Dumbo’s Near Death Experience, Early May, 2023

Daisy comforts Dumbo who thinks he’s being taken to The Scrubbs (behind)

Dumbo The Suzuki Jimny had been a bit under the weather ever since his visit to Sussex in March with an unbalanced new tyre:

The garage couldn’t find anything wrong with him, but he felt a bit sluggish, especially when attempting to drive uphill.

Dumbo’s Adventures In Essex, 2 May 2023

I had arranged to have a couple of practice games with my doubles partner Howard, ahead of the Dedanists’ Trophy this year. One was at Lord’s in April, the second we arranged at Howard’s home court, Prested Hall in Essex.

Noddyland sunset with Dumbo just visible in the foreground

Did the above stunning sunset outside our window foreshadow trouble soon to come? No.

However, almost as soon as I got going at pace in the direction of Prested, Dumbo’s amber hazard light came on and I sensed the sluggishness above 50 mph. By that time I was committed to the M25 route, on which going above 50-60 mph is rarely an option anyway.

A good game of real tennis doubles with a really friendly bunch of people. Then after coffee and a bun, I set off on a Byrd watching trail.

Ingatestone Hall (closed on a Tuesday)

First stop, Ingatestone Hall, but I had picked the wrong day of the week. A large coach outside with a waiting driver suggested that some pilgrims had managed a private view that day. The place was the home of the Petre family. Sir William Petre even has his own Byrd Pavan & Galliard.

Just a few miles down the road, Stondon Massey, where William Byrd lived. I took some refreshments in the pub and got my bearings – then drove on to the 12th Century Church where Byrd was almost certainly laid to rest.

Hey – are you looking at my Byrd?

I decided to limp home on A-roads and the North Circular rather than risk Dumbo on the M25, although by the time I had filled up with petrol the amber light had gone off and Dumbo seemed less sluggish.

Interim Verdict On Dumbo – Nothing To See Here, 3 May 2023

Dumbo seemed fine taking me and Janie to Boston Manor to play modern tennis.

Well played, Dumbo

We took him in to see Derek at Smallbills who surmised that the amber warning light was probably a falsey, as it rectified itself. This seemed logical.

Next Day, Absolutely Fine Until…

I headed off to Lord’s the next day for a short lesson and game of real tennis. All seemed fine with Dumbo until I turned onto the A40 at Gypsy Corner, at which point, in the middle lane, Dumbo decided that 5mph was his absolute maximum.

There are times of day when 5mph on the A40 would be just fine. This wasn’t one of those times. The road was not so busy as to keep the traffic at a snail’s pace, but busy enough to make my predicament hair-raising. I had the presence of mind to put my hazards on and quite quickly managed to get into the slow lane. I also worked out that, unless I stopped completely, I should limp to Savoy Circus and turn off at Old Oak Common Lane, from whence I could hopefully limp onto Du Cane Road and take stock there.

Taking stock basically comprised paying for Dumbo to park for the rest of the day and going about my planned business for a few hours by Uber.

Picture produced in collaboration with Dall-E

Dall-E’s image choices for my description reminds me that the situation could have been much worse. Also reminds me that I should have specified “Black Suzuki Jimny”.

Mr Uber got me to Lord’s and on court just five minutes late and I had a good game after my short lesson. My friend Bill, who is a fellow Ealingista, kindly gave me a lift back to Dumbo, from whence I phoned the AA, grabbed some refreshments from the local cafe and waited.

The AA app repeatedly told me that someone would be with me in 40 minutes…for about an hour.

An Impromptu London Cricket Trust Inspection On Wormwood Scrubbs

There is an adage that, in London, you are never more than 10 feet away from a rat. This adage is almost certainly untrue. But, in similar vein, I started to wonder whether you are never more than 10 minutes walk from a London Cricket Trust (LCT) cricket facility.

My trusty smart phone confirmed my suspicions – indeed I was only 10 minutes walk away from the non-turf pitch we (LCT) installed on Wormwood Scrubbs a couple of years ago.

