Happy drunk, I’m Christmas

“Happy drunk, I’m Christmas” was the best comment I saw on Xmas day on Mellisssa Graves Facebook page and I think it had a resonance with many of my friends. Happy drunk seems to sum up a number of my friends, indeed some of my family so the ideal antidote to the usual Christmas excess was a stiff walk, preferably involving some steep hills.

Cipieres is a beautiful village in the hills above Gurdon and below Greoliere where despite no visible signs of snow from where we were it seems Greoliere Les Neiges, the small ski resort above the old village, have a couple of ski runs open. The walks are breathtaking, and by that apart from being very beautiful and dramatic I mean so steep they take your breath away so the final piece of the  antidote to walk-induced thirst was to buy a beer in the sunshine at Les Ormeau, one of the restaurants in the village.

As you can see from today’s picture few of the locals were out and about, Boxing Day not being a holiday here. I tried to think of anywhere in Britain, given the sunny weather, where such a beautiful place with a sweet local restaurant or bar could be so deserted on Boxing Day but answer came their none.

Cipieres in the sunshine

There is now the prospect of something quite abnormal happening over the next few days, I am so jaded after the build up to and execution (is that the right word?) of Christmas, I am actually glad that there is no social occasion in my diary until Friday 30th (subject to the receipt of a schedule from Mr Clipboard below) when the home leg of the tennis chaps lunch will be held at Auberge St Donat. I say return leg because the away fixture was held last Friday at the somewhat more expensive and nowhere near as good La Source (as one of our fellow tennis chaps  described as The Sauce, and I think he was referring to the amount of rose wine he is renowned for consuming. I cannot name names, but Master Mariner Mundell may be squirming a little as he reads this).

Anytime now, certainly before the end of the day as I alluded to above I shall be hearing from Mr Clipboard who will be flying in from the UK later in the week no doubt with the effect of destroying our current run of lovely weather. It is startling how often a nice run of weather suddenly comes to an end as soon as some Brits come to visit.  I know the weather forecast is set fair well into the new year but this takes no account of the Brits being able to bring terrible weather with them.

This will not be his intention I admit, and a full schedule of events, tennis, golf, eating and drinking, will doubtless be emailed to me three times today (Mr Clipboard does like to do things in triplicate). This trait of his only became apparent when he moved back to the UK a year or so ago and it was stunning how quickly he lost that laid back attitude that is the hallmark of an ex pat living here in paradise. Thus I expect tennis to take place on Friday morning at exactly 10.45, lunch to follow precisely at 12.30 and for us all to have had haircuts and cleaned our tennis whites ready for inspection on Friday morning. Of course we will have to tell the Wingco that tennis starts at around 10.15 otherwise he, who takes the ex pat laid back style to new heights, even to the appearance of ganja induced relaxation, will be late and we will all be on a charge.

Today however, l shall be studying events in the media relating to currency movements so that I am able to re invigorate my activities for Currencies Direct in the new year.

Chris France