I’m up early today so I’m getting my blogging done first thing. It started raining about 2 hours ago and it’s proper rain – our first in many weeks. I don’t know if it was the pitter-patter that woke me, or the two wet cats complaining about having to come in and seek shelter, but I couldn’t get back to sleep again, so thought I’d get up and start my day.
First off, it pains me to report that our heatwave is officially over. It’s been in the mid-20s for about the last week or so, a far cry from 38 degrees. In fact, the high today is only 21! It is due to pick up again next week at least, which I hope it does as I miss the heat already.
At the end of my last entry, I mentioned how one night I hadn’t left out enough cat food and incurred the wrath of the Smoo. Well, I’ve since learned that I was innocent after all. I was up in the mezzanine one evening watching some TV when I heard the familiar sound of cat biscuits being crunched. Then I realised that both cats were curled up asleep with me! I did my best to creep downstairs silently, but failed to catch the thief at it. It was of course our infamous black cat from down the road who’d started taking advantage of the fact that I’d been leaving the front door open at night during the heatwave, the little bugger! We nearly caught him at it again the other night, but Smoo saw him off. He returned a bit scratched but victorious.
There was a much more serious fight on Wednesday night, this time involving Louis. We didn’t hear a thing, but Louis climbed into bed next to me at some point in the night and refused to let anyone touch him. He hissed and growled if I so much as brushed against him so was clearly in a bit of pain. I lay awake imagining an imminent and expensive trip to the vets, but come morning I was able to inspect his wounds, which weren’t as bad as he’d been making out. In fact, just a few hours later, he’d bounced back and was out frolicking. That night, he celebrated his return to form by catching and decapitating a young rabbit – in our bedroom of course.
Since Matt’s return, we’ve been trying to cram in a lot of rehearsals, our gig now being a mere 10 days away. We had two Musique en Herbe sessions last week. The first was on Thursday eve at 8.30 and was with our smaller group, Music’ Friend. This went ok for the most part, barring the fact that the girls showed up late, which put Alain into a foul mood. We also found out that our moving feast of a setlist, allegedly finalised the Friday before, was still evolving, and one song I thought we’d managed to avoid doing was back. I’m doing my best to get used to their disorganisation and not get too irritated by it, but it’s a challenge!
The next evening we had another rehearsal, this time with the wider group. Again, it was chaotic and unstructured, and not much progress was made. At the end of the night, I made them give me a definitive list of the songs they want me to play on, and have since spent time learning them. I’m sure at our next session they’ll throw some other curve ball at me, but I’m putting my foot down now and refusing to allow any substitutions or alterations any more.
In other news, work has picked up a bit for me. The ski holiday people finally came back to me with their choice of design, so I’ve been building their site. I’ve also got another “quick and simple” site to do, as well as some work on an existing one. Things are quieter for Matt, but he’s got a lot of rehearsal catching up to do, so that’s perhaps just as well.
Saturday night was La Nuit du Spardos, St Pardoux’s infamous annual summer party/booze fest – our 6th, can you believe. As usual, we’d made plans to go with Nat and Jill. They’re really busy with their gites at the moment, so Jill didn’t want to drink tons and offered to be the designated driver. We went round to theirs for an apéritif first and then took the back roads into town. We were all hungry, so everyone went and queued for their regular meal of foie-gras-topped burgers, while I went off to get myself a hot dog. While I was queueing, I got to listen to one of the 3 bands playing that evening. A four-piece called Les Vinyls, they were doing songs by the Beatles, the Kinks, the Doors… right up my street. Every year, our friend Jenny nags us about playing at Spardos ourselves. A few years ago I might have considered it, but the quality of the musical acts just seems to get better and better every year so it’s out of the question now.
We wolfed down our food and then wandered back to check out Les Vinyls. I didn’t think any band would be able to compete with the amazing all-girl band who closed the show last year, but these guys were to prove me wrong. As impressive as they’d sounded at first, they’d barely gotten going. As the evening wore on, their choice of songs got more and more ambitious: Queen, Pink Floyd, Chuck Berry, Led Zeppelin… I’ve never seen anyone able to emulate so perfectly and so effortlessly the guitar styles of so many greats, but their lead guitarist was just legendary.
We were enthralled, but Nat and Jill less so, so they went off to see what else was going on while we rocked out. After an hour, a blistering version of Johnny B Goode closed their official set, but the crowd begged for an encore so they were soon back on stage. When their set finally ended, we went to catch up with the ladies who were watching the main act. A much larger band, and technically very proficient, it was lacking the energy and rawness of Les Vinyls, so we all left soon after and had a nightcap back at theirs before coming home.
Right, one last thing to mention: we’re off to a wedding this weekend! My cousin Catherine is marrying her fella Andy, and (for reasons best known to themselves) they’ve decided to do it here in the Dordogne. The invites were sent out a year ago, but I don’t think this has been blogged about up until now, probably because I’ve been trying to pretend it isn’t happening. I’m not a big fan of weddings at the best of times, and I find the Bardells (Catherine’s side of the family) quite hard-going, so I’ve been quietly dreading this.
If they had decided to get married in the UK, I wouldn’t be going, but the venue’s only an hour and a half away from Port 80 so I’ve been unable to find a way out of it. Having a wedding in France – and in August too, when the fares are so expensive – has already caused untold internal dramas and skirmishes in our family so I’m going into this with a strong sense of foreboding. On the plus side, Mum, Dave and Amy are coming out too and are staying with us for the weekend, so that will help make it a lot more tolerable. (Dad isn’t coming because, well, because he flatly refused basically. I envy him this greatly). We plan on doing a lightning raid on the Saturday: get there just before the ceremony, then leave as soon as is polite after the meal. Most of the extended family will be staying (and squabbling) in various hotels near the venue but none of us fancied that, even if it means I’ve got to stay sober to get us home again. Matt, who likes weddings and is finding this all faintly amusing, will have the pleasure of recounting all the drama in the next entry. Until then, au revoir.