Granny's Bowling Season

Ready for an indoor bowling session...

I do love a game of bowls. Indoor bowls. Short-mat bowls to be precise.

Short-mat bowls has little of the high-tech, razzmatazz of ten-pin-bowling to be sure. Nor the wider aspects of the outdoor game which is played on fine green lawns in all kinds of British weather! This is a game created for small venues and has been scaled down from the longer rinks of purpose-built indoor bowls clubs, especially to fit into village halls and community centres.

The sponge-backed mats are around 13 metres long and are set down with a block of wood across the middle for added interest (and annoyance)! A game of great skill, it's rather a shame it suffers from a dull image, as it can get very competitive and noisy at times! Many, indeed most of the players are senior citizens who enjoy the socialising and buzz of competition and it's good to see folk getting out and about, visiting different venues.

Often our club hosts other teams from our local league and vice versa. The groups usually turn up in team colours and their bowls, which are weighted so they move with a bias, are marked with coloured team stickers. My own bowls are quite small compared to some of the those the gents use, so I am disadvantaged sometimes as mine tend to rebound off the bigger ones. Conversely, I can sometimes use their smaller size to 'trickle' through to the small, heavy cott (or jack) via narrow gaps!

All teams observe the formalities of a friendly handshake at the beginning and end of each practice game or competition match, and we generally have a good experience though some, it may be said, take the game a lot more seriously than others.

It's a pity more young people don't play either long or short mat bowls. One or two are now coming through and I must say jazzier clothing and the newer coloured bowls are a step in the right enticing direction. They're proving very popular and lend bright touches to the rinks. Our team shirts too have brightened up. We are now kitted out in white with orange and black trim. Very snazzy!

Our small club usually languishes somewhere in the middle of the league tables but this season, dressed to kill, we're determined to be promoted. We shall see...

A recent competition...

http://www.shortmatnorfolk.co.uk/

Miscellaneous

Miscellaneous adj: Mixed. Varied.

Containing many different kinds.

What a splendid word miscellaneous is! Although it's fairly long and 'weighty', as words go, it trips nicely off the tongue. No trouble. Clean as a whistle. It sums up the whole and gathers it all together tidily in one place.

In my kitchen we have always had a 'miscellaneous drawer', essential if you are a 'doing' family. This means that if you are looking for a triple-A battery, the nail scissors that normally live in the bathroom or the sticky tape that has gone missing from the study, a scrabble through the oddments in the kitchen drawer will probably reveal just what you are looking for.

Safety pins, string, calculators, old mobile phones. Marbles, mini-screwdriver set, hair clips. Should you need a golf ball for any reason, (none of us plays so I really don't member how long it has been in there or from where it came), or a die for a tossing in a board game (we haven't any that require such a thing either), or a magnet. There they are. Look no further.

Behind its anonymous drawer-front things initially appear chaotic. They are: and yet it is a system that works brilliantly. Instead of senselessly binning 30 year-old McDonald's give-away kid's toys, there they sit should a random child come along wanting. If a new acquaintance mentions that they collect stamps, I can unearth three choice examples from the Bailiwick of Guernsey. If I get so desperately hard-up that I need to consider making approaches to the pawn shop, I might just be tempted to part with the heavy silver bangle I made in evening classes nearly fifty years ago. Might be worth a few bob. You never know!

They say success breeds success and I can attest to that for I now also have a large open 'miscellaneous basket' on the worktop for assorted objects unsuitable for the miscellaneous drawer since they are almost exclusively linked to me and I can keep them (almost) neatly in one place.

My last-minute wants and needs are generally concerned with my handbag. Small notebooks/pens/pencils. Spare lip-balm. Rolled nylon shopping bags. Neatly furled pairs of gloves of the wrong shade for the current bag/boots I'm using and en transit to the glove drawer in the lobby. String for playing with the cat. Entry tickets featuring a grand castle in France that I just like to look at. Ditto a programme for a Japanese Exhibition in Berlin. It has a beautiful Geisha on the front and has been knocking about for nearly ten years now. It's clipped to a small poster advertising Engudisman and Yule that makes me smile. Classically-trained musicians, I remember their comic genius South Bank show. Can't part with either of them. Good memories. Both outings were gifts.

Sometimes I dare myself to just lay newspaper on the kitchen table, tip out the contents of both drawer and basket and chuck stuff in the bin. Not easy. I do feel much, much better though after I've cleared grit and dust from beneath the miscellany, wiped off sticky finger-prints and felt-tipped pen smudges and picked off oddments of blu-tak. Then, as I reinstate all my 'treasures', I can at least justify my actions by admiring the fresh topsy-turvy order I have brought to bear on the miscellany.

Upfront Engineering

Engineering works of a personal kind!

Granny bought a new bra today and as she unwrapped it, closely studied its construction.

Why I hadn't studied it more closely before I don't know. It's not as if it was a different style to my usual. It is my usual and I've been wearing it for years and years! Maybe it's the colour. I usually choose white or black but for a change I thought I would 'do different' as they say in Norfolk and buy flesh-colour.

I have always been aware that this style of brassiere is a highly complex piece of construction, so much so that I always refer to them as my 'Boadicea bras' simply because they rather resemble what I imagine an armoured chest piece, constructed in metal would look like. That said, although not exactly riveted together, they are still not remotely glamorous but they do the trick and give me a secure and pleasing shape.

I should love to have graced the odd glamorous occasion when I was younger and able to wear sensuous plunging bras of satin and lace but given my mundane style of living, think my 'sensible' affordable choice has been for the best. Besides I can't see myself ever being able to afford Peller and Rigby or any other top-notch under-garments at around £100 a pop (if you'll pardon the expression), so I don't think I'll be changing over any time soon.

Anyway, on much closer inspection, bra construction is it seems, somewhat akin to industrial engineering (and personal body-armour) what with hoist, lift and separation.

Roughly sixteen pieces of fabric, strap-rings, adjusters, fastenings and bows all matched and joined seamlessly but with seams (if you know what I mean?).

They are 3-D jigsaw puzzles of endless sizes, colours and materials all constructed so carefully as to be non-rubbing next to the skin. Quite a feat don't you agree?