286. 'Twas the season to be jolly..

31st December. As we stumble wearily towards the midnight hour and a brand New Year, who would have thought just 12 short months ago that tonight we'd all be masked up and isolated. Plus, the long drawn-out saga of Brexit has finally been concluded to the satisfaction of both parties.. sign of a good deal (or maybe that we just haven't read the small print!) So, to all the readers of this blog - whoever and wherever you are - let's make 2021 the year when we restore our way of life back to the way it was. Happy New Year one and all!      

30th December. I grew up to the sound of my father playing the piano - and endlessly practising pieces like Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" - played beautifully with great passion here by Claudio Arrau. I don't think I've ever heard a better interpretation: 

        

We saw Gautier Capuçon, one of France's greatest cellists, here in Anglet a few months ago.. Here he is with Édith Piaf & Marguerite Monnot's "Hymne à l'Amour". Think this is one for full screen: 

     

I'm having my final session of physio this morning prior to the knee 'op' in a week's time. I'll be spending most of January behind bars - 4-5 days in hospital then 2-3 weeks in a sinister-sounding 're-education centre'.. so you'll have to talk among yourselves for a while!

I'd like to take this opportunity to wish both of my long-suffering oops -standing readers my best wishes for 2021.. Let's hope these new vaccines are effective (now there's a New Year's wish you don't often hear..). 

28th December. I woke up early (5.40am) this morning to the sound of a deluge of rain running in the gutters - and winds howling around the house. Fortunately we have these solid wooden shutters at the west-facing back of the house that keep the winter storms at a distance. Grey skies, lashing rain and gusting winds.. it's still blowing hard now. Probably not what you might imagine our lot to be here.. Fortunately we seldom get any snow - and if we do, it's usually gone by lunchtime. 

It's now 8.30pm as I write this and it's still blowing a gale and raining as hard as it was this morning.  

27th December. I was just returning from walking Nutty along the beach this morning when I put on the car radio - France Musique - and it was an interview with someone talking about their childhood musical influences and she happened to mention Louis Armstrong's "When it's sleepy time down south" and - whoooosh - that took me straight back 60+ years.. My father had an old 78 record of that very tune - and of all the music he played, I'd say it was right up there in his top three. I must have heard it a few hundred times! It's strange - I haven't heard that song or thought of it for decades - and yet - boom - the memory of it brought him back instantly.. so here's the same version (on a 45) of that great old song that my father loved so much:

25th December. A picture's worth a thousand words - so here's the lad himself getting into the Christmas spirit.. (a friend gave him the tie..)

I hope that you all have a happy Christmas - even if your friends and family are at the end of a Zoom call..  

22nd December. Time for a Christmas Carol - here's the choir of King's College, Cambridge with "The Angel Gabriel".. (sometimes known as the Old Basque Carol):

 

It was unseasonably warm here yesterday with 17°C.. and today the forecast is for 19°.. It's definitely not woodburner weather. However, with the current Covid restrictions in place - restaurants, cafés and bars all closed - means that some of the usual pleasures of going out for the day - a seat outside somewhere or a little lunch - are unavailable. I'm not looking for sympathy! (just as well because... fill in the rest yourselves!)    

I've been having 3 sessions of physio a week on my right knee in preparation for the forthcoming 'op' in January. My usual physio has taken a week's leave over the festive season and so it was her replacement that I saw yesterday. She gave my knee an intensive work-out and it would be fair to say that your correspondent is presently at the 'ouch' end of the pain spectrum. I have further sessions with her today and tomorrow. (gulp!)

18th December. If only Life was like this.. 😉:

16th December. The house is looking very Christmassy now - Madame has been busy and she has worked her customary magic - and finally Christmas seems real again. If I stood still for long enough I'm sure I'd end up with holly and ivy wound around my extremities!☺

I was in town yesterday evening to collect Nutty (our cocker) from Allo Toutou (the dog groomers). As he wasn't quite ready, I walked down to the Comptoir Irlandais to look at the mouth-watering display of Scotch single malt whiskies. Talking to one of the assistants, she suddenly darted off to the desk and poured me a wee dram of Glenrothes 12 year old.. And a very impressive drop o' the cratur it was too - and very different from Glenmorangie, my preferred single malt. I must have a look in the Spanish shops on the border to see what they charge..  

15th December. I picked up an early Christmas present from our local pharmacy the other day.. Yes, a racy pair of aluminium crutches.. although it would no longer surprise me if they had a fancy new name these days - such as "personalised augmented stability system". They'll come in handy when I'm released back into society at the end of January after my replacement knee has been fitted and I've negotiated my way through the 2-3 weeks of post 'op' physiotherapy. (Thinks: there's never a parrot when you want one is there?)    

By the way, for the benefit of any Brits in France, here's a helpful newsletter from the British Embassy in Paris. 

I'm late with my Christmas shopping this year and I'm struggling for inspiration - especially for those small stocking fillers. Normally, I'm done and dusted by the end of November but for obvious reasons, this wasn't possible this year.  

13th December. There was a short feature on TVPI, our local TV station, this morning about the paramotor club at nearby Saint-Pée-sur-Nivelle. I watched the short film in a kind of suspended fascination and fear all at the same time.. I've previously experienced flying viewed from within a metal structure - and so I must admit to feelings of vertigo while watching the video below and, as I don't bounce well, I found myself wondering just how strong the equipment was.. Sitting up at 2-3,000 feet is not the place to be having thoughts like these..

    

9th December. I guess there's no putting it off any longer - I'll have to start writing my Christmas cards very soon. I've just brought our Made in China Christmas tree* up from the cellar where it's been skulking since January. It just doesn't seem like Christmas..

* I never thought I'd succumb to an artificial tree but they're more manageable than the real variety.    

8th December. We've had rain and lots of it over the last few days. Yesterday though, the weather gods decided to crank the dial round into the red zone and what had merely been heavy rain blown by strong gusty winds turned into rain the like of which I've never seen before. From the study window upstairs, the noise was deafening and the intensity of the downpour significantly reduced the visibility across the avenue outside. The poor dog would go outside and come straight back in again. I did manage to take him out at one point when the rain slackened off a touch.. The sky is still heavy with grey storm clouds. My Barbour jacket has rarely been used so much here!      

4th December. For many of us, this year's Christmas will be very different - due to Covid - to ones we have known previously. For me, one of the elements that used to 'make' Christmas was the Christmas Carol Service in the centuries-old country church in the Herefordshire village where we used to live. The annual Carol Service was always a special evening in the life of our village as people came together to sing the old carols - and afterwards to enjoy a hot mince pie and a glass of mulled wine with friends and neighbours before heading off home in the dark. 

The magic of Christmas is all wrapped up with childhood memories - and yes, they are unique to a time and a place. This is now our home - but even though we are content here, inevitably there will be one or two of the old Christmas rituals that can't be replicated here. Hemingway once observed that "you don't know what Christmas is until you lose it in some foreign land.." - but our experience of Christmas is that it changes as we get older - and so it's no good harking back to days of old - because those Christmasses of yesteryear live on only in our memories - and are unrepeatable.  

3rd December. We enjoyed an unexpectedly moving evening here in town a year or two ago - a riverside Chinese lantern festival. Watch this in wonder - like the many goggle-eyed small children who were present that night. It was later reported that around 50,000 people were present in Bayonne's narrow streets - and its very success means that it is likely to fall victim to the confinement this year. (Edited to add: yes, it's official - sadly, no mass release of Chinese lanterns this year..)  This video is from 2018.. it was an incredibly moving event..