Well, it took a few days and a fair amount of fingernails but we did it. The roadside wall is now blinding passers-by with festive fairy-lights in abundance and Papa Noël sitting proudly in his sleigh. Actually, it’s an old chair but Denis worked his magic with a bit of tinsel and lots of bamboo so a sleigh it is. I got my creative side out and made a ‘tree’ out of wire fencing and hung presents (empty wine boxes) from some plastic tubing I found in the back of the car port. But I didn’t stop there. My bête noire that stands in the form of a somewhat seen better days ‘information board’ now has a Winter Wonderland themed painting stuck on it. Okay, so I’m not a great artist and most would think a child had done the artwork but the ancient wooden structure looks a lot better with something other than a lotto advertisement slapped on its front. And almost everyone in the village, including the Mayor, have given D and I the thumbs-up and five stars for our effort. I say almost everyone, the lady who lives across from said exultant exhibition of everything Christmas is less than pleased as I’ve stopped her from parking in front of the wall. The space technically belongs to the family property and her car hides all the work D and I have put into the corner over the years so we plonked a few wire cages full of rocks unearthed from the river across it. I don’t like upsetting anyone in Rouffiac but if the gossip in the epicerie is anything to go by, I got another thumbs-up and the Mayor’s blessing.
You will be pleased to know that we didn’t plug the lot into the French National Grid, all the garlands are either solar or battery-operated. A bit of a pain when one has to turn all the lights on and off whilst trying not to break an ankle stepping over Santa but at least, apart from the odd day or two, last week gave us plenty of early morning sunshine to charge up their panels. My pre-dawn runs have also become slightly easier with the frost hardening the clay – my knees aren’t grateful for the jarring though so I’ve strapped them well. It really is beautiful up there in the hills at the moment even when the silence is broken by Arry careering through the vines after rabbits and the occasional deer. It’s a relief to see him back to his old self after all the allergy troubles the summer gave him. He’s looking less like Wily Coyote now that his chest hair is starting to grow back.
I had a chance this week to drive East into the Corbières, a mountain region about 40 minutes or so away from us as Abraham and I had a meeting in the area. Amusingly, such is small-town vibes, a tall Rastafarian and a blonde made for quite a few stares from the inhabitants – this is Cathar country which I’m reliably told by Denis means the descendants of the religious movement are generally short in stature and dark-haired. Like Denis basically. The landscape however, was anything but small. Thousands of kilometres of grapevines and olive trees tucked under the shadow of the impressive mountainous forests stretching across the skyline with ornate church spires popping their heads above stone-cottaged villages that looked like they’d been stuck in a time warp. Being a man who knows everything there is to know about agriculture, Abraham pointed out all the different flora and fauna as we sped through (I was driving) and told me that they even grow rice in some of the fields such is the lushness of the Corbières. A place really worth visiting if you are ever down this way.
Talking of visiting, I took Callum to the airport on Friday as he was off to see his other granny in the former homeland. Weirdly, I miss him dreadfully which, when you consider he’s been living in Australia for the past almost 2 years, is a little odd but I’ve gotten used to having him around again. He’ll be back on Wednesday though, just in time to help Mumo get enough beds in bedrooms for the eagerly anticipated arrival of the rest of the family. She’s panicking a bit as I’ve bought all my presents but she hasn’t so I’ll be ferrying her around the shops for the next couple of weeks as we are still a one car house at the moment. The news that her accident was a result of mechanical failure with a whatsit in the Yaris (i.e.blame it on Toyota) has given Mumo a little relief that it wasn’t her fault but it’ll be a while I think before she is confident enough to get behind the wheel. In the meantime, I will play chauffeur and squeeze her needs into my busy lighting up Rouffiac schedule. Who knows, I might even find something else to add to our wonder wall – Denis did see a rather fabulous set of blinging reindeers the other day…
“Christmas is a baby shower that went totally overboard.” (Andy Borowitz)
Widow plus woofs 