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To Rectory Road! …mid-Sunday afternoon. Wivenhoe Town Cricket Club Sunday XI were hosting their counterparts from nearby Ardleigh.

I rocked up, of course, fashionably late. I arrived as tea was being taken, with Wivenhoe about to chase down what looked like an achievable 208 set by the visitors.

What I love about cricket at this level is that no questions are asked. So what if I entered the hallowed ground carrying a compost bucket whilst I was wearing a pair of cycling tights?

The compost was part of a trip later in the day around the corner to the allotment. The cycling tights were just me being a lazy arse and not being bothered to change from my earlier spoiting exploits.

Out came Wivenhoe to chase down the 208. They opened with a couple of young guns with some early boundaries to steady the nerves.

Looking around the ground and the pitch is slowly, slowly starting to green once again. The majority of the ground still resembles something of a straw field and it’s not the type of surface you want to go sliding along to stop boundaries.

It was that time in the afternoon when I dozed off. It’s an age thing, innit. I missed the first two wickets for Ardleigh as the openers fell. The cheers on the outfield stirred me but weren’t sufficient to gain my attention.

What did get me livened up however was bring your own barbecue. An extended family nearby were sparking up under what must be said was very safe and well-managed conditions.

TUCK IN.

A big dark cloud then blew over the ground. Conditions became a little dark. One of the Wivenhoe batters was clean bowled.

The wind picked up. The vaping ump out in the middle left a trailing fume, which was now mixing in with the barbecue.

Ardleigh looked frustrated. They turned to spin. This was the most delicate of spin actions with a fella out in the middle having a very tidy skip just before he released the ball.

It was at this time that the barbecue was now in full swing. It felt a little rude to be sitting so nearby and intruding on the family fun. I opted for a boundary walk.

It was with good timing with my cricket companion rocking up with some homemade peanut butter cookies.

We decided on sitting on a bench at the other end of the ground. It was getting a little tight for Wivenhoe, with the win earlier seeming like a formality. The hoe team now had a sweaty palms with the home team on 174-6 chasing down that 208.

It was rather glorious to be honest in the late Sunday afternoon sun. We had found a sun trap at the far end of the ground and took it all in.

The game progressed at quite a pace. Wivenhoe all of a sudden found themselves in a spot of bother with 12 runs needed to win and no wickets remaining in the hutch.

A tactical game then broke out. It was clear that Wivenhoe only had one realistic batter out there who could achieve the run chase. Ardleigh knew this and set their field accordingly depending on who was on strike.

Wivenhoe turned down a single which could have tied the match. The very next ball and the poor chap was caught from behind. Ardleigh were joyous. This was a cracking game of cricket with the away team winning by one run.

Inspired by the la Vuelta Time Trial rollout the night before, I set out on my own personal race against time on Sunday morning. It wasn’t quite the Monaco backdrops that the pro riders on la Vuelta were able to enjoy. Instead I had Great Bentley and surrounds.

It’s been a few weeks also since I rode around this patch. The first sightings of the Invasion Colchester posters have started to appear. This is an annual event where sci-fi and cartoon characters appear around the half town/city as part of a charity event.

The riding conditions were fresh for me this morning. I wasn’t chilled and I wasn’t overly warm.

In my nostrils was the smell of freshly cut grass coming from I’m not quite sure where. Good luck in finding any fresh grass in which to cut around these estuary wilds parts of late.

I felt a lot stronger throughout the ride. I’ve gone many months without riding the roadie. This is now slowly building up.

Strava, the old bastard, tends to disagree. It clocked me as being a four seconds slower when compared to the exact same route of a week ago.

A rather curtailed WIvGigs Super Sunday with a short row just after sunrise this morning. There was a very low high tide, if you see what I mean. This meant our window of opportunity for launching and then recovering was limited.

No worries. We pressed on with an enthusiastic crew. Some of this optimism was soon diminished when we were wading knee-deep in shit as we tried to launch the boat in what was a very muddy estuary.

A muddy estuary is a metaphor for something a little more pooey.

Still, it was very… still. Launching was easy. We had the briefest of brief little adventures downstream before turning around for our rendezvous with a come and try-er rower.

We made our way back past the trots and the immaculate looking Wivenhoe One Designs. They looked sure pretty, almost picture postcard like, each with their individual light touch colour palette, reflecting off the water.

We weren’t expecting a come and try-er until an hour or so ahead of launching. To be fair to the fella he was bang on time and we liked his enthusiasm.

It was a little tricky mooring up on the public pontoon. There was a lack of water and another boat was blocking our passage.

The come and try-er was soon on board and a few safety instructions were given. We continued once again downstream. The come and try-er was sitting directly behind me. I took a few polite hits to the back but he soon got the hang of it.

We dropped off the come and try-er and then made the most of the very limited time available whilst we still had water. A few bursts of race training took place. It was a little tricky navigating the estuary with other traffic around early morning. This included the tiniest of tiny kayaks.

