State competition provides final hectic practice programme

December 7th saw the second away game for Lancaster Park, this time at Burwood Park, one of the smaller women's grounds in Christchurch. We eventually won a rain-affected match by 55 runs against a youthful East Shirley team. In the other club match, St Alban's thrashed a Riccarton side who had lost players to the weekend's State matches - Nic Payne in good form, hitting 181 of her side's 360 runs.

Before each tour, England players must complete medical and physical examinations, so this week I was poked and prodded and pulled around by doctors, nurses and physiotherapists. Everything checked out okay. I also took the opportunity to meet up with a nutritionist to talk about my diet, in particular eating the right foods at the right times of the day. From our discussions, I'll be eating much more breakfast and frequent light snacks throughout the rest of the day.

December has seen the end of the real hard yards of training before the winter tour. Sessions at the gym have been much more physically demanding and sessions outdoors have concentrated on pure speed and agility. This has made rest and recovery all the more important and I've been very happy to add sports massage to the weekly diary!

On Friday 13th the Canterbury Magicians headed down to Timaru to kick off our state league fixtures against Otago. After a team dinner that night, the squad had its final meeting and all players were in very good spirits. The Saturday match was fairly close, Otago winning the toss and electing to bat on a good pitch with a lightening fast outfield. They scored 210 for seven off their 50 overs with England's other Clare Taylor getting her 50 with the last ball of the match. Canterbury then batted conservatively to reach victory in the 47th over with only three wickets down. In my first state match I got 59 runs and shared a good partnership with the in-form Payne.

The second match on the Sunday was a much more one-sided affair. Canterbury bowled much better and took some outstanding catches in the field to dismiss Otago for 103, Beth McNeil taking five wickets. Canterbury openers Nic Payne and Kirsty Craig batted well to complete a 10-wicket victory and claim the first bonus point of the competition.

After the game, I travelled down to Dunedin to spend some time with Romper (the other England Clare Taylor). We spent the first couple of days training and looking around Dunedin. I was fortunate enough to be able to talk to Billy Ibadullah about cricket and his thoughts on batting over lunch one day.

Later that week, Romper and I headed off on a short tour of Southland. From Dunedin to Invercargill on the Southern Scenic Route, stopping here and there for pictures of beaches, sea lions and waterfalls. From Invercargill, through the foothills up into the mountains at Te Anau on the borders of the Fiordland National Park. The landscape is beautiful, the water clear and blue and very very cold, as I found out when I went for a short (very short) swim. After the landscape around the Milford track and the drive up to Milford Sound, Mitre Peak was a little underwhelming, it's best seen in the morning rather than the gathering dusk in which we saw it!

On the way back from Te Anau we stopped off in Owaka, a small farming community between Invercargill and Dunedin whose main cricketing claim to fame is Rachel Pullar, the current Kiwi opening bowler. We took a coaching session for some of the town's young cricketers before staying the night on a working hill farm. Next morning we were put to work hand-feeding lambs.

Christmas was fast approaching and after a game of cricket back in Dunedin, Romper and I headed back up to Christchurch. For Romper a flight to Melbourne for the Boxing Day Test and for me some last-minute shopping and then down to St Andrew's for Christmas Day with the Tiffen whanau.

I've had a lovely break from training and now it's definitely time to get back into things. The state competition gets hectic from now with six state matches and four training sessions before the England girls arrive on the 16th. I'm looking forward to those matches which will be great preparation for the one-day internationals we'll play later in the month.