Tess has passed away

Sadness reigns in our house though memories help mask the grief. She was born at, and all but died at our house with twelve short years in between.

It wasn't sudden. All that know a little knew she was on borrowed time. She kept going - right up to the last few days. Only last weekend she walked her usual couple of miles walk without complaint up and down Happy Valley with me and her two much loved midwives as companions. How I'll miss that little glance back every few yards to make sure we were keeping up. It was as if she didn't want us to know.

She knew; and so did we. We still went to the veterinary as anyone would do, as we couldn't know for sure, even though we did. They knew. We gave her a day's grace. She deserved more but compassion wouldn't - couldn't allow.

A last car trip with us to Canterbury, not a pilgrimage - more a treat down memory lane. She loved car journeys. So expectant, pleased even with the dullest of destinations. She loved our three year old granddaughter, and not just as a source of scraps. Our granddaughter loved her back just as much. A last rite for all of us. Her final save for a few minutes were spent in that car rather than in the waiting room, relaxed but dying in the familiar, warm and blanketed passenger side foot-well with the missus's right foot as a head rest.

So trusting to the last even in that veterinary's car park. She was too weak to show her usual reluctance to enter the place. She knew. We were reluctant too. She was resolved to it. We had to be too. So was the veterinary who was empathetic and considerate. We thank him for that.

Our other granddaughter will notice her absence as she crawls about in our house on her mission impossible looking for a Tess. How sad no.3 granddaughter due in June won't find Tess returning the looks in her direction.

What she gave us was immeasurable. I hope we gave her something besides her low protein food in return. She is lying now near her mother under the apple tree in our garden, not far from Ginger the cat who she used to love but far enough away in deference to Ginge who didn't always appreciate the attention.

Cliff walks and Cliffe walks will be different. Pubs won't clear as we arrive with the missus having forgotten about a pocketed pooh bag. Don't be harsh. That's the same lady who rearranged Tess' diet and hidden pill to appear as a treat and to keep her on good form just like it says on that tin with the marrowbone jelly.

Enough already. Just a final thank you Tess. You were much appreciated.

For Two Jays I could steam open the Big Birdwatch envelope

I mean how accurate is the survey anyway? What about its integrity? What about my integrity? Would my misinformation skew the results for DA11? Or just 0SP?

It's not as if I'm proposing to include the heron (pictured) in my results. It is plain to see that it comes close enough to the definition of a near neighbour to be mentioned in my dispatches, though admittedly not in the year let alone the hour of my discontent.

Two long tailed tits did grace us with their presence within the chosen hour but the Jays which are in fact a more common sight turned up a day late. The wonderful missus who has more integrity in her little finger than I do in my what until a recent collar bone break was a bowling arm refuses to put out peanuts as bird food arguing that they are an important source of protein for the poor in Southern India.

I cannot check the veracity of the peanut source as we do not have any packets in the house for reference. I might have to ask Simon Barnes or the RSPB as to the voracity of the birds in question for peanuts.

The RSPB asked whether we see other animals such as badgers or grass snakes etc. in our gardens (though foxes are not included in the etcetera). Only the grey squirrel like our rather elderly dog who's just crapped on the Sky+ box got a tick from our garden.

So besides, not in descending order, the half dozen house sparrows, four pigeons, four blue tits, three starlings, two blackbirds, two collared doves, and two magpies in our pear tree (honest), there would be no mention of the reliable robin. Another victim of the collar bone break as I could have been out winter digging fetching up a feast of worms and frightening off the other species, the like of which possibly distorted last year's data.

Eagle eyed twitchers would have sussed me out if I'd included the waxwings (pictured) as they appeared in a previous blog around March 2013.

I would have been far from wise to have included the owl (pictured) which I use as a bird scarer to further skew the 0SP figures. Furthermore I was not outside tucking in to one of my turn her hand to anything wife's homemade Cornish pasties to include the dozen seagulls that flew overhead during the hour long survey which according to Natures Boldest Thieves on BBC One last night would have descended in order to relieve me of my treat. Thank goodness the programme didn't include starry gazy pie for bait as St Ives Harbour would have been a sight for sore eyes at low tide looking like one of those landfill sites.

