For Pete’s Sake

Pete the Postman looked a bit weary as he stood on the doorstep delivering yet another package ordered in the pre-Christmas frenzy.  It was a wet morning – again – and he’d had to slalom his way to the door through the builders’ vans and paraphernalia that cluttered my drive but he was doing his best to take the long view and remain unfrazzled by the razzle-dazzle.

It’s a hectic time of year for most of us but especially for posties and Pete took the time to explain that he was deliberately trying to slow himself down a bit, take his time, concentrate on his breathing, keep calm and carry on delivering.  He’d be keeping his heart rate down, giving added meaning to the phrase poste restante…

Good thinking, Pete, my sentiments exactly.  It’s so easy to get caught up in the rush, rush, rush, swirling around in a panic, driving yourself dizzy and forgetting to breathe.  Just before our chat I’d been thinking about that very subject and had picked out another couple of words that fitted the bill, from Susie Dent’s book Roots of Happiness.

The first was “seijaku” (pronounced say-yak-u), a Japanese word which evokes serenity and stillness, describing “a moment of healing that can be found, particularly in nature, when we stop and breathe for a little while”.  Luckily for Pete, a lot of his route is close to Beacon Park, voted one of the best small parks in England.

The next word is “gongoozler” and probably wouldn’t help Pete on his rounds but would be ok for days off, not least because they’re often when we rush around the most.  Susie says that “gongoozlers like nothing better than sitting and watching other people being busy on a canal or a river.  Their name is probably based upon an old British word ‘gawn’, meaning to ‘stare lazily at something’…”

Oops.  Guilty as charged; there I was, staring dreamily at nothing in particular.  At this rate, I’ll still be up in time to dot between the Ashes from Brisbane and the Australian Open golf from Royal Melbourne.

Now, all of you golfers and golf fans out there, answer me this:  how on earth do you keep up with everything, with all the podcasts and stuff?  I’m overwhelmed simply by reading one newsletter, The Quadrilateral by Geoff Shackleford.  He covers a lot of ground, including some PGA Tour stuff, with Tiger at the heart of it; mentions the Hero World Challenge, featuring Scottie Scheffler back in action; the Nedbank Golf Challenge in South Africa, with Viktor Hovland headlining; and the Aussie Open at Royal Melbourne, the undoubted star of the show despite the stellar presence of Rory McIlroy.  What a golf course.

Geoff describes it as “majestic” and says, “It offers the best reminder of what pro golf at its best looks like…”  He and Lawrence Donegan, a man of myriad talents who was once golf correspondent of The Guardian (and whose son Niall Shiels Donegan, born in Glasgow, raised in California, played for GB and I in the Walker Cup at Cypress Point earlier this year), have a podcast on the subject:  McKellar Golf Podcast 141 The Royal Melbourne Edition.

It’s on my list to listen to – only one hour 16 mins of my life – and I’m sure I’ve said this before:  if you have a chance to play Melbourne’s Sandbelt courses, don’t hesitate:  it’s golfing heaven.  Royal Melbourne has the East and West (the Open is on a composite of the two) but Kingston Heath shouldn’t be missed and there’s Victoria (Peter Thomson, who won The Open five times, was a member), Yarra Yarra, The Metropolitan, Commonwealth, Huntingdale….Bliss.

No wonder the Australians have always been good at golf.

A point to note is that Rory had a 72 in tricky, windy conditions and Eddie Pepperell, The Chipping Forecast’s touring pro, whose approach to the game could fairly be described as idiosyncratic, had a 68.  Try and make space to listen to him talk about his preparations…The man’s a marvel.

For some reason that made me think of Constitution Hill, a very good horse, a former champion hurdler no less, who is obviously having some sort of crisis of confidence.  He won his first ten races but has now fallen three times in four races, including his latest, at Newcastle.  Seemingly in the best of nick, looking terrific at home, he fell at the second.  Shock, horror all round.  Horse and jockey were fine but Constitution Hill’s connections were beyond baffled.

So, just how do you read a horse’s mind?  Understanding a Pepperell, for instance, is tricky enough but at least he is articulate and can put his thought processes – or some of them – in to words.  Presumably Constitution Hill was happy to go to the race course, to go to the start and set off, tackling jumps that were well within his compass until he decided that they weren’t.  He didn’t do a sainted Alice and flat out refuse to budge if he didn’t fancy something, he just made a complete bog of something that used to be second nature.

Time to retire.

[We’ll leave Captain Smith of Titanic fame, staring thoughtfully at the spires of Lichfield Cathedral, to ponder the conundrum.]