The changing face of the French Christmas?

Twenty years ago, Christmas did not mean that much to the French. Of course, the church made a lot of the religious aspect, but celebrations were much more limited than in the UK. Where there were lights in public places, they were mostly strings of white bulbs across some streets, or more often, outlining the roof, doors and windows of churches and public buildings.

In fact, these subdued illuminations were often quite elegant, in a minimalist way. Driving through the countryside one would frequently see in the distance a church or mairie in outline, like a simple line drawing. In the streets there would often just be branches from fir trees, stuck in holes in the pavement, with little parcels attached, and sometime sprayed with white or glitter paint. No one stole the packages, or damaged the branches.

There have been many changes since. As prosperity has increased, and the supermarkets and other major retailers have grown, so the forces of commerce have brought about a new form of Christmas, requiring much spending communally, commercially and individually, to the extent that it has become more like Britain. (The same thing has happened with halloween, which did not exist until the supermarkets used it as a marketing exercise and a new revenue stream.)

Every year has seen more street decorations, strings of multicoloured lights everywhere, across streets, wound around lamp posts, on buildings. There would be complicated designs, with messages, blinking and flashing, more and more complex each year, every town and village trying to be a little more colourful than the next. Many were boring, many were often interesting and striking.

People began to decorate their houses inside, and put up Christmas trees. Six or seven years ago, some individuals began to decorate their houses on the outside, with more and more lights, reindeers and so, just like so many lost souls in England. No infant school can end the term without a visit from le Pere Noel – in fact for a week or two the whole region seems to be crawling with Father Christmases, like London is with foxes. And now some villages are complaining that people are stealing the light bulbs and even complete sets of lights, such as garlands, angels and stars.

One common external decoration on private homes is a three foot high Sanhta Claus, climbing the outside of the chimney, or by a window. Whether because they are quite difficult to attach, or because of the winter winds, many of them end up dangling awkwardly from a rope. It rather looks as if there has been a widespread outbreak of lynching dwarf Father Christmases, which is not the most festive of images.

This year there may be the beginning of a retreat. Whilst in most places the lights are brighter, the arrangements bigger, the number greater, some towns are rethinking their approach. This is partly because there is a greater awareness of the environment and energy implications, partly because of the world financial position, and partly, I think, that it has all become rather silly.

One factor is changing their displays to light emitting diodes (LEDs) rather than incandescent bulbs. These are much cheaper to run, cheaper to make, and because they are small and have to be used in groups any individual failure has little visible impact. The problem with LEDs used to be that they were not very bright, but technological improvements have increased their brilliance, and enabled arrays of individual LEDs to be created simply, and in different colours. The strings of lights that you can buy for your Christmas tree, that blink, flash, and chase each other, are LEDs. In fact, the halogen bulb in my desklamp here failed, and the replacement is an array of LEDs instead of halogen.

Some towns, such as St Lo, are reining back their displays overall: they have their lights for 16 days only, they turn them off at 10 p.m., and they have limited the illuminations to some rather tasteful white streams of lights hanging like a waterfall from a footbridge over the river Vire, and a few boxes and lights around the commercial centre.

Maybe we are seeing the start of taste and good sense prevailing over the interests of big business. If that could happen anywhere, it would probably happen in France first.

Oysters at Christmas

You might find the occasional turkey on sale at Christmas in France, but the real festive requirement is for oysters. So great - and temporary - is the demand that most of the supermarkets put up marquees in their car parks in the last two or three days before Christmas, solely to sell oysters. This year, 2008, baskets of two dozen no.3 oysters are typically selling for 12 euros, and people are buying several baskets each. In London they were available at a pound an oyster. Typically, the French eat over 120,000 tonnes of oysters every year.

Here in Normandy there are quite a few oyster farms along the coasts, and especially around the Baie de Mont St Michel, including into the Breton side. For example, Cancale in Brittany is famous for the quality of its oysters, and there are stalls on the harbour and beach selling all the different varieties – Numbers 1 to 3, creuses, and others, to very, very discerning customers. At about noon every Sunday, there are many gentlemen arriving fresh from Mass, to buy the oysters for Sunday lunch. Many of them have their own oyster knives, and will try a number 3 here, a rare variety there, often ending up buying their four dozen or whatever from a favourite producer.

