Dyddiaur/Deiziataer/Diary/Journal

My tuesday's day off took me in the direction of a pub in Carnoët, easy to say, I've been there before and have been lost once as a passenger, this was the first time as a driver; it was half an hour's journey that eventually took me an hour and a half (to the pub, not to the village). There's a new site there that's been chosen to display a thousand statues of the Breton Saints, most of whom were born in Wales, against all the odds, stiff competition and after a late bid Carnoët won the right to host it permanently. My intention had been to take some photos and then go to the 'Fous Anglais' to taste some home brew. Because of my diabetes I wanted to have a meal before starting out, that meant that that it was already dark and too late by the time that I arrived. My car has been playing up in the last couple of days with starter motor trouble, therefore I was taking a big risk that I could have got stuck anywhere without much chance of starting again. As it happens there's a long hill running past the pub but it's not a very wide road, to be sure of re-starting the car I left it there and walked thirty yards to the bar. I was the only person other than the landlord & lady in the bar at nine o'clock, when the door opened and in walked two gendarmes wanting to know whose car was parked on the road outside and could that person please move it. I explained my predicament, but they insisted that it be moved, I went outside, turned the key and it started straight away, luckily they'd already gone otherwise they might have thought that I was taking the mickey; anyway, luckily I managed to find another slope near the pub just in case and returned to the bar to continue my drinking. The pub is called 'Les Fous', which is a remnant of 'Les Fous Anglais' so called because a young English couple, the wife being pregnant, on a whim bought 'Chez Tante Jeanne' which on contemplating what they had done thought it a rather foolish thing to do. (Years ago in the middle of their tenancy I remember going there with some musician friends who were playing at a traditional Breton dance in their hall, for some reason I began explaining to them that us much as I'm against swearing, Norman culture vis a vis Anglo-Saxons does not apply in a foreign Country e.g. the old English verb 'to make love' is not a swear word in Brittany, it's more of a joke word, but as there's no reasoning with colonizers they asked me to leave; the trouble was that I didn't go there in my car so had to rely on friends dropping everything to bring me back). They sold out after a few years, and four landlords later it is now owned by Don & Tricia; he is Irish born and she is English. They run it as a bar/restaurant and as I intimated earlier he brews his own beer for sale in the pub. Their beer is cask-conditioned with the pumps lined up on the bar, he told me that the hardest part of the brew was naming the beers afterwards. I chose a bitter to begin that reminded me of home, which he named 'Orson', not after the actor, nor because they come from Somerset, which they don't, but after their dog; I followed this up with a pale ale called 'Beyond the Pale' which brought me back to my diabetes because of its sweetness, they also have a stout and one or two others which I didn't really have time for as I was drinking between coffees, one can't be too careful these days, and it was approaching their mid-week closing time of 10 o'clock. No problems driving back, the engine started straight away and I drove back through the village to Poullaouen and back to the house in Plouye.