A Disaster has occurred !

It seems, that at the ripe ( some might say over-ripe ) old age of eh, ahuh ,,, well let's just say old enough to be a 5-times grandpa .,,.,. Arghhhhhhhhh ,,, am I really ????
I have now, for the first time in my life ,,, EVER ,,, developed bloody Hay Fever, seemingly !!
How the hell has that come about I ask myself ??
My nose has been streaming all day today (again !) ; it did the same yestertime and all the while I was sneezing and feeling completely miserable ! ( I mean, even more miserable than normal ! )
I can barely keep my eyes open ,, they too are streaming constantly ,,
What is this dreadful ailment and more importantly what is the cure ?
I hear talk of an Anti Histamine but I didn't even know I had another auntie ...
If anyone can shed light on why I have suddenly become afflicted I'd appreciate their help ....
Answers on a Post Card please ,,,, and hopefully a fast one ,,, I need the CURE before tomorrow morning at 9.30am when I'm due to tee off !!
PS : Could it simply be the sun-tan cream ,.., It seems to melt in the heat and run into my eyes ,,? Maybe tomorrow I'll try sun block below the eyes only !!
HELP !!!!

Do you people know who I am !?

Heard a wee story the other day ,.,. in fact it was my son who told it to me, and he's a lawyer ,, an honest man ,, so it MUST be true ?
It was about Kirk Douglas' other ,, not so well known son ,.., Don't remember his name but not Michael .,.,,. Anyway this guy is ( or maybe was ? ) a stand-up comedien ,..,
Apparently one night doing a gig he was being heckled badly ,,, let's just say his audience weren't being kind to the boy ! He was, in fact, as the old time grease paint comics might say ,, dying on his feet ! Akin to a new act at the old Glasgow Empire !
He seemingly got so exasperated that he grabbed the mike out of it's stand and walking right up to the edge of the stage he shouted at them ,,,
"Do you people know who I am ?" ,.., Silence at last ..
"I am KIRK DOUGLAS' son" he told them .... the silence grew almost tangible until at last one guy got to his feet and shouted back ,,,
NO, I'm KIRK DOUGLAS' son ,,,, great laughter ensued all round the house ,,
Another audience member jumped up at the opposite side of the house ,,,
NO, I'm KIRK DOUGLAS' son ,,, then another, and another ,, until within 2-minutes the whole hall was in uproar with hundreds of guys on their feet claiming to be the great man's son ,,,
The young would-be stand-up comic simply walked off and never returned !
True ?? Who knows ,, but funny ,,,, It sure tickled my fancy ! How about yours ?

Preparing to go !

You have to ask yourself ,,, Is it really worth it ??
It's been all hassle here and in my son & daughter-in-law's house for the past few days ,,, and all we're doing is driving down the road a couple of hundred miles for a short holiday break !
First it was the booking ,,,, then it was the site ,,, CenterParcs ,.., is it any good, what do other people think of it ?,, checking out the online comments and listening to friends .,,.
"Oh, the place is wonderful ( for kids ! ) but don't eat in ANY of the on site restauants ,, take good hiking shoes ! ,.,.,. don't hire their bikes ( very poor condition ,, ) ,,, everything COSTS an arm & a leg !! ",.,.,.
Then the girls decided to buy a week's meals in the Supermarket ,,, here ! ,.., before we left ?
Are there no supermarkets in England I muse ?? Why are we carrying all this food ? & drink, of course ?? I mean ,, we're even taking our own Scottish limes & lemons for the Gin ( That's English Gin btw !! )
"Remember to pack swimming trunks to go in the fun pool with Gordy ,,, get some cash" ( again ... it seems England has slipped into 3rd. world status ,, now they have no bloody Banks ! ) "Watch you don't get Scottish bank notes ,, they might refuse to take them ,,,
Aye right ! They'll take them or they'll get bugger all !"
"Did you pack a book to read ? ,,, a weatherproof jacket ?,,, your shaver ,,, ? the camera ,, phone charger ,,, & on & on ,,, " I'm knackered & we haven't moved out the street yet !
Christ it's a weeeek ,,, I can grow a bloody beard if it all goes pear shaped & I forget a shaver ..
Hahaha ,,, Derek & Amanda bought me a new tee shirt for my holiday ,,,
It's a Mr. GRUMPY !!
Oops ,,, time to shut up and go enjoy !!!!

Women can be such Fusses !

