Among many excellent Christmas presents Cath got for me, one was this by one of my favourite French authors.

The only issue is, as I’ve mentioned before, M Mauvignier doesn’t like to use one word when he could use five.

For example in this passage where he uses:

Trous – holes

Anfractuosités– crevices

Crevasses – crevasse

Ravins– ravines

Plaies – cuts

As a result this book is somewhat of un pavé – a massive slab. It’s 744 pages long.

I wonder if that’s why one of the reviewers in France said:

Pourquoi Laurent Mauvignier veut-il punir les lecteurs qui ne lui ont rien fait ? 

Frédéric Beigbeder

Figaro Magazine

It is a epic story of one French family through the last 150 years.

I loved this description of a French village with its carotte rouge lumineuse (a tabac sign) and the echo of la croix verte (the pharmacy sign). Those are of course omni-present in all French towns and villages.

I would highly recommend it – but I might read a shorter book in English next.

Cath spotted something in the Times about 10 fascinating French museums that are nowhere near Paris – and one of them is right on our doorstep.

It is called Camp des Milles and is a former brickworks that became an internment camp that first housed German-speakers, then republicans Spanish and then Jews.

Two thousand people were transported from here to Auschwitz.

It was a real history lesson and you could see pictures and messages on the walls drawn by the detainees.

There was also a reminder of the need to stand up to things that you see that are wrong.

All in all, it was very moving and inspiring.

We even got a reduced price entry for senior citizens – which I was more happier about than Cath.

I saw this car in our local supermarket and its plaque d’immatriculation ( I can never pronounce that word – can’t get anywhere near it) caught my eye.

The ones like 974 mean they are from outre-mer – France’s overseas departments.

(When I studied the crusades at school outre-mer referred to the four Christian states established in the Middle East).

Anyway, this one is from La Reunion – an island between Mauritius and Madagascar.

That’s an 11 hour flight from Venelles.

So my question is – did this car come all the way from La Reunion? Or just the number plate?

Whichever, I always enjoy spotting one.

The other ones to look out for are:

971 – Guadeloupe

972 – Martinique

973 – La Guyane

975 – Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon

976 – Mayotte

While in Nice we went to the Marc Chagall museum.

There were lots of his biblically-inspired paintings on display.

And of course plenty featuring goats.

As Julia Roberts says in the film Notting Hill about Chagall’s painting La Mariée:

Happiness isn’t happiness without a violin-playing goat

As we left we saw this gorgeous cat who visits the museum every day.

I’m sure Chagall would have put him in a painting or two.

To celebrate Cath’s birthday we went for a weekend to Nice and stayed in the swankiest hotel I have ever stayed in – the world famous Negresco.

It is on La Promenade des Anglais – right on the seafront.

It has a grand hall with a chandelier meant for Tsar Nicholas II.

And houses 6,000 works of art – arranged by style on each floor.

Among them this portrait of Louis Armstrong by Raymond Moretti

And this octopus.

The service was second-to-none.

When we returned from dinner, our rooms had been got ready for bed.

And even a bookmark left on our books.

And the negronis weren’t bad either.

I woke up this morning to a sight I haven’t seen in the last 20 months of living en Provence.

De la neige!

It went down to -5c last night but we weren’t expecting snow.

It didn’t hang around for long- not sure we’ll see it again this winter.

Now just waiting for the swimming pool’s ice cover to melt. That might take a while longer.

Our landlord told us we needed to provide him with une attestation de ramonage for his and our home insuramce.

So I called Luberon Ramonage and they came round to sweep la cheminée.

It wasn’t Dick Van Dyke who turned up but a young man with a big hoover.

He did a bit of hoovering and then went outside and sent a drone up to have a look at the roof and the chimney pot.

He then said the chimney hadn’t been too dirty and issued the certificate.

Good job too as it is -4 outside and having a fire is essential.

As he left I shook his hand in case good luck does indeed rub off*

*See Mary Poppins

It was King’s cake time again and guess who found la fève this year?

Which meant I got to wear la couronne again.

I know there has been a cold snap in a lot of places but it must have been cold here because when I got up this morning I was greeted with this site:

The swimming pool had frozen over. I had never seen that before – not once last winter as far as I’m aware.

Ignore the leaves at the bottom of the pool, I hadn’t got round to cleaning it.

To see how thick it was I prodded it with a stick. I don’t think it would hold my weight but it was certainly a full covering of ice.

Apparently I need to run the pump a bit more to stop it from breaking.

At least someone was enjoying the ice.

Our regular grey wagtail a fait un peu de patin à glace.

While having breakfast this morning I heard an ominous thud. It could only mean one thing. Another bird had flown into the window.

Sure enough when I went over to the window I saw this.

Last time it was a smaller bird – un roitelet triple-bandeau – a fire-crest.

As before, I kept watch in case the neighbour’s cat put in an appearance until the robin had recovered and flown off.