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The Welcoming Cafe That’ll Let You Linger As Long As You Like… But Don’t Order A Coffee

Londonist on Tea House Theatre

And so the first pre-season for Forest with a short trip made across the Trent to take on Notts County. Blimey, the World Cup hasn’t even finished yet.

Poor old Notts. Meadow Lane is falling down, etc. I’ve always had a soft spot for the Barcode Boys on the other side of the Trent.

This dates back to the mid-1970s when we were given freebie tickets to watch the Pies at school. Forest were in no such need of having to entice young ankle biters into the World Famous City Ground even back then.

Charlie Palmer Day was not so great, but I do have fond memories of watching Colin Wanker’s team during their consecutive promotion years down at the Lane. We had the last laugh though a year later when Lars Bohinen completely destroyed the Magpies midfield.

But yeah poor old Notts, the more they hate us the more we like them. Bring back the County Cup I say.

I did ponder about forking out the £1.99 for the Forest stream. I’m such a tight arse that I even did a momentary search for some dodgy internet feed. In the end I buckled and reluctantly handed over my dosh.

It was worth it alone to hear Jason Lee on comms. He has a foot in both camps.

Forest had an incredibly strong starting 11 for OG’s first match. In charge. I wasn’t expecting that.

I also wasn’t expecting to see Yates still wearing the Captain’s armband. No complaints, Yatesy scores we’re in the Trent etc, but from which side will he be entering?

The new shirt still looks shit. I can’t get over that blob that is supposed to represent the mist rolling in. It was rather pleasing, however to see no sponsor’s logo as yet, leaving a rather fresh feel to the Garibaldi red.

It’s three years since we last played this slot in a pre-season. Both clubs have come a long way since then.

Forest more or less managed to improve with every transfer window; Notts have finally got themselves back into the old Third Division. It’s always good to know where you belong.

Kick off came Both teams were a little rusty, as to be expected. Notts are slightly ahead of us in their pre-season preparations. Hutchinson in particular seemed to struggle.

Also struggling was the fella doing the main commentary. I didn’t catch his name, and he certainly didn’t capture the name of Forest’s leading man. It seems that we have signed Morgan Rogers - surely some mistake.

The first goal came from Jesus. He walks on the Trent as the song says. It was a very cool finish as he ran straight down the middle.

Notts really struggled. They are even worse at set pieces than Forest. I didn’t think this was possible.

I did doze off ever so slightly at the start of the second half. I woke up feeling rather confused, seeing the complete change of personnel. This meant the annual appearance of Omar Richards.

When’s the next flight out to Greece?

Kalimuendo took his goal very well. He reminds me very much of Keinan Davis, being something of a battering ram up front.

We may just have solved our striker dilemma. There’s no need to go splashing the cash with Kalimuendo looking so sharp. Cheers Dyche for setting him back six months or so with a complete lack of confidence.

Elsewhere and Taiwo looked more than capable as well. I love the way he surprises us each season, always proving the doubters wrong. He looked mean and fighting fit.

And so a 2-0 win on the other side of the Trent for OG’s first outing. We picked up no injuries and there looked to be plenty of depth in the squad.

Next up: some more new signings and some shiny new toys please.

To Wivenhoe Town Cricket Club! …shortly after lunch on Saturday afternoon. We had a couple of spare hours to take in some of the action as the first eleven welcomed a very strong Hadleigh team.

It looked bloody hard work out there on what was a rock-hard pitch. We arrived after 15 overs with Hadleigh batting on 61 for 2.

Wivenhoe were very chatty, which is always a good sign. No one likes to see their body language drop and all the banter dry out before you even had a chance to put up your reply.

The dryness of the outfield and wicket only highlighted the extent of the slope as you are bowling up towards the Allotment End. I’ve never really noticed this before.

Wivenhoe were once again fielding a very young first eleven team. This is promising for the future, although I’m not sure how one of the young fielders felt when he was positioned behind the rope and pretty much climbing a boundary tree.

