I had so much lined up for this weekend – Davitt Awards on Friday, writers' festival followed by drinks with a friend on Saturday, and a free family pass to watch the Melbourne Storm v the Manly Sea Eagles on Sunday – that at the back of my mind was the thought that with so much to look forward to, one of us was bound to get ill and skittle the whole thing. But it didn't happen and I got to do all of it – the power of negative thinking! Ditto with the cricket – I fell asleep just before lunch last night and decided to go to bed. Ponting and Hussey were batting, not much was happening really, and I thought probably they'd still be in by stumps, and maybe the tail would be in tonight. But no – when we got up it was all over and England had regained the Ashes! I was happy, though it has to be said somewhat disappointed for the two boys in my house, one of whom was philosophical, but the other of whom is devastated. But yes, I bet if I'd gone to bed thinking "This is all over, England'll have 'em all out by tea", Ponting would have scored 200.

Now I'm trying to watch stuff on the BBC website and getting frustrated by the "only available within the UK" footage. What about us expats who paid our licence fee for YEARS? And what's this deal whereby you don't have to have a TV licence to watch iPlayer if you live in the UK, but you can't watch it if you're outside the UK "because you have to have a TV licence". Grrr. Oh, well, I've been able to watch Sky's coverage on our free-to-air SBS channel all series, as well as Test Match Special in the car, so I suppose I can't complain too much.

The rugby match yesterday was great! I don't follow rugby league at all, but we'd got the free tickets and I really enjoyed it. It was a close match and we had good views of the ground. It was a shame the Storm lost, but you can't have everything in a weekend, can you? Hawthorn (AFL) won, England won, and Wolves (English Premier League) lost and the Storm lost. Two teams out of four ain't bad.