Well everybody, this is the last blog of the year and I’d like to start by thanking you all for reading and wish you season’s greetings:  Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, whatever takes your fancy.  Maureen and I are amazed and delighted that so many of you are still reading our meanderings, golfing and otherwise and keep encouraging us to keep going, whether that’s wise or not….All being well, we’ll be back next year, refreshed and raring to rock and roll all over again.

Mo tells me that this is a golf blog, so I’d better mention that our golf last Tuesday –  the Christmas comp – was cancelled because the weather was so wet and ‘orrible.  All was not lost because I met up with my partners for a coffee and a chat before heading off to watch Spurs against Slavia Prague.  That meant missing the Xmas dinner and dance at WHGC (Abba featured on the menu) but at least we won the match 3-nil – an own goal and two pens – and my seat (not my usual) was one of the best.

Great view – and I could stand if I wanted to because we were at the back of a row with only hospitality bods behind us (on a higher level altogether).

My neighbours were regulars and told me that their seats cost £1600.  “Wow,” said a young man who’d come up to check out the view, ” that’s a lot for 19 matches.”  A lot more than my two seats together but the best I’d ever sat in, only available because somebody’s godson couldn’t go.  Many thanks to him.

It was lovely because I wasn’t miles away from Sonny – Heung-min Son, Spurs legend – when he came on to the pitch to say goodbye to us properly after ten or so wonderful years (he’d announced he was leaving on our summer tour in South Korea) and receive a special cockerel from Ledley King, another club legend.  They’ve both got great  beyond-life-size murals not far from the ground, along with Harry Kane.  Sonny’s now playing in America but boy, could we do with him at his peak now!

Sonny, right, receiving his memento from Ledley.  V emotional.

You’ll undoubtedly be delighted to know that my last two trips to N17 have been relatively troublefree and wonder of wonders, we’ve won both matches after an appalling run of home results. We’d been the opponents of choice for any team struggling to get points away from home and we Spurs fans had to trek off disconsolate, time after time after time.

Mind you, even a good journey back after an evening match means getting home at two in the morning.  The train from Birmingham International to Euston takes just over an hour in the afternoon but the 2300 from Euston to International takes two hours 17 minutes, if you’re lucky.  Apparently, Network Rail take(s) over the track at night to do works and fast trains are diverted on to slow lines (and make more stops).

I was going to regale you with all the gory details of my mate John’s journey from the depths of Derbyshire last Saturday, en route to that rarity, a three o’clock kick off but it’s nearly a novel in itself.  The Oracle as he’s known – he’s the fount of all knowledge when it comes to Spurs and football – uses spreadsheets to plan his travels (he used to have a season ticket for Derby and is still a regular at Burton Albion home and away games) and some of his routes are less than straightforward.  I’ll attempt to précis this one….

It started at 0847 with a walk to catch a bus to Burton-on-Trent; then a walk to catch a train to Tamworth (three carriages, no seats); at Tamworth the 1056 train to Nuneaton had been cancelled because of passengers causing a disruption; at 1157 caught 1156 to Nuneaton but very crowded so no seat; 1211 arrived Nuneaton in plenty of time for 1242 to Euston (coming from Manchester Piccadilly)….

However, at 1235 there was a commotion on the platform and the 1242 was held on the station approach.  A man at the end of the platform was letting his children run around near the platform edge and was ignoring all requests to keep them under control; lots of apologies from the staff and the British Transport Police were summoned to sort things out.  Eventually, the 1242 left at 1314 and arrived at Euston at 1411, 90 minutes late, irony of ironies…Then it was the tube to Tottenham Hale, a brisk walk and John was in his seat at 1455, impeccable timing – if it had been part of the plan.

The match, thank goodness, went well – we won 2-nil – and John set off home with a happy heart.  He boarded the 1813 from Euston to Manchester, 56 mins non-stop to Nuneaton but things started to go wrong at 1828 when they ground to a halt just after Harrow and Wealdstone because the rear brake of the train in front had jammed; John’s train ends up reversing and is passed by a steam train, which makes him think they’ve all drifted inside Doctor Who’s Tardis….

Anyway the upshot is that he reaches Nuneaton at 2137, two hours 27 minutes late; sees that his train to Tamworth is delayed by 50 minutes because of an earlier incident; and gives up the unequal struggle.  He summons a taxi, which arrives at 2230 and deposits him home at 2310.

It was, he said, with admirable restraint:  “A ridiculous and crazy day.”

