JEDI July: Day 20 - The one with the last-minute rush

It's Lydia's 18th birthday tomorrow, and thus today was proclaimed by Mum to be a day of preparation. As usual, I have foolishly left everything until the last minute and with 24 hours to go had no card, presents or anything to hand over on the big day.

To remedy this situation a dash into town was required and, with Mum and Grandad also needing last-minute purchases, it was agreed that we should all take the plunge and go in together. The birthday girl too wanted to come along for the ride and, although it was possible for us all to squeeze into Mum's car, Lydia and I elected to follow behind in Jalopy so that I could work to my own agenda in terms of timings.

A great triumph (and source of much frantic jollity on route) was keeping in convoy with Mum and Grandad for almost the entire inward journey, especially as they were able to accelerate away far better than ourselves. Once parked we all split up and, following speedy visits to WHSmith and HMV, I was able to tick two out of the three items off my list. Town was fortunately not too busy by its standards, though despite much searching, the third present eluded me and I concluded that I would have to pick it up out of town on the way home. I also planned to stop at the ticket office at St Mary's, having spent most of the morning arranging a trip to see Saints v Hearts this weekend, following on from the success of the Ajax game last Saturday.

Next came a moment of dimness as I arrived back at the car and paid for my ticket before realising that I had forgotten to buy a cheaty chipping net that Ernest had (very apologetically) requested yesterday evening. Fortunately 30 mins of free parking just across the road came to my resuce and I was able to sprint back into West Quay and the madness of the Sports Direct shop in order to fulfill that particular errand.

After these exertions came another dim moment, as having planned to head further into town for the stadium ticket office, I rather foolishly ended up driving along the road leading OUT of town instead! Nevertheless, this proved a blessing in disguise as I was still able to pop into the Comet store in Millbrook and complete my present purchase list - though only after being hampered by an overenthusiastic sales assistant who conspired to talk me through an entire display of bangin' bass headphones!

After this debacle I battled my way back through the town traffic, made it to the stadium to collect the tickets (lower Itchen stand this time) and then had to turn around and come all the way back again! Surprisingly, I was the first to arrive home, though Mum and Lydia weren't too far behind and having reconvened we enjoyed a well-deserved lunch together.

For the afternoon I had planned to make Lydia a birthday ditty, though a constantly-crashing Windows Movie Maker soon put paid to that idea. I'm sure it's even worse in Vista than it ever was in Windows XP...!

Having barely recovered from the tyranny of town, it was soon time for Dad and I to set out to Bramshaw for our fifth church cricket match of the season vs Netley Marsh. With usual skipper Gareth away, Dad was to captain the team, though with a side already put together his duties were fortunately limited to collecting the match fees and shouting a lot.

With the toss won Dad elected to bat first, meaning that we would for once be protecting a total rather than chasing one. Unfortunately, the novelty of this quickly wore off with a pitifully slow run rate over the first 10 overs. I was handed the tricky duty of filling in the score book and, though the severe lack of runs did make the task slightly easier, it was still useful to have the eyes of big JH and Phlipflop to help me along.

The run rate picked up slightly for the final eight overs, though this was in no way helped by my worst batting attempt to date - out first ball! After a mini batting collapse, St Andrew's finished on 89-6, leaving the team with a difficult battle on our hands to record our first win of the season. As it transpired, our fielding performance was actually not too bad, especially with a depleted side, and I was very chuffed to take two wickets - one through Dad catching on the boundary, but the other clean-bowling leg stump and gaining revenge for my earlier dismissal.

Despite a solid showing, our fear that we had not put on enough runs in our innings came to fruition, Netley Marsh reaching their target with a couple of overs to spare (although they were aided by what was, in our opinion at least, a rather over-generous umpire...plumb LBW waved away with 'the bowler was in the way so I didn't see it'!) Nevertheless, an enjoyable match had escaped the weather, been played in good spirit and provided another opportunity for fellowship with one another, which is surely the foundations upon which the team should be built.

Following the match there was much socialising to be had and although I wanted to get home reasonably early, Dad got tied up in working the bar and tidying the pavillion, so we didn't leave until getting on for 10pm.

Once home my already hectic day was far from over as I spent a good few hours drawing, scanning, colouring, printing, cutting and writing Lydia's birthday card, as well as wrapping all her presents and finally crawling into bed at half two in the morning! Despite being totally whacked, I was pleased with the outcome of the card...and the day as a whole has certainly been very memorable. My guess is that tomorrow may well follow suit!