Mad Birds and Cornishmen

[Kaz]

Oh blimey Os, will I have to be spending sunny days indoors washing my smalls and baking when our solar tiles are (finally) fitted?

Another brilliant read, many thanks

[TheOstrich]

Yes, Kaz, it will change your life!
Seriously though, it all depends how rigorous Mick and you want to be about taking full advantage of it.
Are you getting battery storage? We thought it too expensive for our needs, TBH. If you are, not so much pressure then to change your lifestyle!
Still getting around 40% savings, although this is (understandably) reducing as we head into winter.

We are getting a smart meter fitted early December as a prerequisite for signing up to the Smart Export Guarantee scheme.

Crommers, I've been lucky with a run of very watchable competitive rugby games this season. It's not always that way!

Ally, that smashed avos on sourdough for £8 is about par for the course round here. Decent quantity, though, brie (I think) and plenty of rabbit food accompanied it.
My £10.50 for a Full English (1 sausage, 1 bacon rasher, 1 large mushroom, 1 x grilled tomato, 1 x slice of black puddin', 1 x hash brown, small pot of baked beans, large slice of brown toast) is again the going rate.
Americanos were £2.50 each, which is cheaper than some establishments I could mention ....

Forgot to mention, I unfortunately hit a pheasant near Stourhead on the way back.
Nothing I could do about it, I was doing 50 on a straight road, and just glimpsed the kamikaze bird dive out of the verge right in front of me.
Made one heck of a thump on the car bodywork, but no damage that I can see.

[Ally]

The place we go to in Nerja for a full English consists of:
4 rashers bacon, beans, one sausage, two fried eggs, one hash brown, one tomato cut in half lightly grilled, two slice of toast with butter and various jams, a glass of freshly squeezed OJ and a coffee for 5.25€.

Good value for money.

Oooh hope the pheasant was ok.

[Kaz]

No we’re not getting the battery, they advised us we wouldn’t need it Allegedly as we’re south facing there was no need…..Oh well, we’ll see

[TheOstrich]

To Shaftesbury on Monday morning to get passport-style photographs taken for the renewal of our oldie driving licences. Mrs O’s renewal papers had come through the post indicating the requirement for a mugshot - I genuinely had thought (hoped! ) that we had left that little bit of bureaucracy behind on turning 70, but apparently not. You can renew online if you have a valid passport number (they pinch your photo from that) but we haven’t had passports for years, definitely no cruising for Ossie! So mugshots it was, courtesy of Saxon Photographic (can’t be beggared with all that fuss twiddling with the height of those stools you get in supermarket booths ), and the benefit of their service is that they run the results through their computer to ensure your photo meets all the required digital parameters. We shall see!

The Baguette Bar was closed so we had to make do with pasties from the nearby bakers.

Tuesday evening, and the Ostrich is donning black overcoat, muffler and wig.
“Why the heavy disguise, Ossie?”
“You know what happened the last time we went down to Gillingham Town. I don’t want to be recognised …”

Wincanton Town are still nomadic, playing their home games in Gillingham, so the short journey from the Nest followed by the long drive down the rutted track to the Woodwater Lane ground for the evening’s fixture. My last visit was for Gillingham’s pre-season friendly against lower league Ilminster Town, for which they tried to charge me a larcenous £6 for admission (as if it were a proper League fixture), only reducing it to £5 when I complained. We didn’t part on the best of terms that day ……. Thankfully, they didn’t recognise me as I paid up at the entrance gate for the Wincanton game, so maybe Ossie’s disguise worked!

Visiting Nailsea & Tickenham FC were promoted into the league last season and have been going great guns since, currently lying 2nd in the table. They looked impressive from the start and it only took them 5m to score the first of three clinically-taken first half goals. They were speedy in attack, pursued Wincanton relentlessly, and defended well when required. Wincanton had their fair share of play but no-one could really argue with the half-time score-line.

0-4 on 53m, and the game was well out of Wincanton’s reach at that point, but given the hard, fast pace of the game, it was almost inevitable there would be a badly-timed tackle and resulting melee at some point; this duly occurred on 60m with referee Ella Broad having no hesitation in red-carding the visitor’s no.8, who was decidedly an unhappy bunny at the decision and had to be ushered off the pitch . He was last heard demolishing the changing room furniture . That incident seemed to unsettle the Swags* a bit, they lost a little of their composure, and Wincanton got a goal back on 68m, a close-range effort forced home. The visitors keeper then made a number of smart saves as Wincanton pressed, right to the end, but there was no further scoring.

* Nailsea Town FC were the “Swans” and Tickenham United FC were the “Stags”, so when the two clubs merged in 2015 …..

Wincanton’s return to their Moor Lane ground continues to be delayed by remedial drainage work to the pitch, and I did hear a rumour tonight that the leisure company running the sports centre building there might be in difficulty due to a near-tripling of their energy bills , but I have no substantiation of this. Wincanton, in the meantime are reputedly trying to source portacabins for their ground in case they get locked out of the leisure centre changing rooms. Wouldn’t surprise me if there aren’t a few more clubs out there relying on shared facilities and potentially facing similar difficulties ....

Tuesday 25/10/22: Western League Division 1 (Step 6)
Wincanton Town 1 Nailsea & Tickenham 4
Admission: £4 (concession) and Raffle: £1 (was it drawn? Nothing announced …. )
Programme: £2 - 28pp, informative effort with all the basics included.
Refreshments: 2 x pasties £5. One cheese ‘n onion, one traditional.
Attendance: 67

Now the clocks have changed, I’ve started to review the Master Spreadsheet containing all my planned fixtures up to next April. I had planned on visiting one or two far-flung venues, but the truth is I’m finding it more onerous these days driving in the dark. If soccer clubs with floodlights stick to 3:00 Saturday kick-offs, then I might start giving them a swerve unless they are very local. There is, however, chatter that because of the energy crisis, some leagues are allowing 3:00 kick-offs to be brought forward so floodlights don’t need to be used. Rugby clubs, and minor league soccer clubs without floodlights, have by necessity tended to adopt 2:00 kick-offs in winter so at least you can be getting away at the end of the game whilst it’s still light, something I prefer. We shall see how things progress.

Which brings us on to Saturday’s entertainment and the bird’s first visit to Gainsborough Park for a number of seasons - the home of Sherborne RFC. There’s ample space to lose your car in the aircraft hanger-sized parking lot which serves the rugby, Sherborne Town FC and the rest of the Terrace Playing Fields complex in general. The rugby clubhouse is on the other side of the car park from the pitch, up a short track, and it’s a fairly small building but does contain a kitchen / hatch for hot food and drinks; I see they are still appealing for funds to improve it (as well as the playing surfaces) and have been doing so ever since we moved down here in 2016.

Crediton RFC arrived unbeaten in seven matches and heading the league table, whilst the home team had won their first game of the season - narrowly - then lost their next six. Although Sherborne took the lead after 8m, (when Crediton erroneously assumed a long kick forward was going to go beyond the dead ball line, but it didn’t, allowing Austin, following up, to touch down), the visitors easily controlled the rest of the game and scored three tries in each half without reply. Their only blip was one of Avery-Wright’s conversions hitting a post and bouncing back in-field.

Sherborne had their moments, but the Crediton defence was solid - they bided their time, dug in, and punished Sherborne’s mistakes. The visiting forwards were dominant and all of their tries were clinically executed; in fact, one had the suspicion that they played the game throughout comfortably in second gear. Crediton’s winger Josh Woodland notched the final two tries and was only denied a hat-trick in the closing minutes by a marginal forward pass.

So not the most exciting of games today; Crediton simply “got the job done”.

Saturday 29/10/22: Regional 2 Tribute South West (Level 6)
Sherborne RFC 7 Crediton RFC 40
Admission: £5
Programme: included. 28pp glossy, match-specific, a number of interesting articles and quite humorous in places. The front cover was a tribute to Geoffrey “Churchill” Clutchall, former player and Assistant Bar Steward, who was celebrating his 70th birthday.
Refreshments: (1) Well now, here’s a thing. Arrived in the clubhouse an hour before the start, seeking a pasty. Long queue, joined it and eventually worked my way to the front - where I had a plate of cottage pie, carrots, peas, Yorkshire Pudding and gravy thrust into my hand.
“Err, I’m a visitor - how much do you want for this?”
Great consternation. Nobody knew. It transpired what they were doing was doling out the Pre-Game Sponsors Lunch! After much deliberation, I was simply told to beat it - which I did, still clutching the plate!
(2) Frankfurter sausage inna bun with boiled onions, from the refreshment hut alongside the pitch at half time (£3.50). I know prices have risen, but really!
Attendance: 154. A surprisingly small crowd by Sherborne’s pre-Covid standards.

[Ally]

Great read Ossie.

Not sure if I've had boiled onions before.

I've not had a 'ot dog for years.

[cromwell]

Nailsea, home of the immortal Adge Cutler! I'm glad they won.
Frankfurter and boiled onions? That sounds a bit unusual and £3.50 sounds steep to me too.
Yes, bringing forward the kick offs makes a lot of sense.
Great read Os!

