Boxing Day

The French don't have Boxing Day. The day after Christmas is just a normal day - back to work. I think a Boxing Day is essential for recovering from the day before - the French are definitely missing out. Luckily my ED granted us the 26th off but Jules had to take it off as annual leave. We arrived at St. André at lunch time. I think it was 10 degrees in the kitchen even though I had switched on the heating using my mobile about 24 hours before. So up went the heat on the boiler and on went the Godin.

It seems as though Father Christmas knows that Agnès has two houses as she shouted down from her bedroom that there were two presents on her bed. One was a fleecy poncho (very clever Father Christmas) and the other was a small Paddington Bear in a suitcase which she was thrilled to receive.

Paddington

Better than watching TV

The afternoon was spent sorting more of the kitchen out and then relaxing, either watching the footy (Jules), making violins (Agnès) or adult colouring in (me).

Chilling out but keeping warm on Boxing Day

Kitchen with new Nespresso machine from Grandma and Grampa

On Saturday after breakfast we decided to go out for a bit to get some fresh air. We drove to Taizé to see the nativity scene. It had been chucking it down all morning so we managed to go at a time when there was a break. It was very windy when we got out at Taizé and the nativity was not as great as I though it would be - usually they also have live animals but they were not there that day. We had a quick look round the pottery shop and then went on to Cluny.

Nativity at Taizé

After popping into Briconautes and Carrefour the rain started to come down again and it was almost snow. We decided to go to Le Pain sur la Table for some healthy lunch and it was a good one. Jules and Agnès had pork stew and I had a mixed plate with houmous, herb tart, potato fritter and salad. Then Agnès had the usual fondant au chocolat and Jules had a delicious chocolate and date tart whilst I had cherry clafoutis which, as I found out in the first bite, had the stones in - luckily I have quite strong teeth.

After lunch we went back to the house which was warming up nicely, in fact by the evening we had got up to 17 degrees in the kitchen and 19 degrees in the downstairs bedroom. The warmest room of the house, however, is the bathroom which gets very cosy.

I had seen on the weather forecast that there had been a lot of snow back in Peron so I was a bit anxious about the drive back on Sunday. In the morning there was a slight flurry in St. André but really not much and so after breakfast we packed up and started back at around 10h30. In fact the drive was fine - the motorways had been salted and ploughed. There were more people on the road than usual heading towards the ski stations. The worst part was arriving back home and having to dig out a parking space in front of the house as there had been around 10cms of snow.

So long as it is not very snowy or artic temperatures we will pop over for a night when Mum and Dad are here in two weeks time.

St. André church in the snow