One of my childhood memories is when I was at St. Piran's Prep School
(which was a boarding school in Maidenhead England) at the age of about 10 or 11. My parents had come to a Sunday open day.
I remember sitting at the edge of the cricket pitch, by the boundary, on a picnic blanket with my parents, eating strawberries and cream and watching the 1st XI.
Hence I suppose, my strange compulsion in recent years, to want to watch cricket wherever I see it happening, which is ridiculous: I've never been a player. In fact, the only time I ever did play, I ended up in the sanatorium with a big bruise in the middle of my forehead: I was the wicket keeper, the batsman got out of the way of a rather high ball and I caught it in the head.
My grandmother was a big cricket fan. She always had high hopes of someone in the family excelling in the sport, but I don't think it ever happened, certainly not from me.
Anyway, yesterday, I wrote about the fact that there was no cricket on Victoria Square. Well, I was coming past on my bike today, and what do you know? I see that there is a game in full swing, whites and all.
So I'm sitting here watching it, realising that the wind is a bit chilly, and I was actually on my way to the office because I feel as though I might achieve something useful this afternoon, and... the game is really not that enthralling.
I mean, I'm sitting here watching someone chucking a ball 22 yards down the pitch, and... Oh! - someone's just been caught out. There you are, a bit more exciting. But overall, I have to admit, I could do without it.
It's funny though, isn't it?, how memories work, and how that distant memory of mine always gives me a slight inkling of how nice it would be, and I still like the idea of sitting by a cricket pitch, on a blanket, eating strawberries and cream. It's not an unpleasant notion, is it?
I suppose I didn't give it enough of a chance today, let's not discount cricket altogether - just yet.