Lavender – Ian Louis Harris

A Memorable Day For The Happy Young Couple Of The Moment Plus A Major Sporting Rivalry Unfolds, 19 May 2018

It’s a rare day in the social calendar that includes two such a special occasions; one for the happy young couple of the moment and the other a major sporting rivalry unfolding.

But 19 May 2018 will go down in history as just such a day.

No, I’m not talking about the Heghan nuptials – more than enough has already been written and spoken about that for a lifetime. I’m talking about Escamillo Escapillo and Lavender having diner at Il Baretto with me and Daisy…

…and of course I’m not talking about the FA Cup final between Chelsea and Manchester United – surely that is only of limited interest to most people. No, I am talking about the intense rivalry between me and Daisy on the modern tennis court. A battle at which Daisy had, in recent months, seemed to have found an upper hand, but just these last couple of weeks I seem to have found my mojo again. Some extra gears, decisive play and a brutal finish – believe me you had to be there truly to sense the sheer thrill of it all.

Anyway, to Il Baretto. Most unusually, we all arrived a few minutes ahead of the appointed hour. Central London seemed surprisingly easy to navigate that evening – word was that there was congestion to the South West (out Windsor way) and the North West (Wembley direction) for some reasons.

Escamillo Escapillo looks especially happy in the above picture, as he has received a birthday present in the form of the documents you can see by his elbow – tickets to Middlesex v The Australians – which will be the next outing for the four of us.

The food and wine at Il Baretto is consistently good. Janie and I shared some calamari and fried zucchini to start, while the youngsters had some very tasty-looking bruschetta. For mains, Lavender had risotto, Daisy had tuna steak, Escamillo Escapillo had sirloin steak and I had grilled sea bream.

We sort-of went our own way with wine – Daisy and I persevering with Riesling while Escamillo Escapillo switched to Pinot Nero. The wine waiter was a bit farcical – he told me that he had to replace the Riesling we had chosen with an alternative, which he promised was “better” and did taste absolutely fine, but he refused to show us what we were drinking. Then when Escamillo and I did the recommended wine match with deserts, he seemed unable to work out which wine should go with which desert…he even had two goes at it. Minor stuff – more amusing than irritating.

I haven’t the foggiest idea what I’ve been drinking

Janie chose a desert named “When Harry Met Meghan” which comprised a fruity, tasty-looking small tart and a long cocktail. Very apt.

Daisy indulging in her “When Harry…” It is an optical illusion making my cup of tiramisu look three times the size of Daisy’s pud

What else can I say? We all had a great time and went our separate ways at a respectable hour – Daisy and I needed to prepare to do battle on the tennis court again first thing Sunday. (Same result, seeing as how you’ve asked. Thank you, Mr Netchord, for the final point.)

Rumours that we four were all seen crossing the road from Il Baretto to the Chiltern Firehouse and then seen partying all night with the younger Royal guests…are simply not true. Fake news. Who starts these wretched rumours, that’s what I want to know?

Sunday Lunch/Dinner With Escamillo Escapillo, Lavender, Sue and Alan, The Plough At Cadsden, 15 October 2017

What could be nicer than a family gathering in rural Buckinghamshire for the Sunday repast?

Escamillo Escapillo and Lavender suggested a few possible dates to us. We chose this one because Escamillo’s aunt and uncle, Sue and Alan, were going to be staying with them. We’d met Sue and Alan at the wedding and got on well with them, so this seemed like a great opportunity for a gathering.

The youngsters chose The Plough at Cadsden – just a few miles up the road from their place. Neither Daisy nor I had heard of it, but according to its web site it is “probably the most famous Pub in England” and “[t]he Pub of Choice of Prime Ministers for many decades”.

Indeed, Escamillo took great pride in reporting that The Plough was the very pub in which David Cameron, famously, accidentally abandoned one of his children, a few days after Escamillo and Lavender’s wedding. Daisy and I made a mental note of how many people were in our party and therefore how many people we would needed to count as we left, to ensure that we were still complete.

We had a short debate on what to call the meal in question; lunch or dinner. With three Lancastrians and three southerners at the table, that match was always going to end as a draw. Given the portion sizes in The Plough. it was basically going to be a one proper meal day for all of us, whatever we called it.

