What’s new pussycat?

Since January a lot has changed. I still have my 2 tenants. Madame has erected a huge pergola on her terrace and had purchased chairs and an extremely heavy table (mosaic tiles on top of a concrete table top). There are strips of cloth, weighted at each end that can be draped over the pergola to provide shade. Due to the weather this summer though, a month of constant rain, followed by a month of rain or temperatures between 90 – 100 degrees F, here new ensemble has hardly been used. She recently acquired a bicycle, which is now kept in the hall cupboard inside the main part of my building. She has not used it as she is too fatigue, and as she recently fell over and injured her legs, it is likely that the bike will stay blocking up my cupboard. I doubt if she will purchase a storage box to keep it on her cluttered terrace. The Portuguese man arrived back from his holiday early on Friday morning. He too seems to have acquired a bicycle which he keeps in his studio on the first floor.
The French family that I used to go on outing with, or to their house for BBQ’s and for crepes etc have put their house on the market and moved to a small town 3.5 hours drive from here. After 2 years of unemployment Monsieur a short fixed term contract, which he hopes might be made permanent, so the family of 5 has all been uprooted to go and live in a small apartment with no garden.
I may have mentioned that I don’t intend to join the choir this year. I feel in need of a rest from it. I had not been enjoying it and as my move to France has been a life change, why do things that you are not enjoying if you can avoid it.
This past choral year was a nightmare as far as I was concerned. I cannot write too much here about the many reasons I have as there is always a chance that my blog will be stumbled upon, and there are French people who speak a fair bit of English. The last straw for me was when the choir’s public performances were announced about 5 weeks before the first concert. By that time I had already found other things to do on those dates. I must state that the choir members are lovely, friendly people and I will miss their company.
Now I have my guitar, choir time may be replaced by guitar lessons if my newly arrived CDrom course doesn’t move me along towards guitar god status.

An English lesson for the English

Amongst the songs that the choir is learning this year, is one in the German language. As you will know, German is a very precise language. Amongst our number is a retired French lady who taught German in schools. I learned German for about 4 years in secondary school. I too know a bit about German pronunciation.
I sit silently while the choir leader tells us how to pronounce the words. He then sings them. Instantly all of the words lose their endings, becoming meaningless.
I say nothing. I sing the words putting in all the endings.
Over the last 3 weeks we have also begun to learn “Deep River”. This is written in English. I listen to the choir leader mangle the words. He is certain that he is pronouncing the words correctly. The result is unintelligible to any English speaker.
I stop singing as it is too painful. Eventually I am asked for my pronunciation of the words. I go over the words “eez” becomes is, “Dee Reeverr” becomes “Deep River” etc etc.
There are two people in the choir who are French but 1 who still teaches English in schools (a bass) and one a retired lady. The retired lady was not there that evening.
The following Monday there was a “women only practice”. On the Wednesday there was the usual “full choir” practice.
We plough through our songs, finally reaching the Deep River. We sing a bit, then some pronunciation clarification is sought.
I go over the words again. The male teacher tells me that I am pronouncing “Land” wrongly, it should be “Lend”. I assure him that it is pronounced land. He is convinced that I am wrong. So we now have the bass section singing “lend”. Personally I don’t go around telling French people how to pronounce French words, but the French have always been noted for always being right, or in other words they are never wrong.
At the end of the practice the female ex-English teacher took me to one side and asked me what I had been teaching the choir the previous Wednesday. I went through what I had said. Apparently there had been some dispute at the women only practice over how I had pronounced some of the words. People are convinced that I am pronouncing some of them incorrectly and have put it down to being Scottish pronunciation.
Just don’t get me started. Thank goodness they can pronounce English better than me.
No wonder the French children listen to English spoken by native Eengleesh speakers with complete incomprehension. What a stranje lend thees eeze! Bearing in mind that it was now nearly 11pm at night, I could not be arsed arguing about English. I said C used to be a German teacher, why isn’t she telling our leader that he is not pronouncing the German words correctly. The reply was that C had tried and been told by him that he spoke German and knew exactly how the words were pronounced...

Moi, à la fin de la journée, Je m’en fiche!!!!

