Yesterday, to everybody’s relief, the temperature finally dropped down to a more normal seasonal level and made our annual event much more pleasant. It was overcast and cool in the morning (excellent weather for photography) and kind of muggy and sticky in the late afternoon.
To my surprise though, only 15 mixed teams showed up for combat, but it made the event feel more like a family affair: informal and friendly. I surmised that some monarchists preferred to stay home to watch Queen Elizabeth’s elaborate funeral pageantry. The Donald (surely watching from his lair) must have been green with envy.
Due to my rather substandard physical condition, and after much internal debate, I finally decided to team up with Tall Nina, a friendly newcomer. It was a wise choice since Nina proved to be an excellent pointer.
As usual, 3 timed games were played in the morning and elimination games in the afternoon. In the morning, Nina and I did rather poorly and were promptly defeated slaughtered (2/13, 5/13, 2/13) by much better teams. I tried to take notes of the names while playing but ended up erasing everything by mistake.
On our first game though, I remembered being pulverized by Tim Wetzel and Holly Sammons. I was going to put Tim on my enemy list, but he proved so photogenic that afternoon that I had to cancel that project. I decided to put him instead on my “watch” list. Be warned Tim, I am watching you.
Since I am not in my best physical condition, I was hoping to be promptly eliminated in the afternoon and spend the rest of the day peacefully photographing the event. But the Olympian Gods didn’t see it that way.
After lunch, Nina and I played our first Consolante game. As luck would have it, we won that game, mainly due to Nina’s excellent pointing. Damn! We had to play a second game, and triple damn, we won again. Lord, have mercy! Soon we were in the Consolante finals facing Erin and Mike Menefee again. We lost the coin toss and crafty Erin dragged us to the heavily graveled court on the left of the field.
Nina had never played on such a surface, and I am not exactly an expert in this area. Erin and Mike clobbered us 13/2 and finally took us out of our misery, and carried me out on a stretcher… I am kidding.
This long story, to let you know that I had very little time to photograph the event. While we were battling Erin and Mike, the Concours’ finals were taking place at the other end of the field.
Mark and Sandra were engaging Tim and Holly. But as is often the case, the finals proved a little disappointing. Instead of an apocalyptic fight, we witnessed a much watered-down event. Mark and Sandra finally prevailed and won (I believe) 13/8.
Altogether though, a very lovely, friendly event.
Concours
1st place: Mark and Sandra Shirkey
2nd place: Tim Wetzel and Holly Sammons
Consolante
1st place: Erin McTaggart and Mike Menefee
2nd place: Nina Semenenko and Alain Efron
Alain
PS: watch some pictures of the event in “My photos”. Thank you for your attention.