My day was accompanied by the muttering and blustering of the cricket pundits, monotonising from my pocket for hours and hours and hours as I went about my dull business. A bit of cleaning, a bit of half heartedly trying to fill in Excel spreadsheets with numbers, trying on a couple of items of clothing, googling facts about Hampstead, preparing things to take to Brighton and then forgetting to bring them…
I neglected to check the battery in the fish-feeder, or to refill it. They’ll survive the weekend I’m sure. I’m back on Sunday night. I might have left all the lights on. I brought nothing with me. I blame the cricket. As the day went on the cricket got more and more distracting and I overlooked basic things.
I probably listen to more test cricket than I ought to. I love it. You can usually go about your business completely undistracted while it plays. Usually it’s just the same old voices trying to make it sound interesting when it isn’t. I find the monotony quite comforting – the duration and the internal mind game of cricket is my interest so I can listen to the nothing and appreciate the nuances. But today was one of those unusual test days when lots seemed to be happening, and it was all in England’s favour.
It was at Headingley, the ground where I played Hedley Verity back about five years ago in a one night only play about the last match before the players all went off to WW2. It was Dan being brilliant and me in a broad Yorkshire accent dying in a hospital bed. We built a stage in the nets out of truss, and I gave myself about three years of tinittus banging the pegs out with a hammer. Maybe I was more engaged with the play today because I feel closer to that cricket ground after tying blacks to the top of the nets from a massive stepladder whilst still dressed in a vintage hospital smock. Geoffrey Boycott did the post show talk, but mostly he just ground an axe about test cricket being the best cricket.
He’s not wrong. I ended up round Tristan’s place watching him mow the lawn while listening to our opening batsmen actually get more than ten runs between them. Then we went for a driving lesson where I mostly just refreshed the live score, astonished to see no England wicket fall. I let him take himself wherever he fancied until play ended. He’s got the hang of it now – he just needs patience and time on the road. We were mostly in a car park anyway doing maneuvers.
Now I’m in Brighton. I might not be able to listen to it all day tomorrow but I reckon I’ll be checking the live score pretty often as this match goes on. It’s supposed to be five days long but it could easily be over in three…
I’m lying here now though with Mao Mao purring beside me. I forgot my laptop so tax return is looking less likely by the end of the month. But hey, at least the English cricket team is making up for the pounding they just took at Lord’s.
AlBarclay 