June 2021
Hello everyone,
A Symphony in Yellow
The lemon-banana-colored hulls of Banana Split are still out of reach in Australia, so we compensated with an abundance of bright yellows, those of the broom trees that line the road leading to our house, and those of the euphorbia cypress or "farmers' rhubarb" that grow in the fields. As for the santolina planted on the edge of the new terrace, we will have to wait a few months for them to grow and cover themselves with yellow balls!
May has been a very active month. First of all, a walk about ten kilometers from the farm to admire the works of artist Rufino Alvarez: this park - still in the process of being created - wants to promote a message of tolerance, in particular thanks to the many works engraved directly in the rock.
And then we had the idea of doing a little ?tour without lectures or gigs? visiting friends along the road to Paris: each of them an exceptional encounter:
Hervé White - who used to run Sylicone studios where for many years we edited our films - and his wife Monique twenty years ago bought two old porcelain mills, a real hamlet on the banks of the Vienne, and continue to make progress in renovating the buildings (roofs: 10,000 m2!); they welcome up to 20 people in their absolutely magnificent gites.
We paid a visit to Christine (well known to those who visited us at the Paris Boat Show, where over the years she helped us run the stand) and her husband Jean-Alain. Their little house on the banks of the Canal du Loing, in a hamlet simply called La Vallée, was quite romantic!
Arnaud De Belinay - who has been in turn sound engineer, chief operator and single-engine pilot during our shootings in the Greater Antilles, in the Mediterranean or in Hawaii - and his wife Marie-Laure have found themselves at the head of a real castle where they organize , weddingswelcoming up to 300 people : Arnaud must be seen at the controls of tractors and shovels in the four corners of this vast domain
After a brief reunion for a lunch in the sun with old friends popular French singers Jean-Jacques Debout and Chantal Goya - 50 years ago, Jean-Jacques proposed to Francette to take her around the world on a sailing boat!
A brief stay in Paris for some interviews, and then we returned to the farm for a surprisingly cold, yet feverish second half of the month, as we completed the two parts - North Island and South Island - of our book on New Zealand; the second part has just gone to proofreading, and we'll have the opportunity to present the book to the Gallimard team this Thursday... we still have to learn how to master a web conferencing application called Teams.
The good weather seems to be back, and all the graphs concerning Covid-19 are going in the right direction, fingers crossed for a happy summer!
On the 4th of June, I celebrate my seventy-seventh birthday, I have a little surprise in store for you... a dancing one!
Kisses to all
Antoine
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