Quiet Time

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.

The Xmas Holiday Arrives

Last year's holiday displays and festivities were nearly non-existent here. This year, we started seeing small quantities of Christmas decor and tasty treats in the shops in late October. They don't really celebrate Halloween much here. By the beginning of November, holiday stuff was all around and then it took over large footprints in the shops. This is a November photo.

By early December, the chocolate section was enormous! The holiday merchandise might even surpass the merchandise displays we saw at Ramadan. Probably not!

I stood in the middle and shot to the left, then the middle and then to the right. The first 2 photos overlap on the large blue stack.

The second and third photos overlap on the green tower and gold stacks of boxes.

And the merchandise continued off to the right.

This surprised me. Fireworks "fountains" and sparkler "candles" for cakes along with lighters. These seem like something that shouldn't be used indoors for sure but...

Two closeups of truffle-type chocolates.

These boxes were really pretty- all dark chocolate.

And they even had very small, live trees in the large grocery store.  They were very wide and very short.

B decided we needed to get a small artificial Christmas tree. There  is a long story in the blog posts about how we ended up with two large artificial trees in Indonesia, but we sold them when we left. He'd received an email from our garden center about a very large Christmas selection. We got a small tree and one string of LED lights. The very top of the tree hits 5 ft. We had kept some ornaments, mostly purchased in or made in Indonesia so we had some things to hang on the tree.  I'd made these three ornaments back in 2018 (front and back of each is pictured) and really like them. We hadn't had a tree in a couple of years so it was nice to get them out of their box.

Ta da! Our tree for 2021.

The garden center had these cute signs.

And soooooooo many types of village and navitity items. These old European buildings were the most interesting.

They did have a very large decorated tree in the large square near us last year but not much else in terms of exterior Christmas decor.

This year, the more usual amount of additional items appeared, along with a ferris wheel- the Grand Roue Panaramique. Check out B hiding behind the sign!

A village for the kids to roam through.

A Disney window display in Galleries Lafayette.

Christmas Markets are back this year as well including a small one here in town. We did go. They were checking for proof of vaccination or negative Covid test to get into the outdoor, but cramped area. However, few folks were wearing masks. I did buy another very large soft, squishy scarf to wear. We also picked up a Thai spice blend. There was someone selling very intricately, laser cut 3D puzzles that you build and then they also have movement. For example, they sell a clock, an award for cycling with a cyclist peddling on top and also a nightlight with fish swimming around. Expensive!  

Naturally, this is most impressive at night when it's all lit up. So, one morning-- 6:30 am-- we walked over to enjoy everything still lit up. They don't leave the ferris wheel lit up all night. There are different types of light decorations on every street near our apartment.

I shot a video so I am trying to imbed it here. It might not work.

We also had our first snow in town. We just had flurries throughout most of the day and none of it stuck. The higher elevations saw much more. 

Really cool clouds, too.

The Croissant Experiment, Ice Blocks and Coke Zero

One day while glancing through the refrigerator section at the grocery I spotted a tube of "make your own pains au chocolat (croissant with 2 sticks of chocolate buried inside). We thought it was worth the experiment so we bought one.

The next day we also purchased a boulangerie (bakery) produced pain au chocolat for comparison.

So, here is the boulangerie pain au chocolat. Flaky and light.

The make your own package made 8 small ones.  The first thing we noticed was that the texture was not quite right.

Before we discuss the results of the experiment, we raise a question. Why would they even produce such a thing here when there are boulangeries everywhere. We can probably walk to at least 6 of them within 5 minutes.  Back to our conclusion: an interesting experiment but we'll stick to a boulangerie if we want a pain au chocolat. 

Ice Blocks and the new Coke Zero

We were finally able to find "ice blocks" locally for B's lunch bag. A pair of these small blocks keeps his yogurt and fruit nice and cold.

The new Coke Zero has arrived in France. I think we are of mixed opinion. I like it better, B isn't so sure.

We had to share this new, disposable, wooden eating utensil from one of the local restaurants. It came with a delivery order. We think it should be called a chork. Chopsticks+ fork.