Every year, the company I work for has some sort of outing for the employees and their partners. Since it is paid for by the company, the boss gets to choose the outing. In previous years, we have done a ropes course, had lunch at various far-flung wineries, and also been to the opera. This year’s outing was held last Sunday, and we played lawn bowls.

I had never played before, but I was in good company because 95% of the people there had never played before, either. The location was only 5 minutes from our house, which made a nice change because 4 of the first 5 company outings I went to were at least an hour’s drive for everyone to get to. Our boss doesn’t like doing things in central locations.

We arrived at 2:30, and I decided that I was going to be the official photographer, since I wasn’t really too keen on playing. Since we were playing in teams of 4, M found someone else to be on his team, and I settled down to watch, until the boss said that I had to play. Damn.

So I joined my team of 4, which included the boss and a couple that M and I see regularly outside of work. A ‘tournament’ was set up so that each team played 2 ends against every other team. I was nervous about playing, being a total beginner, but it was actually quite a lot of fun. I was hopeless of course, but did manage to contribute to a game or two, so I don’t think I was a total waste of space. Our team won quite a lot of our games, including the one we played against the team that had a member who had been practising for the last couple of months in preparation, which I thought was pretty good given that I don’t think any of us had played before.

We stopped for dinner, and afterwards played a couple more games. We had to be finished by 7, and at 7:15 we had the presentation of prizes. There was a prize for the winning team, and the second-place team, and prizes for the best dressed, best bowling style and shot of the day. The team I was in ended up winning, which everyone thought was pretty coincidental given that the boss was on that team, but I’m sure that all scoring was above board and that we deserved our bottle of wine. Heh.

Update: Check out the pictures here!