With thanks to Colin Short for this and many of the photos.
The cricket season once again seemed to be over in the batting of an eyelid. Some wags might argue that Middlesex couldn’t even have batted an eyelid in the county championship towards the end of this season. But I’m not that sort of wag.
For both the members’ forum on the Monday and the end of season lunch on the Friday, I was able to secure suitably timed real tennis sessions, hopefully gaining lots of useful practice with my doubles partner, Dominic, ahead of our quarter-final appearance next week.
The Monday evening forum was a surprisingly civilised affair, with members expressing their disappointment with the championship season but little of the bile that some thought might emerge.
Chatting with several of the regulars at the post forum drinks, the mood was mostly quite optimistic for next season, hoping that the progress made this year with the white ball might filter through to the red ball cricket next season. It was also good to hear about several really promising youngsters coming through the seconds – I didn’t get to see any second team cricket this year.
Friday 4 October 2019
I was shocking at the tennis this morning – hopefully getting my bad match out of the way ahead of the proper match next week – whereas Dominic was terrific – hopefully going from strength to strength and then next week yet further strength.
Janie was fashionably late for the Middlesex event although mostly for the unfashionable reason that she had a power cut at Noddyland while doing the washing, which set her back time-wise. Then her cab didn’t show up.
Undaunted, Janie arrived ahead of the meal while Gus was doing the introductions.
Our table included Westy, Brigit, Geoff Norris, Charles Robbins, Jane Saxton and David Kendix – only the latter escaping Colin and his new iPhone camera towards the end of the event:
But before we got to the point that there was all that detritus on our table, we dined on this:
After the awards, we were entertained by a highly skilled and entertaining magician. Some wags would suggest that he must have used magic to get our cricketers consistently to catch his deck of cards as it was thrown around for one of the tricks, but I’m not that sort of wag. The magician did somehow manage to extract a £20 note from Angus for his last trick – that could only possibly have been done by magic – the rest of that outstanding trick paled into insignificance after that initial piece of sorcery.
It seems to me that this event, only recently revamped as an awards lunch in this style, is going from strength to strength each year. The tone of the event is a superb mix of professionalism and clubiness; very much in keeping with Middlesex’s ethos.