A bit more country life.

Yes, I need to squeeze in as much as I can. Home soon! Claudine, you may recall, is a teacher at Alienor Aquitaine Lycee and she more or less mentored me. She may or may not have been thrilled about that, but as she was the first teacher I met she kind of won me! :-) In fact, she is changing schools this new school year and will be teaching in a College in Civray, nearer to where she lives. Anyway anyway.... She came and fetched me on Saturday afternoon and we tootled merrily south of Poitiers, through Gencay, St Secondin and to the farm where Claudine and Francois live. I have stayed there before, as you also may recall, and I just loved it. They are currently in the midst of a few alterations, the main one being the installation of a new doorway to their lovely stone house.
It will be amazing - already the main kitchen/sitting area is so much lighter. At the moment there is no door at all. There are no real safety/security worries, but they have to put up a barrier of sorts when they aren't around as the resident goose likes to visit, and her calling card is extremely messy!
We sifted round and then in the evening went out to the local Brasserie in St Secondin, where Francois' newly formed band was playing. Francois and one or two others are very talented. One or two have room for growth. But all in all it was rollickingly good performance.
I thought that the French songs they did were far and away the best - the ones in English didn't quite do it for me. I seem to remember a very dreary version of Knock Knock Knocking on Heaven's Door at a Nayland College concert once, many years ago, and I thought it was awful then and on Saturday night found no reason to change my opinion!
There were quite a few English people there - I seem to have met a flurry of them just lately. It was all very friendly. People moved around and mixed and a good time was had by all.
On Sunday we just let the morning unfold - I love it when that happens! Breakfasting on fresh crusty bread or croissants (I'm a bread fan myself), talking, singing.... I tell you.... Great stuff. Then we drove to the village of Charroux where the girlfriend of the son of English friends of C and F was singing. Ria. And she is a Kiwi! She really was just great.
As good as Hayley Westenra I reckon. And Hilary - beautiful pitch - right up there in the top bit of the note. Beautiful. The meal at the Brasserie however was not beautiful. The English owners should be bloody well ashamed. The French probably think - oh well, that's how the English eat. Well, some of them might, but it was still unacceptable. I won't even describe my meal, but if I just say - think of Wattie's Mixed Veg you will get an idea.
After a couple of hours there and listening to Ria we walked up the hill to Ria and Christopher's house which they are renovating.
And then we drove to the small town of Confolens to check out the last day of the Festival, which has been running for a week. Summer is HUGE for festivals in France - everyone seems to have one.
We watched all sorts of dance performances which were all good. There was a Cook Islands group there. By golly, how often have I wished that the French could see a Kapa Haka group. They would ADORE it. (Toni, Holly and co - that's a Maori cultural performing group.) We wandered round a bit, looked at stalls which I think were magically transported from every fair you ever went to in New Zealand.

And then we drove to Pressac which is where Dave and Viv live - the friends of Claudine and Francois whom I mentioned before. And they are Christopher's parents. They moved to France about 7 years ago and have a large piece of land and a pretty good life I think. Mind you, neither Dave nor Viv speak French - even after this time. Just a bit. The kids who are now teenagers or young adults are of course beautifully bi-lingual. Isn't that wonderful?
We sat around and talked, and also checked out an ENORMOUS tree which had fallen down in a storm. Underneath is stone and it appears to be the remains of a wall. Dave jokes that it is Roman. Well, it might be from the 1950s but indeed it might be Roman! I think they should get it checked out at least. One of the young people there found some pottery remains. I watch Time Team and I think they would love to have a look, but Dave avd Viv didn't seem too bothered. Oh well....

We had a barbecue and talked into the night. I spent a lot of time talking to Ria and Christopher who really are great young people. I spent a lot of time trying not to talk to one of the guys there who kept making New Zealand jokes and thinking he was really funny. When he took the piss out of the haka and asked if it made me homesick I had to use a great deal of self-control! I might be being precious, but I'm sorry, I don't like people making up gibberish words and pretending they are doing the haka! Well, I don't get deeply upset, but nor do I feel compelled to laugh out loud!
Apart from him, it was a great night. I felt good, but surprisingly didn't sleep well. Damn! But anyway, I made it through to this morning which is always a bonus! :-) This morning I read outside in the sun and even napped a bit. I also went with Claudine to the Boulangerie and when she introduced me, once again - "Oh! La Nouvelle Zealande! Les All Blacks!" It's just amazing.
I then saw a great example of why the French close everything down at lunchtimes. Now, if we were working somewhere we would take along our sandwiches.... Nah, not in France! Claudine cooked a several course midday meal for us all. A large table was set up outside and we ate there. And washed things down with much wine. Although she said they would usually only have one bottle, but it was a special occasion for me so they had more!
So for two hours we ate, drank, talked about New Zealand, discussed the local gossip especially about the crazy woman in St Secondin who hasn't paid rent for 7 years, and generally just basked in the nice warmth of being a group of people hanging out. (The guys smoked too, but I am feeling so warmly disposed towards them that I am pretending to you that I didn't even notice! :-))And then I had a big surprise when they all burst into a rendition of my favourite French song, "Tous les Garcons". Well! It was a magic moment.
So many goodbye kisses all round, the lads went back to work and Claudine took me home to Poitiers. Can I handle much more of this emotion? Well, yes, I guess I can. Stay tuned.