All hail to the chef

I've been following cricket for about as long as I can remember, and it really does feel like the end of an era. Whilst I remember Gatting, Gooch, Atherton and Nasser, my memories of the England side are built around Vaughan, Strauss and Cook. More recently it has been Cook - it is hard to believe Joe Root has been captain for 20 or so matches already. Today Alastair Cook played his final test innings and what a way to bow out. He has not had it easy, openers never do - they face the best when they are at their best - and he has been out of form for a while. The decision to retire from the test arena has clearly freed him up mentally as he has been supreme in this final match. Class, as they say, is permanent. 

As many people have said, in particular Graham Gooch, Cookie should be lauded for being a great person as well as one of the finest test batsman many of us have been privileged to watch play. A beacon and a role model Gooch said, and I can certainly attest to that. Almost four years to the day today he came with some of his Essex team mates to play at our local club here in Wanstead. It was all about the kids, he was brilliant. Here are a few photos from that memorable day. I am about to listen to as much of the day's play as I can before I fall asleep - what a day it would have been to be at the Oval - but thank you Alastair Cook, you have been magnificent both on and off the field and I have enjoyed the game all the more for it.

Captain Cook discovers Wanstead

Yesterday was one of the most enjoyable days I can recall for a long time (PS, no birds...). It's Alistair Cook's benefit year, and as he's an Essex cricketer, and several of the Essex side came from the Wanstead Ranks, he brought the team over to Overton Drive for a morning of coaching the kids (my three included), a T20 match vs Wanstead in the afternoon, and then a gala dinner in the evening. We only attended the first two, but were there for something like eight hours - for a man of his stature to give up his Saturday and come out and inspire all these kids is simply phenomenal - and he was so nice too, so normal, no sign of the pressure he must be under. And hats off too to the Essex team that contained the likes of Bopara, Foster, Topley and Panesar, they were all brilliant with the children, and really that's what the day was all about. 

The match itself was won by Essex on almost the final ball, and it was perhaps the least competitive cricket I've ever seen, and all the more fun for it! One of the Wanstead guys had won an auction to keep wicket for Essex, and had a whale of a time. A ten year old kid came out and bowled an over at some point and won man-of-the-match for doing so, Kishen Velani (local boy done good, played for England under-19s) tonked Monty for four sixes in a row, and Cook himself was the victim of a fantastic one-handed catch out at deep mid-wicket.

Wanstead Cricket Club has been superb from the moment we joined it some years ago. It is made up pretty much entirely of volunteers that give up their time to coach the kids, and the whole setup and atmosphere is all you could wish from a local club, and we are fantastically lucky to have it on our doorstep. All three of ours go there every week, let's hope they stay interested for a long time. Especially if it means that I can have great days out too!

Captain Cook asks my child a question - will she bat or bowl. It takes her an eternity to answer. 

Cooky and Trevor, head of Junior Cricket

Monty takes a wicket and goes off to high-five the entire crowd!

James Foster

Nick Browne on his way to a fine score

Ravi

 

The centre of attention!

CMJ, and out for a duck

I bounded out of the house today even earlier than yesterday, eagerness and anticipation coursing through my veins. Without a ton of camera, the feeling of liberation and hope was wonderful. And of course it was rubbish. Although two or three Redstarts made themselves known later in the day, during the 6-8am shift it was positively dire. Not a single Wheatear, and and only a couple of Whitethroats. A brief positive note of a Yellow Wag seeping its way eastward - our first of the year - but otherwise little to show for my efforts, so I went to work, from where, at 9.15pm, I have just returned.

No Nightingale breaks today, but succour was provided by attending CMJ's memorial service at St. Paul's Cathedral. Mon Père, Chevalier, Commandeur etc, had swung a couple of tickets by virtue of his association with one of the late broadcaster's alma maters, and what tickets they turned out to be. Upon entering we were directed to the very middle, the dome. How did he swing this?! I feel compelled to name drop with abandon. Five seats to my right was Blowers, and eight seats to my left, Straussy. Aggers was sat basically opposite, close to Athers, and in front of me a few rows was Tuffers. Immediately to my right was a daughter of the late, great Johnners, and it wasn't long before I had to stand up to let Mark Nicholas get past. Oh, and Jim Rosenthal was behind me.

