Parenting: If you’ve got a children’s party coming up and you want to save on party bags, this will be right up your alley

WHEN Ellen announced that she wanted to arrange a get-together for her 11th birthday my heart sank a little. These sorts of events can be costly not only to the purse but to one’s mental state.

However, my spirits soared when she announced that her ideal celebration would involve bowling followed by pizza.

When we arrived at Tenpin at Fountain Park in Edinburgh, it seemed that every pre-teen with a birthday that weekend had had the same idea. The place was absolutely packed with children milling about. While it appeared to be absolute chaos, there was some method within the madness and in no time at all they all were wearing the correct size of bowling shoes and had speedily sorted themselves into two teams as I had booked neighbouring lanes for them.

Watching them, I recalled the days before the older two children could organise their own spare time. On drizzly afternoons when tempers were fraying, we would sometimes come here as bowling really is something that all the family can do. Indeed, when the boys in the next door lanes had cleared off two parents appeared with one child asleep in a pushchair and a son who looked as though he hadn’t been long walking. Using the ramp, and with a lot of his mother’s help, he could push a ball towards the skittles and somehow managed to knock a few over. After each turn he ran around as if he’d just scored the winning goal in a cup final.

Back to Ellen and her friends, who were showing off different skills. India had all the right moves, looked highly competent and was scoring quite well. Hope, who had explained that she couldn’t do the full run-up with one hand, would stagger forwards and heave the ball down the reinforced lane and in the first game achieved the incredible score of 94. Some tried tactics; Cori aimed one second ball carefully at the one remaining pin and it travelled so slowly down the lane that we wondered if it would ever make it to the end. It did, but missed completely as minus any speed, it dribbled into a corner.

The second game saw completely different scores for them all. I reckoned that in the end this really has as much to do with luck as skill and, without being an old cynic, that’s probably quite a good analogy for life for any 11-year-old to go home with. It’s certainly easier than preparing party bags.

Tenpin at Fountainpark, Dundee Street, Edinburgh. One game for an adult costs £6.99 and one game for a child costs £5.49.

• Weekend birthday parties start from £12.50 per child, for more information visit www.tenpin.co.uk