Sitting directly across from me – with her watchful mother à côté – at the long celebratory birthday dining table in the common room was three year old Leni-Rose. It wasn’t her birthday – it was Hélène’s 80th – but the child’s native curiosity overcame me. I succumbed to the delight of appreciating a young and obviously capable child as she launched unhindered into the social atmosphere with her sparkling eyes, rich hair and porcelain skin. Meanwhile Leni-Rose eyed me with a mixture of interest and suspicion. I won’t pretend that our conversation was penetrating. But we touched upon her partly eaten cupcake with its alluring icing; and, with the help of her mother, exchanged our names.  Leni-Rose quickly surmounted any barriers.

The entire afternoon birthday party for Hélène was of a similar unedited and responsive fraternity. Serendipitously I met a chap in the music production business who knows a fellow in our hometown of like professional application. Punctuating the festivities was an unscheduled announcement and welcome by Sébastien whom I have, as a result of his complimentary delivery, labelled the “Prime Minister”. Both he and his younger sister Camille have followed in the successful entrepreneurial footsteps of their mother Sylvie who only recently has retired from employment – and I suspect she is rejoicing to have done so.

Because there was a grand piano within reach I naturally took the time to remind myself why I no longer play.  Nonetheless the interlude was cathartic.  Indeed both of us – that is, my partner Denis and I – withdrew from the rambling merrymaking after almost two hours with a collective satisfied disposition.