On Friday 22nd September 17 ladies of the Growing Old Disgracefully group ventured forth on our planned adventure.
We caught the tram from Hucknall Station (at a suitable time not to be called the ‘Twirlies’) and travelled south to the stop at University Boulevard (well most of us did, some of us disembarked a stop sooner, to have their own adventure). However, this did not matter as our destination was located in the middle of these two stops. Our destination was the Nottingham Croquet Club, which has become our annual pilgrimage for 3 years, where we take part in Croquet with lots of fresh air, sport and fun.
For over a week prior to our outing, there had been so much rain that we thought we would have to cancel our excursion due to water laying on the lawns, but the afternoon before, the sun came out and miraculously dried the lawns enough for us to play. The weather continued to be good to us as we played.
We started by meeting our volunteer coaches in the Pavilion and we were placed into teams to play Golf Croquet and then we separated over the 3 lawns that we had booked. Having played Croquet before we revisited the rules and the technique of swinging the mallet, only to find Golf Croquet was totally different.
We were told that we would be playing a ‘knockout game’ in order to have 2 winners (a team) by the end of play. We started to play. This is when it really became interesting and competitive. By the time we reached semi-finals, members were thwacking the balls instead of gently hitting them, lining up their mallets and having their team members show them the right way to hit the balls and taking divots out of the grass with the force of their strokes.
The overall winners were Marilyn Gretton and Kim Haddaway
WAY TO GO GIRLS!
Obviously, we will be repeating this pilgrimage again next year.