Unstung hero

Nothing heroic. It was just a good title for this post.

Today I played golf with my Dad.

We were playing the last few holes, when we found a golf ball close to the tee we were about to play from. The undergrowth nearby had just been strimmed, and the floor was covered in nettle fragments. Bits of stalk and leaf all over the place.

Regular readers of this blog will be aware that I'm scared shitless of nettles. Far more than the simple pain of being stung would warrant. Still, while wearing shoes, I don't have too much of a problem with walking on them.

The golf ball  we found wasn't any of ours. I picked it up. My Dad asked me if it was damaged so I took a close look. Sure enough, there was a small crack in the casing. I threw the ball into a nearby litterbin.

"Don't do that!" said my Dad. "I can practice with that ball".

So I put my hand in the almost empty bin and pulled the ball from the bottom. Looking down at it, I found that between the pad of my thumb, and the golfball was a big piece of nettle leaf. My bare thumb was pressed against a fresh green bit of nettle.

Dear reader, I was in no way heroic. I yelled and pulled my hand away in a blind panic. The ball went back into the bin. I don't know what happened to the leaf. And as luck would have it, I wasn't stung.

But I'm shuddering now just thinking about the event.

driving lessons in Wallasey?