Let the music play

Chazelle church in the December snow

It is a busy time for us throughout the winter and early spring, as we are on the organising committee of Les Guitares en Cormatinois which is a music festival held every June/July in the church in Chazelle, a venue which has the most amazing acoustics.

The artists have been fixed for the coming festival and yet again we will have a very wide range of different guitar music.

Irish Kind of two years ago

We start on Saturday 7th July with an old favourite “Irish Kind Of” who surprisingly enough play Irish music. They are usually a sell-out, so get your reservations in early for that one.

On Sunday 8th we have a violin/guitar duo who should be very interesting. They haven’t given us their programme yet so I can’t give any more details on that one but it will be classical.

The following weekend we have only one concert, it will be on the Sunday (15th) we have Hair Brother a duo of guitars with humour thrown in for good measure.

The last weekend of the festival 21st and 22nd, we have Duo Atlas (guitar and cello) from Spain with interpretations of voice within music, which we are really looking forward to and a Manouche band Paris-Gadjo Club which should be a real crowd puller.

Let's hope we have plenty of sell-outs like this one

This year we have a time change for the concerts, all of the concerts will be at 17.30. We have always had more people to the Sunday afternoon concerts than to the Saturday evening ones, so we will see how this change goes.

Not only are we collecting information, designing and preparing the flyers and posters, but this year we have decided to renew the website to bring it up to date both stylistically and technically. We have had discussions with a designer and have found our new-look, all we have to do is put that into practice.

So there is lots of work to be done before we can sit back and listen to the music.

For the latest updates check out the website in the new year.

Mediaeval Day Out

Robinette Hood - look at that leatherwork

When Cees suggested that we could go to a mediaeval event with a Christmas market, I wasn’t too impressed with the idea. We have been to so many of these things and they are always, without exception, a let down. Besides Les Oiseaux Rares (the local artists group) were exhibiting in Cormatin, so why would we go to some unknown quantity?

Then he said that it would be held in the chateau of Varennes (near Mâcon) and I jumped at the chance even though there was an entry fee.

So why the change of mind?

Little robin there to welcome us

This particular castle is never open to the public and we have gazed at it over the walls of the neighbouring churchyard, wishing we could get in. We have tried to take photos of it by jumping up and down and when you are my height, that doesn’t get you very good pictures. So even with 3 Euros to get into a market we didn’t want to see, it got us into the castle, so mediaeval event here we come!

These events attract a big public and so we decided to go first thing this morning. We arrived as it was opening at 10.00 and even at that time, it was a bit tricky to park.

Fearsome looking drawbridge

I was very surprised at the mediaeval bit of the event, the costumes were exceptional, they hadn’t been taken from children’s dressing up boxes like the usual offerings and I was very impressed with the leatherwork of the young lady who was a female Robin Hood. The blacksmith was doing a tremendous job with a huge pair of bellows stoking up his charcoal fire and we spent some time watching him and the archers who very skilfully hit the target every time.

Entry into the Christmas market

The Christmas market was also well worth the visit, the exhibiters were of a very high quality. There was some beautiful calligraphy, leatherwork, horseshoe decorations, jewellery and wooden carvings just to name a few. At the far end of the market there was also a guy selling some very interesting “mediaeval” snacks, but as we had just had breakfast I skipped the delicious looking potato and cheese fritters - did they have potatoes in those days?

The castle was not at all what I had expected in two ways, firstly the part you can see from the churchyard is not as old as we thought and not that photogenic, but secondly, the other side of the castle was rather “mediaeval” looking (although I am tempted to say it wasn’t), it had a drawbridge that led into a little courtyard and it was truly charming.

All in all a great morning out, I would not hesitate to go again even if it is for the market this time!

Journey by train

The 241P17 at full steam
taken from a bridge last year

To celebrate 50 years of friendship between Cees and one of his oldest friends who lives in Amsterdam, they decided to go on a train journey – graciously his wife and I were allowed to go along too. That may not sound too exciting, but Cees’ friend is a train fiend and this was no ordinary train. We were taking one of the fastest steam trains ever built, the 241P17, from Le Creusot to Mulhouse in the Alsace.

