Sunday afternoon—after church at Holtwood and a characteristically tremendous family dinner provided by Ann—we headed out to see Adam play cricket. He's part of a club that's been playing most summer weekends since the 1950s. They go in for a short game; it usually only takes 6 hours or so over a single day. :)
Turns out the opposing team had a new player, an American guy with a great arm but who was decked out in whites that were much too wide and much too short, was wearing a pair of bizarre black trainers (sneakers) instead of white ones, and seemed to be receiving a hasty crash course in wickets, stumps, and overs before taking the field. Yep, the opponents showed up a man short so Jesse was in the game.
Always up for an adventure and of course loving all things sporty, he was not an unwilling recruit! And seriously, how could he say no to a game where everything halts every hour or two whilst folks bring cups and pitchers of chilled fruity beverages out to the field...a game that, at "half-time," involves all the players going into the clubhouse for a proper tea laid out with cakes and finger sandwiches and all the rest (the wives and children don't get a look-in)...a game where the zealous record keepers neatly penned "glorious" in the box designated for weather in the record book? (It was glorious, by the way.)
In any case, he made a good showing in the field for the first bunch of hours. But for the second half, when his team was batting, the game ended with a win before it got to the batters at the end of the line-up so he didn't get a turn in the crease (obviously it works nothing like baseball; there's no batting "rotation").
Meanwhile, the mommies (Danni and I) enjoyed visiting while the kiddos (Grace, Olivia, Josiah, and William) kept themselves happy and busy for hours and hours:
Making pine cone pictures for the mommies to guess. (This was a raccoon in progress.)
Playing their own cricket game.
(It was hard for our baseball loving boys to get the hang of holding the bat low and not throwing it after making contact!)
Playing on the real field while the daddies were in having their tea.
And playing make-believe that Grace was a self-proclaimed peasant/Amish/servant girl (??) while the other three were royalty. She was happily bossed around by them throughout the picnic dinner, fetching them everything they needed!
The location itself was very unassuming. Off the road behind a more modern hospital was this field with a rather decrepit, long building. Apparently it and several others on the property were built by Americans in WWII. Some, like this one, were now more like storage sheds/garages and hard to picture as a place for emergency medical care! Anyway, a track tucked just to the left of the building brought one out to the cricket field, behind the trees.
Afterwards, after Jesse had given back his wide and short white trousers, he and Adam played a bit with the kids. Because obviously 2 to 8 p.m. hadn't provided quite enough cricket yet!
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