10 Things...

Tami's asked for a list of distractions that are responsible for me not doing what I should be doing -namely writing (or editing, you decide) - for her third request, and it is probably the easiest of my blogging challenges so far.  Look no further for...

10 Things That Are Very, Very Bad For Procrastinating Princesses

1 - The Television.

I'm not a huge watcher of television, but I do have my obsessions. I'm a nut for American stuff, from Supernatural to Fringe, from House to Eureka (and a lot of stuff in between). Luckily they don't all schedule at the same time of the year, but there are usually three or four serials that I watch weekly. Not a huge distraction by all means, but a distraction nonetheless. I'm also a nut for the X Factor (American Idol is the equivalent across the pond), and as we are currently in prime X Factor season, I am fearing multiple distractions for the next two months, though thankfully it only applies for a couple of hours at the weekend, so it is workable.

2 - My Job.

I only work sixteen hours a week (barring overtime), but they are all early shifts, so tiredness is a major bane of my life. Unplanned (but totally required) naps eat up several hours a week that could be otherwise more usefully occupied.

3 - Kids.

My son doesn't take a huge amount of my time up as such, but quite a large chunk of my time is swallowed up with pointless arguments and the stress that comes with having a teenager under your roof. My daughter, although not quite nine, takes up even more time with her constant demands for attention, and her inability to understand that she is not the centre of everyones' universe.

4 - Confidence (or lack of it).

Sometimes I think to myself that what I have written is the pantsiest thing ever, and I wonder if editing it is really worth my while. Moods like this are not conductive to getting things done at all. Which leads me to...

5 - Mood Swings.

Yup, I get them a lot. My episodic depression is mostly under control now, but I still get days here and there when all I want to do is sleep, cry, or clean like a mad woman. I have no control over this and just have to go with the flow. Thankfully these days are getting more sporadic, and when I do get them, they only last a day or two at a time.

6 - Facebook.

This is a biggie. I check in several times a day just to be nosy more than anything, but if that was the only thing that distracted me, I wouldn't be worried. It's those silly games, they're a nightmare for people with an addictive nature (like me, for example). I'm talking about Bejeweled Blitz mostly, though the recent discovery of Vegas Nights (very similar to Blitz, but with the added bonus of tournaments) is proving to be as much of an obsession as those shiny gems ever were.

7 - Other Online Duties.

I moderate on the fan fiction forum over at HPANA, and though the site is pretty quiet now that the Harry Potter books are finished, there's still stuff to keep me occupied. We're currently holding our annual fanfic awards, and while I don't really have much to do at present, there will be votes to tally and posts to compose for the results. All new forum posts by members need to be skimmed on a daily basis too to make sure the rules are being followed and nobody needs spanking (or editing, as the case may be).

8 - Reading.

I read every day, and seriously don't see a time when I won't. This is a good thing mostly, but if I really get sucked in to a story, I won't put the book down until I am done. It's a nice habit, no question, but when the Reading Bug attacks me, it's not good for my Writing Mojo at all.

9 - Cleaning.

I'm by no means a clean freak, but one of my coping strategies for my recent descent into madness was housework. Dusting, polishing, vacuuming, cleaning the oven, scrubbing the bathroom.... you name it, I did it. Mostly to eat up the time (which seems to drag terribly when you are feeling down), but also because housework is incredibly mind-numbing, and therefore essential when you want to have a couple of blissful, thought-free hours

10 - Wikipedia.

I use Wiki a lot, mostly because I'm pretty clueless about a ton of stuff and often have to look things up. The problem with Wiki is that they have these lovely, lovely hyperlinks which can take you to magical places where you can find out even more (usually pointless) information. Seriously, it's like that seven degrees of separation thingy. You type in something along the lines of , ooh, I don't know, lets say Jensen Ackles for the sake of argument (*shifty*), and suddenly you are clicking on the link that takes you to the page for one of his movies. Then you come across another actor who interests you, and so you click on his shiny link too. Before you know it, you've clicked about twenty hyperlinks, and three hours later you find yourself wondering why you are reading about soap powder (or something else equally as random).

So there we have it. Ten distractions that usually make me fall off the Writing Wagon. And believe me, that's just the tip of the iceberg....

