Joyeux Noel!

We were expecting to celebrate 'le Réveillon' with our neighbour Christine yesterday evening. But she knocked on the door at 21.45 with the promised bottle of Champagne and a yule log only to say that she was utterly exhausted, having been up since 05.30, worked for most of the day and was due up again at 05.30 on Christmas Morning (she works in the health service doing home visits)!! She was heading straight to bed, so we promised to keep the Champagne until she can come round at the weekend, relax and enjoy it.

Christmas Day dawned bright and clear.... unlike my head (and Andy's too). Somehow we managed to consume rather too much wine yesterday evening. But all the same, I was keen to have an outing on the skis as I have never skiied on Christmas Day before. By the time we got our act together and left the house, it was midday and the clear blue skies were being greedily gobbled up in front of our eyes by an ominous bank of cloud which was building rapidly. The temperature guage in the car indicated 6 degrees as we approached Guzet and the idea of spending 4 hours skiing churned up mushy snow on busy pistes somehow did not appeal. So we returned to the house and had foie gras on little toasts followed by mince pies for lunch and then oysters mid afternoon. Mmm. The venison is back on top of the woodburner and we will be tucking into our main dinner later on this evening.

Bon appetit :-)