Day 171 - Chicken Counting

Another Friday, another Club match: this time the opposition were the men of Foxhills.  My partner of the day was Roger, a fellow oil man, and an Australian to boot. We were very good and did not discuss the cricket...much....  Our opponents were charming and proved to be wonderful guests: they allowed us to play our game and play our game we did.

A while back, I learned a lovely piece of golfing doggerel:

Golf and gloating do not mix,
So, if you win by seven and six,

Apologise for what you've done,

And write it down as two and one!

And I have quoted it to a number of people in the interim but had not yet used it for real. Well, today, we won by 2 & 1...

A good golf carvery followed the game and it wasn't long before I was back home to watch the end of the second day of the Ashes at Trent Bridge. For a while it seemed as if the match might be over in two days (two days!) but bad light at the end of the day put paid to that idea.  

It will be very surprising if England do not seal their series victory tomorrow, but let's not count our chickens...

Day 170 - Good Things

Had arranged to play some casual golf this morning and set off on our round on the New Course slightly unsure about the weather. Indeed it did rain a bit on hole 2 but that was all we saw. The course is in great condition and the speed of the greens completely fooled me on holes 1 and 3 as I saw my birdie putts go taxiing past the hole...  I was playing with Peter and we both settled down and ended up playing some very good golf: he shot 78 off a handicap of 8, whilst I managed a 79 (including back-to-back birdies on 13 & 14).

There had been 5 of us playing today and we agreed that we would score the best 2 of 3 Stableford scores on each hole with the two-ball drawing one of the others as a proxy for scoring purposes.  At the end of the round, we were optimistic - indeed our total score as 77 (without using our proxy) and it turned out that this was also the other teams, meaning that we had won on countback just taking our two scores...

Whilst all of this was going on, we had kept in touch with the extraordinary events going on at Trent Bridge. By the time we had completed our 3 hour round, the Australians were all out, back in the pavilion with a very meagre score of 60 on the board. Their nemesis Stuart Broad had done all the damage - something the Oz papers will love...not... We were at school with Chris Broad, Stuart's father, so I always take extra pleasure in the latter's success.

Back home to watch the England response: itself also very entertaining.  And them we watched the highlights of all the morning's play and heard the long list of many records that had been broken (my favourite: England have created another Test record today - the surnames of their eleven players contain a collective 53 letters. That's the shortest in Test history.)

And we also heard today that our future son-in-law had been offered not one, but two, jobs and now has the luxury of being able to choose which he'd like to accept.

Good things really do come in threes...

Day 169 - Domestic Bliss

Needed a day off today, so devoted it to matters domestic: mowing the lawn, doing washing, catching up on some phone calls, making desert for dinner (plum and polenta cake - yum!). Also made chicken enchiladas as a main course, but overdid the chilli content somewhat....

I did though forget one of the basic rules of cooking with chillies: wash your hands well before you touch any other part of your body... it took a warm bath to put things back into order!

As it turned out, it was a good day not to be doing to much on the golfing side: the company providing server support to Intelligent Golf had some performance issue as a result of which IG was down for much of the day. Not the end of the world, but still a nuisance. Fortunately by the late afternoon, all seemed to have been fixed.

Lots of good intentions went by the wayside in the evening when I spotted that Toy Story 3 was on the box... Maybe the washing up will have to wait until tomorrow morning!

Day 169 - 27 holes

Weather still holding on, so delighted to have arranged a game of Disorganised Golf at the Club at noon.  Four of us turned up and, balls in the air, I was paired up with Jan against Ian/Hugh.  We had a cracking match: nip and tuck the whole way around, mostly playing par golf, until we got to the 12th when Jan and I accelerated and managed to win three holes in a row to go 3 up with 3 to play: Dormie 3.

[Quick check of the online world: where on earth does this expression come from? Some explanations out there, but "origin unknown" seems to be the most accurate].

Then, on the 16th, I went way right but chipped to within 6" - surely that was it? But no, Ian holed a monster birdie putt and we went on to the 17th, which we also lost... The 18th was playing downwind (for me Driver, 9 iron - most unusual!) which allowed us to halve it as the final putt just went wide. Great fun - and all that work for a pint of beer!

A drink on the Terrace, where we chatted to Geoff and Ivor in the sunshine (golf/cricket chat!) until it was time to do a quick Waitrose run, then back to the Club again for another 9 holes... 

With friends, Colin and Nigel, we decided to get some practice in for the "3 Clubs and a Putter" competition coming up at the Club at the end of August.   Long discussion about what clubs to take ensued... I took 3W, 6i, P but it didn't really work.  Back to the drawing board!

