06:45 Hopefully this is mine and Lois’s last day for getting up
super-early to let the house-painting guys into our garage and to unbolt the
gate on the side-passage, so that they can get to the back wall of t0he house –
hurrah!
And as hoped for, today turns into one of those days when things
start to go our way.
The painting guys finish about 2pm and pack up and go: we have had
to get up early for them for nearly 2 weeks, not just to get our house painted,
but also to get our driveway and path repaved – so-called “hardscaping”.
Lois showcasing the newly-painted back wall of
our house
And the other big source-of-noise, the road-resurfacing guys,
finish the resurfacing this morning and use some of the afternoon to paint the
white lines on the road. Then they too pack up and go, after 6 working days.
And last but not least, our neighbour Frances comes back from the
3-night break she spent in Chipping Camden with her old school-friend: this means Lois and I won’t have to water
Frances’s garden this evening – hurrah (again).
16:00 We sit down with a cup of Earl Grey tea and one of Lois’s
just-baked delicious home-made cup-cakes. We listen to the radio, an
interesting programme called “Last Word”. We try to listen to this programme
every week to see if anybody has died recently or not. Usually it’s about 4 or
5 people only, so not too bad!
David Bryant, the bowls player, has died, sadly, at 88 years of
age. Everybody thinks of bowling as a quiet game, an old man’s game, but David
changed its image and made it more “go-getting”. And under his label of “the
man with the pipe”, he became the international face of bowls, and also a bit of
a celebrity in particular in Australia and New Zealand.
a typical crown green bowling match, being played
by
assorted “old buffers” and “old crows”, like
Lois and me
David was known popularly and in the tabloids as “the man with the
pipe”. And people used to say that his pipe gave him an air of almost manic
intensity – yikes!
David Bryant, “the man with the pipe”, who
brought a manic intensity
to the “old man’s game” of crown green bowling
– yikes!!!
He took an early interest in the sport during his “toddler-hood”
in Clevedon, Somerset, a seaside resort Lois and I know well. David’s father,
Reg, was a keen bowler at the Clevedon Bowls Club, at the top of Chapel Hill.
David, even as a toddler, would watch his father play and always want to get on
the green with him – although Lois and I think any toddler would want to get
involved in any activity they witnessed their parents doing, so no real
surprise there!
His “glory game” was in New Zealand, when he won the world singles
title for the 3rd time. David was playing in the final against his
arch-enemy and nemesis, a Scotsman, by the name of Willie Wood. As the match
neared its end, David was trailing Willie by 21 shots to 12. The crowd were beginning
to say that David’s career was finished.
David fought back and levelled the score at 22 all, but then heavy
rain started falling. An hour later the
2 players came back on the field, and Willie Wood played 4 brilliant opening bowls
shots: but then David reacted aggressively and took all 4 of Willie’s bowls off
the rink (legally haha!!!), and then scored 3 killer shots to win, at 25-22.
What a man!!!!
David’s arch-enemy and nemesis, the Scotsman
Willie Wood,
who lost 22-25 to David in the last few
minutes of the World Final.
21:00 We watch a bit of TV, the latest edition of “Peter Kay’s
Stand-Up Comedy Shuffle”, to send us laughing on our way to bed.
Peter is very good at making his home crowd in Bolton laugh at the
some of the weird expressions and clichés we all use, like “I’ll tell you this
for free”.
Then there’s “I wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole” or “I
wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole”.
And there’s “As happy as Larry”.
What about “First things first”?
22:00 We go to bed – zzzzzzzz!!!!!!
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