A brisk walk across the fields and we arrived.  The great advantage about tonight’s curry was, as our diet-conscious hostess assured us, that it was ‘Slimming World’.  This quite simply meant that you could eat as much as you liked and you lost weight.   I am not sure how this works but it goes something like this: each week you pay a life guru a £5 note along with a hundred others, and you are weighed.   You then learn the secret diet and the ‘sins’ – things you must not eat.

After this you spend your days and nights eating huge quantities of the right types of food, avoiding sins whenever possible and, hey presto!  You become slimmer – which our hostess has!

The meal started with popadoms, onion salad and raita, washed down with Kingfisher beer (a sin), followed by huge bowls of steaming rice, a wonderful chicken tandoori dish and a vegetable curry, complete with a little red wine (a sin).

Pudding was a wonderful rich creamy affair with meringue (completely ok) and a touch more sin.

As we arose from the table feeling remarkably full, I felt safe in the knowledge that although I felt I could well have over-indulged, I had not – I had probably lost weight!

We made our way home, just as the snow started to fall.

The following morning at 7.30am the phone rang.

“I am going to be late – there is a foot of snow in my drive,” said the voice.

I looked out of the window; there is something very beautiful about fresh, white, sparkling snow!

I hastened down to the club, and to my delight ‘Operation Snow Plough’ had worked.  The bright red smiling face of the Head Greenkeeper appeared from the tractor – a tractor that sported a bright red snow plough.  The chaps had worked since 6am clearing the drive, car park and steps.  Unlike much of the country, they would not let the snow stop them, and Forrester Park’s children’s party, starring Michael Fitch the Magician, could go ahead.

So, kids, you loved the Magic Show.  Now let’s hear it for Roland, his boys and that little red tractor and snow plough.  Hurrah!

Until we meet again.

Tim Forrester-Muir

Forrester Park Golf and Country Club

When we first met, I only had the slightest inkling of her musical talent.  I remember she did a voice part in Holst’s Planets with a choir at the Albert Hall.  I stood in the gods, and I can confess that by the end of the performance everyone around me knew that my girlfriend was singing.  Such elated behaviour made me realise that this ‘girlfriend’ could be a major threat to my comfortable bachelor life!

Anyway, organising an orchestra is a bit of a novelty to me, like organising a Californian Surfing Competition or the Palio de Siena!  Where do you start?  Luckily, I do not; but Mrs FM does.

First, you need to select the music.  Naturally you have to consult with your top musicians.  OK, so first you have to contact your top musicians.  All right, you have to speak to the conductor – well, probably him first.  Then select the music.  This seems to be problematic: “Well of course I love that, but this is so much better, don’t you think?”.   “How many are in the orchestra?” “How do I know, we haven’t got that far”.  “Do we have a rich string section?” (I thought all musicians were poor).  “Can some of them transpose their parts up a semitone?”  (I’m not sure that should happen at the golf club).  “Oh, it’s B flat minor” (is he talking about my children?).  “He would like to play first, and a solo”.  So it goes on.  It’s like organising two football teams and guaranteeing that some will be scoring goals.

Of course Mrs FM finds it easy.  She pops into the local Orchestra Store, picks one conductor, selects the music that will please the audience and players, orders the right number of strings, woodwind, brass – a balanced amount.  The store then sends all the music to all the players all around the country, everyone then practises all the pieces – naturally they can all play these bits of music.  Then it’s just a matter of Mrs FM running over a few bits of music herself, and then the Big Day.

You can imagine breakfast; there are always these calls.  “What?  You swallowed your harp?  The whole thing?  You must have been hungry”.  “Oh, so you can’t come because you can’t get your piano in your new Fiat 500?  Well, fancy buying an Italian car for a Steinway!”

Of course from here it’s plain sailing.  They all get to work and play the parts they have been practising by themselves, together.  Have a fortifying cup of tea and a sandwich and, bingo!

Oh bother, I forgot the music stands and lights.  Oh yes, and you’ve just got to find the 110 people to sit in the audience (Orchestra Store to the rescue).  And tickets?

