The House Husband

Today I overheard someone talking on a phone, obviously giving directions:

“If you keep walking, you’ll find me,” she said and then paused to listen.
“Near gate 22,” she said and then paused to listen.
“No! Just keep walking! You’ll reach me eventually,” she said and then listened.
“Of course you will! Because it’s round. It’s like a circle except it’s oval. Like an egg. But if you keep walking in either direction, you’ll find me!”

I’m not sure it’s actually occurred to me that an oval is called an oval because it is oval shaped, like an egg. I’m also certain that the Oval in Vauxhall is also called the oval because it’s oval shaped, which it is. And I can vouch for the shape because I walked around it today.

I found myself at the cricket this morning. This wasn’t a pleasant little accident but a carefully planned excursion. Nicktor had suggested it a while ago but then not been able to book the tickets, which I did while he was in Greece. I’m very, very glad I did.

We were six: Me, Nicktor & Matt, Stuart & Joe and Sonam. Stuart is a friend of Nicktor, and Joe is his son. Sonam is a guy who works (sort of) for Syngenta in an off-shore capacity. He is from India and has been over here for six months for training. When Nicktor suggested going to cricket, he jumped at the chance…being Indian. And we’d come to see the fifth day of the fourth (and final) cricket test – England v India.

The seats were fantastic. I should clarify, they weren’t particularly comfortable (they never are) but their position was wonderful.

The Oval

And what a difference to the cricket we go up north for. Much more civilised. You get to actually watch the cricket for a start. None of the stupid fancy dress either. More about the cricket and less about showing off for your mates. Even the beer, food and toilet queues were shorter.

To top it all off, England trounced India but not before a fine morning session of batting by Tendulkar (in his final international test match) and Mishra (an excellent night watchman). It was a bit sad because Tendulkar was aiming for his 100th 100 but was out LBW for 91. The crowd, every man Jack of them, stood and applauded a fine batsman, as he left the pitch.

That is when cricket transcends all other sports; that is why it is so special and why test cricket must never disappear. It doesn’t matter who you support, the game is the thing and when a player from either side, does something special, the praise is universal.

Mishra batted very well but he went soon after the lunch break, followed by Tendulkar and then it all fell apart for India. Wickets fell as the batsmen tried to at least equal the England first innings score. They didn’t manage it and England won by an innings and 8 runs.

England fielding, the Oval

It was a very successful series for England. They beat India 4-0! I seriously think this is one of the best English test teams I’ve ever seen. They play very, very well together. I do think it’s a pity that two of the players are not actually English, however, ignoring them, the team is very solid.

Anyway, apart from that, this was Sonam’s very first test cricket match…EVER! He was like a kid in a sweet shop. He loved it (ok, he wasn’t that keen on the result but even so) and took about a thousand photographs.

All round a fabulous day, thoroughly enjoyed by all of us…well, to be completely accurate, the two boys did get a bit restless around 3:30 but it was very hot and they are very young. And they did perk up when we left.

The view from Nicktor's sunnies

Today was the fourth day of the second test between England and India at Trent Bridge. It has been a very memorable test. Not just for the wonderful hat trick that shouldn’t have been but also for the very gentlemanly conduct of the Indian captain Dhoni. If no other reason, his sportsmanship is reason enough to enjoy the greatest game. It’s cricket the way it should be.

But that was yesterday…today India had a hill to climb. Similarly, I decided to tidy up around the side of the house.

The side of the house before I went mad

For some reason, lots of weeds just love growing along this stretch of brick. It makes no sense to me because there’s plenty of open ground for them to inhabit (which they do, to be fair) but this lot seem to prefer the cold hardness of brick or the squeeziness of the thin gaps between them.

And so I set to, the cricket playing on my radio for company, the heat relentless. Scraper in hand and kneeling stool ready, I started at the far end and gradually worked my way backwards. It wasn’t difficult work, just steady.

Well, I say it wasn’t difficult…Carmen decided it would be fun to lie down on the bits I was about to work on, just before I did. I’m sure she did it on purpose. It wasn’t just once by accident. She did it at least four times, moving only when I touched her foot with the broom.

Still, Carmen aside, it was laborious but well worth the result.

The side of the house AFTER I went mad

It was a lovely day in the garden, listening to the cricket. keeping the poodles company. And, of course, England won the test, decisively.

