Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night! Bon réveillon !

Walnut tree among the vines.

 

A birthday dessert

I think the pie I make the most often is the classic tarte aux pommes. It's relatively easy and I enjoy it. For this year's birthday dessert, however, I did something different: an almond and pear tart. Or maybe it's a cake. In French, it's an amandine aux poires. The batter is made with ground almonds, a little flour, eggs, sugar, a splash of pear brandy, and canned pear halves, all baked in a standard pie crust. A delight!

Tarte amandine au poires.

The weather people say our low temperatures will be dropping over the next few days with snow (!) possible on overnight on Christmas Eve. A white Christmas? We shall see!

Let there be lights

Or not. This year, I strung lights along the deck railing. You can't tell it by this photo, though, unless you look real hard. I find my confidence on ladders is waning, especially when it's raining and everything is wet. So the lights end up where I don't have to climb.

You can find the lights strung along the wrought iron rail in front of the sliding glass doors.

It was raining when I snapped this photo from our neighbors' yard.

We can see the lights from inside the house and it's festive, so we don't feel like we're missing anything. Christmas Eve is in two days! I'm looking forward to our traditional cheese fondue. 

Solstice

It's the winter solstice! In a few days we will start seeing more daylight. Yippee!

More daylight as the sun starts to climb higher in the sky.

 

Water tower in the fog

This is a water tower, one of many in the Cher River valley near where we live. I took the photo in the fall of 2013, I think.

Water tower reaching above the tree line.

Today is the last day of fall here in the northern hemisphere. The days have stopped getting shorter and after a brief pause, they'll start adding daylight, a minute or so each day for a while. Hardly perceptible at first, but if you look closely, you'll see it.

Busy as a bee

Shopping, cooking, running errands. And now it's raining.

What's the buzz?

 There's also no stress. We're not having any guests, not going out at all (except for said errands).

Drip, drip, drop

When it's foggy outside (like it's ever foggy inside), the fog condenses on the vineyard's guide wires and other surfaces. We've seen lots of fog in recent weeks. It often does the same thing on our wrought iron deck railing.

When it gets cold enough, the drops freeze into tiny icicles.

The coming weekend is a big one before the holidays. We have a few food traditions we enjoy this time of year, not the least of which is cheese fondue on Christmas Eve. Yum!

December sunrise

This is part of an allée of poplars that separates the property of two of our neighbors. When the neighbors are away, we sometimes walk though with Tasha. The neighbors know we do it. One of them, in fact, once asked us to keep and eye out if we could. Somebody once stole some planting stakes and things from her vegetable garden while she and her husband were away many years ago.

Morning fog creeping up from a nearby ravine as the sun rose on Monday.

I'll try to get some photos of the lights I strung on the deck. It's certainly not anything elaborate, but I enjoy having them. Ho, ho, ho! 

Tasha Tuesday

On our way out last Friday evening very near sunset. Thankfully, there was no wind.

Same spot, different weather

This is more or less the same view as yesterday's photo. The only difference is the snow. I'm reminded how pretty it can be. We haven't seen snow like this in a while. And none is forecast any time soon. Too bad; I'd kind of like to see some. That falls under the category called "Be careful what you wish for."

The dirt road in yesterday's photo is just behind the tree visible in this one.

I gave up on untangling the holiday lights yesterday. I let them beat me. I did pretty well, but after an hour or more, I just couldn't go on. Fortunately, I was able to get another string untangled (it was put away more carefully) and hung on the deck railing. Jingle bells. 

Cold morning

The mornings are getting cold again. They're not quite as cold as this morning was back in 2013 (you can see our Callie sniffing around on the frosty ground). The weather people are again predicting a warm-up (afternoon highs) for the coming week.

Our hamlet is at the other end of the dirt road on the left.

I got the holiday lights out yesterday. I somehow got them into a frustrating jumble. Fixing that will be one of my tasks for the day. 

A little river mist

Here's another of the photos (from many years ago) of the Cher River on a misty, foggy late autumn morning. I used to take Callie down to the river for walks now and then. There's a hiking trail along the river bank that makes it a more or less easy walk. I haven't been back down there in ages. Maybe it's time!

Misty morning on the Cher.

The holidays are right around the corner! That snuck up fast. OK grammar fans, sneaked or snuck?

Le Cher

The Cher river is a tributary of the Loire. It's source is south of us in the northwestern section of the Massif Central mountain range. The cher flows into the Loire near Villandry, famous for its château and ornate gardens.

