Rob, Rambling - A lot of things interest me...

My day of sport in the pub tomorrow:

• 12:45 - Football - Paulton v Norwich

• 14:30 - Rugby Union - England v Australia

• 17:30 - Football - Wolves v Arsenal

• 22:00 (approx) - Boxing - David Haye v Valuev

I’ll be spending Sunday recovering…

This weekend, I went back to my parents’ house to see them and a bunch of friends. My dad had come up to London the night before to see Monty Python with me, and he drove the girlfriend and I back on the Saturday morning.

Inevitably, the Saturday night was spent with a whole load of mates, drinking away until the early hours, but on Sunday the girlfriend and I met up with another group of friends to walk a couple of our dogs in Lacock.

Lacock is a little village near my hometown, and is gorgeously quaint that it’s been featured in countless films and TV shows whenever an 18th century street or backdrop is needed. And the Abbey there is massive too, so it has featured in one of the Harry Potter films, amongst others. This photo is of the high street, and whilst I know it’s not quite the same with cars parked everywhere, you can really see just how old and unchanged the buildings are.

We went out into the fields to give the dogs a good run-around, where one of them was chased by an angry cow, and basically got covered in mud.

And then it was off to the little ford in the middle of the village, where Angus could join various other dogs splashing around. Angus is getting a little old now, so he wasn’t quite as rumbustious as the others, but was happy to go look under the bridge and have a little paddle.

All in all, it was a good way to shake off a hangover. Especially as we followed it up by going for a carvery lunch with my mum and dad. You can’t beat a good Sunday roast!

I just came this close to telling someone that my weekend was “very busty”. I need to be more careful with my typing on a Monday morning.

I’m off to the Edinburgh Festival with the girlfriend tomorrow, and am already in holiday mode. We’re only there for a long weekend, like we did last year, but it looks like it’s going to be pretty hectic.

Since the festival started last week, we’ve been keeping track of reviews and the general buzz on places like Twitter, and put together a little list of things we’d like to see if we can. Unfortunately, with us being idiots, we didn’t get round to actually booking a few things until today, so a couple were already sold out. We might be able to get some last-minute tickets at the venue, if we’re lucky.

Last year, we did a hell of a lot of comedy shows, so this year we’re leaning a bit more towards some theatre. But I’ve still managed to squeeze in a few comedians too.

As it happens, the money I get refunded from my Michael Jackson tickets is actually paying for all of these shows, so I get an entire weekend’s worth of entertainment rather than a couple of hours. Win!

Anyways, these are the shows I’ll be seeing in the evenings over this weekend. I figured that we’d find other stuff during the day, ideally as part of the Free Festival.

• Friday

• Beachy Head - A play about a pathologist who examines the bodies of people who jump from the notorious suicide hotspot. It got a solid review in the Guardian this week.

• Matt Green - A comedian, seemed to be getting half-decent ratings on Twitter, and I think I read a review elsewhere too.

• One Man Lord Of The Rings - A play, I suppose, probably similar to the Reduced Shakespeare Company. I’m just about finished reading the book, so it took my fancy.

• Bongo Club Cabaret - I’ve got absolutely no idea about this one; the girlfriend put it at the top of her list.

• Saturday

• Wil Hodgson - A comedian who comes from the same part of the world as me. I meant to go see him last year but never got round to it.

• Dan Atkinson - Another stand-up, pretty mad but very funny. Saw him last year.

• Sunday

• Brian Gittins - He’s doing a character comedy piece that picked up solid reviews on the opening weekend.

• Lucy Porter - I hear very good things about her, and in her brief TV appearances she’s pretty funny.

• Stephen K Amos - One of my favourite comedians, and I’m really looking forward to this. He was great last year.

• The Improverts - Sketch comedy, got good reviews all week long. Doesn’t start until after midnight, so I’m sure we and the rest of the audience will be well-oiled…

The rest of the time, we’ll be playing it by ear, picking random things and seeing what just falls into our laps. Some of the best stuff last year was chosen entirely at random, and was dirt cheap too. And I’m sure we’ll see some rubbish too; it’s inevitable that some things will be pretty crap. Such is the way of the festival!

