The best for Christmas ..

So here it is, Merry Christmas ..

I was delighted to know that some of my new French friends have actually heard of Slade, although the group's famous festive cornerstone never quite made it over here. There's a lot about Christmas that's different for Lesley and I this year - our first in France - but we're really loving it and enjoying the fact that we're a million miles from the rush, hustle and commercialism of our 'normal' Christmases past. In fact, the French are back to normal by Boxing Day and we ourselves have guests in the gîte on the 26th. On that note I'm putting up a shot from my archive - glum looking shoppers outside the window of Boots on Market Street in Manchester, circa 1981 - and just want to say Thank you for reading my blog over the past year, and have a great Christmas .. with or without Slade! ..

(Ps: Just how do you spell Christmases?)

A bit of a buzz ..

The excitement in the gîte continued yesterday, with the installation of a gorgeous new wood-burner .. just in time for our Christmas guests. Talk about cutting it fine! And now, after the thrill over our selection for the Brittany Ferries brochure, it's time to come back down to earth .. and quite literally too as I saw my first 'dropped glove' of the season. It was a good one as well, featuring as it did this symbol for a recharging point for electric cars. All very modern, don't ya know? Anyway, despite my best efforts to resist, I just had to take a photograph and add it to my 'On the one hand' collection of 462 other shots of dropped gloves! So I'm now at 463! Man, I need help! Trouble is, just like this charge point, it gives me such a buzz ..

(Copyright : Christmas cracker joke 2007!)

Pushing the boat out ..

I have a bit of spiffing news! Our gîte has been chosen to be included in the Brittany Ferries brochure, for people looking to book an all-in ferry journey and holiday in France. An inspector came to check out our property yesterday and gave us the nod there and then. She was going to take some photographs but realised I was a photographer and went away with a memory stick of my images instead. We'll start to appear on their website by the middle of next month and will be included in the  next brochure which comes out in the middle of next year. We are so delighted. We'd already planned to open a bottle of champers last night to mark our third month of life in France, so you can imagine how much we celebrated this extra bit of fantastic news. (Clue: sore head this morning!)
What a lovely end to an amazing year ..

Moving on ..

It's exactly three months to the day since Lesley and I formed a little convoy and drove down to start living in France 'for good' .. and man, how time has flown. We've done so much in that short space of time, too. All our stuff is unpacked and has a place in our new house, and we've already made so many new friends here that we're having a meal for some of them this evening to thank them for their welcome ..

One lovely thing about our new house is that it has a clear view of the western sky, enabling us to see every sunset throughout the year (Unless it's cloudy, of course!!) As we near the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, it's great to see the sun setting at its farthest position to the left. Another couple of days and it'll start moving back to the right. An Emirates A380 jet flew over at sunset yesterday, headed from Milan to New York and, thinking about our 750 mile journey, I couldn't help but wonder if people on the plane were heading off to start new lives of their own.

Lord, I don't half get sentimental at Christmas! ..

For good ..

There are a few things that have made me realise I've definitely left England. Taking my UK house keys off my key-ring was the first one. Having to kiss every woman I meet on the cheeks (twice!) is another. Driving on the right, of course. Unpacking my radio and having spoken French come out of it (That was funky!) Getting forms in triplicate (The French are very bureaucratic) and having to search for fresh milk (The French don't do it .. they love UHT!) .. but two things smacked the point home good and proper. I got an email from the members section of Badminton England, telling me I'd been removed from their records .. and then a pal in the UK asked me when I'd be back over for a drink. I'm sorry? Back over? "But Mike .." I said "I live in France. I'm not coming 'back over'.."

It felt bloody fantastic ..

(And no, I don't mean because of you, Mike ..)  

Earning my stripes ..

My first by-line in France! You can just about make it out in the bottom right-hand corner of the page. It's the back cover shot of our local village monthly magazine and if you ever needed proof that we now live in the depths of the French countryside then here it is. We all got excited about the installation of a new zebra crossing! How amusing ..

The photograph's also one of the first shots on my new - old - Fuji X10 camera. I wore out the first one I bought just under 6 years ago so, as the camera's now discontinued, I've had to source a nice second-hand model to replace it. The funny that was that, despite the fact that I thought I knew the camera so well, I glanced through the instruction book that came with it and discovered that it's able to take panoramic 360˚ shots. Guess what I'll be shooting a lot of soon ..

More Christmas shots coming up this weekend, too. I've been asked to photograph the village's childrens' Christmas party on Sunday. Memo to self. Do not shoot them on the panoramic setting ..

Johnny who? ..

The biggest rock star you've never heard of! That's how The Independent newspaper described Johnny Hallyday, who died on Wednesday and set off a wave of wall-to-wall TV coverage and national mourning. Yes, poor old Johnny. You know? Johnny Hallyday? The Rock God? Good old Johnny? You know?..

The thing is, we English don't know. Most of us have never heard of him, but Johnny Hallyday has been, well "An Icon", as it says here, in France since about 1922! He is (was!) the Bees Knees when it comes to music in France. Adored, loved, held on high. And now he's dead. It's like saying Cliff Richard, Vera Lynn and Posh Spice had all popped their clogs on the same day. Ok, maybe not Posh Spice, but you get the idea. And it brings into sharp focus the musical differences between England and France. We don't know any of their music, and they know none of ours. Only last weekend, during a loud and drinky Karaoke night, I was trying to explain just how big Gladys Knight and The Pips were. The French in the room had never heard of them. Neil Diamond? Nope! Cliff? Not a chance. The music scene is so insular here that none of our "icons" have made a dent in their charts. Likewise (apart from Vanessa Paradis!!) none of their big names mean a thing in the UK. And they say music is the international language. That'll be the day ..   

Here's to the next one ..

I know she gets wheeled out every year, but I just love this photograph of a nun in a party hat tucking into Christmas lunch! The shot is now well over 30 years old, taken when I was covering a Christmas lunch for OAPs in, of all places, a casino in Salford. It's one of the pictures in my B/w Archive, something I plan to build on now I have more time here in France. There are still loads of negatives yet to be scanned, and I can't wait to get cracking on them in the new year. I also have a new exhibition in mind, which I'll start to shoot by the Spring, and I've arranged with a couple of companies over here to shoot some property photography for them once the weather improves ..

This is one of my favourite festive traditions. Christmas is a time to reflect on the year just gone, but it doesn't half get me looking forward to the next one ..

If you can't beat 'em ..

It was bitterly cold here yesterday .. but gorgeous .. so with the thermometer at -5˚ we ventured out for a stroll and a morning of 'capturing clichés' in the frost. Hey, if you can't beat 'em ..

It all looked very festive though and, dare I say it, it is nice to see that Christmas is making itself known here now, with the switching on of lights and the opening of markets happening all around us. Lesley is off to sing with a choir at a Christmas Carol concert this afternoon, whilst I take a stand at a Christmas market with items from my Florescence range and gift vouchers for Camera Tuition and Family Portraits. Yes, I know I'm being commercial about it all but hey, if you can't beat 'em ..