Brother-in-law Brian won our Masters sweep so he scooped the dosh, not quite on the scale of Jon Rahm but a triumph nonetheless.  None of us saw Phil Mickelson coming but even if he’d won his fourth green jacket/coat, B would still have won our money as the nearest challenger.

The LIV blokes didn’t do badly, so perhaps it suits some of them to be lightly raced.  In time, however, their lack of top-class 72-hole competition will tell.  I remember, many years ago, at The Tradition in Arizona, the seniors’ event that preceded The Masters, Gary Player, never averse to exaggeration, was adamant that Jack Nicklaus was playing so well that he could win his seventh green jacket.  I snorted so loudly that Gary called me out publicly at his clinic later on and the following week, when Jack was doing rather well early on, I was a little worried.  It was many years after 1986, when Jack astounded everybody, himself included, by winning and he duly faded away, lacking the intensity of regular competition at the highest level.

Jack, by Harold Riley.

Rory McIlroy, with so many months to stew on the tournament he needs to complete the Grand Slam, crashed and burned, scoring horribly in the best of the weather.  He wasn’t playing badly going in to what has established itself as his most important week of the year but my heart sank when I saw that he was in the second last group in the first round; and it sank even further when several players zoomed round in 65, 7 under par.  Oops.  Don’t look Rory; 68 will do nicely.  In benign conditions, that’s about level par really, given the par 5s that are reachable in two.  Even 69 or 70 would work.  Theory is all very well but practice is another matter.

Hey ho, golf’s very easy from the sidelines but championship golf is hard work, it’s not fun, it’s mostly a grind, when every shot counts.  It’s not easy giving every shot your full attention.  How often do even the best come off the course and say, “I couldn’t have scored any better.”  In other words, they hadn’t lost concentration or focus on a single, solitary shot, however they’d been hitting the ball.

Rory has won four majors but the last one was in 2014, when he was a swashbuckling young thing.  He’s won lots of big events since and been world No 1 but has he lost his edge, is he done?  Has he taken on too much off the course?  Is he destined to be one of Ireland’s all-time greats but a world very, very good – even a very, very, very good, a deserved Hall of Famer but not quite a great?

Wonder if he could manage a few months with Dave Alred, who worked so successfully with Jonny Wilkinson and helped Francesco Molinari win the Open?  Apparently it’s a pretty brutal regime and not for everybody but it might be worth a shot.  I’ve just been reading Miss Truman To Serve, a memoir by Christine Truman Janes, one of Britain’s best tennis players and she and her coach Norman Kitovitz devised a pretty intense regime.  It led to many triumphs but not the Wimbledon title that she craved.  And when Christine took one of her daughters, a keen and promising player, to Norman, it didn’t work – his intensity was too much.

Norman and some of his notes, from Miss Truman To Serve, a lovely book.

If Rory were to win three more majors, of whatever stripe, he’d overtake Nick Faldo and if he were to win four more, he’d move ahead of Harry Vardon and become the British, Irish and European golfer with the most major championships.  Every sportsperson has to keep dreaming.

And in the unlikely event that Rory wins nothing else, who are we kidding, he’ll still be marvellous and a decent human being. Why should we ask for more?

Watching Spurs play Brighton last Saturday was even more painful than watching Rory at Augusta, although Sonny scored a wonderful goal – his 100th in the Premier League – at our end and the sainted Harry slotted home very neatly.  We won 2-1 but it could easily have been 5-2 to Brighton who had two goals disallowed and two penalties turned down.  I haven’t met a Spurs fan yet who knows how we won that match.

Essie in the fan zone before a game that gave us the heebie-jeebies.  The journey there and back – drive to Bedford, coach to the ground – was smooth and trouble free.

Bournemouth will surely fancy their chances this Saturday.

Finally, congratulations to Marta Figueras-Dotti, LET chair, PGA of Spain member and president of the WPGA of Spain (among many other accolades) on being the latest recipient of the Confederation of Professional Golf’s Christer Lindberg Bowl for her services to the game in every capacity, from player to coach to administrator.  The CPG, formerly the PGAs of Europe, has no higher honour.

