Beating myself with a French stick!

On our walk this morning, we stopped to get our Christmas baguette at the baker's in St Rémy. When we came to France 23 years ago, I was shocked to find the baker's open on Christmas day. Nowadays it seems perfectly normal to me. How else could you get your fresh bread for Christmas dinner? Today we got our baguette, and croissants for breakfast tomorrow, and laughed at how our expectations are for everything everywhere to be just the same as here, wherever "here" is. It was good to see the baker's wife, to wish her a Merry Christmas, and breakfast will be very good tomorrow morning too

Shortest day, longest night.

The 21st of December is always referred to as the shortest day, in the northern hemisphere. However, for nocturnal hunters it is the longest night, and a chance to feast. Last night the tawny owls were out early, and calling to each other in the woodland surrounding our house. I was enchanted by their conversation, and happy that they, at least, could take advantage of the long darkness. Bon appetit, my feathered neighbours!

Christmas Trees

Should Christmas trees have themes?  We were asked what the theme of ours was going to be this year. We laughed, as ours never has a theme. We have a collection of baubles, fairies and assorted tree finery, that we bring out every December. Each year we add a new decoration, and we enjoy talking about where and when we got the old ones. If there is a theme, it is nostalgia and family history. The other principle of our tree is that it should not be tasteful, absolutely not. We enjoy the home made decorations made by the kids when they were much younger, and which tend to the tacky, to be honest. We have noticed over the years, that we have lots of fairies, and one or two rather idiosyncratic decorations that were chosen by the kids at some time or other: a dragon, an apple, a ladybird, a rather blowsy mermaid.  I love peeking at other people's trees through windows, and I enjoy all the trees, but I secretly enjoy ours most.