If you prefer to read the typed up journals illustrated with pictures, these are going up during November 2020
Rose late by our standards – circa 7:45.
Breakfast was the English variety – well cooked, quality bacon and pork sausage for the highlights.
We decided to have a restful day when all the others Safari like crazy. So basically spent the day poolside, Reading and writing up this journal.
Daisy went back to shower etc and was gone ages. Mostly she was washing my shorts and top which had been smothered with coffee in the “morning breeze at breakfast” incident, just as Andrew had made a fresh pot for me – remarkable breeze to blow over a full mug.
Meanwhile I read while a family with kids swam. Then they went and Daisy joined me, I wrote and the Safari came to us – elephants, the odd hippo, antelope, waterbuck etc.
Lunch was chicken kebabs, the tea came from Huntington Lodge, the choc cake was ordinary.
As the sun started to go down, we returned to the room – I saw a fish eagle but Daisy missed it.
I only managed to snap a woodpecker……and several type of monkey
Once it was dark, we saw eyes sailing down the river, should I torches on them and realise that they were crocodiles!
Down for dinner where Guy (a.k.a. Mrs Fry’s son) has done is proud by cooking a pork with a super crackling rich with apple sauce and mash and veg. A Pavlova dessert t0o – he is into desserts he tells us. He also promises to spoil us tomorrow night!
Strangely, the inseparable triplets were separated tonight with Mrs Nervous-Traveller chatting up Chris almost all evening until Chris and Emma joined her for dinner. Daisy speculates, Ged merely observes. We shall see.
If you prefer to read the typed up journals illustrated with pictures, these shall be going up during November 2020,
Johannesburg airport was not fun. You cannot check your baggage through from London (thank goodness, perhaps, as rumour has it that your chance of getting back what you put in a quite slim if you check your baggage through via Johannesburg).
So, you have to go out through immigration, collect your baggage, clear through customs and then start checking in all over again in another part of the airport.
When we landed, about three hours before our next flight, we imagined that we had bags of time to transfer, but after a while it started to feel a bit tight. Indeed later, Daisy spoke to a couple who had been on the same Heathrow flight as us (but economy) who were so far at the back of the immigration queue, they eventually alerted an official and got themselves whisked through.
The scale of Daisy’s problem
Then there was also Daisy’s weight problem. Most people don’t think of Daisy and weight problems as connected terms, but Daisy does consistently have one particular type of weight problem. The weight of her baggage when we fly.
Yes she does tend to pack the tennis gear (although not this time and anyway I weighed it once and it was not all that heavy). It used to be [received wisdom that] her old suitcase was to blame, until she bought a modern, lighter one, to no avail.
Yes she does carry the medicaments, sun creams and toiletries (some essential, some not so vital).
Still, she promised to pack light this time.
The first sign of trouble was when the poor minicab driver from West Acton cars asked me to help him lift it into his car.
At Heathrow they accepted the 25 kg monstrosity because we were Club Class but warned us that we get short shrift in Johannesburg if we tried to check that on economy. So, after collecting our own baggage at Johannesburg, we were soon on our knees (in my case agonisingly painful knees) moving some heavier items from Daisy’s case into mine.
Come check-in for Blantyre, I saw some people having their luggage weighed but no one called us forward so I guessed it was a “miscreants only” affair.
But when we came to checking in our bags, the lady asked me for our weighing slip. I shrugged. She asked me why we hadn’t weighed. I said that we had been invited, which was true. She shrugged and checked us through.
We were in good time by now and relaxed for a few minutes before timing our approach to the gate well again. And irritating delay of nearly an hour while some no-shows bags were found and removed.
The steward announced every variant of South African airlines product available, but at the end of the flight apologised they had not had time to sell us duty-free goods.
Blantyre airport was hot and equipped with novel kit for fingerprinting and photograph in arrivals, so that’s what they do. We were towards the back of the plane and the last to disembark.
We finally got through formalities to find that we were sharing our transfer (irritatingly) with other people who seemed equally or more irritated that they had to wait for us.
Quite a long drive. We see people and a few sites, although the viewing point the driver took us to had very little going for it.
We saw a wedding convoy which stops at the house for the reception – the house apparently has a lovely garage garden.
Soon enough we were on the outskirts of the Majete reserve. We stopped and went through a painstaking process of triplicate form filling the like of which Daisy and I have not seen for many a year.
The lady of the irritated/irritating couple (who are travelling with Audley I noticed) made a mistake on her form, which we chose to talk about for a while – not least the delay.
Once inside the reserve the other lady who seemed uptight and was asking the driver zillions of questions was soon in her element – spotting creatures and identifying their rareness level.
We saw baboons, kudu, warthogs are plenty and then she spotted a sable which is apparently very rarely seen and she was in heaven. My idea of heaven by then was the thought of some cool liquid to go in and a chance to get rid of some of the warmer liquid. It was very dusty too.
I’m a kudu. How do you do?
Still, the adventure continued as we arrived at a wobbly walking bridge and then said goodbye to our driver who is generously tipped by no one other than me!
