OOps

aww,
blogger won't upload the film, too big? too Hogarthian? Anyway, here's two photos of the event including one of Dr Mark Wyatt Lockett conducting band of urchins.

Fracas de Limoux

Fracas - loud, chaotic sound - something like that. I thought the name sat nicely between 'Fecos de Limoux' (carnaval) and Fricassée de Limoux, the local dish of pork and beans.
Here we are, (photo seems to have moved to following post . . .) performing for 'Toques et Clochers' on a beautiful Saturday in Limoux before the surging hoards of piss-heads appeared.
As we are, none of us, svelte 23 year old Brazilians, the Dickensian look seemed a good option. A unique (I think) melange of pulsing street sounds and 'my old man said follow the van'.
Perfect day for the grand drinking binge; seemed to be good humour all around and some excellent street acts, notably the wonderful 'Compagnie Stromboli' theatre of the absurd, of whom I sadly have no pics. Only heard one ambulance in the night, and pretty much the only reminders the day after were a few abandoned socks littered around the streets...?

The boy done good

Ezra with CHEQUE for first prize in children's section of the Toques et Clochers painting competition. So proud I nearly dropped the camera . . .
Thought they might have given the parents a 'well done' for making him prize in the form of a magnum of blanquette, but a most generous prize quand meme, thanks S.D'Arques.

Grand design

Just in case we forget how amazing nature is.
Makes me feel somehow hopeful, despite us unloading toxins into the air/soil/sea, that the natural world will prevail. Talking of dumping stuff in the sea, I read with amazement that the hole in the crippled Japanese nuclear power station has been blocked with a mixture of . . . sawdust, newspaper and a form of liquid glass. I remember doing exactly that to my cousin's red Spitfire in about 1976, surely things must have have moved on a bit?
Anyway back to the vegetable featured above.
Err, not much really, except that when I see these bright green kings of the legume world I always have to take a few minutes of silent contemplation over their sheer magnificence. Ezra says he saw an 'expose' about them in the Paris science museum. Apparently, even under super-magnification, the spirals keep on spiralling, seemingly into infinity. Well, it makes a change from thinking what is outside our universe, where does it end? etc . . . but similarly brain-taxing on a slightly different scale.
Enough. Back to the washing up, invoicing and cat hair removal. Safe, small activities of no wonder.