Every village, large or small, prides itself on it's fête and I am sure that it would be quite possible to eat at a village "repas" every Saturday and Sunday throughout July and August. Some fêtes attract huge numbers of people. Espinas for instance, which is a village of only 150 inhabitants, attracts thousand to its weekend of old style harvesting demonstrations. The meal regularly feeds 1000 plus 200 volunteers from villages all around who come to help.
Because there is so much going on it is always impossible to fit everything in and we always end up missing things because we forget about them.
This weekend is when both Puylagarde( where we live) and Salles ( where we go to a weekly dance workshop) both traditionally hold their fêtes leaving us with a choice. Puylagarde is home to a large horse stud farm and it's fête had a very horsey theme - good for those who like displays of horse riding but not really our style. We will be at the moules à la paille meal tonight though.
Salles on the other hand is a village with a strong traditional music tradition and we like to go to the evening dances. On Friday it was an Irish group with a caller who did celtic dances and last night was the meal followed by a traditional bal.
So that's where we were last night. Salles is almost a second "home " village to us now - we have lots of friends there. Last night there were even people there who live near us who we have introduced to the village who are attracted by the traditional music and dancing.
One unique feature of the Salles bal is the "buffatiere" at midnight. Nothing quite prepares you for the first time you see it - people of the village disguised and clad in long white nightgowns and bedcaps invade the dancefloor and during a strange dance use bellows to cover bystanders in talc. Very bizarre but fun!
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