June 8th (Sun)

A text has arrived. It's A's 5oth birthday, and G is preparing a surprise party. I groan. A little later P rings up. G has been on the phone and asked us to bring some beers. She wants us there for 6:45, prior to A's return from Lords. She says to Pascale, "Tell the Parkers 5:30" I find that rather witty, as evidently does P.

Later I recount the story to H,, who flies of into a fit of pique. Talk about umbrage and indignation. She snarls around for the next hour like a demented Rottweiler. I am reminded of the great Basil. "Spitting venom like some Benzedrine puff adder" was his searing and devastatingly precise thrust at dear Sybil.

I leave her to her pre eruption rumblings and head out to collect Sophie and Ems from cricket. The common at Kingshill is a joyous sight. A hundred young boys and girls decked out in white gleefully enjoying their games of kwik cricket with their little blue bats and stumps.
I arrive in time to see Emsy bat and hit a huge six.
By the time we get home England have wrapped up the Test, and I am very glad I didn't decide on a trip up north as it takes less than an hour to do so.
The world of cricket is changing at break neck speed. Three words sum up the change: Twenty, 20 & cash. Vast sums are flooding the cricket world, and already they are reaching down to county level. Two things here. How to protect test cricket as the pinnacle of the game. Properly presented T20 is fun, sometimes brilliant fun. Stamford says it can become the number one world game. Ambitious perhaps, but unless spreading the game worldwide is the ambition, it will quickly become stale. This is a version of the great game that can be taught, understood, and enjoyed by those not schooled in cricket from infancy. It fits into comprehensible time frames, and it has the ability to provide the drama that to now is the preserve of football.
Quite where test cricket would fit into such a diaspora must be open to doubt.
Following the self righteous indignation, we are duly 20 minutes late to the bbq, though it makes little difference as A has yet to arrive.
SW is there with some awful news, received earlier in the afternoon. His mate Mystic Malc had gone over to Spain to watch the motorcycle GP, and at some stage had been involved in an accident and sustained fatal injuries. S had been sharing a pint with him the previous Tuesday.
I didn't know him terribly well, and in truth had found him slightly daunting, but he did actually play a large part in shaping my course in life.
It was he who befriended a french guy who had written a "Day you were born" type programme. Initally he made a lot of money, thanks mainly to a young girl who really pushed the product in the shopping centres. Things gradually dwindled to nothing, but from there I got the inspiration to mimic the programme, and form there to keyrings and photos from which I eked a precarious existence for ten years or more.
The evening is very pleasant. S, R, and P are there as usual, bit so is K and W with their daughter M. She is now 17 and learning to drive, and looks good in sexy specks and granny shoes. G's daughter A has squeezed herself into a tiny top and tight trousers and totters atop enormous heels. This is the girl to whom I erroneously sent a text destined for Mistress Anna of Manchester when she was 17. Today she looks as though she might fit into the role!