We picked up our new car today!!!! Ok, it's not brand new, but it's new for us, it's only done 20,000 miles and we've part exchanged our two rather sorry sounding/feeling cars (shaking, wobbling and a whole load of rattly bits!) for a nice, smooth-sounding, shiny silver grown up car! Tomorrow I get to test it out on the M1!

Going away for the weekend is always a bit two-sided. It's exciting in some ways for the trip, the break from routine and the keeping busy thing, but it's also a bit of a drag cos you have to think of every possible thing you could conceivably need over the next two days because you'll be too far from home to come back and get it! This will be my first two above-county competitive cricket matches for two years, and I'm just crossing my fingers that all goes well.

On the down side this week...my grandad died at 4am yesterday morning. He's been ill for a while, and it wasn't unexpected, but that doesn't make it any easier. Yes, it's a relief for my mum in that she doesn't have to worry about him any more, and the government won't get their hands on his money (not that he's minted, but why should you pay the government for things twice?!), but at the same time I feel even more guilty because I hadn't seen him for months, and he'd apparently forgotten who my brother and I were. Sad, very sad. But at least he went painlessly and with most of his dignity in tact. The funeral isn't for a couple of weeks...ho hum :-(

Gee I'm rubbish at this blogging thing! Last week just flew by in a blur due to two big events at work, one yesterday which I didn't have to go to and one this Wednesday, which I do have to go to! So I'll start by filling you in on last weekend.

a) The new car is great. It flies. Ok, it doesn't actually have wings, but when we were running late driving to Loughborough Saturday morning, it touched 100mph without even trying. Dangerous.

b) The cricket Saturday was....different. I batted at number 10 (considering I bat 3 for club and 5 for county, this was quite low!) and wasn't required, and bowled 6 overs not as well as I could have when we fielded. We lost the first game to a lefty playing ugly hockey shots with her cricket bat. And we lost a team member to a nasty ankle injury when she got her spikes stuck in the ground.

c) Sunday's game was better. We batted first and I was promoted to number 7! We struggled to 160 something, I contributed 9 ugly runs before trying to dig a hole in the ground with my shoulder in the process of running myself out! When I didn't get up after sprawling on the ground, a few people knew something was wrong, and I was eventually escorted from the pitch by the physio! So my shoulder was a little stiff when I started to bowl. In my first over, I bowled three wides before my shoulder got loose and worked it's way up to the right release position! After that it went quite well. I didn't get any wickets, but contained the oppo fairly well and bowled 10 overs for 29 runs. I think I can take a little bit of credit for putting the brakes on and helping secure the win. It got a bit tense towards the end, but we didn't panic, kept taking wickets and eventually beat the competition favourites - always nice being the underdogs! If it weren't for the stiff shoulder and the 5 hour drive home, it would have been quite a good day!

More about yesterday later...better pretend to do some work for a bit...

And now the story of this weekend...

Saturday was spent at the Dukesmead 6s. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon, I was scoring for our team, and then I umpired the final. A fairly relaxed day, taking my mind off what was to come on Sunday...

I'm Surrey captain this year. I think I've mentioned that before. Sunday was a potential banana skin day. We were playing against Yorkshire at the Oval in a County Championship match, and we'd both lost our previous matches. So this was kind of the first relegation battle, only 2 games into the season!!!

I won the toss, and chose to bat. The Oval is reknowned for being a batting track, but our bats made starts and then didn't go on. I didn't even get a start, another first ball duck for me, my second as county captain, both this season! Marvellous. So I trudged all the way back to the changing room, took all my kit off, and punched a wooden locker door - I am regretting that this morning! The third knuckle on my right hand will be a pretty purple colour soon!

