A Day Out In Sussex: Petworth, Then Hove, 17 July 2018

The New Petworth Tennis Mural

One of the very good things about real tennis is the extent to which it seems to be a community of enthusiasts. To such an extent that, when you meet and play realists from other clubs – as often you do at Lord’s – they seem keen to welcome you at their places.

Example: back in the winter, I played at Lord’s against Mark Bradshaw, a member at Petworth, who has quite recently taken up the sport more seriously having only dabbled previously – rackets was more his game.  Mark said, after our good game, that Petworth was being refurbished at the moment but that he would like me to visit for a game once the refurb was done. I said I would very much like to do that.

I thought little of the matter again until I received, in the spring, out of the blue, a kind e-mail from Mark reminding me of our conversation and wondering whether I really was interested. The suggested timing, as it happened, worked out well for Janie, so we hatched a plan to go to both Petworth and Hove in a day, so we might visit Sidney and Joan later.

The plan soon became a reality. Janie and I half-planned to get to Petworth early enough to have a look at the gardens of the old house as well, but by the time we found the tennis court entrance (the postcode sent Waze and therefore me to the wrong entrance)…

…and then spent some time with a few of the charming Petworth Club members who showed us their mural (above) and the spelling challenges they faced with the donations board (below)…

…we realised that a more realistic pastime ahead of my tennis match would be a wander around the village and the purchase of a plant or flowers for Sidney and Joan.

Petworth has plenty of art galleries and arty shops. Janie spotted some rather tasteful hand-blown coloured tumblers that she fancied as water glasses. By the time we had completed the non-trivial task of choosing each of the six she wanted – each was a different colour and had a different amount of bubbling-effect – it was time to move on to the next non-trivial task; choosing a plant or flowers for Sidney and Joan:

Then back to the Petworth Real Tennis Club:

It seems like a really friendly club. John Ritblat was one of the main movers and shakers in achieving the major refurb, which includes modern changing rooms and a charming kitchen and breakout area. The people who had been playing before us had brought a picnic lunch with them and were enjoying a convivial post-play repast while we played.

I found the Petworth surface very difficult to come to terms with in the first set, but made a bit more of a fist of it in the second.

Mark has come on leaps and bounds since we last played; his rackets background making him wicked fast around the court and able to get most balls, good or bad ones, back. My problems getting used to the surfaces were multiplied by his technique, in which he boasts the ball of multiple walls quite regularly.

Janie has a strange knack of shooting a little bit of video on points that I tend win. She very rarely captures one of my many losing points. She doesn’t delete stuff from the gizmo at the time; it’s just a strange statistical thing. So I can safely ascertain that I would win all my matches if she videoed all of them in their entirety. Perhaps I should kit her out with a proper video camera and have her with me for all my games…

…anyway, the match didn’t go my way at Petworth but we did get a good game in the end; the second set was tight.

Then lunch. Mark and Henrietta recommended The Hungry Guest which was indeed an excellent choice.

It is a glorious summer this year; the opportunity to eat and chat al fresco on occasions such as this is one not to be missed.

In fact, we ate and chatted so fervently, that we all lost track of time. Mark then suddenly realised the time and we hurriedly said our goodbyes to enable him to get to a 16:00 appointment.

Meanwhile Janie and I worked out that we really didn’t have time to take in the Petworth Gardens on this visit, so we had a coffee and mellowed out before hitting the road to Hove, for a family visit, privately Ogblogged.