Following in the Fabulous Family Footsteps…

On Saturday I am going to have a go at something I’ve been meaning to do for years. There is a strong family tradition in this with my Grandfather on my Dad’s side, My Dad (Ron), his sister Jessie, her husband Bernard and my Mum. I also dabbled in playing this myself when my daughter was about 3 months old.

Where or What am I dabbling in? Lawn bowls. As you can see, there is a strong family involvement with the sport. I played for a brief time when my daughter was a baby and I have said before now that I’m sure there weren’t many women who joined a bowling club and were breastfeeding! My daughter used to sit quite happily in her pram while Mum played on the green. If she got a bit fussy, there were ready, willing and able ‘Nannas’ to give her plenty of attention.

I can’t remember how long I played, but the demands of work and motherhood meant it was difficult to keep up. My Dad and my Uncle and Aunt were very good and all three would often ‘skip’ their teams – they were the ones in charge – and guided the other players as they played. We have often said if there was a celestial bowling team it would be interesting to see who would win the right to skip the team. All being strong characters, that would be an interesting team to manage.

So, now it feels right to get back to bowls. My husband often works on a weekend and so Saturdays could be free if I wanted to go for a ‘roll up’. I have a photo of my Dad in his whites in my study. Here it is below. He is the handsome chap who has just released his bowl. I wonder if it was a goodun’?

The time feels right to embrace my heritage and play bowls again. I really am getting to be a white haired Nanna doing Nanna things! What with crocheting knee rugs (like my Nanna did), baking (another family tradition) and now potentially playing bowls, all I need now is a rocking chair and I complete the image.

So, this Saturday I am going for a roll up and hopefully my Aunt will join me and we can have a bit of a laugh and see how we get on. All good clean fun and we can socialise a bit and I can get to meet some more people in my community.

Now that I have had my knee surgery, although still a bit stiff and sore at times, doing more activity like playing bowls will probably do it good. Hopefully, I will meet some nice people and make some new friends. My Dad would have been diagnosed with Parkinson’s at that stage and was maybe 10 years in. If he can manage a pretty decent game of bowls then I’m sure Parkies and I can too!

Roll on the Saturday Roll up!