Le Code Bar – derrickjknight

A Knight’s Tale (149: Farewell To Sigoules)

On the morning of 29th August 2014, beginning with my bedroom, I started the task of reclaiming my rooms. I filled eleven black refuse bags with shoes and clothes from my boudoir, labelled them, and transported them to the hallway, along with the television and its various attachments.

Karen Vick, from Leggett estate Agency, came to view the property and set in motion the process for its sale. An Englishwoman, she had been recommended by Garry and Brigitte, and was a local councillor.

The two large walk-in cupboards in the attic had been filled with the occupiers’ property. Right at the back I found some of my own belongings from the sitting room, including ornaments that had belonged to my grandparents. They had been thrown higgledy piggledy into a broken cardboard box. Stuffed into a stiff paper carrier bag that was dirty inside, were my two raincoats. My books, at least, were still stacked neatly on a set of shelves as I had left them.

A broken bedside table had been dumped into one of the cupboards. Miraculously, my grandparents’ rather fragile tourist purchases from one of their trips to St Malo were undamaged. The same could not be said for a much more robust lidded pot that stood on my bedroom mantelpiece. That, a present I had given my parents many years before, had been smashed and tossed into a waste bin.

It is actually nowadays a physically painful operation for me to crawl about in a packed attic, attempting to avoid boxes, bags, and beams. I have a few scars from the heavy timbers which I sometimes nutted.

I can’t now remember where I found my underclothes and socks. Possibly with my shirts in a wardrobe in another room.

My toiletries, including electric toothbrush, razor, hairdryer, comb, etc., etc. were all missing.

The following morning, I continued the task of cleaning and tidying the house, and separating the intruders’ belongings from mine.

My friends in Le Code Bar were very supportive. Laurence, even though we had not met for a year, was most warm in hers.

The lowering evening sun cast a splendid light across the forecourt of the bar as I dined on magret of duck, chips, and salad, with sparkling Pellegrino to drink.

Before that, I had struggled to unblock the wash basin in the bathroom. This involved undoing the pipes underneath, draining off the water, and peering down the plughole which contained a perfectly fitting little round scent bottle. From beneath, I pushed it up and out with the handle of a wooden spoon.

The key to the letterbox on the wall outside had gone missing.

I think it was the next evening that I was visited by a decorator who claimed to have painted the house and not been paid for his work. There followed a very difficult exchange, not only because he spoke no English – only his own language with a strong local accent. He wanted his money. I maintained that his contract was with his employer and that wasn’t me. Not only that but I had no information about his work and he seemed unable to provide any.

The following afternoon I was visited by two local policemen, again without any English, who were asking for a woman who lived there. Eventually grasping that they sought the teenage daughter, I explained that this was my house and she didn’t live there any more. Brigitte later told me that there had been a fight in the street.

On the morning of 2nd September during my last walk around the village,

with flowers still blooming in the old cart resting in the grass around the community centre, I

discovered a wooded footpath I had not noticed before. Signed ‘rue de la Moulin Cave’, it ran along the backs of houses until it emerged on the outskirts of the village on the road to Bergerac. A stream accompanied it on the final stretch. Beyond this, stone steps led up to a private garden.

When I returned to the house, the female partner and one of the young men who had been occupying it, were waiting to collect their clothes and shoes. I helped them carry out the eleven bin bags, two travelling cases, and one briefcase. I also handed the woman a batch of letters I had managed to extract from the box on the wall outside.

Later, Brigitte drove me to Bergerac airport.

The saga was not yet quite complete.

A Knight’s Tale (145: Banking On The Bar)

On a scorching 25th July 2012, Elizabeth drove me to Southampton airport where I boarded a plane to Bergerac to be met by Lydie, my very reliable French taxi driver, waving her arms and striding across the tarmac to embrace me. She is, incidentally, about a foot shorter than me with the grip of a bear. I had to drop my bag. Before paying I asked her to deliver me to the Credit Agricole cash machine in Sigoules market square. Still dopy from the plane, I entered the wrong pin number. I searched in my trouser pocket for the correct one, hidden in an electronic device. So well hidden, that by the time I had retrieved it I had run out of time. Lydie patiently waiting in the taxi. Me scrabbling in my trousers, concerned that I was keeping her waiting. An Englishman just off the plane. I had to start again. The machine gobbled my card.

