Open Mic Night

H - Stuck on the kitchen door at the Maison we have a large summer calendar to plan all the things we’re doing each day, remember important dates and the like. For the past few weeks Friday 30^th of July has been marked with ‘OPEN MIC NIGHT’...

We were all keen to go to the monthly Open Mic Night and rumours began to fly around about various members of the house performing. Marjolijn and Emma promised us a Spice Girls routine, Sarah whipped out some serious clarinet skills one evening and Oliver toyed with the idea of singing Let It Be...

So we rocked up to Jegun, about a half hour drive away, and were greeted by what Andy succinctly described as his true “expat hell”. Jegun itself is actually one of the nicest small French villages we have visited, (quite an accolade as we’ve seen hundreds). In the centre is a small “Chambre d’Hote”, which is basically a B&B, run by a friendly Irish man. This guy is as camp as Christmas and looks like a leprechaun. The fact that he serves Guiness and Boddingtons (in a can – cringe) at the bar has caused him to become a magnet to all manner of Brits, looking for a taste of home. As a result, the Open Mic Night that he runs there consists of a motley crew of UK musicians who ‘just missed out on the big time’.

That being said, we had a great night. Eric, an old dude from Grimsby in a tie-dye T shirt, basically a hero in my eyes, was MC for the evening. Hogging the microphone, cracking (awful) jokes and speaking in downright shocking French he was quite the character. The performances included Eric with his missus doing some jazzy numbers, a French lady screeching some 80s shockers and a couple being extremely creative with their use of a tin tea tray as a percussion instrument.

In the end, Andy was the only one of our gang who took to the stage. He performed two songs; ‘She Moves in Her Own Way’ by The Kooks, and ‘Crossed Fingers’ by Laura Marling and was brilliant. He did us all proud and won over the audience with his stage presence, musical talent and dazzling good looks. Well, two out of the three anyway.

H xxx

PS – We also found out that Terry Wogan has a house in the area. The hunt is on...