electioneering

oooh - it is all getting very exciting. Poison-pen anonymous letters sent out unstamped in the neighbouring village, rumours flying about private and not-so private lives of all and sundry suspected to be on *the list* and general houhah's all round. Never known anything like it - Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama eat your heart out. Come to rural France and see where the REAL action is. Have posted a snippet of a photograph of the St Fraimbault list (the St Fraimbault Famous Fifteen) - but am not allowed to publish it until Thursday.....bit of a teaser campaign for y'all. Roll on 9th March when the electorate make their feelings known.

Jigs and Guinness

Irish night 2008 in St Fraimbault. 9th February 2008 saw the reapparance of Cattlegrid (namely Pascal, Pierre, P'tit Pierre, Dominique, Christian) at Papillon. With 100 people booked in it looked set to be a grand ole evening. And indeed it was. Much Guinness was consumed, much beef pie and steamed sponge pudding too. We danced and jigged and sang into the wee small hours and on Sunday the boys bid us farewell and head off back to Rouen. Roll on the next one.

bejaysus

flamin' 'ennery tis cold. Parkin. Freezin'. and other such terms. But winter is drawing to an end if the *chandeleur* is to be believed. Twas a fine and sunny and bright day - no rain at all. So in true groundhog tradition, we say goodbye to winter. And eat pancakes.
As that say here "Le 2 février, c’est la Chandeleur. En France la tradition veut qu’on fasse des crêpes, qu’on mange avec la famille ou avec les amis. Il ne faut pas oublier de faire sauter la crêpe avec un objet d’or dans la main : comme ça, on aura du bonheur tout au long de l’année"

1st February

And February begins beneath the rain. January slipped away with a whimper, despite having been a bit of a bumper month for us. Quiet times ahead I fear which may give rise to the need for job hunting. How scary is that thought? Not sure we can spread ourselves much thinner but we may not have the choice. I am slowly coming to the conclusion that I am a liquorice allsorts addict. I ate 3 packets yesterday. I have no nasty side effects from the black stuff, and I can't get enough of it. I particularly like the pink beaded aniseed ones. I can feel the craving returning as I think about them. Damn Bertie Bassett. Damn him.