Apparently, one now says 'Happy Holidays' rather than 'Happy Christmas' - far more PC!
I have had a very, very, very long day! The child woke me at 3 a.m. with a migraine and poor old lad was rushing to the bathroom being ill until 6.30 a.m. Even adolescents need their Mum when the going gets tough, so I found myself ousted from my bed in the middle of the night as it was invaded by Pierre and Angus (who decided to play night nurse). When he eventually dropped off I was tempted to grab a duvet and crash out on the sofa, but I had to ring the school at 7.30 to say he wouldn't be in, and by that time it really wasn't worth trying to get any sleep.
But it was worth it - the Christmas tree is up and decorated and looking very regal on the terrace - as it is snowing, it even has real snow on its branches! All the Christmas presents are wrapped and labelled and I even did most of the food shopping this morning - the only awful bit was that at the check-out I dropped a glass bottle of oil which spashed everywhere - fortunately I didn't have tons of people behind me so we were able to clear it up without moans and groans from other shoppers!
I'm not going to even try and write anything vaguely intelligent this evening - added to which, everyone has been getting horribly bitchy in the last 24 hours and settling scores with each other, so it's not worth it!
I thought I would just ask you all what you are doing for Christmas - staying put, going somewhere exotic, forgetting the whole thing, whatever ... we are staying put through Christmas and New Year, with an invasion of family and visitors and on Christmas Day we are having an ENORMOUS piece of beef with homemade Bearnaise sauce! New Year will probably be a 'plateau de fruits de mer' and too much champagne. My ex has invited himself and arrives just after Christmas and will probably annoy Pierre who hates skiing with adults and is only interested in doing death-defying tricks 'hors piste', so somehow I have to accomodate 10 people, 2 dogs, 2 cats in the chalet and all the ski gear that goes with it for 10 days and of course feed them all!
So I am moving into 'taxi' mode for ferrying from Geneva to here, and chalet girl - I'm just hoping my new computer will appear for Christmas and everyone will rush off to ski, leaving me to get it set up, in between cooking and cleaning! But it's all fun and I love having the chalet full of people!
9 comments:
Christmas will be a quiet one at home with my wife (who has to work on Boxing Day), our three cats and a goose (cooked; not a pet). No doubt we'll get together here and there with a few friends.
We'll see in the New Year in Rome, where we're renting an apartment for a week, followed by four days in London, my first time there in 10 or 12 years. My wife tells me it's changed beyond recognition. It should be interesting, if nothing else.
We'd hoped Colin Randall and Joelle would get to Rome for a couple of days but, what with their move and everything, that's looking unlikely. We shall miss them.
Speaking of "happy holiday" PC, there's a bit of a revolt against it here. The final straw came when a judge ruled that a Christmas tree had to be removed from the lobby of the courthouse because of its supposed religious symbolism. It was refreshing to see the leaders of a dozen or more non-Christian faiths denounce this as utterly ridiculous.
I'm sure you will see a change in London and , unfortunately, in my opinion, not a change for the better. Lucky people going to Rome! I still haven't managed to get there after my fiasco in the spring, but am definitely gonna go in 2007!
I hope you still have the list of restaurants I gave you! We're booked for a midnight dinner New Year's Eve at a place in Trastevere that sounds really interesting. If it's as good as I hope, I'll pass on the name to you. I believe it translates as "Roasted Donkey..."
It's a bit early to have definite plans. Maybe I'll go to Portman Road and support the blues.
I admit to leaving your addresses on Colin R's blog at the Telly, so they have probably disappeared by now. But I shall pick your brains when I manage to get my Rome trip sorted out - you'd think Rome was a million miles away and I was planning a major expedition - we are only 45km from the Italian border!
Roasted donkey, eh? Interesting name - hope it has nothing to do with the menu!
Nothing stops you making one of the most wonderful journeys in the World. Verbier, St Bernard, Lugano, Turin, Milan, Genoa,Pisa, Firenze, Senna, Parma, Assisi, Roma and then of course on to, cherry on the cake, Napoli and Amalfi.
Need about two weeks best off season.
Nothing at all - just time and money!
I'm staying here for Christmas. The boys will be with their father so I'll be celebrating boy-less. I then take them to my parents' for the New Year and Christmas Mark II.
We will have a French Reveillon with NG (foie gras, oyster platter etc) and an English Christmas Day with turkey and all the trimmings plus Christmas pudding.
Should be fun!
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