Wednesday nights is (throughout the year) Table Tennis night in the village hall. We are a dedicated small bunch, in the summer we play just for fun & fitness, with an average of about 8 to 10 turning up. Of course this is holiday time & our numbers do fluctuate, but last night we had a father & son Dutch pair come & join us, who were good players. When the son arrived with his own bat & a set of balls in a case, we knew he may be fairly good. So 10 of us last night, with drawn pairs playing doubles against each other, the Dutch father & one of the regulars won that & then we had a knockout singles, which yours truly won. Such good fun, with all ages playing & all abilities, none of us getting upset if we win or lose, just a way of keeping fit & being part of the community.
We decided that having holiday makers in was an added bonus ( as well as adding funds to the village hall restoration), so we are going to put a notice up each week advertising that all are welcome, as we can provide enough bats & balls for all & with 3 tables we should get plenty of games in. Above is a photo of some of last nights “competitors”.
In the winter (when it is mainly locals playing T/T things do get a bit more serious with every week being a bit more competitive, with huge prizes every week (well a small bar of chocolate actually), culminating in a finals week with china cups for the winners.
I think that as a village we lay a fair bit on for locals & visitors in the summer. we have an outdoor bowls green, 2 or 3 Family Fun nights ( though last years were all called off because of bad weather), these include archery , slow bike races, tractor rides, a clown , Segway riding & fly casting. Plus the church flower show & sale of work, a marque behind the chippy with live music at weekends & of course the Highland Games at the castle. So we are very active, even if it does normally come down to the “same old faces” providing these events.