Metamorphoses

Every year there is a festival of sound, Le Son Miré, at Notre Dame de la Consolation. You can be assured of it being weird and not necessarily wonderful. We missed most of it this year, but I popped along at 5 pm today for an outdoor "reading" of Book 1 of Ovid's Metamorphoses.

We were led along a path through the woods until we encountered this gentleman tootling on the saxophone (I can't really describe it as playing).  We sat down on deckchairs and he proceeded to recite the part about the four ages of man, mostly without removing the mouthpiece from his mouth, and interspersing it with squawks and farting noises. After 20 minutes he'd trashed the reed and had to replace it. Towards the end he lay down on the ground and "played" the tubular leg of a metal chair that had holes drilled into it to make it a sort of recorder. Some parts were mildly amusing, but poor Ovid must have been spinning in his grave. He got a prolonged round of applause at the end though.

Back home S announced we'd been invited round to A and P's for aperos. We got there at 7 and started talking. And talking some more ... we eventually left at 1 a.m. after the aperos metamorphosed into supper à la fortune du pot. A lot more village history, plus talk of A's days as a shepherd when he was much younger.