Nothing New

I have been prompted for an update on life at Todheugh.

Since my last dim and distant posting what has happened.

I played my BEST quarterfinal against Wale. It went down to the wire, with me ahead 7.5-6.5. I could afford to lose the last game but not by a lot. As it was I won it and proceeded through to the semifinal against Mikki. We have arranged for that to be played this coming Tuesday/Wednesday - now up to best of 17.

It was the NSC semifinals at the start of September, 14 games over a weekend. Allan and I went down to Leeds on the train - a relatively pain-free journey other than the train was about 20 minutes late so we had to go straight to the venue with our luggage. This also went down to the wire. I was lying in 3rd going in to the last game with Wayne snapping at my heels. We were both one game behind the leaders - Gary Oliver and Paul Allan. With me playing Gary and Wayne playing Paul I really needed Wayne to win as Gary was realistically too far ahead on spread for me to overhaul him. Wayne did the decent thing but unfortunately a high-scoring bonus from Gary near the end of our match meant that although I still won the game I was a measly 5 points of spread behind Wayne and finished 3rd. Good luck to both Gary and Wayne in the final.

Two weeks later and it was the NSC Teams final. Paul was also away that weekend but Diana and Reg had kindly agreed to look after Jen and Poncho for us. I thought I had been really organised in loading the car with their beds, food etc until I arrived and discovered that I had forgotten to put their bowls in the car - left sitting on the drive where I had dumped them prior to ensuring they had done the necessary before packing them in the car. Continued on to Allan's and once Stuart had arrived we all set off for Bradford. We had booked in to the Holiday Inn (tourney venue) for the Friday night rather than setting off at some godforsaken hour the following day for an 11 a.m. start. It is fair to say that the whole team greatly underperformed...

My study plan is behind schedule - having to actually play not only screws up those days but also the following day or two with having to catch up on the cardbox. WSC approaching way too fast...

On the non-scrabble front my sock knitting has been continuing.

A pair for MIL

and two more pairs for me.

Almost finished another pair but fear I may run out of wool a few rows short. This could be a minor disaster as the on-line store where I got the yarn cheaply no longer stocks this colour. Have spotted some on ebay so fingers crossed - dye lot should not matter with this yarn. It is especially annoying as it is the same brand as my other only long pair of socks where I was a couple of rows short, and I amended the pattern to overcome this...

Other news - new bath arrived last week.

Paul and I went up to the Edinburgh Playhouse to see Lee Evans for Paul's big birthday.

Margaret's new barn is being built. Just to prove that we are also have an Indian summer...


Oh - and I have reached my half-century!