July 14th

July the 14th is a national holiday and it is always a busy day. The party tends to start on the evening of the 13th with fireworks and goes on into the next day. This year, our evening of the 13th was marked not by fireworks but by a different and very special event. I actually watched a football match, or more amazingly, Cees actually watched a football match. It wasn’t the most exciting World Cup final ever, but it was worth it for one glorious moment. No, not the goal that Germany scored, even though I wanted them to beat Argentina, it was the shots they showed of Christ the Redeemer seemingly holding on to the setting sun. Absolutely stunning.

July 14th itself started off early, with us doing our shift on the entry of the Cormatin Brocante de Qualité. We were stationed at the new back gate, that lead up from the car park. We sat there doing nothing for the first hour and a half and then the first few people trickled in from the car park. I am glad we didn’t have too many entries because all, bar one nice French couple, felt the need to make a sarcastic remark about how far they had had to walk - all off 100 meters poor loves. I was glad when we were replaced. The final score was a record 1,300 entries but I do hope for our replacements’ sake they didn’t have such a grumpy bunch !

We then went on to the July 14th wreath laying with a twist this year - no music. Monsieur P announced before we started, that he was proposing the we should sing the Marseillaise. A number of people looked a bit panicked, but to his word, when we arrived at the war memorial Monsieur P stood firm and said we would all sing. If we didn’t know the words we should just mouth something! I wasn’t sure if that remark was aimed at the kids or us foreigners.

I started off well:

Allons enfants de la Patrie
Le jour de gloire est arrivé !

Then I was on tricky ground and so decided to pretend, I managed to pick it up again at

Aux armes citoyens
Formez vos bataillons
Marchons, marchons
Qu'un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons

The Mayor looked very pleased with all our efforts and said that that must be a first for Cormatin, but I know for a fact that Monsieur P had done it at least one time before, when he was a young teenager. He and his friends were even arrested by the Germans for doing it, so bravo for reintroducing a real version of a very stirring National Anthem. I’ll definitely have to practise before the next session on November 11th.

After a quick lunch we headed off for a day out to see some Romanesque buildings that have been closed on our last attempts to visit them. One of those was the museum of the Priory in Charolles and this time we managed to get in. As we had only gone to see the inside of the building, I was a bit disappointed by what we could actually see until we went into the temporary exhibition of sculptures by René Davoine.

The first sculpture I saw a beautiful young girl and something about it reminded me of the image I had seen the evening before. The second large piece was of Christ also giving off the same vibes. Having been carved in 1932, the similarity could not have been a coincidence. Both were very serene and quite mesmerising and the trip was worth it just for that.

To comeplete our holiday, we had a celebratory BBQ of chicken tikka and freshly picked salade. La vie est belle!