Almost a day in Dublin

Well, I didn’t think I’d be writing another blog, but the day has already produced enough excitement and entertainment for some extra paragraphs.

But there’ll neither golf nor food porn, lads and lassies. :)

We’ll get to the title eventually, but let’s start, as Maria does, at the very beginning.

We got up around 4.  Yes, A-M! My Fitbit (which is, of course, infallible) says I got 4 hrs 15 minutes sleep.  And I was first in bed, if not last up.

Here’s the thing: it was light out!!! WTF!??!!? It was rather mind-boggling.

We were cleaning up.  Mostly Mike, who we decided was a domestic god. :). I tried to help, cleaning the fridge.  There was a half bottle of something orange – called Irn-Bru.  I poured it down the sink as Mike grumbled something about John, and I put the bottle in the recycling out back.

Not long after 4:30 we were on the road.  We were amazed at the amount of animal and bird life on and around the road.  I tried to hit I don’t know how many doves in the middle of the road.  There was a cock pheasant (I didn’t see), Butch said “just watching us drive by, like we were nothing.”  Sheep, cows, horses, rabbits, squirrels, some in the road.

I said something about coffee and John said “it’d be good to have that half an Iron Brew I had put away for just this ride.”  Turns out it’s an energy drink.  Of course, he only said it once. #ifonly

We listened to the radio, first out of Dundee, then Forth; the guy on Forth said in his time slot it was his job to play stuff that got you energized.  He did a decent job.  I have Whitney Houston’s “Be My Baby Tonight” stuck in my head (yes, Michael, there was SOME singing – it’s a Euro thing).

To get an idea of the ride, I said to Butch, “it’s only 5:15, isn’t it too early for that.”  Mike said “it never stops.”  Butch said, “It’s always running.”  Not clear if that was his mouth or what.

And part of this Schtick were a series of sheep puns.  Butch started (of course) with “the flock on that hill looks sheepish.”  It wasn’t the worst of the series that followed.  Groan.

Butch suggests we drop the bags with a couple people and we take the car back.  In an interesting development, they wanted a £1 coin for the opportunity!!! I had one, we did it, and John and I meandered around the complex to the rental return hut.  The guy was pretty chirpy for 545 AM.  “Let me just have a wee inspection of the car.”  He goes and comes back with the thumbs up sign.  I say, “I guess I didn’t rip one side of it up.”  He says, in full Scottish brogue, “That’s quite a disappointment to me, actually.”  #irony.

Long walk to terminal, found Butch and Mike, and bag check was smooth, onto Ryanair – or into the cue.

Sandwiched between us, as she put it (sometimes you can’t make this stuff up) was an Irish woman.  Who turned out had four daughters – she said of her husband “I don't know where he went wrong”- two of whom showed up with her.  They had been to Edinburgh to shop for wedding dresses.  “It’s our first wedding,” Mom says.  To which (Dad joke coming) I said “you’re not married then?”  Karen will be embarrassed to know she didn’t laugh but corrected. :). Turns out (I now know too much about wedding dress shopping in the British Isles) that dresses are both better and less expensive in Edinburgh.  They weren’t sure, though, that they’d found anything to their liking.  And were told that the average expenditure on a wedding dress is 2, 500-3,000 euros, and a good one, “a Vera Wang” one of them cited, would be 6,000.  We suggested they could fly to New York and get one for far less and still save money.  They seem to be considering it.  Mom was big on us visiting Gallway – in the west, if your Irish geography is light – and JP said he wanted to play Ballybunion.  There was a short description of my visit (10 years ago with Ian) to Kilkee to play golf.

Bottom line: Gallway is beautiful and wedding dresses are quite the commodity in Britain and Ireland (this may come as no surprise to certain readers; I told the Irish women that they had hit my subject matter wheelhouse :) (another Dad joke?).

You can tell we were in line a long time.  Shortly after boarding we were zip, off and the flight is up and down – maybe 45 minutes in the air.

We get to Dublin, I stand up, feel my right rear pocket and curse.  I don’t have my wallet!!!!!! I realize I never picked it up out of the bin in security at the airport.  This is not good.  I have no idea what to do.  But I look in my messenger bag and there it is!!!!  I guess the security people didn’t like it laying around and threw it in there!!! Whew!!!!  It was the nth BP check of the day (what I think of as lots of turbulence on the plane – woke up multiple things thinking we were dropping and crashing, yikes!!!)

The line at border patrol was long.  But we had plenty of time.

Hahahahahahahaha.

We find our way to the “tunnel” from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2 – we went the long way because no one told us differently last Sunday – and checked our golf bags and JP’s clothes whore bag – it weighed 21 kg where his golf bag weighed 18.  But he looked wonderful all week, didn’t you think.

Some unnamed went out to “burn one,” then we went through security (this is important) and then bought Irish whiskey at duty free.  JP wanted to drink Guinness in Ireland, so we went to a bar right there.  We thought we had plenty of time.

Well, it turns out there was a second line for security and passport checking!  For American flights.  We were in line to get our picture taken (this was done on the NYC end when we went in January) when an announcement came “will the Dodson party and Mr Hicks make their way to their gate immediately.”  Uh oh!

We still hadn’t been told our gate.  We went through security, again, this time (for those of you who know) taking off our shoes (the first time all trip?), then there was a line.  We didn’t know if we needed to fill out the declaration card, so filled them out in line.  As I’m 3 from going up one of the people says “anyone going to New York on Delta?” I said yes and he said I was okay.

LOL.

Oh, yes, and here they showed you a picture of your bag (you checked) and asked if it was yours.  I told JP that it might have been my golf bag or maybe not, but I wasn’t going to be wishy-washy at that point (3 of us have black golf travel bags – you have to look closely to tell them apart).

Butch and I were ahead of the kids by about 10 in line and we took to the gate; finally a sign said…well, I thought it said “405”.  405, of course, is at the end of the spur, where 401 was the first gate.  I see a second board and now I see it is “Delta 45 401” whoops.  JP says they wondered how we got behind them.

We were the last ones on the plane.  As JP said, “we were that guy.”  LOL.

Beware what you wish for: there was some comment that it wouldn't be that bad to have to spend a night in Dublin and fly back tomorrow, getting to see the town.

Whoops!

I’m sure we Americans are all safer for all that. :)

But we made the plane and are on our way.  Now 5:27 minutes from our destination (those of you who’ve flown lately with a screen in the back of your seat know there's a flight tracker that tells you this).  Rah rah.

There’ll be updates later.  If there’s anything interesting.  Like luggage not arriving, no one having the car park chit, a rough trip from the airport, or wisdom over Jameson’s and cards tonight.

Last day in St. Andrews: Remembering Bubba

Our last full day in Scotland (the goal is to be out of here by 430 tomorrow morning) and it has been openly discussed that the goal is to “go deep” in terms of gross out.  Groan.

Speaking of groan, I seem to have sustained brain damage on the flight over and I have been singing.  When I reported that my throat hurt last night, which I thought was due to either yelling at the golf ball or singing, I was told “weren’t they one and same thing?”  Funny. My rejoinder was I thought of my singing as more of a moan/groan.  This seemed to work.

Next, was a discussion of what hats to wear.  Mike and Butch both wanted the flat hats, but I suggested wearing yesterday’s Carnoustie hats, blue with monogramming.  Butch says (acc to his Boswell) , “If we showed up in matching hats, wouldn’t that be kind of gay?”  It was wondered what was wrong with that (a la Seinfeld) and he said “we Americans are so liberal” and I pointed out they’d had gay marriage for years.  It was NBD.  A discussion of bovine common law marriage in Scotland ensued.

My Johnson was in form today: when JP came out wearing a pinkish shirt, it was commented on.  He said “it’s magenta” and Butch quipped something unprintable hear.  It was not meant to be complimentary.

One picture shows the bathroom: some time in the week that plastic box has appeared!  Butch used the term dingy for such things.  I will nothing more, except that’s about #2,010 in scat references.

Then we played 45 minutes of euchre.  The kids won the first round 10-8, and the old guys came back to win 10-7. But the rubber game was a skunk – 10-0—to the kids.  Ouch.