Some speedy bowling followed from some more experienced heads down the slope. We took up our position on the boundary under a blanket as it was rather chilly.

The highlight of the afternoon for me was getting to throw back a ball which came rather close to disturbing our blanket cover. I misjudged my throw ever so slightly, with the ball bouncing pretty much in the face of one of the poor fielders. Sorry, fella.

Out in the middle and some more heroic fielding than mine took place by Wivenhoe as Hadleigh pressed on ahead of the drinks break.

After the 25-over mark Wivenhoe turned to spin, but it was still a very frustrating afternoon.

A half-century was soon knocked up by one of the Hadleigh batsmen. I had to make my excuses and leave with a combination of some afternoon work shifts and a Forest pre-season being streamed back at base.

I walked past the old rectory house on the way home. The parish barbecue was taking place. I thought momentarily about gatecrashing and making some inappropriate comments. Tuck in, etc.

To the Table of Dreams! …on Saturday lunchtime it’s been a while since we rocked up and played outdoors.

The field around us was extremely parched. It was like playing on the Oval table of dreams back in South London. Whenever the ball bounced off the table and behind you, it just kept on bouncing and bouncing and bouncing and then rolling.

Our first task however was to wait for some little shits to leave the table. As ever they were treating it as their own personal dance floor. The entitlement of some of the jumped-up middle-class little twats around here is unbelievable.

There was also the strange sight of some cutlery left underneath the table. I suspect this is another hangover from people mistaking a table tennis table for a picnic table.

We were both out of form. Let me rephrase that: I was more out of form than my playing partner. She managed to BATTER me 5-0, despite playing some very questionable shots.

There was talk of playing best of 11. I really couldn’t be arsed.

Another day, another estuary wilds walk. My legs were itching for a run. I’m still in tattoo recovery mode and so ParkRun was out of the question. Instead I had another walk around the 10km circuit.

I stumbled upon this route by pure chance. It measures exactly 10 km from door to door. It is very pleasing for my OCD mind.

Also pleasing were the weather conditions. These were much fresher compared to only 24 hours ago. It’s surprising how quick the weather can change around here. It allowed me to have a brisk pace throughout the circuit.

There was very little company out along the seawall I as made my way towards the estuary. The main companionship was egrets. At least I think they were egrets. They might have been pigeons.

Another slight change from last week was the blossoming blackberry bushes. These went from a very fresh-faced green of seven days ago to a now slight embarrassed rouge colour. They should be ripe for picking within a couple of weeks.

The deck chair that had been placed on White House Beach has now been joined by a mini version. It looks quite cute. I hope this doesn’t become a dumping ground for anyone with some B&Q outcasts to leave behind.

I reached Alresford Creek. I saw a snake; at least I thought I saw a snake. On closer inspection it turned out to be a discarded fat shoelace, natch.

Always different, always the same, etc.

Oh Gawd, here we go. Yet more courgettes. There’s no such thing as a bad courgette right? It does stretch you ever so slightly when it comes to your cooking options.

My very limited culinary skills have led to two options when it comes to the courgettes that are currently taken over the allotment:

The obvious choice is to add a little colour palette to fresh pasta. They need to be diced, and then preferably mixed in with red pesto. Job’s a good ‘un.

The second option is a little more adventurous. I’m calling these courgette fritters. I don’t think that’s actually a technical culinary name. As ever with most things in the kitchen, I’m making this up as I go along.

My technique is to shred the courgettes with a grater. You then build up the mixture into a dough using flour and some finely grated cheese. These little bundles of green joy are then fried at a very high temperature until slightly singed.

Of course you could always go down the more schoolboy humour route of just arranging courgettes into various phallic style art sculptures and posting them all over the modern interweb.

IT’S ALIVE!

Sorta…

Yep, the cheapo Lidl lacklustre lemon tree has somehow taken on a midsummer leaf spurt. Rewind six months ago and this was nothing but a sorry brown twig. It was dead, it was gawn.

