Well finally, after many years of disappointment in the present department over my passing birthdays Annette finally got it right, largely I think to the work Of Andrew Morris.  Most of my birthday surprises have been things that I ought to like  rather than things I would actually want, but that’s women for you, always trying to improve on the perfection they have 🙂

Anyway, this year I could not believe my luck when I opened the old card and found details of the Wargame Holiday Centre

I scarcely believed my good fortune, there had to be a catch, I doubted  that anything had been arranged or that I would be bothered to travel down to Basingstoke on my own, which would have been a pity as it was a great weekend but, that was again down to having Andrew along. In fact, it came close to being Berlin perfect.

We had wanted to visit the centre for over twenty years, when it used to be at Scarborough and I had long since given up any hope of actually going because of the costs involved.  I had, however, forgotten that our finances are somewhat better now all the kids have cleared off and there is no mortgage to pay. Nevertheless, I count myself very fortunate that Andrew got her to agree to  a weekend away having fun.

One of the attractions of the Basingstoke centre was the fact they play using “In the Grand Manner”, a set of rules we all like and have played for about 30 years, in some form or another. We never quite imagined how they could have been  altered so much just to conform with the large game status. However, as we too had made adjustments to the game play to suit our style of gaming, we couldn’t really complain.

Have to cut away from all the game side or I’ll never stop and I intend that for the Stourbridge Club website.  After a flap on the train down when I managed to drop a ticket in my lap and then make it disappear under my seat, I arrived to find Andrew waiting for me.  We found the Centre easy enough and it was pretty damn amazing by any standards. Our host Mark was a decent sort although he turned out to have a blind spot when it came to seeing his best customer, Phil QC, cheating as we found out.

That aside, it made little difference, the hotel cock up worked in our favour, despite booking a double room they had got us down for a double bed which was a bit too close for comfort for both of us and we ended up with an extra room for free. Breakfast was a good deal too and as it was included in the price we could get stuck in as much as we wanted. Didn’t have much of an appetite after finding a superb Balti House on the main drag of Basingstoke town and getting stuck in like there was no tomorrow.

Basingstoke was a bizarre to my mind. The main street we came to after walking up from the hotel was as poesy as the Kufurstendamn and seemed full of the young alcopop brigade, with more money than good taste or sense.  Even the Weatherspoon was a little too up market for my liking. The second night we decided to try and find some real ale and happened on a middle aged couple of Yokels who Kindly directed us to the Lamb which despite the ongoing Karaoke night served some passable Ales.  Even the weather was doing us a favour and we took our drinks outside away from the passionate Chinese girl that was belting out “I will survive” like she meant it.

It was another bonus that we got talking to a couple of smokers who had got banished outside for their guilty pleasures and having put them right on not being Brummies we found we had found even more UKIP fans and that even down here, they were inundated with Poles and other EU nationals seeking benefits or employment in UK.

Long story short: we won and I was that excited I forgot to fall asleep on the drive home.  Big thanks to Andrew for getting this fixed up and now I have the problem of trying to outdo this when it’s Annette’s birthday in May.