Anyway, Mrs FM, naturally with lots of help from the Orchestra Store, seems to manage.  Happy January!

Until the next time.

Tim Forrester-Muir at his desk in Forrester Park Golf and Country Club

Happy New Year.

From Tim Forrester-Muir

Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat, Please put a penny in the old man’s hat,If you haven’t got a penny, a ha’penny will do – If you haven’t got a ha’penny then God bless you.

I love Christmas for all those reasons, but possibly because it has always been a happy time for me.  Obviously tradition is important, but we must embrace change, we are told.  So this is a change – an e-mail Christmas card!

Anyway, we are having a fantastic year; the new young team are really getting the Old Club moving on the social, golf and tennis side, and for me it is like a tonic being surrounded by a  wonderful ‘can-do’ crowd.

It has been a year of changes – many positive changes.  I have just come in from the clubroom where 80 golfers, many dressed in Christmas apparel, have marched up to collect their Turkey Drive prizes.  Upstairs families are enjoying Christmas and birthday lunches.  There is a lovely buzz about the place as laughter rings out from the bar.

On Friday night we had a party night and to our great amusement 99 girls and three men appeared.  When I came down I was bought drinks and asked for dances, but luckily my two grown-up daughters kept an eye on Dad – and I was duly sent home to bed.  How times have changed!

I am really looking forward to 2012.  So let me wish you a very Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

Many thanks to you all for your smiles, laughter and custom.

Yours

Tim.

Forrester Park Golf and Country Club

Father Christmas at Forrester Park

One minute it’s the First of December, then ‘Bang!’, it’s the Forrester Park Christmas Draw Night.  I, like anyone in my line of business, worry that no-one will turn up.  However, when I arrive at 6pm my worries are dispelled as I struggle to find a parking place.  As I arrive at the front door the snow machine sends a flurry of snow into the wind and I am offered mulled wine and hot dogs.

I queue my way upstairs and am greeted by a past lady captain beaming from ear to ear.  “Why did you not do this when I was Captain?” she enquires.  I mumble something about my not having organised anything myself this year, then enter the fray.

I wander round looking at the clothes, bags, smoked food, cakes, jewellery, pictures….  To girls shopping is a sport – later I will be tested by my girls to name all the stalls in the order they are set out.  I am dreading my first trip to Westfield and its seven miles of mind-boggling shops!

Then downstairs to meet Father Christmas.  As I approach the fairy grotto a mother coos, “That’s the first time little Tabitha has not screamed at Father Christmas.”

Then I see the awful truth.  Father Christmas has no beard.  Is it some new directive from Europe?  Or are we no longer allowed to wear false beards – beardism?

I mean to ask the Elf, but the ‘Elf of ‘Elf and Safety is so keen to tell me about the special role Elves play in protecting children from Father Christmas that I don’t get an answer on the ‘Beard Question’ – and everyone knows the Elf has been living with Father Christmas for years!

Before we know it, the Draw has been drawn and the Great Totham Choir starts to sing ‘Good King Wenceslas’.

Christmas is on its way.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from all at Forrester Park Golf and Country Club.

Tim Forrester-Muir.

I sit trying to concentrate on an e-mail, but then I hear, “Oh, no I don’t”, followed by the unmistakable “Oh, yes you do” from a screaming chorus of delighted young voices, all in perfect hilarious unison.

I can no longer resist.  I open the door and look into the clubroom.  There are over a hundred faces fixed on one spot.  Each face wears an eager smile, just waiting for the next piece of information – no-one wants to miss anything.

I creep round so that I can see what they are looking at.  Well, there is a good-looking young man – talking to a monkey!  They are chatting to each other, both delivering jokes.  Some of these jokes crash into the small people who are sitting on the floor, sending them into peals of laughter; but others fly straight over their heads, catching the bigger people standing at the back, making them laugh.

The man who is standing in front of this adoring audience is not a teacher, vicar or politician, although all of them would love to have their audience concentrating so avidly on their words.  It is the famous magician, Michael Fitch, and his magic talking monkey.