Le Cher à Mareuil en fin d'automne.

That's it for this morning. Time to head out to the doctor's office.

Late autumn

The winter solstice occurs in ten days, marking the shortest "day" in the northern hemisphere and the arrival of astronomical winter along with increasing amounts of daylight. Yay!

The lone poplar in fall of 2013.

We're still in a mild spell as far as temperatures go. Sometimes it feels as if it's colder inside the house than outdoors. That will probably change soon. We'll see.

Jade flower

One of our jade plants is blooming. The flowers are tiny, less than a centimeters in diameter, with a touch of purple in the petals.

Jade flowers.

I woke up to rain again this morning. The forecast doesn't look good for the morning walk with Tasha. At least the wind has calmed down. 

Last gasps of fall

This photo is from back in 2013, if I'm not mistaken. And I likely could be. I didn't keep track of photos then like I do now. Not that what I do now is a better system, it's just different. At any rate, Autumn is pretty much over for this year. Just under two weeks left.

I don't think this brilliant parcel is in production any more. I wonder what kind of grapes they were.

I called the doctor's office yesterday for an appointment to refill some prescriptions. I don't think prescription refills can be done over the phone in France, much less by internet. It takes an in-person office visit. I'm early, but recently it's been hard to get an appointment when I want one, which is early in the day and preferably before lunch. Imagine my surprise when the secretary offered me 08h30 on this coming Friday morning! Perfect.

Did you know?

In the US, prescription drugs are dispensed in bottles. The pharmacist would type out a label (old person joke: how'd he get the bottles into the typewriter?), Here in France, prescriptions come in factory produced blister packages inside shiny cardboard boxes. At no time do pharmacy hands touch the medicine.

I still use daily pill boxes to keep myself organized. That involves taking the pills out of the blisters once a week. The yellow things on the bottom are non-prescription cough losanges, also packed in blisters.

I only think of this because I have to renew my prescriptions soon. I take two daily pills for blood pressure and cholesterol control. Other pills come and go depending on what's ailing me at the moment. All of our Rx's are covered by our health insurance program, so no cash is exchanged at the pharmacy. 

Bare vines

The grape vine pruning is now under way out back. Two guys worked on (and finished) the parcel just outside our back gate on Friday. That's not what's in today's photo, however. This is another parcel nearby. I didn't want to take pictures of the guys working.

All the grape leaves are gone from this parcel. The wind blew them away.

The house rocked with wind and rain again last night. It's relatively warm outdoors, but the house feels cold inside. We're still losing daylight. Sunrise waits until 8h27 this morning. Then at 9h00 the hunters show up out among the vines. Pheasants beware! 

Morning fog

The fog lay thick in all of the usual places and this was the view from our deck on Friday morning. Our house sits on a high point and frequently we can have sunny skies while the river valley below is socked in. In this view from our deck, we're about halfway between socked in and clear.

The view from our deck to the neighbors' property on Friday morning.

We're heading into a warm spell into next week. We had spells of high wind with rain squalls over night. Lovely.

By the way, the answer to yesterday's question is: Notre Dame Cathedral at Rouen, Normandy. :) 

Any guesses?

I know the answer.

No fair using software!

 Answer: Cathédrale de Notre Dame, Rouen, Normandie.

Exploring

We haven't been back to the piney woods since I took this photo a week ago. I'm not sure nothing's changed. I heard some sounds that could have been chainsaws over the past few days. Like I said, I don't want to be out there with Tasha if there's a crew working. She gets excited.

Tasha explores one of the places were trees were cut.

 

Keeping track

I'm just guessing here, but I think this might be some sort of system to estimate how much wood is piled up and/or a way to see if someone is taking logs without authorization. Whatever it is, it's colorful.

Piled and marked.

We're having single digit (Celsius) weather right now. Nothing below freezing, though. And light rain showers continue to move through. Ah, winter.

Tasha Tuesday

Tasha on Thanksgiving Day, 2025.

What's left

This is what's left of the piney woods. It's mostly the piney part. Most everything around the pines has been cut. That'll make it easy to walk into, when the time comes. I"ll be waiting until I know we won't be in the way of the lumberjacks.

This is the neater, and smaller, of the two wood piles. The heart of the piney woods is in the background.

I"m out to an early morning appointment up near Blois. The temperature is low, but it's not quite down to freezing.