A Historical Moment

There is a historical moment in our house. My antique duvet, the first double one I ever bought, may be no more. Perhaps people don’t keep their duvets for sentimental reasons but this was my first. Circa 1988. Ok, so it's old but I have socks that are older. It’s done good service but now it’s ripped. Sadly not ripped through any pleasurable roughness but most likely by a dogs' paws digging on it.

This morning I run the Wollaton Park Easter 10k, all part of my training for a second assault on the Ashbourne Duathlon in a few weeks time.

The course is still rather annoyingly marked in miles, as it was last year. This stuffs my pacing up right from the start. As a consequence I feel I go off far too fast but my pace actually feels ok. Perhaps my half marathon training has stood me in good stead. I fly around the first lap and then run out of steam and plod around the second lap.

All the same I have a good finishing position, I’m pleased. So it’s all a bit disappointing to find out that I’m actually 17 seconds slower than last year. Suppose it was very windy.

The match in the afternoon is a bit of a novelty. Exciting. Sendings Off. Controversy. It even kept me awake. Just a shame we lost 3-1 but it was far more exciting than most the games we’ve won. Derby are hardly impressive but we have played far worse and won. Hopefully we already have enough points to stay up, the players certainly seemed to think so from the way they played.

It’s entertaining mainly because the referee loses the plot during the second half and sends manager Nigel Clough to the stands. Apparently the ref asked Clough to repeat something he has just said. Then when he did, he sent him off. Bit harsh if he was being honest by repeating it, he could have lied. He should have lied.

Clough admits he swore as did Stephen Pearson who was shown a red card soon after for equally foul and abusive language, perhaps what Clough said was so good it needed repeating again.