Bob and Bordeaux.

Well, yesterday was just like being on holiday in France!

For a start, the sun was shining, (rather too much acksherley as it was over 30º), something it hasn't done much of through May and June while we collected all your rain.
Then we had a Whole Day to Do What We Liked, not had many of them lately either.
And, THen, we sat outside a café and had a beer, then we got on a tram and then we saw Bob Dylan's 'Never-Ending Tour'!

Buying the tickets in April was the first mini-adventure, as the fnac website that details all tours and concerts in France was having problems with its new booking system, so I had to get on the phone, especially as I feared I had already bought 2 tickets twice over on the misbehaving site, and they weren't cheap. There was the usual menu hierarchy to negotiate, press one for information about this... 2 for that... 3 for the other... 4 to query a booking, 5 to make a booking, (Hooray), then, oh botheration, 1 for one sort of booking, 2 for another, 6 to speak to a person who might give-a-damn...

I explain and ask to book, a question rattles back, I ask for consideration and slo-o-owness and am asked, with a barely suppressed sigh, if I'd like to speak 'wiz my colleague Alex who spik English'
Galling.
Especially as Alex and I start in French, and pretty well continue in it until I have got my tickets, so I managed, all it took was a bloke with a bit of patience, who actually wanted over 100€'s worth of my custom. Their safe arrival by registered post a few days was the sign of success.

When you book up for these things months in advance, one shows such a faith, faith in life goes on, in nothing changes, in things will turn out, in Che sera, sera- but I expect it sera what I expect it to be. But Tuesday 29th of June turned out to have my father-in-law in hospital yet again and me just out, after a routine operation- examination.
But a couple of days not doing too much for me, an earlier-than-usual visit to him with a supply of underpinnings essential to his comfort on release, (today) and the rest of the day was ours, all ours! Polly and Nige arrived mid-afternoon and we drove off to Bordeaux.

We have been fussing for a fortnight over this, who would have the dubious pleasure of driving into B and where was this Meriadeck Patinoire anyway and where would we park and should we take a picnic? We are such bumpkins these days, so used to Restaurants taking last orders at 1.00pm and shutting at 2.00pm and not opening again until 7.30, we forgot that in the city things were different and getting a little sustaining something with a glass of vino before 7.00pm would not have been hard!
Paul drove, straight to our favourite car park, ie the one that opened up under our wheels on our very first scary drive into Bordeaux over 6 years ago and that we have used ever since. (Safe, clean, cheap and just, - there,- as you drive along the stupendous waterfront, now a World Heritage site, under the beautiful Bourse building and forecourt. Imagine being able to park under Somerset House on the Embankment easily, for 8 hours, for a few quids.)

A glass elevator lifted us in front of the Bourse, just outside a bar with umbrellas, so we headed for it, each muttering 'level -4, emplacement 031' in the hopes that between us we'd remember where the car was at midnight. A couple of mellowing beers and we were ready for our picnic so we crossed over two tramlines and the road, to the promenade beside the majestic Garonne. There were gardens, with seats, a huge stone clad platform with 6-inch jets of water making an installation on which people paddled happily and strolled through coolly with no elfin safety nonsense and no-one falling over, and lots of vari-coloured plastic cows with fancy titles which are another installation. We picnicked as post-work joggers beat time to their i-pods in the heat.

Right, time to get to Bob. Polly knew how to use the gleaming, purring trams that jingle their way like mini, and slower, bullet-trains around Bordeaux's cobbled streets and eighteenth century buildings. It's that 'buy a ticket outside, use it within a specified time and validate it when you get on', thing, like Italian trains, that I wasn't sure about. But it all worked and Paul and I are tram converts. We got off too soon but found Bob by following 2 people, then 22, then 222 and suddenly there were 2,000 of us waiting to go in.
Biggish place, the Bordeaux skating rink, not an intimate venue, but it held only, maybe, 12, 000? and unfortunately there was no ice, no air conditioning and a lot of hot people. But Bob didn't keep us waiting and there he was; for the third time in my life I've been in the same space as Dylan.
It was a bit 'spot that tune', - the acoustics were not top notch and of course he refuses to play the old stuff in the old way, but by catching the odd line of dialogue we knew we knew quite a lot of the set, Masters of War unrecognisable as heavy metal, Just like a Woman and Rolling Stone really rocked up and no trace of the schmoozy jazzy Cajun vibe (sorry,) of the latest album. Superb band, no flashy laser lights..
The place emptied in civilised fashion, we got on the first tram that arrived and were back on the waterfront at 11.30, strolling along with the crowds.

Here in the Ruralité lights-out is before midnight, the Milky Way glows over the fields and silence reigns. The happy crowds strolling through Bordeaux's warm midnight streets were almost a culture shock. No drunkenness, no swearing, no threat. The children and mothers paddling on the platform were replaced by singing eighteen-year-olds celebrating the end of their Baccalaureate. The café tables were full of smiling chattering couples and groups. I suppose we were older than most - Bordeaux is a big student city - but all generations were there, having a great time together. I would happily walk round this city after dark on my own.

So there we are, my holiday-in-a-day.
This next blog was going to be about the remarkable French Health Service, and why our intimate knowledge of it has led to there still being cardboard on our stairs, but Bordeaux was so much more fun. Meet you there sometime.