The final whistle

So a fairly sporty week draws to a close.

I was talked into attending the England v Ireland rugby at Twickenham last weekend, as my S Club chums had finally agreed that Twickenham was not an experience targetted at 70 year old rugby follower, and that we should all have one last hurrah! To be fair, we could not have gone out in a more majestic way as England turned up for once and grabbed a famous victory right at the end.

I travelled to London and back in the day which worked well. It is still a bit of a lottery when one has no idea whether Avanti will cancel the trains or not. Our new strategy to follow the England U20 team and some of the Champions Cup rugby next season should see us in charge of our travel arrangements a little bit more.

During this week I travelled to Scotland to play in a 'Hole in One' competition at Turnberry Hotel. While the complex is owned by the Trump organisation, it is interesting that none of the merchandise is endorsed with the Trump name or logo as it was seen as a put off to people buying!!

I have just had to do a zero star rating on  Trip Advisor for the golf however, as they refused to close the course, which was waterlogged, and forced us to go out and play in conditions which were totally unreasonable. Clearly the did not want to give refunds or rain cheques and consequently lose revenue. For us it spoilt the trip and left a bad taste in the mouth. I am unlikely to return while it remains in its current ownership.

The week concluded with some disappointing football results, and another spirited display by England who had another late victory snatched from them by a marginal penalty decision from the same referee who did not exactly cover himself in glory at the rugby World Cup earlier in the year.

Hey ho, at least the England management team have brought themselves some  more time to try and produce a team who can consistently compete at the top level of the game. Every cloud has a silver lining, and the improvement of the Italian team who consigned the Welsh to the wooden spoon is something to behold. 

Going for gold

 How delightful to spend some time in Geneva with Tim and his family and to be able to take all the Scouseland kids as well.

There is a fair sized crew now and it made an ideal opportunity for a family football match the first morning we were there. Unfortunately I and SWMBO were confined to barracks, so we were on VAR duty, but in a hard fought game Sofia cracked in a 10 yarder to clinch the game. Soon to be Emma's husband, Nick, showed his skills have not deserted him, and JB excelled in goal. Luckily VAR was not called on so I was not the subject of any decision debate in the restaurant later.

Tuesday saw us take a trip to Annecy on the lake of the same name, where we wandered round a very French town and took a boat trip around the lake, which was a bit fresh I have to say. Dinner was in a restaurant at the base of the Jura skiing complex but as the resort is fairly low lying, there was no opportunity for Winter sports.

Our final trip took us to Lausanne and specifically to the Olympic Museum. What a wonderful experience that is. In the gardens surrounding the exhibition complex are artworks and olympic icons, like the current high jump and pole vault bars, together with a four lane 100m track over which the kids took on the adults

Inside were exhibits going back to the original meeting in Paris in 1908, every Olympic torch was there and costumes and equipment showing how times have changed. Usain Bolt had his shirt there, and Jessie Owen and Michael Johnson had donated their running shoes.

In one of the cinema presentations was the image of Mohammed Ali lighting the flame in Atlanta in 1996, an event which SWMBO and I witnessed in a bar in downtown Buckhead. It is a moment which still sends goose bumps down my arms.

Sounded like a plan

I have been attending international matches at Twickenham for over 50 years, always with a group of chums called 'The S Club'. This season though I decided to embrace the events in a different way.

For some time now we have said that the match has been the low point of the weekend, and, with kick-off scheduled for 16:45, the night life has become less appealing to a group of 70 somethings at 9pm than it is after normal 3pm kick-off  times.

Couple that with hotel room's now costing in excess of £120 per night, and the match tickets themselves being between £130 and £150 for an 'average' view, and the whole experience needed to be revisited. 

So, my plan was to catch an early train from Liverpool, have a few beers and a meal with 'The S Club' and then travel back to Liverpool watching the game on the train. So first part of the plan was executed as I got a cheap day return ticket and was all ready with technology and food supplies for the train journeys.

