Reflections on a Year of Cricket

Well, there's no contest - or suspense - about my best cricket moment of 2011, but it has been a great cricket year for me and there are plenty of other great moments and memories - many of them "firsts" - that I am enjoying recalling and reliving.

1. England Retain the Ashes Down: 7 January 2011
Having won the Ashes in England in 2009, after losing them so comprehensively in Australia in 2006/7, I hardly dared imagine that we might retain them in 2010/11 but, for once, one of my dreams came true and there I found myself on 7 January 2011 leaping around and screaming with joy as England secured a 3-1 series victory. Oh, and did I mention, that the final wicket was taken by a (real) Surrey man?  Great work Mr Tremlett.  What a way to start the year.
2. First Day of Domestic Season: 8 April 2011
This year, the first day of the season was bright, dry, sunny and warm - and I was at The Oval for the first day of Surrey v Northamptonshire.  I found myself in sandals, shades and cropped trousers, rather than a fleece, gloves and boots, and eating my lunch sunbathing on the outfield.  Despite Surrey losing the first wicket of the season second ball, it was a fabulous day to start the season: one that I dared to dream would end in Surrey securing promotion to Division 1.  
3. Number One Test Team in the World: 13 August 2011
By beating India, by an innings and 242 runs, England claimed the accolade of Number One Test Team in the World.  According to my Facebook posts, it suddenly occurred to me that afternoon that I was watching England playing cricket and not feeling any nerves at all.  What an odd sensation!  A few minutes later, as the victory was secured, I was quoting Richard Thompson lyrics ("I feel so good I'm gonna break somebody's heart tonight") and completely forgetting all the pain, misery and despair of so many England collapse, thrashes and humiliations over the years.  And, just eight days later, there I was, on the top balcony of the Oval pavilion, as England secured a 4-0 series victory and were presented with the Number One Team mace.
4. Surrey Secures Successive Successes: 14 & 17 September 2011
Despite fizzling out somewhat in the Twenty20 competition, Surrey ended the season as CB40 champions and secured promotion to their rightful place in Division 1.  As part of my deal with the cricket gods, I was on holiday in Greece for both of these events and had to follow the progress of the matches through the BBC live website commentaries.  Felt all of the tension and the joy - but really missed celebrating with other cricket fans.  And, no big little bruv, despite growing up in Somerset, I did not feel conflicted for the CB40 final.  Of course, if the result had gone the other way, I might have taken some consolation in my second favourite team's success …
5. Watching at Other Grounds: 27 April, 19, 21 & 22 May, 26 June, 4 & 24 July 2011
As well as my beloved Oval, I watched Surrey play at Lord's, Beckenham, Whitgift and Guildford this season and had most enjoyable and different experiences at each.  Thanks to the marvellous weather that prevailed throughout most of the season, all offered great sunbathing opportunities as well.  And, on the first day of the Surrey v Middlesex match (the result of which (a) is best forgotten and (b) will not be repeated in 2012), we were allowed onto the hallowed turf at lunch and tea.  Food and drinks, however, were forbidden, so I wasn't able to indulge my picnicking on the outfield fetish.
6. Watching T20 from the OCS Stand: 8 & 14 July 2011
This was my first season as a Surrey member and so the first occasion that I was able to watch T20 cricket from the marvellous OCS Stand.  The views (across London as well as of the game) are fantastic, it's a great place to interact with other members and gave me ample opportunity to wave my Lions flag.  For a county match, I'd still rather watch from the Peter May but enjoying cricket from the dizzy heights of the OCS was a more than adequate substitute for T20.
7. Meeting Captain Fantastic: 4 May 2011
Thanks to a Simon Hughes competition on Twitter, I won two tickets (actually, won one and blagged the other) to an evening reliving the 2010/11 Ashes at a west London sports club.  Mr Strauss was very relaxed and entertaining as Simon Hughes quizzed him through the highs - and occasional lows: there was that third ball dismissal in Brisbane remember - of the series, while we ate Thai curry, drank wine and, it has to be said, shivered a bit: it was an early-May evening in a marquee in London after all.
8. Watching an Entire Championship Match: 10-13 July 2011
For the first time ever, I watched an entire Championship match, as Surrey played (and beat!) Kent at the Oval in early-July.  Zander de Bruyn scored an amazing 179 in the first innings, Rob Key fought back bravely with 162 batting fourth, the margin of victory (21 runs) was much tighter than my nerves would have liked, it was roasting hot on the early days and I was back to shivering, huddling in layers and clutching hot coffee for warmth through the tension of the fourth morning.  But I'd watched, followed and enjoyed an entire match live: the first time since England v Australia the SCG in January 2007.  Not much enjoyment in the latter, of course!
9. In the Lord's Pavilion: 7 July 2011
Surrey played Middlesex in a Twenty20 match at Lord's on a July evening and, courtesy of a cricket mate who is both a Surrey and a Middlesex member, I watched from the Members' Pavilion and saw Surrey achieve a 9-wicket victory.  It felt very different to being in the Oval Pavilion and not where I'd want to watch all my cricket but it was a great experience - and there was Sky TV evidence to reassure my mother than I'd worn a proper summer frock and so not given fuel to the press comments at the weekend that the overall standard of women's dress that evening left something to be desired.  I was a bit cooler than I'd have liked as a consequence though …
10. Riding the Zip-Line at The Oval: 9 October 2011
OK, strictly, this isn't a cricket highlight - but it did take place at a (should that be the?) cricket ground and I only found out about it through an email from Surrey.  Me and my girl pal rode the 500 ft zip-line from the top OCS balcony to the bottom of the Pavilion. Again, it should have been only once but we smiled sweetly and got a second go.  The only thing that could have improved the experience would've been if cricket had been being played at the same time.  Perhaps one for next year?

It's undoubtedly been very successful years for both Surrey and England, and I've enjoyed that muchly. But what's really made this my best ever season is how much of it I've been able to enjoy first-hand. My first year as a Surrey member has been a great experience. Thanks to everyone - players, stewards, other members and cricket Tweeters - who've contributed to that in so many ways. Here's to more of the same of in 2012!

Twelve Crafters Crafting (Part 2)

Having fairly quickly knocked off the first part of this month's Get Funky! challenge, set by Jackie of the marvellous Funky Hand design team, I struggled rather to complete the second part. My non-Christmas card was a birthday card for my friend Cilla, which was also my first waterfall card. At the time of making that, I had intended that my Christmas card for the second part of the challenge would be to my 2011 Christmas card design, using the required traditionally coloured papers from Funky Hand's new CD: Twelve Crafters Crafting. Much as I love the gorgeous design papers, I couldn't pick quite the right combination. After a few days, I decided that I'd utilise the same waterfall design but instead of using the "O Christmas Tree" collection, I'd use "Vintage Christmas".

