Two pub ex-colleagues (Fanny and Eloise) who’ve moved back to France came over to do a short course in English in mid-September. We arranged to meet up for a meal and drinks at the new branch where I now work. At one point, a regular customer walked past our table to go to the loo, with a pained look on his face, so I asked him what was wrong. He said he’d just fallen from his bicycle and landed on his arm, so I said, “When you come back from the loo, I’ll fix it for you.”
Fanny said, “Oh, my sister-in-law is also into massage. She’d love to meet you.” Unfortunately, she lives in France, in the Toulouse area. I asked, “Whereabouts is it?” She said the name, but I didn’t catch all of the French, so I asked her to write it out. When I saw “Saint-Antonin Noble Val”, a bell rang in my head.
Only a couple of months ago, I’d watched a DVD called The Hundred Yard Journey, featuring Helen Mirren as a Michelin-starred restaurant owner in a small French village, who then had an Indian family moving into the village and setting up an Indian restaurant opposite her. The film did not mention the name of the village, but it looked a bit like the setting around the big house on the outskirts of the French farm village that I used to go to, bought over by someone who then turned it into a restaurant and partying venue. I googled the film, and found that the village was Saint-Antonin Noble Val. Just that once, and it stuck in my brain screen. What a small world.
(London, 2017)
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