*is doomed*

A Procrastinator's Plan

Tami is being very sneaksy with the suggestion for today's topic, because she just knows how terrible I am for not sticking to a plan and getting stuff done. I think she's definitely giving me a massive kick up the butt - which I direly need, no question - and forcing me to commit myself to a workable plan that will enable me to have my book ready to submit sometime in the next century or so. *shifty*

According to Tami ( who I usually listen to because she is a wise Watery Tart without a doubt), putting your plans out there publicly gives you accountability. Normally I would agree with this, but with me being the most lazy of writers, and with 'procrastination' as my middle name, it doesn't always work.

It definitely worked with last year's NaNoWriMo challenge. Announcing my desire to embrace the madness on my new(ish) blog page meant that I needed to keep going if I didn't want to look like a prune. I really shocked myself when I completed it, so heaven knows I probably shocked my nearest and dearest too.

However, announcing a plan of action on my Facebook page several months ago didn't work. My 'Five Month Plan' is way past its deadline, and I haven't completed all of the tasks by a long shot.

So sometimes this works, and sometimes it doesn't. Lets see what happens this time around....

Tara's Plan For Actually Sticking To The Plan That Will Get Her Book Published (otherwise known as Get Your Lazy Butt Into Action).

October 2010

Complete the October blogging challenge. Repeat after me: Writing daily will get you back into the right frame of mind. (Not really book related, but as a motivational tool, highly useful).

November 2010

Enter this year's NaNoWriMo. Okay, so this has nothing to do with editing and polishing my first novel either, but I'm hoping to finish the WriMo as before. With two books under my belt, it would be absolutely disgraceful if I didn't do anything with them, so hopefully this will shame me enough into doing something about it.

December 2010

Bad, bad month for doing anything remotely useful when it comes to writing and/or editing. Christmas sucks up all of my time, but in the unlikely event of finding a few spare hours, I will diligently read through both (*crosses fingers that there will be a second novel*) manuscripts and make some notes on what I like and don't like in readiness for...

January/February 2011

Yikes! 2011??? Anyway, New Year's resolutions will definitely be to work my butt off on editing and polishing Cardiffella primarily, and my goal is to spruce it up and have a readable book to send off to Burrowing buddies by mid February. In the interim, I'll work on my query and synopsis.

March/April 2011

Hopefully I will have gotten feedback from several people by mid March, and this is when I will undertake the final edits and what not in order to have a finished - ! - manuscript to send off to some select publishers that I have in mind.  First queries and sample chapters to be sent off by the end of April at the latest. *glares at self*

May 2011 will arrive at some point (obviously), and I really, really hope that I can get there with everything ticked off on my 'to do' list. Crossed fingers, toes, and anything else that might help would be appreciated, because I have a feeling that I'll need it.

*dies*

A Slag's Guide To Kairdiff

Oi oi peeps! Tami asked me to like give a virtual tour of me home city like, and I fort it was a perfect 'pportunity to get me some Taffing in at the same time. Bangin!

Oi Oi French clarts! Nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh!

I suppose the first fing people fink ov when they iz pictring Kairdiff is the castle, coz that's like probably the most famous fing in the city. It's open to the public like, fer a small fee, and you gets to like walk threw the halls and stuff, which is well wicked, and you also gets to climb onto the battlements too if you like, like, though there's tons of steps to climb, and you iz sort of knackered when you reaches the top. But issallgood coz the view iz bangin, and you can get alirrlebi of French Taunting in if you iz feeling the 'clination like, innit?



The reason we avs a hose ban in the summer like, innit

 A stone's frow from the castle is the Civic Centre, which avs Kairdiff University, the courthouses, and Kairdiff's main museum. There's like nice gardens and stuff too, wiv water features and everyfink. All this iz bang in the middle of Kairdiff, next to all the shops and stuff, so you can get in some wicked sight seeing and shopping all at once. Youknowzitmakezsense!

Shopping is bangin in Kairdiff coz we like avs a lirrlebi of everyfink all wivin spittin distance. We avs the big shopping centre ov course, wiv all the big departments stores and stuff, but then we also avs the quaint lirrle Victorian Arcades wiv weird and wonderful lirrle shops selling everyfink from vintage cloves to 'erbal remedies. And if you iz wanting sum fresh food and stuff, Kairdiff Indoor Market is well wicked coz it avs all your meat and veg as fresh as can be, plus loadsov awesum lirrle stalls that sells everyfink from books to kitchen utensils. Yup, shopping iz definitely a lush fing to do in Kairdiff.