The laugh/embarrassment of the day: I came up to the starter and chatted and reached in my pocket, where I knew I had 2 pound (£) coins.  I tried to subtly slip him one and he said no, no.  I was trying to insist when JP says, “Steve, he doesn’t want your ball marker.”  Yes, I had my ball marker from Carnoustie in my hand, not a pound coin.  I ended up giving Dave Two £s instead, making him take them.  “He was thinking, ‘I’ve got plenty of ball markers, thank you’” was just one of the quips.

Golf stuff:  We returned to the sight of beers (okay, stouts) on Tuesday – the Castle course.  We were told till 10 years ago it was a farm and they moved a lot of dirt to build the place. It is not only a fine facility – the first place with a driving range right near where you play golf, for instance – it is a beautiful property in terms of its vistas.

Here’s the picture link.

There were three pars on the short par-4 first hole, and JP played decently until #8, when he missed a short par 3 in a horrible spot and made a big number.

The course has constant great views.  The pictures are spectacularly – to the northwest to St. Andrews, across the bay to Carnoustie (we were told), and just the sea (I have one photo of the buoys on what we think were lobster traps).  We went toward town to start, climbing the hillside away from the sea, then at six dropping like 50 feet back down.  The last holes on both sides run along the sea.

The highlight were pars on 17 & 18 by Butch, and Mike had a par on 18, too, but put his approach on the wrong level of the green and had no chance to make it coming off the ski slope.  The 17th is over the coast and the directions were to hit it left and let it kick right and forward.  Butch hit a shot we thought was short, but it hit hard and scooted right and forward, as described, and he had a make able birdie putt.  Then on 18 he hit two four irons and wedge on the par 5 and again missed a make able birdie putt.

But the real highlight was remembering Bubba.  We talked about how he’d have loved to have done a trip like this, with golf and pints and cards.  And we again thought it was his karma that gave us such glorious weather – as you can see, it was sunny again today, with a mild breeze, at times maybe 10 mph, but there was a period of almost none.

On the last tee, JP took a ball, wrote Bubba’s name on it, and hit a driver into the sea.  Butch videoed it.  We were a bit verklempft.

John and Mike killed Butch and I for the six holes they were partners, so they came out ahead by two for the day.

Non-golfing :  The Castle’s bar didn’t have any nachos or anything to snack.  So we decided to just go for dinner.  The peri peri chicken at Nando’s is pictured.  If you don’t know Nando’s, ALL they do is chicken, and it’s cheap.  We got a whole chicken, their ten wing platter, which came with 4 large sides.  Spicy rice, mashed potates, corn on the cob and garlic bread.  Yes, many green veggies.

Butch went to get ice cream to go with the sticky toffee pud tonight :)

And we are packed, at least as far as we can get.  See picture.

There was a moment of consternation when Mike couldn’t find his Old Course yardage book, but we found it…in the bag it came in.  In fairness, surprisingly for what you pay to play there, the Old Course book is the only one we got all week that isn’t in a spiral binder, nor does it have a scorecard in the back (handy to keep score when you have the book in and out of your pocket all day)  The Old Course gives everyone a goody bag (the one from Castle course is pictured), too, and mine is intact.  :). Never touched.  A souvenir.

And there we are.  We all agreed we are ready to go home.  The course was a tough walk with lots of elevation change (the worst of the week, including Valley Country Club in Hazleton on Thursday) and more walking from green to tee than we’d seen here all week.  Most of the courses you walk off and walk right onto the next tee. Not today.

But we are worn out, happy, had a great time and now have the fun of an early flight to Dublin, the long flight to JFK, and then the wonderful drive to Bloomsburg.  Rah rah. #

Carnasty in the Wind

Let me begin this next-to-last day blog with a much belated complaint about technology.  First, the technology in this house is bad; I have been back-and-forth with the landlord, and she’s not sure what to do.  BT (British Telecom. If you don’t know, but JP calls them “Butt-assed Internet” – he was reminded that “internet” does NOT begin with a T, to which he said “I knew it didn’t make sense as it came out, but I couldn’t pull it back.”  It is slow or drops signal, including during Butch’s FaceTime home 2 nights ago, a lot.  So putting pictures up and blogging is difficult.  Then there’s the blog site.  It doesn’t want pictures from Apple – JP shares his (48 today, think he overdoes it?) photos with me via iCloud sharing.  Nope, not with blogspot, which is a Google product.  Ah, well.  So, if there are links that don’t work, etc, blame it on the technology.

The day began with a Dr. Johnson classic.  Butch comes from the bathroom (remember we only have one) and says, “If there’s a toilets.com, we aren’t getting 5-stars.”  Scatological discussion 1,010.  ):

Three of us, unnamed, went into town to shop.  We shopped for bolognese in a jar, spaghetti, etc to have for dinner tonight.  And other things that shall remain unnamed. BTW, I ran out of money on my one debit card.  NOT a good sign.

Butch found a bakery and we had pastries for breakfast.  Requisite food porn picture in this link.
We brought one of the donuts back for JP, who is the anti-Mike in terms of eating, and he ate about 3 bites and said “I’m in diabetic shock.”  He was unaware there was custard in the center in large quantities.  I told him that the pastry was only an excuse to eat the custard middle.

Then away to Carnoustie. BTW, we got up and found the weather here gray and windy. Like 8 degrees.   (And for my sister-in-law, a British money sign is a curly script L with a horizontal strike through in the middle…not a damn # which is easy enough :))

I made a playlist for the trip, on JP’s request, and we sang along to “Friends in Low Places,” a Bubba favorite.  It was less than an hour to Carnoustie.

We shopped, ending with the blue hat purchase – there was much discussion about what color – JP, OC (for those who’ve been paying attention to the pictures) wanted gray. I thought it was awfully boring…we settled on the blue,  which matched my WVCC wind shirt, Butch’s sweater, etc.  The pic is in the blog.

The wind was a solid 20 mph from the north.  And you can see from the first tee picture it wasn’t warm – yes, about 8 degrees (this MS Word for iPad app doesn’t do symbols at all, dammit!). You can see there were no matching hats (they were getting monogrammed).

JP and I talked ahead of time; he’s sporting a bad knee (he wears a brace to play) and I’m an old man, so we decided to spend the 50#s (for Lanissa) and tip on a caddy and have  him (or her) carry for each of us for 9 holes.  Carnoustie is LOOOOOOOONG.  By at least 500 yards longer the longest course we’ve played.  And it was the heaviest wind of the week.
Billy was from Carnoustie.  Been caddying there since he met a Scottish girl and married her and moved to her home.  He was Welsh, from near Swansea.  That was 35 years ago.  He has a daughter my daughter’s age and a son younger.  WE got along fine.  There’s an inadvertent picture of him (he and JP traded pride about similar hair dos).

Real golf talk: The first hole has a burn (Scottish for creek), which meanders through the property on the left, and Mike and I got off to a rip-roaring start by hitting in there.  First day all week I’ve hit the ball left! Insert (as Butch did) appropriate political joke. :). We came off what was a relatively easy hole with 7s on the score card – all of us!!!  It was cold (had I mentioned this?).  I was wearing 5 layers.  I had two more to put on, and Gore-Tex pants (a Christmas present, thank you, dear), but never had to.

No one played well.  Wind, chill, and the difficulty of the course.  But no one really chopped it up, either.  Billy helped everyone find balls, and if you were in the bunker, he raked for you (this is handy, as you will all understand).  He read my putts and I missed. ):

I taught Billy a few new words the first four holes.  Then on five, after just a bunch of horrid shots, he turns to me and says “you’re not smiling, come on, sir.”  I grumbled (can ANY reader imagine?!!??!?) and he said “roll this putt in one and that will put a smile on your face.” It so happens JP took a picture of me about to putt this putt – it’s in the collection.  I turned to him, handed him the putter and said “for that to happen”…he cracked up. :). No, Mrs Hicks, not another dud. :)

I actually started playing better after that, partly because that probably relaxed me some, and partly because we got to the south corner of the property and turned so instead of a crosswind we played downwind, with an out-of-bounds fence down the left, for 3 holes.  Before turning north for two holes and pretty much back into the wind the last 8.

Billy did a great job of finding balls, JP practically hugged him on 11 when he hit a shot off to the right into the wind that landed on a bridge over the burn.  He assumed it was lost but Billy found it.

