Tis the season

The weather people were gloating that 2014 was so warm that the temperature hadn't gone below zero all year in Paris. Well, too soon. It is below freezing at least once. I'm writing late in the morning and the frost is still on the ground and cars. It's beautiful out; the sun is shining. We haven't had snow in the Paris area, but the mountains finally did get some, which created massive traffic jams on the way to the ski resorts. Even the Auvergne resorts finally got snow.

We had a wonderful week in Duston celebrating with the entire Lebelle-Husaunndee families. It was a houseful of exited children, exhausted parents, and happy grandparents. We came home with colds; mine is just starting today with the scratchy throat. I'm going to stay warm in bed and sort out the photos.

While in England, Claire treated us to an evening of theater in London! It was a combination birthday/Christmas gift of "The Play that Goes Wrong" -- a good laugh! A friend from the American Library in Paris had recommended it to me months ago and I had sent on the recommendation to Claire. In fact, I thought it had already closed. Thank goodness it hadn't. It's not the kind of play that makes you think hard; it's just for fun, so it was perfect for a girls night out. (A review) We got to London early enough to have something to eat before the play, which was the right thing to do because we then managed to get the train back to Northampton that got us home before by midnight!

Monday, the contingent from Paris arrived. Wednesday, we celebrated Paul's birthday at the pub in Harlestone -- an excellent Christmas Eve luncheon -- before the Woking set arrived, while some of us attended the Christingle service at the St. Crispen's church near the house. We had a finger food buffet for dinner. Once the children were all in bed, we went off to the nearby pub/hotel while others went off to the midnight service at St. Luke's. 

The children were very patient the next morning playing with whatever was in the stockings and waiting for the go-ahead to open the presents under the tree. Once that got underway, though, it was a frenzy of unwrapping. They all seemed very happy with their gifts. The highlight was an especially big gift for all but the babies -- a big bike, an electric scooter, pedal cars, a digger/backhoe! The babies got stuffed toys, dolls, and more cuddly things. 

We had Cuban-style roast pork for lunch, using that wonderful recipe from the New York Times, that Louette saved many, many years ago. Even though I have found the link, I think I still have the original clipped article somewhere. Since there were 12 adults and 5 children (not counting the 2 babies), the roast was enormous and there was some question as to when we should start cooking and for how long. It had been marinating since Tuesday, noon! We ended up starting the night before in a very hot oven for about 20 minutes and then let it cook in a very slow oven. When Geoff got up in the morning, he checked the meat temperature and it was done, so he wrapped it in foil and kept it warm. He reheated it a bit before serving for lunch. It was perfect.

After lunch, Nigel presented the adults with their treat, a Christmas themed jigsaw puzzle! The difficulty was in figuring out what it should look like since the puzzle was the view of the room from the perspective of one of the people in the picture on the box -- not the picture itself. I worked at it at the beginning, but couldn't concentrate. Those who stuck to it managed to finish it just in time to watch the Downton Abbey Christmas program. After that, we went back to the hotel for a good night's sleep, except our door key was demagnitized and I set off the alarm when I went into the reception area. I ended up calling the emergency number on the card, waking up the manager, and waiting for her to come to reset the key. After that, we got a our well-merited sleep.

The Lebelles left after a light lunch of soup and sandwiches on Boxing Day, while the Husaunndees stayed on for a couple of days more. Claire drove the Parisians to the airport while we drove back. We got an earlier shuttle than we had reserved, so we got home quite a bit earlier. 

The next day, we all reunited in Paris to distribute the gifts Santa had left here! 

I believe we are going to have a very quiet New Year's Eve.

Freezing

The temperature was 0°C. when we got up this morning. Last winter, if I remember correctly, December was cold, too, which is really normal. Then it warmed up and the winter was actually quite warm. I think most people are rooting for a normal winter this year. We miss the occasional snow. Freezing temperatures are good for the garden but reducing the number of insects. So, I'm bundling up.

Just before Thanksgiving I went to Pittsburgh to celebrate Jon's birthday. This was something I'd been looking forward to since last April, when Tobi first mentioned it. It was wonderful spending time with them, seeing their kids, both of them, for the first time in a long, Tony and Barbara, Amy and Chris and their daughter, who was a little girl the last time we saw them all at Eric's Bar Mitzvah. It was a very short trip, but completely enjoyable.
One thing I managed to do while there was to open a checking account without having to supply a US address! Yea!
I came home before the holiday and we had a wonderful Thanksgiving meal last week at Louis'. It was excellent. I made the bread stuffing and we arrived early enough to stuff the turkey and spend the next four hours while it cooked in good conversation with the kids and Gwen's parents and then playing with the babies. Anne brought a delicious pumpkin pie.
This past week has been taken up uneventful. A lapsit at the library, a visit to the AARO office to interview someone. We also had a Skype interview with another applicant. So sometime soon I hope we find a communications manager.
Now, there are still a few Christmas gifts to get and we have to figure out how to get all those gifts into the car!

Winter is coming

Europe went on standard time before the US did, so maybe the impression that winter is on its way is more entrenched. It's cold and wet. When the sun does come out, it's beautiful, but mostly it's cold and wet. The grass in the yard doesn't seem to dry out during the day, even on a dry day. This being the Paris region, I'm not talking about snow cold, no, not yet, just uncomfortable cold.
Yesterday, I took a photo out of an old post and updated. That seems to have sent out an email to those of you who get these blog posts via email. Sorry. There was nothing new in it.

