Bowling for Stew

'Twas a normal morning. Tea and milk arrived ten-ish as usual and it was sunny. But then there was a terrible quarkling from downstairs as Jof noticed that Oliver's party at Bowlplex Gunwharf was in 25 minutes. We have a bag of emergency cards for sticky situations but all of them seem to be Happy Father's Day / To Nanna on Mother's Day / Congratulations on Your New House etc so we selected one that didn't say anything at all and a mismatched envelope, shoved a £5 note in it and wrote "Buy yourself some Lego" on the card. I also put the party invitation in it for completeness but Bud removed it and sellotaped it back down again. We abandoned Jof and drove post haste due west where we arrived exactly on schedule and pretended we had planned it all.

While we waited we played Zombie Tag and then the staff girlie (I couldn't tell whether she had a moustache or whether it was the shadow cast by her huge nose) did a speech that we couldn't hear and we were off! The whole left hand end of the room was kiddie parties and we had 3 lanes, the next lot over all seemed to be Batman. You don't have to wear the silly shoes any more! All of the side barriers were up and soon came the arrythmic thumping of seven year-olds dropping heavy balls onto the runways, where they pootled slowly up towards the pins.

I came joint last in Game #1 with 79. They played Gangnam Style and immediately the whole lot of us came to life and we all hopped around being Korean Horsemen, and then got down with the trumpets.

Outside there were ladies in pyjamas doing oriental dance, some Chinese drummers and dragons, for the Chinese new year. They are months behind. My yacht was also moored in Portsmouth Harbour, nice day for it. I won game #2 with 113 and whenever there was a delay, it was because one or more of us were in the toilet.

4 candles ('andles for forks)

In fact the toilets were almost more interesting than the game. The Bowlplex reverberated to the sound of piped "Happy Birthday" 3 times in a row with a big gap in the right place and then we were all invited to the dancefloor to dance for prizes. I got in a strop and did not dance. But as I was the only one left this gave me the chance to play everyone else's game for them which they did not seem to notice when they got back from the prancing. I won with 136, for I am a quick learner.

Afterwards it was still sunny (but with a keen wind) so I elected to go to the crazy golf and the pitch'n'putt near the Blue Reef on the seafront. Both were closed. Bud ran past us while we tried to think of something interesting to do to justify the parking ticket we'd bought. Funnily enough, it was throwing rocks into the sea. It might have been cold but teenagers were swimming in the sea off the derelict pier by the Square Tower. Bud ran past us again in the other direction and dearest Followers Martin and Zoe inexplicably failed to find us, probably because of the haze of smoke from the students and their special home-made cigarettes. Jof got cold so we went home and packed up more old junk from the loft. I like hats so the Fez was a bonus.
Woo-hoo for a week off!