Cricket in France?

This article was published in the Mail while we were in England recently and caught Mark's attention - read on for further developments bearing in mind that the two things that would make his life more than perfect are cricket and bitter! 

Owzat? Quintessentially English cricket bounces back at school... but only in France
By PETER ALLEN
PUBLISHED in the Mail: 23:36 GMT, 10 March 2012 
  
It is the quintessential English game, yet cricket has suffered a slow decline – today less than one-in-ten schoolchildren play the sport.  But now it is to enjoy an unexpected revival – in France.
Cricket is being introduced into the national curriculum for French primary schools, and enthusiasts hope the move will lead to cricket becoming a part of French culture. ‘We have far more open spaces here, so beautiful pitches will not be a problem and the French are certainly clever enough to understand the  complicated rules,’ says Gilles Lefevre, an English teacher from Bordeaux, who learnt to love the game on holidays to the UK.


Cricket is being introduced into the national curriculum in France and enthusiasts hope the move will lead to cricket becoming a part of French culture  ‘Culturally, cricket is all about the English but there is no reason at all why this game should not become a favourite here.’
Even French cricket terms are being introduced – including ‘fin de serie’ for over, ‘batteur’ for batsman and ‘lanceur’ for bowler  Leg before wicket is ‘jambe devant guichet’. However, French enthusiasts are struggling to pronounce ‘Owzat!’ – for which they have yet to find a Gallic alternative.
They can even argue they have a historic claim to the sport as French archives refer to the game of ‘criquet’ being played as early as 1478.


At present, the France national side must travel to Holland to use a grass wicket while schools play in gyms and on playgrounds with soft balls. But France Cricket, which monitors the game’s development across the country, is confident all that can change. The new schools scheme will mean that children between six and 11 will be taught the basics of the game, learning everything about batting, bowling and fielding. Only a handful of schools have so far enjoyed the sport as part of a pilot project around France, but the numbers will multiply over the coming months and years. A France Cricket spokesman said: ‘This is an enormous breakthrough for French cricket.

Getting ready for a century!

So, a couple of weeks ago the group of ladies who come for pottery classes every week were chatting away and one of them mentioned that her husband had heard that there was a local cricket team being set up. We had known for a while that there was a team at Saumur, but that's a fair trek for practices etc.  Telephone number supplied Mark rang the contact and found that a team is being set up with the use of a practise ground in Poitiers for this season and then a new ground is going to be developed at the hippodrome at La Roche Posay which is only about 10km from us - and not only a ground but a National ground!   A meeting on the bridge at Montmorrillon with the local organiser ( i'm the small man with curly hair/i'm the big man with less hair than I had conversation - the bridge is only about 100m wide, how many others would be standing there doing nothing at mid-day! ) confirmed the facts and now Sunday is the first practise day and cricket teas may not be a thing of the past any more!
Better go and find the kit!!

My Posh Day!

My Posh Day: Allez les bleus! It’s great to be back

By Mark Judson
Published in the Peterborough Evening Telegraph on Monday 12 March 2012 15:45

Mark Judson from France watches Peterborough United beat Blackpool 3-1 at London Road on 10th March 2012:

Current form: I’m 53, and a former schoolteacher now running a holiday let business near Poitiers in France.

I have supported Posh for 47 years. My first match was on March 15, 1965 versus Shrewsbury Town.

I remember my father passing me over the turnstiles at the Glebe Road terraces and us forcing our way down to the wall where I stood on an old milk crate which allowed me to witness Derek Dougan score one and Peter Deakin notch a hat-trick in Posh’s 4-1 win. I was hooked.

I try to arrange my annual return trip to blighty to coincide with two Posh home games (Millwall and Blackpool on this trip).

I avidly follow the rest on Posh Player with Edwin and the great Bob Burrows. Is there a more enthusiastic Posh fan than Bob? He really brings the games to life.

Pre-match: I picked up my niece Stacey Moore from Walton and we decided to find a proper English pub close to the ground. We chose the Coalheavers and were not disappointed.

They had fantastic English ale called ‘Nero’ and who should show up but my old friend Derek Lopez from the Norman Cross Gallery (I used to be director of art at the Perse School, Cambridge, where I ran an art gallery too and we used to compare notes) and his daughter the ‘Princess’ Melissa and some friends.

It was great to catch up on recent Posh news and performances and we both agreed that the Millwall game was one to forget. We wondered which Posh team would turn up today?

Stacey and I arrived at the London Road terraces at about 2.30pm and viewed a perfect pitch in front of us. I was eagerly anticipating a feast of flowing football from both sides but with a modicum of trepidation after the Millwall debacle.

Could we overcome a team that was in the Premiership last season and was sitting pretty in fifth place in the league?

I noticed Brisley was in for his debut and how he resembled Ryan Bennett. Hope he plays like him I thought.

