Travel, Theatre, Music, Cricket, Tennis, Writing, Life
Having learnt the previous week that Lisa’s new flat was more or less ready, we arranged to pop around and have a look after tennis on a Saturday morning.
It became a brief impromptu housewarming:
I vaguely recall one of those Champagne flutes biting the dust, resulting in me and Janie getting Lisa another pair as an additional housewarming present.
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.
…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.
It’s strange how we sometimes don’t connect two things that have happened. Or in this case, connect one thing that didn’t happen with another thing that did happen.
Stumbling across my diary entry for Thursday 6 August 2015, I see a line through the day (which means that I had booked a day’s leave) and then the following notes:
E v A @ Trent 1, Notts @ Lord’s, Paul Deacon.
Ah yes. Paul Deacon…
Visiting Record & Tape Exchange With Paul Deacon, 29 April 1978
…my old school pal who relocated to Canada with his family a few years ago now, was over for a few weeks. We had hatched a plan to meet at Lord’s that day. Paul enjoys a bit of cricket and “the girls” (Christine & Anya) liked the idea of some shopping in Central London during those hours.
Then we learnt that the threatened tube strikes for that day were indeed going ahead. We exchanged some notes the day before about trains and buses, but in the end the Deacons very sensibly decided to steer clear of Central London on a strike day.
In truth, I am not wild about 50 over cricket. Great as a day out with a friend, but I certainly didn’t feel motivated to trek to Lord’s on my tod to see that game. No.
And there was an Ashes Test match due to start the same day. So I decided instead that I’d stay home, get a bit ahead of myself with work and stuff. Oh, and of course keep at least half an eye on the test match.
So I plonked myself in front of the TV to watch the first ball of this match – click here.
This now famous utter routing of Australia became compelling viewing within 5 minutes and I basically didn’t move from the TV for a couple of hours until the lunch interval. That is not normal cricket viewing behaviour for me.
Bert, one of King Cricket’s regular readers, correspondents and occasional reporter, provided an epic match report in the KC style, i.e. somehow managing to avoid mentioning the cricket – click here.
So, I had all that fun, instead of traipsing to Lord’s to see this match. If you can be bothered, I mean really don’t feel obliged, but you may, if you really want to see the scorecard, click here.
Thing is, though, from then until today (in December 2016) I had not once made the connection between my availability to see that extraordinary session of Ashes Test match history unfold and the earlier disappointment of having to abandon the proposed trip to Lord’s with Paul.
Therefore not once had I even thought to thank Paul for making his sensible decision to avoid Central London, thus allowing the day to unfold for me as it did.
Until now.
Thanks, Paul.
After the great success of our lunch at Gravetye Manor last year, DJ asked us again for 2015.
We arranged to stay over on the Sunday night, driving down on the Sunday morning. I’m not sure whether we played tennis – I have a feeling we did play, early.
Once again it was a lovely lunch. The food is very good there. Such a relaxing place.
Somehow it didn’t quite have the magical atmosphere of the previous year, perhaps because we were doing the same thing for a second time, perhaps it was just the vibe of the place this time around.
One highlight of the afternoon was a package of photograph prints and a memory stick from Kim as a gift to Janie. The above picture is one of the hundreds of pictures from that stick; many of which will surely find their way onto the retrospective sections of Ogblog.
The weather wasn’t quite so special, the sun and the showers came and went with regularity. So rather than hanging around digesting our food in that large outhouse/arbour thing and the smaller, more outdoorsy chairs and arbours from the previous year, we relocated inside to a snug spot within the Manor itself for most of the afternoon, although the showers became less regular and passed through as the afternoon went on.
Before too long, DJ, Kima nd Micky all decided to go, so Janie and I sorted ourselves out in our room and then went outside to enjoy the now rather glorious early evening, playing some croquet and badminton on the lawn.
I also decided on a photo-opportunity for a King Cricket piece I was minded to write about our visit to the test match a month or so earlier.
Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, the King Cricket crowd were much to clever for me and rumbled the set up photograph – as you can see from the comments on this link – I cannot imagine how or why they did that.
We drove back on the Monday in our tennis (lawners, not realers) gear, stopping off at Boston Manor for a hit. We also enjoyed the rest of our Monday off. Indeed, we did little work and had lots of fun that week, as you will see if you read on in sequence, not least the first couple of days in July.
A Friday evening after work with Escamillo Escapillo and Lavender (Chris and Charlotte to the uninitiated).
For some reason, Daisy and Lavender had settled on a wine bar/restaurant in Parson’s Green – highly recommended no doubt and for good reason.
The wine bar goes by the name of Amuse Bouche, while the restaurant above is named Claude’s Kitchen. Both were really good.
We had some wine downstairs in the bar first of all. Busy but not so heaving that you couldn’t hear – helped by the open nature of the bar area on a warm light evening in June.
The restaurant had that shabby chic look of painted wooden tables and chairs – well spaced out though, so upstairs really was spot on for a get together and a chat. The food and wine was excellent.
We ran into Tina Ellis, formerly of Bodyworkswest/Lambton Place, there. Of course I knew that she was a Parsonsgreenista, but still a surprise; a pleasant one I should add.
The young couple still lived in Bow in those days, so it was a relatively easy journey for all of us to get home from that place; not long after dark or possibly even before dark at that time of year.
Love the long summer evenings.
A first time for the Ivan Shakespeare memorial dinner crowd at a new venue, which seems at the time of writing (January 2017) to be our gathering’s new home. John Random circulated us a couple of weeks before:
In response to popular request I have taken the decision to change the venue to the Cafe Rouge at 77 Kingsway.
I have explained the background to Ivan Shakespeare memorial dinners sufficiently elsewhere – e.g. click here and look at the second of the three events.