Imagine then my nervousness when the day before travel I got a warning note from Avanti North West trains saying my train may be cancelled. OK I thought I can get the earlier train, albeit that was 07:40.

So an early alarm got me up only to see that train had been cancelled. My scheduled train was still running but the train afterwards had also been cancelled. Then just as I was about to leave a notification informed me my scheduled train had been cancelled too. To cancel one train is unfortunate, to cancel three is carelessness, even incompetence.

So what options? Drive to Crewe? Ah, go from Chester, but then found out the Birkenhead to Chester service was delayed so I could not get a connecting train by going that route. So I am now consigned to a day at home watching on the television.

I don't use the train very  much these days so am not sure how often this sort of disruption occurs, but Liverpool Lime Street must be mental today with three train loads of people trying to find alternative ways to get to London, whether or not many of them are going to the rugby.

And what of Avanti and their bed fellow the dinosaur which is the Unite union. Their members are trying to bring the Country to it's knees when they are over paid already and clearly underworked as they have no trains to drive most of the time.

Virgin trains were never as poorly operated as Avanti but given there is little chance of the Avanti franchise being renewed, they don't give a toss about customer service.

Now I see three of the four evening return train services have been cancelled out of Euston so goodness knows whether I would have got back tonight anyway. Come on England  prove us wrong about the match and make our day!!

Immortality

2024  has been a bit of a wake up call already. When your hero's or peers start to curl up their toe's it brings home to you the fragility of life. I remember Franz Beckenbauer strutting his stuff in the great German football team of the late '60s and early '70s as he brought a new dimension to defensive football in the same way that Johan Cruyff was later to do with Holland's brand of total football. His death announcement was soon to be followed by that of JPR Williams, one of the hero's of the Welsh rugby era which spanned the 1970s and into the '80s. He was only a few years older than me and I could easily have played against him had I been a slightly fitter rugby specimen.

I have always said old age comes with unwanted gifts, and we cannot be too complacent as we just don't know what is around the corner for us.

It was re-enforced yesterday when I received a call out of the blue from Ian Ruddick, the brother of Steve. Steve had sadly died at his flat in Thailand a few months ago, and Ian was clearing the possessions from his brothers house in Croydon where he found a letter unopened which I had written to Steve in 2019.

We had lost contact with each other around 2010 and little did I know that he had upped sticks and moved to Thailand after various trauma's in his life in the UK. Steve and I were thrown together in 1971 when I moved from Plymouth to college in London and he did the same from Newcastle. We shared a bedsit in Stoke Newington, North London and then a flat in Northcote Road in Clapham before girls got in the way and we moved into our own places. We regularly met up and exchanged stories until the phone calls and and face to face meetings stopped, and only recently when the Antique Roadshow came from Clissold Park, just across from said bedsit, did I mention to SWMBO that if anything did happen to him  hopefully Ian would be in touch. Little did I know that events had overtaken that conversation and a close friend had already been taken from us.

So 'live for today' becomes even more relevant as our life's breath decreases by the moment. So book that holiday, buy that gift and tell people how much they mean to you before it is too little too late. 

Cheers Steve, and Haway the Lads!

End of year review

 Why do I not get the time to post so often? I really don't know, but better late than never. 

SWMBO and I finally made it to Prague for a weekend break. Luckily we were there before the shooting incident. I had been there before on a golfing trip, and had always promised SWMBO that I would take her, so this was a delayed birthday present.

We did the touristy bit, walking past the castle and the cathedral down to the Charles bridge and then into the Old Town, and saw the Jewish quarter and New Town section with the astronomical clock, bu the main reason for choosing December was to experience the Christmas atmosphere and the festive markets.

What a disappointment that was. While we did get some snow, the markets were really all food stalls and very tourist oriented, so our objectives based on Christmas tree decoration shopping and so on were not forthcoming.

The only major item we did buy was a 'undertaker' Crombie style long black coat which will keep me warm through the Winter months and help hide my captains red jacket until it needs to be exposed at the next formal dinner. 

