It was an absolutely brilliant day – long and hot but so enjoyable.
The pistes were completely different to ours – they were stony so we had to adapt our play. The morning play was a Round Robin so depending on how well we did in that in the afternoon we would be graded into Gold, Silver or Bronze groups.
Our first game was against Hassi Leverett and her partner Karen. Hassi was the favourite and Chairman of Pétanque England so the whole of the match was filmed and live streamed. As you can imagine it was the worst draw possible for us but we did manage to get on the scoreboard.
We knew we would have to play our socks off in the next two matches and we did!
I was thrilled we had made it to the silver group – as did Mary and Elaine.
All the teams were so friendly and I was so touched when Luisa from the Anglia Region came over to Gill and myself, saying she had really enjoyed our company and gave us a lovely pétanque enamel friendship badge each.
If anyone gets the chance to enter this competition next year please do – it is a unique experience. I was nervous when first asked, being so new to the game but Gill Brooks wanted to give ‘newbies’ a chance to enter outside competitions and I am so grateful to her for that.
From Chris Saunders
