Christmas Wishes and a Belated Pause in Advent

Merry Christmas to you all! We have had a lovely first few days of the holidays, with a flurry of tidying, cooking and dog-walking all culminating in the traditional decoration of our living Christmas tree, fresh in from the garden, to the sounds of Carols from Kings.

 

The poor tree, already battered from living in a pot in the south of France when it is really an inhabitant of northern climes, also has to contend with a large and adventurous kitten this year. Ben had the idea of decorating it with scented things - dried citrus fruit, chillis and star anise, all of which seem to be quite repellant to Wilson the tree-climber. However, we've had one or two close calls with other decorations already... all breakable ones are on the mantelpiece or tucked away for a year.

With relation to my Last Straw post, below, no, Mags, I never came near to my own last straw, but thanks for asking! We divided up the tasks between us - I took on the house tidying and cleaning, the boys committed themselves to checking, sorting and putting up the decorations, and Ben has very nobly stayed in the kitchen for three days producing seasonal and everyday food. Wonderful man!

Have your own, wonderful, Christmas. God bless you all.

The Pilgrim Way to Santiago

In 2011 I found myself by accident on the pilgrim route to Santiago. I snapped this photo of a pilgrim's scallop shell in the little shrine on the back road, which is actually only about 20 minutes' drive from our house.

Just over two years later, we headed quite deliberately to the end of the pilgrimage - Santiago de Compostela itself. You can see my photos of the Baroque frontage of the cathedral in my previous post.

Ben and I paid to go up into the museums which take up some of the rooms around the cathedral, and I snapped this photo of pilgrims and tourists together in the square. You can spot the pilgrims because most of them are lying down! They have had to walk at least 100 kilometers to get there, or cycle 200, and most of them had probably done more. You can see a huge pile of rucsacs in the middle of my photo, with a few pilgrims watching them as their fellows head off - maybe into the cathedral, or maybe into the well-stocked city pharmacies, which advertise a great range of foot-care products!

The sense of arrival must be wonderful. The Catholic pilgrims go to confession and mass, and everyone mills around in the cathedral, which has quite a sense of bustle and awe, probably as it has done for the last thousand years. This photo shows you what you can see there:

But this photo gives you a much better feel of the place!

Whisper, crackle, shuffle, bustle, shhhh, shuffle, bustle... it's a fascinating place.

But when you think that you have come to the end of the pilgrim route, it turns out you are wrong. THIS is the end of the road - the end of the world - Finisterre!

Pilgrims traditionally continued walking until they got to the true end of the road, on the blustery cape of Fisterra, or Finisterre.

There they burnt their pilgrim clothes - Son 2 is investigating the site of a very recent fire, composed mostly of boots, he informed us.

Nowadays, as well as pilgrims and tourists, there is a lighthouse and a radio mast.

The sign says 'Do not leave clothes on this radio mast' in many pilgrim languages...



The town of Fisterra is just tucked into a bay behind the cape. Here the pilgrims stopped in medieval times to pick up the scallop shell which would show the world that they had completed their holy travels. And here Son 2 dived in the cold, cold waters of the Atlantic and found...

Bank Holidays in France

In France, Bank Holidays don't move around to the nearest Monday like they do in the UK. Sometimes, this means they all fall at the weekend, and we get no extra days off.

But sometimes, they fall in the week and we get crazy amounts of time off - hurray! This last week we had VE day (Wednesday 8th May) and Ascension Day (Thursday 9th) - it was a weekend in the middle of the week, and we enjoyed it to the full, despite a bit of rain.

Son 2 and Ben worked together to construct a small hutch for the new guinea pigs. They came with all their accommodation, but we think that the garden they were in before was more sheltered, and we feel happier now that they have a proper bit of 'indoors' to go into at night, when they are in their run on the lawn. They love the new home, and Son 2 is so happy that his work has been appreciated... and it's fantastic for Ben to have shared projects with the boys.

St George's Day on the beach!

Happy Saint George's Day!

We celebrated in England, for once - Ben is back home but the boys and I are staying with his parents in Somerset.

This afternoon the sun was shining and we had a thrilling time making sandcastles on Burnham beach.

