Aggression Levels

In the car today due to another busy evening, parents' evening followed by squash. At least it means I can chauffeur my colleague and I to the pub for lunch.

Naturally any time you want to make a quick escape from work the traffic is going to hell and tonight on Pride Park it’s worse than ever. At least it’s decided my transport mode for tomorrow. Bike.

I make it to parents' evenings with a few minutes to spare, although perhaps soon wish I hadn’t... Daughter problems... and more of them than we were expecting.

This probably helps get my aggression levels up for squash. Although after our first game I feel I’m going to be ill on court but that’s more to do with the huge sausage baguette I had for lunch in the pub. I recover from that and we have five really close games. I even win one of them. Which he blames on the fact that I’ve had to lend him some kit because he turned up without any. It’s a good job I had extra as I was bringing some kit home from work for washing. He’s lucky, I could have given him the smelly sweaty worn kit but I didn’t I gave him my freshly washed squash shirt instead.

A few weeks ago I praised Fulham for reaching the semi-finals of the Europa ‘Whatever It’s Called This Week’ Cup. Well more praise now as they come from a goal behind to defeat Hamburg and make the final. I always like to see the underdog do well. Liverpool though, predictably, don’t make it an all English final and Fulham will play Atletico Madrid instead.

L skips the gym, obviously still feeling ill, and goes home to cook chicken balti instead. Nice and hot I hope, to burn away her germs, with a couple of glasses of red wine at the ready, just in case any try to escape.

Nodders

It’s fairly cold but dry and no sign of the frost they promised us. So on bike.

I learnt a new term the other day, ‘nodders’. I pass one today. ‘Nodders’ are cyclists, usually new ones, who are so called because their heads bob up and down with the effort of cycling. The one I pass is also particularly red faced due to the unfamiliar physical exertion he is putting his body through.

I get a text to say that, unlike last week, my squash opponent has successfully negotiated the washing up without cutting off a limb. So we should be on for a game tonight. Mind you, there’s still a few hours to go, still time for catastrophe to strike.

I also have to negotiate the traffic home on my bike. The roads are still busy but one added bonus is that I finally get to speak to a cyclist I’ve been passing in the opposite direction for the past two years. As she weaves through the same congestion as me but from the opposite direction, we eventually end up meeting in the middle of the road. We briefly exchange pleasantries. Quite a nice little number, that I’ve had my eye on for a while, and it was good to have a closer look. As I thought, it’s an expensive looking Trek. Very nice. That’s the bike not the girl of course. She’s a short little blonde number, not that I noticed. The bike well outdoes my scruffy mount. I must get one of those stickers that says ‘my other bikes a Karma’, if you can get them. Of course I’m not, strictly speaking, currently in the market for a newer model. For a new bike that is, not for a new girl, well that’s what L tells me, but it’s always good to keep your eye in. Bike wise.

Meanwhile L, who’s blaming a spot of back ache on the gym bikes, has decided to try the real McCoy tonight. She intends to go out on the road. So she definitely won't be AF after that. She also reckons, perhaps not during either. Which is an interesting thought.

Squash happens and is a good workout, on already tired legs, if a totally fruitless one for me.

Back home, neither of us are AF.