I don’t remember a great deal about this June 2015 gathering in particular. After the event John wrote:
I believe I speak for all when I say that the new venue (Cafe Rouge, Kingsway) was well-liked, so all being well, we’ll be going there again some time in the early autumn…
…I would also like to thank Gerry, Mark and Colin for their quizzes.
A three quiz evening. That’s big.
Around this time the previous year, my old youth club (Streatham BBYO) gang gathered at Bill’s in Covent Garden. We had done nothing of the sort for well over thirty years, but was a great success.
Linda had taken the lead organising the 2014 gathering and then asked me to finalise the details at the end. This is how she kicked off negotiations, in March 2015:
Hi Everyone,
Thought it would be good to meet again as its been a year in May!
Last year we met on a Thursday in the school holidays so thought we could try that again, what do people think?
The date would be 28th May, if that is not good for the majority any suggestions are welcome!
Then Ian I can pass it to you if it becomes complicated
Linda xx
Strangely, it proved incredibly easy to organise. Everyone was comfy with the date and everyone agreed that the company was more important than scratching around for a different venue, so Bill’s got the nod again.
Natalie had to drop out at the last minute this time, sadly, but still we had me, Linda, Sandra, Mark, Andrea, Jacey, Liza, Wendy, Martin and even a visitation from Ivor.
The atmosphere was partly tinged with sadness that evening, as news of Jeffrey Spector’s passing was only a few days old that night. Still, Jeffrey wouldn’t have wanted us to mope and nor did we.
Ivor told us all about his Hollywood movie prospects while Martin showed us the photographs he took at our infamous “fashion show” back in 1979 (I didn’t realise colour photography had been invented back then). Details of both of those interludes shall remain under wraps for the time being.
Again it was lovely to see everybody and again it seemed impossible that so many years had passed and that most of us had felt disinclined to meet up like this for such a long time.
After two such gatherings, it seemed inevitable that there would be more get togethers…as indeed there have been.
Janie and I know what Kim & Micky’s parties can be like, so we hadn’t arranged anything for the Saturday evening and had arranged to take the Monday off.
This was a relatively small gathering by their standards, Sunday during the day, in honour of Kim’s birthday.
The usual suspects were there, plus some of the less usual suspects and of course Kim’s menagerie.
It was the first time I had seen Never The Bride, who Kim arranged to perform in the conservatory. In truth Kim’s conservatory is a bit small for the Never The Bride sound, even when the group turns up with just a core of performers and keeps the amplifier’s volume dial well below eleven.
Still, Never The Bride were very good and got everyone at the party singing along by hand picking the sorts of songs that most people of a certain age know well enough to sing along to.
Janie might remember more about the party than I do. We left relatively early in the evening, having been there since lunchtime, but I think a few people stuck around until very late by all accounts.
Not only did we take the next day off (pretty sure we played tennis and used the time pretty well) but we also had nothing arranged for the following weekend either.
I think that was more to do with having left dates clear for our impending Ireland trip than a need for a week or more’s clearance after Kim’s party. Perhaps a bit of both.
Whatever the reason, the next non-work thing in my diary is our visit to Lord’s on the Bank Holiday Monday, just before we set off for Ireland.
DJ very generously wanted to treat us all to dinner at Scalini. It is hard to refuse such offers.
I suspect we arranged this some months in advance; it is not so easy to get all of us together at the same time these days.
I think it was just the five of us that evening; if one or both of Max and Jo are around they sometimes join such an evening, but that night I think was just five of us.
I’m pretty sure Janie and I stayed at the flat afterwards, as it was deep midwinter and we also had a Wigmore Hall concert the next night.
I can’t remember exactly what we ate and drank; only that we did a bit too much of both and that the evening was very good in all departments.
Janie might remember more and chime in…but then again she might not.
I think I have explained the background to Ivan Shakespeare memorial dinners sufficiently elsewhere – e.g. click here and look at the second of the three events.
I’m pretty sure we were still going to the now defunct Café Rouge in Maida Vale the previous autumn and I missed the 2014 Christmas bash, which had been a bit shambolic by all accounts, ending up in Pizza Express Charlotte Street.
This February evening was therefore my one and only visit to that Pizza Express.
My post evening note to John Random was the following:
John
Good to see you and the gang last night.
Many thanks for that wonderful-looking bottle of wine. Extremely generous of you and quite unnecessary.
Janie and I will save it for a special occasion and enjoy it then…unless the Bulgarian merlot runs out and we need an emergency bottle in a hurry.
With very best wishes
Ian
It reminds me that there was another curiosity about the John Random/Rohan Candappa evening a couple of weeks before – click here.
John, knowing little about wine, grabbed a rather long-in-the-tooth bottle of Bulgarian Merlot from his home and brought it for that 5 February evening at my house. We all agreed that the bottle was undrinkable and offered the bottle’s contents to the kitchen sink drain gods.
Being John, he wrote me an own-liver-eating e-mail the next day, also agonising about the fact that he didn’t know that my mum had recently died until some way into the evening.
I responded, amongst other stuff 6 February, specifically on the Bulgarian Merlot:
It was good to see you and do stop fretting about the wine. But on that note, I do recommend the film Sideways, if you haven’t seen it, a very funny sort of road movie about an introverted wine snob on a California wine tour with his extrovert actor mate. The wine snob has an irrational thing against the Merlot grape, btw, which happens to have been the grape variety in your Bulgarian curiosity.
So, again being John, he brought me a rather splendid bottle of wine when we met at the Pizza Express for the Ivan Shakespeare 19 February.
The only other matters of note, which emerge from John’s post evening messages, are:
Always good fun, Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinners.
