@clive-hurren Thanks Clive, they are amazing and they always stop me in my tracks when I see them, regardless of how often I've seen them.,

UTB,

John

@clive-hurren My memories of Paddy’s Hole centre around infrequent trips there with my Dad. Happy Days. I remember an episode of Landscape Artist of the Year which was based there and brought a few nostalgic tears to my eye. 
https://makingamark.blogspot.com/2017/06/heats-sky-arts-landscape-artist-of-year-2017.html?m=1

Second last call for anyone that would like to put in an entry for the COTS Challenge....

Last entries to be posted before 8pm on Friday.

@powmillnaemore I am afraid Dormo is like my wife. When they both retired they have been very busy.! Some things just do not happpen.

I hope Dormo will join the race before the deadline, though. 

Up the Boro! 

@powmillnaemore 

I shall get on to it this afternoon since I'm currently confined to my room after finally catching Covid for the first time - currently on Day 4 and it's nothing much now the painful headache has stopped and is really just like a cold.

I actually caught it on Teesside after an impromptu short visit late last week to see my nephew and his new baby daughter who were over from Melbourne.

It was meant as a surprise visit having not seen him since before Covid and found a KLM flight from Bremen to Newcastle with a change in Amsterdam - only 3 hour 10 minute journey time. However, after checking-in at Bremen for the flight to Amsterdam got a message that my connection to Newcastle had been cancelled and then my flight from Bremen was delayed 90 minutes. With no KLM staff in Bremen called the helpline to discover the only option left involved an overnight stay in Amsterdam then a flight to Southampton (cue incredulous tone!) then a Loganair flight from Southampton to Newcastle.

I was told when I arrived at Amsterdam I should go to the KLM desk and they'd book me a hotel at the airport for a 7:15 flight to Southampton so decided may as well go for it. Anyway, arrived at Amsterdam to discover lots of flights had been cancelled due to bad weather and a queue of over 200 people at the KLM desk staffed by just 2 people. This descended into chaos as KLM staff then walked down the queue to tell everyone that they had to book their own hotels and there was no 'help' at the end of the queue - they literally said it was only a queue for the people who didn't want to leave the airport!

By this time my phone battery was really low and thankfully Mrs Werder searched online for a hotel back at home as I'd traveled alone - all the hotels close to the airport had gone and thankfully she found me one just 8km from the airport with a shuttle bus available. Though there was an old couple behind me in the queue asking how do you book a hotel online?

So after leaving the house at 11:15am I arrived at a hotel in Amsterdam 9 hours later needing to get up 4am to get back to the airport the next morning for a flight to Southampton. I think if I'd known that when I'd set off I may have opted to stay in bed - especially as I'd only managed 4 hours sleep due to massive overnight thunderstorms back home that had actually struck the train station in the next town and caused long delays in getting to Bremen.

Woke up at 3:30am in Amsterdam and put on the BBC news channel to hear weather reports of massive thunderstorms in the south of England predicted - my heart sank and had visions of now getting stuck in Southampton! Anyway, I took the flight and we landed in a rather dark cloudy turbulent Southampton with no thunder as yet. Received a whatsapp from my other nephew who lives in Newcastle to say he will pick me up from the airport but said his wife had covid but he was negative with no symptoms and if that was a problem - should be fine I replied...

Thankfully the Loganair flight was departing on time - though their planes are pretty small and the door folded down to reveal 3 steps into the plane and my seat was a single one with nobody next to me. We took off into the cloud and as they served me a black coffee the turbulence nearly made the hostess pour the coffee over me. Though after 15 minutes it was a smooth flight but read the next day that I'd only just escaped the weather as Heathrow cancelled 25,000 passenger's flights due to thunderstorms.

So finally made it to Newcastle with a journey that took 26 hours instead of the planned 3 hours 10 minutes with all the jokes of 'it would've been quicker to fly to Australia' - incidentally the journey was actually 2 hours longer than the one we made in the summer by car and ferry.

I got to see my nephew and his new daughter and had a really good visit - albeit a bit shorter than planned but not too bad having stuck with it.

That was meant to be the happy ending but got a lift to Newcastle airport on Sunday morning in rather wet foggy conditions and arrived nice and punctual and checked in and waited for boarding information - then it came... flight to Amsterdam delayed and then came the message that my flight from Amsterdam to Bremen has been cancelled due to not being able to make the connection in time.

Back onto my KLM app but the links to rebooking a flight were not working and only a German helpline number - back over to Mrs Werder who was on hold with KLM - she suddenly got through while on the line with me on her mobile - I could then hear her saying 'so you can't do anything because he's already checked in' - followed by... 'You can book him on a flight to Frankfurt from Amsterdam and then from there to Bremen' - I was just shouting Noooo! down the phone but anyway my plane was now boarding so had to hang up.