Notice how calm I was when I mentioned the dog's mess which usually gets a bad press when it is stepped on. Actually it was the omnipresent missus who found it. It wasn't just because I thought she had stated the obvious in saying 'There's crap on the telly' that I didn't react.

I’ve seen naturalists orgasm as they pulled apart badger crap. I’ve been on field trips where the guide has tried to persuade us of the significance to the universe of cow pats. My mum used to go out on the main road with a spade to collect the ‘manure’ that the milkman’s horse used to leave on the road while it was still steaming. Even modern day TV gardeners wax lyrical about it.

I own a T-shirt with all the various bird droppings emblazoned across it. I’ve heard people celebrate their good fortune when a seagull crapped all over them. In contrast, people of the same persuasion go bonkers if they step on some dog shit while walking on a coastal path in Cornwall even though they are guana white with bird shit. They threaten all sorts, though they always claim their bile is directed towards the owners rather than the dogs themselves. I’m not so sure.

At a wildlife centre near Tonbridge they had badgers. People used to moan about the pungent smell of their shit but to my knowledge the owner never got a single letter about their droppings. Their smell could be a sort of defence mechanism. Crows and magpies usually don’t go near dead badgers that have been knocked over by fast drivers. It’s not the best sort of defence mechanism I agree, as it seems the badger needs to be dead before it comes into play.

Because of the desperate smell of their crap, the owner of the wildlife centre used to study the stomach contents of the badgers to investigate their feeding habits. He would set up a tape recorder by their sets at night to play Des O’Connor tapes, returning in the morning to pick through what the badgers had thrown up.


My mate’s grandfather was a Cornish miner. The seagulls used to drive them crazy when they came up to the surface at dinner time to eat their pasties. So my mate says, his granddad used to alternate throwing a bit of pasty up to the most annoying seagull with a piece of carbide which was used to fuel his miners’ lamp.

Water drips onto the lump of calcium carbide which then gives off the inflammable gas acetylene for the lamp to function. If water did that, you could imagine the effect of the stomach contents of the gull on the stuff. According to my mate the unfortunate seagull got about 20 yards away before it exploded. The other gulls got the message drekkly and went off to annoy the emmets.

As Lucy Cooke's equally rigorous experiments have shown, over the years the gulls have developed a taste for cream teas, Cornish ice cream and pretend home made pasties. I hear that they are plaguing the coronary unit of Treliske Hospital at Truro these days. That's the price of ignoring flotsam and jetsam me ansome.

It's no mystery that it is a mystery.

Where is this? Who is it by? This picture is one of My grey mysteries. It's not signed but on the back of the framing is written not Roger Rabbit but Lemeunier. My initial research has caused confusion as I thought the initial written there was an A not an H. Somebody out there knows, but it is getting to the right person and at the moment it and a few other puzzles are getting to me.

Why for instance has the ECB not taken up my suggestion of offering the same deal to all Cricket Clubs as the British Heart Foundation has for communities about part funding defibrillators? Have they not said that they have the wellbeing of grassroot cricketers at heart?

Why for instance has Warburtons not snapped up the idea of sponsoring the idea with a campaign about encouraging healthy as well as tasty cricket teas from their side of the Pennines? I'm sure Michael Vaughan and Yorkshire tea would cooperate from their side. Between them they must have the resources to meet up over an egg or cheese sandwich and a village cup of tea.

Talking about Blow Egg. Why hasn't BBC Snooker taken up my suggestion of organising a Celebrity Blow Egg as part of Snooker's contribution to the next Sports Relief?

The final mystery comes to mind from last Sunday's walk starting at Cobham Churchyard where Ivo Bligh of Lord Darnley of Ashes fame resides in his rededicated grave thanks to The Cricket Society. At nearby's Trotiscliffe equivalent yard is the grave of the artist Graham Sutherland. Why have people in the art world ignored my attempts to get them to investigate the ins and outs of following in the Cricket Society's footsteps?

