Play Ball!

Ignoring the fact that the US pro basketball playoffs are still taking place (Go, Spurs, Go!), the game most people are lining up to watch in big stadiums as well as at little league fields this time of year is baseball. Here in England, you swap out baseball for cricket.

This afternoon I was playing chauffeur for the girls, dropping the 6th grader at a friend's house while running the senior to her mani/pedi appointment (prom is tomorrow, praise Jesus) and then to school to attend the jazz concert. Have I mentioned lately that it's 18 miles, round trip? And that's the second time I did that run today.

While I was out burning up a tank of really expensive British gas, we passed by the Weybridge Green (an adjacent town that is en route to the school). I knew there was a cricket club that plays here on weekends, so I was surprised to see them bedecked in whites on the pitch on a late Friday afternoon. For cricket novices out there, I can enlighten you that pitch merely means playing field. That's the sum total of my knowledge about the game. Why do they wear white? Why is the bat flattened? And why are the rules so difficult for newbies to learn?

The scene was just so quintessentially British. All I needed to do was pull up a chair or spread out a blanket and unload a Marks & Spencer hamper of scones, clotted cream and tea in a thermos in order to feel like a local. Plus bring along the dog to join us. The Brits are mad about their dogs and take them most everywhere.

Curious about cricket in Weybridge, I found this pic from 1955 when I searched google. It seems the cricket club was officially founded in 1924, but there is evidence that cricket matches were played on this town green in the previous century. 

It's stuff like this I'll miss when we move back to Texas next month, being surprised by these little bits of local charm when I'm not expecting it. Maybe not foreign, but definitely different... in the best possible way.