Shopping: Under the counter with Lindsay Calder

It wasn't a shotgun wedding. We got married three months after announcing our engagement - not because I had something to hide behind my bouquet, but because of that old MCC rule: Marriage Conforms to Cricket. It was a toss-up between March, before the cricket season started, or September, when it finished. Well, I was damned if I was going to sit at the edge of the boundary every weekend with copies of Brides magazine so I rose to the challenge, and went for an early declaration - March.

The wedding itself went well - rain didn't stop play, and we got everyone out before tea. Apart from being made to look like dwarves in our wedding photos by two huge opening bowlers who doubled up as ushers, and our bagpiper unilaterally deciding to play the theme from Test Match Special as I arrived at the church, it was perfect .

But no sooner had I tossed my bouquet in to the air than I was a cricket widow. My honeymoon in the Caribbean may have been the envy of my friends, but what a coincidence - our trip to Barbados coincided exactly with the Fourth Test (England v the West Indies) so, it was balls to the beach, we've got cricket to watch. Romantic honeymoon suppers by the lapping waves would have been nice, but as half of London's cricket fraternity had decamped to Barbados, it was more a case of nights out with the lads.

Also staying in our hotel was commentator Jonathan Agnew, so evenings in the hotel bar were spoken for as Aggers and my husband mused over cricketing conundrums such as "What was going through Gary Sobers' mind before he hit his sixth six off Malcolm Nash in one over in 1968?" Aggers was so impressed by his answer to this that he arranged to have him interviewed for the Today programme. The gist of the interview was supposed to be: "England supporter in Barbados - what do you think of the boys so far?" It actually went something like: "What does your wife think about spending her honeymoon at a Test match?" Answer: "She's responding well to treatment", and so it carried on. Not a mention of Atherton's Barmy Army, just Lindsay's barmy honeymoon. Everyone heard this interview - they all choked on their cornflakes as my husband chuckled over the airwaves into their kitchens. It was almost a very short marriage.

I have survived three seasons since, and have decided that it is a ridiculous game. Just look at the field names - silly mid-off, deep square leg, short third man and short fine leg. As for the bowling - googlies, yorkers and chinamen. Last week, I began to wonder if you could really call it a sport at all as I watched "The Bluemantles" and Hurlingham Club pass the port after lunch and tuck into cakes and scones at tea. It has not escaped my notice that the England team have been doing rather better lately, but I don't put it down to New Labour; I just think they've cut out the scones and clotted cream.

I am standing firm - I have never and will never make a cricket tea, and I refuse to let every weekend be subsumed by this eight-hour game. I have even introduced a new lbw rule - "Lindsay before wickets".

Playing the game: Slazenger V 100 Utimate Extreme bat (being used by Australian batsman Mark Waugh in the current Test series) pounds 189.99; balls from pounds 6.99 each; Lara International helmet pounds 40; pads pounds 40-pounds 105 a pair, gloves pounds 14-pounds 50; Gunn and Moore trousers pounds 22.99 and shirt pounds 17.99; boots pounds 25.99-pounds 59.99; protective box pounds 2.99, and a "coffin" to keep it all in pounds 60. All from Lords Shop, Lords Cricket Ground, St John's Wood, London NW8, 0171 432 1021.