Monday, June 30, 2008

Interlude upcountry

What's happened since Thursday ? Been up to see mum & dad, with big sis coming along as well. Friday was Newmarket races, Saturday was general chilling out (that was the plan ;-) and watching the England v NZ game before heading home again. Sunday was free and I've been back to work today.

Newmarket was a different kind of sporting event. People seemed to feel the need to dress up as if it was a special social occasion. Weird. Meant there were some excellent sights on show, amongst the chavs who stick out because they try too hard. You don't tend to see much with the racing, apart from the rumble of the horses as they're approaching and the blur as they flash past. You're depending on the course announcer to let you know who wins and that's a bit like trying to hear the proverbial train announcer.

I only put one bet in, an accumulator type that failed on the first race. However, I picked 2 winners on the look of the horse (out of 5 attempts) and 1 on form (out of 2). From someone who's only seen my sister's horse for the last few years, that's not too bad. I wouldn't have made any worthwhile money though if betting because I was mostly agreeing with the bookies with their favourite to win.

What do I mean by the Look of the Horse ? Form can give you an idea of how the horse is likely to do but the best way is to get a good look at them while they're in the parade ring. That way, you can see whether they're healthy and most importantly Up For It. Some horses get a little too excited for the whole thing, some want to follow instead of lead. The ones to look for are the ones who are relaxed, lean and appearing to know what they're doing. Which is to Pin Back the Ears, Run, Run Fast and Feel The Wind. I feel like that when I open up for sprinting - not had that for quite some time. Getting too excited means energy wasted.

After the racing was a concert by Jools Holland's band. The bits where Marc Almond guested were the high point here. I have a fuzzy piccy from my mobile and need to figure out how to extract that for posting.

Saturday was more fraught than it needed to be. My mum & dad hadn't had a trip in the new car yet, so I took 'em to the pub in Lincoln. Car reverses, car comes off the drive, car goes forward, car gets massive judder from the back end. Looks like part of the brake pad on the left rear became detached and welded itself on to the brake disc. Interesting ... So I had about 1mm-2mm thickness of detritus stuck to the brake disc that was whacking the part of the brake pad that hadn't got damaged.

The judder on normal forward driving disappeared quickly but it took a few applications of brake over the 20ish miles to pub to stop it juddering on braking. It's back to 100% now, no more judder and I had full brake capability all the way. A scare to be sure but it doesn't look like it'll cost me money.

Saturday also had the frustration of watching England lose tamely again. On Wednesday, the commentators said that NZ had their best side out which had me asking "Why don't England pick their best side ?" We have a wicket keeper who doesn't score any runs, doesn't look like scoring runs and commits the cardinal sin of dropping catches, easy ones too. Byebye Mr Keeper. Hopefully. I have the feeling that the politics of team selection will keep him in when he doesn't deserve it. The keeper isn't the only thing though, they have several players playing in unaccustomed positions.

Yesterday was going to be a lazyday but I got caught in a long World of Warcraft session :-) Which was fun because I was using my druid in a party with more guildmates. That's something we didn't do enough of in Mercs, past the early days we never seemed to support each other. And today was back to work. Having a "hello", a smile and a wave from Miss A is enough to cheer anyone up :-)

2 comments:

  1. this is the 3rd time in as many days that I've read a mention of Jools Holland. I have to check them out, I am so uncool at times.

    Miss A? Have I missed some juiciness!?

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  2. He's not exactly mainstream is Jools Holland :-)

    Miss A works around the corner ... We used to joke that we worked in the best looking project team on the site :-) Because of the people who worked in it. The faces have changed over time though, with more mature faces replacing the very young ones. Miss A is the last one left of the young & pretty ones :-)

    (the others are "mature" and pretty !)

    ReplyDelete

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