Sunday lunch in France is still a family event and we saw several today. We also had a long evening meal with our friends - and they had had lunch with their friends. We’ll certainly be sitting down together several times over Christmas. But it’s often difficult normally to make time but we do our best.
But talking about eating seems rather trivial after our morning visit: we walked through a misty park to visit the Arras War Cemetery. The memorial designed by Edwin Lutyens commemorates more than 35,000 commonwealth servicemen who were killed nearby in the first World War and whose bodies were never found. There is also a memorial to the 1000 members of the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Navy Air Service who died on the western front and have no known graves: the life expectancy of a pilot fell from three weeks to 17½ hours in 1917. Visiting this memorial was very moving and made me see the rest of the day in a different light.
The Christmas Fair seemed particularly secular: there was no crib and no reference to the Christmas story. There was a crib in the vast Cathedral - which also had an eagle lectern prominently displayed in the Choir.
Tomorrow: alone at Christmas
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