"The hare's not running"

Not the best of days sport wise today. I spent quite a bit of time today on my own with Mary which was a delight as I do tend to spend more time with Tom and feel I don't even my time out as I ought. After breakfast, Mary and I went to Basingstoke to try out my new skates at Planet Ice. Arriving there at 11.30 a.m., the rink had only been open for half and hour and so the ice was very smooth. My new skates had much sharper blades than the dull blades usually carried by the hire skates and I found that the friction between ice and skate was much less resulting in me moving much faster and falling over three times - more, I think, than I have fallen over on the last six visits to the rink! The third and last time I fell over I was travelling very fast and landed firmly on my back which still hurts this evening as I write this. I was severely winded but got up and after five minutes or so sitting down was off again. Fortunately, when I fell, my back took much of the force when I hit the ice and my head only grazed the ice - unlike some very unfortunate woman who cracked her head as she went down and had to be attended to by an ambulance. She seemed to have sustained a serious injury and her prone body was coned off whilst first aiders attended to her. This resulted in skaters having to circumnavigate her and in so doing everyone slowed down and caused others to go down too. Mary and I ended the session skating very slowly around the edge - especially as we had both taken tumbles with our new skates. After lunch at KFC where we both recovered somewhat we returned to Winterslow to pick up Sara and we went into Salisbury where I parked in Waitrose's car park. Sara and Mary went shopping whilst I walked into the city centre and met Anthony H for a coffee in Cafe Nero. We spent a pleasant hour or so catching up with news about That Company and our own personal circumstances. The discussions made me feel, once more, how lucky I had been to be retired on the terms I was but also reminded me that I must not drift with my new freedom. Tonight, Mary and I drove through torrential rain (yet again) to go greyhound racing at Poole. Racing normally starts at around 7.30 p.m. but tonight it started an hour earlier. When we arrived there had already been three races (although one was voided) and so our first bets were on Race 4. Mary did a trio prediction for dogs 1-3-5 and the result of the race was that dogs 1-5-3 came in. Had she got the order right she would have won £87.00 for a 50p stake. The next (and 5th) race never happened. The hare stopped running and despite valiant efforts by the staff to get it going again in the pelting rain, it never ran again. The meeting was abandoned just after 9 p.m. After collecting our bets we left with a voucher to return again (with free admission, race card and drink) before 24 April. At least we didn't lose much money tonight - only £1.50 in total. Tom is spending the night in prayer and vigil, sleeping in all Saints Church with other members of Rockface.