What a difference a week makes!

Shirley took three pictures (above) of our backyard terrain about a week ago (Friday the 14th).

Champions of the day!

Our host, Terry Wien

Frank Haney with Khalid and Sue

Our hostess, Sue Wien, along with Denyse Haney, pointing

Robert ("Stump") Morrison and Cheryl Morrison

Girls who beat the guys

Concours bracket

Consolante bracket

Then, about a week later (Saturday the 22nd), and only about five miles away at Terry and Sue Wien's place, we enjoyed an almost-spring-like day of 70F degree weather and plenty of warm sunshine!

We were happy to have several players join our group for the first time yesterday.  Frank and Denyse Haney made the drive from Indian Land, SC.  They are 2014 members of Carolina Petanque as a result of a move from Sacramento, California, where they were already FPUSA members.  Since our most frequented venue for play is Miller Park in Winston-Salem, and that's about an hour-and-a-half drive for the Haney's, Saturday was the first time it worked out for them to make the trip.  They're both excellent players and friendly, nice people whom we hope to see a lot more often in the future.

Speaking of friendly, nice people-- Terry invited one of his fishing buddies to try his hand at a different pastime on Saturday.  Robert Morrison along with his wife, Cheryl, played petanque for the first time ever.  Of course, as is often the case with first-timers, they did very well against more experienced players.  As a matter of fact, Shirley and Cheryl, in a gals-against-the-guys affair, beat Khalid, Frank, and myself.  Not only did they beat us, but we suffered the dreaded "fanny"-- a score of 13 to 0 which, by tradition, burdens the losers with kissing "fanny." 

Hand painted by Sue's friend, Jan Fritts

Luckily for us guys, we had not brought along the wine glasses that Terry and Sue had given us at Christmas with an artistic representation of the historic "Fanny."  (There's also a male version-- just in case the gals should ever lose.)  So, we were at least spared the indignity of performing the actual ceremony!

When the crowd dwindled down to just eight players later in the afternoon,  we decided to make the last games a mini-tournament of select doubles.  The draw pitted Khalid/Bob against Terry/Sue in one pairing and Nelson/Rebekah against Gary/Shirley in the other.

Shirley and I continued our recent streak of finishing second.  Not in the tournament, but in our match!  We then carried on into the Consolante against Terry/Sue, who had lost in a valiant comeback effort against Khalid/Bob.  We also finished second in the Consolante-- Terry/Sue killed us 13 to 1!

Khalid/Bob won in the Concours bracket against Nelson/Rebekah.  Congratulations to Khalid and Bob, the Champions of the day!