Ok, there’s two weeks to retell, so I’ll be brief. Our first activity was on Wednesday, when we invited Bryan and Carol to ours for a meal. They returned to France the same day we did, bringing with them their two grandkids, Finn and Evan. They also bought us a bottle of Kahlua as a gift, so we of course had to have a few espressotinis. It was a warm evening so we ate outside, Matt putting together barbecued chicken with a side of potato salad and grilled courgette. Carol also brought three pizzas with her to bolster the meal as the boys, now teenagers, have voracious appetites. We finished the meal off with Matt’s brownies.
The Williams are well and their big news is they recently accepted an offer on their house out here. They haven’t signed the Compromis yet, but assuming there are no issues, we’ll likely not see them again once they leave for the winter.
The following evening we entertained again and the guest list was Paul & Nathalie and Françoise. We kicked off again with espressotinis, followed by leftover BBQ plus a pasta salad and beef burgers. Brownies capped it all off again.
I don’t think Matt said, but when we saw Françoise at the weekend, she expressed interest in hosting a party at her place and asked us if we fancied putting on a concert. Only issue was she wanted to do it in just two weeks time, before she headed off on holiday. When we saw her that night, we discovered the party was going to be on the Thursday and not the weekend, as we’d assumed. This meant even less time than hoped to rehearse, but we promised to pull something together.
We really should have taken it easy on Friday, given the previous two nights. But as you all know, Matt is a sucker for karaoke so it was inevitable he’d say yes when Lew invited us to the bar in Saint Front where he was host for the night. There weren’t many people there and, barring Françoise who also joined us, pretty much everyone was english. A few other people sang some songs (mostly very badly) but the star of the evening was of course Matt who accounted for about half of all songs sung. We also managed to drink an unnecessary amount of beer so weren’t in fine form the next day.
That was pretty rubbish of us seeing as Saturday’s social event had been in our calendar since the start of the year. This was to Emmanuel and Olivier’s place, our friends in the Charente. It was billed as a Soirée Orientale and we were expected to dress up, hence the advance notice. In this we utterly failed, only giving it some thought on the day of the party. Matt decorated a plain white T-shirt with chinese characters and I wore one with a dragon on it. Upon arrival we discovered that Orientale more refers to the Middle East rather than Asia, so we were not only guilty of lack of effort, we also got the theme wrong for good measure. Nearly all the other guests were in white flowing robes and turbans.
The evening was an unofficial wedding party as unbeknownst to us, the two had recently gotten married on the quiet and then headed off to Oman for their honeymoon (as you do) – hence the theme. Despite our sartorial failure, we had a nice time talking to the few guests among the 60 or so that we knew. We also got to meet and chat to Emmanuel’s Dad, whom he resembles closely, and his sister, whom he does not at all.
We made our excuses and left early as it’s a long drive and we were both tired. We spent the next few days working and rehearsing for Thursday’s gig. Unfortunately, we also managed to arrange a social activity the night before – dinner and cards at Lew and Pary’s place with Françoise.
We didn’t go terribly crazy on the drinks, but given how strong Lew makes them, this was irrelevant and all of us, me in particular, managed to get good and drunk. After the meal, we settled down to a game of Texas Hold’em poker, which I think I remember Pary winning (Note from Matt: No, I won).
Matt made a shop run the following afternoon, taking the car for her MOT at the same time. We had a poor rehearsal afterwards and then slowly packed our stuff and got set up at Françoise’s for the gig. She invited a number of her friends that we didnt know and lots that we did, including the folks, Richard and Bridget, Paul & Nathalie, Manu & Mathilde, and Jenny & Loic. Everyone brought a dish to eat and Françoise supplied the drinks.
Despite the short notice, we managed to pull together a list of 17 songs* – about an hour’s worth. Some were pillaged from our recent gig, some were songs we’d done before and some were new attempts. I made loads of stupid mistakes but on the whole we did ok – mind you, it helps to have a biased crowd made up of friends.
After our set, we stayed and chatted while the crowed thinned out, eventually coming away at 2am. Mum & Dad kindly recorded our set and as we were too wired to sleep, we rewatched it all, so it was gone 3 when we finally slept.
On to the weekend, when our only activity was a barbecue at ours along with Benoit and Virginie and the parents. This was a repeat of the chicken, burgers, crunchy salad/tahini cauliflower meal and was a hit. B&V are both OK, although Benoit is going to need surgery to sort out a neck problem that is giving him shooting pains in his arm. After the meal, the parents headed back home and we moved inside as it was getting cold. Eva came over and stayed for a few drinks, accompanied briefly by the other Benoit.
Sunday was a chillout day that doesn’t need retelling, and that will definitely do for this entry. There – Frog Blog is up to date again !
*For posterity, here’s our setlist
- Boys Don’t Cry
- Pretty Woman
- Should I Stay Or Should I Go
- In Between Days
- Creep
- (Bang Bang) My Baby Shot Me Down
- Perfect Day
- Rotterdam
- Norwegian Wood
- Sanfrancisco Bay Blues
- Crazy Little Thing Called Love
- Le Vent Nous Portera
- Back To Black
- London Calling
- Seven Nation Army
- Let’s Dance
- La Bombe Humaine