One of the presents which my lovely wife gave me this past Christmas was St. Andrews Sojourn: Two years at Home on the Old Course by George Peper. I started reading it last week, and I thought I’d share a little bit from it – I’m enjoying it quite a bit so far! But first a little background… For you non-golfers who are reading this, the Old Course at St. Andrews is roughly equivalent to Mecca. Over 20 years ago, the author, who was then the editor-in-chief of Golf Magazine and his wife (who are American) bought a townhouse directly across the street from the 18th fairway of the Old Course. This transpired because of a terrible slice the author hit off the 18th tee (giving me a glimmer of hope). For years, they visited when George flew over to cover various tournaments and checked in on the place, which they rented out. However, in 2002, they decided to move there, do a lot of renovation, and live there for at least a couple of years – and that’s as far as I’ve gotten in the book (actually, they are “currently” living in the flat above theirs courtesy of their neighbors, who didn’t live there during that part of the year, since the contractors had only just finished the demolition phase of the remodeling by the time they arrived!)
Oh – and as an aside for Ben and any other lovers of PGW who are reading this: the only books Peper lists among the possessions he moved across the pond – besides all his golf-related books, that is – were all of the books by P.G. Wodehouse that he owned… (Of course, one could quite easily argue that many of Wodehouse’s books are golf-related!)
my life as an adverbial suffix 