We drove back into Waterford last Friday night after a trip up through France, a bit of a dawdle in Sillé le Guillaume (Hotel Bretagne; great food, bad welcome) and a night on the Oscar Wilde (great welcome, bad food) and since then have been trying to draw breath.

Síle’s choir were doing their annual Carol concert in the cathedral in Waterford and she rejoined them for that.
Great to meet all the old friends again, I don’t think I have ever been hugged as often in 15 minutes. We joined them then for a dinner in Dooley’s Hotel, interesting being back to Irish catering.
And so on, our feet have barely touched the ground, we head to Cork to meet various family on Thursday, to Dublin on Friday to get a go off Le Petit Prince and in the meantime I have to organise the Christmas.
Will keep in touch.

The new Grand Nephew when extremely young (my guess is about a couple of hours old) as photographed by his Dad, Eugene.

My newest Grand Nephew, Eoin Mc Veigh was born this morning, a first son for Ann and Eugene, a brother for Laura, 7th grandchild to his Grandma D, and, the 44th of his generation (if my sums are right).

This is a glass goblet from, I guess, sometime in the nineteenth century (it has a nice Georgian/Classical look to it) which I bought about six years ago in Cornwall.

Intact I suppose this would have set me back a hundred quid or more but as it was the lady in the junk shop where I bought it was happy to get a fiver for it.

It is broken, smashed at the point where the stem meets the base.
Broken glassware, no matter how beautiful it once was, is virtually without value.

But what I love about this glass is although someone broke it, someone went to the trouble to repair it too.
If you look carefully at the stem you will see that there are two metal rods going from the base right into the bowl of the glass where they are attached with a pin.

It works perfectly and in this state of repair was probably cherished for further decades by the owner.

Such tender care makes it even more valuable to me and I wouldn’t swap it for an intact replica.

From our terrace just five minutes ago.

It has been chilly enough here for the last couple of weeks but suddenly today it warmed up.
Temperatures rose to around 17C.

We were enticed into eating lunch on the terrace (Croque Monsieurs)

And one of the daffodills has decided that winter is past and spring has come.
(Wouldn’t it be great if he was right)

One of the stained glass windows was , I think, of my old friend St. Roch.

All the accoutrements were present, the staff, the pilgrams scallop shell and the dog but no piece of proffered bread and not a buboe in sight.

All of the windows in this cathedral had a sort of airbrushed Italian sentimentality about them, which reminded me somewhat of the windows of the Irish Churches of my youth.
Maybe it was this influence which had made them decide to clean up St. Roch’s act.

Now we all remember the shock we felt when we discovered that the cricket grounds in Lords in London had two toilets, one for Gentlemen and one for players.

Apartheid in the Languedoc has taken a new twist, and it would be interesting to see how many members of our intellectual class would march the streets protesting at this inequality.

In an Arts Center in Lodeve today we saw that there were two seperate entrances.
One for plebs like you or me and the other;

Last September my sister D bought us this Azalea in the local Super U.

It has sat peacefully on the jardniere on our terrace since then, producing the occasional flower and demanding water from time to time.

Yesterday, bear in mind that it is now December and the plant should surely be thinking of hibernating or something, Madame Azalea decided to come into full and showy florescence.
It is going to be difficult to leave her flowering like this on the terrace when we leave for Ireland.
Maybe she will have come with us.

Tonight our neighbours invited us to dinner.

It was excellent.

When we got there, at about 7 o clock we were given some Blanquette de Limeaux and some cherry tomatoes which were stuffed with cream cheese and herbs.
Next our hostess ( she and her husband are from Normandy) arrived out of the kitchen with some rounds of toasted brioche with a round of grilled Boudin Blanc and some buttery fried apples on top, this was superb, I must have eaten about four and she kept coming out with more.
Then a table and with some nice local Sauvignan the surprise for the foreigners was produced; les Cuisses de Grenouilles, Frogs Legs, these had been soaked in milk and then fried crisp in oil with garlic lemon and parsley (I asked her ) and tasted delicious, my first frogs legs but not my last.

Next our hostess produced for us a beautiful and very thin tart of smoked salmon on thin crisp pastry, another success.

Our main course, which we ate with a local Corbieres, was a Roast Guinea Fowl
which she served with another delicious Sauce from Normandy, made from Cider Calvados walnuts and cream.
My main regret was that I had eaten so much already I couldn’t manage seconds.
After that came le Trou Normande, a stomach boring shot of Calvados, one that they had got from a farmer which was strong enough to open a channel right down to your toes but still redolent of apples and quite superb.
(I have recently read that the finest French Digistif is a Calvados Fermieres, correct,but it must be eaten halfway through the meal a la style Normande)

We changed the wine to an excellent Faugeres for us to drink with our next course of Camembert and Rocquefort. (thanks to the Trou Calva I could fit just a little) and then the lady of the house arrived out with some poached pears with chocolate and toasted almonds.
(It was at this stage that I realised that it was midnight and we had been eating for five hours )

A real triumph of a dinner but a true cause for alarm.

I am going to have to ask them back after Christmas.
What in the name of God will I give them!