Roddas Cup

When I looked up the fixtures, this game was originally planned for today, the official boxing day as yesterday was supposed to be in place of Christmas Day - so I missed it :-(  Someone in the meantime had updated it to give the correct date, but not in time for me to notice it.

Reds pick up the Roddas Cup despite a big performance from Town. Redruth came out the gate with all guns blazing and dominated the first quarter going into a 12 point lead which Town never recovered from. That said the home side certainly had the better of the second half and a neutral would not have thought there were two leagues between the sides.

The bumper 1700+ crowd could not have asked for more commitment or effort from the amateur players of Camborne as they took the game to the opposition to the opposition in the 2nd period.

Although defeated for the first time at home in 10 months Coach John Griffiths will take a lot of positives from this performance when Town return to league action in the New Year.


I love watching the derby game between  Redruth and Camborne and this is the first year I have missed out on watching it.

On How the Cornish Pirates Fared against Worcester Warriors Part 1

It was a great evening, warm and just the hint of a cooler wind.

We arrived in good time, but already the ground was filling up rapidly, SOH and I decided to leave our 'normal' space in favour of sitting with friends (something we came to regret quite quickly).

It was an exciting match, but for all the wrong reasons. Worcester played well but not brilliantly, Pirates played under par for the first half and picked up during the second half, but too many mistakes, balls fumbled and good defending by Worcester meant that the Pirates could not claw back all of the points needed and the final score was 12 to the Pirates but 21 to the Warriors and so onto part 2 next Wednesday.

Pirates have the bit in their teeth, it just needs to translate into a win, with a margin of at least 9 points to beat the Warriors.. it is possible, just difficult.

We were on television, so we were told, at about 30 mins into the match. The seats were good, and if the action had been in our corner we would have had good views right in front, however it didn't and whenever something happened at the other end of the pitch the crowd to our left stood up and our view was zilch. The other problem was the language of the people around us and considering there were some young children sitting closeby it was not appropriate. Needless to say, next season we will be reverting back to our normal seats which are up at the main entrance and behind the posts. The view is better but distant but you don't get the traffic walking in front of you nor the language issues.

The Mennaye tonight

Watch it on Sky TV tonight and see if you can spot me in the crowd! lol... not likely I'm afraid although I will be there cheering the Cornish Pirates on against Worcester Warriors and I desperately would like the Pirates to win convincingly.. so come on you Pirates!

Rugby - Cornish Pirates vs Worcester Warriors

SOH and I were given a pair of tickets to this match, not only that but it was shown on Sky TV and as the couple in front of us were told by a friend that they were seen on TV it is likely that we two also were there... oh for that fleeting second of fame.. still we have it recorded and you never know we might even spot ourselves.

The match was a close one, Worcester opened the scoring with a try but pirates leading by a large margin at half-time it was always going to be an interesting second half. Sure enough when the two teams returned it was with a vengeance, and the final score was 30 to Pirates but 33 to Worcester. In the Pirates defense, they missed two penalty chances so missing out on six points but they definitely didn't disgrace themselves either.

The only note of discontent was for the weather, despite the sunshine it was bitterly cold and we were glad of a warm drink at halftime. Back home now, we are watching the LV cup match between Wasps and Harlequins though the commentary is still coming from the Mennaye.

Redruth Vs Camborne

On a wet winters afternoon, there was nothing better than to visit the Rugby match down at Redruth.. unfortunately for Camborne they were outclassed but that was made up for by the referee being predominantly on their side.

The final score was 42 to 12 in Redruth's favour... but an enjoyable match though I am not sure I would want to be the person having to deal with the very muddy kit.. it became hard by half-time to tell who was who as they had that much mud on them.

Altogether a good thing to do post Christmas and for a further treat, Bedford are coming down to Cornwall to play the Pirates at the Mennaye, and it will be my first time at that venue.

Bedford Blues

Went over to Camborne yesterday afternoon, with SOH, to watch Cornish Pirates play Bedford Blues. It was funny as the first ever match we went to see was this one, but at Bedford's ground.

It was a good match, and well played especially given the referee's obvious bias against the Pirates; why he did it I have no idea and even the linesmen didn't seem to indicate when fouls or offsides were being done. Despite this and the Bedford Blues playing their hardest, the pirates won the match with four points and playing well defensively right into the dying seconds.

Couldn't have asked for a better match, or for a better Easter Sunday as the sun shone brightly down on us even though the wind was cold.

Weekend of sunshine and warmth

It was nice to sit out in the warm sunshine yesterday, I was cleaning some of the bike gloves and boots using good old fashioned saddlesoap, they will need re-conditioning at some point in time, but the storage conditions are not ideal for leather and some of the gloves had grown a lovely mildew covering of mould which comes off beautifully with a bit of warm water and some saddle soap. I brought a bar of it when we visited Trago Mills at Liskeard as I thought it might come in handy and it has done. The only thing I didn't buy which I regret is some Kao-Ko-Line which is used to condition leather and waterproof it without rotting the stitching. Very important in boots and gloves which can be expensive to buy and not always easy to find the ones that suit.