I was able to make a couple of improvements to the construction of my second waterfall card: primarily, attaching the waterfall mechanism to the backing paper and card before fixing the whole thing to the card blank, which meant that the securing brads were more neatly hidden than on the first.  Otherwise, I used "gold" rather than "silver" accessories and made the mechanism slightly larger on the second card to accommodate the size of the star stamp.

I prefer the birthday card to the Christmas card, because the aqua and brown colours of the former are much more "me" than the traditional green and red of the latter. I don't really feel that either card is very much in the style of Funky Hand and I still think that I took the "easy option" with the birthday card by using the star design paper. However, I'm pretty hopeful that the Christmas card will be very much to my mother's taste and I'm glad that I didn't give up on what proved to be a much more challenging challenge than I'd originally anticipated.

Just a few more Christmas cards to finish and then my 2011 year of crafting will be done. It's been a year of great creativity. I've felt that I've developed my own style much more than before and have gained confidence and skill. Here's to more of the same in 2012! And that's about as close to a New Year resolution as I'm ever likely to get.

Twelve Crafters Crafting (Part 1)

OK, first of all, "thanks" (kind of …) to Jackie of the marvellous Funky Hand design team for this month's challenge. As if crafters didn't have enough to do at this time of year with making cards (due to some mid-winter festive event being just thirty four sleeps away … and, more pressingly, the last posting date for Australia only two weeks hence), this month's challenge wants us to present two projects. To be fair, I did make big early in-roads into my Christmas cards in January this year, when inspiration struck. Although they're not finished, I'm still happy with them and think (hope!) it shouldn't take too long to get them ready for posting. There are a few other designs that I'd like to try out … and I don't think I'll be able to resist and keep them for 2012! Must try harder to focus on the task in hand.

Speaking of which, back to this month's Get Funky! challenge, which is two projects (ie for me will be cards). One is to have a Christmas theme and use traditional Christmas colours (red, green, gold etc rather than the more contemporary pink, blue and purple - which I love) and the other is to be a non-Christmas project using Christmas papers. The challenge has been inspired by the recent release of Funky Hand's new CD: Twelve Crafters Crafting. Full of gorgeous design papers in a range of lovely colours … can easily see them gracing my cards.

As I might have mentioned once or twice, I've had a busy, and rewarding, autumn of card-marking and had just one more November birthday to go: my friend Cilla. I thought that I'd address this and combine the challenge with my long-standing wish to make a waterfall card from scratch. That's three birds with one stone, isn't it? And, so I did …

I've used three papers from the "O Christmas Tree" collection, which is a delightful combination of shades of jade, turquoise and brown. I love this mix of colours - and it's especially good at the moment as my printer's low on yellow ink due to all the autumnal papers I've printed and crafted with recently. I feel that I've cheated a bit - or at least taken the easy option - by using a star paper and one of the plain textured papers rather than anything more festively challenging. Apart from the stripes and spots, they are probably the least Christmassy of the collection. I have also used tiny bits of a third paper that has a snowflake background but have snipped carefully just to get the neutral dashed line. I'd usually have gone with some of the striped and spotted papers, which Anice always includes in her collections, but they are too busy for this waterfall design. Will use them on something else - especially the gorgeous striped one with hand doodles.

The waterfall mechanism is actually really simple: just a case of cutting a long enough strip, scoring accurately (2 cm gaps work well here with a 4 cm width), folding well, positioning the decorative elements carefully and fixing the whole thing securely to the card (belt and braces with brads as well as double sided tape). I've taken a bit of a risk using scalloped circles that are a tiny bit wider than the 4 cm squares on which they are mounted but they are moving well … so far. I'm pleased with how the holographic card and the silver embossed letters work with the browns and turquoises of the design papers. And am glad to have found scraps of matching ribbons in my stash to make the pull-tag. Another example of why crafters are right never to throw anything away! Embellishing with a few holographic stars added a little more to the Christmassy reference.

So, halfway there challenge-wise, and pretty happy so far … I think the Christmas card component will be to my 2011 design, but I haven't decided which papers to use yet. Happily, the closing date for the challenge is a week beyond the Australia posting date so I've got a bit of a breathing space there.

Amble into Autumn

This month's Get Funky! crafting challenge has the theme of "Autumn". This seemed perfectly appropriate and very appealing, as I've been enjoying the autumn this year so much. It feels that it's been one of the best autumns ever: fantastic colours lingering long and bright in the trees, mild, still, dry and warm weather, and plenty of time to amble around London and enjoy being surrounded by it.

Over recent weeks - as part of my response to so many of my friends and family having birthdays and other occasions to celebrate in October and November - I've made several cards with an autumnal feel but only one of them with the Funky Hand challenge in mind. In fact, I would have felt uncomfortable entering the others for this challenge, as they are variations on two card designs that I put in for challenges earlier in the year: more details towards the end of this blog post if you're interested …

As usual, the amazing Anice designed a special freebie paper for the challenge's theme. It has a terrific falling leaves design and, although there is no such obligation, I really wanted to use it in my challenge card. Unsurprisingly, it tones brilliantly with the design papers in the "Orange October" collection of the Funky Hand Papercraft Factory "Craft the Year Away" CD. I chose three of the plainer papers in the collection: the same design in toning autumnal shades of brown, orange and gold.

The main image on the card is "Copper", who is a lovely fairy designed by Lili of the Valley. As well as being a very suitable autumnal colour, something about her reminded me of my only female cousin Sue, who will receive this card for her fiftieth birthday. I didn't want to include a 50 on the card but felt that the autumnal colours and the gold mirror board hinted enough in that direction. I haven't been using mirror board in my cards recently and rarely use it with Funky Hand papers but this time the combination seemed right.

I had the idea for the design of the sentiment element of the card when thinking about a card that I am yet to make for the ninetieth birthday of a friend of my mother's and am pleased that it's come out so well in reality. (Hope it does again when I repeat it for the 90th card.) After printing the three coloured papers, I put the sheets back into the printer and printed a different colour on the reverse of each. I cut several 6 mm strips from each, inked the long edges (fiddly and messy) and then cut each of those strips into lengths of about 7 cm. After folding each at an angle, I stuck them randomly around the reverse of a circle of gold mirror card and then trimmed the ends of each at an angle. Inking the cut ends of these paper "ribbons" was fiddly but worth the effort, as it makes them look finished - and avoids those "nasty" white edges! I stamped the circular sentiment, added a small gold circle and two tiny gems. I was reasonably pleased with the effect but felt it wasn't quite finished. Nervous of doing too much, I put it to one side while I assembled the rest of the card.