We all decided to have a main and a desert, on the advice of Escamillo and Lavender who warned us about the portion sizes and suggested that the desserts were especially sproggy and good; they were right. The main course specials of the day revolved around roasts (surprise surprise on a Sunday). Daisy plumped for lamb while I plumped for pork. The others went for beef (mostly) or chicken. I went for the death by chocolate brownie and ice cream dessert which was very yummy and was the majority choice. Daisy went for apple pie and custard, which she said was also very good.

At one point Patrick Moore came into the conversation. I mentioned that I had interviewed him in my youth and that I did not remember him being all that impressive. Daisy told me off afterwards for the unnecessarily churlish-sounding comment. In fact, a few days later, I dredged my memory, diary and recording from that 1981 interview, Ogblogging my Patrick Moore experience, including the recording of the interview and including a recantation of my “not all that impressive” opinion – click here.

We talked a lot about cricket over lunch; Alan and Sue are very keen on it. Their reminiscences about the Lancashire leagues of old and their thoughts about the London Cricket Trust project, with which I’m now involved, were very interesting and insightful. We also all talked about county championship and test match cricket rather a lot.

Here is a photograph of all of us at table after the meal, with thanks to the nice waitress.

I am delighted to report that, on leaving The Plough, we took numerical stock and all six of us were still together. No-one got abandoned in The Plough or even in the grounds outside it when we all drove off. This I think proves beyond doubt that we could run the country better than David Cameron and his bunch of cronies.

Anyway, we’d had a really enjoyable meal and get together. I hope we get a chance to get together again soon.

Southport Day Three: County Cricket En Famille Plus A Blast From My Keele Past, 11 June 2017

It has to be said that, up until this day, our attempts over the years, with Lavender and Escamillo Escapillo, to watch Middlesex and Lancashire play cricket, had been soggy experiences to say the least.

I wrote up our first attempt, in a light-hearted-stylee, back in 2009, for King Cricket – click here. (That day is also Ogblogged – here).

Indeed, previous attempts by just me and Escamillo Escapillo to watch our respective counties play each other had been thwarted for one reason or another until last season, where we managed to squeeze in a half day – Ogblogged here.

So after yesterday’s washout – delightfully filled with activities in Liverpool instead – it was a joy to see blue skies on the Sunday morning and a forecast that suggested little or no interruptions to play.

We aimed to get to the ground in time for the start, but hadn’t counted on the local Sunday trading laws, so although M&S (other sources of sandwiches, crisps and water are available) opens at 10:30, it doesn’t actually open the tills until 11:00.

Shopping is not something I like to do; I like to buy things I want/need, I don’t like to shop. So 10:35 to 11:00 that morning was not the most enjoyable/memorable part of the day. I won’t be making that mistake again on a Sunday morning.

Still, we had the Escamillo-mobile on stand-by, so we were still inside the ground and wandering around by 11:20.

Cricket En Famille – But Who Is The Third Man?

We took up good front row seats in our chosen position quite quickly. Soon after that, Daisy got quite shirty with me because I didn’t want to start drinking at 12:00 on a Sunday. Escamillo Escapillo was driving anyway and I knew what was coming later, so we left it to the girls to start drinking that early in the day.

There were quite a few Middlesex supporters around on the Sunday – some came and sat quite close to us. Soon after lunch was called by the umpires, Barmy Kev came and joined us for a while.

Barmy Kev didn’t take it upon himself to remind me that I owe him a drink or three and I don’t need reminding. But I didn’t want to drink that early in the day; I knew what was coming later, plus I didn’t want to reciprocate Barmy Kev’s generous hospitality at Lord’s with the less salubrious (I really mean less expensive) offerings at the Trafalgar Ground.

Meanwhile Escamillo Escapillo and Lavender were both as happy as Larry; the former because Lancashire were doing well in the match, the latter because EE was as happy as Larry and she was getting a bit merry with Daisy on the fermented grape juice.

“So who is the third man?” I hear readers up and down the land asking, as we are now several paragraphs on from me setting that puzzle.

The third man is Frank Dillon, a good friend from the Keele days who lives in Merseyside. The reason for his appearance is partially explained in an Ogblog piece I wrote a few weeks ago about an old school-friends gathering – click here.

If that makes no sense to you, click the blithering link where the strangeness is explained. The long and short of it is that John Easom at Keele Alumni Central put me and Frank back in touch with each other and when I told Frank that we would be coming to Southport for the cricket in a couple of week’s time, he responded by saying that he had been half-planning to show up at that match anyway.