“These are the moments that are very special,” Marta said, “and give me the strength and the desire to keep working on the things that I’m doing and keep working on golf in Europe…

“I definitely have the ‘baby’ of mine which is bringing the Solheim Cup to Spain, which was a huge, tremendous effort.  So, although I’m not planning to quit any time soon, I would like to be remembered as somebody that has really given back to the game of golf in general, not only in Spain, but in Europe.”

This year’s Solheim, at Finca Cortesin in Andalucia from September 22nd-24th, should be a cracker.  Europe, captained by Norway’s Suzann Pettersen, will be attempting to win the match for the third time in a row against a USA team led by the redoubtable Stacy Lewis.

It’s not going to be dull.

Marta, in Solheim Cup mode.  [LET, Tris Jones]

It’s been a busy little week so far but I’m hoping to put my feet up on Sunday (and possibly Monday, given the weather forecast for Augusta) and watch the world’s best golfers plot their way to a green jacket – or not.  I’m roaring for Rory but not holding out much hope and don’t have him as one of my picks; the poor man doesn’t need any extra pressure this week.

Six of us had a Zoom call on Monday to make our choices – a tenner each in the pot and the winner is whoever finishes highest – not necessarily first but looking at the sheet, surely one of us must have the champion…

Who’ll it be?  Is he on my slightly crumpled, old-fashioned spreadsheet?

On Tuesday it was off to Yorkshire, God’s own count(r)y according to some, for the wedding of Brian’s son Alex to his longtime partner Katie.  They’d chosen Spicer Manor at Ingbirchworth, just north of Penistone, not far from Sheffield, as the venue and it was an inspired decision.  The wedding itself was on Wednesday and the whole thing, meticulously organised by Katie, was a joy from start to finish.  Wishing them every happiness and thanks so much for a wonderful time.

There’s no pic of the bride and groom because they asked us not to post photos on social media (am supposing the blog sort of counts as such), so am making do with a family photo, snapped by Brian’s brother-in-law Rob, who has given me permission to use it as proof that we scrubbed up ok for the big occasion.

Brian, in the kilt, rather puts me, Mo and his sister Pam in the shade despite our best efforts.  (Don’t think I’ve quite cracked the Pammy Saunders sideways-on pose.)

On Thursday, directed by Brian, whose navigational skills are at least as eccentric as mine, I drove across the notorious Saddleworth Moor and miraculously managed to reach Manchester Airport without mishap (that came later!).  Mo and Brian were safely waved off and I set off again, sans navigator (and his phone) to return the kilt.

Despite Maureen’s careful tuition, I misinterpreted her instructions and had a little tour of north Wales before finding the right route and braving the Cheshire Oaks outlet village – bear in mind, it’s the school holidays, so this was not a trip for the faint-hearted.  I located Moss Bros and, even more surprisingly, an adjacent parking space without too much trouble and a pleasant young man called Cameron took the travel bag and said, “Would you like the socks?”

“What?” sez I.

‘The socks.  You can keep the socks if you want them.”

“Oh.  OK.  Might as well.  Thanks.”

I’m sure there are still some places (aka golf clubs) where footsies and ankle socks are frowned upon and the men have to wear knee socks if they dare to venture out in shorts.  Any offers before Brian comes back to claim them?

Almost pristine. Only one careful wearer.

I made it home to Lichfield and unloaded the car; switched on the Masters; made a cuppa; pottered about; thought about the blog; pondered a bit of weeding while the weather was good; welcomed Sue M and Alice in for a cuppa; caught up on the chat; lit the fire (it was a wee bit chilly); emptied the dishwasher; nearly started the blog; took some stuff upstairs instead – and realised I still had the kilt!!!

Aaagh.  The Scottish gear had come in two carriers, not just one and there’s a fine if you return it all late.  And what brother-in-law, Scottish or not, wants to pay for the sins (of omission) of his sister-in-law?

