Snow: the aftermath

Winter League

I rose this morning at 6.00am and looked out of my bedroom window and it is snowing again. Was this forecast? The BBC is wise enough to not show any of its earlier forecasts so you can only look forward. The forward forecast for this morning is sleet for a couple of hours and then heavy rain for the rest of the day as Storm Bert arrives from the West. Temperatures will continue to rise as the day splutters on. So I expect that the snow will have all gone by the time I go to bed. Good ridance to it, it has hung around too long and disrupted the winter bowling season long enough.

The Winter League hopes to resume its fixture programme this coming week after the enforced break after last Monday's heavy snowfall. I never expected one night of snow to linger so long and prove to be so disruptive to our fixture programme. In total we have lost 7 days of bowling with every division impactted apart from Division 4 at Primrose Hill Lib. Their Monday playing date escaped the snow and in fact the last match played there before the snow was on a remarkably fast green as was reported at the time.

The drop in daytime temperatures has contributed to the extended break in play and may leave a legacy that has still to be realised. So when the snow finally disappears what will we be left with? Wll the ground underneath be frozen or will the snow have protected it? Will it be a smooth surface or an unbelievably bouncy one? Or will we have waterlogged greens caused by a combination of the threatened heavy rain and thawing snow?

The biggest factor to be taken into account is the safety of bowlers. If clubs are left with a frozen green which is slippery underfoot then host clubs need to think very carefully of the chances of a bowler slipping and falling and the consequences of that. It is of course not just on the green that could be slippery. Walkways around the green especially where steps are involved need to be safe for bowlers and spectators. Only where it is safe to resume bowling for the bowlers and spectators should we even consider getting back on the green. Like everyone else I hope that will be very soon.

I remember one day over the last week waking up in the morning and not knowing what day of the week it was and despite my best efforts I couldn't get any further with that. That may be of no surprise to anyone who knows me but to me it was very discombobulating as Kenn Dodd would say. Usually when I wake up in a morning I can instantly recall which greens are in use today, where I will be putting in an appearance and that automatically gets processed to reveal the day of the week.

However on this particular morning the days had got intermingled in my brain. Between having reported on matches called off and those where morning inspections are promised this had created a mass of dates and greens that provided no clue (to me) of the day of the week. It was six o'clock in the morning and maybe I am not at my sharpest at that time of day (don't ask whenever I am at my sharpest) but I needed some sort of prompt to put me back on course. Peeking out between the curtains only confused the confused a little more. It was dark but still white. The snow was still here but offered no clue as to the way out from my dilemma.

I don't have a watch or clock with day of the week on and the date on my wristwatch provided no clue either. Morning radio presenters talk a lot but say little and definitely offer no clue as to the day of the week. However the misty start begins to clear in my head as the first drop of Yorkshire Tea tackles the brain fog and the day emerges from my confused state of mind. It doesn't really matter what day it eventually turned out to be as there was no bowling to look forward to so it could be any day, it didn't really matter at all. So the sooner we get back on the green so much the better for my sanity. Maybe that will be Monday or maybe we will have the new threat of waterlogged greens to contend with. Ah winter bowling you can't beat it can you!?