Olive Oil, Airstreams, Gaston and Les Girls.

A half hour drive from Léran is a winding road that eventually ends at Belpayre, the hilltop farm owned by our friends Perry and Coline. Dotted around the main house are big silvery Airstream trailers. Take a look at them at www.belrepayre.com and guaranteed you'll want to rent one for a bit of retro camping. With its view of the countryside and the Pyrenees, the hot tub alone is worth the trip. 

Right now, in the field used for summertime cricket matches, Gaston and his 14 ewes are doing whatever it is that sheep do. Unlike most sheep, this flock is mostly dark brown and black with their tails left undocked. 

One of the reasons for our visit was to get our hands on some of the olive oil that comes from Perry and Coline's land in southern Spain. We tasted, and left with two litres, bright green, cloudy and so full of flavour we keep pouring saucers-ful to dip chunks of baguette into. 

The Christmas Feast

Our good friends John and Lee-anne had invited us for a lunch that started a bit after 1 p.m. and saw us wandering home through the village about nine hours later. There was a walk in there somewhere and a spirited carol session around the piano so it's not as debauched as it sounds....quite. 

We began with hot sausage rolls, then moved to the dining table for oysters, followed by foie gras. After that, we got into serious eating. There was a chapon--a capon, a castrated rooster if you want to be technical--and sage-onion-and-apple dressing. Kate made a marvellous dish of Brussels sprouts braised with lardons and white wine. Lee-anne roasted pork stuffed with prunes, tender enough to cut with a fork, and made broccoli au gratin. Leeks, carrots, potatoes parboiled and roasted while, like an actor between gigs, the bird was resting...two ovens-worth of food in all. 

Sometime later, we ate dessert, a fruit cake but made with chocolate which made it the best, moistest fruit cake I'd ever tasted. 

Champagne, blanquette, white wine, red wine and, for the men, a concluding shot or two of single malt. Friendship, memorable food and wine, singing and laughter. It doesn't get any better than that.  

Christmas Morning.

No stockings this year. We either left them behind in Vancouver or they're in one of the innumerable boxes still waiting to be unpacked. 

We also left it a little late--late on Christmas Eve in fact--to buy a Christmas tree. "Desolée," they said at Bricomarché. All gone. So we roamed around the outdoor section, currently filled with heather, pansies and dispirited-looking plants left over from the summer and eventually bought a very small tree, about a foot high, in a pot. Once we'd adorned it with a single string of lights and our littlest decorations, it looked very sweet.

Christmas morning dawned bright and frosty. Down at the boulangerie, the mood was cheerful. The other madame there pointing out that this was not a good day for a swim in the lake. Croissants and pains aux raisins were another break with tradition but we knew we were in for a feast of Rabelaisian proportions later in the day.

Last Market Before Christmas

A cold, crisp and sunny Monday morning for the final trip to Mirepoix before Christmas. Most people had decorated their stalls. Purple tinsel for the olive, nut, and anchovy sellers. Holly sprigs for the madame who sells antiques. Some folk had set up a festive table behind their vegetable stall, dressed up as Santas and were indulging in a bit of Noël cheer.

Photo Ops on the Cote d'Azur

Gazing out at the Mediterranean has been an almost full-time occupation during the time we've been here. 

The first one to raise the volets roulants in the morning shouts out what kind of a day it is. So far, they've all been flawless. We've also had some major visual moments. Dawns and sunsets are reliably gorgeous, pink, gold, purple and turquoise in varying proportions, but the other evening, nature (that should be with a cap "N") really went nuts.

Off to Monte Carlo.

Because it's only half an hour along the coast, we went to Monaco for the day, taking the coastal road that swooped around glittering bays and down through seaside communities. The last time I was in Monaco was when I was in my teens. The parking hasn't got any better although we eventually did luck into a tiny spot right across from the port. 

Jammed tightly together, high-rises clamber up above the harbour. The extravagant white boats in the port are just as tightly packed. We followed a pathway along the water passing a large number of boats registered in other recognized tax havens, got lost in a tunnel, and finally found the famous Monte Carlo casino which is far more glamorous outside than in, a masterpiece of baroque over-the-topness. I can't vouch for the interior. We didn't venture beyond the lobby as the casino authorities charge 10 euros a person to go any further. 

Right now, the little park in front is all ready for New Year's Eve, its grass decorated with strings of small blue lights, and colossal silver globes reflecting the casino.

Crimson Cherries and Fat Pigs

Right now, the stalls at the daily market in the old section of Nice are loaded up with sweet treats for Christmas.  Glacé fruits glow as though they have lights inside them--clementines, lemons and long green stalks of angelica. Elsewhere are confections of nuts and nougat. The petals of violets and roses are candied. 

Best of all are the little sweets made of marzipan. Treated like a sublime modelling clay, the fruits and objets made of almond paste are so exquisite you can't imagine actually biting into one of them.

The amazingly realistic cherries pictured here are the same size as real ones, and no two are the same. The pigs are about the length of your thumb. 

I watched a woman assemble a small box of marzipan fruits, then add a little bag of crystallized violets. Maybe she'll give them as gifts or take them to her family's as a treat to hand round after the Christmas feast.