Leather on willow.

Oh, to be in England
Now that April’s there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!

Robert Browning.

I love this poem, it always reminds me of the thrill of anticipating the start of the
cricket season, such a quintessentially English thing.

I have not been well for the last couple of years, I'm getting a lot better but still have
really bad days now and again. I have now realised that my ill-health and my
advancing years have put paid to my regular cricketing days, so I decided to look into
some alternative ways of staying involved in the best game in the world.

I didn't really fancy umpiring at first, I've 'done my ten overs' on spring and summer
Saturdays and Sundays for as long as I can remember, I've never been that keen
though, I'd always grab the book in preference to a coat. I became ill in the spring of
2008 and ended up not playing at all that season for the first time since the summer
of 1973.  Thirty four years ! Crikey. I decided to 'own' the scorebook for the
foreseeable future as I was not really fit enough to stand in the middle for six hours,
I'd done it before so it should have been a walk in the park.

Oh how wrong I was ! It turned out to be two seasons of abject misery. People
talk about umpiring being a thankless task, the army of men and women who
give up their time to score games of cricket all deserve a bloody medal. My
experiences alone deserve a seperate post, I will oblige at a later date.

So, this experience narrowed my options, I couldn't just turn up and watch, that
would be boring, I was already the Hon. Sec. of my village side and that wasn't
keeping me fully occupied so I was left with a stark choice. If I didn't want to end up
doing nothing, I had to umpire. Just putting on a white coat wouldn't suffice, I had to
do it properly, so I signed up for the ECB ACO Level One course.

More to Follow.