I can't say that I really share the enthusiasm. There is something about eating food that is not only raw, but alive, that causes me a little difficulty from the aesthetic point of view. I enjoy them cooked – there is one local restaurant that does them with cider and Camembert, grilled for a minute or so, which are pretty special, but just occasionally I will choose raw ones.

A couple of years ago we had to call round to see a local farmer, Georges, about an issue with our fields that he was using, on Christmas eve. He and his wife invited us to lunch on Christmas day (the real big family meal is dinner on Christmas eve), and insisted we come. When we got there, there were 19 other people for lunch, so it was no surprise that he had meant it when he had said that two more would be no problem. People locally prefer benches to individual chairs, because you can always find space for one or two more on benches.

Georges was standing at the sink, with a huge platter on the draining board, a little knife in his hand, methodically opening oysters from several baskets, and placing them on the platter. I think that was his only contribution to meals, other than making cider, calvados apple brandy, and pommeau (cider, sugar, calvados, seriously lethal), and preparing the shallot vinegar for the oysters.

In the event, I suppose I ate more than half a dozen of the oysters, spooning on a little shallot vinegar to ensure they winced and were alive, washed down with very dry cider. After the oysters, fish poached in wine and cream, then three of four chickens that had been running around the yard the previous day, then cheese and salad, then traditional apple tart. Excellent all round, and near enough to our house for me to walk home the long way, from one side of the road to the other and back again, the entire kilometre..

But not a sign of a turkey, there or anywhere else, any year. Anyway, best wishes for Christmas, and a prosperous 2009. Bonne annee.

Apero Chanson

The town of Granville sits on a promontory in the Baie de Mont St Michel, north of Avranches. Built largely in the 12^th century, and enlarged later by the English, the town never amounted to a great deal, and even escaped any significant damage in the last war. During the Hundred Years War, the town was on the side of the English against the French. Today, its business is mostly tourism, with yachting of some significance. There is an annual sailing competition, and a large marina. It is still a working fishing port: there is a  sailing vessel, called a bisquine, developed for fishing in local waters around Granville and St Malo, with a few examples left in use for entertainment and display, rather than working.

The old town is surrounded by a medieval city wall, but there are very few really interesting buildings. Plenty of narrow streets, and old domestic buildings, but nothing outstanding. There are two museums in the old town: a Granville history, and a new museum of modern art: Musée d’Art Moderne Richard Anacréon. This summer, there was an exhibition of photographs by Jacques Henri Lartigue, which I wanted to see. Lartigue was an early 20thC photographer who achieved some extraordinary images for the time, starting from when he was just a boy.

Never having previously visited the museum, we were following signs as we walked through the old town. We came to a building with an imposing portico with columns, and various posters on the railings, so we assumed this was it and walked in. In fact, it was a small theatre, and there was a musical rehearsal in progress. We went back out, but were followed by two ladies, who told us that this was a rehearsal for a free concert that evening. The theatre was being used for training singers – a short course, or stage – and this was the just ending. The concert was to allow the trainees to perform in public and demonstrate their newly developed skills. And not only was the concert free, there was a little reception at the end with rose wine, also free. They were very keen that we come, 'if you have nothing to do, it should be interesting, we will be very pleased. Free concert, free wine, and imploring ladies: how could anyone resist, so we pitched up later.

As ever with events like this in Normandy, it was late starting. Same with firework displays, entertainment performances at fetes, large scale public dinners, concerts and everything else. For some reason, there appear to be no effective producers for any public event, so nothing is ready on time. No matter. The teachers did a couple of songs, accompanied by a pianist, to relax the audience: the theatre seats about 60, and was full to overflowing, which I am sure was encouraging to them. Then the trainees each did a song or two, or even three. They were all very competent, good voices, mostly interesting songs, Very little of what one might call stagecraft for the main part: they came on, sang, and went off.

