Ostrich on the Hoof

[Kaz]

Numpty!! Now there's someone I hope to never come across again

Pasties, yum!

[cromwell]

Unlucky Shrewton. Ossie, last time I won anything in a raffle it was a poster of George Best. And he was still playing...
Two pasties? Respect! Still, you have to keep warm and you need a bit of food for that.

[TheOstrich]

First, a statement from HRH The Ostrich. The bird would like it known that despite having travelling to Woking many times in recent years to see Woking FC, Westfield FC and Sheerwater FC, he has never visited the Pizza Express there, refutes all suggestions he has ever purchased a Porchetta or a Quatro Formaggi, or been photographed in the company of dubious ladies. Not only that, it’s in the opposite direction from the road to the Laithwaite Community Stadium (I’ve checked!) and I’m not that keen on Italian anyway ….

Tuesday, and an early departure with Mrs O on the 09:18 to Wimbledon, to meet Master O, DiL and G/S. With looming rail strikes all through December , we thought we had better get a visit in. The 09:18 actually starts at Gillingham so we readily got a seat, and with the necessary change at Woking (yes, that place again! ) onto the local stopper, we were exiting Wimbledon station at just after 11:30 to greet the younger generation, repairing over the road to Elys Restaurant; Elys is a large department store along the lines of Debenhams / House of Frazer, with lots of brand franchises (all the usual suspects like Lacoste, Elizabeth Arden and Hugo Boss) and I’m sure you’d all love it, with the possible exception of Crommers who, like me, would probably be worried about t’amount o' brass you could get through in a very short time there.
https://www.elyswimbledon.co.uk/about-elys/
https://www.elyswimbledon.co.uk/restaurant/

Seeing as how we were in London, the first thing we did was purchase a very sharp knife! Nothing to do with personal protection; everything to do with chopping sweet potatoes and carrots for the Ostrich’s Famous Soup, as our existing ones are getting a bit blunt. Mindful of Stop and Search, however, I sneaked it into Mrs O’s handbag so I could adopt an innocent expression if the worst came to the worst. It was a Sabatier knife and cost £24.50 - that was with 50% off! Anyway, a happy day out, a good browse around the Christmas displays with Mrs O generously buying toys for the G/S, and the trains ran smoothly for once.

So to this week’s sporting extravaganza, and with the nights drawing in, dreary wet weather now abounding, and a new series of The Brokenwood Mysteries * airing at 6:00 on Saturdays on the Drama Channel , I’m going to remain fairly local at least until Christmas, setting out to knock off a few nearby grounds I haven’t previously visited.

First up, then, a short trip to Blandford rugby club, which is in a housing estate a quarter-mile or so off the by-pass on the north-east side of town. There are two roads to get between Shaftesbury and Blandford - the “Top Road” and the “Bottom Road”. The top road, once you’ve negotiated the 20 mph stretch through the Village of the Jammed (Melbury Abbas), is a straight run across the top of Cranborne Chase, but on days like this, prone to extremely low cloud. The bottom road (the main A350) in contrast is extremely winding, and on days like this is prone to flooding! I opted for the former, and had to deploy the fog lights in the murk …..

Blandford’s ground is owned by the local council and called the Larksmead Recreation Ground. It’s dedicated to rugby; there’s two pitches with the training pitch floodlit, and a small nondescript brick clubhouse featuring a number of identical white wooden doors, none of which were marked. So I found myself in the home changing room whilst trying to find the bar, and a cleaning cupboard with a Henry hoover whilst trying to track down the loo. The bar was laid out with simple formica trestle tables and some sort of sit-down Club Meal was being served to members; nothing elaborate, mind, it looked like chicken curry and peas.

The clubhouse is elevated from the pitch, and I perched on the small veranda so I could get a good view of proceedings. All was calm until two minutes before kick-off when, with a mighty roar, the opposition Weymouth & Portland team suddenly burst out of a wooden door directly behind me! The Ostrich panicked and flew shrieking into the rafters!

An impeccable one minute’s silence was observed before the start - I have no idea why as nothing was announced, and can only assume it was a very late running Armistice Day commemoration?
https://www.facebook.com/weymouthportla ... 38/?type=3

Both sides have made a strong start to the season, although unbeaten Dorchester are currently running away with the league. I was expecting a competitive, low-scoring game, and in the first half, that’s exactly what we got. Plenty of skill on display, some nice running moves, and the home team were deservedly just edging it 11-7 at half-time. But talk about a game of two halves – the Seahorses (Weymouth & Portland) snatched two quick tries just after the break, the first a nifty rolling maul that flummoxed the home defenders, and the second an unstoppable rampage down the middle by their gargantuan lock forward Tim “Yogi” Comben! Matt Savage was immaculate in his place-kicking and with the score an emphatic 11-24 after 58 minutes, the Seahorses were able to open up and play some very attractive running rugby, eventually clinching a 16-37 victory. They move up to 3rd in the table, and well deserved their bonus-point win.

23/11/19 – Wadworth 6X Dorset & Wilts 1 South (Level 8): Blandford 16 Weymouth & Portland 37
Admission: free, no programme
Refreshments: no hot food on offer to spectators today, so a mugga tea and a packet of Jaffa Cakes £1.60. We shall draw a veil over the Best Before date on the latter ….
Attendance: 82

* New Zealand’s answer to Midsomer Murders, and as mad as a box of frogs.

[Ally]

Tuesday sounded a smashing day Ossie. How old is your grandson now?

Are you suggesting some us ladies like to splash the cash?? You'd be right!

