a single bed.

On Saturday I inflict my Dad on our visitors and take them all to Nottingham Castle. Then afterwards we take them to Ye Olde Trip To Jerusalem, England’s oldest inn but not oldest pub... In Nottingham the Salutation and the Bell claim to be older... All three pubs will fight to the death over this.

They also have the long defunct Hardys and Hansons Olde Trip on the bar. Presumably it’s just one of their owner Greene King’s other beers rebadged. They also have another of the old Hardys and Hansons’ beers Cursed Galleon now brewed by Milestone and down at 4.3% rather than 5% but still very nice.

We then drop our Australian guests back at the train station as they head back to London and then on to Zagred where his family are from. We drop my Dad back at his home and then spend the evening in the Plough where they have three different version of a new ale called Summer Pale at 3.9% that they want you to vote for the best one of. Sadly they are all pale and 3.9%. Then thankfully we’re back in own bed.

On Sunday we run 6.5k with L and do the gym in the evening. 

(Sunday 4^th August)

Glorious Telford

Tuesday sees L sent home with PT homework. She has to practice press-ups. Ouch. I can’t see that happening but if it does I’m sure the Lad will help her with it.

We have booked a ‘dodgy’ electrician to sort out our smoke alarms. ‘Dodgy’ because he’s quoting less than what the alarms he’s fitting sell for online and he wants paying in cash. What could possibly go wrong?

‘Dodgy’ or not, he appears to do a good job. Now we just need Daughter to test them. She has been warned what will happen if she leaves something sizzling under the grill for too long. The two alarms are linked, so if one goes off they both go off. It’ll sound like Armageddon and the batteries are built in, so there’s no quick way of disabling them if they go off.

As it turns out the first thing to set the alarm is not Daughter’s sausages but our shower. Perhaps that’s why the alarms were cheap... Meanwhile one of our old alarms, that hasn’t gone off in years, issues a parting salvo from its new home in the wheelie bin.

Wednesday night is spent with my Dad and the lad in the New Inn. While on Thursday I run with L and the Lad during which he snaps his bungee lead. L makes it to 5k but the leadless Lad and I only make it to 4.5k.

Tennis goes ahead at Cliton again and afterwards we try the Ruddington Arms which is much nicer than the Framebreakers.

On Friday after work, or in L’s case after gym and swim, we head for a weekend away in glorious Telford. It doesn’t start too well when we find that the only evening options near our Holiday Inn are the main shopping centre or an estate pub called the Randlay Farmhouse that has no real ale and no food. So after a few bottled beers it’s back to the hotel for a meal.

One thing that Telford does have is a decent park. It’s called the Town Park and it’s where they have Parkrun which obviously we run, me with the Lad.

We then head back to the hotel, which now has a Jehovahs Witness conference going on next door, for coffee and to discuss the strategy for the rest of the weekend. Telford it appears is just one big retail complex that is not designed to be avoided and we can’t find anywhere for breakfast. We attempt to walk around the outside of it and are constantly boxed in by dual carriageways.

Eventually we find a footpath called the Silkin Way and walk to somewhere called Oakengates, allegedly the Heart of Telford but even that has an industrial estate in the middle of it. Telford is doing its best to make Derby look glamorous. I do however have two excellent pints at the Crown pub but where we also have to make do with pasties for lunch/breakfast while the Lad gets a new halti having snapped his second lead of the week. We’re back at the hotel for 6pm and spend the evening in the sanctuary of the hotel bar.

Sunday is better. L goes in the hotel gym while I walk the Lad and then we get breakfast in the hotel’s dog friendly area. After that we drive out to Ironbridge, the nice bit of ‘Telford’ five miles outside of it. We have a pleasant walk around the area, go for a coffee, to a bookshop and then end up in the All Nations pub which we last visited as part of Camra’s 25th Anniversary Beer trail back in 1997. That was all the pubs nationwide that had been in their guidebook for the whole 25 years that I dragged L to. Not sure how many pubs it was now. Might have been 25, might have been less than that. 