The exception was a bloke in his 40s, who did two comic songs, very well. He knew how to relate to the audience, his timing was excellent, and he had everyone in his hand. The second song, which has stayed in my head, was about everything going wrong and the frustrations from that. Each problem finished with him singing 'J'ai dit Merde!, doucement/simplement. Ca fait du bien' (I said shit, softly/simply. That will do), varying the volume and the timing. By the fourth verse, the audience were joining in, but he fooled them by changing the pauses, and the volume. Never found out his name, or that of any of the other performers. At the end of the show he did a serious song, very professionally.

So there we are, an unexpected entertainment, followed by a glass of wine, with friendly people. What better way to finish a late summer's day. And the Lartigue exhibition was terrific.

A story of progress

When we first came to Normandy, our nearest neighbour was Mme Odette Laforet. She was over 70, and well liked and respected in the village, with many people calling in to see her. I would look in on her when passing, to see if she needed bread or anything from the village. One morning there were four or five men sitting around her table, drinking coffee and calvados, and I stopped to join them for a while.

I asked one of the men, a morose chap with a big moustache, in his thirties, what he did for a living, to which he replied 'chomage' – unemployed. He'd been looking for work for a while, without much luck.

A few months later, we had arrived in the nearby town, from an overnight ferry, and had stopped to get breakfast in a cafe. As I crossed the road from parking the car, I heard someone call my name - 'Monsieur Paul'. I turned, and it was the same chap, Gaston, that I had met chez la mere Laforet. He told me he now had a job, in St Lo, and that one friend drove him from the village to the town, and another from there to the place in St Lo where they both worked. He was much more cheerful, and very pleased with his job.

The following summer, I was at a grand annual fete – la Fete Retro at St Aubin des Bois – which is a splendid event with farm work through the centuries, from hand reaping with sickles, through horse drawn machines, to tractors. They even have a field of corn which is harvested by the range of techniques, the corn threshed, milled and then baked during the day, and the field then ploughed by ox drawn ploughs. Someone said Bonjour, and again it was Gaston, this time smartly dressed, and looking very confident. He told me that he had been elected mayor of our commune, and clearly was someone to be reckoned with. So a very radical transformation over less than a couple of years.

The mayor of a French commune, of which there are over 20,000, are very powerful, even if the commune is, like ours, only a few hundred people. There are always Mairies, little town halls, or Hotels de Ville in larger towns, they all have a budget taken from the local taxes, and they are consulted on everything. If you need permission to build, have a problem with other people, or traffic or anything else, the first stop is the mayor.

Every politician in France is normally also the mayor of their home town, whether they are a minister or a member of the Senate, and whether their home is a city like Rouen or a village like ours. The public view is that if someone cannot get elected as mayor by the people who know him or her best, they should not be voted for for a higher office. Tends to create more connected politicians that the British system, where the majority of MPs would never get elected to anything by those who actually know them personally.

Cider and autumn

Because Normandy is too far north for grapes, cider is the everyday alcoholic drink. You will find apple trees everywhere. In our own garden there used to be over a dozen, but three or four have died from old age, and four others were blown down in the Great Tempest of New Year's Eve 1999, when a third of all the trees in France were destroyed.

Apple trees do not grow true from seed: the new tree will not produce apples exactly the same as the parent, and for commercial purposes all apple trees are cuttings grafted onto root stock. Cider apples do not need to be identical, so every tree is different: we have green, yellow and red apples, none of which are copies of any others around. As a result, every non-commercial barrel of cider is different from all the others. As in the picture, cows are often turned out into the orchards after the apples have been gathered, though more often it is a pig. Pork from pigs fattened in the late autumn on apples is rather good.

Around October, the cider apples are gathered into piles. All over Normandy there are huge heaps of apples in farmyards and gardens, slowly beginning to ferment. Sometimes the entire region smells like a fresh glass of cider. Apples are not picked from the tree: only those that fall to the ground are gathered, until the last few are knocked down with sticks.