We had a good central hotel, and ate well on one night, but the other restaurant choice was poor. So much for Tripadvisor reviews!!

Anyway, we returned safely  to tackle our 'big' Christmas. 20 people including children sat round the table this year including the addition of Nick who had recently proposed to Emma so we have  a wedding to look forward to in May. It all went rather well, as i kept my humour and SWMBO got lots of help in the kitchen. I still show people the scar I have from the blister while peeling about 60 potatoes, and making 90 pigs in blankets.

Luckily we did not host Boxing Day, we are on the rota for next year for that one, but it will only be a small Christmas with maybe 8 sitting down next time.

We then spend 'Twixtmas' in Scotland at St Andrew's and stayed at the Fairmont hotel. Its about ten minutes outside the town, and bills itself as a 5 star establishment. Sadly it is not in the Turnberry or Gleneagles class, so we had a few issues which we needed addressing, and would be reluctant to recommend it for anybody thinking of using it in the future. The 'Old Grey Town' though was wonderful and we ate and drank very well, using the hotel courtesy bus given the Scottish zero tolerance to alcohol as far as drinking and driving is concerned.

One pub even put the Southampton v Argyle game on for me, and even the locals thought we wuz robbed.

We got back for dinner with Rebecca on New Years Eve and then went home to watch the local firework displays from the balcony.

So that's 2023 put to bed, although I still have a fair bit if repair work to do in the garden as a result of the various storms which swept the region during December,

So a belated ho ho ho! and Happy New Year to all my readers, onward to 2024.

Thea Collins

While busy consigning one family member to the English Channel, it was lax of me to fail to mention the replacement who arrived all worm and cosy in August.

While focusing on the loss of one family member who was very elegantly deposited in the English Channel, I failed to record the arrival of our seventh grandchild, to take her place.n She popped into the World in the middle of August all fairly easily it seemed to me, although her mum might disagree.

 Thea Collins is our seventh grandchild, and the first born to Kieran and Hannah. She is now about three months old and came round for her first swimming lesson this week. I wonder when she will start playing golf!!

Its becoming quite a recreational time for the family at the moment. Maxine, Emma, Ava and Nell have just completed 'the couch to 5k' programme at Birkenhead Park running club, Emilie is winning prizes at her local swimming club, and Nell is the first name on the team sheet for her school year swimming team.

Her first outing resulted in a narrow defeat to a boy in the match against Kings School, Chester. No disgrace there.

The activities have, however, come at a cost. Currently we have Archie and Emma on crutches. Archie fell out of his tree house when one of his swinging ropes snapped. He had just had a boot put on to a lightweight plaster and hopes his foot will be repaired in a few weeks so he can start games again next year.  Emma broke the bottom of her Tibia when she jarred her foot while on said 5k run. She is a couple of weeks behind Archie but hopes to get a boot too.

Her disappointment and frustration were tempered however, when Nick asked her to marry him!! She said yes, while at York Minster, the exact same place as Kieran popped the question to Hannah. Small world eh!

My golf is awful at the moment, and Tim is training as a personal trainer in Geneva, so the amount of athletic exertions seems to keep on coming. It will soon be Christmas and I can replenish my supply of sports socks and golf balls.

Ho ho ho!

Sherford

It is usually straightforward leaving the A38 at Plympton and driving through the lanes to Plymstock, but not now!!

It has been a while since I was in the area, but I was startled to find a new town had sprung up in the countryside outside Elburton. It is a complex of mock Georgian style apartments and town houses together with more modern houses and flats.

There are two schools, a coffee shop and a 5G sports field which we could make out, and many of the farmers fields bordering the development are fenced off presumably for more expansion. There are at least three major construction companies involved in the building work with presumably many sub-contractors working along side them.

It has been compared with Poundbury, the new town championed by The King when he was Prince of Wales, and the word is that it is a pleasant place to live albeit that it is still a work in progress and the infrastructure is a bit slow in keeping pace with the house building.