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Nantua Friday 3rd August

C’est un catastrophe!! It’s the law again! Sigh…  Why are the French so spritely in the morning? Surely they should drink their absurdly strong espressos and then spend the rest of the morning whimpering on the loo? Or hovering with ever increasing thigh ache and jelly legs above their hole in the ground thingy?
Anyway, law at 8:15 outside Onzo, buttocks bravely unclenched and demanding money. Noush mumbles some sort of incoherent such and such and the law leave, with money, but also promising to return later, how does that work? Clearly Noush needs to work on her morning charm technique.. (not possible, do not disturb.
Ever. Nuff said).
Weather so hot Friday passes with trips in and out of the lake. Drinking cold stubbies (why does the fridge work colder on the gas than the 240volts – tis a weird one) and watching the numerous fisherman. All local these dudes, flat French caps, miserable and smoking non stop. Not one of them caught anything whilst we were there. I put it to Noush that the fishing is a merely a way to get away from the wife. Relate are short on numbers en Francais me thinks.

They smoke so much that the local fishing shop is called the Smoking Fishermen. This brings me neatly onto a couple of odd name observations we’ve made. Firstly, some car company has named a small car a Duster! For real! Who passed this via the marketing board? Can you imagine going down the pub and chatting over the joys of Christmas when someone asks you what you bought the wife and you reply a Duster!! Could give the wrong impression in this sensitive age non? First prize though goes to the Café l’abbattoir in Bourg en Bresse. Brave, stupid or ingenious? And finally, mum, if your’re reading, the Restaurant Eglantine.

The evening brings some local mini (very mini) musical entertainment on the other side of the lake. The competition is fierce. One café has a stage with an extremely enthusiastic air drumming compere and the other café enlists the assistance of a willowy French and a dodgy microphone. Think Kate bush and Wuthering heights music video; she’s willowing about relentlessly syncopating to air drumming compere. It’s cacophonous but all quite fun. The audience consists of stoned teenagers on mopeds, bossomy women with a hundred children hanging of them and the occasional typical old French man who can successfully gently collapse off his chair with a certain panache. Local flair is very much alive and kicking.

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