I love steam trains. I have mentioned before that I used to live in one of the cottages at Horsted Keynes Station in Sussex, the home to the Bluebell steam train line. Every weekend during the whole year and most days during the summer, steam trains passed by my front garden, their sound and smell, bring back many happy memories. I have taken the train from Horsted Keynes to Sheffield Park a number of times, it was always enjoyable but as it goes at a rather leisurely pace it is not a truly exciting experience, so to be honest, I wasn’t so sure what it would be like to travel in this particular train for the best part of a day up to Mulhouse and the best part of the next day to get back.

The fire brigade came to refill the water tanks

It was fantastic!

The train got up to a very respectable 125 km per hour, only restricted by the carriages it was towing as they were not allowed to go any faster. The sound and the rhythm, the smell and the smoke and all the happy smiling faces of the waving spectators along the track and at the stations was an experience well worth every penny of the cost.

Don't often get the opportunity to travel 1st class

We decide to splash out and travel first class, that put us in a comfortable coupé for 6 people which we shared with a Hungarian/French couple who lived near Lyon. We had our lunches delivered to the carriage, which were simple but very tasty and in the evening we dined at the Railway Museum in Mulhouse amongst the trains. The following morning we had a visit to the museum and then back on to the train.

Cees enjoying the view

I can safely say that I enjoyed every single minute of the weekend - well maybe not the getting up at 6 am to drive to the station, but every other minute. I must admit it was a bit expensive, but for such a special occasion it was well worth it, the organisation was superb and if you look at what you got for your money, it was certainly not overpriced.

We will be looking at the trips for next year - who knows maybe will be on that particular train again.

Dancing Cabbage

Tartiflette photo from www.cuisineaz.com

After the long warm evenings of summer have passed, we move into a different time of year where activities are very different as well. Instead of long BBQ evenings with friends, other outdoor activities or concerts in the glorious Romaesque churches that abound here, we move into the season of club events, annual general meetings, livened up with wine and food at the end, “salons”, exhibitions and fundraising dinners.

At our taichi AGM we managed to have about 15 minutes of discussion and voting and then 2 hours worth of wine, food and dancing, that seems to be the right balance to me.

Choucroute photo from www.seriouseats.com

The Tourist Office in St-Gengoux-le-National on the other hand had an extraordinary GM to discuss its future, now that the local government has taken over control of the office. A very lively, but mostly off-topic, debate was had by all then the vote was cast. Contrary to northern European logic, the majority voted to merge with another association and to do something that was not entirely clear to me, but if they are happy that way, so be it. All the arguing and discussions took over 2 hours which didn’t leave us an enormous amount of time to enjoy the very good wine on offer and to have farewell chats with those we have worked with over the last 10 or so years.

After the “salon” of Zen in Sennecey-le-Grand and “salon” of well being in Cluny there was an exhibition of the Cluny photo club which was of a very high standard. The club was touting for new members, so we signed up and have started going to their meetings. We missed out on the light painting night and the mushroom excursion but we are looking forward to next club outings to practise a bit of photography with the group.

Aligot photo from www.marieclaire.fr

And last but not least there are numerous dinners offering autumn/winter delights such as tartiflette which is potatoes cooked in the oven with lardons and onions topped off with Reblochon a special cheese from the French Alps (Savoy) region baked to crispy perfection, aligot an Auvergne delight of melted Tomme (a cheese from the Auvergne), butter, cream and garlic blended into mashed potato, a gooey, elasticy mix of yum often served with just bread, but you can also serve it with sausages. Not to mention Boeuf Bourginon not always that well done and rather a cliché, but what the heck it’s named after our region. Often these meals are an excuse to eat and drink well into the night with the obligatory dancing in between courses so that you do not feel as though you are just pigging out.

Dancing choucroute available in Cluny?

But the best event we have seen advertised this year is the Cluny rugby club’s annual choucroute evening - choucroute being a speciality from the Alsace of sauerkraut topped with heaps and heaps of sausages and chunks of gammon and other meats.

I have a slight suspicion that someone has reworded the poster this year making it sound a little more special than normal. It tickled my sense of humour and if it were to be true, it would be almost worth the 18 Euros to see the choucroute dancing to the Madison - I suspect though that the lump of acidic, fermented cabbage will stubbornly sit on the plate, so I don’t think I’ll be going.

Trauma in the New Theatre in Chalon

The new theatre, in the dark depths of an industrial zone

After a summer chock-a-block full of concerts we were entering autumn, winter and spring with only two concerts in view. The first one was last week - a Fado singer in Chalon.