Big SHOUT OUT to our cox who managed to wake up half of the town with his booming voice giving out instructions.

Looking back at Rock Against Racism—with hope for the future

via Socialist Worker

The four hours or so leading up to kick-off for Forest’s first home game of the season against Leeds United on Saturday were spent with some serious podcast action catching up.

I had hoped that the pre-season would mean a bit of a break from all the Forest obsessive pod listening. Time to concentrate on the cricket, right?

But nope. The content has been relentless. Back in the day I used to look forward every evening, reading the Nottingham Evening Post sports section from start to finish. If I missed out on a minor paragraph about Gedling United then my knowledge of local sport was incomplete.

I find the same OCD absorbing of online digital content playing out 40-odd years later. MY Forest world isn’t happening unless I’ve listened to all the audio, right?

The end result was that shortly before kick-off and ahead of Sir Colin of West Bridgford addressing the nation on BBC Radio Nottingham, I was all caught up.

I knew that we were in for an optimistic season with a finish anywhere between eighth and twelfth. We will go deep in one of the cup competitions. Europe would be on the cards once again.

The OG dropped a few curve balls in his first team selection. Starting in defence was Brazilian Jair Cunha ahead of new signing Diomande. It was also interesting to see McAtee being given something of a forward pressing role alongside MGW.

The most important selection in the matchday squad was young Zac Abbott. It seems that the OG is not only aware, but also respects Forest’s proud record of having an academy player in every squad dating back to the early 1940s.

Kick-off came. Earlier in the day I had panic buy session with a slightly pricier than expected renewal of Peacock TV. I was all in place with the us telly pics and Sir Colin in my AirPods synced up.

Forest got off to a shaky start. Matz Sels kept us in the game early with a half-decent save. Down at the other end and the header from Jesus could have got us going for the season.

The yellow card for Ola seemed about fair. A red card would have been bloody awful so early on in the game. Leeds, however, were able to live up to their dirty, dirty tag without being punished.

Wilson’s effort putting the ball in the net and then being judged offside was an early warning sign. Leeds were clearly here to play the perfect road game: hit them on the brake and then bugger off as quickly as possible with three points in the bag.

Forest were much improved in the second half. We seemed the most likely to score. Once again Matz Sels in the middle of our goal kept us in the game.

McAtee came and went. He was withdrawn. Everyone seems to talk him up behind closed doors but he has yet to ultimately deliver where it matters.

This was a game that was there for Forest to win. Conceding late, late in the game was pretty poor. The free kick was decent but Selz could have kept it out.

Leeds pissed off back up the M1 with a perfect smash and grab job.

See you next Tuesday etc.

A brief pre-match ride ahead of Forest’s first home game of the season against DIRTY Leeds on Saturday morning. New season, same old pre-match nerves. Running was out of the question because I’m a crock. Likewise for swimming with a dodgy shoulder.

I can just about managed to get all the mechanical parts of my body functioning that are required to turn the pedals on a bicycle. I rolled out in search of a little serenity along the Estuary Wilds lanes.

Less than two minutes in and I had the first dickhead close pass. What a silly cow.

This was no genuine mistake. It was clear a car was approaching in the opposite direction but nope, Madam Twatty Face Driver just had to jump ahead of me, narrowly avoiding the other car and even narrowly avoiding me.

When in doubt then cyclists are always the easy moving target. A dickhead close passer doesn’t want to crash their crappy car into another crappy car. They would rather take me out. What a silly cow.

Hey hoe.

I pressed on. What could go wrong? Oh the skies are starting to darken. Maybe my pre-match nerves were being better resolved sitting at home listening to some jazz. Whatever.

Finally I found some peace along the lanes. I also found a mild headwind, which slowed me down slightly.

The company along the roads out in the middle of bloody nowhere soon became quite appealing. I had to slow down as I overtook a very friendly coach being pulled along by a couple of horses.

I then also had to swerve the horseshit along the lanes for the next mile or so.

The dickhead motorist was soon forgotten when I had a little dance with a dragonfly. It must have been close to 10 cm in length. It clearly longed for companionship. It floated along incredibly close to my helmet, almost drifting in my midstream.

Or was that the other way around?

I was back at base in time for Forest. Pre-match nerves had been settled. We are going to absolutely BATTER dirty dirty Leeds United, right?

Erm…

Another day, another running injury, another walk instead. Having been laid up for pretty much nine months with a particularly painful calf strain, I’ve still got a slight niggle on my right-hand calf this time. Oh well. There’s only one thing for it: no more pounding the mean streets of CO7, and certainly no more pounding the BASTARD treadmill.

Walk to live, live to walk, etc.

I set off on the usual 10 km route along the estuary, and down towards the Creek before cutting back and going around Alresford.

The atmosphere down on the quayside felt like the fag of the summer holidays. Some kids were doing the crabbing thing at one end of the public jetty. The town had the atmosphere of very much being hot and bothered and having had enough of this recent heatwave weather.

