6th June 2020.
Donkey cricket
It’s Saturday. At 4.15 a.m. Saint Peter Port’s little birdies were screaming their throats out. Not the best idea, then, to have left the third-floor flat’s double-glazed bedroom windows ajar. After a futile toss and turn the missus decided on a mug of organic rooibos tea to start the day. Like Mma Precious Ramotswe. No matter where the Hell you are books can be refreshing influencers.
I went and put the kettle on.
Breakfast mozzarella and tomato on fork halfway to my mouth, WhatsApp pinged. A night-owl friend in London. “How’s life on the donkey sanctuary? Does Guernsey feel different post lockdown?” he messaged.
How to answer? The truth, I feared, might portray me a fibber. Seriously it could.
Almost a year ago, at the Island’s King George the Fifth cricket ground (The KGV), and damn confident my eyes hadn’t deceived me, I let rip: “ZUMMERSET-LA-LA-LA!” Craig Meschede, Johannesburg born, German dad, gave a slight turn of the head, creased a grin and continued his purposeful walk to the wicket. Gee, the former Somerset all-rounder really was playing for Germany. On his Twenty20 International debut. Against Guernsey. An island still crotchety about the wartime Nazi defensive blots.
Okay, admittedly a few have been turned into enlightening RSPB birding hides, but others bloody haven’t and remain eyesores. One such lours over the Pistol Club.
Defensive blot turned RSPB..
… birding hide
Defensive blot eyesore lours over…
… the Pistol Club
The cricket match, in the Regional Finals of 2018-19 ICC World Cup Europe Qualifier tournament, had, shall we say, a slight edge. Goes without saying Craig top scored, helping his adopted side to win by five wickets. It was a game from another age that I humbly mourn the loss of.
Craig Meschede
However, a week ago today, when the Island entered phase four of its ‘Exit from Lockdown’ guidelines, the fresh sound of leather on willow spurred enthusiastic enquiries to the Guernsey Cricket Board. From Melbourne radio no less.
And again my cricketing juices are flowing. Postprandial restless, I thudded, with off-spin, a favourite rounded beach pebble into a sofa cushion. “Out!” said the missus, grumbly inside her dachshund print dressing gown. “Go be creative… Go photograph that flower you’ve been banging on about. Maybe poddle off for a beachcomb. Just stop being an annoying hubby here.”
Ah, that flower. That orchid. The Island’s as proud of it as Australia is of its national bloom the Golden Wattle. Course, a beachcomb is self-explanatory. But annoying? Me? I take umbrage.
Still, off I mooched as bade into the early day, Smart car key in pocket. My mental navigation set for The Vale, the parish that, if Guernsey was a clock, sits between High Noon and three.
I felt a tad self-conscious in the dewed meadow grass of L’Ancresse common so close to the road.
Hurry up, I told myself. My healthy object of focus – stump-straight stem and a lax head of purple – would in two shakes likely wilt and curl. The majority of its ilk had done so already. I squint-framed the picture, the Vale church spire tiny in the background.
“Morning! That’s… the …. Guern….sey …… Or…….chid!” A cyclist. His remark left hanging in the wake of his slip stream. No point calling after him that I sincerely hoped it was what he said it was and not just some old commoner. Rumour of it being a hybrid and Island unique was the sole reason I crouched amidst a whole muddle of blooming orchids.
Guernsey Orchid
More blooming orchids
Soon as done I followed the Smart’s bonnet. Towards the hypothetical twelve-thirty tip of the of hour hand. And the tip too that’s the Mont Cuet landfill site with its ‘Danger. Keep Out.’ signs. Which I had every intention of obeying. What need poking my schnozzle into noxious nasties, pampas cuttings and hedge trimmings, olid weeds and manky peppers? None at all is my answer.
Mont Cuet landfill
The bonnet aimed just to the landfill’s right. Where, landmarked by the leaning pre-Martello Tower Number 9, and lying between the old gunpowder house that’s Fort Pembroke and the gunky quarry that embosoms 1967’s Torrey Canyon crude, is La Jaonneuse beach. A loveliness the missus and I always find oddly deserted. Perfect for a tartan blanket on the sand and a Kindle as the setting sun sucks up the daylight. Or for an anytime beachcomb. I mean, discovering a shark egg pouch is as elating as a silly point snaffle.
Pre-Martello Tower Number 9
Fort Pembroke
The Torrey Canyon, 1967
Quarry of crude
Shark egg pouches
La Jaonneuse loveliness
On route to La Jaonneuse, hoping to perhaps glimpse a stonechat whose modest voice passes for two weeny stones being knocked together, I gently applied the brakes.
