Brocante & Les Mazieres Fete

What a great time we had at the Les Mazieres fete on Saturday night. We arrived at about 7:30, paid our €30.00 for two tickets and headed for the breeze block built barn where the meal would be served. It was sometime before the meal was served so there was plenty of time for an aperitif and as 4 Stellas & 6 Ricards cost just €15.00 there were one or two consumed. At 9:30 we were all asked to take our seats in the barn & we and the other 400 party goers were served with a clear noodle soup that had the slightest hint of chicken flavour about it. This was followed by half a melon served with Muscat wine in the centre and a main course of pork loin & farse. To accompany the meal there was lots & lots of red, white or rose wine served in large jugs just like the ones we had for school dinners. Cheese was next, Brie & Cantal, a local hard cheese, and this was followed by leaves of lettuce served with a sugar & vinegar dressing. Champagne, ice cream sundaes & coffee brought the meal to an end at about 1:00 in the morning. We sat with Thierry & his wife and some of their friends from around the area who we'd met at his party a couple of weeks ago including an old lady who we were told makes the best foie gras in L'Averyon. One of the French ladies said she always enjoyed these occasions as everyone made the effort to get dressed up & have a shower! There were, as you might have guessed, several English people there, some on holiday and one or two who lived in the area. Amongst the many guests was the old lady who'd lived in our house & had called in last week with her daughter. We went across to talk to her and tried to explain who we were and that we lived in her old home. She'd either had one Ricard too many or was suffering from dementia because we couldn't get her to understand who we were but I suppose it could also be that our French is that bad she didn't understand us. All the waiting on and washing up is done by the young people of the district and they certainly worked hard making the evening one of the most enjoyable we've had since we moved here. We finished the night dancing away to 'Sky Blue', turns out Pierre Gaffeuland, the accordion player, will be playing after the pétanque tournament on Sunday so we'll have to wait for another chance to hear him. We really enjoyed ourselves & were made very welcome and departed for home at about 2:30.

I'm sure everyone was aware that Wednesday 15th August was Assumption day and here in France it's yet another public holiday. It was a nice hot & sunny day so we took the opportunity to have half a day off. There was a brocante in Najac so we spent the morning wandering round the stalls trying to find some bargains. A couple of things caught Barbara's eye, a chandelier & a step ladder. After a little haggling we headed home with both items. It's obvious what the chandelier is for but the ladder is not the sort I'll be clambering up to do a little more hacking out. Barbara has designs on it for a garden ornament which means that the pressure is now on to get the garden a bit more presentable. We made a start with the rotavator Thierry had been kind enough to lend us and turned the area over in front of the house in preparation for seeding it. We had thought with the weather being nice and sunny that we'd be out watering the grass every evening. We shouldn't have worried because on Thursday evening the rain was back with a vengeance and we witnessed one of the best thunderstorms we've seen. Sunday was yet another festival in Najac and we were lucky enough to witness a really spectacular firework display over the château. Sorry I've no photographs, you'll just have to take my word for it.

Meanwhile back at the house things have been moving on. Barbara's been working hard on the garden & I've made a door & with a lot of help from P started some preliminary work in the barn. There's one beam that's rotten at one end and we needed to build a pillar to support it so it was time to swing the sledgehammer & dig out the foundations. Very hot work but at the end of it means that we'll not have to replace the beam & will save ourselves a few Euros. With P here it was also an opportunity to seek his advice on what we were going to do with the barn. We'd got a price from a local builder for opening up the windows and it had come in a little over budget so we were looking for ways to keep the costs down. After a few suggestions and rough sketches we decided to reduce the number of windows and forget putting a third floor in & with each window opening costing €2,400.00 the savings are considerable. We also spent some time working out the best way to fit the first level floor & once again after a great deal of deliberation it was decided we'd fit a lightweight concrete floor. So it was off to the builders merchant for cement, timber, polystyrene & a cement mixer!