Festive excess

Christmas morning dawned cold, dark and white: about 2cm of snow on the ground. Excuse to stay in the warm and devote the day to cooking and overeating. La petite oie was stuffed at both ends (forcemeat, apple & prunes), and by mid afternoon so were we: prawn & salmon, roast goose & stuffing, braised red cabbage, roast potato & parsnip, plum pudding. And a bit of wine & bubbly: zero to fourteen percent. A magnetic game attracted amusement and repelled logic.

Boxing Sunday, a gesture towards working off some of the excess was shortened by the biting Mistral, blowing down the Rhône valley. Wind chill turned -2 into -10 and encouraged an about turn a couple of bridges downstream. Back in the warm we feasted on leftovers. Monday, la bienheureuse passed on her cold, and took la belle-mère to get some more exercise by shopping in the warm of an indoor arcade, leaving me to welcome a plumber grumpy about doing a job for a third of his initial quote. Took him three hours too. Ho ho ho.

Meanwhile I nursed le rhume to full fury and fretted over the evening angst to come. The closure of the Wallace for the holidays prompted a late attempt to gain permission to watch the match chez the absent voisins whose key we possess. Permission only arrived after the event, but all was right on the night: sufficient internet streams found to witness most of the triumph against the blue enemy.

This morning, the alarm rudely interrupted a succession of lie-ins. Monthly checkup number eight beckoned. Sixty minutes after the appointed hour, the wise woman finally checked la bienheureuse and bump, pronounced all well apart from slightly elevated blood pressure, and frowned sternly when a skiing holiday a month before term was mentioned. She didn't say no, though…

Preparations

Most of the week seems to have been about getting ready for one thing and another. Tidying the house to welcome la belle-mère; finally getting a faulty cable TV box replaced; provisions shopping for the feast day; accepting more hand-me-downs, and attending more medical rendezvous in preparation for the big B-day. With a bit of football thrown in at the side.

Sunday evening we were invited to the neighbours again to watch le grand choque, l'Olympico as they've taken to calling it: Olympique de Marseille contre Olympique Lyonnais. La bienheureuse pleaded tiredness, leaving me to enjoy a couple of beers with the boys. And Babe the Unblog & babes. First half goal for the away team, things were looking good for les gones, but OM equalised and the resulting drawn left neither team happy. Another 1-1 draw on Wednesday night, witnessed in person at a Gerland basking in double figure temperatures. This time the away team, Auxerre, was rather happier with the result.

Third trimester echographie on Tuesday, all looking good apart from too much swimming water; Wednesday, a lesson in relaxation chez la sage-femme. Thursday la belle-mère arrived and we immediately dragged her out in the pouring rain to les Halles. Result of the shopping expedition: a 3kg goose, salmon and prawns. Mouth already watering in anticipation of an over-indulgent Christmas meal.

Today the weather is trying to get into the mood, by swirling a few snow flurries our way. Not sticking though, due to ground super-heated by 16 degree temperatures on Wednesday. See-saw winter.

Cancelled out

The big freeze duly put paid to my Friday evening flight to Stansted, though it wasn't entirely clear why. There was a heavy snow shower while I travelled to the airport, and an inch or two on the ground there, but most other flights seemed to get away fine. I suspect the budget airlines would rather cough up refunds and subject their staff to irate passengers than risk getting their aircraft stuck in the wrong places. After vainly spending 3 uninformed hours at the airport I was as irate as the next passenger (though not as angry as some Marrakech holidaymakers whose flight was eventually cancelled nearly 5 hours after it was due to depart), but 12 hours later curses turned to thanks when the match at the holy ground was postponed less than 3 hours before kickoff. Merci, le grand froid britannique.

I've thus been able to spend a relaxing and lazy weekend chez moi watching ma bien-aimée put up Christmas decorations. The apartment has also suddenly filled up with enough tiny items of clothing to dress triplets, thanks to some exceedingly generous neighbours. Also taking up space is a cot, which they suddenly wanted us to take off their hands because newly acquired bunk beds took up far more space in their kids' room than expected. This after attending our first prenatal session on Friday morning. The coming event has abruptly become more tangible…

Fire and ice

The long cold winter continues, but the Fêtes des Lumières is over for another year. Slightly muted event this year but still some impressive displays - the projections on a water spray in Place de la Rèpublique and the beautifully lit Bartholdi fountain in Place des Terreaux among the highlights. The fiery display in Parc de la Tête d'Or was also good, but it was the one place where the policy of avoiding crowd bottlenecks failed. We turned up at the same time as several thousand other people early on Saturday evening, and joined the crush trying to get in through one small gate. Getting out was even worse, despite the main gate being open by then. The complete lack of crowd control meant there was a logjam between the entrance and exit flows. Fortunately we extricated ourselves and extra bump without too much alarm…

