An elite 5 kicked off the Newcastle winter reunion, Laura Collingwood, Chris Troughton, Sam, Joe and Patrick Keys. We started off with a couple of games of 10-pin bowling. Laura had a cunning plan to lull us into a false sense of security by knocking no pins over for the first 4 turns, then hitting the first strike of the match, and three spares in quick succession!

After a fairly low scoring ‘warm up’ game, with only Sam managing to pass the 100pt mark, the competitiveness of the three Keys took over, first to see who could bowl the fastest ball, then who could bowl the slowest! The second match was much closer, with lots of Strikes, but in the end, it was Patrick who took the game with his own ‘unique’ bowling style, which was basically to not look where he was throwing the ball, and he somehow managed to score a Turkey in the process!

After this we headed to Pizza Hut, which pleased Sam and Laura immensely. At this point we lost Patrick and Joe, but gained Rick Flower and Cheesey. After trying to eat their own weight in pizza, Chris and Sam declared that they had second stomachs reserved for dessert and that there was always room for Ice cream.

Then we all braved the north east New Year weather and headed out onto the Ice rink. After a few shaky minutes, everyone found their rhythm and were gliding around the ice with moves that would put Torvill and Dean to shame. Cheesey and Rick showed impressive skating ability, whilst Sam was trying to skate as fast as he could without being caught by the stewards, or half the people he knocked over in the process!

Then the ice began to break up in certain spots and the stewards put water into the holes hoping it would freeze, but even Newcastle isn’t cold enough for that to happen , and the ‘Caution Wet Floor!’ sign did nothing to help, except pointing out the obvious. After an energetic hour and a half, we sat down for a well earned rest and reflected on what had been an enjoyable day.