Sunday 26th May 2013 to Saturday 1st June 2013

Sunday 26th May 2013

Went to Bull i'th'Thorn pub near Buxton for Sunday lunch with me mum and dad, Lucy and bosskat.  It was okay, lovely day.  Went to Richard's 50th in the afternoon.  Set up and took down new tent to see how long it takes.  Answer - not too long at all! 

New tent : Vango Callisto 500

Monday 27th May 2013
Up at 5:30.  Pooch fed.  Phil up at 6am so took the opportunity of a quick run up town and back.  Obligatory picture of the pup:

Lily - dangerously close to my trainers - no sense of smell it would appear!

Tuesday 28th May 2013

Up eaerly with Dog.  Phil didn't get up til late so no run.  Me and the missus took the pooch to meet the lady at the paper shop which was nice. 

Wednesday 29th May 2013
No group this week as am supposed to be on holiday.  Took pooch to work with me as I'd promised for team meeting then worked from home for rest of day.  Job done.   Load of gardening in the evening whenever the rain stopped.  Nearly everything is now outdoors - couple of cucumber seedling things that need getting out and then there'll be nothing indoors to water.

Hard life being a pooch.

Thursday 30th May 2013
Up at 6am.  Got Phil up, fed the dog, made Mr Bovine a cup of tea.  Got car loaded up. Came to work.  Supposed to be golfing tonight, weather permitting.  In the office for 8.20am.  All good. Golfing was sort of off as planned but did a few holes at Ashbourne to make up for it! http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/196707058/7469884
Got all tomato plants outdoors now which is good.

Friday 31st May 2013
Got up at 6am.  Let the pooch out, fed her, took her outside. Got Phil up.  Took Pooch with me to get papers - she walked maybe 50 yards!

Am thinking it's time to put the beans and sweetcorn out now so might do that tonight.


Saturday 1st June 2013
Woke up about 7am!!  Ridiculous.  Dog out, fed and watered. Gardening - got loads of spuds that had sprouted in a bag planted.  A bit later but hoping the warmer weather will drive them along!

Golf was much better than previous week - things is starting to come together hopefully just in time for Wentworth.

Doug teeing off down the third - see Ilam in the distance - cracking views Gromit

View down the tenth hole

Looking back from tenth - loads of folks on the course.

John teeing off on the 10th

John giving it dixie to the 15th green.

Went and got some more compost from Homebase - not sure there's as much in the bags as they claim but it's a heavy bag is the 120litre version. 

Sunday 19th May 2013 to Saturday 25th May 2013

Sunday 19th May 2013
Woke up in that wales.  Got stuff packed up while Phil slept so ready to get off fairly early.  Think we hit Valley at 8am. Back home for about 11am.   Loads of gardening.

Monday 20th May 2013
Up at 6am, fed the whiny pooch.  Did the gardening stuff. Did more gardening stuff after work - potted up a load of bedding plants and put some carrots into metre square garden #2

Tuesday 21st May 2013
Up at 6am - let pooch out, fed her, took her outside. She did a little poo on her training mat, bless her.  Watered stuff in greenhouse thing that needed watering.  As bosskat was up I went out for a run at 6:45 which was good - 10:45 ish pace or something like. Into office in good time so perhaps this puppy dog mullarky might all work out okay.  Went to Ursula's group after work with Shirley and Laura from Field Support - very impressed.  Did Man of the Year, a chap who'd lost 9 stone in a year won, very impressive.
Got home at 10:20.

Wednesday 22nd May 2013
Up at 5:30, got everything done but no exercise due to pooch bother.  Watered lots of stuff don't think I missed anything.  Into office for 8:30.  Got tickets for Ellie Goulding sorted.

Obligatory unnecessary Pooch Picture:

Let sleeping dogs lie...

2.5lbs off at group.

Thursday 23rd May 2013
Got mowing done but nowt to report besided that.


Friday 24th May 2013
Bit of golf in the evening but not much to report besides that!

Saturday 25th May 2013
Can't beat pay day!   Played 18 holes of horrendous golf but no exercise besides that.

Went to see Thunder, Whitesnake and Journey at Nottingham Capital Arena or whatever it's called.  Missus did well with some good seats.  Enjoyed Thunder and Whitesnake but Journey's sound was very poor.

Journey - a bit too much drums in the mix spoilt what might have been a good gig

Whitesnake - pretty good - Tommy Aldridge on the drums was ace!