13th century St. Blaise bridge at Najac

Najac

What's new? Well, we went down to the Tarn-et-Garonne and visited Emma and Gabriel for a couple of days. We stayed at a different hotel in Najac, the Oustal del Barry -- up at the top, at the entrance to the medieval town. The hotel is fine, but the cuisine is over-rated. Najac is a town built on the crest of a hill, so it's one street that goes along the ridge, up and down and up again to end at the castle. There's a gigantic church at the bottom of the last down part before you go up to the castle and we've never made it past the church. The church was built during the reformation, as punishment for Protestant sentiment in the town, the authorities made the townspeople finance and build it, and then, attend it. At the entrance, where the hotel is, there is an almost flat length, with arcades and a square, then you start downhill and find the old center with the town hall and more shops, then uphill with some Renaissance buildings. It's empty in November and packed in summer. In fact, our hotel closed for the winter after the long Nov. 11 weekend.
We also went up to Villefranche-de-Rouerge, a 13th century fortified royal town. This was on the frontier of the Comte de Toulouse's territory and the King of France's territory during the Cathar period. Each of them built these fortified towns on the frontier, guaranteeing settlers a town (protected) residence, fields outside the walls, and tax-free status. It's one of the things that brought the end of feudal states. The town is still a main city for the Aveyron area -- very busy on a Saturday morning, even in November and even if it wasn't market day.
Emma and Gabriel are busy doing their renovation work. While we were there, they were still digging the trenches to lay the pipes for water, wires, and whatever else. The problem is they are on a hill top and the trenches are in rock, not dug in earth. It's hard work to break the rock about 50 cm. deep. Since our visit, that seems to be done; the rubble has been move to one of the fields and they'll use that to create terrace walls on the slope. They'll finish filling in the trenches and get on with finishing the floors of the "gite" (closest thing in English is a "holiday home" where the owner lives close by) and installing the last door window. The aim is to be able to move into that for the winter. Then they can start working on the rest of the site and the main house. They are well and working hard. They also have fun. They've got lots of neighbors, not all that close that you would just walk over, but close enough, so that they do get together and it's not lonely.
We went to Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val for the Sunday market and had a lovely Sunday lunch at the Auberge des Sens. I did my marketing before lunch -- so much less expensive than here in Nogent and most of the stands were producer, not retailer. The market was crowded, hard to get down the single lane street with stands on each side and people milling around. This is where neighbors meet and talk. Emma was telling us the street was almost empty, but it sure seemed full. Again, it must be packed in summer. And with the movie Recettes du Bonheur having been filmed in St. Antonin, there have already been more American tourists.
Saturday afternoon, we spent a pleasant time walking around the center of Toulouse, completely oblivious to the demonstrations that were going on until we were on our way out and heard the helicopter circling above and then we couldn't t take the normal route out of the city center because of police blockades, and once we got on an alternative route, we saw the tear gas flowing in our direction. We did manage to leave without getting the fumes in the car, nor any other excitement.

Trying to get back to the rhythm of posting

I know I just posted a spurt of several posts, but I really should get back to the rhythm of posting every two weeks. My calendar reminded me that this week was one of those weeks, so I may as well write.
I haven't written about FATCA and all that headache for some time. To be frank, I'm sick of the subject. I'm waiting for my banks (two) and other financial institutions to get in touch with me to send them the W-9 form. And I'm waiting, and waiting. I have no qualms about giving them the W-9 form; after all I've been declaring these FFIs (foreign financial institutions) all along. The accounts will not have to be reported by the FFIs, anyway, since they do not hold the threshold declaration amounts. Some banks are on the ball and have filtered their customers, either by asking them directly if they are US persons, or by mining their customer data for birthplace information or other indications of US personness. Mine, apparently, have not.
Some institutions have eliminated US persons from their clientele; that's their way of being compliant -- having nothing to declare. It's all very weird and a lot depends on the country of residence, too. The result is that the backlog of Americans living abroad waiting for appointments to renounce their US citizenship is reported to be so long that the next available appointment in Toronto, for example, is in mid-2015. That is in spite of the renunciation fee having gone up from $450 to $2350. Some say that it'll just be even more expensive down the line.
Most of these people are not tax evaders. They pay their taxes. Many are accidental Americans, unaware of their US citizenship and the declaration obligations until now.  Many are dual citizens and want to be able to live as normal citizens of wherever they happen to live (and have citizenship). They want to be able to get a mortgage (denied to US persons and their Swiss spouses in Switzerland), have the standard retirement plans in their country, and so on. US citizenship has become a burden. Many US persons are not even citizens; they may be people who lived in the US at one time and have a greencard.
Now, something that bugs me, personally. I don't have a US checking account. That was denied me because, although I am a citizen, I don't live in the country. With my old Fidelity account, I had check-writing privileges, so that was not really a problem. But Fidelity, along with all the other brokerages, changed the rules and even if I still have check-writing privileges, I cannot trade, so I no longer have much money in that account. I have moved to another brokerage that allows trading (a good thing for a brokerage to do, I think), but does not accord check-writing privileges. It  had enough cash at hand without needing me to sell anything, so I wanted to deal with my last IRS estimate from this account. Like a child, I had to ask my asset manager to please take care of it before the end of 2014, rather than in January. So, why not now? And he took care of it. But the firm used overnight delivery for $20! It's not due until mid-Jan. 2015. It did not require overnight delivery! I do not need to spend an extra $100 each year for the delivery of my estimate checks and the final amount due! The explanation was to make sure it got there. I think that the appearance of the deduction in the account takes care of that. And if it doesn't show up, then we can worry. We have time.
'Nuff said.
We babysat last week. Sacha is wonderful to listen to. We can understand more and more and he's even trying out some English with me. Chloé is growing soooo fast. (I better update the family pictures to share!)