Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you
Can understand.

WB Yeats

Waiting for us on our doorstep when we got back home, a few presents from Alex and Céline, among which coffee mugs we could never have dreamt up...

wishes

When the girls wondered about this canal bottom lined with coins, Gilles explained about tossing coins to make wishes come true. Mia and Lou absolutely had to toss a coin and make a solemn wish, which they did not tell, of course, but after two days with no results, both seemed worried that her wish was too grandiose to come true.

my miss mia!

Ah, Colmar!

In week 3 of dialysis for Gilles, in the post-Noël calm, we decided to prove to ourselves that adventure is still possible. We loaded up the car with solution and snow boots, and crossed France to the easternmost border to visit friends from our days in Scotland. (They have bravely made the crossing our way twice in the past few months...) Alsace offers a mix of French and German culture... We sausaged up, explored the quaint streets and got silly at the skating rink.

off to the Vosges

Our friends took us into the snowy hills of the Vosges, and the family split up: Camille tried downhill skiing with friends, Maggie soloed one of the lovely X-country loops, and Gilles and Louise took to the slopes by sled. From what I heard, this wasn't "sledding for babies" (see picture of Lou below), but she loved it.