We moved the boat to the other side of the river last night with a view to taking advantage of a better position from which to view tonight’s fireworks display. This not coincidentally put a little distance between ourselves and the pop-up bars and cafes which had no doubt been located with the same intent.
This did place us in the centre of the annual village jumble sale though, where we discovered on waking that we had a front row seat, and could watch fascinated for much of the day as someone’s trash became someone else’s treasure. We did note that “Nana Mouskouri’s Greatest Hits”, a long play record that we almost stepped on when first alighting from the dock, was sadly not to become anyone’s treasure on this day.
We walked to the pretty little village of Bouvignes not too far away, to find some midday respite from the hub-bub of the fair. There we learned among other things that unlike gunpowder, and the crossbow which as is often the case these days were imported from China, coloured fireworks were actually a European invention. We also learned that some time in the middle ages, the Pope decreed that it was inappropriate to kill a Christian with a crossbow, declaring that particularly dastardly deed should be punishable by excommunication, a fate ever so much worse than waking up in the middle of a jumble sale, perhaps even akin to having to listen to “Nana Mouskouri’s Greatest Hits”
After a long and colourful day, we sat up until eleven, the appointed hour for the fireworks to begin which were terribly colourful too of course, all the better for having been enjoyed from the comfort of our own home.
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