Beziers at Christmas

We visited Beziers after Christmas for the first time. This is one of the main towns in the Herault department, which neighbours our department, Aude. It's a bit bigger than Narbonne where we went last Xmas, and we were lucky with the weather, although this day wasn't eat outside weather!

Don't be tricked by the snow though - it's all fake! As we were wandering around the town we came to this big open square which was near the restaurant that we were heading for. I absolutely loved these decorations - they really went to town here. I bet it looks great lit up at night as well, but with the blue sky, it looks amazing!

I just loved all these domes filled with different snowy winter scenes.

Here's Santa and his reindeer, and they are galloping/flying down a rill (that's shallow water flowing in the middle there).

The fountains were permanent but fun to watch too as they changed every few seconds.

A reflection of all three of us!

Beziers is famous for its Trompe l'Oeil decorations on the walls. That means 'trick of the eye' and some are truly amazing with the 3D effect (particularly the one below this, as I thought the top balcony was real!). We only came across two of them, but I believe you can get a map of their locations from the tourist office.

Isn't it amazing - all those shadows painted on which look real, and to paint the balcony railings too - wow! Even the door at ground level is painted.

Later in the day we came across this cute petting zoo. I can't resist things like this and there were some teeny tiny goats that were so cute, but it was hard to get close as there were lots of people in that enclosure - and fluffy legged chickens in there too!

We then visited the cathedral but I will put those pictures in another post.

Painting and crafting

I’m not lost in Spain somewhere! We came home at the end of October, and whilst the weather had been good here for most of the month (our housesitter got to enjoy the pool for most of her time here), it changed as soon as we got home. I hate November with a vengeance, so after ploughing through the holiday laundry and emptying the Moho, I decided to get stuck into something that I would enjoy so as not to get the winter blues. So I headed down to the basement guest room and painted the wardrobe the same as I’d done the chest of drawers next to it a couple of years ago. 

Obviously it hasn’t taken me all of this time 😄 but there’s a lot to do with two coats of paint, two coats of clear wax, dark wax in the nooks and crannies, and buffing in between.  I then decided to paint the inside of the doors and do something interesting for when you open the doors. So that meant most of those coats again! 

Here’s a reminder of what they originally looked like. I hate wooden drawer knobs like that!

Ok, time for the reveal……

Here’s what I did with the interior (and ignore all the stuff in there, I have to find space for Moho things during winter). This isn’t an interiors blog, so I don’t have to ‘stage’ perfectly. 😁😁😁

It’s Annie Sloan’s ‘Meadow Flowers’ stencil, which fits this space perfectly. I’ve been waiting to use it on something for a while now!

Then I came across decoupaged baubles, coincidentally in two different places at about the same time, Pinterest and a blog I follow. We have some old red baubles which I never use, as red is not a colour I like as a Xmas decoration - it’s all blue and gold here to go with my decor. So I was interested to have a bash, though it’s taken longer than I thought as painting then decoupaging on brittle round things is jolly hard - I have to do half or a third then wait for it to dry before carrying on.

I am now running out of time before my brother comes on Monday, as I’m having a week full of medical/dental appointments, plus we went out birding on Tues afternoon (Black-shouldered Kites! I’ll tell you about them after Christmas). I need to finish cleaning the guest room and then get the decs up. Then baking next week! Anyhow, this year we bought a real tree for a change, so I’m looking forward to seeing these baubles on the tree along with the other ones. I’ll post a photo when the tree is done.

Here’s the baubles just needing a final coat of glossy varnish:

I’ll get back to butterflies and birds from our travels this year during the new year, and catch up with your posts too. When I’m not in the mood for blogging, I tend to forget about looking at other peoples’ blogs too. Receiving them in my inbox is an easier way to follow them, to be honest.

Back to the decorating....

A Happy New Year, somewhat belatedly, to everyone!

