Tuesday.

 

I'm going to have to return to Sunday's blog, which was largely about the wedding on Saturday (because I missed a most enjoyable part out). The above photo shows a small part of our table at the reception. In the lower centre of the picture is a linen table napkin, which is held by a conker on a shoestring. There was one of these beside every place setting. I should perhaps explain to our colonial readers that the conker is the nut of the horse chestnut tree, which when properly dried, pierced and threaded with a shoestring, can be used to play the time honoured adversarial game of 'conkers'. Well, halfway through the reception, when coffee was being served after the meal, and speeches began to look imminent, your blogger stepped outside for a breath of air. Outside the main door, on benches sat the mother of the bridegroom, a matriarchal looking Grandma, surrounded by members of her family. They too, had stepped outside for a breath of air, or, to be more accurate, mostly for a quiet smoke. Two conker matches were also in progress, so I slipped back inside, chose the oldest and hardest looking conker on my table, and pausing only to enlarge the knot that held the conker on its string, went back outside. I should mention that the groom's family are all Londoners. I should also mention that most of my daughters won't let their children play conkers with me on the grounds that "Your Grandpa's vicious at conkers". A conker game between two ten/twelve year old boys had just come to an end, so I said to the winner "Will you give me a game?" He agreed, but his granny called out to him "You be careful, 'e's a expert, you can tell by the way 'e 'olds 'is conker". I agreed that I'd been playing the game for about sixty years, winked at Grandma to reassure her that I'd make sure her grandson didn't get hurt, let the boy have several strikes, then smashed his conker at my second strike. Two of Grandma's grown-up sons were also playing conkers, and looked fairly serious competition. As their game drew to a close (one of the conkers had had bits knocked off it and was weakening rapidly) I said "Play the winner ?", got a nod of agreement and the end came two strikes later. My new opponent was a pleasant young sportsman of about thirty summers. I won the toss, and knocked his conker in a circle three times. His very first strike was viciously fast and accurate, but proved his undoing. It knocked a chunk out of my conker, which stayed on its string, whilst his flew off its string and shattered on the stone courtyard of the Inn (demonstrating the wisdom of tying a large flat, cushioning knot under the conker). The young man gave my conker best, shook hands, and introduced himself and his family - he was the groom's brother. Grandma, who was a nice old lady, kept repeating "I told you 'e was a expert. I could tell by the way 'e 'eld 'is conker string". The one sad note of the story is that, when I re-entered the dining room, the speeches were only just beginning.........