Heading north

We must be getting a bit slicker at the closing down rituals: much laundry and bed changing later, we were on the road soon after 10:00, not before a brief skirmish with the local traffic warden, who seems, unaccountably, not to have been suspended following his assault on a villager.  No ticket at least, and he had been round placing tickets on the cars of visitors who defy the no-entry sauf riverains signs, and use up the limited spaces to which we riverains are banished.

We opted this time for the Toulouse-Limoges route rather than Béziers-Clermont Ferrand, and think we may revert next time.  Though the road through Quercy is very attractive, the traffic around Limoges and Brive is not.  At one point, near Limoges where the road merges from three lanes to two, someone in a 76-plate Corsa (ie probably a rental) overtook us on the hatching at great speed, chased by someone else in an old Chrysler Crossfire.  It looked rather like a pursuit to me.  (Must check the local press for reports of drug wars in Limoges.)  Other than that, there was the usual compliment of kamikazes, ditherers and middle-lane Mary types to contend with, and a general scorn for the idea of signalling before changing lane, and the road was pretty busy for much of the way.   

We are safely installed in a pleasant hotel, the Relays du Château in Rambouillet, as I write, having been for a little walk round the gardens of the adjacent château.  The gardens have reinforced my plan to have another crack at rudbeckias next year!  The room is clean, spacious and quiet, and faces a back courtyard - just as well, since it's market day tomorrow in the car park opposite the front of the hotel.  We had a most peculiar meal at the Bistro du Marché.  Our waiter insisted on speaking a form of English to us, addressing us as 'you guys' every time he opened his trap: drunk, stoned, bewildered or some combination thereof: hard to tell.  The pizzas seem to have been satisfactory, though the uniformity of the bases suggested bulk deliveries of congelés. 

Though the hotel is fine and the château and garden impressive, the clientèle at the pub and bistrot where we ate was a bit on the low-rent side.  We didn't feel inclined to hang around, and hope to find the car with a full complement of wheels tomorrow.  If so, it's a little less than three hours' drive to Dieppe tomorrow for the lunchtime ferry, lunch and a snooze on board, then an hour's drive home from Newhaven.  We've had a fantastic time in Another Place, but are ready for a while at home now.

Winding down, getting wound up

Not a bad meal last night with Kate and John at the Cocotte Fêlée.   I had a skewer of shrimps served on a Thai-style salad of mango, transparent noodles, peanuts and sundry healthy bits and pieces, then a baked ham and sage stuffed chicken breast with odd bits of veg as a garnish.  Both satisfactory, and in time-honoured style, I can't remember what I had for pudding.  So we seem to have two bonnes adresses on the Prom.

We're starting to plan our brief transhumance northward, and driven out this afternoon by screeching sprogs in the street (one of which, aged barely 2, had to be restrained by yr obed servt from taking a key to a neighbour's car and kicking in the number plate), we took off to get some last bits of shopping.  Pause on the way in Ribaute, where one of the heats of downhill go-kart racing was in progress.  Evidently, eight villages host these timed events, and we got to see a dozen or so hurtle past.  Some quite serious chassis, but most pleasingly frivolous, including a bathtub and a wind surfer on wheels.  One trailed a windsock and a cloud of orange smoke.  As one does.  Evidently this is serious stuff: eight villages are hosting heats, we learned.

Next stop, Camplong, where our lady was in a friendly mood today (you never can tell...).  My carte de fidélité being full after today's visit, she presented us with our 0.00001% loyalty bonus of a bottle of cooking pink.  Thence to Fortnum's in the market town for kitchen and laundry supplies, and on to Saint-Laurent de l'Ecrevisse (OK: de la Cabrerisse) for some whites for Celia and Andy.

The weather has broken with a flash and a bang, so that's our excuse for parking outside the house when we got home.  After my two avertissements last week, I'd been parking legally at a health-giving distance.  We gather that the traffic warden got into a scuffle with a protesting resident the other day, and knocked him to the ground.  Outcome of enquiry awaited, but I saw said warden on his bike yesterday, oddly omitting to ticket the Mairie van, illegally parked across André's garage door, and unaccountably refraining from adding to Bertrand's ticket collection.  The more I get to know this country, the less I understand it.