I had given Lydie a list of trips for my friend Don, joining me next week, and me up to 14th. August, the first being in three days time. ‘No problem’, she said, ‘Saturday will do.’ Unfortunately this bank is only open two mornings a week , and the next day wasn’t one of them. Any visit there also had to wait until Saturday. Now, my French account is with Barclays. I originally opened this in Bergerac. Sometime the previous year I discovered that that branch no longer does everyday banking. Without my knowledge my account had been transferred to Paris. I could walk to Bergerac, but no way was I walking to Paris. There was, therefore, nothing for it that day but to telephone my personal banking manager in Paris. Despite what it says on his card he wasn’t there. There followed conversations with two different, very helpful, women interspersed with holding, biligual, messages. Thank goodness, with their English and my French, we got by. My card had been cancelled and I would be sent a new one which would cost 16 euros. So far, so good. But. They could only send it to England, not to my house in France. If I could get to Bordeaux, two and a half hours drive away, I would be able to collect my replacement card there. Patiently, oh, so patiently, I explained that Bordeaux was a very long way away, I had no car, and NO MONEY. Ah. I could, however, use my chequebook, I was assured, without the card, although some people would not accept cheques for small sums like 2 euros. Throughout this I naturally remained my usual calm, unflappable, self.

(It took nine months for me to receive my new card. The bank would not accept my Council Tax receipts as proof of residence because these documents gave a similar, incorrect address, and that is where Barclays insisted on sending correspondence. NatWest does not have French branches.)

I then drew 90 euros on my NatWest account. This, of course, will cost me a transfer fee. And I had just transferred almost everything in my current account in England to my French one in order to pay for replacement shutters and windows, the work to start in two days time. I may even go into overdraft, incurring another fee, despite having more than enough in a special interest bearing account which earns peanuts. Now I knew why NatWest had changed their Gold Account to a Black one. Somewhat stymied.

It was definitely time to visit my friend David in Le Code Bar. David readily allowed me to run up a tab for the duration of my stay and let me have cash if I needed it. Given that this is a very recent friendship I would call that a generous display of trust.

It was only a month since David and Frederick took over, renamed, and changed the face of what was La Renaissance. That establishment had been run by Joel and Nicole, an equally friendly, but more retiring couple. I believe they struggled because they were unable to keep the hours maintained by the current partnership, who are open all day and every evening seven days a week. They were perhaps less naturally gregarious than this new team. David spends much time chatting in a pleasantly unobtrusive way with the clientele. There is a lively, friendly, atmosphere and David and Frederick speak pretty good English. In Franglais we do rather well. The name, incidentally, is a wordplay on ‘barcode’. When David had explained that this was his idea I knew we would get on. A pool table upstairs attracts the younger element. The piped music is usually of French artistes performing English songs.

The lunchtime menu offered by Joel and Nicole was excellent and took some matching. I believe it had now been matched. This evening I began with classic French onion soup saved for me from midday, followed by a very good ham and egg salad. This was only the prelude to an enormous platter of chicken and chips which not even The Martin Cafe could have rivalled. Double-fried frites. Marvellous. In England the heart and liver are not included when you buy a bird to roast at home; I have often shredded and eaten the meat from the neck after boiling it up for stock; never have I had all three served up on a plate with a leg and part of the torso. Delicious. The chicken was not stuffed, but I was. I shouldn’t have finished the second basket of bread.

‘I Can’t Tell Him That’

1.9.14
Lunch at Le Code Bar today consisted of my favourite onion soup; a slice of pizza similar to yesterday’s, but more piquant; a superbly cooked lean and succulent steak, chips and salad; and coffee ice cream. I asked David to tell Max the steak was ‘mirobolant’, which means superlatively wonderful or marvellous. He replied: ‘I can’t tell him that. He’ll want more money’.
I made arrangements to secure my house in preparation for my return to England tomorrow.
Maggie and Mike visited me briefly early this evening, and we had a drink at the bar. Mine was Perrier water.
The blurb on the case of the DVD of ‘State of Play’, which I watched this evening, quoting the Daily Telegraph reviewer, described it as ‘an outstanding thriller’, and it certainly is. Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck play their parts well, as does Rachel McAdams. Crowe is magnificently brooding, so low-key as to be barely audible at times. Affleck makes a credible guilty congressman, and Helen Mirren, as the newspaper editor, reprises her role in Prime Suspect.

