A twenty-mile round trip to give blood yesterday. The venue was Pine Ridge Golf Club in Surrey - in the bit of Surrey which is mostly golf course. Pine Ridge may be a little downmarket from the likes of Wentworth and Sunningdale, but nevertheless boasts many facilities for its members and a fine collection of holes, even a driving range. One thing it doesn't have, as I found out, is a bike shed. So I locked my bike to some railings where electric buggies were parked, and if anyone objected I planned to tell them I was on a life-saving mission.
I was there about half an hour before my appointment so sat on a bench in the sun and watched some golfers. Jonathan Meads in his 1994
Middlebrow-on Tee musings/pisstake on Surrey/posh golf and golf courses maintains that the courses are an attempt to fantasise the Scottish highlands in southern England. I came to the swift conclusion that Pine Ridge is an attempt to resemble Augusta, although one scene I witnessed did remind me of an incident in Caddyshack.
[The real reason golf courses sprang up there was the wealthy types who commuted to London and the cheap price of land which was too sandy for agriculture (also the reason for pines). A bit further from London and the cheap sandy land was snapped up by the military - e.g. Aldershot and the surrounding area, Farnborough, Bisley.]
As the big bar at the club is closed because Covid, it made an ideal venue for blood donation. An additional plus that there was a huge screen showing the test match.
After my squash and biscuits I set off home, soon passing a famous sporting venue - the Lakeside Hotel at Frimley Green. I had to stop to rest at Frimley Green (on the green itself), and then on a bench at Fleet Pond. I think cycling there was possibly a mistake, but the venue would have been impossible to reach by public transport. Anyway, I survived, but was so knackered I slept most of the evening.
