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A Likely Lads' score avoidance was achieved successfully on Monday morning. We were in bed by 10 pm the night before. Live the dream, Jase. Live the dream.

It was actually quite a revelation not being tied down to any digital or online nonsense. I didn’t touch my phone in over 12 hours. Even an early morning work shift was successfully navigated, in strictly sticking to the walled garden of the online work nonsense.

We watched the England versus Mexico match being played out on the BBC 2 7 a.m. repeat. I might have exclaimed “Yes!” once throughout the entire game. Sure, it was an enjoyable watch, but as ever I’m club over country every time.

The football was ticked off and a little early morning work was also done. Now time for a walk.

Having managed to avoid the football score, I did slightly less well in avoiding the heat. It was already 25 degrees plus out around the mean streets of CO7 at around 10 a.m.

Also putting in the steps was the Weird Wiv Walker. We exchanged a polite and almost non-existent hand wave. One day we will actually embrace, have a big sweaty man hug and celebrate the joys of Estuary Wilds walking together. But not this morning, Big Man.

The rest of the town was incredibly sleepy. People were either out at work or were still sleeping off the morning after the night before.

One old boy on a bicycle did come up from behind, so to speak. He was going at such a slow pace. I actually managed to outpace him walking along.

I headed down to the quayside. The Battle at the Bunting was in full swing. The Rowhedge and Wivenhoe Regattas may be in the distant past for another year. That doesn’t stop the bunting from being proudly displayed.

The dry dock was exceptionally dry. You don’t say.

A little further along the quayside, and the first full-on touring cyclist of the season slowly made his way past me. He was laden down with every conceivable part of his frame lumbered with cycling bags.

Chapeau etc.

A decent walk whilst I wait for the recent inking to heal. I was two minutes slower when compared to walking the same route a few weeks ago.

This was one of the worst Surrey performances in the Blast in recent years - and when I say recent years I of course mean the past 25 years.

We won the inaugural competition in the T20 and that has been pretty much it. Don’t believe the mainstream media narrative that Surrey are a team configured around winning the Blast.

It didn’t get off to a good start when J-Roy forgot to pack his kit. No shit. We’re talking a professional sportsmen here in J-Roy, a seasoned globe-trotting franchise player. Maybe that’s the reason why he left his Surrey top at home?

It was rather odd seeing two players take to the field at Gloucestershire, both wearing the legend that is Lawrence 28 on the back.

The Sky Sports telly folk ummed and ahed over what would be a par score for the wicket as Gloucestershire opened their innings. There was optimistic talk of 200 being set fair.

This completely skewed the debate around Surrey having an international franchise bowling attack that couldn’t take any wickets.

The interval came, the BOOZE started. Very, very shortly afterwards the inevitable Surrey collapse also showed its face.

Put simply this was a shocking, shocking performance from Surrey. It should be a wake-up call to all around the club that something is not right in SE11.

We saw this towards the tail end of last season in the Championship when we almost showed a lack of ambition to match a very decent Notts team. This tailing off of a curve has continued at some pace with red ball cricket for this season.

At least the Blast might be our saviour, right? Absolutely not.

There’s probably at least half a dozen franchise players in this Surrey Blast team that are two to three years past their sell-by date. There’s no progression or conveyor belt of players being promoted from underneath.

A major factor in this is the disdain in which Surrey have treated the Metro Bank comp. We’ve bedded in incredibly young talent but haven’t given them the support they need to make the leap up.

It’s impossible to criticise the Gaffer when it comes to all things Surrey. The Sky telly folk made such a point when they panned in on Alex Stewart looking down from the balcony at Gloucestershire.

If he hangs around for another season and oversees what looks like inevitable relegation from the Championship, paired with another piss-poor Blast performance, then his stellar reputation at the Oval will be trashed.

If only there was an opening at the ECB where Stewie could team up once again with the Two Dicks and try and turn around England’s fortunes…

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To the Regatta!… on Saturday afternoon. I tell a lie. I had already been down to the Quayside once to help set up the WivGigs stall. That’s my good deed done for the day. I can walk away now?

The wind had picked up slightly shortly after midday as I made my way back down to the front. These were perfect conditions for racing.

It was spot on if you were racing something which had a big sheet attached to it to catch the wind. Not so if you were bobbing up and down in a small wooden boat, fighting against the wind with two pairs of oars.

We decided to take a strategic walk from east to west along the quay. Or was it west to east? The heat does get to me and I get a little confused with even these basic local geographical positioning.

The first stalls started to appear around the old sailing club hard. SHOUT OUT to our friendly rowing rivals, Corsairs. It can be a right pain in the arse to organise these Regatta stalls. Corsairs had done a fantastic job.

