The Christmas trees go up

After a startling 18 degrees yesterday along with broken sunshine (a bit like early April) we were greeted this morning with steely blue skies and temperatures to match.  It was, as my father would have said 'a bright arsed morning'.  And so it was that conditions were set for erections great and small. 

 

Christmas tree action

As Lesley and I passed the war memorial on the walk down for our daily stick of baguette traditon we could not help but notice more high viz men in the process of putting up and decorating the town's Norwegian spruce.  Tough hairy bottomed men in hard hats were carrying out the delicate process of hanging massive baubles and the like on the tree.  They were aided in this by the inevitble 'cherry picker' which seems, alongside the chainsaw, a mainstay of 'must have' tools for life in the Dordogne.

Chez nous, we decided to treat ourselves, courtesy of LeClerc, to a non-drop 'Nordmann' tree.  Alas, in comparison to the town's municipal tree my effort falls rather on the small side.  This tree has all the benefits of a live tree but does not shed its needles.  Sadly the price you pay for this convenience is the total lack of pine needle aroma.  The standard 'epicea' type of spruce emits this but the downside is that by Christmas Eve one literally has a carpet of needles surrounding the tree and a tree that looks like a leftover from the battlefield at Ypres.  

 

The 'Nordmann'

 

The tree arrives 'chez nous'

By 5.00 pm, as the crepiscule fell, the tree was aglow with lights and it seemed the perfect momemt to open a bottle of Brut.  We chose a very reasonably priced one from Saumur made in the 'Methode traditionnel' way.  We toasted in the coming celebrations warmed by our indispensible fire.

Waiting for Christmas