A Day on the Green

Rosewood Bowls Club at sober o'clock



If you live or know of Australia you'd be picturing some kind of music festival with a title like this. If you live where we do, there's no other kind of green, especially on a staff outing.  Tearing ourselves away from work recently on a Monday we startled the older folk of the local bowling club by booking them out for a bowls afternoon. 

The invites stipulated 'best bowls gear'.  For some that meant all whites, grey hair spray, hats and the whole caboodle. The first boy that walked into the bar with his hat on was told off by the barman for wearing a hat in the clubhouse (ladies can wear hats, so I did).

We were given our scorecards to fill out, told the rules, provided with bowls and shored up with drinks, then taken outside to actually play.  In 35 degree heat, it was last thing we expected - to actually bowl. The karaoke machine we'd hired beckoned, the cheap vodka mixer drinks, the dip and crackers, the wheel of cheese and above all, the conversation. The ladies room is what impressed me the most, tucked away in the back corner of the club, just before entering the ladies bathroom, is the ladies room, with 4 pink armchairs, pink walls, surely a refuge away from the men on play days.



The white wonders

All afternoon long, one of the two older (is it polite to say elderly?) men who were waiting on us, started to prepare our dinner (all inclusive bowls and dinner package for $15, bargain - we blew our budget at Christmas). He lovingly peeled every potato, carrot, chopped finely all the other things for our dinner.  We all felty guilty but joyous at the surely wonderful roast dinner to come.

County folk dont wear white, just hats

 Out on the green we were all a little bit crap.  My sister was there, 'the bowls nazi' as known by some by the end of the afternoon.  She kept everyone in check,  Which was good because for an hour we didn;t realise that we were all playing with  mixed sets of bowls and scoring may have been a tensy bit biased (no pun intended). By the time all of our party were there, it was well on 3 drinks o'clock, and in the hot sun, it meant that someone in every round kept 'accidently' bowling the wrong bowl, which really pissed Alysia off.

I made a very fluky good bowl, which was noted within the club house by a lady bowler at the bar (the same lady later did a head spin on the dance floor, followed by the splits - no kidding, she was one of the original white hairs who we had orginally felt precious about). All in all, it was a hysterical afternoon.  However, all was not yet done.


Some folk think its the other kind of bowls

 The roast dinner which had lovingly been prepared over 4 hours was delicious, with potatoes only like Nana can make, with a fantastic crunch (oh so naughty). Jelly with custard and fruit followed. Then...karaoke.

It started innocently enough, but after 'Vanilla Ice' performed, we had the drag show, followed soon by the head spinning senior citizen. Flanked by backing dancers in all white, every performer brought something new to the floor until the giggles meant everyone was thirsty again.

By ten o'clock (approx 12 drinks o'clock in the old time), the fridge of vodka mixers was down to the flavours that no body liked. Then the maxi taxi turned up.

All tucked into bed by 10:30pm.  The lady 'nazi' bowler had to leave early the next day for home.  However we had the sweet sense of satisfaction that Pop would have been proud, but not of the singing....