The afternoon was spent, as it got cooler outside, in front of the TV watching the rugby, England were playing Italy and making a ham-fisted job of beating them. Not that the Italians were playing badly, it was more that England were throwing away chances and Johnny Wilkinson didn't help by missing three penalty kicks; this was later blamed on the fact that a Mitre rugby ball was being used - not something he was used to.. My dad always said a bad workmen always blames his tools, so hopefully JW will gear up for the next round of matches.

I made the mistake of trying some mulled wine SOH was given for christmas, and on an empty stomach it made me feel really yeuch. Enough at the end to go and get some tablets to cure the headache. Though later a nice piece of treacle tart with some clotted cream went down nicely. We brought it from Kingsley market along with some sausages. I will definitely be going back there for meat as the prices were as reasonable as the bigger supermarkets and it is nice to support the local economy. In all the times I have visited cornwall I had never been there and didn't know what I was missing.

The Hunt

I saw the Hunt yesterday, not up Carn Brae, but riding up Seleggan Smelting works which I can see from a nearby hill. While I may not always agree with the old style hunt, I do believe it is an old English tradition (and by that mean British rather than strictly English) and love to see the horses and dogs out. Back up country in the Back of Beyond I hadn't seen the hunt since the ban was introduced and it used to be a monthly event, the hounds being large in variety and nearly up to the window of the car. It was such a shame that it and they very rarely venture out any more.

Boxing day was also another event, watching Camborne RFC play a local derby match against Redruth at the Camborne ground. It was fun if not rather wet and cold, though that only happened late in the match and by then Redruth had beaten their old rivals.

We had dinner in a pub, sitting near to a coal fire so I could dry off my jacket I was wearing, drinking a pint of St Austell Tribute.. there is a lot of very positive things about living in Cornwall :-)

Rugby

I went out to Bedford last night to watch the Barbarians play Bedford Blues in the 82nd Mobbs Memorial match.. it was a good game, and even had a cornish connection as one of the Barbarians was a Redruth player. As I don't own a Redruth shirt, I made do with a Barbarians top but cheered both teams equally. Although it was quite nippy, it didn't rain on the game for which I was grateful but glad to get back in the car at the end of the match.

It ended up with a score of 41 to Bedford and 74 to the Barbarians, but both teams played their hearts out given it is towards the end of the main season.

Anyone know what the Mobbs Memorial match is all about? I haven't yet managed to find anything out about it or why it came about.

Positive things

Lists can be useful, and focus your mind. The following is some of the things on my list :

1) I have decided to redecorate the house, overdue by years. Will take some time, but I have enough of that and that isn't as negative as it sounds it will be therapeutic and not only that but some very good friends have said they will help me out with the kitchen upgrade.

2) I have two holidays booked, one to France and the other in the UK. The bike will also get some usage this year at long last as I heard on the grapevine that the weather is going to be stunning. Take it from me :-) I have earmarked places I want to visit while I am in the UK, and just working out the best route. Friends have invited me to visit them, in US and in Australia but at the moment I need to root myself here before I too get the urge to run away from things.

3) The garden is going to benefit from an overhaul, again not a five minute job but I have plans in hand that should see it easier to maintain. I would like to be able to grow my own veg but it is a big garden and can be a bit much at times.

4) I plan to lose some weight, its not healthy nor do I like my body in the shape it is in. I have already made a start and want to continue the trend.

5) I brought a ticket to watch the Barbarians play Bedford next month, though sadly I can't make the Redruth v Cambridge game which I had hoped to do as something else has come up. I am considering getting hold of a ticket to see Northampton Saints play but it may well be next season.

6) I will be going to the Rutland Rally in May, the National in August and the Blackbull in September all bike events and by then I will have fathomed out the GPS connections to my bike. It is bluetooth and I need an adapter and a powerlead as the other one is on the ex's bike and I have no means of retrieving it.

7) I am entered in the race for life, and plan to do this in under 40 mins - it is only 5K in distance and I can walk 2K in 15 minutes now so I don't see this as unattainable. Training is going well for this.

8) I want to reduce the amount of 'stuff' I have and anything surplus to requirements will be donated to others using freecycle or sold if it has a decent value as I believe that I have clutter which though it might come in useful is simply not necessary. Not only that but as I get older I will want to downsize accommodation and rather than leave it to when I am less able to deal with it I plan to start now.

Home again jiggety-jig

SOH and I got home about 7pm, after something hot to eat (we had a KFC) brought on the outskirts of Milton Keynes, and unpacking the car (putting it away in the carport as the weather forecast was for ice and snow) we were shattered and had an early night.