Billy said “keep your head down” as he told me what shot to hit, which seemed to help.

On two I said something about wanting to be in one of the bunkers just to have the experience and Billy said “careful what you wish for.”  In one of our talks, I said something about not feeling as good as I did ten years ago on my visit with Ian here (it was an even windier day), Billy said “we sing from the same hymn book there.”  Billy rolled his own cigarettes.

For the first time in two rounds, their was toilet and snack bar beside 10.  Butch and Mike got pies (in Britain, filled with meat and gravy filling for a light meal at lunch – rather than the ubiquitous hot dog on an American course).  I got a snickers bar.  I went from looking like Betty White to Jordan Spieth.  LOL.

I made a brilliant par from one of the traps (Billy had me hitting over the high lips when I wouldn’t have tried it myself and I never left one in the bunker all day!) on the par 3 13th.  We walked to the next tee and Billy said to me, :”We're done with the hard holes…” I made a noise, JP says (remember, I’ve played here before and watched on TV as pros struggle coming home), “now you’ve got the fucking hard holes.”  I told this to the others and we all cracked up.

Those last 5 holes were damned hard.  The wind was straight into our face for 4 of them.  16 today was 211 yard par 3 – into a 20 mph wind!  Everyone except JP hit driver.  BTW, Billy thought JP had game. :).

But I should mention the weather. The wind never let up, but, as you can see, the sun came out, which seemed to make a huge difference.  Although I was in 5 layers, I thought just once about going to six, but I wasn’t cold enough to do it and see how I swung since I was hitting decent shots and Billy was guiding me around handily.  As you can see, the sun came out, making all the difference.  No one needed more.  Billy took off his cap at one point, but then put it back on.

The seventeenth is difficult but today downwind – the problem is the burn snakes though the fairway twice!  Mike got lucky with a low grounder tee ball that just made it across a bridge on the first one.  He then hit the shot of the day with a 3 wood to about 20 feet!

Did I mention how many putts I missed?  On 13 I made one and JP says “you just played 6 holes as my partner and never sniffed a putt, and now on the first with Butch you sink that??!?!?”  LOL.  JP and I both missed the other par 3 within feet of each other and 3 putted from about 60 feet – his first short and mine long.

I hit my tee ball in the water on 18, but Billy had me lay up with a 6.iron, it seemed to be his favorite club :), and I had 80 to the pin.  He said gap wedge and I said how about a punch 48 degree. “If you think so, just keep your head down.”  I did and hit it to 3 feet.  JP says when it got to me my turn “you’ve already won the hole, make a putt” and I did. :)

Golf over: Billy wouldn’t join us for a drink, but told us not to go to the hotel, right under that clock, but across the street to the golf club.  We did.  They had a host of trophies and medals and the pints were cheaper.  After one, I drove us home.

I did so without using Google maps.  Which led to a moment: we came around a roundabout and I hit the lane as I thought I should straight away around from the where we came.  Two lanes of traffic were roaring toward me.  My family will know the noise I made at my recognition at maybe 30 mph I might have been going head-on into traffic!!!!!

But I was okay. :). Safe.

What followed was underwear ruination conversation number xxxx.  :).

WE came home to bottled marinara and they have all fallen asleep waiting for me to finish this. :). My Fitbit says 22,000 steps today – the most of the week.  And the wind. I am glad I wasn’t carrying the bag today.

We talked afterwards about how lucky we were with the weather – as we were in the car park on arrival we were all freezing and not sure we’d make it.  And there was a discussion last summer when I raised the question of playing there and the cost (you don’t want to know) but JP insisted we were that close to a championship course, we had to play.  And we were all glad we did.  The Open comes back in 2 years and we can watch on TV and wonder, or say “hey, I got up and down there.” It’s a fun feeling.

The weather is supposed to be warmer and less breezy tomorrow, our last day. And the views from the Castle course are to die for – we were there on Tuesday afternoon, remember?

One more day.  Today’s match numbers: Butch 8, Steve and Mike 7, poor JP 4.  LOL.

And, as a final note: we all got ball markers that said the appropriate score “I broke 100 at Carnoustie.”  Or, as we now know to accurately call it: Carnasty.

A beautiful day at the Jubilee

It’s day 4.  Those who hate the golfing portion probably should not bother read this because this was pretty much a get up, move slowly, and play golf day.  Okay, for those of you who think this is worth noting, there WAS shopping, but, of course, I can’t say for what or whom.  Let me just say, Butch’s girlfriends will be very happy. :) #jk

And, to start the blog off right, Boswell has to commit to paper the genius of Dr. Butch Dodson.  As we headed home from shopping we passed the movie theatre, which is playing Captain America.  I said “hey, we could go tonight and have a male bonding experience over the movie.” JP says (I quote), “I’m down with that” – you know, the boy from the hood coming out.  But Butch says “Nah, I figure going to a movie is like sleeping in the same house.  No one says anything in either one.”

Also, as we walked down an early hole, he asked if there was some cough-cough (not what he said) stories on the way home. I said yes, don’t you remember?  “I remembered, but I wanted confirmation.”  Hmmmm…

I slept some…here’s my Fitbit for sleep this week.

Awesome.  I actually slept Tuesday night, but the Fitbit (that tracks such things, maybe without much accuracy), was charging and not on me).  Wrote the blog for yestereday, then hustled to eat my breakfast, get dressed, and go.  Butch was antsy.

And then we get to the golf center and the car park is full.  The kid in the neon green jacket told us we could park in the grassy area up the road.  We did and hustled to the tee.

Elly, at the tee, told us we were 3rd in line.

The other three got trolleys: in America we call them a pull cart.  JP was about to walk away and they grabbed him because they were lined up without handles.  He says, “Oh, you’ve got to get a handle on it” (a classic “dad joke”) and Elly actually laughed.  I said not to encourage him.  She said it was the kind of dumb joke she might make.

As you can see from the pictures, we got someone else to take the first tee photo.  He was from Pittsburgh – he had on a John Carroll University jacket.  He said his son went there.  They’d played Carnoustie Tuesday and were playing the Old Course tomorrow.  And they were following us.  Lucky them.

The day was amazing! It wasn’t much warmer, but the real feel must have been a lot warmer as you can see at one point JP and Mike are in short sleeves.  JP was wearing long underwear under both top and bottom!

It was sunny and at the start there really was almost no wind – maybe the 3 mph JP saw on his app.  And it never got anywhere near as tough as it was Monday, let alone Tuesday.   We discussed how lucky we’d gotten and decided that someone above was looking out for us and we thought we knew his name.
JP & I are proud of the new St. Andrews logo navy and orange hats.  It may actually be embarrassing how much time we spent picking “the right one.”  Initially, I wanted a neon orange one, and I wanted cotton (they have about any material, etc.).

Golf stories begin: The Jubilee course was built in 1897 as the Ladies and Youth course.  But these days it’s not much difference in difficulty from the New course, played Tuesday.

No one had a good scoring day.  I will say on my part I felt I hit the ball significantly better and got squat out of it.  I didn’t chip close and I don’t know (I don’t want to know) how many 3-putts I had.  Several.

It started with the opening drives, that were good, for the most part.  Butch hit this screamer down the left side of the fairway and I thought I saw a bunker in his path.

IN the pictures you will see his ball in the bunker, then him with it, then the next shot from it, then the next, then the next. :).  They really ARE penal bunkers.

I also played out of several.  You can see the one I am right up against the wall! Bugger.  I got it out and only lost a stroke, but still.

Today’s match ended up with JP and I with 7 points, Butch and Mike with 6.  It’s about as evenly handicapped as we can make it.

And, since it’s my blog, I will now whine a bit.  On the first par five I hit a drive to the right towards some gorse (which Butch kept calling “grouse” – JP told him today “grouse is a bird, gorse is a shrub.”)

Anyway, I find my ball with a stick across it, move the stick, and pull out a 3-iron just to hit a punch out and down the fairway.  I knew there was gorse stump in front of me, but didn’t think I would hit it.  Well, I hit the shot and yelled f**k!!!@#$%^&*().  The shot was great, right down the middle and hot.  But I slammed the club face into a root of the gorse and the club hit it and recoiled, doing the vibration up the arm thing.  I massaged, and came home and iced.  It doesn’t hurt now.  I was figuring out how much more golf there was to be played this week – I thought I’d done an “Ian.” (who broke a bone in his hand while at the golf academy when he hit a shot from behind a tree, hit the tree hard and…)

You see the number of “ball in sand” photos.  Did you know that the original bunkers were put into a golf course by sheep laying down in bad weather?  There was some suggestion that the association explained my affinity.  You figure it out.

At one point we were far enough behind the 3 women ahead of us that we were told to pick it up, which we did enough so the guy from Pittsburgh and his group fell behind us by a hole.

We enjoyed the day, if not the golf.  It was amazing.

Non-golf fans, you can come back now.  I walked to the van while the others walked their trolleys to the starter’s kiosk.  There’s a photo on 18 that shows the grassy carpark – I hope it shows our white van on the left edge.  :) (with my contact prescription in, on purpose, I can see long but can’t read – I need a pair of cheaters like Butch has).

Picture link: https://picasaweb.google.com/105397618648885302074/6283896947287978449?authkey=Gv1sRgCO2D2Ke_2pXBWQ

We found a parking place (remember yesterday?) near the pub, but it was one of those “we need to get out before you pull in there” spots.  I got in there with JP’s direction. He then tells me to be sure the roll up the windows.  It was warm out.  Why? “So the guy who comes to get in that car doesn’t pee in the van because he’s pissed off” (pun intended).  Scoffing, I did.

We had nachos (in pictures) and talked to Sheena about where to get a bargain golf stuff (JP is buying for customers), where to get fresh salmon, and other tips on shopping.  She kept saying “go up the hill a block, turn right and it’s right there”…Butch said “we can walk.”  I said, maybe, but I didn’t need more steps (I have over 19,000 today, after 13,500 yesterday).  He said he’d find us if we were around where we ate dinner Monday night.

Sheena told us some fascinating trivia (?): there's no official logo for the courses at Saint Andrews (Mike was trying to explain how the natives pronounce it - NOT like paint).  Because the Old Course and six others are owned by the town, so like your local muni, they won't settle on one.  So, different units have one.  The Trust, which runs the courses, has the one you see on JP & my hats today -- crossed golf clubs with a figure of St. Andrew?  But every shop can have their own variation; it is good to look and see which you like most.

We went across the street and bought stuff, including, on JP's suggestion, all 4 of us getting those bag tags with a Bubba inspired inscription.

I got to the fishmonger’s at 520, and they already were putting away the fresh fish.  But she went and got a slab of it and cut me off 4 big steaks.  Which you can see.  It was 17GBP/KG!!!  I also showed up at another shop just as it closed. ON a roll!  Then to the grocery store (brand name Tescos) and then Starbucks, then home.

(Might be golf stuff?) We are playing tomorrow at Carnoustie, across St. Andrews Bay – supposedly 5 miles.  I think when I put it in Google maps, it started w 12 as the crow flies.  Carnoustie, like the Old Course, hosts the British Open, or The Open, so it is top stuff.  And the course is purportedly among the hardest in the world.  It has a slope rating of 148 (for non-golf-speakers, that’s the degree of difficulty of a golf course), where today’s was 126.  And Tuesday’s was 126.  And our scores haven’t been stellar.

We have discussed some what to do to finish.  There was brief discussion of getting into the lottery to play the Old Course again Saturday.  But there’s some desire to play the scenic beauty of that course out on the southern water.  And we’ve discussed double-dipping Saturday and going on down to Crail to try it.  We’ll see if our bodies and wallets can handle it.

Knock wood, we can not have asked for a better week.  None of us know what day it is, which might be an operational definition of a good vacation.  At some point soon we’ll realize that it is about over, but that’s a bit away.

They waited the next version of “who’s better at euchre” till I wrote this.  I will update later. [update: punk kids won, 2 games to 1.  They were kind enough to point out the best we could do for the week was tie if we won the next two nights :)]

Roommate agreement, the Dodson Curse, Parking issues, and the Scottish Capital

Editor’s note: I started yesterday’s blog post, the one you are about to read, yesterday, so I am going to write like it is today.  If you think this is confusing, you should be living it.  But first, the opening comments from this morning:  Scatological discussion # like 1,000 on this trip this morning included me saying, “I saw what you all did yesterday; garbage in, garbage out.”  It ain’t pretty.  JP comes in from the backyard from his morning death-stick, looks at his phone and says “there’s 3 mph of wind, but out there, I could hear more.”  Yes, the wind whisperer is now hearing the wind.  He does NOT think this is funny. :). And, finally, Mike speaks.  We are all up and in or near the kitchen and you can hear the battery-operated clock (Mike has changed the batteries) ticking.  I say “Has that clock always ticked like that?” And he says “yes but we haven’t always been this quiet.”  Zing!

Today, we went to Edinburgh, capital of Scotland. A city of 100,000, which one website JP read to us last night in preparation (you will see the kind of preparation that was made), has 700 pubs – the highest per capita number in Scotland.  Modest brag.

For those hoping for something to have happened today, it was a pretty dull day.  Although the three bros were acting tired at the end of the day (lifting pint glasses must be hard work), I told them my Fitbit had us at about 2/3rds the walking of our first two days.  John checked his app and said “I’m 6,000 steps short of the last two days; I don’t believe it.”  No one got sick, got arrested, got in a fight, and you will see the most embarrassing moment – it was mine, early.

For context, this was my third significant visit to the city (I’m not counting Ian and I flying in there to go to Carnoustie in 2006).  My first was with my best friend from Aberdeen, Luke, over the New Year in ‘77/’78.  I was there about a week.  In ca. 1998 (someone will correct me), Megan, Karen and I went for a night via train from London – I was there doing research for a faculty professional development grant at the British Library.  And, as per necessary with drunken tourists, in the first trip Luke took me to the castle and to Rose Street.

More context: at Aberdeen (if you don’t know, and I recognize much of my audience might not, I went to the University of Aberdeen for my junior year from Wabash.  Hoosier in a strange land.  Another day, another blog post [or memoir]), the University at Edinburgh was not respected.  As in “a bunch of English wankers.”  If your Scottish geography is shaky, and you don’t google everything, Edinburgh is on the south side of the Firth of Forth (a firth is an estuary – this one separates “English Scotland” from the part the English rarely entered.  Saint Andrews is on the northeast corner of the county, Fife, that goes north and juts to a point from Edinburgh; this portion of Scotland is separated from the next one by the Firth of Tay (from which niece Taylor is named).  Aberdeen is on the point made by the this land out to the east, so is three hours by car north and east of Edinburgh.

Aberdeen was “the Scottish university.”  Edinburgh was for poofs.

But Edinburgh, as you see in the pics, is a lovely and grand city.

But first, our morning scatological story:  JP was having “gastinal issues” and went outside and Butch said “is he going out to wipe his butt in the grass.”  Hilarity followed.  To JP’s expense.

We only have one bathroom.  This leads to knowing WAAAAAAAAAAY too much about our bodily functions.  Which lead to this from me, “Butch, I can confidently say that at age sixty I have never loved anyone enough where I want to know how often they go to the bathroom.”  His reply was good to know, but he thought there was an app for that, so he could all make sure we knew.  OMG.

Before leaving I had the brothers sign a “roommate agreement for May 11”…it is attached.  Yes, they all signed it.  But my first literal LOL of the day was Butch’s wife response was “he’s a puker! I can’t believe he signed it!” :)

It was an hour plus drive – JP wanted to what we didn’t do Sunday and drive by Crail.

Golf stuff…stop reading if you are an anti-golf dork: Crail sits out on the eastern point of this section of Scotland – Fife.  The course goes back to 1786 and is famed for its vistas, the severity and beauty of a few holes that have long carries over the water, and its standing as the main place for years for qualifying if the Open is at St. Andrews (15 miles away).

As I told Karen on the phone, the wind was so strong, walking from the car park we had to lean into it. :) The guy we pass going to the driving range is wearing, I’m NOT making this up, a navy blue puffy coat. :)

So, we get in the pro shop (a sign told us to pay a pound [by now you should hear the chant “pound it” from Butch whenever this is said] to park), and chat with the pro.  One of us asks about the wind today.  He says, drily as a desert, “it’s nae worth mentioning.”  That phrase was much used the rest of the days.  I’m not sure the pictures in today’s link do the place justice.  There’s talk of taking in on in a final day second round (the Castle course is on the road to there).

Here’s the link to today’s pictures.

Golf stuff over:  If you don’t understand this, there aren’t a lot of wide roads here.  We didn’t pay the 14GBP per day for the GPS, so we are using my phone (if you missed this, of the 4 of us only “the rich liberal” paid for data service here) with Google maps, with JP navigating and the voice on.  Well, “she” misses a turn – it was not really a right and left, but a jog, and I miss the turn.  So I go a quarter mile up, pull into the first driveway, which of course has a hedge and go to pull out.  Did I mention it was a hill, so a bit blind anyway? Someone in back says “you’re good” and I can see from the left is open, so a gun into, turn hard, throw it in drive and gun it.

I look into the rear view mirror to make sure no one is about to ass-end us.

But I’m IN THE WRONG  FECKING LANE & THERE’S A CAR COMING!!!!!!!!

An impromptu game of chicken.

Obviously (???), I cut it into the left lane in time – there are roars from the car (can you imagine?) but we go on, without driving incident the rest of the way.

Scatological discussion 1,001 followed.  Underwear ruination discussion.  Damage to Steve, who was thinking he had it all along.  LMAO

So, we go into Edinburgh and literally drive right up to the castle.  Like I own the place.  It’s a tiny road up to the front (the picture of Butch and Mike in foreground, castle above them, is almost exactly where we get here) and I come to a security person.  I roll down the window.  And open with “Hi, I’m a dumb American tourist.”  She may have smiled (her name, I think, was Ioanna) and then told me there was no parking here (duh), but if I went back down and did two rights there was a car park.  As we did this, I said “we don’t want to go right, down the hill and west, when we are going to walk east.”  So, here begins the day’s quest for parking.

We circle, cross the Royal Mile (the road that goes down the hill from the castle on the top to the palace at the bottom) and, after circling a roundabout (have I mentioned them? Fun from the wrong side of the car), and back and we turn down this road toward the Waverley station (the RR station) and someone says, there were 2 on the corner as I turned!  Then there’s another along the road.  I piss off the guy behind me by stopping rapidly, signaling (I guess) and whipping into the parallel park spot.  In one! Right against the curb!  Mike even says he’s impressed.

But the time limit on the kiosk is 3 hours.  WE mark the time and climb the .3 mile to the castle.

One of the photos shows the top of Waverley station and the road we parked on; you get a sense of the steepness of the climb.

After making the climb we toured.  They paid the 16.50 as the agreement said. :). And loved it.  You see the pics of the view and the castle is just plain effing awesome.

It was now 245 and Mike was feeling a bit off – the climb? Poor breakfast?

So we started down the Royal Mile.  There were 3 restaurants together in the second block from the castle – Thai, Middle Eastern and a pub.  Guess where we went?

The 3 brothers ordered the special: a burger with a pint for 9.99 (this app has no pound sign, so…#1stworldproblems).

But here’s the conversation worthy of note: Butch says something like “I just don’t have the time and all to write it all down” (about his wit and wisdom).  Since we just passed the sign that says “supposedly James Boswell met Dr. Samuel Johnson on this spot in…” I say “Oh, I got you – I’ll be your Boswell.  The blog memorializes the highlights.”  He just grins.  And, to keep the analogy going, after we are both dead they’ll probably find a version of the diary – the unedited version. :)

Wink.

We were down to 15 mins on the parking and I decided, as per the agreement, we would move the car and park by the palace.  We had wifi in the pub, stunningly [& there are things here that were damaging and I can’t unremember], and the palace site says “parking next to palace.”

So, we whip down the hill, around another roundabout right in front of the palace, take the right arm towards the stuff based on arrows on signs, and find an empty car park! It was closed!  May 11 and 12.

So, for the second time, we circle, looking for parking.  We find a place on the Royal Mile (I parallel parked facing the wrong way!) but as John and Mike are trying to come up with enough coin Butch and I discuss whether it was a legal spot and decide it’s not.  So, I send the 3 amigos off to the palace while I go find a garage.  The palace closed at 6 – it’s about 445 – and I said if I don’t catch you up, be at the roundabout at 6.

I follow the signs to the ST John’s Hill garage, almost get hit making the right turn (like a left in the states), take a minute to figure out there’s no paper, but a yellow plastic poker chip to take to enter.  I take it, easily park, and walk down the hill – I’m a block over from the Royal mile and maybe .4 up the hill.

AS I get to the roundabout I hear “Steve!” And there’s Butch sitting on a bench in front of the gate.  I cross and he and Mike and I discuss that “some Duke was there” and the palace was closed.  Where’s JP? Scatological discussion 1,002.  The link has requisite pic of palace from gate.

Up the hill, find garage, exit, figuring out how to pay with the yellow disc – we just paid what showed on the screen.

I tell them I’m going to drop them at the start of the pub crawl and go look for parking.  Rose Street is pedestrian only.  It’s nae wide, as the photo shows. They jump out and I go up a block to George Street, make a left (remember, it’s lefts that are easy), to the west, the direction the crawl goes.

There is metered median parking on George Street – cars park in the center between where the two lanes each way run.  But there’s not a spot in the first block, the second block, the third block…finally, one spot in the 4th block!  And it says there’s no payment after 630 and it’s after 6.  I pay, park and find the guys in the Abbotsford.

The highlight for me, kinda, was place #3, which had decent looking food (note to self, check first, though, there was a nearly empty Jamie Oliver Italian restaurant in the next building west! Merde!), a quiz, and then karaoke.   If we’d played, we might have won the quiz.   Two questions – what month does America hold presidential elections? & John Wilkes Booth assassinated which American president?

There are photos of dinner, the one has haggis balls, which were ordered and eaten.  Haggis balls.  Sacrilege!

I fell asleep during dinner.  So I missed the rest of the evening, going to the car for a power nap as they hit more pubs.

There’s a picture of each on the link.

They ended up doing 6 before calling it a night at 1130.  ON the ride home, they decided the Black Cat was the favorite, with nice folks at the bar, live music, and good beer.

After a false start – we circled the block based on my misunderstanding of “Ms Google” – we shot off to St. Andrews, making it in Ms Google’s assigned time of an hour and 15 minutes.

Little of the conversation on the way home is reportable.  No one puked or mentioned being close.

The highlight might have been our all belting out to the Bee Gees “Lonely Days” – my choice.

And we were back to our temporary home and Mike says of JP, “he was three quarters of the way down and he was already snoring.”  With the lights on!  It was a long day.

Tomorrow supposed to be the windiest, and we play the Jubilee Course, which is right next to the New Course, which is between it and the Old.  All right there.  Friday we become geographically more challenged.

Another fine day.  Rah rah.

Why Sheep Are Scared

Editor’s note: We have heard the complaints from some readers that there was “false advertising” about not having a lot of golf coverage in the blog yesterday.  Let me say that from this end the response was “they DO realize this is a GOLF trip, right?” Let me point out that Monday’s round included OVER 300 shots and I ONLY recounted a handful!!! But, to accommodate those who don’t want to read about golf, I will put in a marker to let them not read the “boring stuff” and then a bold marker to indicate when they can go back to reading the “other stuff.”

Today we played the New Course.   There is no better introduction than the words of the St. Andrews Golf Trust official web page:

The oldest ‘new’ course in the world, the second course at the Home of Golf was built by the Keeper of the Green Tom Morris in 1895 and it was imaginatively named to differentiate from its famous neighbour.

At the end, we went up on the roof and took shots of the four courses that circle the golf center building – where we’ve checked in several times.

Back up: yesterday morning in the car park (British for parking lot) as we came in this guy walks across the lot without long sleeves. Using my best American wit (it was day one remember), I say “Hey, laddie, where’s your jumper? I’ve got a spare in the car I can loan.”  He laughs and says “I’m going to my car [it may have been “mae car”] for one.”  Well, as life has it, here we are at the starter’s booth and here he comes (with jumper on) and there was some half-wit (that’d be me) exchange.  Turned out his group was right behind us.  We said “hey, how’d you do?” As they came off the course (remember, we walked a block to have beers).

