First week in Perth including golf

I can’t really remember a great deal of what we did in Perth for the first couple of weeks – I really should have posted something much sooner but I was pretty lazy (it’s like tidying my room… Mum will understand).

On the first night we had a great barbeque with Gem’s Grandpa, cousins, Uncle and three of his friends who were all really nice, and still are! The food was brilliant: we had homemade hummus; sausages; seasoned lamb; potato salad; and lots of other stuff that my memory fails to remind me of. Unfortunately, that’s been our only BBQ here!! Very depressing, indeed.

Over the next couple of weeks we went out with Gem’s Uncle and Grandpa to a few of the sights of Perth and its surrounding enclaves. During the first week we headed off to play around of nine-hole golf at a local course. The course is owned by the council and cost about $10 per person to go on. Pulling up to the clubhouse, it was pretty quiet which was a bonus seen as we weren’t all seasoned golf veterans like Roy Young.

Involved in the round were Gem and myself; Grandpa Jim; Uncle Mick; Cousin Dave; and the venerable John, our tour guide. Gem last played golf when she was a young un’ and I had stopped playing about two or three years ago. Dave and Mick seemed to dabble with the game and I have no idea about Jim’s golf experience but going on his performance that day, I doubt it’s a very good one.

The day was a beautiful one; the type you get once or twice a year back in the UK. We began playing about two o’clock in the afternoon when the temperature was around 32 degrees Celsius and you could feel it! We plied ourselves in sun cream and then took a quick swig of water and teed off.

The course was really nice with brilliantly green fairways and greens and trees dotted around in the rough. It was made up of mainly three-par holes with a few four-par ones to make things interesting and it was a joy to go round even after so long without holding a club.

Apart from John, I think we all played a zigzag kind of game frequented with clean shots and shots that topped the ball and sent vibrations through your hands as the club smacked into the ground. We had a gay old time and Dave sent numerous balls into the surrounding houses – I was amazed that we didn’t hear any glass smashing as he really hit them far.

At one point Gem sunk a twenty foot putt (I think, it was a long way away) which made her day. The greens were pretty decent and this putt glided towards the hole leaving eveyone dumbfounded as to how Gem had achieved this.

However, by the sixth hole and about three hours into our round, I think we had all had enough and were ready to finish. And… we were holding up about five other groups of golfers! Seen as we were playing as a six (a bit hypocritical of me as I hated it when people did this at Rother) we were going really slowly. By the eighth we let a couple of fat blokes play through and they played even slower than us, further pissing off the people still behind us.

I gave up on the last hole; I just couldn’t be bothered after it had taken so long to play the first eight. Gem and Jim stopped playing as well and probably Mick as he and Jim were sat on a bench with their backs to the ninth green as two security officers for the City of Bayswater turned up after we’d been reported for slow play and especially for playing as a group of six. The two officers headed for Mick and Jim and they had a short chat about how the rules state that four people is the maximum for a group. Mick and Jim pleaded their innocence and the two officers then just had a quick joke and headed off, slowly, mind you, as they were carrying a bit of excess baggage – think of Chief Wiggum from The Simpsons.

By the time we had finished, the sun was beginning to set and we were all ready for a beer, some more than others. After we parted ways with John, we headed back North to our humble abode and I really can’t remember what we did for the rest of the day but it’s not really worth mentioning.