For anyone who thinks I must have left the country; I’m still here, but haven’t been able to get anywhere near the computer for the last three weeks. So I’ll wish anybody reading this a rather belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Preparations for Christmas started well in advance; I don’t normally make a Christmas cake, but as the whole family was to be together for the first Christmas in four years, it would have been rude not to. Then there was the perennial problem of the shower; yes, it was leaking again, so I had to reseal it for the umpteenth time. This time, we weighted it down with what Nick estimated to be at least 100kg of roofing tiles; it’s held so far and I’m keeping fingers and toes crossed. We hadn’t enough space for everyone to sleep in the current house, so we swept out the bedrooms in the new house, put up beds, found rugs, spare lamps and low tables and hung dust sheets over the windows. Nick turned on the heating and it was quite comfortable and homely – well, relatively speaking!

Alex, Graham, Izzy and Imogen were the first to arrive, flying in from Harrogate for 3 weeks, followed by Gemma a couple of days before Christmas, thoroughly exhausted after a whirlwind trip around the UK en route from Australia. Kieran and Alice stayed when they could, doing the rounds of both families. What a good thing the main French celebration is Christmas Eve, which they spent with Alice’s family, followed by Christmas Day with us.

I’d ordered a load of ducks, to preserve, and a friend came round in the week leading up to Christmas, to show me how to make foie gras in a terrine for Christmas day and in jars for later on, as well as how to confit the legs, gizzards and hearts and make fritons of the bits left in the bottom of the pan. She lent me the pans to cook them in; the most enormous pans I’ve ever seen, measuring nearly a metre across. I spent an evening preparing the foie gras, a day cooking the rest and another day sterilising the produce in large jars, but it will be worth it to be able to serve our own confit de canard.

We didn’t have room for a real tree, so everybody was asked to make a Christmas tree, though only Izzy, Alex, Kieran and I actually managed it, decorating them with Christmas biscuits that Izzy helped make and decorate.

Christmas lunch, though I say it myself, was a great success. (I have only twice made Christmas lunch before, so I didn’t want it to be a disappointment.) We started with chestnut soup, followed by smoked salmon and cream cheese rolls, then came the terrine de foie gras, which just melted in the mouth. Next was a trou Gascon (lemon sorbet served in white armagnac), to cleanse the palate, followed by beef wellington and heaps of veg. By this time we were all pretty stuffed, so took a couple of hours rest before we tackled the cheese and salad, then finished off with Christmas pudding or cheesecake. In total, I think we were at table for about 7 hours – respectably French!

The weather, for the most part, was good. Cold nights and crisp, frosty mornings were followed by gloriously sunny days. We had trips to the Christmas market in Pau, to Marciac and to the New Year celebrations in Viella. We ate in lots of restaurants as well as spending Boxing Day at our neighbours, Kate and Rob’s, where we also saw the New Year in. Gemma had already left before the year’s end, her week’s stay finishing all too soon.

Alex, Graham and the girls left yesterday; a very tearful Izzy wanting to stay here for ever and ever. We were sorry to see them leave, but it’s good to have our home back.

Je suis désolée, mais je suis trop fatiguée de traduire tout ça en français; je traduirai la prochaine poste, comme d’habitude. Je vous souhaite, un peu tardivement, Joyeux Noel et Bonne Année.