The news of the week is the attacks in Paris on Friday night. There isn’t much to say except that it’s a terrible atrocity, and I fear the consequences. It will only embolden right wing views, at turn even more people in that direction, much like in the aftermath of 9/11. We feel perfectly safe in these parts, although someone from Algeria posted on our Soiree Britannique Facebook page. Nothing menacing, but a bit out of place.
On that front, we had a planning meeting last week, and I’ve been busy helping prepare. I handed out posters to local merchants (all three of them!) last week. Josiene and I went shopping for supplies like tableware, plus various drinks and nibbles. I’ve decided that my contribution will be fish cakes, although I’ve never made them before. They French don’t have them, they can be bite-sized, and shouldn’t be too hard. I’ll do a test run on Thursday, and prepare them on Friday. All the Brits are brining savoury, so I’m hoping the French will do desserts. We’ve ordered some Indian starters from Sue for the first time this year.
Musically, we’re nowhere near ready, but hopefully, just good enough. We had a bit of rehearsal on Friday, minus Harry, and it wasn’t as bad as the last time. We did a full run through on Saturday, and it went mostly well. A number of songs need more work in order to sound polished, and we have tempo problems on many of them. We will have some time on Friday, as well as Sat during the sound check, but that’s it. I’ve been ignoring certain songs that I thought were easy, and subsequently, they’re the ones that need the most attention. I’ve not got much work on at the moment, so I have some time this week.
Things are largely quiet for Will in terms of work too. He’s got a few bits and pieces, but mostly waiting for clients. I may have some work from Abby coming up soon, but nothing else on the horizon. With everything else that’s going on, I’ve not been bored, so that’s something. We had a meeting with a woman who works at business development agency for this area. She gave us some names, and some suggestions, but I don’t think anything will come of it.
We did some socialising at the weekend. We finally managed to get Nat & Jill over, as well as Lee and Richard. We hadn’t seen any of them since the summer, and it would have been even longer since they’d seen each other. Since we had rehearsal most of the afternoon, I asked people to bring stuff. Nat made a lovely pumpkin soup, similar to my squash version, but spicier. The boys did smoked salmon blinis plus nibbles. I did an Asian themed meal, which was the teriyaki pork loin I did a few weeks ago, fried rice, and stir-fried broccoli in soy, garlic and ginger. I wanted something tropical for dessert, and did my first pineapple upside down cake.
We all got caught up over the course of the evening. The ladies have decided to do New Year’s this year, so they’ve invited us all over, and said we could invite people too. They’ve put their house on the market, but for an unreasonable amount, so they’re not likely to sell anytime soon. They are undecided where to go anyway. The boys are well, Richard is busy, Lee not so much. They’ve got a few trips to the UK in December. We’re hoping to finish up a site for them soon, but we’re waiting for input.
Saturday was a late one, so we took it easy all of yesterday. Manu and Mathilde popped in and it sounds like they’re coming on Saturday. I decided to do a Thanksgiving for French people this year, so they’re coming along with Philippe, Gael and Corrine, although they’re not confirmed. Today we took the afternoon off went to Angouleme to see Spectre on the big screen. We left around midday, had sandwiches en route, then saw the film in a nearly empty theatre. It was pretty good, although not the best of the recent series. I did get a tingle watching the opening sequence in an actual theatre. We stopped at the store on the way back, and got supplies to make chili, which is now ready.