Cocktail Parties, the Mistral and Weekend Pleasures
Tonight we were invited to a cockatail party at a friend’s place. She lives high on Mount Faron (the mountain that is north of Toulon), so she’s got a fabulous view of the city and the Mediterranean was spread out like black velvet, with a few jewels gleaming in the light of the three quarter moon.
The party was being given in honor of a woman who gave a lecture about 19th Century British artists whose work centered on Asian themes. (We didn’t get to attend the lecture, but all the guests raved about her, so I’m going to try to attend the next one, and Alain is going to try to get her to agree to do a series of lectures at the center!)
The party was a great success – and I had a wonderful time. Conversation was fast and covered a lot of topics. Of the people I got to meet was a woman a rather famous opera singer at the Paris Opera in the 50s and 60s, Mme. Isabella Andreani.
We also met a lovely couple – he is a retired physicist and she is a comedienne, who have invited us to their place in May to attend a musical concert. Their place overlooks President Nicholas Sarkozy’s summer place. I’m looking forward to that.
There are a few people I’m hoping to get to meet again on a social level as well. One woman, a widow, baked two delicious tartes (pies) and I enjoyed getting to talk to her very much too.
The weather is still most uncharacteristically, a topic for conversation. (Normally, what can you say about 309 days of sunshine and a climate that makes you feel as if you’re in Paradise?) But this year it has been strange – snow in Marseille, roads and public transportation being shut down all along the French Riviera, bitterly cold wind – the Mistral – and so I feel almost English, since the weather has become a prime conversational topic.
By the way, the Mistral is the big wind that blows here in Provence, and it typically blows for 3, 6, or 9 days. I have no idea if there is a scientific way of telling how long it will blow when it starts up, but it started blowing yesterday, so we’ll see…
I’m looking forward to the weekend. Tomorrow is Valentine’s day, and Alain always does something romantic, and Sunday we’re having lunch with Annie and Bruno after church. So we’re not crazy-busy, but we have something fun to do the entire weekend.
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