I’m going to double dip, so that Will can catch his breath when he returns. By all accounts, his few days in London have been action-packed, and the words “sore feet” seem to come up a lot. I’ll leave the details for him to tell, and in the meantime, recount my week.
I dropped him off on Wed am in Angouleme. Traffic was backed up when we approached the city, so quickly took an alternate route through who knows where. We arrived at the station, with its traffic and parking chaos, with a bit of time to spare. Surprisingly, his train was on time, but incorrectly posted so he had to sprint to find the right carriage. I headed home via the Super U, and then got to work. I have a number of small to medium-sized projects at the moment, so there’s a lot of juggling. It’s been like that the whole time Will’s been away, plus keeping an eye on his clients, answering the phone etc. The biggest project is due to finish this week (I hope) and then things should be calmer.
The Beaufils stopped by on Thursday, and asked about picking cherries. I was a bit stressed with work and my other chores, so said I wouldn’t have time. They said they didn’t mind, and would do so on Monday, but could they also collect a few on Saturday. They needed some to make a clafoutis for their grandsons, who they were seeing that night, and I’m fairly sure that’s the reason they agreed to do the harvesting. On Monday around 9:30, Lucien strolled by with 6kg he’d collected, having been there an hour. Later he came by for sugar and jars, and today – Voila – a bakers dozen of cherry jam. Today he came by for a bit of computer help, which I was happy to give in recompense.
Apart from conversation on Thursday night, I didn’t do much except cook dinner for the week. The menu went steak, salmon, steak, (night out), salmon, (dinner here) and tonight, more steak. The night out was on Saturday, when I was invited to Alessandro’s for an bbq party. He’s the mad Italian who lives near our old place, about 30 min drive. Like the last time, it was an eclectic mix of nationalities, the majority of whom were native English speakers. Feeling lazy, I ended up chatting most of the night to an interesting couple, who moved from England ten years ago. She breeds horses and he is a retired builder. They have 40 acres somewhere west of there, and seemly, have a lot of spare cash. At the end of the night, Hannah and Louis came over, and the conversation turned political. Thankfully, it was late and we all called it a night before any fisticuffs broke out.
Sunday was the day of the concert. Like the rest of the week, the weather was fine, mid-20s and sunny. I left for rehearsal at Gilles’ around 1pm, and didn’t return until 10 that night. We hadn’t worked out our fifth song yet, and decided on Joe Jackson, one we’d done a few times before (Will and I are doing it too). It took a few tries to get it right, but we got there in the end. The main issue is that Gilles needs to have an electronic backing track in order to read the music, and it clashes with the actual drums. We’ve got him to mute his backing on most of the songs, and that’s what we decided to do for this one too. We went through our other four songs a few times, and I actually felt ready when we left for Nontron around 4:30.
The concert was in the courtyard of a municipal building, up on a hill at the end of the town. It has lovely views over the valley of the city itself, so a nice setting for a concert. The downside of the nice weather was that the courtyard had very little shade, and by the time we performed it was in our faces. It was organised by Amnesty International, in a bid to collect signatures. They provided snacks and aperos, mostly juice but thankfully, one box of white wine. There was a semi-professional group playing who let us use their equipment. We did a sound check, and it got off to a rocky start since Gilles was playing his backing track, but we recovered and did two songs.
The actual show started at 6:30, and first up was my choir master on clarinet and piano, and a lady who sang and played guitar. They were eclectic, but sounded good. We were up next, and our first two numbers, Hound Dog by Elvis and Things We Said Today by the Beatles, went mostly well. Concerts are always more difficult than rehearsals, not only for the nerves, but because it’s a different environment than rehearsal. This was no exception, and it was made worse by Gilles getting the backing track wrong on the other three songs.
Our third song is a jazzy number, Corcovado, and it requires the backing track to sounds good, since the drummer and I just play random bits throughout. It’s not really a crowd pleaser and doesn’t gel with the rest of our set, but it was Gilles choice and we wanted to be democratic. Anyway, he didn’t play the backing track for this one, and I’m sure it sounded hellish. Next up was the Joe Jackson number we’d worked on a lot earlier that day. Here, Gilles played the backing and when I realised, I stopped the song. He wanted to continue playing, while the other three of of had stopped completely. I practically had to yell at him to get him to stop it, which he eventually did, but then put it on again anyway. Our last song, Delilah by Tom Jones, was a bit more of a crowd pleaser, with people singing along, but still wasn’t great.
Next up was the choir, and it was equally disastrous. We’re not a large group, but 12 out of 16 attended, including a few representatives from each voice. We also had a warm up that went badly, and didn’t recover at the performance. We got a few of the songs mostly right, including one that we normally don’t. In both cases, the crowd was supportive, which they should be considering it’s amateur night, literally. I would guess at least 75 people turned up throughout the evening, including Daniel and Odiele, our neighbours, and Rigit, our English friends who have a holiday home here. Unfortunately, they arrived during the jazzy number of our set, missing our two best songs, but they enjoyed themselves anyway.
Last night, Rigit came over for a meal. This made me realise how much easier it is to have two people share the work. I had an early start Monday, and worked until 1pm, when I ran to Nontron for food. I had a quick lunch, then Gilles and Myram came round to pick cherries. Lucien said they were just on the turn, and mostly infected by larvae, so should be used today or not at all. I decided to incorporate cherries into the meal that night in the form of a cold soup. So I went out and helped them harvest, chatting all the while about the Beafils, and getting the full version of their story. They’re view is he wanted to buy their land, they didn’t want to sell, and then his later nosiness. After that I turned to cooking and cleaning.
The cherry soup was surprisingly tasty, although not something I’d go out of my way to have. The rest of the menu was a pasta salad with roasted courgette, served with salad and bread, followed by a store-bought blueberry tart. We had a nice long chat, although it was somewhat sombre since Brigette just got news that her sister with terminal cancer has weeks or maybe months left. Apart from that, they’re both well, and hoping to retire as early as possible.
The pusses are both well, although I usually see Louis for brief periods at odd times of the day night. Smoo has been sleeping with me, and is up during the afternoon. They both had ticks, including one on Louis bottom lip, but I finally managed to Frontline them, and it has fallen off. I found time to mow the lawn at the weekend, and finally managed to get out to the veggie plot today. It’s either been too hot, or I’ve had other things to do. We’ve yet to plant our special crop, who will enjoy our upcoming heat wave. I seem to have rambled on for quite an uneventful week, so I’ll stop now, and eat before heading to the end-of-the-year choir party.