Balls (winning)

Oh the joys of retirement, ten past nine and still in my dressing gown, watching other people work, viz: the team of chaps putting replacement windows in the flats opposite. Mine were done in January, which is why I can pretend I am Noel Coward of a morning instead of having to don several layers of warm clothes before coming in to the study to digest tea, breakfast, e-mails and the morning papers. Except Noel probably didn't have porridge stains on his lapels, or perhaps he did and just kept the silk gown for when Gertie was going to pop round.

I rose at a civilised hour this morning, the chaps in NZ having wrapped up the Napier Test not too long after midnight. Got it totally wrong yesterday, woke up to what seemed a lightish sky (it was of course a white landscape), flicked on the bedside radio, caught the final few overs of the day and then made a pot of tea, forgetting stumps were at 5.30 p.m. their time and 4.30 a.m. our time. Did not realise mistake until I switched on the computer to look at the photos on the BBC website! I adore Ryan Sidebottom's mad hair, it takes me back to the desperate winter when I was 30, convalescing after a serious illness, no job, living back with parents, and the only bright spot was the cricket highlights and watching Willis's chestnut curls bobbing as he tore in for the slaughter.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry yesterday when I heard a news item about the 25-year old lottery winner who has returned to work in MacDonalds because he has had enough of relaxation. There are factors I can understand - isolation from your peer group being the major one - but how sad to have no dream or ambition which would not be facilitated by a great big pot of money. I know what I'd have done at his age, because I did it anyway - broke away from my stultifying boring home town, a dead-end job and a rapidly deteriorating social circle as all my friends paired off, and came to UEA. Those being the days of grants, we were all equally broke so there wouldn't have been much flashing of the wad but it wouldn't half have made a difference in the years afterwards, and indeed I might not have had to spend Year 2 in the spacious flat with the marble fireplace and hot and cold running mice. Of course, any job is made bearable by the lovely knowledge that you have the running-away fund already set up. When the Lottery began, we used to sit and fantasise what we'd do: "I wouldn't give in my notice - I'd wait till the first time they annoyed me and then just walk out". The favourite dream of the syndicate was coming on the Sunday after the draw and shredding the entire contents of our offices, leaving the black bags piled up along the corridor for the managers to find on the Monday morning! That kept us going through many a weary hour.

What would I do now? Well, it wouldn't make me thinner or healthier or cleverer. But I know one thing, I'd have been watching the cricket in the balmy breezes of New Zealand and not listening on fuzzy long-wave in a frozen Norwich dawn!