Back in the saddle again....

Today was the first day of school for Maggie, Malcolm, and Duncan... for me it was a day where I helped out Christophe, my neighbour, in his run to the container park, to get rid of a lot of stuff that he wanted cleared out from his garage.  Christophe's back has been bothering him so he rang my doorbell this morning, and asked that I give him a hand unloading the trailer.

After I did so (rather gingerly as my own right shoulder is still complaining after I injured it some time ago) we did another trailer load, and this time cleared out a few things that we had cluttering up our garage and backyard.  So it all ended up being quite productive for both families.

Indeed having Christophe as a neighbour has been very much to our benefit, as he enjoyed Malcolm's participation in the installation of a few custom cabinetry jobs over the course of the holiday season.  Malcolm enjoyed being employed, which has lined his pocket considerably.  But as those days were very long, and quite strenuous, Malcolm is certainly happy to return to the relatively relaxed pace of work at the lutherie academy.  I dropped him off at his apartment Sunday evening, and he was eager to get back at his main occupation, the building of his current classical guitar.

As for me, I have been mulling over the idea of running the trails over the last couple of days, but as I am fighting a cold, I've opted instead to stay bundled up and simply throw the frisbee for Yoshi endlessly in the backyard.  We've also been practicing the "find" command with him, which thus far has included "Find Maggie" and "Find the rope" which is a braided dog toy that he loves to play tug-of-war with.  I expect that eventually we might work up to other things, such as find this-or-that stuffed animal, or maybe even "Find me a beer", if Stroh's commercials from the 1980s are to be believed.

In other dog news, his updated registration information arrived today, and I pasted it into his doggy passport.  So it would seem that the last formalities have been observed, and he is truly confirmed as a member of the family.  Happy day!

Tomorrow I have a coaching with David Miller in Brussels, so I had a big sing-through today, and I am happy to report that the three pieces that I need to prepare for this coming weekend in Luxembourg's beautiful Cercle Cité will be in good shape.  I just want to make sure that I will be well prepared for the rehearsal on the 9th of January, prior to the concert on the 12th.  Two of the three are already well-known, but the third is a new one, and as it is set for buffo tenore I have had to do a few modifications of the line so that it sits a little better for the baritono.  But I'm not worried, I am sure that it will be fine.

As well as clearing out some things with the trailer, this evening we also took down all of the Christmas decorations.  The moment that the evergreen bough arbour hit the ground, Clyde attacked it, which confirms the wisdom of our choice to forego a tree this year.  We managed to get it outside, and the needles sweeped up, while sequestering the cats in another part of the house, without too much trouble.

It is traditional to take down Christmas decorations after Epiphany, which falls on the 6th of January.  As I have written before, Epiphany is also the moment to celebrate the arrival of the Magi, who come bearing gifts.  In Belgium, the 6th of January also means the serving of the galette des rois, which this year was baked by Maggie!

It's really a dead simple recipe, which actually makes sense after the extravagances of Christmas: two layers of butter puff pastry, separated by a layer of butter, egg, almond powder, and sugar.  Not terribly difficult to produce, or so she says.

We had ours with the Edwardses on Saturday, and also enjoyed an extended skating session as a group before the rink was shut down for the season.  Malcolm and Duncan both like skating, and seem eager to learn: I have the sense that the family has caught the skating bug to the extent that we'll make the trip to Leuven to skate on the big rink sometime soon...