So Christmas has been and gone in a blur of activity and
celebration. I feel guilty that I never found the time to wish you all a Happy
Christmas and post the usual photos. Well, I hope it was a good one for you, it
was good for us.
We downed tools on the decoration and restoring of our house to
normal in order to dash back to the UK for Christmas and New Year. We got all
of the preparation for the festivities done in seven days. I wrote the
Christmas cards and got them in the post on day one then started to think about
food and presents. It was a bit of a rush job but it was ok and nobody seemed
to notice. We had a nice time.
Our intention was to spend a couple of months in the UK to be near
to my father in the worst months of winter, returning to France at the end of
February. Fortunately winter has turned out to be very mild so far and our part
of the north has escaped the horrors of the flooding that has ruined many
Christmases elsewhere. We are so grateful for that and our hearts go out the
the people who have had such an awful time of it.
An unexpected turn of events frees us to return to France much sooner than we thought. My father is spending the next month with a friend who lives where the winters are much kinder and they rarely have any snow. As he therefore doesn’t need us here, we are dashing back to France to carry on where we left off with the work.
Nick will be the advance party and will be able to paint the new staircase while there is no risk of dog or cat leaving paw prints in the varnish. I will follow on with the dog and cat later when their trampling up and down won’t matter.
In the next week we have a lot to do, fitting in all the appointments and catching up with friends. But if we can get the work finished in the first dark and dismal months of the year, we’re hoping that come the spring we will be able, at last, to just get on with living our lives rather than spending much of it up a ladder or in a DIY shop, or simply dashing about. With any luck I might even have time to blog about it in a more regular and orderly fashion.
So I wish you all a
VERY HAPPY, HEALTHY AND PEACEFUL NEW YEAR.
