Paint job

... continued from yesterday. I was puzzling over how my pylons could have been painted without my noticing this morning, as I set off with S for a walk, part of his project to devise a circular walk around the outskirts of the village. Looking at "the" pylon from a distance, we noticed that it was a patchwork of silver and red. "They can't have finished painting it -- I'll have to come back during the week to blip it while they're working."

But our path passed right by the foot of the pylon, where we found four men and a dog. The dog came to say hello, but the men were dangling from various points of the pylon with paint cans and brushes. I wonder how long it takes for four people to paint a whole pylon? "Just standard maintenance," said one of them to S when he enquired why they were painting them. I guess their favourite pastime must be mountaineering ... I have to say that while they had safety harnesses, they weren't actually attached to anything as they gambolled up and down!

It was a lovely autumn day, bright and breezy. In the afternoon we were back at the Centre Culturel to see the documentary film on which last night's play was based. On the way there we saw a fabulous double rainbow, but I was too late to catch it, so here's the view from the car park sans rainbow.

 The film was clearly a very personal project for the director, Edouard Bergeon, himself the son of a farmer struggling with debt who committed suicide at the age of 45. He accompanied the family for a year, starting with the son Sébastien's appearance in court, trying to stave off bankruptcy with half a million euros of debt. I dare say Edouard had no idea when he started that Sébastien was going to attempt suicide a few months later ... it must have been pretty intense. Clearly he had bonded with the family, as Sébastien's wife Céline phoned him and he accompanied her to the hospital. He filmed some very intimate scenes, many of them reproduced exactly in the play -- including Céline's labour and delivery, and Sébastien's father talking directly and cruelly to camera about how useless his son was. The family's story was interspersed with recollections of his own father. An excellent and moving film, and afterwards we had a discussion with the cast and author of the play.

Now back home, by the fire, and almost ready to catch up with What a Carve Up! on radio 4.