The last couple of weeks have been quiet. The weather has been changeable. Quite severe at times - cold, raining, blowing a gale, so that fly and all the rest of this world stay indoors. Then there comes a day of lovely sunshine, blue skies and fluffy white clouds, but still cold. I love those days – so exhilarating. We have had the first snow in the hills too; the pine trees are dressed in white. I drove up to the Champs du Feu ski fields one day to have a look – the white blanket makes magic of the landscape. I am eager to see the village under snow, though it makes life more difficult – walking and driving in particular.
Crafty friends will be interested to know that the cross-stitch is finished – it is of sheep, I bought the kit in Ireland. Encouraged by this success I am now doing some Christmas ones. It feels very authentic to be sitting in the warmth with the wind wailing outside, doing one’s needlework!
Christmas decorations continue to proliferate. There are plastic inflated Santa Clauses climbing down chimneys, through windows, landing in sleighs on front yards. All windows are framed in flashing lights as well as wreathed in greenery laden with berries and bells and bows. Some of the presentations are tasteful, some less so! The plastic Santas must be well anchored to withstand the winds.
The house opposite the gite, with its Christmas finery.
Same house with its Summer dress, allyssum.
A shopping story: when you go to do messages, you have to be prepared to walk, as everything is not co-located as we are used to in our shopping centres. You have to wander about from pharmacy to post office to boulangerie etc and by the time you have done it all and got back to the car you have covered quite some distance. I have been trying to get into one shop in Barr for quite a while, it is always closed, even though the opening hours listed say it should be open. There is something in the window that I really want to buy. I was there on Tuesday, and as I was looking in the window, a woman came, pushing a pram. She said she was the proprietress, but she could not open today, as "I have this child to look after". Another day I called by again, and again it was closed, with a note this time to say she had to make a 'petite' visit to the hospital. This sort of thing is completely acceptable here. People do what they have to do, other people wait for them. That is the way life goes. I find it very reassuring. I wish we were so tolerant. I do not know if it is a characteristic in the larger cities of France however. Anyway, I will keep going back until I find her there and get what I want. That's life in Alsace.
Old people also enjoy respect and attention here. They take their time to do whatever they are doing and that is recognised as their due. They walk slowly down the middle of the cobbled streets of villages, and cars simply line up behind them and drive at a walking pace. (Though when I saw a Mercedes stopped in the middle of such a street, while a passenger got out and went into a shop, waiting drivers in the lineup behind showed no patience!) In shops, they often have quite a chat with the person serving them, and nobody on the queue gets impatient.
Peggy (gite owner) brought me an Advent wreath. I should have lit two candles by now, but I keep forgetting to buy matches.
Below - decorations on the tree - cross-stitch, ski-ers and berries, and a (benign) witche watching over it all.
And, evidence of fly's support for the Alsatian wine industry.
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