I completed my set of county grounds at Chelmsford last year. It's the third closest to my home after The Oval and Lord's, but Surrey haven't been in the same division as Essex very often in recent years and our two previous matches in Essex were at Colchester. I like both the Essex grounds, and both are in the town centre and convenient to get to if your staying in the area for a few days.

Cheltenham is a lovely ground, while Swansea has seen better days but has plenty of character. Surely Lancs will visit Glamorgan at Colwyn Bay though?

I'm now looking forward to a stress-free day at Aigburth next week, which will leave me with only Colwyn Bay and Scarborough left to do of the current regular outgrounds. I actually day tripped Scarborough two years ago for the first day of Yorks v Hants while I was staying in Leeds but it was washed out without a ball being bowled. The previous day I'd seen Castleford v Harlequins in blazing sunshine. Hopefully Surrey will play at Scarborough if Yorkshire come up.

Surrey delivered their best performance of the season last week to beat Notts, having prepared a slow turning pitch to suit the vastly experienced duo of Batty & Kartik, while Pietersen also relished the rare opportunity to bowl a ten over spell in helpful conditions with an attacking field. (I think it's ridiculous that England never made more use of his bowling.) Notts just had too many first choice players missing for one reason or another and they weren't helped by losing the toss which meant they batted last, by which time they were never going to chase down 300+ in the prevailing conditions.

Circus cricket.

Yes indeed, but circus cricket that we're involved in.

Gary Keedy leaves Lancs to go to Surrey. I cry.

I've always rated Keedy over the years - best uncapped English player of his generation etc.

After my initial surprise I'm very happy with this signing. We're clearly looking for a top order batsman as our main overseas player, so Keedy seems like an ideal replacement for Murali Kartik (the best spinner I saw in the Championship last season) who is only one year younger, and a good foil for Gareth Batty. Furthermore it can surely only benefit our two young left arm spinners Zafar Ansari and Freddie van den Bergh to have someone like Keedy to mentor them.

Ricky Ponting will retire after this test match against SA.

Great player, but he's one of those that you just don't like. Gilchrist was always the same.