Wine and Voices Festival, Chateau Roubine

An evening in the sun in a vineyard in the South of France...
How marvellous!

Our stage beyond the dinner alfresco...

Delightful to be invited via our old friend Jean-Marie Gardon, to Chateau Roubine, Lorgues/Draguignan.... a splendid vineyard - excellent rosé wines, natch - half the audience were a large group from AccorHotels & the rest, members of the public & friends of the vineyard from all over Europe... Denmark, Belgium, The Netherlands etc...

...and what a terrific evening; could be said it was a mite hot in white tuxedo/dress gear... but all was well... Thank goodness the show began at 9.00PM, so it was cooler by the end!

We premièred our tea-instruction song in French... and it went very well!  Now we can lecture people in English, French & German on the way to make tea!

We were all given a feast too... all the fun of the fair!

Thank you to La Chatelaine, Valérie Rousselle and George too; wonderful hosts you were.

There was a great deal of lovely art around the place including this fine metallic swordsman!

En Gardon!

Dinner by the Tower

We were honoured to be invited by Sir Tim Rice to entertain him & his colleagues at their summer dinner for the Society of Distinguished Songwriters...

This year the man himself is 'King Sod' as they put it in 'SODS'... and so this evening was all his fault! (Naturally it was sublime.)

View arriving at Friday night's venue... (no-one was sent to the Tower)!

We were performing here (below)... & as you can see, it has quite a history!

I am afraid I cannot tell you who else was there (Apart from Sir TR) otherwise we might have to kill you...

...but suffice to say, it was remarkable to be singing Penny Lane to such a room of celebrated muzos and have them singalong!

The assembled company were gracious in their appreciation.

Delightful evening in the glorious heat of a London Summer (8 days long, as you all know!)

Onwards to the South of France...