… out like it was supposed to.

The morning bit went OK, though.

The first port of call was to La Cellette down the road, because today is the Pélerinage de St Avit – the Pilgrimage.

St Avit was the Bishop of Clermont-Ferrand in 570-something and his claim to fame was that at the time when th village suffering from one of these mysterious infantile epidemics, he summoned up a Spring, the water of which apparently cured the children.

This was something that was classed as a miracle and so every 2nd Sunday after 15th August the well is blessed and a statue of St Avit is paraded around the village.

Hordes of children come to the pilgrimage, especially those whose medical condition isn’t so good. They are presumably hoping for a similar miracle as that which happened 1450 years ago.

But something that Liz and Terry said later on in the day made me think, which is a rare event, I know.

With the current state of the National Health Service and other medical services in the United Kingdom, praying for a miracle is probably just as effective as a means of cure that any kind of treatment dished out in a British hospital by the NHS might be.

From La Cellette, Marianne and I went on down the road to St Maigner.

This is our final pot d’acceuil of the tourist season and I can’t say that I’m sad about it. These persistent early starts have been wearing me out.

The attraction here was not a musical turn but a rope-maker, who spent the session teaching people to use his rope-making machine.

My attention however was distracted by the vehicle in which the cordier arrived. And isn’t it beautiful?

It’s a 1949 Renault Juvaquatre, and what’s interesting about this is that it’s not the more usual saloon but an estate car.

The Juvaquatres were inspired by the Opel Olympia that had been released in 1935, and Renault quickly set down to work on a similar car. So quickly that it made its appearance at the Paris Motor Show in 1937.

Serious production had hardly begun before the Second World War intervened and it was not until 1946 that serious production began.

They filled the streets from then on for many years and you can still see them about on the roads very occasionally even today.

You aren’t likely to see an estate car – a break – version though. They are as rare as hen’s teeth and it’s been ages since I’ve seen one like that.

Paradoxically, when the Juvaquatre was replaced by the much more modern and legendary 4CV – the quatre chevaux – in 1951, they realised that they couldn’t make a van – camionette – or a break out of it because of the rear engine configuration.

Consequently, they reintroduced the Juvaquatre break and production kept on going until the quatrelle was launched in 1960

We did actually have some music though – it wasn’t all quiet.

Someone from the village produced an old wind-up gramophone and a collection of 78s and spent a happy morning there winding up the music.

It was all good stuff too – the traditional type of French accordion music that you would hear almost everywhere in the 1940s and 1950s and which has sadly long-departed from the scene

I was back home for lunch and then I waited for a phone call  – and waited, and waited. I had arranged to meet up with someone so that we could go together to the Virlet brocante but i didn’t get the call.

And to tell you the truth I fell into the Arms of Morpheus at about 16:00 – I really don’t know what’s up with me these days.

At Liz and Terry’s, Liz and I rehearsed our radio shows and after tea we discussed a few plans and projects that we might undertake whenever we have some free time – whenever that might be.

Tomorrow we have our recording sessions, and after that it’s back to work.

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