This, our final day, started not so well, when I discovered that I had made a cock-up of our booking and that we were due to check out of our flat a day earlier than I thought; totally my own fault and a first time for me at this level of upcock. As luck would have it, the next occupant had been differently irritating by deciding at the last minute to arrive the morning after rather than that afternoon, so it was easy to make a bullet-dodging arrangement to stay on, as long as we could leave early the next day, which was in any case our plan/desire.
Again it rained in the morning, so we couldn’t play tennis and instead sorted ourselves out and had the last of the hunker-down food from the Farmers’ Market for breakfast. I had most of the splendid smoked trout while Janie enjoyed most of the remaining giant free range eggs.
As it turned out, this day then became a truly excellent day of theatre. We even pretty much dodged the showers; some heavy ones peppered the day today.
Our first gig was The Approach at the Assembly Hall. We faffed around so much over breakfast and stuff that I thought at one point we might miss this play. Instead, we arrived in time to join the back of the queue – only about 10 people behind us, so ended up sitting right at the back of quite a large space – a view to which we have both become unaccustomed for many years.
Not that you could tell that we were at the back from this picture
The Approach is a rather cryptic play about the interaction between three women who had formerly been close but who had drifted apart as a trio, so we might have benefited from hearing it all clearly. Three fine Irish actresses, Cathy Belton, Aisling O’Sullivan and Derbhle Crotty did a superb job open the whole but we struggled to catch every word and nuance at the back. Still, after discussing the play with other people later in the day, I think the play probably tells different stories to different listeners however well you heard the actual words. Well worth seeing; Janie even said she fancied seeing it again if it comes to London – from the aspect of better seats!
We had only ourselves to blame for that seating business and would really have only had ourselves to blame if we had failed to get from the Assembly Hall to Summerhall on time, with about 100 minutes between shows to stroll that 20 minute walk. By then Janie was very much into “we need to be at the front of the queue” mode in extremis, so I talked her out of the idea of queuing outside the Roundabout from the very start of the previous show, especially as it seemed to me that there were likely to be showers still during that hour. So we went inside and had some very decent coffee and shared a chocolate brownie in the shabby-chic cafe at Summerhall.
It’s the cafe that was shabby-chic, you understand.
That still gave us time to join a small, orderly queue for Tremor quite early. We chatted to a nice couple and their drama student daughter in the queue. The queue never got all that long; a few dozen of us sparsely populated the Roundabout auditorium for Brad Birch’s latest play, Tremor. We’ve seen two excellent Brad Birch plays before: The Brink and Black Mountain, both at The Orange Tree. We’d spotted this one, Tremor, while at Summerhall a few days ago and had wondered whether it would be all that different from Black Mountain when we read the synopsis. In fact it was very different play; the only similarity being the gripping and suspenseful nature of Brad Birch’s writing.
Tremor is a two-handler about a couple who survived a bus crash in which most of the passengers died. But their relationship had not survived and their physical health had recovered more readily than their mental health. Each had struggled in very different ways. The play opens with the young woman Having tracked down the young man who has made a new life for himself in another town. The drama plays out in a single scene of just under an hour.
We both thought Tremor was a really superb piece of writing and acting. We chatted afterwards with several people who had been in the auditorium, including a nice pair of South African women who I’m sure we’ll see again at the fringy-venues in London.
Part of my purpose in booking Tremor was to find ourselves in the right place at the right time to try and get returns for Extinguished Things, also at Summerhall, which was one of only a couple of productions we were especially disappointed to have found were booked out when we tried to book them. Tremor finished about two hours before Extinguished Things; i.e. about an hour before you could even try and queue for returns for that show.
We made ourselves known to a very sweet-looking young woman on the box office who promised that she would remember us as “first in the queue” for that show and/but advised us to return in 45 minutes or so. It was sunny by then, so we went into the courtyard, had a drink, watched a rather charming short puppet show by Strangeface, named Beached.
Strangeface were doing this mini-show really to promote their main show, The Hit, which sounds rather interesting. We then sat and finished our drinks, getting the opportunity to congratulate the “A Fortunate Man” team, which I recognised sitting at the next table.
Then back to the Box Office for some intricate timing to ensure that we were at the front of the queue precisely one hour before Extinguished Things. We had been promised nothing; our sweet girl had informed me that some days a few tickets come back, on one occasion just one had come back and yesterday none had come back. But her eyes lit up as the returns position was revealed – precisely two tickets had come back for this evening and we were there to snap them up. Sweet success.
In the happy intervening hour (which Janie considered passing by forming a ludicrously early queue) we had a look around some of the free exhibitions at Summerhall, including a closer look at the Jean-Pierre Dutilleux tribal photographs room – one of many unlisted treasures at Summerhall. I also booked us a table at Roseleaf for our last night meal.
Was it worth all that effort to see Extinguished Things? Well, once you have set yourselves a mission like that, the answer is “yes” by definition; it would have seemed like a failure had we not seen it. In any case, we both thought it was a charming miniature piece, written and performed by Molly Taylor, about a couple who went off on holiday never to return and the narrator’s reminiscences/imaginings when she enters their now permanently deserted nest.
In truth it is a miniature piece; not the greatest piece of writing or performance we have seen. But it is beautifully written and charmingly performed by the writer. The piece gave us plenty to think about and talk about afterwards; again we found ourselves chatting with fellow audience members after the show. I’m really pleased we got to see it in the end.
