On Sunday the 11th of April the whole village was invited to a free lunch given by the fair commitee of Castandet. Apart from the pre lunch aperitifs everything was free. Aperos started at 11.30 but being used by now to the length of time that people will hang around the bar we didn't arrive until 12.30. Even then it was probably another hour before we sat down to eat. It did give us time though to chat to various people. Helene and her son Florian were there as well as Bernard and Pascal both neighbours of ours. Apart from them though and us we were the only ones representing our part of Perron. We met Nadine who is on the fair committee and she was verry chatty and pleasant, insisted that she bought us an aperitif.
We finally sat down to eat sitting with Helene and Florian. Florian was up and down like a yo yo and spent more of the meal time rushing about, outside with the other children,rather than eating. The meal as ever consisted of starter, entree, cheese, salad and pudding washed down with copious amounts of red or rose. As coffee and armagnac was served the singing started! One of the younger ladies had a microphone and she wandered around with it catching the sound, at one point she and a very elderly gentleman were smooching and singing. Then came the piece de resistance! One of the chaps started to sing
"Iam the music man and I come from down your way and I can play
What can you play?
Pia, pia, piano" etc etc this then goes on to include the miming of many musical instruments with the chorus being sung in between each one. Obviously he was singing it in French! Most people soon joined in myself included as ,amazingly, this is a song that I used to sing in the pub back in my youth!! By this time N was beginning to find the noise too much and decided that it was time to leave. I was enjoying myself and decided to stay as Helene would give me a lift back home.
It was perhaps as well that N left as soon afterwards Florian came rushing in screaming his head off. He had fallen, or been pushed, and had cut/grazed his leg. Helene immediately went into panic mode and asked me to look after him whilst she went home to get all the necessary first aid equipment! I am afraid, that hard mother as I was, I would have told him not to be such a baby and to get on with it! Anyway he sat next to me, sobbing, until she got back with a bag of stuff. She whised him off to the toilets to wash it, came back and sprayed his leg with antiseptc, at which he started screaming again. Then she dissolved an aspirin in water which he refused to drink and went off outside again to play with the other lads. So two outings with them which have ended in "injuries" and tears. What will happen the next time!!h
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