During the interval I wander around chatting to old friends.  “Hello Timmy.  I’ve just seen your daughter – she’s so grown up”.

I look at his daughter, just out of school.  To my amazement, two school age children approach her.  “Mummy, the show’s wonderful.  Can we have ice-cream?”

I look at my friend.  “Grandchildren.  Now that is magic!”

Until the next time Tim Forrester-Muir.

Please note that a Michael Fitch Magic Evening is returning to Forrester Park on Saturday 3rd March 2012

I consult my printouts of the average rainfall for the last 10 years.

“Where did you find those?” asks our youthful golf professional.

“I write them down each day after looking at my rain gauge”.

“What, for ten years?”

“Well, I actually started in 1985,” I reply proudly.

I am not a mind-reader, but you can see that look as he thinks of this chap looking at his rain gauge when he was born, when he went to primary school, then secondary school, when he got his first job – and still, each morning, this chap is looking at his rain
gauge!

“Oh!” he sensibly replies.

So, here they are:

Looking back you can see  that March, April and May were three consecutively dry months, with just 22mm  between them, thus the dry conditions.  And then October was very dry.  Yet looking at the Met Office website, I find  it interesting to note that Northern Ireland had one of its wettest Octobers.

As I wandered out this morning to feed the chickens (just one egg!), I looked at the rain gauge.  2mm. A steady drizzle came down.

The dry spring did not seem irrelevant – no, just a long time ago!

Until the next time from the comfort of the Office at Forrester Park.

Tim Forrester-Muir

NIGHT GOLF FOR FLIGHTS OF FANCY:

Golfers laughed in the dark, wearing fluorescent halos or necklaces; fluorescent balls flew off like fireflies in the night; and some top golfers found their talents lacking as the conditions caused them to hit the dark ground instead of the glowing ball.

The general manager, filled with excitement and forgetting his status and grey hair, came rushing in. Bouncing with enthusiasm he exclaimed, “The fairway looks just like a
runway; do you think a plane will land?”

As we smiled together, I was reminded of a bright sunny summer day when I, instead of sitting at a desk, had a rake on my shoulder and, having just finished raking the 18^th bunker, was walking down the 10^th fairway when a small microlight flew quite low overhead.  As this was a rare sight, I waved enthusiastically and to my delight the gesture was returned.  The microlight continued to circle as if – yes – as if it was going to land!

Now, I have never flown a microlight, but I have read my share of Biggles, watched Those
Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines and landed endless Gipsy Moths with Francis
Chichester.  What you need is a flat surface – the 1^st fairway would be ideal, the 18^th
fairway not so good.  My new friend chose the 18^th fairway.  Also, the forefathers of this land had pulled ‘stetch lines’ that cause that wonderful rippling effect on the fairways.

It was all too exciting to miss.  He approached via the 18^th tee.  Was he going to hit the ash?  No. Was he going to miss the bunker on the fairway?  His wheels skimmed across it and he touched down – only briefly, as the first roll of the ground tried like a bucking
bronco to toss the rider off.  Back into the air it went again; up and down the microlight bounced along the fairway.  I stood transfixed as my new friend and his machine careered towards the 18^th green.  Now I always feel, in my limited experience as a passenger in those big planes, that the pilot has to make a decision.  Either faster for taking off, or slower for
landing.  However, with all the bouncing up and down, or maybe the sheer joy of thinking about the incredible story he could tell of how he landed on the 18^th fairway at Forrester Park, he seemed to miss this vital operation.

I so wanted to tell my new friend that his choices were becoming limited.  If he carried on he would hit the Christmas tree behind the 18^th green; or I could see the picture in the Sun and Mirror of the microlight rammed into the Forrester Park clubhouse French doors and the two new friends sharing a pint.

However, the fragile microlight at this stage just seemed fed up with the rough treatment.  After rearing up the slope of the 18^th green, it returned to earth exhausted.  Not wishing to hit either my mother’s Christmas trees or the clubhouse, the nose rose and fell for the final
time.  Sticking into the green the microlight somersaulted, landing upside down on the green.

