St. Maximilian Kolbe's Day / A night at the Ageas Bowl

I wasn’t up so early this morning but, thankfully, the weather was pleasant without being too hot.  Later I found out that today is St. Maximilian Kolbe's Day whose death cell in Auschwitz we had visited only six days ago.  Kolbe, a Catholic priest, took the place of another prisoner facing punishment from the Nazis and as a result was incarcerated in the infamous Block 11 of Auschwitz I (Main Camp) where, after many beatings, he was starved to death.   Having received a cheque from the United States, I drove into Andover at lunchtime to bank it and also deal with some other banking.  This afternoon, I drove over to the Ageas Bowl with Richard and James to attend the Clydesdale CB40 cricket match between Hampshire and Somerset.  Hampshire won the toss and decided to field first.  Somerset put on a modest 228 for 8 at the end of their 40 overs innings.  Hampshire managed to bowl four maidens – quite rare in limited over cricket. Somerset started really well but slowed down towards the end except for the very final over in which they scored a massive 23 runs.  Hampshire’s reply was a slow steady plod but they lost five wickets for 0 runs.  They scraped together 178 runs when their final wicket fell in the 36^th over.  We watched Somerset’s innings from the Pavilion Rooftop and Hampshire’s innings from the Derek Shackleton Members Bar/Lounge are through the large plate glass window.  After a coffee we returned home to Winterslow at around 11.30 p.m. and I joined Sara in watching the film “Pat and Margaret – finally going to bed at around 1.30 a.m.