Grassmore 93, Layer's layabouts 95-3. Good win. For the benefit of some reading this a win is the opposite of what happens on Saturdays and feels a lot better.

We arrived before the opposition and after quite a lot of parking and reparking cars to safe locations away from mid on/mid wicket we started on a soft green top exactly unlike the M5 outside Exeter. Lost the toss and fielded. We would have batted. Grassmore are top of the table so a contest looked on but it never quite happened.

Angry (10-6-17-2, rediscovered how to swang) and Benjy (9-2-22-4, why can't I bowl down hill?) shut the game down from the first ball using the novel tactic of bowling straight. Grassmore played too hard at most of us prompting a fair amount of catching practice and it was clear that putting a fielder on cow was regarded as slightly unfair by some of the opposition as it blocked all the runs off. Certain amount of whinging about the lbw decisions from them as they were never out and from us as at least another two were. The umpire with tears in his eyes told Angry it was a real pleasure umpiring to his spell, presumably as he didn't actually get sworn at when turning down lbw appeals.

Minesy threw the stumps down with a good direct hit which was assessed as a lucky throw by the victim resulting in some mirth, especially when the second comment half way back was "I bet you couldn't do it again". "No need Pal". The left hander at number 9 looked well organised but hit Will Lacey's second ball straight up to be caught for 33 and that was pretty much that.

Tea was from the Layer freezer and went down well, apart from the crisps. We were introduced to a cute soft 13 1/2 stone rottweiler who met no resistance when it asked for food and our stock reached rock bottom when Benjy won £10 in the draw. Just as well nobody had talked to any of their women as the atmosphere was a little chilly suddenly.

Tom Lister lashed his third ball to cover and was really well caught so there was suddenly a lot of chirping out there. Richard (who he?, ed.) Tasker smacked 50 from 24 after which the chirping ceased and the silence was positively tangible. The final runs came from the 18th over and we shook hands with three of them.