Liverpool  - UK

This week would be spent packing up our stuff at Mum's in preparation for going down to Sussex. My sister and brother had left the furniture and some other items of Mum's that we had wanted but other than that the house was bare.

It was sad to see the house this way, we had moved here when I was six and I had lived here till I left home at 18. Since then, apart from a couple of years when I moved back to Liverpool in the early 70's, I had always lived away but it was always here for us when we came back.

Now we had only a few days left before shutting the door for the last time. Ruth and Swainey were coming up from London for the weekend and Sway would be joining me and some of my old mates at Royal Liverpool for the Open golf championship.

Royal Liverpool is at Hoylake which is across the water as we say in Liverpool, on the Wirral. It one of the UK's top golf courses but the Open had not be staged here for 46 years so it promised to be a great week. 

While we were away Mike & Liz had been enthusing about a new restaurant over the water called Jambula, run by a South African it specialised in African cuisine (whatever that is) so Mike & Liz insisted we give it the once over. When we arrived the first thing we heard was drumbeats, it seems the restaurant thinks Scousers will feel their in a little bit of Africa if they hear drums!

Throughout the night if it was someone's birthday, anniversary or other event the drums would start up again, it was a Disneyesque version of Africa but the food was excellent and they even had Tafel, one of Namibia's finest beers! 

The first day of the Open was on Thursday, I had arranged to meet my best man Gilla and John another old mate, who now lives in Southampton, outside Hoylake station at 7am. John was staying with Gilla who for his sins now lives over the water not far from Hoylake in a place called Wallasey. 

Merseyside loves it's sport so the Open was assured of good crowds so even at 7am the roads from the station to the course were full of people. I planned to go for three of the four days and visit Mum on Friday. John had to miss the final day, Sunday, but Gilla had tickets for all four days, Swainey would join us for the weekend before he and Ruth travelled back to London on Sunday night. 

Each day was full walking around the course trying to catch the top players like Tiger Woods etc then finish off with a few pints in the town. The weather was lovely and the tournament saw a great exhibition of controlled golf from the mighty Tiger.

Sadly Gilla missed the last day as he was laid up with gout of all things. Myself and Swainey queued in the afternoon for seats in one of the stands on the 18th green, it took us over an hour to  get in but when we did we had fantastic seats looking down on the green and it was really exciting watching the culmination of the Open championship and seeing Tiger Woods presented with his trophy.

It felt strange sitting there with all the crowds,  TV cameras and famous faces when only a few weeks before we had been sitting in the African bush with not a soul around for miles and miles. Tomorrow we were driving down to Sussex to sort out our house issues and in just 12 days time we would be returning to Africa.