(Sunday 28^th July)

Ideas Above Their Station

Cycling is lively on Monday probably because both the Men’s and Women’s GB Olympic Pursuit teams are up on track before us. Practising before heading off to Paris and showing us how it is done. This gives some people in our group ideas above their station. They think they can do as well. They can’t. 

L has her PT on Tuesday where she is impressively deadlifting 50kg. In the evening I’m out with my old school pal in the Alexandra and the Silk Mill. He turns up with no money having left it as the prison he delivers to as part of his job. Apparently you always have to hand over the contents of your pockets to prison security before you go in and he forgot to collect it all back afterwards. So I have to pay for everything and then just to top his day off he gets a parking ticket as he hadn’t got the means to pay for his parking.

On Wednesday, for the second time this week, L is in work without a boss because, for the second time this week, he has a puncture and is waiting for the AA.

Daughter tests positive for Covid after feeling slightly unwell and losing her sense of smell. L lost her sense of smell 20 years ago but doesn’t have Covid.

On Thursday I do a 7am run with L and the Lad and all the chaos that involves.

Tennis does start this week but as there are no courts available at the Tennis Centre I suggest Clifton where they have built five brand new courts. They have actually been there forever but were pretty much derelict until recently. We play at 6pm as that is the last booking slot and we have the courts to ourselves.

It’s a warm night and my very unfit opponent aborts, complaining of heat exhaustion, half-way through the second set. We go for a drink afterwards at the Framebreakers in Ruddington who have turned their car park into a beer garden which means there is nowhere to park nearby. They also don’t seem to have many staff and we wait ages to be served. Not sure we’ll go back.

On Friday Microsoft messes us the whole world as a software outage leaves lots of business and all the airports in chaos. Luckily the Brunswick is fine where I have lunch with my ex-colleague.

Saturday’s Parkrun is at Wollaton, then I head over to my Dad’s and later we’re in the Plough.

On Sunday we visit, for the first time, Wollaton Park’s secret garden which is amazing. It’s a shame it’s not open more often. Later I do a rare gym trip with L. 

(Sunday 21^st July)

The Wrong Roof

It’s a Morose Monday for L as she's in work and not shopping with me at Sainsbury’s... Cycling is also rather morose with only seven of us there. L is quickly back FH on Tuesday with her boss away in London. 

Tuesday was also supposed to be the first tennis game of the year but predictably it’s rained off.

Wednesday is the start of five days at our own dog show. The first two days are purely setting up and I take the Lad on day one and he gets plenty of ball as we wait for the marquee to be erected. It takes them from 10am to 6pm to put it up because they came with the wrong roof. I am home in time to see England beat Netherlands 2-1 to reach Euros Final.

L runs on Thursday morning before joining us on the morning walk and then heading off to Derby while I head back to continue setting up the show. The lad stays home this time. It drizzles all day as yet again a catering van pulls out on us. Amazingly we quickly manage to find someone else after an appeal on social media which perhaps has a use after all.

The show starts for real on Friday and with a catering van as I celebrate my Wellbeing Day Off work. By Saturday our new catering is not enjoying our show as he says he’s not selling enough. He doesn’t return on Sunday. On the plus side one of our trade stands makes a key ring of the Lad. It is great, so I get them to make extra ones for L, my Dad and Daughter. I also buy him a new lead to make up for not inviting him. I de-stress after the show with L in the Plough.

Sunday is the last day of the show and it’s also the Euros Final which England lose 2-1 to Spain. 

(Sunday 14^th July)

Please Let Me Be Sacked Today

Tuesday is race three of the Grand Prix series which is the Colwick 5 Miler. I again start quite near the back and quickly notice that I am so far back that one of my long time rivals is ahead of me. I already feel I am going faster than I should (and can) but I try to reel him in. Then just before the end of lap one he disappears into the bushes. Perhaps it’s for a comfort break or perhaps he’s trying to hide from me, then drop back in the race behind me and outsmart me. 

