Rural Life

Petanque - it is a serious game!

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.

  
 

New Year traditions

Apart from the January sales, and then only if I could find something I wanted and could afford, the after Christmas period in the UK used to be quite depressing for me.  Twinkling village lights were more a symbol of how cold and alone I was as I drove home after work, than of communities with a life of their own, and the days didn't seem to get any longer until the end of the month at the earliest.

Here in France we find it very different.  Firstly there is the importance of wishing EVERYONE a happy new year - something that can go on until the end of the month.  Then there are the formal ceremonies for wishing people a happy new year - first the President does his, then the Government visit him and present their wishes and after than mayors and elected leaders all over the country are making New Year's wishes to their voters.  Particularly in the villages, these ceremonies are taken very seriously, with formal gatherings noted in the papers, people dressing up smartly to go along, listening politely to the words of their elected leaders and then sipping cremant and nibbling on small sweet things.  The one for our village was this morning and it was great to see people, interesting to hear the news, including changes in the village staffing, and it was a very fine cremant.

Finally, there is the whole question of gallettes.  Epiphany is either counted as the first Sunday of the New Year or (more properly in my view) the 6th January.  Whatever date it is, there are gatherings to eat gallette and find the feve and crown the king or queen (who ever finds the feve or bean).  Gallettes come in a variety of flavours and types - most common around here are the brioche-style ones, where you are given a HUGE slice, but it is very light and fluffy or the frangipane ones, which are two layers of flakey pastry with a rich mixture of almond paste in between.  For the month of January, any gathering is blessed with eating gallette - next weekend we have two bouts of that, with the Comite des Fetes AGM and with the walking group.  It makes January that much more special.

One of the local bakers has upped the ante this year and on Epiphany itself was selling gallettes where the feve (normally a small porcelain figurine - highly collectable I'm told) was taking the form of a small gold coin.  How special was that?

Les en primeurs sont arrives!

With many apologies to the French language for missing acents and dodgy spellings and potentially missing agreements.  It is the third Thursday in November however and as such the formal date for release of many of the en primeur or nouveau wines.  Some do come out earlier - we had primeurs in a restaurant in Narbonne in late October last year, but today is the day for Beaujolais and for Anjou Gamay.

I gather there are still parties for the release of the Beaujolais Nouveau but a lot of the marketing hype and fun seems to have gone out of it and wine snobs are sniffy about the quality of a wine that has been maturing for a few weeks at best.  I think they are missing the point with it.  November is a pretty grim month quite often, with storms, flooding, short days, cold nights, so something a bit fun is nice to change the mood.

The wines are young and therefore bear a very strong resemblance to grape juice with a kick, but you aren't drinking them for deep tanins and a complex nose, you are drinking these wines for a giggle.  If you want your tanins and complex nose and oak top notes and all the rest, pay a few pounds or euros more for something that is older and don't be offended by a young wine.

One thing we have found with Beaujolais Nouveau Villages, is that if you keep them for 18 months, you end up with quite a nice complex wine, although one with no more keeping qualities.

So this is our selection from Super U, and we will work our way through them, and if any are any good, we will probably invest in a couple more bottles, to keep us giggling until Christmas!