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Jul. 26th, 2006 04:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eiffel_71We went to Hambledon last night to see the Mayor's Cricket XI play The Bat And Ball pub team on Broadhalfpenny Down, the oldest cricket ground in England. It was a glorious sunny evening, perfect for cricket. With no-one from the home club doing the scoreboard, I took on the job again while The Bat And Ball made 135. Pat, an oldish chap (and friend of the parents) who'd come along to support our team as his two sons play for them, ended up getting conscripted into playing as someone hadn't turned up. As it was a 'beer match', 20 overs a side with everyone except the wicket keeper having to bowl two overs, Pat bowled the 18th and last overs - and took two wickets.
During The Bat And Ball's innings their players had taken turns at doing their scorebook. Obviously none of them could score while they were fielding, so Bob, our scorer, asked me to do the Bat And Ball scorebook for our team's innings. So I kept score for the home side and legged it across to the scoreboard at the end of each over to put the numbers up. Meanwhile my mother walked over to the Bat And Ball, next to the pitch, to get Bob and me a beer each. She brought me an HSB, explaining that the other real ales they'd had were Fullers, who are seen as the villains in those parts since they closed the Gale's brewery at Horndean.
"Errr, Fullers brew HSB now," I smiled. Everyone laughed and my mother felt a bit of a fool, but I was just glad to have a cold beer to drink. As my mother was sitting in a folding chair next to the scoreboard, for the rest of the game we asked her to put the numbers up at the end of each over. At that point Peter, a councillor whose son plays for our team, arrived to watch the rest of the game, and remarked with amusement on how they had the Mayor's consort scoring and the Mayor working the scoreboard.
It wasn't long before we all knew our team were heading for a hiding. Two wickets fell in the opening overs and our batsmen scored very slowly. Honourable mention has to go to Doug, our 70-year-old wicketkeeper, who'd distinguished himself in the Bat And Ball's innings with two stumpings and now made a spirited 10 not out. At the conclusion of our 20 overs we'd made just 69 - a total that naturally caused a couple of our players amusement...
We repaired to The Bat And Ball for post-match drinks. We'd been promised sausage and chips; I'd envisaged us all being given individual chip shop-style portions but each table was simply given a massive communal silver platter of sausages and chips and a bowl of tomato sauce. We also got a big plate of buttered white sliced bread, the idea being that we should all make sandwiches, but I'm strictly a brown bread man so just ate sausages and chips straight off the platter.
We were on a table with several of our team's players, including star man Doug, secretary Harold and captain Phil, who showed us all a beautiful bruise on the ankle he'd picked up fielding. Bob and Phil, Pompey fans, wound me up about being a Havant & Waterlooville supporter, then the captain of The Bat And Ball came over for a chat. He said he'd have liked to do a benefit match for our Mayor's Charities, but that there wasn't time for another game this season, then said to my mother "And you won't be Mayor next season, will you?" We told him she leaves office on 16 May next year, so they'd have to squeeze a game in at the very start of the season. The captain said getting the pitch on a weekend would be difficult and he wasn't sure if an evening game would be viable that time of year. I suggested Bank Holiday Monday, 7 May, and he and Phil agreed then and there to have a rematch that day, with a donation to the Mayor's Charities for every run scored.
In the course of conversation, it came up that I'm skint at the moment. Phil asked why, so I said I was still paying for my Australian holiday and my Swiss weekend. They were well impressed that I'd been to the Commonwealth Games, and when I told how we'd seen the back of Sue Barker on the BBC gantry and all called up to her hoping for a wave, Phil said "Ah, Sue. Is she married?"
"No."
"Get in there. She's the perfect woman," Phil said to me. Then they wanted to know about my Swiss weekend. When I recalled presenting Kathy Leander with 10 red roses and getting a francophone double-cheek kiss for my efforts, Phil shook his head. "Sue Barker, this Swiss lady, you're a real dark horse."
Alec, our umpire, who was passing our table, said "I think the word is 'tart'."
A bit later, when Harold was talking about something one of his family was doing, Phil asked him "Do you have daughters?"
"I have several."
I asked "Are any of them between 26 and 40 and unmarried?" Laughs from everyone else, and Harold said "No," then added "One of them's just married a millionaire." After asking whether I could compete with that, he admitted that was a porky.
A pleasant surprise at the office this morning. By the shift box cabinets I met Kelly, who said "You won the bonus ball!" I'd had no idea as I never check the numbers. A few minutes later she came over and handed me an envelope with £48 in it. That's given me some spending money for Porthmadog.
About half an hour into the shift, on my way to the loo I passed Lesley and Sarah #3. Lesley called me over and asked who was likely to be evicted this week. I said Michael and Spiral, which she wasn't pleased about as she wanted Imogen and Susie out. She said she'd seen a poll predicting Imogen and Susie would go, but that she was never sure which polls to trust. I went across to her desk and wrote out the url of the Survey Monkey poll, which hasn't misfired on BB7 yet, then Heather, one of the supervisors, called out my name and said "We need you back on the phones, we've got a lot of work to get through!" She did let me go on to the toilet first...
At 2.30 I was in the middle of an interview when Louise #2 came up beside me and passed me a note to say Sarah #2 was leaving at 3 if I wanted a lift. So at the appointed time I met up with Sarah downstairs; she asked if I'd been off work all this time, I told her I'd been off two weeks ago and last Wednesday but since then we'd just been missing each other. (That was mostly because I no longer go through the coding block to go to the loo because of the calendar bitch, but I didn't mention that.) Sarah has a new car since her old one was written off in an accident; as we drove out of the car park hot air began belching out of the vents. When Sarah remarked that it was an uncomfortably hot day, I observed "You've got the heater on."
