Talk of a winter wonderland may be slightly exaggerated

It's still, for the most part, not that cold in these here parts. I'm a bit reluctant to jinx things, but I'm thinking this year won't see a repeat of last year's 6 (? I don't remember) hour flight delay and finally getting to bed at like 5 am. At least not because of snow. On the other hand, I was in a meeting this afternoon and there was what I thought was super heavy rain and thunder and lightning, and then when we got out of the meeting there was:


Not snow, but tons of hail




And a pretty rainbow over the HLMs


A picture of the Cher which has nothing to do with anything


I have managed to get most of my Christmas shopping done. I ordered a few things on Amazon and sent them directly to the UK, so I hope they do/have arrived in time. Should be fine. Of course, only having 4 people to buy for makes things relatively easy. Other than that, my suitcase will be weighed down with lots of wine, as usual!

I had a look at the Christmas market on the weekend. It was a beautiful, sunny day. Too many people around, too many prams and people walking uber extra slowly and I start to get all antsy because I hate slow walkers and being in a confined space in a crowd where you can't get around people. Except for when I had my mulled wine, in which case I also had to move very slowly to avoid drips.


Marche de something


Get your roasted chestnuts here

Tours is not exactly the Christmas decoration capital of the world, but it's still nice to see lights everywhere and Christmas trees and so on. Here's some pics:


Just so you know I'm really in France, here's a Christmas protest for ya


A rather vulgar display at the mall


Fountain in front of the Palais de Justice


Fountain and Christmas tree


Fountain and the Christmas tree by night


The town hall


This is to show the roadworks which are everywhere and have been for aaages. We are getting a tram. The tram is everywhere I wanna be, which is probably good in the longterm, but annoying for the minute