Je suis allé à la fête

Chaque été les habitants de petits (et grands) villages Français organisez une soirée où ils mangent, boivent, embrassent, bavardent, causent, rient, pleurent et dansent! Bienvenue à la fête!*

Monday night was fête night - always a bitter-sweet evening for me; the #1 social evening of the year in most small French villages - the night everyone waits for with baited breath! The night when you really and truly realise that an united Europe is an absolute impossibility!!

My parents have lived in Lot, France since January 2002 and whilst everyone is very welcoming, they are very much still the newbies on the block ...... after all what's 3 & 1/2 years in one place if your next door neighbours have lived & farmed in the area since the 14th century (ok, ok a slight exagerration but you know what I mean!) The small, quiet, safe, rural, village where they live is idyllic, if you want a small, rural, quiet, safe and secluded life! They spend their days pottering - don't get me wrong, they're not old per se, but they like to potter (god, my mother'll kill me for that one!)

But, once a year, along comes a social event the like of which you have to see to believe! Everyone in the village and surrounding cantons tries to support the fete in each village. When I arrived in France on Friday we went to the "Gourdon by Night" festival (similar but on a slightly larger scale) ..... I thought of you all as I sat eating salade de gesiers and foie gras, sipping vin rouge de Cahors, surrounded by good friends and family in the evening sunshine. The old limestone buildings around me were golden in the light and it was warm and there was music and mmmmm! Sorry, where was I?

Ah yes la fête, my mum had booked a table for 20 - yes I mean EVERYONE goes! The tables are outside the "salle de fête"**, everybody sits at long wooden tables on rickety wooden chairs alongside neighbours, families, friends & complete strangers. Some people (the lucky ones on wet evenings) get to sit under the long plastic tunnels that are put up just for the occaision. Old regulars send the youngest child over midway through the afternoon to write the family name and number of people on the white paper table cloths - ensuring they have the table they want! Everyone knows everyone else ... except the "newbies" - but they know more and more people each year.

There's a glass of "punch" as you arrive - a sangria kind of mixture, red wine, fruit juice and something else .... I'm always too scared to ask what the something else is :o) And then, eventually, finally, 2 hours later there's dinner - after all this is France, you need time to gossip, chatter and then of course there's the kissing! Dinner this year was lovely - but I'll eat pretty much anything @ least once - we had salade de gesiers (gesiers = gizzards, little bits of duck :o) I can hear the squeaming from here!), followed by cassoulet (a famous French bean stew from Castelnaudry - beans in a tomato sauce, with conserved duck, thick garlic and pork sausages from Toulouse and belly pork), local goat's cheese and ice-cream washed down with gallons of local red wine!

So when you are round and replete, full of good food & drink - out come the accordions and the dancing starts! And this is where "dreams of a United Europe" disappear with a puff of smoke - forget the euro and the common agricultural policy ...... Europe will never unite because us from the UK don't dance like this! Everyone knows how to waltz to accordion music in France .... old & young, trendy & not, farmers, bakers & even the candle-stick makers! They're spinning around the dance floor like tops; my nephews are looking @ me as if I (as the teacher in the bunch) should grab the nearest teenager; shake him/her and ask "does your street cred mean nothing to you?" And then as the first song finishes EVERYONE claps and another piece of music starts. I can't tell the difference from the first piece, they're still playing accordions; but it is obviously different as they all dance a completely different dance - all in time with each other! And then the third dance is the "traditional village dance" - this tiny little village of less than 300 inhabitants has it's own dance - a strange cross between line/barn dancing and the birdie song - you had to be there!

Shawn (nephew #1) and I walk home @ 12.05 to watch a film [I couldn't keep the "mental cruelty to all teenagers" campaign going any longer], the rest of the family trooped in 2 hours later - the music carried on until 5am. Good grief these villagers know how to party! I would love to show you some pictures right now BUT Flickr can't cope with French dial-up. I'm going back to bed now - tomorrow night is the Mechoui (traditional lamb roast) - I need to build my strength up for the dancing :o)

So, let me ask you a question(s) -

1. Does your village / town / city have an annual celebration that you attend? If so, what is it?
2. What could your "locality" celebrate with a party that it doesn't?

*Every summer, the inhabitants of small (and big) French villages organise an evening where they eat, drink, kiss, gossip, chat, laugh, cry and dance! Welcome to the fête!
**In the UK this would be a church/village hall.