27/01 – A disastrous start to the week when Master O and other half arrived on a flying visit; the poor girl was travel-sick and took to her bed on arrival. However, within a couple of hours, she had been violently sick over the candlewick bed-spread (a complete write-off, as three washing cycles have failed to remove the muck, so it’s gone in the bin), the carpet in the en-suite (still heavily stained despite copious treatment with carpet cleaners) and in her travails, had fallen against and completely demolished the en-suite ceramic toilet-roll holder
. No great loss over the en-suite; we’ve got to refurbish it at some point anyway, so I guess we’ll just move that project forward. Let’s just say it was a rather subdued visit thereafter …..
Still, the current project, new bedroom window blinds and curtains, progresses – measurement have been taken, quotations have been issued, chuntered over at length
, and finally deposit duly paid to clinch the January Sales discount.
I asked to pay the deposit by card, as one does, and got presented with a strange device which seems to be the latest American technology in bank card machine processing. It’s a chunky piece of equipment, a bit like a digital kitchen scales to look at, without the bit at the top on which you would plonk your pulses or potatoes or whatever. A computer touch screen prompts you for your pin number – no buttons. But here’s the unnerving bit. Get it wrong and it beeps at you. Get it wrong a second time and it beeps at you faster. Get it wrong a third time and it locks your card in the machine. It then displays a code number which you have to enter. As you bend over to do that, it (a) takes your mug-shot with a built in pinhole web-cam
and (b) records your fingerprints as you use the touch screen.
Somebody is monitoring it at the processing end, and phones the store you’re at to ask you a series of security questions. Get those wrong and the machine promptly chomps up your card!!
That’s what I was told, anyway – thankfully, however, I do still get my numbers right!
I accept that we do need fraud prevention measures in this day and age – but I also just wonder whether the taking of a mug-shot and fingerprints, presumably without explicit permission, is entirely legal. First time I’ve encountered one - have any of you come across such a device?
To football, and it hasn’t really stopped raining all day down here
, so another Saturday where the postponements due to waterlogging poured in, and the game finally attended was dictated solely by the weather. Axminster Tigers were the first team to tweet “game on”. Brockenhurst, in the New Forest, were a close second, and Ossie did deliberate over the venue, but reasoned that by going west, I might get out of the rain-belt quicker. And indeed, the skies lightened around the Yeovil area – but the rain just got harder! Nevertheless, it was a fortuitous decision, as Brockenhurst was apparently called off just before kick-off. I arrived at the Axminster ground early and confirmed that all was well and there was no reason the game wouldn’t go ahead before trundling down into the town for a mooch around.
Coming south from the direction of Chard, the entrance driveway to the ground is on the right, just after you enter the town boundary and the 30 mph zone. It’s well sign-posted, and turning into it, you wind down into the valley with the club’s youth team pitch on your right as you descend the final slope. There’s plenty of car parking available in front of the modern clubhouse and back up the track. As for public transport, although I could easily get to Axminster by train, it’s the other side of town from the railway station; a fair old yomp, and probably well beyond the capabilities of this ancient Ostrich!
Entering the ground in one corner, the spacious and well-appointed clubhouse is on your right, running along the touchline, with cover over the outside table area between the patio doors and the pitch. Beyond the bar, there’s a covered stand with around 100 seats, but it’s a bit low-raked so doesn’t perhaps give the best of views, especially if there’s a decent crowd. And beyond that, in keeping with the rural location, Ossie found a small Ford 1920 tractor!
The pitch is railed, with the dugouts on the far side. Behind the goal nearest the entrance, there’s a large “funnel earth bank” (i.e. a mound) that apparently helps soak up any rainwater, so in consequence the pitch has held up well in the recent inclement weather. The Salisbury > Exeter railway line runs right behind the other goal. All in all, it’s quite an attractive little stadium.
Bovey Tracey (it’s a large village on the fringes of Dartmoor) started today’s match 4th in the table but with sufficient games in hand to be potentially league leaders. Axminster were 7th, but had played 4 games more than their visitors. The pitch was pretty greasy; sliding tackles were the order of the day, and at least one home player travelled an uncontrolled five yards on his backside! Games under these conditions can easily degenerate – it only takes one misplaced tackle
– but both teams, to their credit, fought hard but fair, and the referee didn’t need to wave any cards until the final quarter of the game. Plentiful chances at both ends, and some excellent reflex saves from both goalies, meant a 0-0 interval scoreline, and it could easily have stayed that way, but in the second half, Axminster got weaving (Axminster ... carpets .... weaving - OK, I'll get me coat ....
) and they wore their opponents down sufficiently to grab the lead on 55m when a corner to the near post was met by a ruck of players and somehow finished up in the net – goal credited to Axminster’s George Choplecki but I think it was more by luck than judgement. A second Tigers goal on 80m by Nathan Warren sealed the match, a long range drive across the keeper which hit the far post and went in.
A fast-paced, entertaining game; certainly one of the better ones I’ve seen this season.
South West Peninsula League Division 1 East (Step 7): Axminster Town 2 Bovey Tracey 0
Admission: £3.50 (concession) including an excellent 48pp glossy programme
Teams: announced at breakneck speed, and a subsequent attempt to track down the broadcaster’s booth by following the electrical leads back from the loudspeakers proved abortive.
Refreshments: £4 battered fish from a decent chippie in the town (the Lemon Plaice), £2.50 for a tea and a ham-filled tiger roll from the food hatch inside the bar, £2.40 for a J2O and a Yorkie bar from the clubhouse.
Attendance: 136 (Ossie’s headcount) - but augmented after half-time when both players and officials from the late-postponed Bridport v Buckland Athletic match turned up to watch! That had been my back-up match had Axminster been called off at the last minute …..
by Ally » 21 Jan 2018, 00:20 
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