Welcome the newest member of the old farts club

You'll remember what a glorious time I had celebrating my 50th last year. (If you don't remember, then you can look here, here and here) Today it was the turn of my long-time mate Pete to join the ranks of the over-50s.

Of all the mates I've kept in contact with over the years, I've known Pete the longest. Way back when, our Dads both used to give us a ride to school on their way to work, with the result that we found ourselves hanging around a virtually deserted school at 8.20 every weekday morning with not much to do apart from talk to each other, and hang around the drinks machine waiting for the service guy to finish cleaning it, at which point he would "test" it and hand out free drinks.

So approximately 40 years later - give or take a year - we're still mates and we "just happened" to be visiting my Mum on the day of Pete's birthday, and we "just happened" to suggest that it would be good to pop down the Test Match for a few sherbets. Meanwhile a mutual friend was busy emailing everyone we knew to make sure they'd be there too, and organising with the landlord to lay on a private table, food and a cake. What we didn't know until we arrived at the pub was there'd be live music on too. So the whole evening went off with a bang, even though two of our close friends and their partners were unavoidably detained in Greece and/or with family matters.

The Test Match is one of those places that looks very ordinary on the outside, but inside is like a home from home. It has a large crowd of regulars and an even larger crowd of semi-regulars like us. People who live out of town but who make the pilgrimage there whenever they can. There are many reasons for this. Partly it's because you can always guarantee to bump into someone you know, some of it is down to the memories of great parties that have been there before. Added to that the staff are friendly, the beer is good, it's within walking distance of "home" if we're staying over (or a short bus ride if it's early enough), it has a fabulous chippy right next door, but even after you've put all these reasons together there's still an intangible "something" about the place that remains undefinable. A sense of belonging. More, a sense of continuity.

The Test Match was home to drinking buddies when I was attending the junior school less than five minutes walk away. Now it's home to some of my drinking buddies. And when I'm too old to make the 150-mile round trip to drink there, it will continue to be a haven from the frantic pace of the 21st century. With its quirky art-deco interior, some might look askance and think it just another seedy, run-down, suburban boozer. But they don't know the heart that lives there. Countless years of good times, good friends and good vibes have soaked into its bricks and its plaster and imbue the rooms with a welcoming aura unsurpassed by any other single hostelry of my experience. Long may it thrive.