A first!

We went over to Avoine this morning. It's a very smart town about 8K from Chinon. Nuclear power station territory. So a big employer from which Avoine has undoubtedly benefited. It's a noticeably wealthy place, both in its appearance and its cultural programming. Their annual four day festival is on shortly, which attracts some fab artists. Up until now we've managed to get to one or two gigs because time was limited. This time we've been able to sign up for a pass that gets us into everything over the four days. Can't wait. 

Tickets are booked through the Avoine Mairie (Town Hall). I'd reserved two passes and we drove over to collect them. All very efficient. We were chatting away in French to the two girls who look after tickets for everything that's going on in Avoine. They wanted to know if we'd been before, what we'd seen. Then they took our details down again for their database and future mailings.  As always there's never a problem with pronouncing 'Mike'. But that 'H' in Hilary trips people up here every time. It's not easy to say. Comes out as 'eelarreee'. The girl turned to me and apologised for her French pronunciation of my name. Never had that said to me before. As we said to her, things are usually pronounced with a French accent in France which amused them both. And in any case, it sounds great!