The mystery is not beyond a solution if you read French and Spanish Cricket for Beginners .It's ten years since that Boxing Day Tsunami when my appeals to Cricket to ask for help on that day went unheard. I am just as ineffective now as I was then, though in the end Cricket came good and was indeed generous.

I know that it is who you know not what you know and as Manuel I know nothing so it's up to you if you know somebody who is somebody perhaps they know somebody who can help.

Fleet of Foot, the Caterpillar has legged it with Arthropologies

It turns out that the caterpillar is a sort of velocipedes (Pictured). I should have seen through my bifocals that there were two sides to the story. The bespoke caterpillar true to its predetermined life cycle has got on the bike and legged it.

The process as I'm sure you know is termed 'Imprinting'. What you may not know as is the case with me is where the green velodrone is now. I have done my research and I have consulted my three year old granddaughter to ask about the journey of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

She suggested that I went up the Apple and Pairs (She can't spell yet) and to be careful that I didn't knock over the three wise men on their way to the crib in the breakfast room. I was really pleased as when I put them in the front porch on Christmas Day she said 'They are only statues Grandpa'. Having heard that, it may be difficult for you to work out who is the Magi and who is the Minor.

Just like the three star travellers that I stepped over respectfully I looked for a sign. Latin was a language around at the time and the only answer I got right from today's Radio 4's Brain of Britain was 'Agent Orange'. I forget the question. There staring me and you now (Study the picture)in the face was the word 'feria' which is the Latin for Wednesday.

Tomorrow is the Feast of the Epiphany so by Wednesday the gold, frankincense and myrrh should be well out of the way. The chances are then that I'll find it in the dreadful clementine box. Sorry!

Digesting News of a Happy Chrysalis

Clearing out the old seed packets, pods and catalogues amongst the conservatory plants this lucky caterpillar (see imago)was itself cleared of all charges of tucking into the aforementioned plants. It was about to take its chances amongst the local bird population (see picture)when I noticed that it had holed the paper viking boat in which it had become embedded in route to being encased.

As with most newspapers you can see the spin if you look closely. Shame it hadn't wrapped itself up in the editorial forked tongue section - it could have turned it into a silk purse.

Time to go to get The Sun with the holidays coming up. The last two European camp sites that we have been to no longer appear on their listings. I know we left an impression but I didn't think we overstepped the Plimsoll Line.

Challenge of the Fallenge (el flange in brackets)

Like Cookie I needed a success. Neither of us have been flushed with it for ages. Bad for him good for me that we hadn't been in the runs recently.

It is the season of Lord's a leaping and pundits a pontificating putting us both under pressure, him to handle the travelling press and not to break down in front of them as a failed captain, me to replace the failed capstan between the handle and the Gubbins in the toilet cistern which broke down with a press too far.

It was the first bit of do it myself that I'd done since breaking my collar bone on a far flung cricket field in September. The ambulance took a while to arrive. Though not connected to the collar bone I resolved to campaign to place a defibrillator in every cricket pavilion in the country. I am at the very early stages of contacting The British Heart Foundation, The England and Wales Cricket Board and Warburtons.The latter who to their credit already support the BHF may see an opportunity from their side of the Pennines of turning even the tastiest of cricket teas into healthy ones.(See picture 2)

Only the BHF have got back in touch so far. They e-mailed, praising my efforts. I replied saying that as yet I hadn't done anything. 'All I have done is fall over on a cricket field'. A couple of days after I had written that, alas, tragic events befell another who was also just playing the game he loved. It is not the first time I'd wished that I hadn't opened my e-pen. My book French and Spanish Cricket for Beginners has a predilection for putting the mockers on, as if retweeting a commentator's curse, blindly hammering in without the benefit of hindsight the tail of the donkey where it will hurt the most.

The painful memory is about to resurface as the tenth anniversary of that Wave approaches, though as with the falls my pain is minuscule compared to that felt by others.