This wasn’t a particularly balmy one but it was a lot hotter than I expected. I really couldn’t be arsed to get my head down and pound on at a rapid pace. I don’t think my calf is up to it anyway.

The pace of the estuary life seemed to be summed up by the fishermen sitting on their boats waiting for some water to arrive. I was also making slow progress. I was too busy taking snaps of the rather impressive Big Essex Skies up above me.

In Log News: you will be pleased to know that the log that blocked the path along the wooded part of the estuary has kindly been moved on by someone. Here ends Log News for today.

The blackberries lining the path were close to picking. Only a few remain red. The majority have gone a very dark, lush shade of black and are bursting to be picked.

I reached the Creek and headed back around through Alresford. I opted out on the final 1 km or so as the traffic was picking it up along the main road. I cut through instead along the farm track.

During the winter months this is sometimes not possible to pass through. The tractor marks are ideal for creating lake-like conditions. Not so today. It’s going to take some pretty horrendous autumnal downpours before the farm tracks cut off this return route for me once again.

And drivers wonder why cyclists ride in middle of the road

via road.cc

A bit of Thelonious Monk. I think Brilliant Corners is his masterpiece. It appeared in the feed for the Album of the Day a couple of weeks ago. Monk is one of those characters I’ve always been aware of but never really explored. He’s spoken of in rather hushed terms even amongst jazz nerds. Brilliant Corners, for me, was confirmation of why he is so highly respected. There’s a stellar cast as well on this album, including Sonny Rollins. I like the way it moves from bombastic big sounds to something a little more moody. The perfect working soundtrack.

To the Oval! …on Thursday morning for day one of Surrey vs Notts in the County Championship. This game was also deemed the Festival of Red Bull cricket by the club, which basically means a glorified beer festival, along with a cricket car boot sale taking place around the back of the Peter May. I passed on both fronts.

The more interesting action was taking place out in the middle. This was a make or break game for both teams. Surrey have been poor all season. You don’t fight for championships by simply drawing matches.

The narrative from afar has been that Notts have been dominant. My cricketing companion for the day was a Notts fan. It was interesting to hear his perspective, which was rather similar to the Surrey story of 2026. Notts are still within a chance of the title only through drawing matches and picking up bonus points.

ChatGPT had reliably - or perhaps not so reliably - informed me the night before that a late title charge by Surrey is still possible but to achieve that a comprehensive win over Notts was needed. Anything less and we couldn’t be back looking behind our own backsides and staring relegation in the face.

There’s nothing quite like the County Championship, which is just as well, seeing as all the horrid Hundred, crappy banners had been taken down. It was good to see The Oval back in its pretty much purified form, with none of the franchise crap littering around the grand old place.

I approached this game in a rather sober state. I also ended in a rather sober state. I’ve had one too many days out on the piss in the Peter May already so far this season.

My sobriety was made all the better when I was rewarded with some early wickets. The grounds team had prepared a lush green wicket. This was a game for the seamers and no spin it to win in sight.

The weather was always going to have a say in this game. The forecast looked a little dodgy for the first day of play but then set to pick up as we enter the weekend.

No surprises to see an hour or so into the start of the play and the floodlights came on, followed by the inevitable rain. This was a shame as Surrey had picked up the early momentum and looked like doing some serious damage to the Notts weakened attack ahead of the lunch break.

And then whaddyaknow? Lunch was taken in bright sunshine; out came the players briefly for the afternoon session before buggering off back into the hutch as the rain started again. Cricket sometimes does itself no favours.

We had by now shifted from the Peter May over to the Bedsar, which is also known as the No Fun Stand. There’s no official alcohol ban and there’s no official stance on limited conversation, but fuck me - it’s like a bloody morgue up in there.

Not a lot happened when play resumed. This was a very, very cagey period for both teams. Surrey sensed more wickets. Notts were just happy to block, block and then block again.

The highlight for the mid-afternoon session was the skipper taking off his cricketing sun hat to reveal a pretty much shaven head. It was quite a statement from Rory and one hopes one that is not aligned with the Samson and Delilah storyline.

We ended up back where we started for the afternoon session in the Peter May. Dark clouds descended once again over SE11 as Surrey tried to take out the Notts attack within the first day. It got a little bit windy. We made a strategic move down to the lower tier of the Pavilion.

A pleasant half-hour passage of play followed and then the Umps looked at the dark skies and called time out once again.

We retreated to the Surrey store to have a good piss take at some of the Hundred merchandise. There was a rather fetching black Surrey sweatshirt that was new to the range. This was priced competitively at £60. I think the pricing of £40 for a similar MI London piece of tat tells you all you need to know about the price for everything when it comes towards the stupid shitty franchise.

We called time on our pleasant day out and headed out on a brief stroll around our old sunny Stockwell patch.

Later back at base we realised we had missed another half hour of play where Notts annoyingly added on some more runs to reach a total of 184 for the day whilst Surrey lost an early wicket with the Vicar.

Sober Surrey days out at the cricket are decent fun. Who knew?

Chin chin.