Randautomne the 2nd walk

Tradition dictates that in the Sunday evening, the weary revellers adjourn to R and J’s house to eat up all the leftover food and drink what remains of the liquid refreshments. It was still only mid afternoon, so there was time to fit in another walk. There was a choice of visiting a church (uphill walk), or visiting a spring which has very iron-rich water (level walk). Our official walk organiser obviously wanted to do the uphill walk, but the majority did not. So he disappeared for the rest of the afternoon.

J, having the local knowledge led the way along the metalled road. A minute or two later, we were in open countryside, with a river running nearby to our right.

Like most communities, this one still has its public wash house, with its 2 large rectangular basins full of water.

This one was in very good condition but I doubt that it is used at all today.
A bit further on the river branched. The smaller of the two branches flowed at a brisk pace towards us, and lead to an “old” mill house which is still occupied either as a summer holiday home or full time. The water roared down two sloping channels, disappearing right under the house.

The gradient of the road had started to increase ever so slightly.This lead to complaints from some of the walkers who had been promised a level walk, but with nowhere else to go we all continued onwards.

The next building of note was a small electricity generating station, taking advantage of the fast flowing river nearby.

There was a strong temptation to ask “are we nearly there yet?” as we trudged on in the sunshine, admiring the mountains in the distance.

The cows are back down from the mountains, and we witnessed 50+ white cattle trooping into a field.

Eventually we reached a house by the side of the road with the information we were waiting for.

A car had whizzed past us earlier at speed, and it was parked up waiting for us. Yes the 80 and 88 year old tearaways had arrived.

Unfortunately lulled into a false sense of security, I had taken off my walking boots and put on my trainers for the advertised “short walk”.
We sploshed along a boggy river bank path, before coming to a bridge made from rotting railway sleepers which enabled us to cross to the other side.
Then it was across a muddy field, a 4 foot wide muddy stream, a bit more muddy field, through a gate and there it was in all it’s glory. The fontaine ferrugineuse.
I had expected some kind of ornate fountain, similar to those seen in most French communities.
This fountain is just water trickling out along a piece of stone or metal which jutted out from a stone wall, and thence wound its way along the ground in a reddish brown smear.

The lack of a formal fountain did not seem to bother my fellow choristers. They had brought along a few empty plastic bottles and proceeded to fill them from the fountain. Most of us ventured a few mouthfuls. It tasted faintly metallic, but not unpleasantly so. As I write this we are all still alive.

We retraced our route, back to the village and eventually there were 18 of us at J and R’s house for the onion soup that she had made and the leftovers.
We all crammed into the kitchen whilst the onion soup was cooked or gratained in the oven. The cooking was delayed while J waited for the dishwasher to finish. If she switched on the cooker at the same time it would have blown the electrics.
We had had a whip round for J and R and she was presented with a big bouquet of flowers and I think that R received some bottles of wine.
J was outraged, she would never invite us back again, she was not expecting anything from us. The president told her that this was tough, as we would not be taking the presents back. J burst into floods of tears...... Ooh la la!

I had always thought that onion soup was a thin liquid with bits of onion in it. This soup looked like bread and butter pudding. As well as onions etc it also had lots of quartered slices of bread in it, it had almost no juice at all. It was very tasty though.

one of the soups

I could only manage one ladle full, still being completely full after the lunch. I did manage a half glass of real champagne of course. I have been trying to lose weight by eating smaller portions and I just can’t eat much at a time these days.

The rest of the choir members had no such problems, ate their soup and then started on the pizzas, apple tarts, etc etc.

Where do they put it all?

Randoautomne – le repas

We arrived at a small village and parked where we could. Heading for the village hall I spied our 80 year old member, who had not been on the walk. He seemed to be climbing up a shrub, growing on the front of a house. Unfortunately I was carrying bags of food so I missed taking that shot, but as I waited for my camera to power up, he spotted me and moved rapidly towards me. I pressed the shutter and thought “my camera won’t cope with this” Mais voila here he is clutching his grapes, or I should say, clutching someone else’s grapes.

Tables had been laid and various foodstuffs were laid out on tables at each end of the room. The sweet things were in one area, the salty things in another. Outside, under a makeshift awning, and leaving about 16 inches between the bbq and the toilet door, meat was beginning to sizzle.
Now it was time to get serious and the apero drinks and nibbles were consumed. We were supposed to all bring our couverts, no not blankets, but knife, fork, plate, glass etc.
It became obvious that many had forgotten to follow this instruction, so J who has a house in the village, set off in her car to source 15 couverts. I had my set, just in case you were wondering.

