Well it's been yonks since the last update. I've collected the last six weeks of events and plonked them on the page. I haven't been updating quite so frequently because in concentrating on one task little seems to change, although it seems to take forever to complete it. Also the period in question has covered the Christmas and New Year break about which more below.
Anyway I'll set this down chronologically beginning with the return from Leiden in November.

When we got back from Leiden, Ray and Ann threw a collective birthday bash for the November people: Ann, Patsy (the daughter of Richard and Chris) and us. Anyway a mate of ours called Chrystal made these amazing sculptural birthday cakes, which were effectively works of art. The Daquiri-style cocktail glasses were our cakes - can't think what inspired chrystal. Ray made lots of cakes and there was lashings of pop, so all in all a wonderful do.

My cousin Colin came to stay at the beginning of December with his daughter Lois. She'd just had her 18th birthday, so I think the trip was by way of a birthday gift. There's definitely a birthday theme here. We had a mellow few days and Lois enjoyed her first visit to France.

Mum and Sheila revved up the broomsticks for a Christmas visit. They arrived in a snow storm and got diverted down to Begerac. All's well that ended well and they finally got bussed up to Limoges and we were able to kick off the festivities. We had a laugh, a lot of drinks and chocs: and I kid you not, they were very competitive when it came to choc munching, as the pics testify. The snow disappeared after a day, but not before I was able to get some atmospheric pics. It's back in force now, as it is everywhere.

We went up to Leiden to spend New Year with my mate Steve and his family. It was, as ever, lovely and cosy and we managed to get over to Amsterdam before the family flu epidemic kicked in. New Year's eve was spent on the roof terrace drinking bubbly and watching the Leiden firework displays. The Dutch spend an absolute fortune on legal bombs at this time of year and are slightly deranged when it comes to where and when they let them off.

And lest you think this site has become simply a 'what-I-did-on-my-holidays' journal, here is the latest update on the ensuite saga. The pesky little obliette has finally been finished and probably took longer than concreteing the whole ground floor of the house. Anyway it's taught us everything we would ever want to know, and probably want to forget, about tiling. So, and I've been wanting to do this from the beginning, here's a potted history of the part of the house that has become the ensuite. We've got bits of pottering around to do up there but we start on the downstairs bathroom tomorrow.

I know it's all very passé but I still love the winter landscape and the environs here remind me of something from a Breughal painting. Any minute now there'll be a couple of hunters returning in the snow.