Manchester, Day 1


Well, after a longish drive down, Wiseman and I have arrived in Manchester, in anticipation of Days 2 and 3 of the 2nd Test against Pakistan. The trip was marginally longer than anticipated due to Mark’s insistence on having a large slice of cake after his meal at motorway services number ONE, and then further delayed by his demands to stop for a cup of coffee at motorway services number TWO. His strongly-worded coffee demands may have had something to do with the fact that I was nodding off at the wheel and he had to resort to conversing with me in order to keep us both alive.

Finally we arrived at the hotel, check in and make our way up to our room, only to be confronted by the immeasurably frightening vista of a room with a DOUBLE bed. Disaster. Nothing for it but to turn tail and head back down to reception, whereupon we engaged the intermittently helpful staff in a conversation which involved a lot of staring at the floor and mutterings that we didn’t want to share a bed. The upshot of it is that we’ve managed to score a TWIN room which someone hadn’t checked in to yet. Mark has just had a shower and flooded the bathroom. He is now typing on his laptop, and very helpfully sharing his internet connection to my Airport Express, which is broadcasting it to my laptop, (Jones are you impressed…?!) as for some reason I am unable to pick up the hotel’s wireless network anything like as strongly as him.

Wiseman has just noticed the tea and coffee making facilities and appears to be considering his second black coffee of the evening. There is no apparent limit to the man’s caffeine intake…

Mark gets a Mac


Well, it’s nothing to do with cricket, but today marks a momentous occurrence… my good friend Wiseman has taken the plunge and purchased a Macbook… it’s taken a good few years of hard evangelism but he’s finally seen the light 🙂

I was just lying on my mum’s sofa, concerned with nothing more than digesting another sumptuous lunch, when I asked Mark what he wanted to do this afternoon… to which he replied “I think I’ll buy a Mac”. About 20 seconds later I realised what he said and practically fell off the sofa. About 20 seconds after that we were on our way to John Lewis.

On Thursday we head down to Manchester to watch Days 2 and 3 of the Second Test v Pakistan. Now that Mark also has a laptop we will be able to stick to purely digital communication for the two days. We might never need to actually speak to each other again…

Here we go…

So, I thought I’d create a blog to document my adventures down under this winter. You will notice that it is not actually winter yet and I am a little ahead of myself, but might as well be prepared. The title of this blog reflects the fact that I keep finding myself explaining to incredulous friends that yes, I am going to Australia, the land of sunshine, beaches, world famous tourist attractions and the odd barbeque, purely to watch cricket.

However, in my defence, I imagine there will be a few barbeques involved along the way, and, in addition, the cricket will be awesome. That’s if England can avoid being 3-0 down in the series before I even get there…

Ok, on the subject of blogs. I’ve never been a big fan of the concept. Having the temerity to post one’s thoughts and musings online and expecting other people to read them has always struck me as outrageously presumptuous, possibly even delusional. However, I have one or two friends with blogs that I enjoy reading, and what’s more it occurred to me that it would be a good way to record my experiences, and perhaps even post a couple of photos, from my trip to Australia in December/January. I can always read them myself and chuckle at my own dry wit and keen sense of humour, even if no-one else wants to.

So here we go indeed. I imagine I will practise with a few more blog entries before the nights start drawing in properly. Until then…