First Club Game at Vilamoura LBC

Tuesday January 13^th I played my first game since the end of the playing season in Canada. Twenty three club members and I showed upon by 1:30PM so that we were able to play three rinks of fours. I played lead and a reasonable number of my bowls survived to contribute to the score. I had practiced for a couple of hours on two previous days so I was able to at least be behind the jack most of the time when I wasn’t right on it. My team had the second best performance on the day and each team member got to choose a bottle of wine. I took a Portuguese red on the theory that the local organizers would make a better choice than my own random selection from the store.  I had a few glasses at supper and was not disappointed!

In the game the similarities with Canada were:

·         There is no center line

·         Most bowlers automatically place the mat at the two meter line

·         The green  was  about the same speed

·         There are no practice ends

·         Participants are very friendly and welcoming

The differences were:

·         The bowls are kicked back to a position behind the mat

·         It is assumed that the mat is going to be placed at 2 meters by          the team

·         Participants do not faithfully were their name tags

·         Participants do wear their club shirts

·         except for one set all the bowls used were black

·         most of the sets of bowls were Taylor Lignoids but they didn’t        play any wider than my Vector VS play on grass at home; that          is my aim point was usually around the boundary marker

·         the match was 18 ends (but the air temperature was only 16 C)

A very thankful difference from Canada was that the clubhouse did have a bar so we were able to have some lubricated socializing after the match!