The tide came in and the boys were thrilled and horrified in equal measures to see their moats filling up with water!

There is nothing like the sea when you live in the centre of southern France...

A long-promised explanation!

I've been using this interesting image for years for our Pause in Lent posts, and I kept promising and explanation of where I snapped the photo - finally, here's the information!

We were in Saint Génis des Fontaines, which is in the foothills of the Pyrenees near the Med, about four years ago, on an enjoyable camping trip, and Ben and I decided to do a tour of the abbey before taking the boys on to visit the Valley of Tortoises (which is a great place in itself). If you've been on holiday in France, you've probably guessed the rest - we turned up at lunchtime, the place was shut, we looked round the outside while taking some photos and eating sandwiches, and it re-opened at just about the point we were ready to head off and see the tortoises! I'm not complaining - it's good that people respect lunch and break times, it just took us years to learn this habit!

So this photo is of the outside of the abbey. It's the lintel, and is very old and quite well known. You can see some good pictures and read about it in French here. And in more detail, but in Catalan here. What do you mean, you don't read Catalan? ;)

Other than the Catalan question, my question for you is: Do you think this is a good representation of God? Does it work for you? Why or why not? I spent some time wondering if it was the right 'logo' for a Pause in Lent the first time I used it, and now I've got used to it, but I wonder what it 'says' to other people?

Washing clothes with wood ash - the old French way

This really sounds bizarre, doesn't it? First of all, washing clothes with dirty stuff sounds all wrong, and secondly, washing liquids are quite expensive but this one is free if you're prepared to put in the work. I had to give it a try!

Firstly, seive the wood ash and measure its volume. Wear gloves for the whole of this process. Put it with the equivalent volume of cold water into a tub and give it a stir or a shake every now and again, for at least 36 hours.

When it's been sitting for at least 36 hours, put the rubber gloves on again and strain the liquid - the first straining (through old tights in my case) results in a liquid which still has quite a lot of ash in it, so strain it again - I've found that filter paper from the morning's coffee is the only thing that works:

Look at the blue skies reflected in all my containers this afternoon! It's sunny and mild here in the south of France today...

So, my verdict on the suspiciously yellow washing liquid (which is well known in green/thrifty circles in France - I found my recipe here) is that it seems to be working well. The clothes are clean and smell, well, of fabric! You add half a mustard glass of the liquid (lovely French measurement there - think of those small Dijon mustard jars) to your wash, with some bicarb if it's white or white vinegar if the wash is coloured. The actual ingredient you're extracting from your ashes is potassium. Ben's only concern is that this might not be quite so kind to the clothes - neither the budget nor the earth is well-served if we have to go out and buy new clothes sooner. But those who use it swear by it, and so far, so good, with our clothes. Of course, we started with the dog's blankets, just in case...

PS just heard from Lulu Liz, a fantastic soap-making blogger - lye, which soap makers use, is a much more concentrated extract from ashes, and can really burn the skin. This stuff is milder but do remember what I said about gloves, and take other sensible precations...

French Breakfast - Epiphany Style

As I've mentioned every January, just as the rest of the western world is dieting, the French launch into a fantastic range of cakes to celebrate Epiphany - the coming of the Three Kings!

This year, as terms doesn't start again until January 7th, I realised that I'd have time to try out at least one recipe - the Couronne des Rois, which is the southern French equivalent of the Galette des Rois that I made last year. The Couronne is based on a brioche recipe, which I've never tried before. I was stunned at how much butter there is in brioche dough! I used this recipe, and it worked OK, although my fierce oven rather over-cooked the crust. It was nice enough, but my food processor (advised to beat the dough) isn't really up to the job. I think I'll look for a bread machine recipe next year! I also have the puff pasty kit to make a Galette des Rois in the fridge, although I've noticed that they've somehow left out the promised crown and fève - not sure if I can be bothered to go back to complain or not... Son 2 has a great collection from previous years, and I usually 'borrow' his!

Animals at Christmas

It's Christmas in the garden!

