La Fête Patronale

What was advertised in the year calendar as a frairie became the Fête Patronale (employers' festival?) when the time came. On Friday, Kaye went to help with setting the tables for 240+ people who had reserved for dinner. The keys to the building had not arrived, so she started helping with preparing the small floral decorations for the tables. She missed the cue when the table-setters left, but enjoyed making lots of little bouquets. The flower lady, Christiane, did the decorations for the church itself, while her grandkids helped with the table decorations. Rafts of little kids helped ferry these to the building where the dinner would be held. All the decorations were done with flowers from people's own gardens and it was all quite lovely. Christiane asked Kaye if she'd help with the flowers for a wedding the following Saturday. Unfortunately, we won't be here. Prochaîne fois!

The day of the fête, Saturday, we were rather rudely awakened before 6am by an artillery salvo shot off in Mazerolles, but clearly reverberating 2 kilometers away in Condadeuil. At 9.30, there was a mass in the church which we heard was well-attended, but not by us. In fact, we missed most of the days activities. Shortly after 18.30, Kaye reported for work serving the dinner, which was scheduled for 19.30. The barbecue chefs were busy stoking their fires, but no other servers had arrived. She wandered around a bit, looked at the games and rides for kiddies, a bit of fun. Finally some other people arrived and we started preparations. Kaye guillotined about 45 loaves of bread, developing a good blister in the process. She begged off actually waiting tables, but stayed busy outside stacking trays with meat and filling bowls with beans. In addition to the paying attendees, there were meals for the fire department, the band, and employees of the rides and games. Everything was wonderfully disorganized. For a dinner scheduled to start at 19.30, the aperos (apéritifs) were served at 21.00! Around 22.30, Kaye, still recovering from bronchitis, was very tired and went home, even before dinner was served for the servers and bbq chefs. Also missing an opportunity to take home some bread and cheese, no doubt. Lots of people were arriving as she left, coming for the music and the fireworks display, we suppose.

On the way home, Kaye met Ed walking up to the festivities. We decided that, in the future, it makes more sense for Ed to take Kaye to the area earlier in the day, then drive up himself later. Or, maybe we could bike whenever our bikes are restored to working condition. (Sorry, Kaye didn't take a camera, so there are no pictures, unless we can filch one from the paper later this week.)

Otherwise, it's been another slow week. Kaye's finished her course of antibiotics, still coughing a bit, but not with the same intensity. Ed re-installed the panelling in the entry after insulating the outside walls. We still haven't had the expected quotes for insulating other walls and ceilings. (August is the vacation month, what do you expect!) The weather has been hot, with occasional threats of rain, but no real activity.

Curiously, Kaye's HP pension has asked her to provide a form stating that she's still alive and thus eligible for her pension! This after repeated communications in the last month, asking for information required for last year's taxes.

Tomorrow we're off to visit The Netherlands, our first visit since we emigrated. (Big word, eh? We just thought of ourselves as moving from there to here!) One of our tasks will be to see what we need to do to ensure that we keep our Dutch passports while living in France. We'll be back here by the end of the month. No more posts till then!

Aside: Any cooks out there? Kaye's joined an online cooking group called Cooking Italy, a small group of people cooking each week from Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, which was already one of her favorites. If you're interested, join the fun!