Irish humour...

When we were off playing on our golf trip last month we did, as we have always done before, spend the last afternoon in Dublin,normally in the temple bar area of the city. Walking around Dublin we passed this bicycle - don't know if it was a crime-scene or just that the owner wanted to keep his front wheel and seat.

I actually had to stay overnight due to flight time back to Tours. In the taxi to the hotel the driver said, when I told him where I was staying, "You don'y want to be staying there,they make you make your own bed" keeping it going I said that that was ok as I was pretty domesticated,to which he replied " No, I mean they give you a hammer and nails" - you have to love them.

Biggest disco-ball?

The hotel we stayed in for our golf trip had, like many others in Ireland, a cavernous entertainment area - very Tardis-like and in it there was this giant disco ball. Certainly the biggest I'd seen but nowhere near the size of the worlds largest which featured at this year's 'Bestival' music festival on the Isle of Wight - it measured !0.33m!

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Boys and the black stuff...

Just back from a very enjoyable long weekend of golf in Tramore in southern Ireland. It's an event that started 20 years ago and this was the venue for our inaugural outing. I had gone on the first 13 outings but when we moved to France I sadly called an end to what were very enjoyable times with some great characters. When asked if I wanted to join them on their 20th anniversary trip there was always only going to be one answer. We stayed at the same hotel,played the same courses and even had the same mini-bus driver from 20 years ago! O'Shea's welcomed us like the prodigal sons - all 14 of us - and they even put up a prize for our last days golf.

One of the best aspects of these trips for me has always been the camaraderie of the group and although there have been changes in the groups make-up over the years there has rarely, if ever been a cross word. Considering the differences in backgrounds and upbringings...and loads of alcohol consumption...this is a credit to all of them. There is a great deal of banter (big Ian is the master) and you have to your thick- skin layer on but the results are often hilarious.

We were blessed with beautiful weather, as we have in so many other years and this along with the fabulous courses made the golf a pleasure even for someone who has only played a handful of times in the last six years!

A big thank you goes to my good friends Bert (right) for taking on the unenviable task of organising the trip and also to Iain ('Bo') (left) and Matt (below) who have been so much involved in the organizing of previous trips.

One scary part of the trip for me was it felt like it was only yesterday since we were last here!