Friendly vs Royal Burgess

I woke to the sound of Radio 4’s weatherman saying that while most of the country would have showers, the North East would have torrential rain and high winds would make it feel cold*. Just the weather for our friendly against the Royal Burgess Golfing Society. Fortunately, the torrential rain only affected the last two or three groups, those with our carefully selected backloaded bad weather bankers.

The Royal Burgess match is probably the most prestigious of our fixtures given their status as – probably - the oldest club in Great Britain (and therefore the world): this year’s was particularly special as they were celebrating their 275th anniversary.
Our determination to win was typified by John Southern’s gazelle-like stance for his second on the 8th, and our inability to win by my drive on the 8th failing even to reach the downslope. The results were quite close in the end, however, except that they were four wins to them, two to us and a couple of draws.After fortification on the 12th tee, we had as always an excellent lunch, followed by the wit of Derek Haggerstone, Ken Howe, David McAdam and Dick Little. The jokes – on the subjects of tractors, vanilla ice-cream and pig hunting amongst others - are probably best left to the dining room’s memory, although the Burgess Captain tried to add a touch of class with a joke about social interaction in Edinburgh high rise flats.

Meanwhile, next door, Claire Whitfield’s birthday party was waiting to catch those who needed a gradual de-tox from the day’s activities.

*I went to sleep to the sound of radio 4’s weatherman saying that Boulmer had been the wettest place in the UK that day.