Bastille Day

Bastille Day

This 14^th of July was, for me, a particularly enjoyable occasion. There are evenings that I have experienced before in the village, at the Feu de la St Jean for instance, when the villagers collectively appear at their best. At the funeral of Diana (Princess of Wales) her brother asked rhetorically of her two sons “who will make your spirit sing?”. That phrase has always had a resonance with me, encapsulating the feeling one can get occasionally that all is good with the world (despite whatever is making the news headlines at the time). Wordsworth expressed the feeling in Intimations of Immortality as ”we feel that we are greater than we know”. That is what I felt on the evening of this 14^th of July.

When I got to the Place Banche de Cour, in front of the Bar du Pont, I joined Daniel, Jacques, Claudine and Michelline at a table and then went looking for food. There were pizzas, burgers, sausages and chips on the menu (I opted eventually for a burger and chips). But.......I had a joke in mind. So I said to various people that I was disappointed that there was no “fromage de tete d'aristocrate” (aristocrat brawn) on the menu. This was met with blank stares; joke failed. So I attempted to explain that, since there were a lot of loose aristocratic heads around on the original 14^th of July the French, being French, must have made brawn out of them and that should be a traditional dish for the date. That explanation did extract some laughs; that is until Patrick, a serious and meticulous character, said that the original Bastille day preceded all the guillotining and so there wouldn't have been any spare heads to make brawn out of. There's always one, isn't there? He's a bridge and chess player of course.

Anyway..............I went on to have a thoroughly enjoyable evening. There was music, dancing, conversation and plenty to watch to keep me amused. At one point the band struck up with a song that I love, the first line of which runs “Il me semble que la misere serait moins penible au soleil”. Everyone was joining in singing it and I wanted to know who sang it and the title. Everybody knew the former: Charles Aznavour. But nobody knew the title of the song. So when I got home I did a Google search and found that the title was “Emmenez-moi” (au bout de la terre). The next time there is a similar gathering, probably at the moules-frites next Thursday, I shall go round asking people what the title is and score a few brownie points.

Conversation ranged from boules to education in Tunisia, Islam, power, the colour black and quantum physics, which kept me nicely occupied, and whilst drinks were flowing more than freely nobody got very drunk or obstreperous in any way. And the moppets were in full swing, dancing with other moppets, parents or dogs; it didn't seem to matter.

The “black” mentioned above came about because of a news item I had read earlier in the day stating that a group of British scientists had managed to produce a colour black that absorbed 99.32% of light. The colour black, as most of us know, absorbs light and sight depends on reflected light. So if you can produce a black that is black enough (reflects no light) you won't actually be able to see it; and as you get closer to that goal, as this invention does, you get some intriguing side-effects. Fascinating, isn't it?

England Versus France

Thursday Evening

I went to the Bar du Pont on last Thursday evening to have mussels and chips and bumped into Nico. I have agreed with him and Mathieu to have them redo the tiling on my terrace floor as there is a problem with its permeability. I knew the tiles there weren't designed for outside use but the builder promised to coat them with a sealant, which he did. Two years later the problem recurred and he came again to add sealant. Now the problem has arisen for the third time and so I decided to have a permanent job done with new tiles. Nico had twice arranged to collect me to go to Avignon where he knew a good place to get tiles and twice had failed to turn up. So I wanted to see him. He said he was sorry about the previous Monday, the last time he failed to turn up, but they had been behind with another job they were doing. Anyway they were coming the following Monday to start on my terrace (no mention of tiles). It didn't matter; I went to Vaison and found some. And Nico and Mathieu duly turned up today to start work. It's not quite straightforward as they have to put iron bars into the wall to support three pots off the ground which have climbing roses, clematis and jasmine in them and so can't be moved away. But, anyway, they have started in early July as they said they would and that is something of a first for this area.

To have the mussels and chips I sat at a table with the two Dany Sue, Michele and her cousin Annie from England. Annie is French but married an Englishman who died a few years ago and has lived half her life in Teddington; and she loves it. What she loves above all is the theatre, cinema and concerts in London but she also loves marmite, lamb with mint sauce and drizzle! I found it very entertaining to hear her expound on the delights of these latter to the obvious puzzlement of the others, particularly the drizzle which so many of us have specifically came here to avoid There is no equivalent to marmite in France so it took some time to try to explain it and, admittedly, an extract of yeast, put like that, doesn't sound that appetising. So the wonders of marmite toast were lost on the French there.

Annie has become anglicised but retains at least one French trait: obsession with the English royal family. She said she'd seen some marvellous pictures of George taking his first steps walking in public. I nodded understandingly but it quickly became clear I hadn't a clue who she was talking about. “George,” she said in astonishment, “William and Kate's son.” “Oh yes,” I said unenthusiastically, at which point she accused me of being a traitor. So I accused her of the same. Dany intervened to say he thought I had found my proper home here in Mollans, that I very much belonged here. Clearly the same is true of Annie in England. We discussed the point and decided that neither of us would want to swap places; though, as we crossed the bridge afterwards she did go into raptures in front of the Dauphin fountain on the other side, remembering how she had played there as a child and washed her doll's clothes in the wash-house. So we both have happy memories of our origins on each side of the Channel but are both happy at now living on the other side.