A French Renaissance? by Eamon O'Hara

Author:Eamon O'Hara
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orpen Press
Published: 2014-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Hunters’ Ball

The day of the hunters’ ball finally arrived and we were very excited about the prospect of meeting the locals and participating in our first event as residents of a rural French village. Dressed up in our best garb, we set off for the village at about 11.45 a.m. On the way we dropped in for Lars and Helena and, together, all six of us walked the 300 metres or so to the village, basking in beautiful spring sunshine. As we approached the centre of the village, I could see there were a lot of people standing around in front of the foyer rurale, which is a kind of community hall found in nearly all rural villages in France. In our village, the foyer rurale was housed in an old wine cellar, with a beautiful vaulted ceiling. This was one of many remnants of a time, before the devastating phylloxera disease, and before the big frost of 1957, when the village was surrounded by vineyards. Now there was only one small vineyard left in the commune, with most of the area’s wine production confined to a smaller but expanding area in the direct vicinity of the River Lot.

We moved through the small crowd, not really knowing anyone, even though Lars and Helena did shake a few hands and nod in a few directions. Inside the foyer rurale, preparations were well under way: there was a bar at one end, at the back of which was a kitchen, where I could see five or six elderly women buzzing about with pots and pans. Anne, a local woman, was behind the bar, pouring some kind of aperitif into plastic glasses. We had gotten to know Anne quite well as she was looking after Astrid a few days a week. She lived in the centre of the village and, unlike many of the locals, she was young – well, late thirties or early forties. She was also very friendly, but she spoke so quickly and with such a strong accent that it was difficult to understand her sometimes.

Behind the bar, Anne was being ably assisted by two men from the village, who were part of a group of five or six men who were involved in just about everything that went on in the commune. We later discovered that the reason for this was because they were elected members of the mayor’s advisory committee – the conseil municipal. Between the three of them, they were struggling to cater for the thirsty villagers, who were now three deep at the bar. But, despite the brisk trade, as soon as she caught sight of us, Anne immediately downed tools and raced out to greet us in customary fashion, bestowing multiple kisses on all of our cheeks. She was quite animated and speaking at her usual 100 miles per hour, so I only managed to grasp one bit of what she said, which was that she had reserved seats for us at her table. This was very kind of her and it was nice to be made feel welcome.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.