Bona Fide

Yesterday may be the most perfectly beautiful day I've ever seen in France.

Problem is, I only saw it for a few minutes while we packed up the van to drive to Holland.

I'm sad to be travelling this weekend, when they're having this big festival in a nearby village. It happens once every seven years, and the whole place is covered with flowers, flags and greenery. A thousand people in old-fashioned garb will walk through the streets.

Les Ostensions, it's called. I kept wondering what it meant, it sounds so much like osteoparosis. And that's not far off - it is literally a bone festival.

They carry the "real" bones of saints around for every one to marvel at.

When I was a girl in Catholic school I would have killed to be in close proximity to anything having to do with saints and martyrs. They tantalized us with all this spooky stuff when we'd drift off and look bored in class.

My school was St. Winifred and hers was one of the most outrageous stories of all - when she spurned the advances of a knight he cut off her head and because she was so pure the head reattached itself to her body. Each time we entered the church for mass, there was a statue of Winifred with a very visible scar around her throat. We'd even go hang around the statue during recess, because one time someone swore they saw it move.

So how disappointing that I'm going to miss some bona fide saint action, going on right down the street.