
![]() Well the best-laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft agley (Rabbie Burns)…or words to that effect. We were supposed to play for the President's Trophies yesterday but that never happened. We played for fun and then shared 'tea and nibbles' afterwards. We were unable to go into the pavilion for our feast as there were some functions on and there was no space for us. However, the Bus belonging to the Football Club was a fine substitute and we are very grateful to RP for making it available to us. We had a lovely time! Thank you. This is a picture of W climbing aboard, thanks B for supplying the picture! Next stop Hayling Island?
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![]() On Tuesday work on the Lights project was started, today you can see the job is now finished and we are playing our last game for the Winter Vets Season on our Boulodrome. How time has flown! We were driven into the pavilion by a hailstorm, but finished to day with soup, crusty bread and cheese straws and a pint of something interesting. A lovely time was had by all. We now move to The Kings Head in Marlow until it all begins again in October. I hope everyone has a warm summer. Well not quite. G&A started work on the lights this morning. While we played the Man-with-the-Digger made the trench for the cable, G&A made the post holes with a giant auger and down came four or five small hailstones which of course did not stop play! Nothing much does, except when help was needed to lift the auger out of the ground.
It got quite cold, so after another game we packed it in and the players went home. A treated G&I to a delicious bacon roll, we had another halistorm for about 3 minutes. Then the cable was laid, some earth was put on top of the safety tape and the Man-with-the-Digger backfilled the trench. Then posts were concreted in and at 4.30 the job was done. Electrician coming on Thursday to finish the job and THEN hooray, lights and play in the evenings. Wonderful. Thank you guys for a brilliant job. I'll post some pics after work on Thusday! (I forgot to take the camera today ...) Thanks chaps for a fabulous job and we look forward to playing in the evenings. Spring has finally arrived and PETANQUE WALLINGFORD have played two Weekend League matches: The first one away at Burnham on 15th March against the Burnham Eagles (PW Won 5:2) and the second one at home on one half of our lovely Boulodrome, against Bozos (Bozos Won 4:3). Click this link to see a table of the results so far. While the PW Team were playing the league match 16 of us 'non team members' were playing in the lovely spring sunshine on the other 4 pistes. The next match is away at Winnersh, next Sunday the 29th March. 21st March = Crowmarsh Village Hall – and our Quiz Night raising funds for lights on our Boulodrome. 52 people came along, making up 9 Teams (and there were 10 'helpers') and 33 raffle super prizes.
Jules set the questions – the usual suspects Food & Drink, TV, SPORT, etc (8 categories in all), a Mini Marathon and as several 'petanque' related things, such as a 'shoot' card instead of a joker, 'closest to the cochonnet' questions – a question whose answer is closest to the correct one, like 'how much was paid for the most expensive picture every auctioned'? Jules and his trusty assistant Cheryl (distributor, collector, marker) worked very hard all night! And it was great fun and the food worked out ok too. Thanks to all the helpers who dispensed food and drink and generally helped with the organization – many people have emailed me with the thanks and appreciation and I add mine to everybody who came bearing raffle prizes, bought drinks and raffle tickets and helped boost our funds. And the quiz was won by the 6-person Team Shawley Knots who very generously returned their prize to Petanque Wallingford towards the lighting fund. Thank you very much. Work starts on the lights on Tuesday. Hooray! Roll on those summer nights. It's amazing how time flies - its the 20th already, it will be Christmas soon.
Well, to business - DAY TRIP TO FRANCE: G and I left home at 6.30 and motored down with Cheryl and Jules to Dover to get the Ferry to Calais. We arrived about an hour before our official departure, so were able to get the earlier Ferry. We had some coffee and played Skip-Bo (a card game) on board and had a jolly and uneventful crossing. When we got to Calais we went to a wine shop (why else do you go there!?) and got some marvelous supplies then we went for lunch. After lunch we found a petanque court played a few games (yes we remembered to take our boules) – J & C won one and G and I won one, so we can honestly say we came home from our Tour unbeaten! The only downside to all this was the weather – it was a grey day and slightly cold; sunshine would have been nice. However, Cheryl had her hot water bottle which the man in the restaurant filled for her, so we were able to keep our hands warm! We got home tired, but happy at about 10.30 It's funny how things happen - the Fixtures list needed updating with the weekend league stuff, so, being a 'non-playing' day, I decided to catch up on 'work' and the list was all haywire! Now how did that happen (I asked myself). Well I fixed it, I hope and have made a few changes. A copy of this list is also in our green cabinet at the Boulodrome, and some noteable points are also on the notice board there.
I just thought I would muse along a bit how gratifying it is to see how many people have logged on to the members (only) page where I will have stuff that is of interest only to members of Petanque Wallingford. Thank you all, it makes it worthwhile doing this! So, since I know how many of you are actually reading stuff I write I will just point you to the fixtures list and what we are doing on some club nights - CLUB COMPETITONS. You need to sign up to take part so that I can have everything sorted before the matches so we can get on with playing! You will have seen that we are going to install lights - work has started on this so we won't have to abandon ship because we can't see anymore! Lovely, and play on a warm summers night is just wonderful, so we have a lot to look forward to. Hooray – today's the First Day of Spring, the sun is shining and it's St David's Day – a fine excuse for some fun and games … I took a Welsh flag and some mulled wine to have before play. When we got to the Boulodrome the Park was very very busy – Rugby and Hockey were in full swing with hundreds of kids running around, and Football too.
Only 16 of us - some wearing daffodils, A with a leek - turned up to play boules but it was SO windy, and the wind was icy cold …. Oh well, so much for Spring! We didn't have a melee because the wind would have blown everything away, so we just threw in for opponents and partners and did out best not to get blown over. We stopped after three games for some mulled wine (which we had to pour very carefully to stop it blowing away!) and home. The weather forecast says it will get warmer after the 15th. Can't wait … I was going to take a picture of the flag, and all of us, but the wind was so strong, the flag was a blur! |
AuthorI still want to remain anonymous for now but I am an even smarter mouse ... and I love to play petanque ...... Subscribe
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