The French heatwave continues (this surely will be the hottest French June ever), so I took advantage of the early morning cool to get the final CiV5311 results submitted. Now I can relax a bit.

I wrote earlier about our problems in getting the Domsjo sink for the main kitchen in the house, despite trying both French and Swiss IKEA stores. This morning the thought occurred to me that maybe we could get one in the UK and get Stuart and Christine Barry to bring it over when they come to Moissac next month (they had previously asked if we wanted them to bring something with them, although I don’t think they were thinking of a kitchen sink!). So I did a quick search of IKEA UK stores and found that many stores apparently had Domsjo sinks in stock. So I emailed Stuart and posed the question. His reply email was fortunately not negative, so we went ahead and ordered the sink to be delivered to Stuart’s house in Reading on 5th July. We are very grateful for their help, so here’s hoping it all works out OK.

Today was the last day of the Festival de la Voix, with a special concert at nearby La Francaise this afternoon and more in Moissac this evening. Since the La Francaise concert was at a lake, we thought it would be a good opportunity to possibly escape the heat. After a 20 minute drive through the Tarn valley, we arrived there to be told at the gate that the concert had already started, but if we walked along the path we would “catch up with it”. We weren’t quite sure what that meant, but started walking, and after about 100 metres we saw a bunch of people sitting in the woods and heard the sound of voices. The first act of the concert consisted of a trio of acapella singers and one member of the audience who was being sung to (or at). Quite an unusual beginning.

After this act finished, the audience wandered back down to the path where two black-suited ushers were waiting to take them further along the path. Or so I thought. After everyone had re-gathered, one of the "ushers" put his hands to his lips and started singing a bird song, which met with a reply from the other "usher". They then continued this conversation until we heard real birds (we think) in the forest answering their call. These were not ushers - they were Les Chanteurs d’Oiseaux. We were then treated to 15 minutes of birdsong and comedy in one of the most amazing performances I’d seen for a long time. All the calls were fantastic, although I was tempted to break out in a kookaburra call to show them how it was really done. If you want to see them in concert in a different setting, check out this YouTube clip.

The bird-callers led us through the woods until they handed us over to a Spanish singer and guitarist/percussionist.

The bird-callers then took over for another performance, including a display of dominance which we often see with magpies in our garden back in Taggerty.

As I filmed the above clip, I noticed a familiar face (actually, back of head) in front of me, and sure enough when the bird-calling has finished, they called upon TonyCello to carry on with the next act. He performed a subset of his act from the night before (the child-friendly parts), and had me crying with laughter again (although it was all in French) - the sign of a true comedic craftsman.

While he was performing, a large group at the back of the audience in costume were thoroughly enjoying the performance and they turned out to be the next act - Los Seuvetons - a group from southern France singing in Occitan. They had a marvelous range of voices, and when the girls broke into “Surfin’ USA” (in Occitan) in response to the boys “West Side Story”, the concert was complete (in more ways than one).

The afternoon had been a memorable and totally unexpected experience, with a great variety of performances. As it unfolded, I could just imagine the same thing happening in the hills and forests around Marysville back home.

After the concert, we then went for a walk around Lac La Francaise, which turned out to be an eye-opener in itself. It was a large lake, with a huge swimming pool area, embedded in a beautiful shady forest which included a camping area with lots of cabins. Until today we had no idea it even existed, but I’m sure we will find our way back here again before too long.

As often happens, sometimes the simplest of pleasures, like standing with your feet in a cool lake, is a highlight.

After we left La Francaise and drove back to Moissac we decided to visit another nearby site that we had often passed by but never gone to. So we continued slightly west of Moissac to go to the Boudou lookout. Along the way we got lost a couple of times due to the French practice of giving you an original signpost off the main road and then leaving you to figure out the rest of it. But the view from the top was worthwhile, with the canal in the foreground, the Garonne and Tarn Rivers in the middle and St Nicolas de la Grave in the background.

After a busy day, and more to come, we opted for an easy dinner at Au Bureau, then headed up for the final concert featuring "HK et des Saltimbanks”. This turned out to be a very lively performance, with lots of stage activity like a Melbourne Ska Orchestra performance, with HK (in white below) playing the role of Nicky Bomba. However, unlike Nicky, HK sang lots of songs with strong subversive lyrics, much in the style of a modern-day troubadour. A great way to finish the Festival de la Voix.