DD had been a bit off the beer all week and he had been finding it a bit hard to keep up with the scoring during the week.  He had been joshing with "Pop It In Pete" all week with the two of them exchanging the words "it's no fun getting old" as either Pete missed a ball in the field or Dave messed up something in the scoring.

During a visit to to town the party stopped off for a beer/coffee/sandwich.  Every time he looked away the table someone dumped an extra sugar into DD's coffee.  After tasting the coffee he pronounced it as "tasting funny" and went for a replacement.  About half an hour later he started talking, in medical terms, “complete bollocks” and was starting to look pretty rough. Every one started to get a bit worried that he was having a stroke or a sudden onset of diabetes and the coffee stunt had gone wrong.  He was compos mentis enough not to trust Pop It In Pete with his PIN number when he tried to get some cash out but couldn’t work the machine and this worried Pete enough that he decided that he really should take him down the hospital to be safe. On a serious note it shows the value of first aid courses and having someone around who knows what to do in an emergency.

Pop It In arrived back about ½ hour later and knowing how keen he is to play matches everyone thought he had just dropped DD off at the hospital door a la Paddington Bear with a sign round his neck with “Please look after me, I drink Guinness”  but he had just driven back to give an update. He works in the telecommunications industry and hasn’t got a mobile phone. Probably can’t use one as he would need to put the phone 10 feet away to see the display without his glasses.

DD had become a bit more coherent as the afternoon wore on but was still mixing up some of his words.  As Pete was driving him from one hospital to the other. (NHS cuts) he wanted to comment on the traffic queue but said "look at all those...breakfasts........ Doh".  All of his clothes were left at the hotel so had to stay in hospital with nothing apart from what he stood up in while his suitcase was sent parcel post to Crawley.  Boncey and Moods were staying down for the weekend so volunteered to drive him home if he was fit enough, but he still had enough of his marbles left to decide he was safer in hospital than with those two.

While all this lot was going on a cricket match broke out at Victoria Park. The rain all week meant the grass on the pitch was long and the pitch diabolical. The rather average batting performances of the week continued and the Ducklings set a meagre total for the home side to chase, which they achieved comfortably.  However the Game was illuminated by a guest for the home side a a 15 year old wicket keeper batsman who is rated so highly that he is playing senior cricket for Devon already.  True to form he was dropped by Andy who was not allowed to wear his keepers gloves in the outfield and one day will be able to look at an England Test match and say "If I had caught that lad, I could have ruined his career".

So to the rowing club for post match refreshments.  A successful tour, more so off the field, as the batting and bowling performances were fairly horrible.  So much so that no-one got anywhere near scoring a ton and the top wicket taker was John Murray with his flighted filth.  This could be the only bowling award he ever wins in his life and certainly the only award he has ever had to present to himself.