Some familiar faces (and magnificent weather) greeted us in Jesmond after a fairly dismal drive on Saturday morning although what on earth I was thinking in arranging this trip on a bank holiday weekend is a very good question. The dismalness of the drive was only surpassed by the dismalness of the news coming from Test Match Special at Lord’s with a similar ‘what on earth was he thinking?’ question never far from one’s mind.
On Court we arrived to find poor Dave being helped into the changing room after a stirring comeback from 4-0 down had been cut short. Kate Kirk got Cambridge back to winning ways by refusing to be intimidated by her opponent’s repeatedly returning everything. However, the CURTC husband and wife pairing was not a success this time in the subsequent Doubles. Suffice it to say Guy did not have the best of days on Court having manpersonfully driven us for 5 1/2 hours up the A1.
I had a rather better day and actually had some success targeting the Grille for once! However the ‘match of the day’ was my teaming up with Bernie in the Doubles. We started ok against some strong (and youthful) opposition but couldn’t keep the serve and trailed 3-6 and 5-7. The wind changed (or something did, anyway) and we levelled the score, by keeping the serving end more effectively. Bernie was on fire and served out the last game with my only touch of the ball being when I handed him one between points! Alas it was too much for our hero and the final Singles went Jesmond’s way.

Scott & Kerry joined us for a splendid meal in the evening before we retired to our mercifully fairly quiet hotels on Osbourne Road. Some ‘hangover’ Doubles in the morning set us up for lunch al fresco (apparently the weather is like this all the time in Newcastle…) and  a far less dismal (news from Lord’s not withstanding) journey back by train. We look forward to welcoming Jesmond on May 19th next year (if not sooner).