Twice Assassinated

9th July 2014
Yesterday evening I read Cicero’s oration ‘Pro Murena’ (For Murena). This was a speech in defence of Lucius Murena, accused of having, in BC63, gained election as consul by bribery. It was the custom of losing candidates, in the hope of supplanting the winners, to prosecute those rivals after the event. Of the two elected consuls, Sulpicius, the plaintiff, actually a good friend of the great orator, picked on Murena. Following Cicero’s successful plea, the accuser had to wait another twelve years to hold office.
Delivered cogently, with both humour and seriousness, this piece reads as freshly and fluently as if it had been written today. Also focussing on the interests of national security, Cicero paces his argument well and stakes his own reputation on his closing commendation.
The next in The Folio Society’s selection of Cicero’s Orations, which I went on to read, is ‘Pro Caelio’ (For Caelius). Possibly because the jurors, on account of the nature of the case, had been forced to forgo a public holiday, the advocate set out to entertain them. The fury of a woman scorned, it was Cicero’s contention, was behind the charges laid against his client. He stated that they had been brought ‘to gratify the whim of a licentious woman’, Caelius’s ex-lover. It seems to have been the practice in Roman courts to deprecate the characters of the protagonists. Cicero therefore defends his client’s reputation, and slays that of Clodia, the lady in question, saying very little about the actual charges of violence he was meant to refute. This is skilfully done, often indirectly, and with innuendo. He makes the woman out to have led the young man astray. The tone is light-hearted, with free use of irony, wit, and satire. It did the trick.
Gangs roamed the streets of ancient Rome at the behest of wealthy men. Two of these were Milo, and Clodius whom Cicero hated. In ‘Pro Milano’.which I read this morning, the author defended Milo, charged with Clodius’s murder. This is how it came about: From other, independent sources, it is clear that the two gangs mat by accident on the Appian Way. They fought. Clodius seems to have been victorious, but was soon afterwards murdered by his enemy, and dumped in the street. There was speculation in the city that one had laid a trap for the other. Cicero’s false case rested on Clodius having set the snare, and Milo simply defending himself. This time the jurors did not buy it. Despite a brilliant speech, full of the orator’s customary eloquent techniques, they found the defendant guilty. Clodius was twice assassinated. Once in reality by Milo, and later, figuratively, in court, by Cicero.
Mouths were agape in Le Code Bar this lunchtime, not poised over plates, but trained on the TV. It was not the flavoursome noodle soup; the crisp calamari in batter; the succulent pork kebabs, rice, and ratatouille; nor the gorgeous creme brûlée; but the aftermath of Brazil’s defeat by Germany, 7-1, in the World Cup semi-final, that grasped their attention.
This afternoon Saufiene drove me to Eymet and beyond in search of a charger for my HP laptop. Despite helpful assistants opening up various boxes we shared defeat with both Brazil and Cicero.
As I watched the Sigoules sunset, I reflected on my friends Majid in London, and Saufiene in Acquitaine, both observing Ramadan, and now able to break their fast.

