Field Trip Folly Valentine's Day Edition: Pétanque in the Park

Happy (belated) Valentine's Day everyone! I hope you were able to have some quality time with whomever it is you're fond of.

I was surprised this morning by a bouquet sent to me by my sweetie, who coordinated their delivery all the way from the U.S.

He is so good to me! Soon, I'll have big, fragrant lilies perfuming the house. I love that man...

In the afternoon, CEA arranged a pétanque lesson with our excursion buddy Georges. We invaded the park, 30 strong, to the surprise of many an old joueur.

He explained the rules, which are somewhat similar to those of bocce ball, or even marbles.

Then he played a few practice rounds before setting us free, heavy metal balls in hand.

First, you divide into teams of 3 people, with 2 balls each of a similar shade of patina, and a recognizable pattern of lines on each one. Next, you draw a circle in the dirt, with a long strip of field in front of you. Then you toss a little neon indicator ball between 6 and 10 meters ahead of you on the terrain. This becomes the target.

Once the indicator ball is lobbed, each player tries to land their ball closest to it. The play is passed to the team whose balls are further from the indicator, so that they may attempt to "beat" the closest ball. For example, Player A on the black team plays first, tossing his first ball. Then, player 1 on the silver team plays, but lands her ball farther from the indicator than Player A's. Player 1 plays again, with his second ball. If this ball still lands farther from the indicator that Player A's, Player 2 on the silver team will play. If her ball lands closer, play is passed to player B on team black.

Sounds complicated, huh? Try gathering all of that in French! After all 3 players on both teams have thrown their balls, points are added up based on whose balls are closest to the indicator ball. If the first closest ball is team silver's, and the next closest is team black's, team silver scores one point. If team silver has two balls closer than any of the black team's, they score 2 points, etc. Play continues this way until someone scores 13 points.

You should have seen some of the Frenchmen playing their games with their rulers, ball-fetching magnets, and custom ball sets! I can bet you that many of them had been playing pétanque for 20 or more years. Still, it was fun to play with the amateurs!

Best of all, CEA surprised us with an enormous raspberry mousse cake and champagne. It was such a sweet gesture that made my Valentine's Day sans Matt almost bearable. Almost. ;)

But seriously, it was some dang good cake!

Thanks for reading.