Sleepypete's Pillow

Here’s the view on my desktop :

One of the little Facebook exchanges yesterday was around “only 3 events ????” – muahaha.

And there we go. My desktop’s answering all questions I’ve given it so far and has taken over from the laptop for first choice machine for watching internet video on. The laptop could handle one of those video streams (but in lower quality) but would struggle for space and capacity with more. And that’s with its 17″ monsta screen. My laptop is an AMD machine, which means it’s pushed to the limit of what it can do and doesn’t like to stay at that limit for long. However, the desktop is a much higher performance Intel machine and can stay at its limit all day.

What’s on the screen there ? Firstly, it’s a 23″ Samsung running at 1920×1080 pixels, so the picture size of each video is still pretty good.

Top left is the BBC1 stream, showing the cycling. Team GB is breaking all records in the cycling at the moment, with the last 5 rides all beating world record times. Latest was in the Women’s Team Pursuit.

Bottom left is the Hockey stream, showing GB Women vs China. On screen there is Kate Walsh, back in the starting lineup just 6 days after breaking her jaw. In that picture, she’s sporting the bits n pieces holding her head together.

Wow. That’s true grit. Nearly scored a couple of times too. It’s 0-0 at half time.

Right hand side is the sailing, with Team GB sailors continuing to do well today. The sailing competition isn’t won in a day, it’s won through consistent results over the entire regatta. And Team GB is doing pretty well. I’ll be watching Ben Ainslie hopefully overcome his Danish nemesis tomorrow.

What else is there ? Steam is just poking through in the background there, with me downloading Rage (£6.50 in another sale). I’d actually stopped when I took the screenie, otherwise the network meter would have been a straight line showing 10Mbits/s download. If I let Rage download, it’ll blow through my download cap which puts me into traffic management 🙁 And that means less quality on the video streaming.

There’s 2 performance meters in the top right, network and cpu. Network is curious – I think I reset it this time last week, which means my desktop has downloaded 72GB since then. And most of that is Olympics or youtube … Crikey. The CPU meter is showing that my desktop is somewhat overpowered for all this, it’s barely turning itself on. It does help having plenty of memory – the meter is showing 2.7GB used, which is more memory than my laptop has available to it (3GB installed, some of that is taken by graphics).

Any desktop from the last few years should be able to handle the BBC streaming – noting that the BBC streaming is some of the best on the web at the moment. ITV streaming is far more greedy in terms of cpu cycles.

I’ve since switched the hockey over to Tennis, with Laura Robson and Andy Murray playing again today in the mixed doubles. I watched them have a hard fought win earlier, this time it’s the semi finals with medals beckoning … Fingers crossed, hope they win. Andy Murray would expect to do well in the Tennis but Laura Robson has been a revelation. They’re a set up at the moment.

What does get confusing is which commentary refers to which video stream …

PS I also have the cricket coverage on the main telly, with new kid on the block James Taylor currently going through a trial by fire courtesy of the South African bowlers.
PS2 Sailing commentators definitely win the Shoutcraft stakes, their clarity cuts straight through the other streams.

Yey ! More golds and medals for Team GB today 🙂

It’s been great to watch them being won and it’s still not getting old to stand for the national anthem when the medal ceremonies come on.

But … and this is linked to a question someone asked on Steam – how much does it cost ?

The Steam question was wondering how much pain my credit card was feeling after the Steam Summer Sales 🙂 Actually not that much. It currently stands at £45, with the major part of that being Civ V and its expansion. I think I resisted fairly well and it let me avoid disappointments seen by people falling foul of Ubisoft’s dubious DRM service. (More people need to boycott software with that DRM)

If you stick to the sales and avoid purchases that you’ll get little or no benefit from (Battlefield 3 vs factory overclocked graphics cards ???) then things don’t have to be unaffordable. I apply similar logic to munchies, if they aren’t on offer, that makes the jaffa cakes and the Wispa Bites easier to resist. That £45 is the equivalent of 1.5 A List big budget games and I’ve picked up 8 separate games for that including 2 A List (Civ V & Borderlands) games.

