It turns out there's too much to do to allow for full-blown, lying-in-bed sickness, so, after a couple of days sleeping, I stoke up with pills and stagger up to the local shops. Apart from anything else, I'm worried they'll all close down unless I hurry back to ply them with my trade.
When I get there, I realise I may have exaggerated the importance of my custom. There's no sign that the brief loss of it has made any difference to anyone. This should make me happy, although really it makes me feel depressingly expendable.
Then, as I come round the corner by the pub, I see two young men approaching. One is talking on his mobile phone. When he finishes his conversation, he shakes his head, as if someone had punched him. 'She wants me to give up bowling', is all he says.
Bowling? Young men, (presumably he's not in it just for the free carparking)? Either I've still got a fever, or else the world has changed while I've been away.
Oy - watch what you're saying; I'm over 60! (But I do have a daily siesta.)
ReplyDeleteI would like to take her out bowling. If he doesn't, some other bloke will.
In the meantime, I hope your custom at the pills place diminishes with great rapidity.
I have a daily nap just at the moment as well - and go to bed at nine thirty (oh, all right, nine). But I'm hoping soon, thanks to Messrs Florey and Fleming, I may last till ten or even ten thirty.
DeleteMaybe she meant that she wants him to concentrate on his batting. And maybe also to practice his glovework so he can play as a 'keeper-batsman and bolster the middle-order.
ReplyDeleteYay, I was just thinking you'd abandoned the world of blogs for good. How brilliant - I'd not thought of cricket. Perhaps she's the first ever female coach of an all-male cricket team. Or perhaps not.
DeleteDuring high school, my son and his friends would sometimes meet at a bowling alley in the suburbs. I never got the impression that anybody's commitment to bowling was particularly intense, though.
ReplyDeleteI don't think there is a bowling alley here any more. There was one down in the city centre, but it's been built over now. There are numerous lawn bowling establishments, however - not sure what this says about Canberra.
ReplyDeleteHi zedders, I'd rather have never had abandoned the world of blogs ever - is that grammatical?? - but pressure of work made me do so temporarily. I think a female coach of the Australian cricket team would be an excellent idea: those 'baggy green' caps would have to go for a start - very last century without as yet being retro.
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year to you! I hope you had a good one.
What did you say? The baggy greens go? I have to lie down now. I may be some time.
DeleteYou've encouraged me to look up bowls clubs in this state, this US state, this wedge-shaped Nevada I'm in -- and there is not one, not a single one, and probably not a single bowling green either. My first thought was cricket as per Gadjo Dilo, but maybe it really was the bowling alley kind of bowling he was talking about -- maybe he's found a place, maybe he goes out after work with a group of coworkers and knocks down pins 'til midnight five days a week and she sits there at home watching the pea soup go cold and clammy and finally she throws it down the sink and watches Deadwood reruns on her own.
ReplyDeleteThere are so many levels of misery in that scenario but reruns of Deadwood are surely a downward step too far?
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