Not A Game, It's A Religion

 

 I am not sure to whom to give the credit for the  title but he is almost certainly French. Boules games have a long, long history, allegedly dating back through the Middle Ages to ancient Rome and quite probably before that to ancient Greek and Egypt. ,But the form of boules known as the jeu provencal or boule lyonnaise, became incredibly popular during the second half of the 19^th

Ernest Pitiot, a resourceful friend

1910.

Le Joueur de Boules. Gavarni. 1858.

century in France. In this popular form of the game, players rolled their boules, or ran three steps before throwing the boule. Petanque proper, as we might label it, developed as an offshoot or variant of jeu provencal in 1910, in what is now known as the Jules Lenoir Boulodrome in the town of La Ciotat, near Marseilles. A former jeu provencal player named Jules Lenoir was afflicted by rheumatism so badly that he could no longer run before throwing a boule. In fact, he could barely stand. A good friend, Ernest Pitiot, a local cafe owner, wanted to accommodate his friend Lenoir, and he developed a variant of the game in which the length of the field or pitch, was reduced by approximately half, and the player, instead of running to throw a boule, stood stationary within a marked circle. They called this new version, pieds tanques, feet planted [on the ground], a name that eventually evolved into the game’s current name, Petanque. In the same year, Ernest Pitiot and his brother, Joseph, organised the first Petanque tournament in La Ciotat; it was a great success and subsequently the newly-adapted game spread quickly and soon became the most popular form of boules in France.

Petanque, France 1950s perhaps.

Before the mid 1880s, European boules games were played with a solid wooden ball, usually made from boxwood root, a particularly hard wood. The late 1880s saw the introduction of the production of cheap, mass-produced nails and gradually it became the fashion to cover the wooden boules balls with nails, called boules cloutees. After WW1, the adaptation of technology for producing cannon-balls, allowed the production of hollow, all metal balls and from the mid 1920s, les boules integrales were introduced by Paul Courtieu. The integrale was cast in a single piece from a bronze-aluminium alloy and this was further modified by Jean Blanc who invented the process of manufacturing steel balls by stamping two steel blanks into hemispheres and then welding the two halves together to create a boule. With this technological advance, hollow all-metal boules rapidly became the norm we know and love today!

Contemporary women's game

Thus, during the last one hundred years since the all-metal ball has become established, the global spread of the game has accelerated; first from Provence to the rest of France; then to most of Europe and onward to Francophone colonies and countries. In South-East Asia, for instance, countries with French colonial influence such as Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia are strong supporters of Petanque with many countries worldwide having established national governing bodies similar to the world’s oldest governing body, in France, La Federation Francaise de Petanque et du Jeu Provencal.

And today three of us happily re-started our girls’ Petanque sessions at Minnewater, adjacent to the sun-dappled water and beneath a green forested canopy nearby. The birdsong-filled peace echoing with faint lapping from the lake was soon broken with shouts and whoops from the triumphant and the dejected. Been wondering if Petanque shouldn’t be on the prescription list for various emotional/psychological illnesse

 Rear view of Woman of the Match.

s. 

Blogger in action

View from the Petanque court of the 
Poertoren, now temporarily changed from mediaeval
monument into a Triennale exhibit,
'And The World Keeps Turning.'
by Nnenna Okore.

A Little Normality Returns ....Gilded by the Sun.

 

Awaiting our arrival.
The offending table was within the conservatory on the left.

 I can now boast of TWO social engagements since early March 2020! First was lunch in the rain and the cold, on the newly-opened terrace of Bistro de Schilder on Jan Van Eyckplein two or three weeks ago when friends Joachim and Michael were over briefly from Cologne. In spite of numb legs from the cold, it was a delightful two hours plus, protected somewhat under a large umbrella, and really loving the chance for face to face engagement. Then, this last week, to the home of one of the couples involved in the highly entertaining but often difficult Friday evening quiz. Maurice is a barbecue enthusiast with rather important-looking equipment and the expertise to match. SO all eight of the quizzers went plus another couple who might well have been involved in the quiz had be not been too busy with a constant stream of judicial work from London. So, the ten of us arrived and in time-honoured British fashion, the men gathered at one end of the lawn while the women were seated at the long table to sip champagne. The sun was high, the garden, gorgeous, and the group more than ready to savour real, in-person

togetherness! Subsequently, food arrived to a grateful and appreciative assembly and all was well. In fact, much more than well; the past fifteen months faded away somewhat, and the chance to behave normally, even if in superlative surroundings, sunlit to boot, enthused us all. Quite literally, we basked, in heat and sun; in green and shadow, in pauses and laughter; in silence occasionally and in a frequent babble of sound. Our friendships felt like summer.

As we all relaxed in the unaccustomed company, our host ran up the steps into a small conservatory on the side of the house and we heard him fall. He had caught his leg on a low table as he hurried past and somehow, managed to cut his leg. BUT it was an extraordinarily neat slice down several inches of skin covering the shin bone. How that happened from a kind little table with rounded edges, no one knew, though a square of plate glass, edged with metal, covered the top of the table and presumably must have improbably been involved. Eventually, he was dispatched, with a volunteer chauffeuse, to the family huisart who had offered to staple up the slash for healing to begin. And, as if on cue, the leave-taking began. Apart from the obvious accident, it had been a marvellous event, appreciated even more than normal because of the socialising desert before. I have to say that the warm, sunny glow, apres the barbecue, lit up life for ages.

Masquerading as Croc Dundee

And this morning, to the flower markt on ‘t Zand for small plants for three or four small pots. Alas, I tend to get carried away when I stumble upon floral extravagance which is exactly what happened when I saw a giant pot of bright coral gerberas. Heavenly, though the damned pot was too large for my old-lady-bag-on-wheels, my only carrier now that I have no car. Koen, the lovely plant seller fixed me up so that the bag part drooped at the back while the roped-in gerbera rode majestically on the front part. Alas, as I walked, pulling my prize, the actual bag dragged one corner on the ground and would undoubtedly have holed in one on the homeward journey. SO to New Senses nearby, on the corner of ‘t Zand and Smedenstraat owned by Marco and with his sister Anna i/c waiting on! I explained the problem and it turned out that in Portugal, Marco had been an engineer! Every family needs an engineer, frankly, and Marco put everything in working order while I had a coffee and a wonderful Pasta del Nata tartlet. I was quite soon on my way pulling my floral cargo proudly and securely. The fact that I am quite unable to restore the bag in its original position is presently being ignored!

In actualite, the  Gerbera is even more
impressive!

Serious discussion under the awning.

Along the Coupure this morning. June 6th,

Early this morning, in Astridpark, all fountain and sun.