The UK has the drop on the French and Spanish when it comes to Christmas meals

IT is a three-hour drive to Barcelona from our home in The Tarn, France. Over the years, driving to Spain from the UK for an annual holiday with a camper or seven-seater full of children, we have travelled down to the Pyrenees in late May, June or July. So it is a very different experience travelling in winter.

The first time we drove down, after our move to France, was in a February from Limoges, when we passed by Perpignan and then on to La Jonquera via the pass through the Pyrenees. We were amazed at the amount of blossom on view as the pink of the almond trees dominated the vista. Then we knew whast Van Gogh was on about.

Now I have to travel through the mountains in the Parc Languedoc, passing through the edge to the Minervois, an area of great beauty, where people spend their entire holidays marvelling at the sights, which include a notable canyon. The area also boasts some excellent wine, although, as I prefer Spanish Rioja and Navarre, my enthusiasm for this French wine might not be shared by all.

This year we spent Christmas in Spain, celebrating the birth of our ninth grandchild. Ellie had travelled down a week earlier but the Monday of Christmas week I headed out and I drove up through the passes and down past the bare vines around St Chinian where they produce a very palatable wine, seeing the Pyrenees in the distance, covered in snow and looking truly noble in their new winter coats as I headed for Narbonne.

I joined the Languedocienne, the motorway that continues from the encouragingly-named Autoroute du Soleil, which we joined so many times in the past, just south of Paris. It is less than an hour from Narbonne to the Spanish border as it skirts the Mediterranean, Perpignan airport (Rivesaltes) and heads past the delightful village of Ceret, where modern art flourishes at the base of the Pyrenees.

I remember visiting Ceret once with an old friend from Watford, who looked at the tall plain trees that dominate the centre of Ceret, and he said; "If these were in Watford they would have chiopped them down" - a fitting acknowledgement of Watford's desecration over the years.

The mountains by the motorway, which always looked so grand as we travelled between them, are clearly smaller fry than we imagined because they did not have any snow on their slopes when I passed.

The day before Christmas Eve, the motorway was not very busy as I headed down to Barcelona, with our two Cavalier King Charles dead to the world of dreams on the back seat.

Turning off to Sant-Cugat, which is a community of some 75,000 souls, I mused that the population had increased by one with the arrival of Violet, our seventh grand-daughter.

She looked a little reflective when I first laid eyes on her but then babies do not do a great deal for me. I prefer when they start walking and talking, but Ellie is in her element providing support and an abundance of love.

We moved into a hotel/apartment complex which cost us 66 euros a night, after our daughter personally negotiated the rates, and for that we had a television and cd player in a large living/dining room, a kitchen. fully-equipped bathroom and a large bedroom. The apartment boasted a phenomenal amount of cupboard space.

While we heard of storms, floods and power cuts back in the UK, it was warm enough for me to get re-acquainted with rioja as we sat in the town square until late in the evening. It was not exactly balmy but certainly comfortable and indeed the entire six days I was there, we had blue skies and sunshine.

Christmas Eve is more significant than Christmas Day in Spain and that is when the main meal is enjoyed. A pasta soup, followed by a fish course is common but while you can obtain a turkey, it is by no means a popular Christmas dish.

It is much the same in France where fish, and a particularly oysters, appear to be the favourite. Again, turkeys are available but are frozen and around 5 to 7lbs. The Uk Christmas dinner has long held the drop on the otherwise superior French cuisine.

Fireworks can be heard during the festive season but mainly in both Spain and France they can be heard all too often on New Year’s Eve. Indeed, having returned to France on my own, I took the dogs out on the evening of New Year’s Day and heard more fireworks, which upset one of our dogs.

So Christmas was a relatively quiet family time and it is quiet back in The Tarn, although things livened up for me when I attended a party on New Year’s Eve and met several ex-pats.

That was a good night, but with Ellie staying to assist for another fortnight, it remains quiet in this house. But then I thought of a long-overdue project I could attack and suddenly it was a little noisier. More of that later.

Readers who submit articles must agree to our terms of use. The content is the sole responsibility of the contributor and is unmoderated. But we will react if anything that breaks the rules comes to our attention. If you wish to complain about this article, contact us here