Down time!

After all the anticipation and hype of Christmas doesn't it sometimes feel that you put in all that work and energy and then blink and it's over! Well I guess technically it isn't all over because we've still got New Year's to come but since I never go anywhere on New Year's, it's actually over for me. In fact I really enjoy snuggling down on the sofa on the 31st with a good book or a good movie and just drinking in the peace and quiet - well in my house at least. My new neighbours forewarned me that they would be having people over on the 31st and "they might be a bit noisy", so I told them to knock themselves out as I never go to bed much before 3 a.m. anyway (I like to stay up to watch the fireworks in London). But to be honest, I'm usually glad when it's all over and things can get back to normal!

Mind you, that's not to say we didn't have a good time over Christmas. On Christmas Eve we went to Jordan and Jen's (it's easier for them to put Elynn to bed) and snacked on smoked salmon, pâté de foie gras, olives, cheese and so on and had a really nice relaxed time. I never stay very late as I'm sure they're pretty tired and in any case I want to get back and make a few last minute preparations for the next day when everyone comes to my house. Driving back from their place the road follows the river Giffre through a smallish valley where you really have to be careful about the wildlife so I take it easy. Then there's a couple of km on the flat before starting up a winding forestry road to my village - again watching out for deer and boar! I'd gotten up to the village of St. Laurent and was back on the flat again when all of a sudden I spotted the most magnificent stag standing in a field just off the road!!!! I've seen loads of deer and been hit by a family of wild boar, but thank god this beauty was just standing still because if he'd run at me I'd probably have ended up like an olive on a toothpick - those antlers looked deadly! But I was sooooo pleased that I spotted him - it felt a bit like Santa had sent out an advance posse - he was just stunning!

I'd gone shopping on the Monday before Christmas and while I spent a small fortune I'd let my store credit points build up over most of the year so €65 came off the top of the bill and it wasn't too bad in the end. I'd made amuses-bouches (little cheesy pastries) with blinis and pâté I bought in the Périgord. I'd also prepared oven-baked rice (from An Oregon Cottage website - she's brilliant) and Delia Smith's black bean salsa, while Jen's mom bought salmon en papillote followed by my friend's wonderful individual cheesecakes (a Facebook recipe - I must look for it), so while there was more than enough food (Jen took home the leftover salsa), for once we didn't go crazy. Elynn was starting to get a bit stroppy by the end although that's not surprising as she'd missed her nap, but when Jordan told her off for deliberately throwing things on the floor she started batting her eyelashes at him (she must have just learned that) and I had to walk back into the kitchen for a good laugh! Ain't it great being a grandparent because while you should never undermine the parents, by god that was funny!

André and Melissa seem to still be going strong, although it is still very early days as yet. He's great with her kids as he knew them anyway, and as long as they're both happy and enjoy each other's company, long may it last!

After the "presentation" that we went to the other day for our local travel company, Monique (the new lady president of the old fogies club) asked my friend and I if we'd like to go for a drink afterwards, so we stopped in town and wandered round the Christmas market before having a drink in one of the bars on the main square. Monique's husband was 16 years older than her and died some time ago (I'm guessing she's nearly 80) and I had kinda imagined a sweet little old couple separated only by death. Well it turns out not a bit of it as he had apparently cheated on her pretty much from the get-go!!!! When I mentioned my neighbour and her finding a telephone number in her husband's suit pocket and tracking it down through the telephone book, she burst out laughing because she'd done the same thing and found the address of his latest fling the same way. So one night when she reckoned he was heading out to meet the girlfriend, she showed up at a bar just outside the woman's house and "accidentally" bumped into them. He was furious and oddly enough was incredibly jealous of her! Mind you, I don't think "oddly enough" is the right expression here because my ex was jealous and thought I was going off to be with my lover every Saturday because "you take far too long to do the grocery shopping"! Rules for thee and not for me, I guess. Anyway, she was a hoot and it confirms yet again how so many of these older ladies can be hilarious (and probably why I enjoy my solos trips so much)!

