It’s my turn to do a Frog blog update, so here we go. To pick up where Matt left off, the weather did improve somewhat by last weekend but it was still predominantly overcast and rainy. All the locals – including Mauricette’s 90 year old mother – are saying they cannot remember every having temperatures this low at this time of year, although I am pleased to say this week has been a big improvement.
I don’t think there’s much to recount for the remainder of last week except that both of us have had work to keep us busy during the day, and music practise sessions in the evening. On the work front, I have just completed a site for a local hotel/restaurant business and the owner is extremely pleased with the result, which is a bonus. Now that is done, I am at the “waiting on client” stage for another project, Howard & Mason – a Dad referral. Matt too is at the “waiting on client” stage for his current project, so we’re doing our best to use the free time to concentrate on our far-too-imminent gig at the equestrian centre’s Fete Annuelle this Saturday.
Since Jenny dropped the bombshell that there was no way were going to back out, we’ve put in a lot of hours and both have very sore fingers. There has been definite progress, though I still feel like we are weeks away from ready and I am quite terrified as a result. Our setlist has undergone a number of alterations and last-minute substitutions, but we have finally settled on the following (in order):
1. “Hotel California” – the Eagles
2. “Rotterdam” – the Beautiful South
3. “American Pie” – Don Mclean
4. “Here Comes the Sun” – the Beatles
5. “Nowegian Wood” – the Beatles
6. J’ T’Emmène au Vent” – Louise Attaque
I assume most of you will be familiar with the first 5 – a selection of American and English classics that we can both play with varying degrees of success. The last one is by a popular contemporary French group and is a lively foot-tapping number that nearly everyone in the audience will know. This is why we chose it, although out of our setlist, it is by far the weakest number. Matt has the challenge of singing in French and for me, the guitar part is simple in terms of chords, but very tricky in terms of rhythm: it’s very fast-paced. If we pull it off, it will be a real coup, and if we dont… well, at least we clear off the stage right afterwards.
So, back to the story: we had un weekend très français which began with an invite to dinner round Lucien & Mauricette’s. The food was excellent and copious as usual. We started with aperitifs: a sweet white wine from Corsica that was actually very pleasant and slices of bread with salami and others with a tomato paste. The main was turkey escalope with cepe mushrooms and fried potatoes. Amongst the many things discussed over dinner, the topical issue of gay marriage – now legal in France – came up. Mauricette is pro, although against adoption, and Lucien is against. Neither could explain or justify why they had their views and both, to our amusement, said that on the other hand, if we wanted to get married or decide to adopt, they would be totally ok with it and would love to come to the party. We’ve learnt that there is a maire nearby who has publicly stated he will refuse to conduct same-sex marriages, despite being legally obliged to do so. We mentioned this to the neighbours and it turns out they are firm friends with the man and think he is great. We really do get on well with Lucien and Mauricette, but sometimes I am reminded that this is in part because we tend to avoid certain topics.
We ended the night with a chartreuse or 2 and were home by midnight as we wanted to ensure we were functional the next day to focus on music practise. That was the main activity for the day, and then in the evening it was back to socialising à la française. Françoise and Phillipe invited us to a bar in a town about 15 minutes away that runs a monthly pub quiz/pizza evening. The town, Abjat, is popular with the Brits and the bar was even English owned at one time, so the clientele was about 70% – 30% French – Brit. It was a great fun night, although the quiz was extremely difficult, and even despite Matt and Philippe’s formidable combined trivia knowledge, we finished 4th. Françoise was due to start a new teaching job the following Monday and didn’t want to have a heavy one, so we called it a night after the quiz and went our separate ways.
Sunday saw a long overdue improvement in the weather: I think it hit 20 degrees or so, and we had clear skies for the first time in what felt like weeks – and it’s lasting well so far. The cats are obviously overjoyed at this, although they are veritable tick magnets at the moment. I got 5 off of Louis yesterday and I am sure there’s at least that many again still on him. The Smoo is totally back on form and is enjoying terrorising our waning lizard population. I’d like to say he has learnt from his bee-sting drama, but I’ve already had to stop him trying to eat a wasp so clearly nothing sank in there after all.
The veggie plot’s not doing too good: after the one sunny day when we planted everything, a return to rain, grey skies, occasional hail and low temps has all taken its toll on the poor seedlings. Some look to be done for, but others might pull through if the heat stays with us. Also on the garden front, Matt is pleased to have had his first success with the mole traps. After repeatedly finding the traps either sprung but empty, or unsprung but covered in dirt, he has now reduced our native mole population by one. It is awful it has come to this, but the back lawn is more molehill than grass these days, so the lil buggers brought this on themselves.
This week we have taken advantage of the well-timed lull in work to really focus on our gig, with a big practise planned for this afternoon. It’s a glorious 23 degrees today and that’s due to last the rest of the week, which is good timing as we have our next visitor arriving tomorrow. Jan is currently here in France, but is in Paris seeing relatives. She was planning to stay there a few days, but cut this short when she heard about our gig on Saturday, so we’ll be collecting her from Angoulême tomorrow afternoon. So, we’ll have at least one cheering fan in the crowd!
We’ve already got quite a few activities lined up for her stay, starting with curry night chez Françoise and Phillipe on Friday, a day-trip to Aubeterre with members of Matt’s French group, and an overnight stay in Bordeaux, taking in St Emilion and some wineries on the way home. We might also be invited over to Lee and Richard’s for a wine tasting day, which would be great. We’ve not seen them in ages, and havent seen their place in far longer. They’ve done loads of work to it since our last stay there so it will be nice to see the fruits of their labour. Right, I think that’s all I have to say. Next up: re-stringing guitars and rehearsals!