That End Of Term Feeling

Sarries had a good first half hour of their game against London Irish, but then seem to go into meltdown mode - Irish scored several easy interception tries, but Sarries should have been awareded a Penalty Try by the ref after Thomas Castaignède was brought down off the ball chasing his own chip-ahead kick to the line. In the end, Irish finished up 30-18 and are now heading to the Guinness Premiership semifinal playoff against the Tigers.

Several noteable milestones at this game - Bob Casey captained the team on his 101st appearance; Kieron Dawson lead them out of the tunnel for his 200th and last game. And Saracens' Kyran Bracken played his last competitive game for the club he's served for so long. When he finally came off the field, substituted in the second half, he got a well-deserved standing ovation from all the crowd - a lovely gesture on the part of the Irish supporters, who probably rue the fact that the Dublin-born Bracken won his 51 International caps for England, not Ireland!

I decided to let the SSA bus take the strain, and caught it from Sarries' old ground at Bramley Road, to Reading. This meant quite a lengthy drive, first in the car then on the bus. So I took May's Rugby World and my iPod with me for entertainment.

What did I listen to on the journey? Quite a varied playlist, including the hauntingly beautiful Takk by Sigur Rós; the ever-brilliant Paul Mounsey's second album, Nahoo Too; In Between Dreams by Jack Johnson; Hopes & Fears by Keane (really looking forward to their new album in June) plus a bit of a blast from the past in the form of a playlist mix by ELO. An eclectic bunch really.

They Think It's All Over...

... It will be soon! At least, if you're talking the regular rugby season. Tomorrow sees the last round of the Guinness Premiership, and I'm off to see Saracens play London Irish in Reading. As previously mentioned, Irish did rather well last time, stuffing Wasps and scoring 9 tries, so I'm not wildly optimistic about Sarries' chances! But we'll see.

Which leads me on to the fact that, once the regular matches are done, and the playoffs completed, there's little rugby action to look forward to until early September! What am I going to do with myself? Well, probably catch up with all those jobs which have slid in favour of a quick visit to Watford to watch the Men In Black. Cut the grass more often, tidy the house. You know the kind of thing. All terminally dull! But I'm sure I can probably dream up some other displacement activities to be going on with during the summer.

Will post some links to my photos when they are ready.

Making An Exhibition of Ourselves

FakeBob and I held our first joint photographic exhibition last Saturday, at a lovely artsy cafe called The Flea Pit, near Columbia Road. I know it doesn't sound very salubrious, but its a great space for a little showing off, and we enjoyed the company of many friends who looked over our pictures and said nice things about them.

Just an ego-massaging exercise? Perhaps. But let's face it, if you don't blow your own trumpet, no-one else will. And since FakeBob has already made the first tentative steps towards a career in New Media (by finally resigning from the 9-5 drudgery after months of threatening), and I'm seriously thinking about it too, a bit of self-promotion was just what the doctor ordered.

Not only did I show some of my more general photography, such as landscapes, flower closeups and architecture, but I also had a selection of four fine rugby images, which seemed to go down well (not only with the ladies!). They were: Owen Takes A Lineout, Barkley Wrapped Up, Kick On The 22 and The Green Giant



After the event, about a dozen of us toddled off to a great Vietnamese restaurant in Old Street, Cay Tre. Excellent grub and very reasonable! A lovely way to round off the day.

Oops, it's been a while...

My good intentions of regular postings here have obviously gone by the wayside somewhat, since its about 5 weeks since I last bothered! Slap my wrists.

One of the things that prompted my renewed interest was seeing a friend over the weekend who was delighted with her shiny new blog. I've got one too, I said. So I gave her the address, and she has been posting comments here ever since! I'll get you back when I figure out where yours is, Mrs! ;-)

Anyway, to maintain the rugby theme (there was one originally, remember?), here's a link to the photos I took from the very exciting game I went to last Friday night, Saracens vs Leicester Tigers. The Tigers just edged us out 13-12, but Sarries kept up the pressure till the last, with a 12-phase passage of play finishing just short of their try line about 2 minutes after the "timesup" had passed. Hey ho.

I'm off to see the last game of the season next weekend, London Irish vs Sarries in Reading. A daunting prospect since Irish managed to put a staggering 9 tries past Wasps last weekend! Yikes.

RugbyMadGirl on Flickr

Despite Flickr's quirks sometimes winding me up, I've decided to set up an account for posting some of my rugby photos. You can see them at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rugbymadgirl/

Never fear, this won't be a replacement for http://www.rugbypix.com, merely another way of driving some traffic to it, hopefully!

If you're listening, and are a member of Flickr, please stop by and say hello.

Off to see Sarries v Worcester on Sunday; bit of a crunch match all in all. Hopefully we can see a repeat of the win we had against Sale. Fingers, toes and all other available bits crossed.