I've probably spent about 12 hours over the holidays working on the books for the St. Pierre club. That's not to say they were in a mess (not at all), but trying to go over everything and understand the reasoning for why things were done as they were (pretty sound reasoning at that). But I'm setting up my own excel tables and getting much more of a feel for it, although I'm still incredibly grateful that the secretary lasted only three weeks and that Martine, the previous treasurer, is now back as secretary. She and Monique are little dynamos and I think together we'll make a good team, along with help from other committee members who are always willing to pitch in even if they don't have defined roles. Mind you, I nearly had a coronary the other day when the bank left a voicemail message for me, words to the effect that she had "all these lists and no cheques"????? I'd just dropped off almost €5,000 worth of cheques in connection with the Christmas lunch and she couldn't find any cheques???? Well it turns out I'd dropped off the cheques in batches of 10 per envelope with a list detailing the name of the bank, the name of the signatory and the amount, but whoever had credited the cheques to the account hadn't thrown the lists away after checking them so I'd had a call from one of the supervisors. Thank goodness that got sorted out quickly!

I saw on the news that Citroen were possibly thinking about bringing back the old Citroen Diane 2CV car and since I'll be looking into buying a new car in the not too distant future I was really thrilled. I have always loved these cars (a bit like the old Renault IV) and in fact there used to be one further up the valley from here that was bright yellow with a black pistol painted on the side and "007" underneath. Those things seemed to last forever, even if they did lean when you went round corners and while I'm not sure it would be the most practical of cars for my needs I was disappointed to hear that Citroen have seemingly decided against it! It's a shame as I'm sure they would have done a roaring trade in such an iconic "statement" car - although what statement I'd be making remains to be seen!

The window flaps used to open
upwards and it would lean when
you went round a bend - I just
loved this car!

Since it's colder here I've been trying to watch a few films on Netflix but I'm not having much luck. I watched Taken and while I love Liam Neeson it really was a load of ol' codswallop with him being "special forces" who singlle-handedly tracks down his trafficked daughter to Paris and takes out an entire legion of Albanian people traffickers with a sling shot and a whoopee cushion (okay, I made that bit up). The stunt driving was amazing but I'd give the film about 3/10 for entertainment. Then I struggled over an entire week to watch Frankenstein and while the special effects were amazing and the acting good, I again had a hard time with all the flying wolves and invincible monsters. Maybe it's just the wrong genre for me. After that I snored my way through Dead Poets Society and was really disappointed because I'd heard it was good and love Robin Williams in anything, but nope, even though it was a different genre I could barely keep my eyes open. So then I started watching Goodwill Hunting and finally realized that this was probably the Robin Williams film I'd been thinking of when I started watching Dead Poets Society. I'm happy to say that this is much, much better (even though I haven't finished it yet - I can never sit through a film in one go) and again I love Robin Williams so I'm pleased that I've finally discovered something I like. I do remember him in a serious role in Photo Booth (I think that's the name of the film) and he was excellent as the creepy incel-type guy who developed people's pictures at the local store. That one was definitely worth watching. Ultimately I guess it's more likely a case of me being difficult to please rather than films not being particularly good, but it'd be nice if I could find another film/series to start watching over new year!

My tally for walking this year has been pretty abysmal, topping out at just 700 miles, so I'm hoping to get right back into it in the new year. I'm also in the mood to cook right now so want to experiment more, plus declutter, so I've got things to be going on with at the moment. I also have a list as long as my arm of trips that I would like to do in 2026 and while I know realistically that I can probably only do maybe two, it's fun looking to see what fits timewise and financially.

