Last Saturday started out beautifully lazily. I’d worked the previous 2 Saturday mornings so this one was all about being in bed with a mug of tea listening to Andrew Castle on LBC.

I started to get peckish but this didn’t bother me. During the week there had been light hearted mentions of my delightful colleague Shelley coming to my house on this morning, letting herself in and bringing me a sausage and egg McMuffin in bed. By half nine though there was no sign of her so I deduced she was sleeping off the effects of going to a Madness tribute band the night before.

I needed food though as Craig was coming round on the afternoon for a light drinking session so I headed to Brewers Fayre. My usual table was occupied and the place was full of kids but they were all sedate and not running around so that was good.

I found an alternate table and waited for a couple of people to depart from the cereal bar. Mainly because I didn’t want anyone to witness my usual trick of combining Rice Crispies and Cocoa Pops. I appreciate that I have probably gone down in all of your estimations with this disclosure but I care not.

Anyway, spoons do not come as standard on Brewers Fayre breakfast tables. I couldn’t remember where I got one from last time and a quick hunt around didn’t reveal any. Undeterred I went for a latte, and there were no spoons there either. So no sugar in drink. No stirring of it either. I wondered if they have to cover all bases in case the character from the Big Train sketch with the spoons phobia comes in.

I eventually acquired a spoon and breakfast was good. I headed home, Craig arrived, let himself in but didn’t bring a sausage and egg McMuffin to present to me in bed. Boooo.

We set off as bowling was on the agenda. As we hit the top of Park Street I noticed that Pure Gym had closed down. I explained to Craig how we’d welcome this as Walsall is the fat capital of the country and we don’t want gyms. We want places to eat. This point was reinforced nicely as we got to the Crown Wharf Retail Park and noticed that a unit that has been empty for a while is now being turned into a Burger King.

The bowling alley was busy. Seriously busy. We were told it would be 10 o’clock before we could have a bowl, and this place has 20 lanes. It was currently approaching 4.30. We declined this. I’m glad the place is proving popular though. I decided to use the facilities whilst there. As I passed the cubicle I noticed a Budweiser bottle on the floor next to the loo. Full respect to that bloke, refusing to waste drinking time whilst having a dump. There was also a pink balloon in there, the back story of how that got there still intrigues me.

We had a go on the epic Space Invaders machine to make the visit worthwhile and then departed. We headed to Brewers Fayre. It felt a bit odd visiting a place twice in one day, and the same staff were on but I’d changed outfits and they didn’t clock me so all good. I could have done with one more latte from my free refills on the morning but opted for a Strongbow Dark Fruit instead.

The quiz machine was not working so we grabbed a seat and watched scores coming in. Walsall were drawing 0-0 at Carlisle. On the way down Craig had got some stats on his phone. Apparently we’d had 20 attacks, 2 of which were dangerous. Typical Walsall FC that, playing a beatable team but fannying around with 18 undangerous attacks.

From there we went to The Oak Inn. The music in here was REM, The Killers, The Cure, The Clash and others of this ilk. I needed this. The day before at 3pm a work colleague had changed the radio station so that last 3 hours of the day was just thud thud scratchy scratchy music. It felt like God was saying “yeah, yesterday was just a test. You passed, this music is your reward”. Cheers God. I won’t get into heaven because I’m a twat, so I’ll take any rewards from him while I’m still here.

I wanted Quavers so asked for a packet, Adam the landlord produced a full box of them and asked if I wanted that. I can eat crisps like sweets but didn’t fancy carrying a box round all night or having to sneak it past the bouncers at The Registry.

From there we visited The Registry, purely because I needed a pint of Inch’s.

In Katz it was retro gaming as per normal. We played something called Back Street Soccer. Craig battered me in the first game. My keeper made save after save after save. It was like my outfield players had joined the Winter Of Discontent and gone on strike. I couldn’t even muster an undangerous attack. Then as injury time started my keeper launched the ball long, straight to my striker who blasted home. Proper route one. John Beck would have been very impressed. With that totally undeserved victory in the bag the pressure was off for the second game which I won 3-1.

We switched to Ms Pac-Man and my Ms was seriously hungry, gobbling up ghosts like they were a bowl of Cocoa Pops and Rice Crispies and ran up two hefty scores.

From there we headed to what was Blue Ginger on Bridge Street, now called Gurkha Bhojan. There were a few people in so Craig queried how long we would have to wait, thinking if it was going to be an hour we could just grab a take away from elsewhere. I wouldn’t have minded waiting an hour had I got that box of Quavers to keep me ticking over but the waiter reassured us that we wouldn’t have to wait long and so it proved. The place is now licensed which wasn’t the case last time Craig was here so we didn’t go that night. The food was good. It’s dearer than Blue Ginger was but still worth a visit.

From here we headed back to mine. It was a great day to be fair. Anyway, thanks for reading. Sorry the blog has been quiet of late. I would write more but I have a closed gym to walk past on my way to Burger King.