Caitriona, Aonghus and Fionn are in holiday in San Francisco.
Aonghus's brother Cian took this shot of them in Yosemite.
(This makes my grand-son way more travelled than me)

Michael O Leary goes into a pub in Dublin.
"I'll have a pint of Guinness Please" he says.
"That'll be one Euro" says the barman.
"One Euro, that is amazingly cheap" says Mr O Leary.
"Would you be wanting a glass with that ?" said the barman.

(with thanks to Eugene)

I am going to make you work out the title yourselves,

I knew they were going to give a Chopin Recital on our tiny rouelle, Del Catet, as part of the local arts festival.
They arrived three days ago and created a little concrete plinth for the piano.
(things are not done by halves here)

I was watching for the moment and was delighted when this van pulled up outside our house and disgourged a piano at the top of the Del Catet.
I knew I was going to be disappointed out of a "Right said Fred" moment when I saw that it was carried on a little caterpiller called a Pianoplan, this was possibly designed for getting Grand Pianos down stone rouelle steps.

The Pianist and I watched them as they rolled it down the steps.
"Tis the pity of God " I said to him in French " That you didn't take up the concert flute or the trumpet "
He laughed, insincerely.

No sooner was it upright in the bottom but he began to practice.
A truly magical moment as the walls captured and magnified the sound and threw it up into the Place del Eglise

Soon enough the crowds started to gather.

Eventually there was a sizeable audience.

The pianist, who was called Francois-Michel Rignol, played beautifully.
First the standard Chopin waltzes and then some absolutely marvellous sonatas.

Magic.

Got a text from my brother David today reminding me that it was on this day twenty years ago that our Dad died.
I had forgotten.

But what is extrordinary is that it was also on this day, but last year, that Síle's Dad died .
They share an anniversary even though it is nineteen years apart.

My Father , who was christened Walter but always went by the name of John, was born in 1915 and died in 1990 at the (what I now think of as) tender age of 75.

Síle's Dad, Con, was born in 1911 and so would have reached his century if he could have lasted until next Spring.

Both of them would have loved it here in France.

The Arts festival of the local villages is just about to happen again this year.
It is called Les Nuits de la Terrasse et del Catet it is this year offering two unmissable events.

As the little Ruelle/Steps, Rue del Catet goes just by the side of our house we cannot miss Sundays performance there.
The steps are covered with cushions for the occasion and it becomes a little mini-amphitheatre.
This years performance at the bottom of the steps will be a recital of Chopin on the piano. (Only in France.......)

The other must-go-to is a production of The Barber of Seville in the local Big House, Domaine d'Asties.
This is not the opera but the original play by Beaumarchais on which Rosinni based his opera.
Wanting to go and to understand it I ordered the Beaumarchais play in translation from Amazon, it came complete in one volume with its sequel, The Marriage of Figaro, the very same one on which Mozart based his wonderful opera.
I read the two of them with great attention, particularly Act Five of The Marriage which has always remained a mystery to me despite many performances attended.

I now think I know what happens, it involves so many mistaken identities that at one stage the Count kisses his page Cherubino, mistaking him for Suzanna.
But it is OK folks, there is no trace of homoeroticism here, Cherubino is always played by a woman.

What Mozart does leave out is a long soliloquy by Figaro near the end of the play.

It has one piece in it which is entirely prophetic of events of recent years.
Figaro is giving an account of how he came down in the world and ended a barber.
At one time, he tells us, he wrote a play:

Alas I might as well have put a stone around my neck ! I fudge up a play about the manners of the seraglio, a Spanish author could, I imagined, attack Mahomet without scruple, but, immediately, some envoy complains that some of my lines offend the Sublime Porte, Persia, Tunis and Morocco.
Behold my play scuppered by a set of Mahommedan princes who habitually beat a tattoo on our shoulders to the tune of "Down with the Christian dogs "

Beaumarchais wrote these words about 230 years ago.

plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose