dear god the stress of following the cricket this morning via the bbc sport website was unholy! as the runs slowly went up and the wickets tumbled, it was a relief to reach lunch 12oish for 5. and as pieterson came good, i created a quick spreadsheet that i could update at regular intervals that would tell me the run rate australia would have to achieve to win. as it began to creep up to 5/6 i began to feel more relaxed, and i could practically see good old kp smash endless sixes as he reached 150. Jolly good show.

What a blessed relief! A weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Australia humbled, England victorious.

During five weeks spent in a part of Spain that necessitated four mile daily walks to the beach and back, with butter and cheese being prohibitively expensive, and us not eating much because of the heat anyway, I felt the fatty layers dropping off me like excess baggage. However, I still appear to weigh just the same as when I left. Having massively overindulged in coffee consumption, though, the withdrawal symptoms I am now experiencing are horrendous.

Abiding memories of Spain are the agony experienced while waiting for the latest text message from Liv updating me on England’s cricket progress. The finale to the fourth test had me close to heart seizure.

My main disappointment was meeting an Australian and preparing to gloat only to find he was less interested in cricket than the average Spaniard.

Julien visited us for lunch one day and after sniffing the air judiciously pronounced where we were staying as a ‘veritable Garden of Eden’. I’m sure Neil was gratified to hear this. His vegetable garden puts ours to shame, although I did discover him putting some sort of bovine elixer – distilled bull’s trachia, along the lines of Bovril – onto his growing plants.

Collingwood…? I hope he can bowl. Harmison and Hoggy have been very average, Giles fairly cack. Flintoff solid. Not sure where we’re gonna get 20 wickets from out of this lot… hope I’m wrong!

Got back from a weekend in the cotswolds on sunday night; visiting Han’s Mum for her brithday. We visited Stratford and Evesham and had a thoroughly enjoyable time. One bit of excitement occured when Han locked my car inside the car. After much checking of doors and attempts to push the windows down we called the AA. They didn’t utilise a skeleton key as I was expecting, but wedged a gap open between the doorframe and the car and, using various bit of bendy metal, wound down the window. Apart from a few scratches, Gordon survived unscathed.

The wrinklies arrive back tonight after an extended break in Spain.

Also many happy returns for last thursday to Pliskin.

I feel like a hillbilly just arrved in town. I´m all confused now I´m away from the garden.

I was at the beach the other day and some Catalan started calling me ´The Dryman´because I took so long to go in the sea.