The meal passed off well, and as well as meat in various states of cookedness, I ate quiche, pizza, rice, etc as well as things that were a mystery to me. Then there were the various deserts......
During the meal there were various speeches and toasts. One of the speakers congratulated M for organising the choir’s first annual walk in the rain and snow. M became a bit defensive and miffed at this point. Here is my friend Rene, saying a few words, still going strong at 88. He later gave me details for hiring the hall. 36 euros for the whole day, including heating and everything, he said.

The meal dragged on a bit, as meals do over here, but eventually people started to pack up their stuff and drift away into the now sunny afternoon.

I remained behind because once we had put the chairs away, removed the paper table cloths, killed the bbq etc there was more entertainment to come.

Randautomne – Sunday morning muddy waters

On Sunday morning I had difficulty focusing on breakfast. My head hurt a bit too. I thought that it might be the change in the weather, but the majority seemed to think that it was due to the prune spirit. We don’t touch it they said, it’s bad stuff and it makes you feel ill. Now they tell me!
The view out of the window was not promising. It had snowed on the mountains across the valley from us overnight. It was drizzling and misty.

“I’m not walking in this weather” said Ctte. “I once joined a walking group and we carried on walking even when a snow blizzard came, and we even stopped to eat our food while it snowed.” This is the third year in a row that she has told me this story.

We set off in our cars descending down the single track zig-zagging road, like a long metal centipede.
I had switched on my GPS, but shortly after setting off, it mooed like a cow twice and stopped giving me instructions.
I just followed everyone else. We had been given permission to use a forestry road which was not generally accessible to the public.
We turned off the little road and onto a bumpy, lumpy track, eventually coming to a halt on a flat bit that was suitable for parking about 12 cars.
“But where is M who is leading the walk?” someone asked.

Lost in France

Where was he indeed. People tried his mobile, no reply. Eventually they managed to contact a couple who had gone to buy bread for the midday meal. We gave them directions so that they could come and share our pain. They were in a Landrover discovery, so the terrain was no trouble to them. When they arrived, Mr Landrover managed to raise the husband of the Choir president.
New directions were transmitted and we bumped back down the track to the road and then into a car park, we then transferred into fewer cars and set off again, this time 5.8km off up another forestry track nearby.
It was raining now, and we passed Ctte’s car sitting all alone by the side of the track. So she had decided to do the walk after all.
We finally arrived to join the others. N went off into the undergrowth for a pee and came back with a large mushroom.

We already had one satisfied customer. Once suited and booted we set off up the track. This is easy I thought, just like the details said, suitable for everyone.
Twenty paces into the walk and we left the track and headed off up a 60 degree incline path into the trees.
It was not easy going at all. It was uphill all the way, following a twisty single file track through the trees. We sploshed through mud, small streams, twisting back on ourselves but ever upwards. Talking was not an option as we huffed and puffed.
We passed these old animal bones fixed to a tree.

We were in hunter territory. Then it started to snow. 5 minutes later a meeting was held and a number of people turned back, not wanting to get stuck on the mountain if it got worse.
We carried on up the hill passing 2 groups of hunters, complete with camouflage gear and rifles coming down.” When the weather is bad like this”, said one “we stop and head for home”. We carried on up into the thickening skies.

About 15 minutes later we reached our destination. A mountain refuge.

We ate some cakes and explored the WC that had been constructed, complete with a plastic chair as a throne, located a short distance behind the refuge.

no one on the French throne

I wonder where all the waste goes, or perhaps doesn’t go at all.
We then set off back down, honour having been satisfied. It took an hour to get back to the cars. On the way down I passed this little arrangement nestling between two rocks.

A way of sharing hunting information perhaps?

We had asked Ctte why she had left her car in the middle of nowhere. She told us that she had very little petrol left and that if she ran out on the way down, the emergency services would not have so far to go to find her.
In the end, she refused to drive her car and the president’s husband had to do it.

