26-10-2022, 18:49
So what is it that you`re impressed with, Dancing? The fact that an old fart like me can survive for several hours in the great outdoors twice a week without a defibrillator to hand, or the fact that I can include an acute accent – `un accent aigu`, as BOK would have put it – in a post? I think it`s a an acute and not a grave, but it`s a long time ago now and I really can`t remember. (God, he`d be so ashamed of me if he knew I`d said that.)
I think you were the one who said a while ago that one of your posts had disappeared without trace. It happened to me a couple of times, so if I`m putting up something more than a one or two sentence post I type it out in Word first then do a `copy and paste` job. I`m doing that now. That way, if it all disappears into the ether it`s easy enough to paste it again. I won`t bore you all with the technicalities of how to include accents, circumflexes, cedillas, tildes, haceks and so on, but it`s not difficult. If anybody really, desperately wants to know how, let me know.
I think the reason that pétanque is so popular is that the equipment and facilities you need are so basic. All you need is a patch of waste ground – although a proper boules pitch is definitely better – and some steel balls. (I was tempted to say `balls of steel` there and am immensely proud of the fact that I resisted the temptation. I wish that this be noted and ask that I be given a certain amount of credit for doing so.) The rules are very simple and it can get as competitive as you want it to. It`s good fun with the right crowd.
Croquet is totally different as regards both equipment and terrain. It can also get VERY competitive – brutally so - and is not at all the genteel game that it seems to be at first glance. As it happens, Dev, we play on a crown green that we rent from a local bowls club for one afternoon a week; one of our number, bless `im, decided that playing on a flat lawn would be FAR too easy and that a crown green would be much more `interesting`. It is, although several other adjectives also spring to mind. We play both games under the auspices of U3A, which is a national organisation and I`d be astonished if there isn`t a branch in or around Totnes. Google it if you haven`t heard of it; up here they`re a good crowd and I can recommend it unreservedly. They don`t just do games; they have a painting group, a walking group, a book group, a history group, a Shakespeare group, foreign language conversation groups and so on; really anything in which two or more of the members decide they have a shared interest. It`s a brilliant way of meeting people, especially when you`ve just moved to the area as we have.
No, I didn`t play fives at school but I do remember watching other lads playing it in the court at Sheffield Road; I can`t remember seeing one at Brookside. To my untrained eye it looked a bit like squash for those who couldn`t be arsed or were too tight-fisted to buy a racquet. I didn`t play squash either; far too athletic for me. I may have tried fives once but decided very quickly I was no good at it and I`d rather be playing football or cricket on the `top lawn` instead.
Went to Silverlands again last night. Bloody awful game and I still can`t work out how Buxton managed to win it. They put together one and a half decent moves in the entire game and scored two goals. Scott Boden scored another; that`s about six in six games now.
I cheered myself up afterwards by waddling off down to the only place I`ve found in Buxton where you can get a pint for less than about £4.30. That`s the Wye Bridge – or `the Bridge over the River Wye`, as I prefer to call it. More of a mouthful, but it amuses me. A pint of Ruddles Best for £1.49 a go; it`s a Wetherspoons – obviously. I read somewhere the other day that some city-centre pubs are expecting to be charging £7 a pint by the end of the year. Seven quid! Bloody hell.
I think you were the one who said a while ago that one of your posts had disappeared without trace. It happened to me a couple of times, so if I`m putting up something more than a one or two sentence post I type it out in Word first then do a `copy and paste` job. I`m doing that now. That way, if it all disappears into the ether it`s easy enough to paste it again. I won`t bore you all with the technicalities of how to include accents, circumflexes, cedillas, tildes, haceks and so on, but it`s not difficult. If anybody really, desperately wants to know how, let me know.
I think the reason that pétanque is so popular is that the equipment and facilities you need are so basic. All you need is a patch of waste ground – although a proper boules pitch is definitely better – and some steel balls. (I was tempted to say `balls of steel` there and am immensely proud of the fact that I resisted the temptation. I wish that this be noted and ask that I be given a certain amount of credit for doing so.) The rules are very simple and it can get as competitive as you want it to. It`s good fun with the right crowd.
Croquet is totally different as regards both equipment and terrain. It can also get VERY competitive – brutally so - and is not at all the genteel game that it seems to be at first glance. As it happens, Dev, we play on a crown green that we rent from a local bowls club for one afternoon a week; one of our number, bless `im, decided that playing on a flat lawn would be FAR too easy and that a crown green would be much more `interesting`. It is, although several other adjectives also spring to mind. We play both games under the auspices of U3A, which is a national organisation and I`d be astonished if there isn`t a branch in or around Totnes. Google it if you haven`t heard of it; up here they`re a good crowd and I can recommend it unreservedly. They don`t just do games; they have a painting group, a walking group, a book group, a history group, a Shakespeare group, foreign language conversation groups and so on; really anything in which two or more of the members decide they have a shared interest. It`s a brilliant way of meeting people, especially when you`ve just moved to the area as we have.
No, I didn`t play fives at school but I do remember watching other lads playing it in the court at Sheffield Road; I can`t remember seeing one at Brookside. To my untrained eye it looked a bit like squash for those who couldn`t be arsed or were too tight-fisted to buy a racquet. I didn`t play squash either; far too athletic for me. I may have tried fives once but decided very quickly I was no good at it and I`d rather be playing football or cricket on the `top lawn` instead.
Went to Silverlands again last night. Bloody awful game and I still can`t work out how Buxton managed to win it. They put together one and a half decent moves in the entire game and scored two goals. Scott Boden scored another; that`s about six in six games now.
I cheered myself up afterwards by waddling off down to the only place I`ve found in Buxton where you can get a pint for less than about £4.30. That`s the Wye Bridge – or `the Bridge over the River Wye`, as I prefer to call it. More of a mouthful, but it amuses me. A pint of Ruddles Best for £1.49 a go; it`s a Wetherspoons – obviously. I read somewhere the other day that some city-centre pubs are expecting to be charging £7 a pint by the end of the year. Seven quid! Bloody hell.