I fixed three paper ribbons to the left of a square of the leaf backing paper, tucking the ends under for neatness. I punched away three corners of the square and matted it onto gold mirror card, with the narrowest border that I trust myself to achieve, and mounted it onto a cream 13.5 cm square card. The sentiment rosette was mounted over the ribbons with foam pads and a circle of the orange paper layered between two gold circles put flat at the bottom right corner of the card. Onto the layered circles, I attached Copper the fairy, whose edges I had inked (using a cotton bud for the most fiddly bits), with foam pads. A few touches of yellow Sakura gel glaze pen brought out the centres of Copper's flowers and I added a tiny gem to her necklace. I thought about using something glittery to emphasise her fairy-wings but felt that that was going to be a texture too far. Once again, following the crafter's golden "rule of three", I put three tiny gems into each of the three cutaway corners.

The card looked pretty good (IMHO) but didn't feel quite finished: there still seemed to be a gap in the centre of the sentiment and a bit too much backing paper showing. I recalled having some flowers left over from one of my other autumnal cards: coincidentally made for my aunt - my cousin's mother. Typical of a crafter, I had saved them and - amazingly - was able to find them. For my aunt's card, I had put tiny punched flowers in the centre of slightly larger ones and then heat embossed each several times. I had thought that all I had left was the punched flowers but was really pleased to find that there were four assembled and embossed. Perfect! One for the centre of the sentiment and the other three (that rule again) scattered over the background.

Then I felt that the card was finished and ready to make its way to Sue for her birthday next Thursday. Time to turn my hand to cards for two friends who also have birthdays that day: one of them lives in Luxembourg, so I probably ought to have posted a few days ago … oops!

As promised, here are the other autumnal cards that I have made. The butterfly one was for the one for my aunt - Sue's mum - that resulted in the leftover flowers. It is similar in design, albeit very different in colours, to the card that I made for my other aunt's birthday in April. Part of my inspiration for the original card was the Get Funky! "Zing into Spring" challenge. There is something very satisfyingly symmetrical for me in making similar cards for my two aunts, although it happened by coincidence rather than plan.

The other card is for a female friend's birthday (next Wednesday) and uses my modal design of the year, which was first made for the Get Funky! "Boys Boys Boys" challenge. She's a very sporty, outdoors kind of a woman, and the autumn colours remind me of that side of her character. It's also her fiftieth birthday and, as with Sue, I didn't want to emphasise that but also not to ignore it entirely. Thinking about it now, I suspect that neither woman is overly sensitive about her age (they are both practical, get on with it kinds) and it's how I feel about numbers on cards that has led me to leave them off. They're great at the bottom and top of the age range but don't work - at least for me - in the middle.

Pink and Green

Interesting colour combinations are one of the most enjoyable aspects of card-making for me. The inspiration for them comes from so many sources: the preferences of the person the card is for, the colours in a paper, image or embellishment or those suggested by a theme. Sometimes the combination is challenging, particularly those that I haven't used before or wouldn't usually think of putting together, and at other times they just seem natural and irresistible. This month's Crafter's Companion Challenge fell into the latter category: pink and green is one of my favourite combinations, due, I think, to its prevalence in nature.

I made this card for my niece's eighth birthday, which was earlier this week. It uses quite bold shades of lime green and a deep purply-pink. The combination of its design and theme (cats) is one that I've been evolving over about a year now. Although I was happy at the time with each of its first two incarnations, it was the third, which was a birthday card for a similar aged girl about a month ago, that I felt was when I got it just right. (The three previous cards are at the bottom of this post.) I only tweaked that third card slightly for this fourth card. I think this will be the last time that I use the design for a cat-based card, as I've run out of cat obsessed friends and family, but I can imagine revisiting the layout for a different theme. Not really sure why I've only used the layout for cat cards up to now ...

The cat embellishments are Papermania die-shapes, very aptly titled "Fun Cats", each of which I heat embossed three time to give them gloss and depth. It's quite a fiddly process for such small pieces but worth the effort and I find an emery board is very useful to smooth down any rough edges. As has become my habit for cards recently, I attached one of the circles (bottom left) to a 5 mm strip of acetate, and tucked the other end behind the backing card, to provide some additional dimension and movement.

These are the three earlier versions of this card theme and content, which have been made separately over the course of about a year. Seeing them together like this (for the first time), I find it interesting - and encouraging - how the layout and techniques have developed over time, but surprising that the colour combination has varied so little.

Number One Team Whitewash

Hard to feel able to do justice to the England cricket team's achievements during the recently concluded series of Tests against India. Perhaps a collection of a few of my best memories - in words and photographs - is the way to go.

Victory at Lord's in the First Test, by nearly 200 runs, was somewhat (bit of an understatement) marred by the inability of a "friend" to deliver on his promise to join the fifth day ticket queue at the crack of dawn. Thinking back now, he said that it was so that I needn't curtail my beauty sleep … surely a clue there to a flawed character? My wrath at finding that he'd been in the St John's Wood area since a fairly suitably early hour but hadn't actually felt the need to join the queue was amazingly quietly controlled. I walked the considerable, and twisty turny, distance from the East Gate to the end of the queue just for the hell of it and then turned on my (high) heel and when home to enjoy the play and the victory in the comfort, warmth and sunshine of my back garden with TMS and Tash as perfect company. Lessons learned: (a) if you want something done properly, do it yourself, and (b) never trust a Middlesex supporter (even if he claims to support Surrey too)!

The Second Test, at Trent Bridge, delivered victory well inside four days by 300+ runs, and with a hat-trick from Stuart Broad thrown in along the way. It seemed difficult to believe that England wasn't going to win all four and take the Number One status from India … but harder still for me to forget how many times in the past seemingly simple plans had gone so badly awry in the hands of England cricketers.

My best moment of the Third Test at Edgbaston - and possibly the whole series - came during the afternoon of the fourth day when I released that I was watching England play cricket without any fear that it would all go horribly wrong. An unusual, but very welcome, feeling. Long may it last. The pain, despair and misery of so many England collapses, thrashings and humiliations over the years were erased as England cruised to 710-7 and from there to a four-day victory by an innings and 200+ runs, picking up the status of Number One Test Team in the World in the process.

The Fourth (and last) Test was my "home" match at The Oval. I had tickets for the first, third and fifth days and was really looking forward to sharing the first two of those with my bestest cricket girl pal (and her brother-in-law on the Saturday).

Not the weather I ordered.

Bananas beat All-Comers

The weather gods, however, had completely different plans and conspired, with an elegance of timing, to deliver rain to SE11 on the stroke of lunch both days. On Thursday, we stuck it out while being entertained by an impromptu Bananas v All Comers match at the front of the Lock Stand, before admitting defeat and heading home, damp, cool and expecting much better on Saturday.