John, on a day when he had time to spare, in front of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium with me (left) and Essie.  We are probably, like all footie fans, completely nuts.  COYS.

Finally, two musical pics to end with:  at the CBSO on Wednesday for Kazuki Conducts Strauss with a seat in the stalls for £1 (normally £50 but it was a very special offer).

Eduardo Vassallo, the leader of the CBSO cellos for 36 years, takes an emotional bow.  It was his last performance in that role.

And, on a smaller but no less important scale, the Serenade Trio at the Wednesday session of Everybody Sings!

Helen (left), Lisa and Clare setting the Christmas tone.

Thank you all for the music and the fun.

Well, it’s done and dusted and please don’t read any further if you haven’t watched the final episode of Celebrity Traitors.  Spoiler alert:  I might mention at the end who won.  Then again, I might not….

All is revealed….

Thursday nights are usually blog nights, for me anyway and far too often to be healthy they’re so late they move in to the next morning.  That was the case last week because although the words were almost all written in good time – though not quite all – there was an unexpected glitch:  the sister and her husband were coming for a couple of nights and the house was in the process of being tidied.

In other words, it was a tip.  So I had to izzy-whizzy, switch in to overdrive and make the place habitable for visitors.  It was an autumn clean rather than a spring clean and it was a great relief to make inroads.  However, it did mean that my sleep pattern was disrupted even more than usual; and I had a busy weekend ahead.  Aaaaaagh….

The next morning I missed my snooker lesson because I still had the shower and the loos to clean but I made it to bridge in time and don’t think I made any more miscalculations than usual.  The brain cell had woken up enough to make the odd correct call.

Then it was off to London to meet up with a member of the Irish branch of the Spurs supporters’ club in preparation for the big match the next evening and the stadium tour in the morning.  Our leader had also organised a trip to Frameless, an immersive art experience that is receiving rave reviews and is well worth a visit.  No need to rush, it’s on for another three years.

Nice and calm, immersed in Venice.

Just one word of warning:  sometimes the floor seems to move – and the ceiling and the walls – and if you’re tired or have had a drink or two too many, it’s not an easy watch.  In fact, the first two rooms reminded me of a rather unpleasant experience on the Scillonian, leaving Penzance on an even keel and staggering off on St Mary’s (Isles of Scilly) with everything all over the place.  Dizzying was the word for it.

Vesuvius erupting:  scary and spectacular but not so bad if you’re sitting down.

I know that Christmas is not that far away – my hairdresser always knows the exact number of days  – but it came early for a couple of Tottenham tragics when we had a match day tour of our swanky new(ish) stadium.  All we lacked was a legend leading us around but the two young men in charge of our group were very good and well informed and managed to keep us ahead – just – of the hundreds of people coming in to start work (including some of the first-team coaches, who descended on the dressing room as we, the last tour on the list, were leaving).

The kit all ready for the team of the day. Nice colour for the goalies.  They didn’t let us see the names.

Two ridiculously happy Totspurs, yours truly, dressed for the occasion,  with Denise (left) who organised the whole thing.

The match wasn’t until half past five (on a Saturday), yet another of those random kick-off times designed to suit the telly channels; the fans will pitch up wherever, whenever and pay whatever…Maybe aye and maybe och aye.  Take us for granted at your peril.

Denise, our organiser par excellence, had sussed out a very congenial pub (home fans only) not too far from the ground and we had something to eat (and a drink or two) in  good company, full of hope that we’d beat Chelsea, not something we seem to find easy.  We even found a group of lads from Cavan, fans of Leona Maguire, to take a pic of us full of hope and expectation.

Ready for the match, full of hope: Gemma, in the middle, was about to watch her first premier league game. Thanks to the Cavan lads for the photo.

I couldn’t fault the build up to the game but for some reason our boys didn’t turn up and went missing the moment the whistle went; they/we were dire, no other word for it.  Chelsea won 1-nil but it should have been more and we never looked like sneaking an equaliser.  They really do have the hex over us and their fans were jubilant, rubbing it in with justifiable glee as we headed unhappily into the night.

Oh no! They’ve done it again. Away fans and team enjoying their trip to Tottenham.

To make matters worse, we got to a pub near our hotel in time to watch Ireland lose to the All Blacks in Chicago.  At least the boys in green led for a good while before succumbing and the craic could hardly have been better.  Sometimes it’s not the result that matters most.

I won’t mention who won Traitors, just in case you still haven’t heard – and I know there are some of you out there who couldn’t care less.  Wish I felt the same about Spurs.

