Far Livelier Than He Has Any Right To Be

L goes into work and I’m on the park with the dogs and no balls. Oops, wrong thing to say. I mean no balls to kick or throw as MD is supposed to be taking it easy. With nothing to chase poor old Doggo is practically pulling his fur out in frustration.

MD isn’t much better; he’s far livelier than he has any right to be. In fact with my latest injury, my hip from yesterday’s bike tumble, I’m more of an invalid than him. I tell him he has to stay on the lead.

We already have two dogs (obviously) but it doesn’t usually stop L wanting more, usually for Christmas. This year though she sold me a dummy and promised they’d be no dogs on her Christmas list, not even the much longed for whippet or that fluffy Leonberger puppy. She says she’s off dogs but it wasn’t true.

She just hadn’t seen the dog she wanted for Christmas. Now she has. It's one of those wrinkly things that are very fashionable at the moment.



It’s called a Shar-Pei. Yep she would seriously bring something called a Shar-Pei into the house. They do need to grow a bit, to grow into their skin.

At the match, Derby turn in their best performance of the season. In fact it’s a terrific game all round against second in the table West Bromwich Albion. Certainly not boring. For once. Shame all our games are not like that. Winning 1-0 with eight minutes to go we are undone by a goal that their striker seemed to bundle in, Thierry Henry style, with his hand. Then there’s more than a hint of offside about their second goal a few minutes later. Although it’s so hard to know these days with the ‘not interfering with play’ rule. In my opinion, if a player is on the pitch then he’s interfering with play and has to be marked, so I reckon the rule is nonsense.

Anyhow Derby snatch back a point with a goal with only seconds left to play. So 2-2. Actually a fair result but still a bit gutted that we didn’t win.

In the evening we leave the convalescing patient and head into town. Broadway has a 5.9%er which isn’t a good place to start, so I have to downgrade to something else. Weaker and less palatable but imminently more sensible. We move on to the Kean’s Head who always seem to have good dark ale on these days and have another tonight, an excellent 5.0% porter and of course the famed Screech Owl. End up drinking far too much.