Summer curling

Have you ever watched or played the game of curling. It's like bowls on ice, and equally boring. Certainly not considered by the sane to be an outdoor summer pastime. Well guess again.

During the curling season (indoor or out) they take great delight casting granite stones over dimpled ice. Well, what if you cast ice stones over dimpled asphalt?

Picture the scene, one of the hottest summers ever and outdoor curling was the sporting challenge at the station during nightshift piece time.

All it takes is a little imagination, some planning, a domestic fridge with a freezer compartment and a lack of calls.

1: take an empty ice cream container. Or a full one and eat all the ice cream.
2: fill the container with water - cold is best as it takes less time to achieve the desired level of solidity -  add some form of identifying mark such as an epaulette and place in the freezer for several hours. No actual number of hours is given cos this isn't a Jamie Oliver recipe.
3: keep an eye on the contents of the tub and when starting the freeze, add some form of handle. eg a stick.
NB Adding this too soon result in the handle dropping down into the ice and being entirely useless as a handle!
4: return container to the freezer and allow to freeze until solid.
5: wait for a quiet, hot nightshift piece break ( generally that would be during the summer) and remove ice from container.
6: find a nice flat strip of asphalt - that's Tarmac to the uninitiated - and ensure no traffic can drive along it whilst the gam eis in progress. Use your imagination here. We used the car park at work.
7: road chalk found a new use here and neatly marked out the target and start point.
8: keep score to identify a winner. Utterly pointless if you don't.
9: after the game, smash ice to recover epaulette and place stick/handle in bin.
10: leave remaining ice to hide for itself. I found that my curling stone was very good at making itself scarce and thus avoiding detection by the incoming early shift gaffer.