French Village and Country Life
All over France, the celebration of the storming of La Bastille in 1789 takes place every 14th July. Towns and villages all over France party in a serious way.... dances, fireworks, dinners , picnics etc... Here in Beauville for the past 6 years we have celebrated in a special manner, with a 'Petanques' ( boules) competition jointly between French and British. Nick Twilly has orgainsed this event from the start, which consists of matching up doubles teams ( One Brit or foreigner and One French person) for an afternoon of serious fun. Hostilities begin at 2pm (ish !!) and teams are drawn at random to play against each other. 22 teams played this year in not very hospitable conditions with a fairly rainy afternoon...... eased by the good humour and the beer tent !
The British contingent had shipped in a barrel of excellent Harveys real ale, pork pies, stilton cheese and scotch eggs...... and this was much appreciated by everyone playing and spectating as you can tell by the photo below
By 7pm , all the matches had been played and we all retired to the village restaurant du Midi for drinkies and prize giving. Prizes were awarded by Nick Twilly and Madame Reihmer ( village council) for the winning English/French team and for the best English or French team, and for runners up.......
WINNERS ENGLISH/FRENCH TEAM: Steve BELLINGER & Aldo CAMBRER
WINNERS FRENCH TEAM (Coquetier): Aldo Cambrer & P. Le LIEVRE
WINNERS CONSOLATION PRIZE: Nick WADHAM & J. RAVEZ
LOSERS CONSOLATION PRIZE: Carl SCHOLFIELD (shome mishtake surely !!)
Prizes awarded, everybody got down to serious business.... the evening dinner featuring 'Poularde Forestier' and wine a go-go!!
Anyone who wants to join in next year, contact me in the new year and I will give you details then.
Until then.....