Our Christmas has well and truly begun!

It started Friday night with a lovely dinner with local friends Nadia and Patrick. Continued yesterday evening, with a Christmas party last night in Chinon, where we entertained each other with songs, poems, stories, games and a wine tasting. Everyone brought something for the table as well, which was all very delicious and very festive. Then at the end of the evening we had a Secret Santa. A good evening.

Today we were over at Philippe and Clothilde Pain's (father and daughter) Domaine de la Commanderie, with our neighbours Jacqueline et Norbert, for the first of the Christmas porte-ouvertes. These are the same vignerons where Mike and I went to help briefly with the vendange in October. Family and long-time helpers were out in force for what was - I think - a four-day affair.Huge amount of work and pre-preparation goes into these events. They are so well done, with a great atmosphere. We'd booked to have lunch there as well. Philippe was busy barbecuing the beef for the main dish or a special veal dish was the alternative. Home made terrine as starter, main dish, cheese and tarte au vigneron for dessert/€15p.p. The cave at Domaine de la Commanderie is just brilliant for this sort of thing. It's a good sized space, so it's easy to move around, with plenty of room for other producers and artisans. There were some white wine producers this year.  The link is to Clothilde's FB page. It has some great photos from the event and gives you a good idea. Came away with just a few bottles of wine. Quel surprise!!  There were also some photos from the vendange on display, including the one of Mike, which I love and he now uses as his FB photo.

What a brilliant idea!

I meant to write this up for a blog before.  Earlier this year the French parliament passed a law which enables workers, with the agreement of their employer,  to anonymously donate their paid leave to colleagues, with seriously ill children. 

The inspiration for the bill came from the case of Christophe Germain who, with the approval of the bosses, was given days off by his colleagues (170) to look after his eleven year old son, Matthys, who was battling with cancer. Very sadly Matthys died. The scheme which was present in some private companies was then extended to the public sector. There was some resistance to the changes, as it was thought they relieved employers of their responsibilities towards staff with seriously ill children. However in May 2014  the idea became legal.

Only last month another case hit the headlines. This time concerning a very sick wife, who was about to give birth on 17th November, but who had been hospitalised since July 2014 after a brain haemorrhage. The colleagues of the husband decided to donate time so that he could remain at home to look after his wife. Her condition was such that she would need round-the-clock supervision and would have to learn how to walk again. In total 362 paid days were donated, by individuals across the company including the managers.

That's solidarity for you. Any chance of it happening in the UK?