Anyway, the team worked hard to graft out 195, and we went into lunch hoping it would be enough. Our opening bowlers worked really well together, and we basically strangled the Yorkshire bats - their run rate kept creeping up, and we kept taking wickets. When one opening bat sacrificed herself in a silly run out to keep the other opener in, we realised they probably didn't have a lot of batting to come. That said, we kept our discipline, bowled much better than we did in Somerset, and kept them under pressure. I was a bit reluctant to bring myself on because it could still go either way then, but the pitch was a lovely turning track, and the batsmen didn't have a clue! Some excellent fielding (including a direct hit run out on the turn from yours truly!) and good catching kept them under pressure all the way, and when their number 6 (who could have won it for them, even at that stage) charged down the pitch to me and got stumped off my bowling, I knew that was it. I took the last two wickets in my 9th over, the last one being a flighted delivery that rose, dipped, bounced and turned, bowling their number 11 hitting middle and off....oh yes! The overriding feeling...relief!!! And I got to lead a victorious Surrey side off the field at the Oval, having beaten Yorkshire for the first time in about 20 years!! C'MON! Hopefully photos to follow...

It's been a day for surprises. First surprise of the day was that I woke up at the time I normally would to go to work at 6.30am, and then managed to go back to sleep until 9.40am - I haven't slept that late in months, I think I needed it. It's been quite a full on week at work, and then I had a cricket meeting until late last night as well.

The second surprise of the day was that I didn't have to drive north to Worksop - my Super 4s game that was supposed to happen tomorrow was called off this afternoon due to a waterlogged pitch. This wasn't a complete surprise, we had a sneak preview that it wasn't looking likely when GG phoned a campsite near Worksop that wasn't taking bookings because they too were waterlogged! So I have a bonus day at home tomorrow...yay!

The third surprise was that my Super 4s team coach has just been appointed coach of the national side. This is a good thing. He's a totally different style of coach to he present incumbent, he's very positive and I think he'll be very good for the women's game. And he likes the way I bowl....

The fourth surprise is the one I'm not so sure about. My brother's girlfriend is pregnant. I think most people would possibly be pleased by the prospect of being an auntie, but I'm not so sure. I only met her for the first time today, and while she seems to be more my brother's style than his previous girlfriend, I'm just not sure he should be settling down already. He's still quite a big kid himself (he's 27, if you were wondering) and likes to spend a great deal of his money on his rather expensive poncy car, so I'm not sure he's realised how much a baby is going to impact on his lifestyle. Not that I'm an expert, but I do worry, particularly as he hasn't been with his girlfriend for very long, and he went straight into this relationship after 4 years with his previous gf. Oh well, I'm sure it will all be alright in the end. Wonder how my parents really feel about it....

Since my last blog - Saturday's cricket got cancelled, then GG remembered her annual reunion BBQ so we drove to Cambridge Saturday night. Sunday cricket was ok, both our teams won. Monday was my grandpa's funeral, my only consolation being that my big tough brother cried more than me. This week at work has been tedious, even more than usual, so I signed up on facebook to pass the time, and cos people kept telling me I should. Last night's selection meeting didn't happen cos the team sec didn't send the stuff out early enough for people to reply. And today, I've got a mind numbing meeting with the most boring and stupid women (one of each) in the world! Oh, and this morning I was bitten by a spider that had taken up residence in my bath towel!

I think it was a woodlouse spider, so not life threatening, but my arm is all red and tingly at the moment :-( it's right in the bend of my elbow, so I keep putting pressure on it as well. Ho hum. So all in all, I'm a bit knackered and overwrought this week. GG is feeling the same way, and neither of us has any holiday coming up until August...humph. Doesn't make for very exciting blogging either....

Man, it feels like a Friday! I'm totally knackered, and feels like I've done a full week's work in two days. Not that I've been particularly busy, but in some ways that makes it worse as the days drag by.

Last night, my gorgeous girlfriend took me out to dinner. We'd had a minorly fraught morning owing to not wanting to be awake and our transport arrangements to get to work, so it was really nice not to have to slug it out (metaphorically) for who was going to cook, or wash up. The mundane things about having a house are tending to get us both a bit down at the moment, and we've not had a lot of time for just chilling. So dinner and a stroll along the beach was a really nice idea, and we should do it more often.

Last week I discovered the technological addiction that is Facebook (haven't linked this blog up with it though as I wouldn't want some people to read it!), so I've have wasted quite a lot of time on that this week. Last Saturday I drove to Loughborough for more Super 4s cricket (we won) and then Sunday's game was off due to the heavy rain. But at least we weren't flooded out down south...

Tonight, I hope to attempt putting up some shelves in the spare room for the beginnings of my library...oh yes...