A lengthy hiatus

I must apologise for the extended and prolonged absence of the Raggy Bear last season. I tend to steer clear of any personal accounts in the blog, on account of it being first and foremost about Warwickshire, not me. However I feel an explanation is in order given that I have missed blogging an entire season.

Last September (2008) I started a masters course in River Environmental Management at the University of Birmingham, in order to escape from the drudgery of financial services and get a foot in the door of environmental science and research. I left my job at Barclays Bank in May 2008, and spent that summer largely working in North Yorkshire where I managed to keep the Raggy Bear going and even catch the odd match. However the MSc programme had exams in May and then a dissertation from June through to September, leaving little time for watching cricket. I knew this would be the case in advance and with the increase in membership prices (and the fact as a 29yo mature student I didn't qualify for student membership), meant I reluctantly had to forego renewing my membership.

I always intended on keeping the blog going throughout the season, but sadly it quickly became obvious that it was not going to be possible.

Thankfully the MSc went well and I am now undertaking research for a PhD. The bad news is that it is at the University of Southampton! This means that it is highly unlikely that I will get to see Warwickshire more than a handful of times this season. It will certainly mean that it is at least 3 more seasons before I am in a position to renew my membership, and it may be that I never do so.

Ultimately it is a great thing I am doing at the moment and I am much more happy doing it. However it is sad that I won't be able to follow Warwickshire as closely as I would like. I remember taking out my membership when I was 27, and thinking at the time that it might be something that I was signing up for every year for the rest of my life, sadly it only ended up being 2 seasons.

The good news, depending on your point of view, is that I am going to try and keep up to speed with this season, although I think it unlikely that you will see much more than a regular news update, and occasionally my ill conceived opinions, as well as the odd article to make you chuckle.

Besides I'm sure that not going to games and being on the other side of the country will have no impact on my ability to annoy just about anyone associated with WCCC who comes across the blog!!

Here's to the upcoming season!