So the Autumn begins proper, the rushing around with work at the Cricket Club intermingled with the occasional odd jobs around the home and garden is replaced with lots of catch up and preparation for the colder months to come.

My lonely Room – the Dressing Room closes

The Dressing Room closes for Winter

My nine previous seasons at Kent CCC have wound up with either a 4-day or 1-day game finishing about 5pm allowing me the treat of some earlier nights after the summer rush.
This year however saw us playing an experimental 4 day game starting at 2pm and finishing at 9pm under floodlights. This to say the least upset the Players, Staff and Members time routines alike and left me sleeping in the Dressing Room for 3 nights!

But the final game proved to be a great success. A local Business Chap had won an auction on the Chris Evans Show during last November’s Children in Need event to play a game with Freddie Flintoff as Captain.
The chap gave the prize to his son’s School and great fun was had by all with the School Team fielding ‘Freddie’, Ronnie Irani and Chris Evans against a Bunbury Charity Team with three Actors from the Harry Potter films (inc. The Weasley Twins) and some sporting legends.

After clearing up yestarday I attended the end of Season Awards Dinner and have to say it was nice being able to leave the Club at the same time as the Cricketers, beside not having to wear Kit!

So the season ends and I await next March for it all to come round again, but I love it!

In and around the Lane

In the four days I had off last week I managed quite a lot; the grass has been cut, the Chicken Run cleared of more Stinging Nettles, one of the Sheds tidied (two to go!), more firewood foraged and a few bushes cut back. All in all the place is not looking bad.

The Squash plants are growing for England, one is now 11″ end to end, but it hasn’t started turning yellow yet, so maybe even more growth to come! There’s about another 20 growing around and some are still flowering, although perhaps a little late.

In fact, the harvest has been so good I’ve had to switch on the other Freezer, something not done for the last 3 years. There’s enough of almost everything to see through Winter.

As soon as the Squash is ready I’ll start letting the Chickens out into the garden again. I spend much time in my Shed Office, so can keep an open eye on what’s going on and I never trust Mr. Fox daytime or night, especially now when they’re establishing their territories for Winter and Mating later on. They’re on the prowl!

The Website

Much tidying up of various pages has been done of late whilst burning the midnight Oil. I wanted to get that side of it donw to start building the Site more starting next week.
I have at least another 50 pages planned and looking to start another sub-site (like this Diary) solely for Videos by either myself or embedded from youtube.
I think this will help to enhance pages better.

The Down the Lane Facebook Group now has 535 Members as I write and increasing daily. This is very much down to it’s two voluntary Administrators Lynne from Canada and Manda from New Zealand. Nice to be International !
On Twitter, there are now over 200 following and The Down the Lane Daily is getting quite a few visitors as well.
The Down the Lane Forum now has nearly 4,800 Members and running a staggering 600 – 900 posts per day! Registered Members get more to read and more to post, so sign up now (it’s free and safe).

It’s a good time to thank Lynne, Manda and all the other voluntary Admisinistrators and Moderators who help with the above – sometimes it’s a thankless task and so much of the Websites success is down to these people. I won’t say any more or they’ll expect to get paid for it!

All in all, things are looking up and I look forward to being a Millionaire at the age of 153 !

So the next few weeks is basically either closing things up or starting things up. In a couple of weeks time I go to Wales for a few days visiting my close friends John and Val Harrison, owners of the Allotment Website and Authors of an ever increasing amount of Books, looking forward to that!

Onwards and upwards !