"No," she said, "that's meant to be COLD air blowing in! The car'll have to cool down for the air to go cold." She said how this car doesn't have air-con like the old one and she misses it.
I got her to drop me at the Thorngate and celebrated my bonus ball win by buying a ticket for the wrestling there next month.
During The Bat And Ball's innings their players had taken turns at doing their scorebook. Obviously none of them could score while they were fielding, so Bob, our scorer, asked me to do the Bat And Ball scorebook for our team's innings. So I kept score for the home side and legged it across to the scoreboard at the end of each over to put the numbers up. Meanwhile my mother walked over to the Bat And Ball, next to the pitch, to get Bob and me a beer each. She brought me an HSB, explaining that the other real ales they'd had were Fullers, who are seen as the villains in those parts since they closed the Gale's brewery at Horndean.
"Errr, Fullers brew HSB now," I smiled. Everyone laughed and my mother felt a bit of a fool, but I was just glad to have a cold beer to drink. As my mother was sitting in a folding chair next to the scoreboard, for the rest of the game we asked her to put the numbers up at the end of each over. At that point Peter, a councillor whose son plays for our team, arrived to watch the rest of the game, and remarked with amusement on how they had the Mayor's consort scoring and the Mayor working the scoreboard.
It wasn't long before we all knew our team were heading for a hiding. Two wickets fell in the opening overs and our batsmen scored very slowly. Honourable mention has to go to Doug, our 70-year-old wicketkeeper, who'd distinguished himself in the Bat And Ball's innings with two stumpings and now made a spirited 10 not out. At the conclusion of our 20 overs we'd made just 69 - a total that naturally caused a couple of our players amusement...
We repaired to The Bat And Ball for post-match drinks. We'd been promised sausage and chips; I'd envisaged us all being given individual chip shop-style portions but each table was simply given a massive communal silver platter of sausages and chips and a bowl of tomato sauce. We also got a big plate of buttered white sliced bread, the idea being that we should all make sandwiches, but I'm strictly a brown bread man so just ate sausages and chips straight off the platter.
We were on a table with several of our team's players, including star man Doug, secretary Harold and captain Phil, who showed us all a beautiful bruise on the ankle he'd picked up fielding. Bob and Phil, Pompey fans, wound me up about being a Havant & Waterlooville supporter, then the captain of The Bat And Ball came over for a chat. He said he'd have liked to do a benefit match for our Mayor's Charities, but that there wasn't time for another game this season, then said to my mother "And you won't be Mayor next season, will you?" We told him she leaves office on 16 May next year, so they'd have to squeeze a game in at the very start of the season. The captain said getting the pitch on a weekend would be difficult and he wasn't sure if an evening game would be viable that time of year. I suggested Bank Holiday Monday, 7 May, and he and Phil agreed then and there to have a rematch that day, with a donation to the Mayor's Charities for every run scored.
In the course of conversation, it came up that I'm skint at the moment. Phil asked why, so I said I was still paying for my Australian holiday and my Swiss weekend. They were well impressed that I'd been to the Commonwealth Games, and when I told how we'd seen the back of Sue Barker on the BBC gantry and all called up to her hoping for a wave, Phil said "Ah, Sue. Is she married?"
"No."
"Get in there. She's the perfect woman," Phil said to me. Then they wanted to know about my Swiss weekend. When I recalled presenting Kathy Leander with 10 red roses and getting a francophone double-cheek kiss for my efforts, Phil shook his head. "Sue Barker, this Swiss lady, you're a real dark horse."
Alec, our umpire, who was passing our table, said "I think the word is 'tart'."
A bit later, when Harold was talking about something one of his family was doing, Phil asked him "Do you have daughters?"
"I have several."
I asked "Are any of them between 26 and 40 and unmarried?" Laughs from everyone else, and Harold said "No," then added "One of them's just married a millionaire." After asking whether I could compete with that, he admitted that was a porky.
A pleasant surprise at the office this morning. By the shift box cabinets I met Kelly, who said "You won the bonus ball!" I'd had no idea as I never check the numbers. A few minutes later she came over and handed me an envelope with £48 in it. That's given me some spending money for Porthmadog.
About half an hour into the shift, on my way to the loo I passed Lesley and Sarah #3. Lesley called me over and asked who was likely to be evicted this week. I said Michael and Spiral, which she wasn't pleased about as she wanted Imogen and Susie out. She said she'd seen a poll predicting Imogen and Susie would go, but that she was never sure which polls to trust. I went across to her desk and wrote out the url of the Survey Monkey poll, which hasn't misfired on BB7 yet, then Heather, one of the supervisors, called out my name and said "We need you back on the phones, we've got a lot of work to get through!" She did let me go on to the toilet first...
At 2.30 I was in the middle of an interview when Louise #2 came up beside me and passed me a note to say Sarah #2 was leaving at 3 if I wanted a lift. So at the appointed time I met up with Sarah downstairs; she asked if I'd been off work all this time, I told her I'd been off two weeks ago and last Wednesday but since then we'd just been missing each other. (That was mostly because I no longer go through the coding block to go to the loo because of the calendar bitch, but I didn't mention that.) Sarah has a new car since her old one was written off in an accident; as we drove out of the car park hot air began belching out of the vents. When Sarah remarked that it was an uncomfortably hot day, I observed "You've got the heater on."
"No," she said, "that's meant to be COLD air blowing in! The car'll have to cool down for the air to go cold." She said how this car doesn't have air-con like the old one and she misses it.
I got her to drop me at the Thorngate and celebrated my bonus ball win by buying a ticket for the wrestling there next month.
