Thankful Thursday

I've been a bit tardy recently in the Thankful Thursday posts.  I've got all sorts of excuses.  I've not had anything to be thankful for (completely untrue).  I've been away (true).  I've been doing lots of other things (true).  I've forgotten on the day or been travelling (true).  One or two things have happened to friends around me which temporarily made it a bit difficult to be thankful all the time (true).  I'm sorry Jaz.  I should have more faith and perseverance.

Anyway I've decided that it's about time I pulled my socks up and got on with it.  Why is it, by the way, that when people one knows are having a Bad Time it makes one feel a little guilty for being thankful?

Warning! 

It's a while since I mentioned croquet.  I think at some time I probably said that I would give it a rest before I became even more boring than I am already.  Well, for reasons you will appreciate before I leave for Scotland next Tuesday, I'm going to do a review of my croquet year for which I am exceptionally thankful. 

Enough!  You don't really need to read the rest of this: it's here for the 'diary' aspect of my blog.

 I didn't win the Golf  Croquet Club Championship this year.  My GC partner, Judy, (we won the GC Doubles together) did.  Today.  I was far more nervous for her than I was when she and I played in the semi-final and she beat me making it, I think, the first time I've not been in the final for, I think, six years just after I started playing croquet.  I played well and she played better and beat me fair and square.  Today she beat the Club's pretender for the Championship.  No, she annihilated him in the second game (best of 3): 7:6, 7:2.    We (Judy and her granddaughter, Zoe, whom I used to coach) went out for lunch to celebrate.

So this year I've not won any of the three GC club championships.  However I have won the Association Croquet (the 'original' and 'thinking' croquet) A Grade and the Intermediate Grade Champs.  However I let my partner down and we were only runners up in the AC Doubles.

In the greater scheme of things amongst the goings on in this world of ours all this is very shallow.  However today I am very thankful for my successes this year.  It may never happen again and I shall return to Scotland with the rather shallow thought that my name is etched in gold on the hallowed A Grade championship board at the Marewa Croquet Club.

Sort of Success and Sore Ribs

Sometimes good sense leaves me and I go just that little bit too far and I know that I'm by no means alone in that.  Anyway since my last post I've spent almost no time in Blogland but I've had a guest and I've been playing in an Association Croquet Tournament I'd agreed to play in ages ago.  It's a local area one and being held, conveniently for me, at the club I play at.  

This is where being sensible and I parted company.  Sensible would have felt his sore and crackling ribs and pulled out.  Me?  I played.  I've discovered something when it comes to cracked ribs.  In order of pain the following things are to be avoided: sneezing, coughing, hiccuping or burping,  playing long croquet roll shots and then laughing.  It goes without saying that turning over in bed (assuming the analgesics and brandy deaden things enough for you to get to sleep in the first place which, for the record, they did for me) will cause you to wake (and possibly wake everyone else as well).  

So after two days undefeated I played in the final and lost to the better player 17:13.   They were very enjoyable days.  They were very sore days and Sensible eventually managed to persuade me to pull out of the event being played today and tomorrow.  Another 16+ hours would have been a step too far.  So today and tomorrow I shall be catching up with things in general and Blogland in particular.   It's a shame in some ways because it's 35℃ as on the deck with a slightly cooler breeze as I type this and I'd love to be on the lawns.  Mais, c'est la vie.

So hopefully before this afternoon is over I shall have a few more photographs from Australia with which to regale you.

The Riotous Oldies

It’s 1030 pm.  This, you understand is New Zealand 10.30 pm.  All self respecting 60+s are in bed and asleep.  I’m in a motel unit with three croquet ladies.  The next but one unit is occupied by another 4 croquet ladies.  This is the Veterans Tournament so all are over 60 and anyone in their 60s is probably on the young side.  But these are fit people able to play for 8 and 9 hours a day on their feet concentrating and walking many many kilometres during the day.

And in the evening they ‘relax’.  A small libation may be taken…..many times. A large libation or two as well perhaps.

So picture the scene.  A group of six or so an hour after everyone’s usual bedtime sitting in a unit making enough noise to keep the rest of the smart motel awake.  Croquet person turns up from another motel.  It’s his first ever croquet tournament tomorrow.  He’s forgotten his handicap card (golfers will understand). He’s come to see what he should do.  As if anyone can sort the problem at this hour of the evening.  But... he’s taken a sleeping tablet and is half asleep already.  It’s decided that he should be taken back to his motel.  He’s a teetotal, good-living retired methodist minister and he’s being shepherded down the hight street by an extremely ‘happy’ gang of veteran ladies (some in their night attire). 

