Bastille Day and Mrs T's Knockers.

We had the great privilege of spending last Bastille Day (or Just "le quatorze Juillet" as the local French seem to know it, I'm not sure they worry to much about the storming of the Bastille, it's much more the party preparations that dominate their thoughts) in France.

The Mayor puts on a party/ lunch in the village park and invites a local restaurant to prepare meals for all of the residents.  The first time we met the Mayor, my wife, in a translation horror moment, managed to tell him that she was very aroused rather than excited at the prospect of moving.  French speakers will know exactly the error that was made there.

We had come over especially for this event and had already paid for our ticket (to get our meal) but were unprepared for Grumpy Welshman (GW) to tell us, at 7pm on the 13th, that everybody brings plenty of food along to share with their neighbours.  Now being a couple of very competitive people, keen to ingratiate ourselves with the locals, we couldn't possibly miss this opportunity so a mad supermarket dash had to be made.  What we produced, to be fair, was quite good, 4 individual pastry sheets with savoury toppings of hams, cheeses, balsamic onions, roasted peppers etc in various combinations.

On the day itself we decided, on advice from GW to get to the park early to make sure we'd get seat, He'd assured us that the French were very punctual on such events.  We should have known better.

We arrived at the park at 10.45 for an 11 o'clock start and were the first ones there!  After wandering among the empty tables for a few minutes wondering if we had the right day, Local Service (LS) caught up with us and insisted that we come back to his house, adjacent to the park, for a drink.

So now we are drinking Pastis in LS's house at 11 in the morning with a varied collection of other old men sitting around his kitchen table, LS's wife scowling at us and all watching Nicolas Sarkozy giving his Bastille Day address in front of the troops.  Not so much culture shock as shell shock.

The party did get going in the park and we were introduced to quite a lot of people and our pastries were even given the thumbs up by a local pastry chef.  While our new neighbours circulated past bringing a selection of illegally produced forms of alcohol, one in particular went into a long story including a hand gesture (Which I'm fairly sure means "Madonna" in sign language) and, quite clearly "Margret Thatcher"!

Intrigued we sought translation and were told that he used to work security in Brussels and had to deliver Mrs T a message whereupon she answered her hotel room door in a skirt and bra.  A further translation revealed he had used words to the effect of "Great knockers".

It would be a shame to write any more than that!