Mr Adventures' Guide For The Newly Married Man

So, I have been married now for almost a whole year and feel suitably qualified now to inflict my opinion upon you, masquerading as advice for the casually interested.

This will be an occasional series, delivered when inspiration strikes me. As opposed to when Mrs Adventures strikes me. Then I'll mainly shut up.

So, on to today's gem.

Whilst laying in bed, your beautiful wife may tell you that she's going to  "look carefully at you while you're asleep."

DO NOT PANIC

She is just going to buy you something nice for Christmas and needs to estimate your size.

I hope.

If I haven't posted in the next week or so, please alert the authorities.

NDC

Some Bugger With A Torch

I am tired.

Work is insanely busy and my evenings consists of dismantling stuff, building stuff, swearing at stuff because it doesn't quite fit/hasn't been supplied/I've hit my thumb with a hammer AGAIN* or feeling guilty about not being fully engaged in one of the aforementioned activities (although to be honest, my level of guilt appears to be directly proportional to the level of wine left in my glass).

The length of my to do list for Shit I Don't Want To Do is getting alarmingly close to the length of my Shit I Am Desperate To Do. 

Christmas is hurtling towards me and I have yet to buy a single solitary present.

Worst of all, I've run out of decent whisky.

However.

Work pays me good money to be stressed from time to time so I'll just suck it up. The last of the heavy lifting in the kitchen will be complete tomorrow so that will be a big chunk of my list. On the Christmas present front I'm sure I can rely on the glory that is eBay (purveyors of cheap shite to the gentry) and next year is as good a year as any to start in earnest on my Shit I Am Desperate To Do list.

Once again dear reader, in the space of a few paragraphs I find myself thinking that the glass is pretty well half full.

And if Santa thinks I've been a good boy it'll be half full of decent whisky.

NDC

"Can We Have Everything Louder Than Everything Else?"

The title of this post is a quote by Ian Gillan of Deep Purple, uttered during some tour in the 70s to one of the sound techs (they probably weren't called that back then) and it's always made me smile.

I am, however, beginning to suspect that someone, somewhere in the management structure of my current employer is a Deep Purple fan and is also familiar with this little gem.

I also suspect that he/she applies the same principles to objectives. 

"Everything is more important than everything else."

Whilst this works as a great remark in terms of music, the important part, the bit that really makes the whole statement a thing of beauty, is its inherent irony. I'm sure that even in the drug & alcohol fuelled 70s Mr Gillan was aware of the Escher-like qualities of his request and wasn't expecting the erstwhile sound guy to actually be able to deliver.

Hopefully when I take the metaphorical approach of just turning everything up to eleven they'll be satisfied and we can all go for a pint of Watney's Red Barrel.

NDC

The Future's Not Ours To See

I have The Boy Wonder this weekend and he's as entertaining as ever. Here's an extract from the drive home on Friday night:

Me: So how's your week been, fella?

TBW: It's been really good, we went swimming at school and I got to dress up as a Roman when we went to Bosworth Battlefield*.

Me: Well it sounds like you had a pretty ace week then.

TBW: I'm having my best year ever.

Me: Wow! I didn't realise things were as good as that. Why the best year ever?

TBW: Well I'm learning interesting stuff at school and my arch-nemesis doesn't recognise me anymore**.

The Boy Wonder is 7.

I often wondered what TBW would be when he grew up. I'd hoped for something cool and well paid for him but I never figured on him being a superhero.

NDC

* - Yes, I know that The Battle of Bosworth was a civil war affair, but I guess they just had an offer on for the Roman outfits that day.

** - After further questioning it turns out that his arch-nemesis is in fact a girl who once stood on him whilst wearing roller skates, so I suspect it's less a case of not recognising him and more a case of not being interested in him. Besides, standing on someone whilst wearing roller skates is a pretty piss poor power for any self respecting super-villain. 

13.1

So, the training for the Nottingham Half Marathon went something like this:

Time to event: 6 months plus

• Discuss idea with Mrs A and convince her it's a great idea.
• Create training plan

Time to event: 3 months

• Congratulate Mrs A on her continued steady 3-4 times a week runs.
• Accept that original plan has been totally ignored.
• Create new training plan based around new, shorter time to event.

Time to event: 1 month

• Congratulate Mrs A on her continued steady 3-4 times a week runs.
• Accept that revised plan has been totally ignored.
• Decide to do one 10 mile run and, if that goes well, stop worrying about not having done any training. At all.

Time to event: 1 week

• Congratulate Mrs A on her continued steady 3-4 times a week runs.
• Accept that 10 mile run hasn't happened.
• Think about carb-loading plan
• Find trainers.

Time to event: 2 days

• Go out on a works night out for a couple of colleagues who are leaving.
• Get involved in numerous drinking games.
• Roll home at 1:30am in the morning.

Time to event: 1 day

• Deal with monstrous hangover.

And so, on the day of the event I stood on the startline with my beautiful wife. She was well prepared but nervous. I was horribly unprepared, untrained, non-carb-loaded, dehydrated but unrealistically optimistic. 

A few miles, a few hours and a few painful joints later a cheerful kid in combat fatigues standing just behind the finish line gave Mrs A and myself one of these each:

We also got a customary post-race bag of tat, but I ate the only things worth taking a photo of.

Was it worth the pain on the day? Absolutely.

Will we be doing it again any time soon? Not a chance.

NDC

No Snickering Please.

This weekend I am running again. It’s the Robin Hood half marathon in Nottingham (surprisingly enough) and I am massively ill-prepared.

When I ran the marathon I was very focussed indeed. I had a plan. I stuck to the plan come what may and the resulting statistics were something that I was quite proud of:

• Miles: 480
• Hours: 87
• Calories: 58,000

This time around, although I had a jolly good plan, I exhibited all the self discipline of a labrador left in charge of a plate of sausages. Consequently the figures look a little* less confidence-inspiring:

• Miles: 28
• Hours: 5
• Calories: 3,700

Add to this I have a very busy week this week, culminating with a leaving do for a couple of colleagues on Friday that will doubtless involve a sherbet or two and just possibly we are witnessing the genesis of a disaster.

But with all the misplaced confidence of a flamboyantly handlebar-moustachioed World War 1 General I am looking forward to standing on the start line on Sunday. I’m sure it’ll all be fine.

NDC

* - a lot.

Reasons Why Turkey Is Ace.

• Why just import the leading brand get-pissed-quick alcohol for the holidaymakers when you can get a cheaper version with a name that will make it virtually indistinguishable from the original item and appeal to the Irish.

• On the drive to the airport, on a major route (pretty much the equivalent of a major A road in the UK) there is a tunnel with single carriageway in each direction. The incline through the tunnel is quite steep and on the uphill entrance is a sign with a picture of a horse and cart with a line through it, just in case you were tempted. I presume that the downhill stretch doesn't have this sign on the basis that you can load your horse into the cart and keep up with the flow of traffic.

• Of course four cars driving abreast will fit on a three lane road.

• The maximum number of passengers allowed by law on a moped appears to be a complex equation involving figures ascribed to the bravery of the potential passengers multiplied by the rider's sense of balance/adventure. Livestock appear to be a null value.

• If you fall off the edge of anything, you've only got yourself to blame.

• Dolmus'. They're brilliant for any number of reasons but are even funnier when the English are involved.

Drinking a Martini of an evening as the sun goes down is pretty excellent too. Roll on the next one.

NDC