When I spoke to Mirinda at lunchtime (that’s my lunchtime, her bedtime) she asked me to put up a photograph of the hot border in all it’s glory. Here it is as it looked today:

Hot border

The photo doesn’t really do it justice. It looks fantastic in real life. I guess you’ll just have to take my word for that.

She also asked about the snapdragons. Joining the luscious reds, the sherbet yellow ones have started to appear.

Snapdragons

All is very well in the garden and just shows what someone who hates gardening really can achieve as long as he has a radio.

Gladiolus - day one

Fortunately, when the heavens opened and Farnham was drenched for the umpteenth time this week, I was in the studio recording another edition for the Talking Newspaper.

It was the Alton edition this week, which, apart from anything else, means a late start and finish. I had two chaps reading for me today who I’ve never met before. This still amazes me after all this time. My third reader was Lindsey, who’ve I read with many times.

They were a jolly group and we had a fun old time, chuckling away and generally being a bit cheeky…well, I was, anyway. I had to improvise during the sport section a bit because of the weather last weekend. It was so bad, there was no cricket results due to there being no cricket! The one story was of a disastrous game which ended up being incomplete. Though it was accompanied by a lovely photograph of a rainbow over the ground during one of the drier periods of play.

We describe the photographs for our listeners. Apparently they particularly like this. It makes sense, if you think about it. Most of the photographs are of smiling children and local dignitaries receiving or handing out giant cheques, so it was quite nice to get one of a rainbow over a cricket pitch. I also had a rather nice one of a water vole, poking its nose between some reeds on a river bank.

And, speaking of cricket, I had a nice little piece about the first game of cricket played at a particular ground in Hampshire (I can’t remember, and have never heard of, the place) where the writer explained the fact that once upon a time, runs were called notches. The reason for this was because the scorer would make notches in a piece of wood every time a batsman scored a run. I’m guessing paper was too expensive (we’re talking 1756) or just too valuable to waste on cricket scoring.

The recording all went smoothly (I’m ignoring the time I pressed the wrong button and we had to start again) and we managed to finish ahead of schedule – always a good thing.

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Mirinda asked for a photograph of the auricula theatre so here is one. It was pretty dull by the time I arrived home from the Talking Newspaper so sorry about the quality. Still, you can see all the lovely flowers. Even though none of them are actually auriculas…

The auricula theatre in bloom

I’ll get some photos of the front garden on the weekend…especially if the sun comes out!

And so, another yearly cricket jaunt has been completed. This year, at Headingley. A lot of beer was consumed, a day of cricket was watched and we even went to a gig! But first, the cricket.

England won the toss and elected to field

Sri Lanka started off pretty badly, although we missed the beginning because our taxi was late, the beer queue was too long and security to get into the ground was pretty full on. In fact, Neil, the nicest kindest chap you could ever hope to meet, had his umbrella confiscated at the gate. He collected it afterwards without too much hassle but, you have to wonder how this can happen in Yorkshire where it rains nearly every day, especially during cricket matches. It also makes you wonder why they took his umbrella but allowed the guys sitting behind us to get in with bottles of vodka.

So, as I said, Sri Lanka started off pretty badly, losing two early wickets to silly run outs. Actually, I’m assuming they were silly because we didn’t see them for the simple reason that…well, read the above paragraph again.

They steadily put on runs eventually making 309 for the loss of only 5 wickets. Not a bad innings and good steady run making throughout. Here’s a shot of Jayawardene just after he reached his 50 – he eventually scored 144:

During the earlier stages of the game, Sri Lanka looks confident

After the change over, England started off well but soon it fell apart with wickets falling and the bowling keeping them stuck to the crease for too long with the result that the run rate required kept mounting and the runs remained static. It started becoming obvious they wouldn’t win and the batsmen started hitting anything for runs which, of course, meant they were out a lot quicker. They could only manage a piddling 240 in reply and were all out in the 45th over (out of 50).

As a day out for a bunch of blokes, it was great. There was 12 of us in all arranged in two rows of six. This always works out well because you can float around into different seats, chatting with different people throughout the day. Unless you happen to be called Colin and do not understand the social niceties inherent in this sort of arrangement.