Somewhat churlishly, I admit, my best moments of the match probably occurred on Friday, when I was listening/watching at home. Both Bell and Pietersen had the decency to get their centuries, so I didn't have to stand and applaud my two least favourite current players (revisit the end of Mr Thorpe's international career to appreciate the reasons). Nuts, who I still can't recognise as a Surrey player, went one further and got out before the close of play so I didn't have to see him bat "in person" on Saturday.

Just a tad too wet and gloomy for play

Day 3 started off OK weather-wise but the rain again came at lunch and we gave in after a couple of hours and headed home. In what felt like a spirit of blind optimism, I got a re-admission stamp on my wrist (which took three days to wash off). This actually turned out to be shrewd fore-sight as by late-afternoon Kennington was basking in sunshine under clear blue skies and play resumed for a couple of hours. During which Tendulkar came in, was cheered almost constantly by the huge Indian contingent in the crowd and then got out, without achieving that hundredth hundred.

The 80th (& final) Indian
wicket of the summer falls

My heels and I enjoy the space
and view of the Pavilion Top

On Monday (Day 5), I started watching in the crowd-packed stands but soon defected and traded in my general public ticket for a Member's Pavilion Seat and watched the rest of the day's play and enjoyed the victory, by an innings and a handful of runs, from the lofty heights of the Pavilion Top, where I felt much more at home - and had much more room to stretch out my legs. Apart from the victory, my highlight of the day was waving my England flag and "singing" Jerusalem three times. Shame practically no-one else seemed to know the words and sincere apologies to all those in sufficient proximity to me to have to suffer so many off-key notes.

What a way to treat Veuve Clicquot!

The ground staff was not amused by
thecelebratory red & white streamers.

Despite the Indian cohort of the crowd hoping against hope for a Tendulkar miracle, in the end England took only slightly longer to get the last seven Indian wickets than they did to finish off, and casually discard, their celebratory bottles of Veuve Clicquot. Oh well, having completed the first series whitewash since 1959 (or some such date) and becoming the Number One Test Team in the World (did I mention that already?) perhaps they can be excused such a minor aberration.

So, that was it, the international summer finished - unless one counts ODIs and T20 matches, which I don't this time since I'm going to be out of the UK for almost all of them - and the usual feeling of missing it already descended. This time, of course, it was meeting the undiluted joy of such a marvellous all round performance, which I fully expect to be repeated throughout the forthcoming winter, just like the last one. Hmm, this winning thing is becoming something of a habit - and a very enjoyable one at that. And I feel that I've really earned if after so much suffering over the past 30-ish years!

Sweet as Sugar

This week's Docrafts Creativity challenge is an inspiration one, with a nostalgia-provoking photograph of some Love Hearts sweets. When making cards for challenges, it usually helps me to have a recipient in mind (and stops me accumulating even more cards waiting for just the right occasion …). For this challenge, the recipient will be my mother. Had my father been alive, it would have been my parents' Golden Wedding anniversary next week. I wanted to send my mum a card to let her know that I was thinking about her especially at what could be a sad time. "Love You" seemed just the right thing to say.

The colours in the photograph immediately reminded me of some paper that I had in my stash, so I was off to a speedy start. I thought I'd repeat the dangling of an element in front of the main card, which had worked well for my nephew's birthday card a couple of weeks ago. I'd tried to explain orally how this looked to my mother but didn't think I'd got it across all that well. Now I'd send her one of her own and hope that makes it clearer.

The background paper was quite busy so I didn't want to make things too complicated but the pair of "danglers" wasn't enough on its own. Also, I wanted to include something that represented the sweets. I punched about a dozen small hearts from various parts of a multi-patterned paper and intended to punch their circular backings - but my smallest circle punch was not quite big enough and the next smallest was too big. A kind of a Goldilocks moment. Nestability die cuts to the rescue. The smallest circle was just right and so I embarked upon repeatedly putting textured white card through my Cuttlebug. It was a great boon that the machine works in both directions, although re-assembling the plate sandwich for each pass was much more fiddly and time-consuming than using a punch would have been … but that wasn't an option.

I inked the edges of everything with a really old tired pastel pink inkpad that is always in my essentials box - such a useful colour. It has a bit of a chalky feel to it, which seemed to match that of the sweets - at least in my memory. Can't quite recall how they tasted: not getting further than sugary! Were the different colours differently flavoured?

The small hearts were stuck flat on the circles, which were then mounted, in as random a manner as I could manage, onto the background paper using 1 mm foam pads. The acetate strips for the "danglers" were sandwiched between two larger punched hearts and secured to the card behind the backing paper. A single small heart mounted with a foam pad on one heart and a rub-on sentiment on the other finished off the card.

Quite a simple, but effective, card, I feel. Odd not to have used any ribbon; I found some suitable colours but they seemed unnecessary with so much stripy paper. I'm very pleased with the colours: I like it when pastels are bright and vibrant rather than really pale. And - an unusual outcome for my cards - it should travel through the post really well. Think Mummy will have a smile when she sees it. She's doing the church flowers in Daddy's memory this week and, most appropriately, has chosen a gold colour theme. Think it would have been weird though - and not in keeping with the challenge inspiration photograph - to use gold for this card. I did love making all those men's cards recently but it is nice to be back to prettiness as well as style and design.

(Another) One for the Boys

Despite making cards for men being universally considered as the hardest task, I've just had a second success in one week. On Monday, I got inspired by this month's Get Funky! Boys Boys Boys challenge and made a card for my cousin's birthday next week, along with several spares for upcoming male birthdays. Today, having wimpily abandoned my plan to watch live cricket on the grounds of less than perfect sunny warm weather and the probability (which has been realised) of a Surrey defeat, I settled down to listen to the Lord's Test, watch Le Tour de France time trial and see if I could come up with something for the Docrafts Creativity challenge that Katy had set this week.

Katy alternates sketch layout challenges with inspiration challenges. This week's was one of the latter, which provide opportunities to be as creative as one likes, as long as there's something to link the finished product with the original photograph. Katy, either cheekily or cleverly, gave us a very Christmassy photograph, which has divided the entrants so far. Several took encouragement to start on their festive card making; others moaned that it was far too early and did anything but. I wasn't in the mood to make a Christmas card but didn't stand firmly in the latter camp either, having very happily knocked off 40-something of this year's Christmas cards in early-January.

I did like the five circles in a row component of the photograph and, particularly, the single element stood forward of the background. It came to me that each of the circles could bear a letter of someone's name (as long as it was five letters long) and that the forward element could be attached to the card on a strip of acetate, and so dangle in front, rather than being fixed flat. Running through my friends and relatives with appropriate names, I quickly came to my eldest nephew, whose birthday is in November. So, sort of planning ahead, but not quite as far as Christmas (155 sleeps to go, by the way). I hadn't necessarily intended to use the red and silver colours from the photograph but as my nephew's a Liverpool fan (no idea why; he lives in Somerset and his father supports Man City), it seemed a good plan.