Then off to Roseleaf, where Janie wanted to repeat her dose of satay prawns and skank. I shared the prawns with her and had a monkfish burger (unusual). We washed that down with a very nice Kiwi Sauvignon Blanc. Janie indulged in an Irish coffee afterwards too, which I think she might be regretting slightly as I write on the following morning just before we set off back to London.
The weather really has mostly smiled on us for this visit to Edinburgh and in a way this day was no exception. Although it was drizzling hard in the morning, preventing us from playing tennis, the forecast said that the day would brighten up for our festival visit; which it did.
So we stayed home in the morning, making the most of the flat and having a cooked breakfast at home, using up some of the provisions we had bought in for hunkering-down purposes.
After brunch, off to town to collect tickets and then get to our first show of the day; Vessel at Bristo Square. Vessel is an excellent two-hander, performed by the writer, Laura Wyatt O’Keefe together with a fine young actor, Edward Degaetano, whom we bumped into and chatted with briefly after the performance.
We thought this piece, about the abortion debate in Ireland and the effect the strong views on the issue can have on real women’s choices/lives, was a really excellent short play. It deserves a wider airing and it was a real shame that the auditorium was not full.
Our next show was at the Teviot with just over an hour between shows; plenty of time to pop across the way to Checkpoint for some reasonably refined refreshment and for me to start getting interested in the Middlesex score as the chance of a highly unlikely win started to emerge.
On to the Teviot (what a grand looking Students’ Union that place is!) to see Sitting by Katherine Parkinson. This auditorium was full; probably because the play is by a known actress and had some exposure on the BBC. In truth, this was a rather contrived piece of writing about three life model sitters, apparently unconnected (although naturally connections emerge) and their relationship with an unseen and unheard artist.
The performers; James Alexandrou, Grace Hogg-Robinson and Hayley Jayne Standing all did their best to rescue the rather slow, tame and at times predictable script. The audience whopped and applauded wildly at the end; perhaps because the BBC had endorsed the production…or perhaps it was one of the better things that many in the audience had seen.
We emerged from that experience feeling a little irritated that, of the two things we had seen today, the production with bigger names behind it was getting the bigger audience and plaudits, despite being the lesser production in our view.
Irritation that Middlesex still needed a wicket to secure a win turned to joy at that win, before we moved on to have a stroll across town…
Then we wandered around Charlotte Square for a while looking at the Book Festival and taking an ice cream in the sunshine.
Then on to the Royal Botanical Gardens for some more irritation as we were told that we couldn’t see the garden ahead of our 19:00 concert there; we would have to walk all the way round the outside from the East Gate (where the fringe app had sent us) to the West Gate. This seemed ludicrously jobsworth-like to me during the weeks of festival if the gardens choose to play host to a venue. Being told that we weren’t the first to voice this grievance did not make us feel better.
I snapped some genuinely dire cricket in Inverleith Park across the road while we waited for the Gardens to let the #Pianodrome Live audience in.
The Pianodrome itself is a fascinating piece of construction, made from 50 recycled pianos, five of which can still be played within the venue. It seats about 50 people reasonably comfortably and another 50 uncomfortably. We had made sure to get there early to get relatively comfortable seating.
A young woman in Edwardian drag with an infeasibly waxy false-tash acted as compère quite well.
Janie and I already knew that we were to see a folk musician named Sam Gillespie (one half of The Brothers Gillespie) as a substitute for a prog rock band named The Brackish and were quite happy with the swap. He was joined by Siannie Moodie who turned out to be an especially fine exponent of the Celtic harp (clàrsach). In fact they both turned out to be good instrumentalists but my goodness Sam Gillespie’s songs are dirgy and derivative. Imagine Donovan and Pete Seeger, both in a bad mood, writing songs together.
Meanwhile additional people entered late (we guessed mostly the entourage of the substitute musicians) and some of them sat just under our feet. One young man who was clearly in with the in crowd made an especially redolent impression on us. What is it about people who hang around musicians and negligence with regard to personal hygiene?
There was also another musician involved briefly who played a glockenspiel-type percussion instrument but whose name seemed to be unlisted. Janie had unwittingly snapped him during warm up, so if anyone reading this recognises this man and his instrument, please message in his details.
The act for the second half of the evening was also unlisted and the compère merely mumbled that name as we left for the interval; in our case not to return.
We fancied a nice dinner tonight and felt that we could get one of those if we were back in Leith at a reasonable hour, so I made a last minute booking of a table at The Chop House for another good red meat meal.
Again Ignascio looked after us very nicely as did the very sweet and attentive (if not the most efficient) waiting staff. One young waiter, on his third day, took a particular interest in helping us out with ice cream, so I invented a word for the equivalent of a sommelier for ice cream: Ísbíltúrier. Remember where you encountered the word first.
After Sunday’s long-signalled washout, I had been keeping a close eye on the weather forecast for the rescheduled slot for real tennis at Falkland Palace; late morning Tuesday.
The weather was smiling on us first thing and continued to smile on us for our day in Falkland.
Worrying about the weather for real tennis is an unusual experience, as almost all of the functioning courts are indoors. In fact, the Royal Court at Falkland Palace is currently the only functioning outdoor court in the world. It is also the oldest functioning tennis court in the world.
Falkland Palace is also home to the most northerly court in the world. Indeed, as neither Janie nor I had previously ventured further north than Glasgow/Livingstone/Edinburgh, our visit to Falkland was also the most northerly place we have yet been.
We allowed plenty of time to get to Falkland, but in truth it is only an hour or so’s drive from our digs in Leith.
We planned to look at the gardens as well as play tennis, but didn’t particularly want to wander around the old pile.