Nicktor gets his head in shot at Headingley

It was while we were in Holmfirth the night before that someone noticed that Paul Carrick was performing at the Picturedrome after the cricket, that we decided it would be a good idea to get tickets and go. Generally the night is just spent listlessly sitting outside Hervey’s drinking, then going to a restaurant for some food we don’t really taste because we’ve been drinking all day. Going to a gig was a welcome departure from this. It was particularly welcome because Colin didn’t manage to get tickets.

Paul Carrick has played with such bands as Mike and The Mechanics, Squeeze (or, as we called them on Australia, UK Squeeze) and Roxy Music, and has also performed solo a lot. Here he is performing for us:

Paul Carrack at the Holmfirth Picturedrome

I would estimate the average age in the audience was about 45 so you can pretty much guess the type of music he plays. Afterwards, it was agreed that this was a lovely way of spending ‘cricket night’ and we should make sure that someone is one at the Picturedrome next year when we come up. Well, someone good, anyway.

As usual we were the weekend guests of Big Al and Heidi who were wonderfully generous hosts, as usual, in their newly renovated home. The renovations are gorgeous, giving the entire house the feel of a design magazine layout. I’m not sure how much input Heidi had (I’m guessing a lot) but they now have a house they both love.

I find it amazing how friendly everyone is (if you ignore Colin, of course) when they only see me once a year. but each time they all say hi and shake my hand and remember my name. Obviously they all know each other because they work for the same company, but I’m just Nicktor’s mate. In fact, when I expressed my wonder at them all being so nice, Nicktor pointed out that they were all friends of his (excepting Colin) and therefore would be the kind of people he liked and, logically, the kind of people I liked. And vice versa. He makes an excellent point. Evidentially, I dislike Colin as much as he does as well.

A great weekend, thoroughly enjoyed by everyone. Now, here’s looking forward to 2012.

It’s a strange phenomena that big, burly and excessively hairy men can acceptably wear dresses to the cricket. The social norms at live cricket matches change. Fancy dress of all sorts becomes the order of the day. When or why this started is anyone’s guess.

Consider that anyone wearing a costume must remain in it for the duration of a match (or until he’s thrown out for building towers of plastic glasses) and the commitment becomes one of endurance. This is going to become apparent if the costume is Scooby Doo or an inflated and exaggerated muscular gladiator. Therefore, the decision to wear light summer frocks is definitely the preferable option. It seems this is what the group of six men in identical dresses and sunhats figured.

Even so, it’s difficult to understand the logic of this guy with the parrot head and fairy dress sitting beside the pirate.

A man dressed as a parrot in a frilly fairy dress

The oddest combination that I say at Headingley this year was the batman and robin, handcuffed together, standing at the urinal in the men’s toilet. This may not seem any odder than most of the other costumes except when you consider the guy dressed as Batman was a bearded dwarf and Robin was at least 6′ tall.

Alongside the strange Hawaiian guy complete with grass skirt and Detective James Crockett from Miami Vice, there was a strange group of thuggish looking chaps wearing grey military style coats, complete with pseudo Nazi insignia and bowler hats.

These guys were a particularly feisty group, standing up at any opportunity to yell encouragement at anyone else making a ruckus. Observation, however, was not one of their strong points. At one stage, one of them had returned with some beer and couldn’t seem to find the rest of his battalion, although they were only about five seats from the steps. Add to this the fact that they were all dressed identically in grey jackets and bowler hats and were yelling at him and his total confusion was indicative. If it’s possible to have a face, perfect for befuddlement, he had one.

I’d never been to Headingley and Nicktor had warned me, numerous times, that the western terrace was likely to become a battleground, being notorious for things ‘kicking off’ regardless of the cricket. For about six hours, we sat and watched the match with a good natured crowd who seemed to be watching with us. It was during the last hour that I realised Nicktor was right.

The stewards at the cricket, for some reason, do not like people stacking plastic glasses into what some call ‘towers’ and others, ‘snakes’. The idea being to make them as long as possible. This is true of Old Trafford as well.

Over the course of the day, a lot of plastic glasses are collected and then piled up to be displayed to the rest of the crowd. This causes a cheer and some good natured yelling. Sometimes, if the snake is impressive enough, the TV cameras will even pick it up for those luckily watching from home.

