Almost Dead

On the bike today and rather bizarrely I get shouted out by a chap who had not only parked his car in the cycle lane in Risley but then got out of the car without looking. I have to swerve to avoid colliding with him.... and he shouts at me! He was a huge chap, well overweight, he could have done with doing a bit of cycling himself but I think probably even walking would have been beyond him. I probably burned more calories in that swerve than he will do in the rest of the week.

This morning L asks whether she’s got life insurance. She has but does the fact she’s enquiring mean she's more ill that I thought?

It’s the tuition fees demonstration in London today. Son was on about hitching a lift on the coach to blag a day out in London. Though I can’t see the NUS letting him get away with that. All the same I look out for him on the BBC news. No sign. Turns out he stayed in Warwick. He’s well out of it.

Can’t believe this photo from the BBC website. Talk about staged. All those cameramen just happened to be there when that lad kicked a window in...



I cycle to the pool for a swim. I think that’s three weeks in a row. When I arrive I text L ‘Alive. At pool’, as I usually do to confirm that I’ve survived another battle with the traffic. Her response ‘Almost dead. At work’ isn’t encouraging but quite witty. Hope I don’t need to resuscitate her later with Leffe.

It’s Doggo’s late training session tonight. His one evening a month when he gets the training all to himself. MD isn’t happy though and sits there looking a bit pathetic in the car. He does that very well.

(Wednesday 10th November)

We Needn’t Have Bothered

I’m at the East Of England Showground today, near Peterborough. Yes, it's another dog show. L joins me for the day out and I even manage to blag her a free ticket. It’s a full country show type thing, so there’s an admission charge for non-competitors.

On the competition front, things start well and Doggo seems up for it on a difficult course until he goes over a jump that he wasn’t supposed to, he should have been doing the A Frame. It may have been more my fault than his, he was going for it and I just didn’t have tight enough control of him. On his next course we get our combined acts together and we get a rosette for 10th.

MD in the typical fashion he has now adopted, follows a good first run with a bad second one and then rounds the day off with another good one. Although none of them are clear rounds, he does seem to be making progress and he’s undoubtedly getting quicker.

In their final runs of the day and for the first time ever the two dogs compete over the same course. This is because it’s an open class, that means open to all grades, you don’t get many of these. Doggo is clear in 27.4, MD has just five faults (a pole down) in 28.7. So not much between them time wise but MD at the moment is a bit wayward and hardly takes the shortest route. So I expect him to be going faster than Doggo fairly soon, though we still need to cut the faults out.

We head home mid-afternoon, all runs complete and as it starts to rain. Well first I give MD a quick run out in the practice ring. He’s a dedicated dog, training in the rain, not that I gave him any say in the matter.

We are back in ample time to head in to town to watch the England match, we needn’t have bothered...

At least we rescue the evening by having a good meal in Scruffy’s, including an awesome cheeseboard.