On arrival, I told the attendant our plans and offered to pay for garden visit tickets, but she told us that we didn’t need to pay to see the garden if we were there for tennis.
Then we met our hosts; Ewan and Kirsten Lee. An extremely pleasant couple bursting with enthusiasm for the game of real tennis. They had been unable to find a fourth player to join us, so, as planned, Janie gave it a go, despite her inexperience at the game.
I say, “Janie’s inexperience”…that court would make many an experienced dedanist feel like a fresher.
For a start, the design of the court is quite different from any other active court; it is a jeu quarré court, which means that there is no dedans for the receiver to aim at, no penthouse roof at the server’s end and no tambour on the hazard side for the server to aim at.
Instead, the receiver has a small plank of wood, the “ais”, to aim at in the right-hand corner of the server’s court. although hitting the ais only counts as a winning stroke if it hits that feature before the second bounce and without first hitting the gallery penthouse roof.
The other ludicrously tantalising and no-doubt mostly confounding targets for the receiver are four small apertures in the server’s side back wall known, as lunes.
We played a rather one-sided Scotland v England fixture for over two hours and had lots of fun, while only occasionally having long wrests. So passing visitors, of whom there were many during those hours of play, might have been forgiven, when told that there are four lunes on the Falkland Palace tennis court, for mistakenly assuming that the term “four lunes” referred to the players, not to the apertures on the wall.
The surfaces are also very different at Falkland, the walls and the floor being unpolished stone and the balls, consequently, made with a rougher, more robust felt; another currently unique feature for Falkland.
Indeed, Ewan added an additional characteristic in the hazard/gallery corner; some salt to make less slippery that part of the floor that gets no sun and therefore remains damp. Dramatic backspin was available for those talented enough or lucky enough to produce it.
For sure luck plays its part to a greater extent even than we see on indoor real tennis courts, but that adds to the fun and of course luck evens out after a while, allowing the better players to prevail, more often than not.
I am pleased to be able to say that I managed to hit the grille once during our game and that I hit a winning shot to the ais. Both of those aimed and I think I might have had a couple more points from hitting the ais had it not been for Ewan’s determined defending of the ais with his increasingly successful volleys.
But my moment of glory from the hours of play came from a rather frustrated, wild receiving shot, which I think would have hit the penthouse roof above the dedans on most courts. But on this one occasion at Falkland, my forceful shot went sailing through the lower lune on the main wall side of the server’s wall.
We had a brief discussion on the scoring rule for a lune shot. The most recent incarnation of the Falkland Tennis Club scores a mere point for the lune shot, which is clearly inadequate reward for such a risky and unlikely shot. Ewan announced that the 16th century rule was that a successful lune shot determined the game, so we agreed that particular deuce game had been been won by me and Janie, then moved on in the set.
But on returning to my many ancient texts and manuscripts, I learn that the phrase “determines the game”, in the sixteenth century, could not have referred to a mere single game within a set of tennis…no, no, no…“determines the game”, in those days unquestionably meant, “the side with the most lune shots wins the whole match”.
So despite the fact that the Scottish pair (Ewan and Kirsten) won most of the points, almost all of the games and all of the sets ahead of the intrepid English pair (me and Janie), it seems that, by dint of my single, lucky lune shot, Janie and I won the match. Scotland 0-1 England. An historic win for England over Scotland away at Falkland. Hopefully our opponents will demand a rematch to try their luck again.
In truth, of course, the winner was real tennis; the hours of fun and the conviviality that seems almost always to go along with that wonderful sport.
We eventually had to stop playing when a large party of schoolchildren arrived on a school trip to see the court and watch people in 16th century fancy dress demonstrating the court. Janie took some photographs.
We four modern realists retired to The Covenanter across the road for some drinks, snacks and chat. Ewan, who is a schoolteacher, is a great enthusiast for sports, in particular court sports, so he and I schemed about fives (another shared interest) as well as tennis. Kirsten is an artist and designer with a great love of gardens, so she and Janie had plenty to talk about in those departments too.
Much like our recent visit to Petworth, Janie and I lost track of time and ate into far too much of our hosts’ day, for which we are grateful and which didn’t seem to bother our hosts. But on this occasion at Falkland, with no further visits on our itinerary, after saying goodbye to Ewan and Kirsten, we thankfully did find time to look around the beautiful, peaceful garden.
Highlights include a charming orchard, a small physic garden and also the lovely areas around the house and tennis court.
We also revisited the tennis court to try to capture some better pictures of the nesting swallows who populate the galleries side of the court.
On the way home, we stopped off at the David Lloyd Tennis Club on Glasgow Road (what a contrast) to pick up some of those ASICS indoor tennis shoes at that seem so hard to track down at the moment. Stephen at the Bruntsfield Sports concession there was very helpful, although they only had one pair that ticked all of my boxes.
Gosh we felt tired when we got home, but not too tired to go out again after showering to get some protein and carbs inside us by visiting Domenico’s in Leith for a spicy prawn starter and big bowls of the day’s special pasta; venison ragu tagliatelle.
We’d had a really lovely day, not least thanks to Ewan, Kirsten and the wonderful sport of real tennis.
The weather was much improved again today; yesterday was a weather blip. So we played tennis again at Leith Links in the morning.
Then off to have lunch at Marie and Joe’s new apartment in the south of Edinburgh, not too far from Summerhall and The Meadows. It took just over 45 minutes to get there door to door with a change of bus.
