Last weekend saw John and I give up most of Saturday to help out with the Comite des Fetes. Normally, at this time of year, it would be the fete champetre (literally outdoor festival) for the village, with petanque, dancing, a pig roast, the Cadets de Baugois and the Bauge Twirlers, plus a nice firework display by the lake. This year we didn't do the full fete champetre - not because of the pork related death last year, but because with the Comice coming up, people are volunteered out and our village only has the right to one firework display per calendar year. This year has to be reserved for the Comice.
Instead we just had the petanque competition. As John and I are not usually involved with that, we didn't realise how big and how much work it would be. Three weeks before hand, I had done my usual 100 km circuit round local villages to the east, distributing posters in bakeries and supermarkets. On the day, we turned up at about 1pm, and were there until gone 9pm.
The technical bit is getting everyone signed up, teams assigned numbers and then the whole business of pool A, pool B and the qualification rounds. As we are not French, we are not in the know, by Cyril, assisted by Patrick and Philippe got everyone signed up, allocated and ready to go by 2:15pm (not bad, considering they were supposed to start at 2pm - result in fact!).
Once things were underway, running the bar ran in waves. All quiet during the rounds, then a mad rush for lager, glasses of wine, bottles of cola and other juices. As more teams got knocked out however (all teams played 3 times, but winners played considerably more), the breaks got shorter and shorter. We had 48 teams playing - this is what it looked like in the early stages.
We also tried to feed people snacks during the tournament, to soak up some of the beer and wine, and increase the profit margin from the event (this will be converted into prizes for the bingo session in October). Roger was on his own with the snack stand for most of the time, but Philippe manned the chip fryer when needed.
The last teams, fighting for the Pool B trophy finished their game at about 9pm, but which time the food stand and bar had been packed away. For those who did well, it was an expensive and boozy affair, as if you won, it seemed to be the form to buy the losers a drink. The losing semi-finalist for Pool B - a charming but scrawny individual who seemed half man and half lizard - must have put away the best part of 2 bottles of rose - at which point he lost as he could hardly stand up. His team mate caused the only sour note of the day, as he too was well oiled and started to fling his fists around. A bear-hug from Roger from the food stand sorted that out however!
A typical summer day in rural France in the holiday season, all in all. And it should be noted that when Marie-Jean and I did the rounds of the pitch to collect debris, we found just 4 beakers and 10 chip wrappers - everything else had been handed in or put in black bags by participants themselves.
I like the idea of losing because he was so drunk! And great to read about so little litter at the end - over here people throw stuff on the ground even if they are standing next to a bin!!
Posted by: Anne Donald | 24 July 2010 at 05:03 PM