It was the longest day of the year, which was lucky for us, because we had a long way to go. Three trains a quick connection on the Paris Metro, a kilometre or so to walk and five hours after leaving Belgium we were back on the boat.
But on this day every village has a music festival that runs long into the night and in some places into the next day as well. On every street corner and at two or three places in between one can usually find a band and a crowd, and downtown Auxonne was no different this evening.
Battling weariness we stood, watching a band called the "Polar Beers", its drummer working with practiced disinterest, a cigarette hanging from his mouth and a passage of what may have been some ancient Asian script tattooed along the length of his forearm. They were in the middle of some sort of trash-metal din making that turned out to be a barely recognisable rendition of a Tina Turner song, when an elderly lady in a cowboy hat began to line dance solo if that is even possible, somewhere near the drum kit.
We moved away slowly, never losing eye contact until we were at a safe distance, but a few tens of metres later we stumble across friends at a table in middle of what is normally a road and we joined them until Cinderella's coach turned into a pumpkin, watching a chap called Jerry Yell playing covers from every generation past, while bathed in the sort of disconcerting seventies disco lighting that would make even Molly Meldrum go green and blue.
The longest day had been long indeed but there could be no doubt that we were back in France.
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