With a 40 minute wait still showing on my app and a yearning to stretch my legs and see a cricket pitch, I strode away from Dumbo, walked the length of the Scrubbs and inspected the pitch.

The Scrubbs was very quiet around 5:30 pm

Then back to Dumbo and a few minutes later a nice AA chap named Mathew who concluded that Dumbo would need the full recovery treatment. Daisy was on standby to recover me and take me back to the house where we awaited the call from the recovery vehicle man. It was about 10:00 when we got that call.

Janie reassures Dumbo despite Wormwood Scrubbs Nick in the background

Dumbo was very scared when he was being hauled onto the recovery vehicle. I think he imagined that he was in trouble and being taken to Wormwood Scrubbs nick. (Dumbo does have some previous, albeit misunderstandings, with the law).

In truth Dumbo was being taken back to Smallbills, who had been forewarned to expect to find him outside their gates in the morning.

Dumbo Redux, Queen’s & Cityland, 10 & 11 May 2023

Coincidentally, word reached me that Dumbo was all better when I was at Queen’s, playing in the tournament for which I had been preparing on those ill-fated trips.

“A completely collapsed cat” apparently, but no animals were hurt in the repairing of Dumbo. A relief that the problem was readily identifiable and entirely fixable.

It was a day of coincidences at Queen’s. It’s a wonderful thing that e-tickets can be supplied to you through the ether wherever in the world you might be. Janie’s and my tickets for the Wednesday of Queen’s came through to me while I was at Queen’s.

I thought I’d pop outside to take a look at my seats, but, like a 1970s hotel in Spain, my seats were still work in progress.

Come the day they’ll be lovely.

The next day, I rescued Dumbo in the morning. The whole street must have wanted to welcome him home, because for the first time in as long as I can remember, the parking space outside my “Cityland” residence was waiting for him.

Sluggish no more – please keep going, Dumbo.

Dumbo, One Of The Unsung Heroes Of The Pandemic Volunteer Effort, Reflects On 2020, 1 January 2021

Dumbo: seriously cool…and honest

Dumbo The Suzuki Jimny is an occasional writer, here on Ogblog and also at King Cricket. Dumbo’s writings are more widely read than those of most automobiles. Dumbo only ever refers to me as Ged and to Janie as Daisy. Why Dumbo has chosen to write a “review of the year” public message is a mystery, but 2020 was a strange year in so many ways.

2020 started badly for me. I acquired a squeak that would not go away. It was incredibly loud and hugely embarrassing – heads would turn in the street at the sound of me coming and going.

A huge team at my car hospital struggled to get to the bottom of it. Ged and Daisy started dropping hints about my possible retirement. It got as bad as that.

Eventually, just before lockdown, thank goodness Derek, Colin, & Marlon performed a pioneering operation on my viscera, which solved my problem.

Just as well I got better in mid March, because within a few weeks I was being called upon to do voluntary work.

In theory I was on call for NHS Volunteer Responders from early in the pandemic, but no gigs were coming through at first. So Ged and Daisy signed us up to do FoodCycle gigs once or twice a week, which we have continued to do throughout the pandemic.

My copious rear (as Ged describes it) comes in pretty handy, especially for the FoodCycle gigs.

It wasn’t long before the NHS Volunteer Responder gigs started to come through as well. That and FoodCycle kept us really busy through spring, summer and into the autumn.

Just occasionally, it got a bit much; like the time the NHS Volunteer Responder app went into overdrive…

…and the time Daisy inadvertently switched on the voice recognition for the FoodCycle Circuit Teams app and mentioned Madagascar…

Ged was busy with work the last few weeks of the year, so we did a bit less volunteering in the run up to Christmas, but during that time the pandemic got a lot worse again and the need out there started to rocket up, so we started NHS Volunteer Responding again on Christmas Day and have done lots of gigs since.

My proudest moment of the year was just a few days ago, when Ged and I went to the Co-op on Hanger Hill to get some shopping for a person who is having to isolate. (There seem to be a lot of those at the moment.)

