A little bit of everything so far

Happy New Year 2016. We had a very nice New Year's Eve last night en famille and we were in bed just before midnight! We started out with black truffles from the region on buttered toast and some champagne.

Then we had the best supper of raclette...boiled potatoes, melted cheeses (several varieties like Morbier, /Gruyère etc.) and a variety of meat slices...grison is the really dark one in the center which is specific to raclette. The cheese gets melted in the contraption in the middle of the table and then you pour it onto the potatoes and have meat and cornichons with it! This is the perfect way to enjoy a festive evening and not have to do the cooking all alone! Hardly any dishes to wash too!!!

Just before Christmas JC and I went into Avignon to get haircuts. I love to go and see Corinne at the salon on this pretty street.

Of course the shop windows on the street were decorated so the whole area had a festive air about it.

 I remember when I was studying in Aix-en-Provence there was hardly a decoration up for the holidays. A few lighted streets and the santon seller booths and nougat makers on street corners but that was about it. I had some trouble then finding wrapping paper to send gifts back home. All this has changed now so everything is decorated.

At the salon things are quite different than what I am used to in the USA. The hairdresser cuts your hair but there is an apprentice who does the shampoo, after consultation with the main hairdresser, and then in a different section of the salon are the "specialists" who do only the hair color. The customer with cling wrap on her head is getting a weave.

The salon is small and busy and there is a lovely perfume smell drifting throughout.

Last Wednesday we took Maya and went to spend a day in Avignon. Lunch in a restaurant with "sirop de fraises"

...here is Souris Rose in her chair, she came along too...

then a turn on the merry go round on the place de l'horloge by city hall.

The weather was so warm that people were having lunch outside on the restaurant terraces.

Avignon was completely packed with people out for the day and we went up to the Pope's Palace and the park overlooking the Rhone.

This is the little train you can take to go up to the top of the park...we walked.

We saw the "Pont d'Avignon"

and Maya had a ride around on a pedal horse.

How many children can bike around in a park and see a medieval fortress in the background? The horse was called Zorro and he was great!

Then it was time for some cotton candy (so nice to be a grandparent who can do any amount of spoiling)!

At the palais du Roure we saw this sign...sigh... a sign of the times???

Then it was time for  a walk past all the little cabanons set up for the holidays.

We saw this soap booth...yes three walls of Provençal soaps artisan made...

and another with goodies from Ardèche

and then these with regional pottery....

and of course nougat.

Here I am at the foot of the stairs in the Pope's  Palace

and JC who wanted to take this picture especially for Laurent...this exhibit is going on now.

Maya and JC by the wall of the palace...

The busy streets of Avignon....

and a very amusing name for a hairdressing salon!

We headed home for a nice glass of wine, some compote for Maya and some feet up time but not before we did some "grimaces" in this office window!!