Disclaimer

This blog reflects personal views and experiences only and does not represent the views of my employer, colleagues or any professional body. Any clinical references are shared in a general, non-identifiable way and not as professional advice. Some details of clinical situations have been intentionally altered to preserve patient anonymity in accordance with NMC professional guidance. For everyone else: this is a blog, not a multidisciplinary team meeting.

Last week was meant to be the grand beginning of our son’s cricket season. A fresh sporting chapter. New whites, new routines, new opportunities, and in his case, the modest ambition of playing for two teams straight away: Ilton Cricket Club and Taunton Vale. Because apparently one club is no longer enough when you are eight and have the scheduling habits of a semi-professional athlete.

Unfortunately, April had other ideas.

Rather than offering dry evenings and some vague sense of springtime encouragement, it did what April in Britain does best: turned up damp, windy and deeply uncooperative.

Ilton’s training session was cancelled, and the pre-season friendly disappeared with it. Briefly, I allowed myself to think that perhaps Taunton Vale might still be salvageable, maybe indoors, maybe through some miracle of organisation and available space.

That idea lasted only moments before being firmly dealt with by reality: the indoor facilities were already booked.

So the first week of cricket ended with the unusual achievement of containing no cricket whatsoever.

This was not ideal. Tennis training also still has not restarted, which meant that our son’s two main sports both failed to happen in the same week. From his perspective this was clearly a disgrace. There are many things a sporty child can tolerate, but the removal of multiple organised physical activities at once is not one of them. It is a bit like telling a labrador that the park is closed indefinitely.

Thankfully, not every part of the weekly sporting programme collapsed. Martial Arts went ahead. Swimming on Saturday morning survived. And parkrun, in a commendable act of resilience, also took place.

That parkrun was a particularly important one. Our son was presented with his half marathon wristband in front of the whole group, which was a lovely moment. There is something genuinely nice about these little milestones being recognised publicly. It gives children a sense that repeatedly turning up and putting effort in actually means something, which, to be fair, is a lesson a fair number of adults could also revisit.

To make the morning even more productive, he then ran a new PB of 10:03. Very good going, especially as the conditions were not especially friendly. It was windy enough to make forward progress feel like a personal dispute, but at least it was dry. At this point in the British spring calendar, dry weather counts as elite support.

We also bought him a parkrun wristband afterwards, which makes it easier to keep track of his times and achievements. Sport now comes with metrics, wearable recognition and personal best tracking. It all feels wonderfully efficient.

Childhood, but with data.

As if that were not enough exercise for one day, we then took the bikes out for a 12-mile ride along the canal to North Newton. On paper this sounded like a wholesome family outing. In practice, it was a wholesome family outing, just one that left us all significantly more tired than perhaps initially advertised.

Still, there was a reward at the end: lunch at The Boathouse. And in fairness, it was worth every pedal stroke.

Their lunchtime food is excellent, with Italian focaccia sandwiches carrying names like “The Godfather” and “Palermo,” which somehow makes lunch feel both cultured and mildly threatening.

Nothing says sporting recovery quite like eating a sandwich that sounds as though it might have contacts.

By this point the weather had taken on a more generous mood. It was sunny, bright and actually rather pleasant, which felt almost suspicious given how the week had started. We got home tired, full, and in no mood whatsoever for further athletic endeavour.

So the rest of the day was taken very easy, which was probably sensible given that school was restarting the following day after 17 days off.

Seventeen days is an impressively long time. Long enough for children to forget the concept of routine, and long enough for parents to begin greeting the return of term time with the quiet gratitude of people who have seen things.

So yes, the first week of cricket turned out to be a complete washout. No nets, no friendly, no actual evidence that the cricket season had begun beyond a few cancelled plans and a child looking mildly offended by meteorology. But the week was rescued by the usual supporting cast: Martial Arts, swimming, parkrun, a new PB, a milestone wristband, a long bike ride and an excellent lunch.

Cricket itself, meanwhile, remains more of a developing theory than a witnessed event.