Octogenarian

 Wow, what a month October has been as it draws to an end 

I managed to acquire a ticket for the Everton v Tottenham Hotspurs fixture at the new Hill Dickinson stadium in Bramley Moor Dock in the Liverpool derelict water front regeneration zone. It is certainly an mpressive building witha fabulous viewing area and pitch, but I was underwhelmed by the concorses and facilities for the fans. It all seemed a bit sparse with a lack of the wow factor which the new Tottenham stadium has. It was a good 150 steps up the seats too but I know where the lifts are now for next time!!

Spurs won 3-0 so that made the day enjoyable.

I have had three formal dinners during the month too. One featured John Parrott as the speaker who was particularly good. He explianed in early days he was one week in Vegas at the Nevada open and the next week in Wigan for the North of England championships. it was there that he discovered the two places were twinned as they are the only places in the World you can pay for sex with chips....!!

SWMBO and I have also embarked on a look/see with regard to moving home. We have agreed we do need to although neither of us really do want to. We are rattling around in it and it is becoming more and more costly to do even minor repairs. The problem is that there is no stock on the market at the moment, and any decent stuff, or large bungalows are snapped up quickly. we think we probably have two or three years to find something so hopefully the Labour government will lay off home owners in the November budget and we can find something next year.

There was a sad ending to the month yesterday as we attended the funeral of my dear friend George. George was 93 and had had a terrrific life, almost signing for Liverpool as a16 year old, missed out on a boxing spot in the Olympic Games due to injury and played golf to a very high standard.

George and I played every week for over ten years and he was instrumental in my integration to Wallasey golf club, and he was  my proposer for Captain. He will be sadly missed, and the good turnout at the funeral showed how much people thought of him as a person.

Tonight we are off to a friends 60th birthday with a Halloween theme. I am going as a skeleton and SWMBO will be Cruella Deville. Should be a blast  

Septeverus Snape

 As with most things Harry Potter, September is memorable for large moments of invisibility. A couple of wet days in the lakes at Cartmel, car maintenance, painting the upsatirs bedrooms and losing in the final of the Visionaries knock-out golf competition consigned the month to Room 101, roll on October where there might be some real news.

Augustus John

 August was a month dominated by golf. The Liverpool Society of Golf Captains had their annual four day trip away this year to Harrogate, and a jolly splendid time was had by all. One of the Wallasey crew picked up a day prize and generally speaking the hospitality was very good.

A group of us at Wallasey  hosted a team from Colmar in the Alsace region of France. The last two years they had hosted us so it was fitting we were able to reciprocate. They enjoyed the English courses but not so much the weather, even though Alsace is billed as the dryest part of France!!

We will try to go to Colmar again next year, but WMBO and I are scheulde to have a mid-week break there in December and do their Christmas markets.

I also had my eyes tested for new glasses and as we enter November I am still awaiting their correct calibration. Maybe I will get them in time for said French trip. The optician does have a pleasant bedside manner, which may be the only saving grace at the moment 

 Joyeaux Noel 

Black Day in July

 New philosophy to try to keep posting news....monthly updates!!

So to finish off Cyprus, wedding was fine but I caught a virus which helped me lose a bit of weight, no need for fat jabs on my watch, managed to get on flight home which could have been a bit of a frightner but alls well that ends well.....

Had a week off while Maxine went with the kids to Greece. Most strange arrangement though. She couldn't fly from Cyprus to Greece and meet up with the UK crew, even though it was less than an hour. If she was not on the Manchester flight, Jet2 would have cancelled the whole package so she had the flight back to Blighty then back to greece the next day. Still they all seemed to enjoy it.

I just played a bit of golf and helped out at the English Amateur golf tournament which was being hosted by Wallasey and Royal Liverpool. Wallasey came out of the week very favourably.

So all in all July eventful, but routine!! 

Cypres creek without a paddle

 So here I am with SWMBO in Pathos on the island of Cyprus. Its 35° and there is no golf scheduled, how on earth did that happen?

