Dear Ladies,
I cannot thank everyone enough for making my Lady Captain’s Day so special. I enjoyed every minute of it from beginning to end and it was lovely to finally meet most of Ladies’ Branch and have some sort of a social event at last. Congratulations to all of our prize winners who romped home with some fabulous scores and I hope that they like their glassware. As always, golfers from the McCann stable were to the fore in both gents’ and ladies’ competitions. Nathan McCann won the gross on Wednesday, while cousin Niamh repeated the same on Saturday. Her sister Grace, the current Junior Girls’ Captain, won the intermediate prize, while Nanny Eileen even won the “pick the winner “draw! Orla O’Dowd was the overall winner on the day - she gave a lovely speech and seems to be delighted with her hurricane lanterns.
Thank goodness that we decided to have the prize giving in the marquee and not the putting green, as planned! If we had, I think that there would be several ladies suffering from trench foot this morning and Neil and Council would not be happy. I had visions of Henry revving up the tractor and hitching up a plough to try to redeem things! For once, Cecilia was right and the enormous black dot over Lurgan on Saturday evening did materialise - we could hardly hear ourselves over the noise of thunder and the lightning actually lit up the marquee. Just like Maria and the children, we had to think of our favourite things. It was very apt!!
I have enjoyed reading the messages on the array of cards that I received. Many mentioned my weekly ramblings which I have actually enjoyed writing, despite the terrible use of English (my fault) and the awful punctuation (technology’s fault!). Over £900 was donated to Banbridge and Moira Group of Riding for the Disabled Association which is a staggering amount. It will help keep our group going for several months when we eventually get back to riding. Thank you sincerely for your generosity.
It was heart-warming to see how many men popped into the marquee on Saturday to give their best wishes! Even Pa McSherry called in before he went home to faff about in the garage!! Some admired the roses - I didn’t have the heart to say that they were pelargoniums and sweet pea, and some even asked for gardening advice! We are very lucky in Lurgan to have a Saturday for our Lady Captain’s Competition - other clubs are not so inclusive. I hope that those men who travelled to Ballymascanlon on Saturday had a good time - judging by the laughter on the balcony, it appeared that they did!!!
There are so many people to be thanked: Muriel and Grainne in the Office; Mickey, Colleen and Holly, the latter who ran up and down the stairs all day delivering bacon butties; Stephen and Aaron for keeping us plied with drink; Neil and his staff for having the course in such good order; Peter who kindly helped many of the ladies log their score; all the committee for their support - especially Jackie for her social media skills, Ros who makes everything look nice ( even sodden flowers), Fiona who can write a lovely speech with hardly any notice and finally Anne who does all the golfy bits with such willingness and good humour, and today I suspect, is fit for nothing!!
Finally thank you to Poor Henry - the wee wonder! Even though he can’t cook, won’t cook and doesn’t do the garden, he has been has been a tower of strength ever since I accepted the position of Lady Captain. He is so supportive of (most of) my hair brained ideas and on Saturday he quietly worked away keeping everything running smoothly despite probably wishing that he was in Ballymascanlon. The only time that he blasphemed was at 10.30pm on Friday when I asked him to lift the very heavy stone dogs into the trailer. Thanks to all those ladies who admired them - I knew that they would look lovely in the marquee!!! Henry was very glad of Claire’s surprise visit - especially when it came to loading up the trailer during Cecilia’s deluge - they both looked like Leisl from the Sound of Music, by the time that they had finished!!!
Thanks again and happy golfing!
Lady Captain Julie
PS There are millions of apostrophes this week – I suspect all have vanished!
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