Morceaux de Saint Chartier

Well, there were many lovely morceaux - from the food and the music, the dancing and the conversation. First of all, get this MP3 so you can listen to Sylvain, Danielle and their friends and family playing as they usually did every morning.

The food

Which was wonderful, naturally, there being a farmer's market at Saint Chartier. The chilled apple juice was very welcome in the thirty-degree heat, and you really got the sense of from orchard to glass, since the juice was turning to cider in the very glasses. Every bottle was different, and I have a strong suspicion they kept the bottles chilled to stop them exploding! Then there was the local goats cheese, which you could pick out at the dairy in one-day, three-day, week-old and dried varieties. And the sourdough bread, which went very well with that cheese and the local tomatoes and cucumbers, a wonderfully cooling meal to eat in the mid-day heat while someone behind us scratched out "Pastime in Good Company" on a hurdy-gurdy.

And then there was the customary meal at the restaurant on Bastille Day where we had tete de veau - calves brains - that were much better than the ones I'd had two years previously. Still very fatty, and a little bitter, but with a smooth depth of flavour under that bitterness that made you think that if you had it again you might learn to appreciate it more. A very tasty salad, walnut oil in the dressing, we thought, and then finished with an enormous plate of local cheese.

The music

The cheese was interrupted by a very unexpected sound from next door: Luc Arbogast. Quite the most unlikely, but blazingly good, high counter-tenor; take a look at the video I recorded, which doesn't begin to approach the volume and quality he musters in real life. As a quick look at those two blogs proves, he's got a lot of fans, but only sells his CDs in person, which is rather frustrating. EDIT: he's now selling them for EUR 23, and accepts Paypal payments. Email him.

Luc Arbogast playing

The organised music would start off around ten thirty, with a two and a half-hour dance class on the Trinquette:



and then restart about 4:30 on the big stage with big acts like Les Musiciens du Nil or Bagad de St Nazaire (a very impressive thirty-strong Breton marching band):



The meat of the festival, the reason for its existence, is in the grounds of chateau, where there were over a hundred stalls from instrument-makers of all sorts from across from Europe. And, naturally, they know the musicians well and the musicians come and play little sessions at their stalls, or just try out the instruments. It's very pleasant indeed to wander through the grounds and sit under the trees and watch, for example, Le Grand Saut



or a man playing an entire sheep



I ran into a band called Roncos do Diabo who were very good - three of the above sheep and a drummer who really got into the spirit of it! And then there was the bagpipe procession, thirty or so bagpipers led through the festival grounds by a bloke in a pith helmet:



though there was the odd other instrument, like the nyckelharpa player playing inaudibly in the middle



If you got tired of that, how about Sylvain and co, having found their way to the chateau, sat in a circle singing French songs full of innuendo about how a young soldier has just the thing to cure a young lady's toothache, or a sailor's farce-filled attempts to get up to some girl's bedroom?

At nine, you got more big names on the main stage like Bratsch (ferociously virtuosic Gypsy music) or the Vallely Brothers and Karan Casey (some lovely trad Irish), and then after them dance bands playing in styles from all over France, which were really my personal favourites, being there mainly for the dancing. Which brings me on to:

The dancing

The dancing was magnificent, and wherever you cared to find it. There were people dancing on the main dance floors, under the trees in the chateau grounds, on the campsite, in the streets and in the pub gardens. There were people dancing to organised bands from about six thirty in the evening to about two in the morning, when they joined the people on the five dance floors outside the castle who'd been dancing since about ten, and danced again until nine in the morning. There were dances from every part of France, and some Brazilian, American and Egyptian stuff going on too. There were very few classes, just a lot of people piling in with sometimes more enthusiasm than skill. It led to the dance floors being utterly, horribly packed from about ten to about four in the morning - so I'd generally go to the evening concert, then sleep for a couple of hours and get up at four to dance until eight, when I'd rush back to the tent to get some rest before the sun made sleep impossible.

Waltzing at dawn under the castle walls, with tree blossom falling all around and some of the best musicians still playing (or turning up!), was magical. By that point, the stages had cleared to the point that there would only be hundred or so people still dancing, and the floors were free for waltzes and mazurkas. Particularly lovely were the ones played by a couple who got up on one stage about six on Saturday morning - him on flute, her singing and playing the accordion, but a vote of thanks must go to the guy who turned up on two mornings and played mazurkas for about an hour straight both times. It was fascinating to watch the other dancers as well, with their widely varying styles - one guy was quite tall, but in mazurkas almost curled over and around his partners, cradling them and bringing them almost off the ground when turning - and heartwarming to see people obviously partners, or groups of friends larking about with each other.

Ran into several people I'd met two years previously - Steph, who'd moved to France [EDIT: not yet! Though they are considering it] and married a French stonemason, Alex, and who did a lovely pencil sketch of me and Alex talking to each other. This was just one of the moments during the weekend when I wished I'd worked harder at some artistic activity someone else was showing, whether that was sketching, or singing. And Veronique, now pregnant but still dancing wonderfully, and looking able to replace the statue of Justice on the Old Bailey if the original needs to be cleaned. I imagine the pigeons would get a very brief shock! It was nice to meet Jakob, who promptly bought me a drink (always the best sort of friend), and chat to him and Kate, and their French friends, and see John Stewart, if only briefly before he hared off to Gennetines, which is a thing all of itself, and something I shall have to go to next year. Dances with friends are great - you can just have fun and joke around in the dance more than with a stranger. I think I terrified Mary a little when enthusiastically Cajun dancing, but reined myself in for Danielle, Mary's friend, and Delphine.

Some dancing!