But wait! What’s this?

I’ve made the most of the Estuary Wilds heatwave by placing the cheapo Lidl lacklustre lemon tree out in the glaring sun all day. Not a lot happened to be honest.

A few spikes started to appear but it was nothing to get excited about.

And then this morning I noticed the leaf growth. Blimey. Where the chuff did that come from?

This is the third summer of a cheapo Lidl lacklustre lemon tree. Given the miraculous back from the dead turnaround of the past couple of days, I’m expecting half a dozen or so lemons to be delivered by the end of August.

Quite a mixed bag, but then actually two albums that share something of the same ethos.

First we have Todd Rungrun’s Something/Anything? double album. I know very little about Todd apart from the Drum song. I’m increasingly being drawn to his back catalogue.

This has been on my wishlist for a number of months now after it was served up on the 1001 albums list.

It’s absolutely bonkers, as you would expect from most early 70s double albums. I suspect strong drugs were involved in the recording.

What I like is how Todd manages to mix up the pure pop with tracks such as I Saw The Light and then slowly, slowly drag you into something a lot more deeper and fucked up.

I think he’s an artist I should really explore a lot more and dive deeper into his back catalogue. It looks like there’s quite a treasure trove there.

How the fuck did I get into early 70s prog?

Fast forward twenty years or so and we come to Edwyn Collins' masterpiece Gorgeous George.

This completely passed me by at the time. All that I knew was, of course, the lead out track A Girl Like You, which had endless radio play during the Britpop years.

I think time and money simply stopped me from buying the album first time round. It’s been a pleasure catching up with it two decades on. It still stands up and shows what a wonderful songwriter Edwyn is.

Crime of the Century? Talk about nominative determinism. This is basically pop Pink Floyd. I’m all for prog and certain elements of pop, but it’s a most unlikely alliance of genres trying to be welded together. I’d rather listen to this than what pop troubles the charts these days, but that’s just the old man shaking his fist at a cloud. Dreamer almost gets me having a little jig, but that’s about the best that it gets.

⭐ ⭐

And so Forest tease us with New Kit Day, which drops at 8:00 am tomorrow morning. Whoop de do.

The kit has been leaked online for a number of weeks now - or at least various knock-offs and interpretations have leaked. Some of the early designs even suggested a Fred Perry-style polo shirt trim Sadly that’s not to be.

In the end we have a rather bland generic red Forest kit. It will look even more crappy once all the sponsors' logos and extra Premier League badges get attached to it. We crave simplicity. We get something over than modern football is rubbish design.

It needn’t be this way. It could be oh so easy but with Adidas. The legacy all that Forest fans crave for is a slightly updated version of that championship winning crisp Adidas design.

We’re worthy of the old Adidas logo, along with other legacy clubs such as Newcastle United and Manchester United. Give us a very simple design that Robbo would have been proud of and it would sell by the truckload.

This new kit is fleecing fans at £85 a pop - and that’s just for the top. No thank you, I don’t think so.

No doubt there’ll be the usual lavish online launch come the morning, with plenty of teaser videos and then some full length Hollywood feature style three minute promo clip to celebrate the kit.

At least it’s been rushed out in time for the glamour game of Notts County away on Saturday. I do miss those County Cup finals.

I’ve not bought a new kit for many, many years now. Instead I’m stocking up with my wish list of retro designs that I want to catch up on.

All that I’m missing from the collection is the blackout that COPA manufactured. This is currently going for around £45 for new on various platforms; £25 is my top price.

New Kit Day should be a very close second behind Fixture Release Day in the football calendar. But when this kind of crap comes out then it’s hard to get excited.

No doubt Forest and Adidas will try and spin the story that the splodges on the main body design represent the mist rolling in. You can even see Mist Rolling In woven into the shirt collar. It looks more like someone has had four cans of SPESH and then made a mess over their new £85 kit.

As I say, modern football is rubbish.