Winners!

I was up early this morning and attended the 8 a.m. Early Eucharist at St. John's taken by Elizabeth. I always enjoy her services and homilies (they are too short to be called sermons at St. John's). After re-submitting Tom's passport application (I had got Sara's surname and first name in the wrong boxes!) Tom and I set off for the Rose Bowl to watch an afternoon's cricket in the 40-Over League (Hampshire v. Durham). We parked in the second row of the field car park for an easy getaway later. It was incredibly hot - the "bowl" seeming to concentrate the heat quite fiercely. Hampshire won the toss and decided to field. Durham ended their innings on 205-8 and Hampshire cruised in their inning to 207-4, winning by six wickets. A great win. What a wonderful way to spend an English summer Sunday afternoon - eating and drinking and watching first class cricket! I am really looking forward to the Twenty/20 Finals Day at the Rose Bowl next Saturday. It will be a really great atmosphere with four counties playing. This afternoon, there were not that many there but it was a really nice genteel afternoon's sport and at a really reasonable price too - less than watching a Saints match and the cricket lasted five hours. We got away from the car park withing five minutes of getting back to the car and were back home by 7 p.m. Unfortunately, Mary and Tom started arguing the moment we got back and I took Tom off to the Lion's Head with me for the monthly Pub Quiz (we were one short as Klynn couldn't make it - don't see much of him these days). Needless to say, we won again (quite convincingly!) and so I returned home this evening with two bottles of wine as there were two Barratts in the team. Went to bed quite exhausted after a long hot day.