From the pre-match warm- ups the Posh players seemed relaxed and in good spirit.

Half-time report: Wow what a performance! Posh outplayed Blackpool from start to finish in an amazing first half.

The midfield that looked so weak against Millwall was controlling the game and Lee Tomlin made all the difference. Brisley was having a blinder.

At half-time we tried the steak pies, which were okay - unlike the London Road loos which are surely on the list of ‘to do’s’ for next season.

Atmosphere: It took a while for the London Road fans to get going, maybe that drum is needed after all! But when that third goal went in there was collective relief and a massive return of confidence. The Posh were back!

Full-time report: What a game! Three vital points, three goals and a great performance.

Whatever Darren Ferguson did to the team after Tuesday needs bottling.

I shall complete the 1200 mile round trip convinced we can stay up. On Tuesday I was not so sure.

George Boyd was back on form, Lee Tomlin was on fire but my man-of-the-match would go to young Shaun Brisley for an amazing debut.

It was great to be back home, to see friends and family again and to cheer the mighty Posh on to victory!

Just nine more points lads, allez les bleus and UTP!

Match report: Posh 3, Blackpool 1 - The tale of the unexpected

OVERALL MATCH RATING: 9 OUR FANS: 8 THEIR FANS: 6

Winter got colder and colder

The snow has been on the ground for nearly two weeks now and it has been so cold (-18 one night ) that it has turned to little ice flakes which shimmer and sparkle in the sun.  Very pretty but hopeless for snowballs as it just turns to powder.  So we played with the icicles instead!

We have been feeding the birds three times a day and putting out water too.  The blue tits, great tits, robins, goldfinches, nuthatches and occasionally the woodpecker all come flocking to the bird table as soon as the sunflower seed is put out.  If Mark is late they congregate in the lime tree and the plum trees by the side of the studio and wait to be fed and then as soon as the seed is on the table they are there!   The other day a pheasant came along too and pecked a few seeds from the snow around the table before being shooed away.  We still have a couple of baskets of apples left, which are starting to get soft and wrinkly, so we have been putting these out on the ground for the blackbirds, which have also demolished some squash, resulting in spectacularly orange droppings all around the front garden! On our walks around our grounds we have spotted feathers in the snow which are probably where the sparrowhawk has made a kill.  Goodness knows what has happened underground in all of the mouse holes and tunnels but I am hoping for the best, or worst, depending on your viewpoint.

In the greenhouse things are looking a bit bleak.  Despite wrapping the geraniums and other tender plants in fleece, old sacks, bubblewrap, carpet and anything else to hand the -18C that we had a few nights ago has left them all limp and soggy.  No doubt there will be a few casualties outdoors too so i'll be doing lots of cuttings and divisions of the things that have survived.

The thing that has been lovely though is the amount of sunshine we have been having, as you can see - lovely blue sky!

Hope all of you reading this have been keeping warm!

There are a few more photos of icicles and snow in the photostream on our blog page at www.chenevaux.blogspot.com

Winter arrives at Chenevaux

The new (not quite finished) pergola in the farmhouse back garden.

The last day of January and the winter is about to begin!  Yesterday morning started off reasonably mild but as the day went on it got progressively colder until it started snowing late afternoon and then we woke this morning to lovely clear blue skies and brilliant white snow everywhere.
The mimosa, which leads a precarious life, has grown like topsy over the past few months.  It has little tiny flower buds on it in amongst the feathery leaves which have all been swathed in a lightweight tarpaulin and tied up with string in the hope that this gives enough protection against the forthcoming frosts.  The forecast is for -11 later in the week!
To explain about the mimosa's precarious life - the previous owner was given some seeds by her daughter who lived in Morocco.  She planted the seeds on the front wall of the gite, which faces south - makes good sense initially.  I don't know how many seeds there were but the one that germinated and grew into a tree was right up against the wall and in front of a window, so when we were renovating the gite it had to be moved.  By chance we were having the swimming pool excavated so a digger was available and with one big scoop a new hole was dug, and with another the whole rootball was dug out.  Job done!  Only thing is that the tree is now in a more exposed place and if we have a cold winter, which is often the case, it suffers terribly.  To the point that a couple of years ago it was so badly frost damaged that we cut it down to the ground completely thinking that it was dead.  But then, a good few months later it started sprouting out of the ground so we decided to give it another chance.  By last winter it was the size of a shrub so we covered it in fleece for the winter, which was successful.  This winter it is at least 4m high and 3m diameter so the piece of fleece is far too small and the tarpaulin seemed the best thing.  We will see what happens and keep our fingers crossed.  I did manage to get some seeds to germinate about 4 years ago now and have one small tree left in my greenhouse just in case.
This isn't the only example of plants regrowing here - when a gingko had its main stem chewed off by a deer I thought the whole thing would die, but that too sent up a new stem.  So now, if something looks dead, we leave it in the ground for a year or so to make entirely sure!
The snow today had really settled on the branches of trees and shrubs so we had to go round and give them a shake to get it off. Some young sliver birch trees were bent over to the ground but soon sprang back.  Then we had to rescue the fruit cage.

