At first you think of a harmonic image of warm sunshine filled lazy afternoons, sparkling water, cups of tea and maybe some glorious home baking on the side.

You might also be of the opinion that bowling is a game for the those with greying hair, creaking bones and hip replacements, a lifetime fulfilled and a stark determination to show the world that competitiveness still exists post 60; well the Commonwealth Games drives into Glasgow in all but a few months and I can assure you the bowls competition promises to be anything but tranquil.

There might indeed be a sprinkling of some wiser, greying heads in the national team pools but the majority of players, especially from the Southern Hemisphere, will contain some of the hungriest youth bowlers in the world, so there may be some eyebrow raising results come July.

Bowling at the Games is to be split into five main competitions for both men and woman; the Singles, Pairs, Triples, Fours (Commonly known as Rinks), the Parasport Mixed Pairs (visually impaired) and the Open Triples (physically impaired), so that means there are 30 medals up for grabs at the newly refurbished Kelvingrove Bowling greens this Summer.

The Scottish team will be hoping to add to their already impressive array of 28 medals gained from previous Commonwealth Games campaigns by bowling legends such as Willie Wood, Alex Marshall and Margaret Letham.

The competition is scheduled to begin at 8.45am on July 24, concluding on Friday, August 1 with arguably the must win competition in world bowling, the Singles finals.

For those not familiar with the rules or idiosyncrasies of how the game flows, let me quickly explain;

- The game is played within the boundaries of a rink, a typical bowling green will be split into six rinks

- The mat is set (this is where a player must have at least one part of his/her foot on whilst delivering both the jack, and consequently a bowl). The mat is centred within the width of the rink.

- The first "ball" delivered by a player is the jack, a smaller ball, white or yellow in colour. Assuming its delivered in accordance to the rules (i.e its not thrown out the rink and is a legal length), the jack is centred to the width of the rink, and is now the target for bowls to reach.

- The closest bowl to the jack after all bowls have been delivered, wins the end and the shot. If that happens to mean that a players two, three or four bowls are closer than the oppositions closest bowl to the jack, it simply means either 2,3 or 4 shots for the closest player or a "full house"

You might have quickly realised that bowling closely resembles curling in terminology! so if you are familiar with watching Olympic curling, getting the hang of bowls won't be so difficult.

In my next blog, I will be discussing the recently announced Scottish team with former Scottish and World Champion Indoor bowler, 1998 Commonwealth Games participant, and the current head coach of Bowls Scotland, David Gourlay. In the meantime, the outdoor bowling season is just about to start, so if you fancy having a go at bowling, go to www.bowlsscotland.com, find out how to contact your local club and book the opportunity to get training from a community coach.