Modest changes

Ever creatures of habit, we took a favourite road yesterday past the much-painted (by me, anyway) Château de Durfort, Vignevieille and its vegetable patches, then up to the hills above Bouisse.  The terrain gradually changes from craggy garrigue and vineyards to rolling pasture where sheep, cattle and sometimes donkeys graze.  A pair of donkeys, one black and one white, often graze near the viewpoint above.  No sign of them yesterday: they've probably given up on us, since we always forget to take a bag of carrots with us.

Donjon d'Arques, interpretation of.

Up there, one can sometimes get fine views of the Pyrenees, though yesterday's were rather hazy in the still, silent air.  Down the rich red hillsides to Arques and its Donjon, then on up to Limoux for pizzas.  We decided last time that we'd had too many indigestible meals at the Grand Café in the town square, so swung round 90° widdershins to Le Concept.  They classify their pizzas as les blanches and les rouges, which use crème fraîche and tomato base layers respectively.  Crisp bases, extremely copious toppings.  Doubtful arithmetic, though: the change came back 10€ short, quickly remedied.  Service otherwise brisk and friendly.

Lunch was accompanied by a couple of big parties nearby: one extended Spanish family, and a table of boisterous (and somewhat boozy) bikers, who rumbled off in due course across the pedestrian-only square on their Harley-Ds etc.  The one Kawasaki in the gathering looked decidedly limp-wristed by comparison.  More curious vehicles on a side road off the Carcassonne road.  There appeared to have been some sort of autojumble, but there were a couple of fine old cars on display.  One was a Zedel:  I had to read up later, never having heard of such a thing.  The company was founded in

Neuchâtel by one Ernst Zürcher (the Zed bit) and Hermann Lüthi (the L bit).  They eventually moved manufacturing across the border into France to overcome tariff barriers, and to get access to skilled automotive labour.  The Zedel was parked next to a coachbuilt Daimler, and curiously both were right-hand drive.  Also on show was a pretty ancient motorised bicycle, unearthed, by the rusty look of it, from a dilapidated rural barn.

Home for a rest, then off up to Kate and John's for apéritifs with some of their neighbours.  A cheerful gathering: nine of us with, most of the time, about ten conversations going on.  Jacquie, whom I've met a few times on walks, lives much of the year in Aix-en-Provence as, coincidentally, do the other French guests, he originally from Lorraine, she from Lagrasse.  It turns out that the premises on the Promenade where Jacquie has created an art gallery out of a former garage once serviced gentlemen before it changed its target market to motor vehicles.  Well, well: the things you learn!

It's gone quiet

Sad to be at the end of a superb piano festival.  It has been an intimate and enjoyable experience: one has the chance to bump into and chat with the performers at the market, the baker's or in the river, and it's clear that many of the performers are great friends with each other.  The last day was a treat: a terrific soprano recital by Marta Garcia Cadena and Jordi Humet in the difficult acoustic of the church.  Marta has a lovely natural voice, which a lot of us felt ideally suited to Canteloube's Chants d'Auvergne, which in my view works less well for a virtuoso operatic soprano.  Guillaume Sigier's afternoon piano recital was a touch mixed.  I suppose once you've listened to Ravel's Miroirs a few times the arguments will become clearer.  The Haydn and Brahms pieces were more acceptable, and the phrasing was restrained, making for a more coherent performance than some we've heard.

It was during Guillaume's recital that the problems of an open air event became clear: uncontrolled kids running around and shouting.  Mr Artistic Director had a go at shushing them, as did some of the Grandma figures of the village.  Eventually, with a muttered 'I'm not having this', I marched off to deal with them, to a murmuring, I gather, of 'there goes trouble!' from behind us.  Putting on my best dealing-with-contempt-of-court attitude, I went and collared them, quietly advising them to go home and not return, understood?  The unspoken (and of course undeliverable) 'or else' appears to have worked.

The evening recital was troubled another familiar Lagrasse factor: strong wind.  Bobby Mitchell, a virtuoso performer of Gershwin and others earlier in the week, was doing the page turning for Janneke and James (see earlier post), and his great mop of hair was all over the place.  They began with a performance of Holst's The Planets, and Janneke told me next day that they were getting really stressed when the wind kept whipping the music away.  It didn't show: it practically brought the house down - or the Halle, anyway.  In the second half, they played a few of my favourite Gershwin pieces, and finished with Debussy's La Mer, which was very well received.  I was on hat duty again, and got my best takings of the week - well over 100€.  Perhaps people were doing as I did last year and giving at the end rather than per concert, and I had fewer people proferring a tenner and asking for a fiver back. 

