Commemorations in our village

It was warm today, 20 degrees in the sunshine, which was good as we were standing outside at the Remembrance service by the Mairie.
Due to the random French timing of such events, it started at 11.55am and lots of local schoolchildren took part, saying 'mort pour la France' after each name from the monument was read out. Mr F was to take part, reading out some names, but one of the others read the wrong bit, and confused the children! Then all the other old soldiers stood in the wrong place while our hairdresser's husband was getting a general service medal. Mr F was quite amused as not ten minutes earlier the mayor had briefed them all where he wanted them to stand!
There was also a little lesson about the monument, about the fact that it is made of Belgian granite, used to have a fence around it, and about how much money each of the former mayors of the time had donated to build it!
Afterwards we all went to a friend's house for roast beef and rhubarb crumble.