Jaffa Cakes!!!! I love them.

Fabulous read Ossie...thank you.

[cromwell]

Christmas shopping? Posh name brands? Ooer, the sitting room is swimming before my eyes...
Great read Os. A sensible decision to stay near home before Christmas, too.

[miasmum]

Hi Ossie, sounds a lovely day out.

Maybe they have a minutes silence every week, just in case they've missed someone?

Definitely a good idea to stay local at the moment, as much as anything because everywhere is so waterlogged, things get cancelled last minute. You dont want to be travelling and spending and then find out it is cancelled.

[TheOstrich]

Coming up on 7 months, Ally. A happy little bunny, we're told, but a bit fractious now he's teething.
Couldn't stop staring at me. Must have never seen an Ostrich before ….

The waterlogging is going to be a bit of an ongoing problem unless we get out of this current wet weather cycle, methinks.
There's a dearth of artificial soccer pitches in Dorset, so I suspect I may be attending more rugby games in the next few weeks.

[Kaz]

We absolutely love The Brokenwood Mysteries Ossie, it's so good! Glad you had a lovely day

Jaffa Cakes are the crack cocaine of the snack world, yummy!

[TheOstrich]

Nothing much happened this week; only a telephone call from my S to say she’d had a fall and fractured her wrist. She’s always been a lucky duck – she managed to accomplish this feat right outside the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham where she was attending a routine appointment. So they quickly got her into A&E, X-rayed the offending limb and, as she was on the system for that day anyway, she was plastered, slinged and tipped out by 11:15, thus significantly improving the NHS’s current woeful A&E target times! Thankfully she hadn’t driven there but had used the buses, so her car was still at home. She lives alone, but has very good neighbours and we know they’ll rally round and help her out. We’ve offered to scoop her up and bring her down here for Rest and Recuperation if she would like, but I think she’ll probably prefer to stay at home amidst familiar surroundings.

Only a short sports report this week, continuing the theme of staying local and picking obscure rugby fixtures. There wasn’t much of an RFU League programme scheduled in the south-west this Saturday, but there were a few Cup games being played, notably in the Senior Vase, the grand final of which ultimately gets played at Twickenham next April, although at this stage it’s very much regionalised and not taken all that seriously.

So, off to Lytchett Minster which is a small but attractive village a couple of miles from the outskirts of Poole, and known for the Harbour View Crematorium and Woodland Burial Ground , and the Bakers Arms, a large pub/restaurant just off the A35, the main road from Bournemouth to Dorchester. Twenty years or so ago, when we used to take Master O to Bournemouth on holiday, we always used to stop off at the Bakers Arms as it had a brilliant outdoor Kids Activity Play Centre; these days, the play centre has given way to an enlarged car park and the pub is part of the Vintage Inns chain, but it’s still an interesting venue, and Mrs O and I had a meal there last year on a day trip to the Dorset Coast. You can get a free puddin’ if you sign up to their “Club” ….
https://www.vintageinn.co.uk/restaurant ... sarmspoole

Today’s opposition were Minety RFC (pronounced ‘Mine-tee’) from the back of beyond in North Wiltshire. The name of the village derives from the water mint plant (Mentha Aquatica) which profusely grows in ditches in the locality; the cultivated variety is known as bergamot mint and is used in herbal teas and perfumery. As usual, I arrived early but needn’t have worried as the car park was bigger than it appeared on Google Earth and was only half-full anyway. The ground is a short distance off the main street, and consists of a clubhouse and two pitches, with the A35 slightly intrusively running behind the complex. The clubhouse is perhaps a little shabby, but functional enough, with a bar, a food hatch, Newcastle v Man City on the screen, and a (very) deep sofa which I struggled to get out of! The usual souvenir signed shirts and pennants adorn the walls, but I did spot one curio, a large wooden plaque, described as the “Captain Mainwaring Award” for the “Most Entertaining Tourist” on the club’s 2012 Eastbourne Tour. Mounted on the plaque were an old army carbine, a tin of Spam, three walnuts (!), and a Captain Mainwaring peaked cap and pair of spectacles. The mind boggles!

Both clubs are at Level 8, the home team in Dorset & Wilts League 1 South, and Minety in the northern equivalent. And both clubs are having relatively poor seasons, down in the lower reaches of their respective divisions, so I wasn’t expecting a classic, and neither did I get one. From the outset, Lytchett Minster displayed great talent in stealing the ball, but somewhat less talent in making use of it. Minety kicked off, Lytchett were judged to have intentionally knocked on the return, but Minety, who could therefore have been 3-0 up inside a minute, fluffed the penalty kick. Nevertheless, they scored a converted try on 10m and after that Lytchett were always chasing the game. They were 8-19 adrift at the interval, and in the second half Minety effectively shut up shop. Lytchett did manage to score a converted try late in the game to make the last 10 minutes interesting, but Minety ran out pretty convincing 15-19 winners.

It was raw out there today, a chill breeze blowing off the coast, and even the seagulls looked forlorn. I kept fairly warm by keeping moving, following the play up and down the touchline, but even that was hazardous - plenty of molehills to trip up the unwary!

30/11/19 –Dorset & Wilts Senior Vase Semi-final: Lytchett Minster RFC 15 Minety RFC 19
Admission: free, no programme
Refreshments: Not much of a selection, but 2 x minced beef slices, £2 each, warmed the cockles .....
Attendance: 69

[Ally]

Great read Ossie.

Curious curio indeed!

Best wishes to your S.