A few days after we
arrived at Dorrie's, we were joined by my cousin, Jean-Marie, his
wife Andrea and daughter Morgane (who is eight years old – right in
between our girls), and their enormous dog Caspar and cats Mika and
Pete. And today, we celebrated our last Swiss family Christmas (for
now, at least). The girls were good and didn't get up too early, and
everyone very kindly gave our girls lots of presents – as we hadn't
bought very much for them at all.
After all of the
wrapping paper had been shed and the excitement levels had dropped
sufficiently, we all (including Gina but minus Dorrie, Jean-Marie and
Pete), went for a walk up into the forest behind Dorrie's place. The
eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that I've included Mika in
that sentence – yes, the cat followed us all the way up across a
field, through the forest, down through the village of Randogne and
back to the house. We all kept expecting her to turn back, but no,
each time it looked as if she was dropping away, she would certainly
sprint forward into the lead, jumping streams, squeezing under fences
and resisting any attempts by us annoying humans to pat or otherwise
touch her.
For dinner, we
opened some more of the bottles I've dreamt of sampling from Dorrie's
cellar – three magnums of 1959 Chateau Ducru Beaucaillou. Sadly,
these hadn't fared as well as the Pichon Lalande – the fill levels
on two were well below the shoulder and only the third was really
what you would call enjoyable, and then only just – so we opened up
a magnum of 1988 Chateau Lynch Bages as a back-up.
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