Having decided to include letters, I then had to produce them. I thought about using some wrongly coloured chipboard ones as templates and cutting them out but was fearful that I wouldn't be able to do it neatly enough. I then remembered that I had bought a set of Papermania alphabet stamps a while back on the grounds that they were a craft box essential. So essential, of course, that I had never used them and almost forgotten about them! When I tracked them down, I also found an unused round "Happy Birthday" stamp, which gave me the start of an idea for the dangly component.

Progress from there was swift. I stamped the letters on textured red card with VersaColour silver (92) pigment ink and heat embossed them with Crafter's Companion metallic silver embossing powder. That combination of products gave a lovely effect, even though only single embossing was practicable. I backed the red circles with scalloped circles of textured matt silver card, which seemed to complement the embossing better than shiny mirror-board. I did indulge in the latter to back the sparkly red background and for the triple stripes, which seemed to add an appropriate sporty touch and were far easier to cut than I'd imagined. A pearly red gem in each of the cutaway corners and the basic card was done.

This just left me to make the dangler (for which I'm sure there's a more formal name that I don't know). Using a bit more mirror-board was an easy decision but I wanted to add some depth and weight to help it hang well. It occurred to me that fun foam might work well but I wasn't sure how to cut a circle from it. I knew that punches weren't up to its thickness but I wondered whether a Nestabilities die cut in the Cuttlebug might work. The answer, once I tried it, was with ease: result! I needed something to go in the dangler's middle: firstly to finish it off and secondly as I had got a smudge of silver ink there from the stamp. A silver sequin topped with a clear star gem did the trick. I toyed with adding a little ribbon bow but decided it wasn't quite the right colour red, which saved me the trouble of deciding whether a bow on a male card was appropriate.

Having visited the Crafter's Companion website to make sure I'd remembered correctly about the apostrophe and where to stick it (something of an obsession of mine), I discovered that their monthly challenge was One for the Boys. I thought I'd put this card in for that as well, as an example of their marvellous embossing powder, which I love. My only gripe with it is that the container lid isn't removable so getting the excess powder back into the pot - we crafters hate to waste anything - is a fiddly and time-consuming task. Perhaps the next release could have a screw top lid?

OK boys, you've had a more than disproportionate amount of my crafting energy and attention recently. I will gladly admit to having enjoyed it greatly, and having discovered layouts, styles and combinations that I can readily use for many purposes, but the next projects will be firmly focussed on the girls. They'll have to be: September is bursting girlie birthdays.  BTW, did you work out my nephew's name yet?

Lions Roar No More

Well, we all know - don't we? - that Twenty20 cricket isn't real cricket … except, of course, when we recall that England are the current T20 world champions. This frame of mind comes from Surrey's exit from the 2011 domestic competition at the group stage. Huge disappointment, as with just two of the sixteen matches to go, the dizzy heights of a home quarter-final was on the cards. This had an added excitement for me, as it was feasible that this would have been against Lancashire and occur during the tiny five day window when a really good mate, Manchester born and bred but now exiled to France, would be visiting. Through my daydreaming, I should have realised that that was just too much expectation to place upon the shoulders of Rory's young Surrey lions.

I'd missed the first half of the campaign while lazing for most of June on a Greek beach. Several of the fixtures had been declared no result due to inclement English weather. Things were looking pretty open. My first match, three days after returning, was on a roasting hot afternoon at Beckenham. I appreciated the chance to top up my suntan, but a Kent victory was unwelcome. This was followed five days later, in the company of my utterly bestest cricket girl pal, by a comprehensive defeat at the hands of the Somerset cider-boys. Having grown up in Somerset, and with cricket mates living in Taunton, this was also not what I wanted to see. Apart from such terrific company, the highlight of evening was wearing my Ashes winning t-shirt. Not subtle or polite, I agree, but effective.

At this stage, it seemed clear that the T20 trophy was not going to return to the Surrey cabinet this year. Then came our glory week: three fixtures, at three different grounds, in five days, all of them victories and I saw all of them live. First, Monday evening at Whitgift School in Croydon: got really tight, felt Sussex had the upper hand but they kept dropping catches and Surrey squeaked home. Next, off to The Home of Cricket, in the company of a Middlesex member so with a view from the Pavilion. Marvellous experience and a great victory for Surrey.

Two out of three. Now, as we well know, Mr Loaf believes "two out of three ain't bad". I have never agreed with the man - fabulous performer though he is (well, apart from the time that I saw him collapse on stage at Wembley): two out of three ain't good enough in my book. And Surrey agreed. Back at The Oval the next night, watching for the first time from the top of the OCS Stand, Surrey pulled off a comprehensive trouncing of top of the table Hampshire. Yes!  Three in a row.  This was it, surely we were going to get our home quarter-final.

The ECB scheduling, for reasons known only to itself, threw a four day Championship match in next. We spectators took deep breaths, got pleasantly lulled by the soporific effects of the grown up game after so much hectic T20, and Surrey pulled off a tense and close victory, on a very cool fourth morning, against Kent. This backfired quickly the following evening, as Kent took their revenge and beat us easily. OK, the home QF was off but if we overcame Sussex the next day, we would still be through. Embryonic thoughts about a trip to Hove to watch were abandoned quickly as the news came through that it was sold out. Probably a blessing as Sussex reversed their Whitgift defeat and the Surrey Lions roared no more.

Plenty of talk on Twitter from deluded optimists pleased by a perceived improvement from Surrey's performance last year. What rubbish. In a knock-out tournament, what matters is getting through - not how well or poorly the team plays. We'd failed and from my point of view, the glass was utterly and completely empty. Still chastened by the crashing down of my T20 dreams, I'm yet to climb to wild heights of optimism about our CB40 one day chances. Yes, we won our first five matches. The sixth last weekend was a casualty of the weather. We're top of our group. All positive, so why am I not looking forward to the first weekend of September and the semi-finals? In fact, I have so little hope of such a prospect that I'll be back in Greece then. Perhaps having, so nobly, sacrificed the chance to see victory will ensure success? Yes, that's the plan. Come on The Rey!

Boys Boys Boys

This month's Get Funky! challenge from Funky Hand is "Boys Boys Boys". Cards for men are almost universally held to be the hardest to make but with two male relatives having birthdays in the next few weeks, this was a timely challenge for me. As usual, the wonderful Anice provided a fabulous freebie paper and, although there is no obligation to use it, the colour and pattern combination made it irresistible.