We landed in Amsterdam and I turned my phone back on to discover the flight from Amsterdam to Bremen had been delayed 25 minutes while we were in the air - big cheer until I checked my KLM app to discover they'd already cancelled my ticket on that flight and booked me on the 20:30 German Airways flight to Bremen instead - the last one of the day. So a 5-hour wait lay ahead with extra jeopardy that flights in Bremen are not allowed to land after 22:00 so another 30 minute delay would mean getting redirected to Hamburg airport and then a 2-hour shuttle-bus journey to Bremen Airport - it happened to Mrs Werder once and she didn't make it home until after 1am!

So 5 hours of finger-crossing worked and the flight left on time and we landed 30 minutes before the airport closed and Mrs Werder picked me up and made it home at 22:30 and I sat on the sofa and had a beer to celebrate an end to the combine 39-hours journey instead of the advertised 6 hours 20 minutes!

Woke up the next day with a terrible headache and all my muscles aching and thought it was was just the stress of the journey as I'd only averaged 5 hours sleep in the previous 5 days and eaten rubbish. Headache got worse and started to wonder about covid so told Mrs Werder to buy some covid tests on the way home from work. And there it was, I'd finally caught covid after all this time! Incidentally, that was also the first time I'd flown for 9 years so I may not be doing it again for some time!

Still at least I had a good trip and the covid is only something of an inconvenience after a few days - needless to say Mrs Werder has confiscated my passport...

Many thanks Martin for your Dave-assisted opener who has helped to make me optimistic of another 3 points on Saturday and into the top six. It seems an eternity since the last Boro game given my international-break exploits and as I won't be going anywhere in the next few days or so it will be something to look forward to. Be interesting to see who is fit and who Carrick decides to start but hopefully Boro can bang in a few goals.

@werdermouth.  Hope you are soon fully recovered.  What a nightmare of a journey.  I was exhausted just reading that so can’t imagine how you felt.  The things we are prepared to put up with for kith and kin. 😉😎

@werdermouth Bloody hell Werder, I would have been like Mr T in that television series. Don't you love it when a plan doesn't come together? So much for the glamour of international air as portrayed in the ads!

Hope you are feeling better.

UTB,

John

Posting this in the current thread as well.....

There has been a little bit of a late flurry of entrants for the COTS Challenge . I now have 14 entries logged. Check the list below to make sure I haven't missed anyone that has posted an entry so far. For everyone else, there is still time till the Championship kicks off again at 8pm today.

There are a couple of outstanding queries I have.

@OFBYou still have Boro marked as an Underachiever. Given you are predicting a 2nd place finish for Boro, would you like me to remove them from your Underachiever selections, leaving you with Leeds United in that category?

@Jarkko You have predicted BORO both to be Champions and also to finish in 2nd place.

@werdermouth ...Phew !!!!

Still glad you got to see your nephew and his daughter. Hope you get over the COVID quickly.

@werdermouth   What a story. You just could not make that up. 

The joys (NOT) of travelling anywhere now. Roadworks, Train delays, French ATC workers always working to something, other than their job, if indeed they turn up. I think they are proposing WFH in their next contract negotiations. 🤣

@werdermouth - There must be a comedy script lurking in there, just begging to be unearthed.  Do you remember all of those Brian Rix farces from the 1960s and 70s...?  "Get well soon" hardly seems to cover it.

Martin: thanks for your starter. I think it's my turn to do the starter for the next game (away to Sunderland, which is quite apt as I plan to be away that weekend, as well - at Grinton near Reeth well up into Swaledale).  Let's hope I am back into "football mode" by next week.  A massive 3-day win by Yorkshire at Leicester completed on Wednesday leaving Yorkshire in 2nd place and hoping for promotion, and yesterday there was the Somerset thrilling 4th day victory against defending Champions Surrey in the first division, with Surrey going for a hat-trick of titles.  The game was won with either 2 balls remaining (or 3 minutes' play left) before the close of play with, as they say, the inevitable "absolute scenes".  Maybe Monday is the time to sit down in front of the laptop for my piece but, as you may have surmised, I'm not really feeling the football "vibe" just yet.  No doubt not helped by the International Break coming so soon after the season had started!

But since I'm here, I have not been put off by OFB's pessimism.  I am prepared to risk the Wrath of the Gods but I'll say 3-0 or 3-1 to BORO tomorrow.  I will be there.

Werder, so sorry that you finally succumbed to Covid after all of your great advice on here at the height of the pandemic. Hope you manage to get back to full health soon.

