Last night, for the first time, I attended the annual Yule Log festivities in the Safranier. The BH had been there on previous occasions, but events had always conspired to keep me away. This time we were with friends: Gérard, Olga, Michel.
The very active comité du quartier of this whacky comune libre, aided and abetted by master baker Veziano (with father Xmas hat and rolled up sleeves) and master patissier Cottard, had produced a sumptuous log roughly 21 feet in length. But length isn't everything: the diameter of the log was about ten times normal. I found this out to my cost when roped in with four others to carry a short section on a board to the cutting tables. It was like carrying a bier already loaded with a corpulent corpse! Lifeboat first aid practice stood me in good stead, and the patient was not tipped onto the ground.
The amount of cake was simply mind-boggling. This being France, though, the challenge of scoffing the lot was quickly taken up, and at the end not even crumbs were to be seen. The steady stream of steaming mulled wine may have had something to do with it.
The cutting and candle-lighting ceremony was celebrated by ZéZé, the madcap 'burgermeister' of the comune libre, dressed in probably purloined full religious vestments, humbly assisted by the real mayor, who is a government minister (and from the religious right). This topsy-turvy, slightly anticlerical situation was to everybody's taste, especially the mayor's, as he loves getting back to his home patch and roots and having a good laugh.
The atmosphere, which began festively, became steadily more bacchanalian, with impromptu singing in Italian and affectionately rude insults traded in Antibes patois. Huge fun was had by all.
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