I loves shopping I do....

If you iz wanting to relax, or just av a walk or somefink, you could visit Roath Park, which is only like fifteen minutes away from the town centre. Roath Park is well lush like, innit, coz it has bangin gardens to walk threw, a park for the sprogs to play in, and a massiv lake wiv ducks (that's ducks with a 'd', not swearing like, innit) and swans and boat rides and everyfink.

Ducking ell, where's all the ducks gone then?

Or if you likes to sowshalize and stuff, then the town centre has lots of bangin pubs and clubs you can visit; there's like one every few feet or so, which is like awesum, like, innit? I used to go clubbin all the time like, but that was yers ago.... *sighs* Nowadays I just go to me local pub.

Speaking ov, me local pub iz bangin. The Culverhouse iz about half an hour away from me 'ouse, and itz like the place you'll most likely find me on a Friday night. Me and me clart goes there most weeks if we can get sprogsitters, and sometimes we even take the sprogs wiv us if no-one is willing to be bribed.


Cheers, clart!


Back to the town clubs though, coz I was digressing a bit there, weren't I? After you've got totally pie-eyed, you iz definitely going to be wanting sum grub, and the only place to go when you are drunk in Kairdiff is our infamous Chip Alley. Caroline Street ( as itz properly called like) is basiclee a street wiv loadsov chip shops and kebab 'ouses, and on a Friday and Saturday night, iz like fullov clarts and clits lining up to buy bangin chicken-off-the-bone curry and chips, or massiv burgers and kebabs. Drunken clarts need greasy food! Youknowzitmakezsense!



Kairdiff Bay iz totally bangin

 But if you iz wanting a bit more sofisticayshun wiv your nosh, then you should probably go to Kairdiff Bay, coz that's like the posher part of Kairdiff and has nice restronts and stuff. Not to menshun the art gallery where me and me Burrow peeps had work displayed a coupla yers ago. *fondly remembers* Kairdiff Bay is also the place where they filmed the Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood (I fort a bitov trivia might be ov intrest round abou yer like, innit).

Anywayz, that's like the end ov me virtual tour like, so I 'opes you liked it and stuff. If you ever visits the Kair of Diff, make shore you visit all ov these bangin places, coz you'd be mad not to! YouKNOWZitmakezsense!

A + B = Odd pairing...

It's Tami's turn for inspiring the next block of five blog posts, and her first suggestion was to do some crossover 'ships' from various books. Now I've been thinking about this one for a couple of days, just trying to work out whether I would do this seriously - as in figure out who could actually be a well suited couple - or just be my usual nutty self and try for laughs instead. I'm still not entirely sure what I want to do with it to be honest, but as it's early evening now I really have to get something done or nothing will get posted.

Tami mentioned pairing the infamous Mr. Darcy (of Pride & Prejudice) with Miss Tomorrow Is Another Day herself, Miss Scarlett O'Hara, but I don't see that happening at all. (Well, seeing as I am talking about characters from books, who aren't even real, it wouldn't happen anyway, but you know what I mean). Scarlett is just too silly and flighty for stuffy Mr. Darcy - rather like Lydia Bennett, the younger sister of Elizabeth, who turned out to be Darcy's perfect match.

No, Darcy is far too aloof for someone who likes to say' fiddly-dee' on a daily basis.

But then I thought about who would be suitable for The Autocratic One, and honestly, I was stumped. I just can't picture Darcy with anyone other than Elizabeth Bennett. This is a problem that I have with 'ships' in general. I'm a stickler for canon mostly, so when people start messing around with characters and their love interests, I'm not overly interested. I like a parody pairing as much as anyone, but when it comes to serious storytelling, then I like my characters to be with who they are supposed to be with.

So, I sort of have a problem with crossover pairings, which makes today's subject a wee bit difficult. However, I will try to think of a few unusual pairings in the spirit of taking up the challenge.


Darcy & Hermione Granger (from the Harry Potter books).

Okay, I obviously mean an adult Hermione, because I don't do underage/sugar daddy pairings, but this definitely could work. Hermione is a serious young woman, which is perfect for the rather staid Darcy. She has probably read every book on the planet, which would be a huge tick for her in Darcy's eyes seeing as he believes the biggest accomplishment that a woman can have is improving her mind by reading. Most importantly, Hermione, despite her cleverness and by-the-rule attitude, still has that hint of recklessness and fun lurking underneath, which is exactly what Darcy needs to lose a bit of his stuffiness.



