Things have been quite subdued and depressing over here lately, so it’s nice to blog about a very happy weekend for a change. About a month ago, we decided we’d have a night out on the town in Angoulême with our new friends, Lee & Richard. We picked a random Saturday in August, booked a cheap hotel so we could all drink with impunity and then waited what felt like an age for that date to come around. Oh, to explain the title, this Saturday 13th was Brighton Gay Pride, which we used to attend whenever possible. It was always a fantastic, fun day out with friends in the sunshine and something I miss a lot. So, we decided that this was going to be our very own Pride day just for the 4 of us.
I really don’t think a single noteworthy thing happened between the last blog entry and the Saturday, so I shall go straight on to that. This summer has been an endless ocean of grey skies and rain with just a few isolated days of sun here and there, so we were lucky that it came good for a few days leading up to, and including, Saturday. We left Mazeroux at around 1:15pm, arriving in Villebois-Lavalette a bit after 2, bringing with us a bottle of vodka and some mixers along with our clothes and toiletries.
Richard and Lee were good to go by the time we got to theirs, so we all piled into their car – the boys also packing a bottle of voddie and some mixers – and made our way to the ‘big city’. Richard wanted to make a few stops at some DIY stores along the way and ended up dropping the other 3 of us in the town centre so he could run his errands while we wondered through the pedestrianised centre, being inevitably drawn to a bar/café for a cooling beer. We people-watched over our drinks then made our way back to meet Richard. The 4 of us did some more wondering around before ending up at another bar (sensing a theme yet?). Richard, like me, is really starting to feel the isolation of life out here and misses friends back home, so the two of us chatted a lot about that. At least he ended up in a fair-sized village and has friends on his doorstep – I don’t think he’d last very long at Port 80!
After a few beers and lots of chatting about the pleasures and pitfalls of life in rural France, we set off to check in at our hotel. On the way there, we were waylaid by an American-style bar that amazed us by having cocktails on its menu, compelling us to stop by and check it out. I was fairly confident that they wouldn’t be on offer for some arbitrary reason, but we were in luck – margaritas for matt & I and a vodka fizz and a gin fizz for Lee and Richard respectively. The drinks were expensive and like us, the boys are growing concerned about the lack of work out here, but we’d all decided that this was a special day of fun and relaxation, so to hell with it!
Nicely buzzed, it was on to the Hotel Etap. It was basic at best, but for €40 per double room, who’s complaining? The guy at reception was a very nice man, and it was extremely central so it met all our needs. We had rooms next to each other so dumped our bags and all congregated in our room to make a start on the vodkas. More chatting and laughing ensued until we decided to head out for food. Lee & Richard knew of a Chinese buffet restaurant a little ways out of town, and as soon as that was mentioned, we knew that it had to be done. Opportunities for non-French cuisine are pretty much non-existent for us nowadays so we were most excited at the prospect – Matt especially, when he learned they also did sushi.
We were all fairly well-oiled by the time we rolled in, with Richard kindly driving us up there. We ate a large meal, which (given our only other attempt at eating non-French food out here) we were pleasantly surprised to find was decent. Being a buffet, you can eat as much or little as you want; something some of the punters clearly knew all too well! It’s the first time I think I’ve seen truly fat people out here, and there were several! We sensibly had just one beer a-piece and lots of grub to line our stomachs. Nonetheless, I am sure we were among the more boisterous of the diners there that night.
After the meal, we returned to the hotel and continued to work away at the vodka. We dealt with bottle 1 and moved on to number 2 while we waited for the bars to fill up a little. Angoulême does actually have a gay scene (just barely) so when we finally did hit the town (10:30 or so, I think – it’s all a bit hazy from here on) we made a beeline for one of the town’s 2 gay bars. It was called Café Chaud and was surprisingly swanky. There were quite a few people out but we certainly livened the place up with our arrival. We didnt really do too much people-watching as we were all engrossed in our own lively, silly conversations at our table. They too served cocktails, so we treated ourselves to a round of margaritas before moving back to the beer. This was no less than Stella Artois, on tap, served in large glasses! They must have seen us coming as we had been lamenting France’s lack of Stella just a few hours earlier. They were bizarrely playing a Boney M album on endless repeat so I was eventually nominated to request something (anything!) else – and of course to get in the next round of beers. The barman was a suitably surly fellow, and presumably quite a Boney M fan as he wasn’t exactly pleased with my request – but he complied anyway, putting on something a bit more disco-y.
The trouble with nights as fun (and boozy) as these is that time goes weird. We’d surely not been there more than an hour when all of a sudden, the lights were turned on and the staff were firmly requesting that we get out so they could close up. I was shocked and appalled to learn that it was 2am and we were pretty much the last ones there. The beer and tequila in us insisted we try and press on – we learned there was a club nearby – but somehow, reason prevailed and we abandoned this plan in favour of heading back to the hotel. Well, perhaps ‘reason’ is too strong a word, as we realised there was still some vodka left, so it was all back to our room to deal with the last of that, and for more fun and frollicks.
We probably passed out at around 4 or 5 in the morning, to be woken by a persistent maid who was as keen to get us out of our beds as we were to stay in them. She won out in the end and we all showered and packed up, making it outside for around 10:30. Lee and I both felt pretty chipper (still drunk clearly) whereas Matt & Richard were suffering somewhat. Lee drove us back to theirs and most impressively, whipped us all up an extremely welcome fry-up. We chilled at theirs for a few hours, Lee and I even daring to drink a beer, before hitting the road at around 2pm. The weather had abandoned any attempt at niceness and was back to grey skies and rain – justifying a day inside on the sofa if nothing else.
Later that afternoon, my hangover caught up with me, just as Matt’s intensified. He went for a lie-down and I had a can of ginger beer, which helped a little. At least we were able to stay in deal with our sorry states: Lee and Richard had dinner plans that evening that they couldn’t get out of, the poor things! We were off to bed at 10:30, where we slept for nearly 11 hours. They on the other hand, apparently had a sober evening amongst drunk people, that went on till nearly 1am. Ouch!
Today, we both have a few bits to be getting on with. The chap in Minnesota whose site I recently did wanted some changes made, earning me a few more pennies, so I have been working on that. I also have a call tonight with a client back in the UK whose site is currently a work-in-progress. It’ll be good to get that one live as it will be a reasonable amount of money hopefully. For Matt’s part, he finally heard back from his client for the work he did several weeks ago and he now has a few changes to make based on his feedback. Otherwise, August is back to normal – grey skies, rain, solitude and money-related stressing. At least we had a belter of a weekend to liven things up!