Weather or not…

Ah, cricket lovely cricket and yesterday there was no place we’d rather have been than Lord’s and the start of a glorious cricketing summer – though obviously the weather didn’t live up to the billing.

A near heat wave for five days and then with the first vital toss of a coin of the summer in prospect, didn’t the heavens just open and threaten to rain all over our parade?

Still, even in watery repose there’s few places on earth we’d rather be than Lord’s at the start of an English summer. The place has a soothing, calming effect and we’re sure it’s just impossible to feel melancholic there.

The bubble of polite conversation and informed opinion, the thwop of wine being unleashed at ten in the morning, the cheery clink of glasses being raised, members striding past with improbable moustaches and fathers inculcating their sons in a long and noble tradition. Fine stuff indeed and enough to warm the very cockles of the soul.

Even empty, it deserves it reputation as a veritable cathedral of cricket and it’s one of the few venues where thousands can gather freely to worship in a spirit of bi-partisan admiration and mutual appreciation of the world’s greatest game.

We’ve often thought that purgatory would consist of an endless taxi ride around the suburbs of Los Angeles, but heaven might, just might mind, consist of some decent company, a never ending bottle of tasty red and a showery morning at Lord’s, with the enticing prospect of play soon, but not too soon, after lunch.