UK Tour

Last night we dropped Son off at Nottingham Trent’s Clifton campus where he had arranged to meet some friends. That was at about half-past-midnight. Four hours later he turns up back at our place for a few hours kip before departing again just before 7.30 on the next leg of his UK Tour, back to Warwick for an 11am seminar and then up to York for the weekend.

L had taken a bag of provisions for him with us up to Leeds. This had then travelled back with us and then had spent the night on his bedroom floor, via a stopover in Clifton. We hope the meat and cheese isn’t too rancid by the time he comes to eat them. It's done some miles.

The media is full of Wayne Rooney and the Liverpool sale. How this is of any interest to anyone outside the supporters of those two clubs I’m not sure but we’re being force fed it anyway. Thankfully the Rooney saga now appears to be over after he agreed a new five year contract just days after announcing his intention to leave over concerns that the club's squad was not up to scratch... Seems he forgot about that once they waved wads of money in front of his eyes. Unfortunately for Wayne, the amount of money they are now going to be paying him will mean they'll be none left for any new signings.

After work I walk to Chaddesden and then attempt to get the bus over to Long Eaton, where I’ve arranged to meet L. I get there five minutes before the bus is due but the electronic signs say that the next one will be in 24 minutes. How can that be, when the buses are every 20 minutes. The one after the one I was waiting for hadn’t even left its start location yet.

One eventually turns up, only around ten minutes late, I rendezvous with L and we head off to the Erewash Valley Beer Festival. This nomadic festival, which was originally held in Sandiacre then Ilkeston, is back on the calendar after an absence of two years.



It is being held in one of the old lace mills in the town, which has recently been refurbished, The Westgate & Clifford Suites on Westgate.



It’s only a week after the Nottingham Beer Festival but we reckon we’re up to it. A not too bad selection of beers as it turns out and almost all were from local breweries, which is how it should be.

Set List

FUNFAIR - WALTZER 4.5%
BLACK HOLE - NO ESCAPE 5.2%
LEADMILL - RAMPAGE 5.1%
NUTBROOK - COW JUICE 6.0%
FUNFAIR - CAKE WALK 6.0%
BURTON BRIDGE - FESTIVAL 5.5%
BURTON BRIDGE - TOP DOG STOUT 5.0%

There were a couple of repeat performances in L’s selection.

FUNFAIR - CAKE WALK 6.0%
BURTON BRIDGE - FESTIVAL 5.5%
THORNBRIDGE - KIPLING 5.2%
FUNFAIR - CAKE WALK 6.0%
DERVENTIO - CLEOPATRA 5.0%
BURTON BRIDGE - FESTIVAL 5.5%

(Friday 22nd October)

The Natural Order Of Things

So much for the new enhanced Red Arrow service, that promises a bus every ten minutes. I get to the bus stop for 8.30, the first bus comes at 8.55 and of course it’s packed. Then when we arrived in Derby, the driver drops us off at the old place in Market Square, as he claimed he was 25 minutes early. Work that one out.

The evil enemy are probably no more by now because the wasp man has been. We’ve just got to keep Doggo away from his favourite leg lifting spot for a few days in case there’s some stray napalm around.

It must be a bad bus day because after work I try and get the Indigo to Breaston, from where we have a race tonight. The board at the bus stop says they’ll be a bus in two minutes. Excellent. I wait... and wait. The board changes to six minutes and sticks like that for half an hour before finally counting down to zero, at which point a bus appears and it is of course packed. This service is supposed to be every 20 minutes.

I seem to do better than L, who can’t get an Indigo at all and in the end gets the R4 to Risley and ends up walking the mile down Risley Lane to get to Breaston.

The race is Erewash Valley Running club’s 'The Run', now rebranded as ‘The Run 4.2’. They got into trouble describing this race as a 4 miler and have now decided it’s 4.2 miles, hence the rebrand. It’s also becoming a bit of an annual thing for me. This is the third running of it, I’ve done all three and I’ve got the mugs to prove it. A white one for 2008 and a black one for 2009, this year my money’s on it being red.



I’ve also gone slightly quicker each year but this year I can’t really see me lowering my time. Last year I had protégée to race against and I was 2-0 down in our mini race series, so I had to beat him and did. This year without that sort of motivation and without much training either, I just can’t see it being a good race for me but...

You just never know. I start quicker than I wanted to and then forget to slow down, as I start a tussle of sorts with a chap who is considerably older than me and being behind him just doesn’t seem right somehow. We tussle for the first two miles but then I have to accept my place in the natural pecking order of things, behind him. It’s all a bit too fast for me, I’m doing six minute miles and I ought to be half marathon training, what with Nottingham coming up, and doing seven and a halfs!

The older gentleman forges on ahead and catches two other runners. With a mile to go, I realise that I could catch them too, if I really wanted to. I want to. So I dig deep and do indeed catch them. It also brings me right up to him and with just a quarter of a mile to go, he’s in striking distance. I don’t however like overtaking people in sight of the finish line, not when they’ve done all the work pacing me around... but he’s slowed so dramatically... I desert my principals and nip past him.

My time... well... last year I did 25.40, this year I’m just over 25.00 on my watch. Wow. Though I didn’t see the finish line so I stopped my watch late. The provisional results seem to have me down as 24.57. Double wow.

And the mug colour is... white. White? How does that work then, did they have a load left from 2008? Hmmm. Disappointed with that.

The general consensus is that although it’s probably not 4 miles it certainly isn’t 4.2. A couple of GPS watches put it much closer to 4 than 4.2 but I’m still pleased with my time. I’m also well impressed with L’s time which, even taking the distance as 4 not 4.2, puts her inside her 10k target, that we’re working towards. That is if she can keep the pace the same for another two miles. Surely my training plan isn’t paying off already. I’ll make myself redundant.

The race starts and finishes at the Navigation pub, so guess where we go afterwards....

(Wednesday 28th July)