fare thee well 2007

2007 - a bad year for our business. French presidential elections, awful weather and global recession meant that it won't go down as being the best year for Papillon. Still, good things have happened too.

so here we are - some highlights and lowlights.

Went to Kenya in February. Holiday of a lifetime.
Grégoire stopped smoking in April.
Visited Amsterdam in April.
Car (Evasion) blew up in April. Replaced it with XM.
Papillon flooded in June. Insurance finally agreed to pay in November.
Sold 2CV in June. Replaced it with Golf.
Visited Sophie and Tim in St Valier in July.
Took Lones to London for dinner in September.
Made new restaurateur friends throughout the year.
Visited Montpellier and the Camargue in October.
Watched Scarlet doing first public piano performance in November.
Did les vitrines de Noel des grands magasins in Paris on 26th December.

and much more......

happy new year to all

the marathon that is noel

Christmas Eve - restaurant full, finish at 11pm, frantic stocking and sack filling, fall into bed at about 1am. No time for even half a glass of champers to celebrate Christmas.
Christmas morning - woken up at 7am by Scarlet - who has discovered Papa Noel's carefully planted sock surprise.....the surprise being that it is inside a hood, as Papa Noel couldn't find the socks. Much joyful squealing and present opening later and it is time to a) open the bar for Christmas morning die-hards and b) Scarlet to get dressed and go to church to deliver baby Jesus into his creche. Duties over, bar closed, guests arrive. Much food is consumed and wine drunk. Scarlet gets bored and invites friend Claire to play - so we adults are left alone to get really silly. Oh dear. Christmas day ends with me falling down stairs and bumping head hard. Ouch.
Boxing day - set off for Evreux - lunch with Bruno, Corinne and girls; dinner with Monique and Jean, and early bed. Thursday morning - hop a train for Paris (carefully ignoring Scarlet's increasingly irritated coughing) After 3 hours of window-admiring and licking (as they say in french)in Paris realise guiltily that Scarlet is actually really ill and feverish so decide to grab a bite and return to Evreux and then home. Found the best restaurant ever called Le Roi du Pot au Feu - selling, believe it or not, pot au feu. Absolutely fabulous, jam packed heaving with celebs, bang in the centre of Paris, one of those rare little gems that you only find once in a Paris-time. Train to Evreux, dose Scarlet up with much paracetamol and head home in thick pea-souper of a fog. Amazingly arrived home alive and in one piece, and all hit the sack. We slept like little and big logs and awoke this morning feeling fine. Scarlet much better, very busy lunch, even busier tonight. Life is looking good :)

happy birthday Nicky

birthday party chez Nicky Sunday evening. What a lovely time we all had, Gregoire did his monster cake again, it is just soooooo tasty and chocolatey and scrummy and yummy. Danced to Tiger Feet, music was fab - courtesy of Steve jukebox Mansfield and his travelling iPod.

don't stop the music

http://www.radioblogclub.fr/fav/0/2983465/0

and

http://www.radioblogclub.fr/fav/0/2983465/1312108

ever changing fave toons from rachel and grégoire

bike-u-like

Nearly there. motorbike now almost finished. Gregoire proud and almost the proud owner of a big fast honda 750 ...fingers crossed and maybe will post some piccies of the bike complete with seat....

skating on thin ice

double axels, toe loops and triple shultzes ...whatever they are and however you spell 'em - jeeeezus - ice skating is a scary and dangerous past-time. We hit the ice rink in Domfront on Sunday afternoon - hit being the operative word here for Scarlet's coccyx, which found itself landed upon on numerous occasions. I managed to stay upright on the wafer thin blades they call ice skates - but only because I refused categorically to leave go of the sides. Grégoire, however, proved himself to be a right little twinkle toes. Off he swooshed, kicking up showers of ice behind him, leaving Scarlet and I stumbling around the edges of the rink. Show off. Still, the humiliation and total inability to perform was kinda addictive ....think we are going back next weekend.

rockin' around the Christmas tree

tra-la-la-la-la and jingle bells and rudolf the red nosed reindeer and other top xmas toons. I am finally in the mood for Noël, and have realised with a rush of panic that I haven't got any cards ( nor do I know where I will get any from), I have not organised or put any thought into Christmas presents and the flat and restaurant were looking about as Christmassy as a Hawaii beach. So today we bought a mini teeny tiny Christmas sapin for the flat - trop cute for words, and just peeerfect for the salon. But we decided to be radical in the bar and go eco-warrior. We bought 6 lengths of twisty curly plant climber steel rods and lots and lots of steel wire ...tied them together in a cone shape and then decorated heavily in black, silver and white, using only glass and feathers and many thousands of sequins, glitter and mirror balls. I topped the tree-sculpture with a black wreath made from feathers and hung big glass dangerous lanterns around it. It looks fab, fab, fab, though may be a tad radical for St Fraimbault. We await the comments when we open tomorrow. Hmmmmm.

cous-cous and claviers

what a week. We're thinking of renaming Papillon the Cous-Cous Palace. Thursday we had 45 Algerian war veterans come for cous-cous (to remind them of the good ole days on the Algerian war - ha ha ha). They stayed for about 6 hours and got very merry, very red faced, drank lots and lots and lots of wine, champagne and calva and then staggered home to their beds happy, drunk and full. We, of course, had to carry on working that evening. Scarlet had a piano recital on Friday night - she opened the show playing 2 little pieces - and was an absolute star. Flawless performance - much to our pride and joy. I got all overcome with emotion - didn't realise this would happen - seeing your baby girl so small and alone and fragile on a big stage in front of 200 people is quite a big strain on the old tear ducts and heartstrings. She was perfectly at ease though and sailed through her performance then settled down to watch her camarades perform. She is an accomplished little ivory tinkler is young Scarlet. And today we are doing (another) cous-cous for 160 people - this time 100% organic. Downstairs in the kitchen, 400 merguez are grilling, the semolina is already spiced and buttered, the chillies are chopped for the harissa, the legumes are cooked, the chick-peas are soaked, the lamb has been double dry roasted and the free range chickens have all been spit turned and skewered. Now we just have to dress the salle polyvalente and get ready for the guests. St Fraimbault church square smells yummy and spicy today.