Then today I was watching someone on Youtube and I got to wondering if it would be fun to set up a Youtube channel. Well technically I actually do have a channel because one time I was struggling to post a video on here (of cows with their cowbells at the back of my house) so I inadvertently made a Youtube channel of my own where there is just one 30 second video on it. Strangely enough it got four "likes" so maybe there is the making of a new Youtube superstar somewhere in my future! I was thinking about it because I really would like to film some of the places round here or that I visit on my trips rather than just take photos, and learning how to edit videos might be fun, but ultimately I know I value my privacy far too much to put anything out there that could be so easily accessible to everyone and his donkey, so I think maybe I'll just stick to blogging. Shame really, as I think it might have been an interesting challenge!

So with all that being said, I'll sign off for 2025 and wish you all a happy and healthy 2026. See you next year!

Time off for good behaviour!

Today I finally had a day where I didn't have an appointment to be somewhere at a specific time - or anywhere in fact - and it was great! I got so much done and recharged after a hectic few weeks which saw me taking some time away from the internet, so apologies for not commenting on some of your blogs for a while!

Monday was our last yoga lesson until the new year so she decided to lead us in a yoga nidra session, i.e. guided meditation. I like the physical side of yoga but find meditation boring, probably because I'm a little heathen and spend the time making shopping lists in my head instead. But this time I tried really hard to go along with it and didn't move at all for the entire 50 minutes. I was praying I wouldn't have a coughing fit but managed to hold that off until the end and while it didn't do anything for me, one of the older ladies was shocked to find herself in tears at the end of it. I guess you have to take the parts you like and let go of the rest but I'll be glad to get back to the physical exercises in January!

Monday night was also our last sewing session of the year where we all cooked something and had dinner together instead. It was nice to meet the new group that we were able to set up for an earlier session and I'm happy to see that that group is also now full! I finally completed a couple of quilts I'd wanted to make for Charlie and Elynn and while they don't look much in the photos, I'm very pleased with them.

This one also reads "Elynn" but
you can't see it in the photo - not that
she'll mind because she can't read either!

We bought a huge plant as a gift for our sewing teacher but she cracked me up as she was leaving with it. She's very tiny (well vertically anyway) and had a santa hat on, and when she picked our gift up to walk back to the car she looked like a mobile plant pot!

As I was taking stuff up to the compost bin at the top of my garden I heard the young kids next door playing outside and when I spoke to my former neighbour the other Saturday I told her how nice it was to hear kids laughing in "her" garden again. She told me before she left that when she looked at that front door for the last time she felt absolutely nothing so in the end I think she really did the right thing for her by selling up and moving back to the west coast. I've spoken to her twice since she left and it's taken longer than she thought to get the renovations completed and her kitchen installed. She said she was living on salads at the moment and almost cried the other day when she fished her salad spinner out of a packing box but only came up with the top part! I asked her if she'd gotten one of those whirly-gig washing lines in the garden and when she said yes I answered "problem solved, peg your lettuce to that and get running"! We ended up laughing so much I think it did both of us a lot of good. She also told me the elderly widow opposite was another Brit and now she (my neighbour) is offering to run this recent widow around and they've been stopping in for coffee together a couple of times a week. I'm so, so happy for her because while I thought she might be making a terrible mistake at first, now I don't think she has at all and can hopefully be happy for however many years she has left!

I kept the kids the other Friday night for Jordan and Jen to go on their first ever date without the kids and they were really easy to look after so I know Jen was relieved. Then I had them both again on the Wednesday but by this time Elynn had come down with "hand, foot and mouth" and Charlie had a stinking cold, so guess who spent half of last week fighting off the lurgy instead of enjoying myself at the old fogies' Christmas lunch! Yeah me, but when I started coughing I fished out my trusty oregano oil and within about an hour it was much relieved, came back again about three hours later, and was gone completely by the next morning after another swig before going to bed. It really does seem to work for me! I know not everything works for everyone, but one of the younger ladies at sewing club was telling me that she has Reynaud's disease and gets terrible pain in her hands and feet from the cold. I forget now what she said she'd stumbled across but whichever essential oil it was, something had finally started working for her after so many years of suffering! I always think "give it a shot" and who knows, it just might work!

