Grange-over-Sands part 1

Here is the first part of the account of my successful tournament at Grange-over-Sands. The rest will follow over the next few days. I've added some "reaction" buttons at the bottom, so please have your say if you like and let me know what you think of it.

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Friday June 5th

I am in a bed and breakfast place in Lancaster awaiting the start of the Grange over Sands tournaments. Grange is a small seaside town on Morecambe Bay, about 26 miles from here - as ever I left it too long to get my accommodation organisedand so I couldn't find anywhere affordable to stay, so I'm a fair way from the venue. Its a nice B&B though, rightnext to the railway station.

To be honest I've hardly picked up a pawn in anger since the Nottingham tournament, which is why there have been no chess journals since then. Michelle has been here for a month-long visit. We had a nice holiday for a week, touring the country staying with friends in various locations, and doing hill-walks in places like the South Downs, Chilterns andCheshire. She then stayed at my place for another three weeks and so we filled our time with lots of nice walks, pubdinners and film nights, and so there wasn't much time for chess. It probably did me good to have a break though.

Today I dropped Michelle off at Liverpool airport and she's now back in Berlin and I'm torturing myself once again on the chess circuit.

Dave Stephenson, one of the small and select circulation of readers of this journal, is playing here too - though he is in the Open and I'm in the bottom section, which tells you all you need to know about our relative abilities! Dave manages to combine playing high-level chess with singing in a choir, hill-walking and being an IT contractor - I'm not sure how he managesto do it all!

Another friend is going to be coming along to the tournament - Geoff Renyard, a very sound man whom I worked with on an IT project all of last year. We lived in the same hotel and so spent a lot of time drinking, going for walks and playing board games with one another. He lives near Carlisle, 60 miles north of here, and so he's coming along to spectate. He will be staying in this B&B tonight and then tomorrow I will stay in his place. Nice to have a couple of friends at the tournament anyway.

Now I must re-read my precepts list from Nottingham - I must make sure I stick to them all again. Unfortunately Michelleand I were staying at John's place in Nottingham last night (coincidentally the same friend I stayed with for the last tournament) and he and I were up drinking gin until 2am and watching the election coverage on the news, so that's oneprecept broken already! I haven't had a drink today though. Must lay off the beer!