BIG BIRTHDAY PARTY

Thank you so much dear friends far and near for your most welcome birthday wishes.

 My party at a local pub on the seventh of August was excellent. I forbade the most boring song ever invented (Happy Birthday) and instead conducted everyone to sing along with me (in French) the much more appropriate Je Ne Regrette Rien made famous by Edith Piaf.

Whatever age you reach on your next birthday, I suggest that you do likewise, sing JNRR, as a choir, with feeling, and you might find that any left-over regrets vanish like smoke.

I didn't take a single photo but others did and a whole album of terrific ones of the whole party, taken by my friend Habie Schwartz, have been posted of her Facebook page as well as mine. If you're not on FB or can't connect to it, I'll try to post at least some of the pics here later.

JE NE REGRETTE RIEN  Lyrics by Michel Vaucaire (translated by moi).  Music by Charles Dumont

No, absolutely nothing
I regret nothing
Not the good
Not the bad
It's all the same to me.

No, absolutely nothing
I regret nothing
It's  paid for
Swept away
Forgotten
Don't give a damn about the past.

With all my souvenirs
I lit a blazing bonfire
All those pains, those pleasures
Don't need them anymore

Swept away my loves
With all their trremolos
Swept them away forever
I'm starting from scratch.

No, absolutely nothing
I regret nothing.
My life, my joys
From now on
It all starts with you.