Learning from my experience with this week's Docrafts Creativity challenge, I decided to go for simplicity in design but also to have another go at using the previous unfamiliar combination of squares and circles. The colours of the freebie paper came from the Jovial Man collection on the Papercraft Factory Colour Me Happy CD and I chose another pattern from that as my second paper. After that, it was simply a matter of cutting out squares and circles, inking their edges (obligatory!) and matting them onto complementary card. Anice had included stars on the freebie sheet and although I didn't use those, I liked the idea (and sentiment) of including a star so punched one out of card, inked it, topped it with a button and stuck it on. I was very glad to find that I had just the right colour of ink and style of stamp for a casual "Happy Birthday" greeting, using another of the collection's papers. The wooden mini-peg was not part of my original design but, having found it in my button box, it seemed to provide a slightly quirky yet appealing embellishment. Albeit one that's not necessarily going to travel well through the mail …

Pleased with how the finished card looked, I made a few more along similar lines using other patterns in the collection. Although blue and green is a combination that's not "supposed to be seen", it's one that I've always really liked, being based, it seems to me, on prolific colours in nature, and certainly works well for men. Thanks to the Get Funky! design team for the inspiration; that's my male card needs sorted for now and a few more to come, which is a great relief. Lots of female birthdays coming up at the end of the summer: any chance that next month's challenge could provide a useful starting point for them?

Squaring the Circle

Good weather, cricket and a holiday have distracted me from card-making for too long.  With Surrey out of the Twenty20 and the UK summer reverting to the usual cool, damp and dull weather, staying in and crafting became not just a feasible option but also a very attractive one.  Too much time pressure when making cards rarely, if ever, enhances my creativity but a deadline of some sort does help focus my mind.  I didn't have any particular cards in hand for the family and friends with birthdays coming up in the next month.  And, after a hectic week in mid-April, I also haven't done all that well (understatement) in taking part in online crafting challenges.  A wet Sunday afternoon (about which a complaint has been lodged with St Swithin on the grounds that his saint's day at the end of last week had been gloriously sunny, hot and, most importantly, entirely dry - at least in London) offered a good opportunity to address both.

The Docrafts Creativity website has a new paper-crafting challenge each Tuesday, with a Monday evening submission deadline.  I'm impressed by those who are able to get cards in on Wednesday or Thursday but suspect that I'm amongst the majority who submit late on Sunday or during Monday.  This week's challenge was a simple sketch outline involving a square set on a circle.  This is not a natural combination in my card-making as my preference is to keep curves and angles separate.  I had a pink and green colour way in mind - perhaps to balance the greyness outside my window.  A suitably shaped and sized topper in each colour came readily to hand, along with some co-ordinating papers.

Although I am pretty hopeful that the finished card will go down well with the intended recipient, I'm not entirely satisfied with the final card.  I like the combination of paper colours and patterns and think the ribbons work well, although it's a shame that so little of them remains visible.  I had originally intended to avoid using the card-maker's staple of mirror-card.  However, the papers alone looked a bit flat and adding just a little bit of silver card as a matting layer behind the topper and as flower and gem embellishments seemed to lift the design in a pleasing way.  I think the card is a bit cluttered and would probably have benefitted from being a little bigger overall.  The papers seem to dominate and distract from the topper itself; probably something less complex would have worked better.  However, this combination of a circle and square has a potential that I wouldn't have thought of myself.  With a simpler, and completely square, topper - perhaps an initial or a single shape - it would work well and I aim to try a variation along those lines.

I suspect that there is no creative project with which the creator has ever been entirely satisfied.  Looking back over my back catalogue of cards, I can see plenty of positive evolution in my style, designs and skills.  Those who have been at this much longer than I have frequently comment that they are always discovering and learning something new.  That's a big part of the joy of it and I trust it long remains so. Although I suspect (or is that hope?) that cricket and good weather will get in the way of me taking part in the weekly challenge for the next couple of weeks.

Scooping the Sweepstake

On a day when Mr Ramprakash passed 35,000 first class runs, and went 39th on the all-time list, I had my own, albeit it comparatively miniscule, success: my second ever betting win. (See Grand Ambitions for the first.) Today was Day 2 of the County Championship match between Surrey and Glamorgan at The Oval. Despite Mr Ramprakash's milestone, Alviro Petersen's maiden double century and a record third wicket stand for Glamorgan against Surrey, it hadn't - like yesterday - been the most exciting day of cricket when the tenth Glamorgan wicket fell a couple of balls after lunch. Enthusiasm was reasonably high for a sweepstake and, somewhat predictably, the Surrey score at close of play was selected. Guesses ranged from 205 to 281, with number of wickets down from the supremely optimistic none to five. Bids were noted, pounds produced and a banker appointed. Only one of the participants seemed at all concerned about the outcome, assuming that, even before scoring slowed and wickets were falling, his lowest total would prevail. We heard many plans of what he'd be doing with his winnings and his repeated clarification with the banker that the nearest number would win rather than going bust when one's score was passed.

For a while, it did seem that his faith would be rewarded. However, as the number of overs remaining neared single figures, uncertainty began to enter his voice. The batsmen kept up a reasonable rate and his total, and then the upper limit of his range, passed with overs still to be bowled. It seemed that Surrey might make nearer 250 than 200 - and so it turned out. Play concluded at the end of the sixty sixth over, the score was 240-6 and the nearest guess 243. And it was mine! Good job that wickets down was only to be used as a tie-breaker since, with the usual optimism of my simple plans, I'd gone for without loss. The pot was handed over with much goodwill and now I have the hard job of working out exactly how best to spend … six quid!

Canalway Cavalcade

The Royal Wedding/May Day public holiday weekend saw London's Little Venice hosting the 2011 Canalway Cavalcade.  Having enjoyed several canal boat family holidays, and always keen to visit any of London's waterways and bridges, I happily headed north in glorious sunshine.  In its oasis of leafy calm, there were oads of gorgeously decorated canal boats moored side by side.  The towpath was lined with interesting little stalls selling a tempting range of food, trinkets and suchlike, music played, Morris men danced, beer was drunk, Punch & Judy performed and, apart from a few unfortunate stall-holders trapped in the shade and a surprisingly biting breeze, a good time appeared to be being had by many.

I discovered Britain's Best Pork Scratchings, couldn't resist a bag of fluffy pink candyfloss, found a solution for sunbathing with shorter hair, and bought a tray of little herb plants.  The first two, with a glass of Pernod, provided me with a really yummy mid-afternoon snack when I got home, which was quickly followed by some authentically sticky baklava.  Balanced diet not - but a lot of fun and perhaps a combination soon to seen on a Heston Blumenthal menu.  Amazingly, ten days on, the herbs are still alive - and even thriving, apart from the basil, which seems to be the local snails' current favourite snack - on my kitchen windowsill; giving me hope that I might be capable of growing something green after all.

