So Alistair Darling is a total plum, I don’t think that’s under question. But he has introduced a new boiler scrappage scheme that gives £400 to any household who has an inefficient band G boiler if they replace it with a new A-rated boiler. This is good news for the environment and UK manufacturing I think. He’s still a total plum.
Played the 1st 9 with Rob. I tried an experiment – tried hard not to lose any balls, or stick any OB. This is consistently costing me 10-12 shots a round. OB on the 2nd!! That’s the trouble with golf – if you try to not go OB, you don’t commit to your shots and then they squirt away worse than ever. Spent 2 hours chipping in the garden. At least my short game’s improving…
A sad start, because Mum and Dad left this morning, and they’ve been great guests. But we have Angharad’s folks out now so we’ve still got good company! They went away happy, off to look after Ellie and Charlie for the weekend. I did 10, 4, 2, 4 lengths of the pool, and kept a nice steady pace for the 10, so that’s encouraging. A great day of surfing today – beautiful clean 4 footers over at Amado beach. I got my first wiggle on the Zetech and called it a day. Big lunch. 30 more lengths in the pool, and a cold beer to start the evening.
I Beat Dad At Golf..I Beat Dad At Golf..I Beat Dad At Golf..I Beat Dad At Golf… I Beat Dad At Golf..I Beat Dad At Golf… I Beat Dad At Golf..I Beat Dad At Golf..I Beat Dad At Golf..I Beat Dad At Golf… I Beat Dad At Golf..I Beat Dad At Golf… I Beat Dad At Golf..I Beat Dad At Golf..I Beat Dad At Golf… I Beat Dad At Golf..I Beat Dad At Golf… I Beat Dad At Golf..I Beat Dad At Golf..I Beat Dad At Golf… I Beat Dad At Golf..I Beat Dad At Golf..I Beat Dad At Golf..I Beat Dad At Golf… I Beat Dad At Golf..I Beat Dad At Golf..I Beat Dad At Golf… I Beat Dad At Golf..I Beat Dad At Golf..I Beat Dad At Golf… I Beat Dad At Golf…
After another uninterrupted 8am round with Dad (shot 99 again) we went and did a little tour of the local beaches: Salema (where I had a fantastic Golden Bream), Boca Do Rio and Cabanas. En route we spotted loads of Bee Eaters which are quite spectacular birds. I only wish I had a zoom lens. We finished with a trip down to Sagres where we went out to the point at San Vicente. A beautiful day, a constant 25 degrees.
Who ate all the bees?
Got to the range early and hit 100 balls. Consistently bad, but we videoed my swing and on reflection it’s clear there’s plenty to work on. 1) Keep the left knee firm to stop it from collapsing 2) get the hips through before the hands 3) transfer weight to the front foot on the downswing. I’m looking forward to seeing if this will help. Did my 10 lenghts, this time in 2m 16s. That’s 40% shaved off my time which made me feel great. Perhaps I can swim!! I swam 2 lenghts as fast as I could (19s) and decided my target for the end of the trip should be this pace over 10 lenghts (1m 35s). The world record for 100m freestyle is held by Frenchman Alain Bernard who does it in 47 secs, almost exactly half my target!
I'm sure my style could be more efficient
A tough competitor
Despite some fierce wind and plenty of lost balls, I broke 100 (99). Well Rome wasn’t built in a day. It was a great round – off at 8am and done by 11.15. We then took to the pool and we all worked hard at improving our swimming. We video’d it and everything! I did 10 lenghts of crawl in 3m 50s.
We’d always meant to catch up with Simon while he was out and for some reason I hadn’t put 2 and 2 together to figure it was Alex’s wedding that he’d come out for. So we gate-crashed the after-wedding lunch and caught up with a load of good friends: Alex, Gravy, Si, Emma and Mila who had a lovely play with Mali in the playground. Great stuff – what a treat for us.
The Anagrams
Got another round in with the Old Man. He beat me as usual but I birdied the 10th which was nice despite a pushed drive. There’s promise, but I really need to straighten myself up off the tee. I’m losing 10 shots at least a round because of this.
Alright, it's the 11th, but it's close enough...
Angharad and I took the board out for another day on the waves. Unusually, the best surf was down on the south coast, at a tiny little beach called Zavial, only 10 mins from home. There was plenty of fun to be had in the froth, but during a lull I headed out with the big boys to see what would happen. Turns out that dropping into an 8 footers not to be taken lightly; it gobbled me up and spat me out. Awesome fun. I’d better learn the basics now.
