By Ray Ager.
Most guidelines for building terrains emphasise the basic requirement for a rectangular piste, e.g. 12 or 15 x 4m. Whilst this is obviously the basic requirement for marked-out terrains for competitions, it tends to result in rather dull, featureless terrains being built.
Remember, in France, terrains are frequently "natural" terrains, typically the village square, areas in parks, etc. The shape will be irregular and the surface is likely to be uneven and irregular, often with a slope, some areas hard and smooth, others rough and stony, with ruts where the rain drains across, etc. Especially in the South, terrains will be tree lined, essential for protection against the fierce sun but also creating additional features and obstacles, with the roots providing more uneveness to the playing surface.
All these features are what traditionally make up the charm and typical nature of the game. Players will choose different areas to play on, using the different features to test each other's pointing skills.
May I suggest that any guidelines on building terrains should pay as much attention to the traditional nature and feel of the game. Such terrains are much more interesting to play and look far more attractive than a plain, rectangular terrain.
We have done some redesigning here, and things are starting to look a bit more like 2013. The last change was back in 2005, and that was our 5th redesign. So here we are in the middle of our 6th change since 1996.
FInally there is a petanque-app for the android-users out there. And it is free. The perfect xmas-present perhaps?
We have set up a system that will publish 2 new postcards to twitter every day from petanque.org. It will not work forever of course, in only 2,5 years we will start with re-runs of cards we have already previously published on Twitter . We do have a lot of petanque-postcards here.
We have a very nice collection of postcards here on petanque.org, and all of them are about petanque of course. Currently we have more than 1750 postcards available for your enjoyment.
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