A musical interlude

No!  Please don’t panic …. this isn’t going to be about singing in the shower or anything, although I could – if you like.  Something much more civilised, I promise.  Walking Brin every morning, as I do, means that I pass by the very useful notice board on the south side of the pont Michel Montaigne on a regular basis.  Unlike other notice boards, this particular one is available for anyone to post on and it frequently has posters for musical and other cultural activities.  One that springs to mind was for “Batt kif”, which turned out to be a drumming workshop – “batterie” is the French for drumming.  I digress, sort of.

So, last month Brin & I passsed said notice board on our way home, and I saw a poster for a concert in the intriguingly named “St Laurent des Hommes”.

Les Cinq Cops
Les Cinq Cops

You’ll gather, as I did, that the concert seemed to be one given by students at the Conservatoire de Musique in Bordeaux.  I’m a sucker for wind instruments, particularly the oboe and clarinet, so I was a shoo-in for this one, even though I’d no idea where St Laurent des Hommes is.  I sent the above photo to my friend Emmelina, who is a musician and former music teacher, and asked if she’d like to go too.  Happily, she was delighted to accompany me.

St Laurent des Hommes turns out to be a village (and commune) a few kilometres from Montpon Menesterol.  I suggested that we grab a bite to eat in Montpon before heading out to the concert.  Emmelina drew the short straw on driving, which meant that I got to be navigator.  I google-mapped “eglise st laurent des hommes” and got nothing, which was a bit of a surprise… but there’s always Google street view (which I love), and – rather last minute – with a little patience I soon found what we sought and the best way to get there.  Another search lead me to believe that there ought to be a fair selection of dining options from which to choose, and so we set off.

Well, Montpon proved to be a bit of a let-down to say the least.  In my imagination Montpon was a thriving metropolis (in comparison with Sainte-Foy-la-Grande).  The few times I’ve had cause to drive through it it has seemed to be significantly bigger than our little home-town.  And, according to WikiPedia, its population is around twice that of Sainte-Foy.  But on a Saturday evening just after Easter there was a dearth of dining options.  A quick sortie on foot revealed that we had precisely 2 choices: a place specialising in local cuisine to which Emmy had already been, and a pizza place.  As Emmy hadbeen lumbered with the driving I had declared that she got to choose the venue for dinner.  Being virtuous, Emmy opted for the local menu, where we could get a good salad and so on.  Or not.  They were closed, as in door open, but no food.  Fortunately, the pizza place was open and its fare good!  We were mind-boggled that Montpon should have only 1 place open on a Saturday night, when Sainte-Foy had no fewer than 8 restaurants open that evening.  Go figure!

We arrived in good time for the concert, and were lucky enough to bag a pair of chairs directly under the warming glow of a radiant heater.  There was a good-sized crowd gathered in the church – I’d say an easy 100 people.  The music was good, and the students performed well.  There were a few technique issues that need addressing, but nothing major.  I ought to add here that I have no right to be critical as I haven’t played an instrument in well over 30 years, but I still was.

During the brief interval we stepped out and caught a breath of fresh air (and gave our nether regions a break from the wickedly uncomfortable chairs).  St. Laurent des Hommes has one of the prettiest Mairies I’ve seen.  It was a tad late for taking pictures, but here are two of those I attempted:

The Mairie, St. Laurent des Hommes
The Mairie, St. Laurent des Hommes

 

Another view of the Mairie
Another view of the Mairie

We enjoyed our evening out, and I hope that there will be more to come.  Watch this space?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *