It’s been a rather tumultuous one to be honest. On the plus side I’m still here and batting, which is good.
I went for a duck in Edinburgh yesterday though. Not a cricket one of course but a real, dead one. My favorite butcher, W&S Christie, in Bruntsfield do an excellent duck job. The veritable canard! Well worth the trip and long live the independents may I say. Especially ones with as much character and bonhomie as this establishment has.
Caddying has been very good fun at The Castle this year. It is an excellent place to work, with a great bunch of caddies (pudgie), top notch caddiemaster in Matt, and the front of house staff are wonderful. It’s not a bad golf course too.
On the writing front I am trying to blog weekly and still managing to churn out an article each month for HK Golf. They are remarkably still publishing them. That’s over a year now.
My biggest golfing achievement by far, apart from going one under around the loop on The Old and hitting two consecutive balls up Grannie Clarks Wynd, was in helping to get Tennents Lager back on tap at the Dunvegan. How can you have your sights on being the premier golf bar in the world without Tennents?
Jings ! Help ma bob! (ps foreign readers refer to The Broons on this poetic outburst, and be careful in the translation of the scots ‘bob’. It’s quite a tricky, contextual word in all honesty. A bit like ‘wee’, except if you combine them you are almost always referring to a small caddie bloke (ie in the sense of being under 5′ foot 8” tall) at the end of the bar, who is drinking lager (Tennents).
Our flat is finally finished in St Andrews and it’s lovely. Albeit we have no curtains yet, but there are windows and a roof. It’s a very nice spot indeed with a beautiful garden and we get the sun all day, when it’s not raining.
The bistrot project in Edinburgh is nearly starting. We just have to find a decent builder, think up a name and hire a few staff. This means that I may have to split my time between St Andrews and Edinburgh. Caddiemasters are the most wonderful, intelligent and accomodating people.
Thinking up a name is incredibly hard. Murrayfield Place is about as good as I have got so far, but it’s hardly trendy, wildly clever or original. But neither am I. ‘The Drunken Duck’, or indeed ‘The Veritable Canard’, are catchy and fairly apt as it’s adjacent to the Water of Leith, but we are in Murrayfield, not Hampstead, I’m afraid.
God, get me a train.
Unfortunately I’m still on my back with much pain, which is a bit of a pisser. Because there is not a whole load you can do on your back all day. However, Radio 3 are playing Bach non-stop all Christmas. Johann Sebastian of course.
So this will be remembered for being the Xmas of the good Bach and the bad back.
Apologies and wishing everyone a most merry Xmas.