I rang Cameron and explained the problem.  He looked up my nearest Moss Bros and started with Birmingham New Street, then he mentioned Cannock, where there’s a newish outlet centre that was open until 2000 hours.  Hooray.  I made my way there (trying not to wonder why I hadn’t thought to return all the stuff there in the first place) and handed over the kilt, minus the caboodle – I do wish it started with a ‘k’ but you kan’t have everything…

You’ll appreciate that by this time I’m feeling a trifle fraught and weary and I still hadn’t sorted out how to get to Spurs on Saturday for the match against Brighton.  You see, I’d called in at Lichfield Trent Valley station,  where there’s a very helpful woman in the ticket office and she’d confirmed that there’ll be a lot of buses over the Easter period but not many trains, so that derailed the travel plans.

Regular readers will be interested (!) to learn that Essie, a fellow Spurs tragic and I will be trying a new route this weekend, via Bedford and, fear not, you’ll hear all about it.

Watching the England Lionesses play Brazil at Wembley (I couldn’t face watching Rory’s traditional first-round struggles at Augusta as Grand Slam hopes weigh heavier and heavier – they’ll probably have to change the date for him to win), I realised that I’d seen quite a few of these players up close at the Bescot – 3,000 or so spectators as opposed to 80,000.  Who needs a season ticket at Spurs when you can watch some of the world’s best close up for a fraction of the price and hardly any travel hassle at all…

Apparently there are still some men who prefer watching paint dry to watching women play football but each to his own antediluvian attitude.  All we have to do now is improve the facilities.  Come to think of it, a lick of paint would be a start.

Friendly service but £12 is a bit steep for two tea bags and a couple of teaspoons of Maxwell House. Suppose it costs a lot to boil the water.  Chelsea beat the Villa 3-nil.

Thursday is blog day, so I used to try not to schedule anything else for that day – even though it would extend far in to the night and then the early morning, no matter how long I had to write.  Did I start immediately after breakfast?  No, of course not.  After lunch?  Well, eventually.  After dinner?  Of course, because when it comes to the bit, needs must.

Once a prevaricator….oops, better check the trusty Chambers; ah, no, not quite, it has to be procrastinator, deferring action, putting off what has to be done immediately.  Prevaricating is a bit different:  to avoid stating the truth or coming directly to the point; to quibble; to deviate (obs); to shift about from side to side (obs)….And it used to be, at Cambridge University, that a prevaricator was “a satirical orator at the ceremony of Commencement”.

Is that another way of saying smart Alick/Aleck/Alec/alec?  Just asking;  as a smart Alick etc manque (still haven’t mastered the acute accent, so not so smart after all).

Anyway, it turns out that lots of good things happen on a Thursday and who can bring themselves to turn down a good thing?  Carpe diem and all that.

It’s all going on at the MAC

Last week it was Crufts and this week it was Grayson’s Art Club:  The Exhibition, at the Midlands Arts Centre (MAC).  In all the years I’ve lived in and around Birmingham, I’ve never been to the wonderful venue that is the MAC, pretty well in Cannon Hill Park and just across the road from Edgbaston, one of cricket’s most famous grounds.  Wow, what a place.

MAC is now 61 years old and Deborah Kermode, the CEO and artistic director, explained its raison d’être in the foreword to the exhibition catalogue:  “Our job is to provide arts for all, with the mission to make art an important part of people’s lives…We specialise in contemporary work, offering a busy programme of theatre, dance, independent cinema, art exhibitions and special events.  What characterises our work is the wealth of practical classes and workshops we offer in all aspects of creativity.  We are part arts centre and part arts school and we want people to get involved!

“MAC has specialist arts studios set up for ceramics, textiles, silversmithing, dance, painting and drawing, for the public to use from 9am to 10pm daily…we do it all, with the aspiration that creativity is at the heart of learning, bringing people together to make friends and learn new skills to support their health and wellbeing…”

Just in case you don’t know what Grayson and Philippa look like…although Grayson does have an alter ego called Claire, so he may be in a dress next time you see him.

