Dimanche, 31 juillet
Nous allons au festival
Nous allons au festival
A couple of
weeks ago we bought tickets for a music festival. There was a band I wanted to
see and, by combining it with buing a beer and a meal, we got them at reduced price.
Without a car, we had to catch the train (also reduced price 2€ each and we
could use the ticket to return if we wanted) and were childishly pleased when
it was a double-decker and we could go upstairs.
It was a pleasant journey
through the countryside: lots of fields looking lush, some with hay already
baled. Arriving at the other town, Aulnoy-Aymeries, we followed the crowd and
were given our bracelets then charged
euros onto a festival card, as the on-site vendors were taking cashless payments.
It’s very much
a town-centre festival, which seems quite common over here with lots of the bars open and doing roaring trade.
A wander round
to get our bearing, we decided that these burgers sounded less pleasant to an English-speakers than they might to a French person, and bought some food from an Indian stall, where I had some difficulty
in ordering as we wanted the dish labelled “potatoes” so I asked for pommes de terre, realised I didn’t want
that but also that I didn’t know how to say it in French. I pointed, the woman
serving said “pottattoes” and we were all happy.
We had tickets
for two of the stage venues, Le Jardin and Grand Scène. Both seemed to be in
car parks, though Le Jardin did have a small grassed area where people sat.
Everyone else seemed to prefer to stand rather than sitting on gravel. The
first act we watched properly was a singer called Bachar Mar-Khalifé: lots of diverse
influences and great percussion. I need to look into his music a bit more, I
think.
We were childishly entertained by the first aiders' uniforms.
Over to the
Grand Scène, where we looked at the food stalls, stuck our heads into the
merchandising tent then went to another which appeared to be some sort of
information tent. A woman helper started chatting to me and told me I could win
a badge if I answered spun a wheel three times and answered three questions
correctly. I’m a sucker for a freeby, or a competition, so I had a go.
Picture the scene: we are in a tent about 100 metres away from a stage
where loudspeakers are blasting out what may be heavy metal or even something just
aluminium, she’s talking to me in French and using unfamiliar vocabulary. They
will all be yes/no answers and I get the first one wrong (possibly because I
only heard 50% of the question and it was about French law) but she gave me
another go as the quiz was for information so she was more concerned with me
knowing the right answer.
Second
question. The sound level had dropped to 500db so I got that one right. Noise
level increased for the third but I got that one right as well and was able to
choose my badge. Pleased as punch, it went straight onto my T-shirt.
I now know that young French between the ages of sixteen and eighteen can have an abortion if they are accompanied by an adult, that not all STIs have obvious symptoms and..................maybe I should give back the badge.
Her colleague
asked me something I couldn’t quite catch (music back to a million decibels)
and offered me a selection of condoms. I may have commented that after 42 years
of marriage I didn't see an immediate need for them but she insisted and
unwittingly solved a Christmas present problem.
Beer in an
eco-cup (another for my growing collection),
Next thing was
to find our lift home. We’d booked via BlaBlaCar, a lift-sharing
set-up and our first experience of it will make us use it again. Our driver was
Clothilde, who was driving back to Valenciennes after the festival. We dropped
us off near home, rather than at the station as had originally been planned,
all for a couple of Euros.
Ready for the
next one now.
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