Paddock News
On Saturday the growth was looking very healthy and dense 
and realising that the this was more than likely the last period of fine weather I set myself the task of cutting the wicket one more time before leaving it for winter, so that was done today and it's come up quite nice as below.
After an initially disappointing end to September what with buying the cheapest grass seed I could get and it being fairly dry, the amount of new growth on the really well worn parts of the wicket was poor. Good news was that although there seemed to be some football played on it and a kid gouged out great big divots with a wedge and general damage caused by non-cricket activity it has been pretty limited so far..
In the last 2 weeks we’ve had far more rain and last week it’s rained almost every day, so early in the week I put down the last of the cheap seed and decided that I’d have to get more seed to see if I can get some stronger looking and more dense growth with a new batch of seed. So last Sunday I got another box of seed with a mix of nutrients in it designed specifically for repairs in high use areas. This was made up of Rye Grass and Red fescues, what that means in terms of longevity next year I’m not sure, but I think the Red Fescues grow and propagate themselves through rhizones, which basically means the root system spreads and the grass expands it’s growth from roots as well as seed eventually. What I did need was for it to rain overnight as I’d put down more topsoil and fortunately it did rain all night so this new seed did get off to a good start as it’s still quite warm. The rain also meant that the Paddock saw limited use over the next few days.
A week later and with the rain, the new seed and some of the dormant older seed it seems has burst into life, helped with the last few days being dry and sunny. The really worn out area at the wicket end 
That looked like this only a few weeks ago has now recovered substantially and now looks like this - 
That looked like this only a few weeks ago has now recovered substantially and now looks like this - 
The bowling end which sees more action as we tend to use it for bowling mostly and only get to bat at the end above for a couple of months in late spring early summer, gets a lot of damage and has never ever been good, so that ended up like this - 
But I rolled it and raked it this year and just about the time the shot above was taken I did a lot of work removing big lumps and a lot of uneveness, and this too is coming up quite nice as below.
Practice: Ben, Joe and I went over to the Tennis courts yesterday and had a knock about we rotate the bowling, batting and wicket keeping meaning that we all do 4 over’s of each discipline not that wicket keeping is a key part of it as it’s a specialty. Ben and Joe had done any full distance bowling for month or so and Ben was surprised that he bowled 2 or 3 massive wides to start off with and commented about the fact that he’d lost the ability to get the ball on an off-stump line so quickly with no practice. By the 4th ball he was back on track. It was a good session, with there being very little wind and warm enough for Ben to take his shirt off. Ben came away having really enjoyed it, but Joe wasn’t so impressed what with having been unable to produce his leg breaks. His Wrong Un was okay though.
