I think I’ve created a new word. Certainly it’s not one I’ve heard before. Septathlete. I like to think this rather aptly describes your correspondent after a significant reduction in dimensions, a diet that would make Gwyneth Paltrow envious and an exercise regime to match Mo Farrah, on an average day. (Ok I exaggerate for effect). Having now entered, kicking and screaming, my eighth decade it seems quite a descriptive word for an old fart with delusions of youthfulness.
Whilst pedalling for an impressive forty minutes along the sun-swamped promenade last evening, my eye (observation being one of my many and varied skills) was caught by a most unusual sight out to sea. It was a beautiful, calm evening with the setting sun sliding towards oblivion behind Beachy Head, the shimmering blue water as flat as a mill pond (I’ve yet to work out why a mill pond should be any more mirror-like than a dew pond?) and a pleasing absence of cloud; except that is for a long roll of cotton wool half a mile offshore that stretched from Beachy Head in the west to Hastings in the east. I guess you would call it a sea fret, which is common at St Andrews in Scotland, but I’ve never seen one quite like this in Eastbourne. It appeared to be only about twenty feet high and was static and very clearly defined. Fog in the ChanneI, Europe cut off as someone once famously said. I stopped a few times to take snaps on the hugely inadequate iPhone 6S, but it proved totally incapable of capturing the true majesty of this extraordinary meteorological feature. There was a similar roll of beautiful fluffiness coating the top of The Downs the other day. I blame Global Warming.
I mentioned Keeley Bats in my previous blog. Oliver and I went there last week to invest (an appropriate word!) in a new, expertly moulded willow that will hopefully see him through a season or three of College and club cricket. Tim Keeley and his brother Nick learnt the bat-making trade from the renowned John Newberry, who made many of the best bats when the noble knights Viv Richards and Ian Botham were putting allcomers to the willow sword. (I still have one of his bats that I acquired over forty years ago, admittedly with rather more araldite and binding tape than it featured when leaving his factory). The Keeleys occupy a barn in the middle of the East Sussex countryside near Ashburnham. It’s a charming drive just to get to the “factory”. In the car park, there are neat stacks of raw timber and machinery to strip and shape, but the joy really starts once you walk into the cavernous building. You are greeted by yet more piles of timber, this time graded and shaped and already recognisable as nascent bats, and either Tim or Nick to help you select the perfect blade for your needs. £300 for a Grade 1 (it would be £450 in a shop) down to about £100 for a Grade 3 bat. Here is the man who actually crafted the piece of willow you’re holding, to advise and recommend. It’s a wonderful feeling, especially knowing that the likes of West Indian opener Chris Gayle and Indian legend Virat Kohli, amongst many others, have trodden exactly the same path. Many of the bats you see on TV, sporting various manufacturers names, are actually made by the Keeleys. Ollie liked a Grade 1 that Nick offered for £250 as it was slightly discoloured, but then he found another “Grade 1” that didn’t have the classic close grain normally associated with top bats, but Nick reckoned it would perform well. We could have that one for £150. Luckily Ollie really liked the feel and look of it so the countryside cruise had been more than worth it. This visit occurred days after I had played my first game for thirty years, keeping wicket with a rather small pair of Youths gloves. Temptingly they had a selection of beautiful gloves lying around on the desk by the till. It was too much, I couldn’t resist! I am now the proud possessor of only the second pair I have ever owned. It’s not impossible they will never be used in anger, but they are an essential part of the septathlete’s equipment cupboard and anyway, its fun having Ollie chuck balls at me in the garden; good father/son bonding time. In the last twelve months I have acquired a new tennis racquet (that gets used three times a week), new graphite shafted golf clubs that magically send the ball in the direction I intend (and that hasn’t happened for a long time!) and various items of cricket paraphernalia that are encouraging thoughts of a comeback. I did even try out a demo hockey stick the other day, supplied by the Eastbourne Hockey Club sponsor, WCP. It’s only £300 for a decent weapon…..a snip. I vividly remember my very first stick. It was a Slazenger “Flick” that you could almost bend in two (the modern stick is stiffer than Casanova on viagra) and cost my mother the princely sum of £6. I suppose in 1961 that was quite a lot of money.
The inexorable pull of our beautiful garden, doused as it is in the warm glow of evening sunlight, is exerting its irresistible force, demanding that I complete the latest brick patio feature that I stupidly started yesterday. The effort will be worth it though.
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