Saturday 14 January 2012

VISITORS

The Club receives most of its visitors during the summer months; but there are some who arrive at other times of the year. Last month we welcomed a Swedish player who had enjoyed playing at the Vignal last summer, & turned out to be a formidable opponent for our Irish Veterans Captain, Neagle Cathcart: in fact, so good that our member had a difficult job to win 2 of the dozen sets they played together. Quite a spectacle! Both of them now in the over 55 age group, here is photo taken back in 1972, when our Swedish visitor, Mikael Kirs, lost a Junior tournament Final, 6/1, 6/2, to Bjørn Borg!


So well done, Neagle; & Mikael was so happy with these matches that they will be meeting again in April on our courts. Try to be a spectator!

Now one of the marvellous aspects of tennis, is the fact that the game can be enjoyed at a multitude of levels. So my next photo is quite a contrast, but gives you a good view of the third author I mentioned in my last post, & who plays with us here. His pseudonym is  'George Cavendish', but his friends I've heard calling him 'Mike'. Here, he is revealed to you all:


Keep enjoying your tennis!


Tuesday 3 January 2012

NEW YEAR

Let me record the extraordinary month of December 2011, when our tennis was only interrupted for a mere two half-days. From my records over 14 years, the average number of days lost in December comes to about 6;  so the one day of last year makes it by far the driest over this period. A reward perhaps after very rainy Decembers in the previous years of 2009 & 2010, but we certainly enjoyed all those blue skies!  After a day of rain yesterday, we are again fortunate with a sunny sky........ you may have also watched beautiful evening skies. Here's a record of the last evening colours of the old year......



No doubt I was too busy playing tennis rather than describing what was happening in the Club these last weeks. Parents of younger children will remember end of term festivities; there were Laura's hockey matches - red, the prominent colour worn by many; you can see some of them below as buns & cakes were enjoyed.....


On a literary note now; some of you will have already read at least one of Robert Camuto's books on wine & vineyards, & the more recent one by another of our authors, Peter Wise, on an interesting medical scientist, Claude Bernard. Yet a new author has arrived on the courts under the pen-name 'George Cavendish': you will find copies of his thriller, 'Riviera Terminus' in the Club Office, & you may even find out his real name one of these days.

But, above all, don't forget to get some vigorous tennis in to start the year on the right foot; & then, of course replenish your energies after all that running about........ in your Club Restaurant!
Bon appétit!