AUSTRALIA AT THE OVAL

I've come to the park for lunch today. It seems to be sports day. Well, cricket day, anyway. There are hundreds of small people here in long t-shirts and shorts chasing after tennis balls and shouting things like 'Go! Go! Go!' and 'Catch it!'

I'm sitting on the skateboard ramp eating melon and grapes out of a pot I got from the Co-Op.

One of these kids is setting out his fielders as though they were playing Australia at The Oval.

"Connor, Connor, square leg next to the umpire!" he gesticulated at a hapless Connor who was staring at the clouds in the outfield. Connor flapped his arms and then shuffled wearily back towards the pitch and the exasperated bowler.

It's funny how important a thing seems when it fills your whole world. For these young cricketers, winning today looks like everything. But from over here on the skateboard ramp, the world looks a lot larger, scarier and more important than cricket. Perhaps it is, or perhaps the things I worry about are not all that much in the grand scheme of things, after all. Perhaps it's all relative.

Connor's just been told off for looking the wrong way and daydreaming while the ball flew past him. It seems his mind is elsewhere. I chuckled to myself as though reminded of something from twenty five years ago. He'll go far, that lad.