Chateau Keyboard

Sunday, June 8: Guided tourdom

Britnimes, for Brits who know where Nimes is and consider it to be within driving distance, has organised a guided tour of Uzès this morning. Uzès is one of our favourite towns but we manage almost never to go there on any day other than market day, Saturday, so we jump at the chance to find out more about the place without all the bloody tourists clogging it up.
There are about 20 of us and Eva, our tour guide (Scandinavian, of a certain age, fat ankles - he said, rudely) spends a couple of hours walking us down back streets we haven't seen before but, apart from that, doesn't manage to tell us very much we didn't know before. Well, speaking for me and Mrs K that is. The others may have been ignorant of such facts as 'This is the Ducal mansion' and 'Hotel means Mansion' and 'This is the market place'.
Anyway. After escaping the crowds attending First Mass for a few dozen screaming adolescents (I've decided that organised religion should be considered a hobby, much like fishing or knitting) we head out to Arpaillargues for a picnic on the municipal lawn. Which is very nice. We've brought bananas and baguettes (for banana sandwiches, natch), some fougasse and a couple of strawberry tarts. Which turn out to have strawberry mousse in them instead of crème pattisière, which is, er, interesting. As in, "Interesting but I don't think I'll order that again".
Britnimes, as an organisation, is coming along nicely; there's nascent cliques, gossip and traditional British "I think something about you but I'm not going to tell you to your face what - instead I'll tell everyone else but you". Which will probably get me thrown out, but there you go. I'll expect an anonymous e-mail any day now. But do note, I'm writing this here instead of saying direct to anyone, so surely that's OK?