I assume the latter and that he’s now right behind me so I keep my pace suicidally high. It isn’t until about 1km to go that the course allows me to get a good look behind and he isn’t there. I ease up and complete the race in 41 minutes. He eventually comes in 5 minutes behind me.

On Wednesday L goes into work for the first time this week. She asks if I think she was the only person walking to work muttering "please let me be sacked today... please let me be sacked today ..." to herself. Yes, probably. She doesn’t get sacked.

In the evening she’s at yet another new yoga class and I’m at dog training which is our last one until September as we are now on summer break. At the Tour de France Mark Cavendish breaks Eddy Merckx’s record with his 35th win.

On Thursday L is swimming at Lenton where they are trying to raise £100,000 to keep the pool open. Notts TV are there filming and conducting a few interviews afterwards. 

In the evening it’s the grand finale of the Grand Prix series which is the Embankment 5k. My time is a very decent 26:03. We head off to collect my race T-shirt from the boat club. Sadly it's a red t-shirt. We head off to celebrate with a couple of pints and a chicken flatbread at the Dispensary.

Then it’s Election night and I settle in with the imaginary popcorn. L makes it to midnight and see the first two results come in which is a huge achievement for her. The Lad and I sit it out to 5am, just in time to savour Jacob Rees Mogg’s loss but sadly even we’re in bed for Liz Truss losing her seat.

I only get four hours sleep but I’ve taken the day off work so it doesn’t really matter. In the evening we’re at Iberico with Daughter as late birthday treat.

Saturday is Parkrun at Wollaton where L parkwalks. Then I take my Dad up to the White Peak Distillery in Ambergate for a Whiskey Tour that my brother bought us for Christmas. L comes along but goes book shopping in Belper. After the tour they give us tastings of four whiskeys and we both leave with a bottle but of different whiskeys. Then we head to my brother’s new place in Kirk Langley for his housewarming which is slightly upstaged by the England’s Quarter-Final of the Euros against Switzerland.

My Cousins are there, along with most of the old five a side team and my best mate from school. England eventually win on penalties after a 1-1 draw but we are back at my Dad’s house by then.

Sunday sees the Lad and I at a Dog Show in Bilsthorpe. This is mainly because he isn’t allowed at our own show next week as he gets too excited by it all. He starts off very well with just one error on his first course which is an extra jump but that makes a change from an extra tunnel. That is his best run of the day and ultimately it’s another 4 E’s. 

(Sunday 7^th July)

Strongest Coffee In The World

On Saturday we head up to Millhouses Parkrun in Sheffield for our morning entertainment which includes coffee and a breakfast roll in the park cafe. On the way back to Nottingham we pop in at Timberland Motorhomes near Chesterfield to price up our future holiday accommodation. A VW Transporter with 37k on the clock weighs in at £42,000 which is about the going rate. They only have diesel ones and I’d really like to look at some electric ones as I hope to only ever be buying one of these. In the evening we’re in the Plough of course. 

On Sunday, for variety, we walk round Martin’s Pond rather than round Wollaton Park ending up at the Wollaton pub for a breakfast roll and the strongest coffee in the world. Then having cut my Dad’s lawn yesterday I cut ours today.

The Lad is exhausted with all his helping with the mowing but we still walk him to a place called the Windmill Community Garden that I didn’t know existed. L leads us there down a path I didn’t know existed.

At the Euros England score a last minute equaliser against Slovakia then sneak through in extra time. 

(Sunday 30^th June)

Notorious

L is in work early on Monday, having kept her gym session short, waiting for both her boss and the attachment of a urgent document sent by her boss to turn up.

There are no post-cycling scotch eggs available at Exeter so I’m roughing it on the chip cobs but L upstages me when she dines on a University meal deal with her friend at lunchtime on Tuesday.