Janie insisted on taking some pictures along the way
We had a guided tour of the new place, including the new kitchen and en suite bathroom, which we were thus seeing before Linda Cook gets to see them; which is sure to be a source of much consternation.
Joe cooked a rather wonderful fish pie as the centrepiece of the lunch. We had a cherry roularde and some cheeses to follow, so that was us pretty much sorted for food today. Nice wines too.
It was really good to see Marie and Joe in their new home environment; when I saw them in Edinburgh last year…
We had some very interesting conversation about the festival, Edinburgh generally, politics generally, death, siblings, niblings, isms and anti-isms. You get the idea.
When lunch came to a natural end, I announced that I wanted to seek some indoor tennis shoes from Bruntsfield Sports in Morningside on our way back to Edinburgh. Marie and Joe volunteered to walk off lunch with us and chat some more.
It turned out that Bruntsfield Sports in Morningside doesn’t do those shoes; it is their branch at David Lloyd that sells them.
Still, we were by then near a convenient bus stop for central Edinburgh, so said a fond goodbye to Marie & Joe while stepping onto a bus to Princes Street.
We sought out the Apple Store on Princes Street in a vain attempt to get Daisy’s iPhone re-batteried (takes hours, we’ll need to do that in London). But I did procure the very iPad keyboard upon which I am typing right now, which should make my travelling blogs easier to write (i.e. wordier) in future.
On the way to Apple I spotted a show, Let’s Talk About Porn, at C, which looked interesting; a troupe of youngsters and plenty of time to faff around at Apple. Once I realised that’s we needed very little faffing time at Apple, I spotted another performance, The Roots Of The Blues, near to the C show (theSpaceTriplex) and just about enough time to pick up the tickets and fit both shows in.
So we ended up doing the very thing we promised we wouldn’t do; ran around like mad things fitting in a couple of shows at near-breakneck pace.
Both shows were worth it. The Roots Of The Blues was a mix of lecture and performance by Toby Mottershead. Charming, informative and he’s also a very able guitar player/blues singer. Toby’s slide guitar playing was exceptional and a new live experience for me and Janie.
Then up to C for the play Let’s Talk About Porn. This was a verbatim theatre piece, performed in a physical style by a very young troupe. “Sadly” we didn’t see the dour bar-tenders at the upstairs bar, but we did grab some water and did see the Flamenco duo from the previous evening sitting around before and after the play.
The play was good; we’d seen a fair bit of material on this topic before but it was an innovative, thoughtful, physical and interesting piece.
Then home, where we fancied little food and no booze – so we relaxed with just some toast and juice. Daisy managed to set off the smoke alarm by burning some toast – mercifully those things switch them selves off quite quickly and it was still reasonably early when that happened!
The promised deluge mostly dumped its load overnight, leaving a drizzly, mizzly morning.
We’d already rescheduled the Falkland Palace/real tennis outing to Tuesday and/but there was no hope of modern tennis either in the murk, so we had a very pleasent, quiet morning hunkered down with our provisions.
We watched the start of the test match while grazing, then set off to the City to collect our tickets…
…and then go out to Summerhall. There we saw A Fortunate Man, a two-handed play adapted from the book about a rural GP, in the rather apt setting of a former veterinary college lecture theatre. It was a very moving piece.
Then on to Flamenco Global at C. This had been a more serendipitous choice; I simply wanted to find some music (for variety) at that hour when we found that we couldn’t get tickets for Extinguished Things.
We had a glass of wine at the bar before the show, served by the most disengaged, humourless young people we have so far encountered in Edinburgh, which, together with the rather dour queue management at C, didn’t seem to auger well.
But as it turned out, Flamenco Global was a stunningly good act. Ricardo Garcia is a superb and seemingly very sweet guitarist. His playing was accompanied by some fine dancing by Nanako Aramaki.
We chatted afterwards with a nice Scottish couple who were fans of Flamenco and of Garcia in particular.
Then the bus home…
…for a quick freshen up and then off to the Roseleaf for dinner.
Great grub and friendly staff. daisy started with satay prawns & went on to a chunky Cullen Skink (a sort of smoked haddock chowder), while I started with an excellent mushroom soup followed by a trout dish. A fruity Viognier wine. We even had deserts – Janie had affogato (all the fashion I am told) while I tried a banana parfait with ice cream & chocolate named Bananarama.
All the music was similarly late 1970s early 1980s with various retro feels in the crockery and a collection of mad hats around the walls for mad hatter tea parties, apparently. For a short while we had a strange couple next to us – she had no volume control, occasionally speaking so loudly and strangely it was hard nor to look. They ate incredibly quickly and mercifully moved on at pace too.
Quirky place, superb food, excellent service, rounded off our day very nicely.
We rose late by our standards and pootled around first thing. We played tennis around 11:00 – the courts were deserted on a formerly-drizzly, albeit Saturday, morning.
We took some brunch at Mimi’s Bakehouse on Shore, then went off to get some provisions. Found Great Grog for wine & coffee. Then a sports shop for some training troos, then Leith Farmers’ Market for some brunch provisions for tomorrow, as the weather is set very poor.
Then we went in to Edinburgh proper for our shows, both recommended by the nice family in Let Me Eat Too. First up, Harpy – a one woman play with Su Pollard. Very good performance but the play was a bit slow and all over the place. It has been pretty well received though – reviews can be found here.
In need of refreshment and reasonable comfort, we eventually found an Andalusian tapas/wine bar place happy to let us sit outside and drink some wine. There was a curious incident with a pair of drunks and their Yorkshire terrier dog and I got shat on from a great height, literally. Good job I was wearing my vinyl (imitation leather) jacket.