Thankfully SOH did all the driving home as I was snuffling with a headcold most of the way home which was irritating as we had managed to miss most of the colds and flu that was going around; SOH did better than I with only a bit of a runny nose for 48 hours.

We stayed down in Cornwall an extra night to watch Cornish Pirates play Otley, it was a freezing cold day, but the sunshine was surprisingly warm when and if you could get out of the wind. We enjoyed the game, but the referee was so obviously favouring the other team and it was no surprise when the fans started booing some of his decisions. However the Pirates beat Otley 55 to 13 (with Otley's points only being scored in the first half of the game) so perhaps justice was served best.

As we drove across Bodmin and Dartmoor, there was snow on the tops of the hills and in the shaded areas, we watched as the temperatures dropped from 6 degrees in Redruth to o degrees as we got home, but last night when we checked before going to bed it was dipping to -2 and due to get a lot colder tomorrow.

It has been a good holiday in Cornwall, and we look forward to many more this year.

All set?

Is everyone set for Christmas,

• all the cards written and sent?
• all the presents purchased and wrapped?
• all the food brought to cook for the family?
• the drink for the party?

if the answer is no, you may be leaving it too late to have a restful Christmas time lead up... I am just waiting on one present to arrive, but I think I may not get it in time for Christmas so perhaps it can be a 12th Night gift for SOH.

I finish work tomorrow, hopefully not too late in the day, and then don't return to work until the 5th January 2009 so SOH and I are going to visit his family in the New Year (and hopefully watch a rugby game while we are there as well).

Before the big day itself, I have to make some more mince pies, a dundee cake and visit some relatives, luckily most of mine live locally and therefore we will spend Christmas Eve visiting them and taking their cards, particularly to Aunt Lil who also gets a present as my surrogate Mum, and it is usually a good day for all.

A couple of my traditions are :

to attend the village carol service at the local parish church, but we have the methodist and baptists churches attending as well and we will walk home afterwards just after midnight and hopefully it will be frosty and clear.

to have a glass of Jameson's Reserve in the memory of my Dad (who I brought it for in the first place only to find it unopened after he died in 2002) and of my Mum who died in 1992. It is a time to include the ghosts of christmases past, and to their memories.

Finally I can see that Christmas spirit rising...

The Varsity Match

Funnily enough, after I brought SOH back from hospital yesterday morning, we noticed that the varsity match (Oxford vs Cambridge) was going to be covered on Sky Sports. We actually forgot it was on, and only managed to catch the last half of the game, which Oxford won by a narrow margin 33-29 as Cambridge were fighting back to the last seconds of the game.

I had mentioned it earlier in the year to SOH to see if he would be interested in going, luckily I hadn't actually remembered about it as no way could we have gone to twickenham straight from hospital so it was in our nice warm living room that we watched the game. Perhaps next year we might make a note of it in the calendar to try and get tickets.

But who to support, we live exactly 40 miles away from both Cambridge and Oxford, so both are technically our local team.. it's the same dilemma in the boat race... I have always tried to favour whichever team hasn't won recently as I figure that they need more support than the team which won last time.

The weather forecast for last night was freezing cold, so why didn't I put the car away after I came home with SOH.. instead of which I had to defrost it this morning before I could drive to work..

Though having said that the skies were particularly beautiful this morning. and the scene looking down the road towards the vale would make a glorious jigsaw, just imagine trying to work out the colours for the sky alone never mind the rest of it. It's pictures like this that make me feel quite humble in the big plan of things.

Gimme an Arrrgh*

Cornish Pirates won convincingly at Bedford yesterday afternoon, kick off was at 3pm so before long the gloom set in and so did the rain. It didn't spoil the game, nor our enjoyment of it, by half time the Pirates were leading 9-3 and in the second half dominated the game to finish on a score of 26-6.

Not sure what happened to Bedford's game, but it was almost as if they weren't playing cohesively as a pack and on more than one occasion they launched fists at the Pirates players with one player being sent to the sin bin after an earlier warning.

We were lucky in that where we were standing was with our backs to the winds, and with some trees behind us we were fairly well sheltered but by the end it was a soggy end to the game. We headed home for a well earned tea of Chicken Chasseur which had been cooking while we were at the match.

I'm afraid though, that we had to sacrifice going to the Ace cafe to hear Sam's launch of his new book Distant Suns but we were too late after the game to head down another hour to London just to get there at the end. I hope Sam's launch went well and from his other books I am sure Distant Suns will be just a big a hit as his previous two.

* The pirates supporters have a chant, gimme an p, gimme an i, gimme an r to which the response from the crowd is p, i and arrrghhh hence the name of this post

The glorious game - simply this

With sincere apologies to the non-rugby/sports readers, I present the basic rules for the glorious game that is Rugby.

