The original idea for this expedition was to be a day at the Essex v Lancashire cricket match with Escamillo Escapillo as well as Charles. Indeed, Charles had also been hoping to line up Nigel “Father Barry White” Hinks – a Lancashire supporter, like Escamillo Escapillo – but in the end neither of the Lancastrians could make it.
With the cricket season still new and the weather set fair (at long last), I was still up for it, so we arranged that I would drive over to Malloy Manor, leave Dumbo in safe custody there, while Charley drove us to Chelmsford for the day.
Charley was on hand to greet me as I arrived along the driveway of Malloy Manor – he then directed me to a very specific parking place he had in mind for Dumbo. It’s protocol galore in such rarefied parts of the land, it seems.
I had the opportunity to greet Mrs Malloy briefly, but Charley wanted to keep the pre-expedition pleasantries to a minimum, as he was convinced that we needed to get to the members’ car park early. As it happens, Chas was right.
But it also meant that I didn’t get to greet The Boy Malloy, who it transpired was also in the house at that hour, as he is on late shift at the moment. That made me feel badly about not having even shouted out a “hello” to the lad, although The Boy could, of course, have come down to say hello to me. The Boy was probably seething with envy in his room, envisaging me and Chas relaxing all day in the sun at Chelmsford, while he would be toiling on a late day at work.
Chas and I were in the ground and well positioned in the Tom Pearce stand by about 10:20. We would have been in place five minutes sooner, but Chas started to mount the wrong staircase for his favourite spot, realising his mistake quite late in the ascent and displaying considerable embarrassment at his error.
“You’re going to blog that mistake, aren’t you?” said Chas.
“How many years have you been coming here?” I asked.
It was a gloriously sunny day. I took the above picture and zapped it to Escamillo Escapillo, with a kind note:
Missing you already.
We watched the whole of the first session from Chas’s favourite, elevated in the Tom Pearce, spot. But while there, Chas spotted that, across the way, a small stand with green chairs has been erected, where formerly there were just some higgledy-piggledy loose seats. It was from that shady spot three years ago we had witnessed Essex v the Australians and a steward who seemed to have St Vitas Dance:
“That looks tempting for the second session”, said Chas.
“I can see some seats at the front, by an aisle, that would certainly do the job”, I agreed. So that’s where we went for the second session and the start of the third. A shadier spot for the hottest part of the day with an excellent view.
Soon after we arrived in that small green stand, a gentleman with a dog, Clive, arrived and sat near us.
Chas and I remarked afterwards that, although people talk about County Championship cricket being attended by “one man and his dog”, this was the first time we’d ever seen (or at least noticed) a man with a dog at the cricket.
It transpires that the dog’s attendance is perfectly permissible at Chelmsford. Chas wondered whether the same applies at Lord’s.
“Only if the dog is of the requisite pedigree and from the right sort of family, I should imagine”, I mused.
Clive displayed extreme indifference to the cricket at times, which encouraged me to ask permission to photograph him and blog his pictures. A King Cricket piece on this matter is ready and will no doubt appear quite soon, by King Cricket standards. It will be worth it.
Update: it is worth it – click here or below:
…and/or if anything were ever to happen to the King Cricket site, that piece is scraped to here.
Having enjoyed my ham sandwich in the Tom Pearce (Chas went for cheese initially), I felt ready for my cheese sandwich just before tea – as Chas indeed felt ready for his ham.
But, horror of horrors, it transpired that Chas had eaten my cheese sandwich, not his own.
I should perhaps explain that it is Mrs Malloy’s charming habit to write a little personalised note in each sandwich, describing in detail the delights therein. Sometimes she will prepare different sandwiches for different people. She knows that I don’t like egg, for example, while Chas normally would opt for egg ahead of cheese.
As good fortune would have it, the menu was exactly the same for both of us on this occasion, so the fact that Chas had eaten “my” cheese sandwich rather than his own ought to have made no difference. But I threatened to snitch on Chas for this error. In fact, perhaps fearful of my squealing, Chas himself confessed to that misdemeanour when we returned to Malloy Manor.
Parenthetically, Mrs Malloy seemed irritated and a little anxious about Chas’s mistake, chastising him for his carelessness. Also parenthetically, I have displayed some strange symptoms in the subsequent days, which Daisy has diagnosed as mild arsenic poisoning. Daisy and I are both absolutely sure that these must be entirely unrelated matters.
But I digress.
Chas and I moved on to The Boy Malloy’s favourite side-on view (beyond the members area) for most of the final session of play, taking in some early evening spring sunshine.
Essex had been on the wrong end of this match for much of the day, but as the day unfolded they were right back in the contest, ending up, in my view, a smidgen ahead.
Late in the day we got a response from Escamillo Escapillo to my morning message. I wanted to take and send him a photo of the sunset, but while trying to mug the phone into a suitable light setting, ended up taking and sending a short video instead:
I told Escamillo that it had been super entertaining cricket – which it had.
Of course it’s super entertaining – it’s Lancs…
…came the reply.
Here is a link to everything you might want to know about the match itself and more besides.
When Chas and I returned to Malloy Manor, in addition to Chas’s chastisement for the sandwich swap error, I also got a quick tour of the lovely garden and a look at a wonderfully moving cricket team photograph, including Chas’s father, taken in a German prisoner of war camp.
It had been a great day. The weather had smiled on us and the cricket had been excellent. An especially memorable day of county championship cricket.