I haven't been near my desktop since Christmas and I shall soon be unable to get near it at all, as I will be decorating our office. I completed one corner and wall before Christmas, as we had a new unit to install, so I needed to paint that wall and wax the parquet under it. There had been a hideous 1970s G-Plan corner unit there for maybe the whole 15 years the previous owners were here, plus our three years, so it was rather dirty and horrible behind/underneath! We had inherited this unit but whilst it was handy for places to display photos and nicknacks, it didn't have enough actual storage and I wanted a unit where we could keep all our photography gear together, in some semblance of order! So I bought a unit from Ikea (of course). 😀

G-Plan is probably very trendy at the moment with this fixation on Mid Century Modern style, but having lived through that era and the pass me down furniture from it, to me the whole look is ugly and old fashioned. So shock, horror, the old unit is in pieces, a cupboard part of it is in the garage and the rest is being used as either spare bits of wood or going to the tip!

I now have to move desks and other bits of furniture around whilst painting the rest of the walls, which is going to be fun. Especially the tall cupboard full of our files which will weight a ton so will have to be emptied..... all this is the not so fun side of decorating.

I forgot to take a photo of the G-Plan unit but I'm sure most of you can imagine a horrible teak coloured 1970s wooden corner unit. 😀😀😀 

Here's the after shot for this corner now:

The wall paint is light blue, and I am going to paint white the cupboard in the next photo that you can just see with a 'wooden' front, because it has really silly handles which are too high up and difficult to grab hold of, so as I need to fill in the holes to install new, better handles, it will have to be painted to cover the filled in bits. It has black sides anyway which I don't like. The brown built in cupboards will stay like that as I like them and there are identical cupboards in the room next door to this, plus they match most of the internal doors in the house.

The rest of the 'before' shot:

I might even tidy up my desk, which is always a mess! By the way, the shelves above my desk were bought for a new kitchen we installed in 2003, two houses ago, which were never used in the end as they stuck out too much for the place I had planned to put them. So they had sat in the garage, forgotten about (by me anyway) until K mentioned them and hey presto - I think they work perfectly there!

Going back to Christmas, I didn't get around to posting my home made twig decorations, which I did once before, though I can't remember if it was last year or a few years back. I think these branches came from the same tree (I don't actually know what species!) but I'll have to leave it a couple of years to grow again as we took most of the young branches that K could reach even with a pole to grab them. 

I have lights in there too though they don't show up well in daylight. I love making home made decorations and I bought another little living table top tree from Lidl and changed their red decorations for lights and gold decorations, although they had some lovely white wooden stars which I kept on it. Hopefully I can use the tree for a few more years. 

Browsing in a shop at Xmas decorations last year I was pleased to see so many wooden decorations and no tinsel at all! I bought more pine cones and painted them white, gold and copper to go with the rest I had done last year with cones I'd gathered in the wild and displayed them in a blue glass bowl. 

In fact I have only just taken my decorations down as I've become more and more 'French' over the years, who don't follow the 12th Night rule at all, and take decorations down 'some time' in January, when it suits them. I put decorations up very late compared to most people but love having all the lights on in the evenings so I'm happy to wait until mid January until I take them down.

Well that's it for now, we have some day trips coming up with our birding group and I am starting to plan our summer holiday to Provence (timed to see the lavender fields over there) and we may be going on a two day trip up to the mountains for wild flowers, butterflies and birds with Birding Languedoc, in mid June. I have still to finish posting October's holiday photos so I will try to do that once my office is accessible again!

Happy Christmas, and home made Xmas decorations

It's that time of year again! I don't get excited about Christmas until at least halfway through December, that's when I start thinking, I suppose I had better put up a few decorations. I have to admit there have been a few years when I couldn't be bothered, as I am very bah humbug about the 'silly season'. But this year, my brother was supposed to be joining us, so I felt like making an effort. 

