Peace, Health and Happiness to Family, Friends and anyone visiting Chitchat!
Spent
a good, cosy evening with Martine. We kept going until 1h30 with tasty
food and more than a few bubbles seeing the New Year in twice; first at
midnight in France and then at midnight in UK. Went to bed feeling self
righteous as I even cleared up before going to bed! A good start to
2022, n'est-ce pas?
1st - 7th:New Year, new resolve and the search for a new format to make Chitchat more chat than catalogue. No guarantees though. Every month will feature my friend James's calendar which I receive every year and I'll try to give you more of a flavour of life.
With no tradition of sales or important sporting events, (just the occasional dip in the sea), New Year's Day was a quiet time. The weather was fabulous and with an afternoon tea that fell through, I took myself for a walk up the back track, as I call it. Sat in the sun and started to read "The Promise" which I'd received for Christmas. Champagne, foie gras and chocolate on my return started the year with a bit of self indulgence.
As the week progressed continues to dominate the news President Macron is planning to try and force people into being vaccinated. Both here and in UK the new Omnicrom variant is rolling through both populations with more deaths. Also continuing in Uk are more blood boiling revelations about Government chronism and sleaze which leak out daily. And of course, Prince Andrew is trying to wriggle out of the law suit being brought against him. In the village, the Maire has cancelled the usual presentation of his New Year wishes normally involving a long speech followed by drinks and nibbles in front of the population. He has opted instead for a video taking just a couple of minutes and was a sorry lackluster affair. But there's more to life than politics, n'est-ce pas?
Went to the café for coffee a couple of times; once with Nany and Martine and the other with Françoise. Also had coffee and Swedish traditional biscuits at Monica's and two days running had two British couples for Christmas cake and cava. Delia never fails to deliver.
The 6th was the Epiphany so the few decorations that I had scattered around were packed away and lunch at Jacques' inevitably involved a "Galette des Rois" (a frangipane flaky pastry tart). This one was without a ceramic charm in it; maybe Dominique felt we were too grown up to go through the ritual of finding it and wearing a golden paper crown. What a spoilsport!
Apart from the oldies gym, the walk and two treadmill sessions, exercise has been sadly lacking and only one night did I get myself to bed before midnight. Oh, and I've not tried any new recipes either as I had hoped. Better be better organised next week. However, I'm still reading the papers and doing some puzzles. To the online ones that I already do, I've now added "Wordle", the latest craze. Six attempts to find a five letter word. Letters come up green if the letter is right and in the right place; amber if the letter is right but in the wrong place and grey if it's completely wrong. It's a fun and frustrating challenge. Luckily you can only play once a day.
https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/
Weather: Started the week with 22° but by the end, with the onset of the Tramontane wind it dropped to 10°.
31.1.22:
So, here we are at the end of January and my intention to write up Chitchat every week has, as can been seen, fallen by the wayside. Sadly, it's not the only one. Bed before midnight couldn't stand up to various "just one more episode" crime series; haven't cooked a new recipe nor scanned any photos.
I have, however, returned some long overdue invitations.
First up were five of the neighbours. As I've decided that six around the table is the most that I can cope with at one time for a sitdown meal I've was able to divided the neighbours into two groups; those who've been vacinated and those who haven't. Avoids people getting hot under the collar.
The rest of the neighbours included the young couple who run the restaurant: so, no pressure there!
Lunch with friends from Céret started well with the bag with a bottle of wine in it, giving way. Luckily there was a spare in the fridge. Otherwise, all went well. There were plenty of leftovers which meant that I was able to invite Jacques the next day. Also had Nicole round for a simple apéritif dinatoire.
Needless to say, the scales were weighted on the being invited side. There were several meals (5) at Jacques', one at Gérard and Anna's (neighbours) and at Michel's where I was on appetisers.
Can't claim to have provided the olives or air dried duck slices though. Goodness knows how we managed to keep our hands away while waiting for a couple who were very late arriving. Maybe that's why André is looking a bit fed up! An apéritif dinatoire chez Jean and Françoise and an apéritif chez JJ before we went off to Empuriabrave with Dalilia for lunch. Have you noticed how sunny it's been this month?
Lunch
with Michel and Eric after Figueres market was an inside affair in the
restaurant as you'll probably have guessed from the photo in the
background, that was frequented by Dali.
Talking of whom, despite passing over this plaque embedded in the pavemant in Figueres loads of times, none of us had ever noticed it. Just follow them and you'll arrive at the Dali museum. You may be asking as I did what the insect signifies. Apparently, it's an ant and they march in single file and are therefore easy to follow.
Also went to the restaurant in the village with JJ after Dalila had to call off our trip to Gerona and to the Pablo with Martine and Carmen.
Although the treadmill has only seen a small amount of action, I've m&naged to get out and about, too. Walked on three occasions with Jacques going in different directions around the village.
This one took us 1h45 going up and over and back and was all on a quiet back road.
This one took us up and down through the retreat and involved mostly tracks.
And this one was a bit of both.
As well as the trips to Empuriabrava and Figueres, I had a trip to Perpignan with Françoise where to take a break from the shops we had coffee sitting out on the Place de la République. Small things much pleasure.
Having actally written something and not knowing when I'll get back to tapping the keyboard again, I'll do a Sue Grey and post an update to finished later.
Gosh, less than 24 hours later, here I am poised to finish off January. Not that there's anything much to relate ...
A trip to the opthalmologist resulted in leaving with a prescription for distance glasses; at least I'll find it easier to read the subtitles on the tv. A day without an internet connection left me frustrated and smoke in the bedroom left me puzzled as I couldn't find where it was coming from. Could only think it was from outside which turned out to be the case. I'd forgotten that the waterboard were testing smoke flow through the pipes. Hadn't expected it to travel so far. It also entailed a water cut which we hadn't been warned about!
Art, film and "literature" were also on the agenda in January.
There was a Scottish wildlife photo exhibition at the Mairie.
Watched the 2009 film "The Secrets in their Eyes" set in Argentina and apparently superior to the 2015 Nicole Kidman/Julia Roberts/Chitwetel Ejiofor remake round at Jacques and "Passing" which I watched twice chez moi; once with JJ after a quick supper and the other time with Jacques and Geneviève (tea and cake). Both were excellent.
I actually read a real book but there again, I had a vested interest. At long last, I found a copy of this Glasgow crime novel written by one of my previous colleagues. Not only did he borrow people's surnames but he also used some physical descriptions, too. Apparently, some team mates recognised me .... I'm keeping schtum! Published in 1982, it hasn't aged well.
Have kept up my usual activities of: the weekly oldies gym session, some daily puzzles including Wordle over a cuppa, a bit of knitting, the daily papers, plenty of moaning about Boris and his accolytes, a fair bit of screen time and coffee breaks at one or other of the cafés; usually with Françoise though sometimes on my own. Can't complain .... who knows what next month will bring.
