England 2005

Europe » United Kingdom » England
April 20th 2005

Published: January 14th 2007

Edit Blog Post

danielhibbert

Big Ben

I was in England from April 20th 2005 to October 29th 2005.

Leaving the comforts of home life in Melbourne, I was off to England for about 6 months to work and play cricket. It was my first time overseas on my little lonesome, but I was eager for the journey that lay ahead. The enorminty of it all never sunk in until the 24 hour flight was over and I was in a car from Heathrow to Essex with someone I had only just met and was going to place I knew nothing about for at least 6 months and home by December.

So at first it was a little hard, but being in a cricket club straight away helped as I got to meet people and have a base of friends straight away. I played lots of cricket over the summer there. I think I played over 50 games and had some relative success. Including a high score of 225, which I luckily followed up the following week with 205 ... enough dross on that as they weren't all that good.

The quality wasn't obviously as good as I am used to, but for me to

Houses of Parliament

From the banks of the Thames

fly me over there and play I guess I had to be alright for their standard.

During the 2005 year it was also the year of the Ashes and while they were a mighty fine sporting event that had so many twists and turns, the fact that the old dart reclaimed the little urn after 18 years of pure Australian dominance, it wasn't the best place to be at times. But a sensational series and I was lucky enough to make it to the Lords test match in the members to see Australia win the first test.

A funny event took place when I bumped into a guy I used to play cricket with in Melbourne, his dad was in the bar drinking and drossing with toofy-nosed English members of the MCC. He continued to shout the bar and had the members in the palm of his hand, all while it was raining outside so no play was had. After a while they said play would resume, so I made my way out of the bar en route to the Long Room (a little intoxicated). As I walked out of the bar I almost bumped into Ricky Ponting

The Ashes

At Lords

as he led the side out through the Long Room, from there I stood and applauded each player loudly as they walked past, gaining the ire of the English members, this only made me get louder. I thought it was a pretty funny scenario and will forever remember it.

I also saw a few one day games, including the ill-fated Twenty20 game at the Rose Bowl, where constant abuse was firing in the direction of any Aussie there! We put up with it in a good natured way.

I made many stops in London, from the typical sites of Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Downing Street, St Pauls Cathedral, Piccadilly Circus, Tower Bridge, Tower of London etc. It was all rather impressive, a great city that constantly offers something new and exciting, though amazingly bustling and hard to get away from it all.

I also managed to make a few trips around Essex and even got up to Nottingham. We also had a cricket tour to Brighton, which was interesting.

Additional photos below

Photos: 40, Displayed: 24