However … Compare that to in real life sport …

Real sport equipment can cost a serious amount of money. My own experience extends only really to cricket, which can get quite expensive. Over the past couple of years, I’ve spent cash on :

Helmet – cricket only, £15 in a sale
Spikes – think these were £25 (sale again) but you could waste £100 on them
Knee supports – £28 each. EACH !
Kit bag – think this was around £20 ish last year and I got one of the smaller cricket bags
New bat – I didn’t buy one but if I had ? £150 minimum for an English willow bat

What else ? I haven’t bought batting gear since the nose job incident (I think!) but refreshed the gear after that. I think something psychological made me change all my gear after breaking my nose but – my pads disappeared into a team’s kit bag and I’d been thinking about changing them anyway. If I remember right, pads and batting gloves cost about £15 each back then. Sales again 🙂

I’ve also picked up sundry other bits and pieces this year – the Pink Cap cost a tenner, as did the pink bat grip from Lords.

You’re probably asking – is all this kit absolutely essential ? Yes and no. Most cricket and other sports clubs will have a shared kit bag which people can dip into for games. I’ve lent out my bat and pads a few times this season. When I did archery (long time ago!), the bow and arrows I used came from the club.

However …

Spikes or studs – utterly essential. These give an incredible amount of grip, it transforms the amount of power you can put into the ground with your legs. If you try to run on greasy ground in trainers, it’s difficult. It’s actually dangerous for me to try using full leg power on dewy grass, as any slip is usually followed by leg muscles complaining. It’s near impossible for me to sprint on damp grass in trainers, as there simply isn’t enough grip to allow that much leg power to be transmitted to the ground.

So we wear spikes or studs as appropriate to avoid injury and let us use the power in our muscles. And it’s similar for the knee pads too : My leg muscles developed before my knees had the structural strength to contain their power. When I sprinted, it felt like my knees wanted to explode. So I took to wearing the knee pads in order to hold my knees together. It just so happens that they also allow me to take knocks involving cricket ball on knee.

Specialist gear – yes, I could borrow pads or bat but I prefer to get accustomed to my own. With archery, the olympic standard bows have all sorts of extra bits to make them balanced and more consistent. Sail boats, you gotta practice somehow.

Even the basics of shoes cost more than they really should.

But – the point I really want to make is – sport at a highly competitive level costs a hell of a lot :

Time – so many of the athletes have to make it their life, to the point where they cannot have a paying job.
Basics – shoes, outfits
Gear – racquets, bats, gloves
Special gear – how much does a boat cost ? A top level racing bike ?
Gym time – facilities cost money, training costs time

Top level sport costs so much in terms of money, sacrifice and sheer bloody minded dedication. Every athlete who’s made it to the Olympics has paid so much in all 3 to get there. They’ve earned both their place and our support.

All of ’em.

But especially Team GB 🙂 (I’m biased)

(Quick note – I started this post talking about Olympics but … read on – something else took over and I’ve saved the Olympics one for another day)

With my own cricket, I think I may have jinxed out the rest of the season after buying another helmet on Tuesday.

One thing I wanted to talk about actually, which I may leave for another post (nah – tears won) so I can do her justice – I’ve found the strange sensation of tears coming during games … I’m quite an emotional chap but keep the emotions behind walls that are tough to break down. Yet, on a couple of occasions, I’ve felt a tear coming down my face during a game.

It’s for a lady called Katherine (aka The Rose), who we lost to breast cancer in Spring. I didn’t actually know her that well but I’m still remembering that smile that answered the big grin that usually accompanied me doing the Meerkat thing as people walked past my desk.

In the games, the tear would follow me explaining why I’ve been wearing the Pink Hat for as much of this summer as possible. In the last game, it was me telling one of the umpires (borrowed from the other team) what the Pink Hat was about. And good lad – he wore it. I’d switched to the helmet and had to hand over the hat because it was slipping down my trousers and protecting the back of my right knee.

