Staying In

Another early alarm call and another two and a quarter hour drive up to Preston. We're going up there that regularly for the dog shows it's starting to feel like a home fixture. L has got me a new book to 'read' on the way up, it's called 'White Russian' by Tom Bradby but so far there's no mention of any cocktails in it. She promises me plenty of death and on that, it delivers, opening with a double murder on a frozen lake in Russia.

It's minus four when we arrive at the show e.g. bloody freezing, hopefully it'll warm up later. Doggo uncharacteristically has a pole down in our first event, which probably means it was my fault. We are then clear in our remaining two runs but the standard is very high today and we come home empty handed. As we leave the car informs that it's now minus three, yep knew it'd warm up...

Derby's match at Cardiff is postponed due to a frozen pitch, so we don't get to find out how Nigel gets on in his first match. So now he's only got one league match and the simple matter of the second leg against Manchester United before we face Forest in the FA Cup. Meanwhile Forest's game is on and they're undergoing a bit of a dead cat bounce under their new manager, that mad Scotsman, and are catching us up in the league.

I get home more or less at the same time as L and Daughter who have been off doing girlie things such as mooching around shops in Chesterfield. Well at least that's what they tell me they've been doing.

Its cold out and I can see that L isn't keen to venture out tonight. I also can't be bothered to travel too far in search of some decent beer, so we make a revolutionary decision for a Saturday night and decide to stay in. It's so cold I'd never have got her to go out in anything slinky anyway and I'm hopeful that I'll see more of her if we stay in, particularly if I let her have the heating on.

The decision to stay in doesn't go down well with Daughter, who's well livid. She tries to persuade us to go out, even offering us money to buy a drink... we wonder if she's expecting someone!