Rollin' a Lawn
(by Hunter)
Last weekend we participated in another classic Aussie activity…we went lawn bowling. A sport favored by the geriatric set, it is similar to shuffleboard on grass, but with balls. (It occurs to me that the previous sentence could be interpreted a few different ways – please take only the most benign and direct meaning.) Similar to shuffleboard, horseshoes, and bocce, the main object of the game is really just to gab with your mates and drink beer. Why this sport isn’t catching on with the younger set, I can’t fathom.
To introduce us to this Australian institution, we talked our dear Aussie friends Ania & Tom into joining us on the pitch. (Tom is actually Aussie-by-marriage, but he has a convincing enough accent now to earn the title) Neither of them having ever played (!), we ended up getting the club staff to help us out.
The club staff set us up on a pitch well away from the very serious looking gaggle of white-clad octogenarians where our errant bowling wouldn’t cause consternation. Ania proved that she did know a thing-or-two about bowling after all by immediately fetching beers. Tom and Ania’s adorable young daughter Ella was provided with her very own mini bowling set which she put to immediate use in a far more spirited version of the game.
Lawn bowling is intended to occur in a down-and-back fashion; roll balls in one direction, then walk across and play them back again. Since glass was not allowed on the pitch, it effectively meant that snacking and drinking was limited to every other round (short of walking all the way around the pitch rather than directly across it). This would not do. A game of this effort and athleticism requires frequent nourishment, so we straight away altered the game to play in one direction only. Our version works thusly – roll the balls down the pitch and then stand around chatting; eventually someone decides it would be nice to play another round and fetches all of the balls from the other end. Brilliant.
Candace especially took to the game, and was already talking about her potential to “rule the green” with a bit o’ practice. I haven’t seen her this excited about a game since that croquet weekend with Brett in Seattle.
More pics of this day of exertion are available at:
http://share.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=EeoNm7lwzasYq
Last weekend we participated in another classic Aussie activity…we went lawn bowling. A sport favored by the geriatric set, it is similar to shuffleboard on grass, but with balls. (It occurs to me that the previous sentence could be interpreted a few different ways – please take only the most benign and direct meaning.) Similar to shuffleboard, horseshoes, and bocce, the main object of the game is really just to gab with your mates and drink beer. Why this sport isn’t catching on with the younger set, I can’t fathom.
To introduce us to this Australian institution, we talked our dear Aussie friends Ania & Tom into joining us on the pitch. (Tom is actually Aussie-by-marriage, but he has a convincing enough accent now to earn the title) Neither of them having ever played (!), we ended up getting the club staff to help us out.
The club staff set us up on a pitch well away from the very serious looking gaggle of white-clad octogenarians where our errant bowling wouldn’t cause consternation. Ania proved that she did know a thing-or-two about bowling after all by immediately fetching beers. Tom and Ania’s adorable young daughter Ella was provided with her very own mini bowling set which she put to immediate use in a far more spirited version of the game.
Lawn bowling is intended to occur in a down-and-back fashion; roll balls in one direction, then walk across and play them back again. Since glass was not allowed on the pitch, it effectively meant that snacking and drinking was limited to every other round (short of walking all the way around the pitch rather than directly across it). This would not do. A game of this effort and athleticism requires frequent nourishment, so we straight away altered the game to play in one direction only. Our version works thusly – roll the balls down the pitch and then stand around chatting; eventually someone decides it would be nice to play another round and fetches all of the balls from the other end. Brilliant.
Candace especially took to the game, and was already talking about her potential to “rule the green” with a bit o’ practice. I haven’t seen her this excited about a game since that croquet weekend with Brett in Seattle.
More pics of this day of exertion are available at:
http://share.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=EeoNm7lwzasYq
posted by Hunter Williams at 3:43 PM
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