The cricket tour diary awaits

It won't be long now. I'm getting in the mood. This weekend is out as we are off to Bird Flu land for the weekend. The forecast is good. No drizzle, turkey or rain. In the 2nd leg of that wonderful final the players had to go off the ground for rain on a number of occasions and we actually tasted victory in the showers. Wasn't it wonderful to see all those Aussie fans filing out. The 'Long hot summer for the Poms' promised by one of those fans as we inched towards the bus in Brisbane after our first day's battering came to a suitable damp squib of a end for them. I've played on many damp squibs in my time without a thought of going off, but there was one time when thoughts of rain and showers were dominating my tiny mind when I was sat outside our apartment on holiday in Spain overlooking the obligatory building site dreaming about turning the site into a home ground for our Srimpers Cricket team
What a shower! Not the builders, it’s the one in the apartment. Freezing cold as the heating unit was parading more smuts than a 1960’s South African porn magazine. I’d certainly change it for the new changing rooms in my pavilion. Perhaps the TV program of that name could be asked to help and pay. Cricket can be a less amusing old game if you’ve played crap and have to splash yourself all over Henry Cooper style from the sink. These days you have to include breathing apparatus in your kit bag as all the youngsters fill the air with underarm aerosol sprays. Did I tell you before that our Shrimpers team was known as the Stinkers team mid season as we played Pluckley, Eridge & The Gerrybuilders on successive Saturdays and although all are lovely country venues there is not a shower between them.
It’s part of the reason that the Shrimpers have retained some of the traditional fixtures against the Banks in South London. They have super showers. It’s like the Shrimpers rising to international level. I think most of the Banks are foreign now so it is a little like a tour abroad. Even the game against the Nat West was played in monsoon conditions. To get a good length you needed local knowledge of the tides. Putting sawdust down helped to assess the speed of the liquid pitch. It was like a Turner’s painting rather than a turner’s pitch. Even Handel would have had difficulty in calling the tune. We lost the toss and the coin. Our skipper reckoned their captain had pocketed it. It wasn’t him who should have been upset; it was me that had lent him the pound coin.
It was a low scoring match. I got wickets so did my mate, though I didn’t feel anything but cold. We only had to get ninety. Neither captain would agree to abandon the match. Our batting dissolved in the wet. My mate was number 10 and I soon joined him. We had 87, he was 10 not out. He walked towards me as I came in.’ It’s easy here.’ He said ‘We only need 4 runs and we’ve got ages.’ The previous pair had crossed so I was down the non strikers end. The first ball my mate tickled around the corner straight to the fine leg who was up to save the one. ‘Yes!’ I bellowed setting off through the swamp. In the absence of high technology I was given out only a foot short despite my despairing aquaplaning dive. They ran off celebrating. I picked myself up and plodded off with my mate making sure that the mud that I picked up stuck, and that my name was Mudd in the changing room.
Sod the result I thought as I joined my mate in the shower. He wasn’t foaming anymore, so I offered him my shampoo 'with peppermint kick'. ‘Cor!’ he shrieked ‘This is a bit tasty as the peppermint kicked in.’ you’re not putting more on surely? He said as he misinterpreted my motives in me turning my arse towards the direct flow from the showerhead to ease the pain I was feeling. The stuff was in a set of toiletries I had been forced to bid for in a ‘Promises Auction’ at school. The woman who had made up the lot ‘With you in mind.’ had a red hot ass herself which she was obviously keen to share. A different sort of tasty. I noticed their captain who led the charge off the paddy field without any handshakes heading towards the shower. He looked the sort who would have no compulsion about nicking somebody else’s shampoo. ‘We’ll leave this here then’, I said to my mate, who nodded as I put the bottle on the shelf. The shout wasn’t blood curdling but it sufficed. I wasn’t the only one to aquaplane that day but it was a different sort of crease he was reaching for. At the time I was reaching for his whites to get my pound coin back. ‘Quid pro quo’ Clarice.