Sadly, having company for Christmas was not meant to be, as the French Government, scared about the amount of Omicron ravaging the UK, closed down its borders with the UK a few days before my brother was due to come here, so he is now home alone for Xmas, like last year *rolling eyes emoticon*. I don't blame them one bit; France has been very sensible all this year - we have had to wear masks indoors and we have our Covid Passes for entering places like cinemas, theatres, sporting venues and even bars and restaurants. However, I do feel that letting life get back to completely normal this summer (like in the UK) was just asking for trouble. That's not to say that there isn't Omicron in France, there is, it's just that we are used to wearing masks and being sensible, so it's not such a problem for us to go back to semi lockdown or curfew (apart from the usual minority who love to riot and complain for any reason whatsoever).

So where was I, yes I was in the mood for doing a bit of decoration and having found a bit of inspiration on Pinterest I started preparing turning some Le Parfait preserving jars into seasonal candle holders with decorated pine cones which I had collected back in the summer. Isn't it funny, I spent 15 years living at a property which had conifer trees galore and their cones in the garden, yet not once did I decorate with those cones for Christmas! 😀 Keith managed to take off the lids which are wired onto the jars and after painting my cones a mix of white, old gold and copper, I wired them around the neck of the jars. Unfortunately we only had green wire so I covered the wire as best I could with hessian ribbon and sisal string, then filled the inside with coarse salt to look like snow. I tied a little bunch of greenery to some berries and glued them to the string with a hot glue gun. I hope it comes off easily as I need to change my greenery as bay leaves don't last more than a few days, nor do my Pyracantha berries from my hedge!

Luckily I went for a little walk to a nearby track, armed with a tall man with a long pole, to see what kind of greenery I could find. I have come back with some branches which I wanted for another decoration (below), and some red berries from a Cotoneaster (I think) and black berries from Viburnum tinus, which grows wild all over the place here, plus a bit of someone's conifer hedge. 😁 I needed the tall things to help because this track is kept well maintained and cleared, so the greenery is hard to reach as it's either up a bank or down one. The track itself is part of the French network of the Grande Randonée paths and is in fact one going to Saint Jacques de Compostelle/Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

Here are my branches decorated with baubles and fairy lights. It took about 5 minutes to decorate. My kind of tree!! 😂

I did actually buy a little tree from Lidl - I have bought one like this before and as it's in a pot with roots, you can put it outside after Xmas and keep it going for the next year! It was even decorated with the same blue decoration on elastic as the last one I bought years ago! I added some fairy lights and a few baubles as it was a bit bare.

Back to the Le Parfait jars, here they are, looking a little droopy as the bay leaves didn't stay fresh for very long! I kind of guessed that would happen, and I expect to have to keep changing the greenery so I have a load of vases filled with the stuff I brought back from the hedgerows clogging up my laundry room!

I'm using battery operated tea lights this time but I could get my hand in to put a real candle in, you just have to be a bit careful about any greenery inside the pot if you use a real candle.

I put the rest of the cones that I decorated, larger ones, in a blue glass bowl and they look really nice. Great that I can reuse them for years to come and it really didn't take any time painting them. I just painted the edges; with the white paint it is supposed to look like snow, and the metallic ones only need the edges painting as well, saves on paint and saves on having to go outside and make a huge mess with a spray can! 

By the way the oak table, six chairs and the huge dresser came with the house - we were absolutely delighted, and in turn left our old table and chairs at our last place for our young buyers who were happy too! 

We've put up various fairy lights since then and I think that's more than enough. We have enough food to feed the 5,000 but I have to make mince pies again, as my first batch, the pastry was really weird and soggy when I was rolling it/cutting out my shapes, and now cooked it is soggy and not very nice. I did it in my processor up to the adding water stage, which I did by hand. I then found out that the flour I was using was T45, rather than the T55 plain flour that I normally use for just about everything. Keith had bought it from the supermarket thinking it was general purpose T55. Having looking up the difference, T45 is the most processed/least strong flour and is used for brioche, T55 is stronger and can be used for bread, croissants, pastries, cakes etc but for bread better to use T65 which is the strongest white flour. So I'm going to try again with my normal flour. What a pain!

