Nat Oaks At Lord’s, 14 August 2025
Tuesday 12 August: Goodbye Hydrotherapy At Riverstone, Hello Chelsea Arts Club
I had my last hydrotherapy session for my hip surgery rehab with Michael Lambert at Riverstone that afternoon – highly recommended if you are recovering from major surgery or injury, btw. My entire focus now will be on the more gruelling home and gym based physio.
Criss-crossing the Borough all day – later that afternoon, I ventured to the Chelsea Arts Club, where Tony Friend had kindly arranged to introduce me to Nigel à Brassard, a fellow avocational writer/historian who is also to speak at the Real Tennis Society history conference next month. A most pleasurable early evening with some very interesting note-swapping. I think Nigel’s notes to me will have helped me far more than my notes will have helped Nigel. I don’t suppose he minds.
Wednesday 13 August: A Sad Day At Stuart Morris’s Funeral
A few week’s ago Janie and I were shocked to learn that Stuart, Annalisa’s husband, had died suddenly and unexpectedly of heart failure. We resolved to keep the funeral day free and attended the moving and dignified ceremony at Bierton Crematorium.
In truth, we did not know Stuart well, having met him perhaps once or twice before attending Annalisa & Stuart’s wedding, all those years ago:
But of course we did know Annalisa well and wanted to be there for her. As it turned out, it was a very large gathering, as Stuart had been extremely popular and well -regarded by friends, police colleagues and even his latter-day colleagues from Whipsnade Zoo, whom Stuart had not known for long but the several who attended seemed much affected by their time with him, which had been so cruelly cut short.
Thursday 14 August: Nat Oaks Concert At Lord’s, Before & After Which Was Some Tennis & Cricket
I love being able to combine tennis and cricket on visits to Lord’s. Not least when this combination of activity affords the opportunity to watch some cricket with a fellow tennis player or two. On this occasion, some relatively gentle doubles (playing entirely left-handed at the time having torn my bicep tendon in late July), followed by The Hundred matches between the London Spirit and Trent Rockets, with Nat Oaks performing in-between.
Max McHardy, from The Bionic Quartet…
…was one of the four again. This time, we had the opportunity to watch some cricket and contemporary music together after our game. It was great to watch some cricket with Max, as we had never much discussed cricket before, given the highly focussed nature of our mind sets, and therefore conversation, when playing tennis.
Max had never watched women’s cricket live before and I think was quite taken with it when observed from the rarefied atmosphere of the Lord’s pavilion terrace. We are so privileged being able to use those facilities as “our cricket club-house”.
I’m not sure that Max was as sure about the music of Nat Oaks. I rather liked it, having extensively researched the subject ahead of the match (i.e. I had watched two on-line vids before setting off for Lord’s).
This is what she looked like performing live at Lord’s – thanks to BBC Music:
Max stuck around for almost half of the men’s match. I stuck around for the entire first half of it.
Friday 15 August: A Day Chatting & Eating With Ben Schwarz
A follow up session with Ben Schwarz to try and cover some of the items we had meant to chat about when we met up at Lord’s a few weeks ago:
It was a most pleasant way to spend a large chunk of the day. We nattered for so long over a pot of tea at Clanricarde Gardens, that by the time we got to The Orangery in Kensington Gardens, they’d stopped serving the lunch menu and had moved on to the high tea menu. A suitable venue for high tea, we shared one of those and then strolled in the gardens chatting some more.
Naturally, we didn’t quite complete the list of topics we had been hoping to discuss, so we’ll chat some more in the autumn. It will be interesting to compare notes from our respective times in the USA when next we meet.