It all started a long, long time ago when Donna, probably SWMBO's longest friend, was widowed at a young age, leaving her with the Company business and three sons. Luke, the middle one, decided to get married in Cyprus and SWMBO thought we should go to offer moral support, rolled with it as here was a chance to wear my white jacket for the third time.

First for no2 daughters wedding, then at Lord's.

That worked OK but long blue linen trousers did not!!

Anyway the wedding went well and guests partied long and hard. We can now have some down time.

So I will add to this as the days pass as its tricky writing in bright sunlight.  Hey ho.

I think I got away with it!!

With the world in turmoil it seemed sensible to take advantage of a golf trip while I still can. This one was to Brittany, an area of France I had never been to before. It soon became evident why!!

Living in Plymouth, it was always easy to hop on the ferry to Roscoff or St Malo and after an overnight crossing you were there. We never did though. So trying to get there from Scouseland was interesting!!

Ideally a flight to Jersey and a short hop on the ferry to St Malo would have been ideal, but the ferry and flight times did not dovetail so that was ruled out. No body fancied driving to Portsmouth so we needed to look for other flight options.

Rennes was the nearest airport ot our golfing destination but to get there we needed to fly from Manchester to Skipal and then to Rennes, hey ho! So five intrepid explorers set out with five sets of golf clubs and 5 suitcases. At Rennes, the travellers arrived as did the golf clubs, but only two or the suitcases appeared. "We will deliver them tomorrow" the lady service rep said. 

In the meantime it was into Decathlon to get some essential playing kit, and into Dinard Golf Club to buy some hugely inflated tops and shorts. Let the games begin.

This tornament, The Roberts' Cup has been played for a number of years on a home or away basis against six French chums. I took the number 12 shirt s few years ago but this was my first away gig. The company is first rate, the course was very testing and enjoyable albeit we played it three times, and a good time was had by all.

The French retained the Cup, bandits, but we will be prepared next year to win it back. So on being deposited back in Rennes we had to stay one night in an AirBnB before our flight the following day, and we found ourselves in a Toxteth highrise area which the Uber drives described as very bad but we had a good run ashore in rennes town and arrived at rennes airport unscathed only to be reunited with our baggage from a few days ago.

It all got on the plane at Rennes, but you've gust it, only 4 sets of clubs arrived in Manchester. They were repatriated the next day so all that remains is for the airline to pay for the extra clothing we needed. They have agreed my clam so I am just waiting for the money to hit the bank account.

I can see a return trip to Brittany in the future it certainly is a beautiful part of France coupled with the history from WW2, but we won't mention the war!! 

Roaring Rory

What a dramatic Sunday at the Masters this week, as Rory McIlroy embraced his life work, emotional rollercoasters and good golf shots with exceptional, and at the same time, awful shots as he cruised to the win, gave it back and finally staggered over the line.

He became the sixth winner of the 'Grand Slam' and the first European to achieve the feat. Bobby Jones won a similarly rare accolade when he won the US Amateur and US Open together with the Amateur and the Open in 1930. He then went on to design Augusta National and instigate the Masters, and the Green Jacket winners prize.

Having spent almost 5 hours watching events unfold, it got me thinking about other sporting occasions which got the National off their feet either live or in their iwn living rooms. Here is my list, I am sure you can think of others.

Football World Cup 1966 has to be up there near the top, Botham's Ashes and Stokes World Cup winning feats lead the cricketing memories, and Johnnie Wilkinson going to extra holes to win the Rugby World Cup is also a contender.

There are probably Olympic events which others will add to the list, mostly athletics based such as the Coe and Ovett duels, the Mobot, Daly Thompson,  and  the women decathletes but also rowers Pincent & Redgrave, swimmers like Duncan Goodhew and Winter Olympians Torvill & Dean.

Finally I have to add Andy Murray to the list, he is almost more like Rory than Rory, but his Wimbledon winning  efforts had the whole Country united behind a Scotsman, no easy feat in itself!!