Here we go then 2010 and it starts with some really good news. I held a party at my house last night and one of the blokes that turned up to it was an old ex player from Bassildon and Pitsea. This bloke Keith lives in between Great Berry Open Space where we used to practice as the MPA 1st XI and The Rec. He's a member of the 'Pavillion' a clubhouse situated on the edge of the Great Berry Open space field. The name as you can tell suggests that when the estate that he lives on was built in the 1980's and 90's there must have been some consideration that the Great Berry Open Space might be designated as a space for cricket use. In fact the year prior to us using it in 2007 there had been an artificial wicket which had always been there but was vandalised in 2006. Another feature of the field is that it's surrounded by nicely landscaped bushes, but just set back from the bushes a few yards in, there's a small chicken wire fence that's purpose looks to be to stop cricket balls disappearing into the undergrowth.
Anyway this bloke Keith like me has two sons who are the same age as my boys and he would like them to be involved in sports and being an ex batsman I think he'd like to see them playing cricket the same as my lads. His lads did used to play football but in the last year they've both given up on the football and I think Keith sees a good opportunity here to encourage his lads to play cricket and at the same time give him an excuse to pick up a bat again. Furthermore he reckons that the blokes that frequent the Pavillion would be more than up for a game and says that with very little encouragement he'd be able to get a team together. So the prospects for getting a bunch of blokes together to have at least a half decent knock about on either the Great Berry Open Space or the Rec are potentially very good. I think the most likely scenario would be informal cricket played on Great Berry Open Space using the Pavillion as the hub for the activity as the beer and sunshine aspect offers increased incentive.
So that look very promising.
Plantar Fasciitis is the name of the condition I've got with my sore heel and again it's similar in many ways to last years Medial Epicondylitis as in - it's a muscle tear situation which has at the core of it's basis failure to warm up before exercise and then tearing under-used muscles. So for instance all the recent situations where I've suffered from the condition have been off the back of inactivity and then bounding into sprinting round tennis courts at high speed with no warm up. The result being Plantar Faciitis. I've since looked it up on youtube and discussed with people on the Big Cricket Forum and come up with some exercises and ideas to help get rid of it and stop it from occuring and it seems already with just one or two exercises and I've had massive reduction in the pain and discomfort.
On a more negative front, one of the better solutions to repairing the injury is to wear a leg brace while you sleep as it holds the foot and leg in a position that facilitates better repair conditions. Looking around I soon realised that one of the braces is going to cost me 40 quid approx. But then today I realised that the braces are pretty much the same as the boot thing I had to wear for nearly a year when I tore my achilles in a skateboarding incident in 2002. The boot in the meantime has sat in the bottom of my wardrobe for the last 8 years doing nothing. But hey guess what? Yeah I threw it out about 3 months ago - gutted!
Paddock news
I went over today and had a look at the Paddock and what with the ground being rock hard and frosted up it's easier to see the foot-fall of the people that walk through the paddock to take short cuts through the woods. Unfortunately they are definitely walking diagonally right across where they shouldn't be virtually in a worse case scenario manner. I'm going to have to be philosophical about the situation and not get too hung up on what's happening. I think I'm just going to have to accept that there's nothing I can do to stop it and that what we have done so far is a massive improvement on how it was in the summer. Other than that keep my fingers crossed that it doesn't get worse and that as the spring arrives just see what we're presented with and try and seed it more and roll it more to and get it as good as we can. I was kind of looking forward to it being almost perfect, but that's now looking increasingly unlikely.