For readers not familiar with the game of cricket, or even if they are, who are not familiar with the institution that is TMS (Test Match Special), BBC Radio's ball-by-ball coverage of international cricket, most of the -ers are members past and present of that commentary team, men who I have listened to for my entire adult life. Pottering in the greenhouse, on long drives, sitting in the garden, often in bed and through the night when England are playing in the Antipodes. They're a part of who I am, a part of who many people are, as the packed cathedral demonstrated. I cannot conceive of life without TMS, of life without cricket. That TMS has lost both Bill Frindall, the Bearded Wonder, and now Christopher Martin-Jenkins in such a short space of time is very sad. CMJ was the straight man of the team, but described cricket with impeccable precision, and the broadcasts will never be the same. Old stalwarts remain of course, but Blowers is doing less and less these days, and the team isn't a large one. In some ways it's just not the program I listened to in my teens and early twenties, in other ways it's just as compelling as it ever was, and I always switch on. So it was amazing to see quite a few of the faces - the described and the describers - of the voices that have been a background murmur to a good many of my hours on this planet. And of course the service was uplifting, how could 2,300 people singing not be? Funny to think that Baroness Thatcher is up next, tomorrow in fact, but this was a much nicer occasion, and I'd pick CMJ over the Iron Lady any day of the week. Aggers gave one of the tributes, and during it played many a famous CMJ radio moment, the congregation enthralled.

Backing up a little (the flow of time has never really been of great importance on this blog), after my highly productive couple of hours on Wanstead Flats and Crossess, I spent most of the weekend in Sussex, staying with my sister and her family in a lovely farm cottage at Bodiam. A highly relaxing weekend, including some quality time in a deck chair, but birding options were fairly limited - it being felt that the cousins would gain more, somehow, from a visit to the zoo rather than a sky-watch, but I managed to slink out early morning on Sunday, and went for a poke around the castle grounds. Not much going on, but interestingly a male Mandarin, the only one there, had paired up with a female Mallard. I have no idea if successful procreation is even possible with this combo, but it would sure be interesting! 

Twenty-20 Cricket: Essex vs Wanstead

This superb event has been in the diary for a while. It's James Foster's benefit year, and as a one-time Wanstead player, the former England wicket-keeper came back to his old club with his current team for an exciting fixture. I booked tickets for me and the kids a while back, and crossed my fingers that we would get a break between hurricanes. Happily we did, though it was pretty windy throughout. Sadly Cook and Bopara were missing, but Owais Shah and, as you would expect, James Foster - would have been poor if he hadn't turned up - were the England Internationals on show, along with an Essex side made up of regular first team players and a few youngsters.

My previous attempts at sports photography are the London Marathon, which I'm not sure qualifies, and my kids' school sports days, which I am certain don't! No idea quite what to expect, I plonked myself on the boundary with a long lens on a monopod, surrounded myself with children, and waited for the action.

Essex batted first and made 161 in their 20 overs. Wanstead made a slower start, but some big hitting in the middle overs made relatively short work of the target, and we romped home with several wickets in hand and ten or so balls to spare.

Fozzy

Owais Shah hits out

Steve Singh, Wanstead's Aussie signing

Owais Shah

A keen spectator

76-6. Bugger.

I was glued to the radio today. Wild horses could not have dragged me away. With very few exceptions - for instance a couple of the final days in the 2005 Ashes tests, and Nathan Astle's awesome double-hundred in Christchurch in 2002 - I cannot remember a more exciting passage of play in a test match. Geoffrey was almost uncontrollable - four wickets fell in his spell! Amazing stuff.

However where wild horses would not have succeeded, a Bonxie in London would most certainly have done. There is a radio in the car after all. What a shame then that I was so captivated that I neglected to look at my pager all day.

Yep, a Great Skua sat on the river at Rainham today for the better part of four hours, and for all of those four hours I too sat on something. My arse. Arse. By the time I got a text from SHS regarding his success at connecting it was almost dark, and a brave yet foolish dash to Rainham saw me dip and get very wet. Bugger. Now I've seen hundreds of Great Skuas, including a very close encounter on Mull earlier this year, so you may ask why I am so particularly annoyed? Alternatively some of you may be able to guess why....

Yes, obsessive geek that I am, I have never seen a Great Skua....... in London. Nope, never seen one within an entirely arbitrary and pointless twenty mile circle centred on St Paul's Cathedral. And I want to. Hence I am annoyed. I haven't missed much this year, Great Skua is somewhat of a London mega, and on day I was doing diddly squat I didn't bother looking at a pager that I pay good money for to tell me these things. And it isn't like I was doing anything virtuous like volunteering at a OAP centre or damp dusting. I was sat listening to TMS and playing with lego. Bugger.

