The aftermath

With the main birthday celebrations over, it was time for the chill down, as I think it is referred to by those young whippersnappers who insist on wearing their trousers midway between waist and ankles. A very late night on Saturday should have been followed by a mellow Sunday, after an excellent welcome by a number of my friends to my good self into the seventh decade. However, it seems that fate had one last kick in the balls for that idea. I had dared to hope for a quiet last few days before officially becoming an old git. I was to be disappointed.

The man I blame the most is one famous pop star John Otway, who had unwisely accepted an invitation to play a show in our local pub, the White Hart (so local that it is next door to our house in Arundel) the day after the big party, which it should be noted, had not finished until around 5am the same morning. In order to get towards that last hurdle, a mass application of Bloody Mary’s to all the remaining visitors to Arundel for my decade-changing status was required. Even that hardiest and the most stout-hearted were in need of a kick-start to go to the pub.

Once there of course, and after a relatively short period of time, normal service was resumed and a splendid performance by that aforementioned pop star, was the precursor to another afternoon of liver punishing revelry. Any sensible person, having experienced utter excess of the weekend so far would have expected the reasonably aged population to have accepted the inevitable and quietly wound down towards recuperation and recovery, but us nearly 60 year olds had different ideas. The Kings Arms and a take away curry (again) became the focus of attention last night.

A famous author gets the Headbutts treatment at the hands of John Otway and Wild Willy Barrett

Many pictures are emerging of the events surrounding the night before and I have to say that few, if any of them are very pretty. It was a wonderful evening of seeing old friends, being entertained by famous pop stars and enjoying fine food and wine, but most of the pictures that have surfaced over the past few days, mostly on Facebook, have failed to capture the gentle and refined nature of the evening. That, or the evening was so much more debauched than I recall.

Returning late from The Kings Head and full of curry and beer, I was ready for a gentle descent into normality, but this was hard to achieve with a gaggle of Sprog friends infesting the house and a rejuvenated Nice Lady Decorator, who decided to join the juvenile throng and start dancing, which was my cue to head to bed.

This morning I shall collect David Goulding DFC, aged 91, and take him to the Sussex over 60’s cricket net practice. David had remembered that I had told him about Mr Otway performing at the pub, and duly turned up to witness him in his pomp. David once played in the Golden Oldies cricket tournament which I had played in Harrogate and Adelaide. The Golden Oldies cricket festival, in which the minimum age to be eligible is 40, takes place every two years and regularly attracts as many as 50 teams from all over the world. The next one is scheduled for Cape Town in 2015, and I am pleased to say that I shall be in attendance, assuming something like not having an account with Currencies Direct does not afflict me in the meantime.

Chris France
@Valbonne_News