It's that time again! In 2020, there was no Comice due to Covid. In 2021, Echimiré did a Comice Lite, which was actually pretty impressive, despite masks and health passes. This year the major fire meant that for a moment, there was a fear that the Comice might be cancelled, but it went ahead. There was still an intervillage ploughing match this morning, although most mayors were too tired to take part themselves I gather, at least some found willing and able substitutes from the photos on social media. There won't be fireworks tonight, but there will be entertainment and dancing.
The big thing on the Sunday in a traditional Comice is the procession of decorated floats for each of the villages in the commune. Last year there were just two, due to constraints on meeting up. This year all villages were able to do a float if they wanted. In practice, four didn't send a float, and I'm not going to speculate why.
As is traditional, the Cadets de Baugeois led off the parade in their unique style and following them were the sapeurs pompiers - not a vast number and only 3 vehicles, but they are still keeping an eye on hotspots around the devastated area, in case of small outbreaks.
Then there was the host village, Pontigné. This year's theme was the silence of the countryside (possibly hitting out at townie incomers, possibly not), and the symbol was the cockerel.
Then came Vaulandry with the milking parlour and Bocé with the vendors of vegetables - they were very keen to point out all the produce was grown in their village!
Cuon showed us the grape harvest or vendange, while Montpollin celebrated the mobile still - that does make a racket when it comes to a village!
Le Guédenieu took a cynical stance and had a mobile phone tower and celebrated the mobile phone, including all the annoying ringtones you can imagine. Interestingly, there was a WiFi network for the Comice field, supplied I believe by the local purveyors of fibre optic. Cheviré le Rouge paid their own homage to the firefighters, but as you can't stop them singing, there was also a purposeful float with lots of singing and jollity too.
Echimiré had a magnificent float with a dodgy clown and Baugé got the church theme this time round and had a church service going on.
St Martin d'Arcé had more music going down - it could have been a guiguette. The final float was from Vieil Baugé, celebrating those women who used to work hard at the village lavoir doing the laundry. The Comice will be at Vieil Baugé next year, hence their position of honour at the back.
But that wasn't all, as there was a strange mobile piano heading backwards up the hill, while being played (he also did pirouettes), and a couple of farmers with the giant water cisterns that were used to damp down the fires last week.
There are also lots of things to see, food to eat, things to drink, local ice-cream and honey, and stuff that you probably don't want to buy. There are massive agricultural machines in to wonder at, including this absolutely mahoosive beastie. The wheels were taller than me! The width of area that could be dealt with in one pass had to be a good 15 meters.
There were horses, donkeys, miniature ponies, cows and a lovely display from Loué chicken farms with hatching eggs and then the chicks, all fluffed out and dried, under heat lamps to wonder at.
Well done and thank you, Pontigné! I feel weak already at the thought of all the work to make next year's episode happen in Vieil Baugé, and there will be no escape, John and I will be helping out somehow or other!
Until next week...
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