Ca, c'était le 1er janvier au matin.
L'année 2017 s'est achevée sans fanfare, sans feu d'artifice ni pétard, sans ébriété.
Vaut-elle la peine, alors?
Follow me!
For this first blog post of 2018, I will endeavour to address you in English (Ja, in 't Engels).
One more time, we were invited to bring 2017 to an end in style by our excellent friends Herman and Anna. You know all about them already.
"The company was gay but no, we didn't turn night into day", our host's Hermits were not entirely right this time.
I spent most of the evening solving (and actually failing to solve) a very material brain-teaser. Christine, who was more readily available as she didn't try to catch up with every single ongoing discussion, managed to eliminate the conundrum at a single flick of the wrist, to the extreme pleasure of the attendance. Yes, there were many more stupid feminists than decent male chauvinist pigs among us.
The Commonwealth has lost all his values.
Let's move to more exciting topics ... (sigh).
Herman is your very expert in the planting, growing, picking and cooking of exquisite leaks. Nothing to wonder about, his home village (Bekkerzeel), so rumour has ... leaked, is now Caerdydd's twin town.
Mwynhewch eich bwyd
He drove all the way from Pajottenland to the vicinity of Pézenas, carrying enough deer meat from our Ardennes in the boot of his car to feed a party of rugby players, including bench and substitutes.
Anna is Swedish by birth. As such, you needn't tell her how to fix game, be it reindeer, doe or even a shepperd of the handsome type. Her stew was outstanding, reaching tenderness and perfect flavour at the same time. I didn't see the "making of", but it seems at one moment she adds some strange nordic butter made out of goat's milk. Something (what?) tells me she bunged Belgian chocolate in her mixture as well.
We also had a German invitee, a retired language teacher of a kind, and she came complete with ... the first course (very tasty shrimp-stuffed tomatoes and salmon pie). She also brought a bottle of "blanc de noirs", a still dry white wine made from pinot noir (Spätburgunder). I was very keen to open it but ... we had had enough French stuff and time was right to move to red wine altogether.
The rest of the party were expatriated Brits (including a couple from Northern Ireland, who don't entirely qualify for the label) and they were responsible for the desert, in asociation with Christine, whose "macarons" have become famous all along the Cévennes, in a manner not dissimilar to Stevenson's Modestine.
Liquids consisted of water from the vilage's well, Gram-negative bugs and unicellulars courtesy of the "municipalité". And we drank Champagne in a plenty, interrupted at times by some Coume Majou goodies.
"What else did you do?", you may ask.
I discussed fatherhood, feelings, affects and ... buddhism - would you believe it? - with Anna's son and a few others, and i did my best to make a fool of myself. I'm very good at it, given a chance.
Next morning, I had a look at the marvelous surroundings, as seen from the landlord's terrace. You will spot, at the right third part of the horizon, Mont Saint-Clair above Sète, with Paul Valéry's grave. And I turned once more to the mind-teaser ... Hurrah !
Many thanks to all
and ...
see you on December 31st!
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