Thunder Lords

Yesterday was a very long day. But very enjoyable and definitely worth it.

I went on a work trip to Lords cricket ground (the true home of cricket) to watch the Inter Services Twenty 20 championship. First up was RAF vs Royal Navy, which was a close one won by the superior fielding of the RAF. Was a bit disappointing watching the Navy fielding, as they allowed 1's to turn into 2's and allowed singles which really shouldn't have been runs. If I'd been on the field, I'd have gone very quiet due to Anger. And I'm strangely a noisy one in the field ...

So after one game out of the way, I head off to the shop for some teasing of myself looking at £300 bats ... And to buy more stuff :
New mug
Lords shirt
Mini-ball
Rules of Cricket linen poster

Was going to buy a fridge magnet too (I collect them) but I wasn't about to put a Prise-It-Off-Shelf-With-Crowbar fridge magnet in the same bag as an iPod. The fridge magnet (or the iPod) may never have been the same again.

I picked the right moment to hunt Stuff - while I was in there the heavens opened. This wasn't just a deluge, this was the beginning of the Great Flood. One of my Facebook (send us an email and I'll tell you who I am on there) pics was subtitled "Expecting imminent arrival of HMS Noah's Ark".

For an idea of how hard it was raining here's a bit of BBC iPlayer video (UK only) from yesterday's Tennis ... (and Youtube for everyone else!)

It was enough to keep them off the field for a few hours, so we lost the middle game of the scheduled 3. The final game was RAF vs Army, with the RAF continuing the excellent fielding of the first game. We also had the highly comical situation of a runner being required. That's always good for chaos. Unfortunately we didn't see all of the last game because it was approaching bedtime for the coach driver and we had to go home so he could get tucked in.

(I suspect we'll be using a different coach firm next year ...)

The coach was bizarre actually. Not only did he find the most traffic possible (we were late to the game), he also stopped in 2 service stations. For all of about 5 seconds before setting off again. Bizarre !

As well as the cricket, we get a chance to meet up with old colleagues again. Good company makes the day. And Lords is a fantastic arena, at most other stadiums we'd have been going home after the deluge instead of seeing if they could get the third game in.

PS One of my offbeat theories got more evidence - the more raingear people wear, the more bedraggled they appear when it gets wet.