Side Shows

This morning Limoux was very quiet until late – the reason? Last night was a huge side show and other entertainment – so grand they closed all the major roads around the city so that everything could be set up in the streets.

In the main square you could do some old time dancing, which was very well attended by a variety of generations, on the main drag into town you could see performances of Beatles songs accompanied by stage dancers, alongside there were many food stalls where people could satisfy their hunger.

Further along and in front of the local college were lots of sideshows. The sideshows were frequented mainly by teenagers but not exclusively – the music was louder than loud with thumping beats, lots of laser lights, and plenty of other teenagers hanging out and enjoying the rides, shooting galleries, pick a prize, punch ball to test your strength, floating dicks and so on.

The 'Cake Walk':

The 'Dodgems':

Some nice friendly gendarmes showed a presence but there was no hint of any menace while we were around and they seemed to enjoy watching the young ones having a good time.

Wouter heard people leaving about 4am this morning, hence the late public start. This afternoon after our little outing the roads were closed off once again for tonight’s events. Alors, some more pics of the things we saw during our walk around the shows, starting with the cups on a saucer:

Then by far the most popular attraction for the teens - 'Move It', for which there was a long queue - before 'take-off':

and you can see my legs on the left hand side, 3rd from the top:NOT!!!!

Upside down:


and spinning around (where'd I put my stomach?):


faster spinning then hanging while they pump up the smoke screen - here'e where the screaming starts!:

laser lights, spinning faster and faster, more screaming (especially the girls):

everyone watching then making a beeline for the queue to have a go - if there's any scaring going on, they want a part of it:

Festival

Over this last weekend there was a festival in Limoux. It’s that time of the year when most places have a festival (August), while there are lots of people to attend and lots of people visiting on their holidays.

There were lots of stalls selling regional produce, including wines (and the famous Blanquette which is apparently just as good as champagne, from which our street takes its name), honey, honey cake complete with lots of bees who found it irresistible, roasted nuts, nougat, and other produce. They also had someone making paper products out of ropey paper – things like witches hats, skirts and so on. There were clowns for the children, face painting - and for pregnant mothers, stomach and body painting - wooden toy exhibition, some antique cars and motorbikes, and all the spare parts one might need in a sort of vide greniers for the garage enthusiast! I liked one of the old Citroens and an old Simka.

In the evenings they had a meal of local produce (you buy what you want and the accompanying wines) and then after that against the backdrop of Saint Peters church, which was quite spectacular. Saturday night was a Spanish group, very nice indeed, and Sunday night was a jazz group. The Spanish group inspired quite a few people to take to the floor around their table and do some latin dancing. One older woman was really into it, especially when the flamenco music started. Music pics:

On Saturday we visited the local Musée Petiet, from Mme Petiet who was a local artist. Some nice pictures and the other thing which was lovely were the paintings from local school children who had visited the museum and copied a scene, had it framed, and are now on display.

When buying our ticket, the girl asked if we’d like to include the Musée Piano – you get the 2 at a reduced rate. We said yes, so today we did the Piano museum. It was in the church of St Jaques, which has a very long history from 1325 or so but has been rebuilt many times because of many different disasters, attacks etc. It was a lovely setting for the exhibition with some wonderful pieces. Some pictures below - overview, piano maker's tools, roll for pianola:

The temperature is creeping up again as today we had a thunder storm so it’s been very humid (reminds me of Auckland). The rest of the week we are supposed to get rain, but I’m not worried as it will cool things down again, give the plants some much needed water and freshen things up again. Also, we’re looking at properties big time now, so spending time in the car when it’s hot is not much fun.

At the moment screening on French tv is a programme called ‘Interville’ – just like “top Town” for those of you who were around in the early 80’s. One of the ‘games’ is where the group members stand on a foam step, dressed in a rubbery costume, and then they let a live bull in the ring. There is a timer going and the people have to stand still until the bull has a go at them, then they can run out of the ring – hopefully the bull does not chase them. The bull’s horns seem to have been made less sharp by the addition of some plastic stubs over, I guess like a cue tip. Still, they show close-ups of the faces of the participants and they don’t look too happy!

And to finish off this post, a picture of man and dog finally coordinated in ball throwing and retrieving. We call this place the poo paddock because of what Cassy found here and picked up in his mouth a few weeks ago....

Le Festival de Limoux

This evening after watching Inspecteur Barnaby (Midsomer Murders in English) Wouter took Cassy for a walk and then came back and said there was a festival going on in the town square. So we headed on down to see some live stage performances by a group doing Latin American dancing, singing, playing the music etc, all with colourful costumes. Very nice. Of course we didn't take the camera but photos would not have done justice to the performance from the distance we were from the stage.

It was interesting to stand at the back and be an observer also of the crowd – in NZ people would have jumped up and been dancing to the rhythmic and mesmerising music, but most people just watched and clapped at the end of each segment.

It’s around 28 degrees here (sorry Aucklanders!) and almost midnight as I write this. It was lovely to walk down to the square, which is 3 minutes away, and just stand amongst the crowd and not feel chilly. But this weather spawns thunder very easily so we have to keep an eye out on our skylight window.

Apparently France closes down in August as everyone goes on holiday somewhere else (if they are from the sea they go to the mountains, and vice versa) so I think the already slow wheels of bureaucracy will grind to a halt over the next 4 weeks – reminds me of NZ in January about 15-20 years ago.

More soon on the property front.