Montreal Saturday

Had dinner last night with friends of Joan & John’s in nearby Nerac. Good night with 10 people. There was another meal and concert in the Montreal square, so when we got home around 11 pm, we walked up and had a look. There was a junior brass band with about 15 musicians playing. They were good. Unfortunately, across the square, there was a cafe with their own disco stuff competing and overpowering the brass band. Doubt that it was part of the organised fete, they shouldn’t have played the canned music so loudly while the brass band was playing. We went home soon after and went to bed. The brass music stopped around midnight, but the canned music went on for a long time after, followed by very loud conversations and arguments outside our window until well after 4am. The street cleaners were hosing down the streets by 7am, so none of us got much sleep. It seems that the main disturbance was from one very small group. The cafe owner was out cleaning his outside bar area early and didn’t seem too impressed with the mess. It’s great being so close th the village square, but on odd occasions like this it’s a disadvantage. Fortunately this was a rare occurrance.

We had a slow morning, wonder why. John & I spent a lot of the morning levelling and adjusting a simple but attractive long case clock and managed to get it working and keeping good time. Not sure why, but the hour chimes sound twice. We’ll see how it sounds at midnight when we get 24 strikes.

Joan & John took us out to lunch today for a joint birthday lunch for us. As none of us were home in Aus for either Gill or Rick’s birthday, this was a nice surprise on Gill’s birthday today

 

Tonight we are going to a moules frites night in the square. Moules-frites is a popular main dish of mussels and fries originating in Belgium. There will be a large local brass band, whom we heard a few years ago when we were last here, and are very good. Looking forward to it. We expect that there will be a bit more control over the late nighters. We can hear the band practising now.

We’re sorry that we have to leave tomorrow (Sunday), it’s been great fun being here with J & J, but we’re all moving on to other sights and places. It’s been very relaxing for the week and we now have to get back in our own car.