Post birthday-post

                          

Hangover, sir?
No thanks. Mark doesn't do these - or drunken behaviour, I think mainly as being so tall, the alcohol gives up before it reaches his brain.
I did once see him being very slightly worst for wear, but that was after three head-pulverising mojitos in Brazil on New Year's eve, and I was probably slightly WFW and therefore he may have been sitting innocently thinking about a tune he was in the middle of composing rather than dancing in the street as I seem to remember.

So, the surprise party was indeed a surprise and the vague story about our lad making a meal in a friend's restaurant for us, did work. Mark was surprised, and despite a long day's work, managed not to become over-emotional, as I would have done, but maybe that's more a woman thing.
He even remained smiling and unruffled as I announced he would be playing drums in our rock n' roll band, of which we have not rehearsed for about nine months.

                                       

                            Pete and Dave performing: My brother makes the noises for the talkies

Being a man of music, that was at the forefront of the planning. We stared with brilliant cabaret songs from Pete, Dave and Alex, followed by our son's band 'The F.E.W' - and they even let mark 'guest' on tambourine.

                                    

 

                                                                      The F.E.W

We did a few numbers, much in the shadow of the energetic and wonderful 'F.E.W'; then a change of direction to cello and double bass with two talented colleagues of Mark's from the conservatoire: Marjorie et Vincent and finally, tenor, Riccardo accompanied by Mark on piano.

                              

                                      

Being a Thursday evening, people were beginning to move towards the door, but coats were flopped onto chairs and seats reclaimed as Riccardo's voice filled the room.

                                           
                                         

During the evening, as well as music, we were treated to Sue's fantastic cooking (all veg, by our request); the most incredible 'piano' cake, made by a friend of Sue's, displays of balloon art from Christian, sound and technical stuff by Carl, and SO much help from dear friends, Helen and Malcolm amongst many others.

                                         
                                      



  

AND, thanks for all the fabulous wine, everyone - we now have a small cellar and Mark is even considering purchasing one of those fold out, criss-cross wine racks rather than the small cupboard space allocated to our usually pathetic collection.
Well, time to post this, and back to reality - starting with a clear up where everything here was abandoned yesterday evening as party time arrived.

Christmas will be gold, crinkly and knobbly

As decreed by Ferrero SpA: massive corp that is apparently responsible for churning out the most boring (according to our households' tastebuds) chocolate . . . the Ferrero Rocher (rock in french). They own Nutella, so, not surprisingly each 'spherical chocolate sweet' - (wikipedia) contains a good dollop of the brown stuff along with an unsuspecting entombed hazelnut making up a total calorific value of 73 calories.
Actually, I've just noticed SpA is also the name of France's chain of dogs' homes . . . wonder what else is in them.
The reason I'm rambling about this is the result of my annual shock on seeing the ever-increasing chocolate displays in the local supermarkets as Christmas approaches with all the red/gold/fois gras/gallons of fizz/last desperate purchasing mania that we have somehow created.
On my last trip to Leclerc recently, I listened to some poor woman as I stood waiting for the promised offcut-dogmeat to be wheeled in. Her job was to trap people into buying more chocolate than they might have envisaged buying.
"Mesdames, c'est moi le chocolat, " - "Madames, it is me the chocolate!" (odd phrase) she called with the nagging repetition of a small child at a sweets-infested checkout.
I looked at her smallish black-clad form standing between two towering displays of Ferrero Rocher and suddenly felt very worried. It was like being in Terry Gilliam's 'Brazil' where it has become eternally Christmas and everyone is giving and receiving the same present - F. R in this case.
Mark has come home each day this week from the Conservatoire holding various presents from pupil's parents. Nearly all of them feel like a plastic round-edged box that give out a certain muffled rattle - that of spherical chocolates containing a hazelnut.

Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside

Well not any old seaside, but just anywhere on the stretch between Cadaques and Banyuls.
After a Girona airport drop off I took the opportunity to look at the infinite blue thing. Blue indeed it was, dashed with small angry waves thrown up by the strong wind we have all been a little tired of recently.
Such wild beauty that coastline: the vertiginous road winding around steep hills covered in wild lavender, cactus and umbrella pines; cove after cove, still quiet before the main influx of summer.
I stopped at a tiny inlet where, outside a solitary cafe, a family sat drinking 'mochitos' (not the kids) in their swim attire. I had removed my socks by then but was still rather in moth-eaten winter mode. It slightly reminded me of the time Mark and I went to Brazil in January. We arrived and were ushered to the beach by our hosts. I'm pretty sure I heard a low mass gasp from the miles of beautiful sun-oiled Brazilians as we revealed, reluctantly, our red/pink/white spotty sun-starved bodies.
This is a glass, or half, of rosé I was enjoying in Banyuls-sur mer. Gradually my winter-coping brain (checking the wood pile, making sure there is enough soup etc) is allowing those memories of summer pleasures to creep back. Swallows wheeling against the ever darkening azure sky, warm soft breeze; just to be able to sit outside and watch the world pass without feeling the need to get back under shelter.

Blog post for Mark

Currently in the frozen wastelands of the Netherlands. Those lands unexplored up in the North: flat, eerie, wild and windswept. Probably not. I only passed through Holland briefly years ago and ate a cheese sandwich in a service station, so I have no good visual recollection of it, (Holland, not the cheese sandwich)

Mark, we miss your bread (actually, I just made some and it was GOOD!) and everything else, even your tutting in the kitchen.
Weird days here . . . not unpleasant, but long and glassy from reflected snow whiteness. Quiet, even though we have listened to Jacques Dutronc relentlessly. Quiet with that sort of stillness only disturbed by the muffled thud of a clump of snow falling from an overloaded tree. No train, no cars. Snoring dogs, small movements in the house in the compound on the edge of this small silent town in a white landscape, amongst other bigger white landscapes. Somewhere in Brazil someone must be sitting on a beach wondering what snow is like.