Concert in the Correze

Saturday evening we went to the choral concert at a charming village just north of us, in the Correze. The concert, fortunately, was short. Several of the choir did solo performances but only Paul and Lauren’s duet of carols was in tune and without a hiccup.

Although we didn’t realise it we had also booked for the real entertainment of the evening, the meal afterwards. There were 90 people in a smallish room sitting at five long tables. Four of the tables had choir members and almost immediately a singing contest started with one table challenging another. It was amazing how much more energetic and tuneful they were when singing their own French songs, instead of the various languages of the concert programme! We were near Louis, a large and rotund bass and his wife, who were sitting opposite the chorus mistress. They were encouraging each other to make more and more noise. All evening Louis never stopped and Lisa said that he was the same at their art class. His wife was asked whether he sang in his sleep. She said that she fixed that by taking his batteries out when he came to bed. At one point a lady with Spanish ancestry started singing and the whole room went quiet. She had the flamenco inflections in her voice and sang two songs beautifully.

What with the wine, (Cotes de Quercy 1.70 euros/l), the songs and the food it was quite a night, and all for ten euros each!