On Saturday it was a pairs melee with people just coming along for some fun and people who would appear again on Sunday. I played with a little French Baker, a huge Belgian, some lovely French Londoners who have just begun playing (they are very young, so me and my French partner beat them! They were probably being respectful!). I can't remember who Jules and Gerry and Cheryl played with.
When Alan Roland announced things on the Sunday morning he said (glibly) that we would 'start playing now (10.00 am)and we had 11 hours to finish all our games' (gulp 11 hours!) – so prizes around 9.00pm!
Sod's law would have it that we were drawn, in our Second Match against the eventual winners. On our way to the slaughter met the chaps who played them before us and they said they were very happy to take 4 points off them! And challenged us to take one more. So we did!! We took one point off them (perhaps they let us win so as not to fanny us!)
This French team, from Perpignan, play a very different game to what we are used to – they shoot EVERYTHING, no matter how close or far away from the cochonnet. They got 95% of their shots. It was a good lesson!
We won 2 of our 5 games, but I was worn out! We were on quadrant 4, so we had a long distance to walk before we even started play that's my excuse!
Here's how we did:
Lost against a team from Kent 13:3 • Lost against last year's winners 13:1 • Won against a team of French Londoners 13:2 • Won against a French Team from Toulon (in 5 ends) 13:1 • Lost against a mixed French/English team 13:5. (This team's lead used to play at Burnham).
We were nearly in the Bronze Group finals. Thank heaven we weren't so we were able to come home at 5.30. I was so tired!
The Winners were Team Bacchin from Perpignan, 2nd place Team Malbec from Paris.
For a full report of results, and more pictures, visit the Londonaise Facebook .
I hope next year we can take persuade more Petanque Wallingford people to go.