Monday 11 August 2014

The Rules of Croquet

"[He] can't get through the hoops,...
but then how gracefully
he fails to do it!"


The Small House at Allington
Anthony Trollope



They don't know how to play croquet,
these young whippersnappers.
It makes you wonder what they learn at school.


It's quite simple really:
hit the ball through hoops
and smack your opponents
into the shrubbery.


It's when you discover
the brutal inner person
which lurks inside us all.


No use behaving like a gentleman
and letting your girlfriend go past.
It's every man for himself.


Many thanks to the lovely Natalie
for an amazing garden party
in the most beautiful of settings.
An idyllic English summer afternoon.

8 comments:

  1. Idyllic is exactly how it looks!

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  2. How terribly civilised! It looks like you had lots of fun. CJ xx

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  3. Croquet reminds me of the Dowager Countess in Downton Abbey, very polite and civilised, but with a bighting tongue under the surface, just said in such a way that you cannot object! xx

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  4. Look at all that lushious green. And your boys. And MissM!

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  5. I think you will find that, like Rugby Union, there are Laws not Rules to Association Croquet ...

    Not that I am a pedant in any way of course.

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  6. The agony if someone's ball hits you on the ankle is only surpassed by watching your perfectly positioned ball shunted off into the flower. Truly savage stuff!

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  7. Oooh -- it is absolutely the most vicious game ever -- even worse because the balls and mallets are so cheerfully colorful and striped.

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  8. I have no comprehension of the game at all!

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