I am not a fan of Fado, but Cees is, so we bought tickets. As we were on our way through Chazelle, I had a sudden light bulb moment and remembered that the theatre, where all the concerts are normally given, was closing down for a two year renovation as of September – so where the heck was our concert going to be? An emergency three point turn followed by a racing start and screeching halt at La Tuilerie, to check out the theatre website. Of course both of us had switched off our computers (bloomin’ energy saving ideas) and so our departure was somewhat delayed. Good job I did think of it in time, as the new theatre is completely on the other side of town and not at all where I thought it was even when I had remembered it had moved – if you get my drift.

Inflated tarpaulin 

No problem, we are chronically early for everything (too long in The Netherlands) so we were on time for the concert. People were going into the auditorium when Cess handed over our electronic tickets that he had printed out, no cheery beep for us from Ticketman’s scanner we got a blurp – tickets not valid! What?? Ticketman then looked at the tickets and said “these are for an orchestra in May”. Oh no…. someone had brought the wrong tickets with him. There was no way we could get home in time to get the right tickets and still see the concert – “what a pity” I was secretly thinking. Ticketman suggested we talked to Ticketlady, maybe something could be done.

Rplacement ticket

Ticketlady smiled when we told her our story and said “Quelle catastrophe !” and then tick, tick, tick on the computer, we were found and real cardboard tickets were printed out for us. Phew – “this concert had better be worth the hassle” I was thinking by then.

The new temporary theatre is a wooden base structure with an enormous red tarpaulin over it which seems to be inflated by a massive ventilation system. Inside there are 18 rows of 32  seats seemingly sloping up to the sky. When we got to our seats in row O, I felt like we had climbed half way up Mount Everest, but we had an impressive, towering view of the stage. My only concern was the lack of emergency exits. There were two for roughly 600 theatre goers and both of those were meters below us at row A. With only two narrow, steep staircases to get everyone down and out, I wasn’t sure what would happen in an emergency.

Gisela dances an encore, high heels gone,
time to seriously get dancing

The concert however, was fantastic. The singer (Gisela Joao) was quite superb and the musicians were even better. Gisela didn’t only sing Fado but she sang jolly, dancey songs and she was so enthusiastic about the songs that she jumped and danced all over the stage like a little girl. She insisted on trying to translate the words of each song, but her vocabulary let her down somewhat, so the Portuguese speakers in the audience had to shout out the missing words every so often. All in all she charmed the whole audience and her rendition of La Vie en Rose brought the house down.

It was great evening out, it was certainly worth the price of the tickets, the hassle of finding the place and the trauma of having the wrong paperwork with us, but I’m still not too sure about the safety of the theatre itself. I am hoping our seats for the next concert are a bit nearer the exits.

I’m Back

Patrouille de France in action

After taking a holiday from blogging over the summer, I’m back in the saddle again. To celebrate, Mâcon organised a fly past from La Patrouille de France (the French equivalent of the Red Arrows) over the Saône on Saturday morning. The elite of the French air force in their fighter jets with smoke trails of red, white and blue over the river - just for me!

They must have known that when I was young I wanted to be a fighter pilot, I even managed to get an introductory interview with the RAF by not giving my Christian names and not saying I had an O’ level in needlework. They were surprised when a five foot nothing female turned up and rather patronisingly told me girls can’t do that sort of thing – born too soon - they do it nowadays.

The noise of the planes, the roar of the engines, the adrenalin rush as those machine race over your head, just what any red-blooded engineer wants. The closest I have got to that is watching Top Gun with quadraphonic sound and an enormous screen at the IMAX in Rotterdam, but that is a few years ago now.

So yes, of course I would be delighted to be the guest of honour, thank you!

James Bond comes in to land in his Republic Seabee in Mâcon

The fly past was due at 10.30 and when Cees confirmed the time with the organisers, he was told that it was set for 10.30 but it might be 11.00 or even 11.30 ummm….. Let’s get this straight, the Patrouille de France is manned by the crème de la crème of French fighter pilots who can be scrambled at a moment’s notice and are less than 20 minutes flying time from any point on the French mainland, how the heck can they be an hour late?? Ah well c’est La France, say no more.

Back to Saturday morning. Being genetically and psychologically Northern Europeans we turned up on time, ie we were in situ at just gone 10 o’clock. I know, I know I can’t help it, but at least I was dressed warmly for the hour and half wait - I even had long trousers and socks on - now that is a first!

