In fact, according to our latest figures, searches for cricket sports equipment and sportswear in Oxford, along with local cricket clubs, have surged dramatically since the start of the Ashes. I wonder if any budding young cricket players in this area will end up helping lift that little urn at some point in the future?

My little boy has always been crazy about football, that was until England won the Ashes! Now he has decided that he would rather be a cricketer than a footballer. He has started going to the local cricket club and he is really enjoying it. He looks so adorable in his pristine whites, but I am biased and think that he looks adorable in everything!

His Dad loves cricket too, so my house has gone a bit cricket crazy at the moment. Instead of them screami9ng and yelling at the football, I get them screaming and yelling at the football AND the cricket!

I have decided that for my husband’s birthday I will try and get him tickets to a big cricket match at Twickenham. I know that he will absolutely love it, maybe he’ll even take my cricket crazy son along with him too. Maybe I shouldn’t encourage them, but at least I’d have a day of peace without people screaming at the TV!

Having walked away in frustration, I then thought it was quite good and how nice it was that it hasn’t succumbed to the usual demands.

So I don’t know quite what to make when I read about a new trial for Sunday openings. It is part of a three month pilot scheme to see if opening seven days a week can help traders battle the recession.

As the article suggests, the biggest problem will be publicising that it is now open on Sundays (partly why I thought I’d write about it on here of course!). It seems to have the backing of at least some of the traders, so as long as they benefit from it… In the meantime, I may pop down this weekend and try it for myself.

I look finding a bargain, so I know that the market will be a great place to find some trasures. My sister is coming to visit soon, and she loves markets and charity shops, so perhaps this is a good place to take her to. Last time I went to see her in Leeds, where she lives, we spent hours looking at charitiy shops and perusing through the market. I was quite exhausted by the end of the day!

Apparently it’s been policy for a few weeks now, but being a visitor to the area, it totally threw me.

I was, of course, left with a few choices. I could simply put everything back in the trolley, push it out to my car, fill the boot up by hand and spend agonising minutes at the other end unloading it all. Or I could have bought the 5p bag that was available.

On principal, I went for the trolley/car option, although even I realised as I drove away how silly I’d been. For regulars of the shop, it has probably sunk in now, lessons have been learnt and everyone now takes their own bag. On the off-chance they forget, pushing the boat out and buying that 5p bag probably doesn’t break the bank.

So I dug around and found that there are many organisations across our region trying to achieve similar feats, and just in case you are interested, you can read how Oxfordshire County Council are lending a hand to make as many supermarkets in Oxford “bag-free” here

Apparently 13 billion plastic bags are given out each year but I know other big chains are following M&S’s lead on the bag front. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of drilling it into people to ‘bring their own’. Either way, I certainly wouldn’t recommend the stubborn take-the-trolley-to-the-car approach, it takes ages…