The choir randautomne - Saturday

The choir has been back at work since the beginning of September. Many of the old stalwarts have left but a few new members have drifted in and out and are still deciding whether they will pay the annual membership fee, which has gone up to nearly 80 euros plus an extra 10 – 20 euros for music scores. The new committee members have been voted on and are now in their roles of treasurer, secretary etc I must admit that I have not paid yet. I was waiting to see if I would be unemployed as that would have been a much cheaper membership fee. I will have to get my chequebook out after the Toussaint holiday break.
Every year the committee organises a weekend away, so that we can all bond and get some extra choir practice in.
Since I joined in 2008, accommodation has been at a mountain centre about 40 minutes drive from where I live. This year was no exception and just like last year the number of people attending was not high, especially when you consider that kids and partners can come along too.
For the Saturday afternoon practice we had 23 people, plus the chef de choeur. We have about 60 members.
The number of people staying for the evening meal, bed and breakfast, dropped even further.
This did not deter those remaining behind from enjoying themselves however, and there was the added bonus that it was no problem to get a room all to oneself.
The main official entertainment of the evening was to be a showing of the DVD made from one of our performances of the fisherman and his wife, earlier this year.
Here (out of sequence), they are watching as the big paper fish rises from the depths to make the fisherman’s wife’s latest request come true.

Before this could take place however, there was singing to be done and there were new members present so an initiation ceremony would be needed.

Here is a video of part of a song which was led by J, who seems to be the official entertainment officer, a sort of redcoat with a blackberry on top.

In 2008 I had been the new member, so now it was my turn to enjoy watching it all from a distance. Basically it is like the minister’s cat game, only here an item is added to the shopping list each time and has to be accompanied by the appropriate actions. The sound quality is not good as the audience was enjoying itself too much.

All thoughts of the rain forecast for the walk on Sunday seemed to be forgotten. Helped of course by the whisky, wine, prune spirit, rikiki etc.

Forum des Associations

Every year as previously reported, the town associations take over the centre of town car parks to man stalls in attempt to get new recruits. The associations range from “Esperanto” and photography, to trout fishing, cycling, board games, martial arts, majorettes, festival committee, electricians without frontiers, Croix Rouge, etc
This year we had a traditional game, courtesy of the Foyer Rural going on in the space in front of our stand. It was hot and C and I watched the two men unload their small blue car, speculating, as experts do, on what they were going to be doing.
“That’s a bag of potatoes” I said authoritatively.
“What are they going to do with them?” says C
“I expect that they are going to throw them at something” I said, “Look at those skittles (I didn’t know the French for skittles).
A heavy, square mat was placed on the tarmac, and 6 tall wooden skittles were placed thereon.
Out came the measuring tape, and bits of metal were placed at the appropriate distances from the pins / skittles.
The bearded one picked up one of the potatoes, which turned out to be a piece of wood shaped like one half of a rolling pin. He then threw this underhand, upwards and towards the skittles. His rolling pin knocked some of the skittles down.
He repeated this twice more. That was his turn over.
“Come on” I said, “let’s have a go”.
We learnt that this game was so popular with the populace in medieval times farmers were gambling away their land, and no work was being done, so it was banned.
Here is C chancing her arm.

There are different variations of the game, some regional. We were looking at “Quilles au maillet” with a 6 pin layout. The aim of the game is not to knock down all 6 pins, but to knock them all down but one. I was given a leaflet www.euroquilles.com should exixt but it doesn’t see; to work, but this other site does. You can use the Google translate button if you want to know more.
http://www.quilles-au-maillet.com/boutique/defaut.php?PAGE=1&TEMPLATE=1
You can buy a set of 6 skittles and 3 maillets (the half rolling pins) for 100 euros plus about 30 euros postage. The square of black steel reinforced rubber to stand the skittles on is another 30 or so euros and around 25 euros postage. I am sorely tempted to buy a set, as one of the two places that you can buy them is about 40 minutes drive away.
The afternoon got hotter and hotter and there were not may people coming anywhere near our stand and poster boards, not even me.
We wandered off to watch the trout fishing. It was getting late in the afternoon, so the men in charge released their remaining 50 or so trout into the tank. The aim was for children to get hooked (gettit?) on fishing and it was free to have a go. Once caught, the fish was lightly killed with a short stick and placed into a blue plastic bag for the lucky parent to take home, gut and cook.

