K+D's wedding and Rwandan guest - boy

Bit late for this entry and a long time seems to have passed now. Back then the UK was sunny and S France was shrouded in its seasonal one month downpour. Now the roles have most certainly reversed.

In the run up to our brief sejour Cassie had a colleague over from Rwanda. It's always interesting to hear what outsiders have to say about Europe (and the West in general) never having been and was surprised at the gusto our guest tackled a wide range of foods - with experimentation that even I would (possibly) balk at, such as buttered lettuce leaf (although that's essentially what I'm doing when I put it in a sandwich) and not shying away from more adventurous mixtures like a brie sandwich with Swiss roll. Of all the foods we tried, highest marks went to that regular British staple "the good 'ole fashioned Chinese", especially the number 52.

We watched Pelham 123 (not the most exciting remake) and he mentioned that when watching films like these he thought that the places portrayed in them, like New York or London were essentially fake, just mock-ups, where in reality these cities didn't have (or couldn't have) the quantity of roads, pavements, the metro system, buildings and general infrastructure that they showed on film. Well, I thought it was interesting anyway.

S France beckoned and on landing the first port of call was a restaurant to partake in that most French of national pastimes, the two hour lunch (how I miss it). Coincidentally, a couple of friends from Dubai (coming for the wedding too) were on the same flight, so the four of us headed to Albi (historic home of the Cathars - a people whose competing religion the crusaders eventually wiped out) for beer, wine and a fantastic lunch.

That pretty much set the scene for the whole stay; great wine and fantastic food (and a portion of guilt since most of the tastiest food came from Geese, Ducks or Calves having a truly unpleasant time for our pleasure).

The village of Puycelsi, where K's parents live is an idyllic little town of a few hundred people atop a hill with a couple of B+Bs and a small town hall. On the day of the official ceremony, I wouldn't be surprised if all the guests doubled the population for that day.

The wedding party was the night before and was the main event, where speeches were held, recitations were delivered and vows expressed in an emotional manner. The Chateau where the celebrations were held took 50 years to refurbish. It housed a zealous guide, who incidentally was the son of the owner, a painter that covered every inch of chateau space with every crayon drawing he did in his life, most of which appeared to be nudity expressed as an obsession. He also painted, over the past 50 years, many of the chateau walls and ceilings with painstakingly detailed pictures, as close to the original as possible so we’re told, with original dyes and egg whites, or something like that - I might have glazed over at that point. Oh, and it took approximately 50 years, his son managed to point out to us on our guided tour. I had the pleasure of this man's presence at the dinner table but with previous conversations being "50 ans monsieur!" et "pas de boisson ici monsieur!" I felt I held back with the informal chit chat. He seemed a bit moody and humourless but perked up a bit when Cass toasted “Death to the Queen”.

The wedding party was followed by some sleepy drinking into the early hours of the morning. Always nice when that happens.