Tom Cruise on his way for my fly past

While we waited, we were treated to a display of amphibious aircraft taking off and landing. One of the planes was a Republic Seabee which had actually been in a James Bond film, The Man with the Golden Gun, with Roger Moore. That was in the days when James Bond was real and was not one of those modern alternatives – am I showing my age?

So there we were, on the first cold day since mid July and just before the fly past was due to be late, an announcement came over the tannoy, the cloud cover was too low to fly, they weren’t coming. There went my first blog of the autumn!

Not to be defeated I found a nice photo from the Internet to show you what my fly past would have looked like had it been a nice day. I think I’ll stick with Top Gun next time, at least it starts when I want it to and I can watch it in the warm!

Music and food

Duo Duende performing

It is that time of year again when the guitar music festival takes place in our village. Last weekend we started with a charming father and son duo from Albi playing Spanish and Brazilian music. The members of the audience were tapping their feet to the interesting programme they performed.

The first concert in the series is often under attended, but we were pleased to see that Chazelle church was over half full. An excellent start to the series.

Dinner awaits

Sunday we had a local favourite Bernard Bruel who sings Jacques Brel songs. He normally sings to a taped accompaniment, but especially for our festival, he accompanied a number of the songs on the guitar. He should do that more often as it was a much more pleasant effect, than just a tape in the background, an accordionist would be even better, but that wouldn’t have fitted into the guitar concept! The church was almost full and everyone really enjoyed his interpretation of the songs, a selection of old favourites and lesser known Brel songs.

Bruel sings Brel

There are three more concerts in the series, Emmanuel Rossfelder, who appears every two or three years and is one of the “Godfathers” of the festival, a group of Corsican singers who will be performing a traditional polyphonic repertoire (something I have never heard before)and we will end the festival with a French, Irish music band, who were so popular last year, we had to turn people away at the door. All three of the remaining concerts have already sold more than half of the available tickets, so it looks like it will be a good year not only musically but financially, which will enable us to carry on after the last two lean years have rather depleted our coffers.

Superb buffet

After the concerts, the volunteers get together with the artists for a buffet meal prepared by Monique and Chantal in Monique’s house, conveniently located almost nextdoor to the church. They do us proud every time and these evenings were no different.

All in all, we had two very interesting evenings, with delicious food, the only downer was France losing in the Euro cup final – but you can’t have it all can you?

Onwards and upwards to the next concerts - I can’t wait.

Antillean Week

It's not often such a colour outfit is seen in Cormatin

Every year the Antillean society in Saône-et-Loire has a week of events in this region. They seek to promote understanding of the Antilles, their culture, their gastronomy and their history and each year their week centres on a theme. This year the theme was the abolition of slavery.

France abolished slavery in 1794, but Napoleon reintroduced it in 1802 and it wasn’t until 1899 that all French colonies had abolished slavery once and for all. It wasn’t clear to me why this year was chosen to dedicate itself to history surrounding the abolition of slavery, but this year it was.

Plaque on the chateau wall

There were a number of different events throughout the week but the one that caught our eye was of course the event in Cormatin. The day started with an Antillean mass in Cormatin church, then proceeded to the unveiling of a plaque at the chateau, laying a wreath in Ameugny cemetery and a glass of wine and a presentation on the history of slavery in Ameugny village hall. In the afternoon there was a play in St Roch hall in Cormatin, but sadly we were expecting a gite guest to arrive and we had to miss the afternoon session.

Poppies on the walk through Ameugny village

So why Cormatin and what was on the plaque?

There was a certain General Lavaux who was the governor of St Domingue (Haiti today) who bought the chateau and he died there in 1828. He was a good friend of both Toussaint Louverture and Lamartine and these relationships proved to be critical in the eventual abolition of slavery.

The tomb of General Lavaux

Toussaint Louverture was the leader of the Haitian slave uprising which was a pivotal moment in the fight against slavery in the colonies and through him, General Lavaux became convinced of the anti-slavery cause and was able to lobby the influential Lamartine and other government officials to formulate the abolition of slavery bill, which he sadly did not live to see being passed in parliament. So a plaque has been erected to honour the work of this man who has been a little bit forgotten by history and it was his grave we laid the wreath on.

We think of this as only a lesson in history, but we were reminded that even with all these noble treaties, there is still slavery today, in many cases clandestine but in some areas just accepted and ignored.

