Road To Hell Part…..3000?

Early to bed, early to rise makes a man (or woman or anybody) healthy, wealthy and wise….Ah well, that explains a lot.  I really, really wanted to get to bed in good time this blog night because I’m off to the cricket in the morning, the first day of the third test between England and the West Indies, at Edgbaston.  And I have to make the cheese and pickle sarnies and get up early enough to get to the station in time to buy the train ticket.

Instead, yet again, those good intentions are paving my potholed road to hell and I find myself writing this while a particularly gruesome episode of Silent Witness is playing on the telly.  The golf had moved on to the Senior Open highlights from Carnoustie and I’d seen some of that earlier; it was good to see Woosie, Olly and other familiar faces still swinging away, unable to resist the siren call of the fairways.

Paul Broadhurst, from just up the road in Atherstone, appeared to be having trouble walking let alone swinging and was using a walking aid (more like one of those things from a hospital than a walking stick) between shots.  Somehow he managed to come home in 31, 5 under par, to share second place, a shot behind Stephen Ames.  Broadie birdied the 17th and 18th – at Carnoustie, for goodness sake.

By contrast, Lionel Alexandre, of France, who had shared the lead briefly, had a triple bogey 7 at the last, perhaps the most notorious hole in the history of French golf.  For those who don’t know, Jean van de Velde, the Frenchman for ever associated with Carnoustie’s infamous 18th, is playing this week and started with a respectable round of 75, 3 over par.  He parred the last.

Years ago, when the Open, the big one, was at Carnoustie, there was a wonderful aerial picture of the last four holes, with the Barry Burn looping its way here and there.  I looked and looked and looked but try as I might I could see no straightforward way of playing the holes.  It is possible – people have managed it quite a few times, as their scorecards prove – but no matter how good you are it is not a comfortable finish, in fact it’s one of the most nerve-wracking, if not the most nerve-wracking in golf.  And that’s when the weather’s at its most benign.

Earlier in the week, three of European golf’s most recognisable and enduring names were given honorary life membership of the DP World Tour, numbers 60, 61 and 62 in that elevated category.  Thomas Bjorn, Miguel Angel Jimenez and Paul McGinley were presented with their precious cards by Guy Kinnings, the tour’s chief executive, in recognition of all their efforts on and off the course.

“These three players have given everything to the tour and have shaped the tour with both their play and their personalities,” he said.  “They have given so much, whether that be through service on committees or as board members or through their service to the Ryder Cup as players, vice captains and captains.  It is all of this together which makes everyone recognise these three individuals as such huge figures…I am delighted for them.”

They’ve put in a lot of hard work and had a lot of fun and we’ve had a lot of fun being on the journey with them, marvelling at their triumphs, sympathising with their stumbles, admiring their determination and longevity and, especially in McGinley’s case, their loquaciousness – and thank goodness for sportspeople who are happy to talk.

Jimenez, he of the creative stretching exercises and large cigars, summed it up when he said, “Golf has given me everything in life and I’m very proud to be part of this world.  This is not a job for me, it’s a way of life.”

Gracias a todos.

We’ve got the multi-coloured March Of The Elephants in Lichfield at the moment, with a whole herd of beautifully decorated beasts dotted all over the city.  It’s to celebrate forty years of  St Giles Hospice, which is based in Whittington (and Sutton Coldfield) and this is one of my favourites, sponsored by Manor Farm Fruits of Hints, which reminds me that it’s time to go and pick my own.

And here’s another beauty, made up of many different animals: there’s a zebra leg, a tiger leg, a butterfly ear…what can you spot?

Finally, a very special offer, never to be repeated (by this blog at least) for anybody who might be visiting Barry Island, perhaps for the Gavin and Stacey TV location tour?   It’s a big thing now, you know, because the series has made Barry famous throughout the world, even though the place, not too far from Cardiff, has been around for a bit.  According to wikipedia, it is named after the 6th century saint Baruc and “its stretch of coast, on the Bristol Channel, has the world’s second highest tidal range of 15 metres, second only to the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, Atlantic Canada”.

There’s lush.  (Or not.  Usage here probably dubious.)

Anyway, not so lush, if you’re trying to pay for your parking with what you think is a ten pence piece, is a token from Barry Island Promenade’s Fun Park.  I have four of them to give away, courtesy of the friend who has never been to Barry and acquired them she knows not how or where.  They have, as she discovered, no cash value outside the confines of a very small piece of the Vale of Glamorgan.