Last week's blog was a teaser about the float I have been working with others from the village for last week's Comice. The Saturday was wet, so I was glad that it was still in the hangar where we store it, and Sunday dawned fair but cool for the drive to Vaulandry and for the procession itself. I wasn't with it when it headed off, so I didn't see the roof flapping, as while it was fine at walking pace, the more sprightly 20kmph on the open road, compounded by a gap where the door panel would go, was too much for it. There was a stop to strap it all together and a message to me to bring staples and means of fixing - like I wasn't going to bring that sort of stuff anyway!
This photo shows as many of the contributors to the float as we could track down once the procession was done!
I found the float at about midday and spent a happy hour adding all the bits that wouldn't travel well, getting the roof secure and putting on the door panel. Then I set up the cauldron and fire, placed the furniture and all was ready.
The staging area for the floats is always a nice place to be. People putting the final touches together, getting dressed up, having lunch and preparing for the afternoon.
As ever, the procession was late setting off, and took its time too, and being with our float, I didn't capture all of the others well, and totally missed the performance by one lot, while being subjected to the same inane song about Little Red Riding Hood (the float behind ours) nearly 50 times!
The theme of the Comice was the Call of the Forest, and all floats were linked to that, some more closely than others. Next year the Comice will be at Fougeré, so they were ahead of us, with their take on the magic of the forest and a giant druid.
After us was Pontigné, Little Red Riding Hood, that blasted music and a Wolf that made a few small children cry and behaved generally very badly - but only when he had his wolf's mask on.
Other aspects of the forest included Echimiré and their dolmen, le Guedenieu and their dominial forest, Cuon looking at the seasons on one tree, and St Martin d'Arcé had an Ent. Vaulandry had a float showing woodland crafts, while Cheviré le Rouge went all out and depicted the Call of the Bois de Boulogne (Paris) complete with police van, gendarmes, pimp and some really dodgy prostitutes.
We distributed about 4 kilos of sweets while walking with our float, mostly to children, but volunteers, first aid teams and local mayors were very grateful for a sweetie too. In case you haven't worked it out, ours was Hansel and Gretel, the Witch and the Gingerbread House in the forest.
To give you an idea of what a procession of floats looks like, here we are, going around the exhibition of agricultural machinery and services!
Every Comice has to have outdoor catering at some stage. Last year we had something like 20 whole pigs spit roasting over firepits. This year the Sunday night feast was steak, but you could still have a lovely big bonfire in order to have enough glowing embers for cooking 1,200 steaks.
We didn't stay for the late night entertainment but we did stop and enjoy a local band entertaining the masses, with a slightly weird mix of accordion, tuba, voice and guitar. It was rather good and we bought the CD, and one of these days I will listen to it too!
So that was the Comice 2024 and we have a bit of a rest now before starting work in January on the float for 2025, when it will be the 150th Comice of Baugé en Anjou!
Monday we were back down to earth with a bump, with a funeral, the weather turned about 3 times in the week, and today is beautiful but distinctly autumnal, which is unfair as summer only seems to have started about three weeks ago! However there is live music at the village pub tonight, so I must get on with making supper so we can eat before we go out. I leave you with a rather fine photo of a small wasp having a go at pollinating the first of the cristophine flowers for this year.
Have a good week!
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