In the past couple of months I have kind of been lamenting the fact that we had seen a real drop off in the amount of people that are going to the bowling alley with us. I only say this because in the past we used to have so many people attend that the piece of paper that I would put everyone's name on would often end up needing a second row and we would need all of the lanes.
it was a few weeks ago when only 11 people turned up that I started wondering if we should even do this anymore.
Well last week we ended up having the most people that we have had in over a year and it was great fun.
It's tough to tell by just looking at this but we have occupied nearly every lane in the alley. I always try to avoid using the lanes that are against the walls and that is just a personal preference. They might actually be the best lanes in the entire place for all I know.
With this many people we had to use all of the lanes except for the one at the end that had customers on it before we arrived. I had said in the past that the lanes doesn't allow anyone to use the lanes during about a 1.5 hour window when we come. We never asked them to do this for us they just did it on their own and I am quite happy that they do so because we would be in trouble if they didn't. I never really know how many people are going to turn up. It could be 11, it could be 25. I never want to put more than 3 people on a lane because it just takes too long if we put more than that. Ideally, I would love it if we only ever had 2 people per lane.
Bowling with our groups isn't necessarily a competitive thing though, it's more a social thing. It's a good thing that it is social because lately I have absolutely sucked and I can't seem to do anything about this. I don't know what the problem is.
I used to be the champion of this league and was one of the best players. Most of the time people just assumed I was going to win and I would regularly get scores near 200. These days I am barely breaking 100. I don't know what has changed or what I am doing wrong. I use the same ball that I have always used and as far as I know I am standing the same and my approach is always the same etc. The ball just doesn't go where I want it to. I think that I am going to have to go and practice on a non league day if I am going to sort this out.
I was recently relegated from the premiere league and and rightfully so. Now that I am in the 2nd division (the lowest one) I was kind of expecting to easily be in the top 2 of that division but that is not the case. I wasn't in the top 4. I wasn't even in the top 10. There was a girl that joined us for the first time ever in her life and she bowled better than I did. I've been bowling for around 35 years.
I laugh it off but it kind of does bother me.