We’re going to the village new year’s eve bun fight tomorrow, so we offered to help with the setting up. Patrick, the organiser, arrived with his table plan; a table for each village that will be represented. So far, so good; a table for 10 here, one for 9 there, but 13? Not like that; they’ll be squashed together; not like that; they’ll be too far apart to talk from one side to the other. So they brought in a really battered old table top to add to the end of two tables; it was too long, so they thought they’d chop the end off, till it was pointed out that it was “egg box” construction, so that wouldn’t work either. Long, thin tables? Patrick wasn’t keen. The debate went on for ages, in super fast French; Nick and I were totally lost. Eventually they reached a compromise; some long thin tables and square ones for the groups of 9 and 10. We put them out, arranged the chairs, cut table cloth to length, put runners down the middle, added the table decorations, ran out, so we rearranged them, Natalie found the last three so we rearranged them again, then carefully “scattered” the sparkly bits which wish folks a joyeuse fete, all the right way up and legible. Next we tied baubles with floral ribbon all around the bar and put up the fairy lights. In the end, everyone was happy.

We all gathered round the bar for an aperitif and were told to be back there at 2.30 tomorrow afternoon to start making the toasts for the aperitif in the evening. The caterer will have put out plates and cutlery by then, so we can do the serviettes and….. the Christmas crackers.

Crackers are something unknown over here and have been bought by an Englishwoman in the village. It seems the DJ will announce instructions for their use at the beginning of the meal; I just hope we’re not asked to translate too many of the awful jokes inside them 🙂