The Florida vacation trip that Shirley and I took in March finally gave me the opportunity to meet with Gilles Canesse (pictured in the foreground of the first photo above) who is president of the Sararsota Petanque Club. Gilles was kind enough to reschedule some of his commitments in order to meet with me concerning my desire to become certified as an official FPUSA umpire. The Club Umpire test was administered by Gilles during a Sunday morning play date at the Lakeview Park site near Sarasota. I'm proud and happy to say that I have since been notified that I did pass.
Of course, in addition to the test, we also wanted to get in some play on the very tough Sarasota terrain. The surface is hard and irregular, in other words, very challenging. Pointing requires a sensitive touch and the ability to "read" the terrain as one would a golf putting green. Shooting, to be very succesful, must usually be done "on the iron."
It was great fun, and the people were extremely nice and welcoming. There was a slight language barrier in some instances; however, lucky for us, most of the French speaking people also had good English skills.
We look forward to returning at the first opportunity. And hope that it may work out for some of the Florida crowd to visit our club when they're in the area.
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