come back....

  a wise man once said.... everything changes.

"Who was this wise man?", you may well be asking.  Confucius? Plato? Metrostophocleese?

In actual fact, the identity of the soothsayer in question shall, forever, remain a mystery......  and the tale began thus.....

Castle Douglas, a small town in Dumfries and Galloway, just over the border into Scotland, and turn left.  The time.... i dunno, let's say 8 years past, for argument's sake.

We were actually on a fishing trip, my uncle, his brother, and i.  Fishing Loch Ken.  A sort of piscatorial pilgrimage for my uncle, who used to live ithere, and has passed down his love of the area to us all.  We regularly visit the area now, and we love the hostelries, walking, hostelries, swimming, fishing and hostelries of the area.  The Sulwath Brewery Tap is a particular highlight for any fan of people-watching.

Anyhoo....

John (uncle's brother) and i were planning an afternoon away from the fishing, so we headed into town on a sunny afternoon.  We had our crown green bowls and all the gear in the car for this eventuality, so we headed down the local bowling club....

Wrong shoes, wrong woods, wrong everything......

* the balls used in bowling are called "woods" cos they were originally made of lignum vitae - henceforth, when i mention "wood" or "woods" i am just referring to the round things you launch across the grass.

They don't know much about crown green when you're north of the border, it's all straight line, flat bowling.....

The members of the club were kinda dismissive of us and insisted we wore spare shoes (they were all ladies shoes, of course) and that we used some spare woods and equipment from the club.

Eventually we got a game together and we were blissfully traversing the green, end to end, and back and forth..... i was leading quite easily until John got to grips with the green and started his comeback..... well, it turned into a bit of a tussle and all the other club members had finished their games and packed up and were leaving.

"you can lock up and post the key through the door when you're done" and a few other comments were made as they passed us.

Almost the last guy leaving the area, stopped to talk to us just as my wood was nestling up to the jack at the other end of the green.  It was by far the best i had launched that day.  He turned to us and asked.... "whose wood is that?" and i proudly raised my hand,,,,,,

"everything changes" he said and promptly walked off.....

At the time it didn't register..... minutes later i began to dwell on it.... what the hell does that mean?  COME BACK!  WHAT DO YOU MEAN?  Too late, of course......

Hardly a day goes by when i don't consider those words.... or the philosopher that uttered them.  In my head, the challenge of finding the meaning is akin to the sound of one hand clapping, or the tree falling in a forest and nobody around to hear it, or indeed a Schrodinger's cat......

Everything changes!

Feel free to ponder it at your leisure.

archive footage of a pint of Black Galloway in the marvellous Sulwath Tap.....

PS - John eventually won the game convincingly.... almost as if it were prophesised.