Welcoming Our Friends to the Village "Feria"

Last Friday evening we ventured out after the sun had set to the long promenade lined with plane trees in our village. We were met by numerous stalls, lights, people, music and much frivolity. The middle of the promenade was lined with tables and chairs, the idea being that you chose your meal, found a good spot to sit and joined in the conviviality. Eddie & Alfie loved it: the odd chip or piece of bread frequently came their way. Our delightful carpenter, Jean-Louis came and filled our glasses and introduced us to his wife, his son turned up with his young family. This was a truly French celebration.

As for DJ Fanjou: what a guy! We had expected something fairly low key, this being a tiny rural village. But not a bit of it: his show was stunning, with fantastic sound, great tunes, a laser and light show, smoke machine and the rest. “This is really professional,” said Mr. Fix It who knows about these things and before long we realised it was getting on for 2 am and our first guests were arriving the next day so we headed home, amazed at the sheer scale of this celebration.

John and his daughter Phoebe were our first guests. Although we have masses still to do, our house is perfectly comfortable even at this relatively early stage for welcoming guests. Mr. Fix It duly rigged up a couple of lamps in their large bedroom overlooking the Church, I draped a chair with a pale throw and cushion and adorned the marble fireplace with a candle or two and some roses from our garden. “Shabby chic,” said Mr. Fix It. Despite the work still to be done, somehow this bedroom looked so welcoming.

Phoebe loved the Feria. “The French are so friendly and seem calmer than people at home,” she remarked, with the clarity of youth. Spending time with a bright 12 year old keeps one young and I found myself joining her sliding down the huge blown up bouncy castle affair. Mr. Fix It declined: he gets enough exercise in our house he muttered.

On Saturday we watched the horses, ridden by gauchos, parade through the village to the small bull ring at the end. We watched the show, a simple affair of young matadors jumping over – actually cows, not bulls! On Sunday there was a mass at our Church, the horses standing guard literally outside our house as the priest blessed all animals: what a beautiful sight.

We could not let our visitors go back home without seeing the stunning “cite” of Carcassonne and the fortified village of Minerve. Fascinated by the history of this beautiful area of France, I bought myself a book on the history of the Cathars. Mr. Fix It is still astounded by the Cathar monuments which remain. “It took me a day to drill through brick and rock with a POWER tool,” he remarked, “how on earth did they build on this massive scale?” Perhaps this has given him the incentive (as if he needed one) to carry on apace with our house renovation, grateful that we no longer live in medieval times….

So our visitors have now left and we await with eager anticipation the permission to take the tower down in the garden, rebuild and enlarge our balcony and create doors instead of windows from our kitchen and small reception room to the garden. Jean-Louis popped round to see us yesterday, a simply lovely man, a true craftsman. It turns out he knows one of the people at the Mairie and understands that our aim is to retain the character of this house. No doubt he will put a good word in for us and next week we will have our permission. Then it will be all systems go and I will be spending many a happy hour in garden centres planning the layout of our outside space. My France Buying Guide always comes with me on these trips, what a useful tool this has turned out to be for us.

http://www.francebuyingguide.com/

But for now, we retain happy recent memories of times with good friends.