At Lord’s With Daisy For A Middlesex v Sussex Double Header, 29 May 2025

Intelligence radiating off his face…

Daisy likes these Lord’s double-headers, where you get a nice, reasonably quiet women’s match in the afternoon, followed by an increasingly noisy and boozy men’s match in the evening. The Hundred is her preferred choice of such double-headers, following a confusing experience in 2023, watching Sunrisers in May, as reported 18 months later on King Cricket:

This year, the women’s team has reverted to being Middlesex Women, so the idea of a Middlesex double-header of Middlesex v Sussex made a bit more sense and attracted us to attend.

Naturally Daisy’s favourite sun deck was the location of choice. Naturally we brought lashings of ginger beer with us and resolved to make a meal of the Long Room Bar Baps and salad (gammon again, seeing as you were going to ask).

Unlike Daisy, I prepared for this event inadequately, by assuming that at least one of my Middlesex caps was in my Middlesex bag. Neither of them were. In need of head protection, and with Daisy having doubled-up in the head gear department, I tried to look sensible in Daisy’s floppy hat.

In truth, I was struggling to look sensible in that hat.

Eventually I gave up trying to look sensible in that hat:

Middlesex Women dealt out a thrashing to Sussex Women, in truth. Click here for the scorecard.

I took a stroll between matches – firstly to move the car and then around the ground, which took a long time as I ran into lots of people I knew – some regular friends from Lord’s but also, somewhat surprisingly, Andy Shindler.

We enjoyed our grub between the two matches. So much so that we didn’t even photograph each other eating the food. Older people like us just don’t get the entire purpose of eating out – which is to photograph the event and show your so-called friends that you know how to eat.

Almost identical grub from the social whirl of June 2024

As the place started to fill up for the men’s match, Daisy became less enthralled and more aware of it being a bit chilly. After about half-an-hour, it became quite obvious to us which way the match was likely to go and we resolved to catch the end of it on the TV when we got home…which we did.

The scorecard looks like this.

A Short Afternoon Visit To Lord’s On The First Day Of The Season, Middlesex v Lancashire, 4 April 2025

The weather smiled on us – oh boy did it smile on us – for the first day of the cricket season.

Even as recently as Wednesday, Janie was wondering whether it would be warm enough for her at Lord’s in early April. She’s never forgotten an icy day at Lord’s in June, on her favourite sundeck:

Anyway, 4 April 2025 was no such day. Glorious sunshine. More than 20 centigrade in the shade. Who said 4 April was too early for the start of the cricket season?

A sizeable crowd at Lord’s for the first day of the championship. We ran into lots of people I know, but there was still plenty of time/room for us to sit a little and wander round the ground a few times. What bliss.

Middlesex batting four down…

Middlesex were doing quite well when we arrived…

…but soon they weren’t.

…Middlesex bowling without joy.

Scrubbed up for an afternoon out

Daisy took on the chin a minor reprimand earlier, for entering the pavilion sleeveless. The steward ever so politely told her to put her sleeve-endowed top on!

It isn’t just youngsters who can do double-selfies, you know.

Want to see the scorecard and all that stuff? Click here.

A Few Notes About Things, Late March To 1 April 2011

The Lamb by Ewan Munro from London, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0

Monday 14 March 2011 – Roger Hough Lamb @18:00

Roger was a Director of Miller Technologies and a Keele alum as it happens. We met for a drink to discuss mutual commercial interests.

Thursday 17 March 2011 – FMI End Of Project Party Tattershall Castle

I only vaguely remember this small client do on the embankment.

26-27 March 2011 – Hotel Du Vin (Hil & Chris) Sergio’s

A trip to Bristol to see the in-laws (and possibly their boys). We stayed at the Hotel Du Vin – which we liked in its earlier days, when the staff were friendly and they would park our car. Sergio’s is an Italian Restaurant in Bristol which was well located for our choice of hotel.

28 March 2011 – Seaxe Club AGM.

No doubt there will have also been an excellent discussion forum with a couple of young Middlesex CCC players and some of the coaching staff that evening – as was/is usually the way with the Seaxe Club.

1 April 2011 – Kim & Micky dinner

It looks like we went to their place on this occasion.