Q6

Rob was away on his hols and when the cat's away ..... the mice/cocoa kids play in the afternoon. It was a medal, to be fair, and there were limited late times available by the time some booked.

Only 3 of us played in the traditional late afternoon/early evening Quaich time - Hugh, Jack and I - and we all struggled. I was the best of a very bad bunch with just 29 points. As we sat drinking in the bar, virtually alone, we wondered whether I would record one of the lowest ever winning scores. We had "Rob's Rule" to consider, whereby you had to play with the other Quaichers and be present to receive your prize ball.

We knew others had played in the afternoon, but there were no scores, nor money, nor bodies present, so we went through the motions of at least temporarily presenting this week's ball:

Not much later, Archie appeared with the afternoon scores (and the money), followed swiftly by Dick, possibly sniffing out whether or not he might be in the running. It transpired he was - Dick's 34 points was the best of the 7 scores presented, so the ball swiftly changed hands:

A quick check of the computer showed that John McWhinnie had scored a net 71, which meant that he, too, had scored 34 points - at least, possibly more - but he didn't seem to have played with any other Quaichers or notified his score, and we wouldn't have been able to work out any countback anyway, so we kind of assumed that John hadn't intended to enter this week's Quaich.

Dick and Dan - this week's winner and DoD respectively - are the only two ever-presents now and this is reflected in the up to date leader board:

		Top 10	Apps.
1	Taylor, Dick	200	6
2	Corbett, Daniel	166	6
3	Pollard, Rob	157	5
4	McRae, Ian	152	5
5	Stewart, Ian	148	5
6	Cook, Archie	148	5
7	Dring, Ian	140	4
8	Bhagrath, Jas	137	4
9	Dickinson, Chris	128	4
10	Simpson, Jack	119	4
11	Riches, Hugh	118	4
12	Sharp, Ian	85	3
13	Meaden, John	84	3
14	McWhinnie, John	68	2
15	Gray, Keith	65	2
16	Page, Ken	58	2
17	Grant, Gary	41	1
18	Salter, Harry	36	1
19	Fulford, Steve	31	1
20	Grigor, Malcolm	31	1

Although neither Hugh, Jack nor I played well, we had some fun. I started with an easy birdie and I said to Hugh that I hated doing that, as it all usually went downhill after that - and it did. Jack managed a Wedding Cake at the Doo'cot and Hugh had a Ladies at the 15th and almost repeated the feat at the 17th. He was too quick playing his second at the 15th and I didn't manage to get my camera out in time, but I made sure at the 17th:

We'd had a few showers but were rewarded by some lovely full rainbows at the 17th: