The past week's been a fairly outdoor sporty one, between cycling and cricket. Except the cricket was been watched from the sidelines instead of actually playing it. Back on Wednesday evening, Si and I hopped on our bikes and took a cycle round the Putney - Wimbledon - Richmond loop, about 12 miles and roughly an hour round trip, which is good for an evening before it gets dark. And ideally good for a morning cycle too, but that's being fairly optimistic (for now).

Then on Thursday after work I made my way down to the Oval for a bit of 20/20 county cricket entertainment, Surrey vs Somerset. The cricket was alright I guess, definitely not the most exciting game I've watched, but good to catch up with Will, Duncs and Paul, and enjoy a bit of cricket in the evening again. After the cricket we headed away from Oval station to avoid the crowds a bit and stopped by the White Bear Theatre pub near to Kennington station for a quick cold one and then all made our way home from there.

Saturday morning was another half day spent out in the Surrey Hills around the Dorking area. Si and I headed out fairly early down to Holmwood and over to Coldharbour for a bit of biking in the area, and happened to come across one of the Evans organised Ride-It cycles, which we subtly managed to join in for the second half of the course, ending up near Dorking Station. It took us through a good few routes we'd never been over before, and some crazy downhill sections too, definitely noted for next time we're out there. After ending up at Dorking, we stopped by the Lincoln Arms Hotel bar while waiting for a our train, and it really had a proper rural outback country feel to it. We didn't stay long. Back in Putney, we stopped at the Arab Boy on Upper Richmond road for lunch, which I had never been to before, despite it being the closest pub to home, geographically speaking. After heading home, changing, I made my way out to Peckham for dinner and a nice, chilled out evening.

Before last week Thursday, it had been ages since I'd last gone to cricket, maybe a few years at a guess, and now I've been to watch twice in four days. This time was down to Saint Lawrence Cricket Ground in Kent to watch Kent play against the Welsh country side Glamorgan. Yesterday morning I met up with Loz, Luke and Martin at Victoria and got the train down to Kent where we met up with Tony and Laura and made our way to the ground. Louis and Stef made their way through a bit later and met up with us there, which was cool to see them again. The ground is famous for being built around a tree, which stands inside one of the boundary ropes, and the ground even has special local rules to accommodate for the presence of the tree. The game was a bit more exciting than Thursday's match, with the home team, Kent, winning this time and at least making a game out of it. So a good day out in the country, watching some county cricket. Not too bad for a Sunday.

After a stop at the Phoenix Pub en route to the station, we got the train back to London, getting home around 11ish last night, but a good fun outdoor weekend, and hopefully the next 20/20 cricket game is a lot sooner than two years time!