Ouch! That really hurt. As losing skip, I’m not sure I have the inclination the rake over the gory details of this particular drubbing. We’ll see if the pain subsides. JW

OK, it’s a week on and much too late to recall much of the detail but I guess that for the public record I should say something about the highlights (or perhaps more exactly, the lowlights) of this game.

It started off a very balanced game, with the teams evenly matched. But at the fourth end, it looked as if the wheels might be falling off for Team MacConnachie – John Mac had the hammer and he needed it. By the penultimate stone, Team Waterlow were lying four or five stones to the good and John Mac’s options were very limited – a tap-up was about all he could try. His stone set off and John knew he was so far off the brush that without even waiting to see the result of his throw, he headed for the gents for a tissue to stem the annoying nose-bleed that he was suffering from (and, no, I hadn’t hit him!). But amazingly, unseen by John his stone brushed one of the front guards just sufficiently to get it through a gap that wasn’t there – he had pulled the loss down to just a single stone and the game was all square going into the fifth end.

After that it was Team Waterlow’s wheels that fell off. It’s a blur now but we couldn’t do a thing right while Team MacConnachie just rolled serenely on. We didn’t win another end. The final end was the final straw – Team MacConnachie were getting stones in the house, Team W were not. I thought for my last couple of stones I could pull something back but no, nothing, not a thing; nada, zip, zilch, sweet frog all! Six stones against and a match to forget.

Surprise surprise, we won. Not sure how we managed it, but I think we got Cornerkicky and Superlube on a bad day. So bowled over, can’t remember the details.

We had Snudge back from extended leave in the sun in South Africa, lead; Keith second and Geemo at third.

Team Herd lost the toss and elected to go yellow. We managed to get a well-placed stone early on and opted to protect it as best as we could. Blue were unable to shift it, but the opposition was piling in the blues. Panic stations!  In the final count that early stone counted, one up against the head.

Second end followed much the same pattern with well-placed stones from the lead and second with guard stones the option for later players. Close play continued, with no build ups from either side, but repeated failures from the blues and good stones early on from us served us well.

Sixth end saw Geemo not quite with it, asking me to play a guard on last stone. After much arm waving the penny dropped and he eventually set things for a draw through a gap and onto a back blue. Success.

Last end saw the Blues getting back into the game and a three was on the cards. Superlube was asked to carry out one of his specials – unfortunately he was off-line and managed to take out his own stones leaving only one counting. Yellow was lying second.  Decision was to protect this stone leaving blue with only one counting.

Kind regards

Ken.