Will's Nuptials and Big Bird's Bhuna

Easter's come and gone and we now hurtle towards Prince Williams impending nuptials - which is what I suppose Kate will be doing after the free bar closes on the wedding night.

"OFF WITH HIS HEAD"

The Royal Wedding is on Friday and we have a loaded calendar of cricket for the weekend. There's nothing better than drinking all day to then play the first league game of the season with a headache that feels like you've just nailed a picture to your eye and a throat as dry as a nun's nasty.

The club's looking OK with some good performances in the pre-season friendlies. With last years heart attacks, cricket tour, hernia operations, swollen testicles, loss of lighters, pubic shaves that went wrong and everything else hugely drastic, I hope the new season brings success. We must look to bring in the younger blood of the club, all of whom have real spark and it would be good to turn that effervescence on, on the pitch. Early signs are full of promise.

Preston CC veteran, the Big Bird turns 50 this weekend. The man that has spent most of his adult life exploring the effects of shit beer and prawn Bhuna has on the human digestive tract, has made the big 5/0. I'm told a barrel has been purchased which means that most of us will be going home in a box that evening, which will be good. Big B, a legend in his own lunchtime. The man who wore only a plastic lobster for a night out in Deal, the man who classifies Luther Vandross as a "Like" on Facebook, the man who hospitalised Clarkie by simply running into him, the man that bats with a 4 pound cricket bat and the man who has got Preston CC 3rd Eleven promoted for the third season turns 50. Well Done Bird.

The season will soon be in full-swing. We will soon be in the bosoms of our Preston CC cricketing brethren on the veranda of the Red Lion, supping on some glorious summerish ales as the heat of the day gently lows in the late evening. The sweat of day's hard cricketing yakka disappearing as quickly as the beer. What news of the second's, the third's, and the fourth eleven? With the bats swooping with insect chasing abandon and the midges start to infuriate, we will talk crap about season's gone by; of glorious innings knocked, of wonderful strokes made, of unplayable balls delivered, of amazing catches snaffled, of willies painted blue, of minibuses reversed into other minibuses and other heady tales of great season's gone by - wonderful stuff - and whilst all this goes on and the merry chit-chat of a fantastic cricket club at rest in the company of great people, the pub's pea-hen will be shitting on Bomber's bonnet.

Marvellous.

The thwack of leather on testicles..

I don't know what tempted Casey to take all his clothes off and simulate having intercourse with the very field that we we're all standing in but, as you know, people do the strangest things having drunk a few pints of Abbott very quickly.

The sight from the passengers windows of the landing Easyjet's must have been a very strange sight. The sight of six men walking across a field of young rape, one of which was stark naked, waving his johnson up and down like a dead man's handle and running around as if his hair was on fire. Meanwhile his clothes were being stolen by the other guys and being sprayed over every hedge within a mile radius. It must have been a particularly disturbing scene indeed, even to the Doggers and rarer dog-walkers that frequent the local countryside.

Anyway, we'd had a few. Preston Cricket Club amuses itself in a variety of ways when there's no cricket.

Our nets have started, or rather nearly finished, in time for the onset of the 2011 season which starts in a few weeks time.

Bowlers have bowled, batsman and batted and all seem to remember what to do-ish. I attended myself a few weeks ago to test out my recent hernia operation and to make sure that my entrails didn't explode onto the popping crease if I had been too premature.

When I was asked to don the pads, I was bowled first ball - so all good there.

The only worse batting performance was Tommo who was hit in the testicles on a fairly regularly basis it seemed - like a young Mark Ealham, and was out more often than not - either bowled or caught behind trying to dab yorkers between point and gully. Typically, and rather amusingly a quiet comment from him that he wasn't wearing a protective box to a close mate, then saw the same close mate running up to the bowlers end and broadcasting this to everyone and consequently every bowler tried there level best to bowl their deliveries as fast and as straight into his nuts as they could. Small 14 years old off spinners all of a sudden come hurtling in like Malinga the Slinger, aiming their new, schoolboy red cherries right at his exposed and very probably bleeding gonads. It was like watching a seal clubbing session.

That's a cricket club, right there.

In the next few weeks we will start to bring the ground to life.

We'll need to throw fag ends all over the patio, placing half used and urine filled bottles of shower gel in the showers, and putting those weird, dangley legged spiders you only seem to get in cricket pavilions in the corners of the changing rooms. We'll need to break everything of any use in the kitchenette and leave only some spectacles in the medical box. We'll need to cut the grass and roll the wicket on our diesel powered roller that will invariably be filled with petrol and will likely explode at the point of throttle. We will also have to erect the outdoor nets just so the local kids can have a goal to play football in. We'll also have to throw a jockstrap on the roof, lose all the spare balls, write TWAT on the team photos and complete other pre-season tasks that we have had to do since the dawn of cricket seasons so that we are ready to play.

We will also have to find a tea-lady or two; another season of banana and Marmite sandwiches, pasta with margerine sauce and satsumas, I don't think will be stomached as a substantial tea any longer. Never ask players to cook.

But, do it we must for the season starts on April 17th 2011.

Bugger.

Bugger

I can't type any more.

2 years ago I could - well, sort of. My fat sausage like fingers would fly round the keyboard like one of those "C" list celebrities does around the ice-rink on a Sunday night.

But now, look at me. I'm poking the keyboard like I'm trying to find out if a cat is alive or actually dead. 3 hours that bit took.

Anyhoo

2 years ago I took part in an event that made some impact on some of the world for a while. It was a great adventure without any form of pre-notion of whether it would succeed, in a land far, far away to raise cash for some great causes.

The team did it and I did it and everyone made it home safe and sound. Some of us were pleased to come out of it in one piece but for others it significantly changed the course of their lives, careers, personal hygiene and outlook.

Job done and mission accomplished. We raised about £150,000 for the Lord's Taverners and the Himalaya Trust UK.

Yesterday - literally two years later, I have just been asked to present the expedition to friends' son's school. ( I doubt my use of apostrophe's is right there. ... Or there. )

Since then, several people have suggested I carry on writing the blog - Induckers on Everest - as it served to cause some amusement in their lives - reading about me in various states of distress, undress and er, stress and, to be honest, I quite enjoyed writing it. So here I am, two years later and having another lash at it.

Not sure what I'm going to write about as yet, mind you and I'm not climbing up another mountain in the near future so I think I'm going to look to my own life, world, etc for inspiration. I play a lot of village cricket and live in a wonderfully rural community which usually presents moments of sheer amusement so I think I will use my Blog as a type of diary of notes and commentaries of who I am and where I live.

You still awake?