Only the second week and already the excuses are tumbling in -- v. v. low blood pressure, pleads sicknote Grenvyle, so low my sight has gone. Yeah, yeah. Tell the nurses when you're up at dialysis tomorrow night, matey.

Which left me and Rene to ply our paddles and raise our rubbers, as it were, against the nouvelle Novas of bad/worse/Wherstead. They ain't no pushovers, and we started the night three points down. Quite a relief to be playing in wintry conditions once more, the rain chucking it down unlike the hot & sticky conditions of last week.

I saw none of Rene's games; he saw none of mine. But the scorecard (and the man himself) tells us that he went the full 15 rounds -- well, 5 ends -- against both Scott and Willie, a most creditable performance. Few more games on him and he might be demonstrating Magritte (kind of meant to sound like "more grit" but doesn't really work).

I had the skillz and the breakz to take the pointz off that same Scott and Willie pairing, but came unstuck against Martin, not for the first time. He beat me in the championships last year, he beat me in the league, he beat me tonight, though I did nab the first end. To finish, when you've got only two players, the doubles team picks itself, and waddya know, we won. Well done, us.