A rather dreich day today; walked to the centre to do some banking and while there watched the school children having a curling lesson. Some were pretty good.

Curling is thought to have been invented in medieval Scotland, with the first written reference to a contest using stones on ice coming from the records of Paisley Abbey, Renfrewshire, in February 1541.

Kilsyth Curling Club claims to be the first club in the world, having been formally constituted in 1716; it is still in existence today

In the early history of curling, the playing stones (or rocks) were simply flat-bottomed river stones that were sometimes notched or shaped; the thrower, unlike those of today, had little control over the stone, and relied more on luck than on skill and strategy