Believe it or not there are a load of preconditions when it comes to writing for CricketEurope.

Barry has a guideline template and it contains some fairly rigorous demands- for example- Impartiality when reporting on club cricket and in the main, with no club affiliation, I'm usually fine with that.

Impartiality at Interprovincial level is still clearly a work in progress, while I'm a bit better at sitting on the fence in the International arena.

For the past few years however I have struggled with the last box on the form which simply reads- "Don't mention rain- nobody wants to read about weather, especially bad weather."

Those words were ringing (quite literally) in my ears as I walked, nay waded, across the outfield at the Holm to the safety of the Passat one Saturday afternoon in July. "How", I thought to myself, "am I going to write 1200 words on what has collectively in the North West been 16 overs of cricket in total this weekend without some sort of reference to..." well, you know what to.

Maybe he wouldn't notice if I slipped in "precipitation" or "unseasonable climate"; dammit I won't even have to use the "r" word because today it was hailstones!

Quite simply it has been one of those seasons.

If, in 80 years time someone decides to chart the history of North West cricket, the 2016 page, and probably the one before it too, will be an A4 photo of somebody waterhog-ing covers.

Some grounds were hit harder than others but to be honest, most just made the best of it.

Obviously it was slightly different at Bready when it came to representative cricket. Umpires at that level simply don't entertain the idea of playing if there is the slightest sign of dampness.

No doubt the club itself is well aware of any drainage issues but the fact is that if there is a problem, a little help instead of tut-tutting (is that even a thing?) would be of more value.

Elsewhere, in case we were in danger of seeing the season out without a drama, along came the 29-day rule to fill the void.

I'm sure everyone has their own views on this but the gist of it is that we have an interpretation in our rule book that differs slightly from the version in our online regulations. To complicate matters the Union voted to extend the original rule (15 days from original date of fixture) because of the amount of, errrrm....heavy cloud liquid that fell during the summer.

The 15 days were unanimously extended to 29 at a meeting at Beechgrove, but somehow morphed into 29 days "from date of postponement" when amended in the online version.

I think we can say with some degree of certainty that we'll have that fixed for you as soon as the curtain falls.

Despite all of this however it has still been a really enjoyable season and there have been some fantastic highlights.

It has been a brilliant year for Ardmore with leagues, cups and doubles all over the place, and who knows, they mightn't be finished yet. Decker also moved on to century 99 but only time will tell if he'll give it one last go in 2017 and give the hacks the chance of a few more handy headlines.

A good year for Fox Lodge too and plenty for the likes of Eglinton and Newbuildings to look forward to in the seasons ahead.

I was sorry to see a massive club like Strabane relegated this year but to be fair to them they seem to be taking it in their stride. I doubt if they'll be away for long.

On the Interprovincial front, our campaign to have Munster added to the series starts now. The Interprovincial package is a fantastic one for Irish cricket but it had three obvious flaws this year that need ironed out.

Firstly, the series needs a million percent more club buy-in. The only way to do that is to market it properly, including taking the Warriors out to the clubs. If our players had regional contracts they could be out coaching at clubs up and down the North West and that would help attract more of an identity which is sorely lacking at present.

The second one is the schedule and here I have to doff my cap to Simon Dyke who took the time at the start of the season to reply to an article I had written, outlining why the schedule had to be so compact this year. Hopefully when CI sit down with all parties this winter they will be able to carve up a much less frenetic programme for the Warriors in 2017.

Thirdly, we need to get Munster in and ensure that players (particularly CI contracted players) are not press-ganged into playing for Unions where they have little or no allegiance. Both ourselves and the Knights are light years behind Leinster at present and it's unlikely to change in this 3-year cycle as the current rules stand. The series needs to be competitive but it also needs to be fair.

So that's the world put to rights for another ten minutes but before finishing I'd like to wish the best of luck to the three clubs still in contention to win the North West Premier League.

I hope the **** stops long enough to allow the best team to win.