Back To School

We head home from Malham today and after a weekend of nice sunny weather it starts to rain. Suppose we can’t complain really.

We’re back in time for the new school term, for MD that is, Monday training restarts tonight. L comes along too, for the ride and the run, to her parent’s house, from where I will pick her up later. Hope she enjoys the run, despite the rain.

During training, MD and I have a disagreement. He is so typically the naughty schoolboy on his first day back. I tell him to ‘release’ his tug but all he does is knot his eyebrows in disagreement and bite harder on the toy, in a gesture that clearly says ‘nope’. Hmmm. Who’s the boss here? On second thoughts don’t answer that.

I persist in my efforts to assert my supposed authority over him and eventually he relents... but then seems to change his mind and lunges to get the just released toy back between his teeth. We clash heads. There are few things more sturdy or boney than a dogs head. Suddenly there is blood everywhere from my cut lip. We head off back to the car to have 'words' and to try to stem the flow of blood. Now I'm going to have to go into work tomorrow to the accompaniment of claims that L is beating me up again.

(Monday 6th September)

An Unusual Substitution

There’s a match tonight and usually I’d park the car at my parent’s house and run into work. Today though I figure that the legs could do with a break, so I brave the gridlock and take the car all the way to work.

The match is better than expected, although when Middlesbrough go ahead we expect it to end in the usual defeat. Derby though battle back and after an unusual substitution from Mr Clough, e.g. a positive attacking one, we fight back, equalise and then take the lead. Unfortunately they then succumb to a last minute equaliser and a draw does little for the clubs perilous position but at least the performance was encouraging.

On the day that 'sleep lessons for grumpy teens’ is in the news, as I drive home I get call from Daughter on my mobile phone. This results in a late night diversion to retrieve her and a couple of friends from a night out topping up their sleep deprivation in Nottingham. The article is all very well but I can't imagine any teenagers listening.