Players from far and wide assembled at Central Park on Friday morning. Canada, America and England represented. The English contingent includes Chris Patmore, now living in New York, Peter McDermott from Middlesbrough, and me. Peter deserves a special mention just for the fact, he arrived on Thursday evening, and only travelled here for the tournament, to go home on Sunday evening. Dedication or madness? - You decide.
Play got under way and no early shocks, although the sunny start was interupted by a heavy shower in the morning that sent players searching for waterproofs, except Chris Patmore who had consulted the net for his weather forecast - D'oh, boy did he live to regret that one later!
I was a bit slow out of the blocks in the morning due to lack of coffee - couldn't find a bloody Starbucks when I wanted one! Finally got my act together with a cappuchino, some nicotine and 'wor Cheryl' and the rest of Girls Aloud on my MP3, and beat Ken Shipley, even though he so kindly bought me the coffee.
In the second game against Eugene Nathanson I finished in 8 turns with a triple - damn that American coffee is good!
My third game was again Justin Burbeck, one of the three players from The State University of New York, New Paltz Croquet. Justin, Tom and Eric, all play American Rules Croquet, or Golf Croquet, but apart from a couple of hours coaching the previous weekend had not played Association - oh and they are used to grass about three inches long. Justin and I had some fun, he peeled his partner ball from about 15 yards while trying to hide from me, but unfortunately he just found the lawns too quick for his style.
After I'd finished playing I was waiting for my sister to arrive. The weather had been very warm and sunny and there were thousands of people in Central Park. Sunbathing, baseball, frisbee, runners, cyclists, families, chess players, martial artists - you name them they were using the green space. Then around 5.30 pm the wind suddenly got up, the sun disappeared, there was a flash of lightening, a crack of thunder, and the heavens opened. By the time I walked the ten yards to my bag and got my waterproofs out I was soaked. Some of us sheltered under a large group of trees beside the lawn entrance and watched the mass exodus from the open spaces. Within ten or fifteen minutes it was obvious that it wasn't to going to blow through as quickly as it had arrived, and as the torrential rain and almost deafening thunder raged, those of us still at the venue sought refuge in the pavillion. The paths turned into mini rivers, and virtually everyone looked as though they had been in a swimming contest, not persuing any of the above activities.
About half a hour later a rather damp sister arrived, cursing the weather, yellow cabs and announcing a bad day at work. I suggested we should go home, but she was set on cocktails to sure the day - yeah like I need heavy persausion - haha.
We duly arrived home about 11pm, still slightly damp, but not caring due to whatever those drinks were, hic!
They were pisco sours!!!!!
ReplyDeletewell silly me for forgetting - shame they didn't do pints though
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