The shower only took about 30 minutes though I did have a slash as well once I was in. I had a slight tummy ache but I didn’t have the runs. It was like a David Gower half hour power shower. I went outside with the intention of drying out and warming up despite the undermining certainty that evaporation causes cooling preying on my mind. The missus warned me about flashing outside. I tucked in to a juicy peach. A pick up van arrived across the way. It was certainly a pick me up for the three amigos as they legged it in unison back down towards the Barney Rubble as if it were a three legged race for the local sports day. The silver haired driver must have been the man in charge as he started pointing in all directions and the three oppos disappeared to all points of the field. They were probably worried he would change it to a sack race. If David Gower had acted this way he wouldn’t have lost the England captaincy. A woman got out of the passenger side of the light aircraft, sorry van and picked her way across the site towards town. The silver haired boss man said ‘Auf Wiedersehen Pet’. I made a note of her gait through the binoculars as this would be the exit through which the missus would have to go if we needed some Swiss tarts just to make a change for the cricket teas.
The boyos drifted back to the van now that the boss’s missus had gone. Maybe she was a no go arean. The boss climbed onto the back of the van and passed down some steel supports or structures. He drove off and the two slips and a gully returned to the shade of the koolibab tree. I’m surprised that one of them didn’t climb up into the tree so they would get an early warning of the boss’s second coming and be quick off the mark for the next race. I didn’t get any warning either as my boss ordered me to get my clothes on so we could go to town, which was the opposite of what she said to me last night, and turned out to be a different sort of second coming. Ten in all; I was decimated.
She explained that we were in a no go area as far as mobile phones were concerned in terms of expense rather than signal and she needed to phone her mother using her phone card. David you would be the longest lasting English captain ever if you had been blessed with her decisiveness. We got into the car fully clothed. She drove. At the end of the track I said ‘Turn right’. She turned left and headed into town. I lobbed the peach stone out the window. The two slips looked on as the gully caught it. The Guardian came up trumps. While the missus was doing her duty I had all the time in the world to read about how England had done and how another gay bloke wanted to be a bishop. I’m sure the headline was ‘Queen to Bishop 3’. The other common recurring theme to read in the Guardian was that England had lost by an innings and 90 odd runs. It would have been a hell of a journey listening to that one. By the time they had started the day I would have been in a reasonable reception area, namely the passenger seat. According to Mike Selvey, Flintoff made 142 from 146 balls in about three and a half hours with eighteen fours and five sixes. Both Butcher and Hussain got good scores and although we lost by that massive amount to get 417 in a second innings is pretty good, especially at Lord’s. You might say that I’m taking it out of context and like the papers concentrating on one day’s performance to help forget the debacle of the rest of the match. However I can’t help travelling on a Sunday, though when we get home it will be next Tuesday. It’s always Tuesday. I wonder where we would have been when Flintoff broke his bat driving at Ntini and what feature of the Spanish landscape would have been the cause of the phenomenon.
I need to replace the film in the analogue camera, as the digital’s battery is as flat as a pancake. There is a camera shop in town so I’ll be able to practise my international sign language to see if they have got a car charger that is compatible with the digi. I expect there is more chance of finding a digital didgeridoo being played by Rolf Harris with foxgloves over his fingers but I’ll try anyway. Perhaps I’ll fork out for a docking station like they did in 2001 a Space Odyssey. No I can’t remember if they had one either, but I could hardly go in to the camera shop and start signing to see if they had Barbarella’s pleasure machine. I certainly would have been snookered if they only have analogues, as those of you who can never make up their mind about taking the pink or the brown would appreciate.
We’re back at the apartment. The camera shop was closed. I see the ants have been breakfasting on grapes, butter and non freshly squeezed orange juice. Their lunch consisted of a gastronomic mix of Piretrina, Permentrina and Butoxidode piperonito. In the long run I’ve probably set off some horrible chain reaction in the local environment. In the short run the ants are mortas. The missus is in a good mood. Isn’t sex wonderful? ‘Big cup/small cup?’ she asked. We have the choice now as we bought two giant tea cups in Girona.’ What would you like on your toast?’ She asked. ‘A boiled egg please’, I replied. Despite her comments to the contrary the sound of rapid boiling water could be heard. ‘Careful dear’, I shouted with my glasses misting up with the emotion of it all.’ I don’t want it hard’ ‘At least you’ve got a choice’, she quipped leaving me with egg on my face as my short term memory loss and my glasses cleared by the minute.