She just got onto me again !
Telling me how bloody stupid I was !! ( Ha, as if I didn't know that already ....)
She brought some chocolate bars in from the fridge in the garage and confronted me with them ,,,
I used to eat the odd peanut choc bar ( Marathon ... before they became the truly awful Snicker ?) or a Mars during a round of golf ,, but more importantly I used to always keep a couple in my golf bag to ensure my old pal Jim Russell didn't suffer a hypo half way round the course ,,, Jim was diabetic & sometimes a lack of sugar would hit him like an errant golf ball .,,.
at these times he needed an urgent sugar fix ,,, and what better than a Marathon or Mars ?
Sadly Jim died ,,, over a year ago now.
So what was so wrong with me having a few chocy bars secreted away in the fridge you might wonder ,,?
Aye Ok, so I'm on a sometimes Atkins diet ,,, and I don't often take one out on the course with me anymore ,,
Although I did like the thought that they were there if I took a wee notion !
However she did have a point I suppose .,,.
The sell by date on them was passed ,,, a little on the wrong side of fresh ,,,
Eh, ok, I finally conceded ,, bin them then if you must my dear ,,,
But I really don't see what can go out of date on a bit of chocolate and some peanuts !!
Ok, so June 2004 wasn't exactly yesterday ,,, but ,,,

Wot a lot I've got !!

This morning ,,, or in Lotsie speak, tosmorning ,, or yestertime even ... I was browsing !

Not the net as some might, but all my own old files ,,,

My Documents, my Stationery, my Clipart, my photos ,,, my everydamnthing ,,

and have I got some really good STUFF ! ?

Ha, look at some of this ... it's brilliant ..

Sadly not all the animation is working here ,,,

Mr. Bean is really something to see !!

Anyway I have hundreds more of these almost forgotten stationeries so stand-by for more exciting emails !

I'm surrounded by them these days !

NERDS that is ,,,The son is a complete gadget & gizmo freak .,., buys every damn kind of new modern electronic ( or is even that word now old hat ? ) PC gadget to play games with ,.,.,. he even has a gyroscope ball thing to strengthen his arms ! ... a nerd of the first order !

The daughter left one ,,,, but found another ! ,, and an even worse case to boot ! And what has he done for her ??? Apart from making her laugh again ,,, bringing her sublime happiness ,,, ?

Why he's actually turning her into one too :(

This one speaks so many foreign languages it's obscene ,,, and wait for this ,,, he keeps a note of his American Express card Pin number written down in his wallet, in Georgian !! ... but in case anyone finding it or stealing it reads Georgian, he's encrypted it into Japanese !!!! Hahaha

He believes it might be just a tad unlikely for the average Glesca pick-pocket to speak both Georgian and Japanese !!

I have to listen to this shite on a daily basis ,,, and I'm trying hard not to seem like an uncontrolable giggling idiot for he's also a splendid chef and does a pretty mean BBQ !!

But how is he turning my daughter into a nerd too you ask ??

Well she called me tosmorning, thrilled skinny, because he had bought her ( and paid money for it ! ) wait for it ..... her very own WEB SITE !!

Eh ??? Is it me ??

I think mibbie it's getting near the time when I need to shuffle off this mortal coil :)

Only a Golfer would understand !

After you read my tale below, I don’t ever want to talk about this again !!
I’m so angry with myself this morning ,,,
It’s kept me awake half the bloody night !
In fact I’ve been very angry with myself since precisely 9-05am yesterday morning !
At 9-00am Wed. 2nd. July, whilst competing in the Cowglen Seniors Open I drove off at the 4th. hole.
Holes 1, 2 & 3 had been steady if not spectacular ,,, 5,5,5 ,,, an ok start. ( not quite like the day before of course, when I started my practice round with 4,4,4, ,,, and another 4 to follow that at this damned 4th hole ! ,,,, 4 straight pars ! )
My normal drive at the 4th. would generally take me up the hill, centrally on the fairway, with an easy 8 or 9 iron onto the green ,,,,
This being the Open of course, I sliced my ball and off it went, rolling all the way down the hill into the heavy rough close to the out-of-bounds wall ,,,
After a short hunt one of my playing partners located my ball ,,,, it was two feet into the rough in long grass ,, about knee high grass !,,,
A lift & drop, within two club lengths, out into the semi rough never entered my head .,., a single penalty stroke would have seen me in a position to certainly chip back out onto the fairway and thence onto the green in 4 .,,., all night long I’ve dreamt about doing it that way !! But instead I lashed at it ,,, I put it deeper into the same long grass a mere 2 feet from it’s original position !
Did I stop and think then ,,, DOH ,,, NO !!
I lashed at it again ,,, out it came this time ,, right behind the big bush ,,, 15-yards I’d moved it with these two errant strokes .,,. Did I learn anything this time ,,, ??
Eh, no ,,, The Dummy just HAD to go for the green, didn’t I ,, from this impossible position ,.,. naturally I didn’t make it ,,, instead I ended up behind the very big tree on the right side ,, just back from the burn ,,
Absolutely no way to get the ball up in the air from right under this tree’s overhanging branches ,,, so I manufactured a low punch & run ,, hoping to get the ball to bounce over said burn and onto the green in what would then be 5 ,, all wasn’t lost yet ,,,
Well I managed not to go into the burn ,, but stopped hopelessly short of the green on the steep slope ,, stupidly putted up ( rather than use my magic chipper ) ,, well short of the pin ,,, in fact barely on the green ,,, followed then by a very poor putt to some 6 – 7 feet away ,,, Did I sink this tiddler ,,,
Arghhhhhh ,, no, it took two more putts and it was all over ,,, the 4th. and my Open Championship !
I haven’t had a 9 at that hole in ten years ,, 4, or at times 5 ,,, on a really bad day I may have had a 6 ,,, but 9 ,,, Jesus ,, where did that come from ?
Obviously I’ve been bad in some previous life ??

