Before I forget.....

Making coffee just now I was mulling over how absent minded I had become, counting the spoons in to the cafetiere, when I noticed the glass container that I'd just washed, drying by the sink. Looking down there was the metal frame and a neat little pile of ground coffee on the kitchen surface.

This kind of thing happens only too frequently. The other night I undressed, getting ready for bed, while chatting to Gill about something. Before I knew it I was half dressed again with fresh clothes. Looking around the room I knew I had missed something - ah yes, of course, the night!

Come to think of it, I've always been absent minded. I remember once going to school without my blazer under my top coat. No big deal you might think. But when you're the single grey jersey among a sea of navy blazers in school assembly you're made to feel a proper plonker. No-one wants to stand out at school.

Once on holiday in France we travelled miles up the motorway and I was thinking how clear the traffic looked through the rear-view mirror until we noticed that the hatch of our estate car was standing vertically, fully open. Fortunately our cases were so squeezed in the rear we avoided the nightmare of belongings strewn across the motorway.

Another time, on a train journey in to Paris we discovered we were on the stopping train and switched platforms to the fast line - except Gill left her handbag with all our passports and money on the other train. In Paris we waited for the train come in to the station and I dashed down the platform. Through a window I saw a woman placing the handbag in to her shopping bag. Bounding in to the carriage for perhaps the only time in my life when a smattering of French came in useful, I shouted: "C'est mon sac!"

During my years of commuting I must have left virtually every accessory possible on trains: briefcases, hats, scarves, umbrellas, gloves, coats, a mobile phone, more hats. Very few, if any, were later retrieved from the lost property office. My mum used to sow my mitts to a long piece of elastic, threaded through my coat sleeves. Unfortunately I never outgrew this dependency.

Sometimes I forget the whole train and, with a sense of deflation, watch the Woking sign sailing past as we run through the station. Over the years I have become quite familiar with Winchester station down the line in Hampshire.

I would never, ever, ever tie a knot in a handkerchief. It would drive me mad, wondering what it was supposed to be reminding me about.

As I get older the forgetfulness seems to be getting worse. The boys tell me that I'm always starting sentences but before I get to the end.......

And so it continues. I'm sure there are many more examples but as you might guess, I just can't recall them.

Snow event

We never have snow in Woking but we did today, lots of it, more in fact than I can remember falling over a single night when we lived in Yorkshire, apart from in 1963 and in the winter of 1979. It hung around a while those years.

We took Doug the dog for a walk this morning but had to bring him back as so much snow was clinging to his fur, he could hardly walk. He wasn't amused. I must have spoken to more of my neighbours in half an hour than I usually do in six months. Everyone was saying hello to each other. It was like Christmas.

One of my neighbours was on the hill trying to clear a path for cars. He had been there nearly three hours since 7 am when I strolled past. It didn't look great weather for cars but Gill needed to work this afternoon so I ran her in to work and the car cleared the hill just fine, the hill-clearing neighbour having thrown in the towel.

It seemed that everyone with a four-wheeled drive car was out on the road, looking smug, whether or not they had anywhere to go. It's better when the snow fall is so bad that most people leave their cars at home. The worst is when the snow comes just before evening rush hour and everyone is trying to drive home. That can be a nightmare.

A big snowfall like this is fun for about a day and then you realise that you can't hibernate for ever although I don't have a pressing need to go out for a day or two. I suppose that this kind of weather is a good opportunity to test the merits of home-working. I notice that the BBC weather forecasters were calling it a "snow event." It looked to me very much like a snowfall.

I did a bit of snow-clearing, not that I needed to do so, but because it felt good. I noticed other people doing likewise for the same reason. Odd, that.

George, meanwhile, made a snow man in the garden which has lasted a little bit longer than the last one he made(OK, it does sometimes snow a little bit in Woking). His school was closed and he's hoping it will be closed tomorrow. If it is we might venture over to Box Hill, my favourite sledge run.

It's brightened up an otherwise dreary winter. You have to make the most of snow like this. It's an event.

War of the boats

I have always enjoyed "doing" journalism where you immerse yourself in whatever it is you're writing about. So writing about the forthcoming America's Cup this week from the end of a telephone has been a bit frustrating.

Typically I'd find myself speaking with a team skipper or manager and they'd say "Why don't you come down?" assuming I'm somewhere in Valencia where all the crews and yachts are gathered. "I'm in Woking," I say.

Martian invaders

Woking is not known for its glamorous ocean sailing. In fact it's not known for anything other than its setting for H G Wells War of the Worlds. Old H G must have had it in for Woking. I don't blame him. The town council has done a much better job of wrecking the place than could ever have been achieved by Martian invaders.

So I call these bosses of multi-million euro funded yacht-racing teams and what do they do? They complain about money. They never have enough. These are the "poor" teams with less than €50m to throw around although I heard the same complaints from one with upwards of €60m. The top teams have more than €100m to play with so they don't complain so much.

Team tough

The Emirates Team New Zealand isn't complaining. In fact it isn't saying anything. The so-called "team tough" has gone to ground, locking itself away in its compound. That must be great news for the sponsors who invest van-loads of dosh in these teams for the kind of worldwide media exposure that would be guaranteed if they were only to take a call from Woking.

In reality I don't mind being in Woking. I hate glamour events that are not at all glamorous when you're doing them. Well, I suppose they're a bit glamorous. Last year I had the chance to sit at the back of ABN Amro, the Volvo Ocean Race winner when it raced off the Isle of Wight. There is a lot of razzmatazz on the pontoon but out on the water the crew just gets on with the job.

Afterwards, when things have calmed down and you get to chat to people you find that everyone has the same concerns. These crews have this immense drive to compete but when the competition is over they just want to be with their families and friends, having a chat and a laugh together.

Broken mast

I'd hate to have a microphone-poking job. I detest the cult of celebrity that corrupts human relationships. Maybe the New Zealand team has the right approach but it can't be squared with the media/advertising/marketing machine that underpins so much funding in this event that it allows teams like Alinghi, the defending champion, to accumulate 16 masts. Two yachts and 16 masts? How many do they expect to break? I suppose the answer to that is 15 at a stretch.

The +39 Challenge (the boat with the strangest name - it never did get a big name sponsor) has just the one mast and it has been broken into three pieces. The race is on to repair it. Alinghi generously offered it one of their masts but other teams objected. What ever happened to sportsmanship and the Corinthian spirit?

I like the +39 team made up partly from world class dinghy sailors who compete fiercely against each other in world championship and Olympic events but who have banded together for what has turned out to be a sparsely funded entry racing hand-to-mouth.

Clapham omnibus

The America's Cup is big - as big as it gets. Yet how many of those on the Clapham omnibus have any idea how the racing works? I'm supposed to know yet it beats me. First of all there are some races called "acts" where everyone is racing, including the defending champion. Points (but not a lot) are awarded that are carried through to round robin races that are the start of the Louis Vuitton Cup. With me so far?

To recap: first over about two years there are a series of races (in a bit of sea, this time off Valencia in Spain) that don't count for too many points. These are used to generate media interest, check out the opposition and to build first rate teams. Next there is the Louis Vuitton Cup in which the defender of the America's Cup cannot take part. This is because the Louis Vuitton Cup is held to find the challenger.

Only then, when the rest of the field has been eliminated, does the best-of-nine duel between the defender, Alinghi, and challenger (the Louis Vuitton cup holder) begin. Once the America's Cup has been secured the next defence is determined by agreement with potential challengers. For more explanation of the whole event and its history read this.