For the record what I intend to do is to apply for funding from the BHF to get a defibrillator for my cricket club. Raising the £400 will only take a Quiz Night. Finding out the pitfalls and whether the club is eligible under the BHF's scheme may take more time. Wouldn't it be nice if the BHF's scheme becomes the ECB's scheme perhaps with some financial support from Warburtons leaving the BHF to spend more of its funds elsewhere.

Cookie this morning seemed close to the state of the flapvalve washer I removed from the flushing mechanism of the cistern. See picture 3

More frayed at the edges than in tatters I'm afraid, unlike the Gubbins of the ECB I took the decision to replace it. It wasn't as clear cut as it appears in the picture. Okay the capstan was broken. As the ECB has found out tinkering and supergluing doesn't work and in the end I had to find a replacement. The challenge of the fallenge, so called because the flapvalve washer doesn't rhyme, was to clone it as all its other features were perfect to do the job viz. to get the cistern to function effectively with the lightest of touches. KP made the same point about coaches in his recent book

Unlike KP things don't get thrown away in our house. My memory is poor but I follow a pattern. It would be in the old bread bin with all the other odd bits awaiting their day. I was on a roll. There it was-the same piece of plastic I had used before to do exactly the same job that I had done so many years ago. I can't remember how many.

The fallenge like Cookie was still easily recognizable as its former self. In effect I replaced like with like. An exact replacement.

In fairness to the ECB cloning is not available at the time of writing and a replacement is a replacement. "When the floodgates open" said Cookie "it should be good." "But floodgates locked for too long are very hard to force apart" said Richard Hobson in The Times today.

All this talk of valves, blockages and collapsing should act as a salient reminder to the Gubbins at the ECB that Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) is a leading cause of premature death. However they can be reassured that with immediate treatment lives can be saved. Seconds count however, and the ambulance service is unlikely to arrive quickly enough at any cricket ground to resuscitate most victims.

In similar circumstances we all feel like Azpilicueta and Fabregas at last night's game against Derby County. They just wanted to get the ambulance people as quickly as possible to their injured colleague Zouma, happily later 'given the all-clear'. The cricketers playing with me when I fell over felt the same and did the same-some going up to the main road to direct the ambulance to the club. I'm grateful for their help and care, as I am to all those who in some way have assisted in my recovery.

About 1 in 1000 of the population of the UK suffers SCA each year, about 60,000 cases annually. In England, the Ambulance Service attempt resuscitation in 25,000 cases per year but at present only a small proportion survive. According to the ECB 844,000 people were playing cricket in this country in 2014.

Doing the maths should persuade the ECB that to place an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) at every cricket club is a worthwhile and an achievable aim. Many SCA victims can be saved if persons nearby recognise what has happened, summon the ambulance services immediately, perform basic resuscitation, including chest compressions and use an AED to help restore the heart's normal rhythm. The critical factor is the speed with which the shock is given.

Mourinho was told, according to Matt Hughes of The Times that the stewards bringing on the stretcher were not allowed to run. That's what I thought I could still do on a cricket field. Run. Run after a ball in the field. My wife always worried seeing me at my age running after a ball. She was concerned that I would suffer a heart attack. Luckily I just tripped and broke my collar bone. If it had been a heart attack the chances are that with there being no AED at the club at which we were playing I would be on the wrong side of the stats.

Like Mourinho I too am frustrated. I can see a problem but I can only get to it at walking speed. The ECB is allowed to run towards its solution.

Last week I went to see The War of the Worlds , (See Picture 1) at the O2. The Artilleryman sang in a Brave New World that in order to defeat the Martians with their fighting machines, their Heat Rays and their Red Weed we'd play each other at Cricket and then beat them at their own game on our green grass with machines that we build (Picture 1 again with a bit of poetic license).


A game of cricket featured also on Grayson Perry's Comfort Blanket at The National Portrait Gallery in London. It was given blanket coverage as the game represents the nature of our country's identity. Grayson Perry feels though that our identity is not a constant. It adapts as we change. He says as I found out we feel like we are the same person we were years before, but we are not.

The recent ECB survey shows that cricket is a changing game that needs to adapt to participants with busy modern lifestyles. OMG is this the end of the cricketing world as I and many of the 844,000 know it?

