A walk in the country

We took the boys out for their first long walk in months today, just our usual walk near West Wycombe, but it was very nice in the sunshine, and easier for me when I only had to carry Lara and not control one of the dogs. Mishka is clearly unfit, and had to lie down for a few moments rest when we reached the top of the hill!

At last.... (updated)

If you look really closely, you'll see that that photo is actually of Andrew Flintoff, and not me, but it might have well have been me! I'd not reported on Littlewick Green 2nd XI's first two games of the season, seeing as they were defeats, but yesterday we enjoyed our first win. We were short of bowlers, and even I had to bowl 9 overs, something I've not done before, not in one spell at least. I concentrated enough to get three wickets, it could have been five had a simple catch been taken and an umpire hadn't heard the mythical sound of leather on willow a microsecond before the really obvious sound of leather on plastic-covering-of-batsman's-pad. Anyway, the opposition declared on 276-4 after 50 overs, and we reached 278-7 in the 44th over of our reply. The opposition helped us as much as possible by conceding a massive 67 extras, beating our top-scorer who made 53, but hey, I'm not complaining, 30 points is 30 points and although we're still bottom of the division, there's now only 5 points between us and the team in the middle of the division.

Update: I've finally got round to writing a Match Report.

A visitor to the garden

We had a visitor this morning. Usually we get Monkjack deer, but this one was bigger, perhaps a fallow deer. She (I'm assuming a she) hopped over into the upper part of our garden, then hopped over our keep-the-dogs-away-from-the-decking fence, and wandered about for a few minutes, venturing quite close to the house. The boys were safely restrained in the house, but they were going mental. After a few minutes of wondering how she might defeat my terrier-proof garden, she hopped back over to the top part of the garden and escaped to the neighbours. Only when she was safely away did I "release the hounds" and let them go and explore the exciting new smells.

The Sun has Got His Hat On, Hip Hip Hip Hooray

It's the best Saturday of the year so far for weather, so everyone is getting ready to go out to the garden. I've got cricket this afternoon at the Green, I've got 11 players for the 2nd XI, but only two of those are bowlers. It could be a long afternoon, involving me having a bowl too. I've not bowled in a League game for 10 years, and haven't bowled more than 4 overs in one spell in that time either in any kind of game. Oh well, time for the captain to stand up and be counted...

On another, hopefully sunny note, we've booked our summer holiday. We've spent weeks trying to decide what the best option would be, and it came down to a cheap, last-minute all-inclusive to Spain or Turkey, or a week in a holiday camp in France. In the end we went for the holiday camp option (no flying invloved in case "The Cloud" gets in the way, and no worries about getting a crappy hotel with thin walls and gangs of Essex teenagers running amok, keeping Lara (and us) awake), but the amount of driving involved in getting to Brittany or the Cote d'Azur from Calais was just too much. Getting a ferry to Roscoff or St Malo was too expensive as well.. so in the end we've opted for a holiday camp in Holland! It's on the coast, and about 40 minutes drive to Amsterdam, and has a theme park AND a water park for Lara's use (OK, for ours too). Luda will stay in High Wycombe and look after the boys, while we have a week in a 2-bed mobile home. Now we've booked it, and the Dover-Calais ferry, we can't wait. We're off on June 2nd, so not long to wait. This is the park.

OK, time to see if the lawn mower will start...

We're still here!

Nothing too exciting has happened in the last 10 days or so. Littlewick 2nd XI have lost their first two games under my captaincy, but the second game was better than the first, so we're going in the right direction and that first win will come soon enough. There was no game today, which meant I could watch the FA Cup Final for once,  while Olga, Lara and Luda went to London for the day.  Plenty of jobs are being done at home, especially by Luda in the garden, and tomorrow we'll make more progress before heading down to Wycombe for a pub tea whilst we watch the Twenty20 Cup Final betwee England and Australia....