It’s the perfect spot to display the wide variety of works sent in to the art club devised by Grayson Perry and his wife Philippa (and Channel 4) to get us through the pandemic and lockdown.  It was quite brilliant and showed how amazingly imaginative and creative people are.  As a woman of limited imagination and creativity, I am in awe.

Margaret Seaman’s “Knitted Sandringham”  is at the MAC and it’s awesome.  It took two years to make and as someone whose own mother begged her to put down her knitting needles at the age of seven, I find it beyond mind boggling, jaw dropping…The skill, the patience, the imagination.

One view of the Sandringham spectacular, all knitted or crocheted.

It really is huge.

Beyond imagining for somebody who could only manage a holey dishcloth on chunky needles.

I couldn’t choose a favourite piece but here’s a selection of things that caught my eye.

Stuart Hutcheon’s Manchester Women, inspired by photos of Manchester and Salford in the 1960s and 1970s, created for a Mothers’ Day window display.

The sainted Alice, who has just made her first visit to a children’s hospice to help cheer everybody up, didn’t come to the exhibition but Pugsley, Janene Elise Pike’s assistance dog, was there, on the wall, in all his glory (digital mixed media on canvas).  Janene, who has cerebal palsy, called the piece, “My Canine Hero, Pugsley”.

Pugsley is from the charity Canine Partners and helps Janene with lots of different tasks.

And because I get teased mercilessly for being a rather ineffective eco warrior, railer against plastic and rinser of the recycling, how could I resist Alice Rhubarb’s “The Face of Waste”?  It’s made up of all sorts of junk that won’t degrade and usually gets chucked into landfill not turned in to art.

Alice says: “I think the human race needs to wake up about this sort of thing.”

For those of you who need a fix of golf, albeit a little below the elite level, here’s the Friday Frolic for today:  “THE MULTIPILIER”.  I feel we should have Arnold Schwarzenegger (correct spelling first go, incredible!) and The Terminator on hand because, weather permitting (who’s praying for sleet and snow?), this could be carnage.

Brace yourselves, here we go – and I quote verbatim:  “Best two Stableford scores [out of three] used in multiplier….lowest score is first number, second best score is used as second number…eg.  Team’s individual gross on hole one are 5, 4, 7.  4/5 used making 45 pts.  (if having to use 0 that goes as second number)  eg your team score 3, 0, 0, your score is 30 points.  Pair with highest pts score wins…”

My immediate reaction was “Aaaaagh” but I was reassured by our esteemed organiser:  “Stay in a darkened room overnight Patricia, you’ll be fine.”

My darkened room awaits but I’m not convinced.

Happy St Patrick’s Day everybody and here’s to Ireland’s Grand Slam (fingers crossed).

A cherished card from a friend in America who never forgets the occasion.

I’m not sure I should be writing anything at all this week because I’m still seething, down from incandescent but still bubbling, sputtering and spluttering, ready to erupt…just give me an excuse, go on, I dare you…

I went to bed cross and I woke up still cross…It’s been good to write it down, though and I’m feeling calmer now, more chilled.  Going to the hygienist at the dentist’s helped because I had to practise keeping calm and trying to relax as I lay back and waited for it to hurt.  It didn’t and I got a gold star for having improved the state of my teeth no end.  Perhaps it’s because I’ve stopped trying to stand on one leg for the two minutes and just concentrated on brushing.

Mount Fuji, a volcano of the benign variety.  No explosions here surely.

Anyway, you’re probably thinking, “What on earth is she rabbiting on about this time?”

It is, wouldn’t you know, the footie.  The FA Cup, to be precise.  We, as in Totspurs, have won it eight times but the last time was 1991 and our last trophy of any sort was the League Cup (whatever it was called then) in 2008.  It’s now the Carabao Cup and Manchester United won it last Sunday, ending a trophy-winning slump that lasted a comparatively measly six years.  Sheffield United are a good side and will probably be promoted to the top division next season, so no one at Spurs could have been in any doubt that it was a test of the highest order.

