Miserable git gets the wrong tickets

The eyebrows were still a bit orange as we got into the car to head to Bridgetown for the second of the three match 20:20 cricket series between England and West Indies. Having mistaken the tanning cream for something that had partly bleached his eyebrows the day before yesterday, John “Chuckle Brothers” Surtees decided on keeping a low profile today. A lesser writer than my good self might have said he was staying low brow. Even he admitted it looked like he had been tangoed.

The night before, in the hubris of too much rum punch, we had donated the tickets set aside for the WAG’s, who had decided not to go, to some of the locals, and we were looking forward to seeing them again so I could further explain the benefits of having an account with Currencies Direct for their foreign exchange needs. They turned up with a bag full of beer cans and some rum, which helped to ease the pain of yet another defeat.

We seemed to be seated in an area exclusively reserved for those rather gruff and unsophisticated chaps from Yorkshire. Whenever one of their prodigal sons in the England team did something noteworthy, they all stood up and chanted Yorkshire, Yorkshire, but when the penultimate disastrous over was bowled by their very own Tim Bresnan, effectively losing us the match,which admittedly we had never really looked like winning, they were strangely quiet.

Despite losing the match and the series, making the third game on Thursday academic, it was a great day which was often enlivened by events unrelated to the cricket. One of the Yorkshire contingent in the crowd noticed that there were two pigeons having sex in the rafters of the stand. This seemed to me to be a very thoughtful gesture on the part of the management, clearly laid on for those pigeon fancying northerners.

If the cap fits.. Trouble finds his dream boat,

We were in a stand under cover, which was OK when there was a shower during the game, but being stuck in a northern enclave when one could have been on the exciting part of he ground, where there were dancing girls and loud local music between overs and indeed after the scoring of any boundary, came under discussion. It was one of our own gruff Yorkshireman, Steve “Trouble up t’mill” Jackson who had secured the tickets, and clearly that old Yorkshire reputation for thrift will not die. According to our local friends, you can buy tickets for this section which include all the food you can eat and includes all of your drinks, you get the dancing girls and the music, but Trouble had decided against it, preferring obviously to sit amongst his compatriots, about as faraway from the action as you could get. I think I may have mentioned it.

Last night we ventured down to the bottom of Holders Hill and had a bottle of wine on the beach at Daphny’s, a swanky Italian restaurant directly on the sand, which was very pleasant, but we all wanted to experience some more of the ethnic tasty Caribbean food so we went across to Mr Vic’s for some local delicacies, such as shrimp curry.

Today, I have been told that some of us, and being designated driver that means me, want to go and see some Plantation house set amongst the sugar cane somewhere in the middle of the island. Apparently we want to go and experience this piece of history. We had driven past it when touring the week before, and had even stopped in the grounds for a beer, but at that time That Nice Lady Decorator had not taken the opportunity to go in. Aren’t I lucky? Now we get another chance!

Chris France