The smoke rose up from Cécile’s ‘hidden’ cigarette, curling towards the ceiling of the bar, adding a further coat of yellow covering to the years of tobacco infused paint. Despite more than ten years of public prohibition, Cécile and her partner, Alain waged a campaign to preserve the old ways. Or maybe they were just addicted and there were things to do. After all, if they had to go outside to smoke they’d never actually get any bar keeping done.
‘Chez Alain’, their village bar, provided a reminder of how things used to be. Go there during the short but cold Minervois winter and as well as arriving to a very warm welcome you will be assured of leaving with a throaty phlegmy cough. Need to clear your chest? Alain’s is the best medicine.
Although the Minervois is still dotted with a decreasing number of village cafés, Alain’s is probably the last to provide this level of customer service. Despite a rebellious, even seditious tradition, most of the bars have succumbed to the rule of law. Smoking outside on the pavement is still de rigour of course. However, inside fuming is generally off the behavioural repertoire.
Nonetheless, there is more to Alain’s bar than a smoky interior. Alain designed his village watering hole to be a sport’s bar. Alain himself is heavily involved in the local village rugby club and his TV shows all manner of sports games, rugby in preference but plenty of football when international and European club championships are underway. The local, mainly male, clientele prop up the bar on these occasions, shouting Gallic encouragement as their favoured players succeed or fail at their chosen sport. In the winter, the tougher of the village population of younger women gather to smoke their ways through packets of cheap cigarettes whilst the occasional worker pops in for an early morning Ricard, that quintessential French aniseed infused spirit. It would be a bit of a stretch to describe Alain’s Bar as family orientated. No yummy mummies here.
In Alain’s mind, the perfect environment in which to watch the big game is to be bathed in a riotous colour scheme of bright green and vermillion. If the game proves to be tedious, in Alain’s Bar you actually can watch the paint peel without fear of boredom.
From ancient China to Roman Empire, there’s levitra professional canada no lack of tips and tricks for penis growth. You can get viagra online get your regular prescriptions filled. Newer forms of chemotherapy are being get cialis developed and tested research centers throughout the world. So you can enjoy the exotic buy generic cialis flavors of the drug so as to avoid complications of overdose or side effects. Sadly, the paint is indeed peeling at a rather remarkable rate. Alain came to bar keeping rather late in life after – so doubtful and unconfirmed rumours go – a career in the police force. How else to explain, other than through prior law enforcement connections, the survival of Alain’s now unique establishment? On one memorable occasion, a representative of the local Gendarmerie popped in. The assembled multitude hastily stubbed their cigarettes out and looked apprehensively at Alain, fearful that he was about to be reprimanded for his flagrant flaunting of the law. With classic French insouciance, the Gendarme leaned against the wall, took out a packet of Gauloise cigarettes and calmly lit one up. The clientele breathed, and coughed, again.
But time, and Alain, are getting on a bit. He and Cécile are trying to sell the place. If they succeed it is unlikely their carefully constructed piece of living history will survive as is. All over the Minervois the lure of the €8 plât du jour and €12 menu du jour is proving less attractive to locals and tourists alike than the more pricey and – let’s face it – more upmarket French restaurants and auberges. Village cafés are either closing, reducing their opening hours or being turned into fancy restaurants. With their closure comes a diminishing of village life, hearts being ripped out of communities, the foci of local gossip disappearing.
But for now Alain and Cécile survive and it was to Alain’s bar that we navigated. The hasty conversation with Jeannette had hatched a plan for her to leave our keys behind Alain’s bar. As we wandered down the village street Alain spied us coming and greeted as long lost friends, suspecting rightly that his income was about to see a boost. For we love Alain’s bar. We love the cock-a-snoopery, the industrial fizzy beer, the cold red wine and the never changing menu. We love the early morning coffees, the breakfasts we buy from the local boulangerie and eat at his tables, and the nights watching Champions League football. We love how Alain will search through his endless television channels for particular football matches we are interested in seeing on his huge TV. If we could save his business singlehandedly we most certainly would.
Right now, however, we were after another prize. Alain fished in a drawer, shifted aside a messy bundle of receipts and other bar keeping paraphernalia, reached to the rear and came up with a white paper envelope with ‘Dave and Anne’ written on it. Even the misspelling of Ann’s name could not dampen her enthusiasm. For there, in Alain’s hands, was our prize. The keys to the house. Les Clés de la Maison
