Battles and balls

Today was the final day (of 17) of the Snooker World Championship. My lovely wife has not minded me watching quite a lot of it. Okay, she doesn’t understand WHY I watch it but…even so.

Naturally I wanted Ronnie O’Sullivan to play his usual brand of lightning fast, unbeatable, genius snooker. He’s so exciting to watch when he’s at his best. Actually, he’s still pretty exciting when he’s only almost at his best. And the frames he’d played leading up to the final were typical. He ended his last two matches a session early!

On the other hand, Mark Selby, his opponent in the final, had had a tough road to travel. He plays a tough and rugged style of play that’s difficult to beat. Actually, there’s been some social media chat about him being a boring player. This is absolutely absurd. He is a very clever and exciting player, forcing his opponents to play the way he wants them too. His safety play is terrific and his patience boundless.

Anyway, it was all very exciting and went down to (almost) the final frame but, having reached 17-14, Mark Selby took that extra step and will now have his name engraved on the World Champion trophy. Ronnie was very gracious in defeat and Mark modest in victory. it was all exactly as it should be. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. Almost as much as our walk over Hankley today.

In fact, our walk was quite exciting. We passed quite a few camouflaged soldiers, full packs on their backs, rifles at the ready, enjoying a bit of war games. By the time we reached the ridge, all hell seemed to be unleashed as gunfire rang out accompanied by much yelling. It was all quite amazing. Though not quite so amazing as Day-z who didn’t seem bothered by any of it. Now we know the main culprit when it came to being scared of loud noises.

When we reached the woods at the end of the ridge, it was being held by one group while another was sneaking around behind them.

Rather than become victims of friendly fire by being caught in the cross hairs, we decided to take a different path back to Sidney.

Luckily, we made it back to the car bullet-free, and stopped off at the farm shop for some lunch. After some delicious rabbit and bacon pies, Mirinda readied herself and left for the flat. She has a very important meeting tomorrow morning and felt it wiser to leave from the flat than to get up at a horrid hour from Frensham.

Of course, that meant I could watch the entire final session of the snooker…thank you, Matey.