That Was Not a Good Start - Day 0 at the World Seniors Team Championships

Yassoo, or at least something like that. Anyway, hello from Rhodes where Andy and I have arrived safely and ready to do battle for England in the 2019 World Seniors Team Championships, which start this afternoon (Tuesday). Yesterday was for travelling, and things did not go smoothly to say the least.

The journey all went to plan, it was what happened to one of the passengers en route that was the problem. Because when we changed trains at Crewe on the way to Manchester Airport I managed to leave the bag with my laptop and other stuff on the first train, only noticing its absence as our train was about to depart and the first train was already off and on its way to Edinburgh. *********!!! was approximately what I said upon discovering my colossal blunder. (That is the first Colossus of Rhodes refefence, but doubtless not the last!) Thankfully, Mrs Club Organiser was immediately on the case (ouch!) and by the time we landed in Rhodes the missing item had already been located and should now be winging its way back to Kenilworth. Though I could really do with it here, of course!

We travelled on the same flight as most of the Irish team, but then history repeated itself at the luggage carousel when, just like at Dresden last year, we found ourselves standing next to Jon Speelman, who had just arrived via Athens. He was very disappointed to learn that Bernard (or that big ****** as he referred to him)# was not with us this year.

What else to report? Well, the air con is not working in the hotel and the rooms are ****** hot as a consequence, even though the outside temp is only about twenty. And Andys resolution to have a dry tournament lasted about 10 minutes from arrival at the hotel! (Apologies for the lack of an apostrophe there, but Im (and there!) using Andys (!) spare tablet and I cant (!!) fully work out the keyboard.)

Anyway, we await the draw for Round 1, when we hope to do Kenilworth and England proud.


# This conversation may not actually have occurred. But it would have been fun if it had!