Now back home after a fortnight playing cricket in the sub continent. We played eleven games altogether which was an amazing testament to our endurance at our age! We played against significantly younger teams and we managed 4 wins which was encouraging. The last game was at Shivaji Park in Mumbai which is an amazing experience there is always 5 or 6 games going on plus all sorts of everyday life! The boundaries overlap so the fielders are all mixed up!  Dogs, bikes vendors drift across where you are playing. Nobody is surprised by this! It is the biggest open space in the great conurbation of Mumbai (22 million plus people live in the city). The picture below i found on the internet. We won the game and guess who had his first bowl in India (after three years) and got a wicket with his first ball? Another followed in the same over!  I also batted for a while so the body was wreck at the end- the temperature was about 36 degrees! My legs are very swollen still as a result of the heat and the toil! So I now want to be classified as an allrounder!

Our intrepid band of brothers won our third game of the Tour in India! Today we played a team with a few teenagers and only 2 over 40!! Our average age is 62.5 years!!! It does make a significant difference especially the fielding! So we were understandably chuffed!!! There is a rumour I might get a bowl tomorrow and open the batting!!!

Really hot out here in Pune! As the oldest member of the team I have managed to cope! It is the running that hurts!

A couple of random pictures below of the traffic etc! The guy in the first picture is drinking out of a teapot!

Believe it or not but the intrepid Gloucestershire Seniors won their second successive match in India. It did help that three quarters of the opposition were the same age as us! Therefore 4 much younger players than us.I

I promise more photos soon.

I write this blog yesterday but forgot to post – we lost today!

Picture of us at the World Cup on Wednesday. We were treated like celebrities and featured several times on the big screen! We have now won our first game of cricket!!! The body now feels like I have played 5 games of cricket! Other pictures are me at the Brabourne Stadium, one of the many Black Kites!

Some pictures below from an early morning cycle round the streets of Mumbai. It was an interesting experience. Three games of cricket played so far and 3 lost. We watching England in the 20/29 World Cup tomorrow

I took a group of young people bird watching at Wick Court today. (my last session before I return from India). They were full of enthusiasm and I couldn’t keep up with them as they were all pointing in different directions. One group were delighted when a Heron flew over the Hide. I’ve been trawling through my photos so below is a selection of Heron pictures-just gone for Grey Heron maybe another time I will share my Egret pictures!

Just started packing for my India trip. I fly on Thursday. So obviously I am packing my cricket kit first! A couple of action pictures from last year (they have been in the blog before) me just out with a temple in the background! Also me story telling at an orphanage in Mumbai (that crowd grew to about 40 )- we are going back there this year. Hopefully the blog will have a few action pictures over the next fortnight.

It was football yesterday. For me a home game takes near enough the whole day with the travel involved. Not a great game of football as Blackpool came and parked the proverbial bus. It took three quarters of the game before we eventually broke them down and score! A welcome relief after two indifferent away games.- still a glimmer of hope that we might still make the play offs. We have been waiting all season to go on a run-fingers crossed this is the start! COYH!!!!!

One of my favourite songs is Martyn Joseph’s Cardiff Bay it is a lovely song that encapsulates the memorable days of being a parent. I once played it at a parent’s evening on how to help your child-the point I wanted to make was to try to spend quality time with your child. We saw him at Bristol Beacon on Wednesday night and as always it was a delightful mixture of sensitive songs and passionate conscientious ones. A great night!!!

Disappointment for my quiz team last night we lost! Feel we didn’t get the rub of the green with the questions.

Some more pictures from Kings Bromley last week -these are from the evening session where it was a mixture of stories and a workshop.