Le Couvent Diary

Whoops - I've kept you waiting. Sorry. Glad you're back though. So four days ago the Tour de France chose to gallop through Roujan again after a 50 year break. And what fun we had.

Two of our poor guests had to leave early on the day of the tour to avoid closed roads and traffic jams. This was particularly rotten luck since one of them had broken her foot whilst here and had the 24 hour journey back to Western Australia to do encased in plaster. Hope you got home safely John & Julia - sorry you missed Le Tour. Maybe the whole of Roujan should be protected thus:

The fun starts some two hours before the actual cyclists show up, when a cavalcade of advertising vehicles rattle past lobbing freebies at leaping spectators. Grown adults diving like Grobelaar to rob tiny children of the fourth peaked cap or a triangle of cheese. Some of the vehicles are spectacular, like this one on top of a car.

Some aren't quite what they claim to be - for instance - what's eco about driving the whole of France in a big square box on wheels?

 

This poor women spent her entire time trying to avoid being decapitated by overhanging trees.

Whilst this chap looked none too enamoured to be spending half of July sitting in a cup of coffee. A career in PR anyone?

Mme Mas came out onto her balcony to wave, sporting a very appropriate and fetching Nike cap.

 Ali made sure we got our own bit of marketing in.

Our lovely French neighbour brought us out a plate of delicious stuff to stave off hunger (we were none too successful at catching the cheese triangles).

 Nicola & Ali bought silly hats.

And eventually the cyclists came in a sweep and a whoosh. All very exciting. We shouted for them to thow us drugs, but they seemed to have kept them all for themselves. Hey ho, you can only ask.

  

 So we all had a silly, noisy, friendly and lovely time. Wish you'd been here.

 Thanks Tour de France - see you in 2058.

 

Sunday 1 June, Château de Margon (next village from Roujan) Open Day. Not only will the wonderful formal gardens of the Château be open, you'll be able to see another photographic exhibition by rising star 14-year-old Poppy Eady-Gosling. Here are some examples of her work. If you miss this occasion her work moves to Le Grand Café in Roujan for the month of June, where photographs will also be available to buy.

Venez nombreux!

 So what are you doing on July 18th? We're going to be watching the whole Tour de France carnival pass by the end of our road. That's right, just 20m from the Le Couvent gates at 12.45 the Tour 2008 caravane will roar past. Described on the Le Tour website as:

* A 20 km-long procession
* 200 brightly decorated vehicles
* 43 brands represented on average each year
* 15 million gifts distributed
* 45 minutes of rolling entertainment

and that's before the cyclists come. I've seen the Tour three times before, and despite all the brouhaha about drugs, I am reduced to tears by the sheer power and determination of the cyclists as they hurtle past like a blast of wind. I hate the drugs thing, but I love to see athletes reaching their zenith.

So if you're free we have a couple of rooms still available. How about it?

Fresh from Australia via Paris, new guests arrived yesterday.  They're on their honeymoon and over a glass or two of Le Couvent rosé they were telling us of their short but magical time in Paris. In particular they'd been impressed by the wonderful display of multi-coloured macaroons in Ladurée .

 

Yesterday morning, by absolute chance, I had skidded into one of the two Roujan baker's seconds before they closed and bought up the last of their special of the day. What was it? Yes, a pretty box full of colourful macaroons hand-made by the baker that morning. So, as I presented the plate to our guests I looked like the most accomplished magician ever to have lived.

Just occasionally something completely unexpected happens in Roujan and it happened again last night. We got to witness an amazing cultural event way beyond that that you'd expect in a small village in deepest Languedoc..

Thanks to our friends Anne & Fran at La Maison Verte over the road we went to a fantastic concert in the church, just 150 metres away. Anne & Fran had heard that a choir of fifty girls from Hungary would be on their way to Spain to take part in a competition. La Maison Verte is huge so A&F invited the choir to spend a stopover night there. In exchange the girls gave a free concert, despite having spent 26 hours in a coach and arriving in Roujan a mere 3.5 hours before the event.

Wow, but were they good. They were extraordinary. Here's a video that does them no favours visually, but will give you a flavour of them. This piece is a bit frivolous in comparison with some of the beautiful Renaissance music they treated us to last night. I doubt there was a single person in the audience who didn't have shiny eyes and a skin tingle. Thank you Pro Musica from Nyíregháza in Hungary . Hála. Szerencse a versenyben.