🎶Wherever I lay my hat, that’s my home🎶

After our trip home at the beginning of November, we gathered our new home around us and wriggled around to make it fit.   Am I too old for so much wriggling?    So much ”new”?   Well, we have settled in.   The expensive heating and variable internet connection have caused me some frustration. And yet  Gary seems to have become totally French,  in that any problem that happens along is met with a raising of shoulders to ears and a long “pfffff”.   Sang froid personified!

But I do keep trying,  bloggee chums.   We’ve put flower boxes on the verandah and have Christmas trees and lights.

🎶  It’s beginning to look a lot like🎶 ….. home.

Front of house:

our square:

Back of house

Living room:

dining room and kitchen;

One of the bedrooms:

After our long drive back from the U.K. we’ve mainly kept to local outings and events, from which, even in winter, there are many to choose.

Thanksgiving dinner in a Chateau near Pezenas:

Warmer than it looks!

A Cracker Fair in the Abbaye de Valmagne.   Mulled port, mince pies, and lots of things to buy in a stunning location.    Colder than it looks on this occasion.

I

A strange fellow in red looking a little suspicious.

And why oh why did I think that the French in this area were very poor on Christmas Decoration?   I don’t know.   Perhaps those in charge read last year’s  blog and decided to prove me wrong.   They most certainly have.

Gaz and I went to Montpellier last week.  What absolute joy.

Though the temperature was around 22 degrees and there were high blue skies, the atmosphere was giggly tummy Christmassy.  There was an amazing Christmas market, with everything to excite both adults and children alike, decorations throughout the town of the highest quality and unique design.   After four hours of walking through both the old and newish town areas, a light Korean lunch (I know, I know.   No wine though) we had still not seen all that the town offered of festive cheer.   A really lovely day.   Not one Christmas present bought though.

And, of course, the people :

And on the way home, beautiful skies and storks on streetlamps

A couple of days later , we visited the most beautiful olive domaine: Pradines le Bas at Corneilhan, just outside Beziers.   I never would have believed what different tastes and quality there was in olive oil.   A charming young woman, Corinne, knew all there was to know about olives and Gaz and I spent a very happy hour there.   The owner is also an avid art collector and the grounds were scattered with interesting  sculptures and above the olive press is an impressive art gallery.

And in the past few weeks the vines (nature’s time piece in these parts) have gone from a can-can of glorious colour

to one last pirouette

…. and in a week’s time we will have been in this beautiful area for a year.

We celebrated with a beef and stout lunch back at the Sarabande vineyard, scene of so many happy summer evenings.  The grapes we picked in the summer have been barrelled and sold to pay for Christmas for Paul and Isla.   So much hard work for this young couple.   They not only produce wine, but experiment with beer, gin, port and absinthe.   All palatable, some exceptionally so.   Like vignerons of old, they use the land and their crop to make whatever money they can to keep their family safe,  warm and well fed.

And as Bassie and her friends prepare generously donated Christmas presents, food and entertainment for nearly seventy children of refugees, we remember and are grateful for all we have and all that we have been able to achieve.

You will be aware of the massive surge of dissatisfaction in France and protestors (known as the Gilets Jaunes or yellow jackets) taking to the streets preventing the free flow of traffic.   We have suffered nothing compared with Paris but they have been at the roundabout to our local supermarket for three weeks now.  They slow down the traffic and have prevented some supermarket deliveries but generally are polite and smiley.

This weekend they have stepped up the civil disobedience and are barricading airports.   We are fervently hoping this will not prevent us from coming home for Christmas in two weeks’ time.

Shall I continue the blog for the next year?     I don’t know, but, if that year proves as exciting and life affirming as this then maybe, once in a while ….

As Tiny Tim said “Merry  Christmas to  us all,   God Bless us everyone” and Jumbo Jan and Gorgeous Gaz say:  “ We wish  you all a happy, healthy and hopeful New Year”