'Twas the week before Christmas

With only one week to go before Christmas, six people were still determined to come and play croquet. Lured possibly by the promise of warm mince pies, and not deterred by the threat of fog which fortunately did not materialise, Carol, Jane, Pat, Patricia, Sharon and Steve turned out for the last of the winter series tournaments on 18 December.

The format was the rather sociable “all play all”, which certainly makes the tournament organiser’s job much easier as the players themselves sort out most of their playing order !  By lunchtime, there was no obvious front runner, three people sitting on two wins each. But that changed after the 4th game, leaving Steve Morton and Pat Winning to play for first place.  It was quite close, but Pat closed out the game at 7-5 to win the prize bottle of bubbly.  Congratulations to her.

Everyone tasted victory during the day, which always creates a good feeling.  Jane made quite a speciality of taking opponents to hoop 13, reportedly to get her money’s worth from the tournament fee!  In the spirit that characterises these events, everyone pitched in to help set up and take down.  And people were notably observant of the requested Covid precautions.  

A good day to bid farewell to the 2021 tournaments, then.  

Chris Webbley