I thought, in this wonderful modern era, that I would be able to take my laptop and update things on the fly. I've seen the movies, go anywhere in any large city, switch on, and you're away...... or not, at least not unless you want to fork out £3 per 15 minutes to the owners of the £300/night hotel for the privilege anyway!! So much for the wi-fi super highway, I guess I'll have to go wireless broadband, or consider that rather nifty iphone 3G. That's actually a decent shout, I'm on Orange at the moment, and it seems that I have several regular haunts (including home) where the signal is poor at best.
Jude, on the other hand, is with O2 and has no such issues, and which mobile carrier is the exclusive iphone provider at present? Three guesses, and the first two don't count. I've always said that all I want is a phone that lets me make calls and text messages, but it is a rather nice piece of kit, it would cost me about the same as my current bill, and it will let me get to all those cool sites deemed 'inappropriate' on the work networks (like anything with "game" or "movie" in their description. Sounds like fate to me...
Anyway, enough of the ranting and rambling, what about the trip?
For those out of the loop, on Monday I boarded a coach with the players and officials from Kibworth Cricket Club. Jude is their long-time First XI scorer, although this is her last season in that role. On Tuesday Kibworth were to play in the finals of the 'Cockspur Cup' - a national knock-out tournament which features two teams who have battled through one of sixteen regional knockout competitions, then the last sixteen of the national pool, to reach Lord's. This year was KCC's third final in five years - having won it in 2004 (before my time), and finishing as runners-up in 2007.
As a club Kibworth, who I will no doubt speak more of on another occasion, are a fantastic bunch and in the two years that I have known Jude they have taken me on board as one of their own - not bad for a long-time 'metal head' with little or no interest in the sport. Actually that's not entirely fair, I have no interest in Test Cricket, but the one day game has always been entertaining - once you know the players involved though, and can count them among your friends, it takes on a whole different level of interest.
The opportunity to see them at Lord's for a second occasion ought to have been the icing on the cake of my second season as a fan - but whilst the occasion was great, including the 'Eve of Final' dinner and the actual match - the rains that brought the game to a premature end, meaning that a replay is in order, did put something of a dampener on matters (pun intended).
Of course I'm looking forward to the rematch on September 21st (provisional date), but the fact that we had the opposition pretty much on the back foot means that many will, I'm sure, see it as an opportunity lost. That said, Kibworth are a determined bunch, and a look forward to reporting on a happier result in a couple of weeks.
On a personal note the trip did result in another little landmark on my (thus far) brief photographic adventure. Steve, the club chairman, asked if I'd get some shots of the players as the guys at Lord's were offering to show them on the large video screens around the ground. Being the type of person that I am I couldn't leave it at just a snapshot though - and I'm glad I didn't, because frankly the photos of the opposition were nothing to write home about. Instead I spent a couple of hours on Saturday, having grabbed shots of the players, working on a Photoshop frame/border arrangement to try and recreate the feel of the old Panini football sticker collections of my youth (I completed the full albums for the '76, '77, and '78 sets)
Here's an example of what I ended up with, this is actually a joke one, for one of the guys who I hadn't managed to get a hot of, but it gives you the idea. I'm going to try and get the real ones uploaded to the club website, and there's even talk of trying to arrange a time to get the players from the clubs other squads - Jude and I are pondering the idea of creating a 'Top Trumps' set for the end of season, only time will tell.
...so, although we didn't get an outcome on the match, I can now add "my photos and graphics have been shown on the video screens at Lord's" to my small but growing collection of 'boasts' - not something that many can say, I'm sure.
After the game things were a little subdued. We'd booked into a local restaurant for our post-match celebrations - and I use that phrase advisedly, not because victory was assured, but because I was there after 'we' lost last year, and we still had one hell of a party. Here's to another, sometime around September 22nd, preferably on the back of a win - but we'll have to wait and see.
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