In a sense, it’s not just Remembering Katherine, it’s remembering everyone else that we’ve lost whether that be due to illness, accident or in service. (I’ve seen what losing friends in service can do to people – help the survivors where you can, part of them died with those they lost)

I’m glad I had the idea to don the Pink Hat this summer. I’m also … relieved that I didn’t make a big thing out of collecting as :

The wetness has caused more than half the games to be cancelled
My own fitness stood up but my body rebelled with injuries
I’d have felt very uncomfortable pressurising people to contribute when they cannot afford to live for themselves
(Money’s tight these days)

But I am very glad that I decided to don the Pink Hat for tribute. I hope it’s raised awareness. Or at least that enough people know about Pink + Sport = Awareness to realise why I’ve been wearing it.

Despite how hard we try to, we cannot remember everyone we’ve lost over the years. I have a stunning memory (mostly for pictures, i.e. beautiful smiles) but cannot remember everyone I’ve lost.

So I started with just one. I remember Katherine.

And I’ll close with that cos I can feel those tears coming again.

PS Just cos I didn’t collect doesn’t mean others won’t appreciate it – click here if you’d like to make a contribution.

Hurrah !

Gold medals for the Brits at last 🙂 Awesome to see too. The Brit Girl pair of Helen Glover and Heather Stanning started us off with gold in the women’s pair (rowing 2000m), followed by Bradley Wiggins in the men’s cycling time trial.

I have mixed feelings about the Wiggins medals (he now has the most medals of any British Olympian), after watching the two he got in Beijing. (Controversial opinion coming!) He didn’t seem to be helping out his team mates at all in Beijing, in fact I got the impression that he held them back and nearly cost them the medals. But … you can’t deny him this one, time trial is all about one cyclist against the clock. It’s all his medal this time.

I’m back to two sports today – Cricket is on the telly (it gets priority there cos I can’t stream it), with the Olympic sport medley on the desktop. At the moment, I’m leaving it with the BBC1 choice, although as they’ve focused on the rowing this morning it’s aligned with what I’d have watched anyway.

Hoping for more golds later 🙂 I want to see a few more before I head back to work next week.

Anyway – cricket on the telly at the moment and it’s already bringing in the controversy. England have juggled their side a bit, going for a more aggressive fast bowling pack. To be honest, the bowler who’s been dropped was ineffectual in the first Test and the ground they’re playing at (Headingley) is historically a fast bowler’s paradise.

At least, that’s how it used to be – pitches change over time. It’s been looking fairly playable so far this morning, with England putting the South Africans in to bat and not having any success yet.

Crazies went to see Dark Knight Rises on Tuesday. Good film. Unusually for an action based movie, it covers quite a decent amount of time. But also unusually, there’s enough clues (ok, they are big Hit Over Head With It clues) to let the audience keep up. I’ll be buying it when it comes out on offer. I might even pay a higher price on blu-ray for it.

That’s a curious one. Blu-ray has a definite price premium to it, harking back to the early days of DVD. I think it is worth it, just from the improved sound. Visually however, there’s not much to tell between upscaled dvd and bluray, as modern dvd players get stuff out of the signal that might not have been there to start with.

Distracted again. I went into Sports Direct hoping to get a headband to a) absorb the sweat (ugh) and b) get my helmet tight again. What did I walk out of there with ? A new helmet. Ooops. Especially as I’m not sure I can use it in a game, as the “helmet completely on head” position has the lid obscuring my view almost to nose level.

So – still need a headband to push the front out enough so the back doesn’t tip the angle down. (It makes sense but you’d need to see the design and I’m not advertising which type !)

There’s my kit buying jinx striking again, at least I didn’t spend £150+ ish on a new bat that I won’t get any value out of. The helmet was only £15 on offer (and it is shiny and my old one is technically broken).

More Olympics 🙂

(And incidentally – first post to be written on my desktop – well, I’m sitting at it so why not !)

