The first and second of twelve

I am beginning to think I shall end this blog...
but I won't,
until I have completed 'the kitchen' in a way that is fulfilling in my senior days!
I think that by then I will WILL be ready for a new life, and, hopefully, by then, in 2016, I will have developed a better sense of Thoughts, Needs, Hopes, Dreams, Regrets, AND moreover what I DO NEED to achieve before I can't.
This has been the red curtain hanging open upon my stage... it's still open and until the day I cannot BE, it isn't yet the final curtain.
I am trying hard to appreciate the difficulties that other persons experience.... and how it must be that HOPE is so hard to think about.
The glass is half or more full in my life despite whatever black dogs haunt me!
It is true that I've felt tired of blog posting, but not tired of being creative, if I can harness a positive stimulus. However, being human, I am proud that I can confront / express emotion without sweeping debris under the rug or into a box to put upon a shelf.  It is  better out than in.  I write for me and not for an audience! I write so that I can begin to understand LIFE as it is doled out ... or as I take whatever I take!

SO... an idea arose on my walk today: 45 minutes trailing The American Way leading to 'La Tranche Anglaise' with the final ascent then descent back to MY HOME. Oh yay, my home. Am I not fortunate to not yet be homeless!  Let's Step back one day to yesterday...

On the first day of Christmas LOVE brought to me:

• a cycle ride along a strait then walking long shallow ascents on the return (TOTAL time : an a hour and a half)
• a reindeer in a tree ( amusing )
• champagne and oysters...eaten in warm sunshine ... all we needed was the beach!  I provided a delicious Lanson Champagne... I am sold!!!
• delicious Christmas flavours, Anglais sur l'assiette.. which isn't what mine host envisaged. As I said to her later, we learn from Christmases we experience. Those who served were instructed to get the food portioned onto the plate before it lost heat! ... the plus side were the wines, the humour and that it was achieved in true French fashion ... eating over six hours with pleasant intervals when various people removed themselves from the table to return at the appropriate moment!  
• the fun and joy of children interacting with adults... 
  
  
  
  
  
  

  

  How delightful to see a 4 year old eating more than one!!!!

  

  The beautiful hand made tablecloth from Emmaus for less than ten euros!!!!! 

  
  

  
  

  

  At least 20 plates / dishes of different sizes  portraying Hummingbirds ? Colibris from Emmaus for ten euros!

  

  I do like a boy chicken!

  

  Whilst a modern pudding much like a steamed sultana pudding with a caramel type sauce was interesting I much prefer a real Christmas pud of home made quality but it has been some years since I have had the desire to make one!

and let us step forward to today:
On the second day of Christmas LOVE brought to me:

• a glorious warm spring-like day temperature about 15C!!!!!
• laziness feeling being content...
• a 45 minute walk to my friends' house to find out my holiday duties ...

Trees lopped or felled to provide logs for the owners of the land and to provide a clear view of the mill house!

Le Tranche Anglais - allez -up!

 Indeed - Allez ... up!!!!!!