Then on to Wu Song – The Tiger Warrior. The recommendation lady had described it as musicians from North Korea but actually it was an extraordinary mime/dance show from Taiwan.
We probably wouldn’t have booked it had it been described to us more accurately but we really enjoyed it, so that lady’s confusion proved to be our friend. It was pretty well received in formal reviews too.
Home for a wash/change and then on to Ship On The Shore for dinner. Excellent fish meal.
We shared a crab salad starter. Daisy tried lemon sole while I went for seafood linguini.
Massive portions but superb food. We got home before the rain started…just.
We rose quite early, to be greeted by the sight and sound of miscellaneous gulls outside our window and even a bevy of eight swans, which graced our view daily throughout our stay. They even came to say goodbye just as we were leaving, a week later.
We found our way to Leith Links on foot (less than 10 minutes walk away) and played tennis there. Three courts in good condition; quite similar to our regular arrangements at Boston Manor.
Then we returned to the flat to wash, change and sort out bus/tram passes. Once we were “appy” with that, we set off into Edinburgh. First stop, to collect our tickets for today at the High Street Fringe ticket shop.
Then we headed towards Underbelly, to get our bearings & find some lunch. An Underbelly usher recommended Let Me Eat Too, where we had giant “Balmoral” panini wraps of chicken, haggis & cheese. There we met a nice English family – the son was in a show & the parents had some good ideas/suggestions for us.
We subsequently decided that places like Let Me Eat Too and their portion sizes were a bit “over belly” for us at lunchtime ahead of shows at Underbelly and the like, so we lightened up our subsequent post-tennis/lunchtime arrangements.
We saw the only play I had pre-booked for the trip: Angry Alan by Penelope Skinner. It was a superb piece, very well acted by Donald Sage Mackay, whom we had seen quite recently in White Guy On The Bus at the Finborough. Angry Alan has been very well received, on the whole, in formal reviews. By chance, we got to meet Donald Sage Mackay & Penelope Skinner afterwards in the Underbelly cafe.
Then we hunted down tickets for the shows that nice family recommended, &/but took sanctuary in the Checkpoint cafe on Bristo Place. I went on a bit of a fool’s errand from there to try & get tickets in person – app/collect works much better and cheaper it seems.
Then we strolled on to George Square to see NewsRevue; the other show I had pre-booked before we set off for Edinburgh.
I have been hanging around NewsRevue since the early 1990s and had material in the show, including the Edinburgh “best of” shows, for most of that decade. Of course I had often seen previews of the Edinburgh show at the Canal Cafe, but this was the first time I had ever seen the show in Edinburgh. The show has a different vibe in a 500-seater auditorium with the performers miked up and the audience in “early evening Fringe” mode rather than “late night cabaret” mode.
But it is still a very good show, as it has always been; and oh boy was it packed the day we saw it; probably the case every day. NewsRevue really has become an Edinburgh Fringe institution now.
Then we strolled back to High Street to collect those appy show tickets for tomorrow. Then back to Cowgate for quick drink at Underbelly & then on to Three Sisters (Free Sisters) to see Michael Keane (a friend of mine from the real tennis community) & his pals in a comedy improv. show named BattleActs.
Not really our sort of thing; improv. shows, but this one was done very well and had packed out a fairly sizeable room at the Free Sisters.
We bussed back to Leith, stopping for dinner at Chop House Leith for some excellent aged steaks and a couple of glasses of very quaffable red wine.
We also took some lunch at the Hepworth Wakefield cafe; a much better option than a soul-destroying service station experience.
The traffic wasn’t too bad and/but we arrived in Edinburgh (or should I say Leith?) a little later than planned; just before 19:00.
We quickly went out to get our Leith bearings & some breakfast things.
In search of coffee, we accidentally found Sketchy Beats Cafe, a sort of grunge music and art bar run by a warm and friendly chap named Danny. He explained that Sketchy Beats is not really a coffee shop and suggested that we get our provisions at Tesco instead, which we did.
Danny also suggested that we return later to see the jam, which we also did. In fact, Danny seemed quite keen for me to bring my baritone ukulele with me and join in the jam, which I guessed might be a less wise idea.
We had a super tapas meal at a tapas place, surprisingly named Tapa, just three or four minutes walk from our apartment. Very rich but delicious tapas there, with a lot of iberico variants on offer
We did go back to Sketchy Beats after dinner, which was fun. The music was all very garage/grunge; highly amplified and rock style. I’m not sure that the dulcet tones of Benjy The Baritone Ukulele would have done the business there.
Daisy and I pulled out just after an explicit, dirgy number about mother-f***ing which might even have made Tarantino blush.
Thus we had a reasonably early night despite us ploughing the grimy lows of the Leith nightlife.
We’d arrived.
You can view all of our pictures from this Edinburgh trip by clicking the picture (Flickr album link) below:
Escamillo Escapillo has, of late, expressed a preference for seeing the first day of a test match. That was not too difficult for me to arrange this time around, knowing his preference in advance.
Of course, he didn’t express a preference for “one of those test match days that ends up being rained off in its entirety but that keeps you in suspense for much of the day, because the rain is light and might just stop”. But that’s what we got.
Ironic weather this, given the weeks and weeks of relentless heat and sunshine that led up to the start of the Lord’s test.
King Cricket lampooned the day, while it was happening, with this piece:
Nigel’s take on the same non-event, linked at the end of the above piece, is one of the finest guest pieces on Ogblog.
