Christmas in Montfalcon

Tuesday 25 December

I don't know how Christmas is generally celebrated in France, but I trust it is done mostly with close family members.  I've also been told that Christmas Eve is more important to the French than Christmas Day, and certainly Boxing Day is a lot quieter.  Not a Big Bargain Sales day like it is in the UK and in Australia.

So, we start the day with a Christmassy type of breakfast and there are even a few people (like the day before) who contact us via Skype.  Great, it is always good to hear from family and friends, although it's friends in our case...  That's not to say we haven't heard from family, because Kevin manages to skype us later, when it is night time in Australia.  The whole family (the two boys with their respective families) have gone camping, but unfortunately it's raining cats and dogs in the middle of the night.  We could hear the rain and thought at first we heard a waterfall.  No fun in a tent, so let's keep the fingers crossed the weather will improve.

As the day wears on I play a few games of wordfeud with those people that aren't too tied up yet and later Frank and I get the games out and a cheese platter and settle down to play games for the rest of the afternoon.

Dinner isn't a big affair after the cheese and what goes with it.  Just a special soup and dessert and that'll do use nicely.  For the first time we find something half decent to watch on TV, so we watch till it's bed time and that was Christmas Day in Montfalcon.

Wednesday 26 December

As I haven't slept very well during the night I get up a bit later then usual and get dressed quickly, because the baker is expected as usual today.  The rest of the day goes by quietly, with an afternoon walk to the village Montfalcon and back.  We are not taking the car for two reasons: we are a bit low on fuel (forgot to top up before Christmas) and the local automated thingie at the garage doesn't accept our credit card.

Secondly we are not sure about the brakes.  We're still having a problem with the warning lights coming on and the beep sounding, so we want to be careful.  Unfortunately we received a very stroppy e-mail back from Rene, telling us that we had made 'unreasonable' use of his car. He had made a note of the mileage and our reading was a lot higher than he had apparently expected.  Well, that didn't go down well with us either, I can tell you.  We have reluctantly accepted his wish to not go beyond 350 km from his house, which made our trip to Paris unnecessarily expensive, but if he expects us to stay home and only go out for the weekly shopping then he shouldn't exchange houses ánd cars, in particular since he lives on a farm in a country, far removed from most conveniences.  We've accepted all of that, but..... 'unreasonable' use of his car? I don't think so.  And, the furthest we have been away was a mere 100 kms!

Strange enough I had an uneasy feeling when we said 'yes' to this house exchange request, and it seems not without reason after all.  Anyway, that e-mail didn't do much for our good humour for an hour or so, but we managed to shake it off and we'll just see what happens next.