[Kaz]

Oooh free shepherd’s pie, lucky burd!!

[TheOstrich]

To the Post Office on Monday to draw out some cash. I don’t know about you, but the bird has gone back to using coin of the realm - as he did pre-Covid - for those smaller purchases, and also at establishments he doesn’t usually frequent or where the proprietors look a bit iffy . Credit card machines that don’t give you receipts always drive me bonkers , also those ones that do issue receipts but don’t quote the last four digits of your account number, because I can never remember which card I’ve used . So up to the counter, in with the card, and a request for £200 in notes.

“Ere, what’s this? Is it a Euro or summat”.
On top of the pile is a strange, redy-browny note I don’t recognise.
“It’s a £50 note.”
“I’m not ‘avin that . I can’t use that down the teahut for a half-time coffee. They’d refuse it! ”
So the errant high-denomination paper is eventually replaced by a £20, two £10s and two £5s, not without some raised eyebrows behind the Perspex screen. Impertinent, these Ostriches .....
“Do get any demand for £50 notes, then”
“Yes, quite a lot actually”.

Well, personally, I don’t think I’ve ever used a £50 note in anger, ever since they were first issued back in the 1980’s. Too much of a security risk . Have you ever used one?

To Saturday, and my first choice of game, Trowbridge Town FC v Kintbury Rangers Development in some sort of Wiltshire Cup fixture, was called off late Friday with Kintbury being unable to raise a team . That left me with a dilemma - soccer matches were falling like flies thanks to the rain (and locally, there was little of interest on the soccer front anyway), so I eventually opted for a potential soaking at Chard RFC’s Essex Close ground (the Ostrich’s second visit this season), which at least does have some rudimentary cover, although mercifully the rain subsided during the first half into little more than an occasional drizzle.

As for the opposition - well, we have seen plenty of Mad Birds already this season, but this was my first sighting of Cornishmen! St Austell RFC were the visitors, which leaves me only Redruth of the top-flight Cornish clubs to catch up with at some point.

My four most local teams in this Regional 2 South West league unhappily occupy the four bottom places ; having seen leaders Crediton “get the job done” last week at bottom-of-the-table Sherborne, I didn’t hold out much hope for Chard’s chances today against second-placed St. Austell, although given that the visitors had amassed 384 points already this season, I was hoping for a reasonably flamboyant game on the field. However, a greasy ball, St. Austell’s tendency to over-elaborate at times and some dogged defence by Chard (who rarely got out of their own 22 in the first half) scuppered that, and with the score just 0-3 by the 30 minute mark, one wondered if a famous upset might be on the way. But at that point, a Chard forward elected to pull an opponent out of a ruck and commence vigorously pummelling him on the ground - unfortunately right in front of the referee! And that was Chard down to 14 men for the rest of the half, in consequence shipping two tries in that ten-minute spell.

0-13 at the interval, St. Austell scored another two quick tries after the restart to put the game well out of Chard’s reach, and the second half then became rather a non-event; Chard huffing and puffing whilst St. Austell simply did the necessary to keep them at bay. A final converted try in the closing minutes made the score 0-34 and ended a game that probably won’t live long in the memory.

05/11/22: Regional 2 Tribute South West (Level 6)
Chard RFC 0 St. Austell RFC 34
Admission: £5
Programme: included. 16pp match-specific but rather basic.
Refreshments: a pasty from the kitchen, £3. A proper one, hand-crimped pastry, rich meat and potato filling, searingly-hot . Luscious! So good, I bought another one just before the game ended to take home for supper. When I got to the kitchen hatch, I found that it had been left in the care of a young teenage girl, who looked terrified at the thought of having to actually make a sale . Initial hiatus when she couldn’t locate the tongs . Anyway, as she opened the hot cabinet to remove it, I said:
“Careful, don’t drop it!”
You could almost hear the youngster’s mental “Aaarrgghhhhh” ...
Gave her the right coinage and wished her “have a good day ….” as I returned to the game.
Attendance: 101. Well down on last times’ 249, but there again, no free food!

[cromwell]

I've never gone away from using cash Os. The only place I don't is at a local butchers where they never have the right change.
Yes, I have used £50 notes but very rarely. A few years ago my friend Ernie was paid £1,300 in fifties and I swapped £200 in mixed notes for four of his fifties. When I went to Sainsbury's to spend some the check out girl got her supervisor over to check the two I handed over!

No, it doesn't sound like a match to linger in the memory but you can't win 'em all!
Gread read, as ever.