The great Golf Debacle

Being not very good at golf, it is with some trepidation that one faces the prospect of a golf afternoon with old colleagues, some of whom can really play and probably with a low handicap number. When I am asked 'what is your handicap' I reply my handicap is that I can't play very well. I can hit the ball straight and true on the driving range for 150 metres, and once (only once) to the 200 mark. That was probably because the ground was cold and the ball kept bouncing and running on after landing at 150. Getting balls out of bunkers and chipping onto the green all works when you are just practicing. Get to the first tee and it all unravels and can end up in tears.


Pieter heads off to the first green, and treats us all to
a golf fashion-statement.



However, some of the said colleagues had never hit a ball before. Can you play golf? No, I've never played before so I can't play golf. Thats alright then. One less chance to be embarrassed. Or not. Some people can do things the first time. My father played the saxophone in the works band. There were too many saxophone players, so they asked him if he could play the violin. "I don't know. I've never tried. Maybe." A positive attitude. A few years ago, while I still worked at Otra, Maarten organised a golf afternoon. Maarten is a long thin person with very long clubs. He winds himself up like a clock spring and then there is a swishing, whirring sound, that soft contact that denotes the perfect strike, and the ball goes up at 45 degrees. And keeps on going. It does not fall, but just hangs in the air getting smaller and smaller. By the time it starts to fall, it is usually out of sight.


Nice follow through, good feet and hip position.
But where's the ball? Ed will be dissappointed when he looks down.



On that first Otra golf afternoon, I had just got the GVB and was full of myself, explaining to the noobies how to hold the club. Mark Adolfs was a keen student. I showed him how to put the ball over the 100 meters mark. Like this?" he said as the ball went straight and true, much further than mine on the driving range. "Was that O.K, or should it be more like this?". Another ball straight and true even further then the first. "Or perhaps thus". Another ball straight and true and about as far as I have ever hit one. "Dont worry Mark. You'll get the hang of it". In the actual round. Mark beat me by about 7 strokes. Mark was now playing only the second 9 holes in his life, but I had had a bit of practise and at least 10 rounds in the years between. Tennis players seem to be able to do anything. Mark and Ed are both good tennis players and like Mark, Ed seemed to have a natural feel for the game. But not for the rules. Putting with a five iron or setting your ball on a tee in the rough for the second shot 'because the grass is a bit long here'.


Somehow we ended up with a group of 3 and another of 5. Maarten's group, behind us at the start, managed to get past somehow and dump people onto ours. It was hard to get this herd moving across the prairies, even with the people behind us bellowing for us to get a move on. Sometimes the ball was putted from just off the green on one side to just off the green on the other side, and then back again to its original position. And then.... Advice was given about the difference between the action of the putter and the driver, and perhaps 10 or 15 is a reasonable score to give up on a hole. I myself started off quite well, with 4's and 5's, and then disaster. They had been mowing the greens and the grass dust had been dumped off the fairway on the edge of the trees. My ball fell into this stuff and sank. I could see it down the long, green tunnel. Play the ball as it lies is the rule. A mighty sweep with the pitching wedge and a green explosion. And nearly broke my hand when the club hit an invisible tree root just in front of the ball. I hacked my way out of this mess for an 8 on a par 3 and my day was ruined. On the next hole, a good approach but my pitch went straight ahead and over the green and far away instead of up in the air and down next to the hole. A bout of temper and a wild whack at the ball and we have another 8 on a par 3. The worst part of the day was on the last hole. My second shot landed 30 cms from the flag. It would be a certain par. The flag was still in the hole because everyone else was off the green or machetting their way out of the jungle. I could not wait to claim my prize and tapped the ball into the hole. Only it didn't go in. Hit the flag pole and rolled out again, it did.


Fashion Correspondent says 'Keep the glove, ditch the jacket'



Despite all the frustrations, a day of fun. Back to the bar and a few beers and a steak. Mark Adolfs beat me again. Again by 7 strokes. Are tennis players any good at snooker? Thanks all. We shall do it again.

Hello again!

Hello all.

Sorry that it has been a while since anything has appeared in this blog, but after the magic of New Zealand we have been stunned and comatose with the anti-climax of it all. And sorry to Young Stef, whom I promised an entry here and a connection in that Facebook Thingy, a devlish device that refuses to yield to my control. I have also been sojourning in Buggeredcomputerland. Bernadet had a new computer for her birthday to replace her string and steam model. All the important data was transferred. As Bernadet has much more important stuff than your humble reporter, space was made for her backup. My computer, not having had serious problems for a while, could manage without backup for a few hours. A short time later windows came up with a blue message 'They never learn, do they. I'm always telling them but do they listen? Do they fuck. Fasten seatbelts.'

Anyhoo, Bernadet is watching a crimi, Merel is with Thijs and Emma is in bed. I can catch you all up on the news. Not much really, just a Major Accident and My New Job.