And what a horrific story, a parable of what travelling anywhere in the 21st century has become.  

You have my sympathy all round.

@forever-dormo 

Brian Rix was slightly before my time but was aware of his reputation for producing farces and of course the phrase 'like a Brian Rix farce' that used to describe events that seemed so ridiculous as to be made up.

I actually skipped a couple of details in my story that probably would add to the whole farce of the journey. The hotel that I was booked in Amsterdam provided a shuttle bus - as did most big hotels - however, they all stopped at the same point outside the airport, which was quite a large crowd of people with luggage jockeying up and down trying to pounce when their bus arrived. When mine arrived I only just got onto the packed bus but just before it left an old breathless couple in their eighties hopped on and then the doors closed.

The old man was bent double carrying a suitcase he could barely lift and could barely walk too and quickly got thrown around as the bus drove around the first roundabout - I was also standing and a person near me got up to offer him a seat. He then tried to make it to the seat while bent double and holding his suitcase as the bus swayed from side to side - he moved in slow motion using his free hand to try and grab holding points but then his wife intervened slapping his arm holding the case and shouting to make him drop it but he wouldn't - he eventually made it with help from several passengers and then his wife followed. I think they were Spanish judging from the wife's shouts at her husband and I can only imagine their whole journey.

When I checked into the hotel I discovered Mrs Werder had booked it with breakfast but that didn't start until after I would arrive at the airport - they said they could offer me a breakfast box instead, which sounded good as I had no other plan for eating before arriving in Newcastle. The next morning I received my breakfast box from an Indian man on reception as I checked out. I opened the bag to see what was in it and pulled out a hard-boiled egg still in its shell and asked 'what exactly am I suppose to do with this' - the guy just laughed nervously. The contents of the bag included a dry white bread roll covered for some reason in curry powder, 2 spicy seed crackers, a satsuma, a huge freezing cold apple now covered in curry powder from the roll and a banana. I ate the banana and then threw the rest away at the airport and then quickly bought a packet of hob-nobs from the shop before checking in - which thankfully sustained me to Newcastle!

After arriving in Amsterdam on the return journey I was acutely aware that my phone battery would need to be charged if it was to last me the day so I planned around finding power points to plug in my charger. Sadly all the sockets at Burger King where I'd bought my Whopper Meal didn't function so then spent my time wandering around Amsterdam airport seeking out power sockets - for some reason every socket I discovered had no electricity in them - like it was some deliberate policy to prevent passengers having access to free electricity.

Anyway, after over 40 minutes wandering I spotted a girl sat on the floor behind the seats at an airport gate plugged into a metal post that held a fire hose-pipe. So my quest was to seek out fire hose-pipes but soon discovered not every metal post had a socket. I'd almost given up as the 3 with sockets I had found had all been taken up - then I found a hose-pipe close to a wall by some toilets with the socket hidden from view and it was mine - I got my phone charged up from 20 percent to over 50 in the time I had before the gate opened for boarding. The biggest victory of the day really!

@lenmasterman 

Thanks Len and thankfully the latest covid variant for a man with 5 covid vaccinations behind him has proved to be a short flu-like experience and then just similar to a cold. 

Sadly air travel has proven to be something where it's now left to the passenger to organise their own back-up as airport hubs easily collapse when the weather isn't great and airport staff are simply employed to offer patronising sympathy - sorry sir we can't control the weather is all I got from KLM at Amsterdam and a card with a QR code on it. It's all done with phone apps and call centres now as KLM told me the people at the airport weren't allowed to book alternative flights for passengers!

So moving on from the travails (sounds like a rather appropriate portmanteau word to summarise my journey) of the international break, I was reading that Boro's injured defenders are still not likely to be available and that could mean a start for loanee George Edmundson to partner Matt Clarke. It also appears Jonny Howson is still not ready and Aidan Morris will join Hackney in midfield.

Though one player who looks set to start is Latte Lath after his late transfer window wobble and it will be interesting to see which of the many forwards get the nod with Riley McGree apparently now fit again. Jones played 2 games in South America for Guyana and even scored twice but it wasn't clear when he got back to Teesside so he could start on the bench if Ben Doaks has impressed in training.

Clearly this is a game Boro will be looking to win and as usual getting off to a good start will be key - so am hoping everyone will be on the front foot and playing with intensity. Still don't know what Preston's tactics will be but most clubs have had success against us by defending deep and keeping it tight so I suspect Paul Heckinbottom will know that too.

Looking up from the Perishers rock pool I see a score beloved and favoured by the Marton Oracle. 3 - 0, there, that's knackered it, me prophesising a win. Just get the accurate shooting boots on Boro.

UTB,

John

@john-richardson 

i see it ! I see it ! I see it !

