Autumn and Boules Championships

Signs Of Autumn
When I got back from the national boules championships in Ramatuelle I found my car covered in splashes of sand, a sure sign that the Sirocco, the warm wind that blows in from the Sahara, had been blowing when it had rained. The little wind that there is now is clearly coming from that direction too as I still have no need for any heating in the house. Leaves are changing colour all around, including some of the vines starting to turn, and they are carpeting the ground. Yet another sure sign of autumn here is the mushroom season. The somewhat despised button mushroom, champignon de Paris, so familiar in England is available at most times of the year in the supermarkets but the better varieties arrive only now: pieds de mouton, chanterelles, trompettes de la mort, girolles, morilles, etc. Time to make mushroom omellettes and risottos!

Boules
In brief, we finished 28th out of 80 teams in the national rural wrinklies championships in Ramatuelle and so honour was upheld. Hardly earth-shattering but not bad for un petit anglais. And we again finished with a higher ranking than any other team from the Drôme or Vaucluse, so no doubt there will be another article in the local paper. The tone was different from that at the regional championships, more serious and intense, albeit still friendly. Matches typically took twice as long as here in the village, an hour or more each, as the pitches were examined in detail and strategy/tactics discussed between throws of the boules. It was a pity then that the pitches weren't better. There's clearly a general problem here, the same as at the regional championships, in that facilities that have the required accommodation (there were around 500 players, other halves and supporters) doesn't have the required number of pitches: 35 were required to complete the tournament over the three days. So temporary pitches are marked out and those at Ramatuelle were under pine trees, providing a very fast surface with many bumps and underlying roots that were difficult to discern in the half-light. It was, of course, the same for everyone but a better surface would have allowed better boules.

We were playing solidly for two days, 8.30 to 18.00, with a two-hour break for lunch (compulsory everywhere in the south of France). On the last afternoon we were finished and so went into St Tropez, to walk round the old harbour (filled with very expensive-looking yachts) and take a boat trip round the bay. The boat trip commentary consisted mainly of pointing out the houses owned by rich luminaries on the hillsides outside St Tropez: Michelle Morgan, Luis Funez, several unfamiliar to me and, of course, Brigitte Bardot. Her house was surprisingly modest in comparison to many of the others, right on the water front but shielded from it by a high concrete wall which was apparently to prevent paparazzi taking photos. After the boat trip we took a look at a Modigliani exhibition in the Annonciade museum in the old port, which I found rather disappointing; few exhibits and mostly ink drawings.

The countryside around St Tropez had many of the familiar type of pine (must research the name) that one sees everywhere along the Côte d'Azur, with it's naturally rounded, sculpted shape. One could think that a topiarist had been hard at work all along the coast. There were oleanders a-plenty, many palm trees and some magnificent specimens of large plumbago in full flower but no sign of any bougainvillea, which I have always associated with the Côte d'Azur.

All in all, it was a very worthwhile trip and no doubt we'll get around to having a few drinks in the village on our (relative) success.