General Witterings -
Festivities and Rosy

Well.  Thank goodness that that's over for another year!! 

Though, to be fair, it has all been rather pleasant.  There doesn't seem to be the same hectic and commercial rush that I've experienced elsewhere, and the eating is kept within bounds.

Rosy is moored next to Miss Lily, a beautiful ex-French navy launch.  On it live the lovely Anne, who sings and plays the guitar, and Carl - a jovial chap who speaks quite good English.  Anne's boys (aged 11 and 14) were with her for Christmas.  They invited me for Christmas day, but I declined.  Instead, Fanny and I went over there on Christmas Eve, for a VERY pleasant evening.  We ate foie gras, smoked salmon (a real favourite meal on Rosy), lamb on a bed of flageolet beans, cheese and a chocolatey pudding.

Since living in Nottingham for a few years, mushy peas have been a favoured food, either alone, or as a basis for a soup or stew.  I brought a supply over on Rosy, but haven't seen them on sale here in France.  However, the flageolet beans are easily available, and are good in themselves - as well as being a good substitute for mushy peas.

Having eaten and drunken so well on Christmas Eve, we had a simple lunch on Rosy.  Although the weather was overcast, we were promised a dry day, so after lunch I started the engine, and took the crew of Miss Lily on a short cruise (along to the old canal to the aqueduct).  In the evening, I cooked a couple of pork chops, dressed with a layer of duck paté.  As I was taking Fanny out for an evening stroll, we were hijacked by the crew of FloraLine, frog-marched into their cabin, and forced to drink pastis and/or champagne.

I apparently missed Boxing Day, leastwise, there is no record of it in the diary.

On Dec 27, I took the Laird of Strathnaver out to a local Portuguese bar/restaurant - pickled herring, pork steak with pommes frites (beautifully dry and crisp), cheese, lemon sorbet, a bottle of luscious Portuguese wine and copious quantities of port.

By December 28th, Fanny had made the connection between sore paws and stinging nettles.  Her ball landed in the midst of a nettle patch ensconced on a steep slope.  She bounded down the slope to retrieve it, but screeched to a stop at the edge of the nettle patch, and whimpered.  Only having the two legs, I was unwilling to brave the slope myself, so spent sometime trying to persuade her that:

A:  They were not really nettles.

B:  That if they were nettles, they were the non-stinging variety.

C:  That nettle stings really aren't that bad anyway.

She was unmoved by any of these arguments.  There are times when she can be very difficult and cantankerous!!! 

On December 29th the entire crew of Miss Lily came aboard to share the Sainsbury's Christmas Pudding that had magically arrived in a food parcel from UK.  I made up a version of brandy butter that I call 'rum butter' on account of the fact that there is no brandy in it - just rum.  And some vanilla essence.

Incidentally, at home, when I was young, my mother (who happened to be Scottish, and who seemed to think that anything in life that was vaguely pleasant must be sinful, and who was so used to 'making-do' in wartime that she continued to 'make-do' until she died) dismissed brandy butter, and made-do with sherry margarine.

Anyway, the pudding and the rum butter went down EXTREMELY well, and sharing it with others meant that I wasn't, subsequently, wracked with stomach pains.

Also on the 29th, Bob arrived.  He has a strange craft moored in Briare, but is, himself, over-wintering in Spain.  In the summer, he plans to move his boat from Briare to Spain.  He has his RYA etc. certificates, but knows little about boating in general, or his boat in particular.

On New Year's Eve I left Fanny alone in the boat for 15 minutes whilst I changed the gas bottle.  She whinged a bit, but wasn't unduly upset.

In the early evening, the crew of Penelope had a quayside party to celebrate their abandonment of life in a house in Paris, and their acceptance of a life afloat.  They broke a bottle of champagne over their boat.  This couple are in their very late sixties, and discovered boating a couple of years ago.

Then onto a party organised by the live-aboards.  This went on until the VERY wee small hours were getting a bit bigger.  There was lots of booze (I took several litres of the vin en vrac Merlot along) and my sort of food - oysters, smoked salmon, foie gras and a raspberry ice-cream cake.  During the first few minutes of the New Year the Laird (twice) showed the company what a true Scot wears under his kilt.

The next few days were a haze of excessive alcoholic intake.  I recall complaining to the Laird that I took considerable exception to him wasting half a bottle of my best rum - he drank it (mixed with cassis) on Rosy but (as I learned from a private spy) 'lost' it during his dawn walk/stagger back to his own boat.

Recovery was initiated by Bob's return to Spain on Friday 3rd January - he is the sort of chap who leads other chaps astray.

Saturday 4th January was NOT a good day for poor old Fanny.  There is a large and noisy Alsatian near us, who barks at all comers.  Jess gees him up by barking at him through a chain link fence.  Fanny thinks this great sport, and has been doing the same, but on this day, she stuck her nose through the fence - and had it bitten - two clean cuts down the front.  Her cries were heart-rending, whilst she licked the blood away.  We found Jess a couple of minutes later, and Jess and Fanny went back to give the Alsatian a REALLY good woofing.  Later in the day, the Laird reported that Jess had scored a bleeding bite on the Alsatian's nose, so a respectable truce is now in operation.

Oh!!  And it snowed on the 4th of January, and froze overnight.

Brrrr!!!

Toodle pip!!

Bill