After the Open Day we welcomed two new members to the group, Pat and Peter B, who turned up for their first bowl on the 8^th August.   There were 11 of us so we split into 3 lanes and things went with a ‘bang’.  Unfortunately newcomer Pat, who was chatting to the three others on her team, went to bowl her first ball and with ball in hand, tripped and fell. Naturally the sound of a heavy ball crashing to the ground, alerted us all.  Brushing herself down and laughing she then went on to bowl for the next two hours not realising she had broken her thumb!  She says she will return when her thumb is healed and considering the injury she bowled well.

Only Margaret improved on her highest scores achieving a series of 239, 30 more points than previously.  Congratulations to Tim for bowling a Turkey (three strikes in a row) and to Anne L for almost doing it missing just one pin on the third ball.

We almost lost Polly, our faithful spectator, who was swept off her feet by the young lads on the adjacent lane.  Fortunately common sense prevailed and she re-joined us full of tales of chivalry!

At the next meeting Tony arrived with his new bowling ball – it looks absolutely super rolling down the alley displaying its blue streaks and totally outshining the dull ‘resident’ balls.  Anne W returned after suffering a broken finger (not a bowling accident!) and although not bowling her best was over the moon with her two strikes in a row- no pouting today just happy to be back with the group.

The winning team of the day was Kim’s (with Tony & Diane), scoring a game total of 360 and a series total of 1016:   The highest score of the day was 158 and 4 of the 13 bowlers broke their personal records:

Tim, now bowling with much more consistency, beat his personal series score by 20 points reaching 357.

Chris bowled her highest game and improved on her previous score of 123 by 1 point to 124, she went downhill after that but still managed to get 325 in her three-game series beating her previous best by 29 points.

John H, who joined the group fairly recently, continues to get better and he too had a personal best score of 135 and a series of 372 – well done John.

Don’s a dark horse – he bowls quietly and thoughtfully, no fuss, and as the afternoon went on he got better and better and after refreshments bowled 128, his highest score and a series of 311, also his highest.  Keep it up Don.

Next meeting is Thursday 5^th September.

Diane Caulkett