Drawing plenty of attention was the human fruit machine. Young kids were lining up to hand over their hard-earned pocket money. A lever was pulled by the ankle biters and then three charming Corsairs club members made a swirling motion before revealing which fruit each one had landed on.

Similar to previous years, there was a pirate trail forming part of the Regatta. This is an ace idea. It’s mainly aimed at the young folk. The idea is that they head all along the Regatta stretch and pick up a sticker at each stall. It’s a crafty way of getting footfall from one end of the quay all the way over to the Sailing Club.

The pirate theme was taken a little further by one particular well-known house. It had a fantastic human-sized Wurzel Gummidge-style pirate. Wearing the head this year was everyone’s favourite fascist, Nigel Farage. Pieces of eight, etc.

My main contention with the Regatta each year is that I never normally get to see any racing. I made a point of correcting this. For 2026 we took up a position along the public jetty and watched as a series of Wivenhoe One Designs, some more modern dinghies, and some larger yachts making their way upstream. It was choppy waters out there.

And then from the distance up came Varuna, the second WivGigs boat. I had a brief conversation with the cox. It looked bloody hard work. She said launching had been something of a demolition derby.

We took up sanctuary down at the sailing club. This is a lot more chilled on Regatta day. I was tempted to hit the BOOZE, but with so many local people around I knew I would only make an absolute dick of myself.

Chin chin.

Cutting a lone figure down on the sailing club hard was one young chap who had been building his raft since early morning. The raft race is often the highlight of the Regatta.

He had taken innovation to a new level by customising an old wooden bed frame. There’s no way that’s going to float, fella.

We walked past the WivGigs stall and a few friendly conversations later and I had talked myself into talking into taking over the raffle. This wasn’t part of the itinerary.

I spent a pleasant hour however, rallying for the cause and doing my best sales pitch. I have to confess I’m half decent at this. I do miss my Saturday morning job working on the record stall back in Vicky Market.

The only downside was that Mr Punch was doing his wife-beating thing opposite us. To be fair to the big-nosed fella, Punch and Judy 2026 is a lot more acceptable in the modern world.

There was something of a star-struck Rebels moment when one of the leading men’s players walked past. I had been quite content to do my wheeling and dealing Del Boy thing with my buy a raffle ticket one-liners. I admit to being a little overwhelmed by seeing one of the Rebs walk past looking an absolute dude.

The raft race was about to begin down by the old hard. I made my excuses and left the WivGigs stall. It was absolute chaos down there. It’s always absolute chaos for the raft race when launching.

To my surprise the floating bed was actually floating. It was also doing rather well, coming in a decent second in the very short form course. I’m not sure why but the cop boat was also circling the various rafts.

It all got a little too much for one young lady standing next to me. She had something of a box park football scene. Rather than chucking her pint of lager in the air in celebration, she let slip with her glass of red. No worries Madam, but it did land all over my immaculately OCD clean Vans trainers. I went home in a sulk.

Regatta Day. Always fun, yeah?

I had a little extra time to spare on Saturday morning, in between table tennis and helping to set up the Wiv Gigs stall for the regatta.

A few simple calculations regarding distance, time and my energy and yep, I was free for a 40-minute or so walk through the woods and back along the quay. Job’s a good ‘un.

Some welcome shade was available as I made my way through the woods. The ground was bone dry.

It’s been a while since I’ve walked through the woods. I crossed at the railway track, I then headed back up the trail.

It’s been even longer since I made my way along the trail. I’m still pretty much without any bicycle access as the shed is blocked off with scaffolding.

There were more cyclists than walkers out along the trail on Saturday morning. Hopefully I will be able to join them in a few weeks’ time.

To the Table of Dreams! …early on Saturday morning. We were fresh (or not so fresh) from dropping off a load of trash at the monthly bulk refuse collection point. The Table of Dreams was within our sights. This was too good an opportunity to miss.

Also making the most of the early morning was one of the hens in the nearby Coop. She was making a right old racket, rejoicing in the fact that she had just laid an egg. Well done you.

My playing partner was a little lame. Don’t scroll down to the final score if you want to see an average table tennis player being trolled in real time.

She made a lame excuse that her contact lenses were in back to front. As a non-contact lens wearer I can’t see how that is possible. My excuse was the big fat dog who ran up beside me, took a slight 45-degree detour, and then did a massive dump. The dirty dog etc.

A fat wasp also hovered over us throughout the game. This was pretty weird. We tried to get a look to see why it was so fat. Was it pregnant? Do wasps get pregnant? Nope. Eggs, innit. We still had no idea as to why the lard arse yellow and black thing was so obese.

It wasn’t even 9 am yet and still the young footballers were warming up right in the middle of the heat. It looked bloody hard work.

