IT’S now my last few days at home before we fly to Australia on Friday, so now’s the time to make the most of home comforts. Yesterday, for example, was my last chance for some proper home cooking on a Sunday, something that I’ll miss a lot when I’m on tour. I had been away for the night, having been best man at Chris Silverwood’s wedding on Saturday, and when I got home Sarah, my wife, had cooked me a fantastic full English breakfast. Quite appropriate, really, for my last Sunday at home until January.

During the wedding, people kept coming up to tell me the latest score in England’s one-day match against West Indies. While I have been keeping track of our progress in the Champions Trophy, on Saturday I had enough to worry about with my best man duties and especially the speech. For the record, the speech was warmly received and, most importantly, the mother-in-law jokes went down very well.

For much of the past few weeks, I have been trying fairly hard to avoid thinking about cricket. Someone asked me recently if I was feeling Ashes fever yet, but for the time being I’m determined to stay immune. Over the next couple of months I won’t be able to get away from it, so in the interests of sanity I thought it wise to occupy my mind with other things.

Only when the plane lands in Australia this weekend will I tuck my novel away in my bag and start thinking about why we’ve flown to the other side of the world. We have a couple of warm-up games to get into the spirit of things and then, I believe, there’s a pretty big game in Brisbane beginning on November 23, so I’d better make sure I’m in decent fettle for that one.

Those members of the Ashes squad who have not been involved in the ICC Champions Trophy — that’s myself, Marcus Trescothick, Alastair Cook, Monty Panesar, Geraint Jones and Liam Plunkett — have had three get-togethers at the National Cricket Centre in Loughborough. It pains me to report that these gatherings have mainly featured fitness sessions and more fitness sessions, none of which have been much fun, but the first one was particularly hard work as I had just come back from Silverwood’s stag do in Ireland.

Generally speaking, though, everyone seems in good nick physically. I had a month off at the end of the season and have been working hard on my fitness since then (give or take the occasional full English breakfast), pounding up and down on the moors and doing plenty of work in the gym.

Last week I turned my arm over for the first time since the end of the season. It felt a bit strange at first but soon enough everything was clicking back into place. As Kevin Shine, our bowling coach, is out in India at the moment, I did some work with Ottis Gibson, the Durham fast bowler who is also an ECB coach.

In particular, I was practising bowling with the Kookaburra balls that we will use in Australia. They have a much flatter seam than the English Dukes balls, but it doesn’t take me long to get accustomed to them because they are used in most other countries. I also played a lot of cricket in South Africa when I was younger, bowling with Kookaburra balls, so it’s just a question of getting a feel for them again.

At Loughborough they were swinging around all over the place but I won’t get too excited about that for the Ashes because, as far as I know, none of the five Test matches are going to be played indoors. Which seems a shame if the ball swings around like that.

With four days to go before we fly, I’m still to pack my bags for Australia. I’ll probably get stuck into that horrible task tomorrow, which is when I’m expecting my consignment of official ECB tour kit to arrive.

That will include bags, kit, clothing and suitcases, all of which I’ll have to get into some sort of order before Friday. I usually start off packing quite methodically, but end up throwing everything in all at once. I’ll discover what I’ve forgotten when I get to Australia and hope that someone in the team management can help me out.

Of course, the worst part of touring is leaving behind Sarah, the rest of the family and my dogs. Sarah does not fly out to Australia until the beginning of December, a couple of weeks after most of the other partners arrive, as she has to stay at home and look after the dogs. It will seem a long few weeks from Friday until then. Especially after that fabulous full English.

Coming soon Matthew Hoggard's Ashes video diary
Exclusive to Times Online

Throughout the Ashes series, Matthew Hoggard will be giving us his unique view from inside the England camp. As well as writing his newspaper columns, Hoggard will be recording his thoughts on camera and giving Times readers a peek behind the scenes of cricket’s biggest series.

His video diary will be published on timesonline.co.uk/sport and will be free to download