“Norm!” I cry, giving a hearty back-slap to a man called ‘Norm’.

Big A follows me in. “Norm!” he echoes.

Norm gives us a sheepish look, like a defence barrister concluding his explanation of how the blood got into the jelly. I pull out my deeply unfashionable shoes from the bowls bag and return him a kind smile.

“It’s just that we weren’t sure whether we’d see you again,” persists Big A. “There was quite a lot of swearing and everything.”

Norm shakes his head. “I spent most of the next morning apologising. It was just, with tempers running high, and then words and stuff, and then he [jerks head] got involved, and…”

“We’re not really used to fights at bowls,” I reflect. “I think there were a couple of raised voices last year when a mobile went off inappropriately, but no actual physical violence. Did it come to that in the end?”

“I think it was just a bit of silly squaring up,” confirms Big A.

“Nice of you all to go straight afterwards, leaving me on my own to sign the cards,” complains the Club Captain, a man with a beard. We make apologetic noises.

“Anyway – good to have you back here,” I assure. I like Norm. He is a jovial and friendly chap; one of those people who is the heart and soul of a club.

My deeply unfashionable shoes are donned; I take my woods and my mat out onto the green to participate in a satisfying draw. There are no blows exchanged.

“This’ll be all right,” I tell Big A.

We leave our bowls bags in the car and saunter towards the pub. He has a doubtful expression on his face.

“Pint?” I enquire.

“I’ll follow you in,” he replies, indicating his cigarette.

I am unused to going to pubs that are not the Village Pub these days. I mean, I go elsewhere for luncheons and the like, but not for drinking. Having seven pints further afield and then driving home is a bit frowned upon, even if Gordon Brown and his meddling nanny government haven’t quite yet got round to banning that last particular pleasure we have.

I walk into the pub.

“WAAAAANKKKAAAAAHHHHHH!!!” is the noise emanating from the saloon bar. It is not aimed at me, just at the world at large. I blink, and order a Guinness.

Taking a look and listen around, I have walked into the family bar. It is the family bar because it is full of children running around being shouted at by their parents. I decide that it would be more hospitable to walk through to the other room.

“You CAHHHHHHHNNNNNTTT!!!!” explodes the other room. Big A enters, looking around doubtfully.

“I thought we’d stay and drink these in the family bar here,” I explain.

There is a whirl from beside me. A barmaid scoots in from the other room and hides behind the door, breathing heavily. A colleague hastens up to her and provides reassuring words, clasping her shoulders firmly.

“It sounds quite busy next door,” I ask the landlady.

“Just some high spirits,” she replies. I glance at my watch. It is 6.15pm.

I am thirsty, so I do not linger over my beer. We leave and wander over to the bowls green. The Village Pub provides a microcosm of the gritty reality of life in 21st Century Britain, I know – but I sometimes wonder whether I should expand my horizons a bit more just so I don’t get insular about the world around me. I would hate that to happen. In a way, it was quite nice going to a pub that was a bit more lively and had some young people in it.

Later on, I lie in bed watching roaches climb the wall. I do think of giving my dad a quick bell so that he can stop it all. But he is on holiday, in Cornwall.

The Children’s Entertainer smiles brightly.

“And does your granddad still do that?”

“No. He’s dead.”

There is a short pause whilst the Children’s Entertainer processes this information. “Shall we do the Hokey Cokey now?” she concedes.

I turn to the Chipper Barman, who has the face of a man who would rather be in the Village Pub. “Did you ever consider Children’s Entertaining as a career?” I ask.

His detailed reply is cut short by the approach of one of the Village Young Mums. “We saw you going for a run the other day,” she offers, clearly impressed by my sporting athletic prowess.

I shoot her one of my best wolfish FILFy smiles. “I…”

“We did wave, but you didn’t wave back. I’m not sure that you could lift your own arm.”

I am crushed by this, and it renews my determination to get my body back to its previous tempicular state. Somebody approaches with left-overs; I take a hot dog and a slice of pizza. It will not be easy, but it will be worth it.

A small child approaches and grabs the Chipper Barman.

“These are our Saturday afternoons now,” I call after him, as he gets pulled away screaming into a swirling morass of children.

Run! Run! Run!

Through the gate, across the road to the tiny bus shelter, up the hill towards Eddie’s and Eddie’s house. My MP3 player blasts fashionable and motivational running music in my ears.

Is this another one, I ask myself? Another false start? Another stuttering and short-lived attempt to fend off the lumbering and inevitable onset of middle-aged fatblokeness that forms the horror of my own doom?

Or am I just going for a run.

