BIKING BIRDER I June 6th 2010 Strabane Musicians and Cricket

 

6th June 2010

I Don't Like Cricket       10CC

So the midges had got me at the stone circle the previous evening but at least the twit at Ballymagorry, later in the day, did not..

I had stopped at the 'Tinnies' on the road out of Strabane, a group of very large metal sculptures of musicians and fallen asleep on the grass after talking with a local cyclist. In fact, this emphasised how absolutely wonderful Northern Ireland and its people truly are. I must have been asleep for over an hour but no one disturbed me as I slept on the grass and more importantly, no one stole my bike and possessions!

Now I was thinking that Northern Ireland was almost perfect, being a beautiful country with incredible, magnificent landscapes and such friendly, beautiful people but I could not find the thing that would have made it perfect, cricket.

Three miles later, once back on the bike, I came across a cricket ground in Ballymagorry and a tournament of young ladies playing cricket!

With the 2nd test against Bangladesh on the television in the club house I was in seventh heaven.

Unfortunately though, my pleasant afternoon was marred by having an idiot gentleman, sitting amongst the spectators, deadeye me aggressively and repeatedly over my being a Villa Fan. You figure out why. He took offense to my Aston Villa shirt and maybe there was also the fact that I was English travelling in this sectarian land. Sad and pathetic!

Otherwise, the afternoon was fabulous with the team from Belfast, the one I was supporting, losing every game narrowly and excitingly. I had a long chat with their manager and everyone, well almost everyone, could not have been more friendly. A great club.

I went through Londonderry/Derry/Hyphen City, whatever it they want it called these days, very quickly and camped on the edge of a long reedbed near the sea wall of Lough Foyle RSPB Reserve. I knew that I was approaching the divided city because on the main approach road, in the villages, there were large Union Jack flags on the lampposts and the kerbstones were painted red, white and blue. All signs of the troubled past, hopefully in the past. Let the paint fade.

At the reserve, I did not see another soul and the sea wall protected me from the strong northerlies. How long were these predominantly north winds going to be in my face? I always thought Britain was supposed to have a south west prevailing wind but not this year. Climate change? Good numbers of Bar-tailed Godwits, seventy three, were the best birds here and another RSPB reserve had been visited.

Tickle My Feathers