Busy again today in our Salon de The in Fontevraud l'abbaye and everyone seemed to love the food and leave excellent tips so that is good.

Haven't heard from the Maire about our roof, but am hopeful that we might get some assistance from the commune.  Of course others in the past had said that the commune does give grants for this kind of work, but until Regine our Maire came round and said that the commune might be able to help I just had not thought of this.  I think that it might 50%, but imagine how that would help us!

Folks keep coming in wanting to buy cotton peaked hats/caps.. My son Jay just kindly sold one of his Lee Cooper caps to a young South American woman.  I thought that it would be too matcho for her, but she seemed made up with it!  We sold it for 10 euros so obviously we would not want to pay a lot for the caps in the first place but clearly we need to be looking out for them as I swear over the past month or so lots of tourists have come in looking to buy hats!! I thought about ordering some plain ones on line and then richly embroidering the name Fontevraud l'abbaye on the tip in royal colours such as gold or cobalt blue, but not sure whether I am up to that on the sewing front...I used to do lots of embroidering when our son was  young such as embroidering his little smocks etc, but haven't done it for years..
The song Whiskey Bar by the Doors just came on the radio (from the local radio station broadcast from Saumur) with its lines of needing to go to a great Whiskey Bar and then he goes on to say he needs to find a Little Girl or else he will die.  I wondered if those lines would be permitted or considered appropriate at all in the UK now that all of this scandal has come out about the 70s and 80s and the inappropriate behaviour of certain celebs such as Rolf Harris towards young people.and how our very perceptions of those times - our times have changed....I went onto YTube and discovered that although the song is performed and presented on line, that particular verse about needing to find a little girl is now omitted.  It is also known as The Alabama Song. Then I discovered that the song was actually based on a poem by Bertolt Brecht, written in 1925 and in 1928 was set to music by Kurt Weill.  Interesting contexts for the presentation of the song anyway from post first world war Germany to the pop cultural times of the 60s and the door and also David Bowie who also performed the song...What I do find interesting is how context is all and how once we might have accepted something as it is stated in its pure state, but when it is coloured by certain events we no longer find it per se..or do we?  Actually I often find that some of the American and British tunes come on to the radio here in France and I think whey hey could I hear this in the UK without some kind of censorship? Often the songs are  full of expletives and controversial lyrics that probably would not be broadcast in the UK at the present time.  I suppose this is France and not everyone who plays the lists or listens to the radio necessarily understand those lyrics or the context...  I have heard some people say well hang on a minute things were different in the 70s and 80 or even the 20s and 30s..but were they really? 

When I was young girl growing up in the 60/70s it was all quite strict really and not that I condone that but I sometimes wonder who really benefited from the so called 'swinging sixties'?  Perhaps I was too young at the time for most of it I was at Primary school, but even in 70s when I was at college in Maidstone in Kent with an arts college connected to my own alma mata of technology  I am not so sure that I felt that free...I was always conscious of friends who 'got pregnant' or those who actually were clearly being abused and taken advantage of under the guise of drink and drugs.  I think that maybe I felt more sexually inhibited by the 70s then I would have done at any other time in history and I speak from a point of view of someone who has always enjoyed sex.  Of course there was 'the pill', but in a way it was a double edged sword I think that made our boy friends think that we could be freer then perhaps we ever wanted to be.  Of course in 1970 I had read the Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer, but I am not sure that I then understood it fully I just knew that I was myself and I did not want to be 'taken for a ride'.  I had always had this image of the girl on the bike in the village and how it was said that either behind the bike shed or on her travels she was taken advantage of in a way I never wanted to be.  My sympathies in fact were always with her, and not the boys who took advantage of her.  I recall being on the swings at one point in the part outside my house in Dunton Green with a girl called Jasmine who told me that unlike myself she had had 'more boyfriends then hot dinners' and then she went on to get pregnant at 15 and had a child and I was grateful in fact that I was not the one with the myriad of boyfriends.  In fact it was not for want of trying and I did have lots of offers, but in retrospect I am happy that I was as I was and not how Jasmine was.  Maybe today she is happier then I have ever been, but I just did not want to go down that road.

Must dash now as I need to order a Fridge Freezer whilst the sales are still on as we urgently need one.  We've gone without one for a year now and really it has been tricky.  It's amazing what you can do without however when you have to.  Of course we do have two fridges so that has helped, but have not been able to serve ice cream.

Bye or now T. xx