We’d bought plenty of sandwiches for everyone, while Frank wanted us to know unequivocally that, while we were visitors on his patch, he was going to buy the drinks aplenty. Perhaps there is some sort of by-law about this for Merseyside.

Escamillo Escapillo was becoming even happier than Larry, despite sticking strictly to driver’s lemonade, as Lancashire’s position went from good to seemingly impregnable. Lavender likewise for both of the reasons expressed earlier.

As tea came round, so the young couple said their goodbyes to us, as planned; they were heading home that afternoon/evening, whereas Daisy and I were staying on the extra night.

Frank said that he too would only stick around for another hour or so after the young couple left, but that was plenty of time for us to finish catching up with some of our news, swap some old stories and discuss the current political maelstrom.

Cricket, wine, water, memories, news, political maelstrom…

In addition to his generosity with the drinks, Frank seems to have decided that I should be the curator of his Keele picture memorabilia, handing me an envelope with a few photographs, all of which will find their way onto Ogblog when I write up the relevant stories but can now all (all seven) be seen on Flickr, click here.

The picture of 1980/81 committee members (including Frank) with Robert Plant I have already added to my Ogblog piece on that story – here.

It was a really lovely day – at last Daisy and I have spent some time actually watching cricket with Lavender and Escamillo Escapillo – indeed it had been a lovely weekend with them. The years just fell away chatting with Frank; I do hope to see him again soon, probably in London next time.

After Frank left, Daisy and I stuck around for a few more minutes until it started to get a bit chilly again. We wandered round to the hospitality tent and got a chance to say goodbye to Keith Hayhurst and one or two others who hadn’t been around when we said our goodbyes there on Friday – click here to read about election day and Day One of this match.

Southport Day Two: A Day Out In Liverpool, Tate Liverpool, International Slavery Museum, The Cavern Club and More, 10 June 2017

On the evening of 9 June, when Daisy and I returned from the Trafalgar Ground, Southport, we had an excellent dinner with Charlotte and Chris (Lavender and Escamillo Escapillo) in The Bold Hotel restaurant.

We agreed that the weather forecast for Saturday looked shocking and (I thought) agreed that a day out in Liverpool would be a good substitute for sitting around in (probably) vain hope of any cricket. We also agreed to liaise in the morning.

About 9:00 a.m. Daisy received a text from Lavender to say that, as the weather was so poor, they had decided to take the train to Blackpool for the day.

“What’s Blackpool like?” asked Daisy.

“I’ve never been on a wet June day and I’m not about to either,” was my reply, “what the hell was wrong with the Liverpool idea; I thought we’d all agreed a plan last night?”

Daisy phoned Lavender to ascertain that she had, in fact, confused the names Blackpool and Liverpool. The whole of the north of England is just one huge swathe of vaguely-named towns and cities to some people.

So we were as one with the plans and headed off to Southport railway station. For the princely sum of £5.10 each we were awarded the freedom of the Wirral and Northern Lines for the day.

We ran into some Middlesex supporters as we went to board our train. They seemed to think there might be play from 11:30 and wondered why we were fleeing town. The truth will have dawned on them as the day panned out – there was no cricket at all that day.

From Liverpool Central, we headed towards Albert Docks; our first stop being the Tate Liverpool. Daisy took some photos along the way.

We were really impressed with the Tate Liverpool and spent quite some time there.

We started with the Tracey Emin and William Blake in Focus exhibition. I’m not 100% sure about the connection between Blake and Emin – this seemed to me more a marketing ploy than a genuine connection – but I had never actually seen the Tracey Emin bed before, nor had I ever seen so many William Blake pictures gathered in one place. Well worthwhile.

We then went through the upper floor (i.e. same level as the Emin/Blake) of Constellations – which is the main regular exhibition at Tate Liverpool. We all enjoyed that enormously but felt in need of a sit down and some refreshment at that stage, so we went to the cafe for a while and then looked at the rest of Constellations.

Buoyed by our refreshments, we wandered round the block to the Beatles Experience, where there were long queues and a rather touristic look to the place, so we decided to go to the Cavern Club instead but, before leaving the docks area, to take Mike O’Farrell’s advice and visit the International Slavery Museum . I’m really glad we did.

I find it hard to try and articulate how that International Slavery Museum made me/us feel. It is very interesting. Some of it is shocking, not least the matter-of-fact inventories and documentation that makes it so clear that people were seen as commercial commodities. But much of first section of the museum is a wealth of information on the African culture from which so many of the slaves came and much of the last section is a celebration of the modern culture that has emerged through the descendants of former slaves.

