Friday was only my 3rd day of annual leave from my new job in 6 months, so it had to be a god one. I mean there is no such thing as bad time off work but this one needed to be epic. Craig headed up from Coventry and I announced that before we did the pubs we would be trying the new bowling alley that opened this week on the Crown Wharf retail park.

It was pissing down so we called a taxi. They sent a minibus which I thought was a bit excessive. maybe we’d need one for the return journey when we’d impressed all the ladies in the bowling alley with our skills but not now. The driver took a right at the bottom of my road instead of the left which is the usual way to town and promptly got us caught up in the traffic for the local primary school.

It was just over £6 per person for a game of bowls and I think it gets cheaper if you book more. We opted for one game, bought some booze and headed to the lane. I always thought I was decent at bowling but not this time. My first 6 balls all went into the gutter. I then had the humiliation of Craig putting the buffers up for my shots. He then got a strike. Yep, another strike to add to this Winter of discontent.

Craig wiped the floor with me on the bowling. For some reason all my shots veered to the left. To the left to the left. Bloody hell. I must be turning into Beyonce. At least now I can buy those sparkly gold hot pants that I’ve had my eye on.

We had a bit of a mooch around afterwards. The massive Space Invaders machine was ace, and we also had a go on a Pac-Man based basketball game. I didn’t quite get the Pac-Man relevance but it was great fun. Although one of my shots bounced out the court and hit Craig on the head causing me much hilarity. I didn’t need the buffers up for that bit of accuracy.

I’m a bit of a Monopoly geek so I had a go on a spinning wheel type of game. For my quid I got one spin, landed on Leicester Square and got 40 tokens. I wasn’t impressed. I handed the tokens to Craig and announced I was off for a piss and he could give the tokens to someone nice.

It’s a good set up in this place, there is a laser quest type thing there, karaoke pods (which I was all over until I saw it was £20) and escape rooms. I like the idea of the escape rooms but I’d need one with a toilet in it just in case I was incredibly crap at it and got trapped in there. I wonder if they could personalise the escape room to try and make it harder. I mean stick Patsy Kensit in there wearing just a white bra and pants and I’d make no effort to escape.

We moved onto Brewers Fayre and cleaned up on the quiz machine before hitting The Oak Inn. By now I was getting the munchies so while Craig headed into The Red Lion to get the round in, I “popped” to McDonalds. Jesus, the whole world and their mom was in there. My order was no 18 and after a good few minutes of waiting they called out number 5.

Eventually I got my food and stood in the rain eating it. Craig however was having less fun. The music on entry into The Lion had been Basement Jaxx then Bizarre Inc. which he approved of Then on came a UB40 song. And another one. And another one. And another one. Upon the 5th one coming one he came out and basically told me to hurry up, as if he was having to suffer this music then I should have too as well. I went in and we quickly drank and departed as the 7th UB40 song in a row started.

We met up with Dan Gilbert and Coxy and explained why we had had left The Lion only for Dan to exclaim that he loves UB40. Which made me laugh. We headed to The Wharf Bar. There was karaoke. I was urged to have a go and despite it being free as opposed to the £20 in the bowling alley I wasn’t feeling it. There wasn’t many people in and I like a good sized baying audience when I perform. Song of the night Seven Nation Army came on in here and was followed by the classic Gangsta’s Paradise. RIP Coolio.

We left, Coxy and Dan went into The Lion which was still playing UB40 whilst Craig and I hit The Registry. Dan and Coxy arrived in there not long after so must have not really felt the music after all. Finally we went to Katz where we played Pleasure Goal on the retro arcade machine. I came from 2 down to win a game 5-4 then Craig turned into prime 1970’s Brazil and got revenge wiyh some aplomb.

With Blue Ginger now gone we grabbed kebabs and headed back to mine. The day was indeed epic and I can’t wait to go bowling again.