Lords here we come?? Lords here we ARE!! The sun is shining – OMG its happening.

Cummins bowls to Burns. Burns defends straight… ok ok before you fall asleep its not going to be a post for cricket nerds. I will do a separate post for that.

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I slept in – until 6am – far too late to join Gordon’s walk. We had breakfast at home, even though Rendel has been talking up a local cafe, Grind that sells “Afghan” biscuits. These are a chocolate, Cornflake biscuit, New Zealand in origin. Rendel has been talking about these for days, so we took a walk by the river for a coffee and an Afghan. To Rendel’s great relief they had some in stock. Gordon and I were well primed to pay out on him if the cupboard was bare. They were not too bad. This part of the Thames is where Oxford and Cambridge universities have their famous “Boat Race” rowing battles.

Back at the house time to get ready for the cricket. Rendel managed to secure a ticket for day 2 so he joined us on the route… even though Gordon and I were expert tube travelers now. With no rain in sight the excitement was building. At the ground we bought a rubber bracelet for the Ruth Strauss foundation. This was the foundation’s flagship day, similar to the McGrath Foundation Sydney Test day. Instead of pink the Ruth Strauss day was red. I was wearing my red jumper to join in the spirit. There were quite a few people wearing red (not Gordon and Rendel).

We took our seats and soaked in the atmosphere … and a few pints.

The sun was shining – I’m at Lords – watching Ashes cricket – with my great mate Gordon – a few beers in our belly – I cannot think what could be better.

As I said earlier, I will be giving a much more detailed account (and photos) of the cricket later, but here’s a quick summary.

The cricket was fantastic. Australia won the toss and bowled, much to the surprise of most of the “experts”. I thought it was the right decision. An early wicket for Hazlewood and the game was on. Hazlewood bowled beautifully and was rewarded with three wickets. England eventually bowled out for 258 – a great effort by all the Aussie bowlers sharing the wickets. This left a tricky hour’s play for the Australian openers to survive before the stumps. England fans were excited to see their new kid, Jofra Archer in action. Both Broad and Archer bowled well with the new ball. Unfortunately Warner was bowled by Broad much to the jubilation of the English fans – sadly he was boooed off the ground. Bancroft and Khawaja managed to survive the rest of the day for Australia to be 30/1 at stumps. WOW what a day!

On the way home we decided to take in some of the touristy sights of London. From St John’s Wood we caught a double-decker London bus to Baker St. We transferred to the tube to go to Westminster. Our expert guide however took us on the wrong train and we found ourselves back at St John’s Wood. An appropriate amount of sh*t was then hung on Rendel – hahaha – all good fun. Eventually we got to Westminster and exited the station right in front of Big Ben. Unfortunately the clock was getting renovated and covered in scaffolding. We walked up the Westminster Bridge to get a good view of the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye. Then around the corner to Westminster Abbey. There were other sites around the area, but Rendel was getting tired and we decided to head home to Putney to find some fish and chips for dinner.

We ate in the Prince of Wales pub. The fish and chips were good and rounded out a perfect day! Such a privilege to experience this – many thanks to Gordon for sharing this with me – it was very special.

Back home to Perth tomorrow.