Who says the over-sixties are dull.

Oh and by the way I retained my Veteran's  Association Croquet Handicap Singles title.  So I'm happy too.

Palmerston Clubs A C Tournament

I don't usually post specifically about a tournament.  Bearing in mind the way this tournament went and that this blog is partly a sort of diary and there are a few interesting bits (including one for Adrian) I've decided to give it a post of its own.

The Palmerston Clubs tournament is one of the most enjoyable of the many I play in each year and one at which I have always had a memorable and enjoyable time.  The other thing about it is that there has always been a huge variation in the weather over the six days.  We played in the sun and high 20s and in Feilding (see the article and photo below) in the teens and pouring rain.  In the very last game of the tournament for me at Takaro (which was also my best game) we also played in torrential rain and strong wind where I was so desperate not to lose my concentration (it is well known that I would not insult a gnat by claiming to have its attention span) that I played on and was soaked right through to the skin at the end of the game.

I should add that we are not wimps in the croquet world and only stop tournament play when the lawns become unplayable which generally means that they have to be under water.

In short I played the best association croquet I have ever played.  It's still not first class play but for my handicap level it was very satisfying and I managed to be the runner up in the two singles events in which I played and reduced my AC handicap from a 6 to a 5.  Still a way to go to get down to my GC handicap of 2 though.

Ironically in the last game of the last event (the Open Handicap Singles) I played André again (see article below) and won 26:13.

The local press decided there was a story in the 'Scotsman playing in New Zealand' after hearing someone talk about The Godwit (my nickname in some fields given the traveling habits of the Godwit and that it's iconic to New Zealand in the way that the Swallow is in Europe).  Of course there are errors in the story - never believe all that you read in the papers but it gives the game some publicity.

Adrian would have been delighted with the photographer's Canon equipment.  He had two Canon lenses the size of houses one of which fitted the same description as Adrian's  new toy and which was out in the rain.  The photo below was taken from a long way off in very poor light (it has to be really bad if I'm not wearing sun glasses).

Okay this post has far to many uses of the first person singular but wotthehellarachiewotthehell I don't have very many occasions to be so delighted with anything I do so please just accept it on this occasion.

And now for bed.  Another day of underachievement and too many 'to dos' still on the list.

Almost The Perfect Day

One thing that no cancer survivor takes for granted is waking up in the morning.  So when I woke this morning I knew that today had the potential for being a Good Day.  This feeling was strengthened by the warm sun streaming in from a flawless blue sky.  Winter, which seemed to have arrived a few days ago, had gone on a temporary holiday.  In fact TV's One News said that Napier reached 23℃ today.

I was due to play an Association Croquet (AC) match at 11am so decided on the way to go into town and have a coffee and do a crossword on the basis that it might be the last opportunity before I leave for the UK on Easter Monday.  I chose a café in Emerson Street (of course) with seats in the sun, whose coffee I like and near to where I could buy the Dominion Post.  Wonderful.

Then came the match.  The weather offered the perfect conditions: no wind, not too hot and not too cold with full sun so that I was just wearing shorts and a polo-shirt.  I played well enough and won comfortably and secured that particular championship to add to the Club's AC handicap singles championship title.  Yesterday I lost the Golf Croquet title which I've held for the last three years having been beaten in this season's final by Sandra (the croquet friend to whose bach we went a few weeks ago).  She deserved to win because she is playing much better golf croquet than I am at the moment.

I apologise if the last paragraph seems a little (or a lot) immodest but this blog serves a number of purposes and one is reminding me what I've won and lost in my favourite pastime.  I keep thinking this year that I've had a Bad Time at croquet but, in fact, I've not done too badly at all.  In a year's time I'll not be able to remember how I've done at all but I'll be able to look back......

Last night Wendy and Martin came down for a wee ceilidh in true Lewis fashion and I opened a rather special bottle of red wine that my God-daughter, Lou, and her partner had given me for Christmas 2009!  Yes.  I'd kept it all this time.  I'm am drinking some as I write and shall be finishing the bottle tonight.  Thank you both - it's truly superb.

