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…
