It's official, my brain can no longer multi-task!

Last Saturday we took a break from our normal routine and decided we would play in the clubs monthly Stableford competition (to non-golfers, Stableford is just a type of scoring system, nothing to concern yourself about). It gives us a chance to meet and play golf with different people and is generally a fun day out, providing you don't take your golf too seriously.

On arrival at the club we went in to find out who we were playing with only to find that they had split Neil and I up, he was playing a 4 ball with 3 Spaniards, non of which spoke any english and I was teamed up with a Spanish lady and a very nice young man, again neither of whom spoke english. And when I say they spoke no english, I mean they spoke NO english. If they were taught english at school, they certainly hadn't thought about it since they left.

I did feel for Neil, this would be a long 4 hours for him, and I was really going to have to work hard to be able to speak to my partner, Marisa, as I shared a golf buggy with her. The first hole went off in relative silence for me although Marisa and Jesús chatted along in spanish at a rate way beyond anything I could follow. I began to think it would be a long 4 hours for me as well.

But, on the 2nd tee we had a delay so we got chance to start trying to speak to each other, prompted by my husband, bless.

From our tee position we could see Neil wandering back and forth along the edge of the ravine halfway up the fairway obviously looking for a ball and we could see the rest of the men on the green some 100 yeards further on. Well Marisa couldn't work out why this strange man was holding play up and wandering along the ravine, and at this point I couldn't work it out either, but I know Neil well enough to know he wouldn't be holding play up. So, in my best spanish I explained he was my husband and that the people on the green must be the people ahead of Neil's group. My attempts to explain we're accompanied by a lot of arm gestures but SUCCESS, she understood totally what I was saying and a couple of seconds later Neil's playing partners climbed up out of the ravine to join him.

What this had done was to show Marisa that I could speak a little spanish more than just what's your name and where do you live, and so she then started to speak to me, a little slower and with a lot of pointing but we actually managed to have a good chat as we went round the course, she was very patient with me and even taught me a few phrases, like how to say you have picked your ball up because you cannot score, I learnt that one really well as I had a lot of practice becuase while my brain was on overtime trying to put sentences together in spanish I wasn't able to concentrate on my golf and played the worst since I came out here. Yes, multi-tasking is no longer something I do!

So, was matching us with non-english speaking spaniards a cunning plan, I ask myself! If it was, it certainly worked - I don't think I got into double figures. But I have made a new friend.

Not such a bad day then.