Redressing The Balance

I’m redressing the balance somewhat this week, three bike rides. Today was probably the best of the week, a bit windy but still very good.

I’ve been told I’m doing next year’s Derby 10k, as two colleagues at work are allegedly doing it and have already entered. Though that doesn’t often mean much, two of them entered last year’s Kilomathon but didn’t turn up on the day. One of the 10k-ers is 'Protégé'. That’s all my health needs, another race against him.

I offer to enter L, at the same time as entering myself, and she promptly asks to be put in the 55 minutes pen. Blimey. I didn’t expect to hear her say that. That’s why I offered to enter her, so that I could surreptitiously slip her into the 55 minutes pen. I was convinced she’d want to be further back. She’s really is getting almost competitive with her 10k time.

A little while later, after a short break to do a bit of work, I also enter us into the Reading Half. No turning back now and no Kilomathon, which is on the same day.

Later we head down to Nottingham’s historic ‘Trip to Jerusalem’, which purports to be England's oldest pub, dating back to 1189AD.



I haven’t been in there for some time and was curious to find out what beers they now stock. Hardys & Hansons owned the pub until they we taken over by Greene King from Bury St Edmunds, who then closed the Kimberley brewery and I think we’ve only ventured down once since. So it was somewhat of a pleasant surprise to find some Nottingham brewed ales on the bar, courtesy of the Nottingham Brewery in Radford, alongside the ex-Nottingham ones which are now trucked up from Suffolk, such as the former Hardys & Hansons beer Olde Trip.

Also on the bar was Greene King’s ex-Oxfordshire beer ‘Old Speckled Hen’ - now sold on draught in its ‘lite’ 4.5% version, as opposed to the traditional 5.2%. Oddly Greene King still describe this as ‘Strong Fine Ale’ on the pump clip whilst its own strong ale ‘Abbot’ at 5.0% gets no such annotation. Confusing or what.

We meet up with some friends and head up to Mem Saab for food. Somewhere else we haven’t been for a while. In our opinion, the Laguna has retaken the mantle as the best curry house in Nottingham, which had been in the possession of Mem Saab for a while. Can it retake the honours?

Well it was good, but not outstanding, so no the title for the moment stays with the Laguna.

(Friday 29th October)