A cold Northerly wind greeted my friends from Australia this weekend. It is hard to convince them that up until they arrived the sun had shone and the weather has been warm and settled. It is difficult to comprehend the culture shock they have had, for 12 years they have been living in the Northern Territory of Australia that it is basically hot, or fucking hot, yesterday it was 8c and driving rain, it must have felt like Greenland to them, though Tom was too bemused by all the cars, big buildings and people to worry about the weather at the Reading game which he seemed to really enjoy.

What Tom and Ruby must make of the hustle and bustle of the UK is any ones guess, they have been born in to a world without traffic, office buildings, and crowds of people (the 20,000 fans at The Madjeski Stadium must have been an eye opener) they have probably seen more snakes and spiders than humans, which for someone with a morbid fear of our reptilian friends is a chilling thought, and has, sadly, been the main reason I have not visited them, I am such a coward.

Anyway, it was great to see them on Saturday (and at the Football on Sunday) and though times move on, personalities don’t really change, and despite a fully blown Aussie accent Priv is the same guy I knew when he left with the same sense of mischief and adventure, we all had a great night on Saturday, even if it did result in eating a Kebab, something I haven’t done for…..well probably about 12 years.

Priv, John and Cunni

The rest of the weekend was spent backing off of the North East wind watching the excellent Broughton play on Friday and having a curry last night that was probably the blandest I have ever tasted from a curry house that is normally so good. It was like a cold plate of bisto gravy with prawns in it, after a freezing day at football I was really looking forward to it, but it can only be described as bitterly disappointing.

Even more disappointing was a narrow defeat for our boys Cricket team today in the Nort Hants Cricket cup against a team a year older and two divisions above us. We outplayed them in all departments until an Indian guy the size of Inzaman Al Haq came in and smashed it all over the place, but that’s cricket I suppose. To make it worse George got him out caught……………..to a No Ball aaaarggggghhhhh!