One especially thought-provoking section is about modern slavery – in particular sex workers – which reminded me that slavery in all its horrible forms has not entirely gone.

Between the museums and the Cavern Club, we wanted to see Judy Chicago’s Fixing A Hole mural, at Stanley Dock near the Titanic Hotel. We took a cab there, on the advice of some helpful police-folk:

Judy Chicago’s Beatles-Inspired Mural “Fixing A Hole”

We didn’t hang around in the plush Titanic Hotel, nor the Stanley Dock. We were told we’d have no trouble getting a cab to the Cavern up on Great Howard Street, but we walked 5 minutes or more along that road without a sniff of a cab.

Chris cleverly suggested that we try Regent Road (along the side of the Mersey) instead. That worked rapidly…and we landed up with a Scouse cabby from central casting who told us his life story, how many he smokes and yet how far he walks, tales of seeing John Lennon’s ghost, everything he thought we ought to see in Liverpool…you get the picture. He was great.

That late afternoon slot on a Saturday at The Cavern Club turns out to be great fun. We saw The Shakers – one of the house bands.

Yes, it is possible for Ged to look this spaced out after just a few sips of wine and no narcotics, honestly, officer.

As always, Janie was keen to demonstrate her skills at Sixties-style dancing in a hippy-hippy-shake-stylee:

These pictures look even better in the iPhone mini vid mode, but you should get the idea from the still. Escamillo Escapillo feigns not being with Daisy.

As we leave, Daisy chats with security but does not have her collar felt.

You can see all the photos from the Southport/Liverpool trip, including a couple of Daisy’s well dodgy vids, by linking through to Flickr, here.

We decided to head for a train between 18:00 and 18:15 to get us back to Southport in time to freshen up before dinner.

Dinner was at a family-run Italian restaurant named Volare, about 30 seconds crawl on hands and knees (not that we did it that way) from the hotel. The food was excellent and the staff helpful/friendly. The highlight (or perhaps low-light) of the evening was towards the end, when the staff with great fanfare played “Happy Birthday To You” at full volume over the sound system and presented a rather embarrassed-looking lady at the table behind me with a candle-lit tiramisu.

Unbeknown to me, Daisy signalled to the staff that it was also my birthday (which of course it wasn’t), so five minutes later they went through the rigmarole again for me, much to my discomfort and the glee of the other three. I shall exact my revenge; don’t know where, don’t know when, but the dish will be served cold.

In truth, we’d done many interesting things and had a lot of fun that day, despite most of it being distinctly “Plan B” activity.

Scott & Ami’s Wedding, The Egypt Mill, Nailsworth, 18 March 2017

A quick one or two for Dutch courage before the wedding ceremony

Let’s not talk about the five hour marathon packing session and dusky drive to Gloucestershire the day before. Nor is there much to report on the very enjoyable dinner with Tony, Liz, Chris (Escamillo Escapillo) and Charlotte (Lavender) on the Friday evening at the Egypt Mill.

No, let’s get straight to the wedding day itself, before the ceremony. I chatted with the groom, Scott, (Manolete) on the right and his best man brother Paul (Belmonte) with baby Jack, centre.

I wasn’t drinking two glasses; I was holding Daisy’s glass while she took the pictures. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Daisy’s big sister, Hilary (Ermintrude) came round looking for Chris (Carlos Aruzza), who was chatting with his brothers and sisters, more or less in front of our eyes.

“I think he’s on his fifth or sixth glass of wine, underneath that table over there”, I said, pointing the other way.

“Oh God, he isn’t, is he?”, said Hilary, in max-stress mode. Perhaps I’d chosen the wrong moment and the wrong person for that particular joke.

After that, we were soon ushered in for the wedding itself.

Hilary and Chris, reunited, also with Paul and baby Jack

The registrar told us that we could take pictures as we pleased, but that the pictures should not be posted on social media until after the celebrations. This statement caused some confusion among some of the more senior guests, unfamiliar with the term “social media”.

Scott decided to explain in simple terms what social media is.

Social media…right…it’s, like…Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and stuff…

It was probably just as well that Scott explained it, otherwise several senior folk who didn’t even know what the term social media means, mostly probably would have, inadvertently, posted lots of stuff to social media during the embargo period.

Meanwhile I, who had not given the idea of live Ogblogging the wedding a moment’s thought until that announcement, suddenly felt an almost insatiable urge to post stuff to social media that very second. But I resisted.

