Quote of the day

The general lunch conversation centered on how frightened or uncomfortable one felt being in certain capital cities. Jan piped in with, "I feel far more uncomfortable in London than I used to feel before." When pressed as to why, she said, "Marks and Spencer don't seem to stock my size anymore." Bless.

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One of our Christmas turkeys was frozen and brought with care, and much trepidation, all the way from England to France, inside an insulated box strapped to the top of a camper van. The constant worry was that it would defrost and be unusable. Well, have no fear, the journey down was very cold, with freezing overnight temperatures, and the turkey arrived in one, wholesome, frozen piece. So far, so good. Now it was Jan's turn. Said turkey, so lovingly cared for over a cold three day journey, was handed over to Jan for the next stage of the process. Jan poured even more tender loving care, stuffing it and basting it, and then promptly forgetting about it, until it burnt to a dark brown crisp. With the exception of my beloved, we all thought that this was hilarious, but unfortunately Jan's now convinced that she's losing it. I don't suppose it helped that I took her out for a drink in Quissac whilst it was in the oven. Anyway, the moral of the story: buy a cooked chicken from the market stall in Sommieres. Works every time! (So what's wrong with a French turkey? - Ed.) What's wrong with a French turkey I hear you say? Well according to Jan, they're generally too small, with the largest seeming to weigh in at about 4 kilos. I'm sure we ate far less than this on Christmas day, but what do I know?

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Today is not a holiday in France, so we took one of the guests for an ultrasound scan to check on the progress of her baby (don't ask why). Everything was fine but it took up the best part of the morning. We returned via our neighbour's house to put some radiators on, in anticipation of their arrival this afternoon. It transpires that they still only have a small electricity supply (about 30 amps), from the days when they had builders, so the main fuse kept blowing when we turned everything on. By a combination of leaving some rads on and some rads off we managed to get some heat into the house, but why is everything so not straightforward? Later in the afternoon I went and lit a fire, nothing to blow there then? Except of course lots of smoke!