Let's
start with some unequivocally good news. We are, to echo the words of Mrs.
Thatcher, a grandfather. Henry Heald arrived in the early hours of November 25th.
Mother, father and Henry all appear to be doing well and last Saturday, the
morning before flying away to Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, Penny and I
went over to Ealing, bearing gifts, to say hello. I am pleased to report that
Henry seemed fine, slept throughout our visit, twitching slightly, not being
sick or difficult in any way and is obviously destined to score 100 before
lunch at Lord's in roughly two decades time as well as winning a Nobel Prize
later, becoming Prime Minister, Pope,a national treasure and much else besides
His two cousins in Florida are already rubbing their hands in gleeful
anticipation of a third member of a gang to come and I am extremely pleased to
be able to pass on news which seems to be to be good without reservation. I
don't wish to tempt fate nor to be unduly triumphalist so meanwhile, this is
what I had to write before the happy event.
I'm
sorry. I hate sounding old and grumpy but...
Last
week I ordered a Royal Horticultural Desk Diary from Amazon, for my mother's 89th
birthday. There should have been a saving though the charge for p and p lifted
it more than somewhat. Anyway I ordered it and was told that thanks to the
marvels of modern science I could "track" my parcel's progress using my special
Royal Mail 13 character tracking number, It actually specified 13 characters
and I duly put in my number and counted the characters which came to 13.
However when I sent it I got the response "Sorry. Your tracking number is too
long". Twice. I gave up.
Earlier
that day I had had a letter from some outfit in Preston saying that my aged Ma
was getting a winter fuel allowance of £275. There was an asterisk next to the
amount and underneath in parentheses the information that the amount was
affected by the fact that according to their records there had until recently
been someone living with my mother. This person had recently left and my
mother's handout was consequently
being reduced. I thought this slightly peculiar as my mother has been
living on her own since my father was killed in a car crash in 1972. I rang the
people in Preston and the woman who answered was charm itself but could not
alas help as this sort of thing was dealt with by someone else. After three
different calls to three different numbers I got a charming man who said that
he could do absolutely nothing without my mother's National Insurance Number
which at that stage I did not have at my fingertips. I found it in the file and
rang back. Another charming person answered, female this time, and from
somewhere near Doncaster. She checked everything, took every conceivable sort
of detail in the interests of efficiency, security and heaven knows what else
and then said that she could find no record of my mother whatever. This,
despite the fact that my mother's 89th birthday is next week and she
has, to the best of my knowledge, been drawing a pension for decades.
I'm
sorry, I really am, and I don't mean to sound old and grumpy, but there are
times when I don't seem to be able to help myself. Meanwhile we flew off in a
smart new Qantas airbus, sitting at the back of the plane in Tourist, me
between Penny and a mercifully small woman. The video system was fantastically
sophisticated and I was able to watch take-off and landing on screen as well as
see Julie and Julia. A thirteen hour flight though so when we got to Singapore
and went straight to the Tanglin Club without passing go we checked into our
room (Number 14 aka Bouganvilla) and crashed out. Then after a short stay in an
uber-Christmassy city - so many carols and lights and trees amid such stifling
humidity, we embarked on another Qantas flight which was mercifully shorter
though with a less sophisticated video system and marginally better food and
service which wasn't saying much as the food on the first flight was disgusting
and the service slow and charmless. Almost non-existent actually.
And
so to the Adelaide Oval for the whole of the Test match between Australia and
the West Indies. Also, on the day, of our arrival, the annual, Lord's
Taverners' "Sundowner" as guests of John Bannon, a former premier of the State,
prominent South Australia cricket person into whom we had bumped at a party for
the Australian cricket team at the London High Commission on the eve of the
Lord's Test, My leg is playing up. But more a little later.
More
death I fear. Geoffrey Moorhouse, the former Guardian hack and author.