It's the reel thing

not too sure about it now, eh?

The afternoon dragged on as I watched demos of American line dancing. Jazz dancing, martial arts etc.

the gentlemen just loved themselves

All too slowly it was time to dismantle the stands and carry the tables and chairs away to the storage area.Then it was time to cross the road for the free aperitif in the courtyard of the Mairie.
C and I got there early as you can see.

 







As others started to arrive, a duo started playing the guitar and singing to a backing track.
“Zummertime an the liviniz easy”...... The singer wiggled her hips continuously. I suggested to C that the singer might normally wear a hula skirt, perhaps they were cruise liner entertainers .....

People started to edge towards the tables where the meagre supply of booze and nibbles equivalent to 5 loaves and 2 fishes beckoned.

It was ages before someone’s nerve finally broke and snacking and drinking began with a sudden rush.
Yes there were speeches, the mayor and someone else couldn’t make it, someone was given a medal, two people spoke about cutbacks or somesuch.

Not Speechless

Triple Ricard and water (with ice) and nibbles duly consumed, because I pay my taxes, I wended my way homewards.
It wasn’t until I was back in the flat that I made my first mistake of the day......

The frogs’ chorus (not)

Yes, after all too short a time away from the rehearsal room, we returned this Wednesday evening. There were many empty seats but 4 new people showed up. Only the first 40 minutes were taken up with bisses and chatting. Then it was into the stretching, breathing and vocal exercises. Our 80 year old member shuffled I very late, without his wife and not looking at all well.
After 2 years slogging away at one long piece per year, with one or two short songs thrown in for good measure, we will be tackling more short pieces.
We began learning “So ben mi ch'à bon tempo”, de Orazio Vecchi
Here is the list for this year, it is not definitive and more songs may be added along the way.


nouveaux chants (New songs)


So ben mi ch'à bon tempo, de Orazio Vecchi


Belle qui tiens ma vie, de Toinot Arbeau


Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, choral de Bach


And the glory of the Lord, de Händel


Alleluja, de Stephens


Shenandoah, traditionnel américain


Deep River, spiritual


Siyahamba, chant africain


Dalakopen, chant norvégien


Radhalaïla, chant israélien


valse de Bizet


Locus Iste de Bruckner


Trois petites notes de musique



chants repris: (ones wot we in keeping from last year)


a bicoque (le pêcheur et sa femme)


le château royal (le pêcheur et sa femme)


la fanfare du printemps


Signore delle cime


"Cantique de Racine", de Fauré (G. Fauré, local boy made God)


No Beatles or Muppet tunes appear in the list, and will therefore not be harmed in the coming year. I am ‘artbrokenne.

The Greek chorus

When I was at University we studied Euripides “The frogs”. It was in such plays that I learned about the “Greek chorus” and its role in such plays. I never imagined for one second, that 35 years later I would actually meet one.

One of our French born female choristers is married to a Greek. They moved to France about 2 years ago. This year we had a brief visit from her former choir, which is based on Kalamaria. Their blog site is at   http://www.newchoirofkalamaria.blogspot.com/


Yes it’s all Greek to me too, but there is a translate this page button on most web browsers these days, so you can press that if you feel so inclined.
In spite of the dire financial state of the Greek economy, the visit went ahead. They spent a few days in Barcelona before coaching it up to the Ariege.

the arrivals

When told that the Greeks would be staying in a hotel, the choir was up in arms. They wanted the Greeks to stay in their homes with them. Hmm language, logistics........


We had a small "welcome" reception for them, followed by a meal.

Speech in Freek

apero

what are we going to do now?

let's invent Greek dancing

It became obvious that almost no Greek speaks French and vice versa. However a number of them could speak excellent English, being English teachers, so I was kept busy doing translations.

one Greek and his guitar

dancing the night away

Despite their tiring coach journey, the Greeks found the energy to dance around in the courtyard until late at night,  not to forget the singing, before getting back on their coach to go to their hotel in a neighbouring town.

Yes Greek dancing is the sport that you can do between meals.

The next evening my choir and theirs were putting on a joint concert at Mirepoix Cathedral. I did not go as I did not know the songs that we were to sing and I had no intention of trying to mime along to the words/tune.