Not at all as "The ECB is committed to help sustain cricket at a local level by investing in facilities and pitches, encouraging clubs to be fully representative of their local communities and offering maximum support to umpires, coaches, scorers and other volunteers who give up their time to support our grassroots game.“

It sounds as if their hearts are in the right place. But you, Cookie and I know that the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Death of a sparrow

The thud was a familiar one though a rarity of late. A sickening blow for Jack. Like Silva at Lord's yesterday according to Aggers Jack should have taken better avoiding action. The ball ballooned at least 30 yards away from Silva. Jack fell below the sill. (Pictured) Like the England fielders I went to express sympathy, to check all was okay and took an additional 'hydration break', in my case coffee, in their's surely Harrogate Spring Water now the official water of England cricket, while first aid was applied in Jack's case by the missus, in Silva's by the lime green vested twelfth and thirteenth men.

Helmeted Silva, no tail ender survived to face the rest of the barrage just outside Sir Geoffery's comfort zone. Jack struggled but could not reach his (Reflected in picture.) where he would be safe from namesake hawks. Maybe because of the Window clutter Jack's radar failed him. Tale-enders then for Jack. (pictured) Like so many others mentioned in 'French and Spanish Cricket for Beginners' from Amazon UK it was I that did a cock-robin on the sparrow. Like Aggers I'm prone to the commentator's curse. I'd remarked that sparrows were making a come back. In 2003 when the book was written sparrows were scarce.

"The missus explained that if the poison chemicals that we pump out don’t get the sparrows themselves, they kill off the food the sparrows eat, like bugs and caterpillars and so the sparrows cop it. It’s a bit of a Hobson’s. If there’s no food, they don’t eat and they die. If they eat the poisoned insects they’re dead meat. They haven’t adapted like our town foxes who take away the dead meat from the rubbish we put out. (No obvious comments please, leave that to me)."

I still feel that I put the mockers on the sparrow like Gove has on 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and like Gravesham Council has put on the foxes with their new Wheelie bin approach to recycling.

What comes round goes round. 99-1 at 'Nutrition Break'

The pleasant gentleman, a barrister on a day out of court, who was sitting next to me pointed out that the person sitting in front of us was Tony Francis of ITV Sports coverage and Heart of The Country fame. I should have recognised him from his voice. Reassuring, informative, interesting. Is he still on air? If not he should be. He'd show some of the present day accursed World Cup commentators that being a broadcaster helps when broadcasting.

I saw only two other celebrities. David Gower returning to the JP Morgan ( Not the Irish one who plays for England)Media Centre from his on-field duties looking resplendent in Blazer and Slacks together with a clone far enough down the cricketing scale of recognition (CSR)to remain unrecognised by me.

I tweeted to TMS that if Blower's crane was described as now being vertical Anderson and Broad would be joining Sachithra Senanayake to have their actions checked. I didn't get a response being even lower down the CRS than Gower's clone.

My conscience - a sort of all encompassing barrage of messages emanating from some deep rooted JP Morgan internal social media centre - was telling me not to miss our Cricket Club Selection Meeting scheduled for 7 that evening. I figured that as Sri Lanka had lost only 3 wickets by the 'Mini replenishment' break I'd had full value from my £10 over 65 ticket.

Thanks to the fast train I was able to watch the last 10 overs on TV. I'm almost glad that we didn't do it. I would have had to explain that I was almost there. I hope the pleasant gentleman barrister stayed. He would have appreciated the drama of the final over with the judgement of the the third umpire adhering to the firm set of ethics exemplified by Cricket, Rumpole, David Gower and Tony Francis.

The missus showed me her latest Dry Point Etching (pictured) of daffodils competing for the limelight. She asked me for a title for the work. 'I'm Narcissus' was my suggestion. That reminds me to watch 'Kill Bill Vol 2' to watch Uma Thurman forcing her way out of her coffin as I have a feeling that Suarez will hammer a second to Balotelli's first nail into England's coffin on Thursday.

Each to their own