Lawn Bowls

Friday March 31st – The day began with another visit from David Markham the breeding manager. This time he brought us a new stud dog named Rocky (a Davey son). He was a real sweetheart and I can’t get over how soft and calm all their dogs are including the stud dogs.

Once class began we had a test of the information for the first two weeks. It was a thorough exam as was fairly difficult. Once it was over we headed into a local community to finish up a mapping project we had started earlier in the week. We broke into pairs and one person had to follow the map to several destinations that the other person had written. I was following Laura’s map which went through a residential area stopping at a bowling alley then a club for lawn bowls. As we walked past the lawn bowls club we noticed there was some type of competition happening. Naturally I stopped to take pictures and one of the ladies with the club came over to chat. As often happens here, once she realized I was an American she was delighted to explain all about lawn bowls and invited us into the club to have a closer look. Apparently we have lawn bowls in the US (although I had never heard of it). It’s similar to Bocci and is a game where each player rolls a ball across a green trying to get closest to the target ball (called a jack). You can knock an opponent’s ball further away as well. The balls that are rolled are not totally round so depending on how you roll it you can get different curves which can be part of the strategy. It’s fairly popular with the older crowd here and an effort is being made to get the younger people into the sport.

Ron’s Aussie of the Day: Bingle = a car accident. “I had a bit of a bingle on my way to work today”. Also Cactus = dead. “I can’t wash my clothes cuz the bloody washing machine is cactus” Ron actually located a web site with all kinds of Australian slang and he reviewed with Sue, myself, Laura, and Simone. We all had a good laugh sharing our different slang.

After lunch Sue and I showed Jhaneen, Laura, Simone, and Ron the Guide Dogs for the Blind promotional DVD, “Soul mates” and the “Considering a Guide Dog” video. They were very interested and impressed with both the quality/content of the DVD and how beautiful our campus’ are. Jhaneen plans to schedule a day were we can show these to any GDV staff who are interested in their lecture hall. We then returned to the long cane, learning some new techniques and practicing teaching them to each other. We then began using our canes outside while wearing simulators which only gave us tiny amounts of vision to use. The campus is located right next to the Yarra river and there is a lovely walking/bike path along it which was an ideal place to practice.

After class we headed off to the gym, ate, and returned to the empty dorm. Although the dorm is somewhat ghostly on the weekends, we are so tired that it’s kind of a relief to have the peace and quiet. Actually quiet isn’t the word to use this evening as a storm rolled in at the end of the day and it poured rain with a howling wind! Hope it clears up over the weekend as we plan to drive down to Port Phillip for some sightseeing.