Even so, it was a chance lost and a fellow fan summed up the frustration of us all:  “Inconsistency rears its head yet again….”  I was less calm and responded:  “I am beyond furious, such a wasted opportunity, too much sloppiness in the passing and Richarlison [a Brazilian who cost something like £60 million] is bereft of confidence and oomph.  Mind you their goal [scored late on by Iliman Ndiaye] was Ricky Villa-esque and they looked as though they knew what they were doing.”

Looking for Sheffield United’s badge I turned to my trusty Book of Football (published in 1971 I think) and discovered two things:  the logo has changed substantially and when Spurs won the FA Cup for the first time, in 1901, as a non-League club, they beat Sheffield United, one of the best teams in the country, 3-nil in a replay.  No wonder this blog takes ages to write – there’s a lot of meandering down highways and byways, lots of twists and turns and distractions.

Something didn’t look quite right and the logo has changed quite a bit. The shirts are still more or less the same, advertising apart.

There were 114,815 paying spectators at Crystal Palace for the 1901 final against a Sheffield side that contained three of “soccer’s immortals”: ‘Nudger’ Needham, wing-half, Fred Priest, inside-left and ‘Two-Ton’ Foulke, the goalie who weighed 22 stone.  Spurs were leading 2-1 when the referee, a Mr Kingscott from Derby, ruled that the Spurs goalkeeper had been over his goal line before clearing the ball after a goalmouth melee.  One of the first sporting films ever made seemed to show, however grainy the footage, that Mr Kingscott had made a very grave error…However, he refereed the replay, at Bolton, the following week.

Ah well, there’s always the rugby, though I’m not feeling particularly bullish about Ireland’s chances at Murrayfield on Saturday week.  We’re unbeaten so far and will be the favourites but our record in Edinburgh isn’t great and the Scots have their eye on the Triple Crown.  Perhaps I’m just looking at things with the jaundiced eye of someone more used to BBUs (brave but unavailings) than IDVs (impressively dominant victories).  When and how on earth did we become so good?

Here’s hoping for another Grand Slam and, who knows, perhaps even a World Cup…Well, we’re good enough and are renowned for our luck, so if everything that can align, aligns…

Mo and I were in Cardiff for Ireland’s Grand Slam in 2009.  They’re hard won things.

From the sublime to the less than, you’ll be delighted to know that I’ve probably now got 0.000000adinfinitum1 of a point in the world rankings after earning £12.50 (I think) in this week’s stableford.  Now, it was a limited field, it was only 13 holes and there wasn’t that much of an international flavour to the entry (though at least one of our number comes from Norton Canes and somebody still has a place in Spain) but you’ve got to start somewhere.

Also, bear in mind that we’re still having to work around the diggings of HS2, that great infrastructure project that is providing lots of work for the diggers and the engineers and the archaeologists and lots of money for somebody somewhere as the billions mount up and lots of disruption for the rest of us.  Don’t forgot that if you’re a UK tax payer, you’re paying for this.  The train’ll be up and running by 2034 apparently, though nobody’s quite sure where it’ll be going…

Fences and diggers are part of our daily round.

You’re nearly off the hook, so instead of launching in to Tiger and tampons (the DWD, the dog-walking dermatologist, a kind and practical soul, pointed out that they’re useful for stemming nose bleeds, so perhaps even we post menopausals should keep a couple in our golf bag; and now we know that we can give them to the men we outdrive – and there are a few!), I’ll talk about rakes.  Are you still with me after the digression?

When we last voted on rakes and where to put them (wonder what Tiger’s take on that is?), I voted for putting them in the bunkers.  I’ve now changed my mind  – and I believe the R and A recommendation is for out.    We have some silly bunkers, too deep and difficult enough to get in to easily, with getting out well-nigh impossible without help and now we have some eejits, presumably able-bodied, perhaps even athletic, who have taken to tossing the rakes in places few of us can reach.

The photo doesn’t do the degree of difficulty justice. That rake was only retrieved after a long tramp from the front of the bunker and it took quite a while to smooth out the footprints.

Out, out, out please.

Finally, here’s a photo of the aurora borealis, taken by a friend’s daughter  in the Highlands of Scotland.