… Vergheas today.

That’s the farthest extremity of the Canton of Pionsat and so we had an early start.

Not as early as my start though. Having had two consecutive early nights (and a third one in a moment) I was up and about before 08:00 – on a Sunday – with no alarm – and for no particular reason either.

When was the last time that that happened?

The Open Day at Vergheas was by far the best-attended so far, and there were the local musicians in attendance.

You can see the two old women there turning away on their vielles à roue for all they were worth while the men were having a good old go at the accordion. Everything in 3/4 time of course – nothing complicated here.

The Bourrées de Vergheas – the local folk-dance troupe – were in attendance too. And after giving a demonstration of a few dances (all in 3/4 time of course) they grabbed hold of all of the foreigners present and had them up on the floor dancing.

Even Marianne was invited to dance and I’ll publish the photo sometime unless I receive a well-filled brown envelope in the meantime. It was certainly an exciting way to spend a morning – much better than staying in bed.

The dance troupe, by the way, caters for all ages as you can see in the photo.

There was even a little girl of about two or three dressed up in traditional Auvergnat costume having an immense amount of fun there with all of the grown-ups.

As you know, I’m all in favour of involving the youth of the community in these events. It is they who are the future and if you don’t engage with them then the traditions of the area will all die out.

But Marianne is not well – she has her bronchitis again. Hardly surprising – I reckon that we will all be developing gills sooner or later if this awful weather continues.

But Marianne became worse and worse as the morning wore on and in the end I had to drive her car home to Pionsat.

All events are now cancelled for this week while she recovers.

This afternoon I finished the rock music radio programmes and not much else. I’m thoroughly worn out too and at all of 23:19 I’m off to bed too. I can’t last the pace these days and I dunno what’s the matter with me.