One of the sports I grew up with was badminton, which I was pretty talented at. Note – that’s not the same as saying I was “good” at it. You see, as the shuttlecock was coming towards me I’d have 3 or 4 possible shots in my head. The talent for shotmaking that I had always recognised the safe shots that would keep me in the rally but the show off element (yes, it’s there) of my personality always, Always, chose the most spectacular.

So I’d get a reputation for being a good player because of the nutty shots I’d attempt and often pull off but wouldn’t win the games that I should have because I wasn’t boring enough to play percentages.

That’s one element of sport – taking chances is good but sometimes it’s better to stay low risk in order to survive long enough to pull out the spectacular. That’s boring though.

Cricket brings that out – my batting can best be described as boring. Technique flaws with my feet and left arm mean I’m not often whacking the ball back over the bowler’s head but hanging in there to nudge singles around and thump boundaries square of the wicket with timing. Teams need that, the more boring players will survive to hold the innings together against bowlers who could demolish a side full of spectacular but unlucky batsmen.

Anyway. Badminton.

I just finished enjoying watching Brit Girl Susan Egelstaff take on the Japanese Sayaka Sato. I’m getting better these days at watching technique deliberately with a view to learning from it. (I always watched technique but wasn’t so good at learning from it). Notes from watching the girls :

The badminton technique I had would have stood up pretty well. I had all the shots they were playing plus a couple more that they didn’t. I reckon with practice to eliminate the errors, groove technique and promote fitness, I could have been competing at a pretty high level. I’d have had to control the urge to play the silly spectacular shots but I did have the technique and agility to keep up.

It’s as fast a game as I remember.

Fitness really tells. Our Brit girl is just coming back after surgery and the lack of conditioning (can’t blame her) told in increasing errors towards the end of the game. Well fought but the errors cost the game. Badminton is a game of very small margins …

I have 2 shots that I didn’t see in the game :

Pirouette shot. Love this one. It’s where instead of arching your back to forehand overhead something behind you, you start to turn and backhand it back over the net. With supple wrists, you can still do pretty much what you want with it, hitting to any of the 4 corners. However, it’s not a percentage shot because it sends all your momentum into a turn which is difficult to recover from. Unless, you do a full 360 degree pirouette to face the right way again 🙂 Looks great when it works and doesn’t cost much time.

Tennis forehand. Tennis shots don’t tend to work well in badminton because the net is pretty high. However … Consider that a shuttlecock is designed to slow down drastically after being hit. If you can get it over the net quickly before it slows, it’ll effectively drop straight down. So my flat forehand was designed as a quick reaction rally killer, to get the shuttle back over the net quickly and into a place that would be difficult to get back.

So how come I’ve never really competed with the badminton ? There’s a few reasons :

I injured my back when I was 17 (cricket – same injury as now), which cut into the flexibility I had available.
Badminton is how I dismantled my shoulder – and that injury cuts badly into the range of badminton shots I had available.
I found it to be “good fun”.

That last reason sounds strange … Unless you consider that I was preferring to put my time into practicing for Cricket as my serious sport. Cricket and Badminton share some technique elements … but not enough. But it’s really that I preferred to think of badminton as relaxing fun with cricket being the one I’d try and excel at.

Possibly the wrong choice ? Nah. I don’t regret it at all. Taking something too seriously can take all the fun out of it.

Just watching the end of the 3 day eventing – the Brits got silver in the team but it’s looking grim in the individual. Equestrianism is another where I touched the sport early on but didn’t take it too far : Cricket had priority (I could see how much of my sister’s time the horses took) and I preferred motor racing. Mind you, there is a kind of thrill in standing beside or sitting on top of an animal with as much power as a horse.

Horses have personality too. And personality goes a long way.

The 3 day event just finished, with the result changing with the last fence putting the Swedish rider into second. I have to say, it’s AWESOME to watch a sport where men and women compete on completely even level terms.

And I’ll leave it there 🙂 Big grats to all the medallists today, still hoping we get the first Brit gold soon.

