My deal with King Cricket is basically that I write what I want, when I want. The reciprocal part of the deal is that he’ll publish what he wants (almost all of it) when he wants (perhaps months or years later).
So it is often a pleasant surprise when one of my older pieces pops up out of the blue, as this one did on 9 January 2017, to remind me what I was up to back on 12 August 2015 – click here to read the King Cricket piece.
Just in case anything ever happens to King Cricket, I have scraped the above page – to here.
Dumbo, my normally law-abiding Suzuki Jimny (although he does think that he is a horse) tells this tale.
This piece was, for Dumbo, the conclusion of a small build (through several adventures) towards him getting inside Lord’s and actually seeing the ground.
- firstly he reported visiting Clontarf CC in Dublin – his first visit to a cricket ground – click here;
- next Dumbo got to visit Uxbridge for a Middlesex match – click here;
- then Dumbo nearly got in to see Lord’s, but after some police trouble that afternoon didn’t get in to Lord’s that evening for a net – click here…
…so the 12 August 2015 net visit evening proved most exciting for Dumbo, as he actually did make it into Lord’s – click here to go straight to the King Cricket piece.
One of the ironies of all this, of course, is that Dumbo has subsequently become a regular visitor to Lord’s Cricket Ground, when I visit Middlesex CCC for meetings and/or the real tennis court. On quieter days, Dumbo sometimes even gets to park with a view of the hallowed turf itself. On such days, I think I detect Dumbo getting quite dewey-windscreened.
Still, nothing a short blast of air conditioning can’t put right.