Sun ! Cricket ! It Happens ! Sometimes ...

See ?

Yep. Sunshine just trying to break through the clouds over yonder.

Thursday was the now traditional day out at Lords to watch the Interservices Twenty20 cricket matches. It's a tournament held at the home of cricket, Lords, that sees three games played over the day between RAF, Royal Navy and the Army. First up was a decent tight close game between RAF and Army and then the tournament format is that the losers stay on and the winners get a break.

Not quite sure what I'd think of having a break in games like that. Sure, it gives a chance to rest, recharge, get the munchies on board but you'd also stiffen up somewhat over the downtime.

Someone mention cricket ?

As always with these pics, click for bigger. All of these were taken with my proper camera which I get more and more impressed with the more I use it.

You can zoom in really close to the action and still get the sharpness in the pictures. This one sees the RAF keeper being pretty sharp, having taken one stumping already in the game.

This one saw a potential 3rd Umpire decision as the Army's player of the tournament had a disputed catch which I thought was a bump ball (bounced immediately after being hit). It was well held out near the boundary and the decision of OUT was eventually given. Army guy was not happy.

But dubious catching (seen it before in these games where the RAF get the benefit of dodgy catches) was to no avail and the Army win the first game in the last over. Closest game of the day.

On to game 2 with Lords welcoming the RAF into bat and the Navy on to the field. After a reasonably tight start, RAF commenced ultimate THWACKage with a score of over 200 being rattled up. The friendly pigeons in the crowd were looking for helmets.

There goes another one into the crowd.

Oh I should say - the camera techniques here involve nothing more than an instant camera (Ixus 265) being braced on my knee with the pictures posted on the day going via my phone. The Canon can broadcast its own wifi signal which the phone can connect to and either control the camera or pull off the images for onward posting. Nifty. And the camera didn't even budge off full battery despite the 80 pictures, while the iPhone battery died at around 3pm.

Navy couldn't live with the Thwackage and succumbed to a hefty defeat. Bring on the Army for the concluding game.

With the RAF boys going back to the 5* hotel for tea and medals.

Decent crowd in to, bringing the atmosphere. Lords was almost at its best as usual. Not all of the ground is open for these games, plus the Warner stand is being rebuilt and modernised at the moment. One of the four floodlights is currently down, plus the building site is out of bounds for us public people. I like Lords because you can walk all the way around the compound around the stands. It's an excellent cricket ground with great facilities. Wonder what the new Warner stand will be like when it's opened.

Navy had a bright start to this game but lost a few too many wickets in clusters and couldn't recover enough. A reasonable total of 129 was posted and then ...

Bash. That target was bashed into submission with a quarter of the Army's innings remaining. Player of the tournament finished with an admirable 88 not out in this game.

And then it was me heading off to Part 2 of the day. Long day this one. Let's see :
0700 - get on the road to Lords, target arrival time at the Underground station 0930. I happened to start late (misread the clock!) but still got there roughly at 0930. (It's when off-peak fares start).
1900 - depart Lords, head on the Underground to Westfield. I had a mission ...
2200ish - depart Westfield to the Underground station.
0100 - I think this is when I got home after a 2 hour drive shouting along to the music on the phone (it can charge up in the car) to help me stay awake.

The Westfield side trip was to solve one major problem I've had on the London trips - having adequate munchies to keep me awake and active. I've usually had to resort to service station munchies which are ... pure fuel and not particularly great fuel at that. Having a Wagamama's munchie was very much appreciated.

And will almost certainly* be repeated on Sunday after MCM Comic Con :-). Really looking forward to that especially as :

*almost certainly ? I'll have someone lovely along for Comic Con and she's a Wagamama's addict. Final decision on where we munch is up to her ... but I'm pretty certain it'll be Wagamama. There is a huge amount of choice though.

I should have really posted this on maybe Friday but I was pretty wiped out after the long day. I must get out more as, even though it was a long day, I shouldn't be as wiped out as I was then. Perhaps it's digging into the reserves so much, the reserves need time to recharge.

It was good seeing England win in the cricket again yesterday :-). Plus I've been on the Planetbase again ... I have 3 planets complete now out of the 4 and I'll pick a time over the holiday to do the fourth.

I was hoping I could get the Fast Colony achievements done but that wasn't to be this time. Something to do with meteors hitting domes with people in a bunch of times and an out-of-food speedbump hitting at about 80 people. I think I'll manage the fast colony achievements at some point though.

But not yet. Chill out time for me at the moment ahead of diving back into work next week. Oh and I need to clear my box of recorded stuff before a forced upgrade happens on that holiday week.

First though - Comic Con ! Looking forward to that, especially as it'll be the first time I'll have seen one lovely person since just before Xmas.

See you soon ! And enjoy what remains of your weekend. It didn't rain on Thursday but I think it's been making up for that. Bit damp out there at the moment ...