1 2 3 !!!

Is this something we have seen before ?

Yes it’s the return of Boro3 !

OFB

Belated thanks and apologies Martin for a very interesting Headliner.

No prediction, other than we could with a convincing win at home, to give the fans some hope that "Typical Boro" is in the past and we can get some more points on the board, before a couple of harder games coming up.

Evening all, here we go on yet another Boro Odyssey, aren't we the chosen few.  Talking of which, whilst not being the most prolific of posters, I like to think that I can chip in with the odd post every now and then that goes against the grain and creates comment, but let's now get to the gist of what I'm about to say.  I posted my COTS forecast this morning (Indonesian time) after discovering that it had been opened to contributors weeks before, sadly I was way past the posting deadline, bugger!  Fortunately, for me that is, Powmill's grasp of horology is somewhat vague, so it appears that my submission of the greatest folly of predictions has been accepted, not only that it's been endorsed by others.  What gets me about this, is a simple observation, and that is, when all around you comes crashing in, I can come back here and be among like minded rose coloured Boro nuts that see the world in red and white, that unlike others, are willing to apply a heap of deviation, along with a heap of appreciation from others when it's applied, this blog is the only place on earth where generosity and appreciation is a given, you lot are an inspiration, take a bow.

Mmm!

@stircrazy 

Looks like a team picked to unpick a tight defence with Barlaser preferred to Morris for his passing and likewise Azaz - Ayling and Borges will no doubt get forward too - hopefully someone can convert the chances!

Posted by: @werdermouth

↑

@stircrazy 

Looks like a team picked to unpick a tight defence with Barlaser preferred to Morris for his passing and likewise Azaz - Ayling and Borges will no doubt get forward too - hopefully someone can convert the chances!

CJ's analysis of the line-uo:

Three changes from Carrick today then.

Edmundson comes straight in for his debut, replacing Dijksteel, who was away with Suriname during the break. Suspect that might have been a factor in the decision, with the back four that starts all players who were still here on Teesside over the last fortnight. Edmundson and Clarke know each other from a previous spell together at Derby too.

In midfield, Barlaser gets his first league start of the season ahead of Morris, who spent the break back in the US, making two appearances for his country. A game like this could suit Barlaser, with Boro perhaps needing his ability to pick a variety of passes that might help unlock what we suspect will be a low-block Preston line-up.

Up top, little surprise to see Latte Lath come straight back into the side, with Burgzorg the player who drops to the bench from Cardiff. That means Latte Lath and Conway will play together for the first time, while Azaz will play from the left again. Jones, despite being away with Guyana, stays in and Carrick will hope his confidence-boosting brace will help him find some form for Boro.

As for that aforementioned bench, Harley Hunt is still there with Dijksteel with Engel still not back. But in terms of attacking options, should Carrick need to change things later on, he'll have Gilbert, Burgzorg, McGree (returning from injury), Hamilton and also Ben Doak - who could make his debut - to pick from. Exciting options indeed.

Encouraging...

Conway scores his maiden goal to give Boro the lead in the 16th minute, assisted by Luke Ayling.  🙂

Posted by: @stircrazy

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Conway scores his maiden goal to give Boro the lead in the 16th minute, assisted by Luke Ayling.  🙂

CJ:

Really easy for Boro. Ayling with a great ball down the channel in behind the Preston defence. Conway runs off the shoulder of the last defender, right through to goal and produces a composed finish to put Boro ahead.

But, two minutes later:

Warning for Boro. Cross deep from Boro's right side from Okkels and Potts steals in at the back post running off Borges. On the slide, he just can't quite reach the ball as it sails harmlessly wide. That was very close though. Warning for Boro to stay switched on.

Boro had an appeal for a penalty turned down in the fifth minute & HH had a couple of chances between that & the Conway goal. 

Bugger! Frökjaer-Jensen equalises for the Lillywhites in the 43rd minute.  🙁

That first half has been the story of Boro's season so far - lot's of possession against a poor limited side and creating plenty of opportunities to score but lacking quality with the final ball and shot. It was a good early goal from Conway with yet another assist for Ayling but instead of kicking on Boro didn't play with the intensity needed and then some complacency playing out from the back left Boro out of position and Preston equalised. So back to square one in game that should've been all but won in the first 45.

My Mmm post was in regard to Barlaser, my Mmm's have been, in my mind been justified, can we please get this sloth paced, one pass ineffectual clown off our books?  I've never been impressed with him or his performances from day one, on the first half performance today he has to go.  Frustration once more grips!!! 

Apologies for the grammar, my comment should read "grasps once more", that 's the affect that Sideshow Bob (look at the size of his feet) is having on me!