I might have to open another blog for cricket trips - that would be my 10th blog - but, for now, the football blog can record this weekend's trip down south for the ODI v the Aussies on Friday.
CK and I caught the last plane out of fog-bound Aberdeen on Thursday evening, and Dave met us at Heathrow and took us back to his pad in Reading - a little too late for a beer, so we opened his only bottle of red wine instead.
On Friday morning, after Dave had played his early morning squash match at his local club, we made the short walk to Reading station and the train in to Paddington to meet up with Andy M, who had our tickets for the match. We made the mistake of catching a taxi and getting caught up in some traffic, which only served to annoy Dave as he had bought combined train/tube tickets for us! No matter, this was the first thing that greeted us when we got in the ground:
The shower soon passed and the sun came out for a fine full day's cricket, but it wouldn't have mattered much to us anyway as both Andy and Dave had come well prepared for typical English summer weather - Andy with a bottle of ready made-up G & T, and Dave with chilled white wine - and both with enough food to feed an army:
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We took CK on his first ever tour of the ground at lunchtime, stopping at one of the outside corporate catering spots:
Dave is definitely aspirational when he goes to Lord's - note the stripey jacket. What he really wants, of course, is to be a member and to be able to wear the famous old MCC tie - aka Partick Thistle supporters' uniform. Here's a classic example - even down to the bow tie:
Round at the Nursery End, where the Marston's Pedigree was flowing, we saw the England Ladies' cricket team limbering up in front of a very nonchalant coach:
Andy was tasked with carrying the Pedigree back to our seats:
Also at the Nursery End, there's a couple of statues of the un-named Bowler and Batsman - somebody had balanced a pint on the former's bowling hand:
It was a close finish - although England always looked likely winners - and we stayed all the way to the end, which meant not getting out of the ground until almost 8 pm that evening. We bypassed busy St. John's Wood tube station and walked towards Edgware Road in search of more ale, eventually settling outside the Lord Wargrave with pints of Young's:
Time for one more pit stop at the Mad Bear and Bishop at Paddington station before jumping on our trains back to Reading and Ealing respectively - although, when we got there, the three of us had a swift one at the Nag's Head whilst Andy went back to his favourite - Ealing Squash club.
On Saturday we met up again and headed out to Abbey Road for the obligatory famous pedestrian crossing photos (check out http://banchoryheadbangers.blogspot.co.uk/), after which we headed east to the Dome/O2 and the new Olympic stadium. We managed a quick visit to the British Music Experience (http://www.britishmusicexperience.com/), checked out the new dockland cable cars (too busy) and then headed 2 tube stops further east with the intention of viewing the new Olympic stadium.
We got to Stratford but were then diverted by a series of police cordons - there had been a fatal stabbing the day before - and so ended up viewing the stadium from the 3rd floor of John Lewis's!:
The rest of the day was spent in various hostelries across the capital, prior to the Ronnie Wood & Friends' gig at Hammersmith Apollo that evening.
Sunday was quieter. Andy wasn't able to join us so Dave took us on a short drive out to Henley, where it was the last day of the Regatta and the Hoorays were out in force - more fancy blazers for Dave to admire! Here's one of the ceremonial barges in front of some of the corporate hospitality:
Great weekend, but heavy going - glad to be back in the office blogging today!
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