... and on my washing line. 
It's huge! It's clearly made of the kind of fabric used for 1930s eiderdowns, but this is just the fabric.
In my mother's collection, of course!
The event was organised by the wonderful Marlene, who sings, runs the choir and teaches piano, and her fiancé David, who is our boys' piano teacher, and also the technical wizard of the local music scene.
We got started at 9pm (ish), as usual. The swifts were flying low down around the Mairie, but we knew they'd quickly be replaced by bats.
The view of the church changed from this,
to this.
The moon rose.
The younger children had finished playing their pieces (on the theme of 'Music from the Movies'), but were still there, cuddling up to their parents or running around the boulodrome behind us. 
Finally, just before 11pm, the bigger piano pupils began to play their film music. Son 1 played the Raiders March, from the Indiana Jones films. It went down well! David had organised some special features on the keyboard, which made the piece sound very orchestral.
A few pianists later, Son 1 was on, and played his 'Comptine d'un autre été : l'après-midi', a very atmospheric piece from a French film. It was his 13th birthday - he enjoyed the concert as a great end to a big day!
A really special night was had by all. Most of the pianists were not perfect by any means, and there were some technical hitches for the singers, but the atmosphere was supportive and tolerant of errors, appreciating the effort and wanting to encourage the musicians.
You can also see on the piano a photo of them playing a duet (only one fight while rehearsing, honest) at one of the outdoor summer concerts a few years ago. But we also have photos of their piano débuts - Son 1:
and Son 2:
Aww! We can only tell the difference between them because we know we'd actually managed to put that picture up by the time Son 2 was born! Ben loved to play the piano with one of them on his lap. I was going to say it was a good start in the world of music, but in fact they started before they were born, because I was in a choir and I often felt them reacting to the music then...
So there you go, the picture is your answer. Yes, I liked pop and rock, I recorded it off the radio, I listened to Top of the Pops, but no way was I going to pay money for something I was geting for free! Strange teenager...
I remember this beautiful picture by Ford Madox Brown on the front of one of the first albums I bought - Dvorak's 'From the New World'. I found the picture of emigrants leaving England terribly moving.
And then, as you all know, I got into English folk and I DID buy some Steeleye Span albums. But mostly on tape...
When my sister and I were in our 'tweens' we spent hours with our mother's old record player and her collection of increasingly scratched LPs - that's what happens to LPs when you play them while bouncing up and down on a bed singing at the top of your voice, we discovered.
We learned the songs with the scratches included, which sounded a bit odd to listeners but was fun from our point of view! Add to that the fact that children (and to be honest adults) sometimes get the words wrong, and you will realise that I know versions of the songs which cannot possibly be accurate. The fights we had over our different versions of the lyrics in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers... It would all be solved by Google nowadays!
At least I understand the French song in South Pacific now.
I was best at sounding like Audrey Hepburn's voice double in My Fair Lady - not the cockney bit, but the precision. It's just an exaggeration of my normal accent and singing style. Sad but true.
My sister sounded scarily like Julie Andrews - when I do 'The Sound of Music' now I don't think of trying to sound like Julie, but find myself immitating my sister instead!
In fact, I do sing for others as well as for myself, and the best way to describe my voice would be a cross between those precise English ladies of yesteryear and a less nasal version of Maddy Prior. Oh yes, by the end of the 1980s I'd moved on from show tunes and become truly obsessed with English Folk.
In the 1990s we moved to Cumbria, to the wilds above the Lake District, and found that Maddy Prior, singer with Steeleye Span, lived in the even wilder Debatable Lands to our north, and came to sing regularly at the Brampton Live Folk Festival - you can find recordings of this, some even of the ones we attended, on youtube! The power of the internet...
We went a bit wild and bought a chocolate-orange one, though! Mmmm.
The fève was one of a collection of traditional Pyrennean jobs - Ben found it and it was the slate-worker. What some of you commented on yesterday's post is of course true - fèves could be a risk to teeth, although probably not for choking. The French attitude is very reasonable though; basically to be aware of risks and act sensibly, rather than to expect businesses to remove all possible risk. Very refreshing.
My other excitement has been a trip to a couple of troc shops to buy a small guitar for Son 1 with the Christmas money given for the purpose by my parents. Ben was very dubious that I would find a three-quarter sized one outside of the main music shops, which of course made me all the more determined! I am going to have to try hard not to be excessively smug when showing him this one. A bit smug, obvously, but not to excess. Must practice.
Son 1 started his guitar lessons last term, borrowing my rather large guitar, and now that he is more established I think that it will be very good for him to have his own, easier to handle. He loves his guitar tuner, passed on to him by Serenata, and we've also bought him a stylish guitar case and a stand. All set to actually learn a tune, now...
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