6th May
In the last post I couldn’t bring myself to mention that, apart from my sadness at Zizi’s departure, there has also been a massive row with the pétanque club* who are now boycotting the village bar. I can’t describe how despondent this makes me feel – although, as my desire for harmony here is purely self-centered, this amounts to self-pity which is never attractive.
My role on the tv production happening here is as a Fixer. A Fixer sorts stuff out, sometimes it’s stuff to do with getting sets made or getting kit ordered or fixed and a lot of it is just knowing where to get stuff. The easiest way to do this is to go where everyone congregates and until recently that has been the village bar.
Real live red-faced yelling and soap-opera brawling is great entertainment but counter-productive from my point of view. There are already several rifts among the French population here due to the usual generations-old family feuds, the last elections really wreacked havoc and now no-one goes to events in the village hall any more in case they bump into a sworn enemy.
There was a wonderful period last autumn when everyone came to the bar in regular shifts: If I needed a hornet’s nest or wanted to hire a barn I’d go before supper and catch the farmers. I could tap the Dutch at weekends if I need to borrow garden furniture. The Brits go after supper and many of them are twitchers or butterfly enthusiasts (they tend to do surveys which are extremely useful to us). So if they all fall out or one of these groups feels alienated the bar empties and I have to put a pie in my basket and go visiting instead.
* The pétanque club meets twice a week and is a really popular social event with the French, Dutch and British locals at the village bar where I have been known to do a turn as a waitress.
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