All in all a very interesting, sobering and worthwhile morning contemplating the horrors of slavery and hopefully spreading the seeds to enable us to learn from our past and abolish this trade for ever.

Flying Elephants

Balloons over Chalon - photo from JSL

Every Whitsun weekend there is a display of hot air balloons in Chalon. We have never managed to see the balloons fly and so this year, yet again, we decided that this was the year we would actually see them. Checking out the programme we spotted that the balloons were to fly at 19.00 on Saturday, but I also spotted that at 17.00 there was going to be the opportunity for “dou dous” to fly in special small hot air balloons.

While flying dou dous may sound strange to English ears, I should clear up any confusion by saying that a dou dou is the French word for soft toy or comforter, so you could take your favourite soft toy along and it would be able to fly in a hot air balloon. There seemed to be no age limit for the owners of the soft toys, so I decided that a member of my little menagerie should be treated to a flight.

A flying elephant
- with a little help from photoshop

Timothy, my trusty teddy bear who has accompanied me around the world on all my business trips, is getting on a bit on years now (being only a few months younger than me - which may not be old for a human, but it is very old for a teddy bear) so I decided that he might not survive the trip. It then fell to Guus my fluffy elephant to be the one to venture into the unknown.

The only trouble was that we had a gite changeover, so the new giters had better turn up early or he would miss his flight. They didn’t arrive until 17.45 and Chalon is more than half an hour away, so I had little hope for Guus as we left. We headed off anyway as the other part of our mission was to see the main balloons flying - at least we would be on time for them.

As we neared the balloon launching site, many cars were coming the other way- not encouraging. The tops of the trees were swaying rather a lot and I feared that the wind was getting up too much for a flight. Undeterred, we walked up to the launching site with Guus under my arm, just in case the dou dous were still allowed to fly, but as we approached the main area it became obvious that all the balloon flights were cancelled.

Certificate to "prove" he actually flew

Guus and I looked wistfully at the miniature balloon baskets which had been grounded and as I started to take photos of what might have been, a man approached me, not saying a word he whisked Guus from under my arm and took him to one of the baskets for his “flight”. Guus was thrilled to sit in a basket, but sadly, as with the large balloons, it was too windy and hence too dangerous for the little ones to go up. It didn’t stop that lovely man from giving Guus a certificate marking his initiation in the ballooning world and he made one dou dou and its owner very happy.

The real balloons eventually went up at 06.00 Sunday morning when I was still tucked up in bed, so I have stolen a photo from the Journal de Saône-et-Loire website to show you what a sight it really was.

As we say every year - we really must see this next year. Who knows..

May Day

Brrrr.. more like 1st March!

The first day of May is a holiday in France and usually it is beautifully warm, the summer is just around the corner and the temperatures are suitably high.

Not this year though brrrrr.. As we set off in the car to go to lunch it was 3 degrees!

We were going out with some friends to sample the delights of a lunch at a goats’ cheese farm. The lunch was superb even if we did have to wrap up warm as we huddled together in black polythene covered tunnel that served as the dining room.

The menu was suitable goaty with warmed goats’ cheese on toast with salad, boeuf bourguignon with goats’ cheese oven cooked potatoes (I had hope for a goat curry, but that is not really done round here!) fresh soft goats' cheese with cream and sugar, then a non-goaty dessert and coffee.  All that for only 15 Euros each, with wine included. No bad at all I thought.

Goats' cheese waiting to go into the oven

Samples of of the different flavours

The farm was on top a hill with spectacular views, well I suppose they were, but at it was grey and drizzly it was difficult to see.

The girls themselves

After lunch we popped in for a quick visit to the goats themselves. It was nice and warm in their shed and we enjoyed watching the kids jumping around like only young animals can do and watching their mothers munch away the the hay laid out before them. We then skedaddled home to get back into the warm.

Traditional lily of the valley

When we got home we were very excited to see that at least one of our lily of the valley was starting to flower. Lily of the valley is the traditional May Day flower in France and everyone picks them or buys them to bring the lovely scent into their homes. Because of the recent cold snap, the flower growers have very few on offer, so it was a double pleasure to see this little chap smiling at us from the cold garden.

Instead of our usual May Day BBQ we’ll be tucked up in front of the fire tonight, waiting for summer to start which is promised for later this week.

