The Lad's Day

Basically, bowling had been planned for about a week, but all the girls dropped out. I was quite excited really, I don't think we'd ever had a day with just the guys...

So, James and I walked from Abbots to hollywood bowl (about 40 mins) and met Ewan, we knew Tom was on his way and so decided a game of air hockey would pass the time, my phone rang about halfway through, Tom arrived, and I lost to James. Annoyingly, we had to book when we got there, for an hour later on, so we all chipped in for pool and racing (and an abysmal attempt on a dance machine, we blame the converses). I lost every game of pool and owned the racing (obviously).

When it was finally time to bowl, I had pretty much set myself up for two straight losses. We set up with no barriers (because we're guys and wanted the competition value) and began. I started off with a 9, which is normally my average, not bad, but no strikes or spares =/. On my second bowl, I hit a strike, we were all shocked. In the end the last frame looked like this: I had 80 points, Tom had 78, Ewan had something much lower and James was about to bowl with 78 points, 2 points needed to win. Amazingly, he got a gutter ball twice! I was ecstatic. However, I was slightly disappointed that it came so close even though I had scored two strikes (everyone else only had spares), shows how low I was scoring otherwise.

The second game approached, Ewan got four gutter balls on the trot, I scored two more strikes, James and Tom got spares, and I finished in first with 86 points. A record by my standards, the only person ever to get two wins in a row before has been Tom. A good day :p

We used up our remaining cash between us on the big air hockey table, an air hockey tournament and a doubles game of pool. The air hockey tournament was pretty intense. Tom finished up with Ewan while James and myself were still on 1-1 (possibly the longest rally of the day) but James eventually shone through and beat me 7-4. The final: James vs Tom. it was looking good, James was 6-3 up on match point when he spilled his slush puppy all over the table, adding a whole new dimension to the game, I couldn't help noticing that James was now getting wet whenever Tom sent one up the middle :) James pulled through though and finished up.

Our doubles game was quite good too, 'twas James and me vs Tom and Ewan. Ewan and James kicked off, Tom made first pot, leaving me aiming at spots. I took the longest shot possible and pulled it off, before taking another one. A very impressive start, Tom and Ewan began to look a little nervous. Unfortunately, it didn't last. I missed the black on in the closing stages of the game and Tom took the game.

We'll most likely be making regular trips for the pool in future, when we're back for the sixth form and all getting ourselves a little extra money. I look forward to it.