Author Archives: Alan

Falconry is ace.  After being rained off in June, Cat and I successfully had our falconry experience on the Coniston Hotel estate in Yorkshire, and it was worth waiting for!  I’m seriously tempted to get qualified – although no such qualification exists just yet, but it will do soon, as Defra are quite keen to try to ensure that the pasttime is properly legislated, which should be a good thing for the wellbeing of birds being kept by humans.

With the guidance of Matt, our falconer, Cat and I successfully flew a couple of owls, a couple of Harris Hawks, a red-tailed buzzard and an eagle I forget the type of – it was great to be out and about with such noble beasts.  The following day we saw a gorge, some more falconry set amongst some very impressive grounds, and a huge cave – which was all very different!

Photos of the falconry are here.

Not being a parent, I can’t be sure – but having witnessed numerous people enter the scary world of parenthood recently, I’m reasonably confident that bringing a new life in the world does not turn people into some kind of gibbering idiot.

Certainly baby talk and more ‘goo goo gah gah’ing probably enters their vocabulary, but when conversing with adults, and seeking advice from more experienced parents, I haven’t really detected any major difference in their levels of intelligence or communication style.

So why do adverts for nappies or baby lotion or the other assorted accoutrements required for an infant involve some kind of saccharine-toned patronising voice speaking to their prospective customers as though they have just undergone a full frontal lobotomy?  I have no idea why this riles me so, but I really do find it quite infuriating!

Phew! That felt better… I might have a rant a little more often!

Well, Forest’s season started with a whimper rather than a bang.  There were some limited suggestions of an intention to pass the ball, but once again the manager seems unable to grasp the simple fact that players play better in their preferred positions.  Even with injuries there was no need for some of his strange decisions.  Despite the shit game though, it was good to be back!

Rushed home, showered changed and was picked up by Andy, went back to his and admired his drumkit and proved beyond all doubt that I have no rhythmic skill at all (Katie wasn’t much better either!), before being picked up by limosine for Murf’s wedding reception out in Repton, Dirtyshire.  The drive there was great fun, with beer and champagne!  When we arrived at the school hall in Repton hosting the reception, it transpired it was Roald Dahl’s old school!

There was a suitably large amount of drinking and raucousness, and I must say I approve of bacon and sausage cobs in place of the more traditional wedding buffet – as well as the cheese-boards for those of a none meating-eating bent.. I managed to scoff too much of the bacon/sausage offerings to get onto a cheese course, sadly!

All in all, a cracking night – although it took absolutely ages for us to get home!

.. it’s the place where you gotta be. It’s about t-minus thirty minutes before I depart on a happy pilgrimmage down the Colwick Loop Road for my first trip to the City Ground since that game against Yeovil back in May. This time Bournemouth are the guests.

I wasn’t planning on heading out for pre-match drinks, but I’ve changed my mind now – although as I’m driving (since I need to get back quick after t’game), it will be soft drinks – but it’ll be good to catch up with the crowd of people who seem to sort of disappear during the summer!

We had ‘fun football’ on friday, both tuesday and thursday saw awful performances from the team featuring me, so I suppose I contributed to that reasonably significantly. Fortunately last night’s game was a little more fun – and I managed to score a fizzer from my own half, which I’ve not done for a while! I reckon I’m getting a bit old for three games a week though, my legs ache like hell! I do think I’m getting fitter though.

But yes, off to the match soon, which will hopefully be a good ‘un – then back home as quick as traffic will allow to leap into the shower and change in time for Andy to pick me up for a rendezvous with a limo to take us over the border into the badlands for Murf’s wedding reception. Should be a good day!

Footy season starts on saturday – which is, despite all sense of logic or reason, quite an exciting prospect for me.  Summer is kind of a hibernation period before the next season starts – sometimes with the mildly interesting distraction of either the European Championships or the World Cup.  So to feel the stirrings of this hibernation coming to an end is pretty good!

After the game I’m hotfooting back home quickly, to shower and change quickly before Andy’s coming to pick me up – then we’re being chauffeured by limosine to Murf’s wedding reception – which should be suitably amusing!  We were going to just hire a minibus, but the cost to upgrade to some limo action was barely a few quid each, so we figured we’d go for it!

Should be a good weekend – assuming the result goes the right way in the football of course!  We face AFC Bournemouth at the City Ground, who we should really beat – but they’re a decent, young and footballing side – so I hope the players don’t treat the game with the same level of contempt as some of the fan comments I’ve read in the build up to the game.

The sun’s finally out in earnest – so the fans are out the loft, there are ice lollies in the freezer and it’s only a matter of time before we all start moaning it’s too hot!

It doesn’t seem to stop the birds monstering around where they’re not supposed to, though!

My hamstring feels tight today, perhaps not all that surprising.  A big part of my footballing game is spannering the ball really hard when I shoot.. and doing that three times in a week (without any real warm up, aside from more spannering the ball really hard!) is probably taking its toll!

My knee feels a bit stiff as well.  Feh.  I reckon both tweaks will be okay by next week though, which is good.

Friday’s game was a chuckle, I think we won, but can’t be sure at all, as we didn’t really do a very good job of keeping score.  I think everyone got on the scoresheet though, which is always a good thing for friendly kickabouts… again, I lost count of how many I got, but I got a few!

Game two of the week, and another win… I’ve decided to try to step up my fitness and try to put in more mileage in games.  And feedback from both tuesday and tonight (spontaneous feedback, I might add!) has borne out that I am having a measure of success, so hopefully I’ll start to build up my fitness and have more of an impact on the pitch.

The kind of player I am means that typically I’ll be found defending, which is my natural forte – but in five-a-side it’s not enough to specialise, and I’m capable of bursting forward to get on the scoresheet (as I did twice again tonight) – so I want to do that more often and increase my running capacity.  Whether I manage to do it for the third time this week in tomorrow’s game remains to be seen!

Today we had a course at work to do with Discovery profiles – kind of a refresher for something I did shortly after starting at Boots, and it was good to recall lots of it – a positive way to spend a day away from the desk with the rest of the team.  It would appear, compared to last time on doing the profiling, I’ve abandoned ‘adapting’ at work and act as myself, which I’m quite pleased with!