The performance was to be followed by a buffet meal laid on by the choir members. The following day the 38 strong Greek chorus returned to Barcelona and from there, flew back to Greece.

Rumour has it that we have been invited to go to Greece next year....... If this trip goes ahead, despite being subsidised, it will still be too expensive for me. So there’s my excuse. I think of everything.. (plus I'd rather go to the Edinburgh festival instead)

Choir baby, that's really free!

*** Disclaimer (Everything in this entry is entirely fictitious and any similarity to any people living or dead is entirely coincidental so there! I wrote this blog whilst my mind was disturbed due to eating magic mushrooms, sniffing glue, and too many heavy breathing exercises)

This year’s main choral performance was (you may remember a choral piece penned by our choir master, based on the Grimm fairy tale of the fisherman and his wife).
I was lucky and only had to go to a few extra rehearsals. Many of the choir got more involved and ended up making 80 or so costumes including various wigs, for the children, and the two soloists to wear. A new portable stage had to be designed and built. Scenery and props also had to be made. Transferring everything from one performance to the next, plus interim storage also proved to be a logistical nightmare.
I doubt whether our beloved composer / chef de choeur had thought all this through. He had done his bit writing the scores and recording the demo CDs for the various sections of the choir. The rest was up to the choir committee.


We had two dress rehearsals at which we met the children from the two schools which were taking part, and the fisherman, his wife, and the narrator.
The first rehearsal was bedlam. We also met the theatrical director who had been responsible for “designing the set”. Mostly painted cardboard boxes.
One of the schools was providing a much reduced choir than anticipated, of 10 children.
Remember we have approximately 60 adult members. so 10 kids singing at the same time with their reedy little voices.........


The other primary school, which just has one classroom for all its pupils, provided the prop shifter come extras. They had 4 costume changes and were responsible for moving all the boxes and cubes around. 4 of the cubes were solid wood and therefore very heavy, the remaining 50 or so, were cardboard. It was evident to all that even the cardboard cubes were too large for most of the small children to move them around.
Also, when these kids were off stage, they talked and messed about, making more noise than the actors and narrator. The teachers / volunteers seemed unable to shut them up.By the end of this rehearsal, there was much discontent in the ranks. Certainly I was pissed off. We were kept waiting around for all but the last 20 minutes of the 2.5 hour rehearsal.


I shot off afterwards but I heard later that there was quite an argument between some of the choir committee and the artistic director. However, it came down to being too late to change the scenery etc etc.
I read a blurb written by the director all about how the cubes had a magical quality and how the different shadows that the different combinations of cubes....... She managed to fill an A4 sheet with similar sh#*e.
By the second dress rehearsal a week later, the cubes were still causing problems, the scene shifters were still chatting and running around when off stage..... Oh and we were complete rubbish too. The most difficult musical scene had been left untouched until 3 practices before the first rehearsal..... just don’t get me started.... The cubes moving problems had increased as one of the children had had an accident and would not be able to take part. So their boxes had to be divided up for the remaining children to move.
Photos of a typical cubist rehearsal used for illustrative purposes only and the subject matter of said photos is purely coincidental

Once again the choir was kept hanging around for well over an hour.
The first performance was in the theatre / cinema of a town 20 minutes away. The stage was not big enough for all the cubes, the raised staging, piano, choir, actors. We were squashed together so tightly that it was difficult to manoeuvre room to look at the musical scores.
The only good thing that I can say is that the theatre was full, mostly thanks to the families of the children in the show.
The second show was in our home town. Luxury. A stage big enough to fit all the boxes etc. Enough room for us to stand on our own two feet, instead of someone else’s. the director had a bit of a strop when we pointed out that at least 10 people at each end of the choir was in darkness and their scores were invisible. Something along the lines of “the lighting was set up this morning, it is not possible to make changes now!!!” Fortunately the lighting director (strangely enough a man) moved the lights a bit.
This performance went much better although the children’s choir was one boy down. Once again the theatre was full.
The third and final performance took place in a medieval town about 30 miles NW of my town. We were performing under the medieval halle (market place) at 9pm. This is a large stone building, with huge arches along 3 sides. Sheets of plywood had been fitted into the gaps up to about one third of the height of the gaps.