Over the bridge and onto an open vehicle for the last few hundred yards. Warm welcome from Chris and Emma who are local white folk who seem to know their stuff including the other places we are staying.
Quick shower and attempt to sort out basics before dark as you don’t want lights on much in those beautiful open chalets.
Barbecue dinner of chicken and marinated beef – chef Guy revealed the marinade but not the spices!
Nice puds too – choc mousse and two other chocolate treats. A bottle of Passchendaele Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot in the chiller for a short while. Lovely.
Early night under air-conditioning mosquito net and boy did we sleep.
If you prefer to read the typed up journals illustrated with pictures, these shall be going up during November 2020, starting with Day Zero below.
Having taken a tumble on the way home from Michael’s [Gresham] lecture the night before, Ged [I] had more work still to do then had planned, plus a freezer to defrost.
Gosh yes I remember taking that tumble near Chancery Lane tube. Michael had delivered this lecture at Barnards Inn Hall. We’d have hosted a drinks reception in the “Headmaster’s Study” after the lecture, during which at least one person will have sidled up to me, pointed at the Chandos Portrait and said, “has anyone ever told you…”
But I digress. In my hurry to get home, I lost my footing and went face first, luckily breaking my fall without injury. A very kind, strong young chap picked me up, checked that I hadn’t concussed myself and then went on his way with his mates. Lucky escape.
Ended up rushing.
Meanwhile Daisy’s [Janie’s] packing is also far from a problem free activity. I got to Daisy’s place around 14:00 which gave us time (just) to get her car in for bodywork, have a snack lunch, get the packing finished, 15 to 20 winks and then off to Heathrow.
The highlight of that fraught morning have been the discovery that we’ve been upgraded to club by our fairy godmother [Toni Friend]. So, we had the benefit of the club lounge once we got through airport formalities.
Toni (a client/friend of Janie’s) worked for BA and often ways to get us upgraded, sometimes far enough ahead of time to get us airport as well as aircraft hospitality. Gosh we were lucky. Thanks Toni.
The flight was pretty much on time and the club class hospitality was good. We tasted the beef dish despite both fancying the chicken dish as the latter had proved enormously popular. Winters Drift Chardonnay and a very jolly burgundy.
Breakfast was okay too. In between we both slept well, partly the bed like sitting in club but mostly the sheer exhaustion probably.
While disembarking [at Johannesburg], the safety procedures announcement started again, humorously.
An engaging play at the Bush with an excellent cast, not least Kenneth Cranham and Amanda Root. This must have been Rory Kinnear’s first go as a playwright. Howard Davies directed.
We found it witty as well as moving – basically about a birthday party for a young man with severe learning difficulties.
The Journey & The Night Before The Match; 8 August 2013
This adventure was very nearly stillborn for me and Janie, as she was very poorly in the couple of days leading up to our trip up to Durham for the fourth Ashes test of 2013. Indeed, Janie, who is normally very averse to taking antibiotics, had almost bullied her doctor into prescribing same, as her throat was so sore from whatever summer bug/flu she had caught.
Janie said she felt a bit better on the morning we were setting off; I agreed to do most if not all of the driving as long as we had breaks. Soon after we started our drive north, Janie started coughing like (in retrospect, writing this in 2022) a Covid-19 victim. I suggested that we turn around, but Janie insisted that we persevere.
I recall that I had bought/brought some Prefab Sprout and Kane Gang music to get us into the County Durham spirit and that we were listening to The King Of Rock ‘N’ Roll at that juncture.
But I digress.
It was a relatively small and diffuse gathering of Heavy Rollers that year. Nigel “Father Barry” Hinks had Viv (“Mrs Father Barry”) with him but she was seeing friends and didn’t want to join us for any cricket. They had arranged to stay in a “bijou but entirely satisfactory, and generously-equipped, terraced-cottage on Gilesgate”, in Durham, which is just a few miles away from Chester-le-Street.
Not wishing to be outdone by “bijou” in Durham, I had found a well-reviewed “boutique-style” place at a similar distance to the ground, in Seaham, The Seaton Lane Inn. In the end there were just the three of us staying there, me, Daisy and Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett; Dot (Mrs Malloy) originally planned to join us, but withdrew a few weeks before the event.
Chas was very kind and concerned about Daisy the night we arrived. She didn’t want to eat dinner – we had brought a few “easy to swallow snacks” with us. But in the end she did come down and join us for a while. Chas and I enjoyed a good meal at that place – Chas especially being taken with the Villa Wolf Riesling I well remember.
Chas took a picture of me and Daisy in the restaurant – I must say she looks healthier than me – but perhaps I had slightly overindulged in the Villa Wolf by then…or perhaps this picture was taken a little later in the trip, when Daisy was feeling much better.
Three Days Of Cricket At Chester-le-Street, 9 to 11 August 2013
The cricket was excellent throughout the match, as of course was the company. Chas had secured us front row seats in a temporary stand, which turned out to be a good location with an excellent view.
We felt safe/”protected”, for much of the match, by a fairly sizeable group of “Knights Templar”, who got louder and more tipsy as each day went on. It’s just as well they were never called upon to defend our lives towards the end of the day.
