Nets

With all the focus on trekking and altitude and world records and that little takker Mt Everest, sometimes it's easy to let the main point fo the trip, cricket, slip by.

After a solid workout in the Shadows of a giant Pink Floyd Album Cover on Saturday morning, we made our way to the home of cricket (I can't find the clip, but every time I say or hear this all I can think of is Graham and The Colonel pondering whether if you wanted to address a letter to Cricket, do you mail it to Lords... Dear Cricket, c/o Lords, St Johns Wood, London). Whilst we are on the subject of tangents, In my opinion, Battersea Power Station should have an inflatable pig in-between the 2 southern smoke-stacks at all times.

With a crew getting to near 50, it's still a slightly awkward experience meeting up with everybody from the expedition. I am now confident deciphering who is who for around 75% of the people who are on board. But with various new members, medics, people who haven't turned up before, and maybe somebody you've fleetingly met once over a beer and part-recognise. They're the worst ones. Generally people who are around for the first time will introduce themselves. The guys and girls who are on the periphery are in that state of limbo where they aren't sure whether people remember them or not. It generally leads to a bit of nervous chit-chat about 'how they're doing' and a consensus to call each other 'mate'. I read somewhere yesterday that the longer somebody drags out the 'mate' is inversely indicative of how much of an idea they have of who you are. eg 'hey maaaaaaaaaaate' is polite-talk for 'I've got no freakin clue who you are but I'm sure I'm supposed too'. I decided to forget all this and endeavoured to introduce myself to anybody who I was unsure of. Turns out the first guy who copped this was Woodsy, who I definitely had met (a couple of times...), so I've since dumped this method.

Back to the cricket. Kiwi got me to pad up to go in first at the pristine indoor nets. Butler, the James May of cricket knowledge and fresh from a 20 minute rant about the cost of passport photo's, rambled something to me about the grade of Astroturf that the nets are made out of. Apparently it breathes or breeds or something. In any case the deck acts like a good firm turf wicket does. Which was definitely on Kiwi's mind as he juggled a hard ball from hand to hand and requested I wear a helmet. Thinking he was looking after my safety, I wandered down to the stumps casually with helmet atop. He wasn't looking after me, he just wanted to try to kill me without feeling guilty. The next 20 minutes was a test of bravery as neither he, Blinky, or G-Unit landed a ball in my half of the pitch. Unlike Blinks and G though, Kiwi can direct his quick bouncers. And generally he directs them at your head. I swerved one, got hit on the wrist with another, and fended one away from my eyes at the last minute with only one hand on the bat. At one stage, he followed through with the Clint-Eastwood death-stare. I couldn't work out whether he was serious or not. To make sure, I decided to tell him to get f*cked and f*ck off back to his bowling mark, but just before I opened my mouth he broke into a smile and all was good.

Bowling wise my offie-pies came out alright. In 20 deliveries, I had G-Unit at about 10-60. The sequence going in '6 over mid-wicket, out, 6 over mid wicket, out, repeat sequence' - I then switched nets to see if I could recast my spell over Kiwi. His first shot, a nonchalant reverse sweep against a tired delivery, was clear evidence that the stranglehold had loosened to a mere soft breeze against the back of his neck.

The meeting that followed was a quick recap of what had happened and what was to happen. There was an alarming spiral in costs for all sorts of medical checkups, inoculations, and tests. Not least of all one for 'Sudden Death Syndrome'. Wow. They really ran out of names for that one. They'll soon be naming diseases like episodes of Friends... 'that one with the really nasty rash that sort of makes you a bit sick and you can't eat solid food and yeah there is a bit of it going around Syndrome' sounds nasty. Kirt and Curry recalled their nasty experience in Nepal over Christmas, amongst other things. I quite like Mark's retelling of the day found here - mainly because he, and only he, liked my bowling.

Tonight we have another nets session. But not before Chris the megalomaniac Beale drags us on a 7km run through South London's murder mile and back. He has decided to give us a break halfway through in way of a trim trail. It is still yet to be decided whether he will be allowed up the mountain.

Coming up this weekend is the Fantasy Farm Fitness Challenge. A mixture of Glastonbury, It's a Knockout, and Illegal Immigrant Labour designed to test, challenge, and save Kinsey's parents a bit of cash.