With the onset of Omicron at the end of 2021, everything got pretty quiet for us.
At Christmas time we found these for a little fun. One was a mango hand mask, the other a coconut foot mask. The results were actually pretty good even if only temporary.
This winter has been more "normal" than last year's unusually mild winter. A pretty sunrise in this photo where lighting made the clouds look peculiar.
We visited a new (for us) fabric store at one point. Last year we located two shops that had a lot of variety so we hadn't visited the third shop we had discovered. I needed something or other so we tried shop #3. Shop #3 was a thread wonderland. Lots of other accessories as well, though it didn't have very much fabric beyond homedec types. For accessories like thread, shop #3 is great!
When our shipment was delivered in December 2020, I posted a few pictures of the elevator truck that was used to lift our stuff from outside up to the 6th floor balcony of our apartment. The sun hadn't even risen when our truck arrived so those photos were pretty dark. One day we noticed another delivery down the street. This photo is better. It reminds me a little of a firetruck ladder. Basically a flat shelf carries your goods up and the goods are unloaded through the balcony door. If you don't have a balcony, I guess you ought to have a large elevator in the building.
The construction projects across the street were quiet only briefly after massive amounts of fill were brought in to cover up the dig site and level things somewhat. Then the giant cranes started moving in.
And then new construction began. From what I've learned, this will be a skinny building with 54 apartments. There will be a gap between this new building and the already existing Polyclinique building in the picture. The apartments start at 300 square feet. Yikes! At least most will have balcony space based on the renderings I've seen.
They are getting closer to pouring what we believe is the garage parking flooring.
On a really nice day in late January we took a drive to Lake Pavin. Lake Pavin is a meromictic crater lake located in the same region where we live between the villages of Besse-en-Chandesse and Super-Besse. There are apparently quite a few mysterious legends about this lake and the stories include tales of dragons, spirits and more!
A published work from 1614 was probably the earliest to discuss the geomythology of the lake. For a long while, it was alleged to be so deep the depth could not be measured. (I believe it was finally measured at 300 feet deep.) Meromictic? It means the lake has layers of water that rarely mix. The lowest layer is carbon dioxide rich and will emit gasses that do rise to the surface. These happenings might account for most of the lake's myths.
Beyond all the interesting tales, there is supposed to be a nice loop trail around the lake. We thought we'd take a nice hike. So off we went. It had snowed recently at the higher elevations as you can see in the distance. We just had flurries in town.
Village of Champeix. On the hill I believe is what remains of the Marchidial Castle with a church and fortifications. ( It dates from the12th-17th centuries depending on what part you're talking about.)
Mistletoe in the trees! Poor trees!
We started seeing some snow.
And then more snow.
About this time we figured out that we didn't have the proper footwear for a hike in these conditions. (B note: our boots live under mom's bed as we didn't have much need for them in Jakarta or here, except for activities like this! Oh, well). We'll try for this hike again when Spring comes.
So, we headed back to town for a walk—all the while admiring the pretty snow against the bright blue skies.
Village of Champeix again.
We've taken many, many walks around town. Here are a couple of photos taken on a quiet Sunday morning.
Here's a shot in the window of the boulangerie which is our favorite. They bake their goods onsite! They recently dropped their price for baguettes slightly. Earlier, a large grocery store chain here announced they were dropping their baguette price. It has caused quite an uproar.
A really pretty shot of Puy-de-dome taken on a trip by car to the large grocery store. It looks somewhat mystical.
I came across an article all about foods that the French love. These two items were in the most-loved snack category. Naturally, we had to try them. They were easy to locate in the large grocery store.
Our thoughts? Both are the consistency of Cheetoh's. The curly cacahuété are even shaped like Cheetoh's but peanut flavored. The French don't care for peanut butter much, but they like these apparently. The "monster munch" crisps are theoretically ham and cheese flavored. We tasted more cheese than ham. They look like little ghosts! Would we get them again? Probably not. If we wanted a crunchy snack, we would probably get pretzels or even potato chips. Both are sold here.
