Day 327 - "I am just going outside and may be some time."

Monday morning and lots of stories about cold and snow back home in the UK. Burhill courses also struggling with the weather meaning that access is restricted: all good reasons to validate our decision to spend a few weeks here in Florida at this time of year!

That being said, it was chilly here last night too and, shock, horror, I opted to put long trousers on when leaving the house for my Monday morning round - and I wore a sweater too.  The sun was shining though and it was only the cold northerly wind that was the problem. That being said, my playing partners were dressed as if they were anticipating a round with Captains Scott and Oates: polo necks, beanies and fleeces in abundance: blood must thin as you stay out here for longer...

We had a fun game today; I was partnered with three great guys (David, John and Doug) and we not only had a great conversation on the way around (Donald Trump...) but we also played some decent golf. We were playing in teams of 4 with 3 scores to count on each hole so that there was room for one to have a disaster but no more... which is pretty much what we delivered.  My round was up and down:four double bogeys killed my total score but the rest was pretty good. There were 4 par-3 closest to the pin prizes, of which I picked up 2, which when combined with the fact that our team also won AND I managed a skin with a birdie meant that I walked away with $20 in my pocket - that will finance the next two days' golf!

After golf, we made our first pilgrimage to the local CostCo store. Amusingly, the place looks exactly the same as its equivalent in Sunbury - even down to the layout and many of the products on offer (though the prices are cheaper here!). A great opportunity to stock up on reasonably priced essentials and we now have enough toilet paper, silver foil and tinned tomatoes to last until the next millennium....

Day 326 - O Canada!

We had enrolled today to play in the Club's "Couple Club Championships", which is a great way to meet people. The format, we had been advised, was a "Modified Chapman"... ???

So after lunch, we got in our golf cart and drove across to the Clubhouse. In the parking area here, they have an area designated for shotgun starts: every space is marked with a hole number and the people who are due to start there, back their carts into the double slot until everyone can see at a glance if all have turned up. Once it is time, you then head off in order to your designated starting hole and the competition gets going.

Before leaving we discovered exactly what a Modified Chapman competition is: play was open to (married/cohabiting) couples only and both of them was then to tee off on every hole, after which each partner would then take their second shot with the other's ball.  At that point, the team were to choose one ball and it would then be hit into the hole in alternating shot format: a kind of 2-shot Greensomes competition.

Clearly this is an easier format than either Foursomes or Greensomes and the scores certainly reflected that with the winners recording a nett 58 (or 14 better than their allocated handicap).  We were nowhere near there, with a nett 70 with which we were briefly not disappointed: until we got back to the Clubhouse and saw the scores that is! Our partners for the day were Len and Rita, from Toronto, for whom this was still their first week of membership - making us seem like old lags!

The winners of the gross competition managed a very creditable 81. In fact there were two such couples and it took a 2-hole playoff to generate a winner - and we were delighted for our next door neighbours, Betty and John, who were the ones who emerged victorious.  And they're from Canada too...

After the golf, we had a very pleasant meal, cooked by Chef Andy (who is from Essex originally!) who will be moving to a new role at the end of the month and who will be sorely missed.  Now where have I heard that before...?

Day 325 - The Big Short

When we had played bridge the other day, we had had recommended to us a recently opened Farmers' Market store run by the Amish, just down the road from here. So, we went to have a look. 

And we have a new Go To destination: lots of fresh vegetables at very reasonable prices and what looks like a good selection of meat and fresh meat too. Sorry, Publix - you have just lost some business...

We had planned to play 9 holes after lunch but once we got onto the course and found ourselves fixed up with a very chatty couple from Toronto, and playing in glorious sunshine, we decided to play through hole 13. This gave us an easy cut-through to drive the cart home and our decision turned out to be an excellent one; by the time we were home having a cup of tea, the heavens had opened..

And it was still raining hard by the time we got to the cinema too. We were there to see the new film "The Big Short", due out into the UK later in the month. Very entertaining it was too. A very dry subject (the mortgage market collapse in the US in 2007) was made quirkily interesting. Particularly for anyone who enjoyed Enron the Musical, this is a must see!

Day 324 - Crocs Away

Awoke to rain dripping early this morning: not good as was supposed to be playing golf at 11 o'clock.... Needn't have worried though, by mid morning there were hints of blue sky up there and the only downside was that the course was deemed "Cart Path Only".  This is always a bit of a pain as it slows things down and always penalises the errant shot, right or left, that ends up right the other side of the hole from the path itself. Cart Path Golf, i.e. aiming to end up on the correct side of the fairway is an extra challenge...

I was put into the final group today, playing alongside two regulars and Tony whom I had not met before.  Everyone started off a bit scrappily, though the first half wasn't bad. I managed a knock-in birdie on the narrow 4th (nobody saw my approach shot as they were all in their carts: I waited for the plaudits that never came!). I did though follow it up by putting a ball into the water on the following hole... 

