We arrived just after an afternoon rain shower so the light was amazing.
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Hedgehog!
We took a sunday drive to a place called Herisson this afternoon - about 30 minutes from our place. Herisson means Hedgehog in French, which is a pretty strange name for a village - but it was a very pleasant spot indeed, nothing snuffly or prickly about it at all! An old medieval village with tiny twisty streets and a crumbling fortress.
We arrived just after an afternoon rain shower so the light was amazing.
We arrived just after an afternoon rain shower so the light was amazing.
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
Joyeux Noel!
I hope everyone is having a lovely Christmas and I wish you all a wonderful year ahead in 2014!
xxx
Monday, December 23, 2013
Hitched!
So - despite my obstetrician tsking and clucking his tongue when I told him we planned to be married 2 weeks out from my due date, followed by whispered predictions across town that the wedding ceremony would be held in the maternity ward and my own fears that my waters would break in a spectacular fashion on the floor of the town hall while the ceremony was underway .....
WE DID IT!!!!
And the little fraussie's mum and dad are very very happy.
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Oh, Christmas Tree!
We put up our Christmas tree a couple of days ago - a REAL one. My first real one ever - although I think I do remember a Christmas at the beach where we used a she-oak pine tree in place of our regular plastic one. Real trees are the best!
This is Romain and I decorating the tree in our pantouffles (slippers) while Frank Sinatra croons out some carols. Classy!
With all the wild frivolity, we only copped one breakage
And that's a Christmas tree!
Now for the presents... Unfortunately no-one has had the time or energy to do any christmas shopping yet, so we are off this afternoon to see what we can rustle up in down-town St Amand. If I fail in my mission, then everyone is just getting 'a grandchild' 'a niece/nephew' 'a cousin' etc. And they can be happy with that!
This pic shows how close to delivery that particular present is: maybe a christmas baby afterall. Poor bugger. Destined for a lifetime of 'now here's your present - it's for both Christmas AND your birthday'.
This is Romain and I decorating the tree in our pantouffles (slippers) while Frank Sinatra croons out some carols. Classy!
With all the wild frivolity, we only copped one breakage
And that's a Christmas tree!
Now for the presents... Unfortunately no-one has had the time or energy to do any christmas shopping yet, so we are off this afternoon to see what we can rustle up in down-town St Amand. If I fail in my mission, then everyone is just getting 'a grandchild' 'a niece/nephew' 'a cousin' etc. And they can be happy with that!
This pic shows how close to delivery that particular present is: maybe a christmas baby afterall. Poor bugger. Destined for a lifetime of 'now here's your present - it's for both Christmas AND your birthday'.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Twisted Fire Starter
Romain is back! After 6 weeks away, he got back this morning at 6 am - after being kidnapped by his buddies in Paris fresh off the plane from Kosovo, for one last night of drunken debauchery before the sh*t gets real and our Fraussie gets here.
And one of his top priorities upon arriving home - after paying due attention to me and our growing fraussie bump of course - was to get the fireplace cranking.
Mum - who is here visiting from Australia and helping to put a bit more Aussie in our Fraussie household - and I had left this particular job for Romain's return, figuring we were both pretty clueless when it came to chimneys and ran a real risk of burning the place to the ground if we tried to get it going ourselves.
This is Romain, resplendent in his gaudy, dad-worthy, christmas woollen jumper, lighting the inaugural match - full of hope and anticipation for many a night spent cosied up in front of the fire place with a whiskey and good book.
This is him about 2 minutes later, declaring the whole thing a disaster, as smoke poured from the chimney into the room, choking us all in the process and sending us running to fling open all the windows in the house.
"It will never work" he said shaking his head - ever the optimist. "Some chimneys just don't work". "Rubbish!" I said, knowing absolutely nothing about chimneys or fireplaces. My theory was that the chimney just needed to 'remember' how to be a chimney and we needed to give it a while to work again.
So after about 15 minutes, phone-call consultations with various fire-savvy family members and the removal of a log that we decided was too green and was the main culprit behind the smoke issue, the fire DID start behaving itself.
And it here it is. Looking like a fair-dinkum, magnifique fraussie fire.
And here is our lovely fire-making gear, which used to belong to my Grandpa. I don't think it was ever used to stoke too many fires in Rockhampton, given 'winter' there usually remains a balmy 20 degrees, so we'll be sure to put it to good use over here.
And one of his top priorities upon arriving home - after paying due attention to me and our growing fraussie bump of course - was to get the fireplace cranking.
Mum - who is here visiting from Australia and helping to put a bit more Aussie in our Fraussie household - and I had left this particular job for Romain's return, figuring we were both pretty clueless when it came to chimneys and ran a real risk of burning the place to the ground if we tried to get it going ourselves.
This is Romain, resplendent in his gaudy, dad-worthy, christmas woollen jumper, lighting the inaugural match - full of hope and anticipation for many a night spent cosied up in front of the fire place with a whiskey and good book.
 |
| The only thing missing from this photo to make it worthy of a 70s christmas card is a seedier moustache on Romain and maybe me in the periphery with a tray of martinis |
This is him about 2 minutes later, declaring the whole thing a disaster, as smoke poured from the chimney into the room, choking us all in the process and sending us running to fling open all the windows in the house.
 |
| Romain, defeated. |
"It will never work" he said shaking his head - ever the optimist. "Some chimneys just don't work". "Rubbish!" I said, knowing absolutely nothing about chimneys or fireplaces. My theory was that the chimney just needed to 'remember' how to be a chimney and we needed to give it a while to work again.
So after about 15 minutes, phone-call consultations with various fire-savvy family members and the removal of a log that we decided was too green and was the main culprit behind the smoke issue, the fire DID start behaving itself.
And it here it is. Looking like a fair-dinkum, magnifique fraussie fire.
And here is our lovely fire-making gear, which used to belong to my Grandpa. I don't think it was ever used to stoke too many fires in Rockhampton, given 'winter' there usually remains a balmy 20 degrees, so we'll be sure to put it to good use over here.
So I'm writing this post now in front of our crackling fire, feeling quite Christmassy all of a sudden. I might go and grab some rum balls from the fridge.
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