The stage was rather small, so the choir had to stand on benches to one side of the stage. Lighting was even more difficult than before. There were now also church bells to contend with. Also, if someone went to the toilet located behind the choir, a noisy ventilation fan sprang into action.
The audience were to be seated on plastic stacking chairs. I dread to think what the sound must have been like for them.
Oh and of course we had a storm before and during the performance. It was cold, the wind whistled into the building from our left side, the rain battered off the roof.


The children celebrated the last performance by throwing the wooden cubes off the stage at the audience during the penultimate scene.
The performance over, we adjourned to a small rectangular marquee, attached to the back of the halle. The marquee was where we were to celebrate our final performance by sharing the food that we had brought. The floor was an inch deep in water, thanks to the rain, but also it had been cunningly erected so that a drinking fountain was in the middle of the floor. Every so often, with no one touching it, it would gush water out onto the ground.


You might think that this would make my joy complete? Of course not! The men had been flattening the boxes, dismantling the staging etc etc. This took time, so when we finally made it to the food tent, the women had eaten most of it, except for the cakey type things........... I hung around for half an hour, then made my way out into the rainy night to find my car and GPS myself home in the dark.
(Some readers of my fictional world of blog may remember a tale of a choir master who announced at the end of a practice that he was going out with one of the alto members in the choir. It is strange that no similar (alleged) “dumping” announcement of the 13 year older than him chorister, for a 20 year old younger than him mademoiselle was made. Miaow! )

Warm fish and four candles

On Sunday we had our first choir practice with the children’s choir. This event took place in the Espace multicultural of a nearby town.


Eventually the children began to appear. The original dream of our musical director (and author of this years main project) had envisioned 2 separate childrens choirs. Unfortunately the music teachers in the local schools were not too keen. Only one music teacher stepped on the plate. He would be able to supply a choir of 15 children.
This figure has now shrunk to 10....


What fun we had, standing for most of the 4 hours. The children were only with us for the first 2 hours.
The room that we were rehearsing in had a stage and facing the stage, steeply banked cinema seating. This is also the local cinema, so the stage backdrop was also the cinema screen.


It was very hot in the room but after 2 hours we were allowed out into the buildings main entrance corridor, where tables with food and drink had been set up for our rest break. Not a chair in sight to sit down on though.


We are so far behind with our preparations for the piece that I am not looking forward to the performances.
We have to dress completely in black with no sparkly items. Only our faces and hands will be visible.


There have been workshops to build the scenery that will be used during the performances and last Friday there was a costume making afternoon, with 6 sewing machines in use. The children will presumably be fisherfolk or fish or something like that. There will be a fishermans wife, a fisherman and the fish (who is really a prince who has had a spell cast on him). There will be adult soloists too, but we have yet to meet them.
Can’t you just feel the tension and excitement building?.....


for those of you who don't know the story, here is Rik Mayall telling the tale of the fisherman and his wife. www.youtube.com/watch?v=boRowDEAJ7Y

 My younger sister used to love him in "The young ones", in fact I think that she thought she was him, as she practiced his facial expressions and phrases from this and his other TV shows.
Here is a clip of Rik in angry young poet mode www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMQNH9G5nbI


After the practice, I returned home and got ready to have an evening meal with Madame, my tenant. She had invited a couple of her friends who want to go on holiday to Scotland, and wanted information about distillery visits etc


So it was an evening of 5 courses, listening to people speaking fast French in the local accent.
By the time it was over, I knew that I was in for an night of dreaming in perfect French ; if the music whizzing round my head let me enter the land of nod.
But before you go, here is the famous "four candles" sketch from the Two Ronnies. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz2-ukrd2VQ

Snow - because everyone else has posted one

Yes we had snow Friday through to Saturday evening and managed around 12 inches of the white stuff before the sun came out on Sunday and started to kill it off.

Now Madame tells me that she likes the snow and indeed over the weekend she was to be seen in the garden photographing things. She has a new digital camera and has sent me and her friends. Here are three of them: Her powered gnome light and what I call "small dog" but whose real name is Liloo

Today is Wednesday. Yesterday I drove back from my weekly shopping trip to LeClerc. Despite having cleared the snow plough hills along the front of my parking area yesterday, I got stuck with the rear of my car still out in the main road. Fortunately the road was not busy and I was able to reverse out onto the road and try again. There was about 6 inches either side, between the wall pillar and Madame’s car, so it was a bit of a gamble. It took two attempts and luckily I did not hit either obstacle.

I put my shopping away and spent about 2 hours chopping away at the compacted icy snow, from the road to the rear wheels of the cars.


I noticed that Beeboy’s car (which he has left parked at a wonky angle for the last few weeks) had bits of red and amber coloured plastic from the rear, driver side lights, lying on the snow. I can only assume that he hit it while parking his van.


Now the sun is shining and the snow is starting to melt faster. On the news last night they showed how heavy snow has brought many parts of France to a standstill, with no schools open, school transport cancelled etc.


We seem to have been let off lightly. The snow ploughs had been out here, but there was not much evidence of salt or grit being used. The main roads were very treacherous even yesterday.


There was supposed to be an additional choir practice on Monday evening, but it was thankfully cancelled due to the weather. I had decided not to go anyway.


I don’t know if I mentioned it before, but this year we are performing a piece which has been written by our choir master, called “Le pecheur et sa femme”.


The fisherman and his wife. It is based on a Grimm fairy tale. There will be a children’s choir involved too, a couple of soloists and a narrator. It is a tricky piece, and I am not enjoying it at all. The CD that I was given which is


supposed to emphasise the tenor part, is worse than useless, and I cannot distinguish the tenor part even in the bits that we have already learned.

The hills are alive

In October the choir had it’s annual weekend away in the mountain centre. I was one of the first to arrive, no thanks to my GPS which didn’t tell me to turn off the main road. When I arrived I phoned S to ask her to have a look at the Centre’s web cam to see if she could see me. Here I am in the purple shirt with my phone pressed to my ear.









This year there were far fewer people who stayed for the Saturday night, so the atmosphere was not the same. France were also playing a football match on the Saturday evening, so about a third of the attendees were slumped in front of that.


One of the ex-presidents of the choir had brought along her laptop and a small pair of speakers. Yes, she had a music quiz loaded up. The non-footballers were divided into teams and we were treated to classical music, national anthems, different styles of music, different composers. .. Not my thing at all.


The evening was not a complete washout though, as I did get a couple of games of babbyfoot (table football, or Fusball if you are a Friends fan).


There was a board with the room numbers available. Some rooms were singles (but they disappeared before the list hit the board), most were doubles, but there were a few triples as well.


I had a plan, so I told them that I was a snorer, so they put my name in a double room and wrote “loud snorer” underneath my name. This idea seemed to catch on, and a few other people added snorer beside their name.


The mountain centre where we were staying overnight, was much cosier this year, with new double glazing and new shower fittings.


At breakfast the following morning, I was the only one to partake of the Kellogs cornflakes. This caused a few problems as cold milk needed to be found by the staff. The jugs of milk on the trolley all contained hot milk for people to make their bowl of coffee or hot chocolate.


Once again people had brought along a variety of home-made conserves which it was compulsory to try and give some sort of informed opinion on. I ended up eating lots of bread and jam.


The walk itself was much steeper than last year, so it was a bit of a slog. Still there were blackberries, myrtilles, hazelnuts, etc growing beside our route.


We eventually reached our destination and the advanced guard had arrived in their cars, bringing mountains of food and drink with them, as well as tables and chairs. An open fire was started in preparation for the Toulouse sausages and other meats which people had brought along.


Once again I was in trouble. Why was I not eating? I’ve only just finished eating a bit of that, and that and that. Well I made this pie, tarte, cake, flan etc etc. and you have to try it. So I ended up eating far more food than I wanted.


Whilst we waited for the meat to cook, we had the aperitif. Lots of nibbles and alcohol were on offer. A couple of walkers with their young daughter passed by and were invited to share the choral food. There was much singing, eating and drinking and the young girl had a great time, following the current Presidente around wherever she went.


Some days later the choir received a letter from this family who had come from Toulouse, thanking us for our hospitality and saying that it had made their day.


There are photos from the weekend on the flicker bar at the side of this blog, if you are interested in seeing more of what went on or here  http://www.flickr.com/photos/foixgraham/sets/72157622473381767/show/