D is for Dreary – There is no better word to describe the L1's journey to Dereham on a damp and drizzly Saturday morning. Izzy had a minor panic that she'd taken her car to Watton rather than Dereham as we drove straight past the entrance to one of our least favourite pitches of Div 1N.  Turns out that Dereham is just even further towards Norwich than Watton, and we have the joy of exactly the same journey down the A11 to do another day. Even the incredible number of pigs on the journey didn't detract from the fact that the L1s have now spent nearly 9 hours of this season driving to and fro in the direction of Norwich, and it's getting a bit dull.

E is for Exceedingly hot showers – I had high hopes for the quality of an ex-prem side’s clubhouse. I was disappointed. A carpeted changing room seems like an odd choice, and not one that I would recommend. The cramped shower aisle didn’t inspire much confidence either, but they did redeem themselves slightly by at least having (very) hot water.

R is for Running – Lots, and lots, of running. In fact, a series of absences (see M below) meant that we only had 12 players, and we really felt it playing a team who were generally quite solid and well-drilled (and had 3 subs and a coach). Saying that, we did try to make the ball do the work, and on occasion it paid off until we were faced with the elbows and shoulders of the opposition whenever we broke into our attacking 25.

E is for Enthusiastic running out at short corners – We got a lot of practice at this: for portions of the first half it felt like we were going to continuously run defensive short corners for 35 minutes. Apart from the moment when it turned into a penalty flick, which Loopy saved beautifully to rapturous applause. On corner approximately #9, someone from the side line considered that one of our team broke early. There was some dispute as to who that was, and it was eventually declared that it was yours truly. I disagreed, but I dutifully trundled back to the halfway line to leave the defence in the capable hands of Loopy, Hannah, Sarah and Tamsin who managed entirely perfectly without me. Corner #10 brought another shout of an early break from the halfway line umpire but fortunately this one was considered to be the fault of the opposition, and I felt slightly vindicated.

H is for Hannah's puppy eyes – After an altercation with the above mentioned elbows and shoulders, an umpire approached Hannah S looking rather keen to whip out a (undeserved) card. Although I’m sure she would have appreciated a couple of minutes’ rest, she kindly put the interests of the team first and apologised profusely to the umpire for something that she didn’t do. Crisis averted.

A is for Aerials – So desperate was I to get the ball out of our defensive 25, that I resorted to actually trying out the aerials that we have been practising in training for the last few weeks and that Tamsin has been demonstrating wonderfully recently. They worked a couple of times, and no players were injured in the process, so I’ll take that as a win.

M is for Many people on holiday (see Lemon votes) – Unfortunately a significant number of the team decided that they could be somewhere more exciting than Dereham this week (we are just jealous, really), and massive thanks goes to Lizzie and Hannah S for playing with us so that we could get a team out given our growing injury list - both of you had great games. I have no doubt that Dereham are going to get a bit of a surprise when they make their own trip down the A11 to Long Road to face an L1s side at full strength.