Fantastic!  I rushed over, and there he was.  Biggles.  Leather sheepskin jacket, white scarf,
leather flying helmet and some wonderful glass flying goggles.  He hung upside down, like a bat.

“Where am I?”, he enquired.

“Forrester Park Golf Club”, I replied.

“Well, I saw the Thames over there, realised I was flying into a military restriction zone and decided to land.   I’m doing the Round Britain Race and I started in Ipswich this morning”, he continued.

On the centre of his chest was a large disc of stainless steel on which, in red letters, the lord ‘release’ was written.  This was the reason that my new friend was able to hang upside down, his head some 18 inches above the ground.

He was a man of bravado – he had got lost on the first day of the race.   He had by some stroke of luck managed to return to earth, but his microlight lay broken around him and, I
realised as he struck the ‘release’ button on his chest, he had still not worked out the laws of gravity.

As he fell the final 18 inches onto his head, the old parachutist joke about “it’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the landing” came to mind.

I was brought back to my senses as someone laughed.  “Don’t be silly Paul, of course a plane won’t land”.

“Well,” I murmured. “It is just possible”.

Until my next mutterings from Tim Forrester-Muir at his desk in Forrester Park.

Forrester Park Golf and Country Club Weddings

THE WEDDING: I looked at her and waited for her reply.  I had just delivered the line that ‘Forrester Park could do as little or as much as she and her future husband required for the perfect wedding day’.

“Well”, she replied, smiling, “I want you to do it all.  We will pay for the whole lot up front,
now” for the wedding.

I hurried off to my office to prepare the wedding quote, returning in record time.  She looked down the columns.

“What about the cars?” she quizzed.

“I shall organise whatever you want…”

“I want Bentleys”, she calmly said.  Her future husband looked up.  “I thought you wanted the Rollers and the Ferrari, doll”.

Without so much as a glance, she continued.  “Flowers (orange and yellow).  Hairdressers to my house with make-up artists and nail painters for 18 of us. Chocolate fountain.  Oh yes, and green sweets for the kids – and better have a bouncy castle.”

“Any dietary needs?” I enquired.  For the first time the smile disappeared.  “If they don’t want what I am having at my wedding, they don’t need to come”.  The smile re-appeared.  She got up to go.

Her man handed me the cheque.  They had only just come for their first visit that day.

As she was leaving, she turned.  “Oh, yes. It’s a themed wedding – Bonnie and Clyde – so lots of people looking like gangsters.”

I watched as the beautiful black Porsche skimmed down the drive.

Some years later I met her in town.  “Great wedding Timmy”, she laughed.  “My husband’s dotcom business was mega”.  And with that she was gone.

Another wedding superbly organised by Forrester Park!

Until we meet again,

Tim Forrester-Muir

Forrester Park Golf and Country Club

Passing these, we then see the cherry trees next to the first tee.  Many years ago these cherries, which have the most beautiful flowers in the spring, were the end of our
garden.  From here you were into the woods.  A huge field maple stood where the path meets the first tee; I had a rope in the tree and practised my Tarzan, swinging for hours.

Once into the wood, the endless site of pitched battles with Red Indians and massive pirate attacks, small boys, and sometimes specially-selected girls, would smoke pipes of peace and eat burnt sausages around camp fires.  Building dams in the stream was an endless source of fun – fun my mother did not share, as friends and I would return, soaking wet, covered in mud and red from nettle stings.

As you leave the first tee you are crossing my mother’s Christmas tree plantation.  In those days customers would come and select their Christmas trees and help dig them up before paying for them.

Some remaining pear trees remind me of a much earlier venture of my randmother’s….but that’s another story.

Many of the trees that stand proud in my memory were flattened on that October night in 1987 – which kept us in firewood for a year.

Go hug a tree today!!

Until the next time a thoughtful Tim Forrester-Muir from the heart of Forrester Park Golf and Country Club, Maldon, Essex