Now, why on earth would that be?….

Something wonderful happened to me the other morning and it had already started well with a sociable, if chilly, dog walk with Sue and Alice.  We bumped in to friends with their dogs, then, wishing I’d already rooted out the winter gloves, I went to the bakery to stock up with sourdough muffins – have I mentioned that they freeze well?  Then I warmed up with a latte in one of Lichfield’s many caffs.  So far, so good.

Then, on the way home, a bit of a miracle happened:  two people asked me for the best way to get to the cathedral, which was easily visible from where we were standing.  Hallelujah, a directions question that I could answer with complete confidence!  (I’d just spent a few days in Germany shrugging and apologising:  “Ich habe keine Ahnung; ich spreche nicht Deutsch; entschuldigung….”  Just enough German to confuse the questioner utterly.)

There are the three spires of Lichfield Cathedral, perhaps not quite in all their glory.  Charles and Camilla, fresh from their visit to Rome, will be here next Monday.

I suggested the most direct route, which would mean they’d hit the cathedral full frontal, so off they went and I headed home, smiling broadly, inordinately pleased with myself.  It really is the little things in life, the teensy-weensy, titchy-witchy, tiny triumphs that give the most pleasure.

My republican friends aren’t too happy but there’s a royal visit scheduled for Lichfield at the beginning of next week.  I’m not quite sure what the occasion is but it’s a big deal, although probably not quite as big as the visit to Rome this week, featuring prayers with the Pope in the Sistine Chapel, I believe.  Lucky old Charles and Camilla.  Mo and I paid a lot of money for our tour of the Vatican a couple of years ago and got 30 seconds max to admire Michelangelo’s artistry.

Ah well, rank always has had its privileges.

I was in Germany on a course that had been a very long time in the making.  I can’t remember when I first came across Esther Gokhale (Go-Clay) and her book 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back, written with Susan Adams but a lot of years ago, I was within a few metres of a weekend course with Esther herself when I got a call to say it was cancelled.  She had been turned back at Heathrow – no work visa I believe – and the only benefit was that I made a few quid on the rate of exchange when I got my refund.

The square in Öhringen, with the statue of Olaf Hohenlohe, about whom, shamefully, I know nothing.

Four years ago Mo and I went on a weekend course with Clare, the only active Gokhale teacher in the UK.  In Bristol.  It was unbelievably tiring but inspiring and I signed up for the daily Gokhale online classes.  They’re great and you get to know the other participants, wherever in the world they are.  The classes operate on US west coast time because Esther is based in California but, it’s like golf:  you can’t learn it all from a distance, from a book or from Zoom.  So, I went to Germany.

Julie, one of Gokhale’s top team, lives in Öhringen and that’s where eight of us relative novices pitched up, from various places, by various means, to spend six sessions of a couple of hours each working with Esther, Julie and Karin and Doris, two trainee teachers from Austria.  We came from the UK (me and Angela),  Austria (Gillian and Herbert), Berlin (Di and Martin), Italy (Linda) and just round the corner (Hans-Christian).

The Gokhale group, Esther is third from left.  I’m the one in the understated top, with my chin in the wrong place – as usual!  A work in progress.

Essentially, to put it simply, the Gokhale Method is all about posture, about stacking yourself in the right position and it’s blooming hard after decades of slumping and coping with bunions because your feet have been asked to work from the wrong end – toes taking the brunt instead of the tougher heel.  I ended every day knackered and now that I’m home I’m still knackered!

There’s nothing like hands-on teaching – literally in this case, with my permission of course.  And our teachers sounded a lot less fierce than the woman taking the kiddie-winks ballet class in the next room; for a start they didn’t shout at us!  They were insistent that we got the positions right but they were encouraging and understood that most of us were trying to change the habits of a lifetime.

Waiting patiently at Stuttgart station. Not Alice and not with me: I’d go off the rails if I had to handle a dog and luggage!

Now that I’m home, recovering from lugging my luggage from train to train and happily filling in time at the airport by rearranging my weighty hand baggage (see the pic at the top), I’m starting to panic that I’ll forget everything.  It all seemed to make such sense face to face.  Hey ho, I just have to accept it’s the work of the rest of my life.

The new edition of the book, hot of the presses. It should make a lot more sense to me now.

Finally, never having watched anything of the Traitors, trailers apart because I thought it was a nasty, hideous concept, bringing out the worst in people, I’ve become addicted to Celebrity Traitors and am binge watching – not a good idea when you’re trying to write a blog at the same time.  Apologies if it doesn’t make any sense.