It was a downside not to be able to revisit my memories of standing on a canal boat and feeling the floor move beneath my feet - and perhaps the detrimental effects of quite such a large sugar and fat blast on my waistline and teeth.  Dangerously, I've discovered that the pork scratchings are available by post: can't see that I'm going to be able to resist indulging again, although perhaps I'll just partner them with the Pernod next time …

The Ashes Revisited (1981)

One film about cricket being shown at the cinema is an unusual event but this week there have been two: Fire in Babylon and From the Ashes.  Remarkable.  Both are documentaries that make extensive use of original footage, supplemented by insightful, honest and revealing interviews, contemporary and recent, with the main protagonists and journalists.  Each has had a one off showing across the UK, followed by a live satellite Q&A session from a London cinema.  Both will shortly be on general cinema release, quickly followed by DVDs.
 

Fire in Babylon is about the emergence of the great West Indian cricket team, with its stars Viv Richards, Clive Lloyd and Michael Holding, and directed by Stevan Riley.  From the Ashes, directed by James Erskine, is about the 1981 England v Australia series, which is generally known as "Botham's Ashes" but is actually about far more.

I certainly didn't watch, analyse and dwell upon every moment of the 1981 Ashes series as I have with the more recent ones.  It was, however, when I first became aware of cricket, and started to try to work out some of complexities of the game.  Oddly, I don't have my own memories of either Botham's anguishes and failures before he was relieved of the England captaincy, or of his heroic and liberated batting and bowling afterwards, although I have, of course, seen much footage of all of that many times since.  My memories from the time are of Kim Hughes, the blond, stylish and dashing Australian captain, in the field, Bob Willis's amazingly focussed, some have said crazed, bowling spell at Headingley, and the calm, shrewd and effective captaincy of Mike Brearley, the amazing effect of which was obvious even to a confused novice like me.

All of this, and much more, appears in the documentary, alongside political and social events at the time in the UK, backed by a terrific soundtrack, with which I didn't manage to resist singing along.  I gained insight into the huge challenges that Kim Hughes endured from members of the Australian team, such as Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh, who were disrespectful to him and his office - and freely admitted so.  I appreciated just how fragile the situation was at Headingley and that it could just as easily, if not even more easily, gone horribly wrong rather than marvellously right.  I heard Willis, Brearley and Botham express insecurities about their position in the team and how they were viewed by management and fellow players.  And it was clear once again that every successful Ashes series has at least one player for whom it was not a personal playing triumph: encouraging to hear the great David Gower admit that in 1981 it was him.

There can't be an England cricket fan who doesn't know the outcome of the 1981 series, nor that it turned on Botham's performance at Headingley, but there was plenty new in the film for me, and I imagine that many others - of all ages -  may find that their understanding, appreciation and memories are enhanced by these 90 minutes of cricket.  The portrayal of some of the social and political events of the time - riots on city streets, recession, a fairly new Conservative Prime Minister, and a Royal Wedding - are interesting, not least in their parallels to today.  It's also intriguing to see how life has changed for England cricket stars: much enhanced pay, benefits and lifestyle, but also much less freedom, and opportunity to live as normal men.

Such was my enjoyment of what I gained - from the film and the Q&A afterwards - that I'll gallantly forgive the film-makers for a shot of an inappropriate dial telephone.  It was certainly old enough to have been used in 1981 and the number was for the Marylebone exchange, so might have been Lord's, but the dialling code was wrong.  In 1981, London still had its famous, and rightful, 01 code; 071 was not introduced until the other end of the decade.  Once a telephone engineer's daughter, always a telephone engineer's daughter!

The Ashes Revisited (2010/11)

This week, the documentary film From the Ashes allowed us to revisit England's 1981 Ashes victory.  Last week, however, it was last winter's win that I was reliving.  And in the actual, rather than satellite, presence of one of the main participants: Andrew Strauss, the double Ashes winning captain no less.  Courtesy, it cannot be said too often or with too much gratitude, of Simon "The Cricket Analyst" Hughes, who ran a Twitter competition.  Anyone who considers Twitter to be a complete waste of time might just want to think again.

When Simon announced on Twitter that he'd be running a competition for an evening with Mr Strauss re-enjoying last winter's cricket down under, I assumed that (a) the question would be completely impossible (certainly a characteristic of other competitions that the Analyst has run on Twitter) and (b) the world, his brother, his dog and Geoffrey Boycott's grandmother would enter.  The task was to identify a player on the Cricket Analyst mobile app (iPhone/Android), which some might cynically think was a sales ploy.  Even if it was, the purchase price was insignificant compared to the prestige of the prize.  Anyway, I had already obtained the app for a bargain price at the end of some irrelevant one-day international tournament held on the sub-continent.  I assumed that the player would be someone very obscure.  Actually, it was Brad Hogg and, very helpfully, the app told me so.  I emailed my answer off to Simon, wished him well with sorting through the avalanche of replies and hoped that he, Mr Strauss and the lucky winners would have a very happy evening.  Then I moved on to waste (sorry, invest) time on some other pursuit.

I think that there were two factors in my favour.  One, the competition was running early-afternoon in the middle of the week.  Two, and possibly more significant, entry was to be made by email not Twitter reply; plenty of people didn't seem to have noticed that.  When an email from Simon Hughes dropped in my inbox, I assumed that it was of the polite "sorry, but thanks for your interest" kind.  Amazingly, no, I had won.  I thanked him immediately and profusely and then checked that the prize was two tickets.  Apparently, no, it was only supposed to be one, but he was prepared to make an exception.  More thanks, apologies for seeming cheeky and off to break the news to my best cricket girlfriend.

Joining instructions required us to make our way to The Park Club in west London (a very obscure part of town for me) and to be attired in the ubiquitous "smart casual".  Full of excitement, but still not quite sure what would be happening, we complied, presented ourselves at reception as "guests of Simon Hughes" and found ourselves in a large white marquee, seated right at the front on Table 1.  I found my nerves rising to a level similar to that I'd last felt on 24 November 2010 waiting for the series to begin.  Suddenly, Mr Strauss was on the stage in front of us, sporting a rather severe haircut, which you might have noticed in the publicity photographs of the new trio of England captains taken the following day.

We saw, cheered and clapped lots of footage from the five Test Matches.  Simon Hughes asked our captain lots of decent questions and an occasional rubbish one.  We knew how Mr Strauss had felt getting out to the third ball of the series: we'd all watched and endured it with him - and feared what disaster might follow.  He handled them all with aplomb, humour and honesty.  Time flew by, we got some good insight into how our captain felt about his own performance, those of some of his fellow players, and what he thought of the Australian captain's "new" hair (amongst other things).