We had a little extra time than usual. We decided to play on in what was quite an epic game. The final scoreline of a 4-1 defeat to me doesn’t tell the full story. I’m not sure what the full story is to be honest.

To the Church… on Friday evening. Steady the buffers, Jase. It takes quite a lot to actually get me inside the church. Thankfully I remained on the outside for the evening’s entertainment.

On the agenda was the Weird Wiv Shakespeare Company and their summer performance of Richard II. This can be a tricky text. It all gets lost in the mix for me: historical plays, tragedies, comedy.

No worries. A quick shifty online the night before and we watched a five minute YouTube catch-up of the plot. It was animated and mixed in Jacobean costume with Roman figures. I fear the content was purely straight out of the confused mind of an AI machine. It didn’t really help me in trying to prepare for what was to follow.

We rocked up outside the church, surprisingly on time for once. We were greeted by the very friendly front-of-house staff. I was tarted up. But OF COURSE I was tarted up. I’m always tarted up.

One of the front-of-house team joked (I think?) that I would fit in well. My choice of attire for the evening was of a similar theme for the cast. Oh dear.

The setting was just perfect. The main stage was set up within one corner of the two church walls. There were two lighting towers for later on during the performance.

The chattering and excitement ahead of the performance soon died down, and then we were straight in ass a rather Withnail inspired Richard started to pounce around and hold centre court. He was bloody ace.

The costume observation was spot on. It was still early evening sunlight. I was hoping for a rapid shift towards sunset to help disguise my costume clash. Talk about immersive theatre etc. Even some of the main characters had tattoo sleeves.

The YouTube video beforehand was so so. It certainly helped me to follow the general thrust of the play. As ever with Shakespeare, I just sit back and take in the language and some of the interpersonal battles taking place.

I don’t think I was alone in rooting for Harry of Bolingbroke from the start. It was all going rather well for the protagonist character until it was let slip that he was also the Earl of Derby. I had some Pavlovian desire to stand up and shout out some obscenities towards him.

The performances by a very local cast were superb. This was a very professional production, albeit put on by amateurs.

As well as Bolingbroke, there were some strong performances from King Richard as well as Jon of Gaunt. My penny-pinching ways meant I didn’t extend to buying a programme to give local people a name check, but you know who you are. All the cast was spot-on.

The complexities of the plot were even followed, despite the sound of a couple munching rather heavily behind us. If anything it added to the suspense of the evening.

SHOUT OUT to the local dog walker who decided to parade his bonzo right through the churchyard mid-performance, oblivious to what was taking place around him.

A brief interval followed. We had a leg stretch. We turned a blind eye when we caught one of the cast members having a crafty fag at the back of the church. It was well deserved.

And then the final part of the play was an absolute romp. King Richard descended from Withnail comedy to Withnail tragedy. Bolingbroke bounced around and was boisterous, cocksure in that the kingdom was his.

I don’t think I was alone in noticing the symbolism of a King of the North seizing power from some poncey twat down in the south.

A spectacular evening.

A return to the outdoor Table of Dreams on Friday afternoon. It’s been a while. We were both free and the park was absolutely empty. Time to swing that bat.

The park was incredibly dry. The conditions were still. We opted to play with a conventional indoor table tennis ball.

A brief warm-up followed. It was the usual stuff of TWATTING the ball back and forth with the forehand to each diagonal and then the same again with the backhand. The wind picked up and the ball started to move.

New balls please!

Switching over to the wind ball didn’t make much of a difference. We were both especially crap today.

I came from 2-0 down to level all the scores at 2-2 all. But OF COURSE I lost the final game, walking away a 3-2 loser. Oh dear.

An afternoon of Mad Dog Walking around the Estuary Wilds. Strolling with my best foot forward at midday under balmy conditions shows the current state of my mentality. Don’t be a dick, Jase. But I was and so I kept on walking.

Down by the quayside the regatta preparations for tomorrow were well underway. Bunting is hanging from every conceivable hanging point. It looks rather pretty, albeit a little jingoistic.

Past the sailing club and a warm wind started to develop. The sea wall path was rather busy for a Friday morning. This included a peloton of electric mountain bike riders.

The tide was slowly, slowly starting to creep in. I was joined a little further towards the creek by the most magnificent collection of dancing butterflies around my knees.

I reached the creek. There was a middle-aged couple sitting on one of the benches, both engrossed in their own books. Parked nearby was an MG sports car. They had picked the perfect spot to escape and lose themselves in their books.

I turned around at Alresford and headed back along by the side of the town. It was bin day collection over in Alresford. It bloody stank in the developing heat.

I reached Wivenhoe for the final leg of my walk. The Wivenhoe Walker was out doing his walking thing. I wonder if people blog elsewhere and refer to me as the Wivenhoe Walker?

Live to walk, walk to live, or something.

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