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Sunday, August 01, 2004

Well it's dragged on for three days, but my birthday is finally over. Fired up with enthusiasm, Lisa and I made it out of bed by 11:45am yesterday morning and headed to the outskirts of Ipswich, where we wiped the floor with the rest of my family at ten pin bowling. Which was a remarkable feat considering neither of us had bowled for over ten years. Unless you count the secret practice session we had on Friday afternoon, where we honed our skills before turning up 24 hours later and claiming to be beginners.

Sadly though, confidence got the better of me, and believing that my family would be polite enough to let me win on my birthday, I challenged my parents to a second frame, whereupon my mother managed three strikes, and I promptly finished third. There should be a law against being beaten by pensioners who don't bowl. It's just not right.

From there we headed south by south-east to 'The Compasses' where we dined on the finest gourmet food Suffolk has to offer. Unless you're my 5 year old niece, in which case you ordered pizza and chips. The dessert menu offered 'Hot Cheery Pancakes', so my sister-in-law, who's quite a cheery person, went for the comedy angle and asked the waitress what flavour they were. "Cherry" was the one word response. At which point we realised we were dealing with a sense of humour bypass, and dropped the plan to send them back for being too morose.

Today, which was officially my birthday boxing day, was also the date of the 2004 Shotley summer fete. I received a text message from my sister-in-law at lunchtime asking for directions, as 'Gnome Magic' had proved to be a disappointment that morning, and they thought they'd try the Shotley entertainment scene instead. Which is what it's like around here - the only visitors we get are the cast-offs from a garden gnome centre.

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