Aching bones and ten pin bowling.

After breakfast and a shower, I walk Normy as far as the farm down Carr Lane, it is a clear day, but cold and damp, the arthritis in my joints, doesn't like this weather and I can feel it especially in my hip. There are very few people about this early on a Sunday morning, just two teenage boys walking a couple of spaniels, which keep ducking in and out of the hedgerows. After taking Norman home, I check the sauerkraut I have cooking in the slow cooker, with the small, smoked gammon joint nestling in its centre, that will form our dinner this evening, and then drive to Beverley and church. I park outside Rolando's cafe in North Bar Within and then walk through the Bar to Saint John's for ten thirty Mass. Father David is conducting the service this morning, so Roy must still be ill, but the hymns are better today and the congregation sings with more conviction. I say a special prayer for Leslie and deep down, I wish The Lord would take him, as all I can see for him in the future is pain and suffering. Living to a ripe old age can be a mixed blessing. After church, I walk up Wood Lane, across Saint Mary's Terrace onto Albert Terrace and pop in to see Felicity, delivering a small Madiera cake, that I bought yesterday evening from Tesco, whilst buying Leslie's fruit? The old girl is in good form and we laugh and chat over tea and cake, which she says is very nice, until I tell her it came from Tesco, ( Felicity was part of the unsuccessful campaign opposing the store in town). " I think I prefer Marks and Spencer's Madeira", she says. They taste identical to me, although the latter is half as much again as Tesco's. We are then rather bitchy about a mutual acquaintance, with a rather hectoring personality. "Like having a conversation with an answering machine", she says, and I quip, "press one for pedantic, two for self righteous, or three for outraged". Felicity collapses in a heap and then we chide ourselves for our lack of charity. Barbara is to give a talk on the history of our commons at Saint Mary's Hall, and we both intend to go. I still haven't seen Barbara, to buy a copy of her booklet on the subject. Apparently she was at the Poppy Seed yesterday. I leave around twelve thirty and drive home to give Norman lunch and make more tea and a couple of oaties for me, as I am taking Andrew's girls bowling at three and don't want to bowl on a full stomach. When I arrive, Rebecca has decided not to come, Sam's mum and dad, Mike and Pauline, are baby sitting, and Becks just wants to play on her Nintendo DS. So I give her a hug and Laura and I go on our own. The Hollywood Bowling Hall is next to the cinema at Kingswood and I haven't been since Clement was about twelve, almost nine years ago. The place is packed and the noise from the busy lanes and the inevitable video arcade games, is deafening, I phoned in advance to book a lane for four o'clock, but they tell me they are running a little late and ask me to collect shoes and turn up at lane 16 for a quarter past. Laura wants to go in the video arcade and plays on a "shoot em up", tank battle game before progressing onto motor bike racing. A family vacate the "Air hockey", and we manage a couple of games before it is time to collect our shoes and make our way to lane 16. A dad and his two sons, aged about eleven and eight are playing in our lane and they are half way through the frame, so we sit and watch. It takes another twenty minutes, as the dad is a respectable bowler and is trying to coach his boys through every shot. They on the other hand, are more interested in winding each other up. I get the sense that this is their day out with their dad, who may be divorced from their mum. It is quite sad. Eventually our turn comes round and we input our names, Laura first, but the touch screen won't respond when I press for the lane sides to be left up, and moves on to "player two". Seemingly of its own volition, so I input my name and manage to persuade it to leave the sides up for me, and then Laura and I change identity. She bowling as David and I as Laura. Even the smallest bowling balls are too heavy for her and although there is a bowling frame, that youngsters can roll the ball down, she prefers to try without and claims to have lost strength, as she hasn't been for a while. When I first joined the army, fifty years ago next May, I used to bowl regularly at the Harewood Club, in Catterick, that was run by the Naafi, but haven't bowled regularly since. The technique, like riding a bike, never leaves you and I can still put the ball down the lane, but no longer with any accuracy. The major change over the years, is the pain in my arthritic left hip, as I bend my knees to release the ball smoothly. Laura enjoys the game, which, despite her lack of technique and strength, I only win by the odd point, although my only objective was to keep the ball on the lane. We bought a couple of soft drinks while we played, and these plus the arcade games, cost more than the actual bowling. It is only when we emerge into the fresh air that I realise how oppressively noisy the place was. When we get back to Sam's, I chat to Mike for half an hour and then drive home for dinner with Norman, but first we have a little walk round the village. Our sauerkraut is mild and subtly flavoured by the juniper berries I added and the sweet, smoky taste of the gammon. Normy just has boiled potatoes and meat, I don't risk the effect of sauerkraut on his digestive system. Later, I read a little more of "Lincoln" and then have another early night. I feel tired and achey, ibuprofen doesn't seem to affect the arthritis, so I suspect last weeks cold may have been something else, which hasn't quite cleared yet. My golden rule is "if it isn't better after two weeks, see a doctor!" It will be two weeks on Thursday.