Fancy Dress Bar

16th December
I am entranced by the weekly markets in France, after I've bought food I usually go to the hardware stalls where I buy little plastic briefcases for transporting my eggs, novelty plastic fly swats and jugs. I am intrigued by the bundles of small rectangular carpet pieces, hessian-backed and blanket-stitched around the edges - I guess one places them under the feet while watching TV or eating dinner. From what I can see most French people have ceramic tiles or lino on their downstairs floor - perhaps they’d rather have carpet. I imagine one starts off buying just enough to place a piece under each foot, gradually building up a collection that can be placed, like stepping stones, along popular routes around the house.

Women’s clothes on French market stalls are very particular, lots of strange hybrid things; two or three different styles and fabrics are spliced together resulting in the bastard offspring of, for example, a pin-stripe pencil skirt, a gypsy skirt and a lacy curtain. Last week, at the market with Mme Bontette I succumbed to a very cosy coat/dress (droat?) in two-tone green and black; fleecy on the inside, it has a mandarin collar and zips hem to neck on either side. It’s tunic-like and, worn with black tights and boots, makes me feel that I should be on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.

Down at the bar it’s all a bit depressing. The big supper last month must’ve used all their battery power because since then Kurt can’t be bothered to cook very often. He usually sits very close to the big screen watching car racing. The French people have been in a few times since the supper event but as Kurt refuses to take his eyes off the screen and his wife can’t speak French they’ve gone away again. Also Kurts friend Ed has problems with alcohol and frequently needs to make use of the bathroom as a vomitorium and keeps missing whichever receptacle he’s aiming for.

I went there for the weekly pétanque game wearing my new outfit this weekend, Kurt watching telly in a 'Satan Rules' t-shirt, Courtney behind the bar in full bondage gear and Mrs Druid sporting a colourful stripey jumper and rainbow harem pants, Mrs D. took a long look at me and said
What a curious garment

Heffalump Trap Part II

18th November
Early this morning I was washing my hair when I heard loud rapping on the front door. Thinking it might be a delivery I ran to get it and found Old Dad there.
Come early - before midday, I don’t want the postman to know you’re there. We’ll shut your bike in the garage and then I can close the shutters and lock the door and it’ll look as though there’s no one in.
That’s ridiculous
No really if the postman sees you he’ll tell every one
Why would we be worried about that?
Well I don’t want the postman to know
(What are we talking about here?) Well I won’t come then

My hair was dripping and I was caught off-balance. Old Dad just repeated that he’d see me before midday. Then he walked off.

I spent the morning slashing at swathes of thistles and thorns but by noon I was still feeling thoroughly disgruntled. On the way to Old Dad’s house I passed the bar which was open - that stopped me in my tracks. Being a nosey parker I wandered in. A strange young man was sitting at the bar, his hairline has receeded right over the back of his head the remaining strands have been grown long and combed-over. I also think he might have gained weight recently because his clothes don’t meet in the middle. Kurt (up already!) introduced him as 'Ed from Toulouse who has recently moved near the village’.

Last week I put flyers around advertising our upcoming film show at the village hall and the cassoulet supper in the bar afterwards. I learn that the supper is already booked up. The event is this Sunday, I got Kurt talking about cassoulet and it became apparent that he had neither eaten nor made a cassoulet in hs life, I started panicking, then Ed said
I’m from Toulouse I’ll show him how to make a cassoulet

My brain didn’t know what to think then, so I left, and went for lunch, I was late, the postman had been and gone and I insisted we left the shutters open and the door ajar as usual.

I sat down and it was all a bit tense, Old Dad handed me a large tumbler of neat Ricard
Thanks but no, water will be fine – I need to get back to work soon
Glasses of various sorts of alcohol were poured for me over the following long hour, they lined up untouched across my side of the table.

Conversation didn’t flow easily. I resorted to asking him about his upcoming heart operation - he can usually go on about that at length, but today he didn’t seem in the mood to talk about that or his bad leg, or the way he’s a martyr to heartburn.

Finally, as I pushed back my chair and made leaving noises, he said in exasperation
what do women like - how can someone like me give a girl a good time?
I suggested that he pop up the road and ask our lovely neighbour Hélene
Old Dad roared at me
Hélene – she’s nearly 80, what would I be wanting with her?

Kurt's First Supper

9th November
I went down to the bar for a game of pétanque yesterday. My fellow pétanquers are stunned by the sudden, unannounced disappearance of the senior Stranges. Their replacement by Goth Rockers feels like we’re suddenly extras in a remake of Village of the Damned as directed by John Waters .

Courtney opens up the bar at some point in the afternoon. Wearing a black satin mini-kimono (= instant forgiveness by lingering male population for missing lunchtime) she clears up the remains of the previous night’s party looking a little hungover.

Kurt gets up a bit later, he has announced himself as the new chef and we’re all curious to see what his food’s like. The Director put down his computer to join us for the after-pétanque supper at the bar. The man had made a big effort and it really wasn’t bad at all. After supper we all said it was great, he unscowled and became really rather friendly.

New Blood At The Bar

2nd November
The filming really is done for this year, the Camera Boys have returned to the UK - we are now in visiting season. Since Bruno's August visit we have been without doorhandles - he replaced the original knobs with a set that can’t be made to stay fixed on. My parents arrived here a few days ago. They have known me long enough not to expect much in the way of comfort but I bet they had hoped for door handles. No matter - once given a pair of pliers and a monkey wrench they soon got the hang of getting in and out of their bedroom. My mother hasn’t really got the upper body strength to haul the front door open on her own yet though.

We were also suffering from a smelly drain problem. Our squalid kitchen has a concrete sink with a hole through the back wall. The water, and whatever else you put in the sink, washes through to a concrete gutter running the length of the back of the house. Over the years it has silted up and grown over with weeds, the autumn rains have made the area behind the kitchen swampy and putrid. My repeated calls to Landlord and plumber have been ignored. Mum put her foot down, The Director and my father got out the shovels and a wheelbarrow, dislodging unspeakable hideousness to make a drainage channel.

As a further treat for my parents I took them to the bar for some of Mrs Strange’s gin. The Senior Strange’s have already slipped away. But Kurt the tattooed son has returned from Copenhagen with his wife and turns out to be perfectly good at serving gin with flat tonic in a dirty glass from the iceless bar.

Kurt’s wife, Courtney has translucently pale skin, she has only recently started her tattoo collection, they both dress exclusively in black. They tell me that their band had split anyway and that they are going to liven up the bar with 'live bands, gourmet food and that kind of stuff'. Courtney is animated, she says that Kurt’s great in the kitchen - I’m not sure if she means he can cook. Buoyed up with enthusiasm for their plans (and feeling guilty that I’ve now booked to show our film at the village hall) I suggest that they put on a supper for after the film show - I’ll publicise it on the flyer I’m going to put around the surrounding villages next week. Kurt is a sullen kind of chap, he asks what sort of thing I have in mind,
I suggest casserole-type dishes; a daube, coq au vin … a cassoulet?
I’ll do a cassoulet
Something about his response is not putting me at ease.