Sole Survivor

Yesterday’s mid-day meal at Le Code Bar consisted of a noodle soup, ham salad, and plentiful roast chicken and chips followed by a Paris-Brest dessert, of which a welcome second helping was, with a smile, placed on my table by Fred as I worked on my blog post.
Later, I watched Prime Suspect Two. The first production had dealt with sexism. This one has racism as its sub-plot. It is as tense a well-acted and directed drama as its predecessor. I then began reading ‘Keeping the World Away’ by Margaret Forster.
This morning I undertook a bit more clearing up. A wasps’ nest had been found in the attic and eradicated by Renov Conseil 24. With a dustpan and brush I transferred the corpses to the garden. Like the survivor of a massacre protected by a screen of deceased comrades, the largest of all the vespas staggered from the heap and crawled towards the lip of the pan. I gave it its chance on the earth outside. I do hope it doesn’t create another home inside.
On leaving the house to make my farewells at Le Code Bar, I met a two year old and his grandmother. I had some difficulty in communicating with the little boy who was dragging his cart over the steps to No 6. Grandma spoke clear northern French so there was no problem there. I explained that I had equal difficulty understanding such small children in England. She identified with this, saying it wasn’t easy for her either.
The ATM at Credit Agricole told me it couldn’t give me any money and I should contact my bank. I had only attempted to withdraw 20 euros to pay for my taxi. There was plenty in my account and I had entered the correct PIN. Taxi Eymetois would, I know, have been happy to wait until next time, but that wasn’t the point.
I telephoned Barclays in Paris. I have previously written that they transferred my account from Bergerac without telling me. This time I was told that my card had been blocked in September. The very helpful woman who spoke to me did not know the reason for this, but she freed the account and told me I could use the card again from tomorrow morning. When I explained that that would be too late, she was most apologetic, but could do know more. As I said to her, thank goodness Taxi Eymetois have become friends.
It is because I came away in September with enough euros to see me through until today that this was the first time I had attempted to withdraw cash on this trip. Had I done so earlier in the week, one day’s delay would have been manageable. Having relaxed after resolving this problem, I drew out 20 euros with my NatWest card. The transfer fee on such a small sum will be minimal, but I had opened the French account in order to avoid such supplements. Unfortunately my English bank does not operate in France.
Sandrine arrived early to collect me and drive me to Bergerac Airport. When I told her the tale of the card she said, as I knew she would, that I should have waited to pay them next time. The plane journey went smoothly and Jackie was waiting at Southampton to drive me home.
My iMac happily accepted my Sandisk photos and I was able to upload them to the last week’s posts.
This evening Jackie and I dined at Curry Garden in Ringwood, and enjoyed the usual good food and efficient, friendly, service. We both drank Kingfisher.

A Bright New Morning

Yesterday afternoon Saufiene visited with an electrician to repair disintegrated wiring to the landing lamp.
In the evening Roger collected me and drove me to the Munns’ idyllic home on a hill above Eymet. From the main road, across the valley, the white new rendering of the tall house with its red-brown tower shone in the evening sunshine. Pink-tinged clouds strolled across the calm skies. When the forthcoming Tour de France takes place, my friends will be able, from their verandah, to watch the cyclists speeding along this very thoroughfare.
Judith, looking trim, her garments covered by a full-length apron, was putting the finishing touches to a superb Sunday dinner. Keith joined us and we sat down to tender slow-roasted pork with prunes; crisp vegetables; perfect roast potatoes and parsnips. I slowed the proceedings a little by devouring a secon helping. Judith’s apple pie was to die for. Supplementing their own apples were cinnamon, cloves, mincemeat, and sultanas in an attractive pastry casing. None of us had room for cheese. We all drank red wine and enjoyed a wide-ranging conversation after which Keith kindly drove me home.
This morning I walked the loop around what I still call the donkey’s field on the D17, returning via the fishing lake. Sun shone in the cloudless blue sky, although it was still rather cool. In the clear light I took a number of photographs which I hope to add when I return to my iMac.
Church bells rang the hour, a cock crew, geese cackled, a magpie rattled, and dogs barked.
The eyes of a small black cat, crouched in the grass of the field that was once home to the donkey and goats, beamed like a car’s headlamps, returning the sun’s gleam. Further along, a camel-coloured relative had not made it across the road. The field now contains a couple of ewes with muddy backsides.

High on its hill, beyond a waterlogged field, Chateau Cluzeau was still visible through a row of as yet leafless trees. Later, I was to look down on its silhouette.

A tractor and a small car negotiated their passing on the narrow lane where I turn left for my return journey. This was reminiscent of trips through the New Forest.
The dogs that normally herald my passing along the top of the high track were unusually silently watchful. The alsatian’s gate was open so I was rather relieved at its unaccustomed lack of interest.

The house I have watched being built over the last couple of years now looks complete.

Paths around the lake were more than a little muddy, reminding me of how slippery my MBTs can be. I didn’t fall over.
As I approached the steps leading down to where the bottle banks used to be, I exchanged greetings with three gentlemen whose voices had floated towards me; and with a young man with a long shovel mixing heavy cement in a wheelbarrow as he prepared to repair the steps.
A superb onion soup in Le Code Bar today came with croutons and slices of garlic, the delicious fumes of which rose from the bowl. Surprisingly flavoursome calamari was then served with a rich tomato dip. The main course was a succulent steak with lashings of glistening tornellini. The meal was completed by Paris-Brest, a small cake containing coffee cream. I drank a coffee as I wrote this post.