Gathering apples like this employs a unique fork, with six of eight tines, each with a ball on the end to avoid spearing the fruit. The piles are left until the communal cider press arrives, open to the weather, chickens and wildlife, the bottom of the pile rotting, many being part eaten by wasps and other insects. Health & Safety nightmare in the UK, but no problem in Normandy. The sugar in the apples helps preserve them, and the alcohol is a powerful antiseptic.

Cider used to be made by pressing the apples in stone presses. These were effectively a circular trough, into which the apples were forked, and a large stone wheel like a mill-wheel rolled round and round the trough by a horse, or sometimes a cow. The pressed juice then ran off through smaller troughs and pipes into big barrels. There are still a lot of these presses around, but now only used as ornamentation, and with the troughs filled with flowers.

Nowadays, the pressing is slightly more mechanical. The press is on a trailer, taken round by a tractor. It is effectively a steel frame, about a one metre cube, with a screw press mechanism at the top, and mesh sides. A layer of apples about six deep are forked intop the press, then a mat of sisal or similar, like a doormat, is put on top, and more apples added. Another mat, more apples, and so on until the cube is full. The screw is then turned – usually takes two men - and the apples crushed. There is a rim around the trailer, and the juice runs out into a thick hosepipe at one corner. The other end of the hose goes into a huge barrel in the cellar or barn.

When as much of the juice has been extracted as possible, the screw is unwound, and the mats and fibre removed. The compressed apple material is called le fromage, and fed to cows; in Somerset it is called the cheese. The process is then repeated. That is all that happens. The apple juice turns into cider with no further intervention. The sparkle in cidre bouche is natural, and comes from the fermentation process. Farm cider can be very alcoholic.

Cider is a home product, like making jam. Even the supermarkets sell the wire caps to close the bottles, as well as corks and other paraphernalia. The farm cider is a live product. We once put a bottle on top of the fridge, at the back, and forgot about it. After a few months, the warmth and vibrations got to it. There was an enormous explosion, and the entire kitchen was coated with a thin layer of fizzing liquid. Shards of glass were everywhere – there are still dents in the ceiling. Fortunately, no one was in the kitchen at the time. But it took a day and a half to clean every inch of every surface, every utensil, pot and item of furniture, and it took three months to lose the smell of cider.

The Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland was mad because of his work. In Somerset, where I come from, there used to be a recognised industrial illness called 'cider brain' affecting farm workers, and manifesting itself in the same behaviour as the hat makers. The cause was basically the same. The hatters breathed in lead compounds used in the process of working felt to make the hats. The farm workers had a gallon of cider (two at harvest time) as part of their pay, and the cider was made using lead pipes. Fortunately, that doesn't happen any more.

French style, good and....

The French, of course, are famous for their sense of style, whether it is the haut-bourgeois with their designer clothes, or the teenage girls in the cafe. For many, the ability to choose stylish clothes, whatever their income, is utterly innate and unequalled.

Every year, when we go to the Reveillon de St Sylvestre, the grand New Year's Eve celebration, with nine course dinners, dancing until five a.m. and then onion soup, there will be ladies of a certain age, dressed and coiffed wonderfully. There is nothing finer that a French woman in her sixties, in full make up and a mini skirt, dancing sedately – or wildly – with her gentleman, ignoring all around her. How do they do it? It seems no-one knows. An Englishwoman of that age dressed like that would usually be a disaster, not so much mutton dressed as lamb as a faux pas dressed as an embarrassment.

Yet French women do it, almost without thinking. There was a silver haired lady at one event wearing a calf length dress with lots of pleats. When she danced, it was clear they were not pleats, but the dress was effectively ribbons, and they swung all around her as she danced, allowing her to display her splendid legs. I think she was around 70.

And young girls of eight or nine who have wonderfully sophisticated hairstyles, that are impossible to find for any age in England. Somehow, they make them look like sophisticated children, whereas non French girls would look like Lolitas or Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver. An example is the little girl in the Petit Filou yoghurt ads on UK television.

