Rockabye Baby

Champagne leader to Champagne section. Commence dive... now. Ready for Rockabye Baby. Commence spray on countdown. Three, two, one, zero. Champagne leader to Grand Slam task force leader. The baby is asleep. I repeat, the baby is asleep. We're going home now. Out. ---------------------And that, is just about the gist of it. Bond fans will recognize the above words of the squadron leader of Pussy Galore’s Flying Circus. Well, our own Flying Circus put their baby to sleep on the Common who had been squawking too loudly for our taste all term. Clapham may be quite new to all this, but they are speedy and were a real threat to our league defence.It was a superb effort by a baker’s dozen of hungry Belles. We’ve been without our two superstars of recent years in Tish and Sam all season, but far from flinching, the squad has embraced the responsibility.Mel’s wonderful front-running saw her enjoy yet another brutal duel vying for top honours. Cathy Ansell is an excellent runner, but her 55 second advantage over Mel from match one over 6k, is now 14 seconds over 8k. That’s a telling rate of return, and long may it improve. Mel heard someone say they were coming into the finish at the end of the first lap, and although she didn’t believe it, enough doubt was sown for Ansell to steal a precious break as Mel regathered herself. Lesson number 1: don’t let a silly spectator tarnish your race.Zoe looked terrific as once again our sharpshooter placed a bead on Clare Elms all race. It’s a moving target but ZLD will get there soon enough – who knows – maybe in Brighton. The rest of the scoring 5 was a tumble-drier of drama. First, Saz was back! Wow, a real trooper over more than a decade, but sighted oh so rarely. We have come the full circle since her last Surrey League outing exactly four years ago at Hamlands. There she had a brilliant run to place 6^th, but that was a depressing day as back-up was 8, 51, 72 and 134, with relegation alas secured.Sarah went out like a maniac and had a long, hard journey, but held on as 3^rd Belle until a resurgent Kerimac popped up to say hello. They had run it completely opposite ways, but in the end the tortoise [I speak in metaphors] nicked the hare. What a relief that Keri is getting on top of the problems that plagued her at the London cross.The battle for the final spot was brilliant as Sarah also came under attack from the ever strong Nici, who in turn was being ferociously assaulted by JJR. The final 400 saw these three run lock-step before in the final yards Jojo just eased past Nici’s fine Belles league debut.Miss Medals was next, taking her responsibilities seriously and hitting the M4 slog even though she was aware we’d be ok without her. But you never know and as ever she was right in the thick of it, although she does loathe the wet stuff! And of course with FM comes GM and many commented how nice it was to have Graham way out on the course barking lustrous sound bites. And that goes for all of our kindly supporters – how lovely to see Rose, Fi and Catherine in their civvies too – cheering the girls on all over the loop.The back-up was lush with peppy runs from Flic, Gemma and Calvi, to see our B’s home by a lavish 221 points over the next B team; and yet another to raise eyebrows was Abbie, up 22 spots on her famous romp at Croydon. A short way back was a useful debut from Justine, while an exhausted co-skip took one for the team as our rear-gunner.Fantastic work everyone. We can celebrate a job well done, although unlike last year, we shall keep the pressure on for the last match as Chas’s ticker may not handle another fright-night!1 C Ansell (Herne Hill H) 31:15; 2 M Wilkins 31:29; 3 L Custance (CC) 31:44… 6 Z Doyle 32:50; 15 K Mackenzie 34:07; 19 S Lewis 34:40; 20 J Rhodes 34:42; 21 N Cahusac 34:45; 30 F Maycock 35:34; 36 F Cole 36:08; 48 G Farrell 36:53; 50 C Thompson 36:56; 57 A Friday 37:27; 69 J Lynch 37:54; 107 H Barsham-Rolfe 40:21. 212 finished.Teams: 1 Belgrave H 62; 2 Clapham C 117; 3 Herne Hill H 124; 4 Dulwich R 153; 5 STRAG 162; … 9 Belgrave B 185… 30 A&B Teams.Overall: 1 Belg 185; 2 Clap 299; 3 SLH 451; 4 Dul 472; 5 Strag 499; 6 G&G 563 … 8^th Belg B 592.