Scott was clearly in contemplative, nay perhaps even deep meditative mood during the official ceremony itself.

Stay awake, Scott, this is your wedding ceremony

The wedding ceremony itself went pretty much entirely according to plan. There was a short round of applause when we got through the “does anyone know of any reason why this wedding should not take place” bit.

The registrar asked Scott to confirm Amy’s name at one point, claiming that Scott might not have said it absolutely right the first time. Daisy, I and everyone we spoke to afterwards were convinced that Scott got it right first time; we agreed that the matter should have gone to the TV umpire rather than Scott having to replay the point.

Little Penny, Paul and Mish’s first child, was the flower girl for this wedding, sitting up front with the maids of honour. Penny asked lots of questions during the ceremony which was rather sweet.

Reception after the ceremony; no further questions from the flower girl…

Then, a reception and of course the official photo shoot. Has to be done, but not my favourite bit at weddings. In any case, that day in Nailsworth, it was quite chilly standing around waiting for your slot.

Penny treated the photo shoot with due respect…

After the shoot, the very tasty wedding breakfast, served after some short but sweet speeches, including a very succinct and eloquent best man jobbie from Belmonte Paul:

There was just about enough time between the meal and the dancing for Daisy and I to dash back to our room and change into our dancing outfits.

Like many good sports matches, the dance was a game of two halves. First up was a live band, Men@Ease, fronted by Jerry (Ami’s dad) and his partner Christine. They performed mostly 60’s and 70’s covers and were very good indeed.

I thought it was a really nice touch from Ami’s dad, doing an hour or more’s set on her wedding day. From Ami’s point of view, of course, it eliminated the possibility of “dad dancing misery”.

Realising that someone needed to do embarrassing dad-type dancing (otherwise the whole event wouldn’t have been a proper wedding), I picked up that baton, so Daisy and I danced like crazy for most of that set.

Mercifully (or sadly) we have no photos from that part of the evening…yet. The official pictures, we are assured, will be ready soon and will no doubt have caught me and Daisy in the act.

After the live music, a DJ picked up the mantle with some more up to date sounds. Daisy and I continued to dance for quite some while, teaching the youngsters a thing or two about stamina and modern dance moves…some moves so modern that the youngsters had probably never seen anything quite like it before.

Anyway, the whole event was super.

It’s a shame we don’t (yet) have any pictures of Daisy (Janie) to show you from the wedding. But we do have, from 2013, a rare bit of selfie-style-video from the very first time that Ged and Daisy met Ami, when we went down to Bristol almost exactly four years before the wedding. Someone had shown Janie how to use the video feature of her smart phone and the rest is history.

Zaha Hadid Early Paintings and Drawings, Serpentine Sackler Gallery, Followed By Dinner At 35 New Cavendish, 27 January 2017

London Aquatics Centre
Photo by Bert Seghers – Own work – Creative Commons CC0

Unusually, it was me who spotted this exhibition, in The Week, suggesting to Janie (who loves Zaha Hadid’s designs) that we should find time to see this exhibition before it comes off.

As we’d arranged to meet Lavender (Charlie) and Escamillo Escapillo (Chris) for dinner in Marylebone on the Friday, it seemed sensible for us to finish a bit early and take in the exhibition ahead of dinner.

The plan worked brilliantly. We arranged for Janie to get to mine at 16:00, which meant that she actually arrived just before 17:00, which in truth still gave us bags of time to see the small exhibition at leisure, wend our way gently to Marylebone on foot and still be a bit early for dinner.

Here is a link to the Serpentine Galleries resource on the exhibition.

We both loved it. There is a book to accompany the exhibition specifically on these early works – click here or the image below for the Amazon link:

I bought Janie the above book and also the Taschen one – click here for Amazon link – which covers the later works well.

Janie was originally a bit reluctant to walk all the way from the Serpentine to Marylebone, as it was a chilly evening, but once we got walking, she realised that it is a pleasing walk through Bayswater and Marylebone; worth it.

We had bags of time, so took in some shop windows and even open shops along the way. Neals Yard for some posh smellies and a bizarre tea shop with fancy tea pots, where Janie was finally able to replace a little glass pot in the style she likes to serve to her clients…jees she spoils them.

Still early, we decided to retire to 35 New Cavendish, aka The Cavendish – click here and wait for the others with a glass of wine in our hands.