A game of rugby consists of two halves of 40 minutes with injury time added on at the end of each half. Each side consists of 15 players, (eight forwards and seven backs). There is one referee assisted by two touch judges; the latter mark where the ball goes out of play, adjudge kicks at goal and inform the referee of foul play. All passes in rugby must travel backwards.

Kicking forms a major part of rugby and is used to start and restart the game, score points, win territory, launch an attack or get a team out of trouble (known as a clearance kick). If the ball is kicked directly into touch by a player from behind his own 22m line, the resulting lineout is taken where the ball crossed the touchline. But if he is outside his 22, the lineout is taken level with the place from where the ball was kicked (except in the case of penalties). Players must be behind the kicker for all set-piece kicks, such as kick-offs. But if a kick is made in loose play, then players can be in front of the kicker, although they must not advance towards the ball until the kicker has put them onside by moving in front of them.

Start of the game: A coin is tossed and the winning captain elects to take or receive the kick. Both halves of the match are started with a place kick from the centrepoint of the halfway line. The kick must cross the opposition's 10-metre line, which the opposition are not allowed to encroach beyond until the ball is kicked. If the ball does not travel 10 metres, goes straight into touch, or goes over the dead ball line at the end of the pitch, the receiving team can opt for a scrum (see Scrum) or a kick again. After a score, the game is restarted from the same place under the same restrictions, with the conceding team drop-kicking the ball to the scoring team.

22 drop-out: A drop kick is taken from the 22m line if a team touches down in its own in-goal area but did not carry the ball over the try line, or if the ball is kicked over the dead ball line from any other play other than the kick-off. The ball only needs to cross the line, but if it goes directly into touch a scrum is awarded to the receiving team at the centrepoint of the 22m line.

Scrum: The eight forwards from each team bind together and push against each other. The scrum-half from the team that has been awarded possession feeds the ball into the centre of the scrum from the side most advantageous for his hooker. The ball must be fed straight down the middle of the tunnel and the hookers must not contest for the ball until it is put in. If they do, a free-kick is awarded for "foot up". The scrum is taken again if the ball comes straight out of the tunnel or if it collapses. If the scrum wheels more than 90 degrees the scrum is reformed and awarded to the other side.

Lineout: A maximum of seven and a minimum of three forwards line up parallel with each other between the five-metre and 15-metre lines. The hooker of the team in possession throws the ball in while his opposite number stands in the "tramlines" - between the touchline and the five-yard line. All players not involved in the lineout, except the scrum-half, must retire 10 metres. The ball must be thrown in straight down the middle of the lineout and the hooker must not cross into the field of play while throwing in. Jumpers can be lifted by their team-mates below the waist, but the opposition's jumpers must not be obstructed, barged or pulled down.

Hopefully this will give some of the US visitors an understanding of the glorious game

Another week... another dollar

A good weekend, sadly not a great weekend for various reasons. Mostly feeling under the weather on Saturday and then not really feeling up to very much yesterday. So sat and watched the rugby on Saturday evening. We did plan on watching the NFL games last night but Sky tv was playing up and the Buffalo vs Chargers game was hit by what seemed to be a power outage so we resorted to channel hopping before Frost came on.

I like David Jason as an actor, but especially Frost as he portrays a tired police inspector trying to cope with all the red tape and therefore this first monday motto is for Frost.

Weekend

The weather is set to be fair in the South of the country, sorry to those Northern folk on here but no doubt you will get some warm sunshine soon.

No meetings this week, just catching up on some of the admin tasks and gardening tasks.. unluckily for us SOH is working today, tomorrow and Sunday then he has a training course on Monday before work again on Tues, Wed, Thurs. So little chance of enjoying the late autumn sunshine on the bikes.

Saturday evening Northampton Saints are playing Montpellier at home in franklin's gardens though we will probably watch the match on Sky. Saracens are away to Viadana while Bedford are playing at home to Sedgley Park and the Pirates are in Doncaster for their match. SOH won't get home in time to watch Bedford and in any case we are due to see Bedford vs Cornish Pirates on the 1st November in Bedford.

Instead on Sunday I am planning to be a driver's mate... well actually passenger as I won't be doing anything useful except to keep him company.

Sinners vs the Saints

SOH and I went to watch the rugby match between the Saracens and the Saints at Watford on Saturday. It was a great game, and we had good seats; we went with a couple of friends and have invited them to the Bedford vs Cornish Pirates game on November 1st.

Saracens won 26 to 12, but it wasn't always going their way with Saints having got the lead and maintained it for most of the match then seemed to tire at the end letting Saracens get two tries in quick succession.

We didn't get home until late in the evening and picked up a chinese meal of Cantonese Duck with Sweet and Sour chicken - delicious and meant little washing up.