OK, so the health kick has died a little today: no gym and a big-ass motherfucker of a burrito for lunch.

I maintain that’s still relatively healthy though: rice, chicken, beans, tortilla, spicy sauce. Just ignore the cheese, sour cream and guacamole!

In my defence, I had a salad on each of the previous four days this week, and I’ve done four sessions of exercise already. Add to that a run at least once this weekend, and another session of the sit-ups and press-ups programme, and I call it 6 lots of exercise this week. That’ll do.

And the food side of things has been very good too, if I do say so myself. I was out for dinner last night at a Moroccan place, and even then I managed to choose something pretty respectable: a chicken tagine, which was really good.

Surprisingly, I’ve managed to cut down on the booze front, without really realising it. I tend not to drink during the week, unless I go to the pub at lunchtimes with my co-workers, and that has thankfully been avoided through gym sessions. I had a glass of red wine last night, and a criminally under-strength cocktail, and that’s the sum total of my alcohol this week.

Of course, the weekend usually destroys any good intentions there, and this weekend will probably be no different. A mate’s coming round tomorrow to watch some football and play some Wii, and I’m sure that’ll be beer-fuelled. Then I’m out for dinner with the girlfriend after she’s finished work, which will no doubt involve a bottle or two of wine.

Ah well, I’m allowed to have a blow-out now and again. Maybe I’ll need to run on Sunday to get rid of the hangover!

No sooner do I post about the Ashes then someone offers me some tickets for this Saturday. Hurrah!

Admittedly, it involves going halfway across the country, but sod it. With any luck they’re VIP too, seeing as they’re complimentary. So I’ll be in Cardiff on Saturday, and hopefully the match will be poised on a knife-edge, with very little rain. Here’s hoping!

Sod it, I’ve signed up for the Wimbledon Common Parkrun this Saturday morning, at the ungodly hour of 9am. It’s only 5km, but at least it’s something I can look forward to, and maybe make a regular habit of. I need goals to keep my motivation up, exercise-wise.

Now, all I’ve got to do is remember not to go drinking on Friday after work. Harder than it sounds.

I know I said that I was going to be spending today wandering along the river with the girlfriend, but the best-laid plans of mice and men…

One of her friends rang this morning to see if she was up for doing this boat trip thing along the Thames that the friend had bought the girlfriend for her birthday. So they both nipped off to go do that, and I had a few more hours kip.

I watched the Grand Prix qualifying, then the Super 14s rugby semi-final between the Bulls and Crusaders, which was epic. The Bulls look very good, which is worrying from a British perspective because they supply a hell of a lot of players to the South African national team, against whom the Lions will be playing this summer.

I figured that I was being lazy and not making the most of a relatively nice day, so decided to go for a run outside, which I described in full on the internetrunningclub, and reproduce below.

My first outdoor run! First this year, anyway, and probably my first for about 12 months. I’ve been meaning to get out there for ages, and today I finally managed to get the motivation together to strap on the trainers and make it out of the door.

I mapped out a rough run of around 4 miles on that Gmaps Pedometer website, but as it happens I actually did just under 4.5 miles. Admittedly, I think I was walking for around 1/3 of a mile, at various points, but I’m very happy with the run, especially as I did it in about 39 minutes, which is a pretty good overall pace.

The problem I found with running outside as opposed to on a treadmill is that there’s no real way to judge your pace. I thought I was going pretty slowly, but judging by how long it took me I was actually going quicker than my usual treadmill pace. That’s probably why I had to stop for a couple of brief stretches of walking.

Also, I rediscovered the “joys” of an incline. It felt like the whole of Wimbledon Common is on a slight upward hill, and no matter how slight a rise may be, it kills your legs. On the way back home, it felt like my feet had lead weights attached to them, and I was absolutely dying. It probably didn’t help that this was my third day of cardio in a row…

Nevertheless, I’m really pleased with myself for getting out there, and I’ll have to do it a bit more often!