Holbrook Festival...

Five solid days of cricket, 45 overs per game. Happy days! Tired? Not me.

We have just returned from the Holbrook Festival in Suffolk. Four fabulous days of sunshine and one of slightly cooler weather, necessitating jumpers and blankets and eventually cramming into a beach shelter to keep out of the cold wind.

As well as these long matches the boys swim, play tennis and mess about each evening. Jake looked like a zombie by day two but somehow managed to play some excellent cricket.

The last match was very tense and exciting. With both teams parents getting up on their feet and clapping their encouragement. Jake had quite a bit of pressure when Buckinghamshire needed 5 runs off 2 overs to win and Lincolnshire needed to get two wickets for extra points. He'd bowled some earlier overs giving very few runs away (8 overs for 8 runs for 3 wickets by the end of the game). He was called up for the second to last over and bowled a Yorker with his first ball, taking the stumps out of the ground to rapturous applause from his team mates and Lincolnshire's supporters. (I was biting my nails inside the beach shelter). He then bowled four dot balls. Then on his last ball of the over the batsman swiped and thin edged the ball into the air and down into the wicket keepers gloves; Jake's final wicket and a double wicket maiden. He got hugs from lots of mothers and pats on the back from fathers. It was a proud moment.

We came second overall out of ten counties, including a team from The Netherlands. Norfolk won.

I am so brown that people will be asking where I've been this summer! I did absolutely no crochet whatsoever. It was as much as I could do to get up, pack picnics, watch cricket, come home, eat and fall fast asleep. It's all the fresh air!

It's quite nice to be home even though I enjoy the caravan. The house seems more spacious than before and I am back in the land of luxury with a washing machine and dishwasher!

Once all the washing is done we are off to another cricket festival, this time for E.