For what it's worth, I have found that trying to survive in London is actually a lot like trying to survive in the Premier League.

Some very good things happened in NCU and Irish cricket in 2015. So, here are my positive(!) reflections on the seven months that I have spent working for CricketEurope since the World Cup.

There was no column last week, I was sick. This is a Good Thing, since I could not write about our trip to Waringstown.

Now, in a bizarre volte face, I'm going to be positive about sport in Ballymena. Unfortunately, the sport is golf.

'I am just going outside and may be some time.' These were the words uttered by Lawrence Oates in 1912 when he sacrificed himself to the Antarctic elements.

Sightscreens laden with sandbags went flying, top edges and toe-ends carried into the Braid, and at least one of our seamers who was running into the wind is still trying to reach the crease.

The argument that cricket is 'growing' in the NCU cannot be sustained. In fact, it has been steadily declining over the past twenty years - fewer teams, fewer matches, less cricket being played during these matches.

The column this week is not really about cricket, but then neither is the tournament - the Twenty20 World Cup Qualifier - that CricketEurope is covering.

These are the days of miracles and wonder - now we have won twice in five matches. Elsewhere, we have been forbidden from providing anything like 'live' coverage of the tournament.

I didn't say much about our defeat to Waringstown last week. These matches are no longer close and the gulf in class does not require explanation. The whole day, however, fitted perfectly with Ballymena's two mottos for 2015.

It's a different - and longer - blog this week that analyzes two things: the Irish attack and the myths of the eight-team league.

The long-delayed open-top bus tour of the town centre has been planned for the week ahead, when we shall proudly parade the four points in front of our adoring public.

In the last two matches that I've played, I have been the subject of some fairly snide and unpleasant comments relating to my work for CricketEurope.

It is a rare thing to describe your own suicide to its conclusion, but that is what I shall do. Perhaps it is all that I can do, because there is no other way to describe my dismissal against Instonians last Saturday.

I've made it. Or at least I had done for a few hours on Wednesday. Why? I had my own parody Twitter account.

Four weeks into the season and we have suffered four defeats in four different competitions.

I will not talk about it very much, except to the psychotherapist I hired first thing on Wednesday morning.

My first 'white ball' match in Ireland, my first chance to 'take the black' in Ballymena's colours. I did not make an auspicious debut.

It was so wet that we and Lisburn agreed not even to try, so I cannot regale you with tales of early teas, or changing-room cricket -

Scores of 301-6 versus 259-5 belied the notion that The Green's square has been in terminal decline.

Michael Taylor begins his new weekly blog with a look at Ballymena's prospects for this season.