Three young fellas from the Tesla Show Room & Shop around the corner came out of the Co-op just before Ged came out with the shopping. The young fellas stopped to admire me and one of them said, “I think these cars are pretty cool”. Ged overheard him and said, “seriously cool, not just pretty cool”.

So I don’t think Ged & Daisy will be dropping hints about my retirement again any time soon. I think we’re going to be pretty busy with NHS Volunteer Responding & FoodCycle for the next few months at least.

Which is pretty seriously cool.

The Sound and The Fury, Four Versions of One Trip To Edgbaston, 26 August 2016

king-cricket-logo copyClick here to read my four-part literary report on a visit to Birmingham/Edgbaston in September 2015; The Sound and the Fury, as published on King Cricket.

For some reason, during 2015, I felt motivated mostly to have my artifacts report cricket matches for King Cricket. It started with the idea of Dumbo the Suzuki Jimny reporting on his first cricket match, in Dublin, May 2015 and grew from there.

By the end of the season, Ivan Meagreheart, my smart phone, was also an occasional reporter.

Ivan The Smart Phone Reporting
Ivan The Smart Phone Reporting

For my visit to Birmingham to see best part of three days of the Warwickshire v Middlesex match at Edgbaston (early September 2015) and to get some business visits in to boot, I decided to go for short versions of the same story told from four different perspectives, starting with Benjy the Baritone Ukulele and ending with Ged himself.

The result is this short literary “masterpiece” which I thought King Cricket might choose to serialise but instead he (probably wisely) chose to publish the whole piece as a a magnum opus just ahead of the bank holiday – here.

A Few Days in Birmingham & Then Home, Including Warwickshire v Middlesex Days 1 to 3, Edgbaston, 1 to 4 September 2015

I wrote up this trip in literary style for King Cricket. The piece was published here, on 26 August 2016.

I more or less explained it – here – on Ogblog once it was published.

The trip was simply three days in Edgbaston, staying at the Eaton Hotel (first visit there). Straight to the ground day one, walking in to short business meetings in Birmingham proper on each of days two and three before returning to London early on day four for one last business meeting of the week.

Simples. Until Benjy, Ivan, Dumbo and Ged got their teeth into it.

 

 

 

Work Rest and Play described by Dumbo, King Cricket Report, 12 August 2015

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.

Picture from one of Dumbo’s other adventures, on a day which did not go quite so well.

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.

 

A Net At Lord’s After Dumbo Nearly Gets Into Trouble, As Reported By Dumbo on King Cricket, 22 July 2015

King Cricket published Dumbo’s report of almost surreal happenings on the way to Lord’s, click here.

My conversation with the police and Dumbo’s paranoia combined makes Kafka read like a level-headed guy’s straightforward narrative.

An irony of all this, as I write this up for Ogblog some nine months after the event, is that Dumbo is now a surprisingly regular feature at Lord’s, what with the Middlesex strategy (work) and real tennis (rest and play).

Was-It-Because-Im-Black
Was It Because I’m Black?

For collectors of the Dumbo pieces (there must be loads of you out there – don’t be shy about it), this is Dumbo’s third report; the previous two in reverse order are:

Dumbo fans can also rest assured that this piece is not the last word from Dumbo; there are two more 2015 pieces by Dumbo which will be Ogblogged once King Cricket has done his worst with them.

Ireland With Dumbo – 7 May to 19 May 2015 – Preamble

With my mother’s condition worsening over the autumn of 2014, we made no plans for a holiday proper but did plan at least to go walking in Ireland.  After mum’s passing in early 2015, we briefly considered more ambitious plans but then thought better of it; I/we had been through enough and had lots still to sort out.  The plan to walk in Ireland come springtime was still a sensible one.

Glossary for less-informed readers: Ged and Daisy are long-standing nicknames for me and Janie.  Dumbo is my little Suzuki Jimny.  He joined the family in September 2014; this trip to Ireland was his first serious journey with us.

IMG_0159

Dumbo even embarked on his own writing career on this Ireland trip, guest writing for King Cricket, click here.

Photographs from the whole of our trip to Ireland are gathered in an album on Flickr, click here.