It was off to Northumberland last week, to Amble, three intrepid women and one laidback lab in a van, in the pouring rain, heading up to meet Storm Amy.  It wasn’t a particularly pleasant drive but Chris is the Mrs Kipling of motorists – an exceedingly good driver – so we were in the best of hands and arrived at our destination without alarms (that was to come later!).

Posing before the off:  Chris in her orange waterproof and Sue and Alice lurking in the background (the dog bed is behind Chris).

The packing was a bit of a masterclass, given that we hadn’t gone for the minimalist option, with waterproofs, woollies, boots of various sorts, even umbrellas and folding chairs for the beach included, along with numerous tins of dog food and some adult beverages.  I even stuffed in my dressing gown – and made sure I wore it a few times.

Probably the most important item I took was the shirt I intended to wear on the Saturday afternoon for the Leeds versus Tottenham game at Elland Road.  It’s no great fashion statement but it is devoid of the Nike swoosh (they’re our current shirt sponsors, who are still feeling no pain despite my long-time boycott of their products), so I felt able to spend the dosh and use my season ticket holder’s £15 off voucher.  It’s not a great fit because most of the stuff is designed for men and not for people whose curves tend to be in different places but you can’t always have everything you desire – especially when it comes to football.

Yes, I did wear it while watching the match – in a Newcastle United pub where the punters were disinterestedly neutral.

There was a big screen showing the footie but there wasn’t a seat available, so I went round the corner of the room to watch on a smaller screen and pace anxiously, especially towards the end when we were leading 2-1.  I was so engrossed in the game that I failed to notice the rather unusual decor – until Sue and Alice came in and pointed it out…

Once seen never forgotten.

We had to share the pic with friends and the cracks came pouring in thick and fast:  Do they sell the drinks in cups?  Do they have a brasserie too?  Suppose the theme is support your local?

You get the drift.  Bra-vo.  And no, we did not have to contribute to the display to get served.

Probably the jazziest number on display – must have been when Bournemouth were up. Their nickname is The Cherries…

It was very windy and lashing with rain in Leeds and I didn’t recognise our manager Thomas Frank because his trademark hairstyle – longish, a bit of a bouffant – was plastered to his head.  “Who’s that bloke on the touchline?”  I thought.  “Has Thomas been sent off or something?”  No, he hadn’t.  His curls had just lost their bounce – but fortunately the team hadn’t.  The cynics say that Leeds, as one of the promoted teams, should be easy meat but that’s arrant nonsense and they hadn’t lost at home for a year.  Thomas, dripping wet but ecstatic, called it “A massive win.”  COYS (Come On You Spurs).

We were lucky in Amble because the rain held off but it was blowing a hooley and on Sunday the market was less crowded than usual because the weather had put people off.  We enjoyed ourselves at the shoe counter, trying on boots, slippers, anything and everything – and were told we were welcome back any time…

So, plenty of soles but sadly, no sole or any other fish.

At the beginning of the week we headed off to Brancepeth, near Durham, to have lunch with Allee, a cousin of Len, Chris’s late husband.  She was a delight, entertaining us with tales of her teaching career (maths) and giving us a tour of her wonderful garden before giving us a tour of the area on the way to eat at a place that could have featured on the Antiques Road Trip.

Sue (left), Allee, Chris and Alice doing the obligatory posing. Many thanks all.

It was packed with treasures – and junk – and as we wound our way past cabinets and china and knick-knacks of all sorts, warning Alice to keep her very waggy tail still and not break anything, the cheerful woman in charge said, “Don’t worry, just make sure it’s expensive!”

After soup, sarnies, scones, whatever, we piled in to the van – and it wouldn’t budge.  It’s fitted with some sort of immobiliser thingy and there were various flashing lights as it refused to accept Chris’s code.  She did the usual stuff:  switching off the ignition, counting to 10, 20, 100, taking deep breaths, scouring the handbook but nothing worked.  As she rang her van man, Allee contacted a former pupil, who made our hearts sink:  “Oh no,” he said, “I wouldn’t touch those alarms with a barge pole; they’re a disaster…”  Or words to that effect.

Chris’s man, who’d installed the thing, was a little more reassuring and after leaving well alone for several minutes longer than we had before, the van started.  Phew.  We couldn’t take the risk of stopping again, so Sue and I, in the back with Alice, agreed that we’d have to abort a visit to Brancepeth Castle GC, just across the road from Allee’s, to find Mo’s name on the honours board.  In 1980, she’d beaten Pam Wright, of Aboyne, in a play-off to win the British Women’s Stroke Play (more correctly, I think, the Ladies’ British Open Amateur Stroke Play Championship).