The hens are thriving in their new hen run (fence designed by Ben out of old pallet wood, and constructed en famille by all four of us (but mostly by Ben...) Raja is certain that there is a hole in the fence somewhere. Her new life-project is to seek out the gap - she doesn't want to eat the hens, by the way, she wants the kitchen scraps we feed them!

Son 1 and Ben were out in the garden with the Christmas lights last weekend, and decided to include the hens in the festivities. I'll try to get a photo at night time, too.

Just as Raja tries to eat the hen's food, a goat ate my wreath! This was before it got to me - a friend who's a trained florist made it for me and left it near her back door to keep fresh. Whereupon one of her goats ate it... so I have made a reasonable job with ivy from the garden, but I do miss Amy's creation!

A First Pause in Advent - 'Essence'

Welcome to A Pause in Advent 2012, as readers and as ‘pausers’ ! This Pause in Advent is more challenging for me than others I’ve organised, as I’m working close to full time right now and our internet connection decided to desert us last week. I wrote this post on Saturday night and am now (Monday morning) in a McDonald's restaurant near to my next lesson, taking advantage of McDonald's free WiFi (and a diet coke and a salad...) It's been an enormous pleasure to log on and read all the kind and enthusiastic messages you've left me since our internet connection disappeared - my apologies to those who asked questions which I haven't been able to answer yet.

So, having more outside pressures at the moment, I’ve had to think about my priorities for preparing Christmas. What is really essential, and what is just a pleasant trimming? Or, to go with the title of this post, what is the essence of Christmas, and what is merely ‘Christmas-flavoured’?

I teach French people who work in the food industry, and one group had an interesting conversation last week about which ice creams are entitled to a vanilla flower on their packaging. If real vanilla essence is used, the packaging can be illustrated with the vanilla flower. If flavouring which has never seen a vanilla pod is used, then there is no right to use a picture of the flower. (Although unscrupulous producers do use it. No surprise there…)

So there we are – essence (the distilled ‘real thing’) and flavouring (a commercial attempt at copying the real thing).

 

For me, I’ve decided that to distil Christmas preparations down to their essence, I will need to focus on four things. I’ll post about one of those things, each Advent Sunday!

The first part of the essence of Christmas may well be tradition. I love the old traditions and I really enjoy the way that families and other groups quickly create their own traditions – there doesn’t need to be much age behind a tradition to make it significant. I hope that some of the other ‘Pauses’ are going to talk about these traditions, old and new, and I’m really looking forward to learning more about them. But another, very practical, aspect of tradition has really made itself clear to me this year.

I was far too busy teaching English to food producers (and others) to prepare much for Advent this year. So on Friday night I went to the box labelled ‘Advent’ and pulled out:

The Advent Tree made by Ben’s mum when the boys were little.

The Advent Wreath made by Ben from one of our firewood logs two years ago, after we’d burnt a hole in the old fabric wreath in our 'Pause' logo. (I need to add some greenery - I haven't had time yet!)

The Advent Nativity Scene bought by me in the Harrogate Fair Trade Shop about eleven years ago.

If I hadn’t had these trusty, traditional pieces tucked away, we wouldn’t have been ready for Advent. Last year I really enjoyed getting creative and making a fresh Advent wreath. This year I’m delighted to be revisiting the old favourites, which have allowed me to establish a genuine atmosphere of preparation in the home, with almost no work. Traditions make it easy to hold on to what matters – my new discovery of the week.

PS Ben has just started playing ‘O come, o come Emmanuel’ on the piano – full marks for Advent Essence, that man!

The Old and the New, plus a little more info on Advent

Ben and I, belatedly, got round to trying this year's Beaujolais Nouveau last night:

It's an important tradition to us, not only because it's a good thing to join in French customs, but also because it marks an anniversary for us - eight years ago we came out to look for a rental house near Toulouse because Ben had been offered the job here. I was fairly ill and for many years I found it hard to look back on that time with any pleasure, but now I can taste the Beaujolais and reminisce with enjoyment on our first visit and all the years that have passed since!