Right that's it, Merry Christmas to you all and to my blogger friends, I will come round your blogs and see what you are all up to! I hope you have a great time over the festive period. Take care everyone and stay safe. xx

Happy New Year

Hi everyone

I hope you all managed to have a reasonably decent Christmas, although I realise that so many people could not be with their loved ones this year, particularly in parts of England. Ours was much like usual which is often just the two of us. The weather has been rubbish - cold and wet so it feels ages since I went out for a proper walk. Of course I am recovering from surgery so a long walk is out of the question anyway, but I did manage to potter up the road to see our “community Xmas tree” a few times. There is a competition which is being held for the best dressed tree - these trees have been dotted about the village for the inhabitants to decorate themselves and the idea is that it is something festive that can be done in these Covid times as all community get togethers are cancelled. I would have joined in with decorating the tree if I had been more up to it, but at least there are people in the vicinity who have stepped up and it looks nice and cheerful. It’s beside the house next door so we see it when we go out.

I ended up spending four nights in hospital rather than the two to three I had been told, but the surgeon wanted my drain to drain as much as possible, as (and I don’t really understand this) the mesh has to stick to my skin and if liquid had been left in there, it would have prevented it. I think he would have liked me to spend another day there after they took the drain out (an awful but at least momentary experience!) but my face must have shown my disappointment, as when he asked where I live and I told him, he agreed I could leave as it was only a 25 min drive to go back if there were any problems. You can’t beat being home after being in hospital. 

 I “think” the surgery was successful, although I suppose I am a bit disappointed that it doesn’t seem like an instant fix, as I still can’t sit on hard seats as I feel like I can feel the mesh ‘sling’. That might be because I am very thin at the moment and could do with some fat in my buttocks to cushion myself. I really don’t know. Whatever, it’s better than before! I see the surgeon again in a couple of weeks so will obviously be discussing any concerns with him then. 

So, not a lot going on other than eating a lot of Christmas food 😁 and watching TV. I haven’t felt like blogging to be honest, but I still have some photos from trips out that I will share when I get in the mood. However, I did want to wish you all a Happy and Healthy New Year, and let’s all hope that by next summer things will be getting a lot better! 

Take care

Mxx

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Just a quickie post to get into the festive season and post my first ever attempts at shooting Christmas lights. I tried mostly ICM shots as I knew without a tripod I wasn't going to get sharp shots of the lights as is. Well they weren't great individually but collaged up I don't think they look too bad. The first is the shop/home of a retired electrician who I guess started putting up lights as advertising for his business, and has continued doing so ever since. It's rather fun to see. The second picture is a Christmas tree in the village square.

I'll finish up with some kitty pics as these are all the new photos I have left. You can see how it's hard for me to relax on the sofa - there is not enough room for all four of us. Bad enough with just one of them! Yet of course, when I retire to my bed to get a bit more room to stretch out, you can guess what happens. :-)

My OH bought a footstool some years back to put his feet up on when he was suffering with plantar something-or-other, but of course that got taken over too..... really there is not a chair/bed/sofa/anything that humans may want to sit or lie on in the house that is not then deemed belonging to the cats. But if you've got cats, then you know that this is entirely normal. Probably much the same with dogs too. :-)

I think I will sign out for the rest of the year as I doubt I'll be spending a lot of time sitting at my desktop computer, let alone get out taking photos. I need to rest and heal now that (woohoo!!) my radiotherapy sessions are over. So I'll see you in the New Year and I wish you all the very best for the festive season and may all your wishes come true in 2015. xx

Planes, trains and automobiles

OK, no trains involved, but trying to get my mum and brother home after Christmas was a right palaver!

Off we set about 11.30am to take them to Rennes airport for their flight to Southampton. No problems there, no traffic, we arrived in plenty of time as it's only about a 35-40 minute drive. The departure board said that the flight was on time and after check in we went into the cafe for a while until it was time for them to go through security to the departure lounge. During this time the board announced that there would be a 20 min delay to their flight but that's not unusual and wasn't any big deal.