A heavy load on the fruit cage netting.

As you can see the snow is really weighing down the netting even though we put wires under it for extra support.  It was only last week that we cut back some of the branches on the conifer but the ones still overhanging the cage were so heavy with snow that a couple had snapped.  Using a walking stick and a broom we gently banged the netting from underneath and got ourselves well and truly wet, but gradually the snow fell through the holes.  Then we tackled the tree, by the time we finished the snow that had been melting was starting to freeze again and there were icicles hanging from the branches,

Pergola in progress.

We have gradually been accumulating old oak beams under our open barn - a lot from the ruin that we have been working on recently.  So a pergola seemed to be a great way of using some of them!  Roses do really well here as we have clay soil and the local farmer kindly brings us muck from either the cows or sheep.  David Austin roses are far and away the most successful, and having ordered some which were delivered earlier in the month this will be the perfect home for them.  There is still another line of horizontal beams to go in and some finishing off to do then I can get planting! Weather permitting that is.

All bottled up

Where have the last few weeks gone?  The summer went on for ever here and our last visitors left the day before we went on our own holiday to Portugal, from which we returned yesterday.  We stayed in an apartment in a little fishing village called Vila Cha not far from Porto.  The weather was hot and sunny, even though there was a bit of a sea breeze.  Apart from going to the beach, walking to the local restaurants and sitting on the terrace we spent one day in the town of Porto and that was it!  Now its back to work!  First job - bottling up the wine that has just been delivered, along with our personalised labels.  It needs to settle for a while but as there is always a not quite full bottle at the end of the bin we will drink that tonight.  Just before we went away Mark started on a project to rebuild a ruin, who knows what it will end up as, perhaps another small gite or perhaps a gallery - we'll see and it depends on how the finances go!   A very quick trip to England for a family wedding in September also gave us the welcome opportunity to catch up with people we hadn't seen for a while.  Today it is overcast and a bit damp and even though its not cold its a real contrast and Mark is planning to clean the flues for the log burners in the next day or so.  Meanwhile there are still tomatoes, squash, apples and the last of the figs to deal with.  What figs there are left that is as the birds have had a feast whilst we have been away!  Pics of the ruins next time - I need to find out how to upload a folder for them. 

Hot air

At 6.30 this morning Mark spotted an air balloon in the distance - not that unusual as there is a flying centre at Chauvigny, about 15km from us.  They quite often go up in groups and are a lovely sight.  Today started very sunny and then clouded over, at which point the balloon started to lose height, not sure if there is a connection, maybe they just ran out of hot air ( no chance of that here ). I was still in bed at the time, having only had one cup of tea, but then Mark got all excited about said balloon going over the gite and getting lower and lower and I should come and have a look and bring the camera!  So being very obedient ( ha ha ) I rushed out in my pj's with the camera - by which time the balloon had landed in the field opposite our swimming pool.  Of course the batteries on the camera had gone flat again, so in I go to get the re-charged ones ( why don't they re-charge properly, we only bought new ones a few months ago ), holding my pj bottoms up with one hand as the elastic needs re-charging as well.  So here is a pic!  I think the guy pulling the piece of string thought it was a bit bizarre when I waved at him but he still waved back and luckily he was far enough away not to notice that I wasn't dressed!

Introducing Gorrie ,

Gorrie ( aka Le Gorrilla ) is the propreitor of the Cheval Blanc ( White Horse ) in our village - superhero of darts as you can see by the trophies.   Not so long ago the Cheval Blanc team " Les Malloises" reached the final in a national competition at La Rochelle. Now, when I say national - this is serious.  Literally thousands of teams from the whole of France. All in  local costume or carrying regional flags, and there's a lot at stake - not just the reputation of your village but a place for the winning team to play in an international tournament in Las Vegas!  So, no chance at all for Gorrie's team from the tiny population of 356 at St Pierre de Maille.  Until ... Gorrie the superhero is joined by a certain Mark Judson and .... off the team go to La Rochelle .. ( with a few others ) and there they are in this huge place with darts competitions going on hour after hour - I was expecting him back the next day but then the phone call came " we got through to the next round " and then the next day " we're in the quarter finals " and so on until they were through to the finals!!!  By this time the village was totally immersed in darts talk - especially Pascal - the propreitor of the 8 a 8 ( small supermarket open at all other times except 8 - 8 ), whose wife was away with the team.  Sadly ( though not for me, I couldn't imagine anything worse than a trip to Las Vegas for a darts competition - could have made a good raffle prize though - Guernsey WI perhaps !!) they were beaten in the final - next time perhaps!