Naturally Escamillo Escapillo & I tried to make the most of it, which is not too hard to achieve with one of my picnics to hand. Posh Italian nibbles from Speck and a start on the very jolly bottle of Pinot Gridge courtesy of Escamillo Escapillo. Smoked salmon bagels and latterly prosciutto rolls helped us to get through the wine and warm our increasingly “resigned to the elements” hearts.
We had occasional “it looks like it is brightening up over there” moments but in truth Accuweather left us in no doubt that the intervals between showers were to be short and the showers long.
I think it was about 17:00 before the umpires bowed to the inevitable and we went our separate ways home.
Friday 10 August 2018
The forecast only looked a tiny bit better for DJ’s day. Still, I went through my picnic preparations and got to Lord’s quite early, watching tennis for a while. DJ texted me to say he expected to arrive around the start time.
When Jimmy took a wicket in the first over, I thought DJ might have missed one of the day’s major moments, but DJ came down the steps just after the wicket fell, excitedly telling me that he got to see it.
Just as well. About 30 minutes of cricket was all DJ got to see before the rain came. Then lots of rain. A bit like the September Test Friday last year…
…except this time the weather app warned us that there was torrential rain coming between 14:00 and 16:00; so DJ and I both bailed out ahead of that storm, with a view possibly to returning if, by some chance, the day were to clear up and they were able to get some more play in.
I got some work done – while doing so I kept an eye on proceedings. I also informed Daisy that I hadn’t drunk any alcohol, so was planning to drive over to Noddyland that evening rather than next morning.
The torrential rain was tropical style – the TV showed pools on the outfield – but then the rain stopped. An announcement came up on my screen to say “inspection at 17:00”;I guessed that meant possibly play to start at 17:45 or 18:00 – wrong! Play to start at 17:10…
…I returned to Lord’s, by jumping in the car and somehow found a parking space on St John’s Wood Road. So I got to see nearly 2 hours more cricket and finished my share of the picnic at the designated place. I did alert DJ, but he didn’t return.
Then, after stumps, on to Noddyland for a glass or two while Daisy ate her dinner.
Saturday 11 August 2018
Tennis first thing – I didn’t move so well despite the relative lack of sitting at the cricket. Massage with Lisa after that; much needed.
Then Ros’s visit. Ros is Janie’s very good friend from years gone by who has lived in Turkey for the last 25-30 years. We haven’t seen Ros for about 20 years. Facebook combined with Ros’s decision to visit Blighty reunited them/us.
Janie and Ros: reunited
Not 100% sure that this next picture is from the last time…but it was in Turkey and might have been the last time.
Mystic Ros reading the coffee grounds in Turkey, 1995: “I will visit you two at a place you will call Noddyland in about 23 year’s time”.
The weather was lovely, so we were able to take drinks and chat in the garden for some while, until Janie served up a splendid lunch of smoked salmon and Guernsey crab – the latter delicacy being a gift from Lisa.
Ros is an exponent of Bowen Technique therapies, which gave “the girls” a lot to talk about, while I joined in the conversation as best I could and kept at least one eye on the cricket.
Once the cricket ended, the combination of massage, wine and the gentle therapeutic conversation sent me onto the sofa and into the appealing arms of Morpheus.
I’m not entirely sure how much longer Ros stayed but I did wake up properly before Ros left.
Sunday 12 August 2018
Weather forecasts ahead of Sunday were not promising. I warned Janie that we might get nothing at all, but that we should be ready to go. Even first thing on Sunday itself , the forecast was aweful.
But then the wind direction shifted, such that the Thursday-like constant light rain looked likely to miss Lord’s for most of the day.
Daisy of course wasn’t ready for such a dramatic change of plan, so I jumped into Dumbo to get a good parking spot and get a couple of good (dry) seats in the Warner for us, suggesting that Janie & the picnic join me by Uber once they were ready.
in the end we got a super day of cricket in a very comfy spot with just a few short interruptions for drizzle.
Umesh Yadav continued to demonstrate his fitness at tea until the very last second
Nice people sitting around us, including an amusing gentleman from Oxford who had an aversion to the England team’s infantile nicknames and who seemed convinced (wrongly as it turned out) that Stokesy was going to go to jail.
We saw a great England win and then had the luxury of Dumbo just round the corner to run us home. We celebrated with a glass or two once we got back to Noddyland.
31 July 2018 – The Day I Forgot That I Hadn’t Forgotten The Tickets
The plan was to have a quiet morning finishing off work bits before setting off towards Birmingham for three nights and three days of Heavy Roller cricketing joy…
…but we all know what tends to happen to that sort of plan.
So I ran around like crazy that morning, fitting in two client meetings, getting my packing done and shovelling down some lunch. Still I managed to leave home at a reasonable hour to avoid the traffic and get to Brum in time to shower, change and join up with the lads.
As I drove past the Warwick junction of the M40, I had a horrible brain flash. The utter conviction I had, earlier in the day, that Chas has the tickets this year, morphed into a distinct memory of Chas handing me an Essex CCC ticket wallet.
“But that must have been my Chelmsford ticket,” I thought, until my memory distinctly remembered the sight of Edgbaston tickets in an Essex ticket wallet. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that I had been an idiot not looking in my ticket draw when packing…even though, in truth, I could not recall seeing those tickets in that draw in my recent ticket trawls for Lord’s matches and the like.
I remember you…not
I decided that I simply needed to fess up to Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett on arrival and we’d work out how I might get replacement tickets issued. I cannot be the first “gentleman with waning powers of memory” to travel to an Edgbaston test without his tickets, so there must be some sort of reissuing procedure and I knew Chas would have his ticket records with him.
