Happy Birthday - MUM

Have a wonderful day mum- Lots of love from us all
TnTLAA

Happy Birthday - ANDREW

Happens to every guy sometimes this does:

Today your day special it is

Almost Invisible

I have heard on the grapevine that 'The Professor' has silently entered the country - Luckily I am one step ahead, and have already warned the custodians of the Elgin Marbles (and the Dagenham Girl Pipers) to keep all doors and windows securely locked until this alien has returned to the Land of the Cretans.





You can keep me in the dark but nothing escapes the chess ninja :-)

National Trust 2

As promised earlier - here is my second brief encounter with the National Trust. We travelled down to Sussex to visit the delightful ruin that is Bodiam Castle.

It is an interesting place, even when really busy it seems to be peaceful. The perfect place for a long sit in the shade with a historical novel.

A trip to the top of the towers is a must, but beware the stairs very steep, deep and designed for one way traffic only!!

Hope you like my photo of the castle, pity that tree walked in front of me - must have been a tourist!

Anyone for Tennis?

Just a week to go until the start of Wimbledon - and to prove the superiority of men over women - here are our family predictions for the 2007 Championship: well the 'grown ups' anyway

Teresa:

Men - Rafael Nadal

Women - Justine Henin

Trefor:

Men - Andy Roddick

Women - Jelena Jankovic

If Teresa is lucky enough for her guesswork to beat my skill, then I will buy her some flowers! And it isn't even her birthday for months

Of course she won't beat me, and even if she does strike it lucky, she doesn't read this blog so will never know about my 'generous offer'

:-)

Have a Great Day Dad(s)

Congratulations to all of the dads out there, especially Ivor and John.

Believe it or not, while I will spend the day vegetating in front of BB on the tv, Ivor will be cycling from London to Brighton and John will be chasing small defenceless animals around a wildlife park in deepest Kent. Not bad for a pair of 'oldies' with a combined age approaching 200 :-)

Lots of love

TnT

Happy Knights

So, here is my first chess game for a while, played on ICC:

I was white and both players had 15 minutes to make all of their moves. This was the first game that I analyzed with my coach. I was astonished at how little I actually saw! Anyway an enjoyable game with a pretty finish.

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nd7 5. Bc4 Ngf6 6. Ng5 e6
7. Ne2

[This is quite unusual but perfectly playable, the 'normal' plan is Qe2 and Ng5 to e4]

7. ... h6
8. Nf3 c5 9. 0-0 Be7 10. c3 b6 11. d5 [Better is Nf4 before d5] exd5 12. Bxd5 Nxd5

13. Qxd5 Ba6
[this is good for B , defending the rook and the B is happy on a6]
14. Re1 O-O 15. Ng3 Nf6 [ here white should exchange queens and Bf4 with a strong position]
16. Qf5 [ here black should have played Bd3!] Bc8 17. Qc2 Bb7 [A mistake, stronger was Be6]
18. Nf5 [white has threats now, looking at g7 and h6] Re8 19. Bxh6
[Interesting here was ... Bxf3, Bxg7 Bg4, Nxe7+ Rxe7, Bxf6 Rxe1+, Rxe1 Qxf6, Qe4 ]
Back to the game
19 ... gxh6 20. Nxh6+ Kf8 21. Rad1 Qc7 22. Ng5 [Better here is Ne5, preventing Qc6]
22 ... Qf4 23. Qg6 fxg6 24. Ne6#

Black has been checkmated.

You can play the game here by using the 'video player' buttons under the board below:

Carry on 'Clever Trevor'

I was told this week, that my spelling and grammar are atrocious – and apparently I am also unable to tell the time.

Well I don’t own a watch, so that is my excuse for my failure to decipher the tick-tocks correctly. A weak excuse admittedly but the only one I have, so I am sticking to it like glue!

As far as my writing skills go, I am searching the web for a cheap educational book - I did do a Google search on ‘Dick and Dora’ and yes before you ask, Dora’s pussy is still called Fluff.

knock me down with a feather

Clever Trevor

widebrows wonder wether Clever Trevor’s clever

either have they got

nor neither haven’t not

got no right to make a clot

our of Trevor

also, it takes much longer to get up north, the slow way

(Ian Dury)

Iceland

Well this August we celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary - I asked my beloved where she would like me to take her.

She replied ' Iceland would be nice'

Fine by me, but doesn't she know that they deliver free if you spend over £25?

Chess

As most of you will know I am a bit of a chess nut, well I finally decided to try and improve and now have lessons, don't titter dear it is true - luckily my chess coach is very kind, patient and extremely brilliant, as well as having achieved one of the highest ever tournament performances in World Chess History :-)

I will print some recent games in the next day or so:

Sandwich Bar - take 2

Now, lots of people have emailed, send me txts or just grabbed me by the arm demanding to know if the beautiful lady ever arrived at the sandwich bar, and what did she do to me to stop me from blogging for 5 months!!

Well all I can say is watch this space and her name will appear sometime this month.

and . . . . . . yes she is still beautiful

National Trust

I had a brilliant birthday present from my beautiful daughter, a subscription to the National Trust. We will try to make the best of it and visit as many places as possible.

First on our list was Ightham Mote - a really lovely house, full of history and we were lucky enough to visit on a beautiful day. Here is a shot of the side of the house, as we trundled past on our way to buy ice creams!

Long Time no See

Hi guys,
apologies for the long delay between posts, blame it on the weather, blame it on my job(s), just don't blame it on the boogie.
At least it is now the summer and I will try to post a few times each week. Look out for dodgy photos (NO!! not 'that sort' I mean badly composed) and even dodgier chess games

Cheers
Trefor