And of course, the women in question are definitely not weighty, dunno if they’ve been on the beans jet propulsion diet but they’re most certainly as fit as they come.

In reverse order !

Just finished watching the women’s road cycling race, which was pretty awesome. After yesterday’s men’s race was a case of the Brits saying they’d won the race before the start and then all the other teams leaving it to the Brits to chase down the getaways, the women’s race today was far more exciting.

The attitude of the field yesterday was pretty disappointing. There’d been an early getaway of a reasonable group of riders. Usually, the field would chase them down before the gap became decisive. However … due to the form being shown by the Brit men and their declared aim of pushing Mark Cavendish to the win, everyone left it to the Brits to chase down the breakaway. That’s like saying : “We’re more interested in you NOT getting a medal than we are in getting a medal ourselves”. Self inflicted wounds and it made for a not particularly exciting race where most of the field was there just to make up the numbers.

The women’s race today was completely different. We were seeing attempts at breakaway attacks all the way through, where small groups attempted to get away from the pack. Each time it was “can they keep the gap, will they stay away?” and that kept on going right until the last climb of Box Hill where a group of 4 managed to make a decisive escape.

Including a Brit girl – Lizzie Armitstead. Go Lizzie !

And you can probably guess that the excitement level here was ramping up considerably at the prospect of us getting our first medal of the games. The gap kept on stretching gradually, even after the group of 4 diminished to just 3. Would they keep the gap ? What order would they finish in ? Would our girl get a gold medal ?

I won’t put the result here but I will say – the group of 3 kept their advantage all the way to the finish and Brits have their first medal of the games. Great stuff.

Fit ?

The stiffness and damage from Wednesday are wearing off 🙂 Legs are still a bit stiff but I’d consider them ready for action again. The back needs a few more days though. Because of the way my body is set up, I’m suited for explosive stuff instead of endurance. My endurance is actually not that great, except when the stubbornness kicks in to let me block all pain and Not Give Up. Anyway – that explosiveness setup means my muscles produce a lot of lactic acid, which is where the stiffness comes from.

If I’ve not been running around for a while (I blame British Summer!), it can take around 3 days for my legs to get ready for action again. I’m not 100% yet but they’re pretty close. At this rate, if the cricket skipper phones me up on Thursday, I’ll be able to play :-). Depends on my back and the impact damage on my thumb.

So yeah – damage that meant I was in lots of pain on Thursday and Friday is diminishing to the point where the rational “you’re too broken” is struggling to contain the hyperactive “I WANNA RUN” 🙂

Weighty ?

One comment from Wednesday’s game was that with the heat, I should have lost another stone from being under the helmet all the way through our fielding. Yeah – it was hot and I sweated buckets, so much it was getting into my eyes (ugh). There’s a team picture out there with me under the Pink Hat, no way I was getting photographed without a hat having sweated that much !

But – if you’re on an exercise based diet and you get on the scales after exercise to find that you’ve put weight on, Don’t Get Discouraged. Instead of losing that 1 stone over the game, I actually gained about 5 lbs. And (I think!) it comes from that lactic acid I mentioned up above. It took a few days for that to get metabolised but now that it has, I’m back down to 12.5st.

Exercise and sweat does not necessarily mean loss of weight. For me, I’m much more careful now with my pre and post match intake so that sweat thing isn’t a factor. I’ve injured my legs a huge amount over the years with cramp, so I make sure my water intake balances the sweating to reduce the potential of damaging cramp.

So – you’re trying to lose weight, you do the “right thing” of exercising, you get on the scales to find out you’ve gained weight. Don’t Be Discouraged !!!!! Our bodies work by very rational methods, there will be a good reason why the weight has gone on. With me, it’s because the lactic acid gets in my muscles and makes them heavy.

Weight loss is not a battle, it’s a long war. If you’re exercising, you’re helping yourself out in that long war. Keep it going. It’ll be worth it. And you’ll feel better for the exercise too.

Windy ?