Truth be told, I have been afraid. That is why I have put this moment off. I am not afraid of many things, apart from big snarling dogs, people who merge with the motorway at forty-five miles per hour, pubs with no real ales and blue lights in the toilets, being given two tickets to see the band ‘The Feeling’ for my main birthday present, forgetting to cancel my free Sky trial subscription, comments (0), a Clegg government, the LTLP, the LTLP deciding that she wishes to become a man, discovering things contain marzipan, other big dogs that look like they might start snarling at some point, social situations, phone calls out of the blue from Tim Smith from the Steve Wright show saying ‘I hear you have a spare ticket for the band ‘The Feeling’, do you fancy going together?’, last orders, putting petrol in the diesel car, being caught re-using jokes, people who like snowboarding and any form of social shame whatsoever. But I am afraid of running.

I am afraid of the pain that I know it will cause. I am afraid the pain will, basically, hurt. I know that I will need to feel the pain before the running becomes easy again. But that does not make the fear go away.

I continue my run. Up the hill, towards the war memorial.

There is a famous bit in the Superman film where he flies so fast, so incredibly fast, that time itself goes backwards and he is able to go and rescue Lois Lane.

My running is not like that. If anything, the opposite is happening.

I put on a spurt as I pass Eddie’s and Eddie’s cottage. I would be embarrassed for them to see the slowness of my running, should they be looking out of the window in case of passing runners. I slow my spurt immediately I am past their gate. I need to reserve my energy, as I will require another spurt when I get to pass Len the Fish’s, and the Village Shop, and the Village Pub.

It has been an odd few weeks. I am working a lot more than I am used to, which is ‘a bit’, and I have been trying to stay away from the PC screen in my spare time so that my eyes do not fall out and I stop getting headaches. I have had to remember what I do when I am not pissing around at the PC screen. It is a depressingly short list.

Run! Run! Run! I stagger on, the Anti-Sportacus. I am so scared, I am hardly moving my legs at all. To call it a ‘trot’ would be pushing it. I abandon my spurts policy. Hopefully nobody will be standing outside the Village Pub smoking, and I wil not be laughed at.

Big futuristic buildings start springing up around me, and the world falls under the rule of giant ants.

When I return home, I am grateful just to be alive. If this is what life is like away from the PC screen then it is harder than I realised. The pain is there but, to be fair, it is not as bad as I’d anticipated, which, to be fair, was very bad indeed.

If I am going to do my triathlon then I will need to do much more of this. It hurts. It hurts. But I cannot just give up again.

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The LTLP stands with hands on hips.

“Don’t tell me,” she threatens. “It’s another…”

“It’s a railway sign!” I exclaim delightedly.

“It’s another railway sign,” she agrees. “You really are the saddest, saddest…”

“It’s really nicely made.”

“The place is starting to look like some sort of period signage museum,” she complains, inaccurately.

Later on, we are sitting in the comfortable swinging seats in the garden. My gaze falls on the gable end of the cottage. Despite my resourceful erection of trellis and the picturesque foul drainage downpipe, the wall is mostly a plain slab of bricks that lacks interesting features. I mull this over for some time.

“You know what would look really good on that gable end?” I muse.

“Would it be, perchance, some sort of large painted vintage advertising sign?” she replies sarcastically.

I must have mentioned my good idea previously. I keep quiet for a bit.

“Actually that would be a really good gable end for a rousing mural,” I suggest. “It is a shame that there is not more sectarian violence in the Village.”

I am told that I am not allowed to paint a mural on the gable end, nor even any slogans.

The rain whips horizontally across from the south west, blattering us in its raininess, threatening to sneak its wet fingers inside my anorak like a drunk girl at a bus stop. I grit my teeth and search the horizon for some blue.

My opponent’s wood skids across the green, water spraying up behind it as it goes. She is a very pleasant elderly lady, with whom I have already enjoyed a laugh and a joke. Her wood comes to a halt several yards short of the jack. Again.

Bowls is a very tactical game, and one of the key skills is knowing where to put the jack. Sometimes, you will find your opponent is very good when the jack is a long way away – in which case you will try to roll it short. Conversely, some prefer the shorter game – in which case you will try to bring it to rest right at the end of the green.

“It’s no use,” she turns to me. “I just can’t get it that far. I’m not strong enough.”

I return her a weak, guilty, smile.

It is one of those accepted things that is not exactly gamesmanship or unsporting or cheating, but is just a bit awkward, especially when you are playing a nice old lady who is just a bit weak in the arms. I avoid her for the rest of the end.

“Put in another long one,” hisses Nigel as we cross over for the next go.

I make mumbling noises. I do not want to be unkind. I am not Robert Mugabe. But nor am I Nelson Mandela. I am somebody in the middle, like Kenneth Kaunda.

I throw the jack quite long; long enough to be a bit difficult for somebody with a bad arm, but not as long as I could so that she might think that it was an accident. She gives me a reproachful look. Nigel gives me a reproachful look. I have tried to please everybody and now they all hate me. It is typical.

The rain eases off after a while, and the green speeds up. My dilemma vanishes with the drying grass. This is the thing about bowls. It is a microcosm of life, but with unfashionable shoes.