Well, here we are at the starter’s desk today and here he is again! So, we chat a moment, and he’s in the tee time right before us.  They took off – you’ll hear more later – and we didn’t really see them the rest of the day.  But we finished on that roof, looking out and here they are!  So, we had a wee chat. My friend was now red-faced (as I am, and Butch, though Mike and JP seem to just get darker brown somehow).  We talked about play, and the view, which is like golf crack, and they talk about Carnoustie (where we are playing Friday) and the courses on the west coast. And, of course, The Donald, as he now owns the one, Turnberry, and (unbelievably) has made a big dea
l of how he’s going to make this 100 year old course and resort better.  Turns out they are from Glasgow, and today was their last day.  The father (of my friend and his brother) had an accent that we could barely decipher.  It was one of those bonding over golf moments across nations. And they took that awesome picture of the four of us with the toun (Scottish for town, of course) and the Himalayas (the par 3 there next to the old course and between where we were standing and the toun) and the first and last few holes of the Old Course.

Icymi here's the link again
Story 2 about our socializing on the golf course and abouts: so we are playing along but the starter warns us “if a member comes along they get to go before ya.”  None do, but a twosome, a couple,  appears behind us as we are going down an early hole.  By seven they’ve been right on our backsides this long and we decide to let them play through (the greens are just a few steps to the next tee).

So, we hit our tee balls on 7 and waved them up to play through.

They walk up and he says “did ye all hit em in the fairway?”  We laughed because no one hit the fairway, with balls scattered in four directions.  Someone said “it’s wide open for you.”  He says “oh, I won’t hit it, but my wife hits it straight down the middle.”  To which I say “eh, where’s she playing today then?”  Dead silence.  Crickets.

I have just been told JP’s version of this story and we all about wet our pants.  JP says “you got this look like a kid who dropped his ice cream cone.”  Butch said “it was like you’d saved this line for years and they didn’t get it.”  JP can make the look I had.  ::).  I said “I was going to explain…” JP says “I could see you were going to and I was going to nudge you to stop you from saying something.”  I guess my shoulders slumped.

This should be the first place (and not the last) where you say “poor Steve.”

Next place: I am completely messed up.  Sleep deprived, jet lagged, tired, etc, etc.  Here’s the evidence: the starter gave me four yardage books, four pin placement sheets, and four pencils.  It wasn’t long before I couldn’t find either the placement sheet or the pencil.  And as I wanted a drink of water, my bottle of water disappeared.  I found a snickers wrapper in a pocket instead – but I had no snickers today (honestly)!  Well, you get the idea…

Now GOLF TALK (those of you who don’t want golf, skip from here to next bold notice):  The wind was stronger, but the same direction, as yesterday.  Maybe 15-20 mph vs. 10-15.  It was one club stronger (golf talk) than before.  I did NOT have a good day.  The funniest (ha ha) story is on the par 5 on the back and I hit this low driver that runs into the next fairway and I have a good shot toward the green (remember there’s no trees so there’s nothing above ground to stop you, mostly).  I aim at this little pot bunker (you saw yesterday’s videos) with this cross wind and hit my 3 wood as good as I’ve hit one all year.  I don’t see where it rolls to, but it was right at the bunker – the wind never moved it.  So I walk up, with JP nearby, and there it is, not just in the fecking bunker but near the front wall.  I yell the f-bomb, mad as heck.  JP tells it this way, “so he gets in the bunker, tries to turn this way, no, the other way, no…finally he turns and hits it out backward.  His chili was hot and he hits the shot – I was trying get video but I couldn't fast enough  so I didn't see but he just turns and looks at me with this ‘what the **** look?’ And I’m like ‘what did I do?” And I realize ‘did you hit it in the gorse” and all he does is says is yeah, slumps his shoulders  and stomps backwards into the gorse.’”  LOL.   Yeah, I was pretty damned pissed.  Then the next shot comes up in the rough to the left of the green (remember I went BACkWARD into the gorse) and they are on the green and here is a Dallas Cowboys bag, then, about 15 yards farther down the green to the hill, another bag in my line.  I said something like “do you want me to hit through both bags or just one?”  Mike moved John’s and I hit it on and they let me pick up (I did this A LOT today).

We walk to the next tee and they are standing there.  JP reports the couple in front of us told him to hit three clubs more, then we stand there.  I say something like (remember I’m not a happy camper) “why are we standing here and not hitting?” They say “we’re not supposed to” and I want to know why – there was no apparent reason – though, as you might not know, the Old Course famously has the 8th and 11th cross and you have to wait one way for the other – and they say “it’s on that sign.”  See picture of sign right on link – yes, it was 2 feet from me!!!!! Grrrr….

Okay, and, finally, TwiCE I hit shots that rolled around the infamous bunkers and I was happy it wasn’t in.  Then I went and dumped the next shot in!?!!?!?  The one I was so mad after not getting it out the first time I hit it out one handed, more in rage than a real shot, and it came out right and fairly close to the pin.  Did NOT make me happier.

On the “his chili was hot” theme, JP hit a drive on the second hole that we thought was brilliant – long and down the left side of the fairway.  I was the only one near him when he found it – in one of the pot bunkers – but I couldn’t get my camera out fast enough to video HIM in one of them.  ):  There’s a picture of him right after, which is significant – the sand blew back in his face after the shot and into his clothes (remember, this is #2).  An R-rated version of this blog (okay, a MORE R-rated version) would provide his hilarious description of where the sand went and what he was going have to do in the shower to get it out.

We decided the New Course was tighter than the Old Course.  And not quite as nicely kempt.  But Mike and JP both thought they liked it more.  Ironically (?) we played off of the Old Course – in fact, Butch admitted playing most of the first nine, which runs with the Old Course on the left, out of the Old Course.  :). “Liked it that much laddy?” He was asked several times.

No one played particularly well. There were no spectacular blow ups by JP…but some ugly holes by yours truly (Mike helped me by telling me that only 3 7’s on a card got you 20% of the way to not breaking a hundred).

Back to non-golf:  After chatting with our friends from Glasgow, we had a drink in the center, but their menu was limited and they didn’t have anything on draft!!! The crime!  I suggested we go home, shower, then go to dinner out.

There was a lengthy, but not conclusive discussion of what to do tomorrow.  According to my weather app it has a wind icon for tomorrow.  ):  JP had an app (we had wifi in the center) that said 20 mph winds, again from the NE.  But ONLY 19 on Thursday.  LOL. But we all decided our bodies could use the rest [note, they kept saying “we’ve played 3 days straight.”  Finally I said “no we haven’t, we didn’t play Sunday.”  They said “we aren’t counting Sunday.”  I guess it’s a new rule on the trip – we don’t count Sundays].  So we moved the tee time, on the Jubilee Course, you’ll all know that it was built in 1897 for Victoria’s jubilee, to Thursday morning.

Then I said “I want to see the university,” and they said great, so instead of turning right out of the golf courses, I went left.

There are pictures of the university, the cathedral and the castle on the link.  Both cathedral and castle are in ruins.  JP kept saying “the Castle course [where we are playing Saturday]  is right over there” and I kept wondering where there was land for a golf course.  As we look across the bay, to the south and east, we see this clubhouse looking building. “That’s the Castle Course”.

We drove out there just to see if it was as spectacular as it looked.  It is.  Pictures in link.  A whole different angle of the toun, from the southeast instead of the northwest.  It was a beautiful day out and we had a Guinness there (“for lunch”, like Irish workmen) and enjoyed the views.

BTW, Friday we play at Carnoustie.  It is (we were told at the Castle Course) 5 miles across the bay.  And it’s over the white flag, in the one picture, we were told.  So you know.

Okay, Butch chose Italian, rather than fish and chips (our first choice for dnner).

There’s food porn – I had Rigatoni di Manzo.  It was v good.  The place was v. Good.  The house wine (I think Butch killed most of the bottle himself, JP for some reason had a Peroni chaser with it).

Two dinner stories.  We got to talking about mushrooms so I say “have you ever heard the story about Karen and I and mushrooms?”  They say no and I tell them the story – the short version is that in about our X year of marriage we discovered we had been ordering mushrooms on our pizza because we both thought other liked them.  :). So, on goes dinner and somehow mushrooms come up again, I think they were in Mike’s meal, and I say “have you ever heard the story about Karen and I and the mushrooms?”  I thought they were going to wet themselves.  I told them, when I could get a word in edge wise, “the essence of comedy is timing.”

