Well, yesterday I wrote a post called ‘there’s a fine line…’ and I have been thinking about how things went yesterday. Just reflecting on the game and perhaps trying to analyse why the other team played so much better than us. Of course, one reason is that they are known to be two of the best bowlers in our Under 5 section.
I was just pottering around watering my greenhouse and the backyard and wasn’t even consciously thinking about the game I had had to cut short. However, a thought occurred to me that was something I hadn’t considered. As I said before in my previous post, Margaret and I had played a competition game of 18 ends that morning. We had lunch and while having lunch one of the members of the other pairs team came and asked us if we would like to have our match that afternoon to get it out of the way. Both Margaret and I agreed, thinking it made sense to do so.
Now, a few things occurred to me, while watering my greenhouse – which I find really therapeutic – and I thought I would share them, because I had a bit of a lightbulb moment!
- Margaret and I had played a competition game of 18 ends that morning. This much we have already covered.
- Margaret and I are – if not classified as ‘elderly’ yet or are we – in our mid 60’s and mid 70’s.
- The two people we played the game against had been at home and had not played that morning like we had.
- Both of them would be at the very outside late 40’s to early 50’s, so significantly younger than either of us.
- If I had truly taken the time to think this through, I would have realised that we were agreeing to the match that day mainly because it suited both of the other team members.
- I would have realised too that we were in fact disadvantaging ourselves because we were both bound to be tired that afternoon, after already having played a competition game in the morning. Although we did not win, we did not lose by a huge margin.
- We both played well in the morning and played much worse in the afternoon because I at least was already quite tired when we started.
- The other team members were fresh and relaxed and coupled with the difference in age, had the advantage over us before we even picked up a bowl.
The more I think about it, the more I think that we were somewhat foolish to agree to play the pairs competition when asked, simply because it suited the other players. I’m not saying they deliberately set up the game that day knowing that we would be disadvantaged because we would be tired when we started. But we did start at a distinct disadvantage.
No blame being apportioned here. If I thought about it more I would have asked to play on another day and the outcome might still have been a loss, but more likely to at least having a more respectable score on our side.
Lesson learned.
My journey with Parkinsons 