Vision was good enough to watch the JCB or its Spanish equivalent go through its paces on the pre building site. The egg and soldiers arrived unlike the JCB driver who was nowhere to be seen. The eggs over here apparently have a blue anchor on them rather than a lion. The soldiers were arranged in the shape of a W. Like that John on Big Brother who worries about the second piece of toast having to wait unattended for vital moments before it can be buttered, you may be concerned about how to get your salt mixed in the egg to the right consistency. As with John’s problem the solutions are already available. The Youth Hostel in the Shandon area of Cork City that we stayed in for the cricket tour had a conveyer belt toaster that let you leave a gap between pieces of bread to allow for even the greatest of butter fingers time to spread the butter before the next one dropped off the edge. If you can’t be bothered to upgrade your toaster simply put one piece of bread at a time in your present one. Your electricity bills may not go down but your girth will. As far as the salt is concerned dip your soldier into the egg first then into the pile of salt on the side of the plate. Put the soldier back into the egg stirring it in for as long as it takes to say the words ‘I’m a twat’.
If the kids are with you when you have finished the egg turn it upside down in the eggcup and batter it to smithereens with the spoon. Only do this if they are less than 18 months old as older children will lose interest with the low level of violence and bad language. The cricket pavilion’s design will accommodate a full size snooker table. Not only will this allow the batting side an opportunity for a break, but it will enable visiting Spaniards to win a game of Blow Egg after a pasting at cricket. The game is great but don’t order the scrambled egg from the breakfast menu or Spanish omelette from the lunchtime one and certainly don’t use the egg shampoo in the shower for at least two days after the tournament. The game is like Blow Football using an egg as a ball. The egg has to be blown in more ways than one. A hole has to be made each end with a needle. If you are asthmatic or you have a cough like the bloke in the flat behind us, shove the needle in the egg to break up the yolk. Close your eyes if you don’t like the sight of somebody being sick after getting pissed on Advocaat. A coat of varnish does eggactly what it says on the tin. Get a tin of Shellac if you can.
Make a couple of goals from a wire clothes hanger and use a pair of fish net stockings for your net and an onion bag for theirs. A goalie sits each end with up to 7 either side sitting with bums on seats and hands on knees. You can vary this if for example you have a couple of touring women’s teams. The goalie blows off so to speak and your team accelerates it towards the opponent’s goal. Stuff beer mats or D cups into the corner pockets. The middle ones can be used to award penalties if the luckless egg falls in. If the goalie down the other end is worth his or her salt they blow like mad to save the goal. A goal kick restarts the proceedings. If the team from Barcelona are winning, substitute your goalie for one with a big cleavage to distract the opposition.
The workman with the big cleavage climbed into the JCB, which coughed into life and hurtled off levelling everything in site. His mate has set off around what will be the block carrying a fir cone either out of respect for the wood that used to be there or as food for a confused Spanish squirrel. Well you aint seen nothing yet squirrelly baby. If my dream were to come true, by the time you go nuts next May I’d have knocked your block off the hagendas and you’d be watching cricket from the one tree that I’d allow inside the playing area like the one in the St Lawrence ground at Canterbury where Kent play the majority of their home games. Would you like acorns or hazelnuts? I am worried about that squirrel. Like the North American greys in our country muscling in on all the best habitats so the local reds can’t afford the drays and move out in droves. Didn’t they do that to the reds while they were making North America into the USA? I’m a bit worried myself. If I attract armies of barmies over here, this civilised part of Spain may bid farewell to the feeling of elegant calmness through which you can promenade at midnight with hundreds of people who are eating drinking, talking, interacting and savouring without the feeling the need to hoot to holler to punch to kick or to maim.
To save the red from the grey is straight forward. The tree will be neither hazel, oak nor beech. The reds love their nuts, but so do the gas guzzling greys. They’ll have to work harder if the tree is a conifer; they won’t be bothered to stay; they’ll bugger off to easier pickings leaving our red to worry only about where the next cricket ball is coming from. Can I attract the right people? Am I being too naïve? You probably feel I’m the sort I don’t want to attract. Am I being prejudiced against the young? Have I forgotten how to party? Will the grey pound deaden things in time as much as the young bucks would shatter them overnight? Shit, I didn’t think I’d have all this philosophical turmoil about a cricket ground. Applying for planning permission, digging through building regulations and getting searches done by the various bodies no doubt will be hard enough, but it has to paleface into insignificance compared to all this soul searching. I think I was on the right lines though by introducing blow egg rather than mud wrestling.
Sorry about all that I'll get back to the diary as soon as I'm back.