The Beer Is Just Too Strong

I take the dogs on a very frosty park. I would have liked to have taken the footballs but MD’s ball has got wet and has now set into a large frozen lump. Kicking it has become a kin to kicking a cannonball and about as painful.

Then a quick drive to the local farm shop to choose which leg to have for Boxing Day lunch. We weigh up the difference between the sizes of the two largest legs on offer, until the butcher points out that they’re both from the same lamb and as the lamb was not known to have an odd gait, therefore in theory they should be the same size.

As I head off to meet my brother for a probably misguided pre-match beer, hair of the dog I suppose, we still have a house full of teenagers, sleeping last night off. Haven’t they got homes to go to? L charitably does them all bacon and sausage sandwiches to try and rouse them.

The main reason I’m meeting my brother is for the ‘Santa Walk’ although to be honest, it was the beer that tempted me. Santa suits are not compulsory but all the same I bring my freebie Santa hat from last night. As we sit in the pub, in view of the starting place of the walk, we see it set off. We consider going off in pursuit but when we see only about twenty people on the walk, we opt to stay for a 2nd drink instead. It’s also far too early to head off to the match and end up standing in the freezing cold for an hour or so.

At the match, normality is restored. In that, it’s back to the negative, uninteresting football from our lot. Totally out played first half, they are better in the second half but are still deservedly beaten. Suspect tactics again though, in my opinion.

After the match I meet up with L and we head over to Burton, where we’re long overdue a night in the Cooper’s Arms. They have a real fire lit and it looks just as cosy as before but here’s a first. We leave the pub because the beer is too strong. There are a few golden hoppy numbers at the bottom of the alcohol scale but all the dark stuff and the barley wines start at 6.6% and go up to a staggering 10%. So defeated, we retreat next door, to the Devonshire Arms, where the Burton Bridge Porter and Stairway are a more sensible 4.5% and 5.0%.

We are back in Derby a few hours later where I’ve agreed to rendezvous with a couple of friends for a final beer. Modern communication methods though fail us. I don’t hear my phone when he calls me; likewise he doesn’t hear his when I return his call. Mind you, he doesn’t answer my texts either.

When we left Burton it was raining there, meanwhile the weather wasn’t doing much at all in Derby but when we get back to Nottingham there was white stuff everywhere. Snow, at last.

The World Is Clearly A Better Place For It

According to TfL (Transport for London) and ok we don't live in London but they reckon that if you cycle to work you're likely to get caught in rain only eight times a year. I don't wish to put anyone off but quite frankly this is b*******. I've been probably caught eight times in the last month alone and as for cycling during the barbecue summer, well... Still, they’re probably right in that it's probably not as wet as people think.

Today I do cycle. My neck wasn’t too much of a problem except when looking behind me and only on one side. So I had to be extra careful with my right turns. I nearly made it all the way in the dry but, TfL take note, the rain caught me just as I was close to work.

University applications are go, at long last. Son has finished his personal statement, which is a load of flannel all students have to submit to allegedly impress the universities. They say it carries weight but I’m not sure. I reckon the admissions tutors just take the best ones with them on the staff night out and read amusing anecdotes from them over a few pints. The UCAS system rejects Son’s because it's too long. Blimey. Always one for the ‘quick fix’, I never thought any piece of work from Son would ever be rejected for being too long. How times have changed and the world is clearly a better place for it.

All he needs now is someone’s credit card to submit it, so L leaves him hers. That’s a rash thing to do but I’m sure his fingers won’t deviate to Amazon mid application. In the end though he can’t get it to submit anyway and we do it for him later when L and I are both on hand to witness the momentous occasion. Well actually we both just wanted a butchers at this legendary personal statement.

No squash tonight, so I agree to meet L at the gym instead. Although I’m not quite sure what I’ll do when I get there. I can’t run because of my leg, can’t row because of my shoulder. A session on the bike would be favourite but having biked there, it does seem a bit like overkill. I might have to w... a... l... k... on the treadmill.

Instead I do some leg weights, which goes better than I thought. I use three different machines that all focus on the thighs and mainly side to side movement but when I come to the one that involves actually lifting the weights via your ankles, my leg feels like it’s about to snap off at the calf and I have to stop.

Then as I wait for ages for someone to vacate one of the bikes, I bite the bullet and do the W thing on the treadmill. I really ought to do what everyone else does these days and find some to sue for my injury. It’s totally ruined my life, particularly when it comes to the humiliation of w****** on the treadmill.

At least I manage to have a bit of fun. I take it up to 7kph which seems about as fast as my leg will take. Then I notice that the girl next to is running at 7.5kph so I increase the speed of mine to be the same, just for the hell of it. Although I'm still walking and she's still running.

I finally get on the bike and the previous user has not stopped the computer, in the several hours they’ve been aboard it, they’ve only done 5k. Probably because they were reading something half the time they were on it. So I double that for them, in a fraction of the time it took them.

A Good Butchers

Appropriately as its National Bike Week I’m on my bike today.

I wonder if this means they’ll be an amnesty this week on the attempted assassinations of cyclists. I take the hilly route to work today, to test the old legs out. As I sit at the Balloon Wood traffic lights I look back at the Chelsea Tractor that has pulled up behind me to try to ascertain, as I usually do, whether they’ve seen me or not and therefore whether they will attempt to drive over the top of me, when the lights change, or not. The female driver seems to be still getting dressed. Then she glares at me as if it’s my fault for noticing! She doesn't appear to realise that she’s not worth wasting an eyeball on. Well at least I now know that she’s seen me, whether this means she will still attempt to drive over the top of me or not, I’m not sure.

If you think this is all rather a lot to notice as I simply wait for a set of lights to change, let me tell you that the Balloon Wood traffic lights have five roads that intersect and they take an age to change. Enough time to have a good butchers around, or in fact to finish getting dressed.

It’s quite hot again today and this mini heatwave causes us a bit of a dilemma at work where the computers and the sun heat up the office very quickly. Our air conditioning, despite numerous temperature and fan settings, effectively has only two modes, on or off. ‘Off’ means that in this weather you can pretty soon fry an egg on the top of one of the laser printers, whereas the ‘on’ setting cools the office down so fast that within ten minutes we can have snow falling inside the office, which really clogs up your keyboard. A setting in between, however, seems to elude it.

An email entitled 'What the crap' appears in my inbox. Must be Daughter. She’s been having problems with the 'content lock' feature on the 'stupid brilliant piece of junk', that's her affectionate nickname for her phone. It’s stopped her from using Meebo, well it has got a daft name, because she can't confirm her age as being over 18 because, well she isn’t over 18 and hasn't got a credit card number to prove it. I think she wants to borrow mine.

Now it’s blocked her from accessing the La Senza website... and why not, you don’t want all these youngsters viewing websites which have photographs of ladies in their underwear do you. Even if she did only want to see how expensive their socks were. Oh well, and she can't even go on Meebo to bitch about it.

I access ‘my’ online account for the phone, it’s all registered in my name, where I can see everything she’s been up to on it. Cool. Big Parent is watching you... Whilst I’m there I unlock the thing for her, now she surf as much porn as she likes.

My opponent took some time to decide whether we play squash or tennis this week, after his defeat last time. So long in fact, that I doubt now that we would get a squash court at such short notice. So tennis it is, the only proviso he says, is that the first ten-year-old girl who walks past, laughs and says her younger sister could hit the ball harder than that, we are off the court. So that's the rules decided, may the tippy-tapping commence.

I actually try to play some shots and wins some points this week, rather than just tapping it back to my opponent for him to make the mistakes. It’s a glorious failure. So back to plan A next time.