That is Priceless by Steve Melcher for December 28, 2023

One way or another, the girls were going to knock some balls around this day.

Margaret watched as Mary swung for the winning wicket, oblivious to the fact that Jacqueline was a very sore loser.

Stop crowding my swing, or I’ll ‘accidentally’ kneecap you!

/// Croquet Players found bashing balls boring,

so the regular rules they’re ignoring.

To have won, one must show

just how low she can go.

Limbo under a mallet for scoring.

“Ladies this is not a hockey game! There will be no fighting!"

The woman in red is foolish enough to try to break it up. While the woman in purple and white is smart enough to duck.

These sisters, love to compete/

And they do so whenever they meet/

They win by deceit/

And they’re d@nged h@rd to beat/

For they win by deceit/

And all of them happily cheat.///

Croquet ain’t the only game/

Which they play without conscience or shame/

They are hot, and they’re haughty/

And they’re nice when they’re naughty:/

They grew rich on their house of ill fame.

“I know the rules!”

“You don’t know sh”

Australian rules croquet.

I don’t know what she was drinking, but the girl on the right just saw a white rabbit saying “I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date!”

“We’re just going to go out for a drink”, we said. It turned into an epic night of midnight croquet, and Emily getting sick in a potted plant.

“Eloise, I want you to hit this ball as hard as you can. Think about how you felt when you found out your husband had a mistress……that’s the spirit…..knock it to Toledo!”

In an effort to draw bigger crowds, Libby introduced full contact croquet

Well done Steve! LOL!!!

“Stop hiding my ball under your skirt!”

Newest game in 1871 France CroGolf. Fore!

No one told Susan there is no “goalie” in the game of croquet.

Mr. Darcy would be flattered to know that they fought over him.

Two minutes in the penalty box for high sticking!

The ladies weren’t full blown reenactors, but they enjoyed their satirical version of the battle of Tharnforp castle.

Sure, you all thought it would be fun to “lightsaber duel”, but now Antoinette’s got a broken shin bone and Maria’s got a concussion.

Just wait until the croquet hooligans show up.

Following a heated argument the mallets became weapons of attack……….

Mmm, according to Wikipedia, Edgeworth Castle is a country house in Edgeworth, Gloucestershire, England. It’s also mentioned in the Domesday Book. Drat! Now I’ll have to see if I can find the Domesday Book and look up the reference. (I bought one years ago, but I think I gave it to my sister and don’t know what she would have done with it.)

Poor Sally had no situational awareness whatsoever, thus causing Mary to have to duck with little warning.

Croquet Players: 

Paste (including the quote marks) 

"Category:1870s dresses" Wikimedia 

(syntax supported by the Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Ecosia and Yandex search engines) in the browser address bar (or search for it using one of those search engines) and choose the first Category: found and once there find the text string 1909-19, and click its link for info and links that point to more info about this roughly life size, oil on panel painting. If your browser isn’t set up to handle .tiff images, to see an enlarged image there and avoid the 35.3 MB image download to your device, click a size under the image, rather than the image itself.

Again, a larger strip image is shown by (Ctrl- or right-) clicking the image in Mr. Melcher’s MASTERPIECE #3243 (December 28, 2023) blog entry, accessible by the Check out the blog! box after the last comment, and using the dropdown menu (even larger, if you trim what’s after .jpg from the URL). I have added a comment there pointing to info about this artist I used to point to here. Only work by him used here so far.

“Croquet Players,” 1871

“Is this one of Mr D’Arcy’s balls? I’ve wanted to take a mallet to them.”

all the girls are wishing the ball will go thru the wicket, but none of them can figure out how. because they are girls.

The young maidens learned many things upon enrolling in the “Art of Marital Bliss” class, but no other lesson captured their interest and vigor quite like the chapter on “Ball Busting.”

Croquet? I distinctly remember saying “Crochet”!

Friday:It began as a walk in the park/

But it suddenly turned rather dark/

She had hoped to be pardoned/

But his attitude hardened/

When she made her ill-chosen remark..///

When they met on the edge of the town/

She hadn’t been planning to drown/

But the rabbit was dead/

And he swore not to wed./

They discovered her floating face down..