A New Puppy

Doggo got a new football for Christmas and he’s like a puppy with a new toy. I’ve not seen him so animated about anything in years. Particularly not his agility competitions, sadly. Unfortunately our reborn puppy will be ten this year and he’s not really up to such shenanigans any more. Consequently he appears to suffer with a few aching limbs afterwards. I can sympathise. The same thing happens to me, when I think I can keep up with the youngsters in my 10k’s.

In the afternoon a rare victory for Derby at Preston is overshadowed by the antics of a duck. The duck in question being Deepdale Duck, Preston's mascot.



DD got in trouble for continually distracting Derby’s goalkeeper Stephen Bywater during the match. Bywater seem to complain to the referee who ignored his pleas at first, that is until the duck allegedly flicked two fingers at Bywater. The referee then requested that he be removed. Cue a couple of stewards trying to corner the duck, who was reluctant to be removed before finally he was marched down the tunnel and off the ground.

The duck has plenty of 'previous' but I won't go into that here.

We have a race tomorrow, finally, so we stay in but an intention to be AF doesn’t quite go to plan and quite a bit of wine is sunk. Which I shall regret if I’m down the field tomorrow.

(Saturday 1st January)

Beautifully Crafted

The boys, ‘odd git’ and ‘psycho pup’ as L now calls them, get an all too rare park session this morning. Things will be better from here onwards as the clocks go forward tonight and therefore we should then have enough daylight for the council to open the park in the evenings. Well we’ll have the light, whether we’ll have the will from the council, is another matter...

In another way it’s the wrong day for the clocks to go forward, what with us needing an early start to do the Cat tomorrow.

It’s a vital game for Derby today, at home to Leicester, which thankfully results in a 1-0 win and makes Derby almost safe from any threat of relegation. It was a beautifully crafted winning goal. Leicester’s Andy King's back pass slipping under goalkeeper Chris Weale’s foot and into the net. It was one of the funniest moments at Pride Park for many a year but then we rarely get any joyous moments there.

It was also good to see the reception three ex-players, now playing for Leicester got. Matt Oakley, Steve Howard and Chris Powell all got tremendous receptions from the Derby crowd. Not so Robbie Savage from the Leicester supporters, despite Leicester being a club her served so well for many years. I know Savage divides opinion but he did a hell of a lot for Leicester during probably the best ever period in their history, so it was really strange to hear them boo him.

I’m almost AF pre-Cat but I think L needed something to calm her nerves and I couldn’t let her drink alone. So just a small tipple of wine... or two.