In the know

The day after Christmas officially started, the sun unexpectedly came out for the Saturday morning market, which put everyone in a jolly, festive mood - everyone except the man in charge of the ice rink, who seemed to be having some trouble with his temperature control and was temporarily in charge of a very shallow swimming pool, which obviously isn't much good to anyone.

It really did feel like Christmas at last - the usual market stalls had spread throughout the streets surrounding the square (because of the ice pool or swimming rink thingy and the Christmas market log huts taking up the food market's usual spots) which meant it was more crowded and busier than is the norm. There were also, for the first time, Christmas trees and bunches of holly and bunches of mistletoe for sale and all the shops were much busier than normal. It seems that when the town says Christmas has officially started, everyone takes it literally and suddenly starts buying presents and decorations and drinking 'vin chaud' and saying 'bonne Noel'

The news that the Irish bar was now owned by an Irishman was greeted with enormous joy by the Saturday lunchtime crew - who had absolutely no idea that Patrick was even interested in the place. It seems that the ex-pat community are the only ones not in the know. Even Gary, who seems to know everyone in town had no idea and it's not very often that I can upstage him with local information. The only Frenchman who didn't seem to know (and indeed didn't believe it for at least ten minutes) was Pierre - that's what happens when you hang around with a bunch of foreigners all the time, you end up being treated like them and not told anything. Interestingly the rumour around the town seemed to be that an American had bought the place - Patrick lives in Chicago most of the time so I guess it was understandable that the US link emerged.

Before I got down to the market I put a first coat of paint on the chimney breast and the inside staircase wall in the studio. It was a fiddly job for a Saturday morning at the end of a long week but the dark colour on these two walls made a big difference to the overall look and feel of the finished studio. I am still very frustrated about running out of the clunch emulsion because, otherwise, it would now be finished apart from the woodwork. After a couple of hours out in the lovely sunshine over lunch, I returned to apply the second coat and to do some last tidying up before I return to London tomorrow.

After the dryest November on record for 60 years, the start of December has seen some rain and then some. It poured down all last night and started again late afternoon today and is still at it as I write this evening. I am not bothered - I feel so tired from the last week of work that I think I could sleep for 24 hours. As I have a plane to catch at 10.30am, that isn't going to happen but I am going straight to bed now. Goodnight