Then on the Saturday we had Charlie's school Christmas service at the local church (followed by mulled wine - the best bit) and while the kids did really well they had a new African priest conducting the service and while he brought a beaming smile and great energy to the whole thing, those of us sitting at the back couldn't hear a word he was saying. So I said something to André about Mr. Bean and we both cracked up because he knew exactly what I was referring to!

This Saturday I and seemingly a million others was invited to a presentation of their 2026 catalogue by GAL, the local bus company my friend and I have done so many trips with. Monique (our new lady president) was also invited and while we were expecting more of a presentation (it was too crowded for that), they'd laid on quite a spread and their new catalogue has me drooling like a kid in a sweety shop! My sister just got back from a long weekend at a Christmas market in Prague and while they don't have Prague on the list for next year I'm already drooling about the prospect of Sardinia, Lake Garda, the scenic Swiss railway trip and - and here I think they must have been listening to their customers - Christmas (well early December) visiting the Châteaux de la Loire!!!! I'm gonna have to take a good look at my finances because I'm not sure I can afford India too in spring, but at least I'll have something to drool over once Christmas has come and gone!

GAL did their presentation at the local
golf club in the grounds of the Château in Esery.
Perfect weather and lots of potential trips
to drool over!

This and that (again)!

Things are pretty busy here again at the moment, but then I guess most people are busy in the run up to Christmas (except possibly Anne in Alabam, who's been preparing for Christmas since January)!!!! Along with all the usual commitments and get togethers we've got our old fogies Christmas lunch next week and so far I've got over 100 participants on my list. We struggled to get the invites out and even though I dropped them off at the Post Office eight days ago I still haven't received mine - and I only live about five km away! Now I expect you're wondering why we just don't hand them out at card club (that was one of my first questions too) but I was told that many people get all huffy because "not everyone attends card club so some people get theirs before others"! Yikes! So then I asked why we didn't just email them out to those that used email - and got the same response because "not everyone uses email either"! Oh dear, I bet you can see where this is going, can't you. Then when we finally got all our envelopes printed and stamped (about 150 of them) Roger came over and handed us two envelopes saying "there was nothing in them". Apparently he'd taken them last week when we were getting everything ready but before the invites had been printed so of course there was nothing in the envelopes! I have no idea why I didn't just pull my own out of the pile anyway, all the more so since I haven't actually received it yet (as I mentioned above) but I'm thinking we seriously have to review the way we handle this and those that complain, well they'll just have to complain won't they! The joys of dealing with older people (although I'm sure some younger people can be a pain in the @rse too)!

Then there was a bit of a "to do" between Marie-Rose (the new secretary) and Roger who got into an argument about the whole thing and who then snapped at Monique (the new president) for interrupting them!!! Now the French are, generally speaking, highly strung (not all of them of course but the stereotype exists for a reason), but to be honest it just makes me laugh because it's like watching a Laurel and Hardy film sometimes. I then found out that many years ago the previous president (Viviane) had been talking behind the new president's back insinuating that she'd had her hand in the till and that that was why Monique quit 15 years ago - all because Viviane wanted her job as president apparently! When Monique told me this I told her I wouldn't have let that go unchallenged because I hate being accused of something I haven't done and I definitely wouldn't stand for being accused of having sticky fingers! She didn't take it any further at the time - she just quit - but I suppose her best revenge is now taking back the presidency and Viviane not having access to the "inner circle" or the accounts anymore. In fact I've been printing off bank statements and giving them to the committee members as I go along because while I'm sure there is nothing amiss, there is quite a lot of money in the accounts and I want to be totally transparent, as much for my sake as for theirs!