Man with a small stack of plastic glasses

Then the stewards march in, stern faced and try and remove the glasses. Of course, they tend to go everywhere, which gets yet another big cheer. The stewards must be paid an awful lot of money because they suffer at the hands of drunken fans. Though they are backed up by the police when things turn nasty. Like the guy who whipped off a steward’s cap. The police had spotted this and marched straight down to evict the guy responsible.

Personally, I think this is a bit of an over reaction to something that is quite harmless. What isn’t harmless is when the stewards come in and things turn nasty when a fan disagrees. And by ‘fan’ I mean of the snake building rather than cricket because, oddly, during the last hour, not a lot of cricket was watched by most of these blokes.

Another popular pastime is to drop a golf ball in someone unsuspecting chap’s beer. This is fine except everyone starts chanting ‘down in one’ and you have to drink it all down very quickly. To be fair, this is quite funny unless it happens to you. Most of our group of 12 spent a good part of the day with their hands over their glasses. You quickly learn how to drink while keeping the golf balls out.

And so by the last few overs, there were very few people left around us. We were like a small island of supporters in a badly attended game. Except that, rather than non-attendance, most of them had been kicked out by the stewards and/or police.

I’m making it sound terrible when in fact, it was fine. It was very rowdy and there’s no way you want to take your kids (which is a shame although there are other areas of the ground not as bad) but mostly it was just good natured stuff which, as it turned out, was more exciting than the cricket.

The Yorkshire Cricket Club tries to combat this rowdiness by doing a few things:

The beer queues
I’m sure they have designed the way they sell beer to make it as difficult as possible for anyone to get drunk. By researching levels of inefficiency and adopting them, they ensure that anyone standing in a queue is pretty much guaranteed to be in it for a minimum of 45 minutes.

The beer limit
No-one is allowed to buy more than four pints of beer at a time. This means more of you have to queue. If you are just a single person on your own, it’s going to be a pain queueing continuously but if you’re part of a group, four pints goes a lot further. Particularly if you have five people ready to take four each at the end of each 45 minutes.

The beer carriers
These are cardboard contraptions designed to disintegrate when coming into contact with liquid. They are also designed to carry four pints of beer without lids. And when they stop working, all four pints are destroyed.

The beer itself
At Old Trafford they advertise the alcoholic content of the beer, which is pretty low, but at Headingley they don’t. I think the reason they do this, judging by the beer, is because there isn’t any. I think people get drunk on the atmosphere and smuggled bottles of spirits.

All in all, the cricket was good in parts and interesting all day.

The title is not a reference to yesterday’s amazing win by the English cricket team at Cardiff…although it was pretty amazing and I wish I’d been there on the last day. No, the title refers to the anniversary of the launching of the Titanic.

100 years ago today, in Belfast, the completed SS Titanic was set adrift, ready to sail the world. It was an incredible achievement which would be herald for at least 11 months before it ended up…well, we all know where it ended up.

Actually I read a book about marine archaeology years ago when I was studying for my undergrad degree, written by the guy who found the Titanic. His name is Robert Ballard and the book is The Eternal Darkness. I recommend it as a jolly good read, if you enjoy explorers reaching places where man has not yet trod (or sunk, in this case). I should add the warning that I have heard unfavourable reviews about it as well. Not that I care. I enjoyed it.

Anyway, according to a reporter on breakfast this morning, when quizzed about the sinking of the great unsinkable Titanic, Irish workers all shake their heads and say “It was fine when it left here!”

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Most of today was spent completing the mowing strip around the new, extended bed which now links the hot border with the rest of the garden. Here’s a before and after photo of it:

Mowing strip before & after

It was a long hard day but the finished product made it all worth it. And I didn’t have to do it all alone. Naturally the poodles helped me by guarding the hornbeam from marauding squirrels. To be honest I’m not really certain how this is supposed to help me but they assured me it was necessary.

I’m not actually sure why but the pair of them stood (and sat) beneath the hornbeam for most of the day just looking up. I tried to spot the offending beastie but, if I know the poodles, it had already gone and they were waiting for nothing. I think I heard distant laughter coming from the conifer which may have been a squirrel.

I also promised mum and dad a picture of our giant, mutant lavender so here it is:

The giant lavender in our front garden

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!!!!!NEWS FLASH!!!!!
Just before the 7 o’clock news on Radio 4 tonight, a very solemn man came on and announced that the ‘pip’ machine, which had been ‘pipping’ the hours before the news for years, had died and would ‘pip’ no more. He claimed that the BBC had thought about using an alternate sound (like a chime or a mobile phone tone) but had decided on a respectful silence instead to mark the passing of the revered machine. And so a moments silence and then the news. Genius.

