A Week with the Ch`tis.

Regular readers of this blog ( I believe there are one or two) may have noticed we have been off the air for a week. This is of course due to the fact we have been enjoying our annual Christmas visit to Lille, in the extreme north-east of France to stay with our good friends Cécile and Patrick. Cécile we have known since she came to stay with us at Plymouth as a sixteen-year-old étudiante, and Patrick a few years less when she married him. In fact Kim`s first visit to France, and the start of an on-going love of the Country, was to attend their marriage. Then as now they and their family made us so welcome that we can heartily endorse the reputation of the Ch`tis, the people of the north, for friendly hospitality!

  But lets start at the beginning, the trip up. It is no small problem of logistics to transport ourselves, the three dogs and a load of presents some 630 kilometers to the north-east. When I add that this is done with our old Peugeot 106 the feat is even more remarkable. The brave little car has done a total of 356,000 kilometers, that is nearly nine times the circumference of the earth at the equator!  Still it took us up and back with no fuss at a minimum cost in diesel. It is in fact the driver and passenger who need a little more cosseting than in earlier years, so we now break our outward trip in two with a stay overnight at a Formula One hotel near Orléans. Above is a pic of Kim enjoying relaxing after the drive. We decided to eat at a MacDonalds in the evening, which we often do if we are en route. I was pleased to note that the female clientele were as sleek and svelte as French girls usually are. We stopped two years ago at a MacDonalds in Montlucon where nearly all the girls were excessively plump, most peculiar! Ever since I have checked them out...
  Splitting the trip in two enabled us to arrive mid-afternoon and to enjoy the company of our friends without excessive yawning or longing glances at the stairs leading to our beds. They have a very large and to us most luxurious house on the outskirts of Lille. Mind you, most houses appear luxurious to us as we live in a rather old-fashioned way without benefit of central-heating etc, The house needs to be large, in fact as the couple have their  two sons and one daughter still living at home, and  Cécile`s mother lives in a separate annexe.
   Christmas at Lille demands a certain fortitude-- the meals are copious and long-lasting and only those with good digestive systems should brave the course! Both Cécile`s and Patrick`s families are large and Christmas  gives an excuse for not only one but two separate banquets with more than twenty guests seated at table, an excuse eagerly accepted by the French,of course!

   Tomorrow I will continue with an account of how we ate for England!!
 
   Bye for now.
 
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