Here you go: this couple is sitting behind us, and learning new things, I’m sure (smile) – I apologized to them before we sat down for what they were about to experience.  As we got up (we didn’t have dessert, she had this huge sundae), Butch says to the guy “hey, are you from the North Pole?”  He just rubbed his beard in recognition and smiled.  Butch goes on with a line I’ve already heard four times – “I color mine because everyone thinks I look too young” (see photo of my brother-in-law).  Without missing a beat the guy says, “so do I, the whole thing [he had white hair too].  I really am only 29!”  WE crack up.  Then he says “this is my mother.”  LMAO.  I said “you’ll pay for that one later, lad.” :)

Then back for the euchre game. There was much trash talking today from JP (note: Mike does NOT talk much, but eats like I don’t know what – he ate HIS dinner, the light colored pasta in the pictures, AND the leftover half of mine, and we had appetizers!) about who can actually play cards.  Old guys won tonight.  Will it shut him up tomorrow? No.

Tomorrow: we are going to Edinburgh. We are seeing the castle and the palace – the Royal Mile – a concession to history and tourism – and then we are crossing into new town to do the Rose Street mile – an untold number of pubs in a mile.  The Rose St challenge is to drink a pint in every pub on it.  The Dodson brothers are planning on taking up the challenge.  Scotland has zero tolerance drunk driving laws; I will not be imbibing.  But I hope it goes well.  LOL.

Now, this: yesterday they said something that all I could do was put my head in my hands and sob (if I had a pound coin for every time Butch as called me a rich liberal, I could charter a plane home).  I said “you’ve damaged my sensibility.”  JP says “finally! It’s day 4 [note: they CAN’T count!] – we had the over/under lower and everyone had the lower.”  LOL.

So, to end, this list, without details to show how damaged I now am.

 I did NOT know what prairie dogging was; I do now.  Sadly.
 I did NOT know what crop dusting was; I do now.  Sadly.
 I did NOT know what I know, or was told, never mind, about sheep; I can never get it out of my head.  And then there’s the picture of today’s shirt, in matching gray to go with JP (that story will have to wait for personal telling), with the sheep on it and what…well, just forget it…forget it…
 I did not know about being the big spoon.

If you don’t know any of this, and you might have damaged sensibility DO NOT LOOK IT UP!!!!!

I am damaged.  But I am having a great time.

New (Great) Memories at the Old Course

Quick top note, for those wanting to know this: it was just a f***ing great day! Sunny weather, warm enough, with just your “gentle” out of the north wind. And great company.  Some good play.  I turned to Mikey on 18 green as John tried to two putt a putt he wasn’t going to two putt, and said that I was about to cry thinking that it was over.  It was that good.

But first, the underwear story du jour: as we got in the car afterwards, Butch made it clear he was “wearing Bubba’s underwear.”  !!!! WTF!!! JP remembered that Butch took their father’s underwear when their was a redistribution of Bubba’s stuff six years ago.  When he said it both JP and I said “ewwwww.”  “What, did you think the day would come when you’d want him along like that?”  Butch, of course, said, deadpan, “Yes. I wanted to keep Bubba close to me”  It was a funny exchange on a funny day.

But we said afterwards, Bubba was with us in spirit.

Now, chronologically (and I am supposed to report this – there are more things that would be memorable to tell that I am NOT supposed to report here.  I have a list…no, you don’t REALLY want to know :))

Butch walked to Aldi’s, yes, THAT Aldi’s, shortly after they opened at 8 (they get up early here) and bought stuff, then cooked (and then did dishes!) a heart-healthy breakfast of fried eggs, bacon (the kind here is more like Canadian bacon), potatoes and “crumpets” – English muffins but the Scots are unwilling to concede the English should have their name on anything.  :)

We were to the parking lot an hour before our tee time; they didn’t let us check in till 20 mins before.  Butch wanted a hat.  This proved troubling as the best he had was “like they are wearing” to describe it.  We ended up in Tom Morris’s shop, “the oldest golf shop in the world,” and bought a very sharp “flat hat” (as the teller called it) & then putted, etc.

It was sunny, with a “bit of a breeze” (if I have them in the right order, the first picture in this link to today’s pictures and two videos, is of the beach along the course – those white caps will indicate how much breeze there was), and warm enough.

Here's the link to the pictures -- one at time sucks!



We all wore three layers, but never got cold.

JP and Butch got a caddy.  Both were named Steve.  Butch said as we did introductions “am I in a Saturday Night Live routine or what?”  The one pic is off the 3 of us together, because JP wanted to…just because.

I will keep descriptions of play to a minimum for those who don’t care.   Because I remember what David Owen opines in his wonderful book My Usual Game – “no one really cares to hear about anyone else’s golf game.”

But here are some highlights.  JP beat us like a red-headed step child most of the day (more later) with a well played round like the best golfer of the group by 10 strokes should play.  This included birdies, yes BIRDIES on the hardest and 3rd hardest holes on the course, with a 30 foot birdie with a a three foot right to left break on it.  Mike and I said that it was a hard putt before he hit it (and JP is not the world’s best putter) and he drained it like it was his job.

Highlight 2 – JP is 4 over coming to 16 tee.  He’s been hitting this left to right shot off the tee all day and the wind is the 15 mph from the left.  And there’s a fence down the right side…right down the right side.  I was about to say something as he teed up but stepped to Butch and whispered “I was going to say ‘this sets up perfectly for your mini-slice, eh? [#irony] But I thought he should have his round.’”  He hits his tee ball nowhere near the golf course, never had a chance, 40 yards right in what he called later “the St. Andrews Academy.”  Then he steps up and hits another one just like the first one.  Bing bang bong – he takes an 8, +4 on one hole after +4 for the first 15.  He said after he’d probably regret that the rest of his life. ):  Butch had a funny voice over.  ON list of things not to post.

Highlight 3 – there were struggles.  I lost only 2 balls, both on one hole.  After “losing” Mike asked “where’d that go?”  “Edinburgh” was all I could answer.  Butch spent a couple early holes trying to get out of the deep stuff after topped drives off the tee.  And as John put it about Mike on the front nine “the only time we talked to you was on the tee and on the green.”  Army golf as it’s known (left-right-left-right).  He hit the ball onto another golf course twice (I think that’s right).  But here’s the funny exchange:  JP’s Steve says “why didn’t he get a caddy?”  JP says I don’t think he wanted to spend the money.  “Well, he’d have someone to keep him company.”  LOL.

Butch will want a highlight to be that he made a putt of maybe 15 feet on the famed 18th hole for par – the only one in the group, and, of course, winning his two-ball (me being his partner) the hole.  Parring the last at the Old Course.  Priceless.

There’s a pic in the collection of us on the first tee, posed by the starter – the clubs are to make the “ST Andrews cross” (the Scottish and course symbol) – then the iconic shot from the Swilcan Bridge on 18 – these days in imitation of Watson, Palmer, Nicklaus and Player there once upon a time.  And two videos – one very mean one of me not getting out of one of their famous fecking bunkers, and one of Butch getting out and saving a stroke from the only one he was in all day.

And, finally, on the Road Hole, Mike hit one into the pond on the hotel grounds.  Explanations for those who ask.  The rest of us hit good drives.

Then we adjourned to Sheena and Jack’s.  These are people JP was supposed to look up because of someone (a customer?) from Houston, because Jack was from Houston.  Their bar and hotel is only a block from the 18th tee.  It’s their sign in the pics – I wanted to discuss “scorching” with the sign writer, but thought better of it.  But we were told it was the warmest day here since August.  Lucky us.

Jack and Sheena’s has a small patio right on the Main Street of town, near the university.  JP talked to almost everyone who walked by. :). We got too much sun.  In St. Andrews.  Who knew?

We came home and I fixed one of my favorites at home.  In the original recipe from Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman, it is Cajun chicken pasta.  I don’t know what it is WE had.  You see, the defining ingredient in Cajun chicken pasta, duh, is Cajun spices.  Do you know how hard it is to find Cajun spice mix in St. Andrews, Scotland?!?!!? Like, impossible.  So, same recipe, but the guy at Marks & Sparks came up with “Latino Rub” instead.  So we had Latino Rub chicken pasta.   Everyone liked it.  Picture in the cue.

