Lights off, lights on

Brigitte rang the doorbell on Friday at lunchtime.

"Peetere, we 'ave a problem with ze electricite" she said. She went on to say that she was working and had only come home to find the EDF invoice to give to me so that I could phone them and arrange for someone to come out and fix it and that she didn't have time because she needed to eat a 'leetle something' before rushing back to work.

Manipulation! - you bet it was. How hard would it have been for her to call. rather than me with my imperfect French negotiating a telephone answering system and a faceless voice in the call centre.

I knew we had an electricity problem because when I came home the previous evening the courtyard and the stairwell were pitch black and with a dark brooding sky above it was impossible to see anything. I edged my way in through the main door and up the stairs using the light from my mobile phone. All the power was out in the common parts but fortunately not inside the apartment.

On Friday morning I did my best to see if I could find the problem, but anything other than checking fuses and re-setting the meter is beyond me and the meter absolutely refused to re-set.

Imagine my surprise then, that I not only called EDF and got through 6 levels of answering system to reach the correct department and managed to give them the correct reference numbers but they also turned up within two hours, changed the meter and restored the power. Sometimes I surprise myself and sometimes the French surprise me too.

It's officially Christmas here in Carcassonne. The mayor switched on the lights on Friday evening and the market and the ice rink and the big wheel and the luge are all open for business - and doing good business judging by the number of people in town last night - far more than usual for a Saturday evening - the 'vin chaud' stall was exceptionally busy.

But you can't change all the habits of a lifetime. I had heard that the meat market was opening on Sunday mornings in the run up to Christmas but the reality was that two enterprising stalls, my favourite pork butcher and the Basque Deli, were open and the rest firmly shut.

Both those open were doing good business - they were offering tastings and aperitifs and in return were selling quite a bit of stuff. I had only had a coffee this morning before looking into the market and in no time at all I was sharing some oysters and charcuterie and a glass of wine with stall and bar and restaurant owners and their wives, all before midday - that's the proper alternative French way to start a Sunday if you haven't gone to mass!

I picked up a couple of things for supper this evening, went to the boulangerie and returned home feeling perky enough to decide to make a prune and almond tart.

The lights in the Place Carnot and the Place Gambetta look fabulous and with the ice rink and the music you can't help but feel in a festive mood. It's all very kitsch but also very infectious - so it's a shame that we weren't able to tempt any visitors out here from the UK to sample it.

I did take two bookings yesterday though, so maybe things are looking up.

Better late than never

I was aware during the night that the wind had picked up a bit - as in it was blowing a gale. I went out quite early to pick up some provisions for dinner and noticed immediately that it was about ten degrees colder than yesterday and another ten degrees colder if you stood in the wind. A car went past covered in snow - clearly it had been cold up in the hills. I ran around town and scooted back home as quick as I could.

On my way back in I checked my post box. It has become a habit of mine to open my post box, situated in the archway underneath the apartments, every time I pass it even though it is usually empty or just full of the local advertising papers, special offers (pork bargains) or local mayoral election manifestos. But today was special because today I received a Christmas card.!

Debrah and I stopped sending Christmas cards on ethical grounds many many years ago and slowly we have stopped receiving them as well, either because other people have taken a similar stance in response to ours or because they have adopted the 'I'm not sending them one if they don't send us one' approach. Either way it means we don't receive many Christmas cards. So it was with great joy and pleasure that I opened our third, and hopefully last, card relating to last Christmas.

It was from Debrah's mum and was correctly addressed and had a stamp on it and everything - so God knows where it has been for the last two months or so - following yonder star no doubt. It had an air mail sticker on it but I could have walked from Kent and still got here quicker. Oh well, in the name of diplomacy and the good old entente cordiale, let's just put it down to the fact that the postal systems in England and France could both be a bit more efficient, without laying blame anywhere.

As ever, from my mother-in-law, the card is very amusing but slightly mad.

An Odd Christmas

We were so busy trying to finish all the jobs that needed doing in the studio that we missed all the carol concerts this year. I thought we weren't going to get a rib of beef, we had left it so late to enquire, but the butcher did us proud with an absolutely fantastic four rib, five kilo, hunk of cow that we asked for on Saturday and collected two days later on Christmas Eve. The last market day before Christmas was cold and drizzly, which is never fun and with Debrah just getting over her flu and having toothache and stomach ache to cope with also - well, nothing was really going to plan. There has been a strange atmosphere pervading the whole week.

Last year we missed the fireworks in the square, watching them from the windows over the street. This year we decided that we would go down to the square for the 'spectacle', which was due to start at seven in the evening, and was to be followed immediately by the fireworks. We very nearly missed them again - Christian and I went on ahead but were so underwhelmed by the stage show that we returned home to find Debrah, who had promised to follow on but hadn't as yet. Naturally, the fireworks started as we sat talking at home and so we all had to rush down the street to the square to catch the last ten minutes.

They were being launched from the top of the building on the east side of the square but the strong wind was affecting the trajectory, such that the fireworks were blowing out over the square, and particularly the corner of the square where we had just arrived. Looking virtually straight up at fireworks that were exploding no more than 100 feet above us, with both the noise and the shower of sparks, was quite an experience - one which I suspect would have fallen foul of the more recent autocratic health and safety regime sweeping across the UK.

The beef was fabulous but to be honest Christmas Day was a bit strange too. We all came together to eat for a couple of hours at four in the afternoon, but before and after Christian and Chris disappeared into their rooms and Debrah and I spent Christmas together - which was fabulous but a little odd considering the 'hiding' non-participants. It all seemed a bit surreal. In addition, Debrah's mum seems to have gone missing somewhere in Berlin - it's very odd that she didn't phone and hasn't been in touch at all since she left for Germany seven days ago.

We have decided that next year we will just have paying guests.