I think it was a mistake to make such a secret that we'd be putting the hat round.  People are free to contribute or not as they please, but an apologetic suggestion, made only at the beginning of the series, that five or ten Euros in the hat would be nice was simply not enough.  I gather that this, and the whole question of merchandising and publicity, was controversial among the organisers.  Still, the T-shirts, brooches, coasters etc sold pretty well: the logo is simple and clear.  A good decision by the En Blanc et Noir team was to publish the programme in French only, even if the original English shone through a little here and there.

I took Janneke to the airport yesterday (her husband, James, had already left for another engagement near Albi).  Some interesting insights: she told me that James's piano teacher also teaches at the girls' school where Holst taught, and just happened upon the composer's manuscript for the four-hands arrangement when he was clearing out a cupboard!  She told me she was hoping to be listed earlier in next year's programme, since it's a bit stressful keeping the big performance for the end.  I told her it was far too late for that: having finished this year's series with a blazing performance - and last year's too with the Rite of Spring - her audience looks forward to her and her man for the finale!

It all seems terribly quiet now, and I'm already missing our lovely musicians.  Still, there's to be a chamber music series in September, and we'll be here for some of it.  It is being arranged by the village organist, and I think it's a healthy competitive response to 'our' somewhat anglophone dominated series, and it's a little more hard-nosed, in that admission to concerts will be by ticket, and prices are hefty.  I don't suppose I'll see the books for either event, but dare say I'll hear on the grapevine how they compared! 

Station run

Since I have no artistic contribution to make to https://www.facebook.com/En.Blanc.Et.Noir.Lagrasse, we're doing minimal B&B, and a couple of station/airport runs for musicians.  Today I took young Paul Salinier and his parents to the station.  Paul played in the opening concert, and impressed us.  Just 17, he is preparing for the concours for the Paris Conservatoire next February, and if the assessors' reaction is similar to the audience's, he'll walk it.  Thoroughly likeable young fellow, too.  Like so many of the performers we've seen here, his is a name to watch.

I got back, via the shopping, just in time to hear Janneke Brits and James Kreiling playing Rachmaninov and Scriabin respectively.  Virtuoso performances both, but though we liked the early Scriabin pieces, my mind wandered in the later ones.  (A bit like my thoughts on Kandinsky, really, mutatis mutandis.)  Martyn, meanwhile, voted with his feet.  Some more accessible stuff in today's early evening concert.

Odd experience, driving home solo from Carcassonne: it has to be nine years since I last did it, back in the days when Martyn was coming here briefly when he could get respite from looking after Ma-in-law.  I felt strangely insecure.  Maybe I've become used to his moderating influence, and in its absence tackle the bends with a bit too much gusto.  The road is up in Monze, and despite temporary traffic lights, I had to reverse a couple of hundred yards to make way for a  mobile crane with several concrete reinforcing matrices dangling precariously from its jib.  Elf & Syfety are scarce commodities in these parts.

*** Vaut le voyage

Simone Tavoni at the Steinway

The piano festival has started, and five recitals in, the place is buzzing with excitement.  The standard is once again very high so far, and the audiences are enthusiastic and appreciative.  T-shirts are selling well, we're glad to report, and when the hat comes round, it seems to be well filled.  Since we are modest sponsors of the event, we were invited to a splendid paëlla lunch yesterday with fellow sponsors and some of the musicians.  We took some amuse-bouche, which seem to have gone down well: well, they went, at least. We hosted one of the pianists overnight.  Regulars will recall my enthusing about one Yshani Perinpanayagam this time last year (and if not, why not?).  She it was who was our overnight guest, and what a delightful young woman she is.  Excellent company, and the perfect house guest.  She accompanied Johnny Herford in a recital in the church today, and we had the added pleasure of his company as well last night for a simple supper (which, I'm glad to report, doesn't seem to have poisoned either of them).  Well, their performances today were of the highest quality imaginable, anywhere.  The fact that they pulled it off so well in the difficult acoustic of our village church speaks volumes for their professionalism.  Their programme: Schubert, Richard Strauss, Wolf, Butterworth and Britten was long and challenging, but they both shone, and seemed to enjoy themselves as much as the audience did.  Johnny's (baritone) voice is superb.  He has an impressive range, and sings with natural ease in all registers and power levels.  This performance alone was worth the journey.  And when Johnny gets his knighthood, we'll be able to say he came to supper with us in Lagrasse!

