Thursdays excitements

 

You may may have to trust me on this one... kingfisher preening in the mighty Aude, this morning! Never seen such a thing before. Usually it's an iridescent blue arrow shooting along the the rivers flow. This morning s/he settled on the stick and tidied the feathers, starting at the ridiculously burnt orange chest, and twirling to do the back and wings. VERY long beak. Gorgeous, was thrilled to my twitchers' core.  

Later, saw a Pyrenean Blue Bee - out early - and most welcome, they were scarce last year. Blue skies attracting blue critters?

Saw humans too. For the last two days have failed to get decent photos - last nights excellent and highly convivial evening at Toutla being a case in point, most of the tribe being there - and at Samuels at tea time - and the day before of Jamsie, who is briefly here. Looking most photogenic. 

---Though you'll have to trust me on this one too. 

gallettery

 At this time of year, we are forced to eat Galette des Rois, allegedly to celebrate the arrival or possibly departure of the wise kings at the birth of the savoir, or to acknowledge the supremacy of the Sun, depending on your culture.

Thin leaves of puff pastry stuffed with almond cream (frangipane) - what could possibly go wrong? It's quite serious here, with 'blind' tastings between manufactured ones and artisanal ones. They come with a paper crown, which the eater who gets the 'feve ' has to wear. In they olden days a feve was literally a bean but nowadays it's a little porcelain statue. Can be anything, depending on point of origin... a film star or something pertaining to the christmas story. It's in the cake, somewhere - watch out for your teeth.

The top pasty level is cut either with a leaf pattern or rays-of-sun pattern. Here's my feve...

There are people who collect these things; and I confess, there are many dotted about our house. 

Sunday's market was thin on the ground - lots of people but not many stalls. Fruit and vedge especially lacking though Geraldine of Verdier and sons was doing duty, bless her - didn't snap her but here's her view - and Mamadou. looking glamorous - and a strange image emerging from the advertising column.

Other news; La Chapaire continues closed, as do all the other restaurants in town and ha! a sign to the 'arts'  centre.

Met many other friends at the market whose photos I will not embarrass them with and chatted lots-  though alas, it is matters medical that concern us all these days. Still quite exciting though :)

Philosophers Lunch

Jim Hankinson joined us for lunch, which (in his honour) was a takeaway from the Tibetans. Not that he is especially fond of Tibetan food but that I thought he deserved better than my cooking. And I was right, he deserved much much better! (The Tibetan nosh was smashing, as ever -)

I'm sure I've mentioned - probably somewhat obsessively - that I'm writing a book on what we know about death. This involves a lot of philosophical research, about which I was far from confident. Jim is a professional philosopher and a field leader and how lucky are we to know him!! 

You can guess from my tone that I haven't been shot down in flames.

Thoroughly enjoyed my seminar and the general chat. All most encouraging. 

The other news is that Barbara Jackson, Larrys widow and friend of many of us older denizens, has written; a few days short of her 93 birthday, she says. She sounds in very fine fettle (twice broken arm healing well)  and send love to Esperaza... we remember their time with us with deep affection :) Happy days.
 

Happy 2025 to all!

 And here we go again, another year in our necklaces...

Bob and I did the usual for new years eve -  went to bed at 10.00pm and hoped there wouldn't be any fireworks. In the event there were, as youngsters raced about with crackers and the like, but we were asleep and didn't hear them. 

Wandered to this mornings market and found it totally absent; quelle shock! Met Claudine, Norbert, Clare John M., (in that order)  and possibly others, all well, all bemoaning the missing market.  

But there is some news...

You can dump your tree behind the church, until the 14th. 

Erm, that's it, really. Enjoy what's left of the holidays 

31 st December...

on Sunday, all was bright -

today, however....

and very very cold. Brrr.

 

Adventuring

 We are so bold... we went adventuring, on public transport, like hip young things. Here are the shorn plane trees over the bus stop by the school;

it was clear and cold and at some points of the day, too bright to function without sunglasses.

We met with Lizzie Jackson in Carcassonne, at Freaks Bistronomie, 30 Rue de Verdun - a real find and place we will be returning to. They had three main courses on the menu so we each tried one and nibbled at each others. Ingenious and wonderful nosh. And pud was brioche perdu!! 

During the meal I discovered that the other two had never been to the Maison des Memoires, never. Not even Bob. Can't have that... it's at no 53 Rue de Verdun so off we went.

Huge buzz for me to introduce them to the home of Jose Bousquet, to see the room in which he passed more than twenty years after being shot and paralysed in the first European war, to inspect the memorabilia of his many classy visitors. 

Eluard, Ernst, Magritte, Valery, Weil... a who's who of surrealism and modernism. Hallowed ground. Plus the environs are gorgeous and the place is empty!! The staff are friendly, there's a lift, the toilets are clean and well designed. They rarely advertise anywhere sensible so the best way to find out what's on is to pop in and prepare to be surprised. 

----Still haven't got over running into a Picabia expo there, some many years ago -  the best collection I've ever seen - and that includes the Haywards sorry show.

There was no 4.00 train alas (usually there's one that goes to Limoux) -  but there was a bus that took us all the way home. Tired but happy.

Bosworths

Here are Michael, Barbara and Mair Bosworth who came up with the ingenious post-christmas pre-NY lunch; order it from the Tibetan takeaway and collect it on the way round.  Brilliant! We had soup and stuffed dumplings and stuff I didn't know the name of and it was delicious. Relaxed and easy, though I did go mad and boil some quails eggs. And made an uncertain jam-based pasty thing. 
 

It was the first time we'd met Mair and we were most taken; sage, funny, capable and pretty much what one would expect for from such ace parentage. Come back soon xxxx

P.S. and last nights sky...