Daisy was still not feeling very well on the first morning, but I persuaded her to join us on the basis that we could always get her cabbed home within 15-20 minutes if she felt she needed to lie down. Access to and from that Chester-le-Street ground is excellent, despite it being a little out of town.
Fortunately the fresh air, good weather and good cricket started to make Daisy feel better pretty quickly.
One of the evenings (I think possibly the evening after the second day’s play) all five of us (including Viv) dined, I think it was at Oldfields in Durham – pretty good but now gone.
If anything ever goes awry with the King Cricket website, click here for a scrape of that piece. The tale of Nigel’s interaction with Jonathan Agnew for a personally-signed book and Chas’s attempt to obtain similar for no good reason is worth the price of admission alone. (There is no price of admission, btw). To quote Nigel reflecting, nearly 10 years later, on his visit to that shop with Chas…
Most [memorable]: “Boycott bingo “ and protestations to some innocent shop staff, possibly seeking a little supplementation to mounting student loans? I am certain I heard one say something along the lines of “that induction morning had precious little about this sort of thing, did it?” The other one appeared to slowly mouth “stick-of-rhubarb?” as she sought the exit.
Day Four – The Journey Home And Witnessing The Denouement On The TV
A small tinge of regret that we hadn’t booked to see four days, but still Janie and I enjoyed the last day as “driving home entertainment” on the radio and we were fortunate enough to get home in time to see the ending on the telly.
I wrote the following in an e-mail to the lads to summarise that day and the experience:
Janie really enjoyed the experience, despite her bad luck getting poorly a few days before the off. She is feeling so much better now.
What a win. We listened to the thrilling morning session and much of the frustrating afternoon session on the road.
Hippity points out that England didn’t get a wicket until he and Monkey-Face had been placed in front of the TV again, along with Hippity’s lucky ball.
Broad’s bowling once he got his hackles up again was extraordinary, especially as he did the damage with the old ball. And Bresnan’s ball to nip out Warner was possibly his finest yet.
2014 we host Sri Lanka and India. Too soon to start thinking seriously about it, I know!!
Thanks to you especially, Charles, for organising those amazing seats.
As the Kane Gang put it – “…this could be the closest thing to heaven…”
Except, of course, that King Cricket match reports cannot talk about the cricket itself.
Whereas King Cricket himself is allowed to waffle on, with his mates, for hours, in excruciating detail about the ridiculous aspect of cricket matches – and three cheers for that ability, because The Ridiculous Ashes is a fun listen.
If that is too much clicking for you but you are desperate for some vids, here is Geoff Lemon’s seminal vlog rant about Shane Watson from the Lord’s East Gate (now renamed the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Gate. One of the things I love about it is the passers by noticing and/or feigning not to notice this ranting Aussie holding forth. I recognise several of the faces as Lord’s regulars:
Or, if seeing Chris Rogers’s freak dismissal is more your bag, the following vid will feed your desirous eyeballs:
I remember being especially taken with THAT ball from Graeme Swann, not least because I did once take a hat trick with balls that were not too dissimilar to that one…except that at least two of mine were definitely hitting the stumps:
If you actually want to know about the actual score in the match (by which I mean Lord’s Ashes Test 2013, not Alleyn’s 9 July 1975) and the sort of details that official professional sites publish about matches of this kind, then click here.
The thing that stands out the most about all this for me, in reflective Ogblog mode, is the enormity of the picnic that I took for just me and Daisy (Janie) for one day at Lord’s. I’m sure King Cricket won’t mind me scraping my own words:
Naturally, I had prepared the picnic. We made early headway into assorted delights of my picnic bag – some mini croissants from the artisanal bakery that kindly opened a couple of years ago no more than 50 yards from my front door. Then on to the smoked trout bagels I had lovingly made, with my own special recipe horseradish butter and lemon. The fishy delight needed white wine; I brought a very interesting little Austrian Riesling. Some readers might already know that Ged and Daisy abstain from all forms of Australian wine for the duration of Ashes series. I thought the choice of Austrian was a little edgy, but safe enough.
After the smoked trout, smoked eel bagels – embellished in similar fashion to the trout. Daisy found the eel a little rich for her taste. Bags of pork scratchings and some portions of soft fruit kept the afternoon interesting enough in the food department…
…home made shortbread (not home made by me, you understand)…
…later, the ham sandwiches on tomato bread encouraged us to launch into the bottle of red – a jolly little Tuscan number.
Not normally our type of show, but we loved the idea of this one – performed cabaret style and about Josephine Baker, who had such an interesting life.
Cush Jumbo, who wrote and performed this show, is clearly a very talented young person.
We enjoyed our unusual evening at the Bush. In truth, though, we thought the show a victory of style over substance – we wanted to learn a lot more about Josephine Baker and or experience more drama. We were there very early in the run – in effect at a preview – so the show might have matured/improved after we saw it.
The show got a transfer to New York too, so our relative indifference towards the show wasn’t shared by the critics nor the producers.
Janie and I also recall running into our theatre friends John and Linda at this show – this is a couple we often see at the theatre – but because of the nature of this show we got a chance to have a proper chat with them in this cabaret-style setting of the Bush.
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