The deciding test between England and Pakistan gets underway at Lords tomorrow and I've sold Collingwood runs again at 63 for £8. I've also bought £8 of Strauss as 84 as he is due a decent knock. I've opted not to sell Cook after last week's fiasco as he bats well at Lord's too!

Nothing to report on the punting front. I sold £10 of the time of the first Spurs goal against Young Boys at 31 thinking that the game was tonight only to find out it's tomorrow.

We took the kids to see Corfe Castle, or should I say what's left of it, in the rain. Like all castles, it's pitched on the top of a ruddy steep hill and certainly wasn't seen at it's best in the wind and rain. I remember thinking at the very top how grateful I was not to have been born around the time of William The Conqueror! I wouldn't have enjoyed living at Corfe... terrible mobile phone reception!

Anyway, the weather cleared and the wasps returned to ruin another lunch. Is it just me or are there millions of them around this summer. We hit the beach in the afternoon and returned well in time to watch the Man City v Liverpool game.

I couldn't see any downside in buying £150 of City supremacy at 0.3 as I saw the draw as the worst case result. Therefore an early City goal was just what the doctor ordered. However, the two unanswered second half goals were a complete bonus... A £255 bonus if truth be told.

The only good thing about it raining all day is that wasps tend to stay in their holes or wherever they live. Having said that, the abandonment of the beach trip meant that I could watch the Fulham v Man Utd game.

There have been plenty of goals scored already this Premiership season, but I felt this encounter was all set to lower the average. I sold £150 of total goals at 2.6, so was therefore disappointed to see Paul Scholes give United a relatively early lead. It was 1-1 when I tuned back in to watch the last 8 minutes, so you can imagine my joy to watch two late goals! The 2-2 draw cost me £210 and even though the wasps were nowhere to be seen, I felt like I had been stung...

We spent the day on the beach so I opted to give the racing the swerve. It was therefore irritating to find out that both Native Khan and Orientalist had won at Sandown, but other results looked tricky so I probably saved a few quid.

The Dorset coastline is absolutely stunning with some beautiful beaches. However, there are also a lot of people and even more wasps! I'm not sure what is more annoying although wrestling with the latter over a 99 flake isn't that much fun.

We made it back to where we were staying to watch Chelsea take on Wigan in the live tea-time game and I kept it simple. If Blackpool could score 4 against Wigan last week, there had to be a chance Chelsea could at least match the trick. Well, I opted to buy £100 of total goals in the game at 3.2 and was kicking myself that I didn’t buy more when the Londoners scored three in the last 15 minutes to make it 6-0! I should have made more than £280, but that still pays for plenty of ice cream and wasp repellant!

Alistair Cook forgot it was my birthday today. He resumed on nought not out and proceeded to bat virtually all day.
With 6 runs already in the locker from the first innings, he soon fired his way past the danger figure of 62. Suddenly every run he scored was costing me £8 and the man who was supposedly drinking at the last chance saloon was making hay. It was all very uncomfortable listening on the car radio on the way to Dorset with the family.

There was a small break in the commentary of what seemed like a stream of endless boundaries (at £32 a pop) to hear my Nunthorpe Stakes selection Kingsgate Native bomb out behind a 100/1 winner. Another £140 down the drain... Happy Birthday to me!

Back at the Oval and Cook soon reached three figures and was finally dismissed for 110, which created a career saving match total of 116. It cost me 48 x £8... You can do the maths.

Trott and Pietersen batted to around junction 7 of the M3, but both fell immediately after tea. In walked out-of-form Paul Collingwood with a chance to put the 'happy' back into my birthday! GONE! He didn't last long and only managed to add 3 runs to his Wednesday total of 5. I had won back 55 x £8 and was now amazingly £56 up on the two trades. If only Cook hadn't got all those runs, I'd be laughing.

The highlight of yesterday's trip to the Oval was the failure of both Cook and Collingwood with the bat. I arrived at the ground to find that England had already lost the former for just 6 runs and when the latter fell for one less an hour later, my match runs position was suddenly in great shape.

Life And Soul hit the frame in Goodwood's opener, but Overturn's flop in the Ebor brought me crashing right back down to earth. My £10 buy at 17 cost me the full £170.

The rest of the day was a bit of a blur... England's collapse was followed by my own little drunken collapse on the way home.