And the funniest moment (I can share) of the evening – JP wanted dessert.  There were packages of sticky toffee “pud” (that’s what the package calls it) in the fridge.  So, he’s trying to figure it out.  It says “serve piping hot.”  We wondered about the operational definition of “piping” then…in the middle of the euchre game (the youngsters won 2-1 – we have to decide tomorrow night if Butch and I are going to be broken up or we are going to just keep being their whipping boys) JP says “hey, this is vegetarian!” Yes, he was surprised!  Laughter ensued, then Butch stuck in the dagger – “who makes sticky toffee pudding without meat?!?!?!?”  We are contacting the makers to tell them that it HAS to have bacon.  :). Because, of course, EVERYTHING is better with bacon on it.

And, finally, to go with yesterday’s curb and cone stories: first, I pulled into a parking place at the course that was sooooo tight…”how tight was it?”  No one could get out of the van. :) I had to back up and let them all out and I leaned to left (remember which side is the drivers) and was able to squeeze out.  BTW, the car on my left had its mirror popped in.  Got it?

Then we went to Marks & Sparks and Butch was in front and yelled “shotgun.” Then climbed into the drivers side.  Much **** was blown.  When we got to M&S, I stopped the van and Butch reached over to the stick and put it in park.  “You remember you’re not driving, right?”  LOL.  Then I had to go back to the store – forgot chicken broth, which no one carries here it seems – and the other 3 were watching me and talking to me as I walked up to the van and climbed into the passenger side.  Then sheepishly (there it is!) had to walk around the van and get in the driver’s side.

It was a great day.  Philosopher Butch said to me on a late hole (when we were partners) that he told people they needed to do things like this because “if you don’t do things and have memories, when you get to be our age whole years will disappear with nothing to remember them by.”  None of us is ever going to forget this great day in the Home of Golf.

Day 1...or 2...or...whatever

We arrived in Scotland today via Dublin -- not a real winner of a situation, and even survived the
"Fun" of a flight on Ryanair, aka the cheapest airline in Europe. :)

But to remind the readers of what's going on here, I am in Scotland at St. Andrews (the above mentioned home of golf) with my 3 brother-in-laws, in part to commemorate their father, Bubba, but also to have a once-in-a-lifetime experience.  So far, the Hoosiers seem to think it is (if I hear one more joke about the British currency, the pound, and "pounding it", I'll scream!).

For faithful readers of this blog, and no you are out there, all one of you, here's your food porn shot du jour.

However, this is definitely NOT a food porn trip.  When I suggested Indian food, I was told they ate only Indiana food (if you tire of this kind of joke, stop reading here) and I was told that Indian food tasted like a**.  I did not, though I wanted to, ask how the speaker knew what a** tasted like.

But first, the hustle of getting here.

The trip from home to JFK was not bad, with JP, the youngest, navigating on Google maps, knowing when the traffic snarls or "red spots" were coming.  Except for one bad spot coming off the Verrazano Bridge onto the Belt Parkway, we did fine.  But, OC, I was misguided by where we were parking (reserved a spot) -- "cheapAirportParking" turned out to be "JFK long term parking" and we had to circle through more traffic than a Hoosier's ever seen to get back to the place, with oldest bro law Butch calling to get directions.  Everyone had to powder their nose (this will be the euphemism till
another comes along) before being shuttled to JFK.  The driver, who we could barely understand, drove like Mario Andretti in this beat up old shuttle bus -- imagine some G forces as he accelerated onto the Belt Parkwa -- and slung us up to the Delta check in area.  There a guy, Carl, asked if we wanted to check in curbside and we did.  Bags?  One bro law says these two and Carl says "why you checking that bag?! It gonna cost you $100."  Well, on Carl's encouragement, 3 of us carried our bags on and JP, aka the clothes whore, had to check his 47 lb camouflage-colored bag.   Yes, for $100.  Yes, some a** burn.

To security, where we wizzed through -- JP timed it as 25 minutes from gettin on shuttle to being through security.

Then we ate.  $22 Cobb salads.  The BEST Cobb salad any of us had eaten.  Turns out it was pretty good, but no one is ever prepared for NYC prices.



Then on the plane.  No problem.  The trip was a little up and down but we were into a misty, foggy Dublin a few minutes early.  Our bags all came and then we stood in line to get through customs.  Easy enough.  But now to find Ryanair and check in.   Turns out Ryanair is in the other terminal.  About a quarter mile walk from where we were (remember, none of us has slept much and we are pulling our golf bags and our luggage).  fortunately, JP will ask for directions (what's w that?!?!?!).

Then we waited at Ryanair, where I'd already paid for two bags.  But we had to take the golf bags to "oversized luggage" where one guy was working grudgingly.   It was now 1030 and our flight left at 1235.  We had discussed going into to Dublin -- none of others had been -- but this trip I guess they'll have to say they've "been to Dublin" and mean the airport. ):


After a cup of coffee, we went through security, but this time they decided that the travel size Axe in other bro law Mikey's bag was a terrorist weapon!!! So he got held up for a few minutes and there was an exchange and he we went on.

The RyanAir experience was not to be missed.  The plane wasn't at the gate AFTER the time when we were supposed to start boarding.  And they called Zone 1 to board anyway?!?!?!!?!?  They were stopped on the Tarmac and waited until the plane arrived and the passengers deplaned but we actually passed each other on the Tarmac in the swap.  While standing there we watched most of our bags on the conveyor into the plane, so we were pretty sure we were going to have out stuff in Edinburgh.  (I tried to get Mikey to pronounce it like the natives -- "Ednburra" -- but he wasn't sure.  And he said "see she said it like I did" and I pointed out that the flight attendant he was using as his ideal was a non-native English speaker. :).


Bing bang, we were through customs in Edinburgh, but like Dublin we had to walk a long ways to the "car rental centre."  Butch repeated a line from Dublin "are we walking back from here?"  The people at AVis couldn't have been nicer – kudos to them.  But we had to fold the middle of the middle seat in a Ford Galaxy van (twice the size of everything around it) to get everything into the back.

Admittedly, I started using my left foot on the brake and we held up everyone in the Avis parking lot as we packed all 12 bags of gear (4 golf bags, 4 suitcases , 4 personal bags), and away we went, with JP navigating (maybe a bit too much – “follow that car there “ pointing, then “no, I meant left here.”  Everyone else was freaked out about driving along on the left side of the road (I should have been), maybe more so as I kept making the tiger stripes chirp on the left side (where the heck is the right side of the car in this my brain kept asking), then there was running over a serious of orange
construction cones, with the left side, and then there was running over two curbs on tight turns – on the left side.  See a pattern here?

But we took the scenic route most of the way to St. Andrews, along the Firth of Tay (for whom JP’s daughter is named, so I have heard) – JP took many pictures, and kept saying “I’m going to wonder what these are of, or where I was…”

Then to St. Andrews.  I took us down to the Old Course, which is closed on Sundays, to see it.  There we found hundreds of people milling about, just walking, playing the par 3 course adjacent, or enjoying the 14 degree day (Celsius, of course) – with 15 mph wind off the water.  It was NOT warm.
Requisite picture.  More from here tomorrow, as we play as of 1130.

Then to the house – yet another worry in the travel plans, which turned out to be very nice and in town.  St. Andrews is not huge.

Then we walked to the nearest pub for dinner (remember, NO INDIAN FOOD).  And home for two games of euchre, won by the youngsters.  Notably, the oldsters actually fell asleep sitting at the dinner table!  Just for a moment, mind you.  I have walked, acc to my Fitbit, 21,000 steps yesterday and 15,000 today.

After two days, I can say this: I know WAY too much about the others’ bathroom habits and needs.  And way too much about what they brought for underwear.  And, although we ARE in Scotland and I do well a fair amount of Brook Bros (whose logo is a sheep being weighed), I have heard WAY too much about sheep – Butch claims to have a t-shirt that says “accept no sheep substitute.”  I am still trying NOT to cope with that idea.

And, on that rather troubling note, I leave you readers with day 1, 2 or whatever it was…since none of us know what day it is or what time it is, etc.  Happy Mother’s Day.