I called Chas on arrival – he and The Boy Malloy had just gone down to the bar to meet Nigel “Father Barry” Hinks. Chas’s immediate reaction was that he had all the tickets in his care, including mine, as is usually the case…
…then he went on the same memory journey as I had travelled…he did remember handing me an Essex wallet and he did remember separating out tickets for me, for some reason…
…anyway, by the time I had showered and got to the Plough And Harrow Bar to join the lads, Chas had checked the ticket situation and discovered that he had them all.
We then both realised that the memory flash of Chas giving me my tickets in advance was from last year, when Daisy and I travelled up the night before and had pre-arranged to join the others at the ground for the start of the West Indies day/nighter:
Did the lads give me a ribbing for sort of forgetting my tickets…or rather for forgetting that I hadn’t forgotten my tickets?
Yes.
I tried to counter-rib by suggesting that they had forgotten to book Colbeh, stymieing our dinner plans, but that didn’t work. In fact, it is just as well that I saw Azlan from Colbeh as I walked past, as he said he was pretty full that night so I did genuinely make a booking that might just have saved our evening plans. Chapeau to Azlan for remembering my name from last year and the year before.
Anyway, this year’s pre-match dinner at Colbeh comprised me, Chas and Nigel. The Boy Malloy had arranged to meet up with a friend at the Birmingham Cosy Club, the name of which drew a similar “oo er missus” type reaction from Chas and Nigel to that of the burghers of Leicestershire CCC, when I announced a similar meet up in Leicester a few weeks ago:
The Colbeh Three (as Chas, Nigel and I should now be known) had a superb meal again this season at Colbeh. It is a joy to see how well that place is doing, Nigel and I having been early customers there a couple of years ago when it first opened. I think the food might still be getting better and better. When I got home, Daisy asked me if I had thanked Azlan for recommending the book The Saffron Tales to her, from which she has taken much pleasure and adapted several recipes. I admitted I hadn’t…
…until now. Thanks, Azlan.
Match Day One – On Making The Most Of Plenty: Copious Mrs Malloy Sandwiches c/w England’s Run Scoring
After a hearty breakfast based on kippers, I chose to walk directly from my digs at the Eaton Hotel to the ground. It is a lovely 45 minute walk across Edgbaston.
Ticket scanning and security is so well organised at Edgbaston these days; I was in the ground around 10:30 and heard the toss as I was entering the stand.
I was the first of our group to arrive, but there were quite a few people already seated in our block. Then a young man came along and sat in one of our seats. I said, “excuse me, that cannot be your seat”.
“Yes it is”, exclaimed the young man, “look!” He showed me his ticket. Block 06, Row A, Seat 5.
“You should be in Block 6”, I said, “this is Block 7”.
“No it isn’t”, said a few people seated around me, “this is Block 6”. I really was starting to worry about waning powers now, but turned around and saw, clearly on the wall behind me, the big “7” sign that indicates Block 7.
“It really is Block 7”, I said. “See the sign…”
…then one or two other people chimed in, “of course this is Block 7”.
But for some reason, perhaps an errant steward, perhaps group-think amongst several unconnected parties of people, 15 to 20 people got up and relocated to the real Block 6.
I had a good chortle with a few of the real Block 7 residents about that one.
Then I took the photograph below.
Before The Start On Day One
Then I started to wonder whether the others were ever going to show up; they are usually so keen to get to the ground in good time. Eventually show up they did; slightly frazzled/later than intended. Something about a wrong turn.
Heavy laden, they were, with a picnic fit for Heavy Rollers. Mrs Malloy had gone wild with the sandwiches this year: corned beef with mustard and smoked ham ones for the meat eaters, quorn chicken for the veggies, cheese for everyone and egg mayonnaise for everyone other than me.
Mrs Malloy had also gone wild with her gold-ink sandwich-pack labelling pen, to symbolise the impending golden anniversary of the Malloys.
We ascertained that Those Were The Days by Mary Hopkin was number one in the charts when the Malloys hitched; likewise when Harsha Ghoble was born. Very apt.
…but I digress again.
While we tucked in to the picnic for several hours, England seemed to be tucking in to the Indian bowling quite nicely too.
They say that history doesn’t repeat itself but it does rhyme. In a strange echo of the Charley The Gent run out from 2004, Joe Root was run out, while attempting a second run, by Virat Kohli, soon after tea. That incident and the rest of the day one highlights can be seen on this short reel:
Meanwhile, as England’s fortunes rapidly declined, Charley The Gent was insisting that we finish all the sandwiches today, withholding snacks and sweetmeats for the remaining days. “I have to be able to report to her that all the sandwiches went”, said Charley.
They all went. We were stuffed. We did not eat that evening. We simply met in the Plough and Harrow bar for a couple of glasses. We concluded that, although Charley hadn’t thrown away any sandwiches, England might well have thrown away the match in that last session.
Match Day Two – More On History Not Repeating Itself But Rhyming
After breakfast (I went full English today after last night’s dietary abstinence), again I walked to the ground directly from my hotel.
…which mentions a particular address in Edgbaston, Fairlawn on Westbourne Road, as the home of Pelota, an early form of lawn tennis that most resembled the version that took hold and was possibly the first of that kind.
Fairlawn Or Forelorn?
No longer is there a commemorative plaque and I wasn’t expecting late 20th century modern build flats either; I was expecting a somewhat distressed-looking Victorian villa, much like some of the neighbouring houses, which are mostly used as low key residential care homes or sheltered housing these days. Oh well; I’ve seen it now.
