First impressions and a Festival

We arrived at our site in the middle of nowhere (ok, about an hour’s drive east of Paris) at around seven o’clock following nine hours’ travel. Both cats were sick less than five minutes before we arrived (so not a bad journey really).

The site is in a forest and we should have large pools of water just behind us but they are dry – possibly a benefit in the hot, late summer weather. A quick look round the chalet indicated it would be very comfortable – there are even bikes padlocked to the decking for our use, and they seem to be in decent condition.

It was only when we started to make up the beds that we found our first problem.

Luc always has difficulties with the beds on holiday. At 6’3”, he needs to sleep diagonally across the smaller than normal beds you get in rented mobile homes, and even then his feet hang over the edge. But that wasn’t the problem here.

No, the problem was that we’d brought double sheets with us …. and they didn’t fit the king-size bed!

Oh, well, it could be worse.

The first day was a rest day (apart from some food shopping), to allow Luc some time to recover from the last couple of days, and to give the two cats a chance to explore while we weren’t too far away. Dyson did a quick once round the immediate area then settled on the decking, purring loudly. Snowball – shining a dazzling white in the sun – decided to go further afield, find out where there were dogs and wind them up as campsite rules say they have to be kept on a leash and she doesn’t. And I swear she knows that.

I knew that Provins, our nearest town of any size, was well worth a visit. The medieval town is still pretty much complete within its walls, with the majority of nineteenth and twentieth century building limited to the newer “low town”. But it wasn’t until the evening of our rest day that I picked up a few tourist flyers and found that there was a harvest festival in the old town the next day.

When I say harvest festival, I don’t mean three hymns and a few tins of carrots. Immediately on entry through the city walls we came across a baker making bread and cooking it in wood-fuelled ovens – and his produce included douillons - whole apples wrapped in bread dough and baked. A quick look round the church where Joan of Arc came for mass after leaving Reims in 1492, and then a stroll to the first square which was full of classic cars and scooters; not just wooden framed, but, in some cases, wooden built with a metal covering only for the engine. And everywhere there were people of all ages dressed in traditional costume.

We strolled on (it was a pleasant 28 degrees, five degrees less than the previous day), past stalls selling handmade leather goods, local sausages, cheeses and honey, and decorations made of twisted and plaited straw. Another small square held an exhibition of bicycles through the ages, including a wooden framed, wooden wheeled and pedal-less “push bike” – surely not very comfortable!

More stalls (and not over-priced) lined the street to the next major square, where a local band was playing. Here there were funfair type stalls, including a shooting gallery. But this one was different. Vertical alcoves, perhaps half a metre wide, held three under-inflated balloons each. These were stopped from escaping by two or three vertical strings at the front of each alcove, and kept moving by a fan at the bottom of the alcove. So all you had to do was shoot the moving balloons ….

Now Luc is a good shot and he needed a confidence-boost …. But then, how far off target were the rifles? We paid for 15 pellets.

His first shot took out a balloon. He readily pointed out it was six inches lower than the one he was actually aiming at, but it gave him an idea of how the rifle was shooting. His second shot managed to burst two balloons. This got the attention of the young boy (too young to shoot) standing next to him. Luc was given a token, and three more balloons were put into the alcove.

I didn’t know you could hit three balloons with one pellet, but you can! Another token, and three more balloons ….

After fifteen shots, Luc had hit fifteen balloons and the boy standing next to him had a new hero. A quick look at the prizes, and Luc worked out he needed two more tokens – six balloons – for the prize he wanted. We bought the minimum seven shots.

A few minutes later we walked away with his prize and an additional small blue hippo; after all, Luc had demonstrated quite clearly that it was possible to win, and trade on the shooting gallery was going well by the time we left.

Our timing couldn’t have been better. As we reached the corner of the square, the parade came past; first of all, vintage tractors decorated with corn and bright, paper flowers, then the classic bicycles, including the totally wooden one which must have been really uncomfortable on the cobbles, and all ridden by people in costume, including the postman with a handlebar moustache and the priest in his cassock. Then some ponies, followed by three or four small bands and troupes of folk dancers, each headed by a banner indicating which village or town they were from. And at the end, perhaps two minutes after the rest of the procession, two “drunks” playing a hurdy-gurdy (with genuine punched paper music cards) and singing slightly rude songs as they wove a not-very-straight path up the street.

We bought some rose ice-cream and moved on. Now the stalls were selling honey and beeswax candles, meats, cheeses, fresh milk (the goats were penned next to the stall) and beer. Several of the bandsmen were enjoying the beer, so we took that as a recommendation and tried the white and amber.

At the end of the town on the grass rise just inside the wall, were stalls selling wooden produce. The first man was making clogs from scratch, while others had inlaid boxes, toys and jigsaws, clocks, small carvings and the like. Then we realised a second parade was coming, this time floats, again decorated with corn and paper flowers, each showing local crafts or institutions (including, as far as I could tell, the local school). This even included a couple of men on the timber frame of a roof sawing off the extra wood from the rafters (yes, on a moving float). Health and Safety would never have allowed it at home. Still, even in non-PC France the woman clearing the route scolded the carpenter who threatened to throw his hammer into the crowd!