It rained in the night. A lot. All night, it felt like. But when morning came, the clouds cleared away and the sun came out.
Today was the pivot of our holiday, the day around which it was built. Our daughter's choir, the London Forest Choir, was joining with Les Petits Chanteurs d'Alsace for a Remembrance Day concert in Strasbourg. So we got up at a reasonable hour, for once, and just as we were finishing breakfast the Daughter contacted us to say there was nowhere to get coffee on a Sunday morning at the concert venue and could she beg some off us? We said of course, but we would be at least half an hour, as we had to use services, etc, but eventually we arrived and gave the poor woman some breakfast in good time to go into the theatre and enjoy the concert.
It kicked off at 11:00 with 2 minutes silence, and then the LFC sang an arrangement of Lawrence Binyon's "For the Fallen", the poem that "They shall grow not old" is taken from. Then the Petits Chanteurs sang a Howard Goodall arrangement of two war poems, one English and one German, and an arrangement of Paul McCartney's "Pipes of peace".
Both choirs joined together for the main event, a performance of Rathbone's "Christmas Truce", which I love and which always makes me cry, even this version in French! There was an encore, Fauré's "Cantique de Jean Racine". A lovely concert.
When it was over, we said goodbye to the Daughter and headed off into the Vosges. We had thought of stopping at Ste-Marie-Les-Mines, but it wasn't very nice so we drive on to St-Dié, ugh we like, and there is a very nice aire, all found for €6, except that the advertised WiFi isn't working* and for some reason the SW can't get any data on his phone. Or couldn't - it has just this second come back!
He has been for his usual walk, and now we are settled for the evening. I'm amused - having brought our good coats specially for the concert, it was too warm to wear them today! Long may it last!
* It did start working a bit later, and we were both able to log on.
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