Saturday night and Sunday morning

Cycles and Conversations on a Saturday in Marsilly

Sheila reports….

I appreciate that being Monday – in fact now Tuesday, you might be thinking that the one blog would cover all the weekend, but there is so must to tell I am splitting it into two! (Note from Ed. It is now Wednesday)

Saturday morning started off all very calmly with a late morning breakfast for everyone. Peter cooked lovely scrambled egg to get us all going. Which, for Stella and Jack meant a long walk along the cliff tops of Marsilly, and for moi and Pierre it was a 10 mile cycle on a round trip of the local countryside. On our journey we stopped off at our local bar/restaurant to which, we had persuaded Jack and Stella, that it was a good idea to go on Saturday night.

Back at HQ and disco naps all round we were ready to hit the road at 9pm. Settled into our table in what turned out to be a full house to hear the music and singing of Renaud. Peter had googled Renaud and turns out he had major French hits in the 70’s and one in particular was quite critical of Margaret Thatcher.  He was the main act billed in August, followed by an Elvis night the following Saturday, celebrating the great man.

Upon arrival we were met by Peter’s “date” from last week Anne Marie with kisses and cuddles and several mentions of aperitifs. We declined her offer at this stage and had our meal and listened to the music. The first half of the session involved local musicians doing what is best described as a karaoke accompanied by our new best friend Emmanuel. Before long there was dancing on the table and lots of audiences participation. Emmanuel welcomed everyone to the evening including Le Anglais, La Irlandaise and Les Escosses to which there was lots of cheers, well at least for the Irlandaise and Escosses anyway.

At the interval Jack and Peter checked that the music was continuing and Renaud would be on next and we were told oh oui oui. Another bottle of wine ordered and more singing. By this stage Jack was definite that he’d be back singing a Scottish tune in his kilt, a promise he has kept this morning.  So the karaoke sessions continue and no sign of Monsieur Renaud yet and at the end we decided he’d blobbed.

It was very hot inside so Stella and I decided to stand outside to cool down, albeit being 2am. The boys paid during which time Anne Marie (the 67 year old, dancing on the table Tunisian, Fench, Italian widow)  & her sidekick collared us and invited us to her place on Sunday. Seemed like a good idea at the time, not such a hot idea at 11am the next morning.

Home and bed

The Day After

As per arrangements we set off from Nantilly to La Bateleur where we are were meeting Anne Marie with a little trepidation with several ideas floating around including us thinking is she the axe murder of La Rochelle and began compiling the Daily Mail headlines of next week “four tourists disappear in La Rochelle, last seen heading to 67 year old’s house”.

Anne Marie was waiting for us at the bar with the patron’s father a lovely Lebanese chap, who thankfully spoke English. Have I mentioned Anne Marie didn’t speak English so it was up to Jack and Peter to talk, so no change there then. More kisses and hugs before we headed off to her house. And what a welcome did we get, she is an amazing woman with a lovely warm personality. She was chuffed to hear that this was our first welcome into a La Rochelle home, said made her day.

Lunchtime aperitifs in the French/Italian/Tunisian way

Lots of conversation ensued and we have some great laughs.  Thankfully I was driving so could safely decline the aperitifs however the other three indulged at noon, impressive!  Though when offered a whisky Jack declined saying not before midday when he realised it was 12.15 so then decided it was not on a Sunday, being the lord’s day and all that. One conversation caught us out and it goes like this… in French I might add but to say you I am putting it down here in English.

Peter: Last night Renaud was due to sing and we wondered why he didn’t turn up?

Anne Marie: what, how do you mean?

Peter: well it turned out to be all the locals singing Renaud’s songs and he was the billed act so we wondered?

Anne Marie: but he is dead, so he cannot turn up. (Saying this with a big surprised look on her face and her hands in the air, a la French style.)

Peter tells us and we all laugh and say oh that explains it.

Anne Marie: so now you know and also you know that Elvis is billed for the next Saturday so you know he’ll not be turning up either. With which she nearly wet herself laughing.

We felt that we had arrived when a French person was cracking a joke at our expense in a nice way – the other way has already happened. The conversation was really held together by Jack whose fluency was growing in confidence with each minute (and Pineau).  We knew he was in fiull flow (with the French) when he turned to me to explain what Anne Marie had said and addressed me in French as well!

Anne Marie took immense pride in showing us around her house, which was lovely with some great pictures, painted by her late husband, or else the local mayor, and a fantastic conversion of a garage into an ensuite bedroom. Mum take note!

We departed with more hugs and kisses and headed into La Rochelle for lunch and a wander around. Pretty busy as you’d expect.

On the return journey I thought that it would be a nice for Jack and Stella to see the boats that land the oysters and mussels and so we headed up the road to Charron and the slipway. Well little did we know it had been the fullest moon for years and did you know that when the moon is that near the earth it pulls the sea towards it and the upshot of this was that the roads all along the shore were flooded. A great spectacle for the locals and us.

Back home in time to skype Paul and Lynne who had a slightly betting location then us, overlooking the Pacific Ocean at Powell River, well maybe a little better. They rubbed this in as they spoke to us whilst watching Orca’s in the bay in front of their house, can you believe it? It was lovely to see them, lovely to see both of them looking so well and it was a bit of crack.

Then we crashed, the weekend had been too hectic for us at our age and it caught up with us. Dinner: followed by the Antiques Roadshow, Countryfile and The Village. Typical night in the UK really.

A bientot