Shoes

Last night I watched ‘Saints & Soldiers, an excellent film by Ryan Little depicting an heroic ‘journey through the hellish landscape of war-ravaged Europe’ during World War Two, undertaken by a small group of escaped American soldiers and one English airman. It deservedly won 13 international awards. I was familiar with none of the superb cast.
On a much brighter morning I walked up the Cuneges road turning left at the sign for La Bricotey. M. Pazero’s dogs began their usual greeting when I was still 100 yards from his house. The now grey muzzled sandy haired one wheezed between rather hoarse barks. The black one, like a car driver hurling insults from a safe distance, was silent until I’d passed his corner.
On the hill slopes a couple of people were tending vines in the distance. Their voices surfed towards me on the stiff breeze. I hope to be able to post their photographs when I have resolved the continuing problem with transfer from the camera. (Done)
Today my shoes were MBTs (Masai Barefoot Trainers), apparently designed to produce the deportment of the inhabitants of Kenya and northern Tanzania. I had bought these, one pair for England, and one for France, in 2009, believing they may help my hip problem. In the event, they seemed counter-productive. I ditched the English ones, but fortunately left a pair in Sigoules.
During the snowy weather of December 2010, soon after my replacement operation, the tier of steps outside the Ridgway house in Wimbledon Village was so icy that I slipped on them. I identified the reason for my precarious descent to be the curve of the soles of the MBTs. It was as if my feet were encased in boats with only the centres of the smooth soles meeting the slippery surfaces beneath them. Jackie and I went straight to Clarks shoeshop in Wimbledon and bought a pair of their footwear with flat, ridged, soles. They gave me much more purchase, and it was those I wore yesterday. Today, still saturated from Yesterday’s downpour, they are hanging in the garden in the hope that they may drip dry.
Yesterday’s soup, repeated at the Le Code Bar lunch today was followed by ham and egg salad; succulent steak, chips, and green beans, and a flavoursome pear flan. I drank Perrier with this and a coffee afterwards.

Technical Frustrations

Last night the internet reception was hit and miss, which is one reason why my post was shorter than usual (I’ve just lost it again). I was also knackered, but mostly I wanted Orlaith’s photograph to stand alone.
This morning, taking advantage of what I thought was a lull in a night of rain, I walked the La Briaude loop. I hadn’t got very far on the straight stretch towards the hamlet when I was soaked to the skin, even through my raincoat. The chainsaw that was ripping into the back of my head was hail. The wind was the fiercest I have experienced. The rain was blinding and the hail piercing. The photographs of the rainswept field and the lake that was the road, were taken with eyes closed, by pointing, shooting, and hoping for the best.
Had the tumult not been coming from behind me, I would have turned back, but I could not have faced the driving rain and the painful hailstones.
As I struggled, head down, along the Eymet Road the wind roared through my ears and the violent precipitations spattered on my raincoat. Had I been offered a lift I would have taken it. Normally when a kindly driver stops for me I say I am walking for pleasure. I wasn’t about to give anyone a story to tell about the mad Englishman.
When I reached the corner indicating the last kilometre back to Sigoules, the downpour ceased, but the wind did not. A thin sliver of blue sky beyond the saturated vines appeared beneath the flat, leaden, cloud layer.
Upon my arrival, I peeled off and attempted to dry all my wet clothes. Changing apparel involved taking the trouser challenge. I have been aware that recent pressure on my waistbands has suggested that my older garments retained in rue St Jacques may no longer quite accommodate me. They didn’t, so I failed the test and was compelled to pull my wet pants back on.
Mo and John came over to Sigoules bringing my obsolete iMac and the bulk of my DVD collection so I can watch them on a bigger screen; and to treat me to lunch at Le Code Bar.
Max provided the usual excellent fare. An intriguing and delicious soup containing noodles, lentils and potatoes was followed by quiche for Mo and belly of veal in a piquant sauce for John and me. John opted for steak whilst Mo and I chose sausages for the main meal accompanied by the customary mountain of chips. We all selected creme brulee for dessert, and shared a carafe of red wine.
We enjoyed each other’s convivial company and went on, following Max’s recommendation, to L’Ancienne Cure, Christian Roche’s wine outlet at Colombier where we engaged in pleasant conversation with the proprietor who had been a friend of Max since they were boys. They had played rugby together and I wouldn’t have liked to have met either of them on the field. They each possess a grip of iron. After ample tasting, John made a purchase, and Mo drove us back to Sigoules.
In eager anticipation, I plugged in the iMac. Unfortunately, I hadn’t thought to bring either a mouse or a keyboard, so I couldn’t use it.
My technical frustration was to continue. Either my laptop or my card reader is playing up. I had the devil’s own job to download the three photographs I had taken in the morning and was completely unable to transfer the heart-warming shot of the open fire in the winery fuelled by spent vine stems. I may have to wait until I return to England next week to illustrate the rest of the next few days’ posts.
P.S. Back home with iMac