French women have a saying, 'visage ou faisse' which means 'face or bum'. You can preserve either as you age, but not both, and everyone has to choose.

The downside is when the French taste fails, it fails spectacularly. For example, Johnny Hallyday. The French cannot do rock; although I have heard a frighteningly decent rock accordion, incredibly. In general, French rock music is like your dad dancing: awful, wrong and embarrassing. Though, French rap music is more French than rap, and I think quite good.

The other squirmingly bad thing is the men who wear multicoloured trousers. Extraordinary combinations of colours and patterns. I have seen some that are clearly camouflage trousers for someone who has to hide in a barrel of Smarties, and others who want to be able to become invisible on the vomit-strewn pavement of a Cardiff street at 2.00 am on a Saturday night. Beyond bad.

But the young women, that is under 60, are all wonderful when they want to be, and even when they don't in many cases.....

Normandy beaches

Contrary to the Hollywood version the D-Day landings took place (almost) simultaneously on five different beaches, code named Sword (British), Juno (Canadian), Gold (British), Utah (US) and Omaha US), and involved all the western allies; US soldiers were a minority. For those who want to understand that extraordinary event, you must visit the Caen Memorial Museum, exit 7 on the Caen peripherique (ring road), which includes archive film from both sides. This is a museum dedicated to peace not war, and also shows a great deal of very moving information about the Occupation and the effect on civilian life in France, rather than the usual boys' toys and violence.

However, this post is not about those beaches along the northern coast, but rather those further south in Normandy, and as they now are. All along the west coast of the Cotentin peninsula, as far as Avranches, are some splendid, sandy beaches that are little known. The picture is of St Martin de Brehal. Part of that is because of their history, as well as their location. When the railways came to Granville and the region, a whole series of little holiday villages developed. This was because it had become possible for the Parisian middle class families to send the wives and children to the coast for the summer, with the men joining them for August.

The beaches were ideal, because being part of the shallow Bay of Mont St Michel, they shelved gently, were very sandy and safe for children. The holiday villages grew up because the villages after which they are named are actually almost all a couple of miles from the sea. Places such as Breville-sur-Mer or Lingreville-sur-Mer are not sur mer. The sea retreated several hundred years ago, leaving exposed land that has been turned into excellent market gardens. Especially good for leeks and root vegetables such as carrots. But the villages were too far from the sea for small children, maids and mothers to walk every day, in both directions. So, all sorts of little cottages, chalets, bungalows and, occasionally, fairly grand houses, were built beside the sea. Many were rented.

If one visits, say St Martin de Brehal, today, many of the properties directly facing the sea are being renovated and extended, and there are many newer developments, including apartments, being constructed. In summer most of the beaches have life guards.

Apart from miles of sand, many of the beaches are also used for farming mussels, oysters and other seafood. Mussels are grown on ropes of coconut fibre (it doesn't rot in sea water) and where there is a mussel farm, at low tide the poles with their ropes are exposed, and tractors and trailers drive across the beach to maintain and harvest them. These mussels are moules de bouchot – highly prized, plump little fellows, and now have their own AOC, like wines and cheeses.

At the solstices, when there are extreme high and low tides, there is a phenomenon known as the peche a pied – fishing on foot. The tide goes out an enormous distance, exposing rock pools etc that are never normally seen. Thousands of people arrive, with rakes, shovels, buckets and other equipment, in search of wild shellfish, crabs etc. And I do mean thousands – more people at the December low tide on the beach than at the height of summer.

All year round, splendid walks and sights.

And the Brits.....

When we bought our house in 1990, we were the second British owners in the commune, which being very rural has a population of just over 600, and includes five villages. Apparently, there are now over 50 British owned homes.

The attitude of the native French people to this influx is divided. On the one hand, there are those like Jacques, who for a while has rented some fields from us, who is fine on the surface – indeed we have had dinner at his home - but who tells his drinking friends that les Anglais are ruining his country. He thinks we are responsible for rising property prices, most of us don't speak French, and we have foreign ways.

