We were up at the usual 6:15 AM to help Luc and Nadine with the brebis (ewes) and agneaux (lambs) on the early morning shift. Last night, on the just-before-bed patrol, Luc had put a new mother and her twins into a crèche. This morning, her twins had become triplets overnight, and a very fine family they made, too.
Good time to leave – on a high note. We had finished our duties, had had breakfast and were looking forward to a 6-7 hour drive north to Orléans. We bad our fond farewells to Luc and Nadine and hit the road, not really wanting to leave. This is a location in France that I could live.
Mercifully our journey was uneventful and we checked into our B&B Hotels reservation at Orléans just before 6:00 PM. There’s free wi-fi at B&B Hotels and we had half a BIB (bag-in-box) of wine to finish so I settled down to drink and write (yesterday’s blog posting). Over the road, quite literally, there’s a restaurant we’d seen on the way down offering moules et frîtes (mussels and chips/fries) every Friday and Saturday. After blogging, at about 7:45 PM, over we popped.
The place was lit but relatively quiet. We were shown to a table and both ordered mussels. What I thought was a DJ appeared on the stage and played some French (c)rap music. He began to sing over it. ‘T was OK but just OK. Somebody handed this “DJ” a piece of paper which I took to be a request. It was, just that, a request. The requester took the stage, grabbed a mike and began to sing. We’d stumbled into a karaoke restaurant serving the best moules et frîtes this side of Calais. Christ!!
Yesterday I put up with children to get my fix of lambs. Today, in order to get my fix of moules et frîtes, I had to put up with karaoke. I have never been into any form of karaoke anywhere at any time before in my life. I just do not understand it. I cannot see why Joe Public would want to make a complete and utter arse of himself in public on stage with a microphone. I most certainly cannot understand why Joe A. N. Other-Public would want to listen to Joe Public making a complete and utter arse of himself in public on stage with a microphone. Christ, some “professional” acts are bad enough but you only have to listen to local radio phone-ins to realize what a complete plonker Joe Public is. Why do they do it? What is the fascination? It’s utterly and completely beyond my ken.
Having said that, the food was good (not great but good). We are, after all, in an industrial estate just off the motorway on the outskirts of Orléans, and one karaoke girl, I have to confess, had the breathy voice of an angel. Very Interesting. What more can I say?
I’ve had a lot of firsts this trip: tending lambs, feeding sheep, eating genuine cassoulet, fricassée and raclette … now I wind up in a karaoke restaurant for the first time in my life. Pretty damn good for a single week.
Ain’t travel wonderful?
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