Sculptures in clay

La Consolation des Tempêtes
surrounded by flowers

Anyone who has visited here will have seen the wonderful statue in our front garden. The sculpture is called “La Consolation des Tempêtes” The Comforter of Storms, made by a local artist Monique Dégluaire. The statue has a tumultuous world balanced on her head, which she brings back into equilibrium. You can belief in her or not, but you can't fail to be transfixed by her very tranquil expression and delicate colouring.

Last year I was surprised to receive an invitation to sign up for a course that Monique has started to run - sculpture in clay. It is a three day/weekend session starting usually after lunch on Friday and going through to a Sunday evening. To get you started you begin by shaping a simple form using coils of clay, this gets you used to the modelling medium.

Monique at her outlet in Cormatin

Then you identify the project you are actually going to do. Monique has loads of resources available and you may choose a photo, an existing template or an idea you have had prior to your visit. You sketch out your idea then move on to choosing your clay and preparing it. After making a quick prototype you move on to the real thing. You learn not only how to make the model, but how to scoop out the article to minimise the clay used and minimise the chance of firing problems and how to disassemble your sculpture to optimise firing. There are shared mealtimes, where everyone comes with something they have prepared which gives a break in the day where you can reflect on how your design or work is going. Then as a round up everyone shares what they have learned during their three day experience.

When the sculptures have dried, Monique glazes and fires them for you and you can come and collect them or she can send them on. Her next course is next weekend, from what I have heard there are still a couple of places, which is very unusual, so you could still get in there. Failing that she has new courses in both May and August.

Here's a little video of Monique at work, showing what you could actually try yourself.



It strikes me as a very relaxing and creative way to spend a long weekend. You never know, the next sculpture to appear in our garden may be a Sue Nixon original!

Village of a 100 Nativity Scenes

Hundreds of miniature African Nativty scenes

And you thought Christmas was over? Well you’re wrong, until 12th night nativity scenes are still de rigueur. So much so that one town in Saône-et-Loire has more than 100 of them on display. Every year they call themselves the town of the nativity scene and every year we say we will go, this year we actually went.

Before going to something of this type in rural France you have to be prepared for amateurism. But to be honest, nativity scenes, just like nativity plays, owe a lot of their charm to the way you can tell that everyone has done their utmost to produce something spot on but which still has that home-made look about it. I love it.

Arty picture - I got the settings wrong!

With that in mind we drove the one and a half hours to Melay to see this year’s exhibition. We arrived to see a strange vision of an African village outside the lavoir and a similar one outside the town hall, not very nativity scene like - this was going to be more weird than I was expecting. On entering the lavoir building we handed over our 3 Euros entrance fee and we were asked if this was the first time we had been to see the nativity scenes or if we were “habitués” – habitual visitors! As newbies we were told how it all worked. But after an immensely complicated explanation, I had no more idea what was going on than before, except that the exhibition in the lavoir had been borrowed from a nativity scene museum in the Lorraine somewhere and the exhibition in the town hall had been borrowed from the artisans of Arles.

I was quite stunned. There were literally hundreds of small beautifully crafted nativity scenes (carved in wood, ivory or made from pottery) mostly from African origins. But my question was, where were the amateur bits and pieces? the ones that showed that someone in town cared enough to build something each year? What about the shepherds with tea towels on their heads and the wonky mangers?

The original Nativity scene that started off the village's quest for more

To say I was disappointed was an understatement. Somewhat irritated at not finding what I had expected, my camera then decided to change all its settings so that none of my photos worked. I then spent the best part of 20 minutes trying to figure out what I had done to upset it so much, however, I did manage one rather arty photo with these weird settings.

We looked for a while, then left for the town hall, at least we would see something French there. In Provence the figures used in nativity scenes are called Santons, originally made out of old bread rolled through your fingers then painted, nowadays they are made by, amongst others, the artisans of Arles.

We opened the door of the town hall to be greeted by more of the same, more and more and more, small, delicately made African nativity scenes. I asked where the santons were, only to be told that these African scenes had been borrowed from the santon makers of Arles from their museum, the santons had been left in Arles.

Even the Dutch got a look in

So what can I say, I am sure it was an absolutely terrific exhibition, but if I had known that I would be driving for a three hour round trip in the fog to see miniature nativity scenes made in Africa, I wouldn’t have gone. On the other hand Cees was really pleased to see such delicate work, so you win some you lose some.

