Excuse the headline, today’s piece has nothing to do with either pot-holing or Cuba. I have to report that my last blog should have been entitled ‘It ‘Ain’t Half Hot Mum’ but the sub-editor’s scissors snipped right through it and we ended up with ‘Fun In The Sun’ instead!
“No-one remembers mid-80s sit-coms except you,” he said.
I need to emphasise that although there is plenty of fun to be had here – this is a working trip for me! Nevertheless, in order to fully avail myself of the entire Barbados experience I have allowed myself a couple of hours on the beach. Let’s call it ‘doing my bit for Comic Relief’ or, to be entirely accurate, “Doing my bit for Red Nose Day!”
Anyhow, as usual, fun was had at my expense. One of the local, seemingly friendly, ‘business entrepreneurs’ suddenly changed his chalk board from reading, “Trips To See The Turtles” to “Trip To See The Whale.”
A number of supporters have come out on the trip to combine their love of cricket with the chance of a few days in the sun. One of our merry band, Geoff from Lincoln, told me of his plan to go out and do a bit of sea-fishing whilst he was here.
‘Sceptical Dave’ ignorantly passed it off as a bit of ‘maggot-drowning’ but I was genuinely pleased when he came back, proud as punch with some photographic proof of his day’s endeavours.
He had landed two King Fish (no, nor me either!), each of around fifty pounds in weight and the crew had kindly taken the pictures of a smiling Geoff with his not-so-smiley catch.
The only downside as far as I could see – the crew got to take these edible beauties home for supper, whilst Geoff came back to content himself with a nice fish curry instead!
Looking back over my first two blogs I note that the name Hollywood appeared in each of them (no need to check, take my word for it). Strange considering I’m supposed to be talking about a cricket tour in the Caribbean.
I was thinking it unlikely that it would feature in three consecutive blogs but..... I guess it just has.
Those of you that read my blogs from last year may remember that we saw plenty of green monkeys during our stay.
I’m in exactly the same accommodation as last year and the players are an Andre Adams six-hit away but so far, no sightings – my morning routine is currently consisting of an unhealthy-kind of tree-stalking. I’m beginning to get a feel of how David Attenborough operates.
Saturday sees the Outlaws in competitive action for the first time on the tour. I’m not entirely sure what has gone on but it appears as though there has been some sort of rumpus between the local cricket association and the Tourism Authority and it seems that both the Barbados XI and the Combined Campuses and Colleges teams have now withdrawn from our little tournament (possibly to go pot-holing in Cuba?).
I’m no Miss Marple, so maybe their exclusion is for other reasons but I’ll try and confirm.
So it’s Notts v Northants instead and although in the grand scheme of things, this might not be too-important, it will be a good test for the players and an early opportunity for some of them to try and nail a place in our T20 side. Let’s wish them well!
Dave Bracegirdle will be reporting from Nottinghamshire's pre-season tour of Barbados and you can follow him on twitter here.