Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

I can say that now.  I was edgy and worried when I woke up to it this morning, though Tom had already asserted in no uncertain terms that he would drive me in to my end of term lunch party with my students, go shopping and pick me up afterwards, even before the weather became so decidedly inclement.   Once we were down off our hill it really wasn't too bad, and after a knocking back a kir made with cremant d'Alsace I was ready to relax into the party.  They all brought in wonderful food, as always, gave me an incredibly elegant box of chocolates as always, got festive and excitable after the first kir, as always.  Seraphine sang a Nina Simone song about a no good man doing her wrong ( the persona of the song, not Seraphine herself, I assume...) and Bernard got a bit tearful and said he was too sensitive and sentimental. Marguerite just about let me escape without insisting that I took the entire remains of the buffet home to eat over Christmas.  As always I felt incredibly warmly towards them and affirmed to myself that even though they pay me modestly and will never, for the most part, achieve anything but a very shaky grasp of the propositional infinitive, I could never leave them.

One or two of them took photos which they e-mailed me later which had the effect that most photos of myself do, which is to make me quite certain that I should never be seen outside the house again, or not without a burkha, and that unphotographed web presence only is probably the best way forward from now on. ( No seemingly fished-for compliments please; the best response was once from my very gallant brother-in-law, who said "Well, that's what you look like.  What do you think it's like for the rest of us having to see you all the time?")

When I came out and met up with Tom, it was wet but perfectly manageable, until we hit the high ground inland round about Quèssoy, and from then on it got more and more hazardous, far worse than in the morning, so that we nearly finished up in the ditch with rather a long way to walk home a couple of times.   We cancelled the second party of the day at the Quiet American's and B's, I cancelled my last lesson tomorrow with The Beautiful Maxime, and now we are officially snowed in.  We have plenty of wood in the shed, a full gas bottle, food in the freezer and wine in the hall, a warm and very excited dog (she loves snow even though she ends up with intractable pom-poms of it all over her legs), and it's really rather a shame it'll probably all be slush and meltwater in a couple of days.  We feel sorry we missed the party, which may have been postponed until tomorrow anyway, though in fact I was rather full of terrine and cake aux olives and bûche de Noël from lunchtime anyway, but there is really no question of getting out of our village tonight, much less getting home again safely.

So there was nothing left to do but don wellies and get out and photograph it.

(Above is Bel Air, the highest point in Cotes d'Armor, don't you know...)

Or, equally, stay inside and photgraph it through the windows,

or even stick your face in it, because stuff smells good in it. Even though it does give you pom-poms.