I write in praise of the local shopkeeper this week, be it the village shop or the town back street corner shop, they are a hardy and sadly disappearing breed.

On my way to my gainful employment I pass two such establishments,one in a village, the other in the town, and both are open from very early in the morning to very late at night.

Both offer an amazing variety of goods, from tomato plants to tomato soup, from firewood to fishcakes.

Now I can get these items a bit cheaper at my local supermarket, but do I get the personal service, and do I get my Rugby Times on the counter ready to collect on Friday morning? Do I get a natter about the weather, work, life, the weather, the football and the.... weather?

So I go out of my way to use the local shop because if I don't, and if you don't, it won't be there tomorrow. No good moaning when it's gone.

I well remember Mr Walford who used to keep the shop by the school in Martley.

He used to curse like a trooper when things didn't go well, and he was a church warden as well!

He always wore a brown smock, if I recall.

Another was the man who kept the shop in Happy Land in St John's. Mr Collett. He used to boil his own bacon (or ham) and it tasted wonderful. Sadly, due to 'regulations', he was stopped from boiling his own, but I can still taste it now.

It's the same with the local pub.

They too have closed because nobody used them. If they had been profitable they would still be open!

Was it not Napoleon who called us a nation of shopkeepers?

I played bowls this week in deepest Herefordshire, at Kingsland. It's my annual game really. But every time I play I think I should play more often.

It's a great game and although a lot of older people play bowls, it isn't the old man's game it used to be. In fact, my legs ached the next morning.

It's also a game for thinkers (mind, John Weston plays for the county, so there can't be too much brainpower involved.) There's lots of tactics, blocking off the opponent's shot, firing (that's blasting them out of the way) drawing, and the like.

It's also a very sociable game, because you get to chat with your opponents and your team mates as you wander up and down the green, and by wandering up and down you do get a lot of exercise.

As with all games involving balls,or in this case bowls, it can also be very frustrating, in that one minute you bowl the best wood ever, and with the next one miss by a country mile.

I wish I could play more often.

I lost three pounds on the diet this week. You can hardly see me stood sideways, and that's despite a beefburger in Oxford on Saturday!