We said our goodbyes and some sixth sense made us decide to wait and see the plane land, which was due to arrive at any time. We waited and waited and 20 minutes after it was supposed to land, up popped a sign saying the plane had been diverted! Well, there wasn't any fog or reason that we could see for that, so everyone (all the people waiting to meet people off the arriving flight) dashed off to the information desk to find out what was going on.

Apparently the plane had diverted to Nantes which is about two hours drive to the south, because Rennes was one firetruck short, making the airport Level 4 security instead of its usual Level 6, and it is up to the individual airlines and the pilots to decide if they want to land with lower security. Obviously FlyBe being British is big on 'Health and Safety', whereas Air France, the usual airline that uses this little provincial airport for internal flights, being French where 'Health and Safety' n'existe pas du tout, couldn't give a flying you know what.

So the passengers who were diverted to Nantes were being bussed back to Rennes; however for the passengers stuck flightless at Rennes.... it seemed nobody could decide what to do with them because first of all two coaches turned up and one would have expected that they would be bussed to Nantes to catch their plane, which obviously had to get back to Southampton airport and then on to other destinations. But no, obviously FlyBe could not disrupt their schedule waiting two hours for the passengers to arrive, so that flight was suddenly no longer an option, the coaches disappeared off empty, and an announcement was made that the flight would be delayed until.... 8.30pm that night. *Sigh*

Out came the passengers from the departure lounge including my mother and brother, who were rather surprised to see us still there (to be honest, if it had been just my brother, we wouldn't have been, we'd have been home by then - he knows that cos I told him, so if he reads this he won't be surprised!). Whilst the passengers were queuing up for their ticket for a complimentary meal (wippee-doo) my OH went to the desk to enquire if we could take passengers back home and found other people enquiring about the same. Yup thankfully that was OK, be back at 7pm they said and took our mobile phone number. Suitcases retrieved. Off we went back home where we arrived about 3pm ish and had some belated lunch!

According to the website the flight which was supposed to leave at 8.25pm was leaving at 8.40pm, but we set off again about 6.30pm just to be on the safe side as we'd been told to be back there at 7pm, only to find in the very quiet (apart from the FlyBe passengers) airport that there was another teeny delay, and the flight would now leave at 9.15pm! At this point it was only 7.15pm so we headed off to the cafe, only to find a man washing the floor and of course, it was closed. This being the evening after all, and the airport wouldn't normally have outgoing flights in the evening, only late flights incoming from other French cities.

We could see people in the upstairs restaurant so off we trot around the airport looking for a lift (for my mum), only to find ourselves at the wrong end of the building to get into the restaurant. Down the lift again, walk along to the other end of the building, find another lift and then we found the restaurant entrance. There were people inside but apparently, oh no, it was actually 'closed'; however you could get a meal if you were a FlyBe passenger and had the voucher for the free meal. Umm, actually we don't want a meal, just a drink (and somewhere comfy to sit for a while for goodness sake because your stupid airport only has hard metal seats downstairs - no I didn't say that but you know what I mean!) - much gallic shrugging and we were told to go and ask at info and get a ticket. Off we trot back downstairs (we did leave mum upstairs!) to the counter, only for the lady there to say 'but the restaurant is closed!'. Aaargh, no it's not, lady, we just need a couple of those tickets you were giving out earlier.... well she tried to get on the phone to the restaurant but they were not answering, so she said 'follow me' and off we trot back up to the restaurant where she and the man had a lengthy discussion in French that I couldn't follow - all the while we'd said we only wanted a drink/coffee/whatever, not the free meal.... eventually they decided yes OK, we could have a drink. 

Mum orders a whisky to calm her preflight nerves, oh but no, sorry we can't serve alcohol because of course we are officially closed.... eventually they agreed that we could all have a coffee (which came free, yes, even to us two who were not passengers!!! Wow!) - yup one of those tiny little three sips and it's gone cups of French coffee that you may as well not even bother ordering. This is one of those times when the English, comes from America thanks to Starbucks et al, bucket-of-coffee size could have come in handy. You just can't linger over a French cup of coffee.

