It's that time of year again

I have The Mathematician to thank for many things. He's taught me to appreciate curry and a good wine, but most importantly he's introduced me to the game of cricket.

So it's cricket that brings me to Tyldesley on a sunny bank holiday afternoon to watch my son in his first trial for the under 11 Lancashire county team. With a good viewpoint on the boundary, a picnic and a book of Elizabeth Taylor's short stories, life couldn't be better.

From Ancient Greece to distant worlds

In a last ditch attempt to regain my sanity and pass next week's exam, I have booked a week off work. And to avoid addling my brain with the finer points of The Nineteenth Century Novel, I've planned a few diversions too.

The Song of Achilles is proving to be extremely diverting, and I may finish the book a little more educated about Ancient Greece than when I started.  More about that in my next post.

The Ridley Scott film, Prometheus, was my daughter's idea. A team from Earth sets off for deepest darkest space, to discover the origins of mankind. Inevitably, they find rather more than they bargained for.  But you really do need the proper trailer, in that very deep film voice...

As sci-fi films go, I do like the Alien series rather more than most.  Prometheus asks questions about our need to know where we came from and who made us.  There's lots of shooting and special effects too, of course.  And as for the aliens themselves, I never know whether to laugh or scream when they leap out at you.  Mainly I peer out from behind my hands and enjoy the thrill of it all.

This morning, it's a brief appointment with Henry James's 'The Art of Fiction', before heading off to Blackpool for an under 11s cricket match.  The sky is a rather uncertain grey, so we will be armed with a flask of coffee, waterproofs and suntan cream, since you can never tell with an English summer.  Watching cricket is a joy, providing you approach it in the right spirit.  A picnic is required, as well as warm clothing and a good book.  I've never quite mastered the Pimms and cucumber sandwich style of cricket spectating, but perhaps I'm just not that kind of girl.

And so the week will go on, with a subtle blend of sport and literature.  I'll finish the week off with Sabbat, a play about the Pendle witches, at the Dukes theatre in Lancaster.

Exam? What exam?

Cricket Bajan style

Reggae blasts from a nearby house.  Gangly local youths perch in a tree or on a corrugated iron roof for a better view.  A couple of skinny chickens peck around the pavilion.  My son practises in the nets with the broken back of a plastic chair for stumps.  Trinidadian coaches shout encouragement to their players, 'Bat for forty overs maaaaan!'  Sixes are hit onto neighbouring tin roofs or onto the road which edges the ground on two sides.  Passing cars slow down or stop altogether to watch a few overs before continuing their journey. The sky is pure blue, the heat relentless.  This is cricket bajan style.  This is the ground where Garfield Sobers played as a boy.

 And then, in the semi-final of the Garfield Sobers Competition, the rain falls. We scan the skies nervously for breaks in the cloud.  I scan the coaches' faces too.  We need to bat for 15 overs to achieve a result, but is the weather against us?

A fellow spectator tells us that hurricane Brett has hit the US and may be heading for the Bahamas.

Still the rain falls, forming a sheet of water in front of the pavilion.  The drains are flooded.  Puddles in the outfield creep closer to the wicket.At last the deluge ends, but the pitch has turned into a bog.  The umpires are sceptical, but we are desperate to play.  We work with mops, beach towels and even plastic cups to clear water from the pitch. A local official calls the tournament organiser, 'There's  half of England out there mopping up.'  The match is abandoned and we head back to the hotel, believing we're out of the competition.

Later the same evening we get word that the semi will continue the next day.  Game on and rum punch all round.


Semi-final day two and at lunch it looks like the game is over for our boys.  Then our final batsmen smashed 55 runs off the last five overs, winning the match with the final ball.  I'm not the only one with tears in my eyes.

This is only the third time an English team has made the final of the Garfield Sobers Tournament.  The venue, Kensington Oval, Barbados' test ground.
The boys play bravely, but cannot overcome local school Combermere who win the tournament for a fifth time.