As we walked in, we saw, sitting very prominently at a table in the bar downstairs, Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, holding court with some other besuited gentleman. I’m pretty sure he was spouting some very large numbers, but through the buzz of the downstairs bar I couldn’t tell if he was saying, “twelve billion” or “twelve trillion”. Nor could I tell whether that was pounds, dollars, euros or Indonesian Rupiah. Nor did I hear what the massive number referred to. Still, it’s always good to have heard it straight from the horse’s mouth.

Janie and I were grateful to be shown straight to our table upstairs, which was a large one and upstairs was much quieter at that hour. Soon enough the other two arrived.

Here’s a link to the menu – not sure how often it changes of course.

Janie started with foie gras, I started with tuna three ways and the youngsters started with scallops. Janie and I both had the signature 100 layers lasagne, while Lavender had the lobster tagliolini and Escamillo Escapillo the sea bass. The food was all very good indeed.

Neither of the youngsters were drinking much; Lavender not at all (tut-tut; dry January hadn’t been invented when we were her age) and Escamillo Escapillo just one glass ahead of driving home from the station. Janie and I felt like lushes by downing a couple of glasses each over the evening.

Everyone was on good form, so we had a good chat about life, the universe and everything without letting much family-sh*t enter the conversation. Quite right on a Friday evening out too.

Kindly, the young couple absolutely insisted on picking up the bill, citing the “our turn” protocol, despite torrents of protest, in particular from Janie, who knows how to dole out generosity far better than she knows how to receive it. At one point I thought we might need the Governor of the Bank of England to arbitrate, but Janie eventually caved in and in any case Mark Carney had probably long-since left the place.

It was a very enjoyable late afternoon and evening all round.

Dinner At Amuse Bouche and Claude’s Kitchen, 5 June 2015

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.

Three Evenings Of Nets At Lord’s, 18 February, 26 February and 12 March 2010

Having ascertained that Escamillo (Lavender’s beau) was keen on cricket, it only seemed polite to have a few nets with him at Lord’s that winter.

The diary is a bit sparse on what we actually did:

18 February Lord’s @18:00;

26 February Nets & Dinner 6:00;

12 March (Nets) 7:00 to 8:00.

The e-mail is not much additional help – me to E 14 March:

Very much enjoyed Friday evening nets and supper at Harry’s. Many thanks for treating us to the latter.

In the nets, I have a feeling we worked with Moses (Hallam Mosely) on most of those sessions. He taught me how to pivot to get a bit more umph on my deliveries.

I’m pretty sure Chas was still injured at that time, which is why he didn’t join us for nets that winter. My correspondence with him around that time is prely business related.

I’m pretty sure the girls joined us for the last two – i.e. both of the Friday evenings. Daisy recalls a restaurant in Marylebone on 26 February – we might dig out her diary or trawl Lavender’s memory for the details, but I think we treated the youngsters that night and then they treated us to Harry’s 12 March.

Further details might follow, if Daisy’s diary or the youngsters’ memories bear more fruit.

Postscript:

Not Marylebone 26 February, but The Cow on Westbourne Park Road – well remembered Escamillo & Lavender. Yes, we all agree, Harry’s for the second evening together.

Middlesex v Lancashire, Lord’s, 26 August 2009

Following my marking days at Lord’s earlier in the month, this was judgement day.

But it was also the day of the Pro40 day/night match between Middlesex and Lancashire, so Janie and I arranged to meet Charlie and Chris at Lord’s.

The best laid plans…but the weather had other ideas.

I wrote a report on this one for King Cricket – click here. Lavender, Escamillo Escapillo and Stentor Baritone all make their inaugural appearances in this report, which got some fun comments too.

Just in case anything ever happens to King Cricket, I have scraped the piece to Ogblog – only click the link below if the link above doesn’t work:

Middlesex v Lancashire Pro 40 match report

We made the most of it and still had an enjoyable evening of sorts.

Faces In The Crowd by Leo Butler, Royal Court Upstairs, 25 October 2008

This was a very memorable, very intimate play.

The set was effectively a small studio apartment which we, the tiny audience, was observing from above. You really almost felt you were in the apartment with the couple. And the couple were discussing very intimate stuff.

Official London Theatre maintains a basic resource on this production – click here.

Janie and I took Charlie (Lavender) with us to this one, which I think she enjoyed very much. We’re struggling to remember what we did for grub on this occasion; we think we possibly ate at the Royal Court itself.

Definitely more plus than minus for us.

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