It was all Greek to me a game that cheers but does not inebriate!

London Town

Stepping up to the plate!

There is nothing more infuriating than an itch that one cannot reach with one's fingernails to relieve it when it is at a bridge too far to do the scratching oneself and make it a little more bearable. Still, I don't suppose you will find it that amusing either but it could be worse.  Indeed, from time to time, the daily grind gets me down a wee bit but today it is a blissful day for getting to toppling down wooden pins like cricket and feeding the soul with something different. In my mind's eye, I thought out a picture of an English summer game while picturing the serenity of the countryside and a blue sky of a quintessential British summer day. Adventure beckons but first I must fed the cat, pick up my daughter from school, answer my e-mails and do the washing-up. Indeed, the sun came out this morning over the valley and flowers burst into bloom as the leaves in the common rustled in the gentle wind. A blue sky stretching as far as the eye can see filled me with fresh perspectives which harked me back to the days when I was an aspiring storyteller. My spirit was up, time was so precious none to lose .  I needed to leave the house promptly and be back before my wife's arrival from work and go into the countryside out of harm's way in search of excitement. I dragged my darling daughter, Sara, along and drove beyond the limits of city life. We arrived at Surrey Cricket ground at midmorning where a large number of people were gathered to watch a cricket match. There were eleven chaps on the field all dressed in white plus two other fellows, both, wearing baker's outfit who were refereeing the game. It would be, perhaps, inadequate to mention the name of the game of cricket, again and again since it might exceed my readers tolerance but I fear not for my readers would probably imagine how this story is going to turn since they might have faced a familiar set of circumstances themselves. Cricket! Yeah! Then, I knew I had found my subject for my writing this allegory. An old folksy gentleman came up to me and introduced himself as George MacLovejoy-Farquar, Chairman of the visiting side. At a glance and instantaneously, I peeked beyond his appearance and saw goodness and comprehension. Indeed, he was a charming to a fault sort of fellow and he seemed to have a diamond where most people have a heart, and a voracious appetite for the good things in life, cricket, whiskey and refinement.  I also learned in the bar, later on that afternoon from one of the players, that he was a phenomenally worthy man. He had an emptied glass in his right hand and bottle of whiskey in his left one which he was gripping like a dog with a bone and unwilling to let it go. I have to document this with some thoroughness since I had, many moons ago, developed a slight peculiarity which people call the scottish itchiness since it seemingly overcomes the upper lip just before taking a sip of stuff but I was not in the position to let him know that I was steeped in sin for I too loved the aroma of whiskey. The sticks or stumps were known as wickets while the thrower and the batter were called a bowler and a batsman respectively. It was my first encroachment into a game that was as alien to me as the martians' social conventions. It is a step aside from baseball where the loud appeal, a century, divine intervention, the rain, out for a duck, a captain's performance, a captain's inning, test, follow on, declaration, golden duck, good length delivery, howzat, LBW, maiden over, night-watchman, tailender, ton, wicket maiden, yorker. and a misjudged catch are exotic peculiarities of the game of cricket.  Certainly, there are some experiences one only ever needs once since there is no point in repeating them again for they are not going to get more enjoyable. Having said that, this particular experience did not have a healthy sporting reminiscence since I thought invincible barbs were playing up that day which created a bad feeling among the players and prompted complaints from the captain of the visiting side who asked the umpire to tell the home side to turn down the volume of their cries. I thought the persiflage was a bit too much since it was designed to put the visiting team off. George MacLovejoy-Farquar had heard that I played baseball and asked me to play for his side for they were a man short. He promised to keep an eye on little Sara's whereabouts and all that jazz. Nervously looking over my shoulders towards little Sara, I elected to accept George's invitation to play and threw caution to the wind since I wanted to learn the game of cricket for the fun of it, and I was prepared to get my hands dirty and go out on to the field of playing. "It is a man's game", I heard someone said, it must have been something I said perhaps which had invisible barbs that prompted that person to shout but I did not mean to hurt anyone and out of temptation and daring I went onto the field of playing. It looks all rather complicated the game of cricket to the uninitiated but like most things in life, it is easy when you know how. Nevertheless, I was itching to come out and play the game and when I did so I was not at all surprised that the skills needed to play the game of cricket came naturally to me since I was a pretty good baseball player in my heydays. Yeah! It was a different game but a ball game all the same. While at bat, I felt somehow promptly at home in a foreign soil and I was very keen to get lots of runs in. Delivery after delivery was met with artful hitting skills and suddenly it seemed as if everything was alright. I promptly reached my ton and I was rewarded with a round of applause. Everybody seemed happy for me so much so that I was stuck for words. I never felt that good before and it was evident that my baseball skills were paying dividends.  In an upward curve my score went up and it reached 150.  At that moment a yorker found me wanted, there were claims for a LBW and I was declared out at the crease by the auxiliary umpire. I have had a good inning but I just wished that I had realised at the time before a latter-day that the teasing and the gunfire I encountered before the match was nothing more than playful remarks which had originated in the West Indies long time ago and which had been incorporated into the British game with the object of spicing the game of cricket a bit. Lunch was served and Sara and I made a conscious decision to block off the toasted goat's cheese salad, the redolence of the Swiss fondue and the Cornish pasty as we made a deliberate choice to avoid making a choice. We made it so by taking the bad habit bypass and chose to go the hamburgers' way, french fries and drinks, orange juice for Sara while I went for the local ale. Thanks God the puff adder, my wife, was not there, it was a different world, the country had this wonderful vibe where one could stroll footloose, barefoot anywhere and the best way to benefit from the influence of the energetic sun in a warm day was, I thought, to relinquish absolutely every particular item of clothing one was wearing and run like the wind in an open space.  Space for thought but it was only a minor weakness of mine. Yeah! I had a genuine desire to make it away from my void of life delectation and the possibilities were endlessly in the countryside; it could really make a difference to my existence if I were to move to the country, and the good thing about the land away from city life was that no one would come close enough to hunt one in the first place because no one was interested about anyone's business. Yeah! A rural life sounded good and moving away from London appealed to me, and I know that I would not have regrets about doing so since I would rather make a decision than regret not having made one.  Doesn't time fly when one is enjoying oneself, and doesn't it drag when one isn't. It had been a long day and although I was prepared to march on and foot it, for I felt like a Seigneur with a hint of priggishness in his dominion which was a legitimate way of a feudal lord to feel in his territory,  it was time to leave Surrey Cricket Ground and get back to my wife, my old life and  the daily grind.

 P.Figueras