A Pleasant Afternoon

I flew back from Scotland on Friday morning.

The weekend had been planned for some time. It was Ross's birthday on Tuesday; so a night out at an Indian restaurant had been planned. It was also our wedding anniversary, Michelle's, her mum's and sister-in-law's birthday; thus another night out was arranged for Sunday. Of course there was also the small matter of the Portsmouth v Southampton match on Sunday afternoon!

Saturday afternoon was free and Michelle, bless her, had arranged with Ross for me to go a-golfing with him. Thus it was that Ross called for me in his gentleman's conveyance, well Tracey's conveyance actually, at noon. It was a C class Mercedes estate of similar vintage to my previous car. On arrival at them club we found that there were no bookings Fi them rest o f the day so we went straight out. There were a couple of problems, however. First of all, it was winter tees. This was no great shakes really, but the second one was; temporary greens! In other words no point in trying to putt whatsoever.

My tee shot at the first was straight but not very long; it was on the fairway however. Ross had put his over to the right making for a difficult second shot. I soon found that a long break had made little difference to my golf; I was as awful as ever. We had decided not to score the round, but to use matchplay. This resulted in me going one up after the first hole; hitch I won 9 to 10. The second was worse and Ross levelled the score.

Ross won the next two holes, but I did pull one back at the fifth. I never really managed to do well after this, and by the tie we got to the twelfth Ross was 6 up with 6 to play. At the par 3 thirteen I got the score to 5 with 5 to play, but despite a great tee shot on the fourteenth, Ross won the hole making the rest f the round irrelevant. We still wanted to play but we were stuck behind a very slow 3 ball, we decided to cut across and replay the eighth before repairing to the bar for a well earned pint.

I am determined this will not be the last time I play the course before I turn my membership to social, so we have arranged to play sometime between Christmas and New Year.

Sunday was a bit of a contrast, it was 'Derby Day'; this meant road closures in Portsmouth and an early start as the kick off was to be at 1 pm. Michelle and I got to her mum's around 10, had a cup of tea and then wandered off to the ground. It wasn't quite a full house but the atmosphere was electric and threatening.

The final score was Portsmouth 1 Southampton 1; a fair result at the end of the day. Fortunately the was litte trouble and we got home safely at 4.

We returned later to pickup Michelle's mum and go for a triple birthday dinner at Gunwharf.

I returned to Dundee the following day and then drove back home on Thursday. Christmas has been great, we have eaten far too much but tomorrow I can start walking it off; Ross and I are off to play golf.