The Accident involved the loss of the lovely Opel Omega. Coming back from a snooker night along the Provinciaal Weg, a road with soft shoulders 10 cm wide that protect one from the steep banking into water-filled ditches, I thought, what with it being icy and all, you wouldn't want to go upside down into that lot on a freezing cold night like this. At that moment I found myself driving with 2 wheels on the verge. Unfortunately I had the cruise control on, a device that keeps one at a certain speed until either the brakes or the accelerator are touched, not a good idea on an icy road looking down into the ice-filled ditch. As the back of the car broke away, I thought this thing is going to roll and there is a 50/50 chance that I will end up in the ditch upside down.

Since the ditch is deep, but only as wide as the car, the doors and windows would not be much use as escape routes. Only one thing for it, drive as carefully as possible into the ditch to keep the car the right way up. We went along quite merrily over the ice for a while, but eventually the ice gave way and we sank. Although the inside of the car was a mess, getting out was no problem, not even wet feet. And my egress was unimpeded by air bags, all four of which had failed to ignite. Someone stopped and helped me over the roof of the car to the road and called Authority. A car in water triggers a massive reponse. Bring in everything, in case it's needed. Within minutes, an ambulance, two fire-engines, a diving team, several police cars, a breakdown truck with heavy lifting gear and some reporters and cameramen who sit around on dangerous roads listening to the police band. Not my kind of music really. I felt very foolish explaining that I had a small cut on my finger and my hands were cold because I had forgotten to rescue my gloves. There were all kinds of flashing lights and luminous cones and barriers being set out. The police were needed to divert traffic around all the police cars. Our car was in reasonable shape, the lights still worked, and I thought I had done rather well setting it down. Wizzard prang, old chap. I explained to the police how valiantly I had fought to get the car into the ditch. They nodded wisely and asked me to blow into a bag, and seemed disappointed that it stayed green. We said goodbye to the diving team, the ambulance men, the firemen and half the police, together with the reporters and cameramen who had wasted their time, possibly missing a proper mangling going on somewhere else. The break down crew said that they could not get straps around the wheels because the ditch was too narrow. They would have to lift it up by the caravan hook. As the car was lifted at the back , the front went deep into the water and flooded the interior. The car came free and we all cheered as the lights were still going, although I feared for the engine. They had to lower the car onto the road so that it could be lifted onto the flat bed of the truck. This process involved dropping the car onto its nose from an unreasonable height. The lights stopped working, probably because they had now fallen out, along with half the radiator and the air filter. "It's a write-off " declared a policeman. "When a vehicle takes a hit at the front, we have to declare it a write-off because the chassis may be damaged". Did this frontal damage include taking a nose-dive while being rescued? The upshot of it was, I could let the car be taken over ''as seen" by the break-down company and the 'rescue' would be free, otherwise I would be faced with paying the humungous cost of the rescue and still have to pay them again to take the car home, as a write-off is not allowed to be taken anywhere except by a proper break-down service vehicle. Like one of ours, sir. And then to try to sell off the bits and pieces in our equivalent of Exchange and Mart and hope to make more than the enormous cost. A good radio, five new tires, a new battery. And yesterday it was worth five or six grand. And I could trade it in and get away scot-free. I agreed that it was a splendid deal, and felt the tightness around my balls relax. Er, which way is the station?

And of course, imortalized on the internet http://www.webregio.tv/11759912

The day after.


Anyhoo, lets not get depressed. The walking's good for us.

Here are some pics while doing some of that walking, for Heiloo lovers abroad.

May 2008 - Cast upon the waters.

As Rob said in his speech, Pete can roam wherever he likes and there will always be plenty to drink. My gratitude to Rob, Liz, Hilde and Andrew for thier hospitality. And to Hans, Josine, Peter and Kevin for the photos and the splendid company. If any of you are in Holland we shall ensure that you feel as much at home with us.










There he goes! Pete is off to the seaside.

May 2008 - Pete's final resting place.

It has been about 8 months since Pete was cremated, since which time he has presided over a shelf in Rob's garage. Awaiting a time when enough of his old friends could or would come over to spread his ashes. For those of us who knew Pete over the last 30 years, it was with mixed feelings that we remembered him. A great friend to all, the life and soul of the pub, his party went on long after everone else had gone home. The drugs and the drink got to him and his later years were chaotic and sad. But the old Pete was still there. Even in his last days it was said that he would try to get to the pub in his wheelchair, trailing pipes and beeping equipment, and was up to a fight with anyone he took a dislike to who came within reach of his wheels. He was glad he only had cancer, because all the other people in the hospice had diseases that they could not pronounce. So off to Ireland, to the stately home of Rob and Liz, with a lawn the size of a small county, accompanied by Hilde. There, to my great joy, was the gregarious Kevin Beggin, a man who warms a room as he enters it, to entertain us with hilarious stories of the past, when we were all (in my case reasonably) young and in Amsterdam in the seventies. I did not know that Pete would be cast upon the waters of the river Sure, so my little prepared sonnet was typically not topical. I had assumed that he would be blowing in the wind from a small mountain. But since we were close to Limerick, the form of the poem is appropriate.

Some seven months after the burn,
It was asked 'What's to do with his urn?'
We'll have a fine wake,
If someone brings a rake,
Up a hill, spread him out, then return.