Click here for more Lumières

After a morning visit to a new 'British èpicerie' (pretty well, and relatively inexpensively stocked with normally unobtainable staple items such as Marmite & philadelphia cheese), la bienheureuse spent last Sunday baking cakes - flapjack, lemon tart, figgy cake. Alas, not all for me, but for work colleagues to eat in celebration of her birthday (joyeux anniversaries, ma bien-aimée). Strange custom, but  she left enough at home to keep me happy for a week. When not eating, I've spent most of the last few days on traditional pursuits for the time of year - sorting out the heating, and improving our TV viewing experience. Finally decided to upgrade our cable TV subscription to take advantage of HD and a hard disk recorder. All installed fine, lovely picture, but impossible to record anything. Thus I was back in the shop yesterday attempting to exchange the decoder when I received a phone call from Monsieur le Chauffagiste, who had arrived chez moi 45 minutes early.

Not at all what one expects from a plumber, but in other respects he lived up to the stereotype perfectly. He was there to fix a pressure leak in the boiler, but I'd earlier asked him for a quote to put in a heating thermostat/programmer: 450 Euros. Beaucoup trop cher, I thought, and promptly found a suitable device on ebay, brand new for 60 euros. Phoned him again for another quote: 300 euros. Still too expensive by my book, so I figured out how to attach the thing to the boiler myself and told him as much when he was here yesterday. "You can't do that," he says. "Yes I can," I says I, "unless you want to do it for 100 euros."
He wouldn't bite but negotiations eventually concluded with a deal for 150 euros. Cash of course. Still seems steep to me, but it means I don't have to do the scrabbling around, drilling holes, running wires up and down and through walls, etc, etc…

The rest of the week has been unremarkable, save another disappointing trip to the pub on Monday night. 11 without a win in games that really matter, and still counting. Boys must become men eventually, surely…
Perhaps I'll get a clue on Saturday when I return to the sacred stadium to witness the battle against the high ball bombs of the Potters. Weather permitting, that is. Up to 10 centimetres of snow forecast here overnight. Brr…

Up and down

Life's a yo-yo, driven by the weather. Daytime maximum temperatures over the last week: -2 on Friday, 12 on Monday, 18 on Wednesday, 2 on Thursday. I missed the warmest 8th December on record in Lyon with a bit of up and down of my own. After watching a yo-yo match at Gerland on a balmy Tuesday evening (1-0 up, 2-1 down, one man down, 2-2 the final score, second place in the group), up in a plane from St Exupéry the next morning, down at Gatwick where it was about 15 degrees colder. London was suitably chilly for a stroll through the 'Winter Wonderland' in Hyde Park, followed by a wander through Kensington Gardens looking at strange reflective stainless steel sculptures.

Thence up to Finsbury Park to deliver shock news to the McBhoy and meet le grand chef in the Marquess. Three pints and a burger later we were in the holy ground watching a lacklustre passage to the knockout phases of the champions league. A Spanish or German giant awaits. We can only get better... Can't we?

After a morning chez J&C locked in financial negotiations, I headed home to more freezing temperatures. The football trip had been rather poorly conceived in that I missed the 8th décembre Fêtes des Lumières celebrations for the first time in 9 years, leaving la bienheureuse to view the bougies and fireworks on her own. So I got home, wolfed down soup and Christmas cake and then I left her in bed while I went out for a quick late night viewing of my own. First impressions this year are that the lights are somewhat lower key than usual. Perhaps partly a concession to la crise, perhaps partly an attempt to avoid the crowd crushes and bottlenecks that have been a feature of the big set piece displays in recent years. Photos to follow…

Mild returns

Negative daytime temperatures and a further couple of centimetres of snow on Friday gave way to seasonal norms two days later - this morning, rain is falling and the thermometer is due to reach double figures. It stayed dry enough for a pair of promenades over the weekend. Saturday we caught the tram up to the Christmas market and walked home through town via a teeming department store, while yesterday we slipped and slid across melting snow in the park to the garden centre in search of a Christmas tree stand. The failure to find anything suitable gave a sum shopping total for the weekend - two picnic lunches, a calendar and a bulb of garlic. Only 19 days left…

Outside the cosy confines of home, the nation mourns the failure of its tennismen to lift the Davis Cup, while general indifference greeted the Wikileaks cables portrayal of Sarkozy as the most thin-skinned, erratic, hyperactive, authoritarian and pro-American French emperor with no clothes since the second world war. No point in getting excited about something we knew already.

All white, all right

The snow finally arrived in Lyon yesterday lunchtime. By evening there was a covering of ten centimetres on the ground, and by this morning it was twenty. Predictably the city has more or less ground to a halt. Hardly any traffic on the roads, all buses and a third of flights cancelled. Even la bienheureuse didn't risk the icy pavements and worked from home. Fortunately it was yesterday she had her first appointment with the sage femme up on the Croix Rousse plateau. Both patients checked out fine, tiny heart beating strongly. Twelve weeks to go...