Even having to pay a colossal bill to EDF for a debt that wasn't mine didn't ruin my day. There was the usual queue at the post office but everyone is very polite saying hello and goodbye. I thank the postman for putting the fancy Beijing Olympic stamps on the parcel I sent to my daughter and he remembers doing it. Lovely. The school dinner lady is giving the Maison d'Accueil a sweep out and I pop into the local stores for some fruit. It's entrance is virutally completely obscured by calor gas bottles - the village still doesn't have mains gas and some of us don't have mains sewage either.

The sun is shining and it's relatively dry so, having borrowed a firiends's axe, I start  chopping firewood. Golly it's a long time since I've done that and my muscles don't mind telling me so. Afterwards I sit down on the swing seat at the end of the garden by the river and the trees and bushes are full of movement. The robin shows himself first then the wren, then a bird so small it makes the robin look giant sized. It's quite indifferently coloured but with a distinct line running through its eye crease. i guess it might be a female firecrest. It is bigger than a goldcrest. There's also another indifferently marked small rather olive coloured visitor. His throat shows up as being disctinctly lighter so I guess it must be a whitethroat.. Four mallards swim by before I decide I really must get on.

I plan to make chutney with the remains of the windfall apples but have to pop out again for some brown sugar. Dropping some glass empties in the bins by the cemetery I peep through the gate. As i was Toussaint at the weekend every grave is beautifully dressed with enormous pots of chrysanthemums and cyclamens. All the stones have been scrubbed and sparkle. It is beautiful and it strikes me that it is such a lovely nourishing occasion when everybody gathers the week before to prepare, and meets up with friends aqnd family they may not have seen since their youth.

Vrtually all the older French from the village are gathered in the road. I wish I had my camera as I'd love to take some photos and paint them. Their bodies and faces are so full of character. It is the funeral of an elderly lady villager who was ninety and the whole French community turns out to pay their respects. I feel very out of place with my cheerfully coloured top and trousers. I managed to find some walnuts on the pavement and gather them quickly. Tthey are delicious around here but it is illegal to gather them from fields or gardens sbut ok if they are on the road.

The chutney turns out ok, ten pots and still some apples left over. Some of my English friends wouldn't recognise this countrified being that I've become, but then that was part of the reason I came here and it feels good, and I feel good and fit and healthy.

Do you ever get one of those days that just makes you feel all glowy?

My dear friend C who I'(ve known since the seventies when we were working together in Scotland phoned to tell me she was coming out to France for a week with some friends and could they all come for the day? She's such a good friend that that was fine although it's a long time since I've catered for eight people and the place isn't really straight (few more years before that really hapoens).

Anyway in honour of the occasion I felt I really ought to do a French meal and my French friend who is an excellent cook was coming too. He is convinced that I can't cook and has a pathological dislike of what he calls le pudding. Keeping him out of the kitchen was impossible while I was trying to prepare so the pumpkin flan never got made. Fortunately I'd already made a chocolate chestnut pavé. I finally managed to get him out of the kitchen by asking him to go and buy some bread.

The sun shone, my friends arrived and we sat down to -

consommé

paté de foie gras

saucisse de porc

rouget et coquilles St Jacques

salade

pommes de terre garnis de fromage de chevre

dinde

fromage ( the best of which was like a fine wine being three years old)

chocolate chestnut pudding

café

Don't ask me to cook that lot every day, however everyone enjoyed it and my French friend even had seconds of  'le pudding' and admitted that he didn't realise I could do something like that.After azll the insults I've had that felt good. My Scottish guests were saying they wouldn't want to eat again today but of course the French don't eat until  nineish in the evening an they don't snack or drink cuppas at all between meals.

Having got through a monstrous amount of washing up I went to an evening meeting called by the mayor in the village to discuss plans for Christmas. One good thing about this new mayor is that he really is trying hard to get everybody in the village participating.

There were many familiar smiley faces, the pharmacist's wife, the mini supermarket owner, the baker's assistant, the café and auberge owners, not to mention one or two very tired children who screamed for a lot of the time. It was very French. We agreed the colours for the Christmas decorations in record time, then we got down to the nitty gritty. How big should the Christmas trees be and how would we make the bows? Would the local electro-menagère provide polystyrene packaging which people could use to make decorations. Everyone spoke at once. Everything was repeated whenever anyone came in late. And the lady who was wanting us all to do decorations in polystyrene and had the loudest voice held the floor for most of the time, so those of us who came with ideas of having torchlight processions, carol singing or similar didn't get to first base. The passion was reserved for the polystyrene and the bows and, do you know, there was something very special and glowy about seeing villagers of all ages coming together and being passionately involved and I loved the warmth and feeling included in that. I'm used to having organised business meetings with a capital B but I couldn't help thinking we'd lost something precious when compare with this simple village meeting. God bless them all.