The lads arrived in good time today – no wrong turn.
Charley was a little sheepish; he’d been ticked off by Mrs Malloy for force-feeding us with infeasible quantities of sandwiches. She hadn’t honestly expected us to get through them all, she just wanted each of us to have plenty of choice.
“Can’t win”, said Charley, presumably in the matter of pleasing Mrs Malloy but perhaps he was thinking about the cricket match too.
We snacked while India seemed to establish their innings, until Sam Curran had other ideas and the match swung back to England until Kohli and the tail had yet other ideas…you get the idea.
It all reminded me a little of a couple of the excellent matches I have seen recently between Middlesex and Warwickshire; one at Edgbaston last year…
…with there respective missuses, sitting right at the front of the block before the walkway we needed to use to get out of our Raglan Stand. The others must have walked past them obliviously several times. I stopped and chatted with the Tufties a while and alerted the other Rollers (especially Charley) on my return, enabling him to join the Tufties for a while later in the day.
…bit the dust when The Boy Malloy announced that he doesn’t like Indian food and a search to discover whether Mr Idly has other options revealed very poor recent reviews.
I did some extensive research and due diligence (didn’t these guys used to pay me to do this sort of thing, albeit on slightly bigger and more important procurement matters?) to uncover El Borracho De Oro (subsequently defunked) within spitting distance of the Plough & Harrow. With some difficulty, I managed to book it on-line so we were sorted.
While I was concentrating on all that, England’s fortunes slid again and by the end of Day two we were, one again, convinced that India had the edge.
Here is the ECB short highlights reel from that day:
El Borracho De Oro proved to be a good choice for dinner; the only shortcoming being the music noise. Also for future reference, the portion sizes were a little smaller than we expected so we possibly should have ordered more tapas – we’ll know for next time. It was very reasonably priced for its quality.
Apart from Charley disappearing back to the hotel to sort out an errant duplicate payment that wasn’t and Harsha disappearing to pick up on some work malarkey, it was a very cohesive, convivial and enjoyable evening.
Day Three – A Wonderful Day Of Test Cricket Leaving The Match Finely In The Balance
Back to the kippers for breakfast today, then I left my electricals and Benjy The Baritone Ukulele in the safe hands of Roberto at the Eaton before walking, for the last time this trip, to the ground.
Again the lads were in good time; indeed they got to the ground ahead of me this time. All except for Harsha, who had to deal with his business crisis before coming to the ground. I thought that might be the last we’d see of him, but in fact he turned up about 10 minutes into the day’s play. After a short committee meeting, we decided that he could participate in that day’s prediction game anyway, despite the additional inside knowledge that 10 minutes of play provides.
It didn’t help Harsha.
In fact, I was the biggest winner of the day; actually I showed positive on each of the three days – that might be a first.
Again the match tilted one way and then the other. Despair before lunch as England collapsed. Some respite after lunch as Curran tried to get England to a defensible score. Then joy as India collapsed. Then an impending sense of doom as India recovered somewhat late in the day, leaving the match perilously poised at the end of the day – probably just tilting in India’s favour.
Here is the ECB short highlights reel for Day three:
Chas kindly dropped me at my hotel to help speed me on my way – Daisy had invited some people over for dinner, although they all knew I would be back late. So we said our fond Heavy Roller farewells in the Eaton Hotel car park.
The Epilogue
It took me just under two hours to get back to Noddyland, where the dinner with Deni and Tony was only just underway, so I could shower and catch up with starters before joining the group for the main meal. Daisy has some pictures and I’ll report that separately.
London was sweltering – far hotter/muggier than Brum.
The next morning, Daisy and I did battle on the tennis court first thing. I gave it 120% and needed to do so in order to overcome a very keen Daisy. She felt that she ought to be able to beat me after I had sat around for three days watching cricket, eating and drinking. But I’m made of stern stuff.
As soon as we got home, just before the cricket started, Daisy kindly offered to do my washing from the trip, including the tennis kit in which I had just played. “Just pile it in front of the washing machine, ” she said.
When she came to the pile, she exclaimed, “urgh, what the hell is this? This is disgusting. What have you done?”
I wondered what on earth was the matter. I stepped in to find her holding my recently-worn briefs at arms length. “Have you wet yourself or something?”, she asked.
“No, I’ve just played an hour of rigorous tennis against you in sweltering heat, that’s all. You don’t normally do my washing and you certainly don’t normally see my sweaty undies before they have dried off a bit.”
“I don’t sweat like that”, said Daisy. I wondered whether to offer a short biology lesson but decided against.
Then we watched the cricket match pan out. If I gave the tennis 120%, then Ben Stokes must have given England 150%.
“I wonder whether Ben Stokes gets GBH of the earhole from his missus in the matter of his sweaty briefs”, I thought to myself, before deciding that “GBH of the earhole” was an unfortunate phrase in Ben Stokes’s context.
Just thought this bit of writing captured much of our experiences over our collective cricket-watching years
Chas responded:
The writer’s piece was wonderful and it made my emotions bubble up again! I believe he was absolutely spot on with the analysis of Stokes bowling, the brilliance, the commitment and the ‘gut renching’ dedication to win, no matter of the pain his body was suffering – because it was for the team – definitely some comparison to Freddie!
My major disappointment was not being there on Saturday to see and witness this fabulous and emotional win by England!!
Here is the ECB short highlights reel for the final day; those 90 minutes I witnessed on the TV rather than live:
