MOT

Manage to sleep until almost eight o'clock when Norman gets up, shakes himself and barks me awake. I let him out onto a damp day but at least it is less grey than yesterday. Then make myself a peppermint tea, (no caffeine or tannin before my blood tests), give Normy a tin for his breakfast and then read the Guardian until it is time to shower, dress and head to the doctor's surgery. Arrive at 9:20 and only have to wait a couple of minutes before the nurse summons me for my annual check up. Ten minutes later, I am back home and cooking breakfast, the new sausages, "Andrew and Debbie's", from Harrogate are first rate. After breakfast and coffee, set off for Cherry Burton, arriving about eleven to collect Dolly and Teddy before parking on Newbald Road on the Westwood again. The weather is mild and there is no wind today, although the sky is still overcast and fog clings to the hollows in the ground. As we approach Black Mill, a small herd of cows are snuggled into the grass and regarding Dolly, who is off the lead, with a relaxed disdain. My energy levels don't feel great again today but there is nothing obviously wrong with me, so will go to the pool this afternoon and see how I feel after warming up. It is ideal weather for fungus, damp and mild and there are toadstools and puffball mushrooms here and there on the common. We can only travel at the speed of the slowest ship in the convoy, Norman, and it takes us an hour to arrive in Burton Bushes, where we pause and rest on Brandon Barker's bench. We drop Dolly and Teddy back at Two Riggs around one and then drive back to Tickton. I serve Norman some biscuits and then make coffee and apple pie for myself, before leaving for the pool at half past two. I seem to have found a particularly good time for swimming, the pool is quiet again, the schools have left and swimming lessons don't start until four. I warm up on four hundred metres backstroke and feel OK afterwards, so decide to swim four hundred butterfly, breaking it up into eight, fifty metre repeats. This is more difficult, but I manage to hold to a constant pace of around a minute for each fifty metre repeat. Follow this with four hundred freestyle and then four hundred breastroke, finishing off with two, two hundred metre individual medleys and then warm down with a slow four lengths backstroke and freestyle. Eighty four lengths in total and I feel better after the swim than I did going in! After showering and changing, drink tea in the cafe and then call at the supermarket on the way home, to buy butter, milk, a crusty baguette and a bottle of red wine. I arrive home for five fifteen, feed Norman on a tin of dog food and then walk him down the lane in the gathering dusk. When we return home, I try, unsuccessfully, to download the latest iTunes to my aged laptop, as it can't synch my iPad or iPhone until I manage this. It could be due to the lousy BT broadband speeds. Have a French Peasant's supper of baguette, Camembert, and red wine, whilst listening to Hull City away at Middlesborough. At half time it is still goalless, but Boro score twice in the second half and our winning run comes to an end. To bed at ten thirty.