The championship no longer exists and I have to report that there’s no sign of it in the clubhouse either.  Chris and Allee insisted on driving to the club and as they waited with the engine running, I scurried in to scan the boards.  Any number of comps were there up on the walls but no sign of the British – or any other non-club competition, no matter how distinguished.  The women there looked puzzled but they pointed out the oldest member, who’d joined in 1963 and remembered the occasion well:  “I had the devil’s own job to persuade them to have it,” she said…

Ah.  Sounds only too familiar.

One of Brancepeth’s many lovely honours boards but of Mo and Pam (who went on to play in the Solheim Cup), there is no sign…

Not all of you will have heard of Tayto crisps, although they are often cited as the best in the world.  Perhaps they are, perhaps they aren’t but if you buy a packet at Belfast International Airport, aka Aldergrove, it’ll be about 20 pence a crisp (by my reckoning, imprecise perhaps but not too far off).  Mind you, they went well with the pint of Guinness, to celebrate a successful visit to the old country and getting to the airport in plenty of time to relax before the flight back to Birmingham.

The highland cow is just there to add a bit of colour.

And Tayto, as befits one of Ireland’s iconic brands, boasts its own castle (apparently).  What’s not to like?

Nothing but the best ingredients.

A friend from school, who had emigrated to Australia with her family at the age of 17, was back on this side of the world doing a bit of a grand tour that took in England, Scotland, Iceland, Ireland and Germany (to name but a few), so one of her best mates organised a wee bit of a reunion at her home in Ballymoney.  The common denominator was that we all went to Coleraine High School (now defunct) and grew up in Portstewart.

Dai and I had spent time with Tricia at her home in Perth – golf will take you anywhere – and her husband Brian, who sadly died far too young, tried to teach me how to do the back crawl in their kitchen….He was, among other things, a swimming coach and I returned home to make laboured but technically correct progress in the slow lane at Wyndley Leisure Centre in Sutton Coldfield.

For one or two of us, it was a bit “This is your Life”-ish – you haven’t seen each other for 50 years – but the chat was non stop and the stories and the laughter and some tears flowed.  Wherever we’d ended up, there was nothing dull or boring about it and I headed home thinking:  “Wow, wow, wow.  What an amazing bunch of women.”

I’d put a picture in here – I even managed a half-decent selfie (at the second attempt) with everybody smiling and looking in the right direction – but I haven’t checked that all the members of the group are ok with appearing in the blog, so I’ll make do with the bread of heaven.

An exile’s dream: Veda, wheaten, soda farls and potato bread. Delicious.

Travelling with hand baggage only, I obsessed over every centimetre and was worried that my bakery items – and a bottle of Coleraine whiskey, purchased at the airport – would be relegated to the hold at great expense.  Fortunately, nobody paid a blind bit of notice to the Waitrose bag for life that contained the goodies and my raincoat – miraculously unused – and I reckon my luggage was some of the lightest on board.

Itsy-bitsy bags, a bit of a triumph for me….

The security queues at Aldergrove on the way back to Brum were a breeze (almost non-existent) but I was still making a mental note to avoid airports from now on if at all possible.

On the way out, I left home at 0550 for my 0835 flight, hand baggage only, checked in on line.  Train at 0613 from Lichfield City to Birmingham New Street, 0706 t0 Birmingham International (right by the airport); at security by 0720-ish but my heart sank when I saw the length of the queue – as far as the eye could see.  I should have paid however much it was to be fast-tracked (no queue).  To compound everything I went to the wrong gate – Belfast City, not Belfast International.  Bugger.  Back the way I’d come, with the board saying it was one minute before the gate closed.  Aaagh.

No sweat after all.  There was another queue but it wasn’t moving.  Phew.

Note to self:  If you ever have to fly again, make sure it’s a latish flight or stay at the airport; don’t rely on public transport or traffic letting you get to the plane on time.

This week has been a bit less manic than last week – unless you’re in New York preparing for the Ryder Cup.  It all kicks off today (Friday) with the first set of foursomes, perhaps my favourite form of the game.  It suits my lazy nature and if you hit a rubbish shot in to the boondocks, it’s your partner who has to work out how to extricate you.  Similarly, if you charge a putt way past the hole, you’re not the one who has to rattle in the return.  Who’d want to play with a selfish git like me, you ask!

Some people hate foursomes because it’s sometimes hard to get in to a rhythm when you’re only playing every other shot; or they are so busy worrying that they’ll let their partner down that they forget to play their own game.  If one person (or pair) is playing poorly, it’s very hard to stay in the match, so some foursomes scores can be eye-watering  – like Scottie Scheffler and Brooks Koepka being beaten 9 and 7 by Viktor Hovland and Ludvig Aberg in Rome two years ago.  Who saw that coming?

