Cambridge Chorale

My old choir from Cambridge visited La Maison Verte last week for what was pretty well the perfect week for me... I got to sing with them again (more than I deserved, but they were short of altos so I did my best).




It was a great moment to see 28 smiley, familiar faces turn up on the first Saturday and pile through the front doors with lots of oohing and aahing at our lovely house. I'm always rather amazed to find that a bunch of random people can come together and have such fun and - more to the point - make such a beautiful sound.

Their two concerts at Margon and Roujan were packed to the rafters with stunningly appreciative locals; highlights for me were American composer Whitacre's Lux Aurumque, Tchaikovsky's Dostoino Yest, and Victoria's O quam gloriosum.

My only setback for the week was pulling a ligament in my hip attempting to find some dance movements to accompany an African song (nice, middle-class, white choir from Cambridge... I ask you!) Hamba Lulu.


This really is the perfect place for a choir tour/holiday - urgently crossing my fingers that they come back again next year.

Tour de France

For the first time in memory, the Tour de France this year not only came through Roujan but passed directly in front of La Maison Verte. I was sceptical about the benefit and fun to be had out of this but it turned out to be a veritable street party. For two hours before the cyclists flashed by a series of sponsors' vans, cycle support vehicles, police and indeed any old Tom, Dick and Harry who had blagged their way into the procession honked their way through Roujan throwing out sweets and gifts to the children (most of which were scrabbled for in an undignified way by adult tourists pushing small children into the gutter in search of a souvenir).

I spent part of that 2 hours taking glasses of wine up the street to friends who had bagged their spot on dangerous corners... Pretty well everyone we know in Languedoc was there and there was much gossip to be exchanged and cheering and shouting to be done. And then we had about 7 seconds of incredibly sleek and fast cyclists (4 of which I spent taking photos and not watching at all!) before it was all over. C'est le tour de France!

It goes down as a very jolly occasion and probably won't be repeated during my sojourn in Roujan.