It begins

Christmas really begins with the Christmas show. Here are the girls watching CarbBoy's part of the show (a Bollywood-style dance) in time-honoured fashion: through a device. The theme for this whole school year is 'Round the World' so we had dances from India, Italy, Hawaii and wherever line-dancing wants to be from. The food was, in theory, supposed to be similarly international, but most people just brought quiche. We took Mr B's curry and it was very much admired (and the pan scraped clean). Happily most folk seemed to know what the mango chutney was for, so no-one had their head entirely blown off by the heat.

Despite a fun and very sociable time at the party (unlike last year, when I had such a terrible time I swore I'd never go again), it was a rather stressful day. It seems that whenever I am able to keep chocolate in temper long enough to coat truffles, I cannot do the same for my own temper. Hence having to apologise to a fellow parent after a car park barney. Mind you, my temper issues were more to do with Mr B calling me to say that he'd locked himself out of the house, and the curry (which he was bringing) was still inside. He had some sort of aversion to going around the back of the house to get the key we keep hidden, so I had to drive all the way back to get him (and miss the start of the show).

But he has nearly finished plastering the stairs. And the reputation of British cooking continues to climb in this little sunny corner of France. So I can't complain really.