Return to the greens

I lawn-bowled for the first time in a couple of years on Tuesday. My old team has morphed into a new team called To Be Confirmed, consisting of Dave, Trace, Dean and Scotty. Dave is on a fact-finding mission in Vietnam, looking into the new bamboo bowling shoes I guess, and possibly looking at bringing in a big pho soup kitchen as an alternative to the sausage sizzle. So I got the call to fill in.

My first challenge was getting there. I had not options outside walking so I skived off early and strode across town. I chose the steeper yet more interesting route as I don't get to go for a recreational stroll that often. As a result I encountered customer-of-blog Matt K on his way home, a charming and refreshing coincidence. He could not keep up with my rhythmic stride plus also we went past his house so I continued alone, through back streets of the area I lived BSH (before South Hobart). It was fun, in a this-guy-has-no-idea-what-fun-is-anymore way.

The bowls - well, I was OK for being out of practice and having to use bowls I'd never seen before. We were well down towards the end, but our skip Scotty pulled out the big one, picking up 3 shots with his last bowl to tie. The 7 blokes were all prepared to have a tie-breaker before repairing to the bar, but Tracey set the seal on the scoreboard, shaking hands vigorously with the opponents and leaving the green smartly.

I walked into town to see if there was a bus, but of course there wasn't, so I walked home too. In fact I walked 11km in my clapped out sandals that day, but I didn't have to carry my bowls, so I guess that was something.