Notes from the day:

I’m sitting with my pizza and beer in a pub.  I’m watching cricket on the big screen.  Nearby are eight guys debating the quality of India and England.  I sit passively … unknowing.  It looks a bit like baseball but clearly it’s not.  “What are those people doing?”  I don’t know, and I decide not to interrupt my neighbours’ fervid concentration.

***

At breakfast I sat with two local women who were bemoaning the arrival of “foreigners” in Eastbourne.  “They could at least dress like us.”  Our café hosts were Albanian.  I mentioned how friendly they were  >  “They’re okay.”

Please give me inclusive rather than exclusive.  But despite our differences (they love Trump) we still managed to smile a lot.

***

I grew up in Toronto, where the Maple Leafs were the famous ice hockey team.  I was walking in downtown Eastbourne when I overheard “Are you going to the Leafs game?”  Huh?  Suddenly disoriented, I tried to remember that I was in England, not Canada.

Finally I realized the fellow had said “Leeds game”, referring to the football team of an English city of 600,000.  Ahh … the joys of enunciation.

***

I was in Centre Court at Devonshire Park this afternoon, hoping that the U.K.’s Emma Raducanu would beat Daria Kasatkina from Russia.  I wanted Emma to play Canada’s Leylah Fernandez in the final on Saturday.  It would be a rematch of the final of the 2021 US Open in New York City, which Emma won.  I was there that night.

I started noticing that Daria was dominating the contest.  More importantly I began watching how she moved.  It was almost a dance.  Her shots weren’t powerful but they were so well placed – often just beyond Emma’s reach.  Daria was an artist plying her trade.  And she won.

***

Leylah was playing this morning in a court  for which I didn’t have a ticket, and her match was sold out.  (Sigh)  On a whim, I showed up anyway and found an exterior winding staircase that on one of its turns offered a view of 3/4 of Leylah’s court.  I got to watch for half-an-hour.  Then I was kicked out because the stairs were a fire escape route.  (Sigh again)

But … I found an entrance gate to the court.  The volunteer lady let me stand there.  I got to watch the rest of the match.  And Leylah won!

***

Life works

And it’s awfully good stuff