Then the new secretary was telling everyone that she really regretted having volunteered for the position and to be quite honest I'm not sure she's up to it anyway so two of the non-highly strung French ladies from the previous committee invited me and the new president to have coffee together tomorrow in order to try to save this committee. Oh the joys! There's an awful lot of work involved just for my part but I'm beginning to get a feel for it and setting it up in a way that is more logical (to me) and hopefully more transparent. Oh I'm sure we'll get over it because no-one wants the club to fail at this point but to say we're off to a rocky start would be an understatement!

After the Post Office I was dropping some cheques off to the club's account at the bank when I felt a presence behind me. I'm very aware of people around me when I'm at the bank and always take cash out inside the bank, never from an external cash point. Anyway there was a young man standing behind me who asked if I would mind helping him. He told me that he had terrible eyesight and would I mind helping him to print a recent statement from his account. So I had him punch in his pin code and then tapped the key to get him a statement. He asked if I could look at it for him as he was waiting for a deposit and when I realized he really was very, very short-sighted (he had the print-out upside down and had glasses like Coke bottles) I told him that he'd received a deposit of €750 earlier that day. So next he asks if I can help him withdraw €200 and he wanted to know how much he had left, so at this point I took out a pen and paper and wrote in very large numbers the amount he had prior to the withdrawal and how much he had left! He was very grateful and was telling me how difficult life was when you're almost, but not quite, blind! I can believe it and while I admit I was initially nervous having him stand so close behind me, I'm glad I took the time to help him out!

In more drama, Jordan and Jen's immediate neighbours sold their apartment a couple of months ago and bought a run down house down the road which they'd been doing up in order to move into when it's ready. They have a son who is six months older than Charlie and a new baby girl of seven months. Sounds lovely doesn't it, well that was until Jen told me the other week that the husband (although they're not actually married) left her about two months ago (with a toddler, a newborn and a wreck of a house) and is now living with a 20-something year old girl (they're both in their 30s)! What a shit! Anyway, when the twins had their birthday party the other week "the wife" (M) showed up with Jordan and Jen so I just figured they were getting her out the house while the husband had the kids for the weekend. Turns out she really took a shine to my oldest (André) who I have to admit was on fine form that night. He's funny anyway but get a few beers in him and he really is a hoot. So then it turns out that they were going to the cinema together last Friday!!! What the heck!!!! I don't know if that actually happened but he is very clear about not wanting to be tied down so I guess I'll have to wait and find out what, if anything, transpired (I might offer to become his social secretary for a small fee)! She also came to our last board game evening at Jordan and Jen's on Saturday night but André wasn't there as he had a friend coming into town from overseas. Hell, while I'm glad he eventually got over his ex-wife, I'm wondering how he keeps up with his new social calendar right now!

Then the other Sunday the two grandmas were invited along with Charlie and Elynn to visit Papa Noel's hamlet and to meet Papa Noel! It was really well done and since it had snowed the day before it was very pretty even if bitterly cold. Charlie posted his letter and was absolutely in awe so I think we hit the sweet spot with him. Elynn was good but obviously became a bit tired and cranky after a while, but hung on long enough for us to go out to lunch at a very good Chinese restaurant afterwards and have hot chocolate in a local park (I'd made mulled wine for the adults), so all in all it was a great hit!

The elves' workshop!

The elves' kitchen!

I kept Elynn and Charlie the following Wednesday because Elynn came down with the lurgy and while she was very snotty she wasn't too bad (apart from having a face like Rudolph). Then Charlie came down with a temperature and while it was pretty dramatic, after about 48 hours rest he was fit as a fiddle. He made us laugh though because he told his mom that he had seen "the policeman" and he hadn't put him in prison, so Jen explained to him that the policeman doesn't put you in prison unless you've stolen something or killed someone. So he asked her to clarify the bit about killing someone and when she asked why he asked if it counted "if you killed nits" (they'd had an outbreak of headlice at school and he'd just had treatment, just in case)! So no Charlie, while the policeman won't put you in prison for killing nits, everything else is definitely off the table!