A 9.30am start for today’s Winter Mixed Triples and the players all arrived, well wrapped for the start of play. I don’t think anyone believed what they saw with the behaviour of bowls during the first two ends of match play. The reason for this was that the temperature showing on the town clock was 3 degrees and the green itself was covered with frost.
We quickly found that the bowls needed more push than we thought they would need and this was because by the time they neared the other end, they were covered with ice. This not only slowed them down but also affected their direction. My first bowl looked reasonable as far as the line was concerned, but as it neared the Jack and the weight came off, it veered away from the target because of the weight of ice it had collect on the way up. Most disconcerting. We wondered if we were playing a new type of game.
Click on the photo to enlarge and you will see a bit of ice still on a player’s bowl.
If I had had my camera closer, I would have been able to show some of the big pieces that came with bowls.
On one early end, I looked down the green and saw of the 10 bowls already delivered, all but one were in the ditch; The one survivor had hit the Kitty and slewed to the right, otherwise it also would have ended in the ditch as well! After about three ends, most of the ice had gone and normal play was able to start, that is if your hands weren’t still frozen. It certainly was a very cold morning. At least by the second and third rounds, the temperature had risen to about 13 degrees and it was more like playing our normal winter afternoon bowls.
Three rounds were played and in the end, six teams had qualified; starting at 9.30am will be Bill Cleland’s team playing Hazel Rose’s team, and Margaret MacKay playing Susan Boxall’s team. Byes went to Neville Turnbull and Roy James’ Teams. (Neville’s team was the only one to go through without losing a game.)
Let’s hope it isn’t so frosty in the morning when the games restart.
Afternoon play in the sunshine.