Addictive….

On the way home from Amble the other week, we were stopped at a motorway service station, having a stretch and a drink – water – while our driver was sorting out a possible scam on her mobile.  I went to chuck something in the nearest rubbish bin and there was a bloke changing the ad in one of those big display doofers.

We fell in to chat.  “I don’t usually look at them,” I said.  “Neither do I,” sez he.  “They’re just trying to get you to spend money.”

Well, I suppose that’s the purpose of most ads and I did notice that recycling wasn’t part of his brief because he just stuffed the two big old posters (it was a two-sided display) in to my rubbish bin.

All new, all singing, all dancing, lovingly unrolled by hand…

We were the first – at this particular service station anyway – to learn that the card ‘tide’, whatever it does, existed and, even better, we discovered that there is such a thing as a ‘Digital Media Technician’.  Who knew that there was such a job?

“It sounds better than it pays,” our man said, a touch mournfully, then he perked up:  “The digital bit’s more fun, like big boys’ Lego.”  He proceeded to point out the big display screen (which we hadn’t noticed) at the entrance to the shops/loos/etc and explained how it could be operated remotely from headquarters if necessary.  Apparently it had been blank earlier and he’d alerted hq, who’d reactivated everything.  There was more technical stuff before he was distracted by Alice and rooted out his phone to show us pictures of his dog – and his father’s dog.

You just never know what you’ll learn if you fall in to chat.

The next time I saw him he was on his way in to the women’s loos, to change the posters in there.  Don’t be alarmed, girls.  He’s only doing his job.  Wonder how many people hear about this option from their school careers adviser…

I forgot to mention that we made the obligatory visit to Barter Books in Alnwick, described somewhere as “the largest and best bookshop in Northumberland”.  I think that does it a disservice, limiting it to one county, surely it’s famous worldwide?  Anyway, you can’t go to Alnwick, which has numerous treasures on offer, without setting foot in BB.  Admittedly, it’s dangerous because you can spend hours there browsing happily, drinking tea/coffee and eating delicious cakes, the time just disappears.  And, of course, I bought something.

Amazingly, it was only one item this time, a virtually pristine copy of Pat Murphy’s lovely, loving book “BBC Sports Report”.  It’s sub-titled “a celebration of the world’s longest-running sports radio programme” and I just had to have it.  It reminded me of happy days in the BBC radio sports department where I was on the fringes (that’s a tale for another time) but got to know lots of the luminaries Pat mentions.  I was in awe of all of them but I learned a lot and remain devoted to radio.

Written by the inimitable, indefatigable Pat Murphy, this is a great book for all sports nuts.

One of the embarrassing things about my time there was that my language was far worse than anybody else’s.  I’ve always blamed this on sharing an office with Davie O, a very talented art editor, a Scot with a penchant for swearing.  My contention was that it was a case of leave or learn and my coping mechanism obviously involved absorbing too many swear words…I’ve spent 40-odd years trying to swear less, with a marked lack of success.

Dave also had the distinction of coming up with my best, most appropriate nickname ever.  Dai, who was meant to be the wordsmith, was so furious that he hadn’t thought of it, that it was the bloody art editor who’d come up with it – sheer genius really – that he refused to use it, otherwise I’d never have been known as anything else.

At the BBC, they thought Patricia too much of a mouthful, which it is, so they wanted something shorter.  Pat was out because I was never called Pat growing up and there were a few of those about anyway, so they settled for Trish, Tricia or some variation thereof.  That came about because when they asked me what they’d called me at my last job, I didn’t have the nerve to tell them, not in my first week.

”They used to call me Muddle…”

Moving swiftly on, there’s just time for a bit of golf and congratulations to Marco Penge on winning the Open de España (presented by Madrid 2025)  at Club de Campo Villa de Madrid.  (I feel obliged to put all the official wording in, so I can use the DP World Tour’s very nice pic of him and his latest trophy.)  It was his third victory of the season – he managed to hold off Dan Brown with a birdie at the first extra hole – and qualified him automatically for the Masters and the Open even before his new world ranking took him well inside the top 50.  I hope he takes time to absorb the names that he’s joined on the roll of honour:  Arnie, Seve, Max Faulkner, Nick Faldo (before he was knighted), the Peters Thomson and Alliss, to name but a few.  The Spanish Open has a long and distinguished history.

Who wouldn’t look happy after joining some of the greats. [Stuart Franklin/Getty Images]

Alice digging madly. The unusual colouring is purely a trick of the light…