Monday, August 22, 2011

summer time and the living is easy




all is well, sat at home looking at the internet, had a look at johnny's blog and he'd written a few posts which shamed me into writing this ad-hoc offering, had an ok weekend, woke up on saturday and decided randomly to go to the cricket, i thought we're pretty good at the moment so i should see maybe the best england team of my lifetime while we are at the top of our game

i say "we" i'm not really in the team, but i am part of the country so i feel I've done my bit, arguably I've contributed more than kevin pietersen who isn't even really english

anyway, i set off down to the oval with the hope of buying a ticket off a tout, i've never done that before and didn't really have much idea how much it would cost, a bloke outside the station asked me if i wanted a ticket, i said "yes", he said "walk with me", i said "ok", he said "we'll have to do this quickly like, the old bill are trying to drive us out of business" I said "how much?" he said "80 quid to you, squire" I said ok and we did a quick swap, money and tickets at the same time.

so i went into the ground, i was a bit nervous going in as i thought it might have turned out to be a dodgy ticket, it was fine, i went to my seat and the seat was fantastic, £80 for a £75 ticket, i thought that's fantastic value, the sun was shining, ian bell was on about 210, i had a book and spare money for beer and snacks, hooray.

I watched an entertaining couple of hours of english batting, bell was out, bopara battled against his notgoodness, prior hit fours, all was well. the time came for lunch and almost simultaneously it started raining, i thought "where has that come from, it was sunny and bright but five minutes ago, no matter, I'm sure the sun will come back soon" the sun didn't come back and it quickly became apparent it wouldn't in the immediate future.

i decided to leave the ground in search of sustinance and football results, i went to borough market and bought bread, butter, tomatoes, cheese and assorted hams, then i went to the pub and watched the exciting end of the liverpool arsenal game, liverpool look ok, arsenal don't, blackburn aren't even on the same planet as ok.

i looked outside and lo and behold, the sun was out again, i got back on the tube, went back to the oval, back on the ground, got myself a pint, ate some bread and butter and cheese and ham, thought "bloody hell it's warm now", got myself an england top, england declared and then came out and exhibited an amazingly disciplined display of seam and spin bowling, i was gobsmacked, we are actually really good at the moment, hooray for cricket, it almost made me forget how shit blackburn rovers are

afterwards, flushed with the warm feeling of a satisfying day, i made my way home where i finished off my bread and butter and cheese and ham

THE END

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