Snookered!

Today I want to introduce you to my friend Eric.  He and his wife ran a small shop in what, if it were a larger town, would be described as a suburb of Diss, where I grew up.  A baker, a butcher, a fish-and-chip shop and a little corner newsagent/tobacconist serviced the local residents who lived about a mile away from the town centre and, alongside all these other essentials, was Eric's little grocer's shop.

You will gather that this was all many years ago.  If Eric were still alive, he would be well into his second century.  I believe the chippie is the only one of those shops still remaining.  Some shop fronts have disappeared into private residences, others demolished to make way for new enterprise and the post office is reduced to a plate on the wall and a pillar box on the corner.

I met Eric and some of his friends when, as an apprehensive teenager, I explored the remnants of an air-raid shelter.  This had been built onto the front of what had once been the primary school, set at the corner of the churchyard, although the original structure hadn't served in that capacity for some eighty years.  I had learned that here, two nights a week, men gathered to play snooker. What had sparked my interest in the game I have no idea but, having taught myself the rudiments from library books, I had long practised at home, placing books around the edges of the dining table and using marbles and a garden cane for balls and a cue.  It was these - to me very old - men who showed me what the game was really like.

These days my snooker-playing is done using an app on my tablet (words that would mean nothing to Eric, of course).  Although the principles are the same, the techniques are totally different.  However, the realism is sufficient to persuade me - most of the time - that I'm playing against a real opponent ... until 'he' makes a questionably naive error of judgement, or counter-intuitively allows me to take a shot that leads to a frame-winning break. Many a time I smile to myself and remember wise words told me all those years ago, "It's no good playing for, and achieving, perfect position to take the black next shot ... if you miss potting the red in the first place!"

Have you noticed the way life has of reminding you of wisdom like that completely out of context?  This happened to me the other week, with just those words.  I'd spent an afternoon on line searching website after website to find a place for my summer holidays.  Now I've sold the motor-home, I shall be using bed-and-breakfast facilities and I wanted to find somewhere that would be enjoyable in itself, but also provide a base from which to explore the local area.  Finally, I found an old coaching inn on the North Wales coast.  It was at a price I could afford, and was near to many places I could visit either by train, bus or with the car.  Click!  The booking was made.

Within seconds, I had printed out the details and, very soon afterwards, received an e-mail from the agency confirming that I had booked ... a room! Eric's mischievous laughter rang in my mind down the years.  I'd taken so much trouble to find the right place, with the right transport facilities, at the right price ... I'd missed the all important first meal of the day!  Fortunately the inn does provide breakfast; it just means that my 'bargain price' isn't so much of a bargain as I'd thought.  But it will give me the flexibility for an early start, should I need it, when I get round to planning my week in detail.

Back to today;  I've just returned from what has become an annual church event: the posy party, in which coffee and donuts reward an hour - or less! - devoted by a dozen or so willing men to a little production line, the output from which is sufficient bunches of daffodils so that every woman in church tomorrow (Mothering Sunday) can receive one.  The year marches on ... holidays are just around the corner!