Thanks to Giles Stogdon for the above photo.
At the beginning of November, life seemed to be almost getting back to normal. Lots of real tennis in convivial circumstances for a start,
Thursday 4 November 2021 – MCC Real Tennis Skills Night
For my sins, I have inherited, from John (“Johnny”) Whiting, the role of “match manager” for the popular skills nights at Lord’s. A few years ago, on hearing John and the professionals discussing the amount of organising the event needs on the night, I made the schoolboy error of offering to help next time. John saw the offer of help as an opportunity to step down; frankly, Johnny had done it for so many years, who can blame him?
Fortunately for me, Johnny had left comprehensive instructions and spreadsheets rendering the event almost fool-proof, as long as there are a couple of pros who know what they are doing to make the event run smoothly on the court, which, of course, it did.
My review of the event can be found on the MCC website through this link.
Alternatively, if anything ever goes awry with the MCC site link, a scrape of the report can be found here.
Naturally, skills night is as much an exercise in conviviality as it is an exercise in tennis court skills.
However, the assembled throng did have to listen to me waffling on about prizes and the like:
A Week Of Tennis & Dining Out 6 to 12 November 2021
Quite a week. Janie and I went to Simon Jacobs place for dinner on 6th, where he cooked a delicious soup followed by chicken & mushroom pie. Lots of chat about music and that sort of thing. No photos on this occasion but there are photos from our previous visit, before lockdown 2.0:
I played a fair bit of tennis that week, not least a ridiculous 24 hours during which I played an hour of real tennis singles on the Tuesday evening, two hours of modern tennis on the Wednesday morning (part singles, part doubles), then a match, representing MCC against Middlesex University on the Wednesday, which ended up being another two-and-a-half hours of doubles. No wonder I served a couple of double-faults at the end of my second rubber on the Wednesday evening. Again, no photos from the match this time, but here’s a report with pictures and videos from the most recent equivalent home fixture – a couple of years ago:
On Thursday 11th, I went to the office for the first time (other than for a team meeting) in more than 18 months. Then I met up with Johnboy – initially in “Ye [sic] Old Mitre” (it really should read “þe Old Mitre”, you know) and then on to Chettinad Restaurant (my choice), as I thought a high-quality Indian meal would be a good way for us to “get back on the bike” of dining out. The food was very good.
It had been a really long while since John and I had met up for a simple restaurant meal – our last few gatherings had either been at homes, the four of us or the four of us at homes. This Yauatcha meal might have been the previous one:
Then on the Friday I was evicted from this year’s MCC singles tournament for feeble-handicappers in the Round of 16. I don’t think I’ll try tournament singles again. I love playing singles more than doubles on a friendly basis but doubles makes more sense at my level for matches and tournaments.
Tennis At All Sorts Of Levels, Performances Of Various Kinds & A Bit Of A Boost, 15 to 29 November 2021
On 15 November I spent a very jolly afternoon at The Queen’s Club watching real tennis played by real players; The British Open 2021.
I saw Neil Mackenzie take on Matthieu Sarlangue, then Zac Eadle challenge Nick Howell, then finally (and most excitingly, a five setter) Edmund Kay against Darren Long. Here is a link to the draw/results on the T&RA website. If by any chance that link doesn’t work, I have scraped the file to here.
I spent much of the afternoon & evening with my friend/adversary Graham Findlay with whom, by chance, I was due to battle with myself that very Thursday. I was thus able to reciprocate the coffee and cake Graham kindly treated me to at Queen’s with a light bite in The Lord’s Tavern after our battle on the Thursday, before I went home to perform my latest ThreadMash piece – click here or below.
Janie and I had an afternoon of adventure on the Friday, having our Covid vaccinations boosted (we don’t get out much these days – all such matters need noting).
Most people reported a sore arm and aches. We both got the aches but strangely my arm did not feel at all sore at the vaccination site and I was able to play lawners lefty-righty all weekend.
A quieter week followed. I continued to play some doubles in partnership with Andrew Hinds, in preparation for our R16 match – this we did Tuesday 16th and Monday 22 November.
Janie and I were due to see Lydia White…
… star in Little Women at The Park Theatre on the Thursday, but sadly our performance needed to be cancelled due to cast illness (not Lydia) that day, so we’ll miss the run now.
On Monday 29th, Andrew Hinds (depicted wooden-spoon-wielding, left, in the photo below) and I won a place in the quarter finals of the feeble-handicappers’ doubles tournament.
Due to competitor/court availability (or lack thereof) before the seasonal break, that means that we shall still be in the 2021/22 tournament into the New Year – the equivalent of getting to week two of a grand slam lawn tennis tournament – but in a very slightly less-elevated way.