The better man won, simple as that. Neither Colin nor I had ever tried Petanque but he caught on much more quickly than I did and beat me 2-0 in a best of 3 match. The games were close, coming down to the last throw but he had the edge. We had a bigger crowd for this event, including our teacher Pierre on the left. From left to right are Ming, Colin, Laurent and Wayne.
Colin and I played first and then everyone else took a turn. Ian (in the red shirt) is a real athlete - he was on an English premier league youth team and almost became a professional footballer. You can tell how athletic he is by how quickly he masters something. He beat the pants off of Pierre, a Frenchman from Marseille where the game is taken very seriously. We even had some passersby who stopped and watched for a bit. The gentleman on the right of the photo watched the entire thing.
Wayne, my London colleague always complains that my photos make him look queer.
He won't be pleased with these photos, I'm sure. However, he beat the other Frenchman Laurent easily. It's pretty sad - we tease the French all the time about being uncompetitive and now we had clear proof.
Wayne, celebrating the winning shot. Laurent is on his right with Kais, a converted Frenchman from Tunisia who was eager to remind us that "I am from North Africa, not France." After the match we retreated to Chez Janou to eat dinner and drink Pastis. It truly was the Frenchiest day of all.
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