I hope you all had a good New Year’s Eve and that the Monday Blues aren’t too crushing. I’m writing this under a very grey and miserable sky. Our incredible run of mild and pleasant weather came to a crashing end along with the year, and since then it’s been colder and has rained pretty much constantly. Having already endured all the upsets of Christmas and New Year, the cats are taking the change in the weather with very bad grace. They’re alternating between fighting, irritating us, and sleeping for days at a time. Little do they know the worst is just around the corner! Yes, they’re due to be abandoned as we’re off to the UK on Wednesday this week for a triple-whammy of celebrations. My brother’s birthday was yesterday, Mum’s got a big one on the 6th, and we’ll also do a late Christmas when we’re there. I can almost hear my already-traumatised liver whimpering in anticipation.
Like most people, we’ve both been back to work today. I’ve had one of my many ‘on-hold’ clients come out of the woodwork (appropriately enough, given that he is a wood worker) and so have been putting the finishing touches to his new site. Matt’s spent the day swearing at his Open Office software, which can only mean he’s been dealing with his quarterly invoicing and other admin. Knowing there’s only another day and then we’re back to party mode certainly does make the return to normality more palatable, I must say…
Ok, there’s really not much else to recount barring, of course, New Year’s Eve – so I shall do just that. This was at Nat & Jill’s house. Or more specifically, in the largest of their three gites. In attendance was a pleasing mix of English and French, including our habitual partners in crime, Lee and Richard and Bryan & Carol. The boys came to ours a little beforehand for a cheeky primer or two and we got to the ladies’ place a little after 8. They’d done a great job with preparations and thanks to some of the guests, had a full mixing table, disco lights and even a drum kit! Jill had made a vat of chilli and everyone else bought along something too so there was a wealth of food to go around. And drink too, for that matter.
Things were beginning to get a little hazy for me around midnight, which I think is about when the vodka ran out and we switched to drinking champagne. Out of half-pint glasses… At some time in the early hours, Matt fell victim to a bout of hiccups that seemed to last well over an hour. He finally got rid of them, but this was at the expense of his meal, which decided it no longer wanted to remain eaten. The numbers of guests had well and truly dwindled by this point and even the ladies left us too it and retired. At somewhere around 4.30am, the last of us limped off to bed and passed out.
We awoke the next day around 11 and came right back home to lick our wounds. We tried tea, weed, soup and eggs, none of which helped. Matt ended up going back to bed for a while but I soldiered through, feeling gradually worse throughout the day. That night we slept for something like 11 hours straight but I’m pleased to say we re-emerged the next day quite functional.
This was fortunate as we had our first social event of the year that evening. We were invited to the nearby town of La Coquille where our friend from Musique en Herbe, Ghislaine, is about to open a restaurant. She’d invited along family and friends for a cocktail dinatoire – canapés and punch – as a sort of avant-première. She’s in fine form and understandably very excited to open officially. She’s a big foodie and a great cook, to which we can attest. It was also nice to see a few members of Musique en Herbe who were there. This included Alain Astier who runs the association. From him, I got confirmation that the group are indeed signed up for 3 concerts in the space of a month this summer – something I’m very unimpressed about. I’m glad we’ve still got a bit more time off before our next rehearsal with them as I’m not looking forward to going back.
We’ve had one other social activity this year too. We went to see Lucien and Mauricette yesterday to belatedly give them their xmas pressie and wish them a happy New Year. We were going to go in the afternoon but then Matt pointed out that this could lead to us being offered numerous aperitifs, so we decided to go in the morning instead. This was lucky as it turned out they had afternoon plans, but the plan backfired. Upon greeting us, Lucien declared it to be close enough to lunch for a drink. So, we stayed and chatted for a while, sipping pre-Noon rum punches.
Ok, I think that’s about all the news I have to share with you on the year to date. A bientôt.