Our decorations are coming down now and so Christmas is finally over. The local nativity scenes are being packed up until next year. Snow White and her 5 dwarfs (two were stolen this year) are being put back into storage, maybe she won’t reappear next year, just like Mary and Jospeh who have stopped coming to Cormatin because Jesus and the sheep were stolen two or three years ago. Maybe we will just be left with the Smurfs.

All that said, I suppose I shouldn’t complain as there will be more than one hundred beautifully crafted real nativity scenes in Melay next year. I just won’t be there to see them.

Pig Racing

A quick visit back to the UK to deliver presents and get in a last bit of shopping and we were delighted to see that Ickenham had its annual Christmas fayre while we were there. All the usual stuff, mulled wine, roasting chestnuts, Santa’s grotto (although I do object to this Americanism – what’s wrong with Father Christmas?) stalls for the local associations offering tombolas and lucky dips and of course, where would a Christmas fayre be without pig racing?

Yes Ickenham hosted a pig race this year of grand proportions and we had to be in the thick of the action of course. My mother and I each bet on a pig, mine was no2 and Mum’s was no 1 and what a piece of thrilling action it was. The pigs were rounded up behind the starting gate and they were off, no 4 made a great leap forward followed by the others, then no 2 dashed into first position, but no 4 was determined to make the end gate and shot ahead again. Much to the annoyance of the little girl who had bet on no 4, it stopped just a hair’s breath from the finish and refused to budge that last millimetre thus allowing the others to catch up.

Under starter's orders

They're off - no.2 leaps out ahead

It was a photo finish. How no 2 was declared a winner is still a mystery to me but who cares I walked away with the prize of a box of English chockies which was great because Cees doesn’t like them so I can scoff them all by myself. Hooray for pig racing!

No 4 stops just short

Photo finish

Light show in Cluny?

Scary start..

A couple of weeks ago we saw a piece in the newspaper that said that there would be a light show in Cluny on Thurs 3rd Dec at 18.00. Not wanting to miss anything, we put the date and time in our diary. Low and behold, last week we saw another notice saying that the aforementioned light show was to start 1 hour earlier than we had previously noted. Don't you just love French organisation? We decided (against our better judgement I might add) to visit the Office de Tourisme in Cluny to ask.

The fire begins

What a waste of time that was. Despite there being 4 staff in the office 1) they only vaguely knew that there was “something” on and 2) they had no idea what time it was. On the other hand they were VERY friendly. They said that they would receive the flyers the next day (BTW it was already the 1st , who receives flyers the day before an event?) and they would phone me with the time. I gave them my email address as well and they promised faithfully to contact me either by phone or by mail. Yer right..

Weds came and went and no contact. Thursday arrived (the day of the show) and it was foggy to the extent that we couldn't even see the hedge at the bottom of the garden by 5 o'clock, so we aborted mission.

Juggling with fire

Friday, Cees found a link to a video on the internet page of the local paper and we watched the superb show that we had missed the evening before. Strangely, in the video, it was not foggy and to be honest it didn't look like Cluny at all. We then read the article and found out that the show was not Thurs 3rd but Tues 8th and this was a video taster of what would happen. To cut a long story short we eventually found out when and where the show would be (no thanks to the OT) and we were there at the barriers long before anyone else, to make sure that we had a good view.

Fireworks and more fire

After waiting about a quarter of an hour, the locals started coming and coming and coming until there was quite a crowd. Then the noise began and smoke and fireworks and finally the “actors” arrived on stage at 7 o'clock and the show began. Wow!

We are often disappointed with things that happen round here, they are always sold as enormous and spectacular and they turn out to be small town and frequently very, very small scale. This was none of those things. It was an acrobatic, fire show par excellence. I wasn't too keen when they dangled loops of fire dripping petrol over my head into the crowd behind me, but it was certainly exciting.

An explosive finale

So marks out of 10 for this one? 15 out of 10 for the show, the actors and the town of Cluny for organising it, but it is 2 out of 10 for the Office de Tourisme and they only get that high a mark because they were very nice. Just in case you are wondering, they still haven't contacted me to tell me when the show is. I'm glad we didn't rely on them or we would have missed it and that would have been a real shame. Oh and why did we have the wrong date to start with? I won't mention names, but someone in this household who wasn't me or the cat noted down the wrong date, but at least it was him who found the real details in the end, so all's well that ends well!