Monday 11th May

After all the excitement and disappointment of the election campaign I have had a couple of really quiet days here in Eymet.  My wife has returned to England for a few days and I have been running the café.  Saturday was really busy, one table after another almost all day – and then Sunday was dead, hardly a person in town and certainly none who wanted coffee and cake.  So it goes.  One table on Saturday were members of a make-shift choir and they told me they had been learning their singing parts for a performance that evening.  It was ‘Trial by Jury’ by Gilbert and Sullivan and held in the Espace Culturel, so I decided to go along.  As you might imagine Light Operettas have never been a staple part of my musical diet, but I have seen a few bits of G. & S. here and there, and most importantly this one is only forty minutes long.

It was actually rather fun, sung in English by English to an English audience in South West France; just what the few French in the audience must have made of it I don’t know.  Quite a clever little light-hearted story, I particularly like the intricate rhyming of the lyrics.  Watched a bit of TV and early to bed.  Tonight I will be doing some washing in the Laverie.  Once near Le Touquet I saw a huge Bugs Bunny above a launderette with the brilliant name of Tex Laverie, but ours is just called Fil et Folie.

The sun is shining and I will be shutting the shop up early and sit in the sun for a while…..Wish you were all here, but just as well you aren’t.