In the evening I make my long awaiting running coming back in the first race of the Grand Prix series. This is the notorious Rushcliffe 4 miler where I have experienced some of my most spectacular injuries. Thankfully there is nothing spectacular about tonight injury-wise or any-wise really and I’m happy to get round in just over 35 minutes. Later England draw 0-0 with Slovenia at the Euros.

My reward for my running comeback is... a rejection email from the London Marathon. Again.

On the park on Thursday the Lad and I get attacked by a golden retriever. That is both traumatic and embarrassing. The chap who came belting across the field in hot pursuit of the errant retriever was very apologetic. Clearly this wasn’t a first occurrence.

Round Two of the Grand Prix series in on Thursday which is the almost as notorious Holme Pierrepont 10k for those who like laps around the rowing strip. I start near the back of the field and set myself a steady pace with the aim to get round in under the hour which I feel would be more than acceptable for a comeback. I stick to my plan, mostly, but gradually speed up finishing in just over 57 minutes. So very happy with that.

On Friday L wakes up with indigestion after our mega salad last night. Salads can be such dangerous things. She heads off to the gym to work it off. I’m at the Rescue Rooms. 

(Friday 28^th June)

The Breeders

Tonight’s openers are London based Big Joanie. That’s a band not a person, named after founder Stephanie Phillips’ Mum and with the ‘big’ meaning confident. They formed amid London’s DIY punk scene in 2013 and have two albums out there.

The four piece take the stage with guitar, keyboards, drums and Phillips wielding a tambourine. It’s an odd mix but they add in bass and a second guitar later. Are they a punk band? or something else? It’s hard to tell. They do entertain us with some interesting wordplay and reasonable tunes but they’re not really for me. 

So on to the headliners...

Midway through tonight’s set The Breeders’ Jim Macpherson gets out from behind his drum kit and comes down to the front of the stage. He introduces the rest of the band and then casually mentions that it was 1993 the last time they played Rock City.

Surely not? It really has been a while then. I didn’t actually see them in Nottingham on that occasion. For reasons I can’t recall, I mean it was 30 years ago, I went to Sheffield University to see them the night before. I probably had some football going on. They did then play Nottingham Trent in 2008 but I didn’t make it to that either.

Often I give my apologies why I haven’t seen a band for a long period. This time, with only one chance in 30 years, it’s clearly not all my fault. Meanwhile other people have the better excuse of not being born. Tonight the audience is about a 50-50 split tonight between young and old, so the band can feel smug that they’re introducing a whole new generation to their music.

Therefore tonight is special is for many reasons and from the first few bars of ‘Saints’ everyone is buzzing. It’s not just about music because here is the nicest band on the planet who are clearly ridiculously happy just to be here and that makes a big difference to everyone’s experience. Even if it has taken them 30 years to find the right page on the atlas.

They’re going to be at Glastonbury the next day, as they tell us obviously, and if you watch that performance they grin their way through that one too.

The set is, as you’d expect, ‘Last Splash’ heavy but there is excellence too from their debut ‘Pod’ (‘Doe’ is amazing, ‘Opened’ is amazing etc etc) along with selections from their other records such as the wonderful ‘Huffer’ from 2002’s ‘Title TK’.

Kim Deal and her cryptic lyrics dominate most of the night but it’s over to sister Kelley for ‘I Don’t Get Along and then to Josephine Wiggs for the penultimate track ‘Megagoth’ which morphs into the Pixies ‘Gigantic’ which of course Kim originally wrote and sung.

And of course there’s the legendary ‘Cannonball’ with its classic opening of those distorted vocals and amazing bassline.

In total it takes them only ninety minutes to blitz through a 21 song set of songs that rarely break three minutes and often don’t even exceed two. 

Then there are two more to come in the encore, the last of which is the pure delight of ‘Divine Hammer’ that sends everyone home with a smile as wide as the band’s. Who.. have I mentioned how nice they all are? Just to prove that Josephine ends the night by taking all the band’s set lists which have been turned into paper planes and sends them flying into the crowd. Such a nice night.