I am delighted to record my first double century. I don’t believe I thought I would get this far when I started out on JaJa99. I did get quite close to 200 on a great cricket trip to Berlin many years ago. Playing for the Stragglers of Asia against The GOC’s XI on a superb pitch, second only to Lord’s, in the old Olympic Stadium in the British quarter I scored 179 on Saturday, followed by 111 on Sunday after only a few hours sleep. The night life in Berlin in the days before the Wall came down was unrivalled! They lived every day as if it was their last. The stupid thing with my first innings was that I was stumped off a wide flinging the bat, thinking that I was hogging the crease. In retrospect, I reckon I would have been justified in going for the double hundred. Major Hugh Lindsay was on the trip with us, at the time he was the Queen’s Equerry. Her Majesty might have been mildly amused/shocked to see how we spent that Saturday night! Cabaret had nothing on us.
We are currently on holiday in Thorpeness near Aldeburgh on the beautiful Suffolk coast. Having gone to Prep school in Southwold, a little north of here, there are many childhood memories to be revisited. On a walk around Framlingham Castle today with old friends from Hong Kong, we had an unusual experience. On the quietest of country lanes a motorcyclist on a very nice Honda CBR 500 cruised slowly past us before collapsing in a heap on the verge, with the bike on top of him. It transpired he was a very elderly gentlemen in leathers, who was clearly in shock and not entirely compos mentis. Once we’d lifted the bike off him, he didn’t appear to want any more help and was adamant he was going to ride on. Fortunately the bike wouldn’t start! Some passing locals volunteered to push it back to the garage he owns in the village. We spotted him later outside the garage getting into a Smart car. Perhaps it was as well that that wouldn’t start either! The large cobwebs on the wing mirrors did suggest it had been awhile since it had experienced forward momentum. Imagine meeting him coming the other way on a country lane!!
Tomorrow has the potential to be an interesting day. I am playing golf in the morning with son Oliver, which is always an event I approach with some trepidation (fathers of teenage boys will understand), while Alison is heading up the coast to go riding on the beach with daughter Tiggy, who loves horseback riding (as our transatlantic friends insist on calling it) but is relatively inexpert, unlikely her mother who used to be a very competent hunter and pony clubber but hasn’t been in the saddle for about thirty years. They say it’s like riding a bike, but I wonder if unfamiliar muscles will think that! I’ll let you know afterwards. It’s Tiggy’s fourteenth birthday on Tuesday. She was supposed to have been born on 7th July 2007 but arrived one day early. 070707 would have been a cool birth date and certainly an easy one to remember.
Both the offspring have decided their natural hair colouring is boring, so Oliver now has the front half and part of the rear of his head a delicate shade of orangey yellow. He’s also decided he wants a mullet, which I’ve always thought is the ugliest style imaginable. Still, if he wants to look a prat I guess that’s his choice. The most adventurous I ever got with hairstyles was trying to have a Beatle cut at the age of 11, but I had such frizzy, curly hair it never quite worked. I imagine I probably looked a prat too.
ADayInTheStrifeOf 