This was one of those days.
Janie and I blocked out the day to do research for our planned house refurb, and to visit Lord’s. We wanted to take a look at some women’s cricket – two matches against a visiting squad from the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) and a Real Tennis Women’s Day that had been organised around the SCG visit. Oh, and we were also going on to the Wigmore Hall for an evening concert.
Mr Logistics (that’s me) worked out that all of this activity could be undertaken in Bayswater and Marylebone, mostly on foot with some minimal use of the underground sauna otherwise known as The Tube.
The paint business took a little longer than we expected, whereas the SCG Women’s Team dispatching the Middlesex Women’s team apparently took less time than people had expected. Basically Janie and I arrived in the pavilion as the first cricket match was concluded.
No matter – we were a bit peckish having walked from Westbourne Grove to Lord’s, so we soldiered on to the Nursery End of the ground, where I had been wanting to show Janie HoAM – the tasteful new cafe in the performance centre – for quite some time.
Determined not to miss out on seeing some cricket we made sure we were back in the pavilion for the very start of the second match.
But we really wanted to have a proper look at the real tennis women’s day, so only watched the cricket for a few minutes before retreating to the tennis.
Ah, off to see the tennis I suppose…
…said Paul, the steward, who seems to have us well and truly worked out by now.
The atmosphere was warm and convivial – aided and abetted by some fizzy pop of the intoxicating kind, provided generously by Graeme Marks.
Janie and I politely declined. We had photos to take, shelving to examine, shoes to buy and music to listen to. It could be positively dangerous to do those things under the influence.
Janie and I watched that final round robin match: Mary Strevens & Lucie Grosset v Rhona Russell & Anisha Charania. It was a good battle, fought hard. Mary and Lucie were on the wrong end of the match itself yet fighting hard to try to scrap an extra game or two. We discovered that they were striving for a final place that would be determined on the number of games and boy did they show some fight to get there.
Ahead of the final, which Janie and I were unfortunately unable to attend due to our furniture appointment in a more southerly quarter of Marylebone, I was commissioned to take the group photo. Janie took a photo of me taking the photo, which rather breaks the “Bismarck” laws and sausages rule, in my opinion.
Mary Strevens is a new addition to the MCC squad, who had the dubious honour of playing her first competitive match for the MCC in January’s MCC v Old Harrovians match partnering me. We did OK. Still, failing to learn her lesson, Mary has also attended club nights on several occasions and also skills night. So, despite the fact that she is significantly better at tennis than I am, I feel that she is to some extent my mentee. Yet, despite that, she has nevertheless retained a strong competitive spirit and will to win, which progressed, in partnership with Lucie Grosset, into a tournament win on the day. Well done to both of them.
But everyone’s a winner on such a day, really. The spirit and convivial atmosphere was wonderful to behold, as was the quality of the tennis emerging from a morning of coaching followed by an afternoon mini tournament. I do hope the idea can become a regular feature in our MCC real tennis calendar.
You don’t want to know about our furniture research and Janie’s shoe shopping, now do you? Thought not.
But just in case you do want to know about the guitar and tenor concert we heard at the Wigmore Hall, here’s a link: