Day 111 (Tuesday 6th February 2007)

Marc had everyone up early for the crucial Commonwealth Bank Series match between England and New Zealand at the Gabba. We dropped Jay off at home, before driving back up to the city in search of the ground.

It was a massive game, which ever team won would progress to the final to play the Aussies, so it was exciting stuff. For Sarah however, the fans seemed more entertaining and she struggled to keep her eyes open throughout (or was that just the 4-hours sleep she's had in the last 4-days???).

Despite the attendance being little over 16,000 (that's half full), the atmosphere was still great and there was plenty of banter being thrown around the ground. England, buoyed by there enfatic win over Australia a few days before, built a good total of 270. Paul Collingwood stole the show with an awesome 106 off of 121 balls.

However, Marc nearly dragged Sarah out of the ground after the first few overs of New Zealand's innings, England with the worst display of bowling Marc's ever seen since taking 4P up the nets!!

Poor old Plunkett's first over contained 5-wides and one of them went for a 4. At one stage the scoreboard read: runs...8 balls...1 run rate...48.0!!!! We were more embarrassed then ol' Plunky himself. But the youngster turned it all around and bounced back with 3/60 and the legend that is Paul Collingwood capped an outstanding performance with 2/46 off 10-overs.

England, despite the balance of play shifting throughout the innings, eventually coasted to a 14-run victory, but it was thoroughly entertaining stuff. It didn't finish until late and so we didn't return to David and Wendy's until gone midnight.

Day 112 (Wednesday 7th February 2007)

The last thing you need after a late night is to be kicked out of bed at 07:00 by the pest control company. David and Wendy had some guys round to take care of the termites and god knows what other creepy crawlies they have eating away at the house.

Jay was meant to be coming around today to see us, but he postponed it until tomorrow, so we just took it easy for the day. We tidied the ute and caught up on sleep and stuff...very exciting!

That evening Wendy gave chef Marc the night off and cooked us all a delicious apricot chicken...lovely!