Almost everything that I want to say in words about this event is contained in the “match report” on King Cricket – click here or below, where, in case you didn’t know, dear reader, I am Ged and Janie is Daisy:
If anything were ever to go awry with the King Cricket site, click this link for a scrape of that report.
Janie took a ludicrous number of pictures – you can see them all through the Flickr link below:
Janie and I were very motivated by the live appearance of Rudimental and mugged up on their hits in advance of the concert…I mean Finals Day.
I expected that we might see live performances of at least four Rudimental bangers and we were treated to all four of the ones I expected we’d see:
I was also hoping for this next one, which I especially liked when mugging up, but they didn’t do this one. Shoulda been a bigger hit in my opinion, but my opinion didn’t guarantee hits even when I was younger, let alone now!
It was a strange period; the height of summer in regular times but the autumn of the pandemic, as it were.
The government had signalled a possible “relaxing of pandemic restrictions” for towards the end of June, but the highly infectious delta variant of Covid 19 led to the deferral of that “freedom day” until 19 July.
There was much re-jigging of diaries and arrangements in the weeks leading up to and following the revised date.
For the most part, Janie and I carried on doing what we had been doing during partial lockdown: working, volunteering and playing tennis.
Middlesex v Leicestershire, Merchant Taylors’ School, 12 & 13 July 2021
The plan was for me and Janie to go with Fran & Simon on Monday 12 July, but plans have a habit of going awry. The weather forecast for the Monday was awful and indeed it was heaving down with rain in Ealing.
Janie and I abandoned all hope of going to the game by mid afternoon, despite the fact that the rain was mysteriously dodging Northwood and play was taking place beneath leaden skies.
I’m rather glad we did decide to bale out of going, as I learnt the next day that it took people from Ealing/Acton way a couple of hours to get home due to the flash floods.
Simon ended up watching some rather good cricket solo on the Monday, while I ended up doing similar on the Tuesday.
I had arranged to play real tennis at Middlesex University early on the Tuesday morning and went on from there to MTS for my first sight of live county cricket since September 2019.
Social distancing was still the order of the day, so I sat in a reserved area and was suitably reserved.
We were allowed to stroll a bit, which enabled me to encounter some of “the usual suspects”, such as Barmy Kev and Jeff Coleman, who for some obscure reason were bemoaning Middlesex’s poor play and poor luck this season.
I tried to cheer myself up by reading The Economist, which for some obscure reason was bemoaning the economic devastation caused by the global pandemic.
Middlesex were in a bit of a hole second dig, so I do understand why people were pessimistic, especially as Middlesex had been snatching defeat from the very jaws of victory all season. Still, I was strangely optimistic about Middlesex’s position given my previous experiences of seeing teams bat last at MTS.
Ealing Samaritans Gunnersbury Park Party, Tuesday 20 July 2021
Janie had hardly met any of her new Samaritans colleagues before, other than in an “on shift” context, as she had done all of her training by Zoom and they had not been able to meet socially during lockdown.
So the “party in the park” idea seemed to be the ideal opportunity to meet some more people…
…which indeed it was. It was just a shame that, apart from Janie and Ilkay, whom Janie had already befriended and met, no-one from their traning group attended that night.
Janie was so late back from work, however, that we missed the entertainment for the evening, Marie Naffah, who was doing 50 gigs in 50 days, apparently. We arrived just in time to say goodbye to her, so for now the video below will have to do.
The Hundred: London Spirit v Oval Invincibles Double Header, Lord’s, Sunday 25 July 2021
In the end we only got to see half a double-header, as the weather closed in after the women’s match. What was predicted to be the possibility of some light showers turned out to be torrential rain and flash floods which caused havoc around London.
Mercifully, my weather app tipped me off before the weather got too bad.
Despite shortened event due to the weather, we rather enjoyed ourselves. I had arranged to return for the midweek games myself and Janie was scheduled to join me on Finals Day, so we anticipated that we’d still get our fill of The Hundred.
Middlesex v Durham at Radlett, Tuesday 27 July 2021
Parking spaces at cricket grounds don’t get much more rural-idyllic than this
Janie and I had an early game of tennis, then met Simon at lunchtime/early afternoon at Radlett. I chatted briefly with Mike O’Farrell and others, holding up the process of finding some decent seats and settling in for some old-fashioned List A 50-overs-a-side cricket.
The weather sort-of smiled on us until mid to late afternoon, when a shower threatened to end proceedings but in any case was enough to scare us away from an exposed ground such as Radlett.
After the rain, a tense Duckworth-Lewis finish, which Janie and I watched on the stream at home. As has been the way this season, Middlesex were “close but no cigar”.
London Spirit v Trent Rockets, Double-Header, Lord’s 29 July 2021
In my desire to really check out The Hundred tournament, I had reserved a member’s place for myself at both of the midweek events at Lord’s. This was the first of them.
I enjoyed the women’s game from the pavilion terrace, where I was sitting right in front of the assembled rockets (as it were) while they waited to do their thing.
I was delighted to be invited to help choose the walk-on music for some of the players, although I didn’t recognise many of the bangin’ hits on offer.
I had planned to take in the men’s game from the sanctuary of the Upper Tavern Stand, but just before the end of the women’s game I was joined by Alvin, who then popped out to make a call before I had the chance to tell him my plans. So I watched the first innings of the men’s game from the pavilion, with Alvin, then relocated to the Tavern Stand for the final innings.
London Spirit did not do very well in these matches…
Pete Reynolds Memorial At Mosimann’s, 6 August 2021
Our first venture in a cab and our first indoor event since lockdown. Shirley was very keen that we join the event, as we (along with so many of their friends) had been unable to attend the funeral during lockdown.
Grace had organised the event wonderfully well. Mosimann’s is a stunning venue and was well suited to the occasion.
The speeches were heartfelt and moving, but it was mostly a party, which was, apparently, what Pete wanted. Pete usually got what he wanted in life, I believe, so he was certainly going to have what he wanted in this regard.
Not much else to say, really, other than the fact that the rain that we dodged resulted in flash flooding and all sorts in West London, so I think we did the right thing to abandon the ground when we did.
