Memories

First indoor bowls match this evening, against Somersham Bowls Club. Four per team, two bowls each. The match starts at 8.30pm for two hours. That's a 10.30pm finish and a drive home afterwards, wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy past my bedtime. Hate to think what it'll be like on a frosty January evening. There'll certainly be no chance of catching a cold inside. Far too hot and clammy.

I'm playing third. Arrive at 8.00pm to watch the earlier players. A chance to judge pace and line. Doesn't really help. My first bowl nearly punches a hole in the opposite ditch. Second in the ditch too. Send four of my first six bowls into the ditch. Definite memories of the only other time I've played indoors, in 2013.

Comprising three novices and a decent skip, it takes seven ends before our team scores. By then we're 1-15 down. Manage another couple of singles to finish losers by some margin, 3-24.

The degree of finesse required is mind boggling. Their skip is excellent, rolling his two bowls within inches of the jack. On another rink heard the skip say 'just another six inches'. How can you adjust to such exactness when it's already taking the lightest of touches to deliver the bowl?

And the line? Need to aim halfway into the next rink. When your subconscious is telling you 'Don't be silly, it can't be that far over' it's a real battle not to deliver too narrow. Get the right line and length and for the first three quarters of the bowl's trajectory it looks for all the world as though you're going to end up outside the rink. In the last quarter your bowl starts to really turn, coming in at right angles. You're convinced it's never going to make the distance, but it does. Very satisfying when it happens. And you're stood transfixed for about four times the period it takes for an outdoor bowl to arrive.

So a frustrating evening. Surely I'll do better next week. At least I didn't manage to take the wrong door for the men's changing rooms and end up in the broom cupboard, as I did so many times in 2013. Here's the scorecard.