One word? When seven would do…

We met up with some friends today who we don’t see nearly enough of as various things in both our lives contrive to keep us busy at the wrong times to get together. We sat with our diaries shortly after Christmas and arranged a date for the first time we were all free – some three months later and today was that day!

It had been left to me to arrange what we did as Clare was working all week so on a bit of an ‘oh shit I was meant to arrange something and now it’s Thursday’ whim on Thursday I phoned them up to suggest ten pin bowling and lunch afterwards. They have a 4yo son A and it was the first time bowling for all three kids so I guess it was probably fairly experimental but it all went well! We know them as Ady and I worked with Matt at B&Q many years ago (I will gloss over the fact that many years ago Matt was also my first kiss and my first love 🙂 ), we lost touch over the years but sporadic contact and an eventual invite to his and Clare’s wedding, a return invite to ours and us having children a few months apart have brought us closer again even if we rarely manage to meet in person (Matt brought A to our Halloween party).

I had concerns over whether Scarlett would be persuaded to wear the shoes at all so that was the first hurdle to overcome (this worry was twice compounded by the fact that a) this is Tarly we are talking about, notoriously strong willed about everything with a particular tendancy towards choosiness over clothes and footwear with the main prerequisite being a definite pinkness to either before she will deign to be seen in them and b) I still bear the emotional scars from my own eighth birthday when I asked to go ice skating,. Me and my four carefully selected friends arrived with my parents at the ice rink to find it was closed for an extended Christmas period and ended up going bowling by way of compensation and I cried for the whole game cos I hated the shoes and they didn’t go with my outfit (specifically chosen to compliment the anticipated ice skates – can’t picture it now but this was 80s so it would have been fairly Jayne Torvill-esque by definition!) and yes I do know where she gets her, erm, ways from thank you!) Anyway, she was quite cheery about the whole business and as you will see from the very poor quality picture beneath she looked very cute in them. (picture was taken with mobile phone camera – for possibly the only time in the kids’ lifetime we went out without a camera – we did realise half way there and seriously considered turning back. Typically there were about a million excellent moments we wished had been caught on camera 🙁 ). Davies and A were similarly happy and the three of them thundered about trying to choose balls.

Anyway, it went very well considering… they have barriers up each side of the lane to stop the balls from going down the side gullys – which all the grown ups used to full cannoning off the sides effect, and a slide type contraption which you can stand at the end of the lane and roll the ball down instead of actually bowling. In retrospect we should have booked two lanes and had the kids playing on one and the adults on the other as with 7 of us playing it took the best part of an hour and a half and all the kids were waning a little by the end. Not sure what the kids scored (totally irrelevant given the fact that they all seemed to be bowling for each other and none of them demonstrated any real comprehension of what was going on!) but I am proud to report Ady won and I came a very respectable second 🙂 🙂 🙂 Quite a cheap event too as Tarly was free so something I think we might well do again – this was the all new spangley bowling alley in Brighton but there is one in Worthing which we might investigate as a good rainy day family event. I used to go quite a bit when I was younger – infact I did an extra credit course thingy at college of bowling (although I rarely used to go, I used to pay someone else to sign in as me so I got the credit and could go to the pub instead!) and I celebrated at least 2 subsequent birthdays there during teenage years (having preplanned a suitable outfit to go with the shoes natch!).

Matt bought drinks for us and I had a coke (in a bucket sized cardboard cup of course) which Tarly seemed to drink most of. Neither of my two have fizzy drinks very often – infact this was probably only about her third ever taste of coke and she certainly got the taste for it – infact she could not be prised away from it 🙂 Not sure whether she liked the sugar hit, the caffine buzz or she was working on the basis that if it was Mummy’s drink then there must be an alcohol content to it but there was a noticable spring to her step followed by an inevitable crash a while later 🙂

We went across to a beefeater for lunch, which was predictably overpriced, poorly served and not particiularly delicious 🙁 I had two very large glasses of wine which meant I got louder and more relaxed about what the kids were up to – until Davies and A started running around with a couple of helium balloons and the waitress got to them to tell them not to before I did – both Ady and I were cross with Davies about that one as he *does* know how to behave in restaurants 🙁

Tarly fell asleep on the way over to my parents and would not be roused – it was 3.30 and despite only having a half hour power nap that set her up til gone 9pm tonight (she also had two episodes of tears and tantrums – one when she pinched my arm (although I now conceded it was not deliberate) and I really yelled at her – it must have really scared her as she looked terrified and could not stop hiccup sobbing for ages afterwards, and then she got stuck down the side of her bed faffing about and I told her off again and went to pull her out hurting her leg in the process – guess she’ll be having nightmares tonight about being screamed at by me whilst being chased by huge bowling balls whilst being trapped inside a giant glass of coke and wearing non pink footwear!).

We arrived at my parents a whole hour later than the very latest I had told them we would be there to snatch a last hour with them before the car came to take them to the airport – Frazer is coming over for dinner tomorrow! He hates being home alone so I think he will be around a bit over the next couple of weeks.

Yesterday night was a bit sad – our friend Bruce came over having made the break with Jean last week. When he pulled up on his motorbike Ady went to move our van so he could put it in the garage overnight (he slept here) and Davies who was just about to go to bed asked who was here. I replied Bruce and he asked ‘Oh and Jean. I like Jean’. Ah 🙁 Cue a very speedy chat about how sometimes grown ups decide not to be a couple any more. Needed to handle this right as I don’t want him to dwell on it as too much of a possibility for every couple he knows, particularly if he overhears or witnesses an argument, but I did need to be quick so as not to have Bruce appear in the middle of it. He seemed to grasp the idea ok although I anticipate some thought through questions on the whole issue at some point in the future knowing Davies 🙂

And that was today 🙂 Tomorrow morning we have not a lot planned, tomorrow afternoon over to Chris and Julies for some garden play (might take the bubble machine actually) and tomorrow evening Frazer over for dinner – and that will be another weekend over!