Communications are fantastic. I was able to read poor Geoffrey's obits in
Wiltshire and London, then compose a brief note for the Guardian, transmit it
from the Tanglin in Singapore, read it on the internet and have a chat with
Geoff Trew on Skype. Geoff said he would scan it and sent a copy asap. I had
spent the previous Saturday afternoon with Geoff and Nicolas, son of the late
great Arnold Ridley, freezing to death nostalgically while watching a one-sided
rugby match at Rosslyn Park. I was also able to send a couple of "Royal Blogs"
to the Telegraph and to read them as well. Unfortunately the Adelaide Hilton,
aka 27 William Street, didn't have the relevant password which was with the
Singing Professor in China and he didn't return until the Sunday, which meant
that I was less communicado in Oz than in Singapore, at least to start with.
The
Guardian ran my recollections of a walk with Geoffrey in Yorkshire when he
revealed that his real name was Heald, but that he lived his life as Moorhouse
because his Ma left home v early and remarried. The death of those most
intimately concerned meant that he could reveal this. What the Guardian didn't
say was that I had read his latest elegiac column in the Oldie and had written
to him saying that I, like him, was visiting New Zealand to see rellies and
suggesting we might meet down under. Sadly Geoffrey wouldn't be making the trip
as planned (and foretold in the Oldie) and his elder son Andrew emailed giving
me the news as he had found my letter among his father's papers. Forward
planning is God's idea of a joke: discuss.
I
am now sitting in a state of maximum e-frustration. On the one hand I keep
getting little messages saying that my connection with the wi-fi thing is
terrific, no worries. On the other every time I try to actually send messages I
get another couple of messages saying that I have failed to connect with
server, have failed at this, failed at that and am stuck, stymied. Any moment I
expect the thought police to turn up and charge me with some unidentifiable
Kafka-like offence. Being very simple I can't understand why something which is
so wonderfully simple in darkest Wiltshire and cutting-edge Singapore is
apparently not possible here. I have put my blogs for the Telegraph on to a memory
stick which I am assured will work perfectly. Meanwhile I shall do the same
with this and hope for the best. But I feel I would be better off like someone
in Scoop, relying on cleft sticks, pigeons, paper and pencil. Ah progress!
So,
for now, I will cease and have a shower instead. An ancillary problem - no not a problem but a fact of internet life is that
whenever anything fails to work everyone
else assumes it's your fault and that you are an imbecile, a Luddite,
don't know anything, are too old to be alive at all. You think the reverse but
don't dare say so. Everyone apart from me and sundry cats and dogs are out. The
wife and the hostess are doing a girlie supper; the Prof is at choir practice;
the boys are doing whatever boys do these days and I have spent a few happy
hours trying to make sense of communications. I sense I may have managed a
passable stitch up and sent cricket blogs to the Telegraph from the lovely
Adelaide Oval where we have been every day of the Test. Lucky us. And it's enthrallingly
and surprisingly two-sided. Gayle spent all day all day making a big hundred, I
had lunch with John and Catrine Clay whose daughter lives in the hills at Mount
Barker, our dinner host from a few nights back was there and came over to
congratulate me on not looking quite so Pom(egranate) pink, and there are
oysters and Aussie meat pies and pretend Cornish pasties with carrots in them -
an amazing culinary solecism!
I
fielded a reassuring email from Caroline, my Ma's main minder - thank you Caroline
- and another from my niece telling me she was finalizing her plans for a
Wiltshire Christmas. So, in a frazzled way, all is right with the world. In
fact, better than all right. Hurrah for Henry. Penny bought him an Australian
cricketing teddy bear at the Oval and I like to think that in twenty years or
so he will be rampaging through Australian cricketers, ursine or human.
Meanwhile we're lucky to be here and welcome to the team. Good to have you
batting at three or opening the bowling or whatever.
Which
reminds me. August 8th. 2010. Fowey. A great cricket match. A band.
The Army. Something to put in your diary and look forward to. I'll bore you
about my leg some other time. I hear voices off - the ladies are back. The
possums are at play on the roof. The West Indies are about three hundred ahead
with three wickets left and a full day to play. So tomorrow and tomorrow and
tomorrow...Next stop the Barossa.