Parties and leftovers

Raspberry sponge gâteau by chef-patissier Bishop

I always look forward to having a crowd round, but never quite remember how stressful it gets as the hour approaches.  We got much of the preparation done well in advance, and our fears of over-catering were largely ill-founded.  Not much left of the 36 burgers, 32 drumsticks, a couple of packets of Speldhurst sausages, a large dish of sag aloo and - of course, a six-can batch of Ms Jaffrey's 'very spicy delicious chick peas', without which no party of ours is complete.  Martyn had made a stupendous range of puddings, including a handsome gâteau.  After days of contradictory weather forecasts and heavy rain in the morning, the sun was shining by the time guests started to arrive, and by mid-afternoon one family was sitting comfortably on the grass.  My birthday treat next day was a ride to the tip with the paper plates, napkins and scraps.

Leftover drumsticks and chickpeas, along with some veg knocking about in the bottom of the fridge, did for a couscous royal last night, and Martyn has liquidized and frozen the remaining fruit salad.  So we're just about ready for the summer migration south, hoping that the tunnel is working correctly tomorrow.  We've booked our Usual Flophouse in the Auvergne for a night.  I'd planned to use another nearby, but found when I looked this morning that is fully booked.  Still, booking late at the normal place got us a fat discount.  Just hope we don't get a noisy Italian family next door again. 

Mr B contemplates the port of Dieppe

[Later]  Well, as it turned out, the uncertainty over services through the tunnel prompted us to forfeit the non-ref tunnel bookings and re-book, at rather greater cost, via Newhaven-Dieppe.  I didn't feel like adding insult to injury by forfeiting the non-ref hotel booking, so it meant that we didn't get there until 21:30, some 14 hours after leaving home (though less than seven hours' driving, cf. over eight from Calais).  I wonder at the awful driving on the French motorways.  At one point I had moved out to pass a couple of lorries that were lumbering uphill, whereas we were doing the legal 130, adjusted up for speedo error.  Some twat in an Audi hurtled up behind us doing a good 170, overtook us on the right, then swung in front of us to pass the second truck with inches to spare.  By time we got to Issoire, tea was all we wanted, even with HIV milk from a motorway aire, and it's always good to know that we've broken the back of the journey.  The going between Dieppe and Chartres is SLOW, however, and lousy with roadworks.  Having slept typically badly the night before, we got a pretty fair night's sleep at the air-conditioned UF in the A.  Just as well.  It is hot here, and temperatures are unlikely to drop below 22° tonight.

Today's journey reminded us once again of the utter loveliness of the A75 route through the Auvergne and the Causses.  Huge panoramas, puffs and skeins of cloud hanging beneath us in the valleys - all slightly spoiled by a detour in consequence of the farmers blockading the motorway north of Brioude, and emptying crates of peaches across the slip road.  Martyn's unequalled navigating skills got us back on to the motorway at a familiar junction not too much further on, whereupon we had a good fast run for thirty miles or so, no doubt while others followed the signposted diversions.  Thus fortified, I suggested we take the Béziers ring road and come home via Capestang and Lézignan, rather than take the Kamikaze training ground known as the A9.  Well, thanks to the unparallelled incompetence of my navigating, we came off the Beezers-Carcassonne road too soon.  That ought not to have been dire, had not the villages been awash with routes barrées.  Having taken mental stock of the contents of the cool box, and with only a brief pause to get a baguette and some butter in the village, we got home in just decent time for a lunch of leftovers, and shopped later.

Part of the shopping derives from my rash offer to do canapés for 50 at next Sunday's lunch for sponsors of the piano bash.  We're hosting one of the pianists for a night, and I'm doing a couple of airport/station runs with performers and families next week.  Meanwhile, we're looking forward to several days of fine music.  Watch this space.