Celebrations at the chateau...............

New Years Eve was a wonderful affair - celebrated with some very good friends at a beautiful old farmhouse in a nearby village.

It was a black tie night and we were all perfectly suited and booted. One lady arrived wearing the most delicieux tiara that she had worn on her wedding day 50 years ago. It was such a twinkling confection that I couldn`t take my eyes off it all evening! How she managed to leave the building without me snaffling it I will never know!!

We celebrated both the French New Year and then the English New Year one hour later with Mark accompanying the singing of "Auld lang syne" on his violin. He had us all in hysterics as he had bought a vintage tailcoat for the occason which made him look like a " mad Maestro".

I was the non-drinking "chauffeuse" for the evening, eventually driving away from the party at 2.45am straight into a thick blanket of frost that made the Normandie countryside twinkle as the headlights caught the view. There was not another car on the 20 minute journey home; a very surreal and enchanting start to 2015.


New Years Day - and, after a lie in, we attended a New Year's Day breakfast with more friends at their gorgeous 16th century cottage. A delicieux feast of home-cooked delights accompanied with champagne.

 Later we all retired to the sitting room and sat in front of a roaring log fire drinking coffee and enjoying liquers. As normal stupidity kicked in and we decided that if anyone mentioned the word "Christmas" they would have to sit on the tiny antique child's chair positioned in the centre of the room and entertain us all with a song or ditty.
As the time wore on I think everyone of us forgot not to mention the fated word and we all ended up perched with our knees under our chins on that little seat!

Needless to say that on the evening of New Years Day we were slumped in a heap vowing never to eat again!

Yesterday morning I awoke early and thought we may as well finish the week off with a bang. I decided to cook a Chinese buffet and have a relaxed evening with friends. They were summonsed with the instructions of "no dressing up, wear your pyjamas if you like as it is a relaxed night".

The food went down very well (Thanks you Gok Wan for your cook book!) and Mark played quizmaster and games host.

We started with two teams for a traditional family game of "Tippit" which involves each team secretly passing a cork between them behind their backs and when the team is ready they all sit and place their closed fists on their knees. A chosen person from the opposing team has to guess who holds the cork by a process of elimination. I soon realised just how competitive we all are and things started to get lively.

The next game was a guessing word game; no miming allowed and as we had kept the same teams it got just a little more competitive.

Another guessing game later involving a timing buzzer that went off when it pleased, creating the most amazing sight that will stay with me forever. At 1am the winning team, all sensible adults ( well?!) were jumping, punching the air, dancing and shouting as they won their heat and ran around the room.
I laughed so much that my ribs hurt this morning and I shall never forget the moment when one of our team organised a coin toss to see who would go next by saying " Heads we win, tails you lose".  No one in the opposing team realised the trick -  and of course our team went first!!

We have all been very bleary eyed today and shall finish the festivities with a roast supper at another venue.

Monday is a day to start a Detox and a Diet - and GET BACK TO WORK!!!

I hope you have enjoyed your Christmas and New Year celebrations as much as we have  - and we wish you good health and happiness in 2015.

My listing will be back on Monday....let the truffling commence!
A la prochaine
xxx