Jill booked us tickets a year in advance for a gala perfomance of Les Miserables in Montreuil, Nomandy. Gerry drove us on a brand new motorway in his prize BMW playing REM full blast with the windows rolled down. We were locked out of the Hotel du Chateau on our first night after a magnificent dinner and had to stagger round the edge of the ramparts in pitch dark after midnight calling for help before finally being let in by another guest. Jill ordered steak tartare on the second day and was appalled by the raw egg staring back at her from a plate of raw mince. On the third night, the night of the show, we ate at a local restaurant highly recommended by our landlady but everyone in town had got there first so we had a long wait. Five bottles of wine and some rather unexpected spare ribs later we staggered off to the show. It was not Les Mis as we knew it. It was an interminable son el lumiere starring the entire town population. No music. No singing. No dancing. Jill leant on my shoulder, closed her eyes and audibly groaned: ‘Make them stop’. Afterwards a reporter interviewed Jill for the local paper and we all posed for a photo with the mayor and lady mayoress who towered a good two inches above Gerry. We were celebrities. The trip concluded with a highly successful visit to the Wine Society shop which necessitated Aidan and myself sharing the back seat with several crates of wine all the way home. 

so many memories, so many laughs, so much fun.