The day's not yet over.  If the hours before bedtime are as good as the last 13 then I'll have had a Really Good Day.  I hope that you have too!

The Trivialities of Success

Today was the second day of the 77th Hawkes Bay Association Croquet (AC) Handicap Singles Tournament.  This year it was held in two divisions.  I played in the second division.   For the record I won all my games and therefore won my division despite being the person against whom all the free shots were being given.  However that wasn't the high point.  AC is a game played as much against one's self as against one's opponent.  Today I made from hoop one to the peg in one turn without using any free shots.  It was the first time I'd done it.  I was fair chuffed. Chuffed enough, in fact,  to make it a matter of record.

I wonder how I'll get on tomorrow and Sunday when it's the Championship or Levels Tournament (ie with no free shots against or for anyone) where the competition will, in theory at least, be much stronger.

A Tournament Best Forgotten

Well that's two days I'd rather forget.  I lost all 5 games of Association Croquet.  The irony is that I managed to play exceptionally well in part of each game but never managed to put a whole game together sufficiently to win although I only lost one game by more than a couple of hoops which was exceptionally frustrating.  I am, I have to say, rather less than a happy bunny.  But, hey, ho tomorrow is another day and a different game: Golf Croquet doubles.  My partner and I came second last year. 

So I now have the odd situation that I have not lost a game in the club and not won one away from it.  This has got to change!

Did I Tell You?

My partner for the Rose Gardens Doubles Tournament in Palmerston North was Zoe: A fifteen year old with huge potential to go all the way in New Zealand croquet and who has dropped in handicap from a 12 to a 10 in the last few weeks.   I don't think I have ever played with anyone with whom I've had a greater understanding.  We seemed instinctively to know what each of us required from the other.  We won the Tournament without dropping a single game. It was exceptionally rewarding.

At one stage I was flagging.  I'd played a hard week in the Nationals and this was our fifth or six game of the day.  I was walking up the lawn towards my ball when Zoe came up behind me and casually said "Come on Graham.  Lift your game."  Had any other partner said that to me I'd probably have been slightly miffed.  As it was it seemed to be so natural.  It lightened me and, guess what, I lifted my game.  I now need a little Zoe to sit on my shoulder whenever I'm down in a match to remind me.

Association Croquet Update

OK so I said that I'd not bore you all too much with croquet this visit but, at the moment, it is taking up a lot of my time because it's the time of year when there are lots of tournaments both at home and away. Last year I was pretty occupied with Golf Croquet alone but now that I also play Association Croquet my games have multiplied.

Last weekend I played in my first Association Tournament. It was at Marton and I came runner-up. In the final I played against a splendid lady far spryer than I and (it's ok she will never read this) with quite a few more years under her belt. She was, quite simply, more experienced than I was and it showed. At the end of the allotted time we were level pegging and it went to a sudden death: first hoop won. She won it. When I, much to my surprise, made the final I wanted very much to win. When I lost I was very surprised to find that having played well and having lost to an opponent who played better - indeed is a better player - I was very happy for her. Sometimes we surprise ourselves.

On Monday I played the second of the best of three games for the 'B' Grade Club Championship. I won by one hoop. We now have one game each.

On Wednesday the day was set aside for the the games (best of three) for the Hawkes Bay Croquet Association Silver Badge. They were timed at 2 1/2 hours each. Fortunately we only played two games and I managed to win 20:8 and 25:8.

Why have I told you all this? Partly to display a tiny bit of the first of the seven deadly sins (pride) and secondly to demonstrate how things can change in our mind if circumstances are right and we adopt a positive attitude. Three or four weeks ago I had decided that I couldn't get back into Association Croquet (after my six months away in the UK) and it was in danger of ruining my Golf Croquet. I decided to give it up. That afternoon one of our best players came up to me and asked me if I'd like an afternoon's coaching then and there. It would have been rude to decline such a generous offer. And in three hours my game and my whole mental attitude had been turned around. I am so grateful.

As Andrew would have said 'It's a funny old world, Dad'.

An Unusual Sight

We drove over from Napier this afternoon. The weather was not at its kindest and we had a great deal of rain. A very welcome rain so far as the farmers were concerned. Unusual so far as I am concerned in New Zealand. I'd rather that it didn't rain when we get on the lawns tomorrow. We'll see. I'm in Marton between Palmerston North and Wanganui. Tomorrow we have an Association Tournament.