Tommy Aldridge - Legend - 62 and hitting seven shades out of em...

16/3

Sunday 12th May 2013 to Saturday 18th May 2013

Sunday 12th May 2013
What a crap day today was.  Rained from mid-morning onwards pretty much non-stop.  Got a 6.5 mile run in though before it all began.   Have got another metre square garden made (need to fill the bugger with compost and get the grid made up though.   Got the mini garden round the back surrounded a bit better to keep the soil off the fences (still not sure what I'm going to put in round the back - will have to see).

Monday 13th May 2013
Up at 4am.  Got up proper at 6am.  Let Lily out and fed her.  Got everything watered.  Got Papers. Got off to work.  No run though - this having a puppy mullarky is limiting in some ways!  Work done - busy day.  Helped Phil put together a cold-frame base and now that's doing proper cold-framey style work with a load of sweet peas and a tomato plant in it currently.  Went out for a ride on the bike 7.2 miles in 36m 52s better than nothing averaging 11.7mph with a fair bit of a breeze.

Tuesday 14th May 2013
Up early with little dog making a right old racket - fed her.  Got Phil up at 6am.  Phil stopped with Dog, I ran up town and back without timing it for a change.  All good stuff and I potted up a nisturtium out of the tray, think there'll be another two to come from a 50p bargain that JAS saw and grabbed.   Off to work, Lily fast asleep in the sunshine when I left.  Bless.

Lily snoozing in the sunshine

Got home but did nigh on naff-all due to constant rain.  Even forgot to unload the compost in the car!

Wednesday 15th May 2013
Up at 5:45. Let Lily our and fed her. Got Phil up at 6am.  Quick run up town and back to fetch papers. All good.  Breakfast, showered and then off to work - stopped at Hangar 4 on the way for some screws for the Phil (£21.60 worth!).    Made the mistake of going through Derby after coming off Ashbourne Industrial Estate and it took bloomin ages.  Didn't get into the office until 8:50 - rubbish. Hectic day at work then down to Belper for weigh-in : same 3lb off that I'd put on the week before.   Back home for tea.  Bit of gardening Mullarky.  Then did 1.89 miles of golf which was sort of okay - didn't hit the irons as well as previously but still parred three of the six holes I played.  Covered everything up in the garden as a frost was expected.

Thursday 16th May 2013
Got up at 6am - let the pup out and fed her.  Got Phil up.  Two mile run as was running a wee bit lated. Glad covered stuff up in the gardening department.  Bit of ice on the dustbin lid so obviously was cold.  Got a 2 mile run done and new metre square garden divvied up!

Lily mooching about

Lily inspects the new metre square

Got home from work, tea and then busy with metre square garden number two.  Miscalculated a bit as have gone and put 12 beetroot into one square thinking there should be 16 when in fact the number should have been 9!!  Never mind will sort that out later.  Have put 16 onions into one square and 12 more little gem lettuces into three square - still plenty of space for filling!

Friday 17th May 2013
Quick run up town.  Gardening mullarky done.   Loads of jip with Phil then got most of the car loaded up for transporting first kayak to Wales.

Saturday 18th May 2013
Up early, Phil wasn't.   Car loaded up off to Wales with the Yak on top.  All good stuff.  Tides are rubbish on Phil's weekends off unfortunately, tend to be neap tides and tends to be approaching low tides in the early part of the night rather than approaching high tides.  Such is life.   Got there, got settled in - wish we'd took tent but the weather forecast was diabolical so we went in cottage for a night.

Bit of a walk while Phil dossed about.

Little bit of a walk along coastal path.

Odd but good session.  Normally, we pretty much always fish the incoming tide whether it's half an hour after low or last two hours of flooding tide.  Vic, owner of Orchard Cottage and Ty Newydd cottages and Campsite (and also Match Secretary at Holyhead Fishing Club) suggested fishing final two hours of tide going out which would be in darkness so at about 9:15 got down there.  It was a puny sort of a neap tide as well so it was never going to go that far out and would just about reach the rocks when it came back in - I thought it would be just a worm-drowning session - how wrong can you be?  