A friendly sort in shorts plus a cocker spaniel emerged from the golf course gorse and stood patient, waiting to cross the road. Nothing tyred, neither motorised nor pedalled, was coming the other way. Nothing following me. I gestured both to cross. A grateful hiking stick was raised. Two-thirds the way the spaniel stopped. Manners. Only after a woof of thanks did it catch up with master.
Life’s about perspective.
Beachcombing along Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay I had encountered much to tickle curiosity: dogs riding boogie boards, a sunken battle ship, syringes and needles, yuckety condoms, mega jellyfish, fairy penguins, the list goes on. But never ever anything resembling the fluffy white mog wearing a blue jacket I discovered at La Jaonneuse. On a lead, supervised by a teenage girl, it sat unprotesting on wave-sprayed rocks. My comment “Pretty catfish” was met with a giggle. “Tic-tic, tic-tic,” said a stonechat.
Port Phillip Bay
A stonechat
How I salute this small island!
And you know it’s small when the lass behind the perspex shielded CoOp till says: “Haven’t you forgotten your tomatoes? You always buy your tomatoes on a Saturday.” I mean, woah. Stood in my sodden Stretchers I thanked her for her thoughtfulness.
Honest to goodness, it’s special here. The fisherman flying the Jolly Roger in Ladies Bay is a side issue. As is the huge Bearded vulture, the rarest of birds and a never before seen feathered visitor from the Pyrenees, that caused Bailiwick crows to scramble from their tower roosts to intercept. Lacking planes, the 10-foot wingspan was the biggest ruddy menace in the sky.
Fisherman’s Jolly Roger
Crows and a gull scramble to intercept…
… the rare Bearded vulture
Most relevant is another flyer: Sooty Sid’s small son Jake’s new yellow kite. It has a puce kicking donkey motif.
“Don’t diss donkeys,” I’ve had to remind my London friend. And too right. Ours have made Guernsey a proud world-beater.
For yonks, the donkey has been Guernsey’s mascot and the nickname for the Guernsey islander. Logical us being led by them. Those stubbornly sensible donkeys. Track and trace donkeys. Schmick donkeys. And on Wednesday the 27th May came the almighty Yay!: Guernsey, first in the British Isles having zilch active coronavirus cases.
The missus and I both took a deep, deep breath in. Such a fab feeling. We did it again. And haven’t stopped doing it. Even when snoring.
And it’s not just us benefitting.
On the Rue de la Villiaze Sarnia’s twee Mallard Cinema is the first flicks in the British Isles enjoying a post-plague reopening. A steady trickle of the socially distanced head for ‘Trolls World Tour’.
While, this evening, a few piddly yards across our street, there’s a gathering. Legal. Welcome. The renovated town house with its front garden of orange marigolds has its balcony French windows open wide. The house chatter is Portuguese. David Bowie, audible. The five word singalong, sudden. Raucous. Accented. “SCARY MONSTERS AND SUPER CREEPS!” Laughter followed. Bottles or glasses clinked. Then back to easy-going Iberian chit-chat. I overheard Manzour the barber mentioned but not a word did I pick up about the cricket.
But never mind.
Let Zummerset-La-La-La become Guernsey-La-La-La. Whoop-and-holler-wow, cricket’s first game of the British summer has been played. A starting pistol’s fired. At a stretch the crease of normality is a mere half bat length away. A Twenty20 featuring an Olly Tapp XI versus an Andy Cornford XI to blow away the cobwebs doesn’t quite have the kudos of the Island versus Deutschland, even when played on the same pitch, but hey!
It was pukka Donkey Cricket.
Barbarians-esque, players, each picked from amongst the many local teams, wore their club colours. Both the BBC and ITV did a report. Cameras prowled the boundary. A tidy eighty-four thousand watched the match live streamed on YouTube. Bowlers winced and rubbed at muscles. Batters snicked and snoodled. No histrionics, though. No high-fives. Not even for a fab diving catch. Merely undemonstrative, politely distanced, gentlemanly clapping. And definitely no saliva used to polish the cherry. Money raised went straight to the Covid-19 appeal. Nobody gave a hoot who won, though Andy’s bunch took that honour. With eleven balls to spare.
The buzz word doing the rounds, the one aimed getting local businesses back on their feet, is ‘Staycation’. Meaning thrive on what’s local. To stray is silly. Dangerous, actually. Having clocked our microcosmic life, the missus and I are chuffed being pretty lucky peeps.
Guernsey sunset
My WhatsApp reply to my London friend? Well, after a long day I kept it simple and, fingers crossed, believable: “Donkey sanctuary prospers, mate. Though is a tad different after lockdown… Cats head for the beach.”
Having tapped ‘send’, I bowled my pebble at the sofa cushion.
“I can hear that!” called the missus.
Illustrations & text © 2020 Zum Beamer/Charles Wood.
Zum Beamer 