New Year’s Eve so we booked a table at our local restaurant Le Rive Gauche. They had a special menu for the occasion.

And it was delicious. Service great, wine great – rapidly becoming our favourite restaurant.

Earlier in the day we joined the queue at Le Merveilleux de Fred to buy another Bûche de Noël.

We had not yet visited Le Musée des Beaux Arts but today we decided we should go and see the Nicolas Poussin exhibition.

I didn’t know much about him but Cath was explaining his style to me on the short walk to the museum – a leading French painter of the French baroque style in the 17th century.

There was also some Picasso works inspired by Poussin. All in all a very good exhibition and the musée is great with some lovely paintings and sculptures.

Cath stumbled across an exhibition of Santons – traditional crèche figures – in the area of Lyon near my work. So obviously she took some photos and a video for you to watch.

This evening another French tradition made itself known to us.

A fireman knocked on the door selling calendars. He explained it was a tradition so we bought one.

Not exactly rippling firemen torsos but there you have it.

J’ai reçu beaucoup de beaux cadeaux ce Noël mais une chose est claire. Le pere Noël doit lire ce blog parce que les cadeaux me semblent un peu connus.

Les herons garde boeuf; les departements de la France

There was also a lovely mug full of nice treats with a bit more Lyon significance.

Merci Père Nöel!

One thing I was looking out for at St Pancras was an advertising campaign for Euronews which I had helped to write. I couldn’t wait to get a picture of it to proudly show off my work.

But this was the only advert playing at St Pancras while we waited for our train. I’ll be having words.

Because of a train strike in England on Boxing Day we had to change our return journey to 27 December.

It meant we could catch up with my brother and his family on Boxing Day at my dad’s – as well as watching Fulham thump nine-man Palace on the telly with Nathan.

It also meant we could not get a direct train from Lille to Lyon but instead had to change trains at Lille and go to Paris to then change again.

It gave us the opportunity to walk around Lille for a few minutes and notice some impressive tops to some buildings.

There might not have been any train strikes but that didn’t mean no queueing. For some reason at Lille we were left on the platform for a while and it was a bit chaotic- but we made it back to Lyon safely and on time.

A whistle-stop trip back to London for a Christmas en famille was something that felt like it might not happen with train strikes on both sides of La Manche and Border Force walk outs.

But somehow we pulled it off – and got to spend time with these two lovely lads.

Then after helping Matt prep a load of vegetables, we transported it all to my father’s for a very merry Christmas dinner with him and my sister.

We brought a bûche de Noël with us from the boulangerie under our flat. It survived the journey intact – and tasted lovely.

We went on a quick trip to Marseille to say Merry Christmas and exchange gifts with Sally, Hanna and Alma.

It is also World Cup final day. The guard announcement on the train reflected the enormity of the day – Je vous souhaite un très bonne journée et allez les bleus.

We met lovely Alma – who proudly showed off her first three teeth – and then had lunch at Sally’s. Afterwards we walked into Aix where people were getting ready for le grand match.

We also encountered a display of local dancing in the Christmas market.

But also lots and lots of football fans crowding in squares to get a view of the final.

The result was not looking good for all those hardy souls by the time we left Marseille. But then while on the train things took an interesting, incredible turn – then again and again.

I watched the shootout on my neighbour’s phone over his shoulder. Needless to say the train was quiet after that.

There’s always US/Mexico/Canada 2026.