His brother Georges however, says that the British are helping save the commune, because we are buying properties that the locals don't want, and spending our own money on local firms to restore them, when they would otherwise crumble away. He thinks that we do indeed bring new money into the region, and new life into villages which have declining and aging populations. Many British owned houses are only occupied for a few weeks a year, but the owners pay the same taxes (taxe d'habitation and taxe fonciere) as the locals even though they make less use of the services the taxes pay for.

In addition, in recent years younger British people have been arriving, and making their lives there, not just part timers and old fogies like me drifting into retirement. As a result, the local village school, which was in danger of closing, has a renewed future because of several British children being enrolled. Also, an increasing number of French people, locals and Parisian week-enders, are also buying old properties and renovating them, having seen what is possible.

For myself, and I think a good proportion of other local Brits, the purpose is to be in France, and not to be part of any 'ex-pat' community trying to create the equivalent in Normandy of Surrey-en-Dordogne, or Costa Dagenham. We know two local Brits, one who recently bought a barn which he is converting, and who we pass on our way down the lane to the road, and another who makes a living doing all sorts of work, such as house minding, lawn mowing, helping with harvests, carpentry and so on, for local French people, Parisians, and a few Brits; we met him when he did some work for our French neighbour.

Fortunately, the Normans dislike the Parisians more than any of them dislike the British.

Honfleur and Quebec City

The town of Honfleur is foolishly pretty, especially around the Vieux Bassin, the inner harbour. Surrounded by tall, thin houses from the 17th century and earlier, reflected in the water, it is no surprise that Manet, Courbet and other impressionists painted it time and again, and today there are people with easels and palettes all around, always. The photograph gives an idea. We sometimes took the overnight ferry to Le Havre, and drove over the extremely elegant Pont de Normandie bridge over the mouth of the Seine to Honfleur, arriving as the cafes were opening and there were only a few people about. Having coffee and croissants as the sun rose over the water was rather splendid.

At the entrance to the Bassin, by a swing bridge, there is the Governor’s House, the home and office of the governor since the 14th century. On one wall is a plaque, recording the fact that in 1608 Samuel de Champlain left Honfleur to found the city of Quebec in Canada. This is 12 years before the ‘Pilgrim Fathers’ left Plymouth, Devon, to settle in North America, and escape the criticism of their somewhat fundamentalist puritanism. Quebec very quickly prospered, whereas the pilgrims lost half their settlement in the first year, and only survived on handouts from the native Americans.

When I visited Quebec city, I found a similar plaque on the old church, except that it recorded the fact that Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec when he arrived in 1608. What also struck me is that standing on the bank of the St Lawrence river, the early Quebec houses are almost exactly the same as those in Honfleur. The difference is that then, at the beginning of March, there was much snow, and the mile wide St Lawrence was completely frozen: an ice-breaker chugged up and down continuously, keeping open a very small channel. Average January temperature in Quebec City is minus 17.6 C, with average snowfall of 73 cm. With wind chill as well, temperatures were below minus 40 degrees: so cold that my breath instantly froze and fell tinkling out of the air. In general, from November to April, there is permanent snow and temperatures below zero. That the early settlers survived, and prospered, is remarkable. There were even several wig makers living there in 1650.

The singer Jonie Mitchell, who most people think of as American, is in fact Canadian. On her record Blue there is a song called 'I wish I had a river I could skate away on' , which I had assumed was just artist's whimsy. However, my wife is Canadian, and one day mentioned that she used to skate to school as a child, along a river. Different world from temperate Normandy.

 One aspect of the Norman connection with Quebec is that the Quebecois accent is very similar to the Norman accent. Not necessarily a good thing, as the Norman accent is a bit like a Somerset accent: not highly rated. There are also similarities in the patois, words you hear only in Normandy, that also persist in Quebec. Honfleur is by the mouth of the Seine, between le Havre and Caen, in Calvados. Apart from tourism, it is still a working fishing port.