By now the sun had come out and the temperature on the cart was showing 81degF - not bad for early January!  the sun however wasn't the only thing that had come out.... the course marshal dropped by to warn us that a group of ladies in front had been concerned at a rather-too-close alligator by the edge of the 9th green. When we got there, he was indeed quite proximate but looking anything but active as he soaked in the warm sun's rays.  We too gave him a wide berth as he looked over 10 ft long....

After that the golf petered out into bogie-land. Despite my 40 on the outward half, I hit bunker after bunker and/or still couldn't get the hang of the fast greens, 3-putting far too often. At this rate, I shall have them mastered just in time to return to winter golf in the UK in ten days time...

Day 323 - Hot stuff

Thursday is Kathryn's golfing day here, so she was out bright and early... though it was actually anything but bright this morning: as the sun came up (around 07:20 here at this time of the year) we were greeted by dense fog - so much so that we even wondered whether or not the course would be open.  It was.  So she was able to get off on time and I had the morning to myself.

I had a long list of minor errands to carry out: returning s faulty wireless doorbell, buying a photo frame and booking myself in for a club-fitting session... the joys of retirement!

After lunch, I met Kathryn at the Clubhouse for our bi-weekly dose of couples bridge. As we get to know better some of the people playing this has become quite a fun event. Because we are only occasional players, we always get put East/West, which means that we have to do the walking between the tables - but no complaints as this means that we get to play against some friendly pairs.

We started off reasonably disastrously, and also seemed to have none of the cards. Nevertheless, things picked up as we got our brains into gear and I was quietly confidently that we had scored OK (as it turned put, we had only managed a 60% game but this was enough to put us in first place - winning us the princely sum of $8 for our efforts!).

On previous occasions, we had either not been available or not keen to stay on for a meal after the cards was finished. This time though we decided to give it a go - partly because we need to start making a dent on our annual levy spend at the Club here ($900 is our target....).  We ended up having a very pleasant meal in the restaurant - Kathryn was delighted with her salmon dish and I enjoyed my chipotle pasta - even though I wasn't quote sure what I had ordered... I had to look it up when I got home and now know that a chipotle is a smoke-dried jalapeño pepper...

Day 322 - T&T

It's the 6th of January and today is the occasion of my first golf game of the year...what a slacker!

I joined up with my usual gang here in Sarasota for the Wednesday game. As always, this is the largest group of the week and today was no different.

There were 26 people playing, which meant two 3-balls and 5 4-balls.  On this occasion, I was put into the group who went out first, along with Ray and Les.  One of our jobs was to place the Nearest the Pin flags on the 10 (yes, 10: all the par 3s, par 5s and one par4 on each nine) holes that had been selected by John, the organiser.  This we did pretty well.... only having to drive back to a hole that we had forgotten on just one occasion!

The game we were playing today was for teams of four, with three scores counting on each hole (one of which was to be a gross score, the other two net of handicap allowance - not an easy format!).  Since we were a man short, we had to choose one of the other players' scores to be used as a proxy for our missing team member.

Ginless G&T - not to be recommended!

Being only a three ball with a clear open course in front of us, we played very efficiently (only once spending a moment looking for a lost ball) and finished our round in 3 hours flat - a rarity here!  The final group, who had started 45 mins behind us, did not finish till 2 hours later which meant there was a lot of hanging around (and there are only so many gin-free G&Ts that you can drink!).  Eventually our proxy player came in: unfortunately he had not had a stellar round so he was not able to rescue our team score which meant that we came in 5th out of 7... and won a princely sum of $2/man for our efforts!

My own round was indifferent: pretty good off the tee but scrappy with my short irons and useless on the greens. They were much quicker than I had been used to of late at Burhill ...at least that's my excuse!

Day 321 - #firstworldproblems

It is never easy for the first few days on vacation with a 5 hour time difference to cope with. Not a problem for me today, but Mrs L had a tee time at 08:45 so had to keep moving in the morning. That being said, it's a great way of managing the jet-lag, so am a bit jealous but, just as at Burhill, Tuesday is Ladies Day here at UPCC as well...

I promise that this will be one of the few references to the Florida weather as I am very conscious that it is rather better here than at home... Florida, like the UK, had enjoyed a very warm December with temperatures regularly up in the 80s, which is most unusual at this time of year.  Again, similar to the other side of The Pond, more normal service has been returned and so the daily max today will be in the low 70s (everyone talks Farenheit here...) though when the skies are clear, the nights will be noticeably chillier.

One of the "joys" of returning to a vacation home is checking that everything is working properly. This was not the case today: despite our best efforts we couldn't get the golf cart to charge properly, the front doorbell is on the blink and the garage door opener for the small side door (yes, it's for the golf cart...) will not work either, even after I have put a new battery in.  As my son would say "Hashtag, firstworldproblems"!

What is working properly however is the WiFi Security Application which allows me to watch UK TV on my laptop, mirrored across to the big screen with Apple TV.  This means that I can keep up to date with the sport and we can also watch UK catch up TV.  Deutschland 83 hier kommen wir...