Did I mention we lost the Chanticleer Cup? Yes I did.

But besides that, as we head into summer I’ve signed up for quite a busy schedule of pétanque events. Lately, I’ve done well enough to be noticed by players who are better than me and invited to play on their team. Cool! But also… Pressure!

Doing better at pétanque is almost entirely mental… there’s no great strength or speed required. Realistically, there’s no shot I’ll encounter in competition that I can’t make. But the trick is being to make that shot more often… for example bringing a 40% shot up to 50%, and being able to do it during the semi-finals as often as I do in practice or on a Sunday afternoon. Even though the actual monetary and geopolitical stakes are low… there’s a big piece of me that craves to do well out there.

So… I’ve been practicing quite a bit.

One afternoon I had good coaching from this masked lapwing. He / she stuck around the whole 45-minute session, watching and chattering. But like with a lot of coaches, I found much of the advice hard to incorporate on the spot. So I’ll keep thinking about it and see if it helps.