30/37 - Where's the Guillotine?

Wednesday July 14th

Joyeux quatorze Juillet! It’s Bastille Day - the French National holiday….as big here as July 4th is to Americans. Ever since I knew we were taking this trip - this has been the day I looked forward to most. Not to celebrate Bastille Day is tantamount to treason and punishable by the guillotine. The plan has always been to go into Avignon ( yep…the same Avignon of “Sur Le pont D’Avignon”. There will be fireworks and music and confetti and a full dance orchestre beside the river with an enormous area for dancing. Could anything be more more special than dancing under the stars on a hot night in celebration of a country’s freedom. Magic - something to last a lifetime.

The sisters beg off going…it will be too much for them. I make all the appropriate noises but secretly I am glad they have decided not to come. We spend a lovely morning in Uzes and, after Tony glues himself to the Tour de France, we have an early dinner of French tart with Onions, smoked bacon and Crème Fraiche….kind of a cross between a quiche and a pizza. Tony and I discovered it in Alsace on our last trip. Cheap and wonderfully tasty. Then I ask what time we are going - and Beloved acts as if this is the first time he has heard anything about this - despite the many months we have discussed it. He stars to give reasons why it’s a bad idea. Traffic, drunks, no parking, an expensive hire car, the festivities don’t start till late. All of them are valid and I don’t give a shit about any of them. The truth is, he doesn’t care what I want…he just doesn’t want to go. English decorum means we don’t fight in front of the ladies - so he sulks and I seethe. We sit on the terrace and make small-talk with the sisters…not easy as one is very deaf and the other relates every experience to her time with her husband - but even they wonder why we are not going out to celebrate as planned. Our neighbour Robert calls up to us…The celebrations in Uzes start at 10.30 and there is a big firework display. I can’t argue with Tony when he says fireworks are the same anywhere and Sydney has the best in the world. I can’t explain that the girl inside wants to dance and be held in the moonlight. I wish I didn’t still feel like I’m 25. I wish I knew how to temper passion for everything into something more age appropriate. I wish I didn’t feel cheated, and betrayed, and used. I cry myself to sleep, because I know the chance will never come again and although it is a small thing in the greater scheme of things, it was important to ME! My husband has two distinct personalities, one of which I love more than life. The other man, the stranger sleeping next to me, is a selfish son of a bitch!