Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing

Waking up and not hearing the tell-tale sounds of rain from outside, I thought we might have managed to beat the forecast. But when I looked out of and saw the teeming water, I realised my mistake: I'd pulled my bedroom window all the way closed the day before because someone was working outside with their radio on fortissimo and I wanted to shut out the noise.

Slightly disappointed, I pulled on my waterproof and headed out to meet up with the others for the usual Sunday dog walking. We'd planned to meet at nine, but delayed things by a few minutes to allow C to drop J off at the station in time for the London train. Leaving Tiny Flo at home to recover from her upset tummy — she had to content herself with twanging a spring-loaded doorstop! — we headed out with the rest of the canine contingent in search of muddy puddles and fields, which, thanks to the rain were enough for them and they weren't tempted to go swimming in the canal.

After a couple of hours, we ended up where we'd started and split up to go our separate ways: the newlyweds to go to the Double Locks to pick up the things they'd put in storage after their reception on Saturday; C to do some shopping; A to visit a friend; and me to go home, have a shower, and to put all my damp clothes in the laundry basket.

I spent the rest of the day pottering around inside and doing a post of post-production work on some recent photos. I thought about going climbing, but admitted to myself that I couldn't face the idea of going out again — it wasn't so much the rain as the thought of having to put my soggy shoes back on for the walk home from the climbing centre that really discouraged me.

By evening, the rain had stopped and walked down to the Puerto for the quiz. Much to my delight, I discovered that (a) Yorkshire Nick was back as quizmaster; (b) Dasher had come along to make up the numbers; and (c), even more unexpectedly, J was there too — it transpired that her trip to London had gone wrong after her rail replacement bus got caught up in a road accident — providing us with a vast, additional pool of knowledge.

Sadly, we only managed second place this week — some of the rounds were quite tricky — but that's fine: the others well deserved their win and, if nothing else, we were the only ones with a adorable springer on their team...

After going our separate ways for afternoon, we regrouped at the pub for our usual Sunday quiz. With A busy on a work call-out, we temporarily renamed our team, only reverting to our usual moniker when she rejoined us. The questions were a bit trick — we didn't do particularly well on the sport round — but we pulled it back at the very end, acing the final double-points round and getting all but one of the pictures correct, finishing a point or two clear of our nearest rivals!

For the second week in a row, we have managed to win the Sunday night quiz at the Puerto Lounge. We performed well through out, greatly helped by the presence of two team members who knew a lot about tennis.

But what really clinched it was the final round, which featured two sets of four questions which link together to give answers to the fifth and tenth questions which count for six points each. Yesterday, we managed to get both sets of links, dropping only question in the second set. In general, I enjoy these sorts of connected rounds — last week there was a one where each question formed a chain, with the tail of the answer to the previous question starting the next — because they're very like crosswords, where you can work out the answers even if you're not sure what they mean.

I'm not sure we're going to compete next week — some of the other team members are doing a triathlon — but I'm sure we'll be back in the not too distant future...