They were due to start at ten but , this being France profonde , the Bastille Day celebrations started twenty minutes late . It seems that the mayor had forgotten his reading glasses and had to go home to get them . Suitably bespectacled he and the little lady in the broad brimmed purple hat were then finally able to process the twenty yards from the town hall to the war memorial . The mayor read out a few , inaudible, patriotic words and the little lady in the purple hat sang the Marseillaise in her slow , almost conversational , Edith Piaf way . Then it was off, in a republican rush , to the village hall for a drink.While the old farmer handed out glasses of armagnac, Madame Bay and the ladies of the village fleuri committee cut up sizeable wedges of their goats cheese , anchovy and courgette quiche . Wilf sat on the village green grinning with happiness . More than the occasional, surreptitous, morsel came his way . Through it all he had that bon viveurs ' tell me another ' look on his face . A sure sign that he thought this was all arranged for his benefit . PON's know the truth in the old saying : ' Self is the only prison that can ever bind the soul ".