Peepo

Up early this morning, Orlaith is still wary of me, although she was tempted to peep out from the shelter of her Dad’s legs. When I opened the kitchen bin to add a firmly wrapped up disposable nappy, I found half the contents of the spice rack posted in there.
I hadn’t used my printer yesterday, but somehow it kept turning itself on. It did the same this morning. The button is 50 centimetres from the ground. Any ideas?
I had a smooth journey to Sigoules by my usual method. Sandrine was Taxi Eymetois’s driver waiting at Bergerac to drive me to rue St Jacques where Saufiene and Stefan attended with Champagne on the kitchen table. We had a long chat after which I watched Skyfall in which Daniel Craig starred as the implausibly indestructible James Bond. Judy Dench was a magnificent M and Javier Bardem a convincing villain. While the hero created noisy mayhem on the screen there was a clattering from within the house which was certainly not part of the film. Investigation revealed a folding chair which had fallen from its resting place in the back corridor.
I dined on cornflakes and repaired to le Code Bar where I was welcomed by David and Fred. Graham was also there. David was very appreciative of the call from Mike Kindred alerting him to the scam. Fred said Mike’s French was very good.

That Champagne Moment

The mist that enshrowded a recently slumbering Sigoules rousing, stretching, and rubbing its eyes this morning augured as well as yesterday’s clear sky. We were not disappointed. We had a gloriously sunny day when Mo, John and I later ambled around Bergerac and did some shopping.

As I walked up past Les Caves, from which, on our return from Bergerac, my friends chose some wine for a December wedding, I turned left along a simple road leading to rustic lanes I had not explored before. There I saw yards and sheds full of materials for various farming activities, allotments with, among others, some fine pumpkins, and windfall apples beneath a gnarled old fruit tree. Somewhat surprisingly I emerged from these, to me, ‘untrodden ways’ opposite the cemetery. I spent most of the rest of the morning discussing the work with Saufiene, after which I and my two friends lunched at Le Code Bar on vegetable soup; stuffed eggs and pastrami; roast chicken complete with heart and liver; and pear flan, all prepared to perfection. We shared a half carafe of red wine.

Then came that champagne moment. When we returned to No 6, Saufiene greeted us with a puzzling question. On my arrival two days ago, we had all shared a bottle of Metz champage. Saufiene had immediately extracted the bottle from the fridge and placed it on the table. John grabbed it and proceeded to open it. We all enjoyed a couple of glasses. Alex, who speaks no English sat in a corner rubbing his eye (into which he had scraped some grit) in discomfort and smiling when Saufiene or I translated. Neither he nor Saufiene questioned John’s action. Today, as we entered the house, Saufiene asked John: ‘Did you buy the last bottle of champagne?’. The question puzzled us both. I had to translate for John. I knew the words, but I couldn’t understand the question. ‘What last bottle?’ I asked. ‘The one we drank on Monday’, was the reply. ‘Yes’, said John. By now, I hadn’t a clue what was going on. Saufiene burst out laughing.

This lunchtime, Alex had found an identical bottle in the boot of Saufiene’s car. He had been delegated to put it in the fridge on Monday. Saufiene thought he had. John hadn’t realised Saufiene was supplying the champagne. One Frenchman and one Englishman had had the same thoughts and the same taste in champagne.

Jackie and I, it seems, are soon to have our own champagne moment. Yesterday she had told me that ‘The Old School House’ was a goner. The owner had not replied to the agent’s e-mails and the father was insisting it be taken off the market. She had therefore made an offer on The Old Post House. Today the offer was accepted. The Amity Grove House sale should be completed by Christmas.

As I wrote up this post in the bar this evening I managed to fall over backwards and do the chair ireparable damage. Two young frienchmen hauled me to my feet. I was unscathed.