Last days of the year

The weather has become much milder than it was a couple of weeks ago and the days are getting longer. This evening it was just about light until about 5.30 p.m. There’s a chance that the plants in the garden, which have been in a kind of suspended animation for the past few weeks, will begin to grow again. We still have work to do – clearing the last remaining pepper plants and getting the ground ready for the goat manure we hope to collect during January.

Even in the very cold weather we’ve been picking leeks and salad leaves, and this cauliflower.

The sea

On Saturday at Le Grau d’Agde the sea was grey and cold. The statue of a woman represents the women who wait and watch for the fishermen to come back to port. She had no need to worry this time because all the boats were in the harbour. Going through Roujan we were amused to see this large olive tree on the back of a lorry ahead of us. A nice late Christmas present for someone?

Sunday sunset

From near Roujan we could see as far as the Pyrenees and Mont Canigou (above), which is 2,784 metres high, and the sunlit trees looked golden against the dark sky.

And our Christmas day lunch …

We’ve had to postpone our family mid-winter festivities because of travel problems last week, but even though we were on our own on the 25th, Lo Jardinièr and I had a good lunch!

Apéritifs in the garden, with some of the olives from our own tree.

Lo Jardinièr opening oysters (left) and beating the chocolate fondant mix (above)

Foie gras with salt, red and black peppercorns and a glass of Cartagène.	Oysters gratinées
Leg of lamb slow roasted in wine with garlic and rosemary, with leeks from the garden.	Potatoes dauphinoises
Chocolate fondant.	And, finally, cherries in Armagnac with our coffee.

We didn’t eat anything else until the next day!