Our author tells us that "the place, no doubt, was always one of strength, and the open woodland about it was favourable to the preservation of game, and to the wilder kind of sporting in which the Plantagenet monarchs took great delight."<\/em><\/strong>. I don’t know about you, but that had my imagination racing.<\/p>\n After breakfast I came in here to deal with some e-mails. One of them was from a guy in Caen who had seen my advert for a joiner and had replied, requesting further information. I sent him what he needed and he ‘phoned me back. We had a very long chat that turned out to be quite productive.<\/p>\n If I engage him, he’s going to be expensive because he lives so far away but he seemed to have the correct kind of attitude – sensitive to my ideas but with good suggestions of his own.<\/p>\n There was another ‘phone call, this time from a plumber. He’s going to come to see me on Wednesday for a chat.<\/p>\n After I’d dealt with everything, I went for a disgusting drink break and then began to edit the radio notes. There were some from a couple of weeks ago so I attacked those, and now all of that is done, the two parts are assembled, the eleventh track is chosen and the notes written ready for dictation.<\/p>\n Then I made a start on those that I dictated last night, and I’m about a third of a way through them.<\/p>\n What made me stop was that it was baking time. I need a loaf of bread and a pile of pizza dough so I set about and bashed out some dough, leaving it to fester.<\/p>\n Back in here, there was football, Hwlffordd v Caernarfon Town. This was a “winner take all” scenario, with the winner representing the League in European club competition next season. <\/p>\n In front of a massive crowd for West Wales, the largest in the League this season, it was something of a damp squib. The Cofis were clearly exhausted after their marathon 50-week season and once it became obvious that their game plan of long balls over the top to feed lightning winger Louis Lloyd wasn’t working, they had no Plan B. There were some very leaden legs out there.<\/p>\n Hwlffordd on the other hand had a very slow start but once they slipped into gear they gave a workman-like performance without actually setting the game alight. Some rather uncharacteristic sloppy defending by the Cofis let Hwlffordd in for two simple goals that they should never have been allowed to have, and they scored a third from a breakaway right near the end when everyone from Caernarfon was up in the Hwlffordd penalty area.<\/p>\n Deep in stoppage time the Cofis pulled one back, New Zealand keeper Zak Jones thinking a ball was going out and not realising that Louis Lloyd was lurking behind him, but it was too little, too late by then.<\/p>\n In truth, it wasn’t a great spectacle. We’ve seen many much better games than this, and Hwlffordd will have to pull themselves up a few notches if they are to improve Wales’s coefficient on the European club stage.<\/p>\n Tonight’s pizza was another candidate for “the best ever”, and the bread looks really good too. I’ll tell you tomorrow what it’s like because right now I’m off to bed, later than usual.<\/p>\n But seeing as we have been talking about the Basingstoke Canal … "well, one of us has" – ed<\/em> … it somehow seems to be appropriate that "it was favourable to the … wilder kind of sporting in which the Plantagenet monarchs took great delight"<\/em><\/strong>.
\nWhen a friend of mine, who lives down that end of the country, came on-line later I mentioned it to her.
\n"I’m not surprised"<\/em><\/strong> she said. "Didn’t you know?"<\/em><\/strong>
\n"Know what?"<\/em><\/strong> I asked.
\n"The Basingstoke Canal in the time of the Plantagenet monarchs was where the sport of Serf Riding was invented."<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n