After that I just relaxed and played my normal game ,, Reached the turn in 45 ( yeah, with that 9 still on my card & in my mind ! )
However I had a better inward 9 coming home in 38 with a magic TWO at the 12th. ( well I thought, at least I’ll make a few quid on that, for there were two to three hundred entrants, all putting a pound into the Two’s kitty.
Finished score a net 67 ,,, not bad considering ?
However I also had a really daft 5 at the par 3, 16th ,,, after landing my tee shot a mere 10-yards from the flag, just off the green on the left side.

An hour later I’m in the clubhouse and in the lead !! Whit ??
The first 10 or 12 games are in, and the only two sub 70 scores are my 67 and wee Joe Sawyers, another Cowglen senior, with a 68 !!
What’s going on, I ask myself ?? Another dozen cards are returned ,,, all 70 odds ,, 80’s even !
OK, so the course was set up as long as I’ve ever seen it ,,, all the yellow tees were set right back as far as they’d go ,,, virtually the medal course in fact ,, best suited to the big hitters ,,, a real trial for the higher handicap older guys ,, but c’mon ,,, surely a 67 isn’t going anywhere near the winning post ?? Is it ??

Well believe it or not ,,, 4 - 5 hours later & only the last two games were still out ,, at 17 & 18 respectively and yours truly is STILL the clubhouse leader ,,, ( and incidentally only two other two’s have been recorded !! Yo ! )
Then it happened ,,, Bugger me ! ( if you’ll all pardon my somewhat sexually explicit French ) ,,, the very last three ball came in ,, two 69’s and a bloody winning 64 ,,
Arghhhh shit ! ( sorry I mean Merdé )

So a bad day ended with a 2nd place overall cheque for £50 ,,, a First place in my age class 6- crystal glasses and a still to be declared share of the Two’s kitty !!
Hey, life’s not at all bad really is it ??
But in my nightmare that 9 is always reduced to a bad six and the daft 5 to four ,,,

& there I am ,, 63 ,,, The Winner & cleaning up the whole kitty ,, the lot !!
Ah well, next year I’ll take the penalty drop !!
Hahahahaha

Footnote : It just had to be didn't it ?

Out again the next day and what did I shoot at that 4th. ?

Yep, you guessed it ,,, only a bloody brilliant birdie 3 !!

They say suicide is painless, don't they ???

PS : Another wee tale !
It was a sunny morning ...
A little before 8:00 am ...
On the first hole of a busy course ...
And I was beginning my pre-shot routine ...
visualizing my upcoming shot
When a piercing voice came over the clubhouse loud speaker ...
'Would the gentleman on the woman's tee back up to the men's tee please !'

I could feel every eye on the course looking at me.
I was still deep in my routine ...
Seemingly impervious to the interruption.
Again the announcement .
'Would the man on the woman's tee kindly back up to the men's tee.'

I simply ignored the guy and kept concentrating ...
When once more ...
the man yelled ...
'Would the man on the woman's tee back up to the men's tee ...
Please ! '

I finally stopped ...
Turned, cupped my hands and shouted back
'Would the ass hole with the microphone
Please be quiet
and let me play my second shot.'

Thank-you !!