I'm crossing my fingers that it is still around tomorrow. The weather this afternoon was on the horrible side of miserable, visibility incredibly poor, so perhaps it won't bother trying to find its way out and will stay close to the thousands of poor defenceless gulls. I live in hope, and will be trying to find it tomorrow. And the Kittiwake..... BUGGER!!!!

What, you want a photo? Oh OK then, you've twisted my arm. Bird related? Not necessarily? Gratuitous? Not on this blog! As if! Something topical you say? How about this?

Where I should have been today but wasn't and am irrationally annoyed about.

A tale of two Montys

You can probably all guess what I am talking about. If you can't, that is probably a good thing. Well, the first Monty is Monty Panesar, who won The Ashes for us. A true #11, he survived 11 overs to ensure a drawn test match in Cardiff about two months ago. Roll forward to the match at Headingly where we were beyond pathetic, and Australia would have retained The Ashes with an unassailable 2-1 lead, whatever the outcome at The Oval. As it was, we went in 1-1, and a stunning session with the up-until-that-point-feeble-with-the-ball Broad, and it was basically job done. Not that we as a country can ever feel like we are winning of course, we all believed Australia would pull off a miracle. Apart from Geoffrey of course, who said we would win. Sound man Geoffrey, I just wish he would say what he actually thinks more often. Unfortunately my Aussie friend's email server must be down, as I have not had any reply to my rather magnanimous email.

I listened to every ball, a benefit of no longer being sat in an office where serious stuff gets done. Where I worked we once had a guy who wanted to go watch the World Cup. He asked for unpaid leave for the entire tournament and was scoffed at, so he quit, and went to watch the World Cup. Top man, if rather arrogant, but there was a lot of that. Presumably he didn't have three children and a mortgage. Er, I am getting sidetracked, I meant to talk about Monties, which are interesting, not banking, which isn't.

Anyway, the second Monty was a belter of a Montagu's Harrier discovered by Andy, Phil, Dave et al at Rainham today. Only the third record for the site, I almost missed it. All three kiddos had eye appointments this afternoon, and we had just emerged from the NHS place on Wanstead High Street at about 4pm when Vince called. "Have you seen the news from Rainham?" "Er no, what is it?" Despite only having about 10ml of milk in the house, shopping plans were abandoned, and we raced over to discover a small gaggle of people on the sea wall with scopes pointing in. I don't usually take optics to medical appointments - something which I may need to reconsider - so hadn't bothered going home for bins or anything. No bother though, as Andy very kindly handed over his bins and let me have a look through his scope. Tick, as they say (NB for those of you counting, that is #195 for the arbitrary London circle). A full adult male, it was distant but unmistakable as it hunted along the edge of the reeds. Full marks to the gang for slogging it out day after interminable day at Rainham with scant reward, this is a London biggie. The kids played happily with grit and pebbles on the path whilst I had a bit of a natter. All of a sudden it was 5pm, we still had no milk, no food, and no cling-film (Mrs L put it on the list, I was ignorant of the state of our cling-film supply), and we were eight miles from home through rush-hour traffic. "Daddy, we're thirsty!" was heard shorty thereafter. Were there any beakers in the car? Not a good domestic performance.

So what else? Was back on the patch this morning, and decent birds were in short supply. Raptors were the highlight, with a Hobby, 3 Kestrel and a Sparrowhawk, and migratory interest was kept alive with a group of about 25 Swallows heading south, and 4 House Martins. This prompted an excellent discussion on the wheres and why-fors of spring and autumn avian pan-global movements, and for a brief moment I became omniscient super-dad. Then Muffin pointed out a butterfly on the ground that stumped me, and I became normal again. "Er, dunno, let's take a photo and look it up". Which we did - Small Copper. Also of interest were some kind of Hoverfly and a Common Field Grasshopper. Come on Autumn!








Final hot news is that the Waffle Moth has fallen. I went to a website called UK Moths which has photos of almost 2000 UK Moths. Honestly, some people are so dull. I went through them one by one. Click. Nope. Click. Nope. Skip a few.....Click...Number 1036 goes by the rather catchy name of Acleris forsskaleana. "This yellowish species has a distinctive reticulated pattern on the forewing, and a variably sized greyish suffusion across the centre". Quite. I emailed the lady in Belgium. - she was very pleased. "UGH" is flemish for "WOW" I think.