mns  2006-12-29 15:54   

I am living in the year 64 A.R. (Anno Ronini – pronounced to rhyme with Anno Domini.)

Our ‘New Year’ was celebrated in November, on the 25th to be precise. This came about because our friend, Ron Tacchi (well known in bridge playing circles as the World Bridge Federation photographer), was unable to host his regular New Year’s Eve bash on the traditional date, due to force majeur. Being the man he is, Ron simply formulated a new calendar – the Rononian Calendar.

The Rononian calendar is, as yet anyway, little known. It is based upon a year of 47 weeks of 7 days each, and boasts a subtle numerology consisting solely of prime numbers – 11 months, each being of either 3 or 5 weeks. There are four three-week months and seven five-week months, a reference in itself to the 47 week year.

And so it came to pass that on the day before the day before our ‘New Year’, Renaissance Man (JC) and I commenced our journey towards Vaupillon (a tiny village between Chartres and Le Mans, south west of Paris), sampling the rush hour delights of the Eurostar Waterloo terminal en route. Last year our French let us down and we became grounded in Gare Montparnasse not realising that Paris was snowed in and the trains were not running. We had transferred from the Gare du Nord by Metro and had no concept of the prevailing weather conditions. This year we had a somewhat smoother run.

One of the advantages, you might think, of having a younger partner (and yes, Renaissance man falls into that category) is that he will stay awake when you nod off.
Not so.
We both fell into something akin to a coma once we were on the train, and it was by complete chance that I woke a couple of hours later, to find the previously full compartment empty, JC out for the count, and the train pulling into our station.
Fortuitous? Yes. But also a quirkily providential instinct that I occasionally possess for timing. So, some nine hours after leaving home our train arrived at La Loupe and the festivities began.

Our party consisted of the Tacchis (our hosts, photographer and artist respectively), Bernie and Carolyn Jones (English emigrants now settled in France not far from Vaupillon), Anna Gudge and Mark Newton (both of ECats fame in the world of bridge), and JC and me.

The morning of New Year’s Eve dawned, a crisp bright day, and we set off for the local market on what has become an annual treat. It’s one of those exhilarating French markets where everything imaginable is available. From denizens of the deep to the wildest of game, the stalls are replete. Cheeses and vegetables abound. We completed the shopping for our celebratory dinner and then repaired to our now regular local for coffee and pick-me-ups.

Nothing can surpass being among friends, feeling safe, being comfortable – and for me, with the nightmare of the last year’s divorce and the endless sense of betrayal hopefully now behind me, there was a feeling of great comfort and relaxation. Sipping coffee, talking, planning, remembering a last-minute item to be bought from the stalls outside the café (garlic), nipping back out to the cold clean air, returning to the warmth, the air of expectancy about the evening, another coffee on the table, and the knowledge we had all travelled to be at this place for this event – a New Year unique to ourselves.

All of this was magical.

At seven-thirty the table was laid and the combatants (as Ron Tacchi refers to us) were gathered. We began with champagne and amuse bouches, lovingly prepared by our host. The menu that followed was truly unsurpassable. His Roquefort and walnut soufflé rose with aplomb, his lemongrass and pomegranate sorbet tingled on the palate, the pheasant cooked in two different ways with a port and cassis jus, the cheese board, the assortiment des desserts – and each course with its own carefully selected wine – what can I say? It was the most wonderful dinner.

And so the midnight hour approached and the crackers were pulled, the jokes read out, and the hats put on our heads. Mark had somehow persuaded the computer to chime like Big Ben on the hour, and at the stroke of twelve we popped our party poppers and sang Auld Lang Syne, and the year of Our Ron 64 had begun.

It may seem unbelievable, but I had never popped a party popper in my life before, and I popped it the wrong way. It exploded into my hand where little bits of plastic could be seen nestling in my skin. Serendipitously, the quantity of wine that I had imbibed acted as an effective analgesic, and I remained pain-free for several days, but not without puzzlement that a popper would explode from the base. Why aren’t they designed to open like the bottles they represent in miniature – from the top? The rest of the combatants found all of this very amusing. Sometime in the early hours we abandoned the debris and crawled to our beds.

But the party was not over – we simply continued on the next day.

There is something wonderfully exciting about the Tacchi’s home. It is an old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere with a studio where Jane paints. (Think Jean de Florette and you have the picture.) The only noise is from a donkey in a nearby field that brays whenever anyone approaches. The garden is full of Jane’s art with ceramic owls up in the trees, and a stork in their pond and birds, both real and handmade, hiding in the rafters. Their kitchen displays the produce of the vegetable garden with chillies drying, and herbs in abundance, and always the smell of fresh coffee. At night the real owls can be heard hooting and the bats gather in clusters in the dusk.

We left two days later, making our rather tired way back to Paris by train, then from the Gare Montparnasse to the Gare du Nord and on to the Eurostar and back to London.

If there is a drawback about a 47-week year, it is that one ages rather faster than if you abide by the Gregorian calendar; so the women in the party agreed that we would birthday in the Gregorian manner but celebrate the New Year in the Rononian. Renaissance man seems to think we should age in the Rononian calendar because then people would say we were looking increasingly good for our years. But I’m not so sure about that.

However, the definite advantage of the Rononian calendar is quite clearly that we only have to wait forty-seven weeks to do it all again. Next year it will be in October. I can't wait.