Wimblehuntingdon

We've been in Huntingdon all day, at Lisa and Mark's house, celebrating Poppy's 7 1/2th birthday party. The poor little lass' actual birthday is on December 31st, which makes parties, particularly wonderful garden parties like this, next to impossible. 

The Murray-Djokovic match occupied many of us for the first part of the afternoon. I very much enjoyed seeing it with a large group of people and we were rewarded with something very special. Watching a British man winning Wimbledon for the first time in well over 70 years was definitely a "where were you when...?" moment, and my heart swelled with pride. A number of kids were watching the match with us, obviously with very little idea quite how remarkable the occasion was. 

The searing heat of the day meant that the party very quickly descended into a water fight with water bombs flying all over the place and excited children running in circles in the garden. When the special balloons had all been thrown, we started lobbing jugs of water, and then pretty much anything we could get our hands on. I emptied a plastic cup over Mark's head, and he spun around to reveal that it wasn't actually Mark at all, but one of the other Dads to whom I'd not yet been introduced. Mortifying, really. He looked rather shocked and didn't seem to think it was very funny! 

Later in the day, I talked to Lisa about her new baby's godparents and discovered, to my great joy, that I had been named as Baby George's godfather. George died just a few hours before being born in 2011, and I dedicated the London Requiem to him. Lisa seemed genuinely surprised that I didn't know the honour had been bestowed on me. I feel deeply proud to be looking after his memory on earth. 

Just after we had this conversation, my mother called to say that Janet, the woman in my life who probably most closely fulfils the role of my own godmother, had gone into hospital with cancer, for a second time. All very worrying. 

It's been a day of ups and downs. We stopped off on the way back to London at a service station to use the loo. I pushed a closed cubical door and it immediately swung off its hinge and cracked me hard against my knee. It was quite some thump and I felt it was rather important to report the incident in an accident book in case I woke up the next day with massive swelling. 

The situation become something of a disaster when it transpired that the man who'd been cleaning the loos had also been left in charge of the whole service station. To make matters worse, he was obviously getting himself into something of a panic, wondering if my reporting the incident would get him into trouble for not properly sealing off the door, which he'd obviously known was broken. I could see panic growing in his eyes as his story repeatedly changed. As he walked away, I started to feel guilty and then upset. There was me, the white middle-class man, getting all pompous and "health and safety" with a middle-aged bloke who didn't exactly have the best job in the world, but was obviously more than keen to keep it. I felt like a hideous gorgon and as the man walked away, I'm afraid, I started crying! It was all a bit embarrassing with my Macdonalds meal in front of me. I ran after the man and told him that I was sure my knee was absolutely fine and that I certainly wouldn't be complaining to anyone else. He seemed very relieved and I hope I've saved him from a troubled night.