I’ve switched over to the sailing – at the moment it’s a Star race. That’s with a 2 man boat, big sail still because they have a keel and the guys appear to be hanging more off the boat than on. I’ve always been interested in sailing, since reading Anne McCaffrey writing about it in Dragonsong (Julianne Regan is my voice of Menolly). Sailing is a battle of finding best advantage out of something invisible and barely predictable – the wind. Which ever sailor picks the best place to be to gain the most out of unpredictable air currents will win the race.

Always been interested but not had the chance to give it a go. I’m looking forward to the next Vendee Globe single handed non stop round the world race too, that was fascinating last time round.

Must be the first time for a very long time I haven’t listened to any music on a Saturday.

Reason ? Wall to wall Olympics 🙂

Come on ! You couldn’t have expected anything else from a sport nut 🙂

BBC are doing us proud with the coverage that they’re offering us. There’s 24 HD channels available, alongside them using their normal channels for Olympics coverage. Yes, it’s cutting into the normal schedules a bit but … it’s a once in 4 years event.

The opening ceremony was pretty good last night. (I’d read a review cos my words wouldn’t do it justice.) It kept me interested all the way through, with quintessential British quirkiness throughout. It’s a little bit sad though how it ended, I can see why Macca had his microphone turned off in one of his recent concerts, his hamfisted performance took some of the gloss off. Gis Dr Who instead of has-been.

Today, I’ve been keeping an event up on the main telly plus I’ve been swapping between events on my desktop monitor. It works far better than depending on what the TV directors decide to show you. On something like the cycling road race, you get the full story of the race not just the soundbites. The internet based coverage has been working pretty well too (glitches forgiven).

So far I’ve watched :

Cycling road race – where Britain were expected to push Mark Cavendish to a gold medal. Dead cert. Nah … didn’t happen that way, all the best plans have a tendency to fall apart at the first sight of the enemy and this was no exception. They had no answer to an early breakaway that although wasn’t decisive, laid the groundwork for a later breakaway that was.

Judo – this was pretty awesome (at least half of it). Take pint sized women of 48kg (7.5st) or below. That’s just over half my weight from before the diet started. (I’m now 12.5 to 12.75st). These ladies could tie me in a knot and throw me around like a ball, without breaking a sweat. I wanted the Romanian Alina Dimitru to win, just for seeing how happy she would be. When her semi final finished, she couldn’t contain the thrill, she was bouncing around and yelping like a mad thing. It would have been awesome to see that repeated after the final.

Also been watching – archery, which had drama all the way to the finish. And I wanted the Italians to win for wearing funny hats too.

I had a little bite of shooting, turning over just in time to see the last few shots.

I’m now on Tennis, with Andy & Jamie Murray on the big telly and Anne Keovathong on the monitor. Both games could go either way.

And that’s just scratching the surface of what’s on. It’s not just Olympics either, the “big” (only 32″) telly had the F1 qualifying on earlier and I’ll have the race on tomorrow.

Swimming later but before that, I hear the ticking of the clock that will set off the dinner bell … enjoy your evenings !

(this isn’t all about Olympics)

Unless you’ve been living under a rock lately, it will have been impossible to notice that there’s a big sporting event about to take off in London …

I’ve taken a week off work, partly because I need to recharge the batteries a bit but I’ve picked next week for two reasons : it lets me watch Olympics until I get bored of it … plus there’s not much on next week at work that demands my attention.

(The worst thing you can do is believe that you are indispensible, it’s a big kick to the ego when you find out that you’re not – I know I’m the only one in the team that can do the stats work as quickly as I do … but it wouldn’t take long for someone else to learn that)

I’m quite looking forward to the Olympics. I sense that it will be a typically British affair. A lot will go like clockwork, with military precision (especially the security stuff – lol) but there will also be gaffs and oopsies along the way. And we’ll quickly gather up the pieces, sweep up the dust and make a new plan to get things back on rails – like coping with the security firm not delivering on their promises. Brits are like that, we don’t waste time making recriminations (ok, the politicians do but that’s all they know), we get on with coping with the emergency and making it right.

