maqh just cruising along

1. We were playing in a local team competition, 4 people a side, 2 bowls each

2. The aim of the game is simple: to leave your bowl as close to the jack as possible

3. Bowls are asymetrical and they turn one way once rolled and it's kinda tricky to get it right and stop where you want it

4. It's quite a distance from where you bowl to the jack and sometimes it's hard to say which bowl is closer

5. Teams bowl in turns and everyone goes twice before their partner has a go so the bowling order is (A - team A, B - team B): A1, B1, A1, B1, A2, B2, A2, B2... A4, B4

6. The last person to bowl in a team is called a captain and until it's his time to bowl is standing close to the jack and telling his teammates the current score and which way to go is the best

7. It's not easy to be a captain, usually when you have to bowl there's not much space around the jack left

8. The team score for one end (8 bowls from each team) is calculated as the number of bowls closer to the jack than the closest bowl of the opposition - see example below

9. If the closest bowl belongs to team A and the other one to team B, team A gets 1 point (lowest possible score in one end). If both were bowled by team A and the next closest one by team B, team A gets 2 points etc. Hope that makes sense :)

10. Scoring sheet, single end score in left column (both for 'we' and 'they'), overall score in the right one

11. 12-8 after 8 ends, we played 2 hours every week which usually meant around 15 rounds

12. And the most important thing - after few close loses we finally won on our last week!

13. Good thing about playing at Scarbourough is that even when you're losing you may find something interesting

14. Like a nice sunset :)