Our hire car, not very well parked (at Crovie, later in the holiday).
Have just come to bed in our rented house in Ballater. It’s 10.30, but being June in the far north, it’s still pretty light. We arrived just after 1pm, which was a bit too early, as the wife of the owner wasn’t quite ready for us. We went for a wee drive until she was. She was very nice. After unpacking we rested for a bit until it started pouring with rain. Then we waited till it stopped before we walked round the town and bought some food. Later we went for another walk, taking in some of the golf course.
We have a diesel Ford Focus, which drives very well. After carefully doing everything the small print said I should, like taking a paper copy of my licence, two utility bills, my passport and the code obtained from a Government website, all the rental guy wanted to see was my photo licence. Very frustrating.
We spent last night at the Premier Inn at Aberdeen airport, which was excellent in every way except that it was a long walk from the airport and you had to guess where you were going. The flight from Norwich was good, though it had started to rain at almost the exact moment we had to board. Nevertheless the plane was only part full and we got free drinks. The taxi drive to the airport went well too.
Just before reaching Ballater we stopped at the Riverside Inn (formerly Crannoch) and had ham and lentil soup, which was surprisingly good. The accompanying bread was brilliant, but that wasn’t so surprising, because they make their own.
John Nunn playing the final game of his simultaneous exhibition – against Mervyn Hughes, who also lost. Final score +16 =3.
The chess simultaneous went pretty well, considering that I lost. I was one of the last three to finish (out of 19) and played pretty strongly. I had a good position when lots of games were being resigned, but I wasn’t able to calculate sufficiently in the time available and lost in an endgame where I was for a while a pawn up. Here is the game:
White, John Nunn GM, Black Tim Lenton 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be3 e5 7. Nb3 Be6 8. f3 h5 9. Qd2 Qc7 10. Nd5 Nxd5 11. exd5 Bf5 12. Bd3 Bxd3 13. Qxd3 Be7 14. c4 Nd7 15. O‑O O‑O 16. Rfd1 b6 17. Nd2 f5 18. b4 Bf6 19. Rac1 Be7 (wasted time with my bishop) 20. Nb3 e4 (This got me some good play) 21. fxe4 Ne5 22. Qd4 fxe4 23. Qxe4 Ng4 24. Bd4 Bg5 25. Rc3 Rae8 26. Qg6 Qe7 27. Qe6+ (forced: I was threatening Qe1+, mating) Qxe6 28. dxe6 Rxe6 29. Bxb6 Re2 30. Rf1 Rxa2 (Probably should have avoided the exchange of rooks with something like Rb8) 31. Rxf8+ Kxf8 32. h3 Ne5 33. c5 dxc5 34. Nxc5 Bd2 35. Rb3 Nc4 36. Bc7 Be3+ 37. Kh2 Ra1 (h4 was better. I did see it, but was not getting much time between moves) 38. h4 Ke7 39. Rc3 Bg1+ 40. Kh3 Bxc5 41. bxc5 Ra3 42. Rxa3 Nxa3 43. Kg3 Ke6 44. Kf4 Nc4 45. Ke4 Kd7 46. Bf4 Kc6 47. Kd4 Na3 48. Bd2 Nb5+ 49. Kc4 Na3+ 50. Kb4 Nc2+ 51. Kc3 Na3 52. Kd4 Nb5+ 53. Ke5 Kxc5…
… and that’s where I stopped writing the moves down, annoyingly. I am still trying to reconstruct the last few moves, but he managed to stop my a-pawn advancing while breaking through on the kingside. In the end it was like playing him one-to-one, which of course is pretty hopeless considering he’s not only a grandmaster but a world champion at solving chess problems.
Afterwards I had a brief chat with him, and he said it was difficult for me to hold the endgame because the bishop was stronger than the knight and it was hard to advance the a-pawn. Still, I’m sure it should be a draw with best play. He also said he repeated moves just before the final position above while he waited for other games to finish so that he could give it his full attention.
{PS I have tried to reconstruct the final moves, but I lost a move somewhere, and I can’t work out where. It must have gone something like this: 54. Ke6 Kd4 55. Kf7 Kc4 (Don’t know why) 56. Kxg7 Nc3 57. g4 a5 58. gh a4 59. Bxc3 Kxc3 (Thought about resigning here) 60. h6 a3 61. h7 a2 62. h8(Q) a1(Q) and resigned without waiting for Kf7+ winning my Queen.}
Needless to say, I couldn’t sleep that night (Monday) because my brain was still whirring round and round. That’s the main reason I gave up competitive chess a couple of years ago. Very frustrating, because I enjoy playing.
I was pretty shattered the next few days, of course, which sort of affected the DCC meeting on Tuesday, which passed in a bit of a blur. Very long blur. We’d also just had our haircuts. Don’t even ask…
During Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we took some stuff to the tip, and some old clothes and things to the age UK shop on Plumstead Road, which is more convenient than Break, on Unthank Road, where we usually go. We also went to Morrisons, and in between all that Dot repainted the small loo/cloakroom, and everything in the room. Looks nice.
The Hendersons came round last night for drinks and nibbles, which went pretty well until Maryta got a bit het up about the country going bankrupt and all the prominent politicians who hated the UK. She was in a minority, but a very vocal one. Ho, hum. Dot and I sent off our postal votes, and Dot’s DNA is on its way to the US. Hope Trump doesn’t get hold of it.
This morning we got a text message to say our flight had been cancelled. We’ve been rebooked on an earlier Eastern Airways flight, which is tremendously reassuring. I’m sure there’s a good reason for it. Thunderstorms are forecast.
