Lots of Sidmouth Bowls Club members have now signed up for the remainder of the outdoor bowling season, writes Carol Smith.

On Monday morning it was pleasing to see five of the available six rinks were being played on.

Although there are two greens with six rinks on each, we can only use three rinks on each green, due to social distancing.

There was a range of both male and female players with a good range of ages.

One particular player, who is now into his 90s, remains very competitive and puts up excellent bowls.

Another member, I hardly recognised with his long hair and beard!

Luckily, some of us ladies are managing to get early slots for our ‘at long last’ and ‘much desired’ excursion to the local hairdresser!

Back to the bowls and our greens appear to be running very well. That is, of course, very much down to the exceptional work of our green keeper Barry and his team.

It was also good to see several people simply sitting around, soaking up the sunshine and watching the bowls action unfold.

Unfortunately, owing to the on-going Coronavirus pandemic restrictions, play is currently limited to rollups between ourselves.

Sadly, it means we are unable to play what, at this time of year, would be a regular mix of club and county competition matches, friendly fixtures with other clubs – local and touring – and the latter bring with them so many great fun occasions.

It’s now, with such a lack of bowls action this summer, that we fully appreciate just how much enjoyment, and that all-important factor – income, is generated by a bowls season.

Visits from other clubs provide much needed revenue and also supports some of the other Sidmouth businesses, be they hotels, other accommodation outlets or, of course, local shops.

However, and very much on the positive side of things, we are now back in the great outdoors and able to enjoy the fresh air and the ‘added bonus’ is very much being able to once again see and speak with the many friends you get to enjoy through our sport.

That said we all long for the reopening of our clubhouse so that we can use the bar – and the loo!

Oh, for the return of those ‘good times’ that we enjoyed before the onset of the virus!