Thank you to everyone who has already signed up for A Pause in Advent this year. We'll be starting on Sunday 2nd December, as Advent begins quite late in 2012! For those who want to know more, the idea is that we post on any subject which allows us to calm down and think straight at a busy time... Many people have a religious or spiritual take on the event, and many use the pause as a way to emphasise the value of simplicity or traditions old and new, and to dwell on the importance of people above profit at this consumer-driven time of year. We write about what we've been doing, what we've been thinking, and what we hope for. Will you join us?

Cats and Conkers, Churches and Chapels...

I think I'll start with the cats!

The village where we visited the science festival on Saturday is about 20 minutes' drive from our own small town. It seems to have a thriving population of picturesque cats.

I only caught these two on the camera, but there were others!

Two donkeys were also present as part of the science event - they were doing a guided tour around the stands at one point, although we never caught up with them!

The village itself is a lovely example of the architecture to the west of Toulouse - this is the church wall, on the left, and it's built in typical style of field pebbles in a herring-bone pattern between layers of thin, Toulousain brick (see yesterday's post for a close-up). And isn't the half-timbered house at the end fantastic?

The church has a brick bell-tower and is surrounded by this ring of houses (the last photo was from inside the ring). This is quite traditional in our area, and I assume was done for defensive purposes in the Middle Ages - the houses are basically built-up into a solid wall surrounding the centre of the village.

Now that defences are no longer needed, the covered market hall and the plane-lined boulodrome have become the focus...

This door belongs to a chapel just behind the church.

Its curved wall is very Roman in style - architecture didn't really change much here with the fall of the Roman Empire. We still had the material and the skills to make bricks, and even modern houses look a little bit like Roman villas.

And finally, the conkers! Surprisingly, there were as many horse chestnut trees as plane trees around the church. One side was particularly fertile, producing enormous conkers like the one in Son 1's right hand... it can't have been the graveyard, can it???

Why I AM Celebrating the Jubilee!

This mops up the topic of Why I Will Be Celebrating the Jubilee, which was a little series I did earlier this month. The final reason really is that there is so much tradition of royal celebrations in my family. Like so many of the rest of you I have fond memories of waiting, bored yet excited, to see the Queen's coach pass for the Silver Jubilee. Our house was full of royal memorabilia - I thought it all belonged to my Grandma and my Mum, but it turns out that a lot of it had been collected by my dad. Who bought this, though?

Isn't it wonderful? I don't have it - it's still at my dad's home.

It's very small, and probably lead, I suppose. But what a wonderful history of Britian can be followed through a collection of royal goodies!

I do have these at home - the George VI coronation book (charity shop last year), George VI coronation pin cushion (my mum's collection - I never saw it before I started sorting through drawers) and British tin (Troc Shop here, for some reason!) I'm more uncertain about modern British patriotic memorabilia, but you will note I generously allowed a Matthew Rice design to grace my collection...

Have a wonderful Jubilee weekend! We will be partying with Brits and (confused) French people at another English home in our town!

Why I'll be celebrating the Jubilee - Part 2

It's been fun to read your comments on my first Jubilee post - like Vicki, I celebrated with the Armed Forces in 1977, like Autumn Mist I waited for the Queen in my Browine Uniform that year, like Dormouse, I watched Charles and Diana's wedding (and made a great scrapbook of all the cuttings, too!) and like Polkadot Petticoat I have celebrated July 4th - in the Bicentennial year, in fact! I love thinking of us all celebrating in our own ways but joining up here on the net to remember it all.

However, I was not in the mood at all for celebrations in 2002, the year of the Golden Jubilee. I felt quite unconvinced by the role of the Royal Family in a modern Britain. As you can see, our boys made up for my lack of enthusiasm! And I did let them dress up and wave flags, of course I did...

Ben's mum gave the boys a commemorative mug each, and I really wondered why on earth anyone would want one. Son 1 got a commemorative resin teddy figure with the 50 years crown on its chest - a gift from school. He quite quickly scratched the crown sticker off the bear, and I felt that summed it up - what was the point?

I think I'll leave you on this cliffhanger for now - how did I return from unconvinced nearly-Republican to cheerful flag-waver over the last 10 years? But if you have any similar experiences, or totally different ones, do share...