Palluau

The sleepy village/town of Palluau in the Vendee region of France. The central canton of this region is famous for sardines, beans and farming machines. Palluau, however, has a cave, containing a dark secret.

Last night I awoke in the middle of the night to hear a tiny voice, saying “Aide moi. Help me”. I had thought I was alone, so this was a tad worrying. As the voice continued, my worrying deepened, as the realisation dawned that this was in fact, my old friend, my liver. After a couple of days in Palluau it is both bilingual and crying out for help. Let me explain…

Liz and Rodney (left) hail from Norfolk and have lived in Palluau for about seven years. When I stayed with them they were friends, as I write this, they are set to become family - congratulations to S and L! 

So. I arrived in Palluau. I got out of the car. I got frogmarched (no pun intended, although we are in France) to Le Cave owned by their friend Michel, where various inhabitants of Palluau attended my arrival. A lot of  wine and thirteen bottles of champagne later, after two of the party (who are all grown up adults, by the way) had been late-night skinny dipping, I pleaded tiredness and was allowed to stop drinking and go home – for a few hours…

The next day was a surprise party for their friend Manuela (left). Twenty of us gathered in the garden of Yannick and Mauricette (below) for a feast of Cochon du Lait (suckling pig, sorry my vegetarian friends) accompanied by the white beans that are traditional to the area and are amusingly called ‘les musiciens’ (not for nothing is the Vendee is  known as 'the windy region'). 

Some fabulous food and more drink fuelled the first entertainment of the day - a genuine Gallic bust up with lots of shouting, waved 

hands and elegant French women storming away from the table, only for everything to be solved by a bit of dancing to Johnny Hallyday (incidentally, my first ever letter from my French pen pal in school proclaimed Johnny Hallyday to be 'the best man of the world' and he certainly seemed to smooth things over in Palluau). I'm still not clear exactly what happened. Later, the uke and I gave a small performance before more drinking, more Johnny Hallyday and more dancing. 

More drinking and singing to follow but first....

Two Little Histories Of Palluau People

Manuela

Manuela (second left) has a wonderful French mother, Janine, a Catalan father and was born in Algeria. Her parents' life as young people was one of extreme struggle and poverty. Her mother told me that as a child she had two dresses, one for all of the week and one for Sunday. As a result of this, having met her husband, Emanuel, Manuela decided to adopt, not babies, but two small Columbian girls aged seven and eight. Leidy (second from right), the younger, now has her own family, Paulo and daughter Yona. When Leidy brought Paulo home, Manuela, already fluent in French, Arabic, Catalan, Spanish and Italian, decided to learn her son in law's native tongue, Portuguese, so that she could help him with his French. Great woman. Manuela's home also acts as an unofficial rescue home for cats and dogs. At the present count she has three dogs and seven cats, most of whom she rescued from accidents or abandonment. Monsieur Spock, named for his oversized ears (even for a cat) was definitely my favourite. 

Yannick and Mauricette

Parisienne Mauricette and Breton Yannick seem made for each other, yet they only met five years ago. Yannick lost his first wife to cancer and nursed Mauricette back to health after she, too, had been ill for some time and had undergone chemotherapy. They are just pretty cool people, massively young, the first on the dance floor or to start with the champagne, the first to start skinny dipping or to arrange things for the village. Mauricette, on her bicycle, travelled around Palluau organising my performance and flyposting invites. A little snippet of history about Yannick? He sailed for years for the oil companies, working on huge tankers and visiting destinations all over the world, but his favourite place is Cardiff as it called to the celt in him. Wonderful. 

Back to the Palluau party. After the birthday feast, we all awoke early the next morning and I set off to perform for an audience of Palluau-ites, including:

The Mayor

The Mayor's wife

The Deputy Mayor

The President of the twinning association

The President of the association for the embellishment of the commune. 

(did I mention Palluau has about 900 inhabitants?) 

I arrived at the venue to set up for the gig and to discuss the format of the performance. I was, very, very, much encouraged to have an interval in my performance. Why? So the audience could buy champagne of course! This was at three on a Sunday afternoon. 

During the interval, the deputy mayor asked Liz if I was 'known in England'. Liz's answer was a resounding 'bien sur' (!) thanks to which, I spent some time after the show signing autographs. Liz, feel free to become my manager any time. 

There was a presentation from the president of the twinning association and I was officially invited back next year by the Mayor, to perform in the 'Grand Salle'. A little scary this, as it holds about four hundred people. After this and some more champagne (all sold with profits going back to the commune association so it's practically for a good cause - drink more!) we headed on, staggering only a little.  

The next day, a lovely walk in the seaside town of St Giles Croix De Vie. This is the place where, having bought their house in Palluau, Liz and Rodney sat watching the waves and saying hello to their new life.

After this, of course, we headed back to the cave. Michel (below), who is charmingly and utterly as French as can be, is the cave owner - and is chiefly the man that waged a war on my liver for the last few days. He rarely seems drunk and looks very healthy, but I can only assume that if he were to cut his hand, he would bleed bubbles. After this second visit to the cave, Yannick and Mauricette had prepared Breton style moules frites and a very jolly evening was had by all. 

My final days of my trip in Palluau were coloured by the magnificent hospitality that I encountered. As as I staggered into my car for my final journey north towards Calais, my car was laden (with the best picnic lunch you ever saw, plus champagne, wine and several bottles of extremely potent home brew), my liver half destroyed, but my heart felt very full and very light indeed.