For most, holidays means relaxing and enjoying the weather - it does for bowls clubs too although some like to throw matches in there too.

Shire Park Bowls Club (Tewin) headed to Dorset for a few days on their summer tour.

Based in Bournemouth, they ended up playing three matches, winning one and losing two.

A total of 19 headed to the south coast although only 17 of them played bowls.

Once back in Hertfordshire it was back to the normality of various competitions, although there wasn't a great deal of success.

Both Elaine Wulcko and Gus Edwards lost their Jock Hunter matches against Ken Chamberlain from WGC and Graham Stevens from Knebworth respectively, and there was also a loss to Knebworth in the Welwyn Hatfield League Fours.

Edwards did gain some joy though, beating Dick Berry of Knebworth in the Welwyn Hatfield Singles, although he and Ian Kirsch were beaten away to Buntingford in the East Herts Pairs.

A friendly at home to Northaw & Cuffley saw Shire Park lose 76-60 with the top rink being Chris Goode, Martin Taylor and John Hastings.

Another friendly loss came at home to Bounds Green by an 83-52 score.

Linda Draycott, Robin Bramson and Rob Kenway took top honours for Park in that one.

Datchworth began the week with a Women's County League match at Cheshunt.

A downpour forced the cancellation of the final end but by that point the home side had engineered a 29-4 success over Jenny Holzbauer, Janet Akers, Ann Edwards and Jan Smith.

The Blues did not have it easy away to Ware in Division One of the East Herts League either, going down 34-24.

Graham Akers, Jim Smith and Les Parsley won two more ends than they lost but with a lot of those wins being by multiple shots, they claimed an 18-10 victory.

However, a 24-6 loss for Dickie Jackson, Derek Henley and Peter Hills saw them win just five ends and hand Ware overall victory.

And the malaise continued with Rosedale winning 53-20 in a Division Two match against Datchworth's Gold team. 

Ian Green, Dave Castle and Steve Chamberlain lost 28-6 with Phil Holzbauer, Julian Hales and Terry Metcalf going down 24-15.

Better news came in the Welwyn Hatfield Bowls League as Kimpton's visit to Turkey Farm ended in a 37-26 home win.

Both rinks won with the top rink that of Jan Smith, Andy Pattle and Keith Smith with a 21-11 success.

The club also had three mixed friendlies.

A trip to Harperbury ended in an 82-46 defeat, the visitors winning just one rink, that a 23-8 win for Jack Harper, Barbara Williams and .Clyde Martindill.

The other two were far more joyous.

First, Datchworth won 68-66 at home to Hitchin Town, sharing the four rinks equally but getting bigger margins of victory.

Jim Whittle, Keith Smith and Richard Harper eased to a 22-16 success while Mike Usher, Julian Hales and Derek Henley had to fight back from 13-1 down to win 20-16.

And they followed that up a day later by beating Sele Farm on their Hartham Common green.

The 107-81 success came with four of the five rinks successful, the best of them being Richard Hutchinson, Dave Castle and Steve Arnold's storming 29-8 success.