Worryingly, it’ll make Scheffler, now the runaway world No 1, even more dangerous this week, determined to erase the pain and humiliation.  It was a record defeat and you don’t forget those.

Most people think that it’s now virtually impossible to win away from home, with home crowds becoming ever more raucous and partisan and New York fans are not renowned for their decorum.

Still, I’ve got it down as a draw/tie/halved match:  14 points all.

That means Europe retain.

Play away please.

Alice is too timid and amenable to be a good match player – she’d be happy to let the opposition run away with the ball – but you’d always want her on your side.

This is unprecedented.  It’s the weekend (whatever that is) and I’m writing the blog several days in advance; it’s unheard of and who knows if it’ll work or not.  There’s no reason why it shouldn’t because it’s not really driven by the news agenda (whatever that means).

Well, that didn’t work so well.  There was so much sport on the telly on Saturday and Sunday and a birthday lunch with friends that it’s already Monday and barely a paragraph done!

Fortunately, because of the dire weather forecast, we decided to abort a trip to Edgbaston to watch the first day of the county game against Essex.  It proved to be a wise decision.  The torrential rain* held off but it was blowing a hooley and at the time of writing (mid-afternoon), not a ball had been bowled.  It was so windy that it was dangerous and I, not the smallest or lightest of people, had trouble making any progress at all fighting my way into the breeze on my way home from the shops.

Anyway, best intentions notwithstanding, here we are as usual on a Thursday night finishing the blog.  So much for early release…

On Tuesday, it was our ladies’ captain’s day at Whittington and we had a shotgun start at half past nine, preceded by a group photo on the clubhouse steps.  We played our course as per the card of the Old Course at St Andrews – to the confusion of many but it was good fun.  We started at our 8th, a par 4 of some length and failed to score a point between the three of us because the 8th at St Andrews is a par 3 called “Short”.  To balance it up, our 13th is a par 3 and the 13th on the Old Course is a par 5, so my three was an eagle and my partners’ fours were birdies….You get the picture?

A very big card for a very big day.

We worked it out eventually…

Thankfully the wind had died down and I don’t think it rained at all – weariness and brain fog are setting in; I nearly nodded off towards the end of Black Sabbath The Ballet yesterday afternoon and that’s not a particularly quiet gig.

The seat was high up in the gods but we still had a decent view.

Rachel, our captain, had organised a posh afternoon tea but I excused myself because Spurs – you knew they had to get a mention – were playing their first Champions League game, against Villarreal, a match not to be missed.  Last season, the Europa League tickets were £30-odd but this one was £96 – adult, junior, senior, all the same.  Blimey.  No wonder the stadium wasn’t quite full – there certainly didn’t seem to be any Villareal fans to speak of.

I nearly didn’t get there either.  The drive to Birmingham International station, which is by the airport and the NEC, went smoothly enough despite the never-ending roadworks (of the mega, years-long variety) until I reached the junction.  Familiar though it is, it’s almost obscured by cones, barriers, traffic paraphernalia of every variety, all under the guise of “improving the junction”!!!

And there’s been a recent tweak, a new fork that completely threw me; instead of heading up to a roundabout, there’s now a choice of left or right and, true to form, I got my 50-50 chance wrong and fell in to the maze that is the NEC.  Fortunately, I had no particular train in mind, let alone a flight, so had time to chat to the man at the ticket desk and he was kind enough to say that he and his colleagues had taken several days to work it all out.

I dozed most of the way down to Euston and took time to stretch myself out and wait for the carriage to empty.  On the way out I noticed a phone – black, so not easy to spot – on a seat.  Oops.  There was one other passenger left but it wasn’t his and there were no train staff to hand it over to.  Walking down the platform I kept expecting to see a panic-stricken bod legging it back to the carriage but no one came.

Then I noticed the phone number stuck on the back of the phone.  It was a London number, so I rang it:  “You are through to the Cabinet Office….” it tells me….Blimey.  For some reason that cheered me up no end – I just had to laugh.  A very pleasant-sounding guy answered quite quickly and was grateful for my call.  When I said I couldn’t hang around because I was going to a football match, he said somebody would collect the phone from the lost property office.

Finding said office was a bit of a faff because it’s tucked away and bills itself as “Left Luggage”  first and foremost.  Bear that in mind on your travels.  And, if you ever need to get hold of the Cabinet Office, the number is 020 7276 2222.

We won the footie 1-nil, with an own goal in the fourth minute, a shot that their goalie helped on its way in to the net.  Not a classic but any win will do.

