By the canal

The alarm was set for just after seven, but I woke at 6:30 worrying about the election :-/ This is not new, I've been worrying about it for months. We went to vote on the way out of the village, and then I dropped S off in Lézignan to meet his walking pals before T and I went off to choir practice, which kept us happily occupied all day without thinking about politics. 

Picked S up in the late afternoon, back home, and then off out again for book group (Station Eleven). That was a nice distraction too, although K gave us a couple of updates during the evening via her phone. Ouf, was the general sentiment. You don't have to be a fan of Macron to be relieved that you aren't faced with a choice of, say, Fillon/Le Pen. That said, I do find it alarming that the presence of the extreme right in the second round is taken as read, and has been for months. The morning after the first round of the presidential election in 2002, people were out on the streets in their thousands protesting against Le Pen père, and held their noses to vote massively for Chirac in the second round. Not so this time; I'm frankly disgusted by impeccably left-wing friends (who voted for Mélenchon) saying they will abstain, as if Macron is as bad as Le Pen. If the worst happens they will have to take their share of the blame.