Père Noël

Today was the day that the père Noël came to Feins.  In the morning, at the library there was a Christmas storytime:  with a team of able volunteers, we did an English/French rendition of ‘Twas the Night before Christmas, and the mother of Mélina, who is from Bosnia, told a Christmas story accompanying herself on the accordeon.  Then this afternoon, a horse-drawn carriage with Santa Clause inside arrived behind the Salle des Fêtes, and the kids got to go for carriage rides, and then everyone came in and drank mulled wine (the parents) and hot chocolate (the kids) and ran around and screamed and slid on the floor in their socks and ate cake and had pictures taken, and got presents.  Gabriel had a great time with his friend Merlin.  We’re going to do a little work on the backdrop for next year, but it was a lovely afternoon and a pleasure to meet Santa Clause, who seemed surprisingly similar to a man who led a roomful of dancers in the Madison at the Fête du village back in July.  Also, I’ve included a picture below of a rooster in the parking lot of the restaurant this afternoon, just because sometimes I forget that we live in the country; one gets so used to seeing chicken on the plate, that you forget that they actually like to run around outside too and hang out in parking lots like frustrated adolescents.

When we came back home the sky was clear after having poured all day, and the moon was alone in the sky, reflected three times over in the windows of our upstairs, which is probably only fascinating to other lovers of triple-glazed windows, but Gabriel and i think it’s pretty cool.  Three moons, where before there was only one.

Early winter

Quite possibly one of the most beautiful seasons here, i swear you’d think it was Sweden sometimes, only with less Volvos, socialism, and snow.

Today the surgeon is going to examine my mallet finger and tell me if i can finally take off the splint progressively over the next three weeks.

We’re also thinking of Yves and his family and friends today.

i love this because you can totally see which side of the house is insulated under the shingles, and of course also because the solar panels look like snowlar panels.

Cip-da-dip and Dipuce, in the courtyard.

Dämmpellets

Or, as anyone who’s had to lug them upstairs at Maffay or from one pile to another (Willy, Sandra, Gabriel, myself) refers to them:  damned pellets.  They’re actually very cool:  bits of crushed German recycled paper that looks like rabbit food, used as an insulating subfloor and very handy in the case of our house, where the upstairs floor is a 200+ year old hay loft, and has lost a bit of its keel over the years.  we had a 10 centimeter difference in level from the northeast corner to the south west – and now, (December 8, to be exact), for the first time in many years, the upstairs floor at Maffay is now even.

Over the dämmpellets, we lay two crossed sheets of OSB/triply, and then on top of that, Simon will lay the heating coils for a heated floor, and then on top of that we’ll lay another layer of triply, and then, we’ll put down an oak parquet floor.  The flooring design is Hingamped and tested by David’s clients in England and will soon, surely due to its efficiency and the beatific well-heated americans in northern Gallo-land, become the calling card of HP Energétik.  Everyone’s welome to come on over and lay down on our heated floor to test it out.  You won’t see the dämmpellets, but because a few Germans were so kind as to recycle their paper, you won’t roll down into the corner of Gabriel’s bedroom in a heap.

In the pictures you can see:  closeup of the damned pellets, looking through the door into my bedroom, looking through the door into the upstairs bathroom, looking head-on at our shower (wahooo!!! Gaël and Romain came and hooked it up on Sunday), and looking into the linen/storage closet that is also the dividing line between Gabriel’s room and mine.  (The question still remains about whether or not to drywall the space over my bedroom door).

Heat

HP Energétik came back and are bringing the heat to our house in time for Christmas.  The lovely Fröling (it sounds like an endearment, to a non-germanophone, like darling  or liebling or something Madeleine Kahn would have said in Blazing Saddles) is ensconsed in its permanent resting spot every since last Friday, when Simon and Olivier came back and set up the chimney (with its gorgeous blue stainless steel innards, soon to be black) and started hooking things up.  It is a log-fire hot water furnace, and works in perfect harmony with the solar panels and the 1400-liter hot water tank that were responsible for our warm outdoor showers this summer.  Our fröling chéri is 92 percent efficient, that is, as long as i manage to find wood dry enough, 92 percent of each log will be converted to hot water, which sounds very much like a practical alchemy and very desirable now, in December, when everything is blue and cold at Maffay, and the laughing duck is back in the lake across the meadow.  It has its own computer.  It cost almost as much as my college education, excluding books and alcohol (but i did, after all, go to state schools, and one might posit that my education was not 92 percent efficient).  Also, the fröling will last about 30-40 years, so amortized over time, it’s a bargain.  It is quite possible that we’ll light the first fire tomorrow, and the house will then become hotter and hotter in two-degree increments over the next week.