I bet there will be a lot of British character in there too. We won’t win all the medals, my country is a bit too small for that. There’s a much reduced pool of athletes and sportspeople to choose from. And they will all be trying their hardest 🙂 (Except maybe the footballers)

I have the opening ceremony preamble on at the moment. I have the volume turned down low as listening to them will make my brain bleed out of my ears before too long. Opening ceremony starts properly at 9pm and I’ll be listening to iTunes semi-random picks until then.

Ok – that’s you all bored of Olympics by now and looking to click elsewhere.

I still feel on the ropes from Wednesday’s game. Second day after first game for a while tends to be the worst. The injury inventory is :

Bruised thumb – thought I’d broken or dislocated it when it got whacked but the quick “can I move it ?” check showed not even a broken nail. Still sore and very stiff but ignorable.
Other bruises – yeah, these will fade. I have one in a place I cannot show off to anyone too. Wink-wink…
Legs … hmm. These are sore and hurt like hell but there’s a reason for that – unaccustomed exercise. This is why the second day is the worst, because it takes a bit of time for the stiffness to settle in.
Bad back. Ouchies …

The back is what will slow me down. What I’ve damaged is the soft tissue on the left side, in the lumbar (lower) area. I have full range of movement but because it’s swelled up a bit, it impinges on the sciatic nerves that control my left leg. That passes on pain etc to my legs and generally make it difficult to move around. Stairs have been literally a pain today.

Painkillers I hear someone suggest ? Nah. I avoid them. I’m the kind of person where if I think I’m ok, I’ll go full speed ahead. If painkillers took the “be careful” signal away, I’d be running up the stairs and making it longer to recover. In games, I’ll do the painblocking thing naturally, such that I was still diving around behind the stumps after injuring my back but after the game and the adrenaline wore off, I was having to bend over to cough because coughing while stood up was too painful.

I still get the “Let’s Go Bristol!” “Yeah ! Fresh air will do you good and will let you walk off the stiffness”.

Was seriously thinking about a Bristol wander but escaping work at 4pm made that not an option (again). Maybe later in the week when my legs are interested in stairs again. However if someone had said “Yeah, let’s do that” – all pain would have been forgotten for a while :-).

Week’s leave – here we come 🙂 But I can’t close without mentioning a few people who made me smile today :

The new team people who asked if I was ok after seeing me limping around;
Miss F – who I spotted last night coming out of work in the car behind me and again today when I did a “oops – forgot lunch … again” chocolate machine raid;
Contractor girls for not laughing too much when I was going OW at them;
And the Snow Queen for chuckling at my fate (to be honest, I was making jokes about it)

Hour to go until the opening ceremony 🙂

Yep – more cricket last night.

After the English summer turning into the Rainy Season, nature relented for the games this week and decided to let us play. To show how bad it’s been, the team I played for last night has only managed to get on the field for 4 games … I’ve played in 2 of those.

Our work actually has two teams playing, with last night’s game being the second attempt this season at getting a game on between us. I played for the new side last night, mainly because it’s my first season with them and I was looking to face some of the bowlers in the old side after fielding to them for years. It worked out too because it put both teams at 10 men each, just one short. That’s not bad actually, for 2 teams playing out of the same site and in the middle of summer leave silly season.

Ok ! Enough with the preamble !

Our team batted first, which was awesome. Really hot days at the moment … I prepared by drinking heaps of water through the day. Weather like this, you’re gonna sweat buckets whoever you are. So we got the chance to sit in the shade while the old team sweated in the field. It was a little bit cooler later 🙂

Our team batted pretty well, keeping the scoreboard ticking over nicely. A few lusty blows near the end from the skipper boosted us towards a handy total. Although it was a little sad that we got boosted even more by the fella bowling the second last over which lasted 13 balls.