Whoever had the very bright idea of serving a supper of curry and rice was a genius; whoever thought that an early-May evening event in a marquee in London did not need heating was not.  It was terrific to relive those memories, and in such special company, but it would have been even more fab if it hadn't been quite so chilly.  (Memories of the MCG on Boxing Day 2006 returned.)  Finally, the video footage reached the marvellous moment when Strauss raised the urn, red and white tickertape fell and I felt almost as excited as I had four months earlier.  There was a raffle for charity.  Someone won a bat: not me, but I felt that I'd been plenty lucky enough just to be there.

A truly lovely evening.  Thanks, once again, to The Cricket Analyst and Twitter - and to Mr Strauss.  Long may you remain our captain; those other two are the heir and spare, and long may they stay that way.

Supporting Surrey to Success

The first one-day match of the season for Surrey on Sunday saw Scotland welcomed as the opposition at The Oval.  Not the most competitive of matches, with, thankfully, little need for nail biting or gnashing of teeth. 

There was a pitch invasion from the Laker Stand by a topless young boy, who earned a stern talking to from a steward for his transgression.  Scotland's Calvin Burnett earned vociferous approval from the crowd when he eventually gave an autograph to a female "fan", who didn't seem to have entirely grasped that his job was to pay attention to what was happening on the field rather than to her. 

I enjoyed eating my first British strawberries of the season (surprisingly tasty for so early) while sitting on the outfield during the innings break (but failed to notice Chris Tremlett practising his bowling).  Happily, it was a most comprehensive seven wicket victory for the home side, which was very well received by the spectators and did a little to ease my pain from the debacle at Lord's in the three (sorry, four) day match earlier in the week.  My scorecard's not quite fully completed, as I didn't always notice precisely when each over ended, but the really important bit in the top left hand corner looks just fine to me!

Pleased, I assume, with their victory on Sunday, Surrey headed to Southampton on Monday to play the sterner seeming opposition of Hampshire.  I followed this one on Twitter, Facebook and through the great ;ECB mobile app and "watched" with an odd mixture of increasing excitement and terror as Surrey took wicket after wicket to have Hampshire all out for only 141 after just 30 overs.  Others were full of confidence for an easy win but once Surrey started batting, my fears began to be realised as early wickets tumbled.  At 47-5 after 13, I was pretty sure that I'd be drinking consolation, rather than celebratory, rosé with my supper.  The next 20 overs, while Jason Roy and Matthew Spriegel painstakingly rebuilt the innings, seemed endless and I hardly dared breathe.  (Why did I imagine that was going to make a difference one way or another?)  Eventually, the scoreboard on my mobile showed 142, I inhaled deeply, the tension drained out of my body and I reached for the corkscrew.

I thought recreational interests were supposed to be good for one's health?  Supporting Surrey this season is going to be anything but if they keep throwing away great positions.  Perhaps they've learned their lesson from this week's experiences?  I'm going to try to follow the advice given in response to one of my Facebook comments: "Enjoy it while it lasts, because tomorrow … well you know the rest!"  And, as a start, I'm taking pleasure at Surrey being top of their group (and having the best run rate across all three groups).  Tomorrow is another day and I'll handle it when it comes.

Busk-a-Long-a-Billy

As London recovered from yesterday's Royal Wedding, Billy Bragg invited those still standing who could sing or strum to bring along their voices and guitars and join him for a Big Busk outside the Royal Festival Hall.  Aided by huge chord cards and encouraged by warm sunshine, plenty of shiny happy people, many armed with guitars and some with more exotic instruments, turned up, tuned in and busked along.  Generally, a great time seemed to be had by all.  Although perhaps those people stood next to me didn't necessarily appreciate the enthusiasm with which I responded to Mr Bragg's reassurance that playing wrong notes or singing off key was practically requisite when busking.  It might be that he meant the occasional shift off key was to be forgiven, rather than occasionally - or may be not even that frequently - hitting the right note by accident?  Eric Morecombe's piano playing was a positive aural delight compared to my singing.  Apologies all round.

A Simple Plan Works (Temporarily)

After weeks of deprivation, cricket returned to London today.  Moreover, it was the London derby: Middlesex against Surrey at The Home of Cricket.  I was so excited as I made my way to St John's Wood and entered Lord's.  Surrey won the toss and I was ready with my standard "100 without loss at lunch" plan.  Then Rory Hamilton-Brown elected to field.  I thought I'd misheard but, no, Middlesex was going to bat.  Hmm, what happened to the three absolutes about winning the toss?

(1) Win the toss and bat

(2) If you're not sure, think about it and bat

(3) If you're still not sure, ask someone, and then bat

I took a deep intake of breath, remembered he was the captain and professional cricketer not me, and revised my simple plan to read "Middlesex four down for less than 100 at lunch".  The course of the next couple of hours thus sorted, I settled back in the warm sun, right at the boundary edge.  Lord's was looking splendid and all the ingredients were in place for a great day of cricket.

When I should have gone home ...

Almost immediately, Middlesex lost a wicket, and then another and then a third.  At 28-3, it seemed that (a) electing not to bat had been absolutely the right thing to do and, just as unlikely, (b) my simple plan might actually happen.  I had to wait about an hour but then, yes, the fourth wicket was down, score at 90-something, the umpire called lunch and we were invited to walk on the outfield.  My HQ (happiness quotient) was through the roof.  Should have called it a day and headed home at that point …

My post-lunch simple plan was to have Middlesex all out for under 200 by tea.  A rare Surrey supporter seated nearby nodded his approval.  Hours and hours (or was it days and days) later, another meal break had passed, and I had moved from the Grand stand to the Compton Stand to stay in the sun.  Middlesex had put on 250 more runs and the fifth wicket still hadn't fallen.  Having tried to distract myself with how Old Father Time had managed to Tweet a photograph that had clearly been taken from the Pavilion and whether there were squatters in the TMS commentary box, I found myself surrounded by over-excited Middlesex fans, applauding a second Middlesex centurion and longing for the close of play.  Now I understood why having a game that lasts for so long is such a bad idea: it gives so much opportunity for stuff to happen - and, almost inevitably, that's not all going to be "to plan".  The fifth wicket eventually fell but I was hard pressed to summon any positive emotion.

... when I actually went home!



Euphoria to if not actual misery then at least its first cousin in just a few hours.  And it had been my choice to watch this.  Do I really have to go back tomorrow?  Entirely up to me - but I kind of know that, unless the rain gods smile on me, I'll be there by 11 am formulating yet another optimistic simple plan that's almost certainly doomed to failure.  Before this morning, I can't remember the last time that I got one right.  Oh well, that's the game I love.  Perhaps I can find a few more Surrey supporters in the morning: misery shared is misery halved, after all - or is that doubled?