Happy new year for 2018

Although it should really be happy feast of the Epiphany as it is the 6th January as I write this.  Here in France it is the custom to buy "Galette des Rois", a pastry filled with frangipane, at least that is what we we get locally,  although I understand that the recipe varies from region to region.  Hidden in the centre of the cake is a small figurine and the person that gets this figurine is entitled to be king for the day wearing the paper crown.  The king's every wish must be granted so great fun to be had!

We haven't participated in this custom this year for two very good reasons.  The first being that we have spent more than enough money on crowns of a different sort in the last 12 months and we don't want to chance biting on a small and very hard object.  The second being that I did my usual shopping for the apocalypse starting way before Christmas, so we still have enough cakes, biscuits, chocolates etc to last until Easter. 

I should add that some of these were gifts from Mark to me and vice versa, and some were from the Christmas Elves!  On the cake front I found a fab Paul Hollywood recipe for chocolate and cherry muffins, a lemon drizzle cake made with sunflower oil instead of butter and the Delia Smith Christmas Cake recipe I always use but owing to a shortage of brandy in our bottles I used rum instead.  Very yummy it is too despite having icing that looks like a bad hair-do.

Speaking of butter.  We have been experiencing a shortage here - can you imagine?!  Apparently its because the producers are getting a better price from the Chinese who have developed a liking for it over recent years.  That's according to somebody or another on-line so if this is incorrect please excuse the non-news.  The fact remains that there have been empty butter shelves and apologetic notices in the supermarkets.  

Another little gift was a calendar - one of those freebies presented by organisations wanting you to know which day of the week it is. Why? We know its Monday, rubbish is collected.  Apart from that Saturday is important in the summer as gite guests leave and arrive (hopefully in that order it would be a sorry state of affairs if they arrived and left on the same day).  Anyway, each month has a word in a different language and for January it is Kummerspeck A German word for the excess weight gained from emotional overeating.  Translates literally as "grief bacon".  I'm not sure if over indulging at Christmas is Kummerspecking but the grim weather in January might encourage it!

We are feeling a bit frustrated by the weather actually.  After some really windy days it seems to have been raining forever.   Even though it is quite mild its impossible to do any work outside.  Don't get us wrong, we are very grateful for the rainfall as it is desperately needed but could it please stop for the daytime as we want to play with our new friends, being delivered below.

Great excitement!  There are about 100 plants in total, some bare rooted and some in pots.  This time we did a tour of the garden and wrote a list of what we were looking for and then ordered the plants, rather than seeing something and then spending ages finding a suitable place for it.   

So for the moment they are all either heeled in or with their pots submerged in soil, waiting for some good planting weather.  Something to look forward to.

Days are starting to get longer again, we are looking forward to the arrival of spring and noticing signs of it already in the garden.