I don’t think I wasted too much time, although my poor run of batting form continued. I hit a sweet tap-pull round the corner for 4, plus a sprinted single. I then got out trying to whack another pull shot, the ball didn’t bounce as much as I expected and hit the top of middle. It woulda flown for six runs – honest. Ok, maybe not cos that was an awful long way out to the boundary that side. I managed to bring out the switch hit too, although I didn’t get much leverage on it and it went straight to a fielder.

We scored 141 (although that scorebook needed some severe checking !)

Over to us in the field and it’s OMG I’M KEEPING WICKET.

I’ve not done that for 9 years and the game where I got my nose broken. That wasn’t from keeping … honest, it was from the batting afterwards. Ahhh – keeping. For the uninitiated, the wicket keeper in cricket is the one that stands behind the stumps looking to catch whatever goes past the batsman. It’s the only job in cricket where wearing armour is accepted (as well as batting!).

You wear a pair of short pads plus a solid pair of armoured gloves. But it’s still not quite enough … In the game where I got hit on the head for the second time (helmet = no damage!), the opposition keeper had his fingers rearranged by the same bowler that tagged me. Even if you take the ball perfectly, it can still leave its mark.

I think I did just “ok”, by my own opinion. I was taking the ball reasonably well, when I remembered to allow it to come into my hands on its own instead of snatching at it. Snatching means hard hands, means the ball bounces out. Allowing it to gather naturally with soft hands lets you absorb all the momentum of the ball. I let 5 byes through (1 single and a 4 to the boundary) which is better than I’ve seen some regular keepers do.

I grabbed one catch down the legside too 🙂 Really pleased with that, because if the ball goes legside it’s going behind the batsman. You can’t see it there … So for the 1 second between the bowler letting it go and it hitting the gloves, there’s a fraction where the keeper completely loses sight of it. I was in complete and utter disbelief 🙂 So much so the appeal went something like “HOW…” (did I really catch that?) “HOWZAT!”.

Yep. Putting my stutter into the game 🙂

Kinda disappointed I didn’t get a stumping. One or two of the batsmen were looking likely that it might happen but I didn’t get a chance to get ’em. People seemed to think I did a pretty good job behind the stumps and I think I’d be asked to field there again by either team.

New team ended up winning by about 20 runs 🙂

But for me, it’s come at a cost … An early bit of fielding saw me run after the ball and do a one move pick up and throw (actually held it cos there was no point in doing the throw but I got in the position). All that was done on the turn … which is bad news with my back. I could feel something squishy let go in the lumbar area, which is an old injury that comes back to haunt me. I’ve had trouble even going up stairs today …

I’m out of next week’s game with that as I doubt it’ll settle down before then.

That’s not all the damage – there were a lot of wild throws coming in, one of which tagged me on the end of the thumb. Even with the armoured glove, there’s a lot of momentum in a hard flung cricket ball. When it hit, the instant thought was “Ow – that’s broke or dislocated” but I’ve gotten away with that one again. Just a case of bruising and hyperextension. I have fairly mobile joints, which is how my fingers have survived inept fielding over the years …

At the moment, I have the legs-in-concrete feeling where they’re complaining at me for doing unaccustomed exercise. That’ll fade though. Hopefully the back injury will go back to sleep soon too, although it’s times like this that I wish there were someone around to give me a little TLC!

Or at least someone to show the bruises off to 🙂

PS At least half of this soreness is down to me focusing so much on the catching that I fell back into instincts that date back 20 years. My chase after the ball ground fielding was pretty darn good. Shouldn’t have been doing that mind (my job was to let the fielders do the running around) but I couldn’t fight those instincts. But – lol. The instincts still work after 20 years but they’re kinda expecting to be wired into a body that’s had 20
years less damage 🙂
PS2 I wore the helmet for all but one over of keeping. In really hot weather. Glad I didn’t have a game tonight – it might still be wet !
PS3 The catch means another £5 for Pink Hat Bounty, which this time will go to a colleague’s sponsored Skydive.

We wos wobbed !

(Also cricket tonight – we won ! but I’m gonna hurt like hell tomorrow due to – wrenching my back and damaging my oh so valuable opposable thumb)