Remus Lupin (Harry Potter) & Eowyn (The Lord of the Rings).

This is a match made in heaven. Both are tortured souls and believe they will never have a chance of happiness. Eowyn's unrequited love for Aragorn and Remus' firm belief that he doesn't deserve to find love would ensure they could both wallow in their misery and live Mournfully Ever After.


Pippin (of Lord of the Rings [again]), and Snow White (of, erm, Snow White).

Two big advantages to this pairing - both love apples, but happily for Ms White, Pippin doesn't lace his with deadly posion. Pippin also has the added bonus of being a little guy, and we all know how much Snow White loves a little guy, right?

My last pairing are not borrowed from literature, but from the world of television. This may be cheating a wee bit, but as soon as I saw the subject, these two people sprung to my mind instantly, so I have to give them a mention.

Dr. House (of House M.D.), and Christina Yang (of Grey's Anatomy).

Mr. Cynical and Ms Cynical join ranks and become possibly the happiest non-happy couple in the world. House loves puzzles and Christina loves cutting people up (er, for surgeries, that is), which might sound like a complete clash of interests. Their compatibility is due to the fact that the patients that feed their obsessions are almost incidental. House only takes cases that are 'interesting', and Yang doesn't like anything that won't test her surgical skills. Add to that their terrible bedside manners, and their inability to form decent relationships without the aid of a shrink, and you have a perfect match in my opinion. *nods*

And there we have it; a few pairings that may or may not work if they actually happened, but would be pretty entertaining to read about and/or watch nonetheless.

I'm off to watch 'Vampires Suck' now, and am thoroughly looking forward to it. Anything that takes the mick out of Twilight has to be a good thing, right?

Think Before You Speak

Before I start Natasha's final blog request ('Let's all be friends.'), I want to quickly say 'thank you' again for the replies to my recent spate of blogs. I'm (obviously) able to get onto Blogger and schedule my posts, but the comments section still isn't working for me. *mutters darkly* Hopefully the start of the new week tomorrow will make Blogger comment-friendly again for me...

So this final request from Natasha is pretty apt for me to blog about because I am the type of person who hates confrontation and generally will keep my mouth firmly closed in order to keep the peace. I absolutely hate arguing and will do almost anything to avoid it. Now and again I lose my temper, usually when it involves sticking up for my kids, but most of the time I will bite my tongue and smile. I just think it's better to not say anything at all rather than say so much that you will regret it forever.

Not that I'm a total doormat, don't get me wrong. I suppose I do tend to let people get away with a bit too much, but as long as nobody is being harmed  in any way, I'm pretty easy going by nature.

Of course, I'm no saint, so while I am outwardly smiling, sometimes I am inwardly seething and itching to say what is on my mind. Thankfully I am a very, very patient woman, so I am usually able to overcome the urge to rant at someone who is annoying me.

The problem with being patient though, is that at some point you do eventually snap. I can go months and months of putting up with a crappy situation before I finally lose my temper and actually say something. A prime example was when my son was being bullied a few years ago. The child responsible for terrorizing my boy for almost three years lived at the bottom of my street so I saw him (and his mother) most days. Time after time I knocked at their house and politely asked the mother to have a chat with her boy and try to put a stop to his threatening and abusive behaviour. Then one day I just snapped.

My son was walking a few feet in front of me one morning, and Master Bully came from nowhere and shoved him so hard that he fell flat on his face. The other child ran off laughing while I checked to see if my son was ok, and I immediately reported the incident to the headmistress of their school. Fortunately the incident happened on school grounds and there was CCTV footage, so the other child couldn't deny it.

Anyway, the following morning the mother confronted me in the street just after I'd taken my kids to school. She was nice at first, and apologised for her son's behaviour. But then she tried blaming my boy and I saw red. Usually when kids argue or fight, you don't know who is at fault as one will always blame the other, but because I had witnessed the incident first hand, I knew that my son wasn't at fault.

I'm partly proud and partly ashamed to admit that I screamed at this woman in the middle of the street for about five minutes straight, and was fairly bitchy about everything too. She moved her family away a couple of months later, and I have a feeling that it was because of the screaming match that we had. *shifty* Like I said, I'm a patient person and will put up with a lot, but don't mess with my kids.

But to get back to what this blog post is supposed to be about, I admit that while I am happy that I stood up for my child, I still wish that things could have been resolved more amicably. I would much rather have a civilized conversation with someone instead of shouting and letting forth a fairly steady stream of curse words (yeah, I was 'duck' this and 'bluddy' that all over the place that day, but you know... I AM a Taffy after all).

Thankfully I rarely lose my temper, and it really does take an awful lot to ignite it in the first place. As much as I would love to have a go at a number of people for many different reasons, I am glad that I can control the urge to do so. It has meant that I mostly have a confrontation-free life, and that is a good thing.

I will always advocate speaking your mind and standing up for yourself, but it should be done in a calm way if at all possible. Aggression feeds aggression, spite feeds spite, etc etc. The world would be a far better place if people could just exercise a little restraint and diplomacy. I'm friends with a lot of people, but there's always room for more. Sometimes it may be impossible to be friends with certain people, I admit, but if that is the case, smile sweetly and walk away. It's hard, it's sometimes galling, but if you can't be friends it doesn't mean you have to be enemies.

Not openly anyway. *shifty* And for the few people over the years who have rubbed me the wrong way, it gives a certain satisfaction to know that I've mostly stayed true to myself. I've always strived to be the nice person that everyone would want for a friend, the type of person who I would want for my own friend. Treat others as you would want to be treated yourself, that's my motto. And usually it works.

Birds, Bees, Storks and Cabbage Patches

Natasha's fourth topic request is 'Of Birds and Bees', and it's probably one of the most fitting topics to ask a mother to blog about. Having to explain the ins and outs of the facts of life to your kids is one of the most terrifying things a mother (or father) will ever do. The explaining of the subject itself is bad enough, because no matter how open you are, your child will always have a question or two that will make you squirm. But that's not what 's so terrifying; what's so awful about it is knowing that one of your babies is getting to the stage where they could possibly have babies of their own.

Of course, kids tend to know all about sex and stuff at an earlier age than they would have a century or so ago. With modern times came so-called modern attitudes towards sex in general. A century ago, if you weren't married and you engaged in sexual activity, you were severely frowned upon. Of course, men could do it and get away with it - it wasn't openly admitted to of course, that wasn't the done thing, but everybody knew, and they would turn a blind eye. A woman would be branded a loose woman with no morals - no turning a blind eye for them.

Anyway (digressing aside), in today's world of teenage pregnancies and relative acceptance of sexual orientation, plus the obligatory sex education at school, kids are far more knowing about the subject than they strictly should be. I'm all for having our kids being fully informed, but I really believe that in our efforts to protect them from sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies, we are stealing a little bit of their youthful innocence.

I was clueless about sex up until the age of about fourteen, when I ended up looking up stuff in a dictionary just to find out what my friends were talking about. My search for enlightenment was triggered by a teasing session at school, when some more savvy kids started asking me whether my mother was a virgin or not. I'd heard the word before, of course, but I didn't actually know what it meant. Imagine my embarrassment when I looked it up and realised that everyone had been taking the mick out of me. With this slightly mortifying memory still painfully embedded in my head, I can definitely see how educating our kids on the basic facts of life can not only protect them from unwanted diseases, but also save them from being teased.

But part of me wishes that we could get away with the stork stories and cabbage patch theories for as long as possible. My son is fourteen and pretty clued up about everything to do with sex, and I never really had to do anything because he learned it all from his school lessons, friends, and the media. This is as it should be - I definitely wouldn't want any of my kids to be as clueless as I was at fourteen.  But my daughter knows mostly everything too, and she's not yet nine. Nine! I mean, when I was nine I was happily playing with my Barbie dolls and thought babies were made from kissing alone. When somebody mentioned the birds and the bees, I knew they were talking about how babies were made, but I had a vague idea that it had something o do with those trusty stalks, and perhaps honey was involved somewhere along the way.

My daughter was about seven when she suddenly blurted out that she knew how babies were made. I smiled indulgently and asked her what she knew, totally unprepared for what she would say. She said, and I quote; "Babies are made by a husband and a wife who love each other, and they get naked and do lots of kissing, and the man gets on top."

Okay, so she didn't know the precise details, but having my seven year old knowing even this much was shocking. Maybe I'm too prudish, but it was definitely too much information as far as I was concerned.

