Richard and I have several events planned, including a conference, music gig and cricket/football matches. Yes I also like football in case you didn't know! I will briefly go over what we have already confirmed and also look at a few other things that seem interesting, for which I will at least follow coverage of the event or maybe book tickets later on.
After the events, and depending on how I feel about it, I may leave a brief summary post on here in the future. Let's kick it off in chronological order, and conclude with some general comments on things to look out for. (This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of everything I'm up to, just some of the highlights).
Jan
I'm interested to see how the England cricket side adapt to life under Eoin Morgan's captaincy when they face Australia and India in a One Day International (ODI) Tri-Series starting on Sun 18th. We play 2 games against each in a round-robin format, the last being on Fri 30th. The top 2 teams then play in a final match to determine the champions but we'll have to see if we get that far (I'm not too hopeful, but they could surprise me). It should be a good warm-up for the World Cup in any case, though.
Feb
A busy month indeed!
We kick off on Fri 6th - Sat 7th at the Kensington Conference Centre in London for the Astrofest 2015 conference. This is something we ave attended a couple of times in previous years. It a 2 day event consisting of an exhibition of astronomy hardware (telescopes, etc.) and a series of lecture presentations by eminent scientists and researchers on a variety of topic based around space observation or exploration. Now I have a half-decent camera, I'll try and take some photos and post them here afterwards. I'll also put down some words summarising the talks, which often deal with the cutting-edge technology involved or upcoming plans for missions, but how much detail I'll go into, not sure yet. It should be a lot of fun, with many good presentations already confirmed.
http://europeanastrofest.com/conference/
The following week sees the start of the tour to New Zealand for England women's cricket side. They begin on Wed 11th with the first ODI of five, the first 3 of which count towards progress in the ICC Women's Championship. The series goes on throughout the rest of Feb. Not sure what the coverage is, though. May have to resort to the scorecards.
On Thu 12th, we are attending the annual Darwin Day lecture, at London's Logan Hall, this year presented by the fantastic Dr. Eugenie Scott, and entitled "What would Darwin say to today's creationists?"
https://humanism.org.uk/events/?page=CiviCRM&q=civicrm/event/info&reset=1&id=102
On Fri 13th, and none of that superstitious nonsense now, I really want to go to see England women's football side play USA at the MK Dons stadium! It's very local to us, should be cheap, and the Wembley experience against Germany last year was fantastic and hopefully they can put in a better performance against another of the world's best sides.
The same week we also have the start of the cricket World Cup (50 0ver ODI format). England bowl off on Sat 14th against those familiar foes, Australia. The competition progresses throughout the month, so there'll be plenty of cricket to watch. Busy, busy!
March
On Fri 13th (what - again? - wow, 2 months in a row, how often does that happen?!) we are going to see Idlewild play at Roundhouse London. Should be a good gig.
April
Due to financial restrictions (it would probably be a bit steep, what with attending Astrofest as well as everything else in the same year) we probably won't be attending the QED con skeptical conference event in Manchester again this year. It goes from 24th - 26th at the Palace Hotel. We have been the last 2 years and it was very worthwhile. I am still going to pay attention to events there.
https://qedcon.org/
May
On Thu 21st, in cricket, England kick off their home international summer with a series against New Zealand. The first Test is at Lord's. There are 2 tests, 5 ODIs (too many again) and one T20i (not enough, again) going up to Thu 23rd June.
On Fri 29th, we have tickets for the Northants Steelbacks vs. Birmingham T20 cricket match at Northants Cricket ground.
June
On Sun 14th, we have tickets for the England vs. New Zealand ODI cricket match at the Ageas Bowl (Hampshire).
July
On Wed 8th, The England cricket side start the Ashes home series in earnest with the first Test at Cardiff. We play 5 Tests, a T20i, and then 5 ODI games, concluding on Sun 13 Sep! I hope we can win back the Urn...there should be some sort of chance!
On Sat 25th, I have tickets for the Northants cricket ground, where the home county are taking on Durham in a 50 over match, the current champions of this competition, the Royal London One Day Cup.
Earlier in the same week, England women kick off their home summer international series which this year also happens to be the Ashes, against a very strong Australia side. I am hoping we can retain the Urn...I may be able to attend at least one of the 2 ODIs which are taking place at Taunton and Bristol on Tue 21st and Thu 23rd respectively. But, still to be confirmed at this point. The series features 3 ODIs, 3 iT20s and a single four-day Test with all games counting, and a points system in place. It concludes on the bank holiday, Mon 31st Aug.
August
On Sat 15th, I have tickets for day 2 of the Tour Match at Northants cricket ground, where the home county are taking on the Australians in a 3 day game.
General
I am hoping to attend some more Wycombe Wanderers football games at the (fairly local)Adams Park ground.
When the FA WSL fixtures are announced, I am hoping to plan in some women's football this season, probably at Watford (WSL 2)who play very locally at Berkhamptead FC, or maybe even Arsenal (WSL1). This depends largely on the convenience of the fixtures.
The next post I'll do soon is some old, overdue stuff which I didn't get round to last year -apologies, as it's a bit stale and irrelevant now but I'm not going to waste it.
