They Thought it was All Over ..... But Maybe It Isn't!

[Kaz]

Happy Landmark Birthday!!!

[TheOstrich]

Thank you, Kaz!

[miasmum]

and from me too Ossie

Wonder if Praying Mantis ever found its way home?

[TheOstrich]

Thanks, MM!

Yes, I believe the runaway mantis was claimed by someone living in nearby Cloverfields. It belonged to her son, apparently.

[Workingman]

Ossie, beware these landmark birthdays, once they start they keep on coming, you might need a bolt-hole - or a shed.

[TheOstrich]

The way it's all going at the moment, WM, I dread to think where the next landmark birthday will be celebrated ....

[Workingman]

Ossie, prime numbers are you friends for plenty of parties after age 60. You obviously get the traditional ones, 65, 70 and 75, but with PNs you also get 61, 67, 71, 73 and 79 - if you are aiming to live till 80.

Get the Champers in! Prime numbers - my favourites - make them yours.

[TheOstrich]

We set out last Monday for our second “breakfast out” taking advantage of the half-price scheme. This time, we visited a small garden centre, run by a local disability charity, which has a café on the premises; this wasn’t our only reason for visiting, mind you, as Ossie wanted to purchase a new garden fork and trowel, having seriously bent our existing pair .

Although we arrived quite early, the garden centre was reasonably busy. It’s all very well organised, with hand sanitisers abounding and plenty of “reminder” notices about wearing face coverings in enclosed areas, like the shop and the glasshouses. Usually the garden centre employs a number of young, autistic lads and lasses as a form of vocational training, including in the café area, but there were none around today – I’m not sure whether that’s because they have to “bus” them in, which could be difficult in current circumstances, or whether they thought all the new restrictive measures might be a bit too much for them to cope with. We found there was a queue for the café so we decided to skip that bit, and merely head for the herb stalls (Mrs O wanted a rosemary and a few thyme plants, but there were none on display) and the shop, where we found the required tools, and stocked up on plant pot food pellets and bug spray as well.

We were just driving off when, Claire, the shop manageress, shot out of the exit door and waved us down - it transpired that as we’d mentioned the lack of herbs to her, she’d suddenly remembered after we’d left the shop that they had a load of thyme plants up at the entrance to the greenhouses, not in the usual spot. We thanked her, parked up again, tracked them down, and collared three, noting at the same time that the queue for the café had disappeared, so Ossie got his breakfast after all.

2 sausages, 2 eggs, 2 hash browns, fried tomatoes, mushrooms, beans and 2 slices of toast for the bird, a smaller version for Mrs O , 2 complementary orange juices and 2 coffees, all for £7.50!

Given the ongoing storms over the last few days, Ossie was a bit sceptical about football today, but after an early morning deluge, the forecast was just for drizzle, so I decided to risk a visit to Queen Camel FC, of the Yeovil and District League, and thankfully not a club at which spectating has been banned . The village of Queen Camel lies just off the A303 south of the Sparkford roundabout, which would normally mean a 30 minute journey for me - but not on a Summer Saturday, with all the traffic heading for Devon and Cornwall . Normally we “locals” avoid the A303 like the plague at holiday weekends, and a quick check on AA Roadwatch at 11:00 confirmed that queues were already starting to tail back from that roundabout, which is where the 70mph dual carriageway road westwards becomes a single carriageway and climbs up over Yeovilton Hill. It’s a notorious bottleneck on the A303, second only to Stonehenge, and there have been plans to “improve” or even bypass the road over the hill for decades – they were talking about it when we used to live in Somerset back in the 1980’s and are still talking about it now. For example, a road widening scheme was formally proposed by Highways England back in 2015, but the public consultation ran on until last Autumn, and since then the Department of Transport has sat on it and still hasn’t reached any final decision about the whether the works will go ahead.

Now I know of an old rat-run involving leaving the A303 at the junction before the dreaded roundabout, and traversing country roads through Sparkford itself to emerge on the Queen Camel road midway between the two villages. The trouble with modern-day sat-navs, however, is that every man and his dog looking to beat the jams now gets directed off the A303 and down my rat-run - and I could see from the AA Roadwatch updates that my avoiding route was starting to display traffic hold-ups as well! So, no choice but to make a Grand Circular Tour avoiding the A303 completely, which took me south from Gillingham to East Stour, west to Henstridge, Milborne Port and Sherborne, and then back north via Marston Magna to approach Queen Camel from the south – double the distance, but driven at a constant leisurely speed and arrival at the football ground in just over an hour!

Queen Camel predates the Norman Conquest and has been quietly slumbering away ever since. The current population is around 1,000, and this StreetView shot gives you a very good impression of the main drag:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.02129 ... 312!8i6656
That road off on the left takes you to up to the recreation ground, which hosts a bowls club, two very smart tennis hard-courts, a kiddies play area, cricket oval and the football pitch. The modest cricket pavilion doubles as changing rooms for the footballers. Today’s opponents were Victoria Sports, of the Mid-Somerset League, which I’d never previously heard of, but they apparently play somewhere in the middle of Street. Both teams came into the game in fine form, having notched big wins in their previous friendlies. Ossie took up residence perched under a large chestnut tree behind one of the corner flags; luckily it stayed mainly dry for the duration.

Both sides started off knocking the ball around nicely, but it soon emerged that Sports’ game-plan was to let Camel make all the running, and therefore all the mistakes . Camel were often guilty of playing long, meaningless balls forward, and there were few attempts at scoring. That changed after 39m when Camel were awarded a cast-iron penalty, however the spot-kick was swept onto the top of the crossbar, from where it bounced high over the hedge behind the goal . Sports then added insult to injury when their no.11 unexpectedly received a through ball , managed to control it, take it wide and beat the home keeper.

Camel went 0-2 down shortly after half-time, when a cross from the left was easily turned in at the far post, but Camel got back in the game with a 56m goal that could best be described as a scramble. Sports were only just prevented from restoring their two goal lead when Camel’s no.12 last-ditch tackle on the line blocked a certain tap-in goal, but on 67m, a poor clearance by the home keeper straight to an Sports attacker led to an easy score from 10 yards out, and that completed the entertainment. It was probably a better game in hindsight than it seemed at the time .....

15/08/20 – Pre Season Friendly: Queen Camel 1 Victoria Sports 3
Admission: free
Refreshments: I took along a home-baked rock cake in a plastic container, but that was consumed well before the game started …
Covid Rating: 5/10. They had plenty of notices exhorting hand sanitising and social distancing, and a huge wall-chart featuring the FA’s Guidelines on a board outside the pavilion, so full marks for that, but in practice nobody appeared to be paying a fat lot of attention to it …..
Attendance: 26

[cromwell]

Sorry I missed the birthday Os.
Queen Camel! Should could themselves Cleopatra United.
Great report, thanks1

[Workingman]

Social distancing with an attendance of 26 round a footie pitch with a perimeter of about 340m (390yds)!