Vic's first cast resulted in the biggest dogfish I've ever seen - interesting start.  I had to wait until cast two to pull in a small plaice which was released and whizzed off at a pace to get a bit fatter for next time.  Cast three resulted in a missed bite - something that was obviously dashing towards me as I kept getting slack line then fight, then slack line, then fight, then off.  Damn.  Cast four may have got the culprit in the form of nice bass which was kept for a change (probably keep two bass in any  year), same sort of fight slack line then resistance but I had him good and proper,  nicely lip-hooked.  Cast five resulted in a not bad sized dogfish but nothing like the leviathan that Vic had pulled in.  After that and almost on low tide the fishing dried up.  Vic said you can wait half an hour or so for it to start coming in and the bites should come on again or call it a day.  I thought I'll quit while I'm ahead and called it a day.  A cracking session only spoiled by leaving camera in the cottage.  Such is life.


15/6

Sunday 5th May 2013 to Saturday 11th May 2013

Sunday 5th May 2013
Woke up with a hangover.  Can't imagine why.  Went to see Sean Locke last night who was very good indeed.  Had a little drink when we got back - that might be it.

Up early anyway, but not as early as usual.  Did a ton of gardening. All good stuff.  Then we went to Doncaster.  It's been five weeks since we lost Pip and we needed a canine to fill the gap, bad.

Say hello to Lily.   Nice tea at mums then back home to dig out all the little doggy stuff for the new addition.  

Bank Holiday Monday 6th May 2013

Got Phil up at 4am, came down to the Dog and let her out.  She did a wee on the mat so praised her ace-ness.  Did a 7 mile bike ride then loads and load of gardening, interspersed with a trip to BMs to get more doggy stuff!  Lots of playing with the pooch outside - she's ace!

Tuesday 7th May 2013
Up at 4am to get Phil up, went down to see the pooch - she looked happy enough to doze on so left her to it.  Got up at 6am.  Took her outside where she did a wee and a poo, bless her.  Took her back in sharpish as it was quite cool for a small pooch - 8 degrees.   Anyway a second good night - she's not been any problem at all so far and is so like Pip in so many ways it's scary - she follows the sun when she's dozing, as soon as she's in shadow she shuffles along a bit.  So sad, so joyful.  Anyway, went a run in the evening and we fixed up a neighbour's birdbath everything coming together.  She's her had her first jab too.  She's also had a lot of visitors, some with shiny shoes!

Wednesday 8th May 2013
Up at 4am to get Phil up.  Finally got out of bed proper at 5:50, though.  Let Lily out of her cage and then she followed me outside for a wee.  A little gem she is.   She's making me run late though - can't wait 'til we can take her out for walks.  Be another three weeks I think.

When I left for work - this was her having a little nap. Into the office for 8.40 not too bad considering but no morning run or cycling done. 

Got a bag full of vegetable peelings from the restaurant from work - I think there's probably enough for my 180L tumble composter - going to load it up tomorrow. 

Could not be bothered to do exercise so I did gardening instead potting up some Nasturtiums and Some 

Dwarf Sunflowers. 

Thursday 9th May 2013

Got Phil up.  Back to bed.  Up at 5:45.  Let the pooch out.  Fed her early doors - she wolfed it down again - who does that sound like?   Another morning with no exercise - there's just no time.  Fixed the latch on the front gate which since Phil has put a spring on it is now opening on it's own (am sure the spring should be on the other side but Phil thinks not.  Also fixed the latch on the back gate that Phil managed to break last night! 

Into work for 8:25, shredded a bag full of cardboard which will be added to the chopped straw to vary the 'brown' two thirds that will be added to the one third vegetable waste in the composter tonight.   Didn't manage to get the composter into position as I'd hoped am going to need to get some wood in to replace some breeze blocks that will hold one side of the composter up.   Will get it done on Friday. 

Friday 10th May 2013

Up at 4am, woke the boy up.  Back to bed and up at 5:45.  Let Lily out she was grand.  Worked on a photo-book of Pippin pictures, so sad.  Dropped into Hollie's Belper group on way into work.  3lbs on - nothing to do with Slimming World, everything to do with JD and coke.  Weekend off the juice is in order I think. 

Saturday 11th May 2013

Up at 4am to get Phi up, back to bed, up at 6am.  Let Lily out and fed her.  Watered everything.  Fetched papers on the bike.  Went up to Picnic Basket for breakfast for Phil, Lucay and me - very nice.  Golf at 12:18 - rained like hell so only did nine holes - shot 43 for the nine holes though with some horrendous golf at the start - didn't really hit a good iron until the 7th but parred that one, the eighth and the ninth to get the score to something like respectable.  

16/8