Everybody is different when playing bowls. Some skips are dictatorial wishing to control their teammates’ game, i.e. design the head. Some are sticklers for rules, wanting to get it all right, i.e. fair play, and others are happy to let their team members play their own game (within limits) and play their bowls to the head as they find it. You can’t criticise any of these approaches because that is bowls.

Pictured, L to R, are Susie Mears, Anne Rands, Louise Amos, Ngoc Hau and Julie Dunn, who have successfully competed in recent carnivals. Susie, Anne, Louise, Ngoc and Julie played in the Dee Why Open Versatility “Five-A-Side” day and came 5th out of 14 clubs.

Thank you to Marlene Black for again organising a fun game of “Spider” to celebrate the Queen’s Birthday Long Weekend. As shown above, the biggest challenge was trying to find your own bowl in the meandering group of members. Can you spot:

1. the one disgruntled member.

2. the one member who was looking quite pleased in being one of the first to find her bowl.

3. the two who decided to have a chat instead of locating their bowls.

A centenary is always something to celebrate and never more so than when it is one of our own who achieves that remarkable feat. So, our hearty congratulations go to Marie Milne, who turned 100 on May 5th. Although no longer bowling, Marie remains a member of our club and is highly regarded for her 22 years of service as treasurer of the Women’s Club in its Roseville days. To mark the occasion, Marianne Coningsby presented a bouquet of flowers to Marie on behalf of Lindfield Rollers.

In 1953 novelist Neville Shute published a novel called “In the Wet”, which opens in the northern outback of Queensland during the wet season. It is many years since I read the book but I still recall the oppressive humidity, the lingering dampness, the mould and the sense of gloom and quiet desperation that pervades Shute’s powerful evocation of the wet season in northern Australia.

Sound familiar? Lindfield is not in north Queensland but ….

After the deluge early this month I suspect we are all starting to think that maybe a drought isn’t so bad. Nearly 200mm of rain at the club in 24 hours is enough to test anyone’s patience, let alone operating systems and services. Let’s hope that that was a last desperate flush by La Nina and that our world now begins to dry out a bit.

Saturday, 18 December 2021 was our annual awards day. The worthy competition winners are: Neil Gosbell, Monica Fluckiger, Roger Parks, Bob Paterson, Morris Sher, Ronnie Fendel, Arnold Green, Lap Chen, Gary Forster, Ian Kimmorley and Phil Lewis.

The much-anticipated and four-times deferred Seafood Lunch finally took place at the Club on Sunday, December 12th. It was well worth waiting for, with a sell-out crowd and plenty of superb prawns and oysters, the latter being especially appreciated, delivered fresh from the North Coast courtesy of Bill Dainton.