The Bowring chronicles Episode Five: The Case of the Missing Disc (That Was There All Along)

"Welcome back to The Bowring Chronicles, where the trees are innocent, the squirrels are judgemental, Billy's gone the bar, and every Wednesday proves that the best stories begin with...

"...Watch this."

Good evening, dear readers.

There are moments in life when everything stops.

A wedding.

A birth.

A penalty shootout.

And, apparently...

someone throwing a disc and immediately losing sight of it.

The atmosphere at Bowring changed instantly.

The conversation stopped.

The laughter paused.

The group stared towards the rough.

Someone whispered...

"Where did it go?"

And thus...

The Search Party was born.

THE INCIDENT

It had started innocently enough.

A perfectly respectable throw.

Nothing spectacular.

Nothing terrible.

Just a disc heading confidently towards the general vicinity of where it was supposed to go.

Then it disappeared.

Not landed.

Not bounced.

Disappeared.

Like it had been swallowed by the earth.

The owner looked around.

Everyone looked around.

Even Barry looked around.

This was serious.

OPERATION: FIND THE BLOODY THING

Laura immediately went into organised search mode.

Not panicked.

Not flustered.

Just quietly methodical.

"Let's start from where you think it landed."

Sensibly, everyone ignored this and started looking somewhere else.

Kev was filming.

Because of course he was.

"This could be good content."

He's not wrong.

Billy was providing a running commentary which was neither useful nor requested.

"It's gone, lad."

This was not helpful.

But it was very Billy.

ENTER BILLIE-JO

The rough had claimed another victim.

Billie-Jo looked at it.

The rest of us looked at it.

She shrugged.

"I'll go in."

And disappeared.

There are people who approach dense undergrowth cautiously.

Billie-Jo approaches it like she's been invited to a woodland adventure.

Branches moved.

Leaves rustled.

There was a brief period where nobody could see her.

Then...

"Found something!"

Hope surged.

It was a stick.

A very good stick, apparently.

The disc remained missing.

HARLEY'S THEORY

Harley had been watching the whole thing.

Naturally, he'd formed a theory.

Something about the angle of release.

The wind.

The disc's flight path.

The likely deflection point.

There was a pause.

Everyone looked at him.

Harley pointed.

"It'll be over there."

He was right.

Obviously.

We don't know why we keep pretending this is surprising.

DAD'S CONTRIBUTION

Ruaraidh had stayed calmly on the edge of the search.

Watching.

Waiting.

Occasionally offering a sensible suggestion.

Which is exactly what you'd expect from the group Dad.

Eventually he said:

"Don't look for where you think it should be. Look for where it could actually have gone."

A thoughtful silence followed.

Billy nodded.

"Sound, Dad."

Harley added:

"Good point, Grandad."

Ruaraidh smiled.

Then went back to looking.

JO T HAS A LEAD

Jo T suddenly appeared beside the search party.

She wasn't holding a disc.

She wasn't carrying a bag.

She had, however, somehow acquired information.

"I think I know whose disc that is."

Everyone stopped.

It wasn't her disc.

It wasn't even anyone she'd met that evening.

Apparently she'd seen one very similar somewhere before.

We have no idea what this has to do with finding the disc.

But Jo T remains confident.

JO K TAKES CONTROL

At this point, the search had become less of a search...

...and more of an unregulated woodland expedition.

Jo K stepped in.

"Right. Where has everyone actually looked?"

Silence.

Nobody knew.

This was becoming less like organised disc retrieval...

...and more like nine people wandering around pretending to be organised.

Jo K started narrowing down the search area.

Because someone has to bring order to the chaos.

Even if the chaos is mostly self-inflicted.

THEN DAVID ARRIVED

David took one look.

Asked where the disc had been thrown.

Looked towards the rough.

Walked about twenty yards.

Stopped.

Pointed.

"There."

Everyone stared.

Nothing.

David walked a little closer.

Bent down.

Picked up the disc.

Silence.

The owner looked horrified.

"How did you see that?"

David shrugged.

"It was there."

Of course it was.

The rest of us had been searching for twelve minutes.

David had found it in approximately fourteen seconds.

Probably the same skill that allows him to launch the Red Valkyrie into another postcode.

THE SEARCH PARTY AWARDS

Following the successful recovery, awards were presented.

🥇 Best Search Technique

Laura

For actually having one.

🥈 Most Valuable Information

Harley

For being annoyingly correct.

🥉 Most Adventurous Searcher

Billie-Jo

For entering the jungle.

🎥 Best Documentation

Kev

Because apparently even a missing disc needs a social media strategy.

🕵️ Most Unnecessary Intelligence

Jo T

We still don't know what the story about the neighbour's cousin had to do with anything.

📋 Best Administration

Jo K

For establishing that nobody actually knew where they'd searched.

🧔 Best Advice

Ruaraidh

Obviously.

💪 Fastest Recovery

David

Obviously.

🍺 Best Disappearance After the Incident

Billy

Also obviously.

OVERHEARD AT BOWRING

"Where did you find it?"

"Right there."

*"THERE?!"

"Yeah."

"We looked there!"

*"Did you?"

Silence.

Nobody could prove anything.

THE MORAL OF THE STORY

We'd like to say the lesson here is to throw more accurately.

It isn't.

We'd like to say you should always remember exactly where your disc lands.

You won't.

We'd like to say you should search methodically.

You probably won't do that either.

The actual lesson is much simpler.

If someone loses a disc at Bowring...

Someone will help them find it.

Maybe it'll take thirty seconds.

Maybe it'll take half an hour.

Maybe you'll find a football, two golf balls and a mysterious object that nobody can identify.

But you'll look.

Because that's what you do.

AND THEN...

The crisis was over.

The disc was safely back in its bag.

Everyone returned to the round.

The drama was forgotten almost immediately.

Until Billy announced:

"Right, I'm going the bar."

And just like that...

Another Bowring emergency had been successfully resolved.

BOWRING WISDOM #5

"If you can't find your disc, find someone who can."

Preferably David.

Although Laura will probably organise the search.

Harley will work out where it went.

Billie-Jo will enter the undergrowth.

Ruaraidh will tell you where to look.

Jo T will know someone who once found a similar one.

Jo K will organise everyone.

Kev will film it.

And Billy...

Well.

Billy will probably be at the bar.

UNTIL NEXT WEEK...

Another Wednesday waits.

Another round.

Another story.

Another opportunity to throw something you've never thrown before and confidently announce...

"Watch this."

And somewhere in Bowring...

A tree is already preparing its legal defence.

— Filed by the Completely Unqualified Correspondents of The Bowring Chronicles

Where every lost disc has a story, every Wednesday has a cast, and nobody ever admits they threw it there.