After our 3 sip coffee we were all boiling hot even though we had seats with padded cushions so it was a bit of a toss up between comfort and heat, or hard seats but blessedly cooler, eventually deciding to go downstairs again and wait there. Mum and my brother decided that my OH and I should go home as we'd spent quite a few hours in the airport already, only to find that they couldn't go through to the departure lounge because security was actually closed - at least on the other side there is a vending machine selling canned drinks and chocolate whilst on the public side the most you could get by this time was tap water out of the toilet sinks.... not that I think they had any coins for the vending machines because they usually leave them behind with us! 

So once more we waited with them until security was opened then hooray all the passengers rushed at once, even though there was tons of time to spare and the plane that was being sent over especially for them probably hadn't even left England .....

We said our goodbyes again and home we headed. I heard from my brother by email this morning that the plane did actually arrive on time, they boarded early, they sat around until 9.20pm when there was an announcement that a passenger was missing and so all the baggage was being unloaded to check! They eventually left at 9.30pm and finally got home just before midnight UK time, which is 1am here!

In fact, my family were the lucky ones, because many people, including families with small children, had to spend all the afternoon and early evening in the discomfort of the airport. We never did hear more about the missing firetruck; we can only assume one was brought in from another airport somewhere, otherwise I guess the passengers would still be stranded, even though Air France was in and out.

And just because I don't like to post without a photo, here's a few pics of a little tinker that mum wanted to sneak back home with her.... and our €5 Xmas tree that came from La Foire Fouille with a couple of roots attached about six years ago, and is a scraggy looking thing that I forget to feed, but doesn't look too bad when it's decorated and with the lights on. In a dark corner. :-)

We had a great Christmas by the way and I don't think there were any arguments at all. Amazing!

Home made decorations

I can hardly believe it is Christmas Eve already. This week has just flown by in a whirl of social activity (two words that rarely apply to our lives!), baking mountains of mince pies and mini pumpkin pies, shopping and decorating of the Xmas kind. 

So, in comes our little Xmas tree, out come the boxes of tinsel and related manufactured bling..... and then on a whim, I decided to make a few arrangements with natural goodies from the garden, which is quite rich in such things when one bothers to look in amongst what looks like a dead or dying winter garden. 

Of course it didn't help that it was pouring with rain as I was out snipping and clipping and I had to strew the house with newspaper and bits of greenery for 24 hours to dry it all out before I could start to 'do' something with them. By this time I nearly gave up and composted the lot but I'm glad I persevered. I'm no flower arranger but I'm quite pleased with what I have achieved and I think it adds a nice balance to the all too easy, bought, manufactured, plasticy stuff that adorns so many places at this time of year.

Variegated Photinia with red and orange Dogwood stems and pink and orange Spindleberry berries which I collected up the road. The dried chillies are my own too and the blue blob in the background outside the window shouldn't really be there - it's actually my OH opening the gates to friends who came to visit on Thursday! This is not a very posed photo (hence bit of curtain in shot) but the light levels are so bad at this time of year it is the only photo that doesn't have the flash reflecting in the glass!

A good old mix here of just about everything including the wonderful star-like seed pods from the plant I call wild rhubarb out of the ditch!











Finally there's our tree. Now I have tree envy as everyone else seems to have huge, green, healthy looking trees whilst ours is only green in two senses, the frugal sense and the eco, good for the environment sense. We bought it 5 Christmasses ago for the grand sum of €5 as a tiny potted specimen. Even then it wasn't the sort of tree to give anyone envy. Now it's been potted on several times, watered but forgotten to be fed and generally neglected for most of the year until the week before Xmas when it comes in for its annual makeover.

I couldn't get a decent photo of it at all; partly due to dreadful light levels and partly due to the fact it really isn't the kind of tree that photographs very well at the best of times! So I have 'enhanced' it slightly with a special effect or two, as I do have a soft spot for my not so green in colour little tree. 

Merry Christmas everyone!