Apparently there was a problem at 5pm. Hear about it here. And they are so much a part of this country that there was immediately a column about it. You can read it here.

Stupid jet lag! I figured I’d be ok but, oh no! Just because I left at night, flew for about a day and arrived at night, it occurred to me that jet lag wouldn’t be a problem. Of course I was very tired the first night but that was no excuse to wake up, fully alert, at 2am the next day. Again, last night I was feeling pretty tired at about 9:30 and went to bed only to wake up at 3am this morning. The telly is rubbish this time of day.

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[grits teeth]
Well done, the English cricket team in the test series win. It appears that having been dominant in cricket for decades, the Australian team will now fade into the sunset. It’s all a bit desperate when we had to call up someone who wasn’t born in Australia to play for us. I thought this was something just the English did.
[ungrits teeth]

Rain, rain and more rain. And humidity. And really, really, really bad cricket. That just about sums up my boxing day. I visited the pool twice and forced mum to walk 20 miles to get the Sunday paper but otherwise dad & I sat and watched the dismal first day of the third Ashes test.

The weather all the way up and down the Queensland coast has gone manic. There is water everywhere and people are either flooded or about to be. Tonight on the weather, we were treated to the sight of more and more clouds coming from the sea without pause.

The weather bureau claims there will be rain until at least Thursday. Mum is worried about drying her washing. Contrawise, however, I went for a wander round the neighbourhood at about 9pm and the sky was virtually cloudless and the night, nice and dry. Go figure.

Here’s a photograph of the pool area, at which I am spending an increasing number of hours.

Where you'll inevitably find me when visiting mum & dad

There is a reason we always use removalists. I’d forgotten. I quickly remembered.

Today mum & dad moved from Golden Beach to Kawana Island. From the second floor of a block of flats to a ground floor duplex. Much better for dad and mum has found her nirvana. We’d only been there ten minutes and she knew about five people. By the time the evening was drawing in, we’d been invited to drinks and to Christmas carols! Amazing woman.

But to return to the move…it was a very hot day. A disgustingly hot day. A melting-Gaz type of day. To say I didn’t like it would be an understatement. I guess you get the idea.

Bob turned up in the world’s biggest van and manfully reversed it into the parking area at the front of the flats and we started the long, hot trudge up and down the stairs, carrying heavy objects, sweating gallons. By the end of the day, regardless of how much water I swallowed, I was a dried up husk.

I shouldn’t moan so much but, honestly, at 55 I should be directing some other poor bastard, not lugging boxes and furniture myself! I guess it’s a just recompense for my multitude of sins. I’m hoping they’re assuaged now. I don’t want to go through that again.

As bad as I make it sound, we managed it all in two trips and about four hours. Tonight I have set up all the electronic stuff (we are being forced to wait for the Internet because Telstra is plain incompetent), put together a flat pack dining table and chairs and searched for various essentials that mum packed into the ‘last box’. It seems there were about 18 of these.

Still, the bedrooms are prepared, we’ve had our fish supper (it was supposed to be three whiting with lemon and chips and six potato scallops but ended up being four whiting and lime and ten potato scallops…don’t ask me why but it may have something to do with my hair…according to mum) and I’m about ready to collapse. Mum has just yelled out that she is off to bed in 10 minutes. Sounds brilliant.

Here’s a view up the side of mum and dad’s new duplex. I’ll take some interior shots as the boxes are reduced.

Mum & Dad's new place at Kawana Island

I keep forgetting to mention a headline I spotted on a TV news ticker a while back (after the Brisbane Test, actually). It read:

Selectors uncertain about choice of Beer

It relates to the introduction of an inexperienced (in Test cricket) Australian cricketer whose surname is Beer and I have to believe that it was expressed this way on purpose.

The English test cricket side gave the Aussies a lesson in how to play the Adelaide Oval today. Kevin Pieterson managed his double century and the final score, after rain mercifully stopped play was 4/551. All very depressing.

Here’s some ducks…something the Australian batsmen are all too familiar with.

The Dural ducklings crossing the drive