Photo of the Day July 25th

Chris and I did something a little different with our Saturday morning this weekend, and put off our weekly trip to the Farmers Market until after attending an open house and free lesson at the Elmwood Lawn Bowling Club. It's something that I've always thought might be kind of fun to try, and after chatting with Chris I learned that he used to pass a lawn bowling club on the way to visit his grandmother and always thought it looked interesting. After running into the club's president at this year's Gathering on the Green I decided "why not give it a try?" If you have a keen eye, the Elmwood Lawn Bowling Club can be found down a small alley in Old South, and as it's quite literally in the centre of a residential block it's surrounded by the backyards of homes. It's a little oasis of tranquility, which certainly adds to lawn bowling's reputation as a genteel sport... a sport that I now know is more than just rolling a ball across a lawn. The "bowl" itself (the ball in question) is not actually round but asymmetric and is weighted heavier on one side than the other, which means it will arc to the left or right of wherever you actually aim it depending on the weighting. Successfully getting the bowl to end up anywhere near where you want it be is definitely a learned trait that requires some practice. The rules and terminology are quite similar to those of curling, so I imagine anyone who enjoys curling in the winter would appreciate lawn bowling in the summer. Despite getting rained on during our lesson both Chris and I enjoyed ourselves, and we plan on going back again to see if it's something we might like to do on a more regular basis.

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