There isn't an acceptable age for a child to know the facts of life - all children mature at different rates, and what is right for one child is not right for another - but I firmly believe that children under the age of ten should be kept blissfully innocent of the whole shebang. Let our children be children before they find out how to have children.

From Ashes, To Ashes.



The opening ball in the first game of The Ashes 2009 series at the SWALEC Stadium, Cardiff.



After yesterday's brief post, today I will try to do better with Natasha's third topic, which is 'Ashes, of the cricketing kind.'

First, I'm pretty sure that Natasha clarified what she meant on purpose, because the last time she requested something to do with cricket, I - being completely clueless - blogged about something else entirely. *shifty* The thing is, I should really know at least a little bit about cricket because my husband worked on and off for our local cricket club for over twenty years. You'd have thought that a little of it would have rubbed off on me, but alas, it never did. Probably because I have no interest in the game and tended to switch off whenever legs, wickets and overs were mentioned.

Anyway, today I'd like to do two things. The first thing is to briefly explain officially what The Ashes are (with some direly needed information from the ever helpful Wikipedia), and then give another unofficial explanation from the perspective of a non-fan who was affected by it last year.

From Ashes...

The Ashes is a series of Test Matches played between the English and Australian cricket teams, and happens every couple of years or so (the timing is never exact due to climate differences, and as cricket is generally played during the summer, the time between each Ashes event can be anything from eighteen months to two and a half years). Apparently the term 'The Ashes' was first coined at the end of the nineteenth century, when Australia completely trashed the English side. A newspaper reported that English cricket had died, and that the Australian team was taking the ashes back to their country. An urn and some ashes were produced to add to the 'fun' (I don't see how it was for fun to be honest, more like a mockery. Which considering the reporter was mocking his own country seems a bit odd, but there we are). Anyway, it took a while to fully catch on, but eventually the regular play offs between the two countries came to be universally known as The Ashes.

Even to those unfamiliar with the game (or to those who can't stand the game *shifty*), when you hear somebody talk about The Ashes, you have a good idea what it is they're mumbling about. Like Wimbledon is to tennis, The Ashes is to cricket. It's the biggest and most well-known series of games for the sport.

The actual ashes in the official trophy are generally thought to be that of a cricket ball or bat, though nobody is entirely certain. Whatever is contained in the urn doesn't really matter though as it is what the urn represents that is most important. *nods* Of course, this sacred urn isn't actually presented to the winning team as it is so delicate; the victors are presented with a trophy that looks like it. Youknowzitmakezsense!

Anyway, the two teams battle it out every couple of years, and who ever wins the series of games gets to take the ashes home with them (er, the replica of the urn, that is). If they draw, the present holders of the ashes get to keep them until the next series of games. Currently the English team are protectors of the metaphorically magical urn containing a bit of burnt rubber or wood. *cough*

To Ashes...

Last year the big event was hosted in Cardiff. my home city, at the SWALEC Stadium, home to Glamorgan County Cricket Club (The Dragons). At the time my husband was working full time for the club as a groundsman, and was part of the team responsible for making sure the ground was fit to be played upon. For a whole year prior to the event, the groundsmen - including my husband - were constantly under pressure to make the ground as perfect as possible for the most important cricketing event of 2009.

Of course, the ground staff are always under pressure to maintain the venue, because they have all sorts of inspectors visiting the ground throughout the season checking to make sure everything is being done properly. I don't know how or why, but apparently you can do something to the ground itself which can favour the home team, and if the ground is found to be faulty, fines and whatnot are slapped onto the ground staff.

Anyway, my husband was pretty stressed throughout the build up to the main event, with the weeks immediately prior to the game itself being the worst of all. And don't even talk to me about the games themselves, because I don't think I saw my husband for an entire week. For twelve months I had The Ashes drummed into my head from the hubby, and I was pretty sick of it. My hubby loves the game, but even he was severely ticked off with the whole thing by the time the games actually started. The Smith House was definitely experiencing technical difficulties during 2009, owing to two teams fighting over a replica trophy (okay, that's simplifying things a tad, and most cricket lovers out there would be Tara-Bashers if they ever read this, but hey-ho, I'm bitter. *snort*).

Perhaps you can see why I hold no love for the game. Thankfully my husband no longer works at SWALEC Stadium any more, so I don't have to hear about cricket so often. And there was much rejoicing!