Day 168 - Whiteley Village

Some of the almshouse cottages in the village

Just across the trees from the 11th Fairway at Burhill lies the neighbouring community of Whiteley Village.  This is a retirement community which dates back to 1907 when the then benefactor, William Whiteley donated what was then an extraordinary sum of £1,000,000. This was used to purchase the land and construct the village, which remains in operation to this day, caring for its elderly residents.

Today was the occasion of the Whiteley Village Charity Day at Burhill and the organiser, Professor Mark Britton, was kind enough to invite me as his guest.  The format was a familiar one: 20 teams of 4, each counting their best 2 Stableford scores on each hole.  What was different this time was not only the opportunity to purchase a glass of champagne at the half way point but also the chance to win a brand new Audi in return for scoring a Hole in One on the 6th of the Old.  When asked if I wanted to enter this, my head said "no" (what are the chances of 2 holes in one on successive days?``) but my heart said "of course".  Suffice it to say that I am not the owner of a brand new car.

We did though have a wonderful day: great weather with the only drop of rain I felt being the one that landed on me as I was putting my clubs away at the end of the round, good company and a splendid lunch.  No prizes for us today though as our golf was good, but not good enough.  I very much enjoyed chatting to my lunchtime companion and our guest speaker, Ken Schofield.  Ken was for many years the Executive Director of the European Tour and I could have talked to him for hours!  He was very entertaining, as was Peter Wilkinson, the Chairman of the Whiteley Village trustees.

All in all, a splendid day which raised £000s in aid of what is definitely a worthwhile cause: I am already hoping to put my own team into a future such event!

Some photos of the event are available to view here.

Day 167 - Hole in One

Today was the second leg of our friendly match against West Hill - this time at theirs. An early start to be there by 08:00, made all the more tricky for some of the players as they had to avoid the road blockages caused by the London Cycle route. No such problem from Cobham and there is plenty of time for bacon rolls and coffee before my tee time.

I was paired with Jan-Willem, from Burhill, and playing against their Captain and Match Manager. The match was played in good spirits and was progressing nicely until we got to the 7th hole, a 170 yard par 3, though the pin was in to front.  Mark's tee shot headed right of the green, whilst mine looked pretty good off the tee but there was some heather blocking our view... Only a shout from our partners on the green alerted us to the fact that the ball had gone in the hole!  My second-ever hole-in-one - those tees must have worked after all!. 

After that, we also started to play better and were soon 5 holes up. We tried hard to lose from there but our opponents were too kind, eventually conceding the match on the 17th when they played a wrong ball.  We skipped the final two holes to head back to the Club to get the drinks in. I quickly checked the details of my golf insurance policy. I think I should be covered...  The rest of the team had also played well and at the half-way point Burhill were up by 3 1/2 matches to West Hill's 2 1/2.


A quick shower preceded an excellent carvery lunch, with wine and a glass of kūmmel to finish.  What with that, the champagne and the post-golf drinks, the progress onto the tee for the afternoon matches was decidedly slower than had been the case in the morning.    Maybe this was also the reason for the more lacklustre golfing performance as well.  Brian and I were ahead for most of our match but lost the final two holes to end up all square. 

Others were slightly less successful and we ended up losing the afternoon session by 4-2 and the whole day by 6 1/2 to 5 1/2.  Not that anyone was too worried: we had had an excellent day, the weather had been spectacular, the course in great nick and the company most convivial.  This really is one of the best fixtures in our calendar!

Day 166 - Memory Lane

Today's date is the 1st August (White Rabbits!). This brought back some very happy memories of our time spent living in Switzerland, between 1994-98, as this is their National Day.  Our house looking over the Aegerisee and I can still picture the incredible firework show to which we were treated every year.

We also used to spend the day taking advantage of the local farmer's hospitality: they opened up their farm, serving lunch to all comers on large tables, together with the delicious local cherries. One year, this photo of my daughter appeared on the front page of the local newspaper entitled "Proud Swiss girl celebrates her national day"!

Our time in Switzerland was a very happy one: good friends, wonderful house, stable job and a great country to explore. We went swimming, hiking, skiing as a family and I even got to play a little golf. Not much, partly because the courses were closed for half the year but also because there was so much else to do. Occasionally, my neighbour Ramon and I managed to sneak a round in, but such occasions were few and far between.

No golf today either: a very busy calendar looms... Instead out for the day with Mrs L.  We headed down to West Sussex to a National Gardens Society Open Day at Whithurst Park.  A most impressive walled garden stuffed to the gills with very professional looking fruit and vegetables.  And the courgette cakes was delicious!  A few pics viewable here.

Back home in time to plant our purchases, a cold drink and then off to see Mission Impossible - Rogue Nation at the Esher Odeon. Tosh, but entertaining tosh...