Thunder-Free Fête

It was the village fete last weekend, and amazingly it didn’t pour with rain. Good old St Clair was smiling on us in 2013. We’ve had disastrous thunderstorms this first weekend in June the last few years. Admittedly, Saturday was a little damp and when Benj and I went for a stroll down to Nouzerines the sky was very threatening.

There was a short shower so I’m glad I took my photo of these lovely crepe paper flowers that were decorating the whole village when I did. They looked very sad the next day after their soaking.

On Sunday morning there was a service at St Clair’s church, which Chris and I cycled down to. It involved lots of singing and some bread blessing, and then there was a procession down to our miraculous spring. The water is reputed to cure eye problems. One of the statues from the church – I’m guessing St Clair although she looks rather too masculine and bishopy – led the way (carried by four men so I’m guessing it was pretty heavy).

Three people carried baskets of the cut-up blessed bread which was shared around after a prayer down at the spring. It was rather nice, if a little baffling. I’m not quite sure where the bread came in, but it was very tasty.

In the afternoon I cycled down to Nouzerines again, this time with Caiti and Rors to have a poke around the stalls and amusments. Disappointingly there were a lot fewer of the latter this year, possibly something to do with there having been a big falling out amongst the committee members earlier in the year. Five out of six of the officials suddenly resigned, so a new group had to be quickly assembled and didn’t have much time to get things organised. I’m grateful they managed to get anything done. Rors felt hard done by as he’d be coaxed into coming for the ride by the promise of chips, but there was no one manning the food stall. We browsed at the vide grenier stalls, but there wasn’t anything we took a fancy too, and let’s face it, we have enough clutter of our own so don’t need to buy anyone else’s! We had a quick look at the old motorbikes on display too.

And on the subject of village-organised events, every year there’s a collection of _._thanks to the Mairie. Following some breakdowns we had a dishwasher and a washing machine to get rid of, plus a couple of smaller items. Thank goodness for the tractor! Here’s the stuff being loaded up and taken up to the gate to await collection.