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I am an honourary member of the Ripon Spa Croquet Club. |
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In 1998 For the third year running my week of croquet in the summer was dogged by siffling heat and blazing sun. While the south of England soaked under torrential rain we in North Yorkshire were suffering from too much sun and too little breeze. This year everyone was sheltering from the heat!
The delightful setting where we stayed and played. Strictly speaking this was
a course for improvers. But all bar two of us knew each other from previous years.
The hotel has its own croquet lawns and is host to the Ripon Spa Hotel croquet club of which I had the honour to be made an honourary life member this summer.
The week consisted of four days of coaching by Syd Jones (one of the UK's current champions) followed by a weekend tournament (only two of the course attendees took part in the tournament). I won a prize of a wonderful pottery rabbit playing croquet for being the most improved improver.
I'd like to report that I won the tournament too but I didn't. Alison (a fellow course attendee) won. In fact I came last but all the games were quite close.
The hotel has three lawns - two full size and one short lawn (that is, suitable
for playing short croquet on). They are very well maintained. Players coming
to Ripon for the first time were very impressed by the quality of the lawns.
Sadly one does have some nasty fairy rings which are very difficult to eradicate.
At lunchtime some of us rested in our rooms feeling it too hot to eat after
the huge breakfasts we were served. Others repaired to the bar to eat! 
After a hard day's croquet it was time to return to our hotel rooms and take
a cold bath before dinner. As usual the meals were excellent and copious, and
of course the company was great.
Each evening, after dinner, some form of entertainment was arranged amongst ourselves. One evening is set aside for playing "Blue Moon" - a curious mixture of croquet and Trivial Pursuit invented by course members at Ripon last year on the night of a blue moon. As dinner doesn't usually finish till well after nine o'clock this usually means that the croquet is played by floodlight!
Milder weather promised a pleasanter week last year but sadly all the party bar one were stuck down with a stomach ailment, believed to be a virus, on the Tuesday. Nobody was up and about on the lawns again till Friday. A ruined holiday and for me a ruined summer and an Autumn of stomach problems as a consequence.
Oxford University Croquet Club 1997
Copyright © 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002,
2005 Theresa McHugh
Last modified: September 13th, 2005