The light show before the game.  I wasn’t in my usual seat, so a different view.

*I wanted to use the phrase “mooted monsoon” here because I liked the ring of it but, as so often with my smarty-pants phrases, it had to be binned because it made no sense whatsoever.  Thank goodness for the dictionary.

Most of you know that I’ve long thought that professional sports people are a bit (probably a lot) bonkers.  And there’s absolutely no doubt that fans, football fans in particular, are beyond loopy, beyond help and way beyond the understanding of their friends who are flummoxed, baffled, bewildered by the game’s appeal.

How on earth do you explain the devotion of people (71 of them apparently) who travel to Tamworth on a Tuesday night to watch Truro City lose 2-nil?  Now, perhaps not all of them still live in Cornwall and all of us football fans, at whatever level, always travel in hope, no matter what the expectation.

Sometimes you have to be lucky to find a seat.

Spurs, for instance, are at Manchester City on Saturday and I wasn’t too happy that one of our younger players mentioned our 4-nil win there last season.  It was a ridiculous result and I really don’t think it’s a good idea to remind City, who looked ominously good last week, of it.   Admittedly, they won’t have forgotten it anyway but no need to poke the bear…

That’s the ingrained Spurs pessimism coming to the surface, not helped by the news that one of the men we really wanted to sign – thought we had signed – is now going somewhere else; and not just any old somewhere else but to Arsenal, our most deadly rivals; yuk, yuk, yuk.  Money talks, of course and they do seem to have offered a lot more than we were willing – or able – to.  Even worse, two of our best, most creative players are injured and will probably miss most of the season…Is that me getting my excuses in early?

Talking of money, how on earth do National League teams like Truro (aka The Tinners, newly promoted and favourites to go straight back down) and Tamworth afford it all?  The travel alone must be expensive and what are the medical expenses like?  Do the players get immediate MRI scans for instance – or do they have to go on the waiting list?  Who knows!

Talking of journeys, Truro’s first match last weekend was at home and at least they have the satisfaction of knowing that all their opponents will have to make substantial travel plans.  Their first visitors were York:  613 kilometres/382 miles.  They had a good trek home because they won 2-nil, with two very late goals; it’s a cruel game, especially when you’re the designated underdogs.

Tamworth-supporting friends of mine, who’ve already been down to Southend, are pondering the best way to the far south west for the Truro return fixture in January.  Do they drive; do they fly; do they  stay at home?  We all know that’s not an option because we all know that they’re all bonkers!

Sorry guys, that’s indisputable.

It took me for ever to get to Spurs last Saturday because the train only went to Milton Keynes and I had to change at Rugby and chug along from there to Euston stopping more than now and again.  Fortunately, I think it was a one-off, perhaps a two-off; if not, it’ll be a long old season.  And then there’s Euston…abominable mostly and mostly unavoidable.

Spurs better play a damned sight better at home this season than they did last!

Wonder if our new manager Thomas Frank can do as well as Bill Nicholson (the man on the screen) and win us a few trophies?  As you can see from the cars, Bill’s heyday was a while ago.

We managed to beat Burnley 3-nil, with Richarlison, our moody Brazilian, scoring twice, including a worldie that will be goal of the season for at least a week, possibly even a couple of months. It’s a bit unfair to call Richarlison moody – he’s had more serious problems than that and we probably don’t cut our stars enough slack, failing to appreciate how young a lot of them are when they set off, thousands of miles from home, in pursuit of fame and fortune, at an age when many of us would have been hard pushed to get the bus home.

Unusually, perhaps uniquely, it’s been a successful few days for both Spurs and me.  We were probably expected to beat Burnley, so it was good to do so but I wasn’t expected to win on the golf course.  However, on Tuesday, in the Guernsey Jugs (don’t ask me to explain the rules, they’re a tad complicated), I did a Mrs Beaton – I had the best ingredients, i.e. partners – and, lo, the result was a triumph.  They were ace and we came first and second – don’t ask, it would take more than an essay to explain.

It was breezy, sometimes muggy and just when I thought I’d take my jacket off, it got a bit chilly – one of those days that doesn’t quite know what to do with itself.  What’s more the greens had been hollow tined and, although I didn’t hole lots of putts, I always feel I’m at my best on dodgy greens – they suit my dodgy putting stroke. I once beat Dai 7 and 6 on greens that had been sanded…It was in France and I got one of the green fees refunded because the course wasn’t really in a fit state.  Happy days.

No, not a space machine, not a nuclear bunker, it’s WHGC’s very own HS2 tunnel…We’re waiting for Banksy to come and work his magic.

Finally, because it’s been a while, a pic of the three spires.