Rainy Provence

In late September, 2009, my wife Sheila and I were staying in the Ardeche and on one cloudy day we decided to visit the town of Orange, to the South-East, in Provence. By the time we arrived, it was raining heavily and our visit to the renowned Roman amphitheatre was rather a damp one. We bought two cheap ‘Packamacs’, some postcards, had lunch and then returned to our campsite. Three weeks ago I was idly trolling through our numerous TV cable channels when I paused on an arts channel because a beautiful work by Tchaikovsky (I forget which) was being played by a Russian pianist (Yevgeny ??) The concert was from the Roman amphitheatre in Orange and the rain was pouring heavily down onto the audience. The orchestra and the soloist of course remained dry, under cover. At that moment, my wife walked into the room and I said casually “Look it’s still bl**** raining in Orange”. She turned pale and wordlessly turned over a postcard she was holding in her hand. It was a photograph of the Roman amphitheatre in Orange, a card she has purchased over two years previously and which she had just discovered in a drawer in our study. Mike Overton