Also Simon made a lovely boeuf bourguignonne and we ate it all up on Saturday for lunch.  He’s practicing to make it for Malin when she returns from Sweden.

As for our fröling chéri, I’m already planning on a delightfully long shower, once everything gets all hooked up, and we’re in the house.  Gabriel has a different goal:  he’s more worried about how Santa Claus will get down the new chimney, which very luckily was installed just before Christmas.  Simon and Olivier assure us that the all-weather cap on top will not prevent the entry of North Pole dwellers.

Cider!

Rich will particularly appreciate this post, as he loves Breton apple cider almost as much as he loves Carolyn.  Last Friday was David’s birthday (joyeux anniversaire à nouveau!), and Virginie and Louane invited us down for a dinner party with Cathia and Mika, Noémie and Dorine, and Emilie and Romain.  At table, Cathia said that they had to get up early the next morning to press cider at Annick and Dominique’s house, from apples gathered at Florence and Guillaume’s house a few weekends before.  So of course we invited ourselves along, and got there a little later than we were supposed to, but early enough to see the whole process:  Cathia and Mika scooping apples up into the mill, which then spits out onto the press-boards, which the two cider pressers (not sure of the name for people in this profession?  appletnurs?  cidtners?) alternated with layers of sackcloth, and then the tower of wooden frames+chunked apple went under the big press, and the juice is extracted.  It’s sent via a very long tube into barrels, waiting in the house.  We got to taste it on the other end, and the kids pretended to wash their hands in apple foam.  The four barrels are now filled with juice, and are to be left slightly open so that the cider as it ferments doesn’t explode – in a month or so (i think), once a test glass is tasted, and it tastes like cider or has bubbles around the edge, the cider is ready to be bottled.  In March, it can be distilled into la goutte, or gnol, or the liquid substance whose powers Willy now respects.

The apple juice was very dark and had a very nice taste, though you’re not supposed to drink more than a glass because apparently it’s highly un-constipational.  The cidtners said that it would make a very good cider.  We’re looking forward to testing it!

Update

A closet that smells like sunshine in the fields!  (Due to hemp wool, of which we are now official fan club members).  A floor, for Gabriel!  (The dämmpellets are a delight to ‘pour’ – they’re the cellulose pellets that are used to even out the floor level and also provide a sound insulation layer.  It’s like a giant catbox, and Dipuce, Sandra and Jean-Luc’s kitten, came up and was overjoyed; he required constant surveillance as we worked, to make sure he wouldn’t pee.)  And, a  question, about whether or not i should sheetrock the area over my door, or leave it open like a big window.  And the shower base, poured!  So many changes in the house over the past few days. In case it’s not clear from the pix below, Gabriel’s room is separated from mine by a large wall (on his side, with wood panelling) which is the back of my closet, which is not yet finished but will be someday soon.

(Une question pour notre archi-amie, Nicky, alors:  au dessus de la porte de ma chambre (tu vois le démi-mur entre chambre/sdb comme tu as prévu) – est-ce que je cloisonne avec placo, ou je laisse un vide comme une grande fenêtre?)  voir photo ci-dessous.  ou bien viens en vraie comme ca on peut profiter de ta présence en réél! 

Thanksgiving, the meal

Thanksgiving the meal was great, as the paucity of photos attests:  we were too busy laughing and eating really good food and exclaiming over Paula’s and M. Gauthier’s masterpiece, the turkey, the green beans with onions and tomatoes (and cloves!), and the magnificent steamed pudding for dessert.  Connie, Joan, Marie-Hélène, Henriette, Yvette and Anne were all there in spirit around the table and Gabriel got to watch Beatrix Potter stories on the VCR to recuperate from lifting the pumpkin that we found in our car before leaving Maffay, the gift of M. Honoré.  We’re already thankful that next year, we’ll have Thanksgiving with our family of sisters again, and are already hungry.