I took Mom to Angouleme on Monday afternoon, where she got a refund for her cancelled train. I left her there a bit early since we had dinner plans that evening. Nadine and Jean Claude were having some English friends over, and invited us to join them. The weather has still lovely, and we had aperos outside. Their friends are Sue and Steve, who live in Quinsac. She is an artist, and exhibits with JC which is how they know one another. Steve is her partner, and is a former tradesman who is now a potter.
Nadine made a lovely dinner of tomato and onion salad to start, with roasted chicken and garlicy potatoes, followed by a large choice of ice cream. Afterwards, we retired to the lounge for coffee and digestifs, which is Calvados at their place, a drink that comes from Normandy, like JC. It was a very pleasant evening, and we staggered home around 1am.
We had no other social events for the rest of the week, which was a nice change. I finally got the second site live for HAHS. This is the member’s area, not available to the public, but an important part of the project. It took a few days to iron out the changes, but I finally finished and sent the final invoice on Friday. I had to borrow Lucien’s mower one last time, and mowed the lawn early in the week. Our new one arrived on Thursday, and it’s now in the garage, waiting to be used. Will has had a bit of work too and he spent some time on that.
Mainly, we were rehearsing for our gig on Saturday, La Fete de la Musique in St Jory de Chalais. The fete is an annual tradition, held on the 21st of June to celebrate the solstice. Although the holiday was always celebrated, the musical component was added some time in the 80’s to modernise it a bit. Part of the tradition is to give amateur musicians a chance to play in public, which is where we come in.
Nearly every other town celebrates the fete in some way, and the one at St Jory is our closest. This year, it was organised by the horse association of the northern Dordogne, of which Jenny is a part. She signed us up to play, and then told us. We were a bit nervous about playing in public, since our previous gigs have been for friends at private events. We accepted, and then realised that it coincided with Nan’s visit. This event was also a dinner, and we weren’t sure if she would want to go.
Nan’s visit was an 80th birthday present from Will’s parents. Dave and Amy volunteered to escort her here, and they all arrived on Saturday afternoon. I used my new onion tart recipe, and we also served salad, bread, cheese and pate. Will and I did a rehearsal in the afternoon, and then both did some practicing on our own. It was another very hot day, temps near 30, and very humid. We all piled in the car and headed to the venue, about 15 min away via backroads, and arrived around 7pm.
When Will and I agreed to play, we told the organiser that we weren’t sure if we would stay, so asked if we could go first. We decided to do our acoustic set from the previous gig, but it required some changes. We ended up doing four songs from it, two from our electric set, and two new songs! We started learning them on Wed, and nearly had them down by Sat.
We were one of four groups, and as we listened to them warm up, Will started feeling nervous that they would all be better than us. Although I’m biased, I think his fears were unfounded. We played well, made only a few errors, and did the new songs without any problems. It was a more crowd pleasing set, despite that it was nearly all French people, 110 in all. We all stayed for the meal, which was melon jambon for apero, then grilled magret with frites, cheese and dessert. It was held outside, and despite the hot day, started to get cool after sunset, around 10pm. The other groups were a French guitar duo, and a Dutch solo guitarist, who played a few songs, all in different languages. The main group was Alain, the organiser and two others doing French classics, including Jonny Halliday. Nan did very well and enjoyed herself, but we were all tired and a bit cold so left before dessert.
On Sunday, we were all up early, so after croissants, left the house around 11 to do a bit of sight-seeing. We started in Brantome, and because it was Nan’s first visit, did the customary photo on the bridge in front of the abbey. There was a British-themed event that weekend, one that Will did the flyer for as it happens, so it was even more English than normal. We strolled around and then headed to St Jean de Cole for lunch. We had a very leisurely five course meal (for the guys) and were there nearly three hours. It was another hot and humid day, so we just had a short walk around the village before heading home.
We were all too full to move when we arrived, but Dave and Amy managed a long walk through the woods in the afternoon. We all played cards in the evening, and then reluctantly had some bread and cheese around 9:30, despite not being hungry. We stayed up chatting until midnight, Nan included, before going to bed. A storm had been threatening all